As a Business Blogger, Are You Jumping on the Bandwagon?

In the deep south of America, travelling bands would once perform on their wagons in front of political or other rallies.  The bands were a highlight of the event, drawing the crowds, and the political and religious leaders would climb up to the wagon, gaining themselves an immediate captive audience. Hence the expression, I learned from the wonderful little book I’m highlighting this week in my Say It For You blog, “Jumping on the bandwagon.”

SEO marketing blog content writers can make use of the same technique, “entering conversations” that are trending at the time and tying blog content to current events.  Noted sales and business trainer Dan Kennedy likes taking just such a current-events content-creating dare:  Hand him any newspaper, he says, and he’ll find something he can use to promote his clients’ products and services.

When you write blog content centered around current happenings, that serves the dual purpose of  “playing off” already existing popular interest (like the crowd already having gathered to hear the musicians), while possibly earning search engine “Brownie points” as well. What do I mean?  Well, I’ve coined a phrase for it: "accidental organic donor". Sometimes there's a disconnect between what the online searcher originally wanted (which might have to do with current events or trending news) and what he or she accidentally finds. When that "accident" turns out to bring a new reader to your blog, (and if your content engages that reader's interest, the mistake can result in your converting a mistake into a customer!

By some counts, 40 percent of online Americans read blogs. Are your business blogs going where the bandwagon is drawing a crowd?