Become a Home Based Travel Agent

Blogging for Fun and Profit
By: Tom Ogg

By now everyone has heard about blogs and the rapid rise in Internet popularity blogs have enjoyed. Many of us are still wondering, “What is a blog and why should I care?” During the next several articles in Travel Trade we will explore some new technologies that are going to change the way we work and interact with the Internet, our clients and our business in general. But first, let me answer the question I just asked.

The largest initial benefit that blogs offer travel professionals is simply a by-product of the functionality of blogging. If you have not yet developed the skills necessary to create and build your own websites, blogging will introduce you to the reality of designing, building and publishing your own web content. The term “blog” is a hybrid of the words “web” and “log”. Web logs are simply a very easy to use website that was designed as an on-line diary, or daily log. They were initially designed so that people could carry on fully inter-active conversations, post daily content in an easy to access filing system or introduce a diary fully equipped to stimulate comments and communication.

Before we explore how you can use your business blog to create more visibility for your website, better communicate with your clients and increase your market penetration on the web, let’s get you blogging first. To set up and operate a free blog just for the practice of getting going, visit www.Blogger.com. Google acquired www.Blogger.com a couple of years ago and offers the blogging community free blogs. Each blog that resides on Blogger.com has its own unique address and may take advantage of a number of features to customize the blog’s look and feel. You can create your first blog in just a matter of minutes by using www.Blogger.com, clicking on the big red arrow that says “Create Your Blog Now” and completing the information that it requests. It will cost you nothing and only take a matter of a few minutes. Once you name your blog and choose an appropriate address, you will then get to choose a template (design) that is how your blog will appear when you and others view it.

Viola, you are now ready to post your first comment to your blog. Select your blog and then the “Create a New Post” button. When you are given the dialog box for posting a new message, type in a title in the “Title” command box and then enter the text of your post in the text area. If you wrote the text in Word or some other program, you can copy and paste it into this box. Once the message is ready to post, you can select either select  the “Save as Draft” or “Publish Post” button right below the text area. If you save the message as a draft, you can preview it, as it will appear on your blog before publishing the message. If you choose to simply publish the post, it will immediately publish it to your blog and will be available for the entire world to see and read.

If you go back and select the “Create a New Post” button again and explore the toolbar the is shown above the text area, you will recognize many of the tools that reside there. Note that you can manipulate the font style and size, bolding, italics and many other familiar tools that we are all familiar with. The little globe with the chain link over it is for inserting a hyperlink into your post. If you highlight some text with your curser and then click on the link tool, it will launch a dialog box and ask for the URL (complete Internet address) that the link should point towards. If you enter the appropriate URL that you want the link to point to and hit “OK” you will then see that the highlighted text has been turned into a hyperlink that can be followed by readers of the post. It is that easy.

If you decide to allow comments to be made about you posts or you want to enable readers to join into a conversation, simply click on the comments link. This will launch a dialog box where you can customize how your readers can interact with your blog. You can disallow comments altogether, allow only members of the blog to comment, only registered users to comment or anyone, if you want. You can even have your blog send you an e-mail every time someone submits a comment to your blog so that you can stay on top of the information appearing on your blog.

For the purpose of this exercise, why not make your blog about your family and invite them to participate, or possibly some of your friends or some other specific reason. It is way to early to launch a business blog yet, but by operating your own personal blog you will become familiar with the process of sustaining a viable blog and the elements required to evolve a more professional business environment.

Best of all, you are now publishing content on the Internet by your self. All of the elements in building and maintaining a blog are the same as they are for a website (only a tad easier) but by building your skill set and understanding of how to create, publish, manage, link and monitor your blog, you are enabling yourself to take control of your own web presence; something that will become increasingly more important as e-commerce matures. Next month we will explore business blogs and how to develop and operate them.