"How to make a blog and why you need to start a blog"

The Blog as we know has been around since 1994, however prior to that newsgroup such as Usenet offered facilities where people could gather together an make posts and have discussions online. One of the earliest if not the first bloggers was Justin Hall.

The first blogs tended to be more like personal diaries and it was another ten years before they attracted the attention of the general public, politicians, and the media. Nowadays anyone can have a blog and they range from personal diaries, family groups, through to business both small and large as a way to communicate with people and share ideas and information on subjects of common interest.

"There is no right or wrong way to use a blog"

Each writer adopts their own style depending on what they are blogging about. My own particular style has changed recently and where as my normal practice until now had been to write short 300word posts with no pictures, because badly sized pictures can mess up RSS feeds if and when you display the feed on a website.

My blog posts are generally written to be included in multiple RSS feeds and after carrying out some experiments I have discovered how to make a blog more interesting is to include an images sized 440 X 220 these seems to be the optimum size for displaying on multiple platforms. I am now starting to place images on the right hand side of my blog posts whereas previously I would place them on the left. The reason behind this is that it is easier for the eye of the viewer to follow the flow of the text with the image out of the way to the left. The image can still provide interest to the reader relevant to what the blog post is about.

A blog is a very simple way to update people on both what you are doing, as a journal or diary and also on what is happening with your business. If you are in business you need to ensure that you post on a regular basis because search engines such as Google are always searching for fresh quality content.

In one of my previous posts I researched information on the optimal length of a blog post and that is why most of my posts now are around 1000 words plus. Now when you first start blogging writing a thousand words on a subject is a major task, however if you split it down into bite sized chunks of 200-300 words and draft out a section each day after four or five days you will have a draft post ready for publishing.

"What are you going to write about when you start a blog"

Writing about your business should be easy because as a salesperson you should know your business inside out, however if you are just starting out it can be a bit of a problem and you will need to start doing some research. One possible starting point when you start your blog is to write about what attracted you to join "XYZ" business, was it:-

• The Niche that it is in, such as the popular health and wellness niche
• The size and reputation of the Company
• The products or services offered
• The compensation plan,
• The support
• Or something else

These are all items you should have researched before signing up and you then have the opportunity to continue with updates as to how your business is working for you. You can also start looking through company supplied sales literature but resist copy and pasting, instead read article and then rewrite in your own words. The content of your first post when you start a blog is not important, it's the fact that you have started along the road to set about informing people exactly what you do. Sharing experiences good and sometimes bad will help to gain people trust and build relationships. It is far easier to sell products and services to someone who trusts you rather than a complete stranger.

"Don't forget Keyword Research and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)"

I firmly believe it is more important to get your creative juices flowing and get content into your blog rather than worry about keywords, keyword density and other technical matter. You probably have a lot to learn about your new venture without clouding the issue. You can always go back later and modify your work so as to appeal to your target market once you know what that is.

Keywords are important and there are lots of tools you can use for research, some free and some you need to pay for, I currently use Keyword Spy it simple and clear to understand and you can quickly find keywords that are popular. If you are an Internet novice it is best to avoid using one and two letter keywords and go for what are referred to a long tailed keywords three or four words or more. focussing on the longer keyword phrases even in popular niches will bring you success.

People write blogs for many reasons as I said at the beginning, some write for fun, whilst others perhaps have a passion for helping people or passing on or sharing their interests with others. I write blogs both for business and pleasure and also make time to comment on other peoples blog posts.