Search
Recommended Products
Related Links


 

 

Informative Articles

Adding Content To Your Site Every Day
If you have been a webmaster for more than a week, you've surely heard the saying "Content Is King". And it really is true! This article will explain why the regular addition of fresh content to your website is so crucial and explain several ways to...

Free and effective affiliate marketing and website advertising using articles and traffic exchange sites
Affiliate marketing is an extremely tricky subject and so is website advertising. The reason is simple. Most of those who have mastered these subjects are keeping their mouths tightly shut. Some are releasing their valuable affiliate marketing...

MLM and SEO. Bad Business! No Business!
MLM has been around way before the Internet. It is a few steps above a chain letter. Well, maybe more then a few steps. MLM has paved the way for people to have their own business. It can start out as side money and flourish into a very profitable...

The Basics of Blogging to Niche Markets
Copyright 2005 Mal Keenan In the previous article, we discussed how blogs can help you generate traffic for your main website. But what if you don't have another site? Or what if you want your blog to be your main website, the exclusive carrier of...

The online equivalent of an effective newspaper advertisement
Ask anybody who has been in business for a long enough and they will tell you how newspaper advertisements have for decades helped to build countless small businesses. The advantages of a newspaper advertisement are many, but what has attracted...

 
Google
Five Ways A Blog Helps You To Market Your Business

Copyright 2005 Michael Murray

Want to advertise online without spending a fortune? Get a blog.

If you're an Internet marketer, you need a blog, because:

* a blog helps your site to rank higher in the search engines; and

* a blog expands your customer base.

Blogs are often called social marketing tools, because they let you interact with your readers via comments and permalinks (see the glossary below.)

What's a blog? Get up to speed here:

* http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogs

Let's look at five ways a blog helps you to market your business.

One: A blog helps your site to rank higher in the search engines

In 2003, when Google bought Pyra Labs, the company which developed Blogger, the reaction was Huh? At the time, blogs were seen by most as online journals, primarily maintained by the demented and teenage girls.

How times change. In 2005, companies small and large are using blogs to promote their businesses. This is because Google and the other search engines love blogs because of their constantly updated content.

Blog often, and you'll get more visitors and a good search engine ranking.

Two: A blog expands your customer base – you'll reach people you could reach in no other way

A blog helps you to reach people you can reach in no other way because your frequent updates mean that you'll automatically get niche visitors – those people who have no clue about you or the product that you're selling, but who happened to type in a search engine query that mentioned words you used in a single post.

Those niche visitors can become buyers, and this means that you don’t need to struggle to get top listings in any search engine. Write (or link to) quality content, and your


visitors will find you.

Three: A blog helps your site to differentiate itself

A blog is a form of stealth marketing. Therefore a blog doesn’t need to be about the products you're selling. A blog can be about any topic that you're passionate about. Blog about your passion, and mention – in passing – the products you're selling. You can also link to them, but don’t bother selling heavily – that's not what a blog is about.

Four: Like a diamond, a blog is forever

Although the most-visited blogs update often, some of them several times a day, that doesn’t mean that you have post more often than you can fit into your schedule. Your permalinks (see below) mean that since your blog items are standalone pages, they’re indexed by search engines in the same way that any HTML or other page is indexed – your blog items/ pages will continue to bring traffic even if you don’t update very often.

Five: A blog attracts new opportunities

A blog makes your business visible. Your stealth marketing efforts will attract the attention of people who may become joint venture partners, or who will have other opportunities for you.

The time and energy that you invest in your blog can bring results beyond your wildest expectations. Create a blog – it's your hardest-working, and most cost-effective online marketing option.

GLOSSARY:
Blog = Web log.
Permalink = permanent link, an URL for a single blog post.
Comment = blogs have a comments section, where readers can interact with the blogger and others.

About the Author

Michael Murray is a 22-year old full-time Internet marketer and college student with Cerebral Palsy who lives in sunny Orlando Florida. His latest site is an information center on adware information:
http://www.adware-software.com/spywareremover