Beginners Guide to Blogging

A blog is basically an online journal wherein you can digitally pen down your thoughts, ideas, opinions and practically anything that you want people to read. Blogs come in different styles, formats, and settings, depending on the preference of the user. Many blogging sites, offer built in features such as hyperlink, straight texts, pictures etc. Some blogging sites, even allow you to put video and mp3's on your blogs.

Instead of writing texts, some bloggers choose to make their blogs more audio friendly, by using spoken word entries.

This is called audio blogging.

Basically a blog contains these features:

title- which allows you to label your post
body- this is the content of your post
trackback- other sites can be linked back to your blog
permanent link- every article that you write has a URL
comments- this allow readers to post comments on your blog.

One of the advantages of blogging, is that it is made of only a few templates. Unlike, other websites that is made up of numerous individual pages. This make it easier for blog users to create new pages, because it already has a fix setting that include: slots for title, body of the post, category, etc.

This is especially useful for first time users, since they can start blogging right away. They can chose from a  number of templates that blogging websites provide.

Anyone who wants to start a blog can do so by becoming a member of a blogging website of their choice. Once they've become members, they automatically become a part of that particular blogging community. They can browse through other bloggers pages, and link them back to their own blogs. They can also make comments on other members' blogs.

Blogging is not just limited to personal usage. There are a lot of blogs that follow a theme such as: sports, politics, philosophy, social commentary, etc. These blogs espouse on their specific themes. This way blogging becomes a medium in which people can share their knowledge and opinions about a variety of themes and topics.

Some bloggers even use their blogs as a means to advertise. Some authors advertise their books on their blogs. While other bloggers, use their blogs to shed light to currents issues, events, news and catastrophes.

Nowadays in education, blogs also play an important part. Professors use blogging to document the lessons that they have discussed and taught. This way, students who who have missed classes, can easily catch up with their assignments.

A lot of entrepreneurs benefit from blogging by promoting their businesses on their blogs, with millions and millions of people logging onto the net everyday, blogging has become a lucrative move. Some bloggers who run online businesses promote their merchandise online. While others profit through advertisement.

But by far, the most popular blog type is the one that takes the form of a personal journal. This is the kind that is usually used by first time bloggers. Individuals who want to document the daily struggle of their everyday lives, poems, rants, opinions, find that blogging offers them a medium in which to express themselves.

Bloggers usually communicate within themselves. This is one of the appeals of blogging. It creates a community of people sharing their ideas, thoughts, and comments with each other.

Blogs varying in topics, themes, and set-ups, can be found in blog directories. First time users who want to get an idea of what the blogging world is all about can browse through a number of blogs using these directories. This way they'd get an idea of what these blogging communities are like.

Blogging is popular all over the world. Blog is short for the term weblog. There are no rules when it comes to blogging. Bloggers have the freedom to express themselves how ever way they want, and the best thing about blogging, is that most blogging sites are free.

There are numerous blogging websites to choose from in the net. This give first time users the option of joining a blogging community that appeals to their interests.

Just search any blogging directory and you'd get a listing of a lot of blogging sites that are available on the net. It's easy to search a blogging directory, because it is organized according to category. This way you would get exactly what you are after. Blogging is really for everyone. It is fun, simple and easy.

5 Reasons Why Blogging is the New Internet Marketing Tool

Blogging is a concept that started in late 90s.  It used to be a way to comment an existing webpage, an opportunity for visitors and readers to react or voice out one’s opinion on the said page.  What started as a single-sentence commentary has evolved into pages of personal take on just about anything and everything under the sun.  As it continues to move forward, online advertising has tapped into the blog’s potential. 

Here are 5 reasons why you should use blogging as an Internet marketing tool.

 

1.Blogging is simple.  The simplest way to get your piece on the net is through blogging.  No skills are necessary… an average adult can read and type, or at least click a mouse.  It’s like having a virtual piece of paper and you just write your ideas, experiences, new products, and hope that the truth behind your articles comes out and entice your reader to also try your product.  If you have a PC and an Internet connection (who doesn’t?) then you can blog and advertise.

2. Blogging is authentic.  In this day and age where advertising saturate our lives, we question the credibility of promoters’ claims.  However, in blogs, real people share their real-life experiences, unscathed by paid advertising.  Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about their first-hand experience.  You definitely want to buy a tried and tested product.

