What is  Blogging?

A Blog is either a special purpose Website, or a special part of a web site, that acts as an Article Archive on steroids. Publishing a Blog or “Blogging” as it is commonly called, is the act of writing articles – referred to as “Blog Post’s” and uploading them to the Blog Website/platform (Blogger/WordPress/TypePad, etc.), where they are available for the world to read.

Why would you Blog? – In short, to further Brand, Market, and/or Promote yourself as a practicing professional - becoming a “Perceived Expert” in your field. When you Blog (write about) what you know – you are sharing your knowledge and expertise with the world. In essence you become “published”. You are the publisher of your Blog – by it’s very nature – being published lends heavily to your “perceived expert” status.

Why you want comments on your Blog Posts: “Commenting” on a Blog is exactly that – making a comment, a publicly available response, that is attached to a specific Blog Post. Comments spur an interactive conversation – rather than the visitor/reader just reading & not really being able to participate with your content, you the writer, or other readers of the blog post.

Commenting allows a degree of interactivity between the reader and the writer of the post, that is shared with all future readers of that article/post. Additionally – Blogs & comments on Blogs are generally very good for both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for the publisher & the commenter, and give weight (add relevance) to the content in the eyes of other Website/Blog visitors.

When commenting – it’s considered appropriate to:

• Comment positively about the post – a form of endorsement
• Ask questions about the subject
• Add or expand on the content/subject of the post from the commenter’s point of view
• Or even offer constructive criticism

When you are the publisher of a Blog, there are a few things you need to be aware of:

• Invite comments, but make sure you have “moderation” turned on, in other words, make sure you read the comments before you allow them to be posted to your Blog so that you can insure the comment is not Spam or inappropriate for your Blog.
• Keep your content personal and direct – vs – formal and ambiguous, make it valuable, easy to read and understand.
• Link you Blog to anything and everything else you are doing online. There are Widgets & connectors galore for LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, Google Buzz, etc.. Use them to “syndicate” your content (spread it around) & make it available to all of your communities.

Mark V Bullock, Business Coach &
Partner/PMA with Practice Marketing Advisors
PracticeMarketingAdvisors.com