Promoting Your Business Using Blogs

Internet marketing using blogs has quickly gained a lot of popularity as a wonderful way to promote your business.

There are many ways that blogging can help in the promotion of your business. Since blogs are usually full of links and contain a large amount of keywords it will give your site a much better chance of being picked up by a search engine allowing more exposure for your business.

Taking a course on search engine optimization with help you determine the best keywords for your blog.

You can establish yourself to be very knowledgeable about the items your business carries and be influential in the decision making process of your customers. This will give you credibility in your field and generate leads for your business.

You can use your blog as a method of introducing the people behind your business to your customers giving your business a more personalized feel which will give you an edge on larger corporations. Also make sure that whomever you have creating the entries in your blog has suitable writing skills because by keeping the entries short and easy to read you will find it will bring your customers visiting often to see what is going on with your company.

Blogs can be used to run daily or weekly contests which is another great way to keep you customers coming back to your site. You can also highlight new business promotions with your blog. Blogs can be used to test out new projects or to get feedback on new products. If your blog contains a feedback feature you can judge the feedback a new product might receive before it goes live on your web site. Customers and potential customers will love to be able to give you input on the products or services of your business.

Photos are an excellent internet marketing tool to use on blogs. Having a picture and a short blurb describing the product can be a lot more effective then simply writing a descriptive paragraph highlighting the item. You can set up a frequently asked questions section to your blog and by leaving out a lot of the terms that public relations people use in their writing for large corporations you will be making your business a lot more personable which is what a lot of people prefer these days. You could add new questions you your site as you receive them if you believe they would be of help to your customers.

I personally have been making regular contributions to my blog over the last number of weeks. I am one of those slow learners who FINALLY caught on that these things do actually help increase traffic to my main sites and affiliate programs. I have been seeing excellent results and I've only just started. You can view my blog here:

http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/blog

The possibilities of internet marketing with a blog are endless and with the current popularity of blogging you would be making an excellent choice of creating one to aide you in the promotion of your business.

Copyright 2005 Mal Keenan

About The Author For Everything You Need To Market Your Business Online Visit Mal Keenan's Home Business Newsletter: http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/ For An Affordable Home Business You CAN Believe In Click Below: http://www.workathomebiz.info/pluginprofitsite.html

How To Blog, And Why You Should!

First, a quick definition for those who do not know what a Blog is. Quite simply, it's a Web Log. In other words, a regularly updated page of your thoughts, ideas, links - whatever.

It's very easy to publish a Blog these days and today I'm going to show you how in a few easy steps. Don't worry - all the sites, services and tools involved are fr'ee.

Before we go ahead I should first explain why a Blog is so usefull. A Blog provides a number of benefits to you and your site and all for very little effort.

1. A Blog will add valuable content to your site. This in turn increases repeat visitors and increases the frequency the Google Page Bot (and therefore how often your site listings are updated) will visit.

2. A Blog can be updated very quickly (especially using the technique I show you below). It's much faster to update than editing your Web Page or sending out an e-mail.

3. Blogs can be delivered as RSS Feeds and this means a user can download software to have your Blog delivered direct to their desktop as and when it's updated. You DO NOT have to pay for sites such as Quikonnex or the new Cory Rudl software. RSS Feeds are NOT new and you shouldn't have to pay for what is essentially a fr'ee technology!

Do you now believe you should publish a Blog? If you do, just read on, and see how easy it is!

First join Blogger.Com - this is a popular Blog service (there are others) that makes the whole process as simple as possible. You just register your details and a title for your Blog.

Why choose Blogger? First, the Google Toolbar has a "Blog This" button that makes updating your Blog childs play. Click the button, and you can publish direct into your Blog immediately - including a link to the web-site you're currently on!

Second, Blogger will add you it's directory and to a notification service AND they will let you publish to their site, though you can set FTP settings to publish to a page at your own domain. For now we'll publish to Bloggers host service "BlogSpot" since they are fast and the only thing they add is one banner at the top. You may also get featured as one of Bloggers daily blogs and gain massive traffic.

Blogger also has a range of templates and you can even edit these directly to personalise your Blog, right down to adding ads or links to your own site (Tip: include a navigation bar). Blogger will also archive your Blog and insert links to your archived months.

Blogger will create a Blog for you in a few steps. At the Blogger.Com main page click on "Start Now" at the top. Enter your Username, Password and Name and away you go.

Once you have your account validated log in and create a new Blog. This is just as simple as creating a user account. Enter a Title and Description, and leave it as a "Public" Blog. Then select host at BlogSpot. Create a subdomain for your BlogSpot then select a template. You can create your own templates but that requires extensive HTML knowledge.

That's it! You have an account and a Blog setup. There are other settings to explore. You can set "Ping Weblogs" to YES in the Settings/Publishing option to notify Weblogs whenever you publish. You can also set "Show Title Field" and "Email" options to provide Titles to your Blog Entries and email a copy of your entries to you. Everything else is OK at as it is.

With your Blog at BlogSpot and your Google Toolbar installed

http://toolbar.google.com

http://www.atomenabled.org/everyone/atomenabled/index.php?c=5

That's a big list, so just use the program selected below if you want to get started with a quick and easy client right away.

Tristana Reader :

http://www.charlwood.com/tristana

http://netpreneurnow.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Blogger itself has a lot of help if you need it, so it's time for me to sign off. Happy Blogging!

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About The Author Stuart Reid publishes Netpreneur News and it's Blog. Visit the main site to join the Email Ezine or to view the Blog at: http://www.netpreneurnow.com webmaster@netpreneurnow.com

A Person Is Known By the Blog He Keeps

Literature is the soul of the wit. The best source of literature can be now found in blogs. The growing trend of ‘blogmania’ is slowly sweeping the netizens. Every person aspires to have a blog as a platform to publish his thoughts and be heard and read.

General surveys undertaken on blogs and bloggers shows a rising trend in blogging. A parallel platform for literary endeavor, the blogs are overthrowing the traditional journalistic norms. Publishing of news and views no longer remains the privilege of an elite minority. Anybody and everybody is free to get in touch and explore the writer within himself. The anamorphic nature of the human soul is best reflected in the blogs.

http://alphablog.rediffblogs.com/2005_20_03_alphablog_archive.html

A survey in the United States brought out a startling fact the 30% of the surveyed people read blogs. Also, 52% of the surveyed people advocate equal journalistic rights and freedom for the blogs. And the most striking fact is that 31% of the surveyed people revealed that they found blogs to be more credible than the newspapers.

The growing popularity of blogs can be gauzed from the fact that Yahoo, Google, MSN, Rediff and all the other bigwigs of the cyber world are experimenting with blogs and bloggers. Both free and paid blog hoisting sites have come up which offers a plethora of tools to make blogging a breeze.

MSN has even gone to the extent of making a common 'passport' database across all its services. So now, a MSN user can use his own personal 'id' across MSN messenger, Spaces and hotmail. Also, MSN has integrated its Spaces with MSN Messenger 7.0. The users of MSN Messenger 7.0 will have a tab labeled 'gleams' which will inform them when their contacts have updated their individual blogs.

Recent statistics from MSN shows that MSN has 170,000 daily blog updates. This number is huge considering the fact that most of the bloggers do not update their blogs on a daily basis.

The Literature of the new era is no longer limited to books. From Poems to Features, from Humor to Short Stories, everything can be found in the blogs.

http://alphablog.rediffblogs.com/2005_27_03_alphablog_archive.html

http://alphablog.rediffblogs.com/2005_03_04_alphablog_archive.html

Though good blogs are a trifle to find, yet close scrutiny will reveal every blog to be good in its own personal aspect. After all, blogs are a slice of the blogger's life and every one's life is a good source of learning experience.

http://alphablog.rediffblogs.com/

This also opens up the teaching value of blogs. Blogs can be a mirror of life, culture and society. What can be a better teacher than one with a plethora of experiences to offer on a silver platter?

About The Author Abhishek Sarkar works as an Executive Content Developer and Analyst. He is currently associated with Alpha Blog. http://alphablog.rediffblogs.com/. abhishekwrites@gmail.com

Blogging Will Take Over The World

In recent years, it's been pretty obvious that "blogging" (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 NCSA's "Whats New" and also NetScapes "Whats New" blog. After this point the blogging scene exploded.

What exactly is blogging? Many consider blogging in it's truest form a type of internet diary. In it's 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. It's 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. chris@emoneyreport.com

Web Blogs, Defined, Explained and Understood

What are Blogs?

Having heard the term previously but not having paid much attention most are just to afraid to show their ignorance and ask the question, what is a blog? Lets face it; the term blog does not conjure pleasant images.

Blogs are web logs that are updated regularly, usually on a daily basis. They contain information related to a specific topic. In some cases blogs are used as daily diaries about people's personal lives, political views, or even as social commentaries. The truth of the matter is that blogs can be shaped into whatever you, the author, want them to be.