3. Blogging is free.  Because blogging is yet to be proven as a mainstream online advertising media, most sites see it as something to augment current marketing tools and thus offer it for free.   Any opportunity for free webtime is definitely a bonus especially to businesses that are starting up.  Needless to say, paid blog pages can generate more income for your seriously growing business.

4. Blogging builds credibility.  As you get more and more into writing your experiences on a particular product or industry, your readers come to realize that they can depend on your posts for their own information needs.  As such, you become an expert on it; as a consequence, more readers visit your site and more bloggers link to your blogs.  As companies and professional organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they may soon get in touch with you for advertising on your blog page, or make you an affiliate, which pays for every referral generated from your blog site.

5. Blogging builds your market.  Unless you are a Hollywood star, chances are, only your Mom reads your posts.  Mom has a lot of friends, so she lets her friends know how interesting your blog site is.  But you need not depend on Mom to increase your readership base.

  Look into the following ways to build your market through blogging:

-By using your e-mail.  Today, blogging is overcoming the e-mail’s popularity in quickly and effectively reaching and expanding a market.  In this age of speed and quick access, logging in and downloading e-mail is simply taking longer than clicking into a blog site.  Let them explore your site by using a short e-mail message as teaser to your blog site.  If your e-mail is on an entirely different subject, use your e-mail signature to give a link to the site.

-By using subscription.  An easy way to get your readers e-mail is to give them an opportunity to subscribe to your blogsite.  Keep some exclusive information for your subscribers to entice readers to subscribe and give their e-mail address.  Just be responsible in using their e-mail address, as the last thing you want is a comment on your blog that you are a spammer.

-By understanding your readers.  Conduct a simple survey for your readers to understand their profile and advertising preferences.  Ask consumers to give you feedback on a post, an ad link, or a trial that you shared.  In this way, it is like interviewing your readers without the commitment and intrusion of a face-to-face interview.

-By joining a blog network –A network of blogs maybe a collection of blog sites that share the same industry, interest, readership base, payment mode, etc.  Consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to several real bloggers about a single subject.  Clearly, more bloggers are better than one.

-By using RSS. RSS is the fastest growing technology on the Internet today.  As such, having RSS feeds to your blog is definitely another means of generating awareness for your readership base.  Having a variety of feeds can add interest to your blog site. 

Give your business a boost by effectively using blogging as an Internet marketing tool.

Problogging: Making Money From Blogs

A weblog (or simply blog) is a website that 'publishes' or features articles (which are called 'blog posts', 'posts', or 'entries'), written by an individual or a group that make use of any or a combination of the following:

· Straight texts

· Photographs or images (photoblog)

· Video (videoblog)

· Audio files (audioblog)

· Hyperlinks

Usually presented and arranged in reverse chronological order, blogs are essentially used for the following purposes:

· Online journal or a web diary

· Content managament system

· Online publishing platform

A typical blog has the following components:

· Post date -the date and time of the blog entry

· Category - the category that the blog belongs to

· Title - the title of the blog

· Main body - the main content of the blog

· RSS and trackback - links the blog back from other sites

· Comments - commentaries that are added by readers

· Permalinks - the URL of the full article

· Other optional items - calendar, archives, blogrolls, and add-ons or plug-ins

A blog can also have a footer, usually found at the bottom of the blog, that shows the post date, the author, the category, and the 'stats' (the nubmer of comments or trackbacks).

There are numerous types of blogs. Some of them are the following:

1. Political blog - on news, politics, activism, and other issue based blogs (such as campaigning).

2. Personal blog - also known as online diary that may include an individual's day-to-day experience, complaints, poems, and illicit thoughts, and communications between friends.

3. Topical blog - with focus either on a particular niche (function or position) that is usually technical in nature or a local information.

4. Health blog - on specific health issues. Medical blog is a major category of health blog that features medical news from health care professionals and/or actual patient cases.

5. Literary blog - also known as litblog.

6. Travel blog - with focus on a traveler's stories on a particular journey.

7. Research blog - on academic issues such as research notes.

8. Legal blog - on law (technical areas) and legal affairs; also known as 'blawgs'.

9. Media blog - focus on falsehoods or inconsistencies in mass media; usually exclusive for a newspaper or a television network.

