April 7, 2007

To Blog Or Not To Blog

- by Jim Edwards

Web logs, commonly referred to as "blogs," represent all the rage
right now in online publishing.

Not really a newsletter or traditional html page publishing, blogs
resemble more of a web-based diary where the creator records their
thoughts, posts links, or responds to questions.

With so much confusion online and an absence of "personal touch,"
blogs stand to actually bring back some humanity to the web by
allowing people of like minds to come together.

** Why Blog? **

As the sea of information on the World Wide Web gets larger and
deeper, people starve for knowledge.

It’s a fact that most human beings learn better when someone else
shows or tells them how to do something, or explains what something
means and its impact on their lives.

People sitting around a fire and passing information one to another
is as old as human history, and with blogs you can do the online
equivalent.

Blogs allow you to do everything from staying in touch with family
members to building a world-wide following of loyal readers based
around a hobby or your profession.

** Monologue or Dialogue? **

You basically have two choices when it comes to your blog.

You can set it up so only you can post to the blog and viewers just
read your posts, or you can allow your audience to comment on your
posts and create a dialogue with them.

Which model you choose comes down to your purpose for the blog.

If you want to get feedback from customers, family members, friends,
or subscribers, then allowing them to post will add a tremendous
dimension to your communication.

If you want to keep it simple, then start out with a blog where you
post and others only read.

** How Do You Set Up a Blog? **

Log on to Blogger.com to set up a free account (monologue type).

With absolutely zero experience and without reading the help files,
I set up my blog - www.ebookblog.com - in about 5 minutes.

At first I just posted a few old articles to fill in content and see
how the process worked.

Lately I’ve gotten the "blogger bug" and plan to start posting
several times a week.

Though my blog gets posted on my own website, Blogger.com also
allows you to post to their server so you don’t even need a hosting
account to set up your own blog.

You can get a more full-featured blog (dialogue type) from
MovableType.org.

There you have the option of getting their software installed on
your server or obtaining a very reasonably priced account hosted on
their servers.

Either way you choose, posting rates as simple as typing into a web
form, clicking a button, and your articles and comments
automatically get posted to your blog (no html or ftp skills
required).

If you want to find one of the thousands of blogs online about
everything from cooking to puppy potty training, log on to:
www.daypop.com
www.blogsearchengine.com
www.feedster.com

You can easily and quickly search through rapidly expanding
databases of blogs open to the public.

– Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author
of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr-e articles
to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or
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