Where Did Blogs Come From?

The roots of blogging can be traced back to the mid 1990's. Who the very first blogger actually was is unclear, as the art of blogging did not really take hold until 1999. The original "weblogs" were link-driven sites with personal commentaries. The very first blogs were human guided Internet web tours. While initially thought of as diaries or online journals, blogs have evolved into the latest fresh web content.

The Future of Blogs

A buzz word in techie circles, "blogging" is the wave of the future. Whether its a fad, or proves to be a new way to communicate with existing and potential customers it deserves at the very least a cursory look.

Why is Blogging Helpful to Businesses or Individuals?

Just as animated .gifs were once cool, blogging is the trendy thing to do. That does not mean that it is not beneficial to businesses. Webmasters struggling to keep fresh, attractive content on their websites to lure visitors back, have found blogs the answer. Content is a necessity for online businesses, both for purposes of being found by search engines but also because it gives visitors a reason to come back.

Now that we have established that blogs are not only trendy but also beneficial to businesses, its important to understand how they can be used to your advantage. We currently manage and update two blogs on a daily basis. The first is our new business blog at:

http://www.notepage.net/blog.htm

This professional business blog allows us the opportunity to tell potential, or existing customers industry news, updates, or generally how mobile or paging software can be used in specific situations to alleviate problems. The bottom line is we control the content. Its updated daily, which increases the chances that search engines will spider on a regular basis and it helps with page rank because it's been submitted to all the blogging directories. Initially started on a whim we've found it beneficial to report tips, tricks or make visitors aware of new regulations related to the mobile or paging industry.

The second blog we manage is at:

http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/blog.html

This blog is less formal and contains marketing tips, or promotional advice for software developers or online marketers. We found that we had overflow from our monthly newsletter. Generating a daily blog would require very little effort and would assist us in creating fresh content which our readers told us was of significant interest.

Blogs & Your Business

The bottom line is you need to determine how a blog will benefit your business, determine a schedule and adhere to it. Let your readers know what to expect and when to expect it. Blogs provide great supplemental content and direct attention to areas of your business that you want to showcase; you direct the content but let your readers guide you.

Creating a Blog

There are numerous online tools that can be used to create a blog. We found that because of security concerns, it would just be best to use a standard html program. In our case we used Dreamweaver and create daily posts. Its really not much more complicated than typing an email. The content is then sent via FTP to a web server. If you want to test the waters there are online web-based tool that helps you publish to the web instantly. The most popular web based tool is likely Blogger http://www.blogger.com.

Other Advantages to Blogs

While you may initially create a blog for your existing customers, you may find that you can attract new customers by illustrating your expertise in a specific field. There are numerous websites that act as "blog search engines", be sure to submit your sites to these websites to increase your exposure. This will also help with your page rank and possibly increase the likelihood you will receive decent ranking with Google. You can also create an RSS feed in order to syndicate blog content and gain additional exposure.

About The Author Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com , and http://www.small-business-software.net

The Viability of Blogging to a Niche Market

Niche marketing is an old and very successful marketing strategy whereby a company focuses on marketing and selling to a clearly defined segment of potential consumers. The company earns by supplying a unique product or service to this narrowly defined market which other companies have not met or provided.

Are there potential buyers online? According to the Central Intelligence Agency’s latest figures, there are over 185.55 million internet users in the United States alone, of these around 139.52 million active users. The Computer Industry Almanac which compiles statistics on global internet users, records a staggering 934 million users for 2004 and this market continues to grow.

Do these users buy online? Statistics gathered on internet users, show they do and their numbers are increasing. For instance, in December 2004, online sales rose by 53%, from $795 million of the same month 2003, to $1.22 billion 2004, (gathered by CMP Media a service provider of information and marketing services to the technology and healthcare industries). For each unique marketing hook, product and service, your business blog can tap in, that’s how many niche markets you can serve.

The next question then to answer: Can your blog be the perfect vehicle for reaching and marketing to your niche?

You should realize that successful blogs go a step further in providing excellent content, as well as regular updates or new content. Most websites provide these services. Rather it is the ability of these blogs to provide the author and the readers’ a venue for one-on-one conversations, in an impersonal medium. By sharing commentaries, thoughts and opinions, the author positions himself or herself as being an authority in his or her field of work. If you write content that is relevant to their needs, they’ll remember and keep returning to your blog.

