What is a blog? A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.
There are many different types of blogs. Personal is an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual. Corporate is to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing. Genre usually will focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs, house blogs etc Device is a blog that can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a moblog.
It is fairly easy to set up a blog. In some cases it could take about an hour. If you use a more complicated blogs site where you start from scratch, it will take you 4-8 hours to set it up. The maintenance is continuous if you want your visitors to keep coming back. If there is no new content, your customers will stop coming once they keep seeing the same information every week. You can a set up a blog for free if you use a site like blogger.com or wordpress.com. These sites will place advertisements on your blog. That is how they make their money. It is easier but does not look as professional.
You can also use wordpress.org. This site you will have to buy a domain name which you can get for less than $10 at godaddy.com and get a hosting service. Godaddy offers hosting service as well but if you are new to all this technical stuff, I would recommend using hostgator.com. Hostgator offers great tutorials from A to Z on to get your own blog set-up.
Heres some basic tips how what to do with your blog. The idea of a blog is not only to sell your business, product or service. It should only be about 20% of what you share. Your blog should be about the visitor which means how much value you are providing your visitor to entice them to come back over and over. Can they get to know you, the real you? Are you offering value for free or do they have to buy everything from you? The idea is for you to offer something for free without any expectation from that person.
Example: If you are a Starbuck customer you will know what I am talking about. My wife has one of those membership cards with Startbucks. Every now and again they send her a free drink coupon. Now on the coupon, it does not say buy one get one free, or get a free drink up to $5.00 value. It says a free drink, period so she gets this huge drink that is worth like $8. Starbuck gets it. They are building a relationship with my wife that will go beyond any expectation. Now every time my wife wants a cup of coffee, she goes to Starbucks because they take care of her. They dont just try to get her in to buy a drink.
I am not saying to give your products away for free but you can give is your knowledge for free. Providing advice, personal experience etc. will build a loyalty between the customer and you like you could not believe. It will take time but what else do you have to do. Sell yourself and you will be rewarded a 1000 times at the end. Like one of my mentor (John Jackson) says to us every day, Do something for somebody else today knowing fully they can never repay you. Build your blog with this philosophy in mind and you will experience a ton of success.
Other tips to keep in mind:
1. Never plagiarize. 2. Always Be yourself. 3. Avoid Clichés. 4. Always provide fresh and unique content. 5. Not all of your posts need to be 100% grammatically polished . Sometimes your post is just about getting your quick thoughts down. 6. When sharing your opinions, consider framing your thoughts in such a way where you acknowledge that you COULD be wrong. 7. Check out other blogs and examine other bloggers styles and discover what you like and what you dont like. 8. Post your blog post on as many social Medias as you can. Use pluggin to help you as well.
Blogging is one of the most popular internet marketing methods, no matter if you are new or experienced, a blog is a great tool to let everyone know not only what you do but more importantly who you are and what kind of person you are. Be very visual with your blog. Use pictures and videos as much as you can. If you follow these steps on how to create your blog for my business, your business will increase drastically and quickly.