As I’ve argued in previous posts, when one of the first places people look for information these days is the web you simply can’t ignore it. There are innumerable articles on SEO, but for me it all boils down to this – if someone is out there, Googling for a product or service, or even just some advice, in an area you can help in, they should be able to find you and want to click to read more.

Advice from author and consultant Verne Harnish got me thinking about this again. He was recently quoted as saying ”control the ink in your industry… own a word or two in your industry and then get about controlling the ink around that word – books, articles, blogs, wikis, etc. And how do you know if you’re making progress? Google your word(s) and see where you rank.”

In his email update this week, Verne shares an email from Adam Robinson, President of Illuma LLC, ”I wanted to share with you a major impact you’ve made to my business. I listened as you told us, ‘if you’re not blogging about your business or your industry, you’re losing out on an amazing opportunity. Try it for 6 months, and see what happens.’ So, I did. My company is in the business of helping companies find and select talent and since August of 2008 I’ve been blogging at http://BetterHiringToday.com. What started off as a ‘let’s see if I can do this’ side project has turned into a catalyst for a whole new way of looking at the world.
A few key results:
• the VP of Sales at a Fortune 50 company read my 4-part series on “How to Hire Salespeople” and sent me an email hiring us on the spot.
• Publishers have republished my articles, and paid me to license content that I was happy to post for free. Unbelievable!
• Web traffic to my business website is up over 300%, with inbound web leads up over 600%. Several of my posts are on Page 1 on Google for organic results (i.e. “recruiting templates”, “30 60 90 Day Plans”)
• Since I’m always looking for new things to write about, I’m out talking with more customers, and in more meaningful ways, about things that they care about. I then write about what we discussed, and send them a note telling them so. Loyalty has skyrocketed.”

Need I say more? Clearly for large firms with strong SEO programmes some of these issues are in hand, but how often do they get applied to campaign-based content? (often the very content your customers are mst interested in reading). I’m not advoating everyone should emulate Mr Robinson and start a blog, but if you can support your campaigns with compelling online content that brings the interested market to your door, then it simply has to be an essential part of today’s campaigning approach.