According to Wikipedia….A blog (a contraction of the term “weblog”) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Personally, I think blogs are the beginning of your ability to syndicate your content online. If you have a passionate message, your reach expands online. The world can now be your oyster.

I like blogs as websites. You can easily add audio and video, as well as a variety of “widgets” that will help you do almost anything.

So where do you start?

I suggest getting a free blog at WordPress.com and start there. You won’t have the flexibility at WordPress.com that a self-hosted blog like Syndicating Your Content or North San Diego Business (the blog I built to show the business community in my home town what a blog was) has, but it will give you a good feel for blogging. If it’s something you find works for you, and your business, you can always self-host it down the road. All the work you put into your WordPress.com blog can be brought over to a self hosted blog.

(shameless pandering here…) If you join my email list (up on the right), you’ll get access to my private members only page. On that page is a video “Build A Blog In 90 Mins” which will walk you through an overview of WordPress.

When you create your account at WordPress.com secure your name and business name as usernames.  So, my blog would be:  debrasimpson.wordpress.com, or syndicatingyourcontent.wordpress.com. The reason for securing your name and business name is so that no one else can start a blog with your name or bus name. In fact, you should tie up your name at as many of the social sites as possible, especially if you well branded.

Now you can start syndicating your content, or passionate message. One of the first things I would do is create links (you’ll find “Links” on the left side of your dashboard) back to your business, or html website. Just “Add New” link, and fill in the blanks.

This will help the search engine spiders find your traditional site as they index your blog content. That’s one of the beauties of blogs, they are naturally search engine friendly. Just the act of posting will create activity. Make sure to include some of your keywords in your blog content, and if you can use them as a text link, all the better.

So, your challenge…get a free blog at WordPress.com and start playing with it. Try it for a three months and see if it doesn’t help drive more traffic to your website and raise your visibility in the search engines.

Add to the conversation by commenting.

I just finished my online radio show on syndicating your content.  Here is a list of the websites I refered to on the show. Let me know by commenting if this was helpful to you.

• Article Marketing
  http://www.ezinearticles.com/

• Directory of Articles
  http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html

• Ultimate Article Directory
  http://ultimatearticledirectory.com

•  Submit Your Articles
  http://www.submityourarticles.com

• Blogging – posting regularly – use your articles, or use your posts for articles
  Free at – blogger.com and wordpress.com
  even though Google owns Blogger, I haven’t found it to index any faster – free sites traffic belongs to them, can pull down your blog at a moments notice
   
• Guest Blogging
   
• FeedBurner
  www.feedburner.com – has a feature, Buzz Boost, that allows you to import your content into a website
   
• Social Networking – Facebook has notes that let you post to Facebook – other social sites have blogging features
   
• MyBlogLog – allows you to import your blog feed
   
• Blog Carnivals
  http://blogcarnival.com/bc/
   

Friday, September 19th, join  Debra Simpson for a free 30 minute webinar on leveraging your business using the Internet.

Syndicating Content Through Products

Creating an information product is one of the first steps to raising your perceived expertise. You know your business like no one else, now it’s time to share that knowledge and expertise with the world. Find out how to Cross The Digital Divide with products in this webinar.

How would you use an information product for your business?
How would you create it?
How would you market it?
What’s syndication mean to you and your business?

Register for the Free Friday, Cross The Digital Divide webinar and check out the Cross The Digital Divide social site that Debra is putting together. You’ll find how to videos and more…..

As I use Facebook more and more, I’m seeing the opportunities to syndicate (share) blog content. One of the first things you should do when establishing your Facebook profile is import your blog into your Facebook Notes. Now, when you post to your blog, it will automatically show up on your Facebook profile. Here’s the How To Import Your Blog Into Facebook Video!

Let me know what you think by commenting below.

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