Is Your Business Blog Performing the way you would like it to?

If you believe everything that you read on the web, it’s possible to make millions of dollars with nothing but a blog and a passion.

Now, when you’re already in business, this thought quickly leads to others. The most notable of them is this: if bloggers can make money without a product to sell, what can a blog do for my business?

Managing a business blog can do a great deal for your business:

• A business blog enables you to communicate with your customers on a more personal level;
• A business blog will allow you to share details about your products and services, announce sales and let current and prospective customers get a feel for what your company has to offer;
• A business blog will enable you to get feedback from your customers in the form of surveys, comments and even posts that they make in their own blogs.

Unfortunately, blogging isn’t just about showing up at the keyboard. Many business blogs don’t perform as well as the companies hope that they will.

Does this mean that you shouldn’t keep a blog for your business? Not at all: it just means that you need to take advantage of services that will quickly bring your business blog up to its full potential.

By hiring a Professional Blog Management Company, you can be sure that your company blog contains the right mix of elements to get noticed. A blog content provider can work with you to include straight up text, photos or other images of your products or services, video, audio files and more in your blog.

More importantly, however, a blog content provider who has experience with search engine optimization can work with you to ensure that your company blog includes links to your business’ website – your home page as well as pages that are deeper in your site.

These links, coupled with an attention to keywords related to your products and services can work to promote your business.

When prospective customers are searching for products and services similar to those that you offer, a well-optimized company blog can help them to find you: not only will it lead them to your company, but also to the information that they need in order to understand the benefits of what your company has to offer.

You may be wondering how a blog content provider will be able to boost the performance of your company blog. You may be wondering how a service that is not connected directly with your company can effectively market your products and services.

The answer is simple: a professional blogger will work with you. He or she will take the time to learn more about your company, your products and services and your goals. Then, that information along with his or her blogging experience will come together.

As a result, your company will benefit from daily web marketing. Your company’s web presence will grow daily with additional pages of content and you’ll know that you are reaching out to a wider audience – one that you’ve been trying to reach on your own.

A blog content provider can ensure that your business blog is performing up to its full potential: your company blog will communicate clearly, stay focused and be noticed – by your current customers, the search engines and your best prospects.

Blogging on Free Hosts Like Blogger and Wordpress A Bad Idea

This article is about blogging and why you should never blog on a free host like blogger.com or wordpress.com I am writing this to alert people out there who are building blogs on free blog hosts like blogger.com and wordpress.com.

Installing wordpress is free and gives you full control over your blog. There are other platforms like moveable type to choose from as well. Take a look around and find the platform you like or that best fits your blogging style. I’ve learned an expensive lesson and now will only build blogs on my own domain names.

The reason?

Lets start with blogger.com

They have a new out of control spam bot. Search the blogger help forums and you will find the horror stories. Legitimate blogs are being deleted, people are getting locked out of their blog until reviewed, and assumed to be a spammer because either the bot flagged the blog or someone clicked the little flag button at the top of all blogger blogs.

That and the fact that they have constant problems with the publishing getting stuck at 0%, slow load times, etc. it makes blogging through blogger.com a buggy experience at best and your content or reason for blogging is up to someone else’s interpretation of what is or is not legitimate.

I understand getting rid of splogs and spammers, but in blogger.com’s case the cure is worse than the disease. They were not always that way. I’ve been on blogger a long time and the service used to be good.

As far as wordpress.com they are just as bad. If the blog links to a website and looks as if it might be promoting people to go to that website they will suspend your account without warning and lock you out of all the content.

I’m not sure what they think blogs are for, but they seem to think they have a noble purpose in life and that they alone decide what is a “genuine blog” or not.

A “genuine blog” is one that is controlled by the individual who writes to it, not one that must adhere to someone else’s idea of what their blog should look like and what it should say.

If you blog on freehosts just be aware your content and your blog is in the hands of others who will decide for the world whether or not your blog should be seen by others.

I recommend all bloggers get their own domain names and install their own blogs. You probably have learned that using a freehost for your company’s website is bad for business so why put your company’s blog on a freehost?

The same goes for individuals. Blogs allow you to express yourself the way you want to express yourself. That is the beauty of blogging. Are you willing to sacrifice your individuality to conform to what blogger.com or wordpress.com thinks is a “genuine” way to express yourself?

Many times the person deciding your fate is someone who has never had any authority over other people and who think that now they have Godlike powers to decide the fate of content written by others. These are people who likely produce no content of value themselves and think they know what is best for the rest of the world.

Get your own domain name and install a blogging platform that fits your needs. It’s the best advice you will ever get about blogging.

You only own the blog if it is on your own domain name.

Everything else is just providing content for someone else.

What Does Your Blog Need in Order to Be Successful?

Why do you blog? Do you blog to promote your business? Do you blog to support a product or a service? Does your blog have a narrow or broad focus?