10. Religious blog - on religious topics

11. Educational blog - on educational applications, usually written by students and teachers.

12. Collaborative or collective blog - a specific topic written by a group of people.

13. Directory blog - contains a collection of numerous web sites.

14. Business blog - used by entrepreneurs and corporate employees to promote their businesses or talk about their work.

15. Personification blog - focus on non-human being or objects (such as dogs).

16. Spam blogs - used for promoting affiliated websites; also known as 'splogs'.

Blogging is typically done on a regular (almost daily) basis. The term "blogging" refers to the act of authoring, maintaining, or adding an article to an existing blog, while the term "blogger" refers to a person or a group who keeps a blog.

Today, more than 3 million blogs can be found in the Internet. This figure is continuously growing, as the availability of various blog software, tools, and other applications make it easier for just about anyone to update or maintain the blog (even those with little or no technical background). Because of this trend, bloggers can now be categorized into 4 main types:

· Personal bloggers - people who focus on a diary or on any topic that an individual feels strongly about.

· Business bloggers - people who focus on promoting products and services.

· Organizational bloggers - people who focus on internal or external communication in an organization or a community.

· Professional bloggers - people who are hired or paid to do blogging.

Problogging (professional blogging) refers to blogging for a profit. Probloggers (professional bloggers) are people who make money from blogging (as an individual blog publisher or a hired blogger).

Below are just some of the many money-making opportunities for probloggers:

· Advertising programs

· RSS advertising

· Sponsorship

· Affiliate Programs

· Digital assets

· Blog network writing gigs

· Business blog writing gigs

· Non blogging writing gigs

· Donations

· Flipping blogs

· Merchandising

· Consulting and speaking

The following are a few things that you need to consider if you want to be successful in problogging:

1. Be patient. Problogging requires a lot of time and effort, not to mention a long-term vision.

2. Know your audience. Targeting a specific audience or group is a key to building a readership.

3. Be an 'expert'. Focus on a specific niche topic and strive to be the "go-to" blogger on that topic.

4. Diversify. Experiment with various add and affiliate programs that enable you to make money online (aside from blogging).

5. Do not bore your readers. Focus on the layout. White spaces, line spacings, and bigger fonts make a blog welcoming to read.

Certainly, it is possible to earn money from blogs. One just needs to take risks, the passion, and the right attitude in order to be a successful problogger.

Blog Software For All Your Blogging Needs

Today anyone who has writing ability or is dreaming to be a writer has written a blog in the net. There are blog soft wares that are simple and easy to use and a technically inclined and challenged individuals can easily acquire a blog online.

For some individuals, blogs are their projects of every day living, as they talk about their daily episodes as well as make tribute to friends and family. Furthermore, blogs assume a profound meaning written to compose and assemble political statements, endorse a product, supply information on research, and even offer tutorials. Any subject that are of your interests, you can be sure that someone has written a blog about it.

Blogs are now being written by musicians, politicians, sports figures, novelists, newscasters as well as other known figures. It is this blog fever that has raised controversy. The fact that anyone can compose and regarding any subject matter under the sun, complaints about certain write-ups are an issue. In a lot of blogs, names are being mentioned; do bear in mind that although you are entitled to write anything that interests you in a blog, you have to be very careful and take in a lot of responsibility. Do not make any statements which can become controversial; or else, be very prepared.

Why a Blog?

1. For personal acquaintances, relationships and hobby. A person can write a blog about his daily activities, what’s going on with his life as his way of telling his family and friends the things that goes on in his life. Likewise, one may also write a blog just so he can express what he feels about himself, or about a certain subject matter that is of interest to him.

2. Topical. Some blogs are committed to a precise topic, like computer hardware or politics. These are frequently read like magazines.

3. For marketing.  Corporations are too, into blogging; when well written and implemented, this kind of blog can be a powerful instrument for business communications, forming eagerness and anticipation regarding their products and services offered, or used as tool within the company, keeping employees well informed about company issues and news.

Why someone else's software?

A lot of Web designer and creators will laugh at the belief and idea of utilizing the software of someone else. This is can be correct especially when each software greatly differs from the particular requirements that a client may have. Yet on the other hand, when it refers to a Weblog software, there is no reason for apprehension in the use of a package that is pre-written, as most packages were developed through years of study; not just knocked together over a couple of days.

