To answer this question, let’s first look at how a blog is created. Just like creating web pages, first, you need a software or script that will take your entries, format it and publish it to the web. The second component of a blog, is the web space, where the software should publish to, a home for the blog pages.

Knowing this information, let’s review the different ways to host a blog:

Full blog host.

This is where the blogging system or software is provided for you and your blog is also published to a web space provided by the host. Blogger, SquareSpace and Typepad fall into this category. It’s very much like creating a website with a site builder.

Hosted blog software but published elsewhere

This is where the blog software is provided for you but the blog pages are published to another website or web host altogether. By doing this, the software acts as a publishing system like FrontPage except it creates nicely formatted blogs. Blogger is probably the most well known for this. Yes Blogger can do both. Publish to their host or to yours. As a comparison, this is like using FrontPage to publish your website.

Blog software and blog are hosted on your web server

This is where you would install the blog script (software) on your web server – it can be any web hosting account. And when you publish, the blog itself resides on your web server also. To draw a parallel, this technique is like buying web hosting and then installing a content management system on it to help you build web pages.

If you’re new to building web pages or have built sites using site builders then you might want to go with a fully hosted blog. These hosts do all the nitty gritty for you and there’s very little technical stuff you need to know. If you can point and click, you can build a blog with a full blog host.

Having said that, just because you’re seasoned at building web pages doesn’t mean full blog hosts won’t work for you. In fact, if you have many blogs this becomes very appealing since you won’t have to worry about upgrading the blog script, people exploiting the script, making plug-ins work or what happens when your web host decides to disable part of your blog functions because there is a security hole. All you do is concentrate on blogging. After a while, blogging becomes more important than maintaining your blog and that’s the way it should be.

Next up, hosted software but blog is published to your website. This seems to be the best of both worlds. At time of writing, Blogger is one of the best ways to do this but because of its popularity often, you find the system too slow to publish or completely down just when you have a hot idea to share. The idea is good but you’ll also be depending on someone else’s availability to publish your blog. It’s much like using a friend’s computer to build your web pages and you know how that can go.

Finally, you have the option to use scripts. This is also a very popular method. The flexibility it allows is very liberating because you can mould the blog anyway you want. You can even get a programmer to create custom plug-ins or customize the whole blogging system the way you want it. In short, you can do pretty much anything you want.

The down side, you need at the very basic, some knowledge of HTML or publishing web pages. Also the burden of upgrading, troubleshooting and maintaining the script is on you. If you have one or two blogs it’s not so bad but once you start having more, it can be quite tedious. You also have to consider all the other responsibilities of maintaining the script as mentioned earlier.

Armed with this information, you should be able to figure out which one is for you. If you’re still undecided, think of how you would do it if you’re creating a regular website. Chances are your choice method for publishing a website is also the best method for you to create a blog.

But, I like it.

It makes this new form of communication kind of mysterious in a way, though, BLOGS have been around for quite some time and only recently have been recognized as a VERY valuable asset to Internet marketers.

Recently, I was visiting some Internet marketing related Forums and noticed many of the threads having similar “Subjects” saying… “What the heck are BLOGS?”

So, I did a little research and this is what I came up with since I was Very curious myself.

I think it’s best that I clearly define to You exactly what a “BLOG” is so that as I go through this article with you, you’ll have a clear picture in your head of what a Blog IS and so there won’t be any confusion.

A “BLOG”(A.K.A. Web Log) by definition is:

A combination of online diary and/or guestbook. You sign up for a blogger account and then you enter the information You want on your Website. Then you can set it so that only you can place entries on it or so that anyone can. Then you can either keep a private journal or you can have a place where your readers can get together and place entries to each other or to you.

So… there you have it in a nut shell.

To simplify it even more let’s just say BLOGS are a place to go and post your personal thoughts that you can share with your subscribers and/or readership and receive feedback.

Now, for the purpose of this article, now that you know the true definition of a “Blog”, I’m going to share with you some reasons WHY they&re becoming a widely recognized “POWER TOOL” for Internet marketers around the world.

So, with that said, lets go to Reason #1.

Reason #1. Great way to stay in touch with your subscribers.

Blogs are a great way to stay in touch with your subscribers and/or readership and builds regular readership Traffic to your little community where you can interact with them.

It also helps build rapport, which in turn, will help develop that TRUST in You, Your Products and/or Services that You recommend.

Reason #2. It’s a great way to get “Feedback”.

Blogs are a great way to get Feedback from your subscribers/customers simply because they have the ability to leave comments on each “Post” you make which will then help you find what it is they&re looking for making YOU look like a “Hero” in there eye&s and putting $Money$ in your pocket.

Reason #3. Can be managed by ONE individual.

Blogs require NO “HTML” experience, making it easy for ANYONE to get started.

Most “Blog” communities online use what is called a “WYSIWYG” HTML editor.

Did I lose you there with the “WYSIWYG” abbreviation. That simply stands for… “What You See Is What You Get”.

It’s one of the easiest HTML editors to use, making it easy for You to get started right away.

Reason #4. Your able to list your “Main” website details.

When you sign up for your Blogger account you’re given an area to set-up your “Personal Profile” where your able to list your Main website and URL, plus, any other personal information you wish to share that will be displayed on your Blog.

Reason #5. A great way to publish “Information”.

This is probably ONE of the Biggest benefits to Blogs because you have the ability to post informative information in the form of “Articles and/or Reviews” for your subscribers and/or readership which will make you look like an Expert on the subject and giving you INSTANT credibility in the eye&s of your reader.

Reason #6. You get your own URL.

That’s right, you get your own URL you can use in all your promotions and/or on your personal website if you have one.

This feature is great, especially for people just starting out and don’t have there own website up and running yet.

—————————————–
Here’s my Blog for you to take a look at.

It’s called… The Internet Wonders Blog.

http://theiwe.blogspot.com

—————————————–

Reason #7. Search Engines love them.

Search Engines love Blogs because they are so “Content Rich” and are always being updated on a Daily to Weekly basis.

When you compare a regular static website, which might be updated on a monthly basis, to a Blog, which is updated on a Daily to Weekly basis with NEW content, you’ll gain favor with the search engines with your Blog.

The S.E. “Spiders” will then gladly stop by to munch down on whatever NEW content you posted and Index your website more often since that is what Search Engines love and are constantly looking for.

Reason #8. The ability to use RSS with Blogs.

