August 28, 2008

You don't need a blog, just knowledge.

I just finished reading an article over at Traffic and Conversion about why a blog can increase traffic to your website.

Upon finishing the article, I laughed.

In the said article, Mark Widawer claims that a blog is “critical to your traffic work.” Critical to gaining traffic? No. Not true. A blog is not critical to gaining traffic to your website.

The reason blogs are so favorable among SEOs is because blogs make it easy to optimize websites. In-fact, blogs come pre-optimized for search engines; and search engines favor blogs because they are always new and often influential.

But you don't NEED a blog. Especially if you have knowledge of XHTML and CSS.

All a blog does is plugs in META tags, and makes it easy to constantly update content on your website. But if you can do that on your own, there's no reason to have a blog at all.

That's right, I said it: YOU DON'T NEED A BLOG!

I would even go so far to say that it would be better NOT to have a blog for your website. Would it be harder to update? Definitely. Do you need to already have knowledge of web programming and SEO if you're not going to use a blog? Absolutely. But do you NEED blog? No.

The reason SEOs promote blogs is because blogs make SEO easy.

That's it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would bet that 99.9% of peolpe dont even know what CSS is.

The internet is not about programmers it is about empowering people - all peolpe, we are facilitators we are not the internet.

Blogs and CMS systems allow doctors, lawyers, builders, gardners, baby sitters all peolpe to contribute thier own knowledge with a good chance of getting picked up in the SERP's.

Take off the blinkers : )The internet is bigger that peolpe like you and me.

Tanner said...

I slightly agree with you, not everyone knows about CSS and XHTML and Java and PHP, etc., etc.

But the point remain: a blog is NOT necessary.

Anonymous said...

I agree. Most blogs do come pre seo'd. This is the beauty of using a blog as your website. Especially wordpress blogs. They have great seo plugins. Great article.

Anonymous said...

Do you HAVE to have a blog? No, definitely not.
Will it help you create more Google Food and get more links?
Definitely.
Tanner, If you read the entire article, what I'm saying is that there are so many tools designed specifically to work with blogs that it's VERY MUCH to your advantage to use a blog.
They are natural traffic magnets.
They're easy to use.
Search engines love them.
Yes, they do let you modify your website easily (as you say)...and therefore encourage you to post more often.
But it's much more than that.
It's the community that builds up around and between them that is the power.
That is, for example, how you found me and I've found you.
-Mark Widawer
http://www.TrafficAndconversion.com