In addition, one may study its feature set. For a developer, it would take a lot of time and effort to write and compose from “nothing at all” every single feature in the Weblog software packages of today. For most people, a blog is there for the main reason that chooses to publish or make known your literature and texts on the Web, so you want to spend your time more on writing than coding.

Hosted Services

If one wishes to start broadcasting on the Web, yet does not have web hosting, one can consider looking into a hosted service, which includes Blogger, TypePad, Live Journal, and more.

These services are operated or handled for an individual, so there is no need to concern one about technical upkeep of one’s Weblog; instead, one can concentrate on his blog's appearance and content. In just minutes, after signing for an account, one can readily start his own blog.  Many such services are offered free, such as blogger.  TypePad charges a minimal amount for monthly service fee.

Self-Hosted

When one has Web hosting on hand, or is eager to buy hosting, in which one feesl that the advantage will prevail over the problems of keeping up your own blog connection and installation, then you may want to take into account a package that is self-hosted, which includes Movable Type, Textpattern and WordPress.

Other hosting companies did construct the process of installation easier, permitting installation with just a click from a control panel that is browser-based. It is important that you check with a hosting company so you can view if this function is offered. Similar to hosted services, some self hosted packages are made available either for free or for a certain fee which is dependent on the type of package that you choose as well as the basis why you are using it.

All You Need To Know About Blog Hosts

Apart from the chat rooms, instant messengers and electronic mails created for communication and dialogue beyond turf are the emerging innovations that help man build opportunities for interaction.  The need for a personalized and human face aspect of building online communities is slowly changing the technological landscape of the Internet.

Blogs / “weblogs” or blogging are the newest gift of Internet technology to people all over the world. These are updated posts, crop up entries or personalized life snippets, of mundane or bizarre in nature. For most, a “blog” is a personal, unedited, and authentic journal meant to be shared in an online community. Blog site is a place where bloggers can publish anything; his thoughts, feelings, photos, special events, experiences, comments on issues and so on. It is more of an online diary with videos, links, documents, newsletters and opinions on just about any topics you are interested.

Blogs are made to welcome the insights and opinions of all and therefore, should not be written to sound intimidating and too formal. This kind of blog is a sure way to put off the readers. In the basics of blogging, conversational tone would be more appropriate to reach the desired audience.

Blogging is all about individuals reaching out to other individuals.

Having a blog has its own set of advantages:
1. Freedom of Expression. If you want people to hear you out and give their own opinion, this is the best way to create a line of communication;
2. Networking is at its best. Having a blog is a good platform for exchanging genuine ideas from consumers to you as marketer of a certain product. Sound opinion and point of view is better than just showing the price quote;
3. Excellent advertising platform. Blogging is a new way to advertise products, a refreshing change from the traditional advertising outlets and it is cost-effective.
4.  Gauging public opinion on products and services. The key is nice and catchy titles with new ideas presented in your content. This is an assurance of quick and repeated responses from your readers.  Blogs is an excellent spot for the exchange of ideas between the seller and the consumer. Good for measuring public opinion regarding services and products, even political and business matters alike.
5. Useful tool for internal communication. This will help your company to build a knowledge-based community of employees. Also good for harnessing employee relations and identifying human resource issues in advance.
6. Other benefits like search engine optimization (SEO) will help your blogs to be seen often by as many people as you wish. This is very good exposure for your products and services.

Many blog hosting services are available on the Internet. But the basic question is which one of the services will be the best to start off your business blog program? Business people are usually clueless to recent technological innovations which would help them maximize their marketing potentials. For these beginners, it is best to study first the services offered by blog hosts. An ineffective business blogging program may damage marketing opportunities instead of enriching them.

A company may decide to do the following depending on its capacity and needs: 1) Host their own blog service, 2) Pay someone else to host the service, or 3) Setup a “blog aggregator page” and ask the employees to select their blog hosting services individually. There are paid and free services available for individuals.

For business blogs, they are required to have the latest blogging features; if not, this will prevent them from maximizing their marketing, public relations and SEO potentials.

