This post is going to be helpful mainly to those fairly new to blogging. Can you remember the first time you heard the word ‘Blog’? I bet it wasn’t that long ago. I can remember posting on my forum about this new thing called a Blog asking if anyone know what it was. Shortly after that I was running my own Blog on Blogger.

Later I moved my two Blogs from Blogger, Google’s free Blog hosting network to my own domains using WordPress. That gave me three WordPress Blogs. Just six weeks later I had ten! When I had thirteen blogs I went to the opposite extreme and pulled all but three (This post was rescued from one of them). Blogging is here to stay. It’s just too contagious, too addicting. I converted ExtremeEzine.com to Blog format even though I knew we would be starting over in a sense as far as the search engines were concerned. We built ExtremeEzine.com to a page rank of 05/10 on our main page. Now that the URL of the main page has changed we’re down to a 02/10.

So why the change? It sounds crazy I know but there really is a method to my madness. There are many reasons to change over to Blog format and I want to share my thoughts on the subject.

Design and Appeal
When you first install WordPress Blog on your site and see that ugly template with your first post that says, “Hello World”, you know right away that just won’t do. It takes just a few minutes to find and install new themes that can look every bit as nice as a professionally designed website. There’s a huge selection of free themes and plug-ins available. You can even buy a theme if you want a little more originality. Once you activate your new theme it’s very easy to customize most of them to get that perfect look you’re looking for.

Ease of Updating
Making quick updates is a breeze with most Blogs. Simply log-in, update and click publish. These days I rarely FTP other than uploading images and other files. You can even update your PHP, HTML and CSS from the script within it’s own editor.

Built-in List
We all now lists are important and I would never drop my lists with AWeber but now I have new lists building from my Blogs. They are in the form of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. You can build reader subscribers and with the help of sites like FeedBurner you can also build a subscriber list for email updates. You add the buttons on your Blog, the site visitor likes your content and style, they subscribe and you’re building a list. How easy can it get?

Real Interaction With Site Visitors
Blogs offer a level of interactivity that’s unmatched with traditional websites. Site visitors commenting on your articles can be an invaluable resource. Once you have a lot of visitor participation everything else will grow. Traffic, subscriber rates and site referrals will grow.

New Ways Of Site Promotion
As many of you know, once you become involved with the daily details of running your Blog you discover a whole new world loaded with tools, resources and communities. With sites like MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog (See Getting The Most Traffic From Social Blog Directories…) can connect you with hundreds or even thousands of like minded blog owners for a host of benefits. The power of Web 2.0 has really taken hold when it comes to Blogs.

New Friends Willing To Help
Many Blog owners are friendly and down to earth people and strive to share their ups and downs with their readers. Those people were always here but now they’re easier to find.

It’s Do or Die With The New Trends
It’s hard to admit but many online veterans that run their own websites will die a slow death if they can not figure out how to adapt and use the benefits of Social Networking. It’s certainly not too late and if you’re reading this post struggling to understand the terms then you may need to get started before your competition blows right past you.

Related helpful articles by bloggers that inspire me:

Submit to 47 Social Bookmarking Sites in 15 Minutes and Make Money from it!

104 Social Bookmarking Websites to Submit Too

5 Possible Ways to Speed Up Your Blog

6 Important Blogging Tips

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