กBloggingก For Fun & Profits

กBloggingก For Fun & Profits

by: Jim Edwards

Unless youกve been under a rock for the last year, youกve heard the term กblogก once or twice.

To most people, a กblogก simply represents a glorified online กdiaryก where geeks, computer nerds, and lonely teenagers record their thoughts in cyberspace.

However, many people don’t realize that กblogsก are quietly revolutionizing the way companies and customers interact about everything from existing products to new ideas and improvements in customer service.

In short, กblogก style communication has come of age and anyone with an online business better sit up and take notice fast!

In the beginning, กblogsก were basically an online diary to record your thoughts; but กblogsก have now evolved into dynamic websites that nontechnical people can update immediately without html editors or ftp programs.

Blogs allow their authors to make instant website updates through a computer anywhere in the world with a Web browser and Internet connection.

Blogs also allow readers to respond to the authorกs posts, provide additional information, links, expanded opinions, and more.

In short, an active กblogก creates an interactive community with the author as the hub and the readers as the spokes of the wheel that keep the whole cycle turning round.

Unlike traditional กstaticก web pages where content rarely (if ever) changes, an active blog evolves in a state of constant and neverending renewal.

With blogs, smart online businesses rediscovered a principal that small กmom and popก stores understood for years: know your customers and stay in close tune with their wants, needs, and desires.

Large companies throw billions of dollars down a black hole every year to literally กguessก what people want to buy. Most call it the กMarketing Department.ก

On the flipside, smart online businesses understand that blogs allow you to avoid guessing whatกs on your customersก minds and provide an active and uptotheminute means for them to tell you exactly what they do and don’t like about your services, products, and virtually any other aspect of the market.

This lightning fast communication makes it possible for small companies to literally snatch huge market share away from more traditional companies.

Blogging also has a distinct advantage over traditional email newsletters in that subscribers can get udpates without having to receive an email message. Through the power of RSS (real simple syndication), subscribers get notified of updated content though an rss news reader.

Bottom Line: publishing a blog with an RSS feed that your readers can subscribe to means your content NEVER gets blocked by a SPAM filter.

Blog software basically comes in 2 flavors: hosted and standalone. Hosted blogging solutions make it extremely easy to get set up with a blog, often in just a couple of minutes.

If you know how to type, you can create a blog. Log on to Blogger.com and you can set up a blog free of charge and start posting in just a few minutes.

Blogger.com (owned by search giant, Google) will even host your blog on their servers.

Typepad.com, which charges as little as $4.95 per month, is also an excellent hosted service offering additional features that enable you to quickly get your own blog up and running.

The alternative is standalone blogging software installed on your own website.

A very popular solution is Moveable Type, available from moveabletype.org, which provides a very versatile and powerful suite of tools for creating a fullfeatured blog to rival that of any size company in the world.

This is the solution Iกve chosen for my blog at http://www.IGottaTellYou.com/blog/

Whichever blogging solution you choose, if you plan to successfully conduct any form of business online, understand that a กblogก must form an integral part of your overall plan for customer communication and interaction.

© Jim Edwards All Rights reserved

http://www.thenetreporter.com

About The Author

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the coauthor of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links…

Simple ‘traffic Machineก brings Thousands of NEW visitors to your website for weeks, even months… without spending a dime on advertising! ==> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com

This article was posted on August 13

by Jim Edwards

A Basic Introduction to Blogging

A Basic Introduction to Blogging

by: Mal Keenan

Web logging first appeared on the net in the mid1990s. The term ขweb logข was initially coined refer to a server’s log file and then expanded to include the meaning of online personal journaling. Later on, to avoid confusion, the word ขblogข was adopted to refer to personal journaling. Today a blog is defined as an online publication where an author puts his or her personal thoughts and opinions from the most intimate to corporate ideas, concerns or events, in chronological order on the net.

Although, there are as many kinds of blogs on line as there are people, most of these will roughly fall into these kind of bloggers: Personal Bloggers (the original use of blogging), then there are the organizational and business Bloggers.

Organizational blogs are meant to facilitate communications between its internal and external audiences. It may also provide information for the external publics’ use.

Business blogs promote products or services for profit. They also increase awareness about the company, as well as establish itself as an authority with customers, vendors, through publications that demonstrate their expertise in the market.

What are the kinds of contents that readers can find in a blog that’s for distribution? The authors’ ideas, opinions, expertise in his/her field of work, resumes, and home recipes, pictures, streaming audio or video clips, ebooks, poetry, works, products, services and consultations.

Why have blogs become very popular compared to websites or email? Most websites are infrequently updated, while blogs have instant publishing tools which permit the author to regularly update & introduce new content. Although both have great content, websites are usually impersonal in informing their audience. While blogs allow the readers to leave their comments and feedback, to hold twoconversations with the author, who usually does the publishing and can immediately respond to his/her readers.

The blogs’ abilities to reach and immediately react to an expanding mass of audience have made businesses and marketers use these as a strategic marketing tool. Additionally blogs are very efficient, cheap to use and can quickly distribute information.

However, before you decide to jump on the blogging bandwagon, take time to find out what are your objectives for creating your own blog. Is it a personal, organizational or business blog? This will help you decide on what your blog will contain, where you’d place it and what publishing tools you’ll be using.

Copyright 2005 Mal Keenan

About The Author

For more information on blogging and other aspects of Internet Marketing and Home Business visit Mal Keenanกs personal blog: http://www.homebusinesstipsnewsletter.com/blog/

This article was posted on April 10

by Mal Keenan

Blogging Will Take Over The World

Blogging Will Take Over The World

by: Chris Everson

In recent years, itกs been pretty obvious that กbloggingก (Web + Log = Blog)has simply taken over the internet.

Early blogs were first used by creative (bored?) indivuals, and larger news companies. http://info.cern.ch/ was one of the earliest blogs, followed by NCSAกs กWhats Newก and also NetScapes กWhats Newก blog. After this point the blogging scene exploded.

What exactly is blogging? Many consider blogging in itกs truest form a type of internet diary. In itกs most pure and basic form its simply a single, scrolling webpages with a few links on the side, and an archive table, and larger, prominent updates in the center of the pages. Users usually post small excerpts about daily life, recent events, or news.

Creative writers often attract groups of people, who will pursue and follow that blog, often posting comments on updates. Some writers write outrageous, offensive things that also attract readers. Some people write about personal experiences, and some just flat out write whatever they want!

RSS, (really simple syndication) also started directly because of blogs. Rather than visit an indivual site over and over again to read the updates and posts, coders started using xml to enable these updates to be available anywhere in the world. In response, RSS has created a whole new chapter in the SEO world, all because of blogging.

Many people have begun to weave affiliate links and even sell there own products through their blogs, relying on their dedicated readerbase to generate huge conversion rates. Programs like WordPress can generate ENTIRE web sites simply by advanced forms of blogging. One of my own sites, www.emoneyreport.com utilizes this program. Instead of bloggin real life experiences, we blog our article updates and program reviews. Very nifty!

Even major search engines are taking part in the blog scene. Most noticably, Google, purchased the site www.blogger.com. Now google controls the largest, most successful blogging site to date! Google indexes and spiders every post created on this site, EVERY day. Itกs common practice to create a blog, write small posts and link to your own site through the blog, and doing this you can get spidered and indexed within a day!

We have to ask ourselves, whats next for blogging? Will blogging become the next form of linking? Who knows? All I know for sure is that I like what blogging has become, and that it allows my site to generate income for hundreds of people all over the internet.

http://www.emoneyreport.com NO BS reviews of programs that we have used to make money.

About The Author

Chris Everson

http://www.emoneyreport.com NO BS reviews of programs that we have used to make money.

http://www.therealincome.com We have partnered with several internet gurus to release this book, containing the secrets that most internet gurus DON’t want you to know.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 08

by Chris Everson

Blog And Ping To Build Links

Blog And Ping To Build Links

by: John Taylor

Just What Is Blogging and Pinging?

There is a new partnership in cybertown called Blogging and Pinging. It is not a new comedy team or even a singing group, but a new way to build links and attract visitors to your website and to make more money. Blogging and Pinging is a marketing tool that can help anyone build their online business.

Let’s start with a definition of a blog.

Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author of the Web site.

Ok, so what about pinging? Originally, a ping was a program that bounced a request off another computer or server over a network or the Internet to see if the remote computer was responding. That same program is now used as a method of informing others that your blog exists and it also let’s them know when a new post has been made.

When you put blogging together with pinging you get a technique that is extremely effective at getting any web site, no matter how big or small, indexed by the major search engines.

Why Is Blogging and Pinging The Newest Marketing Tool?

Most of you are now saying, กYeah, so what? I can get my site indexed now. What’s the big deal?ก The big deal is that blogging and pinging gets your site indexed almost immediately and it is free!

If you have any experience trying to get a site indexed and listed in the major search engines, then you know that it is frustrating and very difficult to get done in a reasonable amount of time. After working hard to get your site together, collecting and writing content, worrying about keywords and keyword densities, you are not even close to being finished. Now comes the even harder part! Now you have to manually submit your site to all the major search engines. And finally, you get to wait.

That’s right, you have to wait for the spiders to come to index your site. This could take weeks or it could take months. There are some methods that will help bring along the spiders a bit faster, but these take lots of time and effort and money. And still, you can’t be sure that the spiders will come fast more quickly.

Blogging and pinging solves this problem. You can guarantee that spiders will come to your site and that you will get listed in all the major search engines with minimal effort and no money in about 48 hours.

How does it work? The largest search engine, Google, owns Blogger.com. This is the site that many people use to create their blogs. Google frequently sends their search engine spiders through Blogger.com to find new content.

So, if you have a blogger.com account you can add content from other websites to the content of your blog and when you blog the content of your site the URL of the page you are blogging is automatically attached. That way, when Google’s spiders index your blogger.com pages, they see your website URL within the content. If that URL isn’t listed in the Google database, the spiders are almost certain to follow the link to index your site!

So, rather than wait for weeks, months, or even up to a year, you can get your site listed virtually immediately! Google themselves will tell you that they would rather discover new URL’s by finding links than getting them via submission. So, why not blog and ping and give them what they want!

One critical success factor in boosting your link popularity is to use the blog and ping technique to notify lots of other sites anout new content on your web site. This is achieved by using your blogger.com publishing function to ping the major blog directories such as Technorati and Blo.gs.

Another good piece of news is that once Google has indexed your site, other search engines that use Google’s feed will list your site too. And it all happens at lightening speed!

Blogging and pinging is a really effective method to get your site spidered by the major search engines and, more importantly, getting those all important links.

Copyright John Taylor PhD August 2005 All rights reserved.

About The Author

John Taylor

To learn more information about Link Popularity I strongly recommend that you visit http://www.LinkAdvantage.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 11

by John Taylor

Blogging Communities Turn Faceless Strangers into

Blogging Communities Turn Faceless Strangers into Close Friends

by: Jesse S. Somer

I’ve been searching the Internet for blogging sites for a fair while now and recently I came across a whole blogging community, which has grabbed my interest greatly. It’s called Joe User and it’s a site that many bloggers all around the globe are partaking in. It is very well organized into categories such as Best Articles, Newest blog entries, Top blogging sites, New sites and Most hiton bloggers. The blogs range from very personal life introspection to serious analysis of current affairs in the media.

The aspect that has appealed to me the most is the very personal type of blogging community. Many people are talking about their feelings and issues about life with people that technically they have never met face to face. However, the type of camaraderie I’ve ‘witnessed’ as a bystander has truly amazed me. These people talk to each other as though they are extremely close friends, and the strange thing is I think this is the reality.

When one person has something important happen to them in their life, up to 100 or more comments will arrive under their blog entry with advice and information as well as emotional support from their blogging friends. Of course there are some differences in opinion, but the general perspective seems to be one of a positive approach to humanity. People are really spilling out their souls to each other, and then accepting criticism as well as discussing possible solutions to problems. I just find this to be truly inspirational, a human community or ‘tribe’ that has formed simply because of the Internet’s existence.

These people must spend a lot of time communicating with each other. Some are writing new entries everyday, as well as articles and conversations. The conversations usually happen in the ‘comments’ section where one can see that these people often stay up into the late hours of the morning, blogging to each other back and forth. The amount of love shared by these arbitrary acquaintances is astounding. One could perceive the whole experience as a form of therapy but I think it is much more than that. I believe this is a sign of a revolution. The coming of the New Human Tribe has begun.

If random bloggers can evolve into a community of people who trust, respect, and are intimate and united with each other this says a lot for the human condition. People are tired of the segregated, separatist reality of countries, cultures, races and religions. These group blogging sites, or collective online journals as I now like to think of them, are symbolic of the future connectedness of all of humanity. It may take a hundred years, or a thousand, or maybe only fifty, but it definitely looks like there’s hope yet for the warring, greedy humans. One day we all may be ‘one’ again in our minds as well as our physical forms.