Keep in mind that blogs should have the following basic essentials:

COMMENTS.  Welcoming comments provide opportunity for dialogue. In business blogs, they are a good customer feedback mechanism. This helps develop better customer relations based from loyalty and trust. Blogging is an innovative way to converse with your customers.
TRACKBACK. This helps in maximizing company and product exposure. Through this service, consumers can get back to you for more posts and updates without the difficulty of locating you. If your blog is popular in a specific online community chances are links going back to your blog site are everywhere online, other blog sites or even websites.
CATEGORIES AND TAGS. These both help in classifying blog searches for ease of navigation and on site search. Categories act as libraries because it classifies posts by subject matter such as business, distance learning, e-commerce, online auctions, etc. Tags, help in the classification, especially in the blog search engine Technorati. Possible customers and new clients locate blogs about certain topics of interest by just clicking the tags.
RSS FEED. Really Simple Syndication is the feed from your blog that is sent out over the internet, and collected through the various newsreaders and aggregators.

If your company is to establish a business blogging program, considerable options should be made available by the hosting companies shortlisted for the services. Free blog hosting services are popular but they are much appropriate for individual online journals. Paid blog hosting services offer unlimited packages best for your company’s needs. You may want to suggest checking out some blogs that use the host first, read and examine their layout and design. Another important thing to consider is a reliable technical support the host has.

After, choosing the blog host, a team should be ready to plan the design and structure of the blog: The team should:1.  create a style that meets the needs of the audience;
2.  establish an open, credible tone;
3.  schedule weekly updating of blog - ideally, a few times a week;
4.  include weblinks of other website and blogs;
5.  blog post should be in the “first person;”
6.  focus on the business blog objective; and,
7.  maintain an honest, engaging conversational quality.

Remember, whatever the look, style and content found on your blog is a reflection of you and your company.

How to Make a New Blog Popular

Setting up a new blog can be easy but making the blog popular and acceptable to the online users is another story.  There are practically millions of blogs out there competing for attention from the user and how do you make yours stand out in the crowd?  Here are ten tips to help you achieve this goal.

Tip#1: Informative Posts

Make sure you post only materials that are useful and can be put to use immediately by your readers. People are always looking for solutions to their problems and if you can give them the solution they are looking for, they will be back for more!

Tip#2: Fresh Content

Don’t go for the PLR packs and post them without making changes.  They are posted all over the web and people might nave seen those same articles and would lose respect for you.  It simple shows that you are too lazy to modify them before you present it your visitors.

Tip #3: Unique Information

Make your information unique and cannot be found elsewhere specially on blogs relevant to your niche. It is important that you present your visitors only with unique and relevant content that you came up with the idea yourself or an existing idea that you modified and enhanced. If you cannot deliver this, you will lose the visitors.

Tip#4: Create a Sensation

Try to create a promotion or sensation on your web such as a USD1000 reward for the one thousandth visitor, or a special link to a download for the hundredth visitor. Alternatively you can set up contests and agents on your blog that your visitors can participate in and they will come back again to see the results.

Tip#5: Subscriber Rewards

Give away frequent gifts and downloads for your loyal subscribers. This is one way to get them to join in the subscribers list.  The bigger the number of subscribers you have the more success you can expect from your blogging work.

Tip#6: Visit Other Blogs

Go out and visit other blogs in your niche. Try to post friendly comments and invite the blogger and the visitors of those blogs to visit yours. If you can post enticing informative and friendly posts you can attract some of their visitors to come visit yours.

Tip#7: Humor

You can use humor as a way to make your visitor enjoy their visit. Nothing beats a humorous post that can gauge a good laugh from the visitors.  When they feel good chances are they will return to your site and you get a loyal visitor. Be sure not to use offensive jokes though and always so for the safer side when you are unsure, you don’t want to antagonize anyone in the virtual world and end up making enemies.

These are seven tips you can sue to make your blogs popular. There are many other creative ways how you can achieve this but you can start your journey by following these tips we share.  It won’t be long before you have a steady stream of visitors to your site.

Five Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Setting up a new blogs is relatively easy compared to setting up a full-blown website.  With blogs, you don’t need to learn complicated programming languages or discover how to make file transfers between servers and the protocols that comes along with it.  Blogs let you be a part of the World Wide Web in a fraction f the time it takes to get a website up and running. But when you finally are ready with your new blog and looking fro ways to monetize it, the first issue that is of primary importance is how to drive traffic to your new blog.

Driving traffic to a new site, irrespective of blogs or site, is a totally different feat to master. 

