Blogging Basics
If you are looking for a way to drive more traffic to your website, look no further. Blogging is a very effective way to bring new visitors to your site. Search engines like blogs and this is why when doing a keyword search, you will very often see a blog posting at the top of the list.
If you are not blogging, you are missing out on a lot of traffic to your site. Start one or several blogs and channel all that traffic to your main website. Your blog can be a subsection of your website or you can build a stand along version. Either way, make sure you link back to your main site. Place links to your home page as well as other pages from your site. You are trying to get as much exposure for your site as possible.
There are several ways you can use to create your blog. The two that I recommend are Blogger and Wordpress. They are both easy to use and navigate. They also offer a lot of features so you can customize the look of your blog. You have the option of hosting your blog on their servers or you can host it yourself. To host it yourself, you will need to purchase and register your own domain. Many hosting companies will offer free domain registration when you purchase a hosting account from them.
There are several benefits for hosting your blog yourself. For this article, we will discuss two of them. First, the url itself. If you host your blog on Blogger, your url will look like this: yourwebsite.blogspot.com. However, if you host it yourself, the url will look like this: yourwebsite.com. This will give your url a more professional, as well as credible, look. Plus, it will be much easier for your readers to remember.
The second reason to host your own blog is far more significant. Blogs that are hosted on free services, are at risk of disappearing without warning or reason. All your hard work and effort will be gone. If you choose to go this route, I highly recommend keeping backups of all your posting’s on a disc, just in case.
Here are some pointers to a successful blog. Post frequently, at least 2 – 3 times per week. Blogs that are not updated regularly will become boring and lose their following. Add an RSS feed so your readers can subscribe to your blog. This will also notify them when you have added a new post.
Give your blog personality. Make it interesting to your viewers. A dull, uninteresting blog will not build much of a following.
Finally, find other blogs in your niche and write some comments to their posts. Most blogs will allow you a link back to your site. Post useful, informative comments. Do not post SPAM or sales pitch comments. You can use this method to build good working business relationships as well as establish links back to your site.