A powerful feature about Blogs is the use of RSS(Real Simple Syndication) that allows you to Instantly send your Blog highlights to your readership upon publication which will keep your reader up to speed on your business and your Products and/or Services.

Not only that, RSS also gives your Blog more exposure to a wider audience of subscribers building a bigger readership in less time.

By simply adding an human element to your business through the use of a “Blog”, IS a great way to build rapport and gain the trust of your subscribers and/or readership, which in turn, will turn them into buying “Customers”.

Well, there you have it, “BLOGS! What They Are… And WHY They&re Becoming A POWER TOOL For Internet Marketers”.

I hope this article clearly answered the questions you once had about “Blogs” and the benefits of starting one of your own.

As I have said before, blogging is a therapeutic form of rehabilitation. It allows a sigh of relief in most cases, allowing people to get a load of their shoulders. Blogging has been limited to people who are Internet exposed people, most of which are the yuppies of tomorrow. Some professionals, particularly in the great areas of the United States and Europe have taken this up and most of them have two things on their mind: for personal distinction (fame) or as another source of income (fortune).

Many have claimed that people are earning millions by the day from blogging alone. Some are just in it to gain the exposure they are longing for, something that they fail to achieve in the competitive world of today, particularly in journalism and article writing tasks. It is not hard to distinguish which blogs or compositions are authentic and the purpose of which is to spread information and become sources for future people who blog. It is the content, hence why people say “Content is King”. If it is just money for the sake of placing keywords in a particular article, then writers and bloggers may as well be given a negative attention towards people who search the web for quality written content or blogs. This is a rarity today, the reason being, all they want is to attract people to visit their sites and raise their page ranks as analyzed by Google which will raise the stakes for possible pay per click advertisements. This gives article and content writing a bad name. It deprives the people who really pour out their heart and minds towards sharing towards people what their opinions really are. Blogging should not be treated solely for making money, it should be about a person’s viewpoint, something that is surely different from that of others.

For fame itself, people who love to read what a person writes is more than enough to give due recognition to the author. Quality should never be sacrificed for keyword density as they say. It is not easy to spot a poorly written article. Repetitiveness of words, and totally out of sync compositions are the immediate noticeable marks. So the next time you see such things, expect the blog or composition to be full of non-sense and just go back to the previous page and look for that quality written composition that is worth the time reading. Besides, everyone values their time, hence make good use of it and spot the low quality content right away.

Instead of writing texts, some bloggers choose to make their blogs more audio friendly, by using spoken word entries. This is called audio blogging.

Basically a blog contains these features:

title- which allows you to label your post
body- this is the content of your post
trackback- other sites can be linked back to your blog
permanent link- every article that you write has a URL
comments- this allow readers to post comments on your blog.

One of the advantages of blogging, is that it is made of only a few templates. Unlike, other websites that is made up of numerous individual pages. 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 chose from a number of templates that blogging websites provide.

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 bloggers pages, and link them back to their own blogs. They can also make comments on other members& blogs.

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 espouse on their specific themes. This way blogging becomes a medium in which people can share their knowledge and opinions about a variety of themes and topics.

Some bloggers even use their blogs as a means to advertise. Some authors advertise their books on their blogs. While other bloggers, use their blogs to shed light to currents issues, events, news and catastrophes.

Nowadays in education, blogs also play an important part. Professors use blogging to document the lessons that they have discussed and taught. This way, students who who have missed classes, can easily catch up with their assignments.

A lot of entrepreneurs benefit from blogging by promoting their businesses on their blogs, with millions and millions of people logging onto the net everyday, blogging has become a lucrative move. Some bloggers who run online businesses promote their merchandise online. While others profit through advertisement.

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, poems, rants, opinions, find that blogging offers them a medium in which to express themselves.

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.

Blogs varying in topics, themes, and set-ups, can be found in blog directories. First time users who want to get an idea of what the blogging world is all about can browse through a number of blogs using these directories. This way they&d get an idea of what these blogging communities are like.

Blogging is popular all over the world. Blog is short for the term weblog. There are no rules when it comes to blogging. Bloggers have the freedom to express themselves how ever way they want, and the best thing about blogging, is that most blogging sites are free.

There are numerous blogging websites to choose from in the net. This give first time users the option of joining a blogging community that appeals to their interests.

Just search any blogging directory and you&d get a listing of a lot of blogging sites that are available on the net. It’s easy to search a blogging directory, because it is organized according to category. This way you would get exactly what you are after. Blogging is really for everyone. It is fun, simple and easy.

Firstly I’ll explain what blogging and pinging is. Blog and ping is a technique you can use to get your site listed in search engines. The idea is that search engines like blogs because of the ever updating content, so they keep going back. By writing a blog and placing some site links in the posts, the search engines will spider the links, and pages shortly after you blog.

Pinging is when you send a “ping” to let the directories, which keep lists of blogs, and when those blogs are updated, know that you have added content to your blog. These are allegedly closely watched by the search engine spiders, so they can spider any new content and add it to the search engine which controls them.

Anyway, back to my experiment, does blogging and pinging really get your site noticed?

Well my results have been encouraging. I have tested by only using a blog as the front page of a new information site I started. http://www.informationpagesonline.com has only been advertised by way of the blog to announce new content, and then pinged through http://www.pingoat.com which distributes the blog entries to several large ping sites.

Following a week of adding content, and then posting an announcement of the new content to the blog on the front page and pinging with pingoat, the site seems to be getting visitors to most of the sections, which I can see from the log files. I can also see some of the traffic is coming from search engines, and also a lot of spider activity can be seen on the site, where the search engines are crawling the content.

So I have to conclude that blogging and pinging is a way of getting listed on search engines, or at least of getting noticed by them quickly.

Should you be blogging and pinging?

Of course that&s up to you, but for the time it takes, it maybe worth trying blog and ping for yourself and tracking the results. A quick blog post (use http://www.blogger.com if you don’t already have a blog) and then ping with pingoat takes only a few minutes, and may help a site into all the search engines quickly.

1) Where to start?

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Journal Home. I don’t say that because I’m the owner, but a free blog host is very rewarding for a new blog. 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 build an audience and buzz for your blog. 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, then you have a niche…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. Though, I am seeing a growing trend of successful blogs that are not being updated daily, but they are successful and have a stable audience who continue to visit their blog daily. Regardless, these blogs are still updated weekly with multiple entries. Until you have a steady audience 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 ZapContent.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 blog 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 (free) to attract more people. This means you should have a blog with JournalHome.com and others. The more blog accounts the better (be sure to read and adhere to the Terms of Service for each site). 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.
Short and Concise

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short and 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. Stay keyword-focused.