But that’s not all; you need to have an abiding passion for the subject matter or product you’ll sell. Without this, your blog won’t stand out and carve itself a niche apart from the other blogs.

In essence, a well researched and crafted business blog is a potential revenue center. It has the authors’ personal touch and speaks to the need of this particular consumer. As every marketing analyst knows, when a seller understands his or her consumers well, this seller gets their business.

Copyright 2005 Mal Keenan

About The Author Mal Keenan is editor and publisher of the Home Business Tips Blog: http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/blog/ Visit his Internet Marketing Plug In Training site for great strategies and step by step processes in running a successful online business: http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com/

Blogging for Profits

Bloging (the act of writing to a blog) has become one of the fastest growing trends this year and many internet gurus believe that this is the new biggest trend. Well, you might ask yourself what is the big deal I don't even know what a blog is?

To put it simply a blog is a big deal because it can mean a lot of money for you. First, lets define what a blog is then I will get to the good stuff the money and riches! Blog is short for web log, it is just the two words pushed together. You can kind of think of it like a Captains log on a ship, or a diary. It is a quick and easy way to add content to the web with out having to use html. It is instant, quick and really easy.

Now you might ask yourself why would I want to keep my diary online? It basically is a great way to make money. Let me explain that in a little more detail. For most search engines there are two major factors in how well you rank, first is the content of your site and second are the links to your site. Meaning the more key word focused content and the more links you have the higher you will rank in the search engine. We all know it does not pay to be listed number 1 million out of 5 million for a keyword. So everyone is competing for the top 10 spots. Well, the quickest and easiest way to rank above the others is to add tons of key word focused helpful content to your site. The more value you add to the internet the more value you will get out of it. So you can help yourself by helping others and providing knowledge for free in the form of content. A blog creates a very easy way to publish this content because it will publish your content tot he web as soon as you are done typing and best of all there are no html skills required. In fact you can blog for free which I will talk about in article 2. Secondly a blog is a great way to use some basic linking strategies that will help get your site into the search engines. So by setting up a blog you can quickly publish high quality key word focused content and you can include tons of great links to your site.

So let me quickly recap for you why you want to blog. A blog provides a quick, often free way to publish your content on the web and an easy way to link to your website for more traffic. These are important for any webmaster that wants to make money because it all converts to more traffic to your website and more traffic means more people purchasing your product.

So now that you know what a blog is and why blogging is such a great thing you probably want to know how to get started blogging right now! That will be covered in Blogging For Profit The series #2.

About The Author This article was written by: Chris Ryerson who is the owner and designer of over 10 sites that are currently on the web. If you are interested in reading this article and other articles like it you can go to http://www.crowntemplates.com/articles. You may also want to check out the wide variety of Templates and Free Webmaster tools at Crown Templates. marketing@crowntemplates.com

To Blog or Not to Blog

To Blog or Not to Blog: Are Blogs Becoming More Popular than Forums, Newsletters and E-zines

Blogging is hot, and seems to be becoming hotter each month. Although blogging originally was dismissed, by many successful publishers and other online "gurus", the truth is that now, a few years after the "blogging trend" began, there are actually more blogs and more bloggers online than ever before. Blogging, obviously, is "here to stay"!

Actually first documented in 1997, Web logs initially used the abbreviated version: wee-blog, with a Web log editor referred to as a blogger. Since then, all types of Web logs (blogs) and blogging software have emerged, giving rise to this lucrative and dynamic market.

Now, everything from advertising blogs to zoology blogs exist, with every topic in between apparent online. Political blogs are rampant, and groups of bloggers across the globe post regularly on every topic imaginable.

What does a blog supply that an e-zine, newsletter, or forum might not? What has skyrocketed the popularity of the blog over the past several years?

The answers are really quite simple:

1. Blogs are more highly interactive. Posters get to see the results of a post immediately, as the post appears simultaneously after posting. Posters also don't have the usual moderation that appears in forums, where posts may be deleted without warning. Usually, in blogs, more freedom is given, and posts are usually accepted no matter what the content, or the topic.

E-zines and newsletters, with their one sided presentation of views, have decreased in popularity with the increase of the popularity of blogs.

2. Blogs are easy to maintain and easy to start. The sheer volume of choices is staggering! Everything from "blogging software" to "blogging services" are available, and even a novice blogger will find blogging quick and easy to do.

3. Blogs are "Search Engine Friendly Food". Search Engines love blogs, because of the constantly changing content that appears daily. Search Engines are constantly "searching" for new content, and blogs meet this requirement splendidly!

