Blogging was initially started in the late 1990s as an easier way of making comments on and discussing existing webpages. What began as brief bits of commentary grew into detailed personal narratives of tens of thousands of words on just about every conceivable topic. With online advertising continuing to rise, the potential for blogging does likewise. Here are a few of the key reasons blogging is one of the essential tools of Internet marketing, along with a guide on how to choose the right blog host for your needs.
First, Understand what a Blog is:
First of all, blogs were simply online logs/diaries. Now, it serves as an area a user can take advantage of to express themselves, revealing their feelings, experience, and views on almost any imaginable subject. Compared to traditional means of communication, blogs are more personal and less formal in reaching an audience.
The Advantages of Blogging
- Freedom of Expression: It is an outlet to express your opinions and invite others to quarrel over your ideas.
- Networking Opportunities: Blogs offer an avenue for markers and consumers to share real ideas. Therefore, it improves the interactivity from less product listing to more.
- Effective Advertising: Blogging offers a new platform that is relatively cheap compared to the rest of the advertising methods.
- Public Opinion Insight: An appealing blog title and content can bring responses from readers within no time at all. This feedback will play a very vital role in the assessment and adjustment of products and services.
- Internal Communication Tool: The blog can also facilitate the internal communication of the company and sharing of knowledge and prevention of HR-related problems.
- Search Engine Optimization: Very well-optimized blogs increase the visibility and, therefore, exposure of a product or service.
How to Choose the Right Blog Host
Choosing a blog host is one of the critical decisions to make for business blogging. You can:
- Host Your Own Blog: gives you full control but requires technical resources and expertise.
- Outsource Hosting: can use professional services for an incurred fee.
- Use a Blog Aggregator: Employees can logon to individual blog hosts of their choice.
- For business blogging, it is unavoidable to have the advanced features to meet the maximum marketing, PR as well as SEO potential. The must-have features of a business blog are:
- Comments: Give customer’s feedback and interactivity.
- Trackback: Expand your reach and allow readers to update easily.
- Categories and Tags: Aid in organizing content and making search functionality strong.
- RSS Feed: It’s always nice to syndicate a blog content via newsreaders or aggregators. Choosing and Setting Up Your Blog Host While choosing a blog host, consider:
- Design and Layout: View other blogs on this host, to get an idea of their design and layout.
- Technical Support: Be sure that the company has good customer support.
- After the host has been chosen consider:
- Audience Centric Design: Make the style of the blog audience appropriate
- Authentic Tone: Keep the voice open and trusting.
- Regular Updates: Update with new posts regularly
- Link Integration: Add links to other helpful websites or blogs
- First Person Point: Use first person point of view to make the writing personable.
Blog Objectives: Map these to business goals. This will include the look and feel of the blog, which will comprise content that must resonate with the brand identity and the values espoused by the firm.