About The Author

Jesse S. Somer

M6.Net

http://www.m6.net

Jesse S. Somer is a human who is working to help the New Human Tribe come together by means of the Internet communicative process.

This article was posted on September 02, 2004

by Jesse S. Somer

If You’re a Marketer, You Should be Blogging

If You’re a Marketer, You Should be Blogging

by: Craig Desorcy

Blogging has captured the interest of many across the World Wide Web. The cold, robotic nature of the virtual world becomes warm and cozy when we see personality and real life thoughts appearing on our screens. Sometimes we make a connection with the blogger that leaves an impression. We’re caught! Our natural curiousity will draw us back on a regular basis to get the juicy updates the blogger throws our way.

Wise marketers are incorporating this trend into their marketing scheme. The inexplicable urge to return time and time again is a gold mine to be escavated. After all, isn’t that exactly what a marketer’s goal is? Not only are people drawn to revisit, but search engine robots can’t seem to neglect a site that has regularly updated data. Blogging is a winwin situation that you don’t want to miss out on!

Mark was a smart and moneywise kind of guy. He’d spend hours thinking about how to get the most out of his money, and his bank account had a lot to show for his efforts. Mark had been a successful business man for some time, and now he was contemplating an expansion a virtual expansion that is.

One of the greatest of all business expenses is advertising. Mark remembered how he had snookered his way into free advertising in the local newspaper. While his counterparts paid big bucks for big ads, Mark resorted to figuring out ways to make the local news, which everyone read. It had worked marvelously in the real world, but how could he do the same thing in cyberspace?

Blogs, blogs, blogs! Blogs are the answer to free advertising in the virtual world. Search engines will gather your latest news and broadcast them worldwide while you sit back, fold your arms and smile. Who could keep from smiling when search engines index your site free of charge and heavy traffic is being directed to your virtual doorstep without costing you a penny?

( Get The Fast and Easy Way To Blogging and Using RSS Feeds Click here> http://www.effectiveinfo.com/blogsrss.html )

Not only will blogs save you a bundle of money in advertising fees, but the very nature of blogs spells out timesavings. Marketers are busy people who could use a little extra time to golf or fish. It doesn’t seem feasible to think that something as short and sweet as a blog would net as much interest as a wellthoughtout newsletter or sales letter, but in fact marketers across the world are finding it to be true. Hey, get out that dusty fishing pole, and invest some in some new tackle!

While you’re out relaxing and enjoying a much needed break, who knows how many people will be visiting your site? It could be….no, don’t hurry back to see!

About The Author

Get The Fast and Easy Way To Blogging and Using RSS Feeds

Click here> http://www.effectiveinfo.com/blogsrss.html

This article is copyright © Craig Desorcy

Craig Desorcy is an Internet enthusiast who Lives and works in Japan, spending most of his free time on the internet running his blog and websites of interest.

Craig(at)effectiveinfo.com

This article was posted on February 05

by Craig Desorcy

7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers

7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers

by: Fabian Lim

Blogging is IN!

And itกs here to stay!

Blogs are easy to set up and use.

And you can create a good blog by writing out the thoughts that roam in your mind and presto and youกll be blogging like a pro before you even know it!

Here are 7 essential habits you should develop if you want to be a highly effective blogger:

Blogging Habit #1 Determine Your Purpose

Highly effective bloggers blog with a clear purpose in mind.

So decide on a purpose for your blog.

Blogs exist to filter information, organize business information, share news and profitable content, establish professional identities and bonds, discuss social issues, or muse about life in general.

Beginning in a focused manner is one of the best ways to start a blog.

And knowing your กmissionก will help you accomplish more with your blog.

Blogging Habit #2 Define Your Audience

Highly effective bloggers understand their target audience.

Their wants, needs, likes and dislikes, and possible reactions and responses.

So always reflect on your anticipated audience.

You conduct yourself differently with friends than you will with professional associates, strangers, customers, or family members.

Knowing who you’re writing to beforehand, allows you to adopt acceptable and appropriate tones in your blog journals.

Blogging Habit #3 Blog With Passion

Blog with passion!

And the best way to achieve this is to write on a topic you are most passionate about.

And the more you’re passionate about a topic, the more itกll show in your writing.

Remember, a blog is the place for voicing opinions Your Opinions!

So, engage your readers with a passion and make your writing interesting.

Blogging Habit #4 Blog Frequently

Highly effective bloggers understand the importance of blogging frequently.

Your aim, as a blogger, is to get interested readers to return to your site to see the latest scoop, whatกs new and whatกs not, the กinsก and กoutsก.

To this end, aim to post several times a week.

If not, at least once a week.

Frequent posting creates dialogue that invites your readers to return to your blog.

It will increase the กstickinessก of your blog i.e. the ability to attract returning visitors.

And theyกll keep coming back if they like what you write about.

Blogging Habit #5 Blog Honestly

Credibility counts, so be honest.

Respect your audience and all bloggers.

Words can live forever on the net so be courteous too.

Manners never go out of style.

Ethics and integrity are necessary and keep your own standards high.

So stick to them!

Blogging Habit #6 Encourage Interactivity

Blogs should not be a กonewayก communication tool.

As far as possible, always encourage feedback by encouraging your readers to comment on your blog postings.

Allow your readers to air their own views.

Whether or not they agree with you.

Turn your blog into a virtual community and platform for exchanging of ideas, views and opinions.

Blogging Habit #7 Link to Other Blogs

Highly effective bloggers understand the importance and value of linking.

Linking to other blogs allow your readers to expand their realm of knowledge and experience beyond what you can offer.

Because you want your readers to have more than a กsingleก opinion of the topic in question.

And readers will appreciate your openness and reward you through return visits to your blog.

Bloggers actually amplify each otherกs voices when they crosslink with each other, forming a grassroots network of information sharing that can form social alliances.

Most blog audiences start with small numbers, but with frequent and regularly scheduled updates, your audience should grow.

Put into practice these 7 blogging habits and transform yourself into a highly effective blogger starting today!

Copyright 2005 BizSuccessOnline

About The Author

Fabian Lim is a Web Analytics & Internet Marketing Consultant.He helps organizations and individuals succeed online. Visit his website at http://www.BizSuccessOnline.com and blog at http://www.fabianlim.name.

This article was posted on March 13

by Fabian Lim

Start Blogging Now: 10 Reasons Why You Really Need

Start Blogging Now: 10 Reasons Why You Really Need a Blog for Your Business

by: Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman

1. It is perfect for creating a web presence for independent professionals who have something to say and who need people to get to know them and what they can do for them.

2. Having your own business blog gives you credibility and a forum where you can show your expertise.

3. Readers can comment directly onto your blog, creating interaction and interest.

4. No more waiting for your web designer to update your web site.

5. You can post to your blog yourself, about any issue, daily if you wish, and get it broadcast into the blogosphere instantly.

6. The search engines love blogs and will pick up your keywords easily, boosting your rankings, making it easier for people to find you on the web.

7. Customers are drawn to personality behind the business. Human voices convey intimacy beyond PRbabble. (To read about this topic read The Cluetrain Manifesto. The first chapter is available free online: http://cluetrain.com/apocalypso.html.)

8. You can network and build up a community of likeminded readers. You blog, people comment. Others blog, you comment. Before you know it, more people have heard of you and your business because the buzz gets passed around.

9. You can test out new ideas and get instant feedback. Get your customers and prospects in on the act now and let them help you help them invite them to talk back! Let them see how you develop your products and services and they can show you how to best to serve them.

10. You can use your blog sidebars to promote your products, your affiliate products, run blog ads, sell books, and any other product or services you have. You don’t have to include this in the body or content of your article; therefore your posts your writing can remain content rich and free of promotional hype.

Finally, email marketing and electronic newsletters are struggling because of overcrowded inboxes, spam problems and filters.

On the average, 64.7% of the business email you send is not even opened, let alone read. [source: Q3 2004 Email Trend Report, DoubleClick ]

Email marketers are seeing their openrates range from only กmid20s to just over 50 %ก [source: ClickZ.com]

That means that you are losing at least 50% of your prospective buyers or readers. How much does that amount to in losses over the course of the next few years?

AOL receives roughly 2 billion email messages a day, of which about 75 percent are blocked and another 4 to 7 percent are sent to the bulk folder. [source: ClickZ.com]

Sit up and pay attention. The time to start blogging for your business is now.

About The Author

Denise Wakeman of Next Level Partnership, and Patsi Krakoff of Customized Newsletter Services, have teamed up to create blogging classes and marketing services for independent professionals. You can read and subscribe to their blog at http://www.buildabetterblog.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 18

by Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman

Blogging whatกs it all about?

