A friend asked me sometimes ago why I have decided to setup a blog for my internet business. I knew it was the way to go but I wasn't too coherent with my reasons and though he finally said okay, I knew he was not too convinced.
Well, I met him few days ago and 'poured' the reasons on him.
Let me share the ones I consider the top 10 with you.
Note that they are not necessarily in any order of importance. I have learnt that there are different strokes for different folks.
1. Business is opened to the world
Blogs are universal. It is a fact that anybody who uses the internet can access your blog. Social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc are accessible only when you join. Not Blogs! Anyone from anywhere can get to your blog with no restrictions. A blog allows you to achieve a potentially infinite number of customers for your businesses.
The basic structure of a blog makes it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for. A blog organises your information effortlessly for the benefit of the visitors. You divide your post topics into categories and sub-categories so that your visitors find what they are looking for with minimal effort. They can move easily through the categories, post archives, move from page to page or simply scroll down the post. The structure of a blog facilitates an enjoyable experience with the visitor who is likely to return if he is satisfied with what he finds.
2. Establishes you as the Expert
Searching for answers is one of the top 3 main reasons why people use the internet. People use the search engines to find the answers to their most pressing questions. This gives you the blog owner a fantastic opportunity by making sure that your blog contains the answers to the most searched questions in your content. You will attract traffic. Blogs that have contents designed to answer the most pressing questions that people have in a particular niche can generate massive amount of traffic for their business.
Blogging demonstrates true commitment and passion to your industry that you really can't fake long-term. Most won't be able to sustain it over long periods of time with frequency, but those who do so are rewarded in spades and stand-out from the crowd.
3. Build traffic
The very nature of a blog makes it easy to direct traffic. If a blog owner has got accounts on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, it's easy for you to pimp your profile with your blog address and depending on how knowledgeable you are, you can drive a large amount of traffic from them to your site. Using Facebook alone, I've driven a tremendous amount of traffic here at no cost. For instance, Katie drives as much as 100 leads daily, sometimes more, just by utilizing social networks. Blogs have some neat plug-ins that makes interaction with other forms of social media effortless.
Backlinkings, pinging, certain plug-ins, and RSS feeds capabilities are all geared towards creating free traffic for you.
You can get even better results with your article marketing, press releases, emails, podcasts and videos by easily inserting your blog address which makes for even more traffic.
4. High degree of relevance
A static Website is like a newspaper, while a blog is a subscription. What do you do with a newspaper after you read it? You don't toss the subscription out, but you will toss out the pages you've already read.
The contents of a static website are far less likely to be discussed and even less likely to be re-blogged and linked to by others. A static Website is far less likely to make sense or be found at Blog Catalog, Technorati, Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, Mixx, and etcetera.
Old articles are valuable and still read years later, given infinite life by the engines. Old Tweets live in archive purgatory where a majority will never be seen again.
5. Google loves Blogs
Blogs are perfect for search engine optimization. Search engine spiders like fresh content to feed on, and while a company website might be rather static with little need for content changes, a regularly updated blog provides fresh, keyword-rich content that search engines love. This will cause your site to rank higher when potential customers search for your products and services and drive more traffic to your entire site
Google and other search engines want to find you. It is their job to know everything there is to know about every industry, every person, every question, and every answer. Having information about every possible topic is a basis for their industry. Blogs make it far easier for them to find this information.
Search engines like recent material. The Internet thrives on speed. This is why the big three search engines often include how recent a piece of content is, when deciding how to rank it.
6. Easy and cheap to set up
You will be surprised how easily and cheaply you can get started with a blog. In fact the first blog I got was free. I wanted to have a presence online and I decided to get a blog. Just like that. Go to http://www.wordpress.com and you will see them literally begging you to allow them give you a blog. However I recommend that you get a self-hosted website for your online business, it`s cheap anyway, as this makes you look more professional. It is quite easy to maintain too.
7. Blogging unites people of like minds
The interactive nature of blogs is hard to beat. Reading comments and responding to the author and other readers can provide benefit in multiple ways. It can give you varying perspectives. It can introduce you to others with similar interests, and if you write something with a little thought behind it, you may be shocked what comes from it.
I have met some great people who followed a link from a comment I left on a blog and wanted to know more about me. I also do this all the time.
Blogging brings like-minded people together. Starting a blog can help you find those people and share your opinions and thoughts.
8. Total control
Without limitation, you can say what you want to say and as much as you want because it is your site. You are not limited to a specific number of characters like twitter does or forced to fall in line with a draconian TOS (Term of Service) like Facebook.
Blogs allow us to use multiple file formats such as MP3, video, Images and much more.
Blogs allow for a great deal of creativity. Not only can you really speak your mind, you can communicate creatively- artistically even - rather than rely on text.
Plug-ins let you add pretty much anything you want, can even integrate micro blogging within your blog itself. The flexibility of the layout is a joy to behold. You can tush up your blog anyhow and anyway you desire.
9. Labour of Love
Blogs are a labour of love that requires time, effort and often brain-power. To write a good blog post, you need to think about it and have something intelligent to say. Once you create good content that sticks, it is worth the time it took to create it.
When you invest time and effort into creating a blog you have a sense of reward and pride that no Facebook account can ever give you. It is such a labour of love that you will still want to update it even when you know there will be nobody to read it - but eventually someone will in the future.
10. Okay, It`s your turn!
Of course, I will give you the chance to put the 10th reason. What do you have to say about it? I want to hear your reasons for blogging, and also the reasons you visit blogs.
Tosin Adeoti
Tosin Adeoti is an Internet Marketer who specializes in teaching people how to be financially free and enjoy time freedom.
You can get to know more about him by visiting his blog http://tosinmlmexpert.com
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