One of the reasons blogs are so attractive as author marketing tools is that they are an easy to use DIY (Do It Yourself) website solution.
There are many ways to make a blog. There are many free blogging tools available to get started.
Just because you CAN make a blog on a free service doesn’t mean you should.
It takes a little more time, effort and expense but it’s WELL worth the effort to go with a self hosted Wordpress blog.
Don’t take my word for it. Darren Rowse, author of ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
I’ve been working with clients for years on blogging and without exception, I’ve found that clients who chose to blog on a free blog platform did not achieve the same results that those who chose to launch a self hosted blog. One client blogged religiously for almost a year on a free blogging platform and we never saw a single visitor follow her MULTIPLE invitations to visit her website where she sold her book
However, when she launched a self hosted Wordpress blog, within 6 weeks we began to see traffic coming from her new blog to her product’s website. Even better, the traffic which came from her blog was 6 times more likely to purchase her book than any other source of traffic… including Google Adwords!
There’s so much more to creating a blog than just launching a blog. Installing the software and setting up the hosting account is a small one time inconvenience when compared to the long term improved results it provides.
Once you have the blog software installed, then comes the hard part… creating content. Your content is the bait you’ll use to attract book buyers to your blog and is the way your book will get “found” on the web.
