by Tara Weiss, Forbes.com
With competition so fierce for every open position these days, even the smallest edge can make the difference in landing you that interview or even a job. One way to gain an advantage: Start a blog about your profession or industry.
The concept is simple. Keep your blog entries short and conversational. Anywhere from a few brief sentences to about 500 words commenting on industry news or trends is enough. Post at least three or four times a week, more if you like.

It’s a small amount of work that will likely impress recruiters and hiring managers, because it shows you to be enthusiastic and engaged with your industry. It also makes you look like an expert in your field.

Getting an Advantage

In addition, it can help control how you come up in online searches of your name. “Recruiters will always try to find out more about you,” says Liz Lynch, author of “Smart Networking.” “They Google you. You want to stack the deck in your favor. If you’re competing with someone who has equal skills and experience, a blog can be the tie-breaker. Having that little bit extra can tip the scales in your favor.”

Getting started is easy. Open an account with a free bogging service such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com. Or pay a little. Ted Demopoulos, author of “Secrets of Successful Blogging,” recommends Typepad.com, since it “looks a little more professional” and the company offers customer support. Typepad starts at $4.95 a month and rises to $89.95 monthly for the package with the most features.

All three sites provide instructions that make it easy to begin. “If you can write an email, you can start a blog,” says Lynch.

For the blog’s title, use your name exactly as you use it professionally, unless someone’s already taken it. That way, your site will come up earlier in searches and be more visible. If your own name isn’t available, pick one that has something to do with your industry. If you’ve got a common name, add in your middle name or initial and use it consistently throughout the blog.

Make the blog as visible as possible. Search engines tend to list blogs high up in search results, usually within the first few pages in a search of someone’s name. That’s because blogs tend to have links to other blogs or news stories, and links influence search ranking. So link to other blogs.

“Other bloggers will find your blog, and they will in turn link to you,” says Demopoulos. “Bloggers love to link to one another. Google takes every link as a vote of confidence.”

Your Visibility Booster

Another way to increase your blog’s visibility is by including its address on your LinkedIn profile and Facebook page and putting it on your resume.

As for your posts, keep them strictly professional. Save tidbits about your family or home renovation for another blog. Also stay away from religion, politics and sex — unless, of course, one of those is the industry you work in.

To help make sure you have enough to write about, set up a Google news alert to receive e-mails about stories with keywords from your industry. That way, you’ll get news about your field in your inbox automatically. Link to those articles on your blog, and write about whether you agree with them and why. Describe relevant professional experiences of your own. Predict how the matter at hand will affect your industry in the future.

If you attend a seminar or industry trade meeting, blog about an interesting speaker or a discussion on a controversial topic.

Above all, keep your posts short, conversational and informal. And don’t click “Publish” without doing a spelling and grammar check. A blog riddled with errors will hurt you more than it will help.

When you do land a job, don’t just shut the blog down. Update it less frequently if you must, but keep it going. It’s a useful networking tool, and it may even help you get speaking engagements and interviews for future jobs.