What is a Blog?
There are lots of different opinions and descriptions of what is a Blog? According to Wikipedia -

"The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called "blogging". Individual articles on a blog are called "blog posts," "posts" or 'entries". A person who posts these entries is called a 'blogger".

Attributes of Blogs

• No technical knowledge required: Its not necessary that only technical person can write a blog. Since you can add pages or articles through a "Windows" type of interface, you don't have to hire a web designer for this job and can do it easily and quickly yourself.
• Readers can leave comments: It allows readers to leave comment to your post, which provides you an opportunity to open a conversation with potential clients, suppliers or partners.
• Well organized: The 'categories' and 'archives' are integral parts of a blog and each post will automatically be placed correctly according to the selection you make. This attribute of blog makes each blog post well placed and organized, making it easier for visitors to read and search engines to index.
• Search Engine Magnets: Regular posts, categorized content and search engine friendly links and addresses make business blogs an ideal places for Search Engines to find the type of content they love and rank highly.
• Permanent links: Every post and every category has its own individual address. This means that you can refer to them in articles, emails, newsletter etc. safe in the knowledge that they will always be found. Another great feature for the Search Engines.

Why Blog

• Inexpensive, Non-Technical, Easy/Quick to Launch.
• Make the information visible that would otherwise be overlooked.
• Leverage your research and ability to disseminate it.
• Content is easily searchable, browsable, and archived.
• Users can post comments.
• Increases your visibility to market your business.
• Valuable database is created and expanded continuously.

Study related to Blogs

• According to the Synovate/ Marketing Daily's online survey:
  • 80 % of Americans know what a blog is
  • 50 % regularly visit blogs
  • 8% have published their own blog
  • 90 % of people between the ages of 25-34 know what a blog is
  • 65% of people over the age of 65 know what a blog is

As a total of all blog posts as of June 2006, Technorati reports

A sample of 1,000 randomly selected blogs in March 2006 from LiveJournals.com reports:

Why should a Business have a Blog?
Business Blogs tend to be very targeted in terms of their subject matter and focus on a specific market area or niche. It is a powerful marketing and communications tool which helps companies to communicate better with stakeholders of all types, from customers to suppliers and from partners to employees. They are not only very effective but also very cost effective as well, as they personalize your company and the products and services that you offer by opening up direct channels of communication with your prospects and customers and engaging with them.

Benefits of Business Blogs -

• Differentiating your business, products and services
• Acting as a central element of your Search Engine marketing
• Researching and Developing new Markets, Products or Niches
• Developing Communication channels to your market
• Helping to enhance and build your visibility and brand
• Positioning Yourself as the Expert
• Improving Internal Communications

Better Business Blogs

Technorati

Technorati is a search engine focused on tracking blogs. It was launched in 2002 and was founded by Dave Sifry. By June 2008, Technorati indexes over 112.8 million blogs. Searches on Technorati often result in more up-to-date information and find the most relevant results on all media including blogs, photos, videos and audio files.

Key Findings -

• Technorati tracked blogs in 81 languages in June 2008
• Bloggers responded to its survey from 66 countries across six continents
• Blogging is a truly global phenomeon
• Bloggers have been at it an average of three years and are collectively creating close to one million posts every day

Blogger.com
Blogger is a free blog publishing tool from Google for creating your content and easily sharing it worldwide. It is an extensive platform that allows you to share and post your experience, photos and more with your friends and the web.

Blogger was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. On August 14, 2006, Blogger launched its latest version in beta, codenamed "Invader", alongside the gold release. This migrated users to Google servers and included some new features. By May 2007, Blogger had completely moved over to Google operated servers.

BlogCatalog
BlogCatalog is one of the largest blog directories available on the Internet. BlogCatalog allows you to search blogs, connect with bloggers, learn more about blogging and tips to promote blog for oneself. BlogCatalog's diverse community comprises of 200,000 blogging members from all over the world who are focused on making friends and promoting their blogs to increase traffic to their sites.

Business Benefits of Blogs

Business Blog can also give you, your company and those who work for it, a place to collect and share ideas and relevant information with your customers and prospects. This, in turn, generates mutual trust and builds to a relationship which is more like a partnership than the typical 'supplier-customer' sales relationship. Some of the key benefits of Business Blogs -

• Develop your position and your reputation as an expert
  Business Blog demonstrate your knowledge, expertise and experience on the matters relating to your industry and give you an upper edge to show your expert position in your field of specialization.
• Provides easy access to the company news
  It provides you a platform to inform your customers of new products, latest offers and latest updates related to your company which, in turn, can lead to direct sales.
• Search Engine Marketing & Visibility
  It provides higher rankings and greater visibility on the main search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Blogs are constantly updated with content, hence, organized and the focused content attracts search engines and readers alike.
• Relationship Building
  Word of mouth plays an important role, in building your business relationships, as people like to buy products and services from people they are familiar with. When your regularly participate and interact with your readers, you begin to develop a professional relationship with them, which in return, increases your brand awareness among potential clients.
• Increases visibility
  It increases your brands visibility and markets your business in an efficient manner. The main focus, is to keep the content fresh with regular updates, which will help you gain better placement on search engines and around the web.