Home Business Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Blogging’

Everyone has a hobby, a skill that is unique to you, a unique outlook on life, perhaps a business whether home or offline that needs exposure, there are more reason to blog than reasons not to.

Lets explore why blogging is a universal method of advertising and communicating your products and thoughts.

First of all blogs have been around for a long time on the Internet, it is just recently that they are reaching their full potential as an advertising tool and a way to make money on the Internet.

Blogs are easy to set up and can be done with little or no money. A little knowledge goes a long way when setting up a blog. No special skills are required; although if you have never done anything with regards to building a webpage a book or a training program can be very helpful.

Any Internet marketer will tell you how important it is to get indexed in the search engines as quickly as possible. If your site is not indexed you will be at the bottom of the food chain in regards to sales. With blogging it seems search engines will love you. Why? Blogs provide a steady flow of information so they are indexed quickly, which in turn means your business or affiliate programs get into the search engines faster.

Anyone who sends emails can write a blog post. They are relatively short (400-600 words) and so much easier than writing an ebook and then trying to sell it on the Internet with the thousands of other how to books already out there.
Here are some ideas for a blog:

If you have a hobby show and write instructions on how you completed the piece. I do a blog on crafting, I won’t say I am good at crafting, but I do have fun. I post about the different things I am learning as I go along. I particularly like polymer clay, and there seems to be a lot of interest in that particular medium.

My husband is retired from the auto industry after 35 years. This is a hot topic right now with the entire shake up at the auto industry. He is starting a blog giving his view of what is happening and why it happened.

I also have a senior blog…which is for my personal sounding off about subjects that affect myself and my family.

I have a cooking blog that explores my love of cooking, recipes and sometimes a new gadget that I have tried.

I also have two different home business blogs, this being one and the other more geared to the tools that will help run a home business. Both included reviews of different affiliate programs that I have been involved in and now promote.
With all of these blogs I have advertising in the side columns for different products geared toward the subject of the blog. I make money from these affiliate programs.

That is how you can turn your ideas and passions into money making ventures.
Blogging is fun and can be very profitable. Why not give it a try and find out for yourself?

Creating your own blog is not only fun, but the concept of a blog is growing in popularity in terms of running your own home based business.

So the question arises should you create a blog or a website for your business?  Traditionally websites have been the cornerstone of all online businesses.  Whereas, a blog has been looked upon as a means of keeping your friends and family in touch with what is happening in your life.

All that is changing however, so you need to decide the pros and cons of both avenues of promoting your home based business.  The people who have been marketing online for years will tell you that you should have both, as I do.  Some will even say that a blog is not as professional as a website.

My thought is that a blog can do as much, if not sometimes more for your business.  It is hard to tell a blog from a website from just looking at one.  A blog is an excellent way to reach a number of people who otherwise would not have looked at your website.  There is a whole new community of bloggers who read and access each others blogs.

Whereas, with a website you advertise and wait for someone to click on your site and then hopefully they will make a purchase or even come back to your site at a later date.  A business using only a website will take longer to get indexed and recognized in the online business world.

A blog has an automatic RSS feed built into it.  What that does for you is that everytime you write a new post on your blog it should get broadcast to other sites that will show your post to a wide range of individuals.  This costs you nothing.

You can also have a RSS feed on your website, but I have found it not to be as effective as it is on a blog.

The one aspect of a blog that I find burdensome is that in order for my blog to find its way to the top of the pile in the blogging world, I have to post regularly.  Meaning I have to post at least every day, if not every other day.  It does require attention.

Whereas, with my website I go in once a week and check my links, my offers and update the site, advertise, and forget about it for a couple of days.

Blogging is a lot of fun and I enjoy it as I have three blogs, but it does take time.  There is a great program available that shows you how to create a blog and make money from it.  I know you have seen it, and probably passed it by, but it is an excellent program if you are thinking of starting an online business and are not sure if a website is for you.  The link will be at the end of this post.

Another thing to consider is if you want a hosting account for your blog or do you want a free service.  A free service does offer much of the same, except it does limit the “pluggins” that your site can have.  With a paid service like WordPress.org and your own hosting account you can do a lot more.  A good resource book is “WordPress for Dummies”, I used it and it helped a lot.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

WordPress For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

I like blogging.  I like the word…the word came into existence around 1999 and actually is another name for Weblog, which we all know started out as a a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.

However, blogging is such a cool word.  Much better than saying “I Weblog”.  People would look at you and wonder if you were going off the deep end.

So why do I like blogging.  Because of this, what I am doing right now.  I am putting all my thoughts and ideas down to share with others.  Providing those who are interested want to share it with me.  No one has to read it or agree with anything I write.  It is nice if they like what I write, but not necessary to my overall satisfaction.

I have been article writing for my home business for some time.  I like my home business, I enjoy it, I find great satisfaction from working at home.  But I never really felt comfortable writing an article.  I think it stems from my childhood and the problems I was told I had with the English language.  The offhanded remarks of some pretty insensitive teachers gave me a lifelong fear of writing my thoughts for anyone else to read.  I never even kept a diary for fear someone else would read it and make fun of it.

So it was with great anxiety that I even started writing for my home business.  Fear kept me from writing as I wanted to write.  Which tends to be a bit of ramblings.  I tended to paraphrase someone elses thoughts, which I guess is all right when you are starting, but you have to get over that fear and start your own thoughts or you will become stagnant.  You know like a body of water that is standing still.

This is why I like blogging.  Because who cares if you ramble, or if your opinion is different.  Who really cares if your punctuation, or grammer is not the best.  As long as you get the point across in a manner which is easy to read and understand, you have done the job. I also find if I use my own thoughts and ideas I tend to get more readers.  Because what I write is all me.

Also when I am using my random thoughts and putting them down in some structure, I become more organized.  How does that happen?  I haven’t a clue.  I just know that when I write like I want to write, and put things down as I want to and not someone else’s thoughts, I have more ideas, more things to write about, and it is a whole lot less stress.  Which at my age…stress is not needed.

So even though I feel blogging is an interesting word in itself, it is even more interesting to blog your thoughts and ideas to the world. You can use blogging to promote your business, your interests, or just about anything you want.  Do you want to brag about your family?  Blog it!  How about the success of your home based business?  Blog it!  Pick a topic, create a blog either using Blogspot.com (Free) or use WordPress.com (also free), and you are off on an adventure.

Using the blog as a means of advertising a business is a great way not only to make sales, but meet people who share your common goals.

Isn’t it time you become part of the Blogging World?

Do you know what the most difficult aspect of blogging is?  It is coming up with new and unique content every day or every week.  And yet there are thousands of sites on the Internet that offer free content.  So why not use them!

If you are new to blogging, then by all means use these sites. They help with good quality content for both your blog and your website.  However, be very careful not to plagiarize.  If you are going to reprint the content verbatim then use the resource box at the end of the article, do not claim the article was your own.  This will get you in a lot of trouble.

That being said, I also would like to point out that most of the articles I have read are repeats of other articles only in different words.  So essentially you are rewriting the same article over and over.  There might be a different spin on the subject, different wording, different conclusions, but the core of the articles are the same.  No matter if it is about affiliate marketing, advertising, a certain program…the core of the article is to sell.

So how do you come up with unique articles for your blog if you don’t have experience?  You pick a subject and read as many articles on that subject as you can handle, then you write your own article.  Yes, you are giving the same old article your spin, the difference is because you read more than one article on the subject, you have been exposed to different viewpoints, and your spin will be different than everyone elses, making your article more unique.

I have started to write more about my experiences, rather than someone elses’.  Of course, I have been marketing online for eight years, so I have learned a little something.  I have found that if I write an article using my words and thoughts, it gets more attention.  If I am just repeating thoughts from another article, then the article does not get as much attention.  Since article writing and blogging are for the purpose of promoting you affiliate programs, you want the attention.  It is a terrific form of free advertising.

Blogging has become extremely popular in the past couple of years.  So much so that alot of webmasters are using their blogs as their main websites.  You can blog about anything you desire.  My neice, for instance, blogs about her family and her experience raising two active children.  She advertises her affiliate programs in the side columns.  She is making money and has readers from around the world.  Another friend blogs about her sons struggles with autism.  Her site is devoted to helping others parents cope with this dreadful disease.  She too has affiliate programs and products in her side columns, and makes money from them.

Blog about anything you want, write about anything you want, it doesn’t have to be about your affiliate programs.  Those you can sneak in on the side columns of your blog.  Use your blog to advertise your business, whether it is in the form of ads in the side columns, or writing about a program that you found interesting.  Write about how you started your work at home business and the reason behind your decision.

Blogging is your key to open the door to internet marketing.  That’s a good tag line…