The Long Tail, the Long Term and Your Blog

A lot of people starting blogs today are looking for quick results. The definition of "results" really depends on what your motivation is. In this case, I am talking about using a blog as a business tool for marketing and public relations.

Sometimes, this occurs. For example, Neil Patel's Pronet Advertising Blog has fast become one of my favorite reads. It's new, but it's clear from the myriad of daily invaluable posts and his sustained presence on digg, Neil gets it. However, more often than not, if you're starting a business blog, just as with stocks, you're best off taking a Long Tail and a long term approach.

Blogs are built to capitalize on the power of the Long Tail. First, you need to focus your blog on the segment of the conversation you care passionately about - and stick to it. If your blog gets 100 regular readers a day and it's the "right" 100, then it's a success. The key is to add value to that dialogue. Find online gems that this audience is likely to miss and share your perspective. Write compelling op-eds and tutorials.

Second, and here's where the long-term approach factors in, be patient and blog for search. An executive for one of the biggest blog companies on the Web once told me that it takes a year for a blog to build substantial Google juice. Judging from what I've seen from the various projects I've worked on, he's right.

Blogging for search starts with a good statistics program, like Google Analytics. Start tracking where your traffic comes from. The Google Analytics blog has a great set of tips today just for bloggers. These include:

• Finding out what posts readers liked the most by looking at daily visits
  
• Comparing new vs. returning visitors      
• Finding out how people exit your blog
  
• Monitoring how long readers spend looking at your content