Some people blog for personal reasons: they blog to promote a cause like the importance of cancer research. Some people blog to promote affiliate programs or to share their knowledge about a topic.

Others blog to promote their home business, to  differentiate themselves from the competition or to let people know more about the products and services that their company has to offer.

Regardless of why you blog, regardless of whether your blog is focused on one element of one service or around a network of products and services, you’ll find that your blog needs one thing in order to be successful; good, unique, original content.

Without regularly updated content, your readers will not have a reason to keep coming back to your blog. Without regularly updated content, your readers won’t be learning anything new from your blog.

At that point, no matter why you are blogging, you’ll start to realize that you are not accomplishing the goals that you set for your blog.

There are plenty of companies that will tell you what to do to find blog content. They will tell you that, in order to have a successful blog, all you need to do is visit article directories and repost content that’s relevant to your blog.

The problem is that, when you do this, you’re still not offering your readers anything new.

The next group will tell you that, rather than visiting article directories you should look into purchasing private label rights for content. Private label rights content can be eBooks or articles that can be broken down, sold, relabeled with your name or title or that can be rewritten: when you buy the rights, you can use the information.

In theory, private label rights content is only a good investment if you purchase it as a framework, an inspiration for creating something new. Many people however, use the private label rights content as it is.

They too, however, do not offer readers of their blogs anything new.

Even if everyone rewrote the content in the PLR articles they purchased, it would still not be original content. Think about it. 100 people buy the same article and each rewrites it a little.

Do you think that each of the 100 articles will be significantly different from the others?

Plus, when your readers find only the same information they find elsewhere, you’ll quickly find that they don’t keep coming back to your blog. The only way to hang onto your readers is to offer them fresh relevant content.

In order to provide the fresh relevant content that your readers are looking for, you have two options: write the content yourself or hire someone who will be able to write it for you.

While blogging enables everyone to be a writer, there will be times when you find yourself at a loss for words or too busy to contribute to your own blog.

These are the times when you will benefit the most from having a content writer. Your content writer can create articles of the length you specify, using your topics and keywords and provide you with content that is yours and yours alone.

If you’re looking for fresh content on a regular basis, there is an additional option. Rather than hiring a content writer to provide an article or series of articles,  you could hire a blog content provider who will manage your blog, optimize it for search engines and readers and create fresh content daily.

The right blog content provider can work with you to create a blog that meets or exceeds all of your goals whether you’re writing to promote a cause or a business. With fresh, relevant content each and every day, your blog’s readers will have a reason to come back again and again.

Why Should I Hire A Professional Blogger?

Whether you’ve been marketing your business on the web for years or you are just starting out and recognize that web marketing will greatly contribute to your business success, there’s one thing that’s key to keeping your company name on people’s minds; keeping a blog going daily.

With a blog, you’ll be able to keep fresh content on your website which adds values for site visitors and draws in the search engine spiders.

What many business owners find – those whose companies are well-established as well as those who are just starting out – is that it takes time to keep a website up to date.

They also find that keeping a blog can take a chunk of time out of their day, time that could be used for any number of other activities from taking client calls to checking on production to making sure that the bills are getting paid.

Often, despite their best intentions, business owners give up on posting to their blog whether they just give it up all at once or let their posts trickle off slowly.

All of a sudden, even though you know that you should keep a blog for your business, you’ll find that it slips off of your priority list and on to your list of things to do. And then you’ll find that it slips to that part of the list where things just stay either forever or until everything else on the list is something .

There’s a good way of avoiding the problem, however: hire a professional blogger to write the blog for your business.

Why would you hire a professional blogger? Well, to begin with, when you’re working with someone who operates a business dedicated to blogging that is staffed by trained bloggers, you’ll know that the person writing your blog knows the tips, tools and techniques that will draw attention to your blog. Not only will you be able to benefit from the blogger’s experience, but you won’t have to spend time learning the techniques or writing the posts.

While those are, in themselves, great benefits, the list doesn’t stop there. When you contract with a blogging company, you’ll know what you’re getting.

If you hire a blogger who will post to your blog daily, you can be sure that there will be fresh content added to your site each day. If you hire someone to post five times a week, you’ll have five posts each week. A professional blogger makes a commitment to you, a commitment that the job will be done.

As a result, you get all of the benefits that come with having a blog for your business – increased site traffic, incoming links to your website and a relationship with current and prospective customers – without any of the hassle.

You don’t have to worry about days without posts, coming up with content or staying on top of all of the latest tips and tools that bloggers use to get their work noticed. In no time, you’ll find yourself reaping the rewards of a well-written blog.

Hire a blogger for your business blog here.

