Creating a Blog for your website, or your online business, is one of the very best things that you can do to increase general interest in what it is that you have to offer the public at large. For the uninitiated, the term blog is a shortened version of its full title: the “weblog” and since its first appearance back in 1994, the blog has now become a part of internet folklore, and in a survey carried out in 2005, over 32 million Americans alone read blogs every single day. With such a huge following, it is easy to see that blogging carries with it a gigantic potential to engage with people, not just in the United States, but across the world, and internet entrepreneurs are quick to recognize such a fertile seeding ground.

If you are wondering what a blog can do for your business, and are pondering whether or not you should start one, the answer is an emphatic YES, and here are the top reasons that you should do so.

#1 Express Yourself

Putting aside all thoughts of making money, blogging is simply a great way of expressing yourself. Most of us have either got something to say, or we have an opinion that we would like to be heard. Well what better way could there possibly be than adding your comments to an existing blog, or starting your very own bog for others to join in with? No matter what the subject of your blog is, it creates an absolutely gargantuan opportunity to express your thoughts to a worldwide audience. If your subject is topical, thought provoking, or controversial, it can quickly be picked up, and will spread rapidly like a virus.

#2 The Best Marketing Tool

As any internet entrepreneur will tell you, if you can engage a large audience; if you can interest and excite them about your topics and your views, you’ve got it made. No online business can survive or even exist without clients, and it is through online marketing that you can build your client base. A blog is superb way of putting your marketing message across, either as a direct link into the product or service that you are selling, or as a more subliminal message. Once people begin reading and subscribing to your blog, they will build up a trust and respect for you, and once this is established they will become interested in anything you may be involved in, and by pasting back links to your website on your blogs, you are opening the door for a huge amount of traffic coming your website’s way, if your blog becomes well read.

#3 To Help Others

From a more altruistic point of view, many people create blogs as a help for others. Say that you have faced some tough dilemmas, either in your business, or your personal life, and you feel that others who are facing the same or similar problems could benefit through sharing in your experiences. A blog is the perfect way of delivering that information, and it also gives its readers the chance to interact and share their own personal experiences, with you and others. It can help people to know that they are not alone, and that help is at hand.

#4 Establishing Your Expert Credentials

A blog is a fantastic way of establishing your own expertise in a particular sphere. This is an essential step for the online marketer. By sharing your knowledge and experience with others, offering advice and tips etc, you can become known as someone who knows what they are talking about, and readers of your blog will quickly come to believe and to rely on your advice. But this also creates a two way sword, and carries with it a moral responsibility to ensure that the advice you expound is sound. Good reputations take a lot of work and are hard won, but it takes very little in terms of bad publicity to destroy that reputation in no time at all, and once your credibility is tainted or destroyed, it is extremely difficult to win back.

#5 Keeping up to Date

Another useful function that blogs fulfill is to keep people up to date with the latest happenings and developments in any particular field. Things move very quickly in the developing world, and it can be very difficult to keep abreast of changes and latest news. By creating a blog that people can subscribe to, you can invite people to participate and advise what is going on in that particular sphere in their part of the planet. In business, keeping abreast of what is going on elsewhere is essential. It helps you to recognize and react to new trends, or even start them yourself.

#6 Making Money

You can also make money from blogging itself, although it may not be quite as easy as it sounds; not that it is particularly difficult; but it will take a certain amount of time, hard work and dedication. But there are many people who have made good money through displaying advertisements and back-links on their blog.

#7 Having Fun and Enjoying What You Do

But at the end of the day, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” so the saying goes. It is important to enjoy what you do. Blogging is free, and it can be fun, so remember to enjoy yourself as you go and spread a little good cheer among others too.

If you are ready to start your own blog, make sure to take a look at my video that teaches you how to get it up and running in less than 30 minutes.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Blogs may have started out as online diaries, but business owners quickly realized the power of using blogs to promote and advertise their products and services. It’s not only one of the fastest ways to build a solid reputation as a leader but it also facilitates two way communication with your viewers creating trust over time. One thing to make sure to note here is that if you use a blog to grow your business, which in today’s market is absolutely necessary, you need to realize this is a long term marketing strategy and you may not see results immediately.

Before we can even get in to what to do with your blog, you need to know how to make one. In today’s video I take you step by step through the entire process so you can create one for yourself. If after watching the video it seems like too much work or you feel you are not tech savvy enough (I promise it’s super easy to do and takes less than 30 minutes) I have including a free resource for you to check out. If you go to blogsbyann.com and purchase your hosting through her Host Gator link, she’ll set it up for you at no cost.

I also talk about a list of must have plugins for your blog. What exactly is a plugin? It’s much like an app for a phone. They are additions you can download that will either help your blog look cool or function in a certain way. Here is a list of the most important plugins you need for your blog:

Spam Tools:

• Akismet
• TanTanNoodles – simple trackback

SEO Plugins:

• All in One SEO Pack
• Feedburner (feedsmith)
• Google XML Sitemaps
• Simple Tagging Widget
• Simple Tags

Misc. Plugins:

• Advanced Text Widget
• Audio Player
• Date Exclusion
• Traffic Geyser Social Poster
• WP Super Cache
• Nofollow Blogroll SEO
• WP Hide Post
• MyBlogLog Widget

Social Networking Plugins:

• Sociable
• Digg Digg
• Tweetmeme

Setting up your blog is only the beginning. In future videos and posts I’ll go through how to customize your blog, what type of content to add, and how to promote your blog to get tons of traffic. For now, get started with setting your new blog up and start researching other blogs to get an idea of what you’d like your own to look like.