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Blogging....Join the
Fun and Benefits!
Blogging, what is it? Everyone is talking about it, but
you are one of those people that don’t quite understand what it is? That’s
alright, as we’ll go over what a blog is, the history of blogs, what they
are used for and why they can play an important part in you life over the
age of fifty.
What is a blog?
A blog is essentially an online journal where people can post their
thoughts. Some blogs give you the choice of keeping them private, only
allowing a few chosen friends to read them or opening them up to the public
for anyone to see them.
What is a blogger?
A blogger is someone who creates a blog and posts on it.
Brief history of blogs:
The roots of the blog can be traced back to 1983. Most newsgroups were
simply moderated discussion forums, where people could post comments, views
and opinions on information offered by that group. In 1994 the creation on
online personal diaries became popular. Here people would keep a running
account of their personal lives.
Our current blog has been around for an even shorter
period of time. In 1998, Open Diary created a site in which its users could
post blogs that had the ability to be commented on by other people. The
popular free blogging site called Blogger was created in 1999 by Evan
Williams and Meg Hourihan. Blogger was later purchased by Google in 2003.
Despite the fact that blog sites have been in existence since 1998, they
have only been popular for 5 or 6 years. In 2001, how-to-blog manuals were
published and the phenomenon has only taken off since that point.
What are blogs used for?
In the very beginning, blogs were usually used to talk about a person’s
life. People would make blog posts about things happening in their life,
thus using the blog as a public journal. Over time, the use of the blog
evolved. People began using the blog to post their opinions about everything
from politics to religion to sports to music, among other things. Nowadays,
blogs are even used to make money—one 20-year-old makes $5,000 from Google
per month because he has Google Ads on his blog. It is an excellent way for
businesses to effectively get their name out into the public and use blogs
for their own purposes. Many use blogs to keep in touch with their children
that are grown and move away. Excellent opportunity to share you day with
them.
Why are blogs important to your online business?
Millions of people from all over the world read blogs every day. Those who
have a blog are given a lot of exposure—there is the potential for them to
have millions of unique readers each day. Can you imagine having a million
people see your business’ name each day? That sounds pretty incredible,
doesn’t it? Yet, that’s exactly what could happen if you create and maintain
a successful, well-read blog. And that’s actually a pretty easy thing to do.
So how exactly can you use the blog to help your online business? Well, you
can use it in a variety of ways.
You could:
• Use the blog to discuss things related to your field of business. For
instance, I post articles relating to healthy lifestyles, thus showing
potential customers my knowledge and network with others in the same field.
• Let your employers have their own blogs to talk about your
services/products. The more active blogs that reference your business, the
more exposure you’ll get.
• Use your business blog to keep current customers updated on new
services/products available.
• Post news about your business!
• Get feedback from current and potential customers on your
products/services. For instance, you could make a post on a new product,
giving details about it. Then your existing customers or potential customers
could give their opinion on it.
• Promote your online business on your blog by making blog posts with
information on what your business offers.
• Network with others in your industry, find new leads
and meet new people.
• Install Adsense on your blog and make extra revenue from ads clicked,
thereby helping your business to be more profitable.
There are really a lot of possibilities to how you can use a blog to help
your business, even more than those listed here. Blogs that are hosted on
your site (by using a program like Word Press) can help your site achieve a
higher ranking in search engines. This is because blogs are search engine
friendly (Google is known to list them after only a few days, whereas it
takes regular web sites weeks to appear on a search engine). Having a high
search engine ranking is crucial to having a successful online business.
Blogs help you to increase your ranking, which will increase your business.
The great thing about blogs is that they are easy to use and also very
effective. Start a blog today and not only watch your business’ notoriety
grow, but watch yourself grow too in friends, keeping your mind young,
finding new colleagues and knowledge.
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