Work At Home Business Options

Posts Tagged ‘blogs’

7 Basic Blogging Tips For New Business Bloggers

If you are trying to build and market an online business, you should add blogging to your marketing efforts. When you have a business blog…it is a great way to communicate with your customers and clients on a more personal level.

If you are just getting your feet ‘wet’ with blogging for your business, here are a few of my favorite tips.

1. Organization: Your blog should be kept clean and organized. It is important that it have a professional laid-back appearance but not overly stuffy. Your topics should be listed in tabs across the top of the page or along the side, so that readers can easily find the content they are interested in reading.

2. Color Scheme and Layout: The color scheme you choose for your blog should be easy on the eyes and appealing. You should avoid dark backgrounds and neon colors for a business blog. Stick to contempory colors or neutral tones. Your layout should be user friendly and easy to navigate.

3. Content: You will want the content that you post to be related to your business niche. This content should be informative content. If you fill your new business blog up with nothing but sales pitches and advertisements, readers will stay away as it gives the appearance of a spam site. Readers want information…so walk a fine line between the advertisements and informative content that you post.

4. Graphics: When possible, post original graphics within your blog posts as it adds interest to the post that your readers are reading. You never want to ‘steal’ graphics from another site without that site’s permission. If you don’t have access to a digital camera and can’t provide your own graphics, you can find free graphic sites and low-cost graphics online that you can use. You will need to appropriately post ‘sized’ graphics to fit within your blog’s template.

5. Engage Your Readers: A great way to engage readers is by asking and posting questions or asking your readers for their opinion on a particular product or topic. A fun way to engage readers would be to offer the occasional giveaway of your products or business services. Everyone likes a great giveaway for free goods!

6. Back Up Your Blog: It is very important that you back up your blog on a weekly basis or after you post new content to your blog. In this day and age…you never know when your blog might go down and you will need to repost all of your material.

7. Consistency: To get a loyal following of readers to read your blog…you will need to be consistent with posting new content to your site. I personally recommend adding new content at least twice a week. Keeping your content fresh and updated will keep your readers coming back for more.

Blogging for your business can be an enjoyable and profitable experience if you start your blog off on the right foot. Spend some time reading various blogs and make some notes of what you like and don’t like and incorporate those thoughts into the design of your own business blog. Having a great blog that readers want to read…takes a lot of dedication and hard work. Keep with it and you will see fantastic blogging success.

Shelly Hill has been blogging for business for the past 4 years. Shelly owns Work At Home Business Options located at http://www.workathomebusinessoptions.com where you can find free business articles, tips, ideas & resources. Shelly Co-Owns the site Two Classy Ghostwriting Chics with her business partner Chris Carroll located at http://www.twoclassyghostwritingchics.com. Shelly and Chris can write articles, web site, blog and newsletter content for you to use on your own web site or blog.

One of the hottest and free ways to market any type of business is by writing blog posts. Yes…you should have your own blog pertaining to your business niche, but you also need to write blog posts and submit them to similar niche blogs. When you spend time professionally writing up some great posts and you submit them to other blogs, you are exposing your business to other readers that you might not of reached by just staying isolated on your own blog site.

Now you might be asking yourself…how do I find a blog that will accept a few of my written posts? Well, that is pretty easy! You will want to spend some time searching out blog sites that have similar content on them to what you are writing about. If you like to cook and you are marketing kitchen gadgets…you would do a search for cooking, recipe and home life type of sites. Once you find a site that you like, you can contact that site’s owner to see if they accept guest blogger posts.

Another easy way to find blogs who accept guest blogging posts is to join a few online blogging networking groups. You will find that within a lot of these groups that the members will frequently request guest written posts from other members within the group. It is a great way to find bloggers who are interested in accepting other blogger’s professionally written posts.

When you participate in guest blogging it will open up a whole new world to you. You will reach new readers who you normally wouldn’t of come in contact with plus you will get free traffic to your blog or web site because you are writing posts for another blog site. (tip: remember to make yourself a resource box and include your bio and links in the box at the end of your post.) One final word…guest writing for another blog will give the appearance to others that you are a leader or an expert in the topics that you are writing about…which is a plus in any business!

Shelly Hill is the owner of the Work At Home Business Options web site at http://www.workathomebusinessoptions.com and has been successfully working from home since 1989. Shelly is a professional ghostwriter who specializes in writing articles, blog content, web site content, newsletter content and ad copy and has partnered with her business partner Chris Carroll in a ghostwriting business at Two Classy GhostWriting Chics at http://www.twoclassyghostwritingchics.com for information on the services they provide.

How Direct Sales Reps Can Use Blogging to their Benefit by Anita DeFrank

One of the tools that a smart direct sales representative use to attract new business is a blog. A blog keeps customers and potential customers informed about products, events and services that relate to your business, new releases, contests, specials and it always keeps your name front and center. It shows readers that you are a good source of information that they can count on.

If you think about it, you also probably subscribe to a number of blog feeds on various subjects that interest you. Where do you think you are going to get information when you are in the market for a product or service that relates to your interests? Yes, that’s right, you think about that blog that gives you all that great information!

Often direct sales representative’s websites are nothing more than a corporate website. Websites in which they are unable to update information. These types of websites also make it difficult for a representative to look unique. They all have the same websites saying the same thing. Corporate sites also make it difficult for the representatives to hold special contests or special sales.

With a blog you can quickly update your customers anytime your company released a new product, when you’re holding a contest or are placing items on special pricing. Blogs also can be more fun and unique than the traditional newsletter. Newsletters are often sent out at a set time. With blogs you can stop in anytime. With all the feeds available your visitors can subscribe to your feeds and be instantly updated without any spam filters interfering.

If you want to produce a professional looking blog, try using a service such as Blogger.com. You can then upload your blog quickly and easily readily available for your visitors. Another great thing about Blogger.com is that it is free. This means no hosting costs or domain costs.

Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank, authors of Direct Sales Success, specialize in coaching direct sales representatives to reach their goal of becoming successful in their field. Visit http://www.DirectSalesHelpers.com for free weekly tips.

Article Source: WAHM Articles

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Blogging for your business is an important tool to brand yourself and your business online. If you are not already blogging…you should be! Anyone who wants to market their business online can become a great blogger.

When you sit down to write posts for your site, there are a few important things you need to remember. Your posts should be informative and not be overloaded with spam. When people come to your blog to read information, that is exactly what they want to see, information…especially information that pertains to them, their wants and their needs.

Your post should have a great keyword situated in the post’s title and that keyword should be sprinkled through out your post. With that said, you don’t want to overload your blog post with the same keyword too many times. I recommend 3-5 times at most.

The next important step is to have a great opening paragraph for your post. This opening paragraph should give the reader a good idea of what your blog post is all about and it should ‘engage’ them enough, for them to want to read the entire post.

The body of your post should be written smoothly, concisely and formatted correctly. Way too often I read entries from other bloggers that contain no paragraph separations, poor spelling and worse yet, bad grammar. In addition, say what you want to say in a few paragraphs as no one wants to sit down and read a book length post. Keep your information engaging and informative.

The ending of your post should be a summary of what you wrote. If your entry pertains to business, insert a ‘call to action’ in your final paragraph.

Writing a blog post is much like writing an article. You start off with an engaging opening paragraph, fill up the center with informative content and then close it up with a well written summary. Anyone can write a great post if they take the time to really sit down and write it out in a proper manner. Your words are a reflection of you and the business you represent.

This article is copyright 2011 by Shelly Hill, All Rights Reserved.

If you are just jumping into the online world of blogging…it is important to remember a few things that you will need to do to your blog every month to keep it in tip top shape. When a blog is properly maintained it will run more smoothly for those who visit and read your blog.

Here is a list of things you need to do to your blog every month.

1. Backup – Your blog should be backed up and saved to your hard drive a minimum of once per month. If your blog should ever crash or if it ever gets hacked…you will be able to upload a current version of it and get it back up online quickly.

2. Check your blog’s load time. I like to check my blog’s load time every month. You want to make sure your pages are loading quickly and properly because your readers will not sit and wait for 3 minute page loads. If your blog is loading slowly, trying condensing your graphics or removing some advertisements…doing these two things will usually fix the problem.

3. Check your blog’s Google Page Rank & Alexa Rating. You can do this by going to Google.com and Alexa.com. I like to keep an eye on my blog’s ranking in various search engines…of course the higher your blog ranks, the better for your blog.

4. Check for broken links. If you are exchanging links with other web sites on your blog, you need to check for broken or no longer active links on a monthly basis.

5. Check for expired ads. You will find that the majority of bloggers these days do accept various forms of advertising on their blogs. You need to remove all expired ads on a monthly basis to make room for new advertisers.

6. Check your site’s stat counter & traffic reports. I recommend that all bloggers install a stat counter onto their blog. These stat counters will tell you how many people are visiting your blog on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. These stat counters will also tell you how your blog visitor got there so that you will know what forms of advertising are working for you to get visitors to come over to read your blog.

7. Check for swiped content. There are various sites online that can help you detect if anyone has swiped content from your blog. You can sign up for Google Alerts or Copy Gator and be alerted when someone posts your content onto their site without your permission.

8. Affiliate marketing. If you are doing any type of Affiliate Marketing on your blog it is important to rotate your banner and button ads on a monthly basis to keep the advertisements fresh.

9. Blog Comments. If you are not moderating the comments that are left by readers of your blog it is important to take a look at them on a monthly basis. You will want to make sure that no spammer or scammer comments slipped through the cracks.

There are more things you should be doing to your blog on a monthly basis but I feel these 9 items should be at the top of every good blogger’s list. Keeping your blog updated and in tip top shape ensures that those who visit and read your blog will keep returning to read your new updated blog content.

This article is copyright 2010 by Shelly Hill, All Rights Reserved. This article can not be reprinted without Shelly’s permission and proper credit given to the author along with live & clickable links back to the author’s web site at http://www.workathomebusinessoptions.com

Blogging is all of the rage online and making money with your blog is a popular avenue that many bloggers take. Blog owners will sell advertising space on their blogs and they will place Google Adsense on their blogs.

Both of these are great ways to make some extra money…however, you do need to be careful. If you overload your blog with too many advertisements, it will end up looking like an AD spam factory. Furthermore, it will slow your blog’s load time down and many users will not wait 2-5 minutes for each page to load. You can lose traffic and blog followers if your blog loads too slowly.

My advice: Ask 2-3 people to come visit your blog and to take a look around. Ask them for their honest and unbiased opinion on whether they think you have too many advertisements on your blog. Ask these people to time how long it takes for pages to load on your blog.

We all lead very busy lives these days and no one enjoys waiting 2-5 minutes for your blog pages to load.

By checking your blogs load time and asking others for their opinion can save you a lot of grief down the road. I know I have personally unfollowed & quit going to some blogs that I loved simply because it loads too slow and/or it has become a spam ad factory.

Blogging is all about content and that content doesn’t mean a gazillion ads!

Shelly