What's in a Blog?

                                                                                         

In this article, I'll describe some of the most common and most useful types of blog entries - particularly as they relate to you as an expert.

Report on news

The first, and most common, use for a business blog is to report on news in your area of expertise. You watch what's happening, report it and add your opinion. Here's an example where I report on some recent research (thus demonstrating the depth of my expertise):

Here's an example where I report on a news item (demonstrating the currency of my expertise):

Make it personal

Another common use for a blog is to report on events in your own life, adding your commentary to make it relevant for your readers. In fact, the whole area of blogging started this way, with ordinary Internet users telling the story of their life.

As a business blogger, your job is not just to tell the story, but to explain how it's relevant and meaningful.

Here's an example:

Rant!

Don't be afraid to state an opinion, even if it's controversial. In fact, the best bloggers take a stand, and are willing to rant. Blogs are more "opinionated" than typical Web sites and articles.

For example, I weighed in to the global warming debate by presenting a blog post critical of Al Gore:

Review a book

Read a good book about your area of expertise? Blog about it! This shows you're staying abreast of other material, giving you credibility. As with your other blog posts, remember to add your opinion and interpretation. Here's an example:

This also gives you a small extra opportunity to tap into the people searching Google for the book title. It's not a big factor, but it could get you some unexpected site visitors. To maximise this opportunity, make the book title and author the blog post title - as I've done in the example above.

Promote your stuff

Don't be shy about promoting your products and services. When you launch a new product or service, blog about it! As long as your blog isn't only self-promotion, your readers won't mind:

To do this in a more subtle way, if a story naturally leads to a product/service you offer, link to it. For example, this blog post about telling stories relates naturally to my book/CD product "Write Now", so the last line of the blog post links directly to that product page on my Web site:

Refer to experts

Link to other experts - other bloggers or other Web site owners. Here's an example:

Copy material from others

If you see something particularly relevant written by somebody else, you might prefer to paste it in directly - with their permission, of course! For example, after reading one of my clients' books, I asked her for permission to include an extract in my blog:

Insert pictures

It's easy to write blog posts as just plain text, and there's nothing wrong with that. But you can add an extra dimension to your blog by using pictures as well. You've seen a couple of examples already; they have been mainly decorative. Sometimes you get the opportunity to include a picture that adds to the blog content - as in this example:

Look for things you can photograph or scan for your blog.

Record an audio clip

You can also include audio clips in your blog, in a way that most Internet users can listen immediately by simply clicking on the blog page - for example:

Audio (and video, which we'll see next) used to be difficult to produce and use, but it's now got much easier.

Insert a video

The next obvious step is video, and sure enough that's easy to add to your blog as well.

The simplest way to add video is to search a Web site like YouTube www.YouTube.com for video clips in your area of expertise. YouTube gives you permission to embed these clips in your blog - in fact, it helps you to do it. Here's an example:

A more sophisticated option is to record your own video clips, publish them to YouTube and then embed them - for example:

Link to reports

Your blog is a starting point for readers to discover more about your area of expertise. It's not necessarily the entire body of knowledge about that subject, but it's a starting point. So when you find reports, e-books or white papers about this topic, link to them from your blog.

Here's an example:

When linking to other people's material, be sure you understand the copyright in that material. They will usually prefer that you link to their Web site rather than linking directly to a downloadable document.

About the author:
Gihan Perera is the author of "The Seven Fatal Mistakes That Most Web Site Owners Make - And How To Avoid Them" and "Spin: Turn One Idea Into Hundreds of Information Products". Visit http://GihanPerera.com and get your complimentary copies now.

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