Pete Mill and Mark Gorman partner to launch professional blogging agency, Planet Blog
Pete Mill, co-founder and ex-creative director of The Leith Agency, and Mark Gorman, the founding director of 1576 and current chair of Creative Edinburgh, have partnered to launch what is claimed to be the UK’s first professional blogging agency.
Planet Blog will launch tomorrow, 1 April, and will offer clients regular updates for their blogs.
The move comes following changes introduced by Google, which has supported the use of blogs as marketing tools. Dubbed Panda, or Penguin, the system now works by penalising websites that used “manipulative” SEO techniques to achieve higher rankings.
Speaking to the Scotsman, Gorman said: “We think there’s a big market for this as Google has dramatically reworked its algorithm for SEO [search engine optimisation] and has really promoted the value of blogging – real writing for the real world.
“Until Panda and Penguin, web developers had tried to ‘out-spider’ Google by filling their websites with search-friendly but dull as ditchwater copy and a huge numbers of links. This particularly odious practice is known as link bombing,” he said.
Gorman continued to explain: “The strategic goal that Panda and Penguin share is to display higher-quality websites at the top of Google’s search results. In other words, Panda and Penguin help Google think, not like a spider, but like a human.
“What proper, well-written blogs do – with some business keywords in moderation – is appeal to Panda and Penguin because they are real and consequently boost website ratings.”
With this in mind, Mill and Gorman conducted research into the value of blogs, finding that 86 per cent of businesses “love blogs but hate blogging”.
On the launch of Planet Blog, Gorman said: “Starting a blog is dead easy. Keeping it going is hard. It’s our job to keep it going.”
Meanwhile, partner Mill added: “You’ve got to love the process from start to finish – doing the research, having the inspiration and crafting the writing itself. Most in-house bloggers fall down in at least one area eventually.”