Invasion of the Blog: Does the right blog for your business

Invasion of the Blog: Does the right blog for your business

  
  
Lemmings are cute, but stupid. If you tell them to jump off a cliff, they will. Just like people who start blogs because everyone is doing it. Guess what happens after a while? Blog dead.

In managing a list of many Web sites, mostly blogs, countless sites I removed from the list because the sites and blogs no longer exist. People ran out of steam or have no reason to start them in the first place.

How do you know when a blog is right for your business? Learn why people start blogs, how they find their niche and how blogging tools can be used for more than a blog.

Blog content is king

Some people like to read blogs, others like to read newsletters, still others rely on a few feeds and read some or all of them. No matter the method of distributed information, each medium has one thing in common: content. Has the blogs linking to your newsletter and your business with all the readers and provide content that is important in a particular style.

I've been blogging since June 2000. If you review my early blog entries in records Meryl, you'll see them more personal. When blogs first hit the scene in the late 90's, they are personal diaries and journals. Like the blog business, my blog has changed from personal to business speak, although I still add personal notes here and there.

A few bloggers tend to talk about their work, their products and their little world. That might work for celebrities where fans want to know everything about them, but do not work for the average business person. other business people who want information about how to succeed and when blogs spend time hawking products offering information value does not exist, some people will return. The people whose products sell well are those that provide valuable information. Readers already know what type of information they obtain, so they believe that when they buy something, it will be the same quality or better. This value should be reflected in their blog. It's much like people who just signed up for a newsletter after first seeing an example.


Who should the business where one does not blogged before?

No one wants to be a lemming (I hope). How do you decide whether or not to create a blog? The answer is not black or white (what did you expect?). Ask these questions:

Can you update it regularly - at least five times a week?


Do you have something to say other than just linking to other people?


Do you read other blogs or feeds?


Can you provide information value to others not only for yourself?


How big is your newsletter subscriber list?


How many unique visitors you get on the week, weekdays or months?



Major determinant is whether you can write on the blog almost every day. The people behind the high traffic blogs post several times a day. Although reasonable, just linking to other sites do not give visitors much reason to make efforts to come to you. Reading other blogs or feeds is a great way to learn how to conduct discussions. Find other blogs covering topics similar to yours and check them. Not agree with their opinion? Write about it and explain your reasons. Cross-blog discussions are common, and that's where trackback extremely useful.

Trackback is a blog feature. If you decide to comment on other blogs in your blog post, not the blog comments page, then you link to the conversation through the trackback link. Trackback similar to the permalink, the permanent URLs to blog entries, but have different URLs to copy and paste in your blog's trackback box.

Apart from the technical aspects of blogs every day operations, customer lists and measure Web site traffic is a good indicator of what kind of reaction you get when opening a blog. Starting from scratch with little traffic means you have a long road ahead and much work to be done. There is no magic formula anyone can sell you for $ 97 to make your blog a success overnight. But with some perseverance and ingenuity, your blog can engage many prospects and clients.

Choose a niche

Given there are many blogs out there, choosing a niche topic when starting a blog to shoot better attract and keep audiences. Meryl's notes focuses on three areas: Webby, geeky and wordy. In fact, this is too much. What should I do for my readers is create three separate blog entry points, so that they are interested in writing, newsletters and Internet marketing get nothing but the wordy entries. Those who are interested in Web design get items Webby and the technophiles receive geeky content.

I also manage a personal blog separate from the record of Meryl's. It's about cochlear implants and deafness. This could fall under the category of geeky, but it is a personal blog and not included in the notes Meryl's. This blog is written for different audiences.

Blogging tool for both my blogs come with syndication capabilities so those using feed readers or aggregators can read the content through the software. For an explanation of syndication and feed readers, see Is This the Business of RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom? When sending a newsletter of new problems, comments or a link to the blog, that way the blog and feed readers will get the goods, so all three bases are protected.


Blogs in disguise using the same tool

Blogging is a tool not only for, well, blogging. these tools are an excellent way to help you update your website more often than you want. I use it to manage the list of tableless Web sites. Using blogging tools is much easier than how I managed before, updating the HTML files by hand. Though using a blog tool, it's not a blog. In this case, means the blog has become a content management system (CMS).

Small business owners do not have a need for luxury and expensive CMSes out there. They found it easier to use blogging software to manage their site or hire someone to adapt tools to their sites.

Blog has found a place in business and those who are looking for creative ways to use it. Some companies have a blog on an intranet for communicating project status, jeopardies and metrics. They are used for knowledge management. With information flowing, the blog tool provides a way to share, organize and process information.

Being a follower can be good or bad. No one wants to walk off the cliff with the lemmings, but everyone wants to succeed. Best practices will not help, because the decision to blog is based on, the needs of the mission and goals of the organization along with the wishes and needs of target market. A blog about lemmings? There is one, sort of. Or maybe you want to start your own and talk about stupid business move.

Ref. htysite - Restsindo