by: John Taylor

I was watching the news on TV last night and there was a warning about buying puppies as Christmas presents. There's nothing worse than visiting the kennels in the new year and seeing all those unwanted dogs that were chosen as presents because they were so cute at the time. It reminded me of people who start a blog in the hope of making some money online only to give up after a few days or weeks when things don't work out.

The average blogger makes around $20 to $50 per month. So, if that is the average, it stands to reason that some people make less than that and some people make more. The amount of potential income that can be generated by blogging depends entirely upon your ability to build a loyal audience of people who have money to spend.

There is no point in creating a blog and then looking for an audience. Your first task is to identify a hungry market and provide it with high quality information. Once you have established your blog and created some interesting content, your next task is to attract your hungry audience to your blog. There are many ways of attracting traffic to a blog site including banner adverts, ezine advertising, pay per click traffic, links fro other web sites and submitting your site to the specialist blog search engines.

There are literally hundreds of blog sites that lay desolate and abandoned like an old frontier town with tumbleweeds blowing through on the breeze. Their owners failed to identify a hungry market, they failed to attract visitors or they simply gave up posting fresh new content to their blogs.

Blogs are dynamic web sites, they require time and attention. Search engines love them because they are frequently updated with fresh new content. People love them because they regularly provide new and interesting information. But you have to persist, just like any other business, online or offline, you have to work at building up your content, building up an audience of loyal readers and creating a portfolio of products and services that will appeal to your readers and generate some income.

There are many ways of generating income from your blog. Several people have created successful niche sites that offer product reviews including books, software, videos, DVDs and other popular products. Other bloggers earn their income from the sale of advertising space and yet others generate income through pay per click systems such as Google's Adsense programme.

There is now another way of building a profitable blog. A brand new hosted blog service - http://www.Blog4Cash.com has married a fully featured blogging service with a two tier affiliate programme thus allowing you to build up a residual income from everyone who signs up through your referral. This provides a great opportunity to build up a regular income to supplement your regular blog profit.

So remember, to become a truly successful blogger you must take a long term view and seek to provide interesting content for a hungry market with money to spend. Don't expect to achieve profit overnight and plan to build a portfolio of income streams some of which have a residual element that will provide you will a recurring income.

Copyright 2004 John Taylor

John Taylor - November 2004.

John is a prolific writer and is the author of several books including "Testing & Tracking" (http://www.Test-and-track.com).

For information on *How To Get Paid To Blog* click here now to visit... http://www.Blog4Cash.com

This article may be reprinted online, within ezines and newsletters on the condition that this resource box remains intact.

40,000 new blogs are started daily - how your web hosting bu

by: Lois S.

The fact that an estimated 40,000 new blogs are being started daily should be of great interest to anybody already in the web hosting business or intending to go into it. Especially those planning to go into the business as affiliates or as resellers because this group of online entrepreneurs are in a very good position to cash in quickly on this amazing growth rate of blogs with hardly any investment necessary.

While it is true that a vast majority of blogs are hosted free, it is also true that many blogs are gaining high traffic so quickly that they are forced to quickly find paid web hosting as they exceed their allocated bandwidth.

The other fact to bear in mind is that virtually all successful bloggers own several blogs. This is significant because it is not easy to own several websites since lots of technical know-how and time are required to maintain a single website, let alone several. This is not the case with a blog that mainly requires content and very little technical knowledge to run very successfully. In terms of business volumes this simply means that a web hosting business that targets blogs is bound to grow a lot faster than the one that only seeks clients from the ranks of traditional websites.

The other significant factor in blogs that should be of great benefit to any web hosting business is the huge traffic that blogs seem to enjoy almost effortlessly.

All a web host entrepreneur needs to do, is to find a way to advertise their web hosting services to this blog traffic. There are several ways of doing this. You can for example look for acceptable ways of creating as many links from the blogs to your web hosting sites as possible. You can even start your very own blog on the subject.
About the Author

Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for http://www.websitesource.com and http://www.lowpricedomains.com with experience in the website hosting industry.

24 Tips and Strategies on How Everyone Can Blog Right and Get

by: John Teh

By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key
part of online culture. "Blog readership shoots up 58% in
2004 6 million Americans get news and information fed to
them through RSS aggregators But 62% of online Americans do
not know what a blog is." - Pew Internet & American Life
Project

Tip #1 - How and Where Should I Start?
You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service
such as Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), or other similar
free services such as JournalHome.com, LiveJournal.com or
Blog-City.com. The learning curve for using such free
services allow you to spend more on developing your content
rather than worrying about the advanced areas of scripting,
hosting, or programming.

Tip #2 - The Things You Should Decide to Write About
Although not a required prerequisite for you in order to
write a blog, it is highly recommended to try to find a
topic to write about based on your level of interest and
knowledge. The higher your level of interest, the easier it
is for you to get your quality content posted on your blog.
Always try to choose an area which you can enthusiastically
write about on a daily basis.Try to pay attention to a niche
which suites you well. A niche is basically a targeted
product, service, or topic.

Tip #3 - Always stay on topic.
Opinions are generally accepted but the content of the items
in the blog should all relate to a general theme. The
majority of your readers will be interested in the content
that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined
area of interest. Define a topic and try not to run too far
away from it. This will ensure that you create a loyal
following of interested readers.

Tip #4 - Information is king, be informative.
If you are attempting to create the impression that you are
knowledgeable about a specific industry or sector, be sure
that you stay current on news. Checking your facts before
you're giving out an opinion or a product review is always a
good idea, your reputation is at stake. If by any chance
you're utilizing other people's articles for you blog
content, ensure that you follow the terms of usage defined
by the author.

