What is a Blog
Great question guest. What is a blog good for anyways?
Blogs are far from extinct
They are very profitable and provide great benefits to readers and members.
Allow me to share what blogs are all about.
Blogging can be fun and informative places to interact with large audiences
What is a blog?
Successful blogs stay on topic with maybe a few categories closely related to each other.
The answer our guests question is going to span an entire post about blogs, what they are, what they do, even how much they are rarely discussed in the Internet media world these days, due in part because of all of the hype over sites called micro-blogs or social networking, and what is coming behind those types of media outlets.
Content of this article about blogs
This reply article to our guest is going to cover content ownership, blog does and blog don’t, search engine awareness, and income to any group, membership organization, or business, we will even share how to set up and operate a blog, it is so easy anyone can do it.
What is a blog about
News and Event
Blogs can and do cover all topics, easy ones re-report the news they read maybe adding a comment of thought about the news topics, like the entertainment and sports industries, finance industry, technology industry, to politics, it is all covered over and over.
Family or Co-Workers
A family might like to have a sir name blog where each family member can add their thought, comments, images and events from any location from anywhere in the world.
Business and Education
Blogs however also cover many products, services, companies, educational, informative, and career growing, posts interactive through feedback and comments that all blogs.
What it takes to start a blog
It is really simple and easy to share with a common sense approach.
If you have a PASSION about a topic, any topic and you feel that what you believe in should be shared far beyond your immediate circle of family, friends, and co-workers, then a blog is very much for you.
Who owns a blogs content?
This is a two part answer to this question.
The answer is critical to the long-term ownership of the content, for any individual or business.
Blog type answer 1 YourBlog.Blog.com
Blogs that are titled like this are not owned by you, the person applying the efforts, via images, and content, comments, and feedback, are owned and controlled by the service provider.
MyBlog.Blog.com is being used for our example.
MyBlog is your blogs Internet address but, .Blog.com is not, that is the actual domain name owned by the generally free blog service that offers you a blog and the tools to maintain one.
If these services would like to, and at any time they might decide to, end the service or take over the blogs within their service or maybe, they just want to begin charging you for the service, if you fail to agree with the charges and terms, privacy etc., you then forfeit your efforts, hours, and information, educational, product, or service, as the ability to transfer the images and the content to another free service might be impossible, and if not impossible, very time consuming, making the efforts tough, and then there is the final nail in your free blogs service, you have been loyal and dependent on for many years.
You are going to loose your ratings in the search engines, making your blog over requires that you start from the very beginning all over again, bye, bye ratings and site visitors/traffic follow that.
The final issue about free blogs through a single domain name and shared blog hosting servers is the ability for your blog to expand and to take massive loads of traffic at a single time, crashing the server comes to mind and then no one can access what important information to share.
Free blogs are available from many providers
Some of the free services have turned to a paid model, and some just closed up and left you and your years of blogging efforts forever lost, free blog services are out there but be cautious as Logic has warned you that you do not own the blog, software to run the blog or any other terms and conditions that might apply in their agreement.
Search engines rate the .blog.com sites with less trust, and they are generally tougher to locate when seeking the topics that the blog might be offering when your blog is at say MyBusiness.Blog.com.
In the end your name .Blog.com is all about the Blog.com service similar to those social networking and micro-blog sites you may be spending too much time on these days.
Logic’s favorite blog site path
Blog type answer 2 YourBlog.com
This type of blog is owned by you, the person applying the efforts, via images, and content, comments, and feedback.
YourBlog.com is being used for this example.
MyBlog.com is your blogs Internet address but, unlike the above services in example 1, this blog begins ownership by you, from the day you buy your domain name.
In our own case, the domain name for this blog is LogicsBlog.com.
Now when we write a highly controversial blog post, the blog cannot be removed from the service though it can be removed form the hosting provider unless, like with us, we are the hosting provider, this means the blog is here to stay, the content, images, feedback and the comments will last as long as you wish it to remain on the Internet.
Never use free software, buy it
Understand that if you buy a software, it is a service selling you a license, that is for blog operators that allow you to own the content and the domain name (bought separately) that hosts the blog on the Internet.
Here are the two true blog ownership types
Blog ownership type one
blog.mybusiness.com this utilizes your current business domain name by adding a beginning to the existing domain name adding a period before the actual domain name. This allows the blog to be hosted on the same server where the business website is located.
Blog ownership type two
Creating and adding a new domain name to operate the blog, example MyBusinessBlog.com. Then you build up the blog software around the selected domain name and launch it as a stand alone blog on the Internet.
These two examples are both great examples of true blog, domain name, and content ownership relationship.
Blogs are important to search engine results
Search engines are forever starving for information, new content, and blogs are one of the top content providers. If you run a business and that business is involved in online activities to draw people to your business or your online retail store or you are a service provider, then a blog is for you.
If you have important news to share the blog provides the best most focused open way to share it, live.
Blogs allow for a space to share (interactive)
Blogging is often personal, if it is not one of those blogs that reports or rather repeats news about sports, the economy, or the entertainment industry as mentioned earlier then blogs with unique and informative content are in demand.
Blogs for business are about sharing true but, they are ultimately for spreading the word about your business or service through personalization and hot topics related too, education into or how to do this or apply that, all relating to the use of the products or services the blog business operator is offering fro their true business.
How to build and launch your own blog
1 First select the best descriptive domain name, you are going to need it to succeed, learn how to buy a domain name in 11 steps a website to educate a new domain name buyer by Viper Logic.
2 Search your favorite search engine for a good paid blog software, ours is Expression Engine, about $200.00 to $300.00. Updates come out about 1 per year, we advice these to maintain security and feature enhancements.