There are many ways how you can drive traffic to a website and here are the top five ways.

1. Blog and Ping

Blogs can use the luxury of ping system where you get to “ping” or let the search engines know that there is a new post being made, or fresh content to be indexed.  As soon as you ping the engines, you will get the spiders running to your site and checking out your new content.  If those are fresh and original, the spiders will index it and store them in the search engine cache.  Whenever someone searches for a term or keyword that is listed on these pages, your page will tend to show up displaying the search result as being relevant to the term being searched.  Traffic from the search engines are highly relevant and are much coveted by the site owners.

2. Blog Directories

Blogs have their own blog directories for you to list your own blog as a way to drive traffic from these sites.  Directories are frequented by thousands of people everyday and this is a great way to drive some of that traffic to your site.

3. Blogs Carnivals

Blogs carnival is another way of channeling traffic to your site. With blog carnivals, you actually get to introduce your blogs to the group of people with similar interests and they would come and visit your blog if they are interested.  This is a great way to get some traffic to your site. Carnivals are a great way to get traffic to a new site.

4. Blog Comments

Visit other blogs in your niche and post intelligent comments on those blogs. The visitors to those blogs will be seeing those posts you can make and if they are good, they would click back on your link and visit yours as well. 

5. Forums

Participating in forums is another good way to drive traffic and build loyal visitors to your blogs. People who join highly targeted forums have similar interests to yours and would likely be inetersted in your offer to visit your blog. Start by looking for five forums related to your niche and then join them.  Participate in the discussion and post a link back in your signature file.  Every time you make a post, the forum members would see your message and the signature link back to your blogs.  If the posts are beguiling and interesting, they would most likely click on the link back to your site as well.

These are extremely simple ways to drive traffic to your blogs without spending too much money on paid methods of channeling traffic.

How to Use Blogs to Drive Traffic to Your Site

Business blogs or blogs created by business organizations are getting very popular these days.  As more people realize just how powerful blogs can be for many reasons, more webmaster are more than ready to inculcate blogs into their website platform. Blogs can be used to dive traffic t your main website and here are some reasons why

Reason #1: Dynamic

No one wants to be associated with a dull and lifeless website with a persona attached to it.  Blogs that has life and comes with a real person who is behind those pages is more attractive to the visitors. People are more willing to fork out money to be spent on websites that hey are confident will be responsive towards any form of queries of troubles they may face when using those products and services.

Reason #2: Search Engine

The search engines love new contents and blogs have the uncanny ability to ping the search engines every time a new post is being made to the blogosphere. Not surprisingly, blogs are indexed faster than static web pages. Pages from a blog are believed to be able to rank better on the search engines rather than static pages on a website.  Traffic from the search engines is the most targeted one around, and has the highest conversion rate in the online world; this makes it exceptionally enticing for webmaster to use blogs to drive traffic from his source.

Reason #3: Ease of Maintenance

Blogs come equipped with its own internal linking system and will automatically update all related links and internal pages every time a new post is made.  This is different in static pages where you have to manually link the pages together and create a new version of the site map if those pages were changed in any way.

Reason #4: Blog Directories

Blogs can be listed on directories that would give them the additional traffic. Every webmaster dreams of having tons of traffic daily to their websites and having an active blogs that is listed on blogs directories can certainly add to that amount. There are hundreds and thousands of blogs directories on the Internet that relates to any particular niche and by listing on as many of these would certainly give you that additional traffic you need.

Reason #5: Links

Pages from blogs are easily linked to by others as a form of reference as they are fresh information and highly relevant to the latest development happening in any particular industry. This offers a highly enticing form of link baiting where one successful post may be inked to by hundreds or even thousands of other blogs related to the topic in question which would give free link back to the site. Links pointing to the site will raise its rank on the search engines, which means more traffic to the website as a result.

These are just five reasons why people use blogs to drive traffic to a website.  There are many advantages to having on blog on your main website or on a separate platform that is pointing to it.

Why Use a Business Blog

Business organizations who are already having a successful online presence may wonder why it is vitally important to have an online presence in spite of the current successes they are enjoying.  Business blogs are crucial to ensure the successes they currently enjoy can be maintained and the customer base that is already formed will continue to expand and grow.

Blogs can be a meaningful addition to an already successful site and adds value that would not be possible without the use of a business blog.

