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To Blog Or Not To Blog - A Laymans View
We have now entered the world of blogs! Sounds kind of Harry Potterish, doesn't it? If you're over 20 years old, you probably think this is some crazy sci-fi phenomenon, or I've simply lost my mind. Don't fret, the vast majority of people don't know what a blog is all about and more importantly, why it matters to them. If you're under 20 you can stop reading because you probably know all about blogs, and the value they have in sharing information. You've been trading game-breaking codes, South Park clips, and jokes through blogs for months now or maybe even years. In a recent article, Johnson Ong quips "I have a blog. Doesn't everyone? You mean you don't? How uncool are you? According to Merriam-Webster, 'blog' was the word of the year last year. Not having your own blog is like not having your own Gmail account. What? You don't have Gmail either? My God, what are you? A caveman!" Over or under, cool or uncool, I want to address blogs from a business standpoint, and the tremendous value they can deliver to business. There are several reasons that developing a blog is a tremendous strategy for any business. 1) It will increase your web presence significantly the search engines love blogs! 2) It will allow your business to educate customers and prospects about certain subjects, and appear as experts 3) It will raise your business profile with your vendors and other strategic partners, if they are invited to contribute to your blog 4) Other blogs can, and will, take information from your blog, and you will increase your exposure to anyone that participates in the 'taking' blog 5) Blogs accept subscribers, and everyone that subscribes to your blog will be constantly updated (pinged) by you with current information So What is It? The full name for a blog is a weblog. It's a repository for articles, newsletters, information, and discussion boards. It's like a 'what's new' page on the internet in whatever subject you choose. When people research any topics that you have on your blog, they may very well end up on your blog through their search. If you've done it right, your blog is of course, fully branded to your company, and linked to your main website. If you keep current articles, and information on your blog, you will receive hits from people looking for information about those subjects. You will also receive hits from other blogs, and they will then distribute your information to their own audiences. You will receive hits from contributors of articles or news items, as well as people looking for those particular contributors through a search engine. Hopefully, you get the picture. Your web traffic should increase exponentially through the proper use of a blog. Business Blogs Business blogs have yet to sweep the business community, which presents a significant opportunity to adapt the technology to any business. It will allow you to share expertise and knowledge with a much larger audience, which should create a significant benefit. There is specific blogging software, and you will have to learn how to create an effective and valuable blog. You will also have to learn how to acquire and produce current industry information to populate your blog with articles that will maintain interest and value. Yes, there is an element of work to it you didn't think it was free, with no effort required, like the mumps did you? As you add current information to your subject area, or to secondary subject areas that you may include in your blog, your chances of more hits are higher. If you continually contribute self-generated articles and news items to the appropriate subject areas, your chances also increase. In addition, there are sources that allow you to publish their materials, which can be used to increase the value of the blog, and therefore the likelihood of being found on the good old inter-web. So How Does It Work? If you still push the Pause/Break button in the upper right-hand corner of your keyboard to request permission from your boss for a visit to the bathroom, you can skip this part. Otherwise, it's really not too hard to follow. Without getting too technical, there are many web robots (bots), crawlers, and spiders, and similar technologies that have RSS Reader capability. That's the stuff that is specific to blogs. They are basically looking for news, and blogs have that news. If you do it right, these bots, crawlers, and spiders find your blog, and send information elsewhere, which is just what you want. Your blog is basically yelling at these web 'beasts' to "come on in and take this great stuff I've got." For example, these web 'animals' include yahooslurp, googlebot, feedstercrawler, pubsub, syndic8, msnbot, newsgator, CP30, & R2D2. O.K., the last two were Luke Skywalker's buddies, but the rest are real. It will take 4 to 6 weeks for the search engines to adjust rankings but the ultimate result will be that you will progress up the ladder in the engines in the various topic areas that you feature. When people are searching for technologies or subjects that are