My first experience with hyperlinks was ages ago – when I first trained to repair Apple computers in the early 80’s. I thought to myself then, “Can you imagine if the World could hyperlink its combined global knowledge?” Wait, isn’t that what the Internet and blogging enables us to do today?

As a global community – we’ve become a giant publishing house, and we don’t have to submit our works for approval, or get put on waiting lists for distribution. Do a Google search for just about any topic and you’ll likely return millions of results. Someone told me recently that there are more websites on the Internet than there are people on Earth. I was like, “Really?!”

The Why to blog should be obvious - it’s an incredibly easy way to reach a targeted audience, giving you to the opportunity to communicate your vision, products or services. It helps keep you in touch with your customers, and it’s an extremely cost effective marketing tool.

The How to blog – is a little more complex. Essentially, pick a topic that interests you and start writing. Share your insight, ask for opinions, run some polls – seek out participation. Don’t worry so much about being perfect (perfect people are boring). Be consistent, meaning don’t front load your blog – rather post smaller articles and spread the wealth over longer periods of time. The key is to keep readers consistently coming back for more.

Part of the How is – writing good content and then letting someone know your blog is out there, your friends, Twitter contacts, business associates or clients. Include RSS and links to “Like” you on Facebook or connect via Twitter. A very important aspect to growing your blog is – always respond to comments. This builds loyalty and trust, two key factors to sell anything, from ideas to mouse traps to fishing gear.

If you’re publishing a blog now – I’d love to hear your take on why and how to blog.

Great post, Steve (as always)!

Blogging can be fairly easy for a lot of people, but it can be extremely hard for others. I for one am not the writer type, as much as I like to, I just can't sit there and spring a great read out of no where.

I usually use other people's articles that are relevant to the hosting industry and post them on my Twitter, but I always link the original source of course. I actually use your blog quite often! (WDTalk.com)

Wow, thanks for visiting my blog You're right - sometimes it can be hard to create new content as so much pertaining to web hosting has been rehashed thousands of times.