Blogging for Business

Blogging is really hot and yet many people still have no idea what it is or what it's for. I usually get one of two responses when I tell people that I recently launched a blog: 'A what?' or 'Great, where can I find it?'

It seems people are either completely aware and involved with blogging or unaware of its existence. Don't be left behind and miss out on a fabulous opportunity to connect with more potential clients and partners.

Some people have heard about blogs and have a negative impression of them. Yes, there are people who have blogs that consist of nothing more than an on-line diary that documents their ordinary, daily life activities. This is NOT what I am talking about. I want you to use blogging to promote your business!

Highly respected business leaders and writers like Debbie Weil, Tom Peters, Seth Godin, and Malcolm Gladwell as well as large corporations have blogs, so why not you?

How blogging benefits your business:

* Gain additional exposure to prospective clients and the media

* Drive traffic to your website

* Positions you as an expert and your business as the solution

There are several ways to get involved with blogging. Start where you feel comfortable and choose any, or all, of these options:

1. Start reading interesting blogs

2. Comment on others' blogs

3. Begin your own blog

READING BLOGS

Think about authors of books you like and see if they have a blog. What about your industry, who are the leaders? Do they have a blog? You can search technorati.com which is a search engine similar to Google which is specifically for blogs.

So how do you know when the blogs you like have new information for you to read? You can download software to your computer although I recommend two other options. One is a web based 'reader' which simply entails going to a website (newsgator.com and bloglines.com are examples) and signing up and then selecting blogs you are interested in. The other option is to receive notification of your favorite blogs via e-mail by signing up at each blog you like. You can always do a combination of both.

COMMENTING ON BLOGS

After each entry on a blog there is usually a link at the end that says, you guessed it, 'comments' and if you click on it you can type in your thoughts on the topic. Some blogs allow you to post your comments immediately and others preview your comments before posting.

When you write interesting comments to blogs, you gain exposure because you 'sign' your comment by adding a link to your website, your e-mail address, or to your own blog.

START YOUR OWN BLOG

There is a ton of free information on the internet about how to start a blog so I won't go into the details here. Trust me, I'm no technical wizard so if I can do it, you can too. You don't have to design anything, most blog hosts provide a wide selection of templates you can choose from.

You can choose a free blog host like blogger.com or wordpress.com. I chose an inexpensive paid blog host, Typepad.com, because it is important for me to have access to technical support.

It is critical to decide on the focus of your blog and stick to it. I love Typepad.com's tag line, "Inform. Influence. Inspire." What could the purpose of your blog be?

Ideas for the focus of your blog:

- Specific aspects of your business that are not covered on your website

- Case studies, tips, or articles

- Trends in your industry

With a blog, it is super easy to add new entries whenever you want. For a blog to be effective it is important to post frequently, at least once a week. Think about it, how often do you update or change the information on your website? Probably not often even if you are able to make changes yourself. Many business owners rely on a webmaster to make changes which makes the process even more complicated.

When your blog is ready, be sure to tell people about it and add it to the blog search engines which are easy to find on the internet. You can also add a link to your blog on your website, e-mail signature, and business cards!

Are you starting to catch the blog fever? I caught it, here's my blog http://successtipsforlife.typepad.com Don't delay, get out there and start reading blogs, adding comments to others' blogs, and hopefully launching a value packed blog for your business in the very near future!

(c) 2006 Stephanie Ward

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Life & Business Coach Stephanie Ward helps business owners set their profits on fire! Grab your copy of the FREE Special Report '7 STEPS TO ATTRACT MORE CLIENTS IN LESS TIME? plus free monthly profit tips at: http://www.fireflycoaching.com

Blog Marketing for the Expert Witness

What is a blog, you ask? Short for "Web Log," it's an increasingly popular way to self-publish online. You can actually syndicate your articles, making this a great way for experts to showcase their specialized knowledge.

Think of a blog as a form of an online journal, with frequent postings and observations on items of interest. Most blogs focus on a narrow subject area, which is ideal for experts. Hyperlinks to articles, websites and other blogs make this a very interactive medium that encourages audience participation.

The Pew Internet Study estimates that about 11% of Internet users - translating to 50 million people - are regular blog readers. Technorati, which claims to be the authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs, tracks almost 42 million blogs.

Lawyers are active bloggers. According to an online survey conducted by Blogads.com late last year, 6.1% of bloggers work in the legal profession. The Litigation Section of the American Bar Association discovered that the majority of section members surveyed read at least one blog regularly and almost 20% publish their own blog.

The best way to understand a blog is to look at a few. The Google Blog has a very simple appearance. By contrast, some blogs in the legal market can be very sophisticated, like E-Discovery Law offered by Preston Gates & Ellis LLP or the ERISA Blog maintained by The Law Office of B. Janell Grenier. Law Professor Blogs offers a rich network of links to law blogs maintained by legal academics.

Three reasons to start a blog

1. Blog software is frequently free or nominally priced

2. Blogs increase your search engine rankings

3. Postings get widespread distribution through syndication

If you like to write and have information to share about your area of expertise, a blog can be a great marketing tool.

Three cautions before you start blogging

Look before you leap into a blog. Launching a professional looking blog requires careful advance planning. Here are some pointers to keep in mind:

1. Create a strategic framework for the type of information you intend to publish

2. Post new content frequently to keep your blog fresh

3. Take advantage of syndication features to maximize the reach of your blog

Basically, make sure you have the time to maintain your blog with high quality and timely information. Just because you get named as an expert on a big case is no excuse to neglect or abandon your blog.

Blog publishing services

Now, let's say you are interested and want to find out more about launching a blog. One place to start is with your website hosting service. Chances are you can link a blog to your website for a small additional monthly fee. I host with GoDaddy for example, and they offer blog software for as little as $2.99 per month.

Leading blog services include Blogger (owned by Google), TypePad and Moveable Type (both owned by Six Apart Ltd.), and WordPress. LexBlog targets the legal market with a full-service offering that includes strategic design, implementation and training.

Blog features encourage interaction

The beauty of the blog is the way it allows you to organize, archive and syndicate your articles. Here are a few features you should consider:

.Archives A calendar on the front page of your blog can link readers to articles posted on a certain date. You can also organize articles by author or alphabetically.

.Blogrolls Present your readers with a sidebar list of other blogs on related topics that you recommend.

.Email a friend Add a button to your blog for easy emailing.

News Feeds. RSS ("Really Simple Syndication") is a blog technique that allows you to easily distribute your postings to other blogs. Interested parties can also come to your blog and quickly set up an automatic feed of your news for publication on their site. Read more about feeds at Wikipedia.

.Reader Feedback Allow your readers to comment on your blog postings to maximize audience interest. Some of the techniques used for this purpose include trackbacks, pingbacks or comment moderation.

.Permalinks Give your postings a static URL so that readers can easily share links or revisit a favorite posting.

The Internet is in a constant state of evolution, with blogs being the latest example. Have fun and happy blogging! Write us if you have any questions or comments.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Margaret Grisdela is President of Expert Law Marketing and Legal Expert Connections, specializing in business development in the legal market and expert witness recruitment.

The firm's ?10 Point Marketing Excellence Program? delivers results by arranging speaking engagements, publishing opportunities, PR, online ad campaigns, website development and more for leading experts.

Ms. Grisdela is a board member of the Florida Direct Marketing Association and served as the group?s President in 2005. She is also a Founder and six-year board member of the South Florida Technology Alliance.

Ms. Grisdela writes for HGExperts.com, a directory of expert witnesses, forensic consultants, medical experts, litigation support services and legal speakers.

Blogging and SEO

Blogging gets its name from the term 'blog', itself a short form of 'weblog', which again is a blend of two words, 'web' and 'log'. A blog is a repertoire of web publications stored in reverse chronological order, which means that a new entry comes on top of the one just preceding it. Anyone who looks after a blog, writes for and maintains it is said to be 'blogging'. Blog-posts are articles posted on a blog by a 'blogger'.

Since early days, blogs have focused on particular subjects, for example web development, learning craft or estuarine fishing. Blogging is like an online diary, being constantly updated, that can contain both images and texts.

A typical blog-entry or blog-post will consist of title of the post, main content of the post, the URL of the full article called 'permalink' (article appears in a separate page), the date when posted, the blogging category of the post, comments if made and, finally trackback URLs' (which are URLs' of those pages that link to the blog-post).

