Blogs offer a variety of SEO benefits, can help develop your brandname, and let other media outlets can find more information and news on your company. As Lee Oden pointed out, "Blogging has been the single most effective marketing initiative for our search marketing agency second only to providing top service to clients who then refer us to other companies."

To fully enjoy the the benefits of blogging, however, you should update at least five days a week (Monday to Friday). If your firm doesn't have the time or the resources to make that kind of commitment, it can still enjoy a few of the benefits that blogging has to offer. For example, whenever your firm has a newsworthy announcement, posting it on your blog can help get you noticed.

If you've consider courting the press with press releases, then you might consider courting the gamut of A- and B-list bloggers about it too. Indeed, there are considerable SEO advantages to being blogged about. As far as getting the attention of the biggest bloggers, such as Techcrunch or Gizmodo, you should do what SEO Book suggest, and send these bloggers personalized e-mails. If you feel that your story isn't that buzz-worthy, however, and just hope to get some buzz about it, then when you post your news bit on your blog, you should try pinging the bloggers you think are most likely to pay notice.

There is etiquette to pinging, however, and if you don't follow it, the bloggers that you ping are likely to be flag your trackbacks as spam. In other words, you don't just copy and paste the press-release that you sent out through PR News Wire onto your blog, and then list the URL of every blog that you can think of in your trackback box. Indeed, there's a little bit of tit-for-tat to the craft. Here are a few tips to help you maintain your credibility.

1. Do Your Homework
If you're not blogging regularly, chances are that other bloggers aren't going to be too familiar with your blog. Consequently, you need to get familiar with their's. Short-list the blogs whose formats are moist relevant to your news announcement. Then comb their site for posts that are relevant to your own news. The more recent the post, the better.

2. Write a Ping-Release
As I mentioned above, do not just recycle your press-release and expect to get noticed. Like all other forms of written media, blogs tend to have their own style format. Blogs are Web 2.0 phenomena, and are about conversation, so make the post conversational. You've pursued a new technology or product because of changes in the market. Mention these to introduce your announcement.

3. Bring Others into the Conversation
As I also mentioned above, you can't just send trackbacks to people you aren't citing. When you're talking about market trends, link back to stories about those trends on other blogs. This is why you did your homework. This is also where the tit-for-tat comes in. A blogger is more likely to notice you if you acknowledge them. A blogger is also more likely to link you and your story if you linked their's. Finally, they are not likely to blacklist you as a spammer if you've linked them properly.

4. Pay Your Respects
It is going to be difficult (maybe even impossible) to link every blog whose attention you are trying to get with your story. Consequently, you should include them as further reading at the end of your ping-release blog post. For example, you have likely discussed an industry trend by this point. However, you only managed to fit one or two links to other blogs in that discussion. So at the end of your post, include a list of links to additional sources where readers can find out more about Trend-A or Fad-B. This is another reason you did your homework.

If you follow these guidelines, you should be able to ping other blogs in a way that's not only tasteful, but flattering. If your story is actually newsworthy, then, you should see some return on your efforts. Some blogs, however, are massive, and get pinged as the primary source of some rumor or news item that pinging them is likely to go unnoticed. Consequently, you might want to send those players a personalized e-mail if you feel that story is worth their time.

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