5 Reasons Why YOU Should Blog
What Is A Blog?
The term Blog which is short for web log originally became popular back in the 1990’s. Blogs evolved from what used to be called online diaries and were nothing more than people’s day to day accounts of what was happening in their lives.
Blogs which are displayed in reverse chronological order can still have any kind of content but are usually written on a particular topic such as political blogs, travel blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs and niche blogs just to name a few. Blogs are setup in many formats including writing, art (artlog), photography (photoblogs), links (linklog) and sketches (sketchblog). Blogging has also become very popular with businesses and marketers for commercial reasons.
One of the most important parts of any blog and a good demonstration of web 2.0 is the ability for readers to leave comments in the comment section in an interactive format. Other parts of the blog include:
* Header: The top section that contains the title and often a short description and picture to tell the reader what the blog is about. A very important piece.
* Post Title: This is the name given to each blog entry. It’s very similar to the name of a chapter in a book.
* Post: This is the individual entry itself. Can be any length, but professional posts usually consists of about 400 to 700 words. A post also can consist of pictures and/or videos.
* Hyper link - Is a link within a post. Its main purpose is to establish connections to other sites and therefore what is known as the page rank.
There may be other sections such as a list of the categories, recent comments, recent posts and archives.
One of the best things about blogging and what makes it interesting is that each blog can be set up according to the needs and wants of the individual blogger. Every bog is different and represents the individual bloggers unique style.
History of Blogs
Early blogs were nothing more that just extensions of existing web sites. Justin Hall, who began eleven years of personal blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College is considered to be one of the earliest bloggers. In 1998, Jorn Barger coined the term “web log” and by 1999, web sites such as Blogger, which is now part of Google, began to create easier ways of blogging for the average person with no knowledge of HTML.
By 1999, after a slow beginning, blogging quickly gained in popularity. By 2001, manuals on blogging techniques began to appear and tools began to appear to help people build better blogs.
Since 2002, blogs have become increasingly popular for their views on politics and 2003 saw bloggers voicing their opinions on the second Gulf War. By December 2004 the word “blog” was named word of the year by Merriam-Webster. One study found that 32 million Americans read blogs by 2005.
How To Use Blogging to Build Your Business
For anyone starting a business, a blog can be a valuable tool. Blogs have many purposes including:
*Establishing your business as an expert - Blogs are a great way for your business to talk about anything going on within your niche. If your niche is golf, you may want to give your opinion on the latest clubs or golf balls or some other piece of golf equipment. Go ahead, give your expert opinion, before long readers will be coming to you to answer questions on the latest products.
*Promote customer relations - Got a new product or some other piece of information that you want your customers to find out about fast? Post it in your blog.
*Generating leads - Blogs are great for finding new prospects. When someone comes to your blog to read your post, it usually means that they are interested in whatever it is that you sell. The trick now is just to capture their name and email address for further communication.
* Sell your entry level product - What I mean by this is either use your blog to give something away or sell something very inexpensive. By doing this you are establishing a relationship with your prospect without them taking much risk.
* Your blog is also a great traffic director - If you have several products, your blog is a great place to mention them all with not actually having them for sale. If your reader is interested, give them a place to go for more information and maybe even a sale.
As you can see blogging has many purposes and that’s why the blog has come such a long way in such a short time.