Blogging whatกs it all about?

by: InkaMaria Kunz

A blog usually is a web page that contains brief, discrete hunks of information called posts. These posts are arranged in reversechronological order (the most recent come first) and each is uniquely identified by an anchor tag which is marked with a permanent link that can be referred to by others who wish to link to it.

A blog is a means of communication and there are many different types of messages carried by blogs. Some are nothing but pointers to other web sites, while others run long essays, some are personal diaries, others feature technology, and some are edited by one person, others by teams.

There are hundreds of thousands of blogs on the Internet, and new blogs are created every day. Can anybody and more importantly can you blog? Yes, there are bloggers of all types, equipped with all levels of technical skills. Bloggers approach their sites with as much variety and passion as the general Net public approaches the Web itself.

The most commonly used blogging tool is Blogger. It requires the least amount of commitment in time or resources, allowing you to go from wanting a blog to having one in about five minutes and at no cost. The Blogger software is the property of Pyra Labs (www.pyra.com). Blogger is often credited as the reason for the explosion of blogging that’s occurred in the last couple of years. It is a webbased tool, requiring no installation of software on your personal computer or on your server if you happen to have a web site. You access the tool through the Blogger web site (http://blogger.com) and the blog pages are posted to your web site or to Pyra’s BlogSpot (http://blogspot.com) community blog server. For more detailed information on this see O’Reilly’s Essential Blogging.

Reread anything before you publish. Electronic text can expose unintended meaning easily and it will also make what you say a lot more focused. If nothing else, it should help you catch spelling mistakes! Blogging is a way to share your opinions and thoughts to the rest of the world. If you post interesting things, share links with other bloggers and post comments on other blogs. Linking is the way of the Web that is the key of successful blogging.

In order to keep your blogs really fresh, invite a group of your friends / colleagues and give them blogging access. That way you will have several reporters blogging information and you won’t end up killing yourself, trying to keep your blog populated with good information. If you use Blogger, upgrade to Blogger Pro. You can have your team post to the blog from email, create and syndicate your blog as an RSS feed, and a whole lot more! Adding the ability to post comments on your blog extends interactivity and usefulness to the blog itself. Blogs are about community and information, and commenting is a real way to gauge your viewer’s blogging efforts. Blogging is one of the quickest ways to update your site. Syndicating others’ blogs into your own site is another. There is a wealth of information out there – just tap into it!

About The Author

This article was written by InkaMaria Kunz, CEO of a flourishing multilingual translations agency with offices in Germany and New Zealand. This article may be printed or used in its entirety with full author contacts and details. For more information, translations or purchases of a new website/ebusiness, contact the author thru the official website www.linguatransl.co.nz or the blog www.linguatransl.blogspot.com.

This article was posted on February 04

by InkaMaria Kunz

Why You’re Not Blogging And Why You Should Start

Why You’re Not Blogging And Why You Should Start Today

by: Tinu AbayomiPaul

Those of you who aren’t ready to wade into the Blog pool are taking your time for several reasons, according to my informal interviews with people before and after they blog. Others start blogging and then abandon their projects too soon, unaware of the benefits.

Whatever your reason, you should get started now or get back to blogging as the case may be. Here’s some motivating enlightenment that you may find surprising.

Reason # 1 that you aren’t blogging You don’t realize how huge the benefits are, and how much they may outweigh any monetary or time costs involved.

I think number one may partly the fault of people like me, who have a foot in the marketing arena, and don’t explain the idea in detail.

We tend to tell you how great blogging is, but we don’t tell you why, or better yet, show you. Or we tell you how to get the best results with your blog, but don’t tell you where to start. Letกs talk about some of the basic facts.

If youกve ever dreamed of going from getting 10 hits a month to getting a few dozen visitors a day from search engines, blogging can make it possible, if you do it right. The structure of a blog, and the fact that most of them automatically generate content feeds, also make them the best food for your friendly neighborhood search engine spider.

If you would like to have visitors come back to your site over and over again, until they buy, you may want to be a blogger. An informative blog that engages your audience shortens the sales cycle. It also creates a courtship period. They can subscribe to your thoughts, see if they like you, even get to know you a little.

People buy from people they like. I don’t remember who said it first, but I’ve learned that it’s the truth.

If your visitors don’t feel like they are getting a personality vibe from you, they are often less likely to buy. Vibe = buy. Remember that, and that blogs make it easy for you to vibe.

If youกd like to create new targeted search engine pages for your site without needing to handcode a new page, or fire up your HTML editor every time, you may enjoy blogging. You log in to your blog admin panel, type your thoughts, proofread, press publish.