Should you be blogging? Why not? But remember thousands of blogs debut everyday only to die soon after. So while blogging is surely an addiction (and perhaps a necessity), it is incumbent upon a would-be blogger to prepare a fertile ground for it to succeed. Blogging Signposts

Blogging has become popular in a relatively short time. Here is a 'trackback' to sequence of events that together shape up today's blog scenario:1. The term 'weblog' was first used in December, 1997 by Jorn Barger. From 'weblog' to 'we blog' to 'blog' - a short journey before Peter Merholz coined the term 'blog' in April, 1997.2. Xanga.com, launched in 1996, is one of the earliest entrants on the blogging scene, having started with fewer than 100 online 'diaries'. Today, Xanga's community is populated by millions of users.3. OpenDiary.com is another popular blogging site, having started in October, 1998. OpenDiary currently has nearly 450,000 users. Closely following OpenDiary came LiveJournal.com in March 1999, which today has over ten million users and nearly 230,000 posts everyday.4. Blogging started gaining momentum in 1999 and in subsequent years, specially after the advent of hosted blogs.5. Blogger.com is a notable blogging service that commenced in August, 1999. In Feb, 2003 it was acquired by and is now a part of Google.6. Though reliable figure of total usage is not available, there is no doubt that blogging has arrived to share centerstage with other essential net activities, like emailing, chatting and surfing. Free Blogging

To be sure, there are good numbers of free blogging tools to get going. Blogger.com from Google's fold is an excellent start-up. Xanga.com has both free and paid blogging service. So are host of others like Wordpress, Nucleus CMS (both database driven), Blog-City, Blogsome, Blog Studio, Yahoo!'s Flickr photo blogging (free and paid account), Fotothing photo sharing and so on.

All free services require you to sign up for an account and proceed step-by-step to ultimately establish your blogging account. Blogger.com also permits hosting a blogging account on your own server. Wordpress and Nucleus are both rich in features, but database-supported (PHP, MySQL) software applications.Parameters of successful blogging

Before you start your own blog, here is a quick checklist:1. Do you know your blogging subject well enough?2. How conversant are you in your subject of blogging? As a rule of thumb, expect to contribute yourself for a good length of time before others join in.3. Look for a niche category for your blogging, subject of course to the conditions above.4. Are you in a position to devote time to your blog? Unless there are regular updates and a genuine willingness to do so, it is difficult to succeed.Blogging and SEO

For any website to rank high in search engine results, search engine optimization is needed. Search engines prefer lot of relevant contents that are added and updated on a regular basis. Blogging fills in that requirement effortlessly and automatically. If you are a frequent contributor to your own blog, and if your articles are keyword enriched and relevant to the subject of your blog, be assured that search engines are keeping track of that. Examples are many where in terms of search engine traffic, websites have prospered on the strength of targeted blogs. So get going, start blogging today!

Article by Josh at http://www.hostingfrenzy.com
Visit his site for a comprehensive web hosting directory, articles, tools, and much more.

What Is This Blogging Thing Then?

Everybody is raving on about blogs, it seems everyone has one, and it seems that everyone is telling you that if you want to get on in Internet Marketing you need one too!!

But what exactly is this Blogging Thing??

OK well like everything else, theres the Long answer, the short answer, and Martins Answer(often quite similar to the long answer, only, well, better:-) )

Blogging, Like MOST of the other New Trends, isnt actually new at all. Blogging has actually been around for quite some years now, I would probably say its Infancy was pre-2000 if I really wanted to push it back.

A Blog, or Weblog, is qute simply an Online Journal or diary.

BUT, Thats not what people Nowadays mean, when people talk to you about Blog and Blogging, they are *Really* talking about using this Blogging software to run your sites.

The Simplicity and Design of the software enables even the most technically challenged to add updated fresh content to their webpages, basically if you can type and use Word, you can run a Blog, this in turn is why it is becoming ever so popular, and also why most people do use it for, or at least most people *Were* using Blog and Blog software to run little Personal Diary Blogs.

However, what it really is, is a way to have a Regularly updated website related to your Business or Theme at the push of a button.

Here are the three most popular "blogs" at the time of printing this, they probably will remain like this for a long time, but although these are "Blogs" they are more along the lines of an actual real content website, rather than a Personal Diary type blog

# 1

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

67,001 links from 19,265 sites.

# 2

Engadget

65,581 links from 14,884 sites.

# 3

PostSecret

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

By frank warren

21,503 links from 12,892 sites.

The MAIN Difference between a blog and a standard website, is the fact that Bloggers tend to be more Personal, tend to leave more of a Personal Stamp on their work. Thats why those first two sites above are WAY more popular than if they had just been a standard Impersonal Website.

DONT Let this Blogging Craze Confuse you, its really not that complex, or infact that different to things you may already be used to, dont worry about this whole "Blog Revolution" thing, it is more of an Evolution than a Revolution, and the evolution involves Websites and Online Business in general, not Blogging on its own, Blogging has simply become a tool to enable the following things -

Through Free services such as Blogger, anyone anywhere anytime can start a website, without having any technical knowledge.

Through Blogging software, it has become easier and easier to add fresh orginal content to your website on a regular basis,

Bloggers Share information, ideas and thoughts with eachother through reading eachothers blogs and talking about them on their own blogs,

Those are the Simple Elements of what Blogging is.

When you start looking at the Software running the Blogs, and the Functions it has, you can see even more benefits, and why it is Much Much More than just "a Weblog" I am talking about, I want you to understand that Blogging is an ESSENTIAL Part of your Entire Marketing Campaign, along with Article Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and all the other aspects I cover, blogging is essential.

BECAUSE, Not only does your average Blogging software enable Push Button Content Updates, BUT it also has the ability to do a MULTITUDE of the Mundane tasks we have to undertake to build our traffic up to our websites.

Your Blogging Software can pretty much take care of all your On Page Search Engine Optimization AUTOMATICALLY!! All you need to do is post new content!!

Blog Softwares can automatically reformat your content into different Code Types readable by Different types of technology, with a little help, your blog could kick out pages viewable in Web Browsers, Palm Pilots, Mobile Phones, and perhaps the best one at the moment is RSS!!

Yes, your blog will easily produce a Reformatted version of your webpage that can be Syndicated by other sites, read by people directly on their desktops, and much more!!

I do cover a Wide Range of Advanced Blogging Tactics which I wont go into here as I would be here for TOO Long!!

Quite Simply, a Blog, is a Software to Power your websites, how you decide to use it is up to you, but one thing I WILL STRESS here at the end is that The Whole Idea behind the fact that blogs are easy to use is to use them Well, and update them regularly, to see the full benefit. Its because of this fact, that a *Good* Blog should be updated Regularly to get the most benefits, that Most Blogs are really qute a Personal Type Weblog but DONT let that start to limit your thinking about what you can do with a blog, look again at the Top 3 blogs, go to Technorati.com and look at the biggest blogs,

Dont you think, actually, that Most of the Big blogs look more like a Magazine now, rather than a Journal or Diary?

Remember what I said about Evolution and not Revolution?

You can use a blog for whatever you want, all I stress, is MAKE SURE you use it, and use it every day(or as often as you possibly can regularly)

Thats it for that, more will come soon, thanks for reading!

After being involved with Internet Marketing for some time, Martin has decided to share his Ideas and Experiences on Succesful Online Marketing. Read More Marketing Tactics Here Be sure to check out Martins tips and Tricks, and follow his experiences in Success @ More Traffic Please

Does Blogging Get You More Sales?

"Everyone is too scared to use the Internet to buy things".

Remember when they said that? It's not that long ago.

Look at us now. People can and do buy anything and everything from the web. The fear, really a fear of change has gone.

They said TV would destroy the cinema. That didn't happen. The movies are a completely different form to TV but we didn't realise at the time. TV and cinema both survived and now both feed off each other.

In hindsight we all see what was perfectly obvious.

Now they're saying that Blogs, or weblogs are taking over the Internet.

A blog is effectively an online journal where you, or a group, can record their innermost thoughts and make comments about a topic. Anyone has access to read your journal entry (known as a post) and can comment on it.

For much more detailed information about blogging look at the entry in wikipedia for "Blogging."

You get over 474 million search results if you enter "blog" into Google.

Part of the reason for the blogs attraction is its ease of use. It takes only a few minutes to begin "blogging".

First you sign up with a blog server, like Google's Blogger, SixApart's TypePadblog or use Wordpress.

You choose a page template you like. There are a number of very good ones available completely free. Then post your first entry.

The final step is to let a blog directory know each time you create a new post (this is called pinging). Services such as Pingoat and Pingomatic are sites that can ping a number of other directories on your behalf.

People search these directories using blog search engines and browse the blogs in a similar way to web sites.

Do Companies Really Use Blogs?

Company executives use blogs. For example Bob Lutz, Vice President of General Motors has his own blog. Other people from GM contribute to it as well. IBM Vice President Bob Sutor and Vice President of Marketing for Boeing Randy Baseler write their own blogs too.

