This and tomorrow’s post cover ways in which blogs can be used to improve rankings of your main web site.

In this post, I deal with a technique that uses blogs to create lots and lots of backlinks. As you read this, you’ll see I don’t think it works.

In tomorrow’s post, I deal with a couple of other techniques that do actually work.

The Link Love Theory

This one rears its head every few months; it asserts that one or more themed blogs can help your main web site improve its rankings for targeted keywords.

It goes something like this:

1. Set up a blog, and configure it so it gets noticed quickly by the web and blog search engines. This means set up your ping list, install a few selected plugins, and use a theme that uses h1 tags intelligently.

2. Hard code some links (in the sidebar, or perhaps the footer) back to the web site you want to rank well, and pay attention to the link text you use to anchor them.

3. Start posting content that’s vaguely in line with the keywords you want your web site to rank well against.

What happens is that every post pings a search engine and generates a new sitemap, and before long you have a bucketload of backlinks that magically boost your web site right past the competition.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Well, it is a simple technique and it used to be effective. Like, 12 months ago. But no longer. I’ve tested this one for a few clients now and nope, it doesn’t do a damn thing anymore.

On the one hand I fully understand why the search engines wanted to close this pathway to instant link love. Unless they did something we’d all end up in a sea of worthless blog posts full of regurgitated/ scraped content. And we’ve been there before, when the so-called “money tree” blogs were popular.

On the other hand, blogs are the conversation tool of choice for many online communities. Whether it’s a school, a special interest group or a company, blogs are easier to set up and operate than forums and especially at the small-scale end. These blogs have valuable content, the sites they refer/ link to are relevant, and they deserve to hold a place in the worthy, non-supplemental online universe. And we shouldn’t forget the many, many blogs set up by individuals whose posts (and links) offer undisputed value.

Oh well. Right now those links are ignored (at least, as far as I can ascertain). Maybe things will change in the future… but right now, you’re just pissing away the time you spend setting up and populating a blog with the singular purpose of boosting your main web site.

But if you use that blog (and other’s blogs) to actively participate in an online community, that’s a whole different story. I cover this topic tomorrow.