The Power of Blogs

Blog has come a long way since it started online in 1994, when it was used


to be called “weblog”. Weblog back then was just a simple diary page where

people could post about their daily lives. Soon after in 1997, the term

“weblog” was shortened to what we know today as blog.

Since I began blogging in 2006, there were about 55 Million blogs but as at

today in 2008, there are well over 150 Million blogs online and it’s growing at

an exponential rate!

Search engine loves blogs and that’s great news for many marketers out

there. I guess that is the reason why blogging is picking up speed. To create

a blog, you would require two things- a dedicated hosting service and a

domain name.

There are many different kinds of software on the marketplace where you

can easily create blog like Wordpress, Moveable Type, Blogger, Xanga or

LiveJournal.

Why You Must Use Wordpress

But to create profitable blogs, you must know that there are only two popular

platforms that many successful blogger use, and they are free-of-charge.

They are Wordpress and Blogger.

However, do not be confused about the Wordpress as the Wordpress that I

refer to here is the hosted Wordpress. They are NOT the same!!!Here is also another known fact, that almost all the professional bloggers that you see online uses Wordpress to host their blog.
 
8 Things to Avoid When Blogging


That is so much about what you should do when you are blogging. In this

section, you will learn what to avoid when you blog online.

#1 – Never Post Without First Proof Reading

You may say, “I was really gifted with great English”, but the least you can do

after spending time to create post is to spend a little more time to check the

grammar and spelling of your post content. A quick way is to use the Firefox

 browser to type your content as they have a built- in spell checker. You can also copy

 your content to Microsoft Words to check for grammatical error.

2 – Do Not Write If You Do Not Have Ideas What To Write

When posting, have a minimum word length about 250 words or more. And

do not post on your blog for the sake of posting. You must remember that

people spend their precious time reading your post so your job is to ensure

you give them valuable information so that they would come back for more.

A quick way to get more content for your blog would be to go to Google

Videos and grab a 40-minute video clip on your topic. By doing so, you do

not have to write at all, you just have to put a video on your blog.

 #3 – Do not Copy Content From Others

When posting content on your blog, please avoid using duplicate content or

copyright content from others. You would be in for trouble when they find out

you steals content from them.

However, what you can do is you can take ideas from others and paraphrase

them. You will be amazed that most top seller books you see today at

bookshops have similar content.

 #4 – Do Not Post Offensive Post

Never post any form of writing that would offend anyone online. This is

especially so if it is someone you know and dislike, online or offline. It is

never civil to show your readers an offensive habit.


#5 – Never Put Direct Referral On External Hyperlinks On The Same


Window

More often than not, when people read your blog post, they will find

hyperlinks on your post. You should never allow these links to external sites

that are not yours to appear in your blog..

A Bad Example (Opens Links on Same Browser)

< a href=”http://www.gathersuccess.com”>Gather Success</a>

A Good Example (Opens Link on New Browser)

< a href=”http://www.gathersuccess.com” target=”_blank”>Gather

Success</a>

#6 – Do Not Hard Sell In Your Blog Post

I see this happening many times on many blogs of others who try too hard to

sell something on their blogs. They kept explaining why a product X should

be bought and insisted it’s the best product out there.

Instead of doing hard selling on your blog, what you should do is to

persuade. A soft- sell approach will be more effective and also gives your

readers some solid content so that they can benefit from reading your blog

#7 – Do Not Go Off Topic On Your Blog

Writing in a blog can sometimes lead you into talking about almost anything

that comes to your mind. It’s very important, that whatever content which

comes out of your blog has to always be relevant to the topics on your blog.

You do not want to read a stock trading blog talking about cooking, do you?


#8 – Credibility Is Key In Blogging

Never lie to your readers especially when you are paid to write reviews, tell

your readers it’s a paid review.
 
This brief outline is a lot more detailed in the book I have from A Phang. If you would like a copy mail me and I will forward it to you for free. For more on blogging go to http://www.power-blog.com/info/3846
 
Hope this assisted you,
 
Regards
Francois