Tip #5 - Old news is not news, but old information can be
recycled and made new. While blogging everyday can be
strenuous and time consuming, it is important that the
information presented is current and accurate. Information,
articles or any other archived resources can be recycled /
modified to add more substance to your content. As long as
they're relevant and informative, there's no reason why it's
not a good approach.

Tip #6 - Be disciplined and stick to a fixed posting
schedule. Realizing that blogging requires time and effort,
don't create unrealistic expectations and be unable to
deliver. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and
a community you don't want to lose them due to lack of
communication. If time is not on your side, take advantage
of tonnes of automatically updating contents which are
available for your blog. Looking at the constantly updating
nature of RSS feeds, other RSS feeds from similar topic can
be inserted within your blogging post.

Tip #7 - Posting Frequency
If your blog content is updated frequently, search engines
will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals. Updating
your blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting to
readers, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a day
to day making it more appealing to search engines. To keep
your blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is a
must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. You
should try to update your blog everyday with at least 2 - 3
or more daily entries, depending on your daily schedule.

Tip #8 - Quantity matters.
In order to attract the attention of search engines, you
will need to produce a relevant amount of content and
information. A headline or simple sentence is not going to
generate the interest of readers or help with search engine
ranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop a
large portal of similarly-themed content.

Tip #9 - Clarity & simplicity / Short & Concise
Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy to
understand. Simplicity always produce better results at the
end of the day.

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and
publication your blog entries should be short & concise (if
you can help it). Should you insist on partaking on the
lengthy road, try to maintain a clean paragraphing style,
proper spacing, use different size, color and bold for your
titles as well as the subtitles. Use bullet points, go
straight to the point and never run out of topic. Insert
images to spice up things if you're an avid fan of long
posts.

Tip #10 - Utilize the

and tags
Being one of the few most underutilized blogging formatting
tags, these 2 items can help you on emphasizing certain
points, in the most efficient and striking way. Formatting
is simple and straightforward. Just

Hi
World!

and your message will apear
distinctively different from the rest of your text, thus
gets more attention which it deserves. Take note that the
formatting for these 2 tags differ from blog to blog
depending on how the owner defines the tag in the CSS
(Cascading Style Sheets).

Click the below link if you want to read more about CSS.
==>http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Tip #11 - Keyword-rich.
If the goal of your blog is to increase your visibility,
include related keywords in the title of the blog. Use the
title as a headline to attract interest. Each item post
should have a title that will attract attention but still be
relevant to the post. The title should be no longer than
10-12 words. Experiment with the titles if you must,
possibly try to avoid general and ordinary titles. Try to
include extraordinary and innovative titles to grab the
readers' attention.

Tip #12 - Spell checking and proof-reading.
It only takes a few extra moments and can save you from
having to make embarrassing explanations. The hazards of
Internet is that if you're too late to correct your mistake,
most likely it's already been crawled by the search engines
and read by many. It is extremely essential to think / proof
read carefully twice or even thrice, about what you post
before doing so. Take note of your language and grammar.

Tip #13 - RSS Feeds
RSS to a blog is like fuel to cars. Mostly every single free
blogs or bloggin software out there will have an automatic
RSS feed generating feature. Although it's most unlikely
that you'll find one without a RSS feature, simply leave it
and find a new one, if you happen to come across one without
it.

Tip #14 - The essence of the Internet - Traffic. It's no
secret. You must have traffic to realize the definition of a
blog.. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid and
free advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing,
RSS/XML feeds, word-of-mouth, submitting to numerous blog
and RSS directories, etc. RSSBlogsubmit (
http://www.rssblogsubmit.com) provides a submission service
for your Blog & RSS feeds. You should always use your blog
URL address in the signature of your email, forum
discussions, message boards, or any other communication
media. Never forget to share your blog to your friends,
colleagues, and any other invidious that you know of.

Tip #15 - Track Your Blog
Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated
usually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com,
ActiveMeter.com, Extremetracking.com or Sitemeter.com will
do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html of
your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its
better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic
analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral
information, and search engine information. Visitors,
returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard
for any page counter service you choose.

Tip #16 - Make use of your Blog's statistical and tracking
information. Believe it or not, your visitors' information
from your tracking scripts will provide you priceless
information on how you can attract more readers. Keep note
on the keyword terms used from search engines which bring
you traffic. You can identify relevant closely related
topics which you can venture into and add more variety into
your blog, yet staying very much in topic. Simply put, more
topic coverage and more variety = more traffic. You may
analyze your tracking information further on how you can
strategize your blog's content. You can also apply some
keyword optimization strategies here.

Tip #17 - The essence of your Blog is your Audience, listen
to them. Always interact with your readers who post comments
on your blog. Reply with a brief thank you note or just
simply attend to their questions if they have any. It's a
proven fact when there's a direct human interaction and
knowing the fact that there's a "real human" at the other
end of the blog makes most of them coming back. If your
audience provide suggestions, comments or feedbacks, take
them constructively and inform them if you have any desires
of implementing such ideas on your next update. And of
course, don't forget to thank them for their ideas. If it's
a great idea, why not throw in a free gift? Mention their
website in your blog?

Tip #18 - Create and increase the "Why Must I Return" Value
to Your Blog
Everyone knows the fact that Blogs get a huge level of
returning visitors because of its constantly updated
content. Why don't you add more interesting items to that
return value by having fixed periodical posts / offers, e.g.
Monday Top 10 Tips, Picture of the Week, Free Bonus of the
Month, Free Daily Wallpapers, etc. to give them the absolute
excuse to return to your blog. As long as you can
efficiently and appropriately increase that Return Value
constantly, it is mostly guaranteed that you'll be getting
tonnes of repeated visitors, period.

