Do you like what you are doing, maybe the sport that you play or want to share family photos? Well you should blog about it. We are entering the phase of Web 2.0, where every user even person wants to know what another person is doing. Especially if they do not know that person! Strange? But that is the case, why do you think we have all these social communities such as Myspace, FaceBook, hi5, etc. We want to communicate more and get to know more people.
Well start a blog! A blog is similar to a diary and yet provides information to the reader. It entertains them and provides them with useful entertainment. Whether it be learning how to surf, viewing photos of a family trip, or earning a living online.
For small businesses blogs is a great tool to be using so users can understand more about a product. Take for example cNet.com they have a blog as well. They discuss new product releases, secrets, tweaks, etc for the user so they can learn on their spare time.
Blogs also drive traffic to your website. They can appear on other blogs, and if you combine your blog with your email marketing techniques you will find that your traffic can increase dramatically. You can bring it to the attention of everybody in your list without any risk of spamming. Blogging presents you with many marketing opportunities you would not have without it. RSS is one method of presenting your blog to a very wide audience, and since RSS feeds are accepted voluntarily, your audience will be focused on the theme of your website.
As a marketing tool, blogs have some unique characteristics. First, blogs are easy – easier than a newsletter for example. They can be added to and updated at any time from anywhere. Second blogs have a long shelf-life. They stay on the web until you take them off. This contrasts to a newsletter which has a very short life – you send it out, it might get read, and then it’s gone. Unless you’re just posting “deglossed†marketing materials, blogs have credibility. Whether for personal or business blogs, viewers expect to see in a blog, and most blogging provides, a frank, often personal, perspective on some topic. Maintain Viewers respect this. a good blog and your credibility goes up! Blogs are also a good source of fresh content for your site and search engines love them.
It is important to understand that your blog is a permanent record of your website, and can be accessed at any time as long as you keep it active. It can be useful to check on what your website content was at this time last year, so that you can compare traffic statistics with content. The term blog is short for web log, and is, in effect, a log of your website content.
A work at home Mom, Heather, has created a blog and ask readers to ask themselves a couple questions before starting a blog.
Do you enjoy the topic you’ve chosen?
- You will be blogging about this topic day in and day out for hopefully a really long time. Is it something you enjoy? You wouldn’t catch me for example blogging on fishing of any kind, even if there was money to be made in the niche. 😉 I’m not a fisherman and know nothing about it.
- Do you have a good base knowledge on the subject and are you willing to learn more to become and expert in it?
This is a great question that should be answered. Because if you do not like what you are writing, your post will have an opinionated thought to it and not a strong emphasis on why you are writing. Specifically writing on the topics that you enjoy will want you to write everyday. In which you should especially if you are just starting. I recommend Yaro Starok Blog Blueprint to read on how to create pillar articles and trackbacking. His blueprint to blogging is a great tool in itself as it teaches you how to start to get traffic, readers, what to write, etc. I wish I had this blueprint 3 months ago.
Another sentence Heather talks about is Monetizing your Blog. Do you want to earn some potential income from your blog?
Do you plan to monetize your blog and make money from it? How are you going to do that?
- Are you going to place advertising on your blog?
- Promote affiliate products?
- Selling your own products or service?
- Selling information products?
Why not earn from the readers that are reading your topic. If you are talking about skateboarding why not try to affiliate with your local skateshop or an internet skateshop? Just make sure your ads are relevant to your blog, because you do not want to show ads about Gardening when your blog is all about Surfing, there is NO chance someone will click on that ad. The reason is it is not relevant to your blog. You want to show similar ads, this is where adsense comes in. Adsense Pays Per Click (PPC), and shows relevant ads on your page. Lots of bloggers start to use adsense in the beginning to monetize their blogs.
So before you want to start to blog ask yourself several questions on why you want to blog!
Why do you Blog?