Employees from corporates like Microsoft, Google and Hewlett Packard blog.

When blogging is used in a positive way it shows your customers and prospects your corporate personality and helps build rapport.

What Are The Blog Downsides?

The company CEO shouldn't blog. That's because there may be pressure to flag future events. Or worse, if they drop a clanger it can be spread world-wide very quickly.

A further potential blogging downside is that you've no influence over what others put in their own blogs about what you've written.

You only need to look at some of the comments that General Motors got on Bob Lutz's blog when they started a discussion on seatbelts to see how heated things can get.

Companies may be concerned that employees will spend too much time blogging or reading blogs. That means a blogging policy should be in place to prevent such abuse.

What Is The Advantage Of A Blog?

A blog can position someone, or a company, as an expert. But people can easily pass other people's work off as their own. So it really is a case of "buyer beware" when reading blogs.

So are blogs going to be a knock-out for attracting and retaining customers?

The short answer is it depends, and the reasons are:

1) It's just another marketing communication channel - it can be used well or not. Rather like PR is used.

2) For some companies it's just too public

3) It's completely without editoral control

4) It requires commitment to update regularly and to check and respond to comments

It's been said that consultancies and other organisations that deal in knowledge and intellectual property benefit most from blogging. That's because they can demonstrate their ability and expertise to their market in a different way from other marketing tactics.

But really why should it stop there? General Motor's blog is useful for communicating new model launches and answering customer feedback.

In fact there really is no practical limit to the who can use blogging to communicate with customers and prospects.

But In The End Is Blogging A Dead-end?

The business blog is definitely an important communication tool that every company should seriously consider as part of their marketing arsenal. But it must be looked at as another business tool whose ultimate measurement is: "does it get more sales or reduce company costs?"

If it can't deliver at least one of those measures business blogging deserves to fail.

I've been blogging for over a year now and I've found that I've had thousands of hits. Intentionally I don't get any sales from it. But that's because I'm writing mini articles and will eventually use them as a basis for my next book.

So in the final analysis blogs are another communication channel so companies have the ability to take theirs and make it do the PR, word of mouth, viral and Internet marketing for them.

Internet advertising has grown into big business. Expect blogging to do the same.

Jim Symcox is a business growth coach, copywriter, blogger and the author of "How to Leap Ahead Of Your Competitors". He coaches Chet Holmes clients around the world.

See Jim's blog on Business Growth and Marketing at http://www.business-powerpack.com it has over 500 posts on a variety of mainly business boosting topics.

He has another blog which looks at Search Engine Optimization at http://www.seo-copywriter-king.blogspot.com

Also click over to his site at http://www.AcornService.com to opt in to Jim's FREE and no obligation seminar series on business growth. The following topics are covered:

1 ........ How To Create Your Unique Selling Point
2 ........ How To Set Goals
3 ........ Should You Train?
4 ........ Direct Mail Doesn't Pay
5 ........ How To Do Proposals That Pay-off
6 ........ Is The Internet Costing You Money?

Blogs, Blogs, Blogs! What They Are, and Why They Matter

I remember that it was not that long ago that I did not know what a blog was or what one was for. Now blogs are everywhere and anyone with a computer and Internet access may be writing one. If you are new to this whole blog phenomenon let me explain a little about what a blog is. Blog's got their name from combining two words "Web log" to make one word, "blog".

For most people, blogs started out as something like an online diary for friends and relatives to read. Instead of going to the trouble of sending out individual emails to all of your friends and relatives to let them know how things are going in your life, you could simply write a blog for all of them to view. This way everyone could know all of the interesting developments in your personal life and you could save time and energy by not writing to everyone individually. This was the origin of blogs. Oh how far we have come since then.

Blogs then grew into marketing devices, ways to get revenge, and methods of raising awareness on important issues. Some of the more famous blogs are ones written by current disgruntled employees of large corporations. These large corporations, such as Microsoft, have been scrambling to deal with the bad public relations created by these blogs written by angry employees.

There are many ways that you can set up a blog. Whether you want to use a blog for professional or personal reasons you can find a service to help you out. Many companies have been scrambling to create blogging software for consumers. However, there are also many blogging sites that will let you use their software for free. Of course, the software that you have to pay for comes with many added features that the free blogging software does not include.

Online businesses are beginning to realize the impact that a blog can have on their business and the number of people that they can get visiting their websites. Blogs generate new text on a regular basis, depending on how often you update it, which helps in search engine rankings. The major search engines such as Google and Yahoo give higher rankings to websites that have regularly updated content. Blogs make this happen in a very simple manner. The only trick to all of this is to make sure that your blog is directly accessible from your homepage. This is a rather simple process of changing some of the HTML coding.

By using a blog to add new content on a regular basis saves you the trouble of redesigning your entire website every time you want to add content. It would not be realistic to go in to your website a few times a week and change the content because it is so much work. However, a blog will accomplish this for you in a matter of minutes. Some website owners have taken the blogs even further and incorporated keyword densities into their blogs. This further aids the websites search engine rankings and helps to drive more potential customers to the website. As you can see, having a blog on your website can offer a great deal of benefits.

In addition to the fact that you can increase your search engine rankings with a blog, many people may come back to visit your site on a regular basis just to see what new information you have to offer them by way of your blog. For example, if your blog offers weekly updates on what is new in your product or service line, a potential customer may be interested but does not make a purchase today. Then this potential customer returns in a week to read your blog and continues to do so until he or she reads something in your blog that convinces he or she to go ahead and make the purchase.

Blogs are very versatile marketing tools. You can update your blog with industry news, news about your particular company, new product offerings, or new services that you are providing. Any of these methods, or a combination of them, can be extremely effective in closing a sale on a potential customer who is sitting on the fence.

No matter how you choose to employ blogs to improve your website, always be sure that you have connected your blog to your website in an easy to read and easy to find format. Link your blog to your homepage so that visitors do not have to search for it. If you can customize your blog template to look just like the rest of your website, then your visitors can move between your blog and your website with the feeling that they have not left one to enter the other.

Blogs have grown enormously over the past year and all indications are that they will only continue to grow. Blogs are more than a passing Internet fad; they are successful business tools that are already being utilized by many successful webmasters.

Blogging: A Start-Up Guide

Blogging is so easy that you probably do not need a start up guide, but for those who have blogaphobia, I am doing this.

1. By reading this you are half way there. This is a blog style post.

2. If you post, you are blogging to an extent.

3. If you take my advice and get a blog, you are a blogger.

4. If you sell anything, or create money trail, you are making money blogging.

Now that I've bored you with a list, you probably want something good. I'll give it to you. If you have never blogged, this little start-up guide is for you. If you have blogged, maybe you just need a refresher course.

Anyway, you probably want to know how to blog. You know what blogging is and you know you can make money with it. What you may not know is how you start.

Well, it's easy. Choose a provider. Make sure it's someone who has the up-to-the minute programming so you don't look ancient.

Create an account -Then, start writing! Alas, you are going to say "exactly HOW do I just pop into the blog and write?"

It's not some horrid thing where you have to have a book next to you figuring out designs and codes. For the most part, there are layouts you choose from and often you can even pick colors of fonts and such. It's like decorating a living room, only this is a living room about 12 million people could possibly visit. So make it look nice!

You don't have to have software usually or anything snazzy. You simply pick a design or layout and create a look or image based upon choices that you'll be prompted to make.

Is it an article, a column? What the heck IS a blog? As mentioned before, in another article -blogs are actually entries. It's like a diary or a journal. You simply write, but note - that whatever you do not want the world to see, do not write. After you write your entry, you will be asked to publish or post it. Once you do that you still can often, go in and edit or delete it. You will usually give your blog a title. You type your entry, which you may call "blog" or "Content" and away you go. You've just blogged.

Sometimes, you allow (or not allow) the public or a select bunch you've invited to make posts or comments to what you have written. This makes for fun if you do allow it but sometimes it can be downright harsh. There is usually no screening on posts unless you specifically in your template and choices make sure no one has potty mouth or gossip mouth. The way to do this is to be a moderator, or to even hire a moderator. This way, all posts first go to an email address (they have no idea) and you or someone with some degree of ethics and standards, will edit, delete or allow the post to go through. That personally is my advice; don't let downers, potty mouths or idiots post on your site unless you are really sure that you will attract only a top-notch crowd. Since blogs are often public places - think of the blog as a public bathroom. Only let the people in who flush and wash their hands. This is an especially nice feature also for control freaks.

Do I have to be youngish? Hip? Can I be a boomer or older than dirt? Anyone can blog. There is no set rule of thumb. It used to be hip kids, journalists and maybe a select other few who did it. Now, you have grandparents who blog and let their kids blog also - and grandkids. It's a great way to keep the family as a unit if you keep everyone together, you know?