An advance notice, prelaunch announcement or anything
similar to that also can act as a short term return value
strategy. Encourage readers to comment on your such notices
/ posts. Experiment and play around with this idea.

Tip #19 - Multiple blogs
It never hurts to use multiple blogging accounts to attract
more people. You can even have multiple blogs within
Blogger.com itself, but you may also want to try different
free blogging services such as JournalHome.com,
LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, etc. Should you have the
urge to have multiple similar duplicates of your blog just
to gain more traffic, it is wise to avoid it as search
engines / feed directories might translate that as excessive
redundant information which simply brings you trouble, and
you're tend to get penalized, banned or even accused of
spamming.

Tip #20 - Digital Art, Creative Graphics Another proven fact
- Monotonous and continous display of text will make your
readers run away! Try to include non- advertising graphics,
pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries, but try to
keep them at a limit. Too many graphics also mean slower
loading time and messy text and graphical combination. You
don't want your blog to look messy. Most of the time,
graphics can bring your blog to life. Pictures can make
boring texts interesting no matter how long it is. Graphical
elements are by far the fastest message delivering element
available on the net today. It may deliver various messages
by a split second of a look.

Tip #21 - Maintain a Personal Blog
A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to
include personal experiences which relates to the topic of
your blog entry. Stay away from the business style of
writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-
person narratives. Share product reviews and personal
endeavors, instead of trying to make it sounds like you're
selling.

Tip #22 - Credibility & Popularity
As thing progresses, things need to change in order to cope
with the flow and nature of development. If your number of
readers are reasonably huge, and still using a free blogging
service to get your messages out, you may want to consider
getting your own domain name and hosting plan to have a more
personalized Blog.

Domain names and hosting plans are pretty much
straightforward. Research is all what it takes to get the
best of all the available options. For the most highly
recommended comprehensive listing of Free Blogging software
out there, drop by at http://www.opensourcecms.com/. This is
by far the best place to drop by if you want to get your
research done about which blogging software to choose.
Reviews, ratings, public votes, demos, etc are provided. And
the best thing is, all of them are Open Source, which means
they are totally free. Try going through the server
requirements for each software before purchasing your
web hosting.

Tip 23# - Customize the look of your Blog
If you happen to be using one of the Free blogging services
out there, you might notice that most of us are using the
same template again and again for our blogs. It is well
understood that not everybody has the technical knowledge to
change the layout as how they want it to be, but if you have
the knowledge, by all means try to customize it and make it
look DIFFERENT. You can grab that extra attention, if you're
different in certain ways. Create that image for yourself.

Tip #24 - Blog and Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog
traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking
if you want to turn your traffic into profit. Some of the
recommended income generating sources are as follow :-

Google Adsense, Amazon Associate program (www.amazon.com),
Blogads.com, Crispads.com, Tagword.com, Affiliate Programs
and any advertising related text links can be your place to
start off.

Final #Tip - Conclusion.
Following these blogging tips should make your blogging
experience much more rewarding. Blogging is generally done
out of interest and enthusiasm and sometimes for income
generating purposes. The flexibility of blogging will never
cease to expand. Through time, dedication, and persistence
you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.

About the Author

About the Author

John Teh is an internet blogger enthusiast, exposed to the
fun and possibilities of blogging on the net.
http://www.rssblogsubmit.com

13 Steps to Successful Blogging

by: Ant Onaf

Blogs can be a very marketable and very profitable tool if used correctly. Profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbing the attention of an audience and not doing any actual salesmen selling. In this article you will learn the 13 most essential steps to successful blogging.

1) Where to start?

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Journal Home or Blogger. Starting with a free blog hosting service allows you to begin blogging instantly without having any advance knowledge of scripts, hosting, or programming. It allows you to focus on your content and not the internal maintenance of the blog. The best benefit of starting with a free service is, in the case your blog doesn't become successful you do not lose any money or are you left holding the bill. The great thing about a blog is that they are organized in chronological order, your latest entry is displayed first. When your blog traffic grows greatly and you are ready to upgrade to your own domain then you can simply make your last blog entry the announcement of your "move". Simply add a last entry stating that your blog has "moved" and type the new blog URL address. Which directs visitors to your new blog site, keeping your following, without a major inconvenience to anyone. Upgrade as you need to...but only when you need to!

2) Niche

A niche is a targeted product, service, or topic. You should first decide on a product, service, or topic which interest you. Choose an area which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily basis. You can use keyword research services like Google Zeitgeist or Yahoo! Buzz Index to find popular searched topics. It does NOT matter if your topic is popular as long as there is a audience for your topic and the topic is precisely focused then your blog should be successful. Anything can be considered a niche as long as it has a target audience no matter how large or how small the audience is. A blog about your cat can be a niche or a blog about the species of the cat family can be a larger niche market, if there are people who are interested in hearing about your cat or the species of the cat family...you can even choose to build your audience for a market which an audience does not exist, but first you must build your blog.

3) Update Daily (nothing less)

This step is a must and not a suggestion. Updating your blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting to readers, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a day to day making it more appealing to search engines. Not updating your blog on an occasional holiday or one day here and there is understandable to most, but missing days at a time or weeks is unacceptable and will most likely result in your blog being unsuccessful. To keep your blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is a must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. You should try to update your blog everyday with at least 3 or more daily entries. The best way to accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for tending to your blog and adding new entries. It may even be wise to schedule a set time which you dedicate to your blog each day. Give yourself work hours and treat your blog as a job, what happens if you don't come to work for days or weeks...you lose money or worse you get fired! Same applies here...if you don't update your blog for days or weeks you'll lose visitors.

