To Blog Or Not To Blog - A Laymans View

We have now entered the world of blogs! Sounds kind of Harry Potterish, doesn't it?

If you're over 20 years old, you probably think this is some crazy sci-fi phenomenon, or I've simply lost my mind. Don't fret, the vast majority of people don't know what a blog is all about and more importantly, why it matters to them.

If you're under 20 you can stop reading because you probably know all about blogs, and the value they have in sharing information. You've been trading game-breaking codes, South Park clips, and jokes through blogs for months now or maybe even years.

In a recent article, Johnson Ong quips "I have a blog. Doesn't everyone? You mean you don't? How uncool are you? According to Merriam-Webster, 'blog' was the word of the year last year. Not having your own blog is like not having your own Gmail account. What? You don't have Gmail either? My God, what are you? A caveman!"

Over or under, cool or uncool, I want to address blogs from a business standpoint, and the tremendous value they can deliver to business. There are several reasons that developing a blog is a tremendous strategy for any business.

1) It will increase your web presence significantly the search engines love blogs!

2) It will allow your business to educate customers and prospects about certain subjects, and appear as experts

3) It will raise your business profile with your vendors and other strategic partners, if they are invited to contribute to your blog

4) Other blogs can, and will, take information from your blog, and you will increase your exposure to anyone that participates in the 'taking' blog

5) Blogs accept subscribers, and everyone that subscribes to your blog will be constantly updated (pinged) by you with current information

So What is It?

The full name for a blog is a weblog. It's a repository for articles, newsletters, information, and discussion boards. It's like a 'what's new' page on the internet in whatever subject you choose. When people research any topics that you have on your blog, they may very well end up on your blog through their search. If you've done it right, your blog is of course, fully branded to your company, and linked to your main website.

If you keep current articles, and information on your blog, you will receive hits from people looking for information about those subjects. You will also receive hits from other blogs, and they will then distribute your information to their own audiences.

You will receive hits from contributors of articles or news items, as well as people looking for those particular contributors through a search engine.

Hopefully, you get the picture. Your web traffic should increase exponentially through the proper use of a blog.

Business Blogs

Business blogs have yet to sweep the business community, which presents a significant opportunity to adapt the technology to any business. It will allow you to share expertise and knowledge with a much larger audience, which should create a significant benefit.

There is specific blogging software, and you will have to learn how to create an effective and valuable blog. You will also have to learn how to acquire and produce current industry information to populate your blog with articles that will maintain interest and value. Yes, there is an element of work to it you didn't think it was free, with no effort required, like the mumps did you?

As you add current information to your subject area, or to secondary subject areas that you may include in your blog, your chances of more hits are higher. If you continually contribute self-generated articles and news items to the appropriate subject areas, your chances also increase. In addition, there are sources that allow you to publish their materials, which can be used to increase the value of the blog, and therefore the likelihood of being found on the good old inter-web.

So How Does It Work?

If you still push the Pause/Break button in the upper right-hand corner of your keyboard to request permission from your boss for a visit to the bathroom, you can skip this part. Otherwise, it's really not too hard to follow.

Without getting too technical, there are many web robots (bots), crawlers, and spiders, and similar technologies that have RSS Reader capability. That's the stuff that is specific to blogs. They are basically looking for news, and blogs have that news.

If you do it right, these bots, crawlers, and spiders find your blog, and send information elsewhere, which is just what you want. Your blog is basically yelling at these web 'beasts' to "come on in and take this great stuff I've got."

For example, these web 'animals' include yahooslurp, googlebot, feedstercrawler, pubsub, syndic8, msnbot, newsgator, CP30, & R2D2.

O.K., the last two were Luke Skywalker's buddies, but the rest are real.

It will take 4 to 6 weeks for the search engines to adjust rankings but the ultimate result will be that you will progress up the ladder in the engines in the various topic areas that you feature. When people are searching for technologies or subjects that are being discussed in your blog, they will find you on the search engines.

That should be a hint that you should have content on your blog about the subjects that are most often searched.

When a subject is searched that is covered by one of your branded, self-generated articles, your fully branded information may be pulled to another blog, or to a specific person doing a search in that topic area. You can post that same article on your website, and it won't go anywhere. However, on your blog it gets a shot of super juice, and may just get pushed through any number of doors.

Linking The Benefits Increase Your Brand

When website owners and bloggers (yeah, I'm now a blogger!) think of linking, they are usually referring to inbound links from external websites and blogs. For example, if you had a link to your website on the website of another business.

While adding more inbound links on external sites is important, there is also a sort of 'reverse' link strategy associated with blogs.

Your blog's incoming links will provide another benefit when someone is referred to an article in your blog from another website. For example, through GooglePageRank, the receiving page (you) gets a boost up the search engine when that happens, which helps the blog overall by boosting the popularity of the blog, which in turn is what increases the search results, which in turn drives up the search engine rankings.

