e_Marketing

Since I'm writing a series on "Creating A Successful Blog" I've been looking (not very diligently) for other opinions on what makes for a successful blog.

One thing I've discovered is that there is no magic answer to this question. First of all, every blog speaks to a different audience in a different tone of voice. So what one group likes another group will find boring or maybe even overtly aggravating.

I stumbled on an instance of this today when I followed a link from Lisa Barone's post called "Six Kickass Writing Resources for Bloggers".

First on her list was "What Makes a Good Blog?" by Merlin Mann.

Now I must admit there are several things in Merlin's list which I agree with, but I find the overall tone fairly aggravating. For instance, he says, "People start real blogs because they think about something a lot...They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person's obsessions take them."

Frankly I don't see why "obsession" is a necessary part of blogging. Is it because in order to do real blogging we must express our personality; and expressing our personality necessarily involves creativity; and because creativity is so relatively scarce and difficult that it will not happen without an obsessive focus on something?

Or is this just the way an obsessive person looks at it?

Of course it takes all types. But there is a certain arrogance and air of superiority about talk of obsession and creativity that I can do without.

Commenting on blog posts as a tactic for self-promotion is something I've written about from time to time. Some self-proclaimed blogging, social networking, link building, and SEO experts think this is a good way to gain search engine exposure, links, and reputation.

I doubt it very much. Your comment will stand out on a blog with little traffic, but will be buried in the pile of 75 other comments on a blog with a lot of traffic. So either way the returns are limited.

You will get much better results from posting on relevant forums where you can make a direct contribution to a thread that people are actually reading. I've proven this to myself quite a few times.

The tactic of commenting on blog posts for links naturally gives rise to comment spamming too.

Yes, I know there are programs that search out relevant blog posts and then help you fashion a "relevant" comment. Usually the people who create these programs say "I am not recommending comment spamming. I am recommending that you find interesting posts and create real comments."

Right. Sure.

For another take on comment spamming see this post - Spam by any other name...

Getting regular readers to your blog is a big part of becoming a successful blogger. Writing in your blog on a regular basis will keep people coming back, and will get you better search engine exposure too, because an active blog will be seen by the search engines as a worthwhile source of information.

So try to write something new in your blog as often as you can. Try for at least every couple of days. It doesn't have to be long and involved. Just three or four paragraphs will give your readers something to chew on.

For more on this topic see How Often Should You Create Blog Posts?

Basic list of reasons to have a blog...My recent promotions for AutoBlog have created a fair number of questions about the value of having your own blog for doing things like marketing products and communicating with customers.

The answer is "Yes". Creating and maintaining a blog is a good way to increase your online presence, make more people aware of your products and services, express opinions and share information, as well as being a good way to get feedback from customers and prospects.

Here are some of the reasons why you should have a blog, perhaps even before you have a regular static website.

1. You can do just about everything with a (Wordpress*) blog that you can do with a static website.

2. Setting up a blog is much easier than creating a website. Yes, it is true there is some basic programming involved. But if you get a professional "blog setter-upper" to do it for you it will cost much less than building a decent looking website.

3. Design is very flexible. There are hundreds of free "themes" that determine how it will look. And as long as you don't modify the theme too much you can switch themes on the fly in about 15 seconds for a completely new look.

4. Blogs are generally more search engine friendly because typical blog structure forces you to create content that is optimized the way the search engines like it.

5. The search engines (usually) crawl blogs more often than static websites, because blogs change more often. As new content is introduced with new product announcements or new information, those changes will get picked up more quickly by the search engines.

6. Blogs are perfect for publishing "news and views". This means you can add new content more often, and you can cover a wider range of topics than might be covered in a normal static website.

7. Blogs are interactive which makes them great for getting reader opinion, comment, and questions. If you want to interact with your customers and prospects a blog is a good way to do it.

8. Blogs can be integrated with social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, Squidoo, Hub Pages, Twitter, and many others. This is usually done by simply loading in the RSS feed that the blog automatically creates.

I'm sure there are many other reasons why you should have a blog if you're involve in online business or communication. Leave a comment with your suggestions...

(*Yes, I know, this is not a Wordpress blog. It is powered by b2Evolution. That's because I've had it for a couple of years, it works, gets a bit of traffic, and it would be too much hassle to change it over. There's not much doubt that Wordpress is a more versatile and certainly more popular platform, and the one I recommend to clients.)

Because we've been creating so many blogs for clients lately I've started putting together a site (a blog of course) dedicated to explaining how to create posts, add hyperlinks, include images, etc.

The new blog is at

http://www.linknethelp.com

We'll also be discussing how to write effective posts: what to write about, how long to make them, how to format them, etc., etc.

If you have any opinions, please leave a comment.