Starting a blog is a great way to promote your business while having fun and interacting with your customers.  Instead of writing press releases and ad campaigns, you can use your knowledge and interests to your advantage.  However, without a solid, well-though out blog strategy, you are more likely to end up with a website in which you are your only viewer.  It used to be enough to just setup a webpage and start typing away, but the ease and low-cost of starting a website has created a need to promote your blog beyond its inherent, internal capability.

Probably the best blog strategy for promoting your site is to start building an online network.  You should begin by searching for websites with similar, but not necessarily competing, topics and read a little bit about what the readers are interested in and notice how these sites are setup.  This will give you a good understanding of what keywords people might use to find your blog and what sorts of information to include in order to capture your audience’s attention.  This is also great market research for future business opportunities or product development.

Next, start interacting and posting on these various sites.  Do not necessarily post a link to your own blog or promote a business of any sort.  Instead, just post thoughtful, useful, and relevant contributions.  This is not only fun, but also builds credibility with that particular community.  Once you have interacted for awhile, you can start including your own links.  Doing this intermittently and on related pages that get a decent amount of traffic is a great blog strategy to drive people to your own webpage.

Once you have laid the necessary ground work, it is time to really start building up your own content.  From the keyword information that you have collected, you should aim to use one or two of these terms a few times in each post.  Make sure to vary the words so that it does not seem repetitive.  You want your posts to be genuine and informative instead of just being there for promotional purposes.  Another way to enhance your website is through the use of photo and video.  Media is entertaining to the reader and can easily be shared by many people over the internet.  It also serves to make your blog more easily found through specialized Google image and video searches.  Although these are only a few options, creating a blog strategy will increase your web traffic allowing you to promote yourself and your business

A blog should be your nerve center of  your Internet Empire and the understanding of the mechanics is even more important. Everything you do Online is driving traffic to a Website or Blog. To find out more and to get some valuable training sign up for my newsletter to your right.

My friend and business partner Jeff Hoffman held 2 Webinars on Blogging 101
Watch Part 1 Blogging 101
Watch Part 2 Blogging 102

If writing is an art, then, blogging is one way of using words to come up with an art. This is because people who are into blogging are the ones who are artistic on their own sense, carefully choosing words that would best describe their feelings, sentiments, wishes, desires, and everything.

Basically, blogs were first introduced as weblogs that refer to a “server’s log file.” It was created when web logging hit the virtual market. Since its inception in the mid-1990s, web logging gradually saturated the virtual community making the Internet a viable source of greater information.

However, with web logging, you still need a web site and domain names, but with blogging, you do not need anything just an account with blog providers. In most cases, these kinds of blogs are free of charge.

With the onset of blogging in the industry, personal journaling had been a common ground for people who wish to be known all over the world. However, not literally famous as this is not a case on being popular or well-known personality.

Generally, blogs are created for personal use. Like a journal, people can write their daily adventures, sentiments, and whatever ideas they want to express online.

Nevertheless, with the advent of the online businesses, blogs had gradually taken the limelight in providing businesses a chance to boost their productivity online. This is where the business blogs have taken the limelight.

Business blogs are, basically, created to advertise the services or products of a certain web site or online business in order to increase online sales.

Moreover, business blogs are also one way of promoting the company so that the other readers will know that a certain company exists online. With blogs, entrepreneurs are able to establish a name in the virtual market through articles that can be very useful in the reader’s life.

From there, you can make money out of blogs by simply syndicating it to your business’ web site. This can be done through the RSS technology.

So, if you are thinking to create a blog, whether for business or for pleasure, you need to know some tips that could help you get through and make your blog one of the interesting blogs online.

Here’s how:

1. Consider your audience

Even if your blog is generally personal, still, it would be better to consider the minds of your readers. You have to think of something that would interest them.

After all, most of the reasons of people who write blogs are not at all confined to their own personal motives. Most of them would love to be “heard” (or read) and would love to be known, in some way or another, even for just a minute. Hence, it is very important to come with a write up that everybody can understand, not necessarily that these people can relate to it but they can understand it.

2. Pictures speaks a thousand words

To make your blogging worth the browsing effort of your readers, it would be extremely nice if you will put some pictures in it. It does not necessarily mean you have to place a picture of yourself. Any photographs will do as long as it does not pose danger or insult to anyone who will be reading your blog.

3. Make constructive and beneficial blogs

Even if you are free to write anything you wan to say to the world, still, it would be better to create some write-ups that would be beneficial to your readers.

After all, its information technology that you have there so better be inclined to provide information rather than sheer quirky entertainment.

4. Avoid making multifaceted and complicated blogs

In order to have an interesting blogs, try not to use some highly technical and highfalutin words. After all, it is not a science discourse or a debate that you are making, so better stick to simple facts and short blogs.

Bear in mind that most people who use the Internet usually do more scanning than scrutinizing each site word for word. Therefore, it would be better to come with blogs that will not bore your readers just because you have these lengthy articles.

5. Make it interactive

As much as possible and if your capacity will allow it, make your blog interactive. Yu can do this by placing some video or audio clips in your blog.

You can even place an area for comments or for some feedbacks. In this way, you can get some impressions or reactions of other people. Who knows, you might even gain some friends just by making them feel at home in your blog site.

Indeed, blogs are not created just for the mere fun of it. It also has its own purpose in the world of the Internet.
Therefore, for people who wish to harness their craft, as far as writing is concerned, blogs are the best way to do it.

As they say, blogging is the contemporary term of creative and commercial writing.

My friend and business partner Jeff Hoffman held 2 Webinars on Blogging 101 And if you don’t know how to set up and run a blog this would be a good time to watch the training.
Watch Part 1 Blogging 101
Watch Part 2 Blogging 102

There are two kinds of blogs; the externally hosted blog and the self hosted blog
For beginners it is easier to start with an externally hosted blog.
The downside with externally hosted blogs is you don’t own the domain name and the host site owns your blog which allows them to turn the blog of whenever they want.

Now if you own your domain and your blog is self hosted and if it would be shut down for any reason you just take the domain and files and move it somewhere else. I believe that should be #1 reason why you should consider hosting you own blog Also if you host your own blog it allows you to customize it more and you also have many more features which you would not have otherwise.
One of the most wellknown blog plattforms is wordpress.org. It is a
very good and free software. Very efficinet and effective.
Of course there are many more. But since i use wordpress.org i want to keep it based around this platform.
Platforms most newcomers use when they start with blogs.

• Wordpress.com

• Blogger.com

• BlogHarbor.com

• TypePad.com

• LiveJournal.com

Just to name a few. Myself I did start out with Wordpress.com and I had my blogs shut down twice before I moved to the hosted version. To be honest I spend a lot of time writing those blogs and losing them was no fun.

I have learned my lesson.

Blog is short for weblog. A blog is like a Website, it is a collection of short or long articles  listed with the newest article or post at the top. Blogs allow you to add new content like the usual text post, video post or audio post.
The Content should be updated frequently, so the new fresh content will bring people back to your blog. Your visitors can leave comments on your blog, which makes it more interactive than a traditional Website. And of course it allows you the create a relationship with your reader, much easier than with a Website. And that of course makes you trustworthy because people trust blogs more than a Website. Having said that with a blog you can influence people to whatever agenda you have whether it is for personal or business reasons.

A Blogger is a contributor or author to a blog .

To get a more in depth explanation what a blog is, you can visit Wikipedia