Why would you use Blogs instead of a web site for your online business?
What's wrong with using a web site for conducting your online business? How can Blogs help and why should I need one anyway?
Combining a website and a Blog however offer a number of superior advantages in terms of traffic generation, marketing and efficiency which a stand-alone website cannot do.
(a) Automatic push-button publishing.
Blogs are the easiest and cheapest way to have an online presence. For example, if you're using Blogger, your Blog is hosted free by Blogger. Blogs allow you to publish your website without the need to know about any technical or programming issues such as HTML, FrontPage, FTP and so on.
Blogs provide a simple editorial interface. All you need to do is write your content, and publish it just by clicking the 'publish' button in most cases, and you're done.
(b) Fosters relationship building, trust and 'stickyness'
Unlike websites, which are static, Blogs allows interaction between you and your readers. Blogs have a commenting function, and if turned on, it allows readers and visitors to post their comments, thoughts or opinions to a particular article you have written.
Constant interaction with your readers builds a feeling of community and 'stickyness' factor. You can then recommend products more easily to them, and they would be more ready and willing to accept your product or services.
(c) Increase search engine ranking
Almost every major search engine has a software program called a 'bot' that searches or 'spiders' websites online to find new content which it can then bring back to update the search engine databases.
Basically what this means is the more frequently you update your site, the more frequently the search engine 'bot' will visit your site, and this helps to boost your search engine rankings.
If you make regular postings to your Blog, you can be sure that search engines will visit your Blog again and again.
You can then place links of your other websites in your Blog and these will get indexed quickly by the search engines.
Of course you could also update your existing web site with new content, but you would have to go through a more technical process, that of using an HTML editor or FrontPage and uploading through FTP and so on.
(d) Free listing in Google, Yahoo and MSN
The traditional way of getting your website listed in these three major search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN is slow and inefficient.
A listing in Yahoo directory alone would cost you $299.
However, with the inclusion of RSS feeds by these search engines, you can now gain a 'backdoor' listing which is legal and free. If you have an RSS feed, you can have it included in Yahoo and MSN and your website will be immediately listed in these major search engines within 24 hours!
My videos shows you the step-by-step process on how to do this.
e) Syndication Power
The most powerful feature of a Blog is its syndication function. Blogs can be turned into RSS feeds, and most Blogging service providers have this built-in function.
It is just a matter of turning it on from within your account.
Once it's turned into an RSS feed, you can syndicate your Blog contents by:
? Submitting to the major RSS directories and search engines like Yahoo and MSN, gaining free exposure and free traffic
? Allow other website owners to publish your feed on their sites, again, getting free traffic you otherwise will not have
? Gain new readers, subscribers and potential clients by letting them subscribe to your RSS feed via a newsreader
http://www.marketing-rampage-with-blogs-and-rss.com
Brandon is the author of the "Marketing Rampage with Blogs and RSS" Videos. He'll show you businesses strategies to getting more highly responsive visitors and more sales to your website without additional advertising costs, as well as increasing search engine rankings and obtaining quick listings in Google, Yahoo and MSN, by using Blogs and RSS.