Online blog businessOnline blog business for beginners wordpress blogs

Blogging is a great way to get traffic to your website, and if you create a blog for no other reason than that, you are practically certain to get positive results. Blogging and traffic are made for each other, and there are several ways of using blogs to promote products on your site.

The first question is what kind of blog? Wordpress and Blogger (owned by Google)are the most popular blogging packkages on the planet. This offers you four blogging options, and three ways of creating a blog to get traffic to your website.

Why four from just the two blogging packages? Here is the answer to that question, and how if you create a blog using each, you will maximize your earning potential from your products:

Blogger

Blogger is blogging software owned by Google. Most people run their blog from BlogSpot, Bloggers blogging host. When you do that you have less control over your blog than if you operate it from your own IP address. Blogger is very easy to use, and very easy to get started with, and is popular with those who don’t want to worry about templates, plugins and designing their own blogs.

Wordpress

Wordpress can also be run from the Wordpress hosting site. However, where Wordpress scores over Blogger is in the fact that the software can be uploaded to your website, and can be run from there. This enables you to use any of the thousands of Wordpress plugins and templates that provide an almost unlimited degree of functionality in your blogging that will help to drive traffic to your website.

When you create a blog with any of these two different packages, whether run from your own computer or from the blog host, you are able to provide fresh content daily to your virtual website. Because that is what a blog is: it is in effect a web page, in the same way that a Squidoo lens and a page on a website is a web page.

Blogging and Search Engines

Blogging allows you a presence on search engines such as Google and Yahoo, and allows those with little idea of SEO or even of web design, to sell products online. There was a time when blogs were a rarity and something new, but blogging is now a way for anybody that knows how to create a blog can drive traffic to their website or to their blog page and help them make money through free advertising.

Whatever you use it for, howver, a blog has to be advertised to get readers. No readers and there’s not much point in the blog. Blogging is not advertising: it is a means of expressing yoruself and your thoughts. However, you can aslo use it to advertise, not only your feelings, but also your products and your websites if you have any. Now, you might think I am being a bit duplicitous here, stating that blogging is not a means of advertising yet can be used to advertise! Yet both statements are true. Let me explain why.

Is Blogging an Advertising Technique?

Yes and no. You can create a blog in order to get traffic to your website, and in that respect you are using your blog for advertising. You can place a link to your website: your squeeze page, sales page or just a content page. The problem you have, and it is not a diffcult one, is how you are going to get people, not only to read your blog, but also to click on one of the links? The link could be placed at the bottom of every post, and on a permanent page on your blog, but how do yet get traffic to your blog: you have the same problem now as getting traffic to your website!

What you have here is that blogging can be use to promote another site, whether it be a website, another blog or a social networking site such as Facebook, MySpace or YouTube. You can use all of these to promote and sell products. However, how do you get people, to find your blog? Creating a blog is fine, but that is only the start.

Use Article Marketing in Blogging

There is one way, and that is article marketing. By writing articles about your niche or product, and then including a link to your blog in the article, you can use the article to advertise your blog. If you can persuade a reader to click on your link, they will reach your blog on which you provide them with links to your website, your other blogs and your Facebook and MySpace home pages.

Perhaps you can’t write, and maybe don’t know how to use articles properly, or even where to get them. Well don’t worry. If you want to make the best use of the internet than create a blog, get blogging and then use the help provide online to make best use of your blog make money.

Blogging and traffic go together, and it is easy to create a blog to drive traffic to your website or any other online web page (such as another blog). You only need to know how.

Weblogs or blogs are so popular. They become the source of not only to express views but also to earn money on line. In the world of blogging for profits, blog content and blog traffic are the two reigning kings. If you put good content on your blog and get people visiting it you’ll make money, guaranteed.

So when you go about making your blog, you should first think about what your going to sale and what content you should put on your blog to entice people who might be interested in it to pay your blog a visit. Without traffic you won’t make any money so it’s very important that you have good content on your blog to bring people to it.

After you’ve decided on the content of your blog, the next step is to start making blog post to fill your blog up with quality content. Once a day, you should make a new post to your blog. And every time you submit a new blog post to your blog, submit that article to article directories with a link back to your blog.

