Google Book Search shows how to use blogs for marketing

A lot of SEOs and self-promoting business operators still don't appreciate the full power of blogging, as it applies to promoting your core products and services. The Inside Google Book Search blog provides a very clear example that would serve many industries as a great template for what to do with corporate blogs.

Google Book Search is under a great deal of pressure. There are legal challenges to the service and authors are not clear on what benefit it brings to them. Nonetheless, Google's product management team are releasing a steady stream of posts that demonstrate to people how the service can best be used.

American history buffs and poker players may appreciate Aerielle Reinstein's Dead Man's Hand anecdote complete with links to sources. To be honest, I never knew Wild Bill Hickock had been shot in the back of the head.

Bethany Poole writes about early 19th century proposals for information management. One expert at the time estimated there were only 2 million books in the entire world. We have libraries with more than 2 million books now.

Adam Mathes writes about Aesop's fables. What's cool about his post is that you can look at a book from 1885 without having to dig through musty piles of old books in estate sales and used book stores.

This is exactly the way business blogs should be managed: give people useful information that demonstrates how your business resources can help them. That's all there is to it.

And my apologies to SEOMike at Spider-food. I just told him earlier today that I would not be writing about SEO-specific topics here. Still, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I think Google deserves a little credit for the things I agree with in this blog, given how critical I've been lately.