Why You Need to Blog and How to Choose a Host

The Importance of Blogging

Have you noticed that so many companies and businesses now have blogs as well as websites? Any company who has a credible online presence has nowadays got to have a blog. The current trend is to keep websites (the shop window) clean, clear, clutter free and easy to navigate. However, blogs are used (often attached the the website) to provide fresh content and more in depth information. Content is necessary for SEO and also developing credibility and authority. If you need an online presence, you need a blog. Simple as.

Each blog post should be about 400-700 words long. Pictures and videos break it up and make it intersting and do tend to keep people on the page for longer.

Blogs are also used to provide valuable backlinks to the website, helping it with the search engine rankings. If you are using a free blog, you will probably want to register with a website called Pingomatic. This is a site that automatically lets the search engines know when you update your blog. It is a bit like submitting your website to the search engines. You should ping every time you post!

You can also add a feed reader so people can subscribe to your feed and keep in touch with your updates. This is so easy, it is just a matter of click and drag, or in some cases cutting and pasting some html code in a box. The other thing you can do is post links to new blog posts on social bookmarking and networking sites to drive traffic. Networked Blogs is a useful facebook application and tool, you can join easily.

Some people 'monetize' their blogs. This means they have adverts that generate revenue or they do product reviews and add affiliate links. Google adsense and Amazon and Ebay are good choices. If your blog is generating high traffic you may want to offer advertising space to other businesses who have products or services relevant to your subjects. For instance if you are writing about i-phones, you may want to offer space to someone who sells i-phone aps.

The problem is, not everyone has time to keep a blog up and so there is a real need for writers to approach companies and offer their services. Don't be shy if you can offer this service, even if the company does not have a blog. Chances are, they don't know where to start and will be delighted you have contacted them. You can advertise your services on Flogyr.

If you are a company the good news is that it is easy to start a blog, even if you don't have many technical skills. There are a number of free places you can create one and then upgrade with your own domain name. If you need to market online, you might want to consider having more than one blog, or at least more than one place to post your articles.

Blog posts need to serve a purpose. They should provide information, inspiration, entertain or be a resource of some kind. If you can do all of that at the same time, you are on to a winner! You should pay careful attention to your keywords to improve rankings and also to help people find you.

So where do you start setting up your free blog?

First of all, you need to choose a platform to host your shiny new blog.

The two biggest most popular ones are Blogger and Wordpress. Here are the differences:

Blogger lets you customise the styles and colours of the layout more than wordpress unless you upgrade to a paid version. Having said that, you can still do quite a lot with the free one. There are 80+ templates and some of them allow you to upload your own header, just make sure it is the right size. It is easy to do.

Blogger will allow you to add an external stat tracker like statcounter (this is free and easy to use). Wordpress do track stats, but don't allow external trackers.

Blogger do not have contact forms but you can add one of your own. I use Aweber and I find it is better to make sure that everyone who contacts ends up there on my double opt in list so I can communicate with them. Wordpress allows you to add a form if you just write [contact form] on any post.

Wordpress allow team blogging and different roles like administrators, authors, editors and contributors. Blogger doesn't make so many distinctions.

Blogger allows you to use your own domain name for free. If you get your domain name through Blogger, they will take care of all the DNS settings (domain name server settings). You need to upgrade with wordpress to use your own domain.

Blogger has less image space available, but you can use Picasa Web Albums. There are various widgets with both hosts, play around with them and have some fun! Wordpress has a really cool selection of plugins available.

I have blogs at both places, I think I found Blogger much easier to start with, but they are both easy once you get going. Just Google a 'how to' question if you get stuck. Both platforms have excellent tutorials and help sections.

As far as SEO is concerned, there is a long running debate about which has the best performance. Despite being owned by Google, I have read that Blogger does not do so well for listings and therefore traffic as Wordpress. This is a really excellent article. If you are serious about your blog, go pro. Lots of professionals upgrade to the Thesis theme in Wordpress, as it does very well in the rankings and is very versatile. I know people who use it as their main site.

Now then, if you need help getting started, go to Flogyr, there will be people there who are willing to train you. This can be done remotely, so you don't need to find someone local necessarily.

Hubpages

You can create a kind of blog on Hubpages, this is where you are now! Instead of being called a blog, it is called a hub. Each post is called a hub.  Very confusing until you become a seasoned hubber ;) Hubpages are very easy to use, the search engines love them and there is a really fabulous community here who are encouraging and helpful. They run competitions, make it easy to monitize and you can find a hub on just about anything! They operate a grading system that is quite complex, but as you can imagine, there is a hub or two about that too!