"What's blogging?" you ask.

"Where have you been?" I reply...just kidding, of course. Blogging has been around for quite some time, but there are still a few of us who are just getting started on it. A blog, which is a shortened version of the words "web log," is basically an online diary, resource and commentary. It generally contains links to other blogs, websites and informational resources. And it has the ability to "ping" sites to get you more exposure.

I've been doing a blog for Marketing Idea Shop for a few months now. In it, I give my readers various resources, information to help their businesses, and links to websites that I find interesting. I also link to other people's blogs whenever it makes sense. And I answer P.R. and marketing questions that my readers submit. Occasionally, I include complete articles I have written on marketing topics. You can take a look at the Marketing Idea Shop blog here: http://www.marketingideashop.com/blog/

I literally set this blog up in 5 minutes. I'm using the software "Blogger," and my blog is being hosted at Blogspot and connected to my own website.

The Blogger software, which is owned by Google, is free and so is the hosting. A couple of people have recommended "Moveable Type" as the best business blogging software, and I have found it's much more confusing so I eventually abandoned that idea. If you want to have more control over your blog, you will want to own the software and host your blog yourself.

Moveable Type is a software program that you can purchase; it resides on your own computer. Blogger is software that resides on someone else's computer. Currently it's free, but who knows what will happen to it later. There are several other choices, too.

Bloggers (as the folks who write blogs are called) have many reasons for starting and maintaining a blog. Here are the top 10 reasons for blogging:

1. It's good for business.

2. It improves your search-engine ranking.

3. It makes you more valuable to your customers and prospects.

4. It will generate more traffic for your site

5. It will improve your sales.

6. If you participate in Google's Adsense program, you can make some big bucks, even if your visitors don't buy directly from you or they go to your competitors.

7. It can get you and your company noticed.

8. If you add RSS news feeds to your blog, you can get loads of content without working so hard AND you can easily distribute your blog's content to other bloggers and websites. (RSS means Really Simple Syndication)

9. You can invite your readers to comment on your posts, thereby creating a better relationship with them (and increasing the possibility that they will buy from you).

10. You can have fun writing about your company, products, industry, competitors, conferences you attend, just about anything!