Rand Fishkin (CEO of SEOmoz) and Dharmesh Shah (CTO of HubSpot) gave a great presentation this past Monday titled: The State of SEO and Internet Marketing in 2012. The presentation is filled with numerous insights and tips from both speakers.
Here's a copy of the slides:
If you missed the webinar, here's a link to the on-demand recording from the HubSpot website. You can also get an additional look at the data from this SEOmoz post: The 2012 SEO Industry Survey.
Blogging Is Relevant to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The data shows blogging is still an important SEO tactic according to the 6,491+ global respondents participating in the survey. This news contradicts an ongoing theme that blogging is losing relevance relative to other online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (particularly among the Inc. 500).
On slide 10, almost 90+% of the respondents reported that individual marketers or their teams work on writing / blogging:
Slides 14 and 15 described "What Tactics Do Marketers Employ." Of the 26 tactics measured, respondents cited these SEO tactics as the most employed:
- Social: Set up / ran a Facebook business profile
- Analytics: Analyzed / tracked site speed and page-load times
- Competitive: Analyzed competitors' back links
- Competiitive: Analyzed competitors' content
- Content: Started a new blog or invested heavily in blogging
Blog Posts Are The Number One Type of Inbound Marketing Content Produced
On slide 15, "blog posts" received the highest % of responses as the type of inbound marketing content produced. Social media (e.g., tweets, statuses, etc.) ranked second:
Blogging Isn't Dead (Especially If You Love Writing)
Pumping out tweets and Facebook status updates is a lot easier than blogging. Maintaining a blog requires a significant time investment. But, I and thousands of others maintain a blog because we have something to say (not because of SEO).
Mitch Joel states it best (from his post, What's Next? It's You):
"We've come to a place where those who were never going to stick it out with blogging for the long haul are busy on Twitter and Facebook, where they can share without the burden of having a passion for writing. So, in the end, maybe what's new for blogging is a place where the real bloggers step in and create a new type of copy for the world to consume. A place where more and more creative thinkers get to tinker with words in new and interesting ways. It's a place where you (and everyone else who wants to write and have a voice) gets to be free to try it out and see what kind of audience their words, images and even video connects with. Blogging – as a platform – may never have anything new to show for itself. Blogging – as a creative white space – is still in its early days."
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.