Is it necessary to have a blog?

[Holland87]

I have heard that blogs are the way to go now. Is this true? If not, then I may have wasted a little of my time building one.

Also, should a blog be linked on to a website?

If you can, could you take a look at what I have and critique please? I am very new at this ..........just so you know!

Thanks for your time!

http://freeslottournaments.blogspot.com/

[Chips]

Blogs are the way to boost traffic, I have found that my Wordpress blog attached to my website perform much better than a blogspot site. Best bet is to have a paid site and either use the blog for the site or attach it to the site. Search engines pick up on blogs quickly and using plug ins like SEO and sitemap will speed the indexing.

[thepokerkeep]

I agree with Bruce (Chips). Blogs definitely drive traffic to your main site.

I use a free Blogspot Blog and it sends a huge number of visitors to my main site.

You are not wasting your time!

By all means, link your main sites to your blog and vice versa. Deep links, 3 ways, whatever you want, they all help.

I had a look at your blog, it's easy on the eyes and very clean. The poll is a good idea. I like your tips for the online gambler section too. A good start in my opinion.

[Holland87]

Thank you Chips and thepokerkeep for the feedback! I appreciate you taking the time to reply. I believe the blog is here to stay!

[villa10]

No doubt that if you have good writing skills a blog is a must.
Anyway, the balance between info hunters and real buyers is always difficult to achieve with blogs

[LiveCasinoPartners]

I've added a wordpress blog to my website and I've noticed an increase in traffic. I can't say for sure whether or not they are converting. I've also noticed that the site gets indexed faster as well. I think it's a healthy step in the SEO direction. One thing I did was try to make sure that the blog looks and feels like the website.
Here's a an example: http://www.live-blackjack.co.uk/bonus/

You didn't waste your time. I also made a blogspot blog as well, and I think that my biggest benefit are the inbound links.

By the way, your blog looks great. It has a clean look to it.

Cheers!

[Holland87]

Thank you villa10 and WagerX for your comments! I have taken a look at all of the blogs associated to all of your websites (thepokerkeep and Chips included) and they look great!

WagerX, you did accomplish the "website" look on your blog. It is very impressive!

Thank you again!

[JamieF]

I agree that blogs are a good way to go. I have several Google alerts set up and the fresh blog content always comes up in the alert.

Blogs do help develop your sites personalty/niche.

[masontech]

I have had a blog since day one and I get quite a bit of traffic from it. It never converts that well but does convert enough to make it worthwhile.

You have to ensure that you utilise the blog to cross promote your offers on your site etc..

[Holland87]

Thank you JamieF and masontech. I appreciate the feedback!

[pompeyrayuk]

Just tried to open your blog and got a "Does not exsist" splash page and asked if i wanted to reg the blog name

[masontech]

@pompeyrayuk, I presume you mean the blog for Holland87, if so, I can get to it fine..

[Holland87]

Thank you masontech for checking on that for me and pompeyrayuk.

I have been able to get to the blog from my link in my siggy and from the link I out in the original post.

What link did you click on, pompeyrayuk?

To all that advised the blog was the way to go, you are so right. I have had so many hits on my new site that are coming from the blog. I'm loving google too. Google is picking up my new posts on the blog very quickly and putting me in a very good position(s) with my keywords.

Thanks again!

[pompeyrayuk]

Must have clicked on summin wrong coz it works fine now and yes its a great looking blog you have there.

[gayle]

I also have a blog that's part of my site. I use the tab GamblingTs New and issue 'bloglets' about 5 times a week.
These are 2-3 paragraphs linking the visitor to the full length lesson for that particular game.
Holland - if I may suggest, your blog seems to have too many ads and little gambling content.
IMO, you should give the visitor some 'meat'--some content they can use when playing and you should sell-personalize it to get them to explore your full site.
WagerX has the right idea with articles about the games.
However, I find that full articles are open to copying and that's the reason for a brief introduction-sell to increase traffic to your site.
At Gambling Teachers, we find our visitors average about 5-7 page views/visit, so they are exploring.
And that's always a good thing
Agree that SEs index you faster via blog posts.
Also, I have submitted the GTBlog feed to over 50 sites to get wider distribution and submitted the blog to several directories.
There are months that our blog feed has the highest traffic page count for the month competing with our home page.
HTH

[Holland87]

Thank you Gayle for all that great advice! I will read this over and over to make sure I have followed your advice to the tee!

It looks like my blog will go through some changes!

[Skinski]

If not for the blog I'd not be anywhere I'm afraid . lol . Blogging gives me something to do and I don't have to be some kind of seo expert to get visitors. So I do think blogs are a huge help, especially for folk like myself that are not too tech savy.

I come here to learn and looks like some of the advice you've received on this thread will be a big help to e as well .

Btw, nice looking blog . Very easy to read and no eye strain.

[ekonomi]

You can read this articles:
http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/14...ve-a-Blog.html
http://www.goodwebpractices.com/seo/...ve-a-blog.html

[Holland87]

Thank you ekonomi for the links to the blog articles. I have not read them yet, but just from a quick scan of the first article, I see that this will be interesting reading for me!

Thanks vey much!

[T3ddyBlair]

Hey there.

Iv actually changed my whole site around as I have a personal blog and it pulls in a couple thousand worth of readers a month.

A light bulb came on and i realized that Google loves blogs and indexes them extremely quickly as the content is so fresh. So i converted my site into a Word Press blog with a nice clean looking blogtheme.

Check it out.

thepokerfloor.com

The site is still being built up but im sure you can get the idea!
Im also open for link exchange, they will be in my blogroll!