Blogs are special. They are unique. They are really nothing more than a public diary or journal - where a web site is all about people going to the site and just staring at it, a blog is all about saying, "Come on in and sit a spell" - which is why you will find that blogs tend to be more upscale, than say, a chat room or chat board. Blogs are the welcome wagon of the internet. Chat rooms are like a seedy bar. Chat boards are like hospital waiting rooms where people sometimes share doom, gloom and gossip. But Blogs are really usually positive. Sure you will have that negative blog here and there - but a decent blog owner will beget decent posters for the most part.

It is a small world. So, when you visit a blog, or when you have a blog - expect people to comment online. It's a diary where people will actually say - "this is cool, and I want to be a part of your life and share this with you" and...they will! If you allow this in the template, you will have comments that agree, disagree or just share. You may have folks promoting themselves, or you may have cheerleaders supporting your blog. Either way, it's a great way to make friends and yes, make money if that's what you wish.

You need to realize that your blog could and very well may be found on the net during someone's search. For instance, if you have certain tag words in your blog, or it's just plain popular, a key word search could turn up your blog. It's the net, and it's public. Blog smart!

Blogging is for you, even if you think it isn't. You may think you are not a writer. So what? First of all, if it is a personal blog meant for only a few folks, and you don't care that you are not a thespian of the paper, then don't worry about it. Also, you don't have to be a super-duper writer at all. Even if you are a writing savant, you certainly at least have an opinion, correct? Voice it through blogging! You also probably have a passion such as gardening, cooking or fixing old cars...that a bajillion people also have, that you could talk to and share with. Again, you can make money. If you like gardening, you may want to think about selling seeds, or dried lavender from your garden, or renting ad space or a few thousand other ways to make money. Maybe an online course where you teach the power of planting? As long as you have passion and ideas, there will always be possible ways to make money that are fun and proactive.

Blogging is absolutely one of the most easy, fun, economical yet possibly financially rewarding hobbies you can start for yourself.

Michelle is a bona fide professional blogger. If you're aiming for six figure online profits then you NEED her fresh, upbeat advice! Read the full version of this article here.

Your Blog Can Be Your Business

One of the great things about blogs is that they are so easy to set up and maintain. The way companies such as Blogger.com have handled it, it's about as easy as typing a letter or any other word processing document.

Another great thing that internet entrepreneurs have discovered is that they are fast and easy to set up, can attract a huge of potential customers, and can make A LOT OF MONEY for the owner of the blog, and we are going to discuss how they do it. In fact, we are going to talk about how almost anyone can set up a blog and be in business on the internet in a matter of hours.

After a start that included soaring, swooping, and gliding in lots of different directions, the internet settled down a bit. Although it is still all things to all people, one of the largest aspects of the internet is its ability to quickly deliver a huge mass of information on almost any subject under the sun.

Most of the millions of people using the internet have one thing in common...they are seeking this information. Whether it is something as significant as alternative energy sources or something as relatively frivolous as the comings and goings of fashion or comic books, there are huge numbers of people searching the internet in hopes of finding this information at any given time. That's where blogs come in.

Many of these people want hard data...facts! Many, however, are content to read, learn, and perhaps interject their own comments on subjects they find interesting. Couple this fact with the simplicity of building a blog, and then add a few income producing links, and you have the basis of a simple internet business.

If you have been unable up to now to believe that you could have a successful internet business, you are now free to change that thought. All it takes is an interest in some subject area; poetry, baseball, cartoons, cars, cooking, stamp collecting, and you too can be an expert with an income producing blog.

WHAT IF YOU ARE NOT AN EXPERT BUT ARE SIMPLY A FAN?

In the world of blogs, this is NOT a problem! The purpose of the blog is to provide information and comment. Nobody said the information or comment had to be YOURS! Of course you will want to participate in your own blog, but there are many web sites on the internet, such as EzineArticles.com which can provide substantive content for your site. Just to use our baseball example, I just did a quick search at EzineArticles.com, and found 175 articles on the subject. By the time you used up all 175, more would have been written, your readers would have provided comments, you would have interjected your own ideas, and other sources of articles and other content on the subject would have come to your attention. Starting with this example, you could run a blog on the subject of baseball for several years with no problem.

HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY WITH A BLOG?

My first recommendation is that you learn more about blogging for internet income than I can offer in this small article. But don't worry, the subject of blogging as a business is simple and after a little training in blogging and internet marketing, you will be an expert on the subject and may even find yourself teaching other what you have learned. Once you have a grasp of the basics and have begun publishing your blog, you can use the following to help you make money with your blog.

JOIN AFFILIATE PROGRAMS: There are an unknown number of affiliate programs on the internet, ClickBank, PayDotCom, and Commission Junction to name a few. You can find affiliate programs relative to the subject of your blog, and, by placing links to these companies you can make income from your blog.

JOIN GOOGLE ADSENSE: Google Adsense allows you to show ads on your blog which may be of interest to your visitors. Staying with the baseball blog, the ads would have things to do with baseball or sports. You would receive a commission whenever a visitor to your blog left by clicking on one of the ads.

SELL YOUR OWN PRODUCTS: If you have a product to sell which is related to the topic of your blog, this would be a great place to promote it! Many people become regular visitors to interesting blogs and feel that they come to know the blogger who runs it. Any internet or network marketer can tell you that people are more likely to buy something from someone they know and trust than from a stranger.

VISIT OTHER BLOGS AND FORUMS: All across the internet are vast numbers of blogs and forums on almost every subject imaginable. Many people wander from blog to blog or forum to forum in search of information on these subjects, and the more blogs and forums where you leave your footprint, the more that may find their way back to your blog.

LINK BACK FROM RELATIVE SITES: Nobody said that every web site linking to your blog has to be somebody else's! It's great when you get someone to mention your blog on their site, but with a little experience and training, you can possibly learn to create web sites, or perhaps other blogs, which also link to your blog, thus raising its popularity with search engines and perhaps leading live visitors to you.

"PING" YOUR BLOG AND SUBMIT TO DIRECTORIES: People go to blog directories to find blogs on the subjects they are interested in. "Pinging" your blog through services such as pingomatic.com will will alert the services when you have updated your blog.

UPDATE YOUR CONTENT REGULARLY: While you don't have to update your blog daily, you should update it regularly. Use information relative to the blog topic. While information is king, making the information palatable will help improve your blog's popularity.

TURN YOUR CONTENT INTO CONTENT: Huh? This is one of the most effective ways to increase the popularity of your blog, but it is also one of the easiest. Once you get a handle on the sorts of things people are interested in, you may find yourself able to write a few comments of your own. In fact, the daily content and comments on your blog can often be turned into interesting articles of 600 to 1200 words. Once you have done this, submit it to an article directory such as EzineArticles.com. Once accepted, not only will it contain a link back to your blog, but, when others use it on their blog or on their website, there will be another link back to your blog.

Blogs are, simply put, one of the easiest way for computer and internet novices to become involved in the growing world of internet business. If it is your hope to someday kiss the old job good and quit the ratrace, blogging for dollars may just be the answer for you.

The author is retired from the Army after 21 years of service. He has worked as an accountant, purchasing agent, optical lab manager, restaurant manager, instructor and long-haul, over-the-road truck driver. He has been a member of Mensa for several years, and has written and published poetry, essays, and articles on various subjects for the last 40 years. He has been an active internet marketer since 2000, and now makes his living online. He has blogs on the subjects of Internet Business and Marketing, Health and Weight Loss, and Real Estate Investing.

Getting Into the Blogging World

From some years back weblogs (or simply "blogs") have become one of the most popular ways of online publishing and communication. While still most of them have no commercial purpose, blogs as a makerting tool (or even as a business by itself) are increasing its presence on the Internet.

WHAT ARE BLOGS?

Though there are different approaches to weblogs, they can be defined as web sites where users post entries (news, articles...), updated frequently and normally reflecting the thoughts of the blog's creator. Those entries (posts) are typically listed in reverse chronological order (the most recent entry on the top).

Most blogs allow visitors to leave their own comments on the diverse entries or even references from other blogs (trackbacks). This communication between different blogs and bloggers is one of the main factors involved in the fast growth of the so-called "blogosphere" (the whole community of blogs) and its current influence.

HOW A BLOG CAN HELP YOU?

Blogs are constantly creating new business opportunities. While some time ago blogs were almost an exclusive territory for non-professional bloggers sharing their thoughts, experiences and ideas, currently small and large business have a wide presence in the blogging world. There are a number of potential benefits of adding a blog as part of your marketing strategy or as a business model:

Blogs spread information: Blogs allow you to publish information instantly and frequently, and the conversational nature of blogs will help you spread that published information. Not only your visitors will read it, but also other blogs will reference your content through reviews, news, comments... and will link to your site, allowing other Internet users to access that given information. In addition, your blog can capture the attention of the media, which frequently uses the blogs for source material.


