Establish Internet Presence With a Blog Site

By Serena Carcasole

In today's world business success is impossible without Internet presence. That is why most businesses establish websites. With more and more consumers relying purely on Internet for their searches, it becomes more obvious that if a business does not have a website, it does not exist.

And then there are blogs. Business blogs are exploding and becoming main vehicles for a dialog with clients, delivering information about company's products and services, and building online reputation. The latest trend, especially for small businesses and solopreneurs, is to marry the two concepts - a website and a blog - and create a blog site.

What is a blog site?

As I mentioned, a blogsite is a hybrid between a website and a blog and combines elements of both. At its core, it is a blog - a place for entrepreneurs to regularly post text, photos, audio and video entries related to their companies, services and products. In addition to the main blog page, a blogsite also features pages with static content typically found on business websites. This includes Home page, About Us page, Contact page, Products or Services page, e-commerce-equipped pages, and many other options.

There are many reasons why establishing a blogsite might be a better solution to your business requirements than having a standard website. The top reasons to have a blogsite are

1. Blog sites save money

The only people that make money creating and maintaining websites are web designers. Most business owners lack both time and expertise to build even a simple website. So they go out and hire a web designer. As most entrepreneurs know, a website is a work in progress. There's always something that needs tweaking, changing, updating, etc.

Maybe you just landed a big new client. Or maybe an existing client sent you a Thank You e-mail that you would like to use as a testimonial. Or maybe you want to add a new white paper for your prospective clients to download. If you have a traditional website, you will have to contact your web designer and ask to make all these changes for you. And then you have to foot the bill.

A blog site eliminates the need for a web designer. The process of posting new content on your blog site, whether in the blog itself or in the static pages, is very simple. It requires no in-depth technical knowledge. As anyone who tried blogging knows, you don't even need to know basic HTML to get great results. Now you can publish content in whatever format you want - text, photos, audio, and video with ease.

2. Blog site saves time

Let's say you want to advertise a time-sensitive promotion on your website. With a traditional website, you have to coordinate this with your web designer so that she has time to implement and test all the changes.

With a blog site, you can go ahead and post your ad and change any other relevant content, such as your rates, whenever you need it. And you don't have to waste time e-mailing or calling your web designer. You can also react much quicker to any news or changes that affect your niche.

Besides, it allows you to finally consolidate your efforts in maintaining an online presence. Instead of splitting your time and resources between maintaining a website and a blog, you can now have an all-in-one solution.

3. Blogsite gets you to the top of search results faster

Yes, it is an established fact that search engines LOVE blogs and rank them highly. It happens because blogs by design fulfill a number of criteria used by search engines to rank site relevance. Blogs are usually tightly focused around a theme, have many content-specific external links; feature highly-relevant anchor text for inbound links; have tagged content; and have often-updated content. All this makes blogs search engine darlings.

If you have a blogsite and its blog ranks high in the keyword search results, your visitors will now have a chance to quickly scan not just through your blog posts, but through the static pages as well.

You will still want to spend time doing SEO for your blog site. Except now you will be able to do it yourself and largely for free. There are plenty of easy-to-use free plugins that will take pain and confusion out of the SEO process.

4. Blog site builds loyalty

Do you know why the same Internet user who visits company's website only once a month or so will visit the same company's blog every other day? The answer is simple, really - new content. Toddlers are the only audience that craves reading the same story over and over and over. You can have the greatest content on your site, but if it is not updated regularly, you will find it very difficult to bring visitors back to your site.

If an Internet user finds your blog and likes its content, he will come back for more as long as you keep posting new stuff. It doesn't really matter if they visit your blogsite or get the news through RSS feeds, e-mail notifications or Google Reader. What's important is that they read YOUR stuff and not your competitors'. Chances are, after a while spent reading your content, they will be ready to take the next step whether it is signing up for your e-mail list, download your e-book, or purchase your widgets.

In the quest for Internet presence, a savvy entrepreneur looks for a solution that is easy-to-use and affordable. More importantly, it has to be goal-oriented and help grow business faster than alternative solutions. A blog site is a great choice that answers all of these requirements.

Serena Carcasole Virtual Assistant, Internet Marketing Pro, Business Consultant and founder of Virtual Business Solutions ON DEMAND operates a 1STOP Business Service Shop available to business owners around the world. Some of the services but not limited too are: Administration, Bookkeeping, Internet Marketing, Business Consulting, Social Networking, Website Design, Graphic Design, Event Planning, Project coordinating and much more! VBSOD donates 1% of sales to the Canadian Cancer Society. For more information visit th website below. Tel: 905-915-1203 Email: info@vbsondemand.com Website: http://www.vbsondemand.com/ Blog: http://www.vbsondemand.com/category/blog Your 1STOP Business Service Shop Outsource your way to success! Start living your dream as a Virtual Assistant working from home!

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Five Myths About Blogging and Social Media

By John Kreiss

Based on information obtained by the 2008 Social Media Survey of Real Estate and Construction professionals published by MorganSullivan, Inc., social media are not widely used nor understood by many professionals currently working in these industries. Here are a few perceptions or myths held by some of the survey respondents:

Most bloggers are under 30 years old. According to Technorati's annual blogosphere report, 58% of bloggers are 35 or older. There are business benefits to blogging and many marketers are starting to understand the benefits.

Blogging is for geeks and is a waste of time. David Meerman Scott's recent example of how blogging brought Century 21 Real Estate to the top page of the Google search engine is a pretty good example of how quickly a firm can position itself for very little cost. How could positioning your company to get inquiries from clients be a waste of time? When people search for products and services today, they often use search engines like Google. Getting your company on the top page improves your chances of getting inquiries for new business. Blogging is not just for geeks anymore either. Knowledge of HTML code (universal language of the Internet) might be helpful, but it is not required. There are many successful bloggers who don't know how to write HTML code and don't need to because blog hosting providers including WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, and many more, make it quite easy and user friendly to build and operate blogs.

Blogging is time consuming. Some blogs can be time consuming, but many blogs get high traffic with postings of 500 words or less and some tasks including newsletters and press releases can be rolled into blogging allowing smart companies to gain efficiencies in marketing and PR activities.

Social Media would not work in construction or real estate. According to the MorganSullivan survey, many real estate and construction companies rely on word of mouth marketing to win new work. Social media are ways to use the Internet to capitalize on word of mouth marketing. If word of mouth marketing is successful, social media should be successful.

There is no way to track ROI with blogging and Social Media. This one is difficult to prove, but it's also difficult to prove with print advertising, direct mail, and other marketing communication including press releases. Many real estate and construction companies, however, use these old tools because they're confident that they will produce results. Start blogging and include social media sites like digg, diigo, and delicious, and see your web site traffic spike. Getting more clients to come to you seems like ROI to me.

John P. Kreiss

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Wordpress Plugins and the Power of Social Bookmarking Sites

By Alan Mater

Blogger used to be a good blogging platform, especially for beginners. It was easy to use and setup, and not much technical know-how was required. There's one major setback to using Blogger, though. You can't take advantage of social bookmarking sites, at least not as effectively as you can with using Wordpress. There are numerous Wordpress Plugins, and some take advantage these sites.

These social sites act as a "vote" for your website. When people bookmark your blog posts or articles, they are sharing them with others. Other people pick up on your content, and they might bookmark them as well. The more votes the better. Google loves content, that's no mystery. Google will reward your site for that content and the fact that high authority social bookmarking sites are linking to it. This means more traffic! A lot more in fact.

So how do we take advantage of these social sites when blogging? The answer is Wordpress Plugins. Blogger doesn't give us any way to automatically bookmark every post we make. It has to be done manually. That's very time consuming! Services like OnlyWire or SocialMarker can make this a lot easier, but you still have to take the time to use those services.

There is a much easier way to drive this traffic to your blog. You have to be using Wordpress to take advantage of this. Wordpress is probably the most popular blogging platform, and it's no wonder why that is. It requires a little more technical knowledge, but don't be scared away. The benefits are far greater!

Wordpress makes use of Plugins. Wordpress Plugins are basically little applications that perform a function or process. There are numerous Plugins that were made for Wordpress, and there will be many more no doubt. They all serve a different purpose.

Here are some Wordpress Plugins that you DON'T want to be without so that you can utilize the power of social bookmarking sites:

ShareThis - Allows users to share and bookmark your posts.

AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget - This allows your readers to bookmark your posts.

ShareThis and AddThis are pretty much the same thing. It doesn't hurt to have both. You want to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to bookmark your posts.

OnlyWire Autosubmitter - This will automatically submit your posts to your OnlyWire account.

Sociable - Automatically adds links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites.

Tweet My Blog - This will automatically post a tweet to your Twitter account when you make a new post, bringing more traffic to your blog. You can sign up for Tweet My Blog at my blog; there is a link in the resource box. You're also going to need a Twitter account. So grab that and start getting followers, the more the better.

This is just a small example of the Wordpress Plugins that are available. You want to make sure you have these Plugins installed so you get traffic from the social bookmarking sites. The potential here is huge, and you don't want to miss out. If you're not yet using Wordpress to blog, I suggest you get on board.

Visit Alan Mater's work from home blog where he shares his knowledge, tips and advice. He also offers work from home opportunity resources and ideas on his website.

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How to Avoid Your Blogger Blog Being Marked As Spam

By Tracey A Edwards

A few months ago many bloggers woke up to find that their BlogSpot blogs had been locked and marked as spam. Now while Blogger did admit their mistake and restored all accounts that had been mistakenly marked as such, it caused a huge panic among bloggers that they too might have their blogs locked or marked. So much so that many people that previously used Blogger quickly moved to WordPress to avoid this happening again.

But this panic has been blown out of proportion. Blogger is still a great place to host your blogs and you can still use it to full advantage and avoid your Blogger blog being marked as spam.

Firstly what does Blogger classify as spam? Any blog that contains irrelevant or nonsensical text (often repeating certain keyphrases over and over again) that is full of links all pointing to a single site. People use them to try and give their main site (the site that the blogs link to) more backlinks. However they are usually found pretty quickly and locked or removed. Often they are created by software programs that just pull snippets or scrape content from other websites or articles to make a very large site within minutes all designed to create link spamming.

If you are a legitimate blogger then you don't need to worry. You are able to write reviews about products and place your affiliate links just fine if you follow the rules and make your post informative to the reader. You can add AdSense on your page without any problems if your content is interesting and original. You can even sell products directly from your blog if the product is legitimate and useful.

As long as you use your blog the way they were intended, by you as the author writing about your thoughts, opinions and advice on any topic that interests you then you shouldn't have any problems.

It really comes down to the content you have on your blog and how fresh, original and helpful it is to a reader, because as they say content is king and in this case it'll keep your blog from being marked as spam.

Tracey is the author of Blog Cash - The Beginners Guide to Making Money from a Blogger Blog 24/7 - http://www.blog-cash.net Shhh! Have a sneak look of one of the money making methods in Blog Cash with this free sample chapter

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A Natural Business Partnership With Blogs

By Sukhbir Singh Kasla

As you can surmise, one of the principal reasons why businesses find blogs effective as business tools is they help generate or increase sales. While there is no quantitative amount with regards to the exact monetary significance of blogging on sales, there are evidences of some sort of return on investment. Increase in sales can be and often is one of the indirect effects of successful blogging.

Blogs â€" Good for Business

Imagine sitting in front of your computer with millions of people (shareholders, business partners, competitors, employees and the media) conversing about business and the like. Now imagine if you can use all the information you learned to establish what product or service your customers want, why they want it, how they want it and how much they are willing to pay for it. This is precisely what a blog is all about and much more. Definitely, blogs are good for businesses.

A blog or a weblog is an interactive website that maintains an ongoing chronicle of information. It is a regularly updated website featuring links to other articles or other websites. Generally, a blog tends to have a main content area with articles called posts or entries listed in reverse chronological order with the latest on top. Typically, these articles are organized in categories. There is also an archive of articles based on dates or go to your-own-blog.com. A blogrolls, a list of links to other related sites is another feature of a blog.

A blog may contain one or more feeds. Most blogs publish feeds (RSS, RDF, and Atom). A feed is a machine-readable content that is updated periodically. A feed reader displays the new post and a link to it. Most blogs also have a feature that allows visitors to leave comments. With a blog, you publish fresh content and your readers can add their own comments with links to their own blogs. Easy to use blogging tools are available, often for free. A basic blogging tool provides an interface where you can work in an easy and intuitive manner while it takes care of the rest of the logistics involved in making your blog presentable and available for the public.

Blogging, authoring or maintaining a blog, is one of the rapidly increasing growth areas of the Internet. According to popular search engine Technorati, there are roughly more than 40 million blogs on the Internet today and more blogs are appearing at the rate of 75,000 a day. This is mainly due to the numerous benefits of blogging for business.

A blog has a powerful marketing capability to grow your business, be it small or big. You can now have a commanding presence on the Web, not one based on size, capital, or resources but one based on quality of content, targeted audience and useful products and services. With blogs as equalizers, the blogosphere has become a truly exciting playing field for all businesses.

A blog is a constant source of valuable and up-to-date information. Setting up a blog allows you to showcase your expertise and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. A blog can be your vehicle for product or service updates or go to www.atoz-about-rss.com, company news and any other information you want to relay to your targeted audience. A blog must contain relevant information, not just sales pitches; otherwise readers are much less likely to return. As with any part of a business marketing plan, a blog must contain information that appeals to its targeted audience.

A blog is an effective method to communicate with clients and prospects. It allows you to openly and regularly converse with them increasing credibility, creating trust and forming relationships with them early on. A blog with its conversational style is ideal for developing good customer relationships. Readers will feel comfortable with you long before they call you to make a purchase or avail of your service.

A blog is a great tool to get feedback from readers. Your readers can leave comments or make inquiries. A blog is a great way to find out what readers are thinking and in the process provides you with ideas or how to better serve them thus improving your business. Forming business decisions based on reader feedbacks can be one of the smartest business moves you can ever make.

Nevertheless, to be effective, a blog has to be updated frequently. Readers do not visit blogs that do not feature fresh content regularly. Keeping readers in the know with periodic posts about your business creates buzz and publicity. There is work involved in creating a blog. It takes time and commitment to write interesting and informative blog posts. But it may prove to be well-spent especially if it helps generate sales.

Sales require personal interaction. A blog is one such place where communication thru conversations thrives and relationships are fostered. When you give your readers significant information they can use through your blog consistently, they will be satisfied. They will then return for more fresh content on a regular basis. Overtime, you will be able to build a loyal following. Readers will see you as an expert in your particular niche. Your readers will come to trust you and a relationship is developed. Your readers will perceive that it is less of a risk to buy from you or avail of your service. If you can blog efficiently about your subject, they tend to believe that your product or service will be worth it.

By blogging, you are sending the message that there is someone listening, someone you can approach as can be gleamed from answered comments and fresh updates. This will make your readers feel more secure and will take this into consideration as they form a purchasing decision. Blogging is inherently an ongoing conversation that in the long run builds trust and loyalty and breeds familiarity. When they become satisfied customers, they will come to you for more information and if given the choice will want to buy from you. This strengthens the relationship between you and your customers and they may also send other sales lead your way. The cycle goes on. Moreover, a blog is a remarkably effective way to get high search engine ranking. In other words, blogs can bring in more readers' â more prospective buyers.

A much publicized example that highlights the natural relationship between blogs and sales is the Stormhoek case. Blogging doubled South African wine producer Stormhoek sales in less than twelve months. Aware of the vast numbers of people who blog and read posts, Stormhoek decided to capitalize on this by offering bloggers free bottles of the Stormhoek Shiraz 2004 and Sauvignon Blanc 2005 to try and comment on. Sales went up from 50,000 cases to 100,000 cases. The wine became popular and earned it listings in prestigious wine connoisseur clubs. What is more, Stormhoek gets feedbacks and suggestions ranging from bottle color to label design.

Blogging is marketing to people in a less obtrusive and offensive manner, more like a freewheeling conversation compared to an irritating sales pitch. It truly is a good way to increase sales, albeit indirectly.

http://www.feed-reader-links.com http://www.rss-announcers.com

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Bloggers Inc - Why Blogs Are a Big Deal

By Saman Rashid

Abbreviated from 'web log', a blog is an online journal of sorts. Through their blogs, writers share beliefs, opinions, and ideas with the rest of high-speed humanity. A blog can also be used as a display of your writing ability or your enthusiasm and command over something in a certain area. More and more people are creating blogs everyday and it's not just people; it is companies and service providers too.

Not only does keeping a daily blog give you more practice and command over the language and make you a better, more confident writer, but it does so in an interactive environment that allows you to grow and learn from other people as well. That's why blog communities are so popular - people share with, and relate to, each other in a safe, comfortable, interactive environment where they feel able to express themselves fully.

Some people blog anonymously for various reasons (see postsecret.blogspot.com), whether it's because they're not confident enough to reveal themselves or because they might get in trouble with friends, family or the authorities, but many choose to blog as themselves.

Big businesses and companies for instance, who choose to blog do so in order to provide an interactive forum where their existing - and potential - customer base can communicate with the company in a less formal and much more comfortable environment. It allows a kind of openness between the two parties that was hitherto uncommon and creates a much deeper brand loyalty.

Service providers use blogs as a way to constantly revise and update their 'dynamic CVs'. Because that's what a blog is in a big way - an online calling card. You can link it to your main service website or freelancing profile and you get a forum for not only showcasing your talents as a writer, photographer, artist, film-maker etc but also as a way to express other sides of you that a static, paper-based CV simply cannot do.

Blogs are used to make money from advertising as well. Owners of very popular blogs get paid-per-click revenue from advertisers that use their site as a billboard and, if done right, can be extremely lucrative! The brilliant part about all of this is that, apart from the cost of your Internet connection and the time you put into your blog content, blogs are free to create and maintain. They are definitely a great marketing tool, both in a personal sense and in a business sense.

Saman Rashid is an experienced freelance copywriter. To get cost effective and professional articles written for you, kindly visit her website: MS Copywriters and submit your project details.

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Driving Traffic to a Blog - 3 Free Strategies For More Traffic

By Matthew Lord

Blogging as you well know has become quite popular, and people do it for recreational purposes or to make money. Many people are now making a full time living entirely from blogging, not even owning a website. How can they do this? Its quite simple actually; you just drive traffic to your blog and watch the sales come in. Okay maybe it's a little harder than that, but once you start driving traffic to a blog, it is just a matter of time before you start seeing success with blogging. Here are 3 traffic generation strategies I have put together to hep you get increase traffic to your blog.

1. Advertise your site on craigslist or eBay via the classified ad format. Craigslist is free, and you can do it on ebay for only $9.95 per month. Once the person comes to your blog you can then give away a free report which will establish your credibility as an authority on the subject you are blogging about.

2. Driving traffic to a blog can also be enhanced by advertising via article marketing. Article marketing is one of the most overlooked methods of traffic generation and continues to produce great results for those who practice it often. So write articles on the subject of your blog, and include your blog address at the bottom of the article.

3. Use Yahoo answers to generate traffic. Questions proposed on Yahoo answers often gets ranked on the first page of Google or yahoo, and if you can provide a great answer to a proposed question your website or blog will get increased exposure.

These are just three strategies for more traffic, and all should be used for driving traffic to a blog. Remember the more traffic you generate, the more sales you will make.

Do you want to know how I do it?

My Goal Is For You To Succeed In Internet Marketing! For Your Free Ebook Detailing The Exact Formula To Successful Internet Marketing Visit: http://www.marketingprimetime.com

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Web 2.0 Cometh - Is Your Blog Ready For the Upgraded Web?

By Lance Winslow

They say that with the new searching capabilities that Web 2.0 may change everything, and yet, some things will remain. For instance social networking is not going away anytime soon is it? Surely, not because that is what people have chosen to use the Internet for, well at least one thing they love to use the internet for of course.

The other day someone asked me; "How important are social networks and Web 2.0 to the success of your blog?"

Whooyah! Wake up call, think about this for a second. How about Very Important? This is a very good question indeed, because the evolution of the Internet continues and so too does the evolution of blogging. As the searching results change and deliver more relevancy and as the Internet becomes a little more secure and safer, the migration to Web 2.0 will become mandatory.

Of course, if you dare think it will stop there you are surely wrong. You see, it is almost like Moore's Law and thus, Web 3.0 will then come along in half time. You know, Web 2.0 has one heck of a lot to offer the blogosphere and the future potential for multimedia will be very cool too.

Perhaps, it makes sense for you to start considering the future of Web 2.0 as the game is completely changed, so that your blog is not caught holding the bag as everyone makes a mad dash for the better and more well adapted new land of Web 2.0. It's time to be thinking about that old quote; "You snooze, you lose," and so please be thinking here.

Lance Winslow - Lance Winslow's Bio. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/.

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How Has the Internet and Blogging Changed Since You Started?

By Lance Winslow

Is it just me or have you also noticed that the Internet has sure changed a lot in the 5-years? A few months ago I was watching a panel Venture Capital Discussion in Silicon Valley; it was a video and the topic was social networking; The Next Wave or something of that nature. And the key note speaker before the panel discussion started finished by asking a question of the audience;

How has the internet changed since you started blogging?

Interestingly enough the other day someone asked me this exact question and my immediate thought was;

"Boy that is a good question, as I cruised over to the Thrift Store the other day on my scooter and I picked up a Paperback book; "Computer Dictionary" and it was published in 2000. Guess what? Social Networking, Blogs, Blogging and several other terms were not in it."

And not long ago, I was watching a video from TED and a researcher from Google was there discussing the Internet and the last five years, how far it has come, it's truly incredible if you consider it. More importantly he asked; "What will the next five years be?"

Well, our master mind group also has some ideas on this, but his discussion was quite intriguing indeed. When I first started using a blog-like system on our website for a Franchises and myself to use, there was no such thing as a blog, but that's exactly what it was, perhaps not with all the features that modern day blogs have or all the advertising on the side bars, but it was a blog nevertheless.

You know where the word blog came from? You might want to look that up on the Internet sometime, I will not spoil the surprise here but it is something to consider. About a year ago I exchanged some emails with Vincent Surf about the future of the Internet, and later considered what he had said and the importance of what the greatest communication device ever invented has to offer the human race. Can it bring people together, prevent political impasse, keep people talking and become the catalyst to prevent war?

Indeed, Tim Berners Lee also has discussed this topic and he is happily amazed at the progress of socializing on the Internet and the entire Blogosphere, as he stated in an MIT Conference Video. So, all in all, the Internet has changed quite a bit since you started blogging hasn't it? Think on this.

Lance Winslow - Lance Winslow's Bio. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/.

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Bloggers That Do Not Identify Themselves As Bloggers

By Lance Winslow

Did you know that not every blogger thinks of themselves as a blogger? It's true, many bloggers blog for business or have a specific purpose or cause, they use their blogs as a vehicle to educate, inform and promote a cause or their businesses. Many bloggers that blog for social networking reasons assume that everyone blogs for the same reason they do, which is very far from reality.

Of course, perhaps this shows their short-sidedness and closed off world as they are completely networked with like-minded folks, fellow bloggers, but do not seem to see the total spectrum of blogging variations or uses. Not long ago I was listening to an interview by someone that was running a blogging network and someone who had 1000s of posts under their belt.

One of the first questions caught my curiosity as the interviewer asked: "How did you get into blogging?" and the gentleman being interviewed stated:

I am not really "into" blogging," in fact, I have a huge disdain for much of the blogging world. You see, I often feel when reading blogs that there are a whole lot of folks with a whole lot of opinions that have never done much of anything in their lives. Thus, I ask how much is their opinion really worth? And are they merely part of the 85 percentile of posers, wanna bees and malcontents, spreading sound and fury where ever they go?

Now mind you I have no problem reading various blogs from folks that are creative geniuses or have achieved something in the real world and then decide to blog about it, but I take issues with folks who have never done anything and want to tell everyone else what to do and what They Think because really who cares what they think, providing they do actually think?

I have placed information on a blog type format a time or two. It is my way of sharing what I have observed and the knowledge I have gained from doing."

Wow, that really did open my eyes to the fact that there are all types of bloggers, many of whom are merely using the vehicle because it exists, but not because they wish to socially network online. These people do not seem to respect most bloggers, for various and obvious reasons. Don't you find it interesting that there are so many uses for blogs and so many different types of bloggers?

Lance Winslow - Lance Winslow's Bio. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/.

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How to Develop New Business Relationships Through Blogging

By John Kreiss

Recently, I received several direct messages from a blogger asking me to comment on his blog. He said that he'd do the same for me if I complied. This individual was fairly aggressive with his solicitations to the point where I became quite angry with the intrusions. I have a message for this blogger. Think about the other person's interests and needs before your own self-serving interests and you will probably get what you want and much more. This type of solicitation for blog comments is like cold calling for business. It's self serving, intrusive, and tends to drive people away. If you want people to comment on your blog, learn to give first. Here's how:

Make comments on other people's blogs and don't expect anything in return. Make sure your comments add value to the post. Comments like, "great post" are usually perceived as self serving spam in most cases. Explain why you feel that a post is great and you'll see that making value added comments will eventually will get more people to come to your blog. Many of them will also make comments.

Provide information of interest to the readers you want to attract to your blog. Good blog posts get comments from readers. Solicitation for comments does more to drive people away. Provide valuable information and see people make regular visits to your blog because the readers will see a benefit from visiting.

Link to other blogs that will interest your readers. Linking to other blogs relevant to your prospects does two things. One is that prospective clients will see your blog as a great resource. The second is that you're helping other bloggers get "link love". Bloggers love people linking to their blogs because it helps raise their visibility with blog ranking sites like Technorati. Higher blog rankings also help to drive new visitors to their sites. Give "link love" to other bloggers from your blog and see others link back. You'll then see more visitors coming to your blog as well.

Be an advocate for the clients you want to target. Different interest groups have different values and causes. Demonstrate support for these causes and you'll get attention and appreciation from these specific interest groups.

Survey your target markets and listen to what they say. Suppose that blogger had asked me about topics I'd be interested in reading and then posted an article around one of those topics. That would've shown interest in me as a person and would've improved his chances of getting me to comment on his blog.

Good blogging requires understanding of what the readers or customers want. That's also true in management and business development. Managers who listen and understand the interests of people who report to them are usually much more effective than managers who don't. Business development professionals who understand the needs of their clients also do better than self serving individuals. Bottom line is that demonstrating concern for others is a great way for people to build better relationships in all areas of life.

John P. Kreiss

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Free Blog Themes - Make Your Blog Sites Attractive Effortlessly

By Eliza Maledevic

As you surf online, you will find lots of blog sites which were created by the so called bloggers. Bloggers are popping up like mushrooms, a reason why there are more and more blog sites online.

If you are a blogger, indeed, you want your blog sites to be visited by lots of internet users. With this, you will create lots of unique and catchy contents. But as blogger, you need to know that contents are not the only thing that you need to give time to. Of course, you need to take time making your blog sites attractive and interesting to visit.

You need to fix your blog sites, make it appealing and catchy. Designing a blog site takes a lot of time, effort and skill, but the good thing is that you can design and personalize your blog site effortlessly and instantly with the help of free blog themes.

As you go online, you can find lots of free blog themes, actually, there are lots of websites that offer free blog themes. You can surf through these websites until you find the free blog themes that suit your taste, preference and personality.

Actually, with the use of these themes, you can now change and beautify your blog sites every now and then. At least, with your spare time, you can change you theme.

There are even some websites online that offer you to register and obtain the change of personalizing your page with their free blog themes.

Indeed, with the technology these days, you can do things easily. You can even find almost everything through the internet. In reality, most people prefer to find stuffs such as information, products and even services online, so more and more people, companies are into the Net to obtain income.

That is why more and more are using the Net and contributing things up. Just like the blog sites online. These were created to share ideas, tips, guidelines and information to internet users.

Of course, as blogger, you would want your blog sites to be appreciated and visited by people. So, how can you do that? Make sure to come up with great contents and of course, always have attractive blog sites with the free blog themes. You can change the looks of your blog sites every now and then, so internet users have something to look forward to sometimes.

Surf for free blog themes that can match your personality in order to end up enjoying fixing and personalizing your blog sites.

Eliza Maledevic Ayson

Free Blog Themes

Article Author Eliza Maledevic from http://www.Jump2top.com - a SEO Company.

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Blogging For Dollars - Can We Talk?

By Ben Curtis

Michael spends a lot of time online. A lot. He finds it easier to talk to girls from school online than in person. Or at least, he uses the online time to break the ice, and then he finds he's a smoother talker in person, because he and the girl already have a conversation, ot two, or three, started. Nice, Michael.

And Michael is smooth in another way. He is using some of his online time making an income for those hot dates that he hopes are coming. Michael has done some searching online for products that will pay him a commission to promote. His interests run to body-building, so he's checked out a couple of products on ClickBank, and signed up to become a promoter, or affiliate, for them. "The Truth About Six-Pack Abs" and "No-Nonsense Muscle Building" were his picks.

Fascinating reading.

Okay, so Michael hasn't done much more than read about the products, but give him a little time and he may eventually use them. To body-build, I mean. He has actually done something with them; he's been promoting them in his blog posts and earning a nice commission each time one is bought through his ClickBank link.

Michael has learned several strategies to be effective with this online money-making plan. By doing a few hours' research, he zeroed in to blogs tied into his fascination with body-building. He quickly learned he had to follow the rules of the blog (he got ousted one time for an outright ad) and he knows now that being subtle is often a more effective sales technique than being forward. Michael has used a question from time to time to get bloggers interacting with him. "Know anyone with a six-pack? How'd they do it?" was the start of one of his posts. He was surprised that he talked to as many girls as guys with that post. Nice, Michael.

He has worked on making himself an expert on his Clickbank products and what they could actually do for a person. Michael knows that exaggerated claims could backfire on him and result in customers asking for refunds, so he always emphasizes that a buyer must follow directions and be persistent to get results.

Finally, this crafty blogger has learned to be persistent himself. He blogs nearly every day, promotes his ClickBank products often, though of course not in every post, and generally enjoys himself. It does not seem like work to him because body building is a passion of his, and one day, yes, he'll work on his own six-pack abs. Right after he makes that first hot date.

Ben Curtis has "Ben there, done that" and likes to help newbies avoid the pitfall of spending hundreds of dollars before making any! His website has useful free reports and ebooks for sale at ridiculously reasonable prices. Other resources include low-cost web design, and a money making plan even without a website. Find him at: http://www.bestebooksbuy.com This article may be used freely provided the link to bestebooks is included.

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