"Contribution of Weblog As A Tool Of Online Marketing"- A
Panorama
"A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled
web log) is a web application presented as a webpage consisting
of periodic posts, normally in reverse chronological order"-
en.wikipedia.org. As you add content to your blog, new posts are
automatically positioned on top of previous posts, so your
visitors can see "what's new." Then they can comment on it or
link to it or e-mail you if they choose to do so. A weblog is
edited, organized and published often through a content
management system or CMS. The blogs are online diaries or
journals where blogger expresses his feelings, creativity,
research work with like minded surfers through her periodic
articles. Or weblog can be resembled to an online diary where
blogger submits his frequently visited links for reference of
the visitors.
The history of weblog can be traced back to the first website,
http://info.cern.ch/, the site built by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN.
In the '90s there were a handful of websites and the life was so
easy. But with with the cluttering of thousands of new websites
each day, things turned to be complicated and it became harder
to find relevant information easily. Some novel eWiz like
Brigitte Eaton, Jorn Barger, Peter Merholz, James
Garrett,Cameron Barrett produced an alternative way to thread a
particular topic related websites in a page or link for more
convenience of the surfers to find content oriented sites in a
single bucket ! The idea grew popularity, and a number of
webmasters each day sent their URLs for listing in their
websites. The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger in
December 1997. The shorter version, "blog," was coined by Peter
Merholz in 1999. As of March 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary
included the terms weblog, weblogging and weblogger in their
dictionary. Until '98 there were only a handful of weblogs in
the net, but according to a report, more than 14 million blogs
being published by the first quarter of 2005 !!
The popularity of Weblog is gaining momentum. As per a survey
conducted by Comscore.com, 50 Million US population ( i.e- 1 in
6 of total US population or 30% of the total US online
population) visited blog sites in the first quarter of 2005.
This represents a 45% increase compared to the quarter one of
2004. Blog visitors are 11% more likely than the average
Internet user to have incomes of $75,000 or more. According to
the study, an average blog visitor spends 23 hours per weak
online, while average Internet users spent 13 hours online."The
study also found that the blog visitors are 30% more likely to
buy products or services online. While less that 40% of the
total Internet population made an online purchase at Q1 of 2005,
51% of the blog visitors did"- Comscore.com. This is just a
replica of the universal acceptability of weblog these days. If
you are an online marketer or thinking to start an online
venture, I believe weblog is the best tool of Internet
marketing. Do you don't think so??
Like Ezine ads, an Affiliate can use weblog as a futuristic tool
of online marketing. With a decent and cool content writting,
even a starter categorically can create a big blogsphere and use
it as a perpetual passive mean of generating targeted traffic.
The advantages of weblog over concurrent websites as a tool of
online marketing are astoundingly multifarious.
First, weblogs are SE friendly i.e. you never have to submit
your blog to any search engine. After you publish, your blog it
will be submitted to the common search engines by the blog
service provider. You never have to bother about on page
criterions. Your META TAGS and KEY WORDs will be set
automatically, eliminating the risk of keyword manipulation.
Second, zero designing and operation cost. You never have to
hire a web designer for designing your weblog, just choose the
right template and publish.
Third, Ping and Podcasting facilities promoting weblog as a
viral marketing tool. With single click you are informing the
whole world about your latest article updates.
Fourth, the next advantage of weblog over a web site is the
trackback facility, an automatic notification between websites
of related content--such as a post on a particular topic or one
which responds to a post on another blog . Use Trackback links
when you quote or refer to other blog posts.
Fifth, blogs are more likely RSS ( Really Simple Syndication)
integrated. All blog service providers, including Blogger.com
provide RSS feed link. When you update your new posting in
weblog and you use RSS feed, the SE crawlers will visit your
site and publish your content to across world wide web, all
silently.
Sixth, another great feature of blog is use of comment
Seventh, blog is a more personalized form of ezine. In ezines
and websites we express either our knowledge or services, but in
blog we can express our live experiences as if we are talking to
our best friend. Personalisation of postings increases the
Conversion Ratio of traffic to customer.
"Let's be honest here... We're all good at justifying excuses to
ourselves. I've even done it a few times myself ! But there
really is no excuse for not following your dream. You're only
hurting yourself." - Corey Rudl. If you are an ambitious online
marketer or if you are new to weblog, I can name a few of the
best blogging service providers like Blogger.com,
Livejournal.com, 360.Yahoo.com, Typepad.com, Blogs.com,
Xanga.com, DiaryLand.com where you should publish your first
blog to realize your dreams. Choose the write one and publish
your own blog today. For more cross reference, content, RSS
Feeding and listing of your blog you can use some of the Blog
Directories like- Masternewedia.org, Blogger.com,
Blogrankings.com, Blogcatalog.com, Blogsearchengine.com,
Blogwise.com, Weblogs.com, Blogrolling.com, FeedBurner.com,
EmarketingBlogs.com. Blog advertising related services are
provided by-BlogExplosion.com; Prosperall.com, Blogclicker.com.
Pluck.com provides free download toolbar which helps to
customize your weblog searching. I highly recommend you to give
a glance at their site. If you are dummy, please visit
Samizdata.net for blog related glossary and content.