Blogs give you feedback: Most blogs allow readers to comment on your posts or link to them (and notify your site) on their own blogs. This is an automated mechanism that provides you instant feedback on any issue. You can know what your readers think of you (or your product/service/company) almost in real time.


Blogs build you a reputation: Always you provide useful and honest content, a business blog can help position you as an expert in your niche. Blogs can be considered as a platform for expressing your knowledge, expertise and experience, so they are a powerful tool for building you a solid reputation.


Blogs are marketing tools: Blogs are a useful and low-cost marketing tool as they improve the awareness of your product/service/company and strengthen the loyalty of your customers (readers). The word-of-mouth will provide you a way into audiences that couldn't be reached efficiently in any other way.


Blogs are an easy content management system: The ease of use of blogs as a content management system (CMS) will allow you to forget the programming and the design of your web site and will also help you reduce costs. You can create your blog using free blog hosting services like Blogger or run free software like Wordpress on your own web hosting (preferable for business blogs). In both cases you can adapt the appearance of your blog through free professional-looking templates (themes). This makes creating and updating web sites faster, easier and cheaper then ever.


Blogs are search engine traffic generators: Lastly search engines have been driving their efforts to reward rich-content sites, due to the great amount of poor-content sites built with the only purpose of generating revenue with advertising. As blogs are generally based on valuable and original content, they are specially appealing to search engines.

The linking structure inherent in blogs is another determinant in the equation. As other blogs reference your web site articles, they will link to them. Moreover, comments and trackbacks frequently include a link back to the blogger's site. Because incoming links are one of the most important ranking factors in major search engines, it's obvious that blogs are great platforms to generate search engine traffic.

Original article published by Javier García: Getting into the blogging world [http://www.monetizingtheweb.com/2006/03/14/getting-into-the-blogging-world] in Monetizing the Web

Read more articles on Blogging [http://www.monetizingtheweb.com/tag/blogging]

Introduction To Blogging - Part 2: Planning Your New Blog

One common mistake new bloggers make is not realizing that managing a blog is similar to publishing a magazine. Your blog, to be successful, requires constant planning, research, analysis, and then more planning. You have to keep on top of your topic niche, but this means different things for different people.

For example, if you are blogging about something you do everyday, and are offering "how-to" type of info, then you may not need to do a lot of reading to keep on top of your topic. On the other hand, if you are writing about new products in your industry, unless you are creating these products yourself, you will probably have to do regular research to keep up.

I write several blogs that fall into different categories. For my computer programming blogs, I draw on my experience in a particular computer language and generally do not need to do any research, unless I want to blog about new software and tools. These programming blogs, however, take a great deal of effort, and any code I write has to be tested. The time investment per article is equal to or more than I spend on "research" blogs.

For product-related blogs, I have to do regular, intense research. I use Google Alerts (http://google.com/alerts) to have snippets of web or blog pages delivered to my email on a daily basis. Google Alerts lets you type in a few keywords and your email address, along with a delivery frequency (weekly, daily, as-it-happens). I get updates on several keywords nightly. They're a boon to my research, but if I fall too far behind in checking the alerts, the resulting giant to-read list can get intimidating. (By the way, Yahoo! and MSN have similar services.)

What I do with the alerts is skim over them. If a snippet interests me, I'll click on the link to visit the source web page and read the full story. I try to read several stories on the same topic, then summarize all of them into one short article, add links to the source stories, and add my own spin to the topic, either supporting or refuting what is being said in the stories. Adding your own spin is essential, as it is your opportunity to add your own personality - which is usually more evident in your original blog entries. Anyone can write a summary; make that summary yours.

With blogs that document my experience on a topic, I try to think about what I know now that would have helped me when I was starting out. Someone out there can do with your guidance. Providing this guidance in a blog is an excellent way to build rapport with readers. I feel that anyone can do this, regardless of what type of business you are in. But there are some questions you have to ask yourself, and which you should answer before you start blogging:



Why are you blogging? Are you essentially trying to sell products and services (either online or offline), or showcasing your experience for some other reason? I blog for several reasons:

I love to write.
I can earn advertising money.
I have a number of e-books that I'm writing, which I eventually hope to promote via some of my blogs.

I showcase my blogs for small business owners who want to see what a blog for their industry may look like. For example, I have a couple of potential clients who are small- to medium-sized merchants that sell antiques or home decor and fashion. I've set up an example blog for them to view the possibilities.

I showcase my experience on a topic, in order to gain contracts for website or blog architecting, design, or technical writing.



Who are you writing for? My blogs are each targeted to different people. Even though several of them are showcases that exist in hopes of getting me contracts, they are written as any magazine on the same topic might be. For example, my antiques/ home decor blog is written for anyone who has an interest in such. In this case, I'm targeted buyers, not dealers. But the way I've set it up, my intent is to attract dealers to eventually write articles. My blog about spinning blogs is aimed at both people who write only one blog and those who write, or want to write, several blogs. I have to achieve a balance in my articles to cater to both types of readers.



Who is going to write the blog entries? If you are the sole proprietor of the business you are promoting and have no employees, this will have to be you, as no one else knows your business as well as you do. If you have employees, you might have them participate: you sketch out ideas, they finish the articles. Or if your employees don't have sufficient writing skills, you might consider an intern who wants to learn your business.

Who is responsible for the quality of the content? Someone has to take on the role of editor. Ultimately, as a business owner, you should "own" the content. If the blog is promoting your business, it must maintain credibility, otherwise that will reflect badly on your business. But in reality, someone has to edit the content, especially if you are not the writer or if there are multiple writers. If your business is large enough to have a marketing department, they are the most likely "owners" of the blog. Otherwise, the task of editor may fall to you. Some blogmasters-for-hire will assume the role of editor.

Who will be the blogmaster? This is a hybrid task, falling partway between marketing and partway between (technical) webmastering. It includes managing the blog, posting of entries, optimizing content for the Search Engines, and analysis of blog traffic. Blogmastering is yet another task you will probably have to add to your own to-do list. However, some bloggers out there will help you manage a blog, typically for a monthly fee, or for a retainer plus a per-post fee. These fees may include promotion as well as analysis of incoming web/ blog traffic. The latter is crucial; geo-targeting is essential to businesses which have geographical differences or limitations. For example, if you run a local business, but are finding that much of your web traffic is coming from another state or even another country, you may want to re-think your blog strategy. (Example below.)



With what frequency will entries be posted? Typically, it's wise to post entries two or more times a day, at least 5 days a week - although there are "weekly" blogs. Your blog entries do not always have to be large articles, and can often be summaries of other blogs or their articles, a list of resources, a few helpful hints, or relevant tips on saving money. However, every once in a while, you should write a longer article. To place higher in the Search Engines, your entries should be at least 75 words in length, when possible. Note that if your business is purely regional, and is unlikely to interest anyone outside of a certain geographical radius, blogging may not be as effective for you. In that case , you may want to set up a portal blog and invite other business owners from across the country/ continent/ world to participate. The "helpful hints" entries are of interest to all readers, but a region-specific blog entry could link to the writer's own business website. Keep in mind that the synergy gained from multiple points of view has proven itself in terms of web traffic on various blog networks. There is also less onus on a single writer to blog everyday, and the increased number of total daily blog contributions is likely to draw more blog traffic than for several small regionally-based blogs.

These are just a few of the questions you have to answer. I recommend that before you set up your blog, you also write at least 10 entries to get a feel for things. Starting up and maintaining a blog, on top of your daily business commitments, is a lot of work. It's your public face on the Internet - more so than a regular website - and you want to maintain credibility. So plan your blog well.

Raj Kumar Dash is a writer, author, and Internet consultant. Visit his hubsite at http://www.chameleonintegration.com/ to find the full introduction to blogging. (A free ebook on blogging is in the works.) Newbie bloggers can also visit Raj's BlogSpinner blog at http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/ for a "how-to guide to blogging".

Five Ways To Monetize Your Blog Fast

Whether you've got a blog, or you're thinking about creating one, you want to know how a blog can make you money.

Your blog can be monetized in dozens of ways, depending on the industry or profession you're in. For example, let's say you're a marketing consultant. A blog will help you to build your reputation online and offline, and will bring you clients who will find you via the search engines: blogs get indexed very quickly, and it's easy to optimize a blog for great search engine rankings.

A blog can also be a launch-pad for an online business: your blog can do complete duty as both your Web site, and as an online store. You can even begin a blogging business, as a blog-entrepreneur.

