There are two main blog types.
One is Blogger run by Google(TM). This is hosted by Google, so no uploading needed. And it has the basics of what you need. But it is restricted in what you can do with it. Wordpress is much more flexible, with a mass of possible plug-ins. This is generally seen as the standard to go for, although people do run good sites with Blogger.
You have to investigate and take your choice.
Why have a blog? Can you make any money with it?
1 A blog gives you speed, responsiveness, and the more personal connection. It’s useful to have alongside your main sites, so you can put up short posts, extra information, and get feedback. It also gets indexed very quickly with Google and the traffic the blog gets is generalised to your main site.
2 Blogs are flexible. You can change your blog in different ways. There are themes to change its appearance. Plugins allow you to add a whole range of functions, too, such as search engine optimization or posting to Twitter(TM) automatically.
3 But it can also be an authority site in its own right, used as a very flexible content site. Search engines love blogs a lot for this reason because of the constant addition of new material. Obviously there are your posts but if you get a lot of comments, these also add to the content authority of the site.
4 As with niche sites, money can be made from ads of various kinds and selling ad space to others once you’ve established yourself. Then there’s selling your own products through the blog. They can be sold as a recommendation from you rather than as a straight sales pitch, especially if you created them in response to what customers and subscribers wanted. Some blogs get millions of visitors a year but a reputation has to be built up of being an authority in that niche.
5 As ever, it is the quality of information presented without being over-hyped which gains regular visitors and support. You need to try and keep your own style in the blog generally and in your own writing. To simply get articles from other sites really won’t do if you want to build a long-term authority blog and therefore business. You could have guest writers but the bulk of the tone of the blog needs to be yours.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Joe Fuller. Joe Fuller said: New blog post: Blogs – Why Have One http://www.internetmarketingtrue.com/2010/blogs-why-have-one/ [...]
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