Heath Ledger Dies, Blog Search Engines Explode
Now wait a minute.. this blog is not about people like Heath Ledger dying…. Is it?
No, but his death mere hours ago in his New York apartment is lighting up the blogosphere, and although this is a very sad story of drug abuse and a life of excess leading to ultimate destruction, it is relevant here because it is a great example of the quick response of the bloggers.
The current top Technorati (a blog search engine) blog on the sites entertainment page was posted just two and a half hours after the actor was found by a masseuse who came for an apointment to the SoHo apartment.
This is incredible if we think closely about it. Before the nightly news, and long before the next newspapers will have printed it, and before some news websites had the news posted, a blogger had all the details online.
That blog is actually a part of the New York Times website. This is also very interesting when we consider the fact that many people who never would have visited the NY Times website will have read this blog. In fact without this blog being written and posted in the NY Times blog section they would have missed out on a lot of traffic and exposure.
The lesson we can take from this is that blog search engines like Technorati are looking for the most current and relevant information to dish out. In fact by writing this blog about Heath Ledgers passing (only because it is relevant at this moment) will probably drive more readers to this blog in the next 24-48 hours as his death is big news and the masses move to search for information about it.
This principle can always apply when writing current or up-to-date content. One blog article or website story can in fact produce volumes of website traffic if the article is current and relates to something people have a lot of interest in.
This article is also an extreme stretch. When I decided to write the article I needed to find something very current in the news, including Heath Ledgers name in the article only applies because any current news could in fact be used.
The best time to write new interesting and insider content is when it is likely to be news or highly interesting to the largest group of people. If you run an organization that feeds the hungry and you see a best selling author on world hunger doing an interview on the news, that moment is a great time to write on your blog about the author, or to post a review of his book on your site.
When your sector of society or industry makes news, you should be using it to your advantage!