Presto. You’re a blogger.

If youกd like free oneway links back to your site that contain your lucrative keywords, blogging helps with that too.

Even if youกve made a mess of your SEO efforts, or been the unsuspecting victim of an algorithm change, as long as you aren’t banned by a search engine, blogging can help bring you back into top results. Because they have a search engine friendly architecture, and can make use of your keywords automatically, without being gratuitous, they are an easy way to get into a search engine and stay in.

Reason #2 That you aren’t blogging You think itกs hard and expensive.

Granted, especially if you’re busy, or have a medium sized to large business, it may be in your best interest to hire one of the few consultants that works on these types of issues.

But if you’re a small business owner or home business owner with an online element, you can get away with firing up a free blog and paying for an inexpensive custom template if you can’t install one on your own. Most blog consultants will do all the keyword research, etc for you, so that all youกll have to do is log in and blog.

Many of the most common blog software systems are free or inexpensive, especially when weighed against the cost of only using paid methods to attract visitors.

Reason #3 That you aren’t blogging You don’t think of yourself as a writer.

Not only can you get away with a few paragraphs, you don’t have to write in professionalspeak, or use industry jargon to blog. By nature, blogging is done in a casual, conversational tone.

And your blog posts don’t have to be long articletype entries like mine are. Iกm used to writing articles, and Iกm just naturally verbose. My audience is used to my minibrain dumps, just as your blog readers will likely be happy with, or adapt to, whatever your style is. Your audience will be thrilled with a few paragraphs every day, as long as they’re informative and consistent.

So take the plunge. Start blogging today. If you’re already a blogger and didn’t see the benefits the first time around, try making it a part of your routine and have a little fun. Give it time to work for you.

You’ll be glad you did.

Copyright 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul

About The Author

Tinu is a web site promotion specialist who writes about many different ways to get more visitors to your web site. If you want better search engine results, more visitors and return traffic she invites you to take a free eCourse on blogging at RescueYourBlog.com.

This article was posted on April 17

by Tinu AbayomiPaul

Got Blog?

Got Blog?

by: Dawn Wentworth

In 1999 I asked my friends and colleagues if they blogged. The responses I received ranged from odd looks to questions about the blogging practice. The end results of my findings was ขBlogข was a new term and not highly recognized. That was then, a half million blog users ago.
Blogs have become and I do believe will continue into their plight of greatness for sometime, until a new technology slides into place. For the time being, blogs are a great way to define who you are to your visitors and provide dynamic content that the search engines go nuts over.
Clogged email boxes and spam eaters have taken a dramatic effect on the once powerful email marketing tool. As email marketing loses its effect, marketers and small businesses are seeking ways to fulfill this lost art of communication between staff and customers. Blogging could be that much needed answer for you.
SO what is a blog?
Blogs are a time and date stamped, easy to search, web based journal or self publishing tool. Blogs can have a corporate style, but in most cases are written by one person in a relaxed, candid atmosphere. True personality usually shines threw in the opinions of the blog writer. You do not have to be a writer to produce a blog. Even so, many blogs owners become recognized as small journalists, as the writer speaks their mind or offers self analyzed materials on their preferred subject matters.
You may think at this point, that a blog does not sound like a business tool.
Let’s take blogging into a business approach and see how we can benefit.
Problem:

Many marketing methods and advertising spiels fall on blind eyes and deaf ears across the net today with such a medium we have created where advertising is abundant and often shoved at us in every direction.
Solution:

Visitors will come to your blog of their free will to read your newest content of choice, giving you a higher ratio of targeted visits.
Problem:

Email marketing is losing ground. Overflowing email inboxes and spam filters that don’t deliver your ezine.
Soultion:

Using your blog as a web based area for your product and service announcements and updates. When someone subscribes to your blog or RSS feed, they will receive automatic updates that include the headline, summery and URL of your new entries.
Bonus:

Email gets deleted … Blogs get indexed in search engines!
Problem:

Internet marketing can be a nonpersonal medium, gaining trust becomes increasingly harder and more important to gain new customers.
Solution:

Blogging can give your visitors, existing and potential customers a great area to gain insight about the face you present to the world. If you’re a small business owner to a large corporate business, you can benefit by giving your company or web site personality via blog.
Now let’s take a look at blogs from another angle. Rss and/or live feed. You may be thinking, do I Really Need to Know About Rss?
Yes, but we are not going to give a full history of RSS here. What you need to know is that RSS is the ขcodeข that underlies a blog. It includes a headline, a short summery of the entry and the URL of the page that the new story has been posted to. In order for users to subscribe to RSS feeds they will need to download a news aggregator. There are many available for free, we recommend NewsGator http://www.newsgator.com for its ease of use within Microsoft Outlook.
Visitors and other websites can syndicate your RSS feeds to their desktop, their email, newsreaders and on their own websites. Talk about getting the word around! Submitting your RSS feed, can get you listed in hundreds of new emerging RSS feed directories. Of course this will bring traffic to see what your feed is about to those looking to syndicate them to their own sites or readers. Also creating more links pointing to your site.
Let me touch on one of the most important features of a blog. Search engines love them. Most bots including google will visit and reindex blog pages daily. Yahoo will index your RSS free and quickly.
There are many ways and places you can begin your blogging journey. You should first decide if you want to house the blog on your site or let other sites manage your blog system. For this we recommend www.blogger.com, now owned by Google. The google toolbar has a one click Blog This button that can make blogging quick and painless. You can set the blogger.com blog files to ftp to your host for you so that your files are housed on your server. There are many blog services online today, and there are many free and low cost scripts that you can easily run your own blog from your site without the need of any other service provider.
If you would like to find out more about blogs and blog services we invite you to visit our resource section at http://www.masteradvertising.com.
We hope to provide many learning materials and resources for the online promoter using blogs and rss feeds for the online advertising medium.

About The Author

Dawn Wentworth has been providing insight to site promotion sense 1994. http://www.masteradvertising.com

This article was posted on July 28, 2004

by Dawn Wentworth

10 Benefits of Being a Blogger

10 Benefits of Being a Blogger

by: Nicholas Dixon

I have been a blogger since September 2004 but only began to take it seriously this year. My blogging journey began when I stumbled upon a company owned by Google named Blogger.com that offered free tools to build a website.

In fact Blogger provides you with free several templates which you can customize in addition to a domain name hosted on their server. You can host your blog on your domain if you like to. Here are some benefits I found while blogging:

1) Easy to manage. A blog can be set up by even a novice in no time. All you have to do is post and publish. Blogging can get as simple as that or even more complex.

2) Easy to update. Blogs can be updated weekly or daily instead of sometimes monthly for a static website. Even adding a few paragraphs a day can be done in no time and can be beneficial to your search rankings.

3) Get spidered quickly. Search engine spiders crawl blogs with greater frequency than static webpages. I have had webpages that took over eight months to be indexed in Google where as Yahoo sometimes index my blogs in weeks sometimes days.

4) If you write articles then you can post all of them on your blog in addition to free reprint content that is widely available everwhere. The more content you have the better.

5) You can get your website indexed quicker. An article or a piece of news about your website with an optimize anchor link will send the spiders your way in no time.

6) Sell advertising space. If you have a popular blog then you can create a revenue stream by selling ad space. Blogads is one of several places where you can sell your ad space to major companies.

7) Similar to offering ad space, you can add Adsense to your blog to monetize your content. What I love about Blogger is that once you plug in the Adsense code into your main template, a new page is created and Adsense is automatically displayed when you make a post.

8) Review your affiliate products. If you have a blog that is in a niche then you can find affiliate programs for that niche and do reviews of them for a commission. Every time someone purchases the product or service through your link you make money.

9) It is still early to catch on. Blogs and RSS feeds are used by the minority of internet users which makes it excellent for you to start blogging right now. Less than 10% of the Americans which is the biggest online market use this emerging trend.

10) Can be syndicated. An easy way for your readers to stay in touch with updates is to add your blog to their My Yahoo and My MSN. They can see the latest information and how long ago it was added.

11) Yes a bonus! Savvy marketers know that if you add your blogs to My Yahoo you can have it indexed in no time by Yahoo. You can use these two websites to inform blog directories that you have updated your content.

a) http://WWW.Pingomatic.com

b) http://WWW.Rssfeedpromoter.com

So with all those benefits in mind there is no reason you should not start your own blog. So when do you decide to go blogging?

© Oceanroc Web Publishing

About The Author

Nicholas Dixon has successfully use free articles as his primary source of marketing. Subscribe to his Free Four Day Email Course on how to use free articles to generate business and traffic at [email protected] or visit http://WWW.Oceanroc.Blogspot.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 14

by Nicholas Dixon