Power of Blogs

Thursday, January 5, 2006

At Ice.com, blogs add unexpected sparkle to search engine marketing

Weblogs it has created as an information service for consumers have become a “blessing in disguise” in improving Ice.com’s search engine marketing efforts, executive vice president of marketing Pinny Gniwisch tells InternetRetailer.com.

“Through our blogs we’ve seen our keyword rankings go up,” he says. “That was not part of our plan for the blogs—we wanted them as a service to customers—but it happened. It was a blessing in disguise.”

Three of the blogs– SparkleLiketheStars.com, JustAskLeslie.com and Blog.Ice.com—provide information on jewelry fashion trends among celebrities, jewelry care and press coverage of Ice.com. As consumers search on the Internet for “Angelina Jolie,” for example, their natural search listings will include a listing for SparkleLiketheStars.com, where they can see the jewelry worn by Jolie and other celebrities. They can also navigate the blog by clicking on terms like “diamond rings” or “pearls,” to see those types of jewelry worn by celebrities. Because each blog is also linked to and from Ice.com, the click activity on these keywords has helped to raise Ice.com’s natural search rankings, Gniwisch says.

“We put keywords like `pearl necklace` and `diamond earrings` in the blog because those are keywords we want Ice.com to be associated with,” he says. “It’s become an excellent thing for us.”

Ice.com, No. 178 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, also operates a fourth blog related to coupons and plans future blogs to cover information that can be tied to jewelry, including weddings and etiquette. “We’re going to be doing a lot more in this field,” Gniwisch says