When it comes to producing good quality blogs this is where WordPress shines. Yes there are various different types of blogging platforms available for you to use, but WordPress is the easiest of them all to use and understand. Although, it must be said that Blogger follows a very close second behind it. But the author of WordPress Goldmine as the name recommended has used the one that is rated first of all blogging platforms.

When it comes to setting up a blog using WordPress you will find that whole process very simple and easy to complete. But first you must register with the site and once this is done then you can start building your first ever blog with them. In fact building the blogs will cost you nothing and will only take a few minutes for you to complete and then all you need to do is start adding more information to it once it is up and running.

Tips to Create Money through your Blog

1. You need to decide on what niche topic your blog empire should go for. It has to be a more general subject where you can use sub categories for your blogs. And of course, it has to be a hot niche topic that everybody is interested in. Go to ClickBank for this kind of information. And by the way, Internet Marketing is always a profitable main category to go for.

2. Start with about 5 blogs at Blogspost and WordPress. Search engines love this ones.

3. Post some great, useful information about your topics on your blogs at least every second day. This is important for the search engines to be able to notice your blogs. Google for ideas by typing in keywords related to your topics and use the results for your articles.

4. Place affiliate links into each of your posts and at the end of your articles. These links should be related to your blog theme. Also place links at the side of your blogs. Go to ClickBank and find yourself some great affiliate programs that relate to your topics and sign up as an affiliate. It’s easy. Just go by the step-by-step instructions.

These affiliate links will enable you to blog your way to riches.

Tips for Getting Internet Traffic to Your Blog

Free RSS Feed

Rich Site Summary also known as Really Simple Syndication is the process of delivering constantly updated content to your blog by pacing a block of code (known as a feed) on your webpages. In our fast paced information age, RSS fits absolutely. It allows your visitors to stay up to date on any new information you’ve added to your blog without necessarily having to visit every page on your blog. Instead they view a window that list the headlines followed by a quick summary of what each article is about.

Having a free RSS feed accomplishes two things besides getting more site traffic. First since the content is updated frequently it keeps the search engines coming back to your site and crawling for the new information. Second it can increase your visibility among your blog visitors. This is important because while they may not visit your blog everyday, providing a feed to your subscribers is a good way to for them to stay in touch.

Network

A blog network is a compilation of blogs under a sole domain or company name. Some web visitors take comfort in clicking a link that takes them to different bloggers who cover the same topic. This is also an excellent way to get free advertisement and free web traffic to your site since people who visit the network will invariably be exposed to your blog.

Email Marketing List

In a recent survey, 100% of online users say they communicate using email. This is a good way to send messages to your opt in email list with links going back to your blog web site. Let them know you’ve posted a new article or video on your blog. Use snippets or summaries to entice people to click on the link and get further information. The more times people on your list see your blog the more they will get to know you and give a second look to some products or services you maybe offering. If you can drive good amount of traffic to your blog, you’re a good blogger and you can make money out of it. Besides that, if advertisers find your blog right for their marketing campaign, they will immediately contact you and request to advertise on your blogs. That way you’ll be earning regular amount of money.

It’s not that difficult. Just make use of the resources you can find on the Internet and you can begin your business blogging career the soonest.

Blogging is the word on the internet. The blog has created phenomenal impact on how online communication is being changed for the better. What is in your blog for you? How can you succeed at blogging? What can you do to enable your blog to grow into a successful marketing tool for your online business?

Tools and resources for blogging are plenty and at our disposal on the web. Still it is vital to maximize the effectiveness of your blog. Listed below are various strategies to succeed in blogging. The list is by no means exhaustive.

(1) Keep on posting regularly

In blogging, the most important requirement is to blog frequently, and over a long continued period of time. This is the only way for you to build and increase the quantity of your loyal readers. As long as readership increases, the possibility of bringing in traffic and money is high. It even works better when targeted traffic relating to your niche flows into your blog. Regular posting on your blog pays well eventually.

(2) Provide relevant content in your blog

You will be doing fine as long as content in your blog is relevant to what readers are searching for. Valuable information and links to other websites will help readers to return to your blog for more. Give your readers the best of content – informative, appealing, thought-provoking. They will love what they read and more importantly they will love your blog as the source of great content. Providing good relevant content is one of the many good strategies to succeed in blogging.

