Then a few weeks later I wrote this on Blogs as a followup:
When I first wrote my original "Why I Hate Blogs" for article submission I was pretty sure that the humor would get some hits but in my wildest dreams I never thought that out of the 26 articles I did write that it would be second in the amount of the hits it did get. Actually it was dark humor because I honestly do hate spending the time blogging away or let us be more specific - I honestly DID hate spending that time.
Most blogs are usually never read by more than a few. They sit there in the virtual world on servers, which provide this service for free (lord only knows why), and the muses and thoughts of those who write them serve more as a personal diary for the individual than to inform the world of some serious event.
To be sure there are quite a few blogs that are frequented daily either due to the persona who owns them or due to their popularity in a specific niche. For instance, writers frequent blogs that are kept up by agents. Some of these blogs are humorous, some serious.
As a matter of course when I set up my blog I put in a stat counter. These are available for free all over the web, and by injecting a line of code into your web page or blog you can get fairly sophisticated results as to how many visits you get and for how long the person visited. I never really looked at those stats due to the fact that business and other web development which I considered more important were taking up all my time.
This morning out of curiosity I called up these statistics, fully expecting to see hits in the low teens. People who just happened by my blog by mistake. I certainly did not expect to see a number in the hundreds coming close to a thousand hits in the period from November 2005 until the end of Jan. 2006.
In a quick peek at those statistics I realized that the visitors from all over the globe. And so I went to MSN search which is much friendlier to blog searches than Google or Yahoo. Google maintains its own blog search facility separate from its normal search. Yes your blog can end up in Google Main Search as well, but that would take an incredible amount of great back-links to it and really high popularity. MSN was still showing my blog in search requests.
I really do hate blogs. But they have become part of the mainstay of the web as has RSS feeds. Indeed RSS feeds are simple to generate, yet if you pay attention, most information within RSS feeds are NOT picked up by search engines. (This is due to the fact that people do not realize that an RSS feed produced through Javascript, which most are, are simply ignored by Search Engines, as search engines do not read or follow any links in Javascript.)
And so I grrrrrrrrrr to myself, tear out my hair, and continue to blog. Yes I duplicate stuff that is on my business site, and articles I submit for submission, and I ad links to my own writing especially when it is published professionally.
It does take time to set up a blog and it takes effort. It takes time to list the blog in the blog directories. The trick is, as with any WebSite to see if you can get some important "niche" and "original" information into your blog. That will let it stand out to the search engines. Search engines today are putting a great deal of emphasis on "original content", as can be seen just from the many article submission sites that have become much more stringent in their article acceptance process. Non-original content does no one any good. So put "original" content into your web Blog.
As much as I hate to admit it blogging is sometimes important for your business and your web presence. It can be useless or it can add an extra added push to your web business. That is entirely up to you and how often you choose to blog and what you decide to put in a blog.
On the other hand, I say this with a sheepish smile, since Blogs are free, I set up another blog in Google for my family and friends where I simply post pictures of the family and news about them. This I have no need to be picked up by web search engines, and just pass out the URL to my kids and close friends. Which is another way to use blogs.
So I remain with my hand raised on "hating blogs". And I fully admit I continue to blog. The lesson that I have learned is that no web technology should be ignored when it becomes mainstay. If you are serious about adding credibility to your business then setting up a blog should also be part of the plan.
And if you just want to write your diary and private thoughts down, then go for the blog as well. Just be aware you may end up being surprised at how many people will read those thoughts.
Google's blogspot is great http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ as is Wordpress at http://wordpress.org/ The difference is that Google offers you the space, whereas the WordPress blog you download the free software and then set up where you want it. (Google provides this service as well allowing you to create your blog on your own webserver.)
Other good Blooging software is out there as well. And even for the non technolgical minded setting one up is fairly easy. If you want to change look and feel and templates, they can be found all over the web, or just use the options of your blogging software.
I still hate blogging. But life is not full of doing only those things we like. Use your blog if you are serious about promoting your business. And use your blog if you want to promote yourself. Don't expect a million hits a minute but don't be surprised if your blog turns out to be a positive addition to your web presence. I certainly was and continue to be amazed at the results.
No comments:
Post a Comment