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You still don't have a Blog?

Written by: Chris McElroy

Article Overview: Blogging is something everyone has heard about, but most still don't believe they have any need for a blog. They don't feel like posting, they don't like to write, they don't have the time to write a post each day, are all some of the excuses that I hear when I suggest starting a blog to people.

You still don't have a Blog?

by Chris McElroy aka NameCritic

The fastest growing sector of the Internet is blogging. If you feel your company can ignore the hottest method of getting traffic on the web, then you haven't got a clue.

Many people do not understand the power of the blogs. In this article, I will try to explain to you why, if you have not already started a blog, you should start one.

First, some of the reasons you might need a blog. Personally, I recommend you have no less than two blogs. I'll tell you why later in the article.

If you are an individual and new to the web, but want your own website, then a blog is the easiest way to do that. While you learn about putting up your own website, you could be blogging and getting traffic.

Then when you put your website up, you can send that traffic to your new website. You can also use a lot of your blogposts you made as content for your new website.

If you own a company, whether online only, offline only, or both, you can benefit greatly from blogging.

1. You can use the blog to talk to and make announcements to your employees.

2. You can use the blog to update your customers about new offers and announcements.

3. You can use your blog to create a buzz about your website, your company, or new projects.

4. You can use your blog to help push more traffic to your website.

Those are just some of the reasons your company should have a blog. I'll add one more. Blogs have been responsible for taking down Trent Lott for his indiscretions, 60 minutes for their false reports, John Kerry for his stories about his Vietnam war record, and the blogs have taken on mainstream media and won several times.

If simple bloggers can take down these powerful people, what do you think a few bloggers could do to your business if there was ever a scandal or even a simple misunderstanding?

By having your own blog, you get to tell your side of the story. By having your own blog, you are putting out so much positive information about your company, that anyone trying to put out negative information would have a hard time getting it found in the search engines.

Someone searching for your company name would find all you have written. If a negative comment or two is also found, it doesn't seem so important. Without your own blog, they would search your company and likely only find the negative stuff the blogger/s wrote about you.

So, it is simple self-defense to have your own blog, besides all the positive aspects of doing so.

Now, how should I set up my blog? Why should I have two blogs or more? How can I have a blog if I don't have time to post to it everyday? Why should I post to it daily? Those are the next questions I will answer for you.

“How should I set up my blog?” and “Why should I have two or more blogs?”

You can set up your blog inside your own website, or you can set your blog up outside of your website as a whole other identity.

A blog inside your own website is of course completely identified with your company. By posting to it regularly, you are adding new content all the time. Search engines love websites where the content is updated constantly and consistently.

You benefit from more frequent crawls by the search engines due to all that new content you keep adding every day.

A blog outside of your website can be set up for free at someplace like blogger.com, but even if you do that, I still recommend you purchase a domain name for it.

A blog outside of your main website creates another related website that links to your main website. It will get crawled regularly because of the updated content you add daily, just like the one inside your website would. This is new traffic that you can push toward your main website. People that have not or might not have ever found your website would find your blog. Everyone can use more traffic.

Another benefit is that it is an easy way for your company to basically have two websites. If I have two locations and you only have one, my chances of getting search engine placement, PR, and traffic are twice that of your chances.

You can do both. The blog inside your own website will add new content to your website and give you those benefits, while you still get the benefits of the outside blog. Make sure you don't just post the same post in both blogs. That will not help you. They must be distinctly different.

One idea is to use the inside blog for updating your customers about new projects and products you offer and use the outside blog to help you create a buzz about your company, service, or products to the general public. You can probably think of other ways to make the two blogs different that work better for you.

How can I have a blog if I don't have time to post to it everyday?

It's called the autoblog. You email several blogs that have content that is related to your products or services and ask if you can post their RSS Feed daily in your blog. Those that wish to syndicate their content will agree.

They are already posting to their blogs daily. If not, don't ask for their feed. By installing the autoblog software, you log in once per day, press a button, it pulls all the posts from those feeds you got permission to use and posts them into your blog.
I don't recommend that is all you do. You should post to your own blog as much as you possibly can. However, by having those extra feeds, you can keep it updated daily even when you don't have time to post. You are also adding even more relative content everyday that people will want to read and it will keep your readers coming back for more.

The autoblogger includes links to the author’s website and leaves all of his or her credits and links intact, so it benefits them as well. You get content, they get link popularity and maybe some traffic too.

Why should I post to my blog every day?

There are millions of blogs. However, many of them have simply been abandoned after only a few posts, many update about once per month or per week. Those who update every day get crawled more often by the search engines and there are many blog search websites that only include blogs that are updated regularly.

So if you are going to set up a blog, you need to post to it every single day. If you cannot do that, install the autoblogger. That way you will still update your blog daily. It takes me about 5 minutes a day to update the autoblog I own on another website.

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Article Tags: search engines, traffic, traffic



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Re: Best Internet Marketing Strategy - Hi David, I agree about the Blogosphere. You have a smaller group that Blog, but do so on the premise that they think they should, but have never really considered the purpose of their Blog. Then I think there are a few SEO or Internet Marketing types that see Blogging as just another link building strategy. But the largest group of Bloggers, tend to be people who enjoy writing and discussing their topics of interest. Blogging is good for link building, but the true Blogger is a breed apart from the rest. They want to dialog, to debate, to have feedback and they are very willing to link to other worthwhile conversations that are relevant to their topic. I agree with you. These group of Bloggers obviously are passionate about their writing and together, they create huge conversation trails interactive and travel from Blog to Blog. But the evidence is clear with this group that loves what they write about. With comments enabled on a Blog and having a Blog tuned to a specific purpose you already have the evidence of original Social Media.
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