1) Where to start?

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

2) Niche

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

3) Update Daily (nothing less)

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

4) Traffic

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

5) Track Your Blog

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

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

6) Listen to Your Audience

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

7) Multiple blogs

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

8) Short & Concise

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

9) Digital Art

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

10) Keep it Personal

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

11) Interact With Your Visitors

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

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

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

12) Make Money

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

13) You’re a Professional

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

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

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

About the Author

My name is Phalgun Shenoy. I am a blogger. I like to write articles and as a result I love to share my views with audiences. Please do visit www.techlive.co.nr daily for more articles. My Blog is all about technology related news and of course it is updated in daily basis. Please don’t forget to comment on articles.

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.

Tip to Get Your Blog Noticed #2: Get a Yahoo Account

Signing up for a Yahoo account is free and allows you to attach your blog to it. Doing this is one of the quickest ways to get your blog included in the Yahoo search engine. Most blogging expert’s turn a dark shade of red when they find out others have not done this because it can be so beneficial.

Tip to Get Your Blog Noticed #3: Get an MSN Account

Attach your blog to your MSN account the same way as described in Tip #2.

Tip to Get Your Blog Noticed #4: Use Your E-mail

Place a link to your blog in your e-mail signature place. This ensures that anyone you send an e-mail to will see it. This is a great method if you send a chain letter.

Tip to Get Your Blog Noticed #5: Use Article Directories

Since you’re already developing your skills as a blog writer, you might want to consider writing some articles also. You can submit these written articles to directories such as www.ezinearticles.com and www.goarticles.com for people to read. Make sure each article you submit provides a link to your blog.

Tip to Get Your Blog Noticed #6: Add Your Blog to Search Engines

Web Sites such as www.addme.com will add your blog to 14 of the top Internet search engines for free.

Don’t give up on your blog. It takes time to develop a strong readership. Now that you have more practical tools for getting your blog noticed, you may find that the process speeds up some. Remember, blogging isn’t only about providing interesting and well written topics. You also need to be able to promote your blog. The tips above offer great ways in which to do so.

About the Author

Codrut Turcanu is a full-time Top Marketer from Romania. Sign-Up for his 6-part FREE eCourse (A $29.95 VALUE) and discover “How To Make Real Money With Blogs” http://www.HowToMakeMoneyViaBlogs.com

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.

Blog Term #3: Linking

Most popular blogs provide links within their content that allow people to be redirected to other Web Sites in order find more information on a topic, or as a means of referencing the topic to make sure that the blog is accurate. All too often many blogs are purposely filled with false information. However, linking helps legitimate bloggers separate themselves from the fakes.

Blog Term #4: Posts

This term refers to the addition of a new entry to your blog. Each time you update your blog, this is called a post.

Blog Term #5: Template

All new blogs are issued with a standard writing template. Don’t think that your topics and writing alone will be enough to generate readership. You’ll also want to edit your template so that it stands apart from those of everyone else. A blog must be just as aesthetically pleasing as it is informative.

Blog Term #6: Blog host

In order to get a blog you need to sign up with a blog host. Such Sites include Blogger dot com, or if you have a My Space account, you may have realized that you have a blog space there. Whatever the case, remember that there are many blog hosts who offer the service free, so don’t waste your money with one who requires a fee.

Blog Term #7: Blog directories

These are massive online databases that catalogue the millions of different blogs in cyberspace. When you start your own blog you will also be added.

Blog Term #8: Niche

You’ve probably heard people mention the need for your blog to have a niche. A niche refers to the purpose of your blog. Does your blog discuss politics, pop culture, or music? Each one of those is a niche.

Blog Term #9: RSS feed

This is a piece of code you can include with your blog which allows people to subscribe to it. This takes the hassle out of your readership having to visit your blog to see if it is updated by automatically informing them every time it is.