Daily Blogging Service – 786-317-8774

To speak with us about our blogging services or to get a free quote, call us at 786-317-8774 or use the form at the bottom of this page

Blog Content Provider hires and trains professional bloggers. We do not outsource our blogging services. The content we add to your blog will interest readers, encourage comments, generate leads and more.

Our blogging services include posting to your blog once or more daily. We write 100% original content, optimize each post, create links to pages within your website using anchor text and do the social bookmarking.

Blogging Services and Packages

One Blog Posted to Daily. (Includes Basic Social Bookmarking Package) $300 per month. Call us at 786-317-8774 or Use the form at the bottom of this page to contact us.

Upgrades

Blogging Multiple Times Per Day. Many blog search websites, like Technorati.com, index and rank blogs differently than search engines. When a user types in a search phrase, they list blogs with themost recent post that is relevant to that search. Every time we make a blog post, it pings websites like technorati to let them know there is new content available on your blog. If we post more than once daily, it can help keep you near the top of these blog search websites. Call 786-317-8774 or Use the form at the bottom of this page to learn more about our daily blogging service and the options available to you.

Social Bookmarking Service Upgrades There are several options available. We can help you choose the socila bookmarking package that is best for you. The basic social bookmarking service is included in the daily blog posting service. Read more about social bookmarking options here.

Adding Custom Blog Options. There are a lot of other things we can do for your blog to customize the way you present your products and services to more potential customers. Click here to see our custom blog services.

Should my blog be installed at my website or on its own domain name?

Company Blog

A company blog is installed onto the same domain name as your website. Your link might look like http://www.yourcompanydomain.com/blog. The benefits of having a company blog that we post original content to daily are;

1. Fresh Content. Adding fresh content to your website daily attracts search engines to crawl your website more frequently.

2. Search Engine Ranking. Each blog post becomes a new page, so we are adding a page to your website every day. Each blog post is optimized for your keywords, so each day we are building a page that has a chance to rank well in the search engines.

3. Branding and Reputation Management. Reputation Management is something you have to be proactive with. Each blog post we make contains your company name, so each day another page is created that gives your company a postive image.

4. Feedback and Announcements. The blog is less intimidating to potential customers than your website. It gives them a place to ask questions and give you feedback. The company blog also gives you a place to make announcements, publish press releases, and make special offers on your products and services.

5. More Traffic to Your Website. We include the basic social bookmarking service with our daily blog posting service. This attracts more visitors to your blog. More visitors to your blog means more visitors to your website. We encourage them to visit you within blog posts and in the links we add to the sidebar.

There are a lot of other benefits to our daily blogging and social bookmarking service not listed here. If you have questions or wish to set up a meeting to talk about how a company blog can benefit your business, call 786-317-8774 or Use the form at the bottom of this page to contact us.

Business Blog on it’s own Domain Name

We can help you be creative with this. You may have a website you want to promote or you may want to run a blog instead of a website where the blog is your business. Or you may want to capture a specific search phrase. Here are some ways you can use a blog on it’s own domain name to benefit your business.

1. Targeted Traffic Example; You own a company with a website that sells software. We setup a blog on another domain name and do software reviews. We review a lot of free software that is available for download. In some blog posts we do a positive review of your software and links in the sidebar encourage people to visit your website or take advantage of special offers. This helps with branding, increases sales, and even helps build link popularity for your website.

2. Store Front Blog. Example; You own a website that sells clothing, artwork, or other products that people like to see before they buy. Each blog post is about just one product you have for sale. The blog becomes your online store window. It will also help you rank well in the search engines for each particular product we blog about. This can also be done with a company blog installed on the same domain as your website.

3. SEO Blog. (Capturng a Search Phrase). We have been extremely successful at getting a blog to rank high in the search engines for a particular key phrase we want to target. We help you choose the right domain name. We install the blog there. We optimize the blog template we choose for you. We post to that blog daily and use social bookmarking to help build links and traffic. We will be able to get that blog to rank well for your keyphrase. How long that takes depends on the amount of competition for that keyphrase. We have examples we can show you where we have done this for our clients. If you would like to know more, call 786-317-8774 or Use the form at the bottom of this page

If you have questions about our our daily business blog posting and social bookmarking service or wish to set up a meeting to talk about how a company blog can benefit your business, call 786-317-8774 or Use the form at the bottom of this page to contact us.

Increase Your Blog’s Page Views 10 Ways

With Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher, having people click onto more pages helps your revenue immensely, but how do you get them to read more than one page when they visit your website? Here are a few tips.

1. Create pages within the blog that contain reference material you refer to often in your posts. These static pages will also get crawled and indexed by the search engines and as you write posts about your topics you can refer people to these static pages as references to what you are posting about.

2. Use articles as static pages. You can reprint articles on any topic for free by visiting one of the many article directories like http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/articlesubmit/ Then refer people to read the articles that relate to the post you are making. You could even add one article as a new page every time you make a post.

3. Refer to other posts you have made on your blog or on another one of your blogs while posting. This gets the reader to click over to previous posts. You can even decide your posts by browsing previous posts and deciding which one to follow up on. Those archives are not to be lost and forgotten. Its great material, (you wrote it right?), so use it.

4. Create a page that links to your favorite posts that are timeless. You browse your old posts, find posts that you want readers to find easily, then build a links page with those posts directly linked. Then add a link to that page from your front page. Call it favorite posts or whatever and you will benefit by those that click through and follow those links.

5. I’ve posted here before about the “more” tag. You write your post as normal, then decide where you want to break the post up onto a new page. You put the more tag in and readers have to click to a new page to read the rest of the story.

6. Write once per week special projects. These are a series of articles on a particular topic. You will be offering it once per week giving readers a week to comment on it, then have them hanging on for next weeks special post in the series. Each time add links to previous posts in that series.

7. Using your content from your other websites or blogs is also a great way to get more pageviews for all of them. Use the target new tag and refer to material on your other blogs and websites. It will open a new window leaving the current blog open while they visit your other website or blog. You can quickly double up your pageviews while also introducing your readers to your other websites and blogs.

8. Make a list of 10 previous posts and the links to those posts. Make a post in your blog about 10 things you want your readers to know and read in case they have not done so before. At your suggestion they will at least go see if they have read those posts before, increasing your pageviews once again plus bringing old material to new readers. That also lets them know they should browse the archives for things they have missed.

9. Using that same list of 10 posts or a new one, visit other blogs on your topic. Find posts that talk about something similar to one of those 10 posts, then instead of adding a link in your signature to the home page, make a comment there and refer to the post that is similar and that contains helpful information to that blogger and their readers. You will also be increasing your link popularity while doing this. Do not spam the link. Make sure it actually contains useful information. Don’t be trolls or spammers and you will end up with new readers and more page views for your blog.

10. Do not stop being creative. Use the tips in this article, plus invent some of your own ways to interlink your blogposts together. Create pages. Don’t just post and forget. That content is valuable, use it. Do not make people search your blog. They are lazy and busy. Bring it to them. That is just good customer service.

I hope this article helps you learn there is more to blogging than just writing a post once in awhile or even daily. If you employ the tips I just gave you into your blog I guarantee you will increase your pageviews which in turn will increase your revenue if using an ad program in your blog.

Are You A Bloghead?

For those of you who haven’t yet started a Blog, you won’t understand. You weren’t there man! Just trying one Blog will get you hooked. Sure, you say you’re just experimenting with blogging.

Then soon, you are blogging everyday. You wake up trying to search around to see who has commented on your Blog. Then it gets to be a 3 or 4 blogpost a day habit, and you’re still saying, “I can quit anytime I want”.

Then you decide to try different types of Blog. You have your personal stash Blog, then a joke Blog, then another one on a different topic. Now when you aren’t doing your own Blogs, you getting into other people’s Blogs and commenting more and more.

You’re telling everyone how they should try Blog. Pushing Blog to kids. Google and Yahoo are telling you how much you can make dealing Blog. Then there you are the local Blog dealer.

On every corner of the search engine, selling Blog. Looking at your statistics to see how many people tried your Blog, how long they were blogged in, which blogposts they were doing. Now you are hooked for sure. People walk by you now, your friends, family, and you overhear them calling you a bloghead.

You’re hanging out with other blogheads, sharing Blog, linking your Blog to theirs, trying to hook more people on Blog. The blogposts have got you man. Nothing you can do but keep on blogging.

Even this article you are reading right now, you’re thinking of which of your Blogs you are going to post it on for other Blogheads to read. If you don’t have a Blog for this article, then you can start one all about being addicted to Blogging.

Google or Yahoo will front you the contextual stash to cut your Blog with, so just one more Blog won’t hurt you. Go ahead. Start another Blog.

Then you get so hooked on Blogging you start your own Blog about how to find more Blog. You get all the Blogheads to ping your new Blog search Blog. Oh, yeah man, the pings.  The pings are the best, man. You don’t know what it’s like to get pinged by the Blogs, man. It’s out of this world!

Next you start yet another Blog to teach others the best way to Blog. You become a Blog Connoisseur. A Blog Guru. A Blog Consultant. A Blog Expert.

You really know you’re a goner when you start to host Blogs. Your own Blog Party or commune. Yeah, that’s it, Blog Commune, like MySpace, but really my own space. That’s when you’re no longer just the local Blog Dealer, you are supplying the Blog Dealers. A bigshot now.

Hey, man I got this new thing here. An AutoBlog. Man, an AutoBlog is to blogging what the bong was to . . .well, you know. All you gotta do is log in and push a couple of buttons and you get more Blog!

Wow, man, you haven’t tried Blog yet? