To Blog or Not to Blog that is the Question

Here is an interesting observation, most people that blog also tweet… however most of the people on Twitter do not blog. Not blogging is costing them traffic… and ultimately money. Don’t get me wrong here, Twitter and Facebook are great places and they are key components of your overall marketing campaign. However blogging is where “it is at,” so to speak. Your blog is really your key to consistent traffic and long term benefits for your business.

To help illustrate this, I am going to give you ten reasons as to why you need to blog if you seriously want business.

Reason 1: True commitment to your industry is shown through blogging, and so is your passion for what it is you are doing. Passion is what grabs peoples’ attention and gets them involved. I know that sending a “tweet” is much easier than sitting and coming up with a 500 word post. But if you really care about what it is you are doing you will invest that time and get that blog post created.

Reason 2: Articles/blog posts are valuable no matter how old they are. Thanks to the internet, you can write something today that is pertinent and five years from now when someone is searching for something related to your post… they will still get to read your post. This means that they will still be able to get to your site and read everything else you have done in that area.

Reason 3: The links in your blog posts will get clicked and provide value to your reader. Value that will then make them invest in what you are doing also known as buying what it is you have to sell. The links on Twitter are really just noise. Yes they help… but not as much as the great link in a great blog post.

Reason 4: You want to be the end product that everyone is linking to and sending traffic to. Yes it is great to click the links and go to other websites and help out those people… isn’t it better for you though if people are taking your link and getting you traffic? That isn’t going to happen on Facebook or Twitter.

Reason 5: Blogging gives you complete control and ownership of everything that you put in your blog. Control is important when you are trying to build a business and establish a solid customer base.

Reason 6: You want to show your followers/readers that you are more than just a sample size serving of the real thing. Hosting a blog says a lot about who you are and how important your business is.

Reason 7: Blogging allows you to add value to your site, on an incremental and continual basis which is important for traffic, links and sales. You are in the business to make money, not just be a cute brief on a page.

Reason 8: A blog will provide you with full analytics. This is important, these analytics will tell you what people are clicking on within your blog, what posts are of interest and how they got to your site. These are vital pieces of information when it comes to marketing.

Reason 9: Blogging allows your followers multiple ways to keep up to date on what you are saying or offering, such as RSS feeds, emails, and onsite info.

Reason 10: Blogging doesn’t limit you to a number of characters you are allowed to use. While 140 can be plenty to deliver a point… many times it is not enough to be effective.

Neil Bartlett is the founder of MyIMCoach.com. My IM Coach provides aspiring Internet Marketers with Tips and Techniques for getting started and/or improving their marketing skills. To learn more INSTANTLY grab his FREE report “How To Make It Online”

Reasons You Should Use Wordpress to Blog

The first reason and the most important reason is simply freedom. One thing that I hate in life is if I feel like I’m really being limited by something. I like to be able to do all the things that I want to do and be able to think outside the box and get creative.

You have the freedom to do so much with your blog and you just have so many different ways to customize your blog. From the way that you run your blog, to the way that you make your blog look to all of the different plugins that you can use to get more traffic, automate and do just about anything that you can think of to improve your blogging experience.

There are just so many different Wordpress themes that you can pick from. I literally looked at hundreds and hundreds of different themes before I choose the one that I want. Then after you pick the theme, you can do so much to customize and change anything that you don’t like about the theme.

Another reason why I like Wordpress is yes it can seem pretty complex when you start out, but that is because it gives you so many options. Once you learn how to use it, it gets way easier. The best way to learn how to use Wordpress is to look at video tutorials.

You can find tutorials on Wordpress, but you can also search the web and find video tutorials on how to do certain activities on Wordpress. Video tutorials are great because you can actually see what a person is doing, step-by-step and visually see things.

It seems really daunting because there are so many things to utilize and so many different links to click on. The best way is to just learn what you need to use first.

Well, that sounds obvious, but some people will try to learn every feature, right from the start. You might not need or use all of the features, so just learn what you are going to use. I use a lot of features on Wordpress, but I still don’t use them all. I just use the ones that I need.

Wordpress is well worth the extra time that you will put into learning it. You get the freedom to do just about anything that you want. If you aren’t using Wordpress, I would definitely check it out for yourself.