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, TypePad, 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 “I have a new home for my blog, please bookmark and follow the link: http://www.YourNewBlogDomainName.com”. This way all returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem finding your new blog domain. Plus, search engines can easily index and crawl your new blog, since your old blog should already be popular with the search engines.

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.

To learn more about successful blogging subscribe to the Journal Home Newsletter

If you answered NO, your not alone.

I didn’t either at one time, but that didn’t stop me from finding out How-To on my own.

So basically, what I’m trying to say is by the time you finish reading this article you’ll be a master at setting up your own Blogs and RSS Feeds in a matter of minutes by simply following my simple &Step-by-Step& instructions below.

With that said, Buckle Up, put your thinking cap on, grab yourself a beverage and get ready to learn…

“HOW-TO Set Up Your Own BLOG and RSS Feed In Less Than 5 Minutes…”

Know lets go to Step #1.

Step #1. Go set-up an account with Blogger.com.

This is probably the easiest part of all, which is simply setting up an Blogger.com account at http://www.blogger.com.

Go there right now. It will take you to Blogger.com&s homepage.

Once there, you’ll see an orange arrow pointing to the right that says…”Create Your Blog Now” … click on it.

That’s Step #1.

Step #2. Creating your account with Blogger.com.

If you thought Step #1 was easy than Step #2 will be a breeze.

Simply select a Username and Password that you’ll remember followed by your Email Address.(You don’t have to use your primary email address, you can use a Free web-based email account like Hotmail or Yahoo! if you like. Your choice.)

Then check the box that says “I accept the Terms of Service”.

Now proceed by clicking on the orange arrow that says… “Continue”.

That’s Step #2.

Step #3. Naming your Blog.(Very IMPORTANT!)

Now, depending on what your Blog is about your going to want to use your target &Keywords& within the name of your Blog, its description and the URL.

And there’s a good reason for this simply because this is what the Search Engine spiders are going to see first.

They&ll first see them within your Blog name which is at the top of your Blog that your visitors see, they&ll see them within your description of your Blog and then they&ll see them within your Blog URL that you choose.

Why is this SOoooo important?

By using your &Target Keywords& within those areas I just outlined, thats what the SE&s will use to index your Blog under so when someone does a search for those target keywords, guess whose Blog will pop-up within the results depending on your competition?

That’s right, Yours!

The SE&s will also use those area&s I outlined for your SE listing within there results index.

Here’s an example for a quick &Case-Study& for you.

This is one of my Blogs I have.

Go to: http://internet-marketing-tactics.blogspot.com

You&ll notice my Blog title, description and URL all have the &Keyword Phrase&… Internet Marketing Tactic.

To take this a step further, I want you to go visit these search engines MSN, Yahoo! and AlltheWeb and type in “internet marketing tactics” within there search boxes so you can see where my Blog sits within those SE&s so you can see the importance of having your Target keywords within those area&s I mentioned earlier.

MSN

http://www.msn.com

Yahoo!

http://www.yahoo.com

AlltheWeb

http://www.alltheweb.com

In the MSN SE results my Blog is #1 for that keyword phrase, in Yahoo! I’m #11(not bad) and in AlltheWeb I’m #18.

Of course these positions will very in time but just as long as you get the point of WHY you need to use your Target keywords within those 3 areas.

Lets move on.

Now, your last step for Step #3 is to simply type in the &Verification Code&.

Once you’ve done that, click on the orange arrow below that says… “Continue”.

Step #4. Choosing your template.

If everything went well in Step #3 and that Blog name you chose isn’t taken you should be looking at a bunch of Blog templates Blogger.com offers.

Simply select the one you like most and then click “Continue”.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You just created your first Blog and completed Step #4.

You should now be looking at an orange arrow that says… “Start Posting”. Click on it and it&ll take you to where you can start posting whatever it is you want.

Now that you have set-up your Blog your probably wondering… “where does RSS fit into this formula?”

Step #5. Locating your RSS Feed URL.

What can I say, I always leave the Best for last.

Assuming your still within the Blogger.com &Posting& area you’ll notice a bunch of tabs at the top labelled, Posting, Settings, Template and View Blog.

Click on the &Settings& tab.

This will take you to a sub-menu with a bunch of other options.

Out of all those options click on the one that says… “Site Feed”.

And there it is.

It should look something like this:

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

This is the URL you’ll want to use to promote your RSS Feed with to the RSS search engines and directories so that everytime you make a post, the RSS SE&s and directories will be &Automatically& notified and updated with your latest information bringing your Blog more exposure to your target audience.

That about sums it up for this tutorial, but, just before I go I’ll leave you with a few articles I wrote earlier on RSS promotion to help you get the Most out of your Blogs and RSS Feeds.

Here are the links:

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/article_13.html

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/article_14.html

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/article_16.html

Now that you are armed with this information that I just revealed to you, you should have no problem setting up and getting the MOST out of your Blogs and RSS Feeds.

Use a Casual Tone

The most interesting blogs are not written using formal grammar rules. Frankly, the formal tone can be a little boring and web surfers don’t want to read through a bunch of “hoity-toity” text. If you want your blog to be popular and a success overall, consider writing in a more casual tone. Think of the writing as being a conversation you are having with a friend. Write exactly the way you would talk, not the way you are supposed to talk. Using slang and other words that may not be considered “proper” is a great way for your blog to reach a wide variety of viewers. Using humor and other personality characteristics in your writing will make people want to keep coming back to read your newest entries.

Don’t Overdo It

Keeping your blog short will help you retain any interested viewers. People don’t want to spend massive amounts of time reading text on the web. If they wanted to read a novel, they would do just that. Try to stick to your point and keep it nice and short. A blog that is more than 500 or 700 words is just too much. If you need to carry on with the topic, consider creating another post that finishes your point. Although this is basically creating one long blog, the break in the text will be welcoming and readers will be less likely to get bored.

Never Advertise Improperly

Too often people use blogs as a space to advertise their services or their products. This can be a cheap way to get your work out there. It is noted however that blog readers can get annoyed quickly at advertisements on blogs. If you must advertise on your blog, consider doing so in a more subtle manner. Write a short post about your product and put a link to your website. Don’t take up your entire blog space with the advertisement. Although it may seem like a great idea, you will essentially be scaring people away from your blog altogether.