(3) Recommend interaction in your blog

The blog opens the door to interactive conversations. Bloggers share their opinions during their blogging sessions. As for a business blog, it is good to be prudent during blog conversations with other bloggers. If there is an interesting post in your blog, others upon coming to know about it will participate in a discussion or even in a debate. The blog allows readers to leave their comments, returns to your blog to read the replies, and may even offer another comment. Effective management of the comment box will certainly contribute to drawing in more traffic to your blog.

(4) Continual promotion of your blog

If you have so much good content posted on your blog but there are not much visitors reading them, it would all be sadly wasted. Promoting your blog continually using every available tool will pay handsome dividends eventually. It is vital that you use as much traffic generating tools that you can find on the web to promote your blog. Promotion must be done aggressively, because there are millions of blogs out there on the internet. More promotions will lead to increase in blog visibility.

(5) Build friendships and connections

The blog provides the best opportunity to build good friendships and strong connections that are so important for your online business. The concepts of community, linking, and even dialogue are an integral part of blogging. With the formation of friendships and strong connections, it will benefit your blog tremendously if you can get other blogs to link to you. This is one of the more important strategies to succeed in blogging because it will pave the way for more traffic to your blog.

(6) Make yourselves known

Blogging is fun; it brings out the lively side of you. This is because the blog provides you with the best opportunity to start networks with others, whom you can convert into buyers for your products. Social networking opens the door to marketing opportunities. You can make yourselves known by being active , participating in forums, blogs , and message boards. Your visibility in the blogging world will also increase tremendously.

(7) Provide great experience to visitors

When readers come to your blog, they will expect to see relevant content, easy navigation, and to experience warmth and friendliness while they are in your blog. It is so important to ensure that your blog provides the visitors with an experience that is really fulfilling and worthy. An intrinsic characteristic of the blog is being friendly and personal. Your blog must be able to allow visitors to read, chat and even socialize. Only then will they treat your blog as their favorite.

In conclusion, the search for information on the internet never stops. Blogging offers online marketers the best of opportunities to help feed information to those who need it. The blog is the best solution. You will definitely be required to understand and apply proven effective strategies to succeed in blogging.

Blogging is a great way to get traffic to your website, and if you create a blog for no other reason than that, you are practically certain to get positive results. Blogging and traffic are made for each other, and there are several ways of using blogs to promote products on your site.

The first question is what kind of blog? Although there are alternatives, the most popular blogging software packages are Google’s Blogger and Wordpress. This offers you four blogging options, and three ways of creating a blog to get traffic to your website.

Why four from just two blogging packages? Here is the answer to that question, and how if you create a blog using each, you will maximize your earning potential from your products:

Blogger

Blogger is blogging software owned by Google. Most people run their blog from BlogSpot, Bloggers blogging host. When you do that you have less control over your blog than if you operate it from your own IP address. Blogger is very easy to use, and very easy to get started with, and is popular with those who don’t want to worry about templates, plugins and designing their own blogs.

Wordpress

Wordpress can also be run from the Wordpress hosting site. However, where Wordpress scores over Blogger is in the fact that the software can be uploaded to your website, and can be run from there. This enables you to use any of the thousands of Wordpress plugins and templates that provide an almost unlimited degree of functionality in your blogging that will help to drive traffic to your website.

When you create a blog with any of these two different packages, whether run from your own computer or from the blog host, you are able to provide fresh content daily to your virtual website. Because that is what a blog is: it is in effect a web page, in the same way that a Squidoo lens and a page on a website is a web page.

Bogging and Search Engines

Blogging allows you a presence on search engines such as Google and Yahoo, and allows those with little idea of SEO or even of web design, to sell products online. There was a time when blogs were a rarity and something new, but blogging is now a way for anybody that knows how to create a blog can drive traffic to their website or to their blog page and help them make money through free advertising.

However, even a blog has to be advertised. Blogging in itself is not an advertising technique, but one of displaying your thoughts, idea, products or advertising your products. Now, you might think I am being a bit duplicitous here, stating that blogging is not a means of advertising yet can be used to advertise! Yet both statements are true. Let me explain why.

Is Blogging an Advertising Technique?

Yes and no. You can create a blog in order to get traffic to your website, and in that respect you are using your blog for advertising. You can place a link to your website: your squeeze page, sales page or just a content page. The question is, how do you get people to read your blog, and then click on one of these links? The link could be placed at the bottom of every post, and on a permanent page on your blog, but how do yet get traffic to your blog: you have the same problem now as getting traffic to your website!

