Internet Business 4 All

Companies, big and small, have joined the blogosphere. Microsoft is blogging, so are General Motors, Google, IBM and Sun Microsystems. Companies are using blogs to engage customers and employees as well. Written by employees and in some instances by CEOs, blogs adopt a conversational and engaging tone which make them easy reading. Blogging has even empowered employees in more ways than one. A glaring evidence is employee bloggers, in most cases, have shifted the power structure in their favor to establish a higher degree of credibility and influence more than their bosses.

Weblogs or blogs for short are personal journals that serve as sources of commentary, opinion and uncensored sources of information on a multitude of topics. Each new entry called a blog post includes numerous links to other blogs, news articles, photos, commentaries, video and audio files. Most blogs allow readers to leave comments

According to a survey, people are far more likely to trust “average people like me” than to trust people in authority like the CEOs. Employees are now in newfound and enviable positions to either promote or speak against their companies’ products, services, policies and positions on important issues. What is more, people are listening to what these bloggers are saying. Blogs are a trusted communication medium. The word of a blogger holds much value to a consumer far more than traditional marketing and advertising. By far, word of mouth is the most trusted form of advertising. This highlights the significant role that an employee blogger wields either to boost or hinder sales through his blog. This just goes to show that people would rather hear from real people talking with real experiences than listen to marketing talk.

Employee blogs have helped improve the image and reputation of their companies. One classic example is Microsoft. Its hottest and controversial blogger Robert Scoble (recently resigned) had openly criticized Microsoft concerning issues ranging from quality control to sensitive issues. His negative posts on his blogs called Scobleizer about the MSN Spaces product proved to be a blessing in disguise for Microsoft. Readers were all praises that the company’s resident blogger would express an opinion that runs counter to the company. As a result, Microsoft’s reputation as a bully and a great monolith was torn down. People now see a company that is run by actual people who has their best interests in mind. Robert Scoble in defense of his contentious actions emphasized that credibility is of utmost importance. If he will only sing praises about Microsoft it would sound like a press release and he would lose the ability to have an open conversation with his readers.

Robert Scoble’s penchant to criticize his employer was put to the test again when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the company’s decision not to back an anti-discrimination bill against gays and lesbians. Scoble disagreed and publicly chastised Ballmer in his blog. Ballmer later reversed the decision. A few months before his departure from Microsoft, Robert Scoble, again, wrote a harsh critique against his employer for shutting down the controversial blog of Chinese Journalist Zhao Jing. He accused the MSN Spaces team of Microsoft for “being used as a state-run thug”.

Microsoft is not alone. Yahoo blogger Jeremy Zawdony openly scolded his employer in his blog. He complained about the practice of changing users’ home pages during the installation process of Yahoo software. He wrote in his posting that the action was insulting and downright disrespectful.

Companies have also seen their reputations damaged by highly-publicized firings of employee bloggers. Mark Jen was sacked by Google apparently because he wrote about his life at Google including remarks on the company’s financial performance and future projects in his personal blog. Ellen Simonetti, A Delta Air Lines flight attendant was terminated allegedly for posting inappropriate pictures on her blog. The photos showed her in a skirt and blouse sitting atop the airplane seats.

All these incidents bring to the fore the delicate situations corporations that maintain blogs and employees that blog are in. Corporate blogs that criticizes management or its products or services present public relations dilemmas. On the other hand, if a blog contains nothing but good public relations posts, few people will be interested and will even be doubtful of the veracity of the blog articles.

It is a recognized fact that blogs are establishing in the online world much of the value that traditional public relations bring. As the importance of corporate bloggers becomes more evident, so do the corresponding disadvantages. Companies need a clear-cut policy on how blogging can be integrated into their communication and marketing mix. A company needs to set up corporate blogging policies to ensure that blogging thrives in a more controlled and productive manner. In essence, these guidelines will lay down the specific rules about what an employee blogger is allowed to blog about. Employee bloggers have to strictly abide by rules about leaking confidential company information or breaking federal securities disclosure rules. All these are preventive measures to avoid organizational and legal problems such as slander, libel and harassment.

