WebberBlogs.com

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

1) Where to start?

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

2) Niche

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

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You’ve probably noticed that most articles claiming to be able to guide you in the best ways of getting your blog noticed don’t really offer very practical information. Most offer the same advice. They tell you to write about popular topics and to proofread your blog, and to write at a level that the average person can understand, just to name a few. But anybody can do this and still never gain a single reader.

In an effort to help new bloggers, and maybe even experienced bloggers, have a better chance of developing a strong readership, here are some helpful tips. It should be mentioned though, that the advice mentioned above that is found in most articles is still important to adhere to.

Tip to Get Your Blog Noticed #1: www.pingomatic.com

This Web Site offers a free service that automatically sends out a message to search engines informing them that you have updated your blog. All you have to do is type in the name of your blog and its Web address, and then choose which blogging services to contact and your done. Make sure and do this every time you add to your blog.

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Most people don’t understand what the term “blog” means, much less any of the many other terms that are used when discussing the subject of blogging. To help clear up any confusion and misunderstanding, the following list of blog terms was compiled.

Blog Term #1: Blog

Most people don’t understand what a blog is, which is why it is at the top of the list. The term “blog” is short for Web log. Blogs are essentially online journals kept by individuals; though not in the traditional since, where they divulge their innermost thoughts and secrets. Blogs are used as a place for people to discuss their interests and offer advice to others who read them. Some people have even become skilled enough at blogging to make money doing it for a living.

Blog Term #2: Pinging

Pinging is a useful tool used by bloggers to get their blog noticed. There are hundreds of Web Sites available that provide this service free. What pinging does is it notifies the many popular search engines that there has been an update to your blog. This helps move your blog up the ranks of popularity so that it has a better chance of getting noticed.

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“Sinning” is an archery term, which literally means “to miss the mark.” If you’re blogging to establish a two-way dialogue with the world, the “mark” is the optimal reader experience. The following is a list of ten things that can hurt your blog’s usability.

10. Sending Mixed Messages

The focus of your blog should be decided before your first post and then committed to. Random blog entries about a melee of topics might work for a personal blog read by friends and family, but is not a good approach for a serious, professional blog. The lifeblood of any blog is in its loyal subscriber base. And readers are more willing to subscribe to blogs that talk about their area of interest on a consistent basis.

If your blog’s “personality” includes the odd personal entry, create a separate category for “fun stuff,” “random” or other “personal,” and think about each post’s fit with your target audience before you publish. Or start a separate blog on that topic and cross-link your blogs.

9. Making It Hard to Subscribe

Because subscribers are such an important part of blogging success, you need to make it easy for users to sign up. Since not all users understand and use RSS feed aggregators like Feedburner and Bloglines (also called newsreaders), offer both email and RSS options. Make them very conspicuous, preferably placing them at the top of your navigation menu and above the fold.

Don’t be afraid to “ask for the subscription” at the end of each post as well. Chicklets are mini-icons that make it easy to add to feed aggregators and social bookmark sites like del.icio.us and Netvouz with one click. You can find more information on adding chicklets to your blog with the Chicklet Creator.

If you are using free blog software and hosting, it may not be possible to add these extra functions. So plan ahead when choosing your platform.

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Whether you own an off-line or on-line business, you can not truly succeed until you have harnessed all the opportunities offered by the Internet. Nothing proves this fact as clearly as the power of business blogs to bring your products to the attention of millions of online users who can skyrocket your sales. A business blog is a cheap, user friendly and flexible marketing tool by means of which you can advertise your wares and gain a distinct advantage over your competitors.

Creating a business blog with an effective review of your products/services enables their almost instant promotion, as millions of bloggers spread the word to their readers about what is on offer. Nowhere else would you be able to get such a degree of free publicity with so little effort and expense. With brand recognition, comes brand loyalty as customers realise that here is a businessman/woman who wishes to communicate with them and to respond honestly to their concerns, queries and suggestions. This type of direct feedback from potential buyers would in turn help to improve the quality of your products/services as well as monitor their buying patterns. Incorporating this information into your marketing strategies will further increase your sales figures.

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How much time have you wasted waiting on your Webmaster? With blogging, you don’t have to punish yourself anymore. Imagine a blog to be a platform that was designed by people who hate to waste time as much as you do. Just login from anywhere in the world, write a new page, and publish. It’s now live for all the world to see.

Blogging is a concept that started in late 90s. It used to be a way to comment an existing webpage, an opportunity for visitors and readers to react or voice out one?s opinion on the said page. What started as a single-sentence commentary has evolved into pages of personal take on just about anything and everything under the sun. As it continues to move forward, online advertising has tapped into the blog’s potential. Here are 5 reasons why you should use blogging as an Internet marketing tool.

1.Blogging is simple. The simplest way to get your piece on the net is through blogging. No skills are necessary - an average adult can read and type, or at least click a mouse. It?s like having a virtual piece of paper and you just write your ideas, experiences, new products, and hope that the truth behind your articles comes out and entice your reader to also try your product. If you have a PC and an Internet connection (who doesn’t?) then you can blog and advertise.