What you have here is that blogging can be use to promote another site, whether it be a website, another blog or a social networking site such as Facebook, MySpace or YouTube. You can use all of these to promote and sell products. However, how do you get people, to find your blog? Creating a blog is fine, but that is only the start.

Use Article Marketing in Blogging

There is one way, and that is article marketing. By writing articles about your niche or product, and then including a link to your blog in the article, you can use the article to advertise your blog. If you can persuade a reader to click on your link, they will reach your blog on which you provide them with links to your website, your other blogs and your Facebook and MySpace home pages.

Perhaps you can’t write, and maybe don’t know how to use articles properly, or even where to get them. Well don’t worry. If you want to make the best use of the internet than create a blog, get blogging and then use the help provide online to make best use of your blog make money.

Blogging and traffic go together, and it is easy to create a blog to drive traffic to your website or any other online web page (such as another blog). You only need to know how.

Blogs.

As an Internet strategist – my life daily is consumed with social media feeds, blog alerts, feedburner stats, google alert updates, monitoring, strategizing, execution – all of these overused terms and time consuming tactics certainly take a toll on you.

But one thing I do often, as I do for all my clients, is research – taking notice of the growing digital space around me – thinking of ideas to implement innovative strategies among the community and with my clients.

One of those key strategies that are a must in today’s Internet spectrum is a blog.  A blog is key in driving not only traffic, but interest to your brand, product, or company.  Blogs help you appear authoritative in your industry – allowing you to give views on the latest events in your trade, offer reviews, insights, and so on.

This expands into relationship building tools, as you are able to speak more freely and in a more informal and personable style, as compared to how you direct the voice on your main website.  Through the blog channel, they are more likely to trust you, and then all the more likely to visit your main website and then click your links and possibly purchase your product.

It also offers insight for your customers, and allows them to leave comments and ’speak’ to you on a key level. In addition, blogs are extremely search engine friendly – through thousands of possible keywords and fresh, updated content on a regular basis – blogs are simply great facets to have on your website today.  Your simply misguided if you think otherwise.

*Read More for a detailed blog breakdown of the popular clothing line Free People.

Now, another aspect of blogs I enjoy are creating them, not only content strategy, but programming and designing them on a unique level.  One aspect of ‘branding’ a blog is considering the number of possibilities you have when actually build the blog.

How do you want to approach a design?
Are you a creative or less scalable brand?
Do you have the ‘assets’ to build a ‘creative’ blog?
Do you have a content strategy built before you blog?
Do you know how to ‘market’ your blog on a daily basis?

These are all important questions you MUST think about before diving into the blog space – thinking you know what to do, when you might need a refresher.

And always remember that blogs vary, depending if you are in the business-to-consumer or business-to-business parallel – but your Plan of Action (POA) should always remain the same.

Case Study.

Free People. A blog that does it Right.

Free People is a ’boutique’ style of women’s and young girl’s clothing – offered both online and in brick and mortar stores around the world.  It is a sister-brand to another well-known bohemian-type clothing, accessories and furniture store – Anthropologie.

Now, the Free People store design is a very creative, bohemian look that stylizes the brand well, and does many good things as far as marketing the brand on the main website – but their blog page does an even better job in terms of look, strategy and content.

First, when you come upon the page – you have a nice flash banner on the top portion of the blog that draws instant attention.  It’s 3-D style and moving parts, keeps the user engaged enough to move the mouse over the falling curtain rod and press it – which then drags the screen over, as if you were in puppet show – making note of their blog’s name “Caravan of Curiosities” – to keep the user engaged enough to follow through the blog to discover its true meaning.

Another side point here – naming your blog something different and marketing that along side your main brand is a nice change of pace on occasion.  But it won’t work for everyone – so carefully think about that before you go off and name your blog something completely different.  The nice touch here is that ‘Caravan of Curiosities’ still has an engaging tone to it, and how they display it in the blog is effective as well.

Working your way down the page – you recognize the 3-D style curtain outline the navigation header, which is simple – and elegant. And then just three blog pages dress the navigation header:

Blog: links to the blog homepage
Videos: links to a custom video channel page in the blog
Shop FP: links back to the main website

And from a design aspect – you have to appreciate the look with drawn curtains going down the sides of the pages – very instinctual and effective.

