Archive for October, 2009
Introduction to Blog Development
Posted by: | CommentsBlogs for Business
Blogging has come to be considered a highly effective marketing tool. You can easily create awareness of your product and get clients and customers to interact with each other. And not only customers, also those who are relatively new to your product get a platform to ask questions and clear their air about your product.
Moreover, it also increases your website rankings because the blog is constantly being updated, commented on, and discussions are always going on. Because of its sheer activity, the rankings improve, creating more awareness of the product.
The following are the pointers based on which you can blog about your product:
• Never make the blog post too long. Less is more. It must be well written. Long posts tend to get dreary and they are not ‘catchy’ enough for people to sit and go through them. Oh yea, spelling counts!
• Update regularly. Since you don’t need to write long posts, that is not much effort. Ideally, blog 3-7 times a week.
• Be entertaining where required, everyone can do with some light hearted humor, without being derogatory.
• You need not stick only to text. Video and photo blogging are catching on fast and are interesting ways to share your thoughts and make your videos and photographs well known. Plus Google loves videos and photos and they will help you get ranked higher.
• Be yourself. Do not to ape, imitate or copy someone else’s personality or content. You want to build relationships with people and the best way to do that is to be yourself.
These are just a few tips on using Blog for Business. There will be more to come. If you have anything to add please do so!
Introduction to Blog Development
Posted by: | CommentsHow Can Online Blogging Be Profitable to Ordinary Individuals? (Part 3)
Ranking of any website depends on a few factors. It would basically depend on the relevance of the article according to the key words used; the number of times that page has been linked and viewed, etc.
These are quite easy to follow, and if these factors are carefully noted and looked into, the rankings of your website can increase considerably.
The first step is to get your website linked through various other pages. The more the pages are that contain your links, the better ranking they will receive. The second aspect to be kept in mind is how often you update the content on your website.
Frequently edited and updated sites receive higher ranking in search engines than those that have not been looked at by the owners for ages. Always editing the content of your website as a whole may not be an option.
In this case what you can do is add a Blog to your website. A Blog will function as nothing but a forum for people to come and discuss the themes that concern your website too.
It will create a platform, as well as become a journal whereby you can also post updates about your operations and your website. The advantage is that the content on such Blogs will not be restricted only to text, but pictures and videos can be posted too.
The few easy steps as described below will take you through how to create your own blog and what are the things you must look out for:
• Cost can never be a problem because free blogging services are quite popular all over the world. If you choose sites like Blogger or LiveJournal, you are sure to get exactly the kind of platform you are looking for. They are absolutely free.
• If you are not comfortable with web designing techniques, you need not worry. Creating your blog is not as complicated as designing a template for a website. There are a number of free templates available (see What I Will Do For You) which The Blog Builder Guy can install for you. These template sites provide a wide range of templates from which you can choose the one most suited to your tastes. There are also a number of what are called Premium templates. My favorite is iThemes. I used their Flexx Professional to make this site.
• You must also use your discretion while blogging. Especially if you are incorporating your blog within your website, or creating a blog to increase awareness of your product, you need to keep in mind that this is an open forum which is read by all. You do not want to say anything that may end up angering your clients. Politics and religion are the two most controversial themes, and therefore anything about those must be carefully blogged about.
• Anything that is particularly reader friendly and does not anger too many people is considered ‘safe’. If your aim is indeed to increase the ranking of your site, you will have to make sure many people read it. You can do this by making your content user friendly.
• And REMEMBER!! What is said on your blog stays on the internet FOREVER.
• Also keep an eye on what other people write or say on their blogs. This can give you a general idea of what kind of responses those articles receive, and you can get valuable tips from them.
End of Part 3
Introduction to Blog Development
Posted by: | CommentsBlogging in 21st Century: Introduction to Blog Development (Part 1)
Blogging and social networking are inextricably linked in the sense that both contain certain features and certain properties that are common to both. Both are aimed at creating a wide movement as far as multimedia interaction is concerned. Though it is true that blogs can be regulated and kept very private, the main purpose of them is to reach out to a number of people, to have a medium to voice your opinion.
Another similarity is that both these concepts have existed in cyber space for almost a decade now, but in the initial stages both were rather exclusive of one another. Only in the recent times have they been merged, and their similarity in motives truly recognized.
Blogging is essentially done to channel your thoughts out on to an online journal. You also want other people to read what you have written.
This way, you go about coming in touch with people from all over the world who you would not have otherwise known. Similar is the function of social networking. It is a hub where the young and the hearty flock. The chances of getting an audience at such a platform are high.
The origination of the term ‘blog’ is interesting. It was initially called a ‘weblog’ meaning a log or a diary or a journal that helps you to record your thoughts on a day to day basis. In that sense it was rather in its primitive stages and did not turn into an instrument for propaganda immediately. This term was later shortened to blog and this is when free blogging services like Blogger became extremely popular.
After a slow start, blogging rapidly gained in popularity. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years following, being further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog tools:
Bruce Ableson launched Open Diary in October 1998, which soon grew to thousands of online diaries. Open Diary innovated the reader comment, becoming the first blog community where readers could add comments to other writers’ blog entries:
Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJourna in March 1999.
Andrew Smales created Pitas.com in July 1999 as an easier alternative to maintaining a "news page" on a Web site, followed by Diaryland in September 1999, focusing more on a personal diary community.
Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Prya Labs) launched blogger.com in August 1999 (purchased by Google in February 2003)
End of Part 1
What Is a Blog?
Posted by: | Comments
A blog (short for weblog) is a great tool to express your personal thoughts, opinions and to share family news. Here are a few of the uses that have evolved for blogs:
Personal Blogging: a great way to share all the exciting events in your life with your friends and family. After all who doesn’t want to see the latest pics of your cat? You can express your personal views on politics and current events if you want to. And you can encourage others to add comments on your posts thereby developing a dialog with them.
Blogs for Business: Blogs are an inexpensive way to market your business on the internet. You can promote special sales or new products. The blog can also be used as an educational tool to explain why a customer should use your products or services. Blogging is also great way to build a relationship with your customers. From time to time add something personal so they get to know you as a person as well as a business entity. People would rather buy from someone they know than a stranger.
News/Journalism: Most of the popular news organizations have blogs on their website where the news personalities express their personal opinions on current events. And of course it also promotes the news organization by getting readers to their site.
Topic Specific Blogs: Do you want to know about gardening? There are blogs for that! Do you want to know how to rid your dog of fleas? There are blogs for that! There are blogs for just about everything you could imagine and probably a few you don’t want to imagine! Great resources for information and products to solve your problems.