Check Your Spelling

Although the tone of your blog should be kept casual, you should still edit your work. There is a way to be casual, without being sloppy. You should always check your spelling before you submit your post. If your posts are sloppy and full of misspelled words, people will think that you are not educated and probably won’t take anything you say seriously. Some blogging software comes will a spell check features, while some doesn’t. If your blogging software does not come with any spell check feature, simply create your post in a word processing software and use the spell check there. Then cut and paste your edited work into the blogging software text area. This will allow you to post without spelling errors, which is highly recommended.

Be Versatile

If you want to reach the largest amount of people, you do not need to advertise endlessly. You simply must be versatile with your post topics. Those blogs that cover only one type of thing may be popular with one specific targeted group of people. That is fine, if it is what you want. If you want to reach everyone however, you need to post on everything. Consider posting on current affairs, music, books, and other hot issues. This will draw people in. When you post about popular things in the news, it will draw people to your site when they do a search on the web.

Post Often

People who become fans of your blog will likely be looking for a new post every few days. Some will only look once a week. If you want to keep your blog fresh and interesting, you should post often. Posting often is something that takes very little time, because your entries should stay short and sweet. It is a way however to keep things new and exciting for your biggest fans. They will be waiting for your new posts and will continue logging on as long as you provide them with new information.

How are blogs created? There are several options. The cost-free way is to start a blog at one of the countless free blog services, such as the Google service called blogger. Another option is to use one of the free blog scripts and install it at a paid or free hosting service. Such free blog scripts are also numerous, the most popular of them being wordpress. It is also possible to sign up for a paid hosting service with an already installed wordpress blog, but this service is somewhat costlier.

Now let’s assume that we already have a blog. The next question is: Where do we get content? Choose the subject for your blog. It may be your professional occupation or hobby. In any case, you must have solid knowledge of the subject. For instance, if you are a proctologist, you may write about hemorrhoids, their treatment, prevention and suchlike as long as these are not scientific articles, but materials written in layman&s language. To give you a more practical example, if your hobby is dogs, write about them and people will enjoy it. There is another way to get content. The web has many services offering free articles. All you have to do is select the most interesting ones and publish them. In this way you can quickly fill your blog with content.

Moving on to the question of promoting your blog, it is worth noting that blogs are better indexed by search engines than ordinary web sites due to the specifics of the algorithm used in blogs. For instance, a new article in a well-promoted blog may appear on the search engine results page already on the following day. Of course, this requires registration in special catalogs devoted to blogs, which is what you will do next. Another way is to publish articles with a link to your blog. There are also services meant for just this purpose.

But most importantly, a search engine needs external links to your blog from other web sites. These should be good links generating heavy traffic. What does it mean? It means that ideally the link should be on the web site&s main page. What’s more, this page should have a PR rating of at least 4 (PR or Google Page Rank reflects the significance of any particular web page). Five or six such links will do more than hundreds of other ordinary links. How can you get such links? There are also various options. For instance, you can find a resource thematically related to your blog and offer its owners to reciprocate links. Finally, you can buy such links. The higher the web site&s PR rating, the more such links will cost you.

Now let’s move on to the question of how you can earn money from your own blog. The scheme is quite simple: traffic is converted into money. Your income increases proportionately with the traffic volume. One way to earn from a blog is to place ads, which is done most often through google adwords. Another way is to participate in partnership programs associated with the subject of your blog. So if your blog is devoted to dogs, you should advertise flea control products and other dog-related merchandise. A third way is to sell your own merchandise or services. Of course, you can combine several ways of generating income in a single blog. Last but not least, remember that strength is in numbers, which is why it’s a good idea to maintain several resources at the same time.

You can, of course, also use this time to work on your backlinks. Articles are always a good start. They’re a great way to make a name for yourself and your company. Articles placed on typical articles sites are good, however, the key to gaining recognition is getting your articles on industry leading sites. Getting your articles into trade publications is a good idea as well. Use this time to work on your image and letting people know who you are. Image is everything and how you represent yourself and your company can help build your reputation and provide natural links.

Starting a blog is a must today. Start building a community. What sort of business you are in will dictate what your blog would be about. It could be on your industry’s news. It could be tips, ideas or insights into what you do or offer. Blog tools such as MyBlogLog make it easier to find readers and build a community, not to mention get ideas from other bloggers.

Using social bookmarking in combination with your articles and blog posts can help increase your exposure. There’s a lot of great info on the net on how to use social bookmarking to your advantage. Sites such as Digg are a great way to build traffic and links.

You can purchase reviews by other bloggers using services such as payperpost. These will allow you to pay bloggers to write about you while gaining the links you need for SEO. Finding the right bloggers is important. You want to hit readers that will be interested in what you offer with an eye on relevancy for the links you’re hoping to get.

A podcast is a great way to gain exposure, build trust and help brand your business. Podcasts aren’t for every industry. It will be up to you to decide if it’s right for you. Having a podcast is also another way to gain natural links which will help with your SEO.

There is so much you can do while waiting for your SEO to kick in that will not only help build your company and image but will also help aid you in your SEO efforts. Many of the aforementioned items won’t put a dent in your budget, though they can take up quite a bit of time. Still, most business owners just starting out have a lot more time on their hands than money.

So, don’t relax while you’re waiting. Get aggressive and watch you’re your business and traffic grow.

There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them, so here is a -short- list of tips for marketing and optimizing a blog:

