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"Blogging" For Fun & Profits
- by Jim Edwards
© Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
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Unless you've been under a rock for the last year,
you've
heard the term "blog" once or twice.
To most people, a "blog" simply represents a
glorified
online "diary" where geeks, computer nerds, and
lonely
teenagers record their thoughts in cyber-space.
However, many people don't realize that "blogs"
are quietly
revolutionizing the way companies and customers
interact
about everything from existing products to new
ideas and
improvements in customer service.
In short, "blog" style communication has come of
age and
anyone with an online business better sit up and
take
notice fast!
In the beginning, "blogs" were basically an
online diary to
record your thoughts; but "blogs" have now
evolved into
dynamic websites that non-technical people can
update
immediately without html editors or ftp programs.
Blogs allow their authors to make instant website
updates
through a computer anywhere in the world with a
Web browser
and Internet connection.
Blogs also allow readers to respond to the
author's posts,
provide additional information, links, expanded
opinions,
and more.
In short, an active "blog" creates an interactive
community
with the author as the hub and the readers as the
spokes of
the wheel that keep the whole cycle turning round.
Unlike traditional "static" web pages where
content rarely
(if ever) changes, an active blog evolves in a
state of
constant and never-ending renewal.
With blogs, smart online businesses re-discovered
a
principal that small "mom and pop" stores
understood for
years: know your customers and stay in close tune
with
their wants, needs, and desires.
Large companies throw billions of dollars down a
black hole
every year to literally "guess" what people want
to buy.
Most call it the "Marketing Department."
On the flipside, smart online businesses
understand that
blogs allow you to avoid guessing what's on your
customers'
minds and provide an active and up-to-the-minute
means for
them to tell you exactly what they do and don't
like about
your services, products, and virtually any other
aspect of
the market.
This lightning fast communication makes it
possible for
small companies to literally snatch huge market
share away
from more traditional companies.
Blogging also has a distinct advantage over
traditional
email newsletters in that subscribers can get
udpates
without having to receive an email message.
Through the
power of RSS (real simple syndication),
subscribers get
notified of updated content though an rss news
reader.
Bottom Line: publishing a blog with an RSS feed
that your
readers can subscribe to means your content NEVER
gets
blocked by a SPAM filter.
Blog software basically comes in 2 flavors:
hosted and
stand-alone. Hosted blogging solutions make it
extremely
easy to get set up with a blog, often in just a
couple of
minutes.
If you know how to type, you can create a blog.
Log on to
Blogger.com and you can set up a blog free of
charge and
start posting in just a few minutes.
Blogger.com (owned by search giant, Google) will
even host
your blog on their servers.
Typepad.com, which charges as little as $4.95 per
month, is
also an excellent hosted service offering
additional
features that enable you to quickly get your own
blog up
and running.
The alternative is stand-alone blogging software
installed
on your own website.
A very popular solution is Moveable Type,
available from
moveabletype.org, which provides a very versatile
and
powerful suite of tools for creating a
full-featured blog
to rival that of any size company in the world.
This is the solution I've chosen for
my blog at
Whichever blogging solution you choose, if you
plan to
successfully conduct any form of business online,
understand that a "blog" must form an integral
part of your
overall plan for customer communication and
interaction.
--
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist
and the
co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach
you how
to use free articles to quickly drive thousands
of targeted
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