3 Create or hire a graphic designer to build you a graphic design for the top of the page and select a color scheme,and site navigation buttons, we utilized 5 navigation buttons. Remember this blog you are about to create is about gaining traction for and traffic to your business website, so brand the blog to closely match your main website for familiarity.
4 Build through your blog software interface the Categories you will be covering, we built in 4, you might need less to stay on target for your brand, you can add others later down the road.
5 In your blog software, create the page descriptions, keywords, and meta tags to help search engines crawl your blog, these should be titles for what your categories are each about. Submit through the blog software your blog posts to the blog directories, there are plenty of them out there, there are also article submission sites for you to share a description and link back to you blog posts each time you release one, again real easy to maintain.
6 Once the blog is up and running you can begin writing blog posts and depending on the amount of topics you are covering, the information you are wanting to share will dictate how often you need to post a blog story or article, from one time per day to a single time per week, this is easy and a webmaster or experienced Internet person is not required,just a person who can type.
7 Writing the correct search engine friendly blog posts covering the topics to draw blog site visitors requires some skills, however these are some basic understandings when producing blog posts that will best serve your needs.
Create descriptive titles for each blog post that are exciting yet explanatory to the search engines.
8 Use keywords in the body of the blog post that best describe the topic being discussed include the major keywords that best describe the product or service at least 3 to 6 times per blog post, this depends on the topic and the length of the blog post as to how many times you are going to add the correct amount of keywords into the articles. You do not want to concentrate on the search engines efforts at the expense of the real site visitor and reader, those are your potential customers, so write to them, not at them.
9 When writing your articles be sure to write and include links to your business website where the person can buy or learn more information, remember do not add these to all blog posts, and do not add more then 1 unless it is a different landing page, and limit the number of outboard links to 1 or 2 per post if you add one at all. You must select landing pages within the website as opposed to always sending the reader to the websites main page. To always send the reader to the main or home page and not to the direct item or topic the result will end up bad for both your search engine efforts and it is more importantly going to upset those readers and potential customer.
10 Through your website, social networks, personal profiles, and the blog directories, encourage people to sign up for your blog updates. They the visitor/reader signs up on the Subscribe Sign Up on the front page of your blog. It is easy they just type into your blogs front page using their email address only. The result is they will receive them as you release each one day after day, or week after week, this will greatly grow the popularity of your blog posting efforts and ultimately grow your business website visitors, traffic and sales.
11 I saved the most important part of blog posting advise I could think of for last.
Whatever you have to write, share, say, even if it is educational, or political, be sure that you are engaging your audience/readers, if you have nothing worthwhile to share then think it out, explore, discover, and research, the topic and provide the best information within each and every article, you will become a giant hit one that will be followed for years to come.
Logic is not a control freak
What I am sharing with you is about adding value.
What we are sharing is our belief that if you are going to buy a domain name, build a website, then add a blog, forum, or even a social network, or micro-blog, you should set these items up from the beginning to create a product that will add value to the business from day one.
How to make money
This business style is not new and is real easy to build, however it is still very profitable.
Doing things right from the beginning and with the full intention to sell the entire business and its online media tools later down the road, after years of great profits, relationship, and wealth building to a new prospective owner. Ownership of these online items, IF YOU OWN THE CONTENT, domain names, and so on add incredible value to any business that apply and monetizes these tools.
How to NOT make money
This business style while easy and free is not profitable for most.
If you just have a profile or shared blog through a free service you really do not have the ownership of those items to sell down that same road when you wish to sell your business.
Why would anyone leave money like this on the table?
Great advise about the Internet and your business
Logic knows the Internet like most know how to put their pants on each morning.
Since the bulk of us business owners began on the Internet with our first websites for our businesses in 1993 the efforts you apply could be better managed, then you more then likely currently are aware of the online tools that truly are profitable to your business today and which are not.
Here is what I am getting at:
The Internet is forever changing and at times it is advancing at speeds that most small to mid sized businesses cannot truly keep pace with correctly and still operate their core business. The business that makes you your income and builds upon your wealth needs an online presence but one that best fits a long-term stable image, an image that you control and yes once again own.
Resisting the Technology Hype Machine
Never ignore these new releases, just resist getting involved (at least for the first year or two)
It is critical that we business operators steer clear of most of these continuous advances in technology, many with the continuous urging to begin today, the rush, rush, hurry, hurry, to be first at whatever the new biggest, better, thing comes along, while others you have invested many hours in (same as dollars) only to see them pass by, making room for the hottest new tech hyped service currently offered.
In the end being connected to the cool factor for tech advanced edge services equates to this fact. The fact is just this, those services need you and your business listed with required participation for them to survive, grow and become (thus far anyways) yet another online advertising place.
I think you are now aware of what I am sharing with you, you get it, you have spent the time invested in the hype about these continually arising services and seen there relevance come along, get hot, then fade away.
The above is true if you have been operating a business for a few years or more, you know the ultimate way to stop this continual rotation of time consumption is to just look back then move your business forward, here is what I am reminding you to apply.
Ownership has its privileges
Own your software, own your blog software, own your forum software, own your domain names, own your hosting (depending on your business size) for these services, and your website or sites, then begin your own (depending on your business size and product or service type) social network that covers your business topic, if you think you would need one beyond your blog, forum, and website.
Do you have questions or thoughts about blogs or content controls?
My name is Logic, we your friends at Viper Logic are nice and friendly people to talk to and with. Contact us learn and share, this is fun and it is beneficial to the health and growth of any business that produces, sales, products, or offers meaningful services, that are of a true value to others.
Thank you,
Logic.