19th Oct 2007
Blogging…not just for geeks and college students!
It’s the latest craze for business on the internet. Sharing your thoughts and wisdom on a particular subject or subjects.
What is a blog and more importantly…what can it do for my business?
First let’s define a blog. A blog is short for web log – a frequently updated journal or diary that is instantly published on the internet. Lately blogs have come into mainstream fashion in the news and political arenas, but there are blogs for practically anything, so much so that even Google has now built a specialty blog site (http://blogsearch.google.com/).
Compared to a regular website, a blog has several advantages, most notably:
- Easy to maintain – no special tools like Dreamweaver or FrontPage, nor do you need to FTP anything. All the necessary tools to publish content are built in.
- Easy to create & setup – most blogging tolls are very easy to setup on your existing website and there are a wealth of free blogging services such as blogspot (https://www.blogger.com/start).
- SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY – That’s correct…blogs have lots of SEO features built in (i.e. each post is typically it’s own URL, categories and/or tags, and updated content make them more likely to be indexed if the search engines find lots of fresh content each time).
- Interactivity with customers – It’s a great way to interact with your existing and potential customers. If you make widget cast molds and blog about the various methods of “care and cleaning of widget molds” then you have now added value for existing customers as well as a forum for feedback (via blog comments).
Best of all, blogs aren’t tied to a location! If you’re at a conference, you can blog from your hotel about the great things you’ve learned that will enhance your product/service. If it’s a matter of typing, you can even blog by phone (http://www.phoneblogz.com/)!!!
Blogging for business allows you to do more than just plug your product or service, it personalizes your business with the customer allowing you to share your points of view and create a lasting relationship…not just with the people who walk in your door (assuming you have a brick and mortar shop), but the customers a half a world away.
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