I’ve been blogging now for approximately 2 years, and I’m surprised at the amount of traffic that I get from my weblog and the range of individuals who inform me that they first heard about me from my weblog in place of my website. The word weblog is derived from the time period “internet log,” or an online diary or magazine. If the HBO collection “Sex and the City” were being filmed these days, Carrie Bradshaw might be a blogger in addition to a columnist, I suppose. Why? As she studies her revelations approximately existence, love, and relationships, she should post them to her weblog for the world to see and comment upon.
Blogging has opened internet site creation to almost everybody because it takes very little know-how to get a weblog up and go for walks. In truth, many service enterprise proprietors are using a weblog platform as their primary internet site, with some of them developing static pages as you would find on a traditional internet site, while others are using the forum as a weblog and are posting updates often.
1. Search engines love blogs. The approach that appears to be attractive to engines like google today is often up to date content. I can log-in to my weblog at the beginning of the afternoon and publish a put up. Within 24 hours, I’ll get a notification from my Google indicators account that Google has indexed that submitted.
2. Content may be disbursed speedily. If you teach your site visitors to enroll in your weblog via updating services like Bloglines or Feedblitz, they may be notified within hours of any recent posts for your blog.
3. Little net programming know-how is needed. Once your blog is installed, it relies on logging into your account, typing the data for you to publish, including graphics or pics as wished, and posting your put up on your blog.
4. Reader comments. Your readers can give you statements and remarks approximately your posts nearly right away once you login access. Blogs are a top-notch way to interact with your target market.
Are ezines and conventional websites dead? No, due to the fact people devour statistics in another way. Some are auditory rookies and prefer to pay attention to the information (the terrific target audience for podcasting and audio shape of running a blog), a few choose to get hold of updates as they’re published (weblog readers), at the same time as others like a solid, desk-bound medium to which they could refer while they are equipped (readers who archive ezines or bookmark web pages).
How do you start to blog? Here are 10 easy steps you could observe:
1. Blogging platform. The easiest way to get started is to use the unfastened carrier determined at Blogger.Com or WordPress.Com. The capability to customize your blog is confined to the loose services, so I urge my clients to join Typepad.Com, host your weblog for you on their servers or purchase a web hosting account wherein WordPress may be established. The downloadable version of WordPress is positioned at WordPress.Org and is freed from the fee if you want to install WordPress yourself on your web hosting account. I use Typepad for my weblog, so many of my examples will relate completely to blogs hosted on that platform.
2. Name. What do you want to call your weblog? Blog names tend to be interest-getting and off-beat. However, I encourage my customers to use key phrases crucial to their enterprise while naming their blog for service organizations. You will even want to acquire a the.Com version of your blog’s call or your weblog’s name with the word “blog” attach as your weblog URL. After you have got installation your blog, your weblog provider can give you extra info about a way to map your domain on your blog. (Note: You do not need to definitely forward your blog in your area name, which influences your man’s URLs or woman blog pages).
3. Look and Layout. How many columns do you need to show? Do you need hyperlinks to static pages? What colors do you want to use? How approximately a signup box for a free giveaway? Should you operate one of the templates provided or have something custom designed? Do you want your blog data displayed? Do you need to be the most influential writer, or do you need to permit others to make posts, as well? There are many questions you may be asked inside the startup section about the look of your weblog. A Typepad weblog permits you to change your mind about your format at a later date. The first-rate way to determine your blog’s appearance is to take a look at the layout of other blogs and decide what appeals to you.
4. Widgets. There are several widgets or add-on programs that you can include in your weblog. Check your blog software program’s website for more info approximately what functions you’d like to upload for your weblog. At a minimum, you will want to provide site visitors more than one approach to get hold of weblog updates via various updates, or feeder offerings, as cited earlier.
5. Comments. The most modern sp*am making its rounds online is comment sp*am. Don’t those men have anything better to do? Set your feedback to moderated; you have to approve any remarks in your weblog earlier than the publish is going live. You’ll keep yourself self-amazing many headaches and time through deciding to slight the comments. Once you have gotten this far, you ought to have a fundamental blog established and are prepared to begin to blog.
6. Blog content material. The time has arrived — your weblog is ready to accept posts. What do you write approximately? You can put up content-rich articles of interest for your goal marketplace, comment on a cutting-edge event, solution questions out of your site visitors, gift a earlier than and after case, have a look at outlining how your business helped a person, and many others. Keep your eyes and ears open for information applicable to your target audience. I use my blog to bring about the information that doesn’t match nicely with my publication layout or something that arises between newsletter troubles. I post my ezine content material to my blog, as well.
7. Posting frequency. Blogs are much like gardens — they want to water frequently and require a little care and attention. For maximum effectiveness, you want to put up numerous times per week to your weblog. I attempt to post four times according to the week in my blog — 2 posts are objects I run throughout or comment upon as noteworthy inside the moment, and the latter 2 are the contents of my ezine posted over 2 days. And, reply to readers’ comments when they arrive — blogs offer a great forum for ongoing discussions.
8. Blog traffic. In the identical manner in which you publicize your website URL on the whole lot you do, you may similarly advertise your weblog. Submitting your blogs to blog directories is every other way to get traffic. A complete list of blog directories, RSS Top fifty-five, has been compiled by Robin Good. Searching out blogs that attract your target marketplace and making feedback to the one’s posts may also force site visitors on your weblog. Another trick is to publish your weblog on social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, and del.Icio.Us.
9. Measure the results. Like Typepad, some blog applications have integrated statistics so that you can view information about your blog visitors. Some of the feed/updater applications have integrated facts as well, or you may install a metrics software as an upload-on to your weblog. Review your statistics often to determine how lots visitors your weblog generates.
10. Rinse and repeat. Don’t allow the newness of blogging put on-off. Blogging is powerful best in case you retain your blogging efforts frequently over an extended time period. I realize numerous individuals who have gotten ebook deals from their blog and radio and TV interviews. Just think — your blog is probably your price ticket to reputation!