being discussed in your blog, they will find you on the search engines. That should be a hint that you should have content on your blog about the subjects that are most often searched. When a subject is searched that is covered by one of your branded, self-generated articles, your fully branded information may be pulled to another blog, or to a specific person doing a search in that topic area. You can post that same article on your website, and it won't go anywhere. However, on your blog it gets a shot of super juice, and may just get pushed through any number of doors. Linking The Benefits Increase Your Brand When website owners and bloggers (yeah, I'm now a blogger!) think of linking, they are usually referring to inbound links from external websites and blogs. For example, if you had a link to your website on the website of another business. While adding more inbound links on external sites is important, there is also a sort of 'reverse' link strategy associated with blogs. Your blog's incoming links will provide another benefit when someone is referred to an article in your blog from another website. For example, through GooglePageRank, the receiving page (you) gets a boost up the search engine when that happens, which helps the blog overall by boosting the popularity of the blog, which in turn is what increases the search results, which in turn drives up the search engine rankings. What!? I wrote it and I have to read it six times to really follow what I'm saying. Basically, the more people that visit your blog when they come from other sources, the more likely it is for people to find you when searching for a whole myriad of topics. That type of benefit does not exist with normal website traffic, because those visits don't effect web site rankings on the search engines. But blog traffic that is through a link from another site will drive you up the search engines. There that's much more clear!? As clear as fog in a low-lying bog. Ouch! Web designer Sue Studios says; "Blogs are highly strategic, here-to-stay desktop tools that can strengthen relationships, share knowledge, increase collaboration, and improve branding. Think of the potential for your e-newsletter strategies: 1) Articles within newsletters can be linked to a blog, extending life and creating a massive conversation 2) You can offer a bi-directional forum to customers to get true, personal opinion on your products and services 3) Company experts can start a blog and become industry experts, helping your company edge out competition and, through this interactive forum, draw customers into another exchange of information and thoughts." Well, it's snowing out so I think I'll go blogging! Wait, is that something you do in the snow, or is it something you do to stay out of the snow?! Or is it a Celtic dance? Or should the Steelers have blogged that kick Sunday? I'm confused. Dennis Schooley is the Founder of Schooley Mitchell Telecom Consultants, a Professional Services Franchise Company. He writes for publication, as well as for schooleymitchell.blogging,com and franchises.blogging.com, in the subject areas of Franchising, and Technology for the Layman. http://www.schooleymitchell.com, 888-311-6477, dschooley@schooleymitchell.com.
Latest News:Site: Yahoo! News Search Results for news Myanmar's Suu Kyi to get family letters, news mags (Reuters via Yahoo! News) Detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has managed to wring small concessions from the ruling generals in the form of letters from her family and some international news magazines, her lawyer said on Friday. JCDecaux in talks for News Outdoor Group in Russia (AP via Yahoo! News) French outdoor advertising firm JCDecaux SA said Thursday it is negotiating to buy Russian rival News Outdoor Group from global media company News Corp. News Corp tightens grip on Premiere with new CEO (Reuters via Yahoo! News) Rupert Murdoch tightened his grip on German pay-TV broadcaster Premiere by appointing News Corp executive Mark Williams as CEO in a move to get the company back on track. SEC Looks Into UAL Stock Scare; Implications For Online News? (CBS News) A ton of digits have been devoted to this in other spots but the SEC's decision to investigate takes it to another level. The backstory: a six-year-old news story about UAL declaring bankruptcy made it into the Tribune-owned Sun-Sentinel 's current news flow, was picked up by a Google (NSDQ: GOOG) News bot and, via a reporter for a newsletter, made it onto Bloomberg News. After a lot of buck ... JCDecaux and News Corp. in talks to combine outdoor ad groups (International Herald Tribune) The News Corp. chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, has recently expressed nervousness about investments in Russia, where News Outdoor generated the bulk of its revenue last year. SEC Looks Into UAL Stock Scare; Implications For Online News? (paidContent.org via Yahoo! Finance) A ton of digits have been devoted to this in other spots but the SEC's decision to investigate takes it to another level. The backstory: a six-year-old news story about UAL declaring bankruptcy made it