4) Traffic

It's no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid advertising, free advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing, RSS/XML feeds, and word-of-mouth. You should always use your blog URL address in the signature of your email, forum discussions, message boards, or any other communication media. You should submit your blog URL address to search engines and blog directories. You should submit your RSS/XML URL feed to blog ping services like Technorati, Ping-O-Matic, and Blogdigger. You should confidently share your blog with family, friends, co-workers, associates, and business professionals when it relates. Many blogs can be considered as a collection of articles, for this purpose you should submit your blog entries (those that are valuable and lengthy articles) to content syndicators like GoArticles.com or ArticleCity.com. Once submitted your articles can be picked up and published by others. The trick is to make sure you include your Blog URL address in the "About the Author" passage. What this does is create link popularity and backlinks for your blog, when someone picks up your article from the syndication then publish the article on their website the "About the Author" passage is included with each publication and the link you included is followed, crawled, and indexed by search engines. Imagine if your article is popular enough or controversial enough to produce 10,000 publications across the web. The search engines is bound to find your site in no time with that many publications and credit you a authority on the topic, in return increasing your rank on search engines. The small effort of writing a well written article is rewarding. You should try to write at least 1 full length article every week for syndication and submit your article to at least 10 article syndicators.

5) Track Your Blog

How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one is leaving comments doesn't mean your blog isn't growing. Many visitors do not leave comments but they are returning visitors. I know it sounds crazy but with blogs people are more interested in what "you" have to say! Many visitors do not comment their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd time. Some do not comment at all, but are active daily visitors.

Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated usually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com or Active Meter will do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search engine information. Visitors, returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard for any page counter service you choose.

6) Listen to Your Audience

When using the proper page counter you should begin to see how others are finding your blog and if through search engines then which keywords are being used to find your blog. If constantly your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful. When writing entry titles and entries use the keywords as often as possible while keeping the blog legible and interesting.

7) Multiple blogs

Use multiple blogging accounts to attract more people. This means you should have a blog with JournalHome.com, Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, tBlogs.com, etc. The more blog accounts the better. You can copy/paste from 1 blog to all others. Having different blog accounts is like having a publication in different newspapers. This enables you to attract more visitors and this also increases the chance that 1 of your blogs will be in the search engine results for your focused keywords.

8) Short & Concise

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short & concise (if you can help it). Sometimes there are exceptions to the rule and you have no choice but to blog lengthy entries, but try to avoid this as much as possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of reading. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through your entries. It is good to be detailed and provide useful information, but do not include useless information or run away sentences that veer away from your topic.

9) Digital Art

Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries. Not too much. Once a week is fine. Graphics can sometimes bring your blog to life. Of course, the content of the blog is the most important aspect and you do not want to overshadow your content with graphics, but displaying graphics can add a bit of spice to the blog. Be choosy about your graphics and make sure they fit your entry topic. You should add content with the graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos, pictures, and art is recommended.

10) Keep it Personal

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences which relates to the topic of your blog entry. Stay away from the business style of writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-person narratives. Do not write any of your entries as sales letters, instead share product reviews and personal endeavors.

11) Interact With Your Visitors

You now have the traffic you deserve. You should begin interacting with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as: "Monday Money Tip" or "Picture of the Week" which entices your readers to look forward to each week.

Give your readers advance notice about a product, service, or topic which you are going to review and then talk about later. If the President was scheduled to give a speech then in your blog you should state that you "will discuss the speech and give your opinion after the speech airs. Comments will be appreciated".

Try your best to find exclusive information that not many have. Do not disclose any confidential or secret information which is deemed illegal or can potentially get you into trouble, but try to get the scoop before everyone else does. Such as: If your blog was about Paris Hilton (the socialite) and you had a blog entry about "Paris Hilton Getting Married" then it would be interesting to your readers if you had a actual picture of Paris Hilton engagement ring. Give your best effort to dig and search the internet for exclusive information and you will possibly come up with something useful. Your readers will appreciate this and they show their appreciation through word-of-mouth referrals. Imagine how many readers will tell their friends, family, and others about information they only can find at your blog.

12) Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning your traffic into profit. You should use contextual advertising, like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising is usually text links which use the content of your blog to publish targeted ads on your blog. The payout is usually based on a pay-per-click model, meaning for ever click an ad receives you are paid a small percentage of the profits. In addition to contextual advertising it is good to also use graphical advertising such as: BlogAds.com, Amazon.com, MammaMedia, or General Sponsored Advertising.

13) You're a Professional

You're a professional now! What are you still doing with that free blog hosting service? It is time to upgrade to a domain hosted solution. You need to get a web host and choose a domain name for your blog then check its availability. Select the blogging software you wish to use, such as: Squarespace.com, WordPress.org, MovableType.org, etc. When you have your new blog domain setup and ready for traffic then it is time for you to announce your move on all your previous blog accounts. Your last entry to the blog should be a "move" announcement. The title should be "Moved" and the blog entry should state something like "Old Blog has been moved to New Blog please follow and bookmark this link for future reference: http://www.YourNewBlogDomainName.com". This way all returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem finding your new blog domain.

At the level of a professional blogger you may want to team up with 1 or more other bloggers. This will create a more interesting and more powerful blog. The old saying "two heads is better than one", more authors mean more advertising and exposure because each author will have a vested interest in the blog. The idea of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all authors, while continuing to target the blog topic and keeping the blog interesting for visitors.

Following these blogging techniques should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your blog will become popular or a household name, but the effort should at least put you one step closer. Making money online is not an overnight experience like many may think, but making money online is definitely a foreseeable possibility. As well, growing popularity on the web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.

