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Learning About Blogging and Blog Marketing

Gary Knox — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:31:13 +0000

Lots of people have a blog and quite a few are making money from their blogs. In order to understand how these people are achieving this you should ask yourself the following questions.

How are they doing it?
What is so special about a blog that you can make money by posting on it?

First you need to undestand that a blog is a little bit like an online journal. You can make posts on it about anything that you want to, and then publish it for the whole world to read. If you have never blogged before, it is a good idea to do so just for fun in the beginning, so that you can get a feel of what it is about.

Once you have become familiar with the blogging platform, and kind of get the gist of what blogging is about, you will be ready to try and make some money at blogging. However, for a beginner you will want to take it slow, one step at a time. You will need to do things in order so that you will not get overwhelmed by it all.

The first thing that you need to do is find a niche to blog about. This can be anything that you know, want to know, or want to learn about. The more you know, the better. The niche can be anything that you want it to be. It can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be. Think of something that you know and love, something that you want to learn all about. You will come up with a niche that will be perfect before you know it.

Now that you know what your blog will be all about, you are ready to get down to business. Firstly you want to determine how frequently you will update your blog. Will it be daily? Every other day? Maybe even weekly? Whichever you choose, stick with it and make sure that you scarcely miss an update. Once you get readers to your blog you want them to know that you will update it as often as you say. They need to know how often to check and visit your blog for new information. If you post like you say you will, you will end up with a large reader base that will follow you anywhere.

So now that you have a niche, and have decided how often your blog will be updated, it is time to get down to some marketing. To begin with, you need to get back links. Back links are important and they mean that someone is linking to you. There are a number of ways that you can get these much needed links. You can look around on the internet and find some sites that are relevant to your niche and request a link, or your can post comments on other blogs that are relevant and leave a link behind with your comment. Either way, they both work and they both count as links that you need to your blog.

Are you attempting to sell things from your blog? If so you are going to find that promoting products on your blog is a great marketing technique that you can use as well. People do it everyday and make lots of money from it. Whether it is affiliate links, or your own products and services that you are promoting, you are going to find that blog marketing is one of the best ways to get the word out and let people know that you are in business. Marketing from your blog has never been easier.

With all of the great tools that are out there now for blog marketing, it is really hard to have a blog fail when you employ them. Make certain that you ping your blog every time it is updated, and work on those links as they will make a huge difference.

Beginning Blog Marketing.

Gary Knox — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:20:27 +0000

Blogs which are also known as weblogs are among the more recent innovations on the internet. They are basically a platform that allows you to post your thoughts on almost any subject that you wish to. They can be used for writing, publishing and promoting anything that your heart desires. However, if you are a beginner and new to blogging as well as marketing, there are a few very important things that you should know.

Blog marketing is reasonably easy if you have a marketing mind. You will no doubt find that some people use their blogs as a diary or online journal, and when someone does use their blog for this purpose it is not their intention to make money, but it is simply a way to put their thoughts out there and discover others that are going through the same thing. If you have never had a blog before, the simplest way to get started is probably to just start one as diary or online journal. This will allow you to learn just what it takes to keep a blog going. When you are just posting your thoughts and what is on your mind, you have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. You do not even have to make your blog public if you do not want others to read what you have to say. That of course is a personal preference. However, by making it public will let you see how a blog really works. Then you will be able to progress on to trying to market a product or a service.

Employing a blog to market something is cheaper than using a website. This is because there are so many free platforms out there, such as Blogger.com or WordPress.com, that you can utilise to get the word out, and they are really just as good as having a website that you pay for. There are of course a few advantages to having your own URL, but for a beginner, a free one will work until you master it and want to move it all over onto your own server. A small problem with some free blogs are that they are not that customisable, but this is getting better. If you are not familiar with HTML, you are going to find that your blog will look like everybody else’s. But, this is fine in the beginning. You will be able to always make changes later on once you are have started to become successful.

When you have your own blog, you are in charge of the content that is posted on it. You can decide what is said, and what is not. You are after all writing it all, right? So, the sky is the limit. Whether you want a blog that does website reviews and takes nominations, or you want to sell things that you make out of your home, the choice is yours. Employing a blog to get the word out about whatever you want too is a great way to market and promote something.

Blog marketing can get complicated if you let it. It is actually only as hard as you make it. Whilst there are a few bloggers out there that are making a six figure income with the use of blog marketing, we all know that it can be done. We just want to know how. Well, for any beginner, start small, and be consistent. The six figure bloggers all did. They started with one, built it up, and then added another blog, built it up. Then, keeping up both blogs and not letting them fall behind, they continued to add more and more content. Of course they had help, and they outsourced a lot of their work. If you are looking to make a massive income with blogging, you will need some help.

Blog marketing is a great thing to learn. If you are able to sell things from a blog, you will be able to sell them almost anywhere. Making money by using a blog is one of the most satisfying things that you will ever learn how to do. Just do not expect to make money over night, know that you have to work at it consistently everyday, and remember to put into it what you want to get out of it.

Creating a Popular Blog

Gary Knox — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 12:48:30 +0000

If you want to make money through blogging, creating a popular blog is the key to success. If your blog receives very little traffic, you will not have much success monetising it. No matter which method you use to make money from your blog, you will find the most success if you have a large readership. Because of this, making your blog popular and growing readership should be one of your primary concerns.

There are many ways to make your blog more popular. The first thing you should consider is who your audience is and who you are writing for. You should always write about something that interests you, and that will interest others. You may think that your new kitten is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but there are probably not very many other people who want to read a blog about it. It is best to find a niche audience that is large enough to support a wide readership but not to vague.

One of the great things about blogging is that you do not have to be a professional writer to have a popular blog. You do have to obey common grammatical rules and at least be able to put together coherent sentences, but you do not have to be a highly skilled writer.

Blog readers are looking for interesting, relevant topics to read, not the next work of Shakespeare. Make sure what you write is interesting, edgy, or even controversial. Popular blogs are never boring and add value to reader’s lives either through information or entertainment. Make sure your blog adds something of value to your reader’s life otherwise you will not develop a large fan base.

Making your blog popular is a lot like driving traffic to a website. You can use many of the same techniques to drive traffic to your blog. Finding places to link back to your blog is a good way to drive traffic. Social sites such as Myspace, Facebook, and Youtube provide lots of opportunities for this. You can also use social book marking sites such as Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg to promote your blog. Blogging on a popular blog site such as WordPress and Blogger are also good ways to make your blog more popular as these blogging sites help to bring in traffic for your blog.

Whether you blog on a blogging network or you have an independently hosted blog, you need to make sure your blog is designed well. It is true that content is king and if a blog has great content is may receive lots of traffic even though it is ugly, having a well designed blog that is not ugly or annoying will help to drive repeat traffic. You want your blog to look unique, but not too unique. Keep with internet formalities such as blue links and use large font for headings.

You should break your post up into small paragraphs each with a headline if possible as internet readers tend to scan the screen looking for relevant information rather than reading everything word for word. Make sure your colors do not contrast too harshly and that the text is easy to read. Using good design will make your blog aesthetically pleasing and make readers more likely to come back and remain on your page.

No matter where your blog is hosted, you should try to get it indexed by all the major search engines. Some forms of blog monetisation require that your blog be indexed by search engines before they will allow you to participate in your program. The higher ranked your blog is, the more visitors you will receive and the more popular your blog will become.

All forms of monetisation for your blog require readers to work successfully. Before you try to implement your monetisation strategies, make sure your blog has enough readers to make your efforts work. If there is no one to click your ads, visit your affiliate sites, or read your reviews, you do not stand much of a chance of making money.

Content For Every Kind Of Publisher

Gary Knox — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:31:20 +0000

This is the first in a series of articles dealing with this subject. So without further ado lets get started.

Content comes in lots of different forms. Just as a print publisher can choose to create a tabloid, a broadsheet or a weekly magazine so an online publisher can select the format that suits them best.

What’s the difference between them?

More than the look. The choice of format the publisher makes can define the sort of audience they get, the style they write in, and most importantly, what their users expect when they reach the site.

There are commonly four types of content. These being a blog, an online magazine, product reviews and finally teleseminars and audo. Lets deal with the first of those now.

Writing A Blog

Blogs are by far the easiest way to create a website. You do not have to think of a domain name. You do not have to look for a host to hold the site. And you certainly don’t have to play around with HTML coding or anything more complicated than the sort of buttons you can find on a word processor.

There are a number of features that make blogs special for publishers.

First, they are easy. Once you have chosen a template, the design is all done for you. All you have to do is write the words and paste them up. Even adding images is a breeze.

Second, they are regular. Blogs are supposed to be online diaries, and while in practice they have little in common with the sort of diaries that people keep as kids, users do expect them to be written often — usually every day.

That can mean that users return regularly without you having to remind them or spend more money on advertising. But it can also mean a lot of work. Writing one article a week just is not going to cut it.

But what characterises a blog is that it is personal. Users will expect to see accounts of the writer’s personal experience. They will want to know what the writer thinks and they’ll expect to see opinion as well as news. Although few publishers use blogs to write about what they did all day, they often use them to write about what they think about a particular topic.

While blogs can be factual rather than personal — that is, they can take a position rather than reflect a personality — blogs then are almost always linked to the identity of the publisher.

For some publishers that can be a step too far. They might want to write about a topic but they’d rather do it from the shadows, without people knowing that this is their personal opinion. For these kinds of publishers, an online magazine might well be a better option.

What To Consider When Commencing Business Blogging

Gary Knox — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:03:55 +0000

If you are already convinced with the potential of business blogs for marketing and targeting an increase in your sales, your are now ready to start blogging. But first, you have to be in tune with your 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 ideaon how your marketing should be structured.
2. Setup several test blogs right away.

If your initial experiment with test blogs worked well, you can now start setting up your blogs for real.

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.
Choose a topic. It is good to have a selection of topics that you want for your blogs but make certain they are relevant to your business objectives. This would be a test of your flexibility and open-mindedness since results might be going against the set objectives.
Start blogging and complete 20 posts before proceeding to marketing.
Begin marketing.
Regularly monitor the traffic to the site and get updates on what your visitors want. Then, measure your results.
Adjust if needed. You can always play with your designs and layouts of each blog site as long as it retains the company’s identity.
Strive to be consistent with your topic all the time.
Try to have unrelated topics with general and broad appeal.
Schedule updates regularly.
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 departments are responsible for educating the senior management on how blogs might affect business;
create blogging policies; set limits on who gets to blog and what information is allowed to be made public;
avoid outright marketing blog or you might frighten away your readers;
keep content updated, relevant and fresh;
reinforce the company’s core values; and,
encourage employees to use it.

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

Blog Marketing: How Much Money Can You Make?

Gary Knox — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:06:58 +0000

When you are using blog marketing to make an income, really the amount of money that can be made is something that you determine. You are in charge of the amount of work that you put into it, and therefore in charge of the amount that can be earned. Of course, the more you do, the more you can possibly make. The old saying, “If you build it, they will come”, is one that is not true in the marketing world of the internet. Not only do you have to build it, you also have to market it and promote it. You have to get your blog out there so that people can find it and know that it exists.

Blog marketing is not something that will give you a limited income. The more you promote and market, the better your chances of making money or more money. Lets say you all ready have a blog set up. You are promoting some services and products through your blog, and you are making a nice little effortless income. Well you want more income; you want to make more money with your blog. What do you do? You promote it more. Maybe you can start with the paid blog directories and submit your blog to those. Investing some of the money that you make is a great idea, especially if you are looking to increase your income.

However, there are also many free tools that you can use to promote your blog as well as techniques. There is the comment section that is on just about every living blog on the internet. The comment section is a very useful and powerful tool that you can use to get visitors back to your blog. For example, lets take a market like model airplanes. You have a blog on model airplanes, and you want more traffic. Well, the first thing that you would need to do is to find a blog that is about airplanes, or models. You can even use your direct market if you wish which are model airplanes. Once you have found an authority blog that gets traffic, and comments on a regular basis, you can leave comments as well. Leaving comments with a link back to your blog will give others that read the high authority blog a way to get to yours. If your blog is of interest to them, they may even bookmark it, and become a regular reader.

If you are not all ready, be sure that you update your blog regularly. Doing so will allow your readers to know when they can come back to your blog for new content. Let them know how often you are going to update, and stick to it. If you tell them you will be updating once a day, do so. Or you just might end up with readers that will not follow you because they can not depend on you to give them what they are looking for; new fresh content.

When you use blog marketing to make money, the sky is the limit. The amount of money that you can make is determined by you, and something that you set. The more work and patience that you put into it, the more money you will get out of it. Whether you are promoting your favorite things, or someone else’s, do it with a passion for the best results.

Getting Started With Blog Marketing

Gary Knox — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:05:58 +0000

Blog marketing is quite easy to get started in. If you all ready have been blogging, you will more than likely pick it up very easily and naturally just as if you have been doing it all along. Also, if you all ready blog, you might find out that you have been marketing the whole time anyways, and just not realizing it.

For anyone that has never blogged before, you will of course want to start a test blog just to get the feel of how it is. You want to become familiar with the blogging platforms that you will be using and know how to make a post. While most blogs are free, you are also going to see that many of them are quite different. You will have to get to know the kind that you are using, and want to use. Otherwise, you might get lost along the way. So starting a blog and just blogging for a little while will help you with this. You can blog about anything that you want to. Maybe journal for a few weeks, or talk about your favorite movies. The sky is the limit.

So once you have become familiar with blogging and what it takes to post and make changes, you are ready to go further. The next thing that you are going to want to do is choose a niche market. You will want to choose something that is low in competition, but yet is something that people are searching for. If you happen to have a hobby or something that you love to do, there you go. Otherwise, you may have problems coming up with topics.

Now that you have your topics in place, it is time to begin blogging. When you are blogging for the purpose of marketing, you want to give your readers something that they have to keep coming back for. You want to peak their interest and make them want more from you. This will keep your readership base up and will allow you to have followers that will follow you anywhere to see what you are going to say next on their favorite topic.

Now that you have a topic, you want to determine just how much time you are going to spend updating and posting in this blog. If you tell your readers that you are going to post on a daily basis, do so. If you let them know that you will be blogging weekly, you should also stick with that do that also. Whatever you tell them, be sure that you do not let them down. Otherwise they will find another blog to read in the place of yours. Which is something that you will not want.

Learning SEO and applying it to your blogs is something else that you may want to do. This will help you as far as search engine rankings are concerned and will allow you to go further up the page. After all, that is the point to all of this, right? If you do not have time to learn what SEO also known as search engine optimization is all about, you may want to hire someone to apply it to your blog for the best results. You will find that some SEO gurus are quite affordable.

Picking The Best Free Blogging Site

Gary Knox — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:04:32 +0000

Choosing a free blogging site can feel somewhat overwhelming because there are numerous options. There are several, large free blog-hosting sites that dominate the blogosphere, but there are also some smaller sites. Whether you decide to join up with an established site like blogger or whether you choose to sign on with a relatively new venture depends on what your priorities are.

Reliability is perhaps the best reason to opt for a large and well known free blogging site. When you decide to have an established brand host your blog, you can feel secure that your blog will not crash often and will not disappear in the middle of the night. A company that has been around for a while is likely to have the resources to make certain that its clients aren’t unpleasantly surprised by any technical glitches. However, many bloggers decide that this isn’t enough of a selling point. The bloggers who choose to go with smaller, newer blog hosting sites do so for a variety of reasons, but perhaps the number one advantage is a fairly abstract one. Bloggers tend to relish the fact that the internet is a place where the underdog has a strong chance of success, and by choosing to have a small company as a blog host, a blogger is casting his or her vote for David against Goliath.

Whatever your reasons for selecting your chosen site make sure that they provide you with what you want and need otherwise you may be searching for a new site soon rather than later.

Great Blog Marketing Techniques

Gary Knox — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:14:21 +0000

Marketing your blog is not all that hard to do. You have to be persistent if you want your blog to do well. You cannot just make a post and forget about it. You have to continue updating your blog and marketing it so that it will become popular and one that everyone wants to read. There are other ways as well that are good marketing your blog. Keep reading for more information.

Interviewing people and posting it on your blog is an excellent way to market it. Just make certain that the people that you interview relate to the market of your blog. You want all of your posts to be relevant, including any interviews that you might do.

If you hear any news on the niche of your blog, be sure that you post it. Everyone loves news. Something to keep in mind when blogging about the news is the more current the news, the better. No one wants to reread old news, so it is a great idea to try and stay as current as possible when you are blogging about the news.

Contests are another way that you can effectively market your blog. Having contests on various things would be a lot of fun, and something that will keep your readers coming back. Everyone loves to win things, and you can also make the prize that you are giving away relevant to the market you are promoting on your blog.

While good content is something that you will need for your blog, you also want to ensure that it is original content as well. You can market a blog with something that is copied and that you do not own the rights. Plagiarism may get you in trouble with Google as well as the person that originally wrote the content. Be sure that all of your posts are ones that only you own the rights too. This is a great thing to know and do when you are marketing your blog.

Press releases are also an excellent way to market your blog. Sending out a press release or having one made for you is a great idea. You will find that they are even affordable for most budgets, and some companies offer a package deal for example, if you let us write your press release we will submit it for half price. Who could resist a deal such as that? Especially when you are budgeting and trying to get the most from your funds.

Comments on a blog are also a very important aspect of blog marketing. You will want to be sure that you always answer and acknowledge the comments that are made to your blog as well as others. When you show that you are an actual person that can hold a conversation, you are showing others that you are real and that you really and truly have the best intentions for your blog. Make sure that no comment goes unanswered.

Marketing a blog comes naturally for some and can be a little harder to focus on for others. Another important thing that you will want to do for your blog is to be sure that you find links. Exchange links, get one way links, and ask for more and more links. You will never have enough links to your blog. The more links the better in this case.

Blog marketing is not hard to do. Just be sure that you follow all of the proven and tried techniques that others are talking about and you wont go wrong. Just don’t give up and keep on marketing because it will pay off sooner or later.

The Aspects of Blog Marketing

Gary Knox — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:15:54 +0000

Blog marketing is in truth only as difficult as you make it. If you have never had a blog before, and never marketed anything in your life before now, it may be a little more difficult to understand. If that is the case, you should start of with a blog and just journaling in it to see what it is like. Keep it updated so that you can see what is required to get readers, and try a few of the techniques listed below.

Whilst you are learning all about the aspects of blog marketing, you are going to discover that comments on a blog are also a very significant aspect of blog marketing. You will want to be sure that you always answer and acknowledge the comments that are made to your blog as well as others. When you demonstrate that you are an actual person that can hold a conversation, you are showing others that you are real and that you really and truly have the best intentions for your blog. Make certain that no comment goes unanswered. When you do this consistently, it will show your readers that you will acknowledge them and answer their questions. That will in return make them come back to see what your answer was if they asked a question.

Having contests are another way that you can market your blog. Having contests on various things would be a lot of fun, and something that will keep your readers coming back. Everybody loves to win things, and you can also make the prize that you are contributing relevant to the market you are promoting on your blog. Some do not recognise how effective this aspect of blog marketing can be. Whilst others are reaping the rewards.

Another huge aspect of blog marketing is the trackback feature. When you have the track back feature on your blog, you are allowing other people to link to your blog. Maybe someone has a post ready to post on their blog that is relevant to one of yours. They can use the trackkback to your post, and send their readers to your blog so that their readers know what the blogger is referring to. Another good thing to remember is that if someone gives you a trackback, it is a courtesy to return that to their blog if at all possible. This is something that most bloggers all ready know and something that new bloggers should know.

Something else that is a big thing in blog marketing that is frequently overlooked is using SEO on your blog, which stands for search engine optimisation. SEO will help get your blog out there and read, and will also help you get a better ranking with Google. Being as high as you can be in the Google search engine results is something that you want. Doing this will allow your blog to get out there so that people searching for things that are relevant can find it.

Whilst there are many aspects of blog marketing, you are going to see that these are all the most important. If you have all of these tools and techniques in place, then chances are you are getting some great traffic. If not, just keep working on it. Your hard work is going to pay off and you will be glad that you did.