Blogs

Blogs are the latest development in the world of Internet marketing. Used properly, they can be a great tool for helping to market your articles and get more visibility for your website.

What in the World is a Blog?

"Blog" is short for "web log." A blog is a particular type of website that is structured to resemble a journal in online format. Blogs are frequently updates, sometimes daily, and are used for an enormous variety of reasons by millions of people. Here are just a few examples:

" Personal thoughts " Business updates " Political opinions " Breaking news " Public interaction (many celebrities use blogs to keep in touch with their fans) " Insider advice from anonymous industry sources " Buzz generation for new books or products " Information showcases (especially multi-author blogs)

In general, blogs are casual and conversational. Blog entries are written in the first person and create a far more personal atmosphere than a typical website. The use of blogs has become so popular and commonplace that a whole new subsection of the Internet has been created. Dubbed the "blogosphere," it is a massive interwoven community of bloggers who support and visit each others blogs and spread news throughout the blog network by linking and cross-posting.

If you decide to start a blog to help promote your website, you should be prepared to put quite a bit of effort into maintaining your blog. Frequent posts are not only good for search engines, they are also necessary to maintain your readership. If your blog lies dormant for weeks or months, people will stop visiting and probably won't come back even if you start posting again. Blog readership is based largely on trust, and if you break that trust by deserting your blog, it is difficult-or even impossible-to win that trust back.

Using articles in blogs

Articles are an effective marketing tool to use in conjunction with blogs. However, there are a few things you should keep in mind before you start pasting articles into your blog entries.

The most important thing to remember when dealing with blogs is the intimacy of this form of communication. Blogs connect directly with readers. Used properly, they can form a strong bond with the Internet community. However, if you use your blog to start posting articles after you've built trust with your readership, many of them will see this as an advertising ploy and stop reading.

You can avoid this loss of trust by mentioning what your website is about when you start your blog, but not making an issue of it. Once you have built a readership, make occasional posts regarding one of your articles as long as it is pertinent to the latest discussion on your blog. Don't post the whole article to your blog. Instead, put up a link to the article's permanent page on your website. Invite readers to check it out and offer feedback on your blog: did they find the article helpful? Would they recommend it to others? If not, what would they rather read about instead?

With this method, you not only avoid losing your readers' trust, you also gain useful information that will help you shape your article marketing campaign. Direct feedback from readers and potential customers is an excellent way to target your marketing efforts.

Speaking of readership: how can you tell when people are reading your blog? One way is through your comments section, which will be discussed further in this chapter. Another way is to install a simple, free web tracker and statistics counter on your blog.

You might try StatCounter at www.statcounter.com -- when you sign up for a free account and paste a snippet of HTML code into your blog's template, you can find out not only how much traffic you're getting through your blog, but also where your visitors are coming from and how long they stay.

Other free web trackers can be found at:

ShinyStat - www.shinystat.com

RiteCounter - www.ritecounter.com

Active Meter - www.activemeter.com

Most blogs contain sidebars with permanent links that appear on every blog page. Don't forget to take advantage of these sidebars and add a link to your main website, a few of your most powerful articles, and any affiliate programs you may be using.

How to get your own blog

Because blogs are so popular, there are a number of web service providers that furnish blogs. The best news is you can get one free. Blogging software is different from each provider, so you should choose the one that best suits your purposes in starting a blog.

Here's a brief overview of the major blog providers:

Blogger - www.blogger.com: Owned by search engine giant Google, this is one of the most popular free blogging programs, with millions of users. Blogger provides customizable templates, unlimited posts, archives, a search box for searching within blogs, image posting, and more. URLs for free Blogger sites are www.username.blogspot.com

LiveJournal - www.livejournal.com: Another popular free blog provider with millions of users. LiveJournal provides customizable templates, archives, and image posting options, and features the cyber-famous "Mood" and "Music" tags at the close of posts. LiveJournal URLs are structured: www.livejournal.com/user/username

WordPress - www.wordpress.com: This free blog provider also has millions of users and features templates, archives, a search box, and image posting. WordPress allows you to categorize your blog entries and list links to subjects in a sidebar. URLs for WordPress blogs read: http://username.wordpress.com

With any blog provider, it will generally take you under an hour to set up and customize your blog. You don't have to know HTML programming to set up and maintain a blog; it's one of the easiest and fastest website formats available.

Promotion, BlogRolling and RSS Feeds

If you're going to start a blog, you'll want people to read it. Like website promotion, drawing attention to your blog takes time, effort and commitment. There are millions of blogs out there, and it's rare for an Internet user to stumble across yours accidentally. Getting "in" with the blogosphere

Bloggers are a community unto themselves. The best way to promote your blog, initially and over the long run, is to network with other bloggers. Look up blogs with topics similar to yours, read through them, and comment on some of the posts. It's also helpful to link to other blogs from yours. Most bloggers keep track of who links to them, and will often post a reciprocal link to your blog from theirs without being asked.

The comments section on your own blog is also a good promotional tool. It's a good idea to leave your comments section open and respond to some of the comments you receive. However, blogs fall prey to spammers who will throw up links to unrelated websites in any unprotected comment section. You can avoid blog spam by enabling word verification for comments. This requires people who leave comments to type in a series of characters in order to post, and keeps automatic software away from your blog. Word verification is a common blog safeguard, and will not deter readers from leaving comments.

It takes time and patience to build a blog readership. As long as you keep making interesting, frequent posts to your blog and continue to visit and comment on other blogs, you will see a steady increase in your number of readers.