Why Have A Blog?

Why have a blog? What’s the big deal anyway? Having a blog is a real big deal. First of all, a blog is your web site’s personality. It is the “Host” or “Hostess” of your web presence. It is how people add additional revenues to their web site businesses. True enough people use blogs in place of web sites and that is okay if a blog is all you need. You can even set up your own blog with a little know-how. For the purposes of this article, we’re just talking about the average blog for individuals to small companies. I am in the business of selling web site design so it is to my benefit if you want a site built by our Dallas website designers.

I started designing web sites in 1998 and have watched the technologies change. I knew nothing about SEO (search engine optimization) and even if I did, that knowledge would not matter today because of technology changes.

While it did not start out that way, blogs are now designed to help build traffic to your web sites.

• You write good content and your readers keep coming back.
• You write content relative to what people are searching about and people can find you on the web where you sell your goods or services.
• A blog helps you build your professional reputation as an expert in your field

That’s why you need a blog.  Of course, the knowledge you have must be valid and it should be stuff you actually know and can prove and can answer questions about if your readers ask.

The more I saw the hype about blogs, the more I had to have one. The only problem is, I am a designer, a creative . . . and you know we pride ourselves on what “we” can do ourselves. So I created my own blog from scratch using HTML and a few other design tools. It looked really good, but it was a lot of work. I later decided that it is not the design features I’m after; it’s the functionality. Although could create a blog from scratch, why would I want to do that if there is an easier way to do it? Programmers don’t write all programs from scratch, they use “modules” that they can reuse over and over to perform a specific function in a program.

A blog is easy (relatively speaking) to set up. Sure – because I am a designer and I know the code, I can customize and tweak some of the features to get what I want out of blog creation systems. It just makes my life easier as a designer and allows me to offer better service to my clients. I can create a web site for them and develop a blog for them which will allow them control over content without me having to give them access to certain parts of the site and compromise their site design. As a designer, I can incorporate their own custom design into the blog or use a template and customize a compatible look and feel. I designed my web site from scratch and found a blog template that would work for me until I have the time to “design” the blog around my web site’s look and feel. You’ll have to keep coming back to see what I end up doing with my blog.

Since I want to communicate with customers, I use a blog. And that’s the reason why you should have a blog. Create a blog because you want to regularly communicate with your customers. You can have a blog to promote goods or services your company is selling. Educate your clients about purchases they make from you or about services that may be made available to them in the future. A blog is personal. It allows you to put yourself in front of the customer. Since they can’t see you face to face, it’s the next best thing to them coming to your store.

A blog enables you to place valuable information about your product or services on the web without having to bother (It’s no bother – you pay us!) your web master all the time. In fact, we would rather give you this control so that we can focus on the larger tasks.

After all, who better to promote your product or service than you? Later we will talk about what all you can do in a blog. Until then, do your homework below. Feel free to post questions.

How To Have A Blog

HOMEWORK:

Check out some blogs – Earthclinic, a photo blog, and a business blog on real estate.

Set up a free blog at Blogger.com and begin to play with it. Don’t worry about content. Write about anything. Make it your online journal or make it relevant to your site. You just want to get the feel of it. (See a 2 minute video below on how to set it up)