# Blog on website ... what's the point?



## Dante2004 (Aug 23, 2010)

Maybe it's just me...but what's the point of putting a blog on a tshirt website???

Political group, sports organization, etc...I get it. But if you are selling t-shirts, I just don't see the point. Yet I keep reading about people who say things like "I just need to add a blog" or "I have to add a blog to my site"?

What's the purpose? Does it help with google ratings? Is the thought that visitors will want to come back to read your blogs?


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## REAMS (Aug 8, 2010)

Adds another reason for people to keep visiting your site, and grow interest in the brand. Helps to build identity within the brand that you can control.


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## taricp35 (Dec 10, 2008)

I don't get it either Dante. I could care less about what they have to say in their blog. I don't even read them.


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## Dennis Graves (Apr 27, 2009)

The best reason to add a blog to your site is that it keeps giving the Search Engines a reason to visit your site. Whenever you post to your blog it should automatically "ping" the search engines that new material is on the site, and it will come search it. It also makes the Search Engines think your site is more active and popular and might give it higher rankings. Also, if you blog about shirts it should fill your site with more keywords and pages with keywords in the titles which also helps with rankings. If a potential customer does a search and the phrase or words they are looking for are in one of your blog posts your site should appear in the search results.

Don't make the blog the index page that appears when your domain is typed in. Make sure there are also links from your blog to your main sales page.

This is just my opinion,

Dennis Graves


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

If the person running the site can write an interesting blog, it's worth doing. If they're doing it just to do it, it's almost never worth doing.

If it's interesting enough, loyal customers will read it regularly. If there's good current content on there, people who might not read it regularly might still dip in and it keeps them on your site that little bit longer, hopefully investing emotionally in your brand, and hopefully being won over by your writing.

Depending on what you blog about, it can also have the same personal benefits to you as any other diary would. Maybe further on down the track you'll be glad to have a record of your milestones (if you blog about moving into a new premises, selling your thousandth shirt, landing your first big store, etc. etc. you'll have a timeline for your memories).

Some people are bloggers, some aren't. That goes for both reading and writing them. If you don't see the appeal, it might not be a good match for your brand. I'm not a fan of people forcing the issue. But for those who want to, it may (never any guarantees in life) add something tangible.

I'm both a strong advocate for blogging, and a strong advocate for not blogging. It depends on the brand, and who would be doing the writing.


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## EnMartian (Feb 14, 2008)

I was going to chime in on this, because we have two blogs, and they've worked really well for us, but Lewis pretty much covered most of what I would have said. 

A blog is not a magic bullet, but it can work very well for some businesses. If you're creating a blog because you have something to say, want to let people learn more about your company and your products, and enjoy the process of writing and creating, then blog away. If you're just doing it for SEO or because "everyone has one" I'd give it a miss.


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## Playboy4LL23 (Mar 2, 2008)

Blog is for Brand Identity. It lets your customers get the inside scoop on the brand and what the brand is about.


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## AngrySpade (Feb 7, 2010)

I like running a blog for my clothing line because it gives people a reason to come and check out whats there. And it really helps Google find my website a lot better.


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## Splash-X (Sep 7, 2008)

The blog not only adds "Brand", "Loyalty" and return visitors but it adds SEO value.



AngrySpade said:


> And it really helps Google find my website a lot better.


This isn't exactly true! If Google has any of your pages in its index, it already knows where to "find" your website.

Well crafted articles can boost your SEO value putting you above the competition. It is much easier for other people to pickup links to your blog post about, say a new design, than it is for them to link directly to the product page.

Your link relevance (how close the page relates to the keyword used to search) and link popularity (how many other people link to your page) create a page rank.


Some times going though your site and optomizing the pages (meta keywords, meta description, shirt description, image alt tags, etc) is a better use of your time.

Content is king and the more content you can give the search engines to index (related to a specific topic) the more relevance your pages get and the higher your page rank.


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## AngrySpade (Feb 7, 2010)

Splash-X said:


> The blog not only adds "Brand", "Loyalty" and return visitors but it adds SEO value.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's basically what I meant. You just put it into better terms for me, haha. My blog helps people find their way to my products, even if it is in a blog post I still get click throughs to my store.


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## jiarby (Feb 8, 2007)

some well written blog posts with good site relevance and keyworks can be a great SEO traffic driver for your e-commerce site...


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## tango9984 (Jul 11, 2008)

Splash-X said:


> The blog not only adds "Brand", "Loyalty" and return visitors but it adds SEO value.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's pretty much already been said 10 different ways, blogging is used to drive traffic to your site and boost your "relevancy" rating. Every company should be blogging, no matter what industry they are in. Every marketing firm will tell you that.

Splash X - good stuff mate;image alt tags is good mention, engines love those things. But I wanted to add, google stopped using meta tags for relevancy about a year ago. The only tag googlebot sometimes uses is the description tag, but it's only used to display the search snippet description.


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## SunEmbroidery (Oct 18, 2007)

I you you decide to add a blog think about whether it will be part of your current site or a separate blog (hosted on a different site). Either way it can be used to build credibility, add personality, reinforce identity, support promotions, get customer feedback and have fun with your business. Either way you should link to your site so you'll obtain more traffic. Having a blog allows you to easily add new information to your site so it looks updated and "good" to the SEs. Personally I think its better to maintain a blog thats separate from your site so you have a greater chance of gaining traffic that you might not get on your site hosted blog. Either way, think of a blog as another doorway for additional traffic (think SEO) that can be used to build your brand while gaining customer feedback.


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## Rtfull (Sep 29, 2010)

Simply stated, a blog can potentially increase traffic even if the website was "blogs on t-shirt sites.com". People like to know things about stuff they buy. More traffic can mean more money and who wouldn't want to take that chance?


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## t.luxi (Oct 25, 2010)

SunEmbroidery said:


> I you you decide to add a blog think about whether it will be part of your current site or a separate blog (hosted on a different site). Either way it can be used to build credibility, add personality, reinforce identity, support promotions, get customer feedback and have fun with your business. Either way you should link to your site so you'll obtain more traffic. Having a blog allows you to easily add new information to your site so it looks updated and "good" to the SEs. Personally I think its better to maintain a blog thats separate from your site so you have a greater chance of gaining traffic that you might not get on your site hosted blog. Either way, think of a blog as another doorway for additional traffic (think SEO) that can be used to build your brand while gaining customer feedback.


I think I got the words "Either way" imprinted in my head now.

But thanks for the advice


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## CTYankeegirl (Sep 5, 2010)

Dennis Graves said:


> The best reason to add a blog to your site is that it keeps giving the Search Engines a reason to visit your site. Whenever you post to your blog it should automatically "ping" the search engines that new material is on the site, and it will come search it. It also makes the Search Engines think your site is more active and popular and might give it higher rankings. Also, if you blog about shirts it should fill your site with more keywords and pages with keywords in the titles which also helps with rankings. If a potential customer does a search and the phrase or words they are looking for are in one of your blog posts your site should appear in the search results.
> 
> Don't make the blog the index page that appears when your domain is typed in. Make sure there are also links from your blog to your main sales page.
> 
> ...


Wow! I always wondered why bother w/ blogs... Thanks for all the info. Very helpful!


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