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DURING A COCKTAIL PARTY A few weeks ago, a newly single friend of mine gulped down his third Scotch, slammed down his glass and announced, “Okay, I give up. What the heck do women want? I used to think I understood them, but these days, I’m completely stumped.”

Being the supportive friend that I am, I offered him a few words of wisdom (”Beats me, but let me know when you find out”) handed him another drink and promptly changed the subject. But later that night as my thoughts turned to work, I remembered his words and realized that the business of marketing in an online video environment is going through a similar life stage. As marketers, we are starting to get to know online video viewers — what they want and how they want to be treated. Sometimes we connect well and other times we find ourselves, well, stumped.

Here are three rules of the relationship I think marketers should keep in mind to ensure that their video advertising efforts win the hearts of consumers:

1) Length matters. It’s no secret that the 30-second pre-roll is both reviled and at the same time delivers more in-video weight than any other ad unit. But just how much do viewers dislike their length? At Veoh, we’ve found that viewers are 40% more likely to abandon the video experience during a 30-second pre-roll ad than a 15-second pre-roll ad. And contrary to popular opinion, we’ve found that viewers are just as turned off by 30-second pre-rolls before long-form video as they are by pre-rolls before short clips. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a 3-minute clip or a 30-minute episode: viewers have narrowed their windows of ad acceptance.

As a marketer, it’s best not to let your viewers walk out the door before you’ve finished your best pick-up line. Make the extra creative investment and showcase your charm in a 15-second (or shorter) introduction.

2) Your best prospects are already engaged. When choosing video sites for your media buy, it’s important to make sure the site partners have highly loyal and engaged audiences. Why? Because viewers who are not yet familiar with or engaged in a site are much less accepting of ads during their viewing experience. We found that heavy video viewers (viewers who visit the site and watch a video at least six times per month) are 50% more likely to continue watching a video after a pre-roll than are light and new viewers. In addition, heavy viewers are more than 10 times more likely than light or new viewers to accept a pre-roll ad within the first video they watch in a session without abandoning the experience.

So in an online video environment, if the majority of the viewers are already “taken,” you’ll actually have a much better chance of making a strong connection.

3) It’s always better with an audience. Yes, network TV shows are great, but the only way to take full advantage of Web video is by targeting audiences rather than following a traditional TV model of buying around content. The same valuable viewers who watch full-length network sitcoms are also watching independent studio productions and popular video clips - so why not reach them throughout their entire viewing experience? In addition to increasing the number of opportunities for marketers to reach consumers, ads that target audiences based on their behaviors and interests are much more relevant to and therefore well-received by online video viewers.

For example, during a recent national family restaurant campaign, we saw that ads that were behaviorally targeted to the family-focused audience performed 20 times better than basic contextually targeted companion ads - and yielded a higher number of impressions than they would have received if targeting a single show. Make sure to work with your video site partners to identify viewer behavior segments that fit with your brand’s target audience - it’s the best way to start a positive conversation with a video viewer (and much cheaper than buying them a cocktail).

In any budding relationship, it’s very easy to overlook the basics when you’re trying to make a good impression. As marketers, if we listen to what our viewers want and pay more attention to their unique interests, we can build more exciting and lasting relationships in online video environments.

Mike Henry is senior vice president of advertising sales at Veoh Networks, a leading Internet television company with more than 28 million unique monthly viewers worldwide and over 100,000 content publishers including CBS, ViacomÂ’s MTV Networks, ABC, Warner Bros. Television Group, ESPN and Lions Gate, as well as thousands of independent filmmakers and content producers. 

Tags: blogs, marketers, podcasts, veoh, videos

Blogs are a great link building tool and they are also great for customer relationship building, reputation management, and a good survey tool to get a feel for what people think about new products. To develop a blog so that it is a good search engine optimization (SEO) link building tool it’s important to use linking strategies that are effective with the search engines including Google or Yahoo.

Ideal for customer relations if done properly, a blog is an excellent way to get customer reactions to new products or services, and also as a tool to combat negative press. Just remember that anything you post on the Internet can come back and bite you later on because even a blog post will stay up for a long time. So be very careful what you say.

