Blogging is hot right now. It might even be called a buzz word. But it is also the wave of the future for Internet marketing. 'Blog' is a term that is actually a combination of two common words.
Those two common words are 'web' and 'log'. They have been combined into the term 'blog' which is short for web log.
Blogging is the result of the use of the new technology that collectively makes what is known today and Web 2.0. You will see the term "Web 2.0 websites" used frequently but what exactly does that term mean?
Back in the murky, dusty past of the Internet (a few years ago) in 2001, there was a happening that is now referred to as the dot com bust. People who had a great deal of technical know-how built websites, promoted them and made millions on speculative ideas that were not founded in reality.
The internet was a one-way street. Those who had the technical know-how to build websites posted what they wanted their readers to know and nothing more. The Internet was a relatively new thing and people bought into this one-way communication but only for a short few years.
Fortunes were made and lost overnight. There are those who blame the dot com bust on nothing more than technological break through....and it could be that they are right.
As technological advances started making building websites easier and easier, more and more people built websites and jumped on the Internet marketing bandwagon.
They began sending out millions and millions of unsolicited marketing emails daily. These emails were known as SPAM.
SPAM got so bad that the Congress of the United States actually passed the CAN SPAM act in late 2001 and it became the law of the land in early 2002. This was actually the final puncture to the already deflating Internet bubble that let the rest of the air out.
Internet marketers were required to get permission from recipients before they could send out marketing emails and many of the companies couldn't survive the blow. Those who did began building opt-in lists.
Opt-in lists are a big part (maybe the biggest part) of all successful Internet marketing operations that are alive and well today and that need for an opt-in list is not ever going to go away but it has been supplemented.
It has been supplemented by blogs. Now Internet marketers who have blogs can give potential opt-in list members the one thing they all want...a voice.
Blogs are now discussed in the same breath and given equal weight among successful Internet marketers as opt-in lists.
You can, of course, have one without the other but it is of far greater advantage to have both and a blog is one of the best ways available to build a long and impressive opt-in list.
People have been keeping journals of course for centuries but the Internet version of journal keeping that we call blogging is far different. Rather than it being just the details of a personal life or the musings of a single person, blogging is more a source of shared information today.
Blogs are dedicated to specific topics. These topics are as varied as the people who have blogs. Let's make up a fictional blog website and see how it works.
The owner of this travel blog might post the details of trips that they have taken, invite questions but those planning on making similar trips, and provide information about products and services for which they are affiliate marketers.
We all know that website traffic is one of the keys that unlocks successful Internet marketing. The secret of creating an astounding amount of traffic to a blog website is social bookmarking.
There are many social bookmarking sites on the Internet. These sites allow users to upload their favorites to lists where others can click on the links in those lists. Users are able to categorize their lists and create tags for each link within their lists.
Each time another user clicks on a link in a user's list a back link is created. As the back links multiply, indexing is accelerated.
Many of those who have created very successful (and profitable) blogs make use of such Web 2.0 advancements as RSS feeds, podcasts and webcasts to enhance and promote their blog websites.
Blog software is often part of web services but it can also be purchased separately at very low rates.
When a blog is created by a user there are many choices that must be made. The first and most obvious choice is the topic of the blog. For those who plan to monetize their blog, the choice of topic is a very critical one.
If a user is already an active Internet marketer in a particular niche market, then the choice is easy but if a user is only just beginning in Internet marketing, the choice of a topic can be a lot more difficult.
Research is necessary. It is important to choose a market that is viable. There simply will not be much money made from a topic like under water basket weaving.
One of the better ways to research and find a viable topic is by visiting other blog sites and forum sites on the Internet.
You might consider going to one of the social bookmarking sites like Delicious to find out what others are concerned about or topics for which they are seeking information.
Once a topic has been selected the next step is to actually build a blog. There are many web hosting companies out there and many of them offer blogging capabilities.
There are even web hosting companies who specialize in blogging websites. One of the better known ones is Word Press but there are a great many others out there.
There was a time when only gurus could build websites. It was necessary to be proficient in the use of HTML among many other things but that is simply no longer the case.
Web 2.0 technology now allows even novices who have never even thought of building their own website to do exactly that and to do it very quickly and very efficiently.
There are, of course, some things that one needs to know but these are things that are very easily learned and there are even blog websites that teach you how to build a blog website.
Once a blog website is up and running, then it is important to get the search engine spiders to visit the site so that it can become indexed and appear in searches made on search engine sites. This is the place where social bookmarking comes into play.
There is software out there that makes it very, very easy to list your site with many social bookmarking sites all at the same time. It can be done quickly and easily.
Owners of blog sites have learned to help each other in a sense. They can ping one another's sites and create back links for both sites that are picked up by the search engine spiders.
Web 2.0 websites are user driven unlike the old Web 1.0 sites. The owner of the blog does have control of content but he also allows visitors to his blog website to add content and some even allow content to be edited by users.
Where Web 1.0 websites were constructed so that information and ideas flowed only one way (from the website to the visitor), Web 2.0 websites allow for information to flow two ways.
Many even brand new blog website builders use RSS feeds, podcasts and webcasts to enhance their blog websites. Of course people still read but people also like to get information via audio and video.
Bloggers don't even have to record their own audio and video products. There are websites out there which will supply audio and video products...some of these are even free of charge.
The old idea that a blog is simply a web log or a journal are a little behind the curve. Blogs today are far more than that. Today's blogs are rich with information that is constantly changing.
You can find very active blogs that discuss controversial topics like politics and religion and you can also find blogs that are dedicated to nothing but pure pleasure like travel, fishing, hunting, gold, sewing, needlecrafts, boating, etc.
There are blogs that are devoted to business concerns. There are blogs about blogs. It would not be likely that you could think of a topic that holds any interest for human beings in general and not be able to find more than a few blogs that are currently discussing them.
Yes, blogging is a buzz word and it is a 'hot' topic of today but it is also the wave of the future where Internet marketing is concerned.
Find a topic that you are interested in...even passionate about....and go out there and start your very own blog. If you construct the site well and if you pursue social bookmarking, you can begin to create your own online empire.