1. Decide on a stand alone domain name www.myblog.com or directory of existing site www.mysite.com/blog. Sub domain is also an option blog.mysite.com. Avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name!
2. Obtain and install customizable blog software – WordPress and Moveable Type are my favorites.
3. Customize blog look and feel templates – aka design.
4. Research keywords and develop a glossary – Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, SitePoint, SEOBook Keyword Research.
5. Optimize the blog:
* Template optimization – RSS subscription options, social bookmark links, HTML code, Unique title tags, URLs, Sitemap
* Add helper plugins specific to WordPress or MT
* Create keyword rich categories (reference your keyword glossary)
6. Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality.
7. Create Feedburner Pro account and enable feed tracking.
8. Setup Google acount for Sitemap, validate and prep for future submission.
9. Identify authoritative blogs, web sites and hubs for outbound resource links and blogroll.
10. Format archived posts, related posts.
11. Enable statistics for tracking – Performancing, Google Analytics, ClickTracks.
12. Submit RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories / search engines.
13. Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.
14. If podcast or video content are available, submit to Podcast and Vlog directories.
15. Submit blog url to paid directories with categories for blogs – Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW, JoeAnt.
16. Optimize and distribute a press release announcing blog.
17. Request feedback or reviews of your blog in relevant forums, discussion threads. If you have a resourceful post that will help others, point to it.
18. Research and comment on relevant industry related blogs and blogs with significant centers of influence.
19. Post regularly. If it’s a news oriented blog, 3-5 times per day. If it’s an authoritative blog, 3-5 times per week, but each post must be unique and high value.
20. Monitor inbound links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog – Google Alerts, Technorati, Blogpulse, Yahoo News, Ask Blogs and Feeds.
21. Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.
22. Make contact with related bloggers on AND offline if possible.
23. When making blog posts always cite the source with a link and don’t be afraid to mention popular bloggers by name. Use keywords in the blog post title, in the body of the post and use anchor text when you link to previous posts you’ve made.
24. Use social networking services, forums and discussion threads to connect with other bloggers. If they like your stuff, they will link to you.
25. Remember when web sites were a new concept and the sage advice to print your web address everywhere you print your phone number? The same advice applies for your blog.

Do Your Research

Smart bloggers know that each day there are popular search terms listed on large search sites. Bloggers can use these search terms to help them get more traffic to their blogs. Each day a blogger can look at these popular search terms and creating posts using them. If the blogger is lucky, they will increase their traffic due to more people looking for that term. By researching the topics that are hot with readers each day, bloggers can create things specifically for the readers. Doing research may take a little time and you might never be writing about what you want to write about, but you will likely have more traffic than ever.

Ask Around

If you have been blogging a while you might have began to hit low points where you really have no more topic ideas left. Some writers call this “writer’s block” while others just see it as a small hurdle to be surpassed. When you have come to this difficult point, the best thing to do is ask around. Talk to interesting people you know. You can ask them what topics they find most interesting at the time. If you would rather be a little more subtle, simply bounce a few topics off of them to see which ones they respond strongly to. Use the topics that they respond strongly to in order to gather ideas for posts.

Use the News

The news is a great place to gather topic information for your blog. News teams research and investigate for hours to gather their topics. By using similar topics, you can skip all of the hard research work and still be a success. Never use their ideas exactly, just take them and use them to develop your own. For instance, if there is a major political issue going on in the news, consider creating a post about what you think about it. You don’t have to use the news story, just the topic idea along with your own words.

Follow the Lead of Others

When you are looking for great blog topics, consider visiting popular blogs to see what they are talking about. Don’t steal their ideas, but use the visit to stir up great ideas of your own. Sometimes when you see others working at their highest potential it can spark new potential in yourself. You can see which topics get the best response for their blog and decide if you could get the same response with a similar topic.

Sleep On It

If all else fails and you are still trying to come up with a list of interesting blog topics, consider this interesting strategy. Go to sleep each night with a clear head. In the morning, before you even open your eyes, target the first thing on your mind. Write it down immediately so you don’t quickly forget. Then use these things to develop interesting blog topics. You would be shocked at how inspiring our first thoughts can be. They are so interesting because they are not clouded with any outside stressors from reality. They are simple thoughts typically that can be used successfully on a blog.

These five ways to find winning blog topics are proven to be among the best. A blog topic is one of the basic important aspects of your blog. Be sure that you pay attention to which topics get the best response on your blog so you will know which ones are most effective. Use all or some of these tips to help you get on your way to better blog topics right away!

If you want to initially distance yourself from your product, then you might well find it easiest to register a blog with one of the major blog hosts and set yourself up as a special interest blogger. You may wish to do this to attract visitors who might not frequently visit your site but are interested in the markets you serve. If you sell wine for instance you could blog about wine in general and reference the special offers that you sell, maybe including short tasting notes. It might be beneficial to come clean about your association in an About Me page, as being professionally involved in a specific market adds a certain authority to what you write. It would be clear to frequent visitors that you only mention one company but they would have initially been attracted by the content, and would most likely continue to visit as long as the content is valuable to them. The important thing about doing it this way is that your content should hold up regardless of your promotion of your product otherwise you won’t get visitors returning.

Blogging for pleasure
If anything this is the most rewarding way to blog. Writing about something you have a passion for is most likely to get visitors who share the same passion and can grow a community as you link to other blogs which have the same focus. I am an Arsenal Football Club supporter and have a blog http://blogs.goonerville.com/blog/LGS_blog.php where I vent and applaud everything about the club and football in general. If you leave the comments turned on, you will get visitors posting their replies to you which can help you gauge reaction to your opinions. But beware, you may not always like what people say about you! It’s not compulsory, but you may also be able to make a little money from Adsense or affiliate sales as long as you don’t overdo the adverts because you will have a very targeted audience reading the blog.

Whether you are blogging for business or pleasure, the important things to remember are:

1. Write in your own style, don’t try and copy anyone else.
2. Use original content. You can use other material, but make sure you are not breaking copyright and add your own content.
3. Pace yourself. Don’t start out intending to post every day if you don’t have the time and inclination. It is better to start slowly and increase if you can rather than gradually tail off.
4. Use humour if you are humorous. Even if the blog is factual, visitors like to be entertained.

If used well, blogs can be a tremendous aid to communicating whatever message you wish to advance. There are many things you can do to make your blog more accessible and popular, but that are beyond the range of this article and will be covered in future articles.

You can make use of blogs in order to promote your business today and in the years to come. This is not an easy task and so you will need all the help and some tips to keep you on the right track.

Here are some useful tips that you can incorporate in your internet business:

• Back links are valuable – to promote your business through the use of blogs, you have to give importance to back links. The blog post contents should be able to incorporate appropriate back links. By doing so, you can attract much traffic to your website in a more effective manner.

• You must learn to use the right keywords – all the contents of your blogs should have the right or appropriate keywords. Effective blogging can also place your internet business among the top searches in the results of search engines.

• If you plan to use blogs for your internet business, you must be able to make posts regularly. If you forget to make posts, your blogs will not be very effective for your internet business. Sporadic bloggers have no place on the net and so if you want your efforts to be rewarded, make sure that you post blogs frequently.

• Your blogging efforts will be rewarded if you post frequently and if the contents are interesting. Through effective blogging, you can establish the reputation of your online business and not only that, you can shout to the world your business expertise. If you want to gain a positive reputation, make sure that you post interesting blogs that are related to your business.

Those are some simple tips that you can use for blogging. Indeed, blogging can be very useful for online business but only if you can post effective blogs.

