Do I need a blog? Could be a dumb a** question.

by apples
7 replies
So everyone keeps saying to have a blog.

Well my site is a "how to" on welding etc. Once I finish it there will not really be any new content added to it.

So my understanding of a blog is for frequent updates. Like If you were blogging how to build a house eac post would be describing how to build a house. Or if you are on a holiday you could do a blog of each town you visited etc.

But for my site is it worth having a blog?

Peter
#blog #dumb #question
  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Regier
    It is always worth having a blog to drive traffic to your site. Keep reading on here and you find out many ways to do just that. What you must do is find related things to write about in your niche. Do some basic keyword research on welding and you will find things to write about. If you do not think you could do it I would be happy to help you out on it.
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  • Profile picture of the author dreamtab
    Blog is good for SEO point of view. Your blog will give more links to your domain. Needless to say search engines loves Wordpress blog. You may use your blog to post updates and news about your niche or special offers.
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    • Profile picture of the author apples
      Yes that is where I can see the benifit for me, good for updates.
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  • Profile picture of the author apples
    What domain name to use? How a bout a sub domain.

    Arn't they like blog.mysite.com?
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  • Profile picture of the author megaresp
    Originally Posted by apples View Post

    So everyone keeps saying to have a blog. Well my site is a "how to" on welding etc. Once I finish it there will not really be any new content added to it. So my understanding of a blog is for frequent updates. Like If you were blogging how to build a house eac post would be describing how to build a house. Or if you are on a holiday you could do a blog of each town you visited etc. But for my site is it worth having a blog?
    Forget about what everybody else says. Instead of looking at a blog as a way to get extra traffic (which may or may not be true), ask yourself what service a blog might offer you and/or the people who visit your site.

    A blog doesn't have to be used for blogging. For example, a client of mine recently asked me to build them a news system. Once I understood exactly what they were looking for, I got them set up on Blogger.

    Their shiny new 'news' page uses the built-in functions of Blogger to display their latest news in reverse order - which is all they wanted. And the nature of the web means it makes no difference whatsoever to the people visiting their site. I doubt their clients even notice they're leaving the site to view news.

    So ask yourself if the built-in features of blogger (or some similar system) can do anything for you that would be useful to you and/or your clients. If the answer is yes, go get yourself a blog. If it's no, forget about it.

    It's worth ask the same question of other web 2.0 and social media tools. Maybe Twitter, Flickr, Facebook or some other free product has something to offer? If so, go use them. If not, move on.

    Here's another couple of examples of how they might be useful...
    • Do you have how-to videos to help people understand various techniques? If the answer is yes, YouTube has plenty to offer thanks to built-in content sharing functions. It has the potential to get your material out to more people than would otherwise be possible. 1) Because people pass on stuff they like, and 2) Because people already go to You Tube to find informative how-to information. So there's a good chance they'll find you via the search function
    • You can upload both photo and video content to Facebook. Once again, it's the built-in social tools in Facebook that can get your content out to a wider audience
    • Are you looking to develop alliances with other people? In particular, people who meet your customers before you do? Twitter is an excellent tool for locating such people, and forging relationships with them. The more they like you, the greater your chances of receiving referrals.
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    66 ways to get links (and traffic) to your site.

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  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    I'm with Megaresp on this - You DON'T NEED a blog just because other people have been brainwashed that everyone should have one.

    There is no such thing as a tool that 'everyone' needs.

    If you've already looked at your target market and have done everything you believe you need to in order to help them in the way you intend - you don't need a blog.

    Most people think that having a blog is some cool funky essential addition to any business, but it's just one tiny optional component which may or may not be a good use of your time - but only YOU can tell that.

    There are many ways to get links and traffic to a website and before blogs were invented we were quite capable of doing well, so they're definitely optional.

    That being said, there are usually good ways to use a blog to keep a relationship with your market and provide up to date information - even if you automate that by dragging in rss feeds or content from other relevant sources.

    There are sem benefits to using a cms or blog and having fresh content too, so if it's relevant then certainly consider it - but if you can't think how you would use one and you don't think you need one - just leave it at that. No-one who doesn't understand your business can tell you that you need one.

    Andy
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    • Profile picture of the author apples
      Thanks guys, great answers.

      Here is what I have been doing in regards to traffic generation.

      Youtube, gets me traffic from some of my videos on there.
      tube mogul - will send all your videos to everywhere. Plan on using that one day too.

      Using micro niche finder and am happy with it, well rather quite happy with it.

      I have slowly started submitting to Ezine articles again have about 10 published and 10 waiting to go. Articles do seem to work.

      About the blog idea. Well I did look into Wordpress and had a domain name already so I had a play with it and that WP blog page was indexed in like 24hrs or less. And it was on page 1, up the top on Google.

      Maybe, I was thinking the blog could be used to post articles on it, and direct them to my static website. Much like how Ezine does etc.

      But then I think why can't I just let Ezine do that job anyway????
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