In this article however, let's focus on five ways in which you can directly monetize your blog.

=> Method One: Sell products from your blog

Your blog is the perfect way to sell products, whether they're physical products, or digital ones. If you've got an offline business -- you sell flowers, cookies, or fashion -- your blog can help you to attract visitors, and you can sell, directly on your blog.

You can also sell digital products. If you've written an ebook or created an online course, a blog can help to spread the news of your product across the Internet, and you will get buyers from around the globe, buyers who you would have no other way of reaching.

If you haven't got any products, you can create them. Just go to CafePress at http://www.cafepress.com/ and develop a range of your own products to sell on your blog.

You can also sell products from MeCommerce at [http://mecommerce.goodstorm.com/]

=> Method Two: Sell advertising space

If you haven't heard of Google AdSense at https://www.google.com/adsense/ you've seen AdSense ads on the results pages of every search you've ever done at Google. The AdSense ads are the little "sponsored links" ads that you can see on the right side of the search results page.

Depending on the topic of your blog, you can make a lucrative income just from running AdSense ads alone. However, there are many other text link advertising options -- just do a search for "text ads" on any search engine.

=> Method Three: Get freelance gigs

Your blog is an easy way to get freelance jobs, whether as a moonlighter, or as a full-time freelancer. You can also use your blog as a resume-on-steroids when you're job-hunting.

If you enjoy blogging, you can even become a blogger-for-hire: there's a huge demand for bloggers who are willing to blog for others.

=> Method Four: Sell affiliate products

Many bloggers sell affiliate products on their blog. There are many affiliate networks that you can join to find affiliate products to sell. Two of the best known are Commission Junction at http://www.cj.com/ and SHAREASALE at http://www.shareasale.com/

=> Method Five: Ask your readers to sponsor your blog

If you're providing valuable information, you can give your readers the option of sponsoring your blog. The concept of "donation-ware" is popular in software circles: many software developers asks users to sponsor their software.

PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/ provides links and buttons you can add to your blog so that your readers can sponsor your blogging.

Another way to use the power of sponsoring is to approach companies to sponsor your blog. They pay you a set fee, either monthly or yearly, for the privilege of sponsoring you -- you add a "Sponsored by Company X" text or image link to your blog.

So there you have it. Five methods you can use FAST to monetize your blog. Blogging is developing so quickly, that you'll find dozens of other ways, as you get into the blogging process. When you're passionate about blogging, you will find companies and people who are willing to help you to make money from your passion.

Copyright 2006 Angela Booth

Angela Booth is a copywriter and veteran career blogger. Her new ebook, Blogging For Dollars, helps you develop a lucrative blogging career, and gets you started as a blogging entrepreneur. The ebook will be available from August 2006. Read the book's blog at http://www.dollars2blog.com/blog/

Why I Still Hate Blogs..BUT Why I Still Use My Blog

When I first wrote my original "Why I Hate Blogs" for article submission I was pretty sure that the humor would get some hits but in my wildest dreams I never thought that out of the 26 articles I did write that it would be second in the amount of the hits it did get. Actually it was dark humor because I honestly do hate spending the time blogging away or let us be more specific - I honestly DID hate spending that time.

Most blogs are usually never read by more than a few. They sit there in the virtual world on servers, which provide this service for free (lord only knows why), and the muses and thoughts of those who write them serve more as a personal diary for the individual than to inform the world of some serious event.

To be sure there are quite a few blogs that are frequented daily either due to the persona who owns them or due to their popularity in a specific niche. For instance, writers frequent blogs that are kept up by agents. Some of these blogs are humorous, some serious.

As a matter of course when I set up my blog I put in a stat counter. These are available for free all over the web, and by injecting a line of code into your web page or blog you can get fairly sophisticated results as to how many visits you get and for how long the person visited. I never really looked at those stats due to the fact that business and other web development which I considered more important were taking up all my time.

This morning out of curiosity I called up these statistics, fully expecting to see hits in the low teens. People who just happened by my blog by mistake. I certainly did not expect to see a number in the hundreds coming close to a thousand hits in the period from November 2005 until the end of Jan. 2006.

In a quick peek at those statistics I realized that the visitors from all over the globe. And so I went to MSN search which is much friendlier to blog searches than Google or Yahoo. Google maintains its own blog search facility separate from its normal search. Yes your blog can end up in Google Main Search as well, but that would take an incredible amount of great back-links to it and really high popularity. MSN was still showing my blog in search requests.

I really do hate blogs. But they have become part of the mainstay of the web as has RSS feeds. Indeed RSS feeds are simple to generate, yet if you pay attention, most information within RSS feeds are NOT picked up by search engines. (This is due to the fact that people do not realize that an RSS feed produced through Javascript, which most are, are simply ignored by Search Engines, as search engines do not read or follow any links in Javascript.)

And so I grrrrrrrrrr to myself, tear out my hair, and continue to blog. Yes I duplicate stuff that is on my business site, and articles I submit for submission, and I ad links to my own writing especially when it is published professionally.

It does take time to set up a blog and it takes effort. It takes time to list the blog in the blog directories. The trick is, as with any WebSite to see if you can get some important "niche" and "original" information into your blog. That will let it stand out to the search engines. Search engines today are putting a great deal of emphasis on "original content", as can be seen just from the many article submission sites that have become much more stringent in their article acceptance process. Non-original content does no one any good. So put "original" content into your web Blog.

As much as I hate to admit it blogging is sometimes important for your business and your web presence. It can be useless or it can add an extra added push to your web business. That is entirely up to you and how often you choose to blog and what you decide to put in a blog.

On the other hand, I say this with a sheepish smile, since Blogs are free, I set up another blog in Google for my family and friends where I simply post pictures of the family and news about them. This I have no need to be picked up by web search engines, and just pass out the URL to my kids and close friends. Which is another way to use blogs.

So I remain with my hand raised on "hating blogs". And I fully admit I continue to blog. The lesson that I have learned is that no web technology should be ignored when it becomes mainstay. If you are serious about adding credibility to your business then setting up a blog should also be part of the plan.

And if you just want to write your diary and private thoughts down, then go for the blog as well. Just be aware you may end up being surprised at how many people will read those thoughts.

Google's blogspot is great http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ as is Wordpress at http://wordpress.org/ The difference is that Google offers you the space, whereas the WordPress blog you download the free software and then set up where you want it. (Google provides this service as well allowing you to create your blog on your own webserver.)

Other good Blooging software is out there as well. And even for the non technolgical minded setting one up is fairly easy. If you want to change look and feel and templates, they can be found all over the web, or just use the options of your blogging software.

I still hate blogging. But life is not full of doing only those things we like. Use your blog if you are serious about promoting your business. And use your blog if you want to promote yourself. Don't expect a million hits a minute but don't be surprised if your blog turns out to be a positive addition to your web presence. I certainly was and continue to be amazed at the results.

Copyright © 2006 Ted W. Gross. All rights reserved. (You may publish this article in its entirety with the following author's information with live links only.)

Ted Gross runs Virgin Earth Article Submissions which is designed to accept articles about travel, countries, places, historical events or current events in the world. Virgin Earth Article Submissions gladly accepts articles about travel and places and countries - and of course places of interest all over the world. Ted Gross is also a published author and maintains a web site for his works [http://www.virginisrael.com/twg/iw.html] Of course he does blog from time to time and maintains his blog when the muses hit him.

Learn More About the Evolution of Blog and Bloggers

Ever since the introduction of blog development tools like Blogger, Pitas etc. in 1999, the personal publication tool weblog or simply blog has undergone many transformations. In the infant stages, until 2001, blogs were viewed as personal publishing platform where one can post his or her experiences, complaints, happy moments and pet peeves. Since it world business community has identified the potential of blogs to harness as a powerful marketing tool. Today blogs don't confine to letters and words. You can find photo blogs (where one can publish photos), audio blogs, also called radio blogs where users can download and listen to audio messages or music and video blogs or vlogs where video files are published.

Majority of blogger platforms today allows the users to publish syndication feeds (RSS or Atom). The feeds are especially helpful for ardent blog readers to keep in touch with the latest updates of a blog - be it anything like photo blogs, radio blogs or video blogs, the user can get the latest content via a desktop based feed reader or a web based feed reader like Google Reader.

There is an estimated 35 million blogs worldwide and the number is fast increasing. The main reason people becoming bloggers is that they need little knowledge about HTML or any software. They can publish to the photo blogs or radio blogs (audio blogs) via a web browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox. The blog platform will do all the necessary background actions.

The taking over of Blogger (blogger.com) by Google is the biggest turning point in blogging. Blogger.com allows bloggers to not only publish their posts, but also allows them to publish their own ads, to experiment with the template. Ads by the supported platform is absent in blogger blogs. Typepad is another blog platform that individuals and companies use.

Companies see blogs as excellent method of attracting and retaining visitors. Google blogs are the biggest example of corporate blogging. Each and every updating about the company is published in department blogs and the subscribers of news feeds can see the updates as and when it occurs.

There are many attempts to cash in on the enthusiasm of bloggers. Almost all companies now promote affiliate marketing through blogs and blog advertising is fast picking up. Bloggers make use of the pinging service by technorati, blogot etc. Pinging service tell search engines that new content is available at the blog. Pinging and newfeeds keeps the search engines busy visiting the blog.

Bloggers that publish text blogs, photo blogs, radio blogs or audio blogs and video blogs enjoy the democratic nature of the blogs. There are no editorial content and interaction with the readers is easy because of the comment feature. Blogging has emerged here to stay. And it will be the medium through which companies sell their products and services in the future.

Copyright © 2006 Andreas Obermueller

About the Author:

Andreas Obermueller is webmaster of http://www.MyEbookReseller.com and recommends Marble Host as reliable Web Host

How to Start a Blog and Make Money Online

If you are new to the internet and wondering what an earth this blogging craze is all about, or if you already have your own website and you're wondering why everyone keeps advising you to start your own blog, read on. I'm going to explain to you what a blog is, why you need one, how to set it up, promote it and of course, make money from it.

Blog is short for "web log" and is similar to an online diary or journal. The craze of blogging began in the very late 1990s and has started to become more and more popular over the last couple of years. Almost everyone seems to have a blog these days, from CEOs of large companies to webmasters, from world travelers to teenagers. Even my Dad has his own blog now! A blog allows you to communicate informally with people via an online journal, but it's more personal and unstructured than a website and easier and cheaper to set up than a website.

If you have your own website, but haven't yet started a blog you can easily start one using a free service such as Blogger or WordPress. Try to post to your blog at least once or twice a week on topics related to your website. Blogging will help your search engine rankings and open up the communication channels between you and your visitors or customers, encouraging them to interact with you and give them a reason to return to your site in future.

If you don't have your own website and are looking to set up a blog quickly and easily I recommend opening a free account with Blogger. You can blog about anything you like, for example a hobby, a vacation, your home town, something political, a sport or your business. Just be sure to pick something that you are interested in and knowledgeable about. You can host your blog for free on Blogspot - all you need to do is pick a name that is relevant to the topic of your blog. Once you have set up your profile and chosen a template, blogging is as simple as sending an email to a friend.

There are many ways to make money from your blog, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

- Google Adsense - this is free to join and easy to set up. The ads will match the content of your blog and you will get paid every time a visitor clicks on an ad.

- Affiliate Programs - sign up for affiliate programs related to the topic of your blog and display links to related products on your blog. Clickbank, Trade Doubler and Commission Junction are good places to start, or do a Google search for "affiliate program" + the topic of your blog to find more affiliate programs. Whenever someone clicks through your affiliate link and buys a product, you will receive a commission. If you are knowledgeable about your topic you could also write product reviews to help increase your affiliate sales.

- Sell Advertising Space - if you have a popular blog you can charge people to advertise on your blog. This could be in the form of a text link, a banner or a graphic.

You are not going to make money with a blog unless people can find it. As soon as you have started to post to your blog it's time to start promoting it. You can get your blog noticed by...

- Submitting your blog to blog directories - just search for "blog directories" in Google

- Asking other bloggers to exchange links with you - you put a link on your blog in exchange for a link from their blog.

- Writing an article related to the topic of your blog and posting it to article directories. Remember to include an author's resource box with a link to your blog.

- Pinging blog ping services every time you make a new post - pingomatic.com and pingoat.com are two sites you can use to do this.

- Participating in forums related to the topic of your blog. Put a link to your blog in your forum signature.

Finally, once you have your blog monetized and you have started promoting it don't forget to post regularly. The most important aspect of every successful blog is frequent posting, so be sure not to let the virtual dust gather over your blog!

Suzanne Morrison blogs regularly on various topics including travel, home business and internet marketing. Visit her Plug-In Profit Site blog to find out how she makes money online.

Boost Your Business With Blogging!

Business blog is an incredible online marketing tool that saves you thousands of dollars but provides great business opportunities in just one click. Blogs are user-friendly, customized and flexible medium for disseminating useful information for effective positioning of your products in the market.

Companies engaging in business blogging have a definite edge over its competitors. Here are some advantages:

1.Word-of-Mouth. In a survey, there are currently 14 million blogs with 80,000 more being added each day and about 30 percent of the 50 million users are blog readers. Imagine how much gain your company will have, if your products are advertised through blogs. With Internet, information spreads so quickly especially if an impressive write-up goes with your product. Soon your blogs will be passed on to hundreds of possible customers.

2.Awareness and loyalty. Open communication with your customers creates trust and loyalty among them. Being there to respond to their questions and comments make them all the more willing to try your products and services.

3.Feedback. Blogs is good for product research and reviews. It would be easier to improve on your products if you observe your customers' thinking and behavioral patterns. You can also take immediate action to your customers' concerns.

4.Community halo-effect. Bloggers are reasonable, friendly and helpful. They are more than willing to create blogosphere of comments regarding your product. The only thing you have to do is embrace and take active part in the culture and your product will surely be considered in their next stop to the supermarket.

For better marketing results, actively promote your business blogs by submitting your blogs to blog search sites and directories. Do not forget to paste in with your blogs, your URL. Be sure that your blogs contain exclusive information with value and are always updated to keep readers popping in, read up your blog, move on to the next and click on again for updates.

Blog is like a setup booth in the biggest trade show on earth everyday. Marketing possibilities are just around the corner waiting to strike your sale scales up.

The Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds are important too in conjunction with your blogs to get the best benefits. Use effective keyword phrases to generate high ranking status in the search engine traffic. In this way you have better chances of people finding your website leading to your blogs. More traffic means more potential sales.

For this to be successful, you can use RSS for news update feeds which can be read through RSS reader application. This is a very useful tool for business and internet marketers as well.

If you are already convinced with the potentials of business blogs for marketing and targeting sales increase, your company is now ready to start blogging. But first, you have to be in tune with your company's business objectives and determine if blogging will really help you achieve your goal.

1.Several blogs are dedicated to teaching people the do's and don'ts of blogging, READ them! Include in your reading materials blogs that are consumer-based too to give you an idea.

2.Setup several test blogs right away.

If your initial try out with blogs worked well, you can now start setting up your blogs.

1.Study blog design. Blog hosting services provide pre-designed templates. But if you opt for paid blog service, you can ask your artist to design and layout your blog site to match the company's identity and needs.

2.Choose a topic. Its good to have a line-up of topics you want for your blogs but be sure they are in consonance with your business objectives. This would be a test of your flexibility and open-mindedness since results may be going against the set objectives.

3.Remember the following safety measures in blogging:

*legal issues are sometimes involved in blogging; it is safer to include disclaimers and limitations of liabilities;

corporate communication and legal department are responsible in educating the senior management on how blogs might affect business;

*create blogging policies; set limits on who gets to blog and what information are allowed to be made public;

*avoid outright marketing blog or you will shy away your readers;

*make content updated, relevant and fresh;

*reinforce the company's core values; and,

*encourage employees to use it.

4.Start blogging and complete 20 posts before going to marketing.

5.Begin marketing.

6.Regularly monitor the coming ins and outs of readers and get updates. Then, measure your results.

7.Adjust if needed. You can always play with your designs in the blog site as long as it remains to match the company's identity.

8.Strive to be consistent with your topic all the time.

9.Try to have unrelated topics with general and broad appeal.

10.Schedule updates regularly. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday would be best to update blogs.

Once you have done all these things, you can now ultimately enjoy the benefits of business blogging.

Jeremiah Patton has been utilizing blogging to gain traffic and interest for his work at home business opportunities website at http://www.2ndincome4u.com

Free Traffic To Your Auction Listing With eBay Blogs!

eBay has recently jumped on the blog bandwagon. They have opened a new section of the website called eBay blogs. This allows a registered eBay user to sign up for and maintain a blog. This is a wonderful new feature and if you are serious about growing your eBay business then you should definitely consider signing up for an eBay blog. It is a very simple process that almost anyone can navigate through and easily set up your own blog. You do not have to have any special html knowledge. Just go to the following url http://blogs.ebay.com/ and click on the large button that says "Start Blogging"

What Are Blogs

Blogs are basically an online journal. They provide a place where you can easily write news and information about yourself and your auction sales on a daily basis. The word blog is a combination of web and log smashed together to make a new word called blogs. They are one of the latest crazes on the internet because they allow anyone to easily publish their own thoughts and content on the internet.

