The What,
Why and How of Business Blogs
© 2006
Jason OConnor
Blog is short for Web Log or Weblog and the Blogosphere
is the online blog world, some parts of which are hyperlinked extensively
to each other.
This is the Wikipedia definition: Blog is short for
weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently
updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally
represent the personality of the author or the Web site.
I recommend that you read lots of people's blogs to
learn what blogs are. Go to your favorite search engine and type
in the word 'blog' and the subject you're interested in. For example,
'web design blog', or 'blog music' , or 'sports blog'. You'll find
lots of blogs that way.
Blogs have become a way in which regular, non-technical
people can post information to the Web as easily as they can access
it.
Why are blogs so important?
Well, they're not that important, yet. But they could
be soon, and most likely will be. In fact, some would argue that
they are already vital in today's Web business world. I am not ready
to agree to that yet, but it is becoming more obvious to me over
time that blogs can no longer be ignored in business.
Online businesses can benefit from blogging by taking
advantage of a vehicle for easily posting new, original, and business-related
content on a regular basis.
Here are some more business benefits of blogging:
• Blogs help to position you and/or your company
as experts and leaders in your industry.
• They're interactive in nature. At the end of each blog entry
is usually a link that allows anyone to add their own comments to
your blog entries. This allows your customers and potential customers
to make comments about your products or services or ask you questions
to help them in their buying process.
• Blogs are marketed easily and quickly by their RSS feeds
• Blogs allow you to stress your choice of products, services,
relevant news stories, quotes, pictures and more with your audience,
customers and potential customers.
• People are generous with adding links to your blog if the
content is good, especially within their own blogs. More links means
more traffic and better search engine rankings.
Here are some ways in which you can make revenue
from your blog:
1. Selling advertisements. Whether you use banners
or text links, if your site draws a regular audience interested
in your blog topics or theme, try to offer ad space to organizations
that are looking to market to your audience. In fact, if your blogs
becomes really popular then advertisers will call you.
2. Offering Google's AdSense. Google's website explains, "Google
AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes
to display relevant Google ads on their website's content pages
and earn money." learn more about AdSense.
3. Affiliate Programs. Affiliate programs allow Web sites who provide
links to your site to receive payments or reciprocal advertising
in exchange for promoting your Web site. In the case of blogging,
this is reversed, where you post links within your blog, and collect
money from the owners of those links when they result in a click-through
and sale.
Here are some websites where you can get your blog listed in:
• BlogWise - http://www.blogwise.com
• Blog Search Engine - http://www.blogsearchengine.com
• Blog Hub - http://www.bloghub.com
• Blog Daisey - http://www.blogdaisey.com
• Get Blogs - http://www.getblogs.com
• Is Blogs - http://www.lsblogs.com
How to blog for business:
First you need to get blogging software. You can choose
to create a blog that is housed on another site such as http://www.blogger.com
(which is a blog service) or you can host it on your own Web server.
I recommend the latter since the links that are developed by others
pointing to your blog won't be counted in the search engines. This
is because the links are attributed to domains, so a link to http://MyNewBlog.blogger.com
gives a link credit to blogger.com and not your domain.
If your blog is a business blog, you really ought
to host your own blog as opposed to using a blog service. You'll
need the extra functionality and control.
If you plan on hosting your own blog and if you plan
to use a UNIX Web server platform then you need to go with blogging
software such as Movable Type, for example. If you have a Microsoft
Web server platform for your site then you'll need software such
as BetaParticle blog.
Next you'll need a database to hook your blog up to.
The database is what stores the blog entries, among other things.
If you don't know if you have a database on or connected to your
website server, or if you don't know how to hook up your blog to
your database, contact your host company or Web server administrator
for help.
Once you have the blog set up on your domain (for
example http://www.MyWebsite.com/blog) and you've hooked it up to
a live database, you can start blogging. Generally, each entry is
also a day. So you can write a new entry every day, or whenever
you want, and that entry will show up on the blog at the top, moving
older entries below.
You ought to think of a theme for your blog. In other
words, your blog could be about your personal experiences in the
industry you're in. It could be about your company's product reviews,
or new services. It could be about your thoughts and opinions about
issues related to your industry. It could be a place where you regularly
find and list new resources to help others in your industry. The
list is endless. But be sure to stick to a theme and be original.
You want to offer something of value to your website visitors.
Sticking to theme helps you position yourself for
future advertisers and also makes for better reading for your visitors.
Furthermore, you want to give a good impression with your blog and
with each and every entry if you want it to augment your online
business. Finally, sticking to a theme helps with the search engines
since it's believed that engines determine website themes and use
this information for ranking.
Of course your blog could be about personal things
too. Many blogs are just that, an online journal. But since we're
interested in Web business here, I am discussing business blogs
only.
What's great is that blogs get indexed easily and
quickly by search engines. Each entry is another "page"
that can be potentially listed in Google for example, which will
drive more traffic to your site.
Another neat thing about running a blog once it's
set up is that you do not need to be technical at all to make regular
entries. This is helpful if you want to delegate the writing to
someone else, since technical skills won't be a prerequisite. This
allows you to have the most qualified person regarding the blog's
theme and hopefully the best writer actually making the entries.
Be creative. Add images to your blog entries to spice
things up a bit. Although blogging can be lonely, keep at it. Sometimes
it seems like you're just writing new entries each day for yourself
only. It may be a while before someone chooses to add a comment
to one of your entries. You may not hear from anyone for a long
time. But that doesn't mean people aren't reading it. In fact, check
your website statistics to see just how many people are visiting
your new blog. As you add more entries, get your blog listed on
other sites and market your blog. It will build, and eventually
you'll have a nice following of engaged readers.
Most importantly, be sure to pepper your entries with
calls to action. For example, if your business blog is attached
to your travel website and the blog's theme is traveling and finding
great travel deals all over the world, make sure you add a link
to an entry that points people to a travel special you're running
on your website. What would be even better is a blog entry about
the fantastic vacation you took to Hawaii and included at the end
was a link to cheap Hawaii vacation deals on your website.
Jason OConnor
Copyright 2006
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