Now, the opening page here is the blog homepage – which after the navigation has your standard blog format and layout with a search box, archives, categories, and a blog roll entitled ‘favorites’.  They also added a store locator and 6 products that are simple photos and text that link back to the main store. The column layout is a three-column layout morphed into two columns, and in that side right column they squeeze in the blog widgets.  All of this is complimented by a great ‘notebook’ style background.  As complex and rich as this design is overall – remember, it is their content that gets the job done…not the design.  Even though I truly applaud them on such a layout – very engaging for a user to traverse through.

Finally, at the bottom of the page — a nice connection with the footer, in relation to the header — similar to how you tie any story together — you must connect the beginning with the end of a story…as you do a website — design and content including.

Content of Free People.

Now, with any website, content is king, always will be king, and on the Free People blog – it is King.  Content on blogs are crucial for search engines because you can create thousands of keywords, all of it search engine friendly, and all the content you create is new and updated – so search engines will love you for it.

Free People does a fantastic job with approaching the all around marketing term – “On Target, Off Topic”. Free People have a target audience, girls, young women ages tween to 45; easily, and for the more trendy women who may breach beyond that age – even an older woman can wear their clothing.  With that target audience in thought – as a marketer – go ‘off topic’ for a bit, and consider talking about content that is not directly related to you, but still, in a way, is connected.

Free People’s breaks up its blog into 26 different categories; topics such as art, books, decor, crafts, food, home office, magazines, polls, music, and so on.  At the same time, they intermix direct categories related to some of their external social media tools, such as their flickr, myspace, facebook, and download pages.

The point is, their content is intellectually placed, and interesting…which is even more important!  They do occasionally drop in content that will push a new outfit, piece of clothing and so on…but not as often as you think.  And they are blogging everyday – with NEW content, and using this to their advantage.

Video.

Another aspect of their content they included was a blog page devoted exclusively to video.  This custom designed video player they added features behind the scene videos of their monthly catalog shoots, as well as a video featuring their 2007 holiday party.  These simple videos are barely 1:30 minutes long, edited with appropriate music, mostly indie stuff, and cut to look a bit grainy and eclectic, as their brand appropriately exhibits now.

This simple idea of placing video on the blog is a great marketing tool.  First, the video takes an editor, all of about an hour to edit and post.  From there…he can take this video – submit it to any external video channels, i.e. YouTube, Viddler, and so on.  They can then upload them to their Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr pages – only enhancing their exposure – through something as simple as video.

For those who don’t know what this is or means; essentially this creates secondary brand exposure that allows you to initially reach out to possible consumers who might not have seen your brand before, allowing them to now find you.  It also allows you to create ‘backlinks’ to your website – this all counts in that SEO puzzle so many clients and people I speak to are always trying to solve.

Final.

Here is the point about all this – what this blog does right is pretty much EVERYTHING. What they do wrong, next to NOTHING, nearly.  And let’s be clear on this, they have people who are supposed to be blogging and acting as community managers to maintain this blog, and update their external social networking profiles, and so on.  This all takes time, and we all know what time ends up being — $$$.  But, the effect of what they have created has allowed them to ‘connect’ with their consumers, and harness new customers, and so on.  Their blog has been around since November 2006, and has amassed a huge amount of traffic daily to the blog.  Agreed – they are a major brand and can spark that type of traffic, but honestly, the simplicity behind their blog strategy only enhances those numbers.

Any company or brand that is thinking of starting a blog strategy need to follow a similar model in structuring their content and direction when beginning or ‘changing up’ a blog for your brand or product.

If you need help in developing a blog strategy for your business, feel free to contact me @ anytime. nicholas.cifuentes@gmail.com

Knowing “how” to think is much more important than knowing “what” to think. Those among us that understand how to gather knowledge, then how to use and apply what their small inner voice suggests are truly wise. The realization that our “inner voice” is our higher self (inject your own term, i.e., God, Angel, Spiritual Guide, etc.) asking to manifest itself can be a life changing event!

Okay, so what is a blog anyway? A blog is basically an online journal in which you can digitally pen down your thoughts, ideas, opinions and practically anything that you want people to read or you can visit www.your-own-blog.com. Blogs come in different styles, formats, and settings, depending on the preference of the user. Many blogging sites, offer built in features such as hyperlink, straight texts, pictures etc. Instead of writing texts, some bloggers choose to make their blogs more audio friendly, by using spoken word entries. This is called audio blogging.

Some blogging sites, even allow you to put video and mp3’s on your blogs. Blogging is popular all over the world. Blog is short for the term weblog. There are very few rules when it comes to blogging which means that bloggers have the freedom to express themselves in most any way they want. Perhaps the best thing about blogging is that most blogging sites are free. Anyone who wants to start a blog can do so by becoming a member of a blogging website of their choice. Once they’ve become members, they automatically become a part of that particular blogging community. They can browse through other blogs, and link them back to their own blogs. They can also make comments on other members’ blogs.

Bloggers usually communicate within themselves. This is one of the appeals of blogging. It creates a community of people sharing their ideas, thoughts, and comments with each other. Blogging is not just limited to personal usage. There are a lot of blogs that follow a theme such as: sports, politics, philosophy, social commentary, etc. These blogs build on their specific themes. In this way blogging becomes a medium in which people can share their knowledge and opinions about a variety of themes and topics.

Many groups exist within blogging communities. Of course, the members of the group have a common interest and the blogs provide a place for the group members to share their interest. Chats and forums are also contained within blogging communities.

A lot of entrepreneurs benefit from blogging by promoting their businesses on their blogs. With the rapid growth of blogging communities, entrepreneurs have found that this is a very cost-effective way to promote their products/services.

Some bloggers use their blogs as a means to advertise things such as ebooks, while other bloggers, and use their blogs to shed light on current issues, events, news and catastrophes. It seems the uses of this communication medium are limitless!

Blogs are also being used by many teachers and professors. Lessons that they have discussed and taught can be posted on a blog which allows students access to this information 24/7. This provides a way for students to keep up with assignments and projects.

One of the advantages of blogging is that it is made up of only a few templates. In comparison to websites that are made up of numerous individual pages this is a much simpler format. This make it easier for blog users to create new pages, because it already has a fix setting that include: slots for title, body of the post, category, etc. This is especially useful for first time users, since they can start blogging right away. They can choose from a number of templates that blogging websites provide.

But by far, the most popular blog type is the one that takes the form of a personal journal. This is the kind that is usually used by first time bloggers. Individuals who want to document the daily struggle of their everyday lives or go on www.profit-pulling-toolbars.com, share poems, rant about their issues or perhaps world issues, or simply post their opinions will find that blogging offers a place to do just that.

Blogs varying in topics, themes, and set-ups, can be found in blog directories. Browsing through these directories is beneficial for first time users. They can check out a number of blogs before deciding on any. This provides an opportunity to get acquainted with what these blogging communities are like. An educated decision can then be made about which blogging community better meets the needs and appeals to the interest of the newcomer…allowing a first-timer to get exactly what he/she is after. Blogging is fun, simple, and easy. If you haven’t tried it yet, do it now! You’ll enjoy it.

