Blog Setup (Guide to Blogging Included)

If you are interested at all in connecting online with other farmers or people researching the alpaca industry, a blog is one of the most powerful tools you can use.

Blog Speak The word “blog” is from “web log”, and the concept evolved from the idea of an online journal. A “post” is what you call an entry in your blog. You can also use “post” as a verb (e.g., you should post to your blog at least once a week).

A blog is a special type of website format, much like an online journal. You write brief entries in your blog, which display chronologically. These entries are usually much more informal and personal than a regular website, giving you a more friendly means to interact with others who are interested in what you’re writing. People can sign up to be notified each time you write a new entry or simply come back to your blog to see what you’ve been up to.

Blogs are truly wondrous vehicles for communicating online. They are naturally search engine friendly to a great extent (though we actually tweak the programming when we set it up for you to ensure maximum effect – read more about search engine optimization). This means that just by posting your articles, thoughts, daily ramblings, etc., on your blog, you stand a great chance of any particular post showing high in search results whenever anyone searches on something to do with what you might have written about. This gives you the chance to “meet” many more interested people than you could just by having a regular website.

Your blog is tied to your website, so this offers you one more means to bring people to your site, too. And when you link to pages on your site, you actually help those pages become more visible in the search engines like Google.

Don’t know what you’d write about? Or how you’re supposed to write it? Our handy guide to blogging will give you plenty of examples and pointers, as well as tips for getting more exposure for your blog that you might not have thought of.

But just in case you’re still skeptical that you’d run out of ideas, here are a few to spark the imagination:

• Write a blog post on an upcoming farm day, then another about how it went after it’s over.
• Blog about the purchase (or sale) of an alpaca.
• Write about each service you offer and why you’re qualified to offer it.
• Write about what you did that day on the farm (it might be boring to you, but someone researching the industry is thirsting for this sort of thing!)
• You could also blog about shearing and show photos of the event.
• Tell readers about how you’re running your farm and maybe highlight all the different ways others go about it, too.
• Expand on a topic another alpaca blogger wrote about, adding your own thoughts in your post and linking to their blog.
• Write about and link to any industry news. You’ll make your blog the one to follow to find out what’s happening in the alpaca industry!
• Invite comments and see who jumps in to add to the conversation. Readers’ comments will inspire new blog posts.
• And so on….

You may want to start out by simply looking at what others are blogging about. This is one of the easiest ways to get started. You’ll quickly become comfortable realizing it’s actually quite easy, and the benefits are mighty!

Your blog material can even be repurposed into a regular newsletter. In fact, some services like AWeber let people sign up to receive your blog posts automatically via email, similar to a newsletter but without any effort from you. You can have your blog post feed automatically into Twitter and Facebook if you’re using those services, too.

But of course, first things first, start with a blog!

Your blog can also be a good place to highlight items you plan to sell through a product shopping cart…

Next feature: Product Shopping Cart

 

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