Online blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as sports, news, music or a hobby. Most blogs online function more as personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on photos, audio podcasting, videos, or all combined together.

Many physical therapists who have private practices, physical therapy products, and continuing education courses can use blogs to keep in touch with their readers or create a community of readers interested in their subject matter. If you are a physical therapist who focuses on total knee rehab you can talk about total knee surgery and treatment. If your expertise is in rotator cuff injuries you can blog about rotator cuff injuries and treatments. By offering quality expertise in your field you gain trust among your readers and possibly a potential patient or walk-in.

Blogs are affordable compared to the cost of building a website. Most blogs are free or have a low monthly fee to maintain. The most common blog programs available are wordpress blogs or blogger. Both are easy to use and update. Blogs are also very search engine friendly so it will also assist in getting you found easier online.

Here are some things you can do with a blog:

? Post daily tips and information to your readers.

? Share your expertise and become the go to blog for useful posts about a specific topic.

? Search Engines like to spider Blogs because the content is always fresh and constantly being updated!

? There are a lot of directories catering to Blogs online. Some directories allow you to "Ping" them when you add new content to keep their directories updated.

? Have your visitors subscribe to your blog by leaving a subscribe button on your blog so that interested visitors can get notified when you post.

? Use google adsense to get residual income from PPC targeted advertisers.

? Have your blog offer RSS feeds and Podcast feeds of your posts.

? Place links to important information from your website like the services you offer, continuing education courses that you offer, your physical therapy product information, and etc.

? The important social and interactive aspect of blogs is its ability for visitors to post comments on your post. Creating dialogue shows your reader you are a live person behind the blog.

? You do not need to be a programmer or coder to get a blog up and running. For the most part it is very user friendly and easy to start one up.

? You can customize the design and layout of most blogs to cater to the look and feel of your business brand.

If you haven't noticed blogs are here to remain in cyberspace. If you are a physical therapist with a private practice, a physical therapy product or an instructor for a continuing education course, you need to start planning on getting a blog running now. Any business looking to gain traffic and create a social presence in web 2.0 should have one.