Blog Term #10: Trackback links

This is a tool that notifies another bloggers anytime you reference their blog. It also includes a link to your blog from theirs. This is a great way to expand your notoriety, as well as build some connections with other bloggers.

As you continue to learn about blogging, these ten terms will make the process easier. Any time you come across a blogging term you’re unfamiliar with make sure and research it before making any decisions. For now though, the terms above will be enough to help you get started blogging on your own.

About the Author

Codrut Turcanu is a full-time Top Marketer from Romania. Sign-Up for his 6-part FREE eCourse (A $29.95 VALUE) and discover “How To Make Real Money With Blogs” http://www.HowToMakeMoneyViaBlogs.com

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.

8. Inconsistent Posting

Now that you have a loyal fan base who are notified of every new post, don’t disappoint them with time lags between posts. Pick a posting schedule that’s realistic for your time schedule and stick to it. If you can’t think of anything to post about, blog about someone else’s post related to your topic and include a link back to that post.

Will this hurt your own blog to send subscribers away to another blog? No, because you’re still offering them something useful in lieu of you posting something. You can also leave a comment or trackback on the other blog that links back to your post which can send traffic back to you. Bloggers often monitor their trackbacks or incoming links through Technorati, PubSub or other services. They might end up blogging about you in return.

7. No Contact Info

Some blogs can pull off the mystique of an anonymous posting. But if your website is for business, it’s hard to have a two way dialogue when you make it impossible to contact you. Transparency is fundamental to building trust on the web. And you don’t want users to mistake your reputable blog for a “splog” or spammy blog that scrapes content from other sites.

If you don’t want to advertise your email address because of spammers you can still enable comments on your posts. Yes you’ll still get spammed, that’s the reality of the Web. Wordpress blogs come with Akismet anti-spam which does a good job at catching most spam. You usually have the option to moderate comments before they appear on your blog.

6. Not Moderating Comments

Allowing anyone and everyone to post whatever they want in your comments section is asking for spam. Not only is this annoying to your readers, but it really takes down the professionalism of your blog.

5. Excessive Advertising

It’s fine to monetize your blog or use affiliate links, as long as they are not intrusive to users and overshadow useful content. When ads appear all over the page and even in the middle of posts, the user experience suffers. Avoid contextual ads — programs that highlight words in your posts to make them look like hyperlinks, but popup an ad when they are rolled over with a mouse. Just like having items appear clickable that are not has been usability issue, so is tricking users into clicking on ads or viewing ads when they appear to be hyperlinks.

And if your blog is very new, it’s a good idea to wait until you’ve built up a history of useful posts before running advertising.

4. Not Linking to Posts

When you’re referring to something that can be found on the Web such as a news story, another business, person or other blog post (whether on your own or someone else’s blog), allow your reader to check out the background info. Linking back to previous entries also builds page strength for those posts and can help you with search engine rankings. But don’t be afraid to link off your site, this generosity can help you get noticed by other bloggers. And it’s also nice to give credit where credit is due.

3. Dark Background, Light Text

What’s been a general usability rule for years certainly applies to blogs. Anything that makes your blog harder to read should be avoided. Remember, it’s harder to read online than offline. The worst culprits for eyestrain are white text on a black backgrounds, low contrast combinations like black with red and busy patterned backgrounds. And it’s a good idea to avoid blocks of red text, even on a white background.

2. No Search Box

Returning visitors may remember a post that’s not intuitive to find through your navigation menu or tag system. Regular readers might also want to find their own comments, so make that possible by placing a search box somewhere in your layout. 1. Hiding Navigation

Most blog software comes with a variety of lovely templates to skin your site. But not all of these templates are optimal for usability. Templates that require users to scroll right down to the bottom of the blog to find navigation are not the best choice. Stick to conventional left column or right column navigation.

One of social media’s best gifts to the World Wide Web is the ability to “tag” posts by subject/content and automatically create a navigation categories. Users can easily browse by subject, and hone in on all your posts related to a specific topic or microtopic. This also helps users find you on blog portals like Technorati.

