I know I may be considered crazy for even thinking up such an article but in all honesty blogs are the wave of the future. Everybody is either blogging or has blogged or will blog at some time in their life. If they don't fall into those three categories then they're probably the ones that read blogs.

Blogs have become a very recognized layout for the people of the world wide web. People who surf around on the net basically look for four things.

The first would be information. That's what the web is all about and blogs are built to deliver just that. A solid blog-like layout coupled with RSS(really simple syndication) can make waves. Search engines are really just starting to purposelly hunt down blogs and RSS feeds so you score major points by just being a relevant, information packed website with new, fresh content. In short, alot like what a blog is supposed to be.

The second would be to buy things of course. I believe a blog like site is almost perfect for those Adsense or Yahoo ads or even for links to pages containing services you provide or information about your local business and contact numbers. If your articles and other content are good then people will come back. This will build a familiarity with your services and a trust in your potential customer. They've read many articles by you or others from your company. They like your site and they know you know what you're talking about. Great!

Another reason some people surf the web is to make money. This is actually my favorite reason. The internet is just oozing limitless potential. If you don't have a web site get one. You can do so for free or get decent hosting for around $80/year. If you invest a bit of time into your web site consistently then down the road there will begin to be a payoff. It may take awhile or it may happen almost immediately. That depends on you, what you're trying to do, how much you know, and how much you're willing to spend.

The final reason in my humble opinion would be for entertainment. Chat rooms, forums, blogs, videos, music, e-books, and on and on and on. The web can be a great place to hang out or stimulate your brain. As I mentioned before, many just read blogs. Blogs are becoming a popular source of both entertainment and information. A good blog draws traffic. Great!

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you should replace a professional company website with a blog and a picture of your dog spike. What I'm saying is that it is possible for the small business to have a professional website that is modeled after the common blog. What I envision is a front page with up to date articles or article summaries with links to the articles. Fresh content for the search engines for sure. The articles would also occupy a single page apiece and the site would have a list of links to all of the articles. This insures that with every good, quality article you write your web site grows by one page.

You can do whatever else you want with that page because it has just become a piece of internet real estate. Down the road that particular page may begin to pull search engine traffic at which point it becomes invaluable to you. Optimize it and put ads on it. Adsense would work just great.

All the articles should also go out via RSS. This is a no brainer and will get the pages indexed sooner by the search engines. Get your RSS feed to load on both My Yahoo and My MSN. Get it up and running on your Google custom page too. Make sure the articles all link back to your site then search for RSS directories in Google. Get busy submitting your feed!

One more thing that can be done. With every new article added to your site you're not only adding a potentially valuable piece of real estate, but also creating a very effective way to acquire one way links from other sites. This will score you some more points with the search engines. If you write an article that you think is useful make sure to submit it to as many article directories as you can find. People that like your article will post it on their site along with a link to your site. Cool huh?

If you don't believe me on this or just can't despite really trying to believe me than give it a try. My whole point is that search engines and people both like blogs. This is just too much to possibly pass up. In my humble opinion of course.