You can have web 2.0 success using Blogs

The rise and rise of blogging as part of the web 2.0 phenomenon has taken the Internet by storm. Savvy web marketers are now using blogs as an additional weapon to generate leads, add credibility and improve their search engine rankings. Here are six reasons why you should consider blogging.

Blogging is gret fun! Yes, blogging can be great fun. Just open you posting window and go for it without the restrictions of corporate style guides and other impediments to creativity. Got something to say? Just say it. The other fun aspect of blogging is that people can post comments about your blog posts. You posts plus reader comments all become valuable food for the search engines.

Blogging is dirt cheap. The most powerful blogging systems are free. Wordpress seems to be the blogging standard and now comes standard with many cheap web hosting packages. For less than $100 per year anyone can get their own domain with blogging included.

I wouldn't use one of the free blogging services unless you are really desperate. You can't be sure if they will always remain free and your posts will be building up someone else' asset rather than your own.

Blogging is fast and easy. If you can use notepad you can blog. The user interface is very intuitive and allows you to add and edit, text, pictures, videos, whatever you want. Want to change the look and layout of your blog? There's literally hundreds of themes available that take less than a minute to upload and install.

Blogging gives you products and services personality. People like to do business with people they like. By blogging you show your target market that there is a real person behind the company you represent. By reading you blog posts thet get an idea of what you're all about - warts and all. The personal aspect of blogging is one of it's most powerful characteristics.

Your blog becomes another Internet asset. Some blog sites get thousands and thousands of readers each day. This traffic can be converted to hard, cold cash through Google Adsense advertising, affiliate programs and straight advertising space sale. Once you blog increases it's Google page rank, you also get the benefit of linking out from your blog site to other web sites you want to promote.

Search engines just love blogs. It is said in many SEO forums that Google staff are great bloggers and subsequently Google spiders and indexes blogs more frequently that normal web sites. This may just be a rumor, but I have found it to be true in my case. If you blog every day there's a good chance Google and the other major search engines will spider your blog every day looking for that new content.

Convinced? Give blogging a try. There's stacks of free resources listed in article directories like this one that will help you get into blogging.

Thanks to John Hacking (Marketing Manager for a Brisbane web site design company)

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is a term that refers to the new style of web sites that allow user-generated content. This can be anything from a blog which allows user comments to sites like YouTube that allows members to upload videos for all the world to see.

One of the first Web 2.0 style sites was Amazon and it's ability to allow users to post book reviews. This was and is very popular with Amazon visitors. The visitor has an experience that mimics real life. Average people are commenting on books that we are considering purchasing. We tend to trust a book review from someone we know or meet just because we feel it is unbiased. They are not necessarily trying to sell us anything.

The new web 2.0 experience is very much user-driven. Sites like YouTube, Flikr, Technorati and Digg are essentially controlled by the users. They create the content and decide how it's displayed by ranking it. The articles, pictures and videos that are voted the most popular receive greater exposure.

Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia is created by it's users. The entries are entirely written by the general public.

Blogs are the backbone of Web 2.0. Blogs have been around for a while. At their simplest a blog is just an online diary where entries are displayed in reverse date order, with the newest at the top.

Blogs were decentralized from their very beginning. Blogs are a great example of how emerging voices are not only being heard but amplified. Blog postings, typically updated daily, can also include images, photos, links, video and audio.

Then of course, there are the social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. These are immense web communities with hundreds of millions of users. They allow subscribers to create web spaces where they can share their thoughts, music, videos and pictures. People can become your friends and then stay in contact with all your various activities.

There are also sites like del.icio.us, that allow you to bookmark your favorite sites and share those bookmarks with others.

These types of sites have become incredibly popular. The users of these sites now control the content. This creates a very rich and ever-changing experience that is very engaging.

Thanks to Douglas Reach writes for Online Marketing Review. Online Marketing Review provides tips and techniques, products reviews and articles to assist you in becoming a successful internet marketer. Learn the basics of article marketing, SEO, Web 2.0, list building and traffic generation.