What’s a Blog, You Ask?
Nowadays, we hear the word blog mentioned quite often. A blog for this…a blog for that. What exactly is a blog? Let’s first start by defining the term blog.
It’s actually very simple–a blog is a page on a website where you talk about a specific subject matter. It’s where you can demonstrate your knowledge and expertise to the world. These days, it’s all about content. The more relevant content you can provide for your target audience, the more successful your blog will be.
The actual writings for a blog are called posts. Here’s an example of a blog by Andrea Vahl, who is one of the top social media gurus. I must mention though, one of my most favorite visual blogs is Angelicamademe. Check it out and you’ll see why I like this so much!
There are blogs on any subject you can think of—fashion, cars, photography, etc. A blog is updated regularly and can be written by yourself or someone you trust to write for you. A person who writes for a blog is called a blogger. A well-known blogger who I like to follow and has loads of wonderful information on blogging is Jeff Bullas.
The goal for your blog is to get as many people as possible to read it…and read it regularly. There are tools you can use to help you with your blog. My favorite is WordPress. WordPress allows you to write, store and publish your postings on your website. It also provides you with tools to help people find your blog. This is crucial for the success of your blog, because most likely there are tons and tons of blogs out there on your particular subject matter. You want people to read YOUR blog.
You might be thinking—well, this is all great, but I don’t like to write or I don’t have the time to write. Good news! There are a couple of options.
- As mentioned before, you can have other people you trust write for you. There are bloggers you can hire that will do this. Sprout Social has a list of websites to find bloggers. I’ve used Elance, which is on this list and had no problems. You will most likely need to pay whoever you hire and prices range, depending on your needs and their expertise in that subject.
- Instead of a blog, you can do a vlog. (Yep…what will they think of next?!) A vlog is a blog, which the postings are done in video. I follow Sonia Gil’s vlog for one of my clients. Her niche is traveling and traveling tips. Vlogs are great for your audience, because they are visual, which can be more appealing than something written.
So blogs have become more and more popular over the years. And if you’re running a business, it’s almost essential for you to have a blog on your website. Most likely, your competition has a blog and again, YOU want to be the expert in your subject matter, not them. Got it?
Next up…what the heck do I write about on my blog? So stay tuned…