Whether you run a business, a non-profit, or simply a site for family and friends a great way to draw traffic to your site is through a blog. A blog (short for web log) is a public online journal where you can write about anything you wish. Some of the more popular blogs are Lifehacker, Mashable, Read Write Web, and Wise Bread to name but a very few. A list of the top 100 can be found at Technorati.

Many of the blogs listed above are written by probloggers, that is folks who do it for a living. They generate income by their readers clicking the advertising links on their blogs. Most folks are not probloggers, but do it to share information and provide customers (and potential customers) a demonstration of their expertise. Even if you are not a problogger you can still “monetize” your blog by placing ads on the side and possibly generating a small amount of income. Any website you visit that has a list of Google sponsored ads is an example of monetizing a site. You can actually add this to any website, however it can detract from the appearance of the site.

What makes a blog successful is the content. If you are not writing interesting material, people will not return to your site to keep reading your writing and clicking through your ads. If people like what you write they will continue to return and click through your ads.

A blog can be set up on your existing domain name, using your existing hosting account. For example you could set up a blog at:

• www.yourdomain.com
• www.yourdomain.com/blog
• www.blog.yourdomain.com

To run a blog requires some minimal installation and customization, but can be done easily and inexpensively. The most popular blogging software is called WordPress. WordPress is an open source program and can be used free of charge.

Hope this gives you some ideas for your business!