Blogs are also wonderful for creating a ton of extra traffic and visitors to your auction listings. If you frequently post great content to your blog it will quickly be picked up by the search engines which will create more visitors to your blog and your auction listings for free.

What To Blog About

Many sellers will instantly see the benefit of having a blog. It provides an easy way to interact with your customers. You can provide updated information about your auctions, the products you sell and general info about your business. It might take a little while tog et used to blogging but typically it is very addictive and once you start writing a blog it can easily become a fun daily activity. To get the most from your blog you want to think about writing content that is useful to your customers. For example a eBay sellers that typically sells in one category or one type of product can provide more information about what thy sell. For example a seller who specializes in model cars might take some time to write a few articles or posts about building model car tips. Another seller who sells wedding related goods might write blog posts about wedding planning. The point is you want to make the content useful to your customers so they will come back often. The more you write good quality content and inform your customers the more they will want to purchase products from you. In this way you can quickly establish yourself as an authority on the subject.

One thing you will want to stay away from is having a blog with very little useful content and a lot of sales ads for your auctions. Sure you can occasionally write a blog post to plug a new item you have up for auction but if that is all you do no one will visit your blog. eBay is a very community oriented platform and the more community friendly information you provide the more potential and past customers will come to your blog and possible visit your auction listings.

Promoting Your Blog

Like any other site on the web your blog will have its own unique url or website address. You will want to make sure that you keep this hand and start promoting your blog. There are a variety of ways that you can promote a blog. Some of these would include submitting your website to major search engines, and blog/website directories. You can easily further promote your blog by taking the content or articles that you write on the blog and submitting them to some of the major article directories like this one.

Blog Comments

Another great way to promote your blog and build traffic to it is to comment on other people's blog. You want to be a little careful about this and only post to other related blogs and post meaningful comments. If you start leaving a bunch of random comments that have nothing to do with the blog or the post in general then people will see this as blog spam also known as splog content.

Blog Tags

Another useful feature that eBay has added is blog tags. When you first set up the blog there are some options to leave details about it. You can also select tags that people will use to find your blog. These tags are basically keywords that people might use to search for your blog. Using the example from above of the seller that sells wedding related items the seller would want to use common wedding keywords in their tags section. They could include tags like wedding, invitations, cake toppers, and wedding planning. Then when another eBay user searches for wedding related blog this blog will show up in the listing and again bring some free traffic to the blog and potential to the seller's listings.

So if you don't already have a eBay blog now is the time to get started.

Chris is a successful Webmaster and publisher of Auction Power Seller He provides more Auction selling tips and tricks on the website. To Learn more about Auction Listing Tips and other eBay help you can check out his website.

A Short Guide To Increasing Your Blog's Traffic

So you've decided to start a blog? You've written a few entries, but it's not getting the responses and feedback you expected when you decided to take the initial plunge. You don't want to give up, but quite honestly you can't understand just why blogs are such a big deal. What's all the fuss about? And why does everyone talk about blogs in such reverent, awed tones?

The word blog is an abbreviation for Web Log. Described as an online diary, a blog gives its writer the freedom to express his or her personal thoughts and opinions to what is potentially the biggest audience in the world. The freedom and accessibility of the Internet means that anyone in the world can access any blog at any time. Theoretically a blog has the potential to be read by more people than any best selling book. It's a disturbing, yet exhilarating thought.

Blogs are virtually the ultimate soapbox, and the true success of a blog depends on how the writer wants to reach his or her readers. There are a number of different ways in which to write a blog, and the content supplied needs to be considered according to the audience you want to reach. There are many different kinds of blogs, and I've selected the ones I feel most relevant to a personal blogger.

Some of the most popular blogs are cultural. These attract a wide audience, and discuss different cultural activities, ranging from sports to theatre and films. One way to use a cultural blog is to write a book or film review, or share the experience of attending a live concert. Imagine being able to share the experience of attending a concert given by a popular entertainer like Madonna with readers from all over the world. Imagine being able to compare your concert experience with people on continents who have seen the same show. That's why cultural blogs are so popular.

A topical blog is more specific, in that it focuses on a niche market. Local blogs, covering events in a neighbourhood, a town or a city fit this description. The people living in the specific area featured in the blog are actual participants to all events and happenings in the blog. Another type of a topical blog is one that covers a specific subject rather than a physical area. For example: a patient living with cancer can share many aspects of the condition with readers. He can share his daily feelings as he undergoes treatment and the reactions of his family and friends with readers who may have the same medical dilemma. Organizations covering human rights abuses in a specific country can blog about their findings, making people all over the world aware of the situation in which they're working. On a lighter note pet owners have written blogs from their pet's point of view, allowing their animal to narrate the entries. Animal lovers all over the world can contribute and share their own experiences with their owners in a light hearted, humorous style.

A political blog is dependent upon the media and the news, and the blogger will combine personal observations with links to other blogs and articles on the Internet. A more serious politician will feature his or her own beliefs and comments, with links to supporting blogs and media articles. Political blogs can inspire fierce and enthusiastic debates among readers, which makes them extremely diverse and interesting. A warblog focuses upon news event about an ongoing war or military action, although these types of blogs have been accused of supporting war rather than remaining neutral.

Perhaps the most common type of blog is the personal one. Popular with students and those wanting to share their experiences with family and friends, entries are usually written in a personal diary format. Although growing in popularity, it's more difficult to attract large reader numbers to this kind of blog. For example: a student living in a country in Africa will probably not bookmark a blog written by someone from a country like Scotland. The cultural and environmental differences between the two are significantly diverse. Another consideration is how long can diary entries about family and friend's activities hold anyone's attention if he's never met them - and isn't likely to anytime in the future?

If the writer pays attention to each entry, applying good grammar, humour and writing in a style that makes readers want to know more about the featured characters there's a chance a few may return. However part of the appeal of this blog is the personal approach, and there's a very real risk of losing the chance to build on the interaction between a crowd of people who have a physical connection rather than one formed in cyberspace. The best approach in this instance would be to write each blog entry as though it's a chapter in a book about the characters.

Personal blogs can be used in other ways too. Some people use an entry to write a poem, a chapter in a novel or a short story. Others will debate their religious, political or other beliefs. Some will write about their thoughts and feelings on current news items, others may use them to describe personal feelings during a crisis, such as coping with an illness or death of a loved one. In this instance writing the blog becomes a cathartic experience, and the support of readers can help the writer cope with a deep, personal issue or crisis.

As most blogs are personal there are a number of ways in which the blogger can maintain and possible increase his or her audience.

Be Diverse - vary your entries every day. Share an anecdote about a friend or family member in one entry, then follow it with a story about your pet. If you've read an interesting story on the news dedicate an entry to it. Share a joke you received on an email from a friend. You could write a book review or share your thoughts on a film or DVD you've just watched. Think Forrest Gump: Life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get.

Be Candid - be truthful, frank and straightforward. Know your facts. If you're commenting on a topical story or issue research your facts before committing them to the blog. Explain the reasoning for your beliefs, and back them with proven facts.

Be Neutral - don't scorn, condemn or criticise those who disagree with your beliefs. Accept that everyone's entitled to his or her opinion. It's an idea to reflect both sides of the argument in an entry, taking care to avoid criticising or berating others. That's the basis of democracy, and it's a good point to remember when debating a "hot" issue in a blog.

Be Friendly - acknowledge those who take the time to read and contribute to your blog. If someone's left a comment in your blog with a return email or blog address, send a message. Or better still pay a visit to the relevant blog. It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. The visitor may tell others about your blog, and their visits will increase your blog's popularity - not to mention your viewing statistics!

Be Entertaining - use your sense of humour, don't take yourself too seriously. Sharing thoughts, ideas and experiences in writing is the same as sitting in a room with a group of friends. Just because you cannot see their faces doesn't mean they're not like you. Your blogging friends are special people, who've taken the time to respond to your words. Share some of yourself with them, and you'll find your blogging circle grows.

A blog is a powerful communicative tool, and it needs to be handled properly. A well written, interesting blog has the ability to be read by people from all over the world. There are now more than 60 million blogs on the Internet, and that number is increasing daily. Self publishing house Lulu recently announced the winner of the inaugural Blooker Prize. Julie Powell wrote a blog about her attempts to cook all the recipes in an old French cookery book. Her blog was turned into a blook and to date she's sold 100,000 copies.

Now that's food for thought! Who knows what direction your blog will take in the future?

The writer was born in Africa, and lived there for the first 38 years of her life. She worked in the world of public relations for over five years, running her own PR company. She?s had extensive experience dealing with the world of journalism and the print media. She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers. Her blog can be visited at: http://www.writing.com/authors/zwisis/blog