Step 12 - Power of Blogs

Subject: 

The Unique Power of Blogs

Body: 

Alright, this step is pretty huge.  I don't expect everyone to take it but it can make a big difference both in terms of website functionality and search engine rankings.

Your website really should have a blog.  This is a big step and it can be accomplished a couple of ways.

1. You can build your entire site using WordPress.  This is the ultimate choice because WordPress offers you so many benefits.  Google loves it.  It is a blogging platform by nature and you can update your website using the WordPress back office, which is as simple as using a word processing program.  Lastly, you can use "plugins" to accomplish many of the tasks from earlier lessons.

Now that said - this is a high level choice with a cost and time commitment you may not be able to handle right now.  That is fine, there is an alternative.  If you ever do commit to a site redesign or a new website, consider WordPress as the platform, but until then...

2. You create an offsite blog and link to it from your website (vice versa you link to your site from the blog).  This is a simple solution and can be done quickly and free!  You can do a Google search on "free blogs" and get a ton of results.  I strongly suggest WordPress.com though.  You can enjoy some of the benefits from the above and If you do ever move your website to a WordPress platform you will be familiar with the back office.  Just visit Wordpress.com (or blogging site of your preference) and follow the on screen directions to create your blog.

***NOTE***If you are asked for the title of your blog and web address, use your favorite keywords from the list you created in early lessons!  

The basic idea of a blog is an online journal.  You make "posts" (daily, weekly or whatever) about your business.  Blogs are important because they allow you to create and produce content quickly.  The more content you have on your website, the more powerful Google views that site.

For example your website grows by another webpage every time you make a post.  So instead of your website having five pages, if you made a post every day your blog would have well over 360 pages by then end of the year.   A 360 page site is more powerful than a five page site in Google's opinion.

So the goal now is to either build a website that natively supports a blog, or create one off site and link to your site.  The next lesson will deal with how to use the blog, then we will end the blog talk and the rest of the lessons will be applicable to traditional sites as well.