A corporate blog makes it easy for readers, be they customers or prospects, to find the latest and most accurate information about its new products and services. It can help achieve customer familiarity with the company products or services. Through the corporate blog, a company can converse directly with customers and prospects. Two-way communication creates trust and builds customer relationships. A corporate blog is the perfect choice for interacting with existing and potential clients. Corporate blogging serves as a channel for a company and its customers to meet on common ground and to know each other more. If a corporate blog can fit your company culture, selecting the individual or employee who will write your blog is doubtless to say the most important decision. An ideal corporate blogger is one who is an expert in his field. He should also write with passion and sincerity. The object of your blog is to engage your customers and prospects in conversation and the most effective way to start a conversation is to be sincere and honest in your blog while writing about topics that are important to your company. He should have good writing skills. More importantly, he should be one who is respected by his peers and reacts calmly to outbursts. Blogging is an intense medium. The individuals who will blog for your company should be the ones who can keep their cool despite critical comments. Most likely, the ideal individual is not your CEO. Corporate speak wonâ€TMt thrive in the blogosphere. In corporate blogging, goals/missions are of prime importance. For a blog to yield value, it has to be created with specific goals in mind. Some of these goals may be to increase company credibility, enhance customer service and interaction, and give customers a peek of the behind-the-scenes of the corporate culture, showcase new products or services and more. The important thing is to be clear about your goals. You have to be sure about what you are trying to get done and stick to them. As with any corporate undertaking, you also need to periodically evaluate how well you are meeting these goals. If blogging is proving to be futile, then make changes. If it still does not work, then discontinue blogging. Do take time to know your customers or prospects. Find out what your audience care about, what they are interested in. You have to identify what their needs are and what service you can perform for them. To get their attention, work out a way to participate in a conversation credibly. To be credible, come up with worthwhile content ideas, insights, news and information. Do engage your audience in lively and substantial conversations. Take into account what they say and reply to their comments. Respond in a professional and businesslike manner whether the comment is positive or negative. Allowing comments from your audience will definitely mean some complaints and criticisms. Don’t take them personally. Respond honestly and your company credibility will rise. Allowing audience to make comments is a distinct characteristic of blogs. Openness is important for successful blogging. For a blog to accomplish its mission, do update regularly. Post often and consistently, daily or weekly, at least. Do be generous with your links. Linking is one reason why blogging has become a popular online communication medium. The best corporate blogs, more often than not, have lots of links in each blog post. As for what not to do, do not close down existing employee blogs. More often than not, an employee is already writing a blog. It might be full of grievances about the recent spate of oil increases or it could be snapshots of a relaxing vacation in the Maldives. Maybe this employee is singing praises of the company’s new product. Why not engage this employee blogger in a dialogue about what your corporate blog aims to achieve. Don’t wait for a crisis to break out before creating a corporate blog. It takes time to see potential results of blogging. Don’t keep your corporate bloggers unidentified or hidden behind some make-believe characters. The audience will know and it will have detrimental effects. Lastly, a blog is not a miracle cure. It will not single-handedly turn your distressed company around. Corporate blogging should be incorporated with other marketing and communication tools to achieve desired results.

A corporate blog makes it easy for readers, be they customers or prospects, to find the latest and most accurate information about its new products and services. It can help achieve customer familiarity with the company products or services. Through the corporate blog, a company can converse directly with customers and prospects. Two-way communication creates trust and builds customer relationships. A corporate blog is the perfect choice for interacting with existing and potential clients. Corporate blogging serves as a channel for a company and its customers to meet on common ground and to know each other more. If a corporate blog can fit your company culture, selecting the individual or employee who will write your blog is doubtless to say the most important decision. An ideal corporate blogger is one who is an expert in his field. He should also write with passion and sincerity. The object of your blog is to engage your customers and prospects in conversation and the most effective way to start a conversation is to be sincere and honest in your blog while writing about topics that are important to your company. He should have good writing skills. More importantly, he should be one who is respected by his peers and reacts calmly to outbursts. Blogging is an intense medium. The individuals who will blog for your company should be the ones who can keep their cool despite critical comments. Most likely, the ideal individual is not your CEO. Corporate speak wonâ€TMt thrive in the blogosphere. In corporate blogging, goals/missions are of prime importance. For a blog to yield value, it has to be created with specific goals in mind. Some of these goals may be to increase company credibility, enhance customer service and interaction, and give customers a peek of the behind-the-scenes of the corporate culture, showcase new products or services and more. The important thing is to be clear about your goals. You have to be sure about what you are trying to get done and stick to them. As with any corporate undertaking, you also need to periodically evaluate how well you are meeting these goals. If blogging is proving to be futile, then make changes. If it still does not work, then discontinue blogging. Do take time to know your customers or prospects. Find out what your audience care about, what they are interested in. You have to identify what their needs are and what service you can perform for them. To get their attention, work out a way to participate in a conversation credibly. To be credible, come up with worthwhile content ideas, insights, news and information. Do engage your audience in lively and substantial conversations. Take into account what they say and reply to their comments. Respond in a professional and businesslike manner whether the comment is positive or negative. Allowing comments from your audience will definitely mean some complaints and criticisms. Don’t take them personally. Respond honestly and your company credibility will rise. Allowing audience to make comments is a distinct characteristic of blogs. Openness is important for successful blogging. For a blog to accomplish its mission, do update regularly. Post often and consistently, daily or weekly, at least. Do be generous with your links. Linking is one reason why blogging has become a popular online communication medium. The best corporate blogs, more often than not, have lots of links in each blog post. As for what not to do, do not close down existing employee blogs. More often than not, an employee is already writing a blog. It might be full of grievances about the recent spate of oil increases or it could be snapshots of a relaxing vacation in the Maldives. Maybe this employee is singing praises of the company’s new product. Why not engage this employee blogger in a dialogue about what your corporate blog aims to achieve. Don’t wait for a crisis to break out before creating a corporate blog. It takes time to see potential results of blogging. Don’t keep your corporate bloggers unidentified or hidden behind some make-believe characters. The audience will know and it will have detrimental effects. Lastly, a blog is not a miracle cure. It will not single-handedly turn your distressed company around. Corporate blogging should be incorporated with other marketing and communication tools to achieve desired results.