Google has no definitive guidelines but allows employees to blog on the assumption that “they are reasonable people”. One of Sun Microsystems policy states that “it is perfectly ok to talk about your work and have a conversation with the community but it is not ok to publish the recipe for one of our secret sauces.” Hill and Knowlton specified that as a publicly-owned company, bloggers cannot discuss company revenues, future plans.

Despite the controversies and the risks involved in blogging, companies are embracing blogging. Companies are well aware of the potential benefits of blogging. It is a way to connect with customers and partners, strengthens company unity and present a human face to the world-at-large. These companies feel that the benefits far outweigh the risks. Blogs are here to stay and will continue to be a reliable communication and marketing tool. It is and will be a reliable source of information for everybody.

Blogging will definitely change the power structure within any company. With a blog, an employee blogger, whatever his position in the company is can become an influential person for some audiences and customers.

Chris Abraham walks you through how to join the fastest-growing and most elegant free blogging services, WordPress.com. Go from the simple acts of joining all the way through set up and administration. Become a blogger in few than 45-minutes. Most folks only need the first 15 minutes to get you started. Chris is a professional blogging instructor. Enjoy!

Duration : 0:45:31

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Companies, big and small, have joined the blogosphere. Microsoft is blogging, so are General Motors, Google, IBM and Sun Microsystems. Companies are using blogs to engage customers and employees as well. Written by employees and in some instances by CEOs, blogs adopt a conversational and engaging tone which make them easy reading. Blogging has even empowered employees in more ways than one. A glaring evidence is employee bloggers, in most cases, have shifted the power structure in their favor to establish a higher degree of credibility and influence more than their bosses.

Weblogs or blogs for short are personal journals that serve as sources of commentary, opinion and uncensored sources of information on a multitude of topics. Each new entry called a blog post includes numerous links to other blogs, news articles, photos, commentaries, video and audio files. Most blogs allow readers to leave comments

According to a survey, people are far more likely to trust “average people like me” than to trust people in authority like the CEOs. Employees are now in newfound and enviable positions to either promote or speak against their companies’ products, services, policies and positions on important issues. What is more, people are listening to what these bloggers are saying. Blogs are a trusted communication medium. The word of a blogger holds much value to a consumer far more than traditional marketing and advertising. By far, word of mouth is the most trusted form of advertising. This highlights the significant role that an employee blogger wields either to boost or hinder sales through his blog. This just goes to show that people would rather hear from real people talking with real experiences than listen to marketing talk.

Employee blogs have helped improve the image and reputation of their companies. One classic example is Microsoft. Its hottest and controversial blogger Robert Scoble (recently resigned) had openly criticized Microsoft concerning issues ranging from quality control to sensitive issues. His negative posts on his blogs called Scobleizer about the MSN Spaces product proved to be a blessing in disguise for Microsoft. Readers were all praises that the company’s resident blogger would express an opinion that runs counter to the company. As a result, Microsoft’s reputation as a bully and a great monolith was torn down. People now see a company that is run by actual people who has their best interests in mind. Robert Scoble in defense of his contentious actions emphasized that credibility is of utmost importance. If he will only sing praises about Microsoft it would sound like a press release and he would lose the ability to have an open conversation with his readers.

Robert Scoble’s penchant to criticize his employer was put to the test again when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the company’s decision not to back an anti-discrimination bill against gays and lesbians. Scoble disagreed and publicly chastised Ballmer in his blog. Ballmer later reversed the decision. A few months before his departure from Microsoft, Robert Scoble, again, wrote a harsh critique against his employer for shutting down the controversial blog of Chinese Journalist Zhao Jing. He accused the MSN Spaces team of Microsoft for “being used as a state-run thug”.

Microsoft is not alone. Yahoo blogger Jeremy Zawdony openly scolded his employer in his blog. He complained about the practice of changing users’ home pages during the installation process of Yahoo software. He wrote in his posting that the action was insulting and downright disrespectful.

Companies have also seen their reputations damaged by highly-publicized firings of employee bloggers. Mark Jen was sacked by Google apparently because he wrote about his life at Google including remarks on the company’s financial performance and future projects in his personal blog. Ellen Simonetti, A Delta Air Lines flight attendant was terminated allegedly for posting inappropriate pictures on her blog. The photos showed her in a skirt and blouse sitting atop the airplane seats.

All these incidents bring to the fore the delicate situations corporations that maintain blogs and employees that blog are in. Corporate blogs that criticizes management or its products or services present public relations dilemmas. On the other hand, if a blog contains nothing but good public relations posts, few people will be interested and will even be doubtful of the veracity of the blog articles.

It is a recognized fact that blogs are establishing in the online world much of the value that traditional public relations bring. As the importance of corporate bloggers becomes more evident, so do the corresponding disadvantages. Companies need a clear-cut policy on how blogging can be integrated into their communication and marketing mix. A company needs to set up corporate blogging policies to ensure that blogging thrives in a more controlled and productive manner. In essence, these guidelines will lay down the specific rules about what an employee blogger is allowed to blog about. Employee bloggers have to strictly abide by rules about leaking confidential company information or breaking federal securities disclosure rules. All these are preventive measures to avoid organizational and legal problems such as slander, libel and harassment.

Google has no definitive guidelines but allows employees to blog on the assumption that “they are reasonable people”. One of Sun Microsystems policy states that “it is perfectly ok to talk about your work and have a conversation with the community but it is not ok to publish the recipe for one of our secret sauces.” Hill and Knowlton specified that as a publicly-owned company, bloggers cannot discuss company revenues, future plans.

Despite the controversies and the risks involved in blogging, companies are embracing blogging. Companies are well aware of the potential benefits of blogging. It is a way to connect with customers and partners, strengthens company unity and present a human face to the world-at-large. These companies feel that the benefits far outweigh the risks. Blogs are here to stay and will continue to be a reliable communication and marketing tool. It is and will be a reliable source of information for everybody.

Blogging will definitely change the power structure within any company. With a blog, an employee blogger, whatever his position in the company is can become an influential person for some audiences and customers.

Whether you are aware of it or not, your customers, potential clients, business associates, competitors and employees are already engaged in business blogging. They are conversing in real time about your products or services, news and developments in your niche. They are discussing about your new product release. Sad to say, if they have not spread it already, they are definitely gossiping about the customer service blunder you hoped you could keep hush-hush. Word travels fast in the blogosphere. Blogging gets you noticed and referenced, favorable or not, in your industry’s conversations. Business blogging has its benefits but, alas, it also has its share of pitfalls.

A business blog can help build your company’s reputation and credibility in your niche business area. It is a cost-effective way to communicate with targeted audience. It provides business feedbacks through comments. A well-executed blog can boost search engine rankings thus raising chances of potential customers visiting your site and ultimately generating sales.

More importantly, you should be aware of the pitfalls or perils that accompany business blogging. If you have finally figured out how blogging can work for your targeted market, then, seriously consider the technical pitfalls of creating a blog that might befall you especially if you are a newbie in the field of blogging.

Before embarking on blogging, you must have read and read some more blogs to familiarize yourself with the blogosphere especially your specific niche. Reading other blogs can spur ideas for blogging topics. Not doing any research will leave you writing in futility. You don’t know what questions your target audience wants answered and what they would like to read. More so, you might not even have a clear-cut goal. What is the purpose of your blog? What problem does it want to solve or gap to fill? You have not determined what is it you are trying to get done. You definitely will not have good topics to write about because topics should be in consonance with your business objectives. Writing without a purpose will get you nowhere. It will just turn readers away.

Not knowing how to use your blogging software properly will, in most cases, produce a non-professional-looking blog. A blogging tool goes to great pains to ensure that your blog will look good, the text look beautiful and the html code it generates follow web standards. It will be to your business advantage if you understand how the vast and sophisticated features work to increase your blog’s chance of being found on the Internet. Keep in mind that first impressions count with readers.

Not optimizing keywords, categories, subscriptions will make it difficult for readers to find your blog. The primary purpose of a blog to be successful is readership. Search engines are a great source of readers. If you are writing a blog post that you want to be read, bear in mind that readers will use keywords to find your blog entry. Keywords are vital to high search engine ranking. Top ranking equals traffic and traffic is readership. Categorizing your blog will also make it more user-friendly and make the content more search engine ranking friendly. Subscribing to an RSS feed allows readers to receive automatic updates whenever you publish fresh content. Not making frequent posts makes readers lose interest in your blog as there is nothing new to peruse. You have to make it a priority to post consistently. The more you post the more reasons the readers will come to read some more.

Finally, you have sorted out how to avert the technical perils of business blogging. Brace yourself; there are even deeper pitfalls with much more severe repercussions to consider. For one, businesses that allow misrepresentations - faulty or misleading information to appear on their blogs can create a public disaster. Some business companies keen to develop one-to-one links with customers, set up character blogs. A character blog is typically conceptualized by marketing people to promote a product or service using fictitious character. This kind of blog is quite risky as some ardent bloggers regard them as an insult to the blogging community. A classic example is the Vichy case. As part of its marketing launch for its new anti-aging cream, Vichy’s advertising team created a blog featuring a bogus author named Claire who incessantly whined about the travails of aging using the same wordings as the Vichy print ad. It elicited a flurry of negative reactions from around the blogosphere condemning Vichy for passing off a phony on their turf. Blogs are about real conversations with real people.

Turning a deaf ear to what the blogosphere is saying can be fatal to a company. Kryptonite, a lock maker company did not respond quickly to a blog comment and cost them millions of dollars. Engadget, a highly trafficked blog published a video file showing how a Bic ball pen can easily open a Kryptonite lock. Kryptonite took its time before issuing a statement that did not assuage the thousands who bought the lock in good faith. Bloggers lambasted Kryptonite and caused heavy traffic to the Engadget blog site. Finally, Kryptonite succumbed and replaced the locks at a staggering cost of $10 million. Take heed; monitor what others are saying in the blogosphere. Your blog is part and parcel of a dynamic conversation. You should track your image in the blogging arena. Reputation risks can surface if your company pays no attention or misjudge the opinions in the blogosphere.

Business blogging can expose your company to legal problems that can cause serious damage to your business reputation. Irresponsible blogging can subject your company to libel, slander and even harassment lawsuits. Off-hand comments may offend customers. Disclosure of confidential corporate information and trade secrets will definitely place a company in jeopardy. Several instances of indiscreet blogging have caused employee terminations. Ellen Simonetti, A Delta Air Lines employee was fired for posting inappropriate images of herself in uniform on her blog. A system administrator at the Manitoba Health Sciences Centre was sacked after posting on his blog “Sitting around doing nothing for three hours while being paid - priceless.” Needless to say, companies should draw up corporate blogging policies that will state clearly acceptable and unacceptable blogging practices. Companies should educate its employees about the business and legal risks involved with blogging.

In a nutshell, do not blog for the sake of blogging. A clear business goal is a must. See to it that your blog reflects your company’s desired image. Carefully weigh the implications of anything you post. Be wary of potential consequences and be reminded that with blogging, anything that appears on the Internet is instantly available to a global massive audience.

The blogging phenomenon has started to make companies view the potential benefits of corporate blogging. They all agree that blogs achieve a mass media effect through the high level of networking in the blogosphere wherein news disseminates very rapidly. The blogosphere (online community of blogs and their writings) has heralded a new communication tool that can influence public opinion of a company. However, companies are slow to react to the growing credibility of corporate blogs as communication channels.

A recent list of Fortune 500 company blogs shows that only 5% of the United States’ corporations have joined the blogging arena. Companies are treading this still unfamiliar territory with caution and skepticism. Company executives, public relations people and legal experts are just starting to figure out how they can utilize the potential of business blogs without subjecting themselves especially their companies to possible complications. Indeed, some companies are hesitant to plunge into the “scary” world of blogging for fear of encountering legal and business risks inherent in blogging such as libel, slander, lawsuits and disclosure of confidential and proprietary information.

Despite the fear, some industry leaders like Microsoft, IBM, Sun Microsystems and General Motors, to name a few, have dived headlong into corporate blogging. These companies recognize that a blog is an immensely effective yet low cost way to boost corporate communications and marketing objectives and at the same time connect with customers and prospects.

Basically, a blog (short for weblog) is published with easy to use software that enables a blogger (blog author) to create and update blog pages from which he can express his thoughts on a particular subject. Written article on a blog is called a “post” and can be linked to other blogs, websites, news features, photo images and audio files. Links added to the text of blog posts allow blog content to be indexed and accessed by popular search engines such as Technorati and then disseminated in the web.

A corporate blog makes it easy for readers, be they customers or prospects, to find the latest and most accurate information about its new products and services. It can help achieve customer familiarity with the company products or services. Through the corporate blog, a company can converse directly with customers and prospects. Two-way communication creates trust and builds customer relationships. A corporate blog is the perfect choice for interacting with existing and potential clients. Corporate blogging serves as a channel for a company and its customers to meet on common ground and to know each other more. A corporate blog allows a company to closely track where and under what condition its products or services are being discussed online. Through the corporate blog, a company can keep an ear to the ground to hear what is being said about the company and speaking up when the situation calls for it. A more personal or understated benefit of a corporate blog is that it gives a human face to a perceived faceless and detached business entity. A corporate blog conjures images of people who are passionate about their products or services and are eager to engage customers and prospects.

It is a risky world out there and the blogosphere is no exception. For companies who are contemplating on setting out into the world of corporate blogging, it is in your best interests to have knowledge of some basic dos and don’ts of corporate blogging.

First on the agenda is do determine whether your company needs a corporate blog. A blog might be inappropriate for your company. Not all corporate cultures can tolerate the open, direct communication inherent to make a corporate blog successful. There are instances where blogs could not be reconciled with business practices and regulations. Clearly, there are risks to consider. Risks lie mainly in the content and the character or tone of comments which admittedly can only be censored to a limited degree.

If a corporate blog can fit your company culture, selecting the individual or employee who will write your blog is doubtless to say the most important decision. An ideal corporate blogger is one who is an expert in his field. He should also write with passion and sincerity. The object of your blog is to engage your customers and prospects in conversation and the most effective way to start a conversation is to be sincere and honest in your blog while writing about topics that are important to your company. He should have good writing skills. More importantly, he should be one who is respected by his peers and reacts calmly to outbursts. Blogging is an intense medium. The individuals who will blog for your company should be the ones who can keep their cool despite critical comments. Most likely, the ideal individual is not your CEO. Corporate speak won’t thrive in the blogosphere.

In corporate blogging, goals/missions are of prime importance. For a blog to yield value, it has to be created with specific goals in mind. Some of these goals may be to increase company credibility, enhance customer service and interaction, and give customers a peek of the behind-the-scenes “feel” of the corporate culture, showcase new products or services and more. The important thing is to be clear about your goals. You have to be sure about what you are trying to get done and stick to them. As with any corporate undertaking, you also need to periodically evaluate how well you are meeting these goals. If blogging is proving to be futile, then make changes. If it still does not work, then discontinue blogging.

Do take time to know your customers or prospects. Find out what your audience care about, what they are interested in. You have to identify what their needs are and what service you can perform for them. To get their attention, work out a way to participate in a conversation credibly. To be credible, come up with worthwhile content - ideas, insights, news and information. Content need not be long but should be interesting. Corporate blogs should not veer away from its chosen categories or topics. This is not to say you cannot be personal in your blog posts because you should, but the audience you are trying to connect with do not want to read through your blog if it is injected with a litany of personal rumblings.

Do engage your audience in lively and substantial conversations. Take into account what they say and reply to their comments. Respond in a professional and businesslike manner whether the comment is positive or negative. Allowing comments from your audience will definitely mean some complaints and criticisms. Don’t take them personally. Respond honestly and your company credibility will rise. Allowing audience to make comments is a distinct characteristic of blogs. Openness is important for successful blogging. That said, use a feedback filter or comment moderation to monitor and control comments and delete comment spam (useless comments).

For a blog to accomplish its mission, do update regularly. Post frequently and consistently, daily or weekly, at least. Do be generous with your links. Linking is one reason why blogging has become a popular online communication medium. The best corporate blogs, more often than not, have lots of links in each blog post.

Do draw up a set of corporate blogging policies. Set limits on what information can be made public. Make clear what is allowed and what is not. Legal issues crop up in blogging. It is better to have some safety nets. In drafting blogging policies, it is advisable to do some research on it and publish proposed policies to get some feedback.

As for what not to do, do not close down existing employee blogs. More often than not, an employee is already writing a blog. It might be full of grievances about the recent spate of oil increases or it could be snapshots of a relaxing vacation in the Maldives. Maybe this employee is singing praises of the company’s new product. Why not engage this employee blogger in a dialogue about what your corporate blog aims to achieve. Don’t wait for a crisis to break out before creating a corporate blog. It takes time to see potential results of blogging. Don’t keep your corporate bloggers anonymous or hidden behind some make-believe characters. The audience will know and it will have detrimental effects.

Lastly, a blog is not a miracle cure. It will not single-handedly turn your distressed company around. Corporate blogging should be incorporated with other marketing and communication tools to achieve desired results.

Blogging is a practice that has been around for at least 5 years. It began with average, but opinionated people with something to say, who wanted to share their opinions with anyone who would read them. While it has been popular with the general public, it hasn’t caught on with many businesses until recently. Blogging can be a powerful tool for marketing and exposure for any business if done properly. This article will cover the first steps businesses will need to take to set themselves up for successful blogging.

1. Select the Appropriate Hosting for Your Business Blog

You first step is to select an appropriate host for your blog. There are a couple of solutions that you can use to host your blog. You can:

1) Host it on your own server
2) Host it at a blogging hosting server, such as livejournal.com or blogger.com

If you host your own blog on your own web site, you will need to find blogging software that you can use on your web site. You will need to determine what your web site server capabilities are, and then determine what blogging software will work within your server environment. You will then need to install the software and configure it in order to begin blogging.

If you host your blog on a blog hosting system, then everything is already set up for you. All you have to do is sign up for, and configure your account. Some of these blogging services are free and some of them will have a monthly hosting charge.

2. Configure Your Business Blog

Once you have determined how you want to host your blog, and have installed it, or signed up for your blog service, you will need to configure your blog.

Configuring your blog includes, what template you want to use with your blog. Most blogs whether they are on a blog hosting service, or software that you have installed, will come with several templates. If you are new to the Internet, and don’t have a lot of programming experience, it is probably best to stick with one of the templates that has come with the software or service. It is however, better if you have some programming background, or have the funds to hire someone, then you can get your blog to look like your business web site. Even if your blog is hosted elsewhere, you can do amazing things with the templates to get your blog to look very similar to your business web site. Most services will allow you to modify the templates that come with their subscription.

Other things that will need to be configured are settings such as the name and description of your business blog, the email address you want messages from your blog to be sent to, how you want your blog archived (posts saved for future access), what ping services you want to notify when you update your blog, and other settings too numerous to mention in this article.

3. Determine the Content of Your Business Blog

This next step can be done before you actually install your blog, but you will need to determine the topic of your business blog, and how you want to convey your information to your target market. The content and topics of your blog should relate to your industry. You can focus as narrow or as wide as you choose think is appropriate. In general, it is a good idea to cover many areas within your industry and then separate the different areas of your industry into different categories within your blog.

For example, if you are blogging about your real estate business, the big topics would be commercial real estate, residential real estate, and investing in real estate, etc.

However, it would be better to specifically focus in your main category/industry. For example, if your main industry is residential real estate, you could have topics such as renting out your home, buying a home, and selling a home. Each of these would be a separate category within your blog.

Lastly but most importantly, you should choose topics and categories that will be of interest to your visitors. You will need to research the keywords that your customers would use to find you. There are many keyword research tools available on the web today that will tell you what exact phrases, and how often, your target market is using to find you. These keywords will determine the topics of your blog entries. You should also use some of the phrases you have found in your research in your business blog posts.

4. Begin Blogging for Your Business

The last step is to start blogging. You can choose from a number of different formats to add entries to your blog, as blog entries can take on any format. Some formats that you may want to consider include:

1) Writing articles and posting them to your blog.
2) Finding related news items in your industry and posting them with comments as to what you think of the news item.
3) Answering frequently asked questions you get from your clients.
4) Writing reviews of products/services in your industry
5) Writing “how to” posts
6) Using a free-style posting of anything you feel would be of interest to your potential clients and/or customers.

Your style of posting should match what your target market would find interesting.

Now that you know the basic steps of what needs to be done to begin business blogging, you can choose how you want to host your blog, what keywords your target market uses to find you, and what format would make the most sense to begin blogging. There are many web sites that have more articles and in-depth information about business blogging. You can use these resource sites to help guide you through the process from making your first post, to getting your first customer from your business blog.

Who knew that talkativeness could pay? In this age of virtual communication, computer-savvy people around the world are blogging for fun, blogging for politics, blogging for the good of others, blogging for popularity, and now many are getting an economic boost by blogging for profit.

Blogging for profit is a goal within reach of anyone with average intelligence, a willingness to work hard, and a basic grasp of blogging technology. However, very few people manage to reap the rewards they seek from their blog. Most people who attempt to make money with their blogs fail for two reasons. Bloggers often have unrealistic expectations of how fast their readership will grow and how much money they will make. When these expectations are not met, the disappointment can crush the desire to continue blogging. The other trap that many bloggers fall into has to do with a lack of foresight. If bloggers want to turn a profit, the key to success is to make a realistic plan and stick with it.

To succeed at blogging for profit, the main thing that you will need to do is to first establish a large readership. The higher your readership traffic, the more advertisers will agree to pay you. However, cultivating the number of regular visitors you’ll need in order to make a profit isn’t easy. As more and more blogs appear each day, having a unique idea or a wonderful writing style is no longer enough to get attention. You need to be able to effectively market your blog.

Too many bloggers spend most of their time writing posts, and very little time marketing their project. Updating your content as often as possible is a great way to keep your blog high on blogrolls and high in blog search engines like technorati. Once your readers know that you update frequently, they will return to your site on a regular basis. However, it doesn’t matter how often you update if nobody is reading your page, so don’t skimp on the time that you spend drawing visitors to your site. To make your dream of blogging for profit a reality, try decreasing your number of posts, and using some of that time to market your blog. You can draw new visitors by setting up link exchanges with other bloggers, making contacts in the blog community, and following other established modes of winning traffic.

Of course, even if you are a marketing genius, or you have a really great idea for a blog, success will not happen overnight. It takes time to build the kind of readership that blogging for profit requires, and it will likely take several months before you begin to turn a profit. Try to stay committed and to your blogging project and keep a positive attitude during this initial rough period. Set goals for how often you will update and how many readers you want to attract, and then reward yourself for sticking with your plan.

Blogging for profit is only one reason to jump into the blog pool. You should pick a topic that interests you, because as with any project or profession, doing something you love brings its own set of rewards. And it is far easier to market and write about something you believe in and enjoy.

* In Part I, readers learn what a blog is, why they might want to create one, and what they need to get started. Includes information on blogging basics, the anatomy of a good blog, and the tools required to get started.
* Part II gets readers up and running with their first blog. They learn about the choices involved in setting up a blog, customizing a blog, and incorporating additional bells and whistles through HTML code.
* Part III shows readers how to make their blog stand out in a crowd. Topics covered include finding a niche in the blogging community, developing a strong voice, building an audience following, and learning how to deal with spammers and other unpleasant people.
* Part IV teaches readers how to customize their blog by adding eye-catching features like expanding a blog’s sidebar (where bloggers are able to post personal recommendations, surveys, etc.), adding photos or even delving into podcasting and videoblogging.
* Part V shows readers how to get the word out about their blog and maybe make some money at the same time. There is also a chapter dedicated to using blogs to help promote businesses.
* Part VI discusses how to keep a blog’s comments useful and on topic, ten cool tricks tools to make a blog shine, and examples of successful blogs.

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Discovering a way to make instant video blogs. Or maybe not…

(don’t ask me why the first few sec.are in x-ray mode - YouTube is acting kinda buggy)

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Duration : 0:4:56

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