What is a Blog?
A “Web Log”, commonly abbreviated and known as “blog”, is a term that represents a personal online diary or journal written by one or more people. Blogs are one of the various internet marketing strategies used by individuals and businesses to promote their business online. Blogging generally requires a great deal of care and dedication from the people maintaining the blogs.
Blogging is considered to be a very effective internet marketing strategy, although it can prove to be considerably time consuming. It is considered by many people as a simple way to share opinions or ideas or to sell one or more products online.
You have probably seen professional bloggers online. Today, some specialists are able to earn a living just writing blogs. They make their money (and they can make a lot of money) by selling advertising on their blogs. You even get high earning bloggers who write blogs about writing blogs!!
The main advantage of using web blogs as an internet marketing strategy is that it’s free and doesn’t cost anything to start up. There are a couple of platforms available to choose from in order to start a blog, or some IT savvy people might choose to setup their own blog, but it is possible in either case to choose a layout from the many available free templates, or to customize your own.
If you do an internet search, you will find that there are quite a few platforms to set up your own blog quickly and easily. These are often free.
Also, many websites now have the option of adding blogs to their sites, which can also be useful.
So we have talked about what a blog is, but we have not really explained what a blog can be. A blog is basically someone’s online journal, but blogs have evolved somewhat since blogging originally started. So what can a blog be? Well, how long is a piece of string? A blog can be:
- What is was originally intended to be – an online diary or journal about someone’s life, sharing their thoughts, feelings and stories about things that happen to them. This type of blog can still be used to sell products. Authors might write a blog about their writing, events in their life and use it to sell their books. Some authors have actually sold their blogs and they have been published as books, so many authors make use of blogs.
- It can be a place to share factual information, for example, some bloggers write about world events or new products or how to prune a tree. The blogger may share factual information about something, and link that to a product. For example, they may write about how to prune a rose bush. Then add an advert or link for the reader to buy a new brand of pruning shears or a new rose bush.
- They may also write a blog to share information about special offers on their products, new products they are offering and so on. To keep their customers informed.
There are many many different forms of blogs out there now. All have their own purpose and many are used as a way to sell products or direct online traffic to a website where goods are for sale. However, there are also people who write blogs just for fun or because they want to inform people about things, not necessarily to drive business.
So how does blogging really work and how can it be used as an efficient internet marketing strategy?
As mentioned above, a blog is the sharing of ideas and the opportunity for a business owner to liaise and network with other people who share the same passions, beliefs and interests as them. For this reason, the business owner should be smart in targeting like-minded people, and making sure they maintain a focus on only a few ideas to make sure they attract people in their target market. The first step is to make sure people know that the business exists, and keep posting valid information about that business, such as photos, videos, articles, or any other form of advertising to let people know more about the business. The good thing about blogging is that anyone can do it, it doesn’t require any technical knowledge and the person doesn’t need to have an IT background to start a new blog or maintain an existing blog, and it can be incorporated into the person’s daily schedule of tasks with some people even choosing to blog while they’re on the road!
