The following is a guest post, written by Glen Allsopp. Enjoy! (Thanks, Glen)
I realise I am going to have to explain this title a little bit so I may as well do it now. There are so many avenues of Internet Marketing such as Social Media, SEO, PPC etc. The only thing known online to provide the majority of Internet Marketing tactics in one place is blogging:
- Social
There's nothing more social online then commenting on other people's blogs and allowing them to comment on yours. Blog platforms are what allow you to publish the content that can make it onto other blogs, bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us and social voting sites like Digg. You have a platform to get your content out there and interact with others who are getting their content out there thanks to blogging.
- SEO
SEO is a huge part of internet marketing; just take a look at how many SEO blogs and SEO forums that are out there and you'll see that targeted, free traffic, interests people. The thing about blogs is that while commenting on them for others, the author appreciates you. It's almost a fact they will check out your site and if there's something there they like they may just link to it. I have a site that is less than three weeks old but has over 120 blog backlinks, most of them coming from blog owners who check out my site after I've left comments. This is linked to being social and that's the great thing, there's even more benefits from each individual factor, linking out and receiving links allows you to be a part of the conversation.
- Brand
Internet Marketing is as much about building traffic and links as it is about building the brand of a person or company. Just look at how politicians are getting involved in the likes of MySpace and Youtube in order to get in front of their audience. Blogging allows you to be seen online in a lot of places, even blogging on MySpace is better than nothing. If there was ever a time companies were getting respect and credit for taking their branding attempts online, it's now.
- Voice
Who are we as people without a voice? What is a company without it's products or services. Blogging allows people to have a voice; it allows companies to interact with their clients and product owners. It allows companies to have the possibility to make more sales just by sharing their information with the Internet. Google runs a large amount of blogs on all their different products and services. By doing this, people who are interested in the necessary areas can find out the latest information, and those who report the news on these types of products / services have an information source. Think about it, if you aren't giving out any information, how can others give out information about you?
Summary
By no means is blogging the be all and end all of Internet marketing, in-fact it's far from it. However, it is something that you can get involved in so easily and so quickly that you are crazy to be missing out on the opportunity. You don't have to become a Technorati top 100 blog. You don't have to hit the Digg homepage. What you do have to do is get out there and be involved, learn from others, share your knowledge. I can only give you a push in the right direction, the rest is up to you...
Glen Allsopp blogs for ViperChill which is a blog focused on all aspects of Internet Marketing