Blogging has opened website creation to almost everyone, as it takes very little know-how to get a blog up and running. In fact, many service business owners are using a blog platform as their primary website, with some of them creating static pages as you would find on a traditional website, while others are using the platform as a blog and are posting updates regularly.
There are several advantages to using blogs instead of ezines or traditional websites:
1. Search engines love blogs. The strategy that seems to be attractive to search engines today is regularly updated content. I can log-in to my blog at the beginning of a day and submit a post. Within 24 hours I’ll get a notification from my Google alerts account that Google has indexed that post.
2. Content can be distributed quickly. If you instruct your visitors to subscribe to your blog via updating services like Bloglines or Feedblitz, they’ll be notified within hours of any new posts on your blog.
3. Little web programming knowledge is required. Once your blog is set up, it’s simply a matter of logging into your account, typing the lifeandyou info for you post, adding graphics or photos as needed, and publishing your post to your blog.
4. Reader feedback. Your readers can give you comments and feedback about your posts almost immediately after you log an entry. Blogs are a great way to engage your audience.
Are ezines and traditional websites dead? No, because people consume information differently. Some are auditory learners and prefer to hear the info (great audience for podcasting, an audio form of blogging), some prefer to receive updates as they are published (blog readers), while others like a stable, stationary medium to which they can refer when they’re ready (readers who archive ezines or bookmark web pages).