At present, many owners of online businesses are now making use of blogs to promote their products and services. If you want to become a blogger and at the same time a successful owner of a business, try to learn how to make effective blogs.

Some say that blogs are not that hard to compose. To some individuals, it may be their way to share their personal experiences and everyday life. But according to some expert bloggers, you also need to consider the interests of the readers and online researchers. Remember that once you start posting blogs in your business& website, you have to post frequently (at least once or twice a week) so that your customers and readers will not forget you or your business.

So what are you waiting for? Learn to make blogs now and become an effective blogger. Your business will surely benefit from the blogs that you post. If you want to learn more about effective blogging for business, you can easily conduct researches online because you can find a wealth of information there.

Blogging for business is one of the most effective means of making your business a success. Start making blogs now and you can earn more profits in the future.

1. Create pages within the blog that contain reference material you refer to often in your posts. These static pages will also get crawled and indexed by the search engines and as you write posts about your topics you can refer people to these static pages as references to what you are posting about.

2. Use articles as static pages. You can reprint articles on any topic for free by visiting one of the many article directories like http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/articlesubmit/ Then refer people to read the articles that relate to the post you are making. You could even add one article as a new page every time you make a post.

3. Refer to other posts you have made on your blog or on another one of your blogs while posting. This gets the reader to click over to previous posts. You can even decide your posts by browsing previous posts and deciding which one to follow up on. Those archives are not to be lost and forgotten. Its great material, (you wrote it right?), so use it.

4. Create a page that links to your favorite posts that are timeless. You browse your old posts, find posts that you want readers to find easily, then build a links page with those posts directly linked. Then add a link to that page from your front page. Call it favorite posts or whatever and you will benefit by those that click through and follow those links.

5. I’ve posted here before about the “more” tag. You write your post as normal, then decide where you want to break the post up onto a new page. You put the more tag in and readers have to click to a new page to read the rest of the story.

6. Write once per week special projects. These are a series of articles on a particular topic. You will be offering it once per week giving readers a week to comment on it, then have them hanging on for next weeks special post in the series. Each time add links to previous posts in that series.

7. Using your content from your other websites or blogs is also a great way to get more pageviews for all of them. Use the target new tag and refer to material on your other blogs and websites. It will open a new window leaving the current blog open while they visit your other website or blog. You can quickly double up your pageviews while also introducing your readers to your other websites and blogs.

8. Make a list of 10 previous posts and the links to those posts. Make a post in your blog about 10 things you want your readers to know and read in case they have not done so before. At your suggestion they will at least go see if they have read those posts before, increasing your pageviews once again plus bringing old material to new readers. That also lets them know they should browse the archives for things they have missed.

9. Using that same list of 10 posts or a new one, visit other blogs on your topic. Find posts that talk about something similar to one of those 10 posts, then instead of adding a link in your signature to the home page, make a comment there and refer to the post that is similar and that contains helpful information to that blogger and their readers. You will also be increasing your link popularity while doing this. Do not spam the link. Make sure it actually contains useful information. Don’t be trolls or spammers and you will end up with new readers and more page views for your blog.

10. Do not stop being creative. Use the tips in this article, plus invent some of your own ways to interlink your blogposts together. Create pages. Don’t just post and forget. That content is valuable, use it. Do not make people search your blog. They are lazy and busy. Bring it to them. That is just good customer service.

I hope this article helps you learn there is more to blogging than just writing a post once in awhile or even daily. If you employ the tips I just gave you into your blog I guarantee you will increase your pageviews which in turn will increase your revenue if using an ad program in your blog.

Not only do the Search Engines love them for there Content Rich pages, you also have the ability to plug your Blogs “Site Feed” into an RSS feed and then have it syndicated to thousands of websites and directories giving your content more exposure to your target audience.

RSS(Real Simple Syndication) is a very Powerful technology that has been around for quite some time and when used correctly, can build an audience overnight.

If you want a crash course on what RSS is, in more depth, since the nature of this article is to show you how to get your Blogs “Site Feed” listed in Yahoo! and MSN, I’ve provided a link to a page full of articles on RSS related issues. http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-articles.htm

Now, depending on where your Blog is hosted, whether its through a free service like Blogger.com — http://www.blogger.com or hosted on your websites server you should have a “Site Feed URL” that has the .XML extension.

This is your “Site Feed URL”.

You&ll usually locate it within your Settings area of Blog control center.

Here’s what mine looks like as an example:

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

This URL is intended for a RSS News Reader, so disregard its appearance.

Once you find your “Site Feed URL”, copy and paste it into Notepad because you’ll need it for the next steps coming ahead.

Now, what you need to do is go and set-up an My Yahoo! and My MSN account.

I’ve provided the links for you below.

– My Yahoo! ==> http://my.yahoo.com

– My MSN ==> http://msn.com

It should only take you about 15-20 minutes at the most.

If you already have accounts with My Yahoo! and My MSN, read on.

This is assuming you already have your accounts set-up, so your next step is to Login to your My Yahoo! account.

When you login, you’ll be taken to your Yahoo! page immediately.

What you want to do next is go look under the Yahoo! search box to the left and click on the “Add Content” link.

This will bring you to a new page.

From there, over to the right by the “Find” button you’ll see an “Add RSS by URL” link, click on it.

A new window will open with a “Web Form”. Simply copy and paste your “Site Feed URL” from Notepad into the web form and click on the “Add” button.

Now, you should see your Blogs name infront of you. Simply click on the yellow “Add To My Yahoo!” button and your feed will be added.

The next thing you should see is your “Site Feed” with your “Headlines”.

Click on one of them, it should take you to your Blog, to the desired Headline you chose.

Your My Yahoo! page should Now have your Blogs “Site Feed” Headlines listed at the bottom.

Scroll down to check. If you don’t see them, it sometimes takes up to 24-48 hours for them to appear, so just check back later.

Now that thats done, everytime you update your Blog with NEW content, it&ll “Automatically” update on your My Yahoo! page and everybody else&s pages who have subscribe to your feed, plus, within 24-48 hours your feed will get Spidered and Indexed by Yahoo!.

Talk about getting the word out in a HURRY with very little effort on your part.

This is “Viral Marketing” at its Best in my mind.

And… it’s so simple to implement.

Okay.

Now it’s time to do the same to your My MSN account as what you did above to your My Yahoo! page.