2. Blogging is authentic. In this day and age where advertising saturate our lives, we question the credibility of promoters’ claims. However, in blogs, real people share their real-life experiences, unscathed by paid advertising. Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about their first-hand experience. You definitely want to buy a tried and tested product.

3. Blogging is free. Because blogging is yet to be proven as a mainstream online advertising media, most sites see it as something to augment current marketing tools and thus offer it for free. Any opportunity for free webtime is definitely a bonus especially to businesses that are starting up. Needless to say, paid blog pages can generate more income for your seriously growing business.

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Did you know?

That writing and submitting high quality articles to article directories is an excellent way of building your link popularity. This is a key promotion tool and increases the liklihood that customers will find your product or service.

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4. Blogging builds credibility. As you get more and more into writing your experiences on a particular product or industry, your readers come to realize that they can depend on your posts for their own information needs. As such, you become an expert on it; as a consequence, more readers visit your site and more bloggers link to your blogs. As companies and professional organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they may soon get in touch with you for advertising on your blog page, or make you an affiliate, which pays for every referral generated from your blog site.

5. Blogging builds your market. Unless you are a Hollywood star, chances are, only your Mom reads your posts. Mom has a lot of friends, so she lets her friends know how interesting your blog site is. But you need not depend on Mom to increase your readership base. Look into the following ways to build your market through blogging:

-By using your e-mail. Today, blogging is overcoming the e-mail’s popularity in quickly and effectively reaching and expanding a market. In this age of speed and quick access, logging in and downloading e-mail is simply taking longer than clicking into a blog site. Let them explore your site by using a short e-mail message as teaser to your blog site. If your e-mail is on an entirely different subject, use your e-mail signature to give a link to the site.

-By using subscription. An easy way to get your readers e-mail is to give them an opportunity to subscribe to your blogsite. Keep some exclusive information for your subscribers to entice readers to subscribe and give their e-mail address. Just be responsible in using their e-mail address, as the last thing you want is a comment on your blog that you are a spammer.

-By understanding your readers. Conduct a simple survey for your readers to understand their profile and advertising preferences. Ask consumers to give you feedback on a post, an ad link, or a trial that you shared. In this way, it is like interviewing your readers without the commitment and intrusion of a face-to-face interview.

-By joining a blog network. A network of blogs maybe a collection of blog sites that share the same industry, interest, readership base, payment mode, etc. Consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to several real bloggers about a single subject. Clearly, more bloggers are better than one.

-By using RSS. RSS is the fastest growing technology on the Internet today. As such, having RSS feeds to your blog is definitely another means of generating awareness for your readership base. Having a variety of feeds can add interest to your blog site.

Give your business a boost by effectively using blogging as an Internet marketing tool.

Michael Saunders has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He edits a site on Blogging Strategies in Internet Marketing and maintains the Best Internet Marketing Strategies Site.

Have you tried to publish Website pages the ‘old way’? It involves your HTML publishing software, an image editing software and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software - then you’ll begin the endless process of create, save, upload, view, tweak, save, upload, view - ad infinitum.

With blogging, you can focus more on getting your word to your target and less on the technical aspects of old-style Web publishing.

A blog is basically an online journal wherein you can digitally pen down your thoughts, ideas, opinions and practically anything that you want people to read. 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. Some blogging sites, even allow you to put video and mp3’s on your blogs.

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If you have a WordPress blog, here are six plugins that you shouldn’t be blogging without:

1) Akismet

Simply put, spam comments suck! Akismet was developed by the creator of WordPress to combat this growing issue. Akismet is remarkably good at distinguishing between real comments and spam comments. Although it is included with every download of WordPress, you do need to activate it. Before you activate it, you need to obtain a WordPress.com API Key.

2) Google Sitemaps Generator

In order to receive traffic from Google, you need to ensure that your blog is fully indexed. The easiest way to accomplish this is by submitting a sitemap through Google Web master Tools. This plugin allows you to fully customize and generate a sitemap for your blog.

3) Sociable

Web 2.0 is all about social networking and bookmarking, especially for blogs. Sociable allows you to display unobtrusive social bookmarking icons under each of your posts. These icons make it easy for your visitors to give your posts a nice viral push. The plugin allows you to customize exactly which icons you want to display (anywhere from one to twenty-five).

4) Related Entries

Increase your page views with the Related Entries plugin. This plugin uses the keywords of each post and places a box with five related posts at the bottom of every post.

5) Another Wordpress Meta Plugin

Although Meta tags are not the most important element of SEO by any means, they are still an important factor. This is especially true with WordPress blogs, because without them you can run into duplicate content issues and be banished to Google’s Supplemental Results. This plugin makes it simple to add Meta tags to your home page, posts and categories.

6) AdSense Deluxe

If you plan on using Google AdSense on your blog, AdSense Deluxe is the easiest way to automatically insert ads into your posts. AdSense Deluxe also supports YPN ads!

Adrian Singer is an Internet Consultant with http://www.SoftwareProjects.com