Starting conversations with your readers online is what works today, and in fact, it is the shift in marketing all together. Another aspect of blogging involves reputation management. For example, you can create a blog for an individual who has negative mentions on Google, and actually “push” the negative posts down to page two on the Internet. You could talk about this person’s activities on the Boards of charities, and post research or trends articles on their blog two to there times a week. The same content can also be written into articles, and posted on the Internet. But you cannot submit duplicate copy or the search engines will not count it. The content of each article must be at least 30 percent different.

Another aspect of blog writing that people often do not understand is the search engine optimization and PR value. Inside each blog post it’s a good idea to use a key word or phrase, and link that phrase back to a website. The linking strategy might be to link to specific pages in his website that are related to that topic or key phrase - not just to the home page. There are times when we have seen blog posts get picked up by other bloggers, who link to your post.

A goal is required in blogging, and writing and monitoring a blog can be a lot of work. The beauty of blogging is that it provides a marketing vehicle that does NOT rely on a third party, such as an editor writing an article about you. What’s more, corporate blogs provide you with an opportunity to tell your company’s story. Various executives in your company, large or small, can post to a corporate blog, so you can create a strategy ahead of time, then assign folks to write about specific topics.

Blogs are a great crisis management tool as well. Just look at how popular Martha Stewart’s blog was during her court battle. Blogs are a great way to build a database of interested people for later use in opt in email blasts. You can send people over to a sign up form on a blog, and you are certain to get an opt in database.

Insofar as a return on investment (ROI) for blog writing, it costs very little. You can set up a blog at blogger.com, for free. So it costs you in time - your time, the time of your employees, or the writing fees to hire someone to ghostwrite and monitor your blogs.

There are tracking programs to check and see if your blog is building traffic to your website, because of course, the better your blog’s linking strategies are, the more folks will visit your website. You can get details including what happens once a visitor comes in to your website from your blog, including what path they go down? Do they ultimately get funneled to a sale? These things must be tracked on your website by programs like Google Analytics, which is free, or HitsLink. And of course, you need the experience to be able to read and analyze the reports once they are generated on HitsLink, to track your successes.

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Kristin Gabriel is writer and social media marketing professional with a Los Angeles SEO firm. Her company also handles marketing, public relations, and online advertising. Visit MarComNewMedia.com

Tags: blogs, content, Writing

If you haven’t yet added social bookmarking to your arsenal of marketing tools, you’ve been willfully giving away money to your competitors. Why? It’s simple: using social bookmarking is one of the easiest and fastest ways to drive traffic to your site.

However, in order to use social bookmarking successfully, you must have a good handle on the basics; and you must be willing to put in a sufficient amount of time to make it work. Even though it is relatively, it will take some patience to make it work. I’ll explain why later.

Before you do anything else, you will want to create a blog. If you don’t already have a blog, you can create one through Blogger; or, if your site’s control panel has Fantastico, you can create a WordPress blog by installing the plugin.

Once you’ve setup your blog, you will want to start looking for some good categories for your blog entries. When you add a blog entry to a category on your blog, you will “tag” it with that a keyword that matches the blog entry. You can find a good list of categories by going to social bookmarking sites, such as Technorati, and jotting down keywords that are relevant to your site and that fall on the top 100 list for your given category.

Once you have created your list of categories and have added it to your blog, it’s time to start creating some high-quality content. This is where you will have to be patient - or at least moreso than you generally are when you create content.

Why do you have to be patient? Because you cannot use social bookmarking effectively without creating high-quality, viral content. When you submit your blog entry to social bookmarking sites, it will immediately be ranked #1 for that particular tag; however, from there, it’s positioning will depend on the amount of votes it receives from visitors. In order to get more traffic, people have to see your entry as noteworthy.

How can you ensure that your entry is noteworthy? You can use screencaptures and videos; and include relevant, high-quality content. Additionally, if you can write something that is funny, absurd, or unusually insightful, you will have a far greater chance of getting your entry seen and bumped.

Now, once you finish creating and tagging your content, you will want to submit it to various social bookmarking sites. Luckily, this nowhere near as annoying as submitting articles to directories. All you have to do is “ping” your entries by submitting your blog’s URL to a single site. You can do this at a place like PingGoat or Ping-O-Matic. All you have to do is select the sites you want to ping (by checking off boxes) and submit your URL. The script will handle the rest.

And there you have it: a brief summary of how to use social bookmarking to your advantage. All you have to do is come up with great content, tag it (i.e. place it in categories), and then submit it to social bookmarking sites by pinging.

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Mike Row - If you also aren’t interested in learning how to make money on the internet then don’t click on the secret link below where you’ll have access to an absolutely free guide that hundreds of others have gladly paid $19.95 for at the home page of my website. Again if you’re not interested then don’t go to http://www.make100perday.com/secret-page.html

Tags: blogs, social bookmarking

Wordpress is free to use content management software that publishes your content in blog form. A blog does not have a static homepage like conventional web sites, instead all new content appears on the homepage and then finds it way in to folders and archives as more new content is published.

There are two big benefits to publishing with Wordpress:

1. It’s FREE to download and use
2. The Search Engines, in particular Google, love Wordpress blogs

Wordpress is open source software, which means it’s free to use. When you choose a hosting account, try and choose one that uses a control panel called “CPanel”, because installing Wordpress becomes as easy as clicking a handful of icons, it really is simple!

So you’ve bought a domain name, found a hosting company with CPanel and installed Wordpress on your new domain! In theory you’re ready to make your first post! But before you do, read on!

Before you post, you need to configure your blog and optimise it for the search engines, doing this before you post makes life a lot easier for the future.

As Wordpress is open source, developers around the world have written literally hundreds of plugins that enhance the functionality of your blog, and again the majority are free to install. Take a look at Wordpress.org where you’ll find hundreds of free plugins. Ones I recommend are:

• Installer (install this one first, simplifies plugin installations)
• All In One SEO Pack (optimises your posts)
• Adsense Manager (adds Adsense blocks to your posts)
• Google XML Site Maps (creates a site map for your blog)
• Ultimate Tag Warrior (essential plugin for managing tags)
• Sociable (assists with social bookmarking)

Next, within your dashboard, select Options in the menu and then Permalinks. You need to modify the settings on this page to improve the seo of the url’s Wordpress produces so that your keywords appear. In the Custom Options box, type and save the following:

/%category%/%postname%/

Typing this will optimise your posts, but you must be careful only to ever select one category per post in the future, and not change a post’s category after you’ve published it!

When you post with Wordpress, it automatically notifies (known as pinging) blog directories of your new content, they index it based on the tags you assign. The search engine robots regularly visit these directories, and as a result your new post will be indexed by them very quickly. Rapid indexing is one of the huge advantages of blogging!

Within your blog set up, you need to add a bunch of directory sites to “ping” to in addition to the default. Simply search on the web for “ping list”.

Finally, you need to optimise the appearance of your site. You don’t want to use the basic template that comes with Wordpress. There are lots of free themes available on the web for download, take a look at Wordpress.org again in their themes directory. Whilst there are hundreds of free themes around, I never seem to find one that perfectly meets my needs, so I often end up buying one!

Once you’ve installed the theme of your choice, activated all of your plugins, and made the configuration adjustments I’ve recommended, you’re ready to post, so what are you waiting for!

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Richard Taylor - To learn a whole lot more about optimising Wordpress and to get a copy of my “ping” list, visit my blog at: http://www.essentialseotools.com/seoblog/category/wordpress/. For some great Wordpress Themes that I use on my blogs, take a look at these: Instant Wordpress Themes

Tags: blogs, seo blog optimization, wordpress blog

SEO blog posts are one of the best ways to get your links out there on the Internet. Search Engines love them and people can follow them easily to your site.

As an example I will link this keyword  ”Ghost Writers” here. Notice the link takes you to a site that offers the service related to it. I could have linked any word here but I choose to link one that is relevant and that will help improve keyword traffic.

The big problem for most is how to make the most of their blog. I have found tons of articles about how to seo your blog software, but not much on the topic of optimizing your blog posts.

I will give a few simple things to consider when adding your blog posts:

Post Slugs or Permalinks

Post slugs are how your URL is displayed for each post. In most WordPress Accounts there is a setting for Permalinks. If you login to your admin and click “settings” and then “Permalinks” look for the words “Custom Structure” and put this line of code in:

/%category%/%postname%/

There are many ways to do this, but this way allows the category name and title of your blog appear in your post. If my category was Ghost Writers then the link would be: /ghost-writers/optimize-your-blog-post/

Now, that you have your permalinks in place, click on “write” to add your post now. Depending on your version of WordPress you will either see the words “Post Slug” or “permalink”. Post slug is on the right column and “permalinks” is under the title bar. Either way you can change the way your post URL title will appear.

This is important to follow because some times people use character in their titles like:

How To Optimize Your Blog Posts!

The (!) character will cause your URL to show funny, or if you use (- , “) or any number of characters. So in your post slug or permalink, make sure you remove those characters. Play around with this a bit and see how the URL reads after you change the Permalink or post slug portion.

Keyword linking

This one is simple but very often over looked. Don’t go crazy here with this, but make sure to link 2 or 3 of your keywords to your websites home page and inner pages as well.

The keyword “SEO content” is not very effective if not linked properly. Notice that I linked the word “seo content” to my site. I also added a title tag to the URL for better keyword positioning. In your word press when you highlight a word or phrase you can click on the link icon and it will give you an option for the URL and Title. The title is for your keyword. Since I linked “seo content” I then used that word as my title tag as well. Notice that if you put the mouse over the link a title appears.

Proper Credit where credit is due!

Since many people are not truly inspired writers, many will find content out there and copy and paste it into their WordPress program and revise the words around to make it more original. Though using someone else’s content does not require creative thought, it can help if you convert over 50% of the content around and put them in your own words.

However, it is not professional of you if done without giving credit to the original writer. In your article you don’t have to say this came from some site, etc… You simply choose a keyword in your blog post and link it to the source where you got it from. Don’t be greedy, it looks better anyway when you do this properly and helps with SEO as well. If you are not willing to give up a link, then come up with your own content.

Add a Picture

Very simple, add a photo to your post. Upload a photos, add an alt text and a title tag, it is all provided for you in wordpress. It not only makes your post look more attractive but it again helps with SEO.

Give you photo a file name that is keyword based as well. Download your image, rename it and upload it.

If you hire a ghost writer to write your content, make sure they provide you with the original source and a photo to match the blog content and upload the post yourself or train your writer to do this for you. You will find this is very effective for online marketing.

Tags: blog writing, blogs, ghost writers, Linking Strategies, seo

If I were starting my business today and was evaluating my website options, I would pick a blogsite over a stand-alone blog or a traditional website. What’s a blogsite? I like to think of this as a blog/website hybrid. It has all the features of a blog, yet acts as a website to help you promote your business.

More and more I see new online service business owners choosing blogsites over traditional websites. Some who have started with a traditional website have switched over to a blogsite in the last year. Here are 7 reasons why a blogsite attracts more visitors and helps you get more clients online than a traditional website:

1. Easy to update and maintain. Once created, your blog is almost effortless to update and maintain on a regular basis. All you have to do is log into your administrator interface, create a post in a Word-like environment, publish the post, and it instantly appears on your blogsite. A well-maintained and updated site is one to which visitors return. No longer will your website be the site that you (and time) forgot.

If you are tech-savvy, you may be able to create and install your blogsite yourself using open source software like WordPress, or using a fee-based blogging service like Typepad. If you require technical and graphic assistance to get your blogsite up and running, you can expect to pay at least $300 to create a simple blogsite. The ability to update your site yourself frees you from the need to learn an HTML software program. However, if you choose to use open source software for your blog platform, be sure and have someone on call who can help you troubleshoot when there is a technical problem. As with all technology, it’s not a matter of if a problem will happen, but when it will happen.

2. Create static webpages. The best feature of a blogsite is the ability to create static webpages, like About Us, Our Services, How We Work, etc., as found on a traditional website. Your static pages can be displayed in a navigation bar across the top or down one side of your blogsite, as in a traditional website. These pages can serve as your home page, or the blog part of your site can serve as your homepage instead. Now, anytime you add an additional program or service, you can simply go to your blogsite and instantly update your offerings.

3. Create relationship with visitors. Unlike a traditional website, a blogsite has the blogging feature built in, which permits your visitors to comment on your posts. You do need to post 2-3 times per week to the blog to begin to build the relationship, and then reply to the comments that come in from your visitors. And, your visitors are much more likely to return to your blogsite to see what else you have to say. That doesn’t happen often with a traditional website.

4. Attractive to search engines. Search engines, Google in particular, love blogs. I’ve posted a comment to a blog and had Google index that comment within 5 minutes. How did I know this? Because I have a Google Alert set for my name, and that alert about that post was emailed to me about 5 minutes after I made it. No more waiting for weeks for the search engines to find your site!

5. Uses RSS feeds. No longer do you have to hope and pray that your email reaches its intended target. With the use of RSS feeds, your blog posts are automatically syndicated to anyone who has requested them, and they arrive in your reader’s RSS feeder almost instantly.

6. Promote your business throughout the site. Have a free giveaway or product or affiliate program you want to promote? Now you can easily add that info to a sidebar of your blog and have that show up for the visitor regardless of what page the visitor lands on.

7. Offers Web 2.0 functionality. If you’re using any social networking like Facebook or Twitter, most blogging platforms offer a widget or plug-in that will connect your visitor to your social networking profile. There are other plug-ins that make your blogsite searchable, show related blogsites or related posts, display your favorite Amazon.com recommendations, etc. More widgets and plug-ins are being developed every day to help you better connect to your visitors.

If your website needs an overhaul or you are about to launch your first site, seriously consider a blogsite. A blogsite will save you money, time and aggravation and get you connected much more quickly to your visitors and to the world at large.

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Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com.

Tags: blog marketing, blogs

Blogging is definitely a very powerful way of building your business online, but you need to have some important traits if you want to really milk this cow. The following are some of the important traits that you need to have to make your blogging a significant driving force in your business promotion.

Give time to your blogging campaign

Most people flounder in their blogging campaigns because they do not set an adequate amount of time for blogging. You must spend at least two days blogging for your business and you must do it yourself, without delegating it to anyone else. Why will you need two hours? One hour you can keep aside for finding new blogs to make posts on each day (trust me, I have lived through this and I know for a fact that it is not easy to find new blogs each day) and the other hour you should keep aside for actually making the posts. Since blogging is actually a fun activity (at least I think so), you can keep it for the times in your day when you feel like you want a diversion from your other brain-deadening work.

Mingle with the crowd

It is very important when you are blogging to go with the drift. Read the previous posts to understand what people are talking about, and when you make a post yourself, you must take care to continue with the conversation and not put a break in it. In every post, make sure that you put your perspective across. This is what people really want to read.

Have your own blog too

This is quite obvious, but you will be amazed at the number of people who simply scavenge on other blogs with their business website link but do not maintain blogs of their own. This is a very serious fallacy. First make a blog of your own and then start blogging on other blogs. This way, you will be able to promote your blog, and through that your website in your posts. You can realize how much better that will be for bringing in targeted traffic to your website, can’t you?

Be well informed

When making your posts, do not come across like a nerd. First, research on what you are going to write about and make sure of the facts. Then, and only then, make your post. If you write something that’s an obvious mistake, it will definitely create a bad impression on the reader and will do more harm than good.

Write in an appealing manner

You do not have to be a literary genius to make a blog post, but you sure must have the writing skills to get your point across. Write in a friendly tone because blog-savvy people like to read such language.

Educate yourself on blog marketing methods

You will need to learn what link sharing is. This is the process of writing on other people’s blogs so that they write on yours and you can promote each other’s links. That way you are both mutually benefiting because the traffic is increasing. You have to do this kind of link sharing quite frequently with different blogs so that you increase your chances of getting visitors.

These were some of the most essential points you need to remember when you are promoting your website through blogging. However, these are by no means exhaustive. As you blog more and more you will learn many more strategies that put your blogging strategy at the top spot of your web marketing campaign.

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Colin Meunier is a Successful Home Business Coach and Mentor!
To learn how you can use a breakthrough marketing system to become more successful in your home business online visit: wealth funnel system

Tags: blog strategies, blogs

Blogging is a hot way for an ordinary person to make some cash on the net. Anybody with a computer and an Internet connection can make it in this market. You’ve no doubt come across many blogs and maybe you’ve thought about starting one yourself.

Here are some common sense advice on how to get your thoughts out of your head and into your blog. Listen up.

1. You’re the boss.

Don’t worry about what people will think when you blog. Just write what you feel, what is in your heart, and your fans will find you!

2. What To Write About.

What if you can’t think of ideas, where can you get ideas to write about?

There is so many ways to research ideas, that I could spend a year writing about each one. Here is just a few things you can write about.

Hop to YouTube, find a few videos you like and blog about those 2 .Go to the major news sites and blog about current events in your home town, the nation, or the world 3. Scan a few community forums and blog about what people are talking about.

3. Ok Ok, I get the Idea, but I really don’t have time to maintain a blog.

If the thought of committing to your blog gives you weak knees, you can always schedule a bunch of posts in advance.

A lot of blogging software give you the option to schedule your posts, giving you the flexibility to post at regular intervals even if you have a short period of time to commit to your blog.

For example, when you have time to blog, generate a list of ideas for articles, tutorials and other things that you might be interested in. Brainstorm at least ten different topics and create a 3-4 sentence paragraph about each topic. Then create a post for each idea using the future post to schedule the posts.

If you want, you can post 1/2/3 blog posts per week. Now, your blog will auto post your articles even if you can’t be at the computer.

4. Show Me the Money!

Okay, let’s monetize your new blog. Once your site or blog has lots of stuff on it then sign yourself up for Google AdSense and some kind of affiliate program like the Amazon Associates Program. I suggest that if you are using amazon you go with products that you hand pick so they are exactly targeted to the subject of each web page.

A lot of experts recommend you wait a month before you start thinking about site monetization. I can see the logic in this. After all, you want to have a decent collection of interesting projects, ideas, articles and related stuff before you start looking for the money.

But, don’t expect overnight riches. In fact, don’t expect a dime for at least 3 to 5 months after you start your blog. If you use money as your primary motivation for blogging, you will burn out.

5. Time is Your Best Friend.

A lot of the popular blogs that are making nice change have been around forever. Maybe you’ve heard of a friend of a friend that’s making a ton of money on a crappy blog he started only a few weeks ago. Every time you hear these stories, remember that these great results are not typical. I guarantee you that a person like that is buying advertising to get traffic to their blog, that their content is uninteresting, and that their blog will be down in a years time.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that a good website is like fine wine or cheese. The longer you blog ages and is allowed to develop, the more valuable your blog will be.

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Making money on the internet is fun ancd exciting. Learn more at WildCashFlow.com

Tags: blog content, blogs, youtube

Blogs are powerful marketing tools that can help you reach more customers, establish credibility, increase sales, and share company news without having a huge advertising budget.

Blogs have a number of advantages that make them highly effective in promoting your business:

1. You don’t have to be a tech geek to start a blog.

Anyone can do it, and sites like Blogger can help you create and publish your blog in less than 5 minutes.

2. Blogs can boost your search engine ranking.

The content of your blog is ripe for the search engines and encourages other bloggers who write on similar topics to link to you. Regularly updated, keyword-rich content (not spam) and linking will help boost your site’s visibility and in turn attract more customers.

3. Blogs offer multiple ways to deliver your message. If you’re not the best writer, you can start an audio or video blog and can therefore still reach your customers in a personal way.

4. Blog posts encourage immediate responses from your customers.

Questions, comments and feedback from your customers can help you better address their needs, adjust your campaigns, and react to the market’s changing demands.

5. Blogs help you expand your reach online.

By pinging search engines and using RSS feeds you can syndicate your content online, boost your reach and influence, and allow customers to control their communications with your company.

6. Blogs increase transparency and help you establish credibility.

Blogs are much more personal than a corporate website and because they are regularly updated, customers can remain informed about your business and feel more connected to you. Your blog can be your selling point and can sway prospective customers to choose you and your services over the competition.

Blogs are about communicating and building relationships with your readers. Use your blog for branding your business, building your reputation and communicating with your audience ‘ not just for making a sale.

There are a variety of ways you can use your blog to communicate with your readers and promote your business, while unobtrusively going after the sale. You can use your blog to:

• Write product reviews and link to product pages (consider signing up to be an affiliate)
• Write insightful articles or tips relevant to your audience
• Recommend products and services (yours or someone else’s)
• Post and archive company newsletters
• Share company news and product updates
• Offer special incentives and promotions
• Ask customers to complete surveys and provide feedback

Generating new content for your blog does not have to be a daunting task. You don’t have to worry about writing it all yourself. Instead, you can directly post your company newsletters as well as relevant third-party articles, reviews, and links found using sites like StumbleUpon and Google News.

Remember to include links where appropriate to your own website and product pages. Having a blog also allows you to make regular updates quickly and without needing a webmaster.

A blog is a highly effective tool in promoting your business, so start now

Bjorn Brands is a successful entrepreneur who transitioned from having his own building company to a great online business. Check out his site and see for yourself how his FREE course can help you do the same. http://www.moneyacces.com

Tags: blog, blog marketing, blog writing, blogs

Blogs are now a dime a dozen, and bloggers need to make their blog posts stand out. Developing a blog following is not as easy as it once was. Learn how to write blog posts that attract readers and retain their attention. Follow these guidelines to cultivate readers…

1. Draw Attention

Use titles to attract the reader’s attention to the blog post. The title should mimic newspaper headlines and generate interest in the blog post. The title can be controversial, but not to the extent of being misleading. Use action words in the title. Bloggers will often come up with a handful of potential titles for blog posts, and then settle on the title that is best suited to a particular blog post.

2. Deliver

Having a catchy title, but following it with content that fails to deliver, will not endear you to your readers. The blog content must deliver what is promised in the blog title, or readers will unsubscribe and stop reading. When deciding on a blog title, do not stray too far from the content, as the two are intricately related — the title will attract the reader’s attention, but the content must then live up to expectations… or the blogger’s reputation will suffer.

3. Accurate

Nothing stains a blogger’s reputation like inaccurate information, so be sure that your blog posts contain accurate information. Intentionally posting inaccurate or false information will significantly damage a blogger’s reputation. But if an error unintentionally or inadvertently occurs in a blog post, be sure to quickly post a retraction or correction, along with an explanation and an apology in order to salvage your good reputation.

4. Relevant & Timely

Blog posts should always be relevant and timely. Hearing about something long after it has occurred will not captivate readers. Blog about information that is occurring in the here and now. If you are going to write something that is no longer timely, be sure to add some sort of twist, or include new or updated information to make it relevant.

5. On Topic

All blogs should have a general theme that connects all the posts on the blog. Readers will expect posts that are related, so stay true to the blog’s theme and topic.

6. Use Keywords

Use keywords liberally in blog posts. Search engines will attempt to categorize the content of a blog post and discern its general topic. By including related keywords or keyword phrases, search engines will have an easier time classifying the blog’s contents. Additionally, a blog that uses keywords will have a better chance of ranking well for those keywords or keyword phrases in organic search listings.

7. Evaluate Web Logs

Review web logs to determine what blog posts have been popular with readers. Then figure out how to provide similar or related content that might also be of interest to those readers.

8. Original

Blog posts should always contain original and unique content. If you are simply re-posting information from others, include editorial content or a different spin to the information. Readers do not want to constantly rehash the same information — they are interested in reading new material.

9. Chunky Content

Break content into smaller, readable chunks. Most website visitors will just scan paragraphs for information, and very few will take the time to read all the words contained in a post. Use bulleted lists, or break web copy into paragraphs with bolded sub-topics that appear before the paragraphs.

Writing blog posts is not just about spewing forth content. The best blogs are well thought out, and contain provocative and interesting unique content. Follow the above steps to produce a relevant blog worth reading.

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.

Tags: blog posts, blogs