Even though blogging is one of the best ways to boost an online reputation and increase market share at the same time, now is an incredibly hard time to be a blogger. There is just too much information out there.
Get this: While 81 percent of consumers trust information they read in blogs, there are some 6.7 million people blogging, according to stats compiled by Social4Retail. Readers want the data, but there’s just too much of it out there. They are simply drowning in content.
So it’s no wonder that people are becoming cynical about the whole business of blogging. Why should they bother reaching out with their words, when chances are (somewhat) good that they’ll never get noticed online?
In the past, I would have countered this cynicism with a primer about SEO. Find great keywords, I’d say, and then your articles will be found by search engines and the people who use them. A boost in rank will quickly follow, and your reputation concerns might fade away.
But in the aftermath of some pretty big Google algorithm changes, including both Panda and Penguin, I’ve seen more than a few articles that suggest SEO keyword techniques are outmoded and/or dead. Little reminders like “Keywords work!” just won’t cut it anymore.
Thankfully, I do have some ammo that suggests that we can, and should, continue to invest in keywords.
