The What, Why and How of Business Blogs
by Jason OConnor
Published on this site: May 20th, 2006 - See
more articles from this month
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
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. Here is a great list of various blog software: http://www.lights.com/weblogs/tools.html
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 is President of Oak Web Works, LLC http://www.oakwebworks.com/,
an e-strategy firm and enjoys reading Sports, Music & Tickets
blog http://www.bestshowticketslasvegas.com/blog/
Reach him at: [email protected]
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