Blogging - An Introduction To Online Journaling (Part III)

Ranking of any website depends on many factors; the relevance of the article according to the key words used; the number of times that page has been linked to and viewed, etc.

These are quite easy to follow, and if these factors are carefully noted and looked into, the rankings of your website will increase considerably.

The first step is to get your website linked-to from other websites; the higher the ranking EACH of these linked sites have, the higher YOUR rankings will be, because they are considered more relevant by the search-engines.

The second aspect to be kept in mind is how often you update the content on your website. Frequently updated sites receive higher rankings in search engines than those that have not been looked at by the owners for ages. Always editing the content of your website as a whole may not be an option.

Blogging is by far the easiest way to do this. Your Blog will function as a forum for people to come and discuss the themes that are contained in your website. It will create a platform, as well as become your online journal, whereby you can also post updates about your operations and your website.

Cost can never be a problem because free blogging services are quite popular all over the world. If you choose sites like Blogger or LiveJournal, you are sure to get exactly the kind of platform you are looking for. They are absolutely free. However, I DO recommend you get your own web-hosting account soon after you’ve practiced with a free one. Remember to register your OWN name as a domain or something related to the blog’s theme, whether it be about making money, dogs, running, cycling, skydiving or whatever.

If you are not very comfortable with web designing techniques, you need not worry. Creating your blog is not as complicated as designing template for a website. These blogging services provide a wide range of templates from which you can choose the one most suited to your tastes. Wordpress is an excellent platform to use.

You must, of course, use your discretion while blogging. You need to keep in mind that this is an open forum which can read by all (the more the merrier). You do not want to say anything that may irritate your readers. Politics and religion are the two most controversial themes, and therefore anything about those must be discussed with great caution.

Anything that is particularly reader friendly and does not upset too many people is considered ‘safe’. If your aim is indeed to increase the ranking of your site, you will have to make sure as many people read it as possible. You can do this by making your content friendly and interesting.

Also keep an eye on what other people write or say on their blogs. This can give you a general idea of what kind of responses those articles receive, and you can get valuable tips from them.

Blogging has come to be considered a highly effective marketing tool. You can easily create awareness of your product and get your site visitors to interact with each other. If you’re in business, your existing customers can add comments to your blog, and those who are relatively new to your company get a platform to ask questions about your product or service.

Never make the blog post too long. Long posts tend to get dreary and they are not ‘catchy’ enough for people to sit and go through them.

Update frequently so that your readers know when to expect new posts. Since you don’t need to write long posts, that is not much effort. Ideally you should write 3-7 times a week.

Be entertaining where required, everyone can do with some humor, but keep it clean.

But above all, be YOURSELF. Do not copy someone else’s content, unless you are using Article submission sites, when you must include the ‘resource box’ with the author’s name and website details.

Blogging can not only be fun, but it can be profitable too. Many people make their full-time living blogging and this trend is increasing.

In difficult economic times, this can be one of the easiest and quickest ways to start a business.

I sincerely recommend that blogging is at least one avenue you consider when making your next career move.  Remember, working for somebody is okay for a while, but it’ll never make you wealthy and you’ll never be able to work when you want how you want.

Luke