Flogging for Search: Beware of this Dangerous Approach!

Posted by Laura Bergells

June 15, 2007

Flogging for Search

If you get a phone call from a “web traffic expert” who suggests you can ”get more traffic” through blogging because it “helps with search engine traffic” — be careful.

These guys and gals are floggers. Flogging is a mashup term that means “fake blogging”. Floggers propose, for a hefty fee, to:

Set up your blog
Write x-number of keyword-rich posts a month for you
Submit x-number of keyword-rich press releases per month
Post x-number of comments with linkbacks at other blogs for you…

…without fully disclosing that they aren’t you!

There are two words that sum up why this is a lousy idea - Remember Edelman. Last year, this top PR firm trashed their client’s reputation with this unethical approach to blogging. (And they didn’t help their own credibility, either!)

A new spin on flogging is “Flogging for Search”. Now, Edelman didn’t flog for search engines — ironically, they flogged to help improve their client’s reputation. It backfired badly — because blogging and the blogosphere is not a one-way conversation! The PR firm failed to grasp the transparent nature of the blogosphere, and lost control of the conversation.

Yes, blogging can help you with search engine traffic. But search engine traffic is a mere by-product of blogging.

In its newest spin, floggers are targeting companies who want to increase search engine traffic. The latest search-engine spin to flogging is also a disaster. Here’s why:

A key feature of social media is transparency. This means that when companies “fake” blog, they’ll get caught. And if by some miracle nobody “outs” the fake, then it means that the blog was so irrelevant, it wasn’t worth the trouble to out. In either case, flogging only yields a negative result.

If you’re really interested in attracting a growing customer base and a loyal audience through blogging, you’d better be prepared to develop a blog policy and code of ethics — and to take responsibility for your content! Search engine traffic is a great by-product of blogging, but when companies hire floggers to attract search engines instead of an audience, they can expect one or more of the following negative outcomes:

1. A blog no one wants to read

2. An audience that doesn’t return

3. A damaged reputation

So be careful! I just listened to a doozy of a telemarketing pitch for flogging. This guy sounded smooth and used a lot of Web 2.0 buzzwords. But here are my top six warning signs that can help you identify a flogger…

They cold called you. Truly great internet marketers don’t cold call — we let our blogs, our sites, our lists, our PR, and our satisfied clients — do our marketing for us. Prospects call us based on our success — we don’t cold call to prospects.
They spammed you. See Reason #1. Replace “cold call” with “send unsolicited bulk email.”
They don’t have a real blog. If someone has success with blogging, they probably have a successful blog. Makes sense, huh? (A blog with one post that reads, “This is a test” doesn’t count.)
They are invisible at search engines. If you can’t find your experts at the search engines — and they are search engine marketing experts — seriously. How good can they possibly be?
They put keywords before strategy. If your telemarketing “expert” focuses on your keywords and budget — before they talk about your audience and goals — that’s a huge tip-off that he or she is bogus. If they ask for your top performing keywords in Adwords and say that they’ll write content and get links for your top keywords — just hang up. Why? Because…
Bad marketers ignore relationships. Sure, a collection of content-rich, highly-linked blog posts can help you at the search engines. But blogs have way more power than search traffic. Blog posts are an ongoing conversation. They can help you to develop trust and loyalty with your audience. Done well, blogs can position you as an expert. They help ensure return visits. They improve word of mouth. When a site owner blogs abdicates content responsibility to yield search results — it shows, and it stinks. People abandon these sites in droves — and seldom return!

Listen, almost any telemarketer can talk about SEO and use a wide range of social media buzzwords in a phone conversation. And anybody’s pet poodle can get traction with regular, optimized web press releases.

But flogging for search is a bad idea. Start with your strategy, develop a code of ethics, keep your audience and customers in mind, and take control of your content.

As always, if you need help with developing a sound blog strategy, platform, and message: take the coach approach! Develop a strategy, and deploy your tactics consistently.

You can’t fake sincerity!