About the Author

Ant Onaf is the owner and founder of www.JournalHome.com He is an online internet marketer, content writer, and IT consultant. Ant Onaf has years of IT-related experience and Internet-related experience. His ingenuity, dedication, and passion for technology, internet marketing, & writing have made him a monumental icon in the World Wide Web. His blog can be visited at http://www.journalhome.com/AntOnaf

12 Reasons Why You Need A Blog

by: Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian

"Why Should I Blog? I Simply Don't Get It"

This post on a popular discussion forum set me thinking - and I came up with 12 reasons you should blog.

Read them and get started on your blog. Or better still, go get your blog up and running and THEN come back and read this :)

#1 - You Do Not Need To Know HTML

One of the biggest hurdles many hopeful website creators face is they don't know to design a webpage. Blogs overcome this - all you do is type into a box, and the blog software automatically converts it into a webpage and publishes it on the World Wide Web for anyone to see.

#2 - You Are 'Forced' To Keep Your Content Fresh

Blogs are essentially online diaries. It doesn't make sense to write in your diary every month or two. Similarly, running a blog itself 'forces' you to update it often. And refreshing your blog often makes it more useful to readers and consumers - and by extension, to search engines who are in the business of presenting *their* clients with valuable resources.

#3 - Your Blog Is AUTOMATICALLY Optimized For Search Engines

Search engines love fresh content. But that's not the only way blogs are powerful tools to rank high. Indeed, most blogs are structured to offer a high degree of search engine optimization.

All sections of your blog are linked together. The terms used as link 'anchors' are keyword-optimized. Categories can be created to host themed content. Navigating through your blog is intuitive. Archives can be customized, and generate hundreds of pages of content that act as 'search engine spider bait'.

#4 - You Get A Built-In Linking Structure

With very few exceptions, most blogs are structured to be a tightly integrated network of links - to other sections of your blog! It's quite easy for a visitor to get 'lost' within your blog... without ever leaving it.

Calendars link to posts on specific dates. 'Recent Post' listings point to your freshest content. Archives connect all your earlier posts. Search boxes let browsers look for certain kinds of content. And it all happens automatically, without you spending hours on creating a link structure or sitemap!

#5 - You Generate Multiple Content-Rich Pages

Every post you make on your blog is content. And by intelligently setting up your archiving preferences, you can turn each post into many different forms of content, each on a page of its own. Blog regularly for a few months, and you could end up having a 100+ page website - all filled with relevant, keyword-optimized, themed content!

#6 - You Can Keyword-Optimize Your Blog Extensively

All parts of your blog's template can be customized. And a very powerful way to do it is by inserting relevant keywords. It's a do-it-once job that will give you ongoing benefits for as the life of your blog. You can include keywords in your blog title, description, blog post headings, trackback links, comment invitations, archive titles, and category names.

#7 - You Create An Online Community

If your blog is on a specific theme, you can build a loyal readership and develop an online community. You can even take it a notch higher by tying it in with a forum or membership site. Ask for comments, suggestions, ideas and feedback, or invite reader participation. Pretty soon, your blog will be growing organically - even if you don't write a lot!

#8 - You Initiate Conversations With Readers

Of course, the first step is yours - to initiate a dialog with readers. You could do it with your blog post, asking a question or by inviting comments and interaction. Your blog will be read by an audience that's already interested in your subject or theme. This conversation will be priceless to you, the blog owner.

#9 - Your 'Inbound Link' Process - Trackbacks

Blogging is about distributed conversations online. Links are an integral part of such an informal network. Trackbacks are a kind of blog technology that make it possible - and simple! Your blog will benefit from the inbound links a trackback will bring, and you'll also get extra traffic from other sources.

#10 - You Can Syndicate Your Content Easily

Getting readers for your content is good. Getting your content out where many more readers can see it is GREAT! Syndication (via RSS feeds) is built in to most blogging platforms, giving you a quick and easy way to get a wide readership for your blog posts.

#11 - You're Creating Stuff Search Engines LOVE

Search engines exist to offer their audience a compilation of the best resources on a subject or keyword. Your blog is the answer to a search engine's prayers! By sticking to a theme and presenting the content in an organized, structured, intuitively connected pattern, your blog will be appealing to search engines in a way only a very professionally planned and designed website can ever hope to be.

#12 - You Get 'Alternate' Traffic Sources

Remember what we saw about blogs being linked and networked together? Bloggers like to share opinions with others. And when they 'talk' about you, they are going to point to your site, or a post on your blog, to show their readers what they mean. They become 'alternate' traffic sources - for YOU!

Other tools like blog rolls, furls, favorite bloggers and more can drive sporadic - but sometimes big floods - of traffic your way. And best of all, it's effortless and costs you nothing!

Not yet convinced? Well, then maybe blogging isn't quite your cup of tea. But if you trust me, try it - you just might be pleasantly surprised.

About the Author

Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian is author of 'Blog Profit Ideas Exposed - 33 Ways To Profit From Blogs" - http://www.BlogProfits.com - and 'How To Profit From RSS Feeds" - http://www.RSS-Marketing.com and publishes 8 different 'niche' blogs and has been reporting on marketing with blogs and RSS feeds since 2001.

10 Ways You Can Use Blogs RIGHT NOW

by: Andy Wibbels

Now that you have got a basic understanding of the ins and outs of blogs, and some options available, you're probably wondering: How does this help my business? How does it help me to stand out?

1. Team Communication. Companies use blogs internally to communicate project status to stakeholders and managers. It beats clogging everybody's email with mass broadcasts. It allows these missives to be archived, indexed and easily searched.

2. Enrich Your Clients. You can easily link to articles and resources relevant to your readers and their needs. You can more easily attract experts to provide value-added content to your audience.

3. Get to Know Your Customer. Nobody buys from someone they don't know. Blogging allows you to demonstrate your expertise and point-of-view quickly and easily. In addition, blogs allow the customers to receive your updates in the format they choose.

4. Collaborate. You can create your own marketing buzz to drive attention and buyers to your products and services. Some companies use internal blogs to report on projects or to track work groups distributed around the world.

5. Research and Development. Weblogs are the perfect forum to test out new ideas and receive instant feedback. You can allow others to see how you develop your products and services, and at the same time, they can tell you how best to serve them.

6. Go Global. Blogs, like other online media, allow you to take your business and ideas to a global market. Translation services are getting better every day, allowing more people to read online content in different languages. I've helped bloggers from New York to New Zealand, from Indiana to India.

7. Hidden Entrance to the Press. Journalists are busier than ever and blogs provide a virtual directory of pundits on any topic. You and your company can be the content expert they're looking for. Furthermore, if your company is talked about in the blogosphere it could end up using that exposure as a back door to the press.

8. Get Published. Publishers are turning to blogs to find new writing talent. Blogs can give a publisher a taste of your writing style as well as a sample of your depth of knowledge. Content specific blogs show a a commitment to a certain topic or subject matter.

9. Write your book. Let your readers help you write your latest book or article. Post chapters or ideas, then let readers help you in researching, testing and suggesting ideas. Or, use a blog after your book is published to update the material or to answer questions from readers.

10. Success Stories. Invite clients to blog about their successes with your products and services - it's like a living testimonial that never ends. As clients share their experiences, your prospects can see first-hand how you can help them, too.

Copyright © 2005 Andy Wibbels

About Andy: Andy Wibbels is a blogging evangelist and creator of the Easy Bake Weblogs seminar that has helped hundreds of small businesses all over the world leverage blogs and RSS news feeds to increase profits and save time. You can download his free special report on business and blogs at http://easybakeweblogs.com/.

7 Tips for Successful Blogging

by: Michele Schermerhorn

So, you have a blog! Do you have traffic? Do you know how to build traffic to your weblog? There are seven proven methods for building readership of your blog. They start with defining the purpose, or life, of your blog. Then, after you have a blog worth promoting, driving traffic is crucial to your ongoing success at blogging. Here are seven tips to help you build and hold an audience for your blog: Tip #1: Provide quality content. On the Internet, whether you are talking about websites or blogs, a lot of space is given to content. Everyone directs you to provide quality content. But, what is quality content? The quality of your blog’s content is directly related to how well you have defined your ideal audience. A successful blog is written with a distinct audience in mind. In this way, you can provide content that is unique to your audience’s issues, needs, or desires. If you create content they like and wish to return to read, you have quality content. The second issue is to stay true to your audience and tone of your blog. If people are reading your blog, it’s because they like your topic and tone. Try not to stray from your typical topics and style too much. This will give your readers a reason to link back to your blog on an ongoing basis, as will posting on a regular basis. Tip #2: Blog regularly If you don't update your blog often enough, blog readers will move on to other blogs. There are too many blogs out there competing for attention. Blog readers will go where they can get enough of what they want. Successful blogging takes a commitment of your time. When you begin blogging and wish to capture an audience, you should be prepared to blog every day. In this way, you can develop an audience who counts on you to help them begin or end their day. This means you should also try to post at the same time each day. Your readers will get accustomed to your schedule and check your blog at the appropriate time. The time of day is not as crucial as the consistency in your posting. Since you now have quality content and a regular posting schedule, it’s time to drive traffic to your blog. Your readers will do a lot to promote your blog just by telling their friends. Don’t count on this alone! You need to do some additional work. When you post, make sure you set your blog to “ping” blog tracking sites every time you add a new post. Think of this as a means to get their attention. The ping says “Hey, we just added a new post”. An alternative to automatically pinging from your blog is to use pingomatic.com. This is a one-stop place to automatically ping everyone you should notify of your new post and only takes a couple of minutes to accomplish. Tip #3: Mention your blog wherever you can Mention your blog’s address in your email signature line, in forums where you post, on your business cards, on address labels and in conversations with anyone you meet. Use a tag line under your blog address to further entice them to visit. Mine reads: Michele Schermerhorn http://www.imarketblog.com A sassy little marketing blog Beyond just mentioning your blog in writing and conversation, you must actively participate in the blogging community too. Tip #4: Participate in the blogosphere Get involved in other people's blogs. Visit blogs that interest you and are in line with the general topic of your blog. Then, leave thoughtful comments. Almost every comment option on someone else’s blog will allow you to post your blog URL and your email address. Help other bloggers out with traffic and they will help you. If a blogger really likes your site, they will add you to their blogroll. A blogroll is generally found on every blog which understands linking to the rest of the blogosphere helps drive traffic. A blogroll is a listing of other blogs. Think of it as a “recommended reading list”. Don’t be stingy with your blog roll either. Add those blogs that you read and enjoy to your blogroll too. Tip #5: Think keywords when you post Think about keywords with your use of titles, links and blog posts. Search engines, like Google and Yahoo, like keywords. The more targeted your keywords, the better the chances of your blog appearing in search results. Search results can drive that extra traffic you want. To increase the value of the key words in your content, make certain keywords are part of the hot link in your posts. Don’t use “click here” as the hot link. You will be wasting valuable real estate in your post. Instead use the relevant keywords for the hot link, like “a great marketing idea. This gives the keywords added emphasis with the search engines. One last thought on keywords for driving traffic; if you want a real leg up in the traffic game, in your linking code add rel=”tag”. This helps Technorati, a major blog resource, index your blog for their directory. But don’t stop there! It’s time to submit your blog to blog directories. Tip #6: Submit your blog to blog directories In addition to submitting your blog to the major search engines, make certain you submit the blog to exclusively blog directories like blogwise, blogcatalog, or bloghub. Many people find blogs through these online directories. When you do submit your blog to these directories, remember to add a description that will entice your targeted audience to check your blog out. For instance, when I post my blog in blog directories, under description I put “General musings, rants, advice and strategies from a battle-worn veteran of the Marketing Wars, online and off”. Your description should help the potential reader understand your blogging topic and the flavor of how you write. In addition to submitting your blog to blog directories, join a few of the free or inexpensive traffic exchange sites like blogexplosion or blogclicker. Tip #7: Use free and inexpensive blog traffic exchange communities There are many sites which can be termed “traffic exchange” sites for the blogging community. It won’t cost you anything to sign up. At the very least, join blogexplosion, blogclicker, and blogazoo. Once you sign up, you have two options to help drive traffic to your blog. Use both of them! The first method is to earn credits (guaranteed visitors to your site) by using the “surf member sites” function. As you surf through those sites, you will be earning credits (visitors to your blog). When you find an interesting post, leave a comment as discussed above. When you find a blogger you like, add them to your blogroll and let them know you did. The second method to drive traffic is to purchase credits. The cost is very cheap for the traffic you will drive to your blog. The more traffic to your blog, the more customers you’ll have. The more happy customers you have, the more they will tell others. The more they tell others, the more customers you get. Don’t you love this dance! In summary, blogging may not be for everyone. However, it can be a great method for bringing your unique perspective to the Internet. You will surely find others who think the same way you do. Some bloggers will entertain you, some will inform you, and some will drive you to tear your hair out. Decide what type of blogger you want to be and be the best you can. See you in the blogosphere! About the Author Michele Schermerhorn calls herself a “Corporate Freedom Fighter” dedicated to freeing cubicle prisoners. She has over 30 years experience in the business world. She is President of Online Business Institute Inc. (www.obinstitute.com), authors a sassy marketing blog (www.imarketblog.com), and regularly conducts free online seminars. Online Business Institute Inc. exists to “Create Successful Online Business Owners One Person At A Time”.

7 Tips for Choosing the Right Blog Software for Your New Blo

by: Michael Turner

Choosing the right blog software for your new blog requires that you ask yourself some questions and make a list of all of the features and tools you need as well as your budget. Once you have this information written down you will be prepared to start shopping for blog software. However, keep in mind the following seven tips for choosing the best software for you. Tip #1 Ping Updates These allow you to update your blog and are very important in blog software. Make sure the blog software you are interested in provides automatic ping updates. Tip #2 Comments Whatever blog software you choose, you'll want to make sure that it has an area for comments from visitors. This will help you understand what is successful in your blog and what is not, as well as guide you in future blogs. This is a really great tool and should be part of your blog software. Tip #3 Trackback If you are discussing your blog on another blog, or simply adding information to another blog, trackback will allow you to update this information. This is a little confusing, but trackback allows you to talk on your blog about information on another blog and ping the writer of the other blog to let them know what is going on. Trackback is certainly a feature you want in your blog software. Tip #4 Pingback Pingback is similar to trackback, but it just sends a URL to the other blog to let them know you are talking about their blog on your blog. This is not used as much as trackback, but you will want a blog software that has at least one of these two functions. Tip #5 Web-based The point of a blog is you can post information instantly online, so you want your blog software to be similar to a word processor and web based without a shadow of a doubt. Tip #6 Archiving You want a blog software that supports archiving, and most of them do. The reason for this is you will want to save all of your past blogs by the date they were published and archiving allows you to do that. Tip #7 Categorize Another great tool you will want in your blog software is the ability to categorize. You want to keep your blogs organized and in categories, if you have them, so this option is really a great one for most bloggers. There are lots of types of blog software available. You just need to do the research and compare what you find with what you need and then... start blogging! About the author: Michael Turner reveals step-by-step how you can increase search engine traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

7 Questions To Ask Yourself BEFORE Starting A Business Blog

by: Priya Shah

Blogging is the latest buzzword in online marketing and PR. But with so many marketers jumping on the blogging bandwagon, few people are giving a thought to whether blogs are really up their alley, or taking the time to consider the best ways of going about it. If you are planning to start a business blog, ask yourself these questions before you take the final plunge. 1. Do you really need a blog? Writing and maintaining a blog takes a certain degree of commitment, as well as a passion (or at least a liking) for stringing words into a decent sentence. If you don't enjoy writing that much, you could always create an audio or video blog. But would your business objectives really be served by starting a blog? Or could other methods of online marketing - like SEO, ezine advertising or newsletter publishing work just as well, if not better? 2. Whom do you want to reach with your blog? The first step to reaching your audience is understanding where they go to find information about your products. If your audience largely consists of people who live in your town or use products that they search for in the newspapers, offline advertising might be more suited to your purpose. If however, your target audience belongs to one or more of these segments, a blog might be just the thing to boost your business. - Internet users Does your target audience really use the internet? If not, then starting a blog (or any online activity, for that matter) will just be a huge waste of time and effort. - Blog readers Does your target audience read blogs? Or do they prefer to get their information in their inbox? If the latter is true, then an email newsletter might be a better option than a blog. - Search engine users A blog is an excellent way to boost your search engine rankings and get listed for a lot of your target keywords. If you know that your audience uses search engines to find information, a blog will increase your chances of getting their attention. 3. What do you want to achieve with your blog? There are a lot of things that a blog can do for your business. Blogs can help you - - Increase your visibility and search engine rankings - Brand yourself, your products, your services, your company - Build a community and network with people who have similar interests - Expand your reach to those outside your current sphere of influence - Establish your credibility as an expert or thought-leader in your field - Put a human face on your business - Reach out to potential customers and stakeholders Deciding exactly what you want to achieve with your blog can help you get focused, so that you can spend your time and effort in activities that help, not hinder your business objectives. 4. How much time can you spend on your blog? Serious business bloggers not only spend time writing their own blogs, but also spend a great deal of time reading up on current events and browsing other blogs in their field for information. If you are prepared to put in the time and effort required to do that sort of research, your blog will serve as a good branding tool for your business. If not, you should either hire someone to do the research or seriously rethink your decision to start a blog. 5. What blogging platform will serve your needs best? Deciding your blogging platform is an important step that you should take only after becoming familiar with the features and benefits of each option. The reason it is so crucial is because it can be extremely difficult to migrate an established blog to a new platform once you have started it. Moving your blog can result in you losing your data, search engine listings and readers, so don't take this decision lightly. Decide which platform will best meet your marketing objectives, time constraints and personal preferences before you make your first post. According to T.L. Pakii Pierce who writes at "How to Blog for Fun & Profits!" http://blogforfunandprofit.blogware.com, if you are short of time, and want to spend more time writing, then a hosted solution like Blogger, Blogware, Squarespace or Typepad might serve your purpose better. This might also prove a better option if you want to get started as soon as possible, are new to the internet, or are unfamiliar with scripts or code. If, on the other hand, you're a control freak (like me) and don't mind spending some time and effort to customize your blog, then a server-installed software, like Wordpress, b2Evolution or Movable Type might be just right for you. If you don't want to install the scripts yourself, choose a hosting solution with Fantastico, which comes with a one-click install of a number of blogging software. 6. How do you plan to promote your blog? Why is it good to know this before you start your blog? Because it will help you decide where best to invest your time and effort when you need to build traffic to your blog. You'll learn more about the methods to promote your blog when you subscribe to the email course below. Some of these tasks can be outsourced, while others you would have to do yourself. Decide what you want to take on and look out for service providers to handle the other functions so you can start building traffic to your blog as soon as possible. 7. How will you assess the success of your blog? To determine how successful your blog is in boosting your profile or profits you will have to measure your blog traffic and track sales or leads that have come through it. Planning this in advance will help you take more informed decisions about your blogging metrics, choice of blogging platform and degree of customization you require on your blog. Understand that blogging is not for everyone. It's just another form of communication. Don't get so hung up on the technology that you end up ignoring more appropriate ways of communicating your message. Some things may be easier to communicate face to face, in a conference room, or even through the good old telephone. But if you asked yourself all the questions above and decided that blogging meets all your objectives, then a blog may be just what the doctor ordered for your business. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Priya Shah is a former journalist who writes on business blogging and publishes an internet marketing newsletter. Subscribe to her free eCourse on Blogging for Marketers

6 Things to post on your blog when you're running out of ide

by: Dulce Azogue

There is no doubt that blogs are the “it” thing today in the online world. Wherever you surf, blogs are sprouting everywhere like mushrooms, whether they’re used for personal or business purposes. But for starters, what is a blog anyway? It is a diary where you can post your thoughts or feelings or whatnots, except that it is online and the public can read it. But enough of that. Gone were the days when they were used solely for personal reasons. On the business side, they can be a very useful tool to boost your business, and to keep your customers updated on the products and infos you have. But if you’re still struggling to catch up on the latest thing these days and you think you’re not much of a great writer either, let me give you some useful subjects you can write about to give your customers a lot of reasons to keep coming back to your site. 1. News. Okay, so maybe that’s basic. After all, your company or business is the reason you put up a blog, right? Write about the products you sell. Give them a bit of the benefits your potential customers might get for buying them, with a link back to your main site to read the entire sales letter. You can also write about updates to your product. Post news about the industry you’re in. If you’re selling products that help people get better search engine rankings, write about search engine news. Or, if you or your service has been featured on TV, papers, or notable websites, write about it. Don’t forget to post seminars or gatherings where you’ve been invited. 2. History of your business. Maybe this one has already been in your main website, but who cares? People forget it. They come and go and chances are, when they visit your site, they don’t read it. Write about how you began, the reputation and achievements you’ve earned, and the accolades or awards you received, with a link back your site. That way you’ll let them know why they should buy from you, and that you’re a real person who’s building a reputable business. Add some employee’s profile if you have someone working for you, too. If you have nice traffic or site stats, that’s also worth mentioning. 3. Customer’s feedback. When a raving customer emails you about how your product has helped him, share it in your blog. You’re giving your visitors a compelling reason to buy from you. 4. Site of the week / month. Mention a site that doesn’t compete with you but complements to your won. Explain to them why you like it, and why it deserves your accolade. 5. Contests, surveys, trivia, questionnaires. If you’re running a contest, post it in your blog to encourage visitors to join. Get their attention by including the prizes, a bit of the rules, with a link back to your site for more information regarding it. Or put a survey. That could give you information regarding the product you’re selling, as to how you could develop it further. 6. Tip of the day. Write about a new tactic you developed or something you learned and perfected. So there. Whatever your business is, no doubt there’s always something you’ll definitely want to write about. Give it a try. And it will reward you soon. About the Author Dulce Azogue is a work-at-home with two kids. Visit her website where you will learn how to unleash the power of a blog and use it to its full potential to boost your business and make you money. Get your FREE information now at http://www.getintogoogle.info/bloginabox/index.html and download your FREE gift. You can also email her at shem@getintogoogle.info