4. Blogs are actually a lot of fun! The entertainment aspects of a blog cannot be dismissed. A great deal of "voyeurism" exists on blogs, where other bloggers continually monitor discussions, both pro and con concerning an issue. Discussions on blogs can be "heated" and interesting, with much repartee occurring daily! Blogs are a rousing form of media, indeed, with many bloggers returning repeatedly throughout a day to view new posts.

For a view into popular blogs of many categories, just visit: http://www.blogit.com

5. Many blogs are capable of syndication. Syndication is a great way to ensure that your writing and your views are exposed to as much of the general public as possible. Syndication is many times included in blogging services now, and this has drawn individuals to the art of blogging continuously.

For an example of a blog service that features syndication, please visit: http://www.typepad.com

6. There are no lists to maintain, or spam filters to worry about with blogs. This is one reason why so many writers and publishers have turned to blogs. E-mail delivery of newsletters and e-zines has become difficult over the past few years, with the advent of spam filters. Blogs are not delivered, and therefore, no methods of defeating filters are needed, and no "non-deliverables" occur, which has been the bane of writers and publishers prior to this.

A good blogging software exists at: http://www.silkblogs.com

7. Blogs are economical. Since no lists are maintained, there are no list server costs. Blogging software and blogging services are also very reasonably priced, giving good value for the money spent monthly consistently. Some blogging services charge others to "read", while others charge writers to "write", but overall the monthly charges are rather minimal either way.

8. Blogs are educational. There are such a variety of informative and educational blogs available now, that a search for any subject usually turns up hundreds of offerings. Differing points of view on all subjects are offered routinely, giving a reader or poster an "insight" into the hearts and minds of other bloggers.

Blogs also, to be successful, however, need to contain the same elements of a popular newsletter or e-zine:

A. Compelling, well-written content. No one, either online or offline wants to read materials that are poorly written or difficult or boring to read.

B. Updated material. Just as in newsletters or e-zines, if material is not updated continually, then the audience eventually dies.

C. Rousing topics. Topics of interest to a wide range of readers succeed more than topics that appeal to very few, or are rather dull topics.

D. A nice layout and visual appeal. A blog is akin to a Web site for written materials, and just like in the design of a Web site, every care should be made to have the blog be visually appealing and friendly to visitors.

Newsletters, e-zines and forums, of course, will remain. But as you can clearly see, blogging, bloggers, and blogs themselves, have definitely added to the "online experience" and will possibly (and hopefully) be around for decades more!

About The Author Vishal P. Rao is the owner of http://www.home-based-business-opportunities.com - One of Internet's leading website dedicated to starting, managing and marketing a home based business.

Blogging for Business

Business blogs are primarily used to improve a company's communication both internally and externally. Business blogs are a type of communication channel that could be used effectively in product launches, team interaction internally within the company or interaction between clients and company. With the level of interactivity blogs provide, clients feel more confident in the company. Not to mention the amount of traffic it brings to the main site.

Personal and business blogs: What is difference between two?

There is not much of difference between personal and business blogs visually but there is a fine difference between them in terms of reputation and brand attached.

Business blogs should be well planned before hand. Companies can't afford to just walk away after launching their blog. Business blog has to be successful. Constant and consistent posts are the rule of the game. Blogsphere is full of best writers and faster one learns their rule, better for them. Companies can't just rely on the fact that they are market leaders in their business so they will be successful with their blogs too.

The postings on business blog should be open and should portray personality of the writer and the company. The postings on business blogs should be very informal, and should be written in first person voice. Posts should be informative and relevant with an expert touch to it.

Business Blogs and it content:

According to search engine optimizers, "Content is King". Indeed this is true for websites but not for a blog. Blog is all about writing with a particular voice and personality. A lot of people would like the style and would stick to the blog with regular visits. A lot of them will hate it and would never return.

Content for a business blog should be written in a strong voice with high consistency in quality. It becomes somewhat difficult to maintain quality with regular postings, but no choice. A few bad or substandard posts and regular visitors to the blog will fly off.

Important

Don't hammer your visitors every time with posts like how great is your product and so on. Add some funny incidences or bit of humor to your postings. Talk something about how employees enjoyed drinks in a party organized at particular department. Add some lighter moments in between posts.

About The Author Amitabh Shukla Personal blog for the author is at http://seoexpertindia.tblog.com amitabhseo@gmail.com