Here’s the link to go login(click on Sign In from main page): http://www.msn.com

Once your login to your My MSN account you should see an “Add Content” link under the MSN logo to your left. Click on it.

A pop-up should now be displaying. Simply copy and paste your “Site Feed URL” from your Notepad into the web form provided and click the Search button(the green button with the arrow).

You should now be looking at Check Box with your Blogs name beside it. Check off your “Site Feed URL” and then press the OK button at the bottom.

PRESTO! Like magic… your Blogs site feed has now been added to your My MSN page which will then be spidered in the next 24-48 hours and Indexed by MSN.

That’s the Power of BLOGS(Web-Logs) and RSS(Real Simple Syndication)combined with two Internet giants.

The only thing you have to bring to the table IS, fresh, quality content that your audience WANTS, and do it on a regular basis.

I post my articles that I write on a weekly basis, making my Blog called… The Internet Wonders Blog – http://theiwe.blogspot.com – a search engine Magnet!

You can do the same because I just showed you HOW.

In conclusion, creating BLOGS and using RSS as a vehicle to syndicate your Blogs content is a Sure-Fire way to get your content spidered more frequently by search engines and the exposure it deserves, which in turn, will build you a large audience of buying customers that TRUST you.

In managing a list of many Web sites, most of which are blogs, I deleted countless sites from the list because the sites and blogs no longer existed. The people ran out of steam or had no reason to start them in the first place.

How do you know when a blog is right for your business? Learn why people start blogs, how they find their niche and how blogging tools can be used for more than blogs.

Blog content is king

Some people like to read blogs, others like to read newsletters, still others like to rely on feeds and some read a few or all of them. No matter the method the information is distributed, each medium has one thing in common: content. Having a blog connects your newsletter and your business with all of these readers and delivers important content in a particular style.

I’ve been blogging since June 2000. If you review my early blog entries in meryl&s notes, you’ll notice they&re more personal. When blogs first hit the scene in the late &90s, they were personal diaries and journals. Like the blog business, my blog has transformed from personal to business speak, although I still add personal notes here and there.

A few bloggers tend to talk about their work, their products and their little world. That might work for celebrities where fans want to know everything about them, but it doesn’t work for the average business person. Other business people want information on how to succeed and when a blog spends time hawking products offering information of no value, few people will return. The people whose products sell well are the ones who provide valuable information. Readers already know what kind of information they&re getting, so they trust that when they buy something, it will be of the same or better quality. This value must be reflected in their blog. It’s much like people who only sign up for a newsletter after first seeing an example.

Who should venture where one has not blogged before?

No one wants to be a lemming (I would hope). How do you decide whether or not to set up a blog? The answer isn’t black or white (what did you expect?). Ask these questions:

• Can you regularly update it — at least five times a week?
• Do you have something to say other than just linking to others?
• Do you read other blogs or feeds?
• Can you provide information of value to others not just to yourself?
• How large is your newsletter subscriber list?
• How many unique visitors do you get on an average day, week or month?

The big decider is whether or not you can write in the blog almost daily. The people behind the high traffic blogs post multiple times a day. Though resourceful, merely linking to other sites doesn’t give visitors much reason to make the effort to come to yours. Reading other blogs or feeds is a great way to learn how to carry a discussion. Find other blogs covering topics similar to yours and check them out. Disagree with their opinions? Write about it and explain your reasons. Cross-blog discussions are common, and that&s where trackback comes in handy.

Trackback is a blog feature. If you decide to comment on another blog posting in your blog instead of in that blog&s comments page, then you link to the conversation through the trackback link. Trackback is similar to the permalink, the permanent URL for the blog entry, but it has a different URL for copying and pasting in your blog&s trackback box.

Aside from the technical aspects of operating a blog on a daily basis, subscriber list size and Web site traffic are good indicators of what kind of reaction you’ll get when opening a blog. Starting from scratch with little traffic means you have a long road ahead and lots of work to do. There is no magic formula anyone can sell you for $97 to make your blog an overnight success. But with some perseverance and ingenuity, your blog can engage many prospects and clients.

Pick a niche

Considering there are numerous blogs out there, pick a niche topic when starting a blog for a better shot at attracting and keeping an audience. meryl&s notes focuses on three areas: webby, geeky and wordy. In reality, this is too much. What I need to do for my readers is create three separate blog entry points, so those interested in writing, newsletters and Internet marketing get nothing but the wordy entries. Those interested in Web design get the webby stuff and the technophiles receive the geeky content.

I also manage a personal blog separate from meryl&s notes. It’s about cochlear implants and deafness. This could fall under the geeky category, but it’s a personal blog and doesn’t belong in meryl&s notes. This blog is written for a different audience.

The blogging tools for both of my blogs come with syndication capabilities so those using feed readers or aggregators can read the content through the software. For an explanation of syndication and feed readers, refer to What Is This RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom Business? When sending a new issue of a newsletter, comment on it or link to it in the blog, that way the blog and feed readers will get the goods, so all three bases are covered.

Blogs in disguise use the same tools

Blogging tools aren&t just for, well, blogging. Such tools are an excellent way to help you update your Web site more often than you otherwise would. I use it to manage the list of tableless Web sites. Using blogging tools is much easier than the way I managed it before, updating the HTML files by hand. Though using a blog tool, it isn’t a blog. In this case, the blog tool has become a content management system (CMS).

Small business owners don’t have a need for the fancy and pricey CMSes out there. They find it easier to use blogging software to manage their sites or hire someone to adapt the tool for their site.

Blogs have found a place in businesses and people are finding creative ways to use them. Some companies have a blog on the intranet for communicating project status, jeopardies and metrics. They&re used for knowledge management. With information pouring in, blog tools provide a way to share, organize and process the information.

Being a follower can be good or bad. No one wants to walk off a cliff with the lemmings, but everyone wants to succeed. Best practices won’t help, since the decision to blog is based on the organization&s mission, needs and goals along with its target market&s desires and needs. A blog about lemmings? There is one, sort of. Or maybe you&d like to start your own and talk about dumb business moves.

A blog is mostly about a person’s daily experiences, however, there are blogs which cater to a wide array of the ‘blogging’ public – ranging from topics like food, different crafts, health, family, politics, spirituality, books or movies – almost anything under the sun.

Because of the immense popularity of blogging, it is being practiced by millions of online users all over the world. This popularity and the widespread awareness of blogging is now being used by business owners as a means to reach out a particular market and earn an income for their business.

