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22nd May 2006
Blogs
Some of you will have heard of and indeed may have
knowledge of Blogs, I feel these could be of great use to us all in
promoting e-lottery. I can across this article and have included it here
for those who want to have a go!
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:
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 questíons 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 traffïc and better search engine rankings
Here Are Some Ways In Which You Can Make Revenue
From Your Blog:
1. 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.
2. 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 monëy." Learn more about AdSense.
3. Affíliate Programs. Affïliate programs
allow Web sites that 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 monëy 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:
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 credít 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 hostíng 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. Find a great list of various blog software at:
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 a 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 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
traffïc 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,
chëck 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.
About The Author
Jason OConnor is President of
Oak Web Works, LLC, an e-strategy firm and enjoys reading
Sports, Music
& Tickets blog. Reach him at:
joconnor888@hotmail.com.
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