Blogging For Business …

Where to Find the Time, the Ideas and the Inspiration

Do you have trouble blogging consistently and coming up with fresh new material to keep your readers coming back for more and more? In this article, I’ll show you how to make time and where to find the inspiration for new ideas to keep flowing.

Blogging is a great way to gain exposure for your business. However, many people have trouble doing consistent blog postings and coming up with new material to write about. A key point to remember about blog postings is that they do not have to be long, in fact, blog posts kept to around 250 words is pretty sufficient. When people are browsing the web they are generally hopping from one site to the next so keep your blogs sharp and concise.

Personally, I used to find it very challenging to write a few blog posts a week until I really took the time to make blogging a serious part of my business marketing. Before anything else you must get committed to your blog, make a goal of posting one, two, or three times a week. (More if you are a real go-getter!) Starting off with just a few posts a week is definitely manageable and the more you do it, the easier it will become.

I find that I can write about five blog posts in about an hour if I keep them to the 250 word guideline. If you are writing anything longer than that, think about making those submissions into articles instead of blog postings.

Once you have started with a goal in mind here are some simple steps to keep your blogging fun, fresh, and easy.

1. Set a designated time to write and stick to that time every week. (You write on Monday’s from 2-4p.m. Writing in blocks of time is also more productive as it will put you in a writing mode and allow you to easily flow from one piece to the next. Turn off all the other distractions during this time.
2. Look for ideas and inspiration in everything that you do. I find inspiration at concerts, walking in the park, and all throughout my life – NOT when I am sitting at the computer facing a blank screen.
3. Always carry an idea journal or an electronic form of taking notes. If I do not have my note pad with me, I write a note in my iPhone. Unfortunately, inspiration comes and goes at the most inconvenient time so you want to be ready. I find that the more I write down my ideas and save them for later the more my creativity thanks me by continuing to give me new things to write about.
4. Look in your inbox/sent box. You are probably talking to people about similar things all of the time, these conversations and emails make a great starting point for blog posts. Address the questions you hear and the conversations you have in your blog.
5. See blogging as a way of expressing yourself. Get inspired by sharing what is really going on in your life or business. People want to get a chance to relate to you, so show them who you really are, what is on your mind, what gets you fired up, or maybe what is keeping you up at night. Our brain is constantly thinking all day long, I guarantee if you start paying attention you will find more ideas to write about that you will be seeking even more time to sit down and write.

About the Author

Andrea Costantine is the ConsciousPreneur Connection Specialist, providing powerful resources to help entrepreneurs easily and effortlessly grow their business.

How to Create Your First Blog

I’ve been blogging now for about 2 years, and I’m amazed at the amount of traffíc that I get from my blog and the number of people who tell me that they first heard about me from my blog instead of my website. The word blog is derived from the term “web log”, or an online diary or journal. If the HBO series “Sex and the City” were being filmed today, Carrie Bradshaw would be a blogger as well as a columnist, I think. Why? As she experiences her revelations about life, love, and relationships, she could post them to her blog for the world to see and comment upon.

Blogging has opened website creation to almost everyone, as it takes very little know-how to get a blog up and running. In fact, many service business owners are using a blog platform as their primary website, with some of them creating static pages as you would find on a traditional website, while others are using the platform as a blog and are posting updates regularly.

There are several advantages to using blogs instead of ezines or traditional websites:

1. Search engines love blogs. The strategy that seems to be attractive to search engines today is regularly updated content. I can log-in to my blog at the beginning of a day and submit a post. Within 24 hours I’ll get a notification from my Google alerts account that Google has indexed that post.

2. Content can be distributed quickly. If you instruct your visitors to subscribe to your blog via updating services like Bloglines or Feedblitz, they’ll be notified within hours of any new posts on your blog.

3. Little web programming knowledge is required. Once your blog is set up, it’s simply a matter of logging into your account, typing the info for your post, adding graphics or photos as needed, and publishing your post to your blog.

4. Reader feedback. Your readers can give you comments and feedback about your posts almost immediately after you log an entry. Blogs are a great way to engage your audience.

Are ezines and traditional websites dead? No, because people consume information differently. Some are auditory learners and prefer to hear the info (great audience for podcasting, an audio förm of blogging), some prefer to receive updates as they are published (blog readers), while others like a stable, stationary medium to which they can refer when they’re ready (readers who archive ezines or bookmark web pages).

How do you begin to blog? Here are 10 simple steps you can follow:

1. Blogging platform. The easiest way to get started is to use the frëe service found at Blogger.com or WordPress.com. The ability to customize your blog is limited with the frëe services, so I urge my clients to subscribe to Typepad.com, which will host your blog for you on their servers, or purchase a hostíng account where WordPress can be installed. The downloadable version of WordPress is located at WordPress.org and is frëe of charge if you need to install WordPress yourself on your hostíng account. I use Typepad for my blog, so many of my examples will relate exclusively to blogs hosted on that platform.

2. Name. What do you want to call your blog? Blog names tend to be attention-getting and off-beat. However, for service businesses, I encourage my clients to use keywords important to their business when naming their blog. You will also want to acquire the .com version of your blog’s name or your blog’s name with the word “blog” attached as your blog URL. After you have set up your blog, your blog provider can give you more info about how to map your domain to your blog. (Note: You don’t want to simply forward your blog to your domain name, as that impacts the URLs of your individual blog pages).

3. Look and Layout. How many columns do you want to display? Do you want links to static pages? What colors do you want to use? How about a signup box for a frëe giveaway? Should you use one of the templates provided or have something custom designed? Do you want your blog archives displayed? Do you want to be the only author or do you want to permit others to make posts, as well? There are many questíons you’ll be asked in the startup phase about the look of your blog. A Typepad blog permits you to change your mind about your layout at a later date. The best way to determine the look of your blog is to look at the layout of other blogs and determine what appeals to you.

4. Widgets. There are a number of widgets, or add-on programs, that you can incorporate into your blog. Chëck your blog software’s site for more info about what features you’d like add to your blog. At a minimum you’ll want to give visitors a couple of ways in which they can receive blog updates through various updaters, or feeder services, as mentioned earlier.

5. Comments. The newest sp*am making its rounds online is comment sp*am. Don’t these guys have anything better to do? Set your comments to moderated, which means that you have to approve any comments to your blog before the post goes live. You’ll save yourself a great many headaches and time by choosing to moderate the comments.

Once you’ve gotten this far, you should have a basic blog established and are ready to begin to blog.

6. Blog content. The time has arrived — your blog is ready to accept posts. What do you write about? You can post content rich articles of interest to your target market, comment on a current event, answer questíons from your visitors, present a before and after case study outlining how your business helped someone, etc. Keep your eyes and ears open for information relevant to your audience. I use my blog to bring forth info that doesn’t fit well into my newsletter format or something that arises between newsletter issues. I post my ezine content to my blog, as well.

7. Posting frequency. Blogs are just like gardens — they need watering regularly and require some care and attention. For maximum effectiveness, you need to post several times a week to your blog. I try and post 4 times per week in my blog — 2 posts are items I run across or comment upon as noteworthy in the moment, and the latter 2 are the contents of my ezine posted over 2 days. And, respond to reader’s comments when they arrive — blogs provide a great forum for ongoing discussions.

8. Blog traffíc. In the same way that you publicize your website URL on everything that you do, you can similarly publicize your blog. Submitting your blogs to blog directories is another way to get traffíc. A very comprehensive líst of blog directories, RSS Top 55 has been compiled by Robin Good. Searching out blogs that appeal to your target market and making comments to those posts will also drive traffíc to your blog. Another trick is to post your blog on social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us.

9. Measure the results. Some blog programs, like Typepad, have built-in statistics so you can view details of your blog traffíc. Some of the feed/updater programs have built-in statistics as well, or you can install a metrics program as an add-on to your blog. Review your statistics regularly to determine how much traffíc your blog generates.

10. Rinse and repeat. Don’t let the novelty of blogging wear off. Blogging is effective only if you continue your blogging efforts regularly over a long period of time. I know of several individuals who have gotten book deals from their blog and radio and TV interviews as well. Just think — your blog might be your ticket to fame!

Every service business can benefit from blog technology. Few other marketing strategies provide the quick immediacy that blogging provides.

About The Author

Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To sign up for more Free tips like these and claim your Free gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.GetMoreClientsOnline.com.

How Blogs Can Break or Make Your SEO Strategy

Blogs are a great way to get started authoring content and sharing your knowledge and insights with other people. Plus, mix work and play – and you can get rich doing this.

You don’t have to be an MBA-accredited author by any means. However, there are some rules to play by, and I’ll break those out below. We will talk about the top blogs, practicalities around blogs and creative ways to get started, including how you could possibly ruin your good-standing ranking and having to change your Search Engine Optimization strategy.

Blogs – Structure and Layout

I work in the field of Search Engine Optimization. It has a wide range of options, from the technical to the more strategic. Tons of discussions are found on off-page and on-page factors, latent semantic analysis, content scope, quality, HTML/CSS development, site navigational structure, spamdexing, 301 redirects, plagiarism, link strategies, directories, blogs, search engine news, email marketing tips & online (internet) marketing. Most all of the top 10 SEO firms out there agree that blogs are a “must” for driving traffíc and to get established in the Internet community.

There is a right way, and a wrong way. We’ll discuss these below.

Be warned – too many folks out there are thinking about “how to outbeat the search engines” and use the latest-and-greatest (blogs) to elevate their rankings, essentially via content and blog sp@m. Blogs are a powerful way to get seen by the search bots. Blogger (Google’s own) is an important key to the puzzle, but there are many.

The Un-Official Top 7 Blogging Best Practices For SEO

1. Start here, begin a quick review of the world’s top blogs:

http://www.technorati.com/pop/blogs – updated daily

http://www.problogger.net – he makes #16,000/month

http://microsaw.stikipad.com – web 2.0 blogs

2. Get an account – it’s free. Log in – and – don’t start! What? No, you must first continue by scanning the list above and get a sense for what people are writing about. This could be more generic at first, but start looking to yourself. What do you know? What do people come to you for? Anything that you specialize in? (Hint: don’t think “how can I sell this” – but “how can I share this?” ) You’ll also learn how to use trackback functions to allow other people to be notified. Permalinks are great for SEO and should be used where appropriate. So, now you learned something big: be yourself!

3. Think about an interesting headline. You don’t need to be a copywriter, but you should think about your headline and the topic at hand. More importantly, is it something that you are passionate about, or can contribute something to? It’s ok to spend some time here, writer’s block can come up. Think about other sites, can you re-write their UVP (unique value proposition)? How would you write yours (thinking theme here). What I’ve found to work is simply sit back and start talking as if you were discussing a (hot) topic with a friend, and then break it out into sub-groups from there.

4. Writing tips: casual, friendly and interesting (meaning you have something to write and you don’t copy others) works well in blogs. Make sure you stay on topic and that you are truthful. Would you lie to your mother? Of course not – then think about this when you are writing online (and she will not come after you). Yahoo’s blogging policy is a good one: “Be respectful of your colleagues, get your facts straight, provide context to your argument, and engage in private feedback.” Also, make sure to include images (flickr) and video (youtube, google video) where you can. Make the images rich and colorful, don’t worry about sizing too much.

5. Committment, persistence and discipline. Sound like an extract from Jim Rohn or Anthony Robbins? Well, they probably are – but it applies to most of the things you do in life. So be it with blogging. Carve out 1/2-1 hour every day to nurture your blog business. Think of it as your morning ritual – right after you have attended to your family and other duties. Plus, often you are not going to be in writing mode – but rather, maintenance mode – reviewing and responding to other blogger’s input.

6. Search engines start picking up your blog, and traffíc increases. Be prepared and if it gets out of hand, be able to manage that too. I’m not simply talking about traffíc, but as others join and comment, you may need to defend your stance, including admitting mistakes if / when you make them. Folks appreciate other folks who are big enough to admit mistakes if it gets there. For example, you may have folks who don’t like you – even if you’re Bill Gates. This guy created a Corporate Weblog Manifesto that I found interesting.

7. Run and host your own blog service. More expensive, but this could have a large impact on your ability to control not only the content, but custom HTML layouts, code and information architecture that are important to search engines. You can offer this as a service to others in your niche market. BusinessLogs.com is a great resource to use for starting this process, and more hands-on development companies like LevelTenDesign.com can be an option for you. Keep in mind that the market has developed niche-companies, from real-estate to healthcare, and you should research those specifically.

Content is important for Search Engine Optimization – be on top of it, keep a schedule.

Voila – that’s it, there you have it. Watch how the search engines will start picking up your content. You can run tools to see how you are ranking, how often you are showing up in the search engines. We like UrlTrends.com as a simple beginner starting point. However, it’s not 100% accurate, other SEO tools can provide more detail.

Keep your content fresh, updates daily is preferred – and definitely once a week and your search engine marketing (which includes search engine optimization) will become more visible than it was just last week. Then, use Pingomatic.com to alert search engines that you have made updates. It’s a free service, and will help your visibility.

About The Author

Jon Rognerud is a recognized authority on the subject of search marketing, and has spent over 10 years developing websites and marketing solutions at companies like Overture and Yahoo. His website, http://www.microsaw.com, provides a wealth of informative articles, resources and frëe email courses, including complimentary site ranking reports at http://www.microsaw.com/emailpage.asp.