These days everyone has a blog but most of them float unread out on the internet cloud. So the big question I keep hearing is how do I get more traffic to my blog? The answer is simple, and if you are willing to put in a little time you can do it for free as well.

Blogs are more or less just like any other website out there. Sure they are designed to make it easy for bloggers to post news, images, and video without much computer savvy but in reality they are just user friendly mini-websites. So now that you have one you want to get more traffic to it so here’s a few of the free and basic first steps to increasing your blogs traffic.

#1 Blog About Something People Care About

Seriously – if nobody cares about your blog because it’s just random talk about what you ate that morning you aren’t going to pick up a lot of traffic. However, regardless of how weird your interests may be someone out there also cares about them. So this one is an easy – just blog about something that someone else can relate to.

#2 Submit Your Blog to Directories

This one is also easy but takes a bit of time. There are a lot of free services out there where you can submit your blog to. They are basically like giant phonebooks for blogs and once you add your blog to their service more people will be able to find your blog. You’ll be able to categorize your blog and many of them let you use your own “tags” which are basically key words. Just jump on your favorite search engine and type in something like “free blog submission” and you’ll find lots of sites which can help you out.

#3 Have a Blogroll

Blogs often have a list of links somewhere that lists the other blogs or websites that are related or that the blogger enjoys visiting. If you want to help increase traffic find some sites that will trade you a link on their blog for one on yours. Don’t get too carried away with this though as you can actually lose traffic if you abuse this. This is where you start to get into the internet’s deeper and more inner workings so for brevity we’ll just leave it with this: you don’t want more than about 100 links on your front page or you might actually decrease your chance for big traffic.

#4 Submit Your Blog to Feedreaders

Most blog services have the ability to create a “feed”. You might hear people talking about RSS, syndication, or feedreaders. Basically what this means is each blog creates a list of what posts have been added to it much like headlines for a newspaper. You can find sites out there like the Blog Directories which you can submit your blog feed or RSS to. If you do this they’ll pick up your headlines and people can then dig through them for interesting blogs. The best part about these feed systems is that most continue to check your blog for updates so once you’ve submitted it you can just reap the benefits!

#5 Blog Often and When Appropriate

One mistake some people make with blogging is blogging when they have nothing useful to say just to get another “post” on their blog. If you are doing this then you are going to have a hard time making fans who are interested in saving your page in their favorites or bookmarks. However, you want to often update your blog. If you don’t post regularly then you’ll bore your fans. Blog often, but make sure you’re blogging something of interest.

#6 Make Sure Your Blog Has a Theme

If you’re blog is all over the place you’ll have a hard time putting together a fan base. You may get a few hits here and there by random people but you want to build a community. To do that you’ll probably want to pick a few categories you’re going to post about and stick with them. If you are the type who likes to make random posts sometimes you could just make a category called Random Thoughts or something along those lines but again be careful.

#7 Pingbacks and Trackbacks

If you want people to visit your blog then visit other blogs that are related to yours and get involved. You’ll find that people often leave comments with links back to their own blog or another related blog in the comments. These are part of the pingback/trackback system which can be a lot of fun and also get you a lot of additional traffic. Avoid spamming though as you’ll just irritate potential friends and you’ll likely have your comments removed and lose your comment ability.

#8 Appearance Matters

Every blog service offers templates which can make your blog look unique or have a style you feel fits. Often you can also customize your blog with custom graphics and tinker with the layout. While this can really help your blog be careful that you aren’t making it irritating to potential readers. Not many people want to come to a blog that hurts their eyes to look at or which has loud music they don’t like.

There you go, 8 simple tips on how to increase your blog traffic. The last thing to remember is that building up your blog traffic is going to take time. Depending on the potential number of people interested in your topics and your other blogging related skills it could take weeks and even more likely months to really get things going. If you blog it, they will come!