Here are the top five reasons why a business blog is crucial for today’s online enterprise.

1. Personality

Sites that have a real person behind it will stand out in comparison with other sites that are static. People want security and having a real person behind those texts and graphics that is willing to respond to their queries and problems is certainly very assuring. Blogs lets your visitors post comments on those posts and you can respond to0 them, this creating a special kind of rapport that is not possible with a static website.

2. Updated Content

People want the latest information and news and love new updates that they can check in often.  Blogs lets you have a great way to connect with your visitor and post relevant and fresh information that you can share with your visitors.

3. Search Engine Optimization

All webmasters know that 80% of the web traffic visitors come from search engines.  This is the best way to drive targeted traffic to your site.  People who are looking or specific products and services would use the search engines to look for it and so making a presence on these platforms is a fantastic way to drive targeted traffic to your site.  Blog pages are indexed more easily then static pages and this is a great way to get on the search engine without too much hassle.

4.  Traffic

It is easy to channel traffic to a blog rather than a static website.  Blogs have the unique ping function, that would let you ping the search engines whenever a new post is made and thus get the search engine spiders running to your site. If the spot is new and fresh then your pages will get indexed by these spider programs and you stand a good chance of appearing on the search engines whenever a search is made for that keyword.  

5. Maintenance

Blogs are very easy to maintain and internal links are automatically created as soon as the post is published.  This is not possible in static HTML pages, where you have to manually link them together to create a logical sitemap.  It takes time and effort and wastes too much time on the technical aspect when you should be focusing on the running of your business.

Business blogs are fast becoming an indispensable part of the online entrepreneurship and a concept embraced y many large organization such as Microsoft and the Sun Microsystems. If these Internet giants that has well-established names are using business blogs as part of their business strategy shouldn’t you be considering this as well?

Why Blogging is a Wonderful Way to Create an Online Presence

Blogging is a great way to add new content to your website on a regular basis without the hassles of complex programming commands and file transfer protocols.  For the newbie, nothing can be as frustrating as the inability to get you site up and running. Add to that the task of regular updating contents and you have real challenge at hand! Blogs are lifesaver for these group of individuals or webmaster who wish to create an online presence without the need to master complicated programming languages and technical know-how’s.

How it All Began

Blogging starts as an activity of a small group of pioneers back in the early 1990’s as a way to keep each other updated of the current progress and developments.  What started as a convenient way to share ideas became a world wide sensation as more and more people come to know the wonderful platform blogs offer to anyone with a computer and Internet access.

The explosion of blogging activity started early in the mid 1990’s and continues to soar in popularity as with more free blogging platform made available to people from Internet giants such as Google and Wordpress. The free platform offers anyone with the desire to create an online presence to start a virtual log on virtually any topic under the sun that they have a passion for and they can share those pages with the rest of the world.  It gave a deep sense of satisfaction to many blogger who do it simply for the sheer pleasure of blogging.

And then people learn to monetize these blogs.  This creates another revolution as the craze to develop more and more blogs for revenues continue to grow. Many creative ways to earn money from blogging activities were developed and shared.  People are starting to generate real big money from these seemingly trivial hobbies and the blogging industry for money was born.  Now blogging is equated with pure profits and steady income that can reach beyond six figures a month! New strategies are created and people learn to navigate their way though challenges to reach their ultimate goal, to make money from this blogging work.

More Reasons to Blog

Blogs continues to rise in number and currently, there are millions of blogs worldwide competing for attention from the online users.  To be successful in blogging, one need to find out the real reason and motive behind their blogging activities and make sure they are fulfilling those goals. Some blog for the pure pleasure of blogging, and other do it for monetary gains.  People are using blogs in a variety of ways.  Blog is a way to communicate you interest ad thought with the rest of the world without revealing yourself. Additionally, you can get your views out there in the blogosphere while being anonymous at the same time.

The Future of Blogs

Until the next revolution arrives with an even more enticing platform than blogging, this activity is expected to rise in popularity and will continue to be a popular way to express views and opinions share idea, make money, and share opportunities and for a dozen other reasons that only the blogger himself would know.

The future of blogs are bright and shining and it is expected that blogs will soon evolve into a new application that will enhance its application through the use of multimedia, interactivity, real-time applications and many more new features that would make it even more compelling for everyone to own a blog.