Articles

What is it

A blog is a form of online journal that enables you to wax eloquently or less eloquently about a subject of your choice in your professional or personal life, and get responses from readers. Blogs are web pages complete with links, graphics and may even have sound, video clips and podcasts.

Once they were seen as a quick and easy alternative for individuals or companies to publish online without needing a domain name or knowing HTML, blogs quickly became online diaries

Many business sites now feature blogs to solicit user opinions pinpoint trouble spots and the increase readership and referrals to the original website. They can function to build a community of readers or followers. A blog can also take the form of a online newsletter. You can use the blog as an opportunity to educate your potential clients or customers on different aspects of your business or services while asking questions and making comments.

Functions of a Blog

• Attract and retain traffic to a site
• Obtain positive and negative feedback from customer
• Generate links to other pages on the website
• Announce new products or services
• Build brand awareness
• Once there is a strong following you can sell advertising on the blog

Like anything else related to website they take a lot of time and energy, You do need to post about twice a week to keep it lively – a minimum is once a week.

Depending on your marketing strategy you might prefer to host you blog on another site so that links to you site appear to be coming from another source. Google , in particular ranks in bound links from Blogs highly.

While blogs can be a great idea, keep in mind your target audience as with all marketing endeavors. Keep in mind that a lot of people still haven't a clue as to what a blog is. Most blogs are personal diaries and while they are increasing in popularity there is still a long way to go. Not surprisingly most blogs users are under 30. So make sure that the people you want to reach are blogging

Getting the most out of Blogs

Commenting on other people blogs drives traffic to your website or blog. It is helpful to your own website or blog to comment on articles written by other bloggers, remember to offer additional information not criticism. You want to build yourself up as an expert so keep your comments short and pithy.

You may also want to email the Blog owner to ask for a mention on their blog  write an explaining why their readership may be interested in your comments and expertise.

Eventually after you have built up traffic you can look towards advertising, the higher the readership and more hits the more likely that someone will be willing to pay to appear in front of your audience.

In short Blog requires time and work – you can get cash result make it takes time.