into the Tribune-owned Sun-Sentinel's current news flow, was picked up by a Google News bot and, via a reporter for a newsletter, made it onto Bloomberg News. JCDecaux in talks to buy News Corp. billboard unit (AP via Yahoo! Finance) In a deal that would create the world's largest outdoor advertising company, French conglomerate JCDecaux SA said Thursday that it is in talks to buy Russian rival News Outdoor Group from global media company News Corp. Phila. mayor to announce grim budget news (The Philadelphia Inquirer) The Nutter administration is expected to announce grim budget news today, which is all but certain to lead to significant spending cuts - perhaps as high as 10 percent - in some city departments, according to three sources familiar with the budget. News Corp says Mark Williams interim Premiere CEO (Reuters via Yahoo! News) News Corp. executive Mark Williams has taken over as chief executive of German pay-TV broadcaster Premiere in an interim capacity, News Corp. said after the move led to renewed takeover speculation. DIVA TALK: Chatting with In the Heights ' Mandy Gonzalez Plus News of Fraser, Testa and Bundy (Playbill) News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage. Site: news - Google News CNET News Daily Podcast: Facebook, Google open competing services - CNET News
MORE RESOURCES: Site: Yahoo! News Search Results for blogging rss BlogWorld & New Media Expo Assembles Superstar Line-up of More Than 150 Speakers (wallstreet:online AG) BlogWorld & New Media Expo, the first and only conference dedicated to blogging and new media, is BlogWorld & New Media Expo Assembles Superstar Line-up of More Than 150 Speakers (Centre Daily Times) BlogWorld & New Media Expo, the first and only conference dedicated to blogging and new media, is bringing an all-star roster of speakers to Las Vegas - with more than 150 thought leaders across every major industry. The Conference and Expo will be held Sept. 20-21 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Registration is open at www.blogworldexpo.com. BlogWorld & New Media Expo Assembles Superstar Line-Up Of More Than 150 Speakers (PRWeb via Yahoo! News) Largest blogging conference in the world brings together new media mavericks and experts to inform, share experiences and inspire BlogWorld & New Media Expo Assembles Superstar Line-up of More Than 150 Speakers (Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance) LAS VEGAS----BlogWorld & New Media Expo, the first and only conference dedicated to blogging and new media, is bringing an all-star roster of speakers to Las Vegas - with more than 150 thought leaders across every major industry. Blogging with the Devils: First look: Nevada-Las Vegas (East Valley Tribune) The first three seasons of Mike Sanford?s coaching tenure at Nevada-Las Vegas have produced two wins each, extending the Rebels? streak of years without a winning record to seven. We Know It's Hard (Phillyist) We know it's hard, keeping up with all the political corruption our city has to offer. Toss in worrying about the presidential election, and it's no wonder few of us have the energy to keep abreast of local scandals. Never fear! In the case of Papa Vince, City Paper has you covered. Tom Namako is blogging and twittering the Fumo Trial over at Fumogation . With cross-linking galore, you'll ... Blogging on the QT (O'Reilly Media) To me, though this is one of the journalistic quandaries of the twenty-first century. Where is the dividing line between news and opinion, between the article and the blog, because objective reporting and subjective editorializing? Is one better than the other? Is one more ethical than the other? WATT's FeedIndustryNetwork.com Focuses on Latest Feed Industry News, Feed Safety and More through Global Online Portal (PRWeb via Yahoo! News) FeedIndustryNetwork.com acts as a go-to resource for feed industry professionals, focusing on global issues such as feed safety, feed processing, feed quality assurance and much more. South Africa: Don't Be Digitally Dozy - Guy Berger (AllAfrica.com) As the rise of digital revolution reaches a tipping point, breaking up existing business models (information gathering, editing, packaging, dissemination and loyal audience) and reshaping journalism, traditional media organisations must start a quest for new business models suitable to the new business environment, Prof Guy Berger, head of Rhodes University's School of Journalism, told delegates ... Social Media and Privacy: Where Are We Two Years After Facebook News Feed? (Mashable) It?s really only been two years. How quickly the digital world changes. A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by the New York Times for a piece written by Clive Thompson, ? Brave New World of Digital Intimacy: I?m So Totally, Digitally Close to You .? I talked with Clive about my experience with social media, my revolt against News Feed, my blogging, and my embrace of Twitter and FriendFeed. ... Site: blogging rss - Google News WordPress Newsfeed Plugin Brings Quality Newswire Content into ... - Publishers Newswire
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