What!? I wrote it and I have to read it six times to really follow what I'm saying.

Basically, the more people that visit your blog when they come from other sources, the more likely it is for people to find you when searching for a whole myriad of topics. That type of benefit does not exist with normal website traffic, because those visits don't effect web site rankings on the search engines. But blog traffic that is through a link from another site will drive you up the search engines. There that's much more clear!? As clear as fog in a low-lying bog. Ouch!

Web designer Sue Studios says; "Blogs are highly strategic, here-to-stay desktop tools that can strengthen relationships, share knowledge, increase collaboration, and improve branding. Think of the potential for your e-newsletter strategies:

1) Articles within newsletters can be linked to a blog, extending life and creating a massive conversation

2) You can offer a bi-directional forum to customers to get true, personal opinion on your products and services

3) Company experts can start a blog and become industry experts, helping your company edge out competition and, through this interactive forum, draw customers into another exchange of information and thoughts."

Well, it's snowing out so I think I'll go blogging! Wait, is that something you do in the snow, or is it something you do to stay out of the snow?!

Or is it a Celtic dance? Or should the Steelers have blogged that kick Sunday? I'm confused.

Dennis Schooley is the Founder of Schooley Mitchell Telecom Consultants, a Professional Services Franchise Company. He writes for publication, as well as for schooleymitchell.blogging,com and franchises.blogging.com, in the subject areas of Franchising, and Technology for the Layman. http://www.schooleymitchell.com, 888-311-6477, dschooley@schooleymitchell.com.

---

RSS - How to Promote and Profit From Your Feed

Let me ask you three questions to get you thinking.... Read More

RSS more effective than email

Long have I been proclaiming the effectiveness of RSS as... Read More

The Full Circle of RSS Marketing Power

RSS is a many-in-one marketing & publishing tool, although unfortunatelly... Read More

7 Tips for Successful Blogging

So, you have a blog! Do you have traffic? Do... Read More

Blogs are an Art Form that Takes Practice to do Well

Writing?Blogs?Blogs are on-line journals where people express themselves through writing.... Read More

What Blog Can Make Money?

How to blog to make money from it?Truly the whole... Read More

Blogs for Kids

Flush out the writer in children. Blogging could draw out... Read More

Increase Traffic to Your Blog from Search Engines - The Top 5 Tips

Your favorite thing about having a blog may soon be... Read More

How To Profit From Your Home Business Blog

A blog is a simple tool which all affiliate marketers... Read More

Update Your Websites Content Automatically 24/7 Using RSS(Real Simple Syndication) and RSS Feeds

RSS(Real Simple Syndication) is the newest form of content syndication... Read More

Using RSS for Publishing and Syndication

There are two reasons why you would want to use... Read More

Get Website Visitors From Blogs

Blogs are becoming more and more popular. The word "blog"... Read More

Creating A Basic RSS Feed For Your Site

The future of RSS Feeds and internet marketing is looking... Read More

Use Blogging to Manage Your Entire Web Sites Content

Blogging is a term that means different things to different... Read More

5 Easy Ways To Use RSS On Your Site

You hear so much talk about RSS these days on... Read More

The Blog Revolution: How To Use Blogs to Generate Solid Web Profits

Blogs were originally only meant to be 'Web Logs', or... Read More

10 Reasons to Put RSS on Your Site!

RSS and Blogs are the topics of the moment. Seems... Read More

Prescription Blogs are Helping to Educate the Consumers on Prescription Consumption

Blogs are being used on a more consistent basis due... Read More

RSS Explained

What is RSS? To begin with, it's one of those... Read More

Is Blogging For You? Take This Quick Quiz

What The Hell Is A Blog Anyway?The word 'blog' is... Read More

How to Create an RSS Feed

An RSS news feed can be used to communicate with... Read More

Profit Pulling Niche Blogs with Wordpress

When it comes to building and creating profit pulling niche... Read More

Bloggin for a Reason

For some it's just a fun thing to do, while... Read More

So You Have a Blog, Now What Do You Do With It? Blog Basics

(This article assumes that you have already set up a... Read More

Internet Communication

Email, Instant Messaging, Blogs, RSS, Forums and Listservs: What's Next?How... Read More

An Example of a Business Blog: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Blog

Think of a product or a service that your business... Read More

RSS FEEDS: Whither Thou Goest?

I open up the 'Feed Reader' every day on my... Read More

How to Cash In on Blogs

Over the past year or so, more and more webmasters... Read More

Blogs and RSS - Why Do I Need This Stuff?

If you've been under a rock for the last year... Read More

The Language of Blogs

I read over a lot of blogs each week, casually... Read More

Real Estate Marketing with RSS

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an increasingly popular marketing method... Read More

Easy RSS for Bloggers

Do you need help adding RSS feeds to your blogger?... Read More

6 Reasons Why RSS Beats Email Marketing

A brand new marketing tool predicted to replace email is... Read More