The Advantage of Blogs

Every day, more and more moms are discovering blogging. Some moms are using blogs as an online journal to write down their thoughts about pregnancy, the trials of motherhood, and other things that happen in their daily lives.

Other moms are using blogs as an addition to their existing online business. This is a great way to keep in touch with your readers and customers, and it’s also a way for you to promote your products.

Some moms are using blogs specifically for income generators. Even though he’s not a mom, Darren Rowse at Problogger is a perfect example of someone who blogs for money. If you have a minute, I encourage you to read his blog. He’s got loads of valuable information for anyone thinking about blogging, or who already has blogs and wants to improve them.

So, you know some of the reasons why moms blog, but do you know what advantages blogs have over traditional websites? The things I’ve discovered about blogging are:

• Search engines love them. Blogs are already very search engine friendly, and with WordPress, there are various plugins that enhance Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

• They are extremely easy to maintain. Unless you design your own templates, you can pick out a free template or pay someone else to design one for you. There are plenty to choose from to suit your needs. Once you’ve decided on a theme, you can change your settings and options, then start posting. It’s basically as easy as that.

• Pinging. Most blog platforms like WordPress, Blogger and MovableType have an automatic pinging function that notifies blog tracking services that you’ve added new content.

• It’s easy for readers to interact. With comments at the end of each post, it makes connecting with your customers and visitors that much easier.

• They introduce you to a whole new community. Bloggers almost seem like their own little (or big) community. Once I started blogging, I started seeing the internet in a whole new light. I discovered blogs that I never would have otherwise and they’ve been extremely helpful to me along my blogging journey.

• It’s free. While it’s advised for serious bloggers to purchase a domain name and host their blog on their own server, you can blog for free with services like Blogger. They provide you with a name and host it on their servers so it doesn’t have to cost you a penny. I encourage you to read this post as to why I think you should never host your blog on a free server.

Of course, these are only some of the advantages of blogging. It’s up to you as an author to mold your blog according to your needs and tastes. You can use it as an online journal, you can reach your customers with it, you can even make money blogging.

If you haven’t already started blogging, you can check out Blogger.com or WordPress.com and create one for free.

RT @cassiegermsheid: "The Advantage of Blogs"