You also have the option of displaying calendars, archives and tag clouds which may or may not be useful and can clutter up your page. Keep in mind that with usability and design, less is often more.

Conclusion

Taking some time to evaluate your blog wearing the hat of your reader can greatly improve the user experience. Considering what makes a user-friendly blog before you begin blogging helps you plan for optimal usability right from the start.

About the Author

Linda Bustos is a social media blogger and the Marketing Director for Image X Media, a Vancouver web site design and Internet marketing firm.

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.

If you decide that your business will merit from having a blog, the first thing you should do is research the whole concept of blogging as it relates to consumer based enterprises, the do’s and don’ts of blogging and a realistic evaluation of the expenditure in time, effort and money as well as the projected increase in sales and the time scale when this should occur. Try out the various blog hosting services available and test drive those that you think would best suit your enterprise. Once you understand exactly how blogs work and how you can optimize them for maximum profit, it is time to set out your official business blog.

But first there are certain steps to be taken if you want to maximize the benefit of your business blog to your enterprise, whether it be online or offline.

1) Blog Design - All free blog hosting services provide templates that can be customized. But if you want your blog to accurately reflect the nature and requirements of your business, you can opt for paid blog service and hire a design artist to create a layout that is compatible with your specifications. Have a few extra designs developed and rotate them so that you can experiment and see which one has the best pulling power in terms of increasing visitors to your blog.

2) Select Topics - While the overall theme of the blog reflects your business strategies, you should have a number of topics on related matters to post to your blog. This way your readers will get to understand you and your overall thinking on general and specific business practices. This will help them to decide how much trust to place on you, your recommendations and finally but most importantly on your products/services. Writing on matters other than your own enterprise prevents your blog from being too much of a marketing ploy, so your readers will not be put off when you do mention your own merchandise.

3) Formulate Blog Policies - Set policies in place that take into account any legal issues that maybe involved. Take legal advice on what to include under disclaimers and limitations of liabilities. Decide who gets to blog and what information is allowed to be made public. Since business blogging is a comparatively new phenomenon, perhaps the staff needs to be educated on how it can positively impact on your enterprise.

4) Follow Up - Once you start your business blog, you must have at least 20 - 25 posts before you launch your marketing campaign. Update the content at regular intervals, always making sure that it is original, relevant and emphasizes your company’s core values. If you regularly track feedback from your readers, you will be able to fine tune your marketing and advertising campaigns to attract more dedicated customers. Finally, add your website URL to your business blog before you start submitting it to blog search sites and directories. In order to increase your ranking on search engines and get a regular flow of visitors, use keyword phrases that are most effective and relevant to your blog.

These simple and easy to follow tactics should help you in setting up a business blog that complements your other business practices and make your endeavors even more successful and financially rewarding.

About the Author

Do you want to know more about how Blogging can help you make money on the Internet? If you do, download the Free Report: Blogging For Profit and apply the info found in it to succeed in your business. For e-books and articles ranging from parenting to web designing, visit www.ebookmall4U.co.uk.

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.

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.

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 postbody- this is the content of your posttrackback- other sites can be linked back to your blogpermanent link- every article that you write has a URLcomments- 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.

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Did you know? - Blogs Increase Your Website’s “Findability”

A website that is positioned well on Google, MSN and Yahoo is has the potential to be a significant money-maker. The continued explosive growth of the Web makes this one of the hottest topics in Internet Marketing - how to be found?

Blogs increase your Website’s findabiltiy. Blogs attract search engines and blog directories (through built-in notification features) and IF a blog is updated continually with new and fresh content, the blog and the sites that it links to will appear in search engine indexes more quickly than “traditional” Websites.

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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.

Michael Saunders has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He edits a site on using Blogs for Online Marketing and maintains a site on Online Promotion Strategies.

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