Verbal, Not Viral, May Be the Goal for SEO Marketing Blogs

The Olympic games were over, but Gavin Alaoen’s Tumblr blog still lingered, Ben Cohen pointed out in the WallStreet Journal.

When gymnast McKayla Maroney, with her silver medal around her neck, stood on the Olympic podium looking “unimpressed.” Alboen photoshopped her being unimpressed by several other things – the moon landing, the American Revolution, and double rainbows, to name a few.  His blog gained 1,200 followers overnight. “It’s just a two-or-three-week kind of thing,” Aloe modestly said.  “It’s a hot topic right now.  And then it’s on to the next one.”

Author and marketing guru Seth Godin defined three types of blogs: cat blogs, boss blogs, and viral blogs. Cat blogs are personal and idiosyncratic, written out of a need for self expression or perhaps to gain converts to the writer's way of thinking. Boss blogs are written by co-workers or project teams members to share ideas and coordinate the various steps of a project.

It's the viral blog category in which my professional ghost writing business, Say It For You, is involved. All of our clients (business owners or professional practitioners) are interested in is spreading the word about what they know, what they know how to do, and what they sell, and in that sense, business blogging is viral blogging.

But, as I’d like to remind Indianapolis freelance blog content writers, “going viral” ala Alaoen is perhaps not the purpose of our SEO marketing blogs at all.

The reality that I've found, after having offered business blogging assistance to hundreds of different businesses and practices, is that many who subscribe to a blog are pure information-seekers, not ready to act. In the process of accumulating numbers of subscribers, fans, and friends, keep in mind that the majority are probably not your prospects. The bottom line of business blogging is reached when the cash register rings with an online buyer at the other end of the transaction!

Sure, I loved the humor in the Not Impressed series. But, in corporate blogging training sessions, I’m continuing to emphasize verbal, not viral. That means we’re writing SEO marketing blogs not to attract the attention of gazillions of readers, but to attract prospects of the right kind. Being “influential” online means a whole lot more than getting found. To impress anyone, blogging for business has to mean business!