Blogging Chocolate Purses, Counterfeit Handbags, & Purse Riots For SEO

Chocolate purses? Did I read that correctly? Back alley bags?

Terrorism funding with fake couture? Designer purse riots?

They can't be true! But wait, the news is true, it absolutely

is! And what is this? A diamond thief snatches a designer

handbag from a sexy starlet! And then comes a story about

designer cell phones to carry in that fashionable handbag!

This is what I love about web marketing and my work as a

search engine optimization specialist - the fun and novelty

of research.

Let's take a step back here and clarify. Why would a web site

owner seeking increased search engine visibility care about

news related to their products? In a word, CONTENT. I always

recommend to new clients that they start a blog discussing

their industry and their products and post to it several

times a week. Post what? Anything and everything about their

product or service belongs in their blog. Content is king and

blogs are a great place to routinely add relevant,

interesting, search engine friendly content.

But my clients wonder where I come up with this stuff - It's

in the news.

The day I signed on to increase the search visibility of an

online retailer of designer handbags and fashion accessories,

I went to Google news http://news.google.com and typed

"Designer Handbags" into the search box. As I scrolled down

the page of resulting stories, I saw a link to a press

release discussing the new pink Juicy Couture Sidekick phone

and PDA from T-Mobile. Bingo! First blog entry at the client

blog http://Valuebags.com (recommended to the client that

day) where I recapped the story and posted a photo.

Then I scrolled to the bottom of that Google News page to

look for the link that says, "New! Track new stories about

designer handbags & create an email alert" I clicked the link

under "create an email alert" and entered my email address

for this "Designer Handbags" news search, just like I do with

each new client and their product. Every day I receive a list

of news stories that turned up in a news search for "Designer

Handbags" to discuss on the client blog.

Within a few days I got my daily email alert from Google News

that talked about, I kid you not, Chocolate Designer

Handbags! So I clicked the link in the email to land on a

news story about a high end chocolatier that makes tiny

little replicas of designer purses in rich, flavored

chocolate, complete with tiny bows and straps! There's the

next post to the client designer handbag blog. What fun! But

this can't go on, really - how much news can there be about

trendy, high priced purses?

Next comes an email news alert about sexy starlet Tara Reid,

who was robbed in a Spain airport of her Balenciaga designer

handbag filled with over $180,000 in jewels! The news seems

filled with stories about haute couture bags, but really, can

this continue at this rate? Yes, indeed it can. Next day

brings news of a shop proprietor on the lamb after he is

caught running a fake designer handbag boutique in

Brownsville, Texas. He disappeared after his wife died, on

the run to avoid prison time.

Just incredible, there really can't be more, can there? Yes,

it seemingly never ends, as I got a news alert in the email

the next morning about a RIOT by ravenous customers hungry

for limited numbers of designer handbags on steep discount at

a Maryland boutique! Police had to stop as many as 1000 women

fighting over the bags when the boutique owner couldn't stop

them from wrecking the store.

There's more! Here's a story about the size of the fake

couture market, currently estimated to be approximately $450

BILLION yearly! That is some sizable change carried by a lot

of fake purses. It is estimated that in New York alone,

losses run $500 million a year to designer knockoffs. This

booty attracts organized crime and it is suspected that

substantial terrorism funding is raised by designer handbag

counterfeiting.

Clearly I've made my point here. If you seek higher search

engine ranking for your products and services and are willing

to post some comments regularly to your company blog on news

in your industry, there are no shortage of topics to discuss.

A headline like "$1.4 Million Designer Handbag Counterfeit

Scam - Four Arrested" doesn't appear every single day does

it? That one ran recently at Boston.com and was in an email

alert.

But what if it's a slow news day and there are no headlines

on your product today to discuss on your blog? OK, it does

happen, especially if you are in the software industry or

industrial supply or if you deal in some other esoteric

minutia. Then what to blog about? Your clients, vendors,

suppliers or customers make for excellent content and in some

cases may happily provide you with their latest news release

to post on your blog. You can detail business or sales trips,

discuss jobs in your industry, or even put up copies of your

own latest email promotions, press releases, or even your

office decorating plans.

Sale promotions, coupon codes, and specials for blog readers

only - all contribute to a popular and visible blog in your

industry. If you post often, use keyword phrases liberally in

your text and hyperlink that keyword text to relevant

information or sales pages of your products from the blog,

you will increase the search engine ranking of your main site

over time.

As a male with little interest in designer purses and

handbags, I knew I could effectively market this client

simply by signing up for "Designer Handbags" Google News

alerts and gathering those news headlines and commenting on

the client blog. I never thought that Gucci, Prada, Hermes,

Vuitton, Furla, Fendi and Ferragamo handbags would become an

item of interest to me - and they're still not - so Google

News alerts comes to the rescue.

Clients however, often find that they become extremely

interested in those news alerts, have no trouble commenting

about them on their blog, and soon come to enjoy the process

and happily take it on as a regular task in their web

marketing. They are already experts on their product and

hearing more about their industry in daily news stories and

commenting about it in their blog becomes a pleasant daily

task.

Did you know you could buy designer handbags at Walmart's

Sam's Club stores? "Regional Manager Matt Lindsey said "They

don't come into Sam's Club looking for affordable luxuries,

but once they see it and they can afford it, they're happy

with it." Coach, Prada, Kate Spade, and Fendi handbags are

available in (Sam's Club) stores."

From Rochester, NY TV news station WHAM channel 13 web site.

Truth is stranger than fiction. You couldn't make this stuff up!

Copyright Mike Banks Valentine © December 2005

Mike Banks Valentine is a search engine optimization specialist increasing the visibility of http://www.efashionhouse.com through article marketing, press releases, and blogging. He also runs http://WebSite101.com Small Business Ecommerece Tutorial - Contact Mike at http://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm