1. Permalinks setting: Permalink is the permanent URL for each of your blog post. WordPress gives a default setting which is not optimal. You need to edit this for better search engine optimization. Click on the “settings > permalinks” menu from the WordPress dashboard. Use your custom link here like yourdomain.com/category/blogname. What this will do is that it will display the category and name of the blog post in the URL itself which it otherwise displays as a number. This will make it easy for the search engines to locate your blog.

2. Use SEO software: Go for a commercially available SEO pluggin like All in One SEO pack. This will allow you to create your own custom title and add in the Meta and keyword tags for the home page and each of the blog posts. Setting the right tags is one of the most popular ways to get noticed by search engines.

3. Optimize keywords: This is a standard technique. In fact, you must do some keyword research even before you start writing your blog. Keywords that are highly competitive are best avoided. Choose long tail keyword phrases which have relatively less competition and write your blog for this. Include the exact phrase in the title once and about 2-3 times in the body of the blog. Keyword research can be done with Google Adwords Keyword Tool or SEO Book Keyword Tool.

4. Bookmark your blog: Bookmarking is a great way to build traffic for your blog. Simply use sites like delicious.com or stumbleupon.com and post your blog url under your category. Even better, use onlywire.com or socialmarker.com to post your url to multiple social bookmarking sites at one go.

5. Update your community: If you have a presence of social networking sites like Twitter, you can send a small tweet to your community about your latest blog post. When you update your Facebook profile with this, it will automatically send a mini feed to your entire network about your blog post.

These are all great viral ways to promote your site and create backlinks. Moreover, all these go a long way in making your WordPress blog search engine friendly.

If you have yet to jump on the blogging train no worries it’s not too late to grab your ticket to blogging profits. Social media is just really starting to boom in 2009 and I doubt we will see the cap on its growth any time soon and possibly ever. Some of the top social sites out of the 1000’s are MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Social media has not killed the blog, there is no reason you cannot leverage off the two and combine these two powerful methods.

Follow these 12 blogging tips consistently and you will be on your way to making blogging profits in 2009.

12 Blogging Basics for Profits:

1. Create a writing and posting schedule. If you do not enjoy writing there are many ways to outsource this task. Regardless you want a schedule so you are consistent with how much content you put out. You also want to schedule when you will post your writings on your blog. Decide what time you will post to your blog, how many times a week and what days. By being consistent your readers will know what to expect from you and will gain you more loyal readers.

2. Pick a niche. Do some research, know whether your niche is profitable, create a keyword list to help you know what your readers/customer are looking for and pay attention to the gurus in your niche. By targeting a niche you will be able to target your market and have better conversions from readers to buyers. This will also help you pick what products to promote and what to write about. It’s okay to have more than one niche, just have a separate site for those other niches.

3. Have a clean blog design. With templates abound it is not hard to find a professional, clean, easy to navigate blog template. Most are super simple to get up and running. However, if you find it to be more challenging then you want just like writing you can easily outsource the setup of your blog. Keep it clean and professional and you will have a winning blog design.

4. Choose your plugins. There are a ton of plugins. Some things to consider when deciding what plugins to have on your blog are: SEO, time savers, interaction with readers and anything to make the reader’s experience more enjoyable. A few of my must have plugins are: What Would Seth Godin Do? And the All-in-One SEO Pack.

5. Write from experience. What experience do you have with this niche, products you are promoting, things you are reviewing, etc.? When you write from the first person perspective readers will feel like they are getting to know you and as you build trust and get raving fans they will look forward to reading your posts, trust your reviews, recommendations and view point on the niche.

6. Use proper grammar and spell check. This does not mean to write bland or take away from your personality… However, the more proper your grammar the more attractive your writing will be. Spell check, spell check and spell check again. Do not just rely on your word processors spell check, proofread it yourself and have another set of eyes you trust check your work as well.

7. Remember SEO. Keep your keywords and keyword phrases in mind when writing your titles, writing your post, adding keywords related to your post and writing your descriptions. This will help you rank in the search engines faster and make it easier for your target market to find you.

8. Interact with your readers. Ask questions, reply to comments, answer questions, post polls and have a way for them to opt-in to a newsletter, tutorial, etc. Stay connected and in-touch to keep your readers and grow your readership.

9. Interact with popular gurus’ blogs in your niche. Comment on their posts regularly, while adding value whether you are agreeing or not. Write follow up posts and trackback to their original as well as comment about your post inspired by their post and why you were inspired. This will increase your readers, get gurus to comment on your blog which will give you more authority and will again increase your readership.

10. Market your blog. There are many ways to market your blog. Here are a few to get you started. Use social bookmarking, let all your friends and groups on your social networks know about your new post, ping your blog, email your list and create a video about your post and link it to your blog.

11. Be you. Personalize your blog with pictures, write with personality. Do not try and write like someone else. Be you and you will attract like-minded people that will love your work. Be fake and everyone will know and your numbers will show it.

12. Keep trucking. Building a blog empire will not happen over night. Be consistent, constantly learn about the make money blogging industry and make time for your blog in your daily schedule.

If you want to make money blogging in 2009, then keep these 12 blogging tips in mind every time you blog. You will be sure to reap the benefits and so will your readers.

You know what to write about.

You’re applying 5 great tips that master bloggers apply.

You’re definitely on your way, so let’s go a little further and talk about newsletters and how they will enhance yourself and your blog.

So what the heck is a newsletter anyway?

A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one main topic that is of interest to its subscribers. In the context of this blog, I’ll be talking about E-Mail newsletters.

So you already know what you’re going to blog about. Creating an E-Mail newsletter that people sign up for on your blog will enhance your blog and your brand by keeping your readers up to date with information about your topic (and more importantly, the topic they are interested in learning about).

4 Key Advantages Of A Newsletter

1. They promote YOU and YOUR business.

E-Mail newsletters are product of your copywriting skills. When you deliver a newsletter to a reader via E-Mail, you need to always deliver value (I call it A.D.V.) on the topic you’re writing about.

When you always deliver value and build great relationships with your readers, your readers will trust you and be more responsive to partnering with, buying your product or service, and recommending other people to you.

2. They educate your business partners, prospects and customers

You already know that we like to be educated on particular topics. As a society, we are in a constant state of always wanting to improve (well, at least the people I surround myself with).

Your newsletter can constantly deliver valuable information to educate your business partners, prospects and customers, thus establishing yourself as an expert on a subject and building trust with them.

3. They allow you to reach many people at once

Your newsletter can reach many people at once. How many? Well, as many people that sign up to receive your newsletter. If you have 100k people on your newsletter (aka your “list”), then you are in a position to be delivering great value to 100k people.

4. They produce income for you 24/7

You can use your newsletter to advertise your products and services. Or a tool or resource you use that you highly recommend.

For example, tomorrow, I’m going to send out a mailing to my newsletter about Traffic Secrets 2.0 and why anyone who has ANY interest in learning how to market on the Internet NEEDS this product. Period.

So do you have anything of value you’d like to send out to thousands of people at once? If you do, it’s time to blog about and start an E-Mail newsletter.

So How Do You Create A Newsletter

It’s really not THAT difficult, so here goes a quick two step process.

1. Plan out what you want your newsletter to be about

This one is pretty obvious. You know what you’re going to write about, so just think of a newsletter that’s related to your topic. If your blogging about travel, for example, perhaps your may want your newsletter to be about destinations and deals.

2. Sign up for an autoresponder (I recommend Aweber and nothing else)

By the way, Aweber will give the code to put on your blog page. Call it a “mini-capture page”.

How’s that for rocket science?

In the next tip, you’ll learn more about autoresponders, their advantages, how to set them up on your blog, and why you NEED one if you want to dominate online.

But I’m a pretty nice guy, so I’ll quickly tell you what they are in case you don’t know…

An autoresponder is simply a mechanism to deliver your newsletter to thousands or even millions of people.

Do you see any potential with that?

If you remember the first blog (Learn What A Blog Is) in this series, we talked about how your blog can assist you in getting an unlimited supply of leads, business partners and income 24/7. Now it won’t happen overnight, but as long as you keep providing good, fresh and valuable content, it will happen.

Your blog readers, however, are coming to your blog to get educated or entertained in the the topics you write about. So here’s 5 points great bloggers apply to provide an awesome user experience for their readers.

Point 1: Great Bloggers Engage Their Readers

Great bloggers always engage their readers after they write a blog post. For example, great bloggers can ask their readers to:

• Sign up for their newsletter to stay in the know
• Post a question and/or comment about the blog entry to create a community aspect
• Clicking on an advertisement you recommend
• Subscribing to the blogs RSS feed
• Linking them to a video you made
• Plus much, much more.

Point 2: Great Bloggers Write With Personality

Great bloggers always let their personality shine when they write blogs. They write a blog like they’re having a conversation (hint) with someone. Your personality is uniquely yours and it’s what’s going to set you apart from the other bloggers out there and get more readers to come back to your blog over and over again.

Point 3: Great Bloggers Know How To Write Great Copy

Ah, copywriting. A million dollar skill (literally, this is NOT a figure of speech) that is perhaps the most important skill an Internet Marketer can have. Read that last sentence again. And once more.

Great bloggers apply great copy. They know how to write to engage, to entertain and to persuade their readers to action all at once. To significantly improve your copywriting skills, visit Recruit with Words right now.

Point 4: Great Bloggers Deliver Good, Fresh and Valuable Content

Good. Fresh. Valuable.

Imprint those 3 words in your brain and understand that if you’re going to be a great blogger, you must deliver good, fresh and valuable content. Period.

If your copy is good, your readers love you.

If your copy is fresh, the search engines love you.

If your copy is valuable, your readers trust you.

Point 5: Great Bloggers Do Not Use Their Blog As An Advertising Billboard

Before we get started on this point (and before I make the peddlers send me hate mail), let me say great bloggers do advertise on their blog. They do it in a very subtle way.

When I mention “advertising billboard,” I’m talking about the individuals out there who create a blog and copy and paste their company information (isn’t that super?) into their blog and put their phone number on the end of it.

Wow! There’s no real value there. They don’t update it with fresh content. It’s just an advertising billboard. But they have a blog, right? No. What they have is this:

An advertising billboard on a blogging platform.

So how are you suppose to advertise on your blog?

Well, understand great bloggers:

• go to seminars on their topic
• listen to lots of CDs on their topic (my car is my MLU-Mobile Learning Unit)
• read books on their topic
• read other blogs on their topic
• mastermind with other individuals who are passionate about their topic

If it sounds like I’m telling you to become a total student of the game, I am. Worry about providing value first and the money second. It will come in time!

Great bloggers can share their knowledge with the world on their blog and discuss it. When you provide that type of value to the community, readers will trust you and buy your recommendations and align themselves with you! And that’s when the game gets really fun and you attract great people.

Now start blogging away and learning about about the blogging platform you’ve selected! In the next tip, I’m going to give you some blogging advice on how to set up a newsletter for your blog.

Let’s demystify the process right now so you can start dominating online!

Now if you decided to choose Blogger for your blogging platform instead of Wordpress, then all you need to do is go to www.blogger.com and follow the instructions to get you an account set up.

As I have stated before, I strongly urge you to use Wordpress and the rest of this blog will be dedicated to launching a Wordpress blog.

If you are still not sure which blogging platform is right for you, then read my blog on Wordpress versus Blogger.

Installing your Wordpress Blog

Step 1: Invest in your domain name:

A domain name is essential for a Wordpress blog. In a previous blog, I advised you to use a domain name for your blog. You can head over to GoDaddy and purchase your domain name for under $10. Their domain name registration process is easy and their user interface is extremely easy to use.

Step 2: Get a web hosting account:

You can get hosting from a lot of places, and there is no one best place. However, I will recommend GoDaddy again. You can get all the hosting you need for under $5 a month. I recommend you start with the “Economy Plan.”

Also, GoDaddy makes installing Wordpress very easy. More on this later.

Step 3: Point your domain name to your hosting provider:

This step will not be all that important to you if you buy both your domain name and blog from GoDaddy. However, when you purchase domain hosting, you will be provided with a “name server” to point your domain to.

If you purchase your domain name from GoDaddy (wise choice) and your hosting from another provider, you will have to contact that provider and ask them for the “name servers”. After you get the name servers, you’ll have to log in to your GoDaddy account and forward your domain name to those name servers.

If you need help with this, you can simply call GoDaddy’s customer support and they can walk you through the process. All one minute of it.

If you buy both your hosting and domain name from GoDaddy, life will be easier for you.

NOTE: Sometimes it takes up to 24 hours for your domain to “propagate.” Don’t worry too much about what “propagation” really means. It’s not that important. What you need to know is you will not be able to launch your blog until this “propagation” takes place.

However, in most cases, it takes much less time and perhaps even a few minutes. You will know when it’s working when you can log into your hosting account under your domain name. Make sure you call up your hosting company and have them provide with some step-by-step instructions on how to log into your host manager. It’s easier than it sounds!

Step 4: Install your blog:

If you recall earlier, I said using GoDaddy’s Web hosting would be really easy to set up a Wordpress blog. Here’s the step-by-step instructions:

Install Wordpress on a GoDaddy Hosting Account.

That’s not so bad after all, right? It really isn’t

But what about the other web hosts?

Well, simply call up their customer service departments and see what their process is for installing a Wordpress blog. I feel you’ll like the GoDaddy approach a lot and go with that.

Congratulations! Take a bow. Break out the champagne. You’ve just launched your blog and are closer to dominating online!

Step 5: Personalize your blog:

So now that your blog is launched, you may want to personalize the look and feel of your blog and add some extensions (”plugins”) to improve the user experience of your blog. As I have already said in a my blog comparing Wordpress versus Blogger, Wordpress is open-source so you can find thousands of themes and plug-ins online.

Or you can simply hire some to create a totally custom look and feel for pennies on the dollar at sites such as www.guru.com, www.topcoder.com, or www.elance.com.

Plug-Ins You Should Install To Get Started

Social Marker:

Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting a blog. But going through all of those social bookmarking sites is very time-consuming. That’s where SocialMarker comes in — the free service designed to reduce the time and effort needed to socially bookmark your blog!

Learn more at SocialMarker.

Protect Web Form:

One of the great advantages of having a blog is your blog readers can post comments on your blog. This creates a very nice community aspect!

However, the are some malicious spammers out there with automated software that can find your blog posts and post spam comments. One great way to stop them is to use a CAPTCHA, which is just a box that makes them type in a random series of letters. If you’ve been on the Internet, you’ve no doubt seen CAPTCHAs in action.

Now, you can get one for your own blog really easily. Simply visit Protect Web Form and follow the step-by-step instructions to protect yourself and your blog.

Google XML Site-Map:

Sitemaps are an easy way for your blog to inform search engines about your blogs that are available for crawling. If you want to get a more technical understanding, visit www.sitemaps.org.

I highly recommend you use a Sitemap for your Wordpress blog as it will help you out tremendously in the search engines and get you a lot of traffic as long as you keep writing good, fresh and valuable content!

To get a Sitemap for your Wordpress blog, simply visit and follow the step-by-step instructions at:

Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress

And that’s it for now! There are plenty more plug-ins you can check out later on, but this is enough to get you started.

What to do if you’re lost:

We covered a lot of material in this blog, and if you’re lost, do not despair, as you have some options.

First of all, don’t just read this blog and say “I’m lost.” You must actually do it and it will make a lot more sense.

Secondly, you can always hire someone to set up your blog for you. I’ve given you some resources in this blog already!

And if you hire me for one hour of Internet Marketing Coaching, I’ll install your blog for you with the plug-ins recommended in this plug.

You’ll also get me pinned down working for you for one hour discussing Internet Marketing traffic techniques for your blog and a business plan that makes sense for you and your business. My rate is $125/hr and you can contact me directly at my office at (985) 249-2270 for a free consultation.

Wait!

Now that your blog is launched and you know what you’re going to write about (review how to choose a topic to blog about), you may be tempted to start blogging. I know I was!

Before you do, read the next tip in this series: 5 Points Great Bloggers Apply.

Now let’s talk about domain names and why they are absolutely essential to your blog and dominating online because, without a doubt, the purchase of a domain name will be one of the most valuable investments you will make for your blog and for your business.

Why Forest?

In the context of blogs, it is simply a matter of professionalism.

For those of you that decide to choose to go with Blogger over Wordpress, pay close attention to why you should use a domain name because it will be optional. Remember: If you choose Wordpress as I recommend, you must buy a domain name for your blog.

After you create a Blogger account, your URL will be in the following format:

http://johndoe.blogspot.com

where johndoe is the user name you used when you registered your Blogger account.

It’s pretty obvious that

http://www.johndoe.com

is a more professional choice. You can call this “click appeal” or the “URL attraction factor.” It’s simply a a more attractive URL.

And you do want to transcend a professional image, right?

Bottomline: No matter which blogging platform you choose, use a domain name for your blog because it’s more professional and thus has more “click appeal.”

If you need more information on domain names, see my blog where I advise you to use domain names.

So, let’s choose the best blogging platform for YOU. You have two types of blogging platforms to choose from and I will recommend only one blogging platform from each one, so let’s talk about those now:

Blogging Platform Type 1: Stand-alone

A stand-alone blogging platform must be hosted on a domain name of yours with hosting (which we will discuss in the next tip) and is “open-source”.

If you are not familiar with the term “open-source”, all that means for us is that there are thousands of computer programmers repeatedly improving the blogging platform and adding new extensions (”plugins”) to add more functionality to the blogging platform to make our blogging life much, much easier.

The recommendation I am going to make for a stand-alone blogging platform is Wordpress.org because it is simply the most popular and absolute easiest to use. And of course it has thousands of plugins to make your life a lot easier with more and more extensions (”plugins”) being released quite often.

Blogging Platform Type 2: Hosted

A hosted blogging platform is already hosted for you. You do not have to install it on a domain name of yours or pay for hosting.

The recommendation I am going to make for a hosted blogging platform is Blogger because it the most popular and supported hosted blogging platform out there, it’s easy to use and of course, it’s owned by Google.

So which blogging platform should you use?

I’ll make my recommendation later, but ultimately you’re going to have to decide, so let’s take a look at some key areas to help you decide. So let’s jump into the Wordpress versus Blogger politics…

Installation:

OK, since Blogger really has NO installation, we’re not exactly comparing apples to apples here. With blogger, you simply set up an account, go through a few steps and you can start blogging.

With Wordpress, you must install it on a hosting account. With the proper hosting provider, this installation is really easy and can be done in minutes. Over the next two tips, I’ll give you all the advice you need on domain names and hosting providers as it relates to your blog.

All things considered, an easy installation is still not as easy as no installation, so…

Advantage: Blogger

Cost:

Well, Blogger is a hosted platform and one that is free, so there are really no costs associated with it.

Wordpress itself is free; however, it must be hosted one your own hosting account, so there is some cost associated with it. Don’t worry, though, you can get solid hosting for your Wordpress blog for under $5 a month and I will advise you on this in a later tip, so keep reading.

That said, $5 a month is more than $0 a month, so…

Advantage: Blogger

Personalization (Themes):

Since Wordpress is open-source, it has tens of thousands of developers and designers providing valuable content daily. And themes is included in that list. Wordpress has thousands of themes you can use and they are simple to download and install. Take a look for yourself at the Wordpress Theme Directory.

Also, since Wordpress is ridiculously popular, there are thousands of wordpress designers out there who can create you a very unique look for your blog an extremely affordable price.

Blogger, on the other hand, is more limited in their themes to choose from but there are some good options to choose from. And you can edit your templates as well.

Advantage: Wordpress

Extensions (”plugins”):

Wordpress wins here for the same reason as themes. It’s more popular and it has thousands of developers developing extensions (”plugins”) all the time. See all the great extensions (”plugins”) and how they make your blogging life easier for yourself at the Wordpress plugin directory.

Blogger, on the other hand, has a very limited number of extensions (”plugins”) and simply does not have the resources to compete with Wordpress in this category.

Advantage: Wordpress (by A LOT)

Ease of Use:

Obviously Wordpress has to be installed, but once it is, it’s just as easy to use as Blogger. And since it has a lot more features, some would argue Wordpress is actually easier to use since you don’t have to jump through hoops to get some things done like Blogger.

That said, I’m going to call it even here.

Advantage: Draw

Categories:

Creating categories is very easy in Wordpress and it improves the user experience of your blog. For example, on my blogs I have a number of categories I’m passionate about that I write about such as:

• Prospecting and Closing
• Internet Marketing
• Blogging
• Financial Intelligence

Now if I have a Network and Internet Marketer that visit my blogs and all they want to read about is blogging tips, then can simply click on my Blogging category and read only my entries on blogging tips and blogging advice.

This is really sweet in Wordpress.

Blogger does not play alone so nicely in this regard. There really is no simple way to do it. And in my opinion, being able to create categories is an absolute must have on any serious blog.

Advantage: Wordpress

Flexibility:

Since blogger is a canned solution, it’s really not flexible. You play by the rules they give you and you have to jump through hoops to make some changes.

With Wordpress, you have total ownership of everything and you can make changes to everything if you wish. It’s the ultimate blogging platform in this regard.

Advantage: Wordpress (it’s not even close)

Which blogging platform should YOU choose:

With all things considered, I-and most business owners-highly recommend you choose Wordpress.org because:

• you have complete control of everything
• you have many more extensions (”plugins”) to choose from
• you have many more resources available to help you
• you have *A LOT* more flexibility

However, the Wordpress verus Blogger decision is yours and yours alone, so just remember:

Blogger:      Free, No Installation Required, Extremely Limited, No Categories
Wordpress: Installation Required, Hosting Required, Extremely Flexible, Categories

Now…if you are not computer or Internet savvy and the talks of installation and hosting concerns you, don’t worry because I’ll tell you all about domain names and hosting and how they relate to your blog in the next tip in this series and that should further help you make a decision on which blogging platform is best for you.

Once you get that information, just make sure you pick a blogging platform because you need a blog. Why? Recall the 5 advantages of having a blog.

So let’s get to it…

Recall that a blog is one of the most effective methods to get a lot of traffic and more importantly, a lot of leads for your Network and Internet Marketing businesses very fast.

But to get that traffic and those leads, you have to write about something and bring value to the marketplace. In my experience, it seems one of the most effective ways to get paid big money is to bring value to the marketplace.

The best blogging advice I can give you on choosing a topic to write about as it relates to your Network and Internet Marketing business is to first decide on who you wish to attract:

Are you going to use your blog to attract individuals looking to buy a solution to a problem that your product or service solves?

OR…

Are you going to use your blog to attract individuals interested in building a profitable Network and/or Internet Marketing business?

Here’s some blogging advice for you: choose only one per blog.

Why? Because your blog should be dedicated to a specific topic or a lot of closely related topics. It makes for a better user experience when your blog is specifically dedicated to a topic.

And you can (HINT: and SHOULD) have two blogs as well (one focused on providing a lot of value on a problem that your product or service solves and one focused on how to build a profitable business with your company and more importantly, yourself). But do one first to understand the entire process.

If you have multiple blogs (one dedicated to educating customers and one dedicated to training and training individuals how to build a profitable Network and Internet Marketing business), you can link your blogs back and fourth to each other which will assert you as not only an expert in a problem your product or service solves but as someone who knows how to build a profitable Network and Internet Marketing business as well.

When you have both of these going, it tells prospects some very attractive things about you:

• You really understand your product or service and the problem(s) they solve.
• You really know how to build a profitable Network and Internet Marketing business (a fantastic selling point).
• You treat your business like a business and not like a hobby.
• You provide real value and are not someone who just pitches an opportunity all day long without knowing what their product or service is really about. This gives you more of a feel as a consultant instead of salesman.

There are VERY FEW Network and Internet Marketers doing this. It’s highly effective and attractive , but it’s rarely being taught…

So TAKE ADVANTAGE!

Now let’s talk about some ideas for both approaches.

Blogging To Attract Customers To Your Product Or Service:

The best way to attract customers to your product or service is to write about the problem your product or service solves or mitigates. For example, if you are in a travel company, here are some ideas you may find it very valuable to blog about:

• A Specific Destination: You can become a destination expert and provide vacation planning tips for that destination telling your readers about the best attractions, restaurants, etc. This will show your readers that you are an expert of this area and they will feel comfortable letting you put together vacation packages for them or booking their vacation on your travel portal. (TIP: Do not forget to consider destinations that no one else is blogging about – the right niche can make you rich)
• Cruising: This will require you to stay on top of the cruise industry and you can blog about the latest and greatest news in the cruise world. You may also find it very valuable to write about the pros and cons of different cruise lines.

On the other hand, if you are in health and wellness, you can blog about a medical condition your product mitigates. Learn the medical problems, become a student of a certain condition (or multiple conditions so you can have multiple blogs addressing medical conditions your product solves).

Also post about new advances in certain conditions and provide lifestyle tips for individuals suffering with certain conditions. Do that properly and then professionally recommend your product as a possible solution.

Whatever you choose to blog about to attract customers to your product or service, just remember to bring value to the marketplace (lots of it) and DO NOT use your blog as an advertising billboard.

Over time, you may just find that people are buying your products and using your services without you even talking to you on the phone first (TIP: If they do, be a professional and call them up and thank them). To find out why this works, see this blog: Understand The Psychology Of Why People Buy

Blogging To Attract Business Builders (Your Money Makers):

When you are blogging to attract business builders, the best blogging advice I can give would be to blog about the strategies you are personally using to build your Network and Internet Marketing business.

If you have your own prospecting and closing style, blog about it. If you are know how to generate leads through various Internet Marketing strategies, blog about it.

Now if you don’t know how to generate leads or market online but you want to learn how, then mastermind with someone who does, especially if what you are doing is simply not working and not making you any money. See my post on Funded proposals to see why learning these skills are ridiculously effectively.

In the next blogging tip, I will offer you blogging advice on understanding blogging platforms by looking at the pros and cons of the two best blogging platforms available to you so you will be able to determine which blogging platform is the best fit for you so you can get your blog up and start dominating online with your Network and Internet Marketing businesses.

So, are you ready?

Here we go…

Advantage #1:

Blogs are an extremely easy and effective way to brand yourself and get an online presence.

Advantage #2:

Both search engines and social networks are really attracted to blogs (provided you provide valuable content often enough – more on this later). When you can leverage the power of search engines and social networks by delivering value, you will get a lot of traffic (readers to your blog).

Advantage #3:

You can reuse the content of your blogs to write your own e-books and submit articles. And when you write your own e-books and submit articles about various topics, you can link your readers back to your blog and onto your newsletter if you have one. (very powerful)

And by the way, I will definitely be sending out tips on how you can build your own newsletter, so make sure you are signed up to get my Network and Internet Marketing tips.

Advantage #4:

A blog is looked at as more credible than most other advertising vehicles such as flyers, brochures, your company Web Site, etc. When you maintain a blog that provides good, valuable content, you will project yourself as a consultant more than a sales person…

Not that I have anything against sales professionals since I am one myself, but people will always be more receptive to someone they see as a consultant versus someone they see as a salesman or saleswoman.

Advantage #5

Blogs allow your readers to comment on your writings thus creating an “online community” of like-minded individuals. Sometimes a reader may post a comment that you turn into a million dollar idea or it may turn into a long-term business partnership.

IMPORTANT:

Your blog can no doubt be one of your most effective assets; however, these 5 advantages mean absolutely nothing unless your provide your readers with a steady supply of valuable and/or entertaining content.

If you use your blog to simply pitch your business like a peddler does, you will have very little (if any) repeat visitors and contributors to your blog community. Period.

Always provide value.

In the next blogging tip, you will get some great tips on what you should write about in your blog plus much more.

When I first started college, blogs were very new. Now, they are everywhere, which brings to ask you a question.

Do you want a really fast and ridiculously effective way to assert yourself as an expert and generate an endless supply of leads, potential business partners, and income coming to you 24/7?

Of course you do!

This blog (about blogs!) is the first in a series of blogging tips. With my blogging tips, you will learn:

• What is a blog anyway?
• Why you need a blog…ASAP
• Why search engines love blogs
• What you should write about on your blogs
• How to choose a blogging platform (Wordpress versus Blogspot) and get your blog up in minutes.
• What it means to ping your blog (this is huge!).
• What blog plug-ins are which ones you need to receive lots of traffic
• Plus much, much more most bloggers won’t tell you about.

So…let’s jump straight into answering the million dollar (literally) question:

What exactly is a blog?

A blog (shorthand for weblog) is simply a publishing platform that you host on a web server somewhere that allows publishers (that would be you and me, the bloggers) to provide content to readers.

Of course the best way to understand a blog is to look at one. And since you are on my blog right now, you are in luck. So before you continue reading any further, take a brief look around and see if you can think of any advantages of having a blog for your business (you’ll learn a lot of these in a later blogging tip).

Welcome back.

I’m sure you can think of many advantages of having your own blog, right?

And by the way, there are now tens of thousands of blogs on the Internet (maybe more now) today discussing just about any topic you can think of such as aquatic animals, bicycle reviews, health tips, politics, travel tips, real estate, and much, much more.

As you have experienced, this blog is focused on practical and highly effective Network and Internet Marketing tips without much theory and history, so I will leave out the history and evolution of blogs.

If you are interested in the history of blogs, Wikipedia has a great page and you check it here: Blog History.

In the next blogging tip, you will learn 5 reasons why you need a blog for your Network and/or Internet Marketing businesses.