‘The ABC’s of MLM’

MLM stands for multi-level marketing. Many network marketers have seen the opportunity of the blog and is using it as their weapon to target a specific market.

Network marketing is a business technique used by entrepreneurs to increase their profits.

Business owners use different ways to generate leads and increase their business. If you are just starting out in business, you make use of the following ways to generate leads and increase your earnings:

1. Advertising

Google Adsense is the most popular way of generating income through blogs. Here, the blogger who posts entries on his or her web site makes use of the opportunities given by Google AdSense ads.

If, for example, you have a personal blog and there are AdSense ads related to the topic that you often write about, each “click” on the ad posted on your blog will earn you an income from Google – from as as low as a couple of cents to as high as hundreds of dollars a day – depending on the amount of traffic as well as your own techniques is using Google AdSense to your advantage.

2. Article writing

Online users scourge the Internet for information. If you have a lot of articles on your web site, you can generate a lot of leads for your business.

If you can get people to personally request information from you, there is an even higher chance of you getting leads. There are also companies or service providers who can generate leads and promote your web site for you.

3. Web site building

If you have a web site for your business, you can easily optimize it to generate leads so that you can advertise, post articles and build customer rapport and interaction through message postings.

‘Network Marketing Success’

The traditional method of network marketing is by spending hours on the phone calling prospects, convincing them and turning them into clients. Out of these leads that you generate, you can recruit representatives to further increase your profits from your home business.

Keeping customers happy, gaining their trust and building a strong relationship with them are just some of the things to remember with network marketing.

Once you have gathered enough leads using either purchasing or generating your own leads – then you have to know what to do with it. There is such a thing as a ‘bad lead’ where you will get prospect objections and rejections.

There is a disadvantage in getting the services of a lead generation company since some of them might sell re-used leads – which you will not get to discover until it is too late.

Also, in network marketing, it is important to learn how you can get your prospects to always say yes, instead of hearing a bunch of no’s from prospects. In addition, you need to make sure that your advertising money is worth it.

‘How to Use Blogs to Generate Leads for an MLM Business’

With Internet marketing, you have to be innovative and find ways to develop a well-thought out promotional campaign.

However, you cannot predict the results. You may have an extremely profitable and successful promotional campaign one time and then completely fail the next time.

With the popularity of blogging, you can use this in expanding your business and generating leads.

For example, if you are an entrepreneur who has a small jewelry business, you can have a blog where users interested in jewelry or jewelry-making can post their comments.

Being a small-scale entrepreneur, you need to market and promote your business. You can easily do this and generate a lot of lead by having the visitors on your blog post comments and address their questions and feedbacks to you, personally.

This would not just add on to your lead but also give you a feedback of what most of your prospective customers want or need.

With the use of a client-specific blog, multi-level marketers and business owners can easily generate leads, contact prospects, turn these leads into sales and watch their profits increase.

We all know that things can change rapidly on the Internet and how a simple change like the Google Slap can turn smooth running profits to nothing overnight.

Rob is all too aware of this and has been working on how to make blogging a more sustainable and long-term income stream. In his book he tells of his trials of developing a blueprint of how to research keywords for your niches, creating a blog (as well as where to host it), content creation, optimizing your blog and generating the traffic you require to become a success.

What we found most interesting is that Rob recommends outsourcing some of the content creation to companies that specialise in the field of writing articles! Although it sounds daunting the math does work out in the long run in your favour. This is definitely an avenue even we at OpinView haven&t quite fully explored. Of course, you can always write your own content. However Rob claims outsourcing provides a fantasic means for content to be uniquely written as well as cost effective – his recommended content creator is www.rentacoder.com.

Another aspect which Rob shows in his book is the arrangement of the blog page. We found it cool because it’s just like a marketing tutorial! It’s like, “Place this at eye level for 3 year olds so they can see the bright colours and pester Mom to buy it for them.” There’s a diagram of how to place additional monetization tools like Adsense and content to best attract the reader.

Rob&s book is really easy to read. Again, we covered it in about a few hours and tested it on Blogger.com to see if what he said is actually do-able – and it is! There are some odd bits which will require some knowledge of HTML but for the better part it is geared towards a beginner.

All-in-all this is not a bad book for someone with an interest in blogging and wants a blueprint for how to make money blogging. It contains good content on how to generate backlinks through social sites as well as different methods to promote your blog.

We definitely recommend Blogging To The Bank 2.0.

Check it out before you miss the boat!

First you need to find what people are looking for when they visit your site. Researching what actual words people type in to search engines is vital, these are your “keywords”.

Do your research on your keywords using Overture and Wordtracker. Overture will tell you how many people are searching on particular words or phrases. Wordtracker gives you an idea how much competition there is for those keywords.

Once you have your list of keywords, then you are ready to optimise your website. I say keywords as, with increasing competition on the internet, you are more likely to have success with keyword phrases or a group of keywords, than with just one keyword.

There are just seven easy steps:-

1. Name your site appropriately – if your site is about cat food, then include the keywords “cat food” in the title of your site
2. Ensure that your keywords are included in the page title
3. Add a Header tag using H1 tags
4. Use your keyword in the first line and last line of your content
5. Add an Alt Tag to your pictures which includes a description of the picture and includes your keywords
6. Ensure that your keyword is included in the outbound links from your site, an easy way to do this is to link the page back to itself.
7. Sprinkle your keyword a couple more times throughout your text and ensure that you have at least 250 words on the page. If you can’t write this much, then write an introduction and then add a free article from one of the Article Directories, such as Ezine Articles.

If you include most of these on each of your pages, you’ll find that you should move up in the search engine rankings over time.

All of these methods are what is called “on page” optimisation.

You can also optimise “off page” by building links to your website, using one of the many link swapping sites available.

You can also create quality links to your site is by leaving comments when you visit other people’s blogs. When leaving a comment, ensure that the “name” you leave includes your keyword, where possible, and a link back to your site. For example, you could leave a comment from “Jo @ Cat foods”, linking back to your website address. If you’re not sure where to find relevant blogs, either type in your keyword and the word “blog” into any of the search engines, or visit Blogger . com and run a search for your keywords.

Another great way of creating links to your site, is by writing and submitting articles to sites such as Ezine Articles.com ensuring that a link to your own site is entered in the Resource Box.

You may not see immediate results from your efforts, but with patience you will find that you see more visitors coming to your site as your rankings in the search engines improve.

You can find out more about starting and running your internet business, visit Start your own online home business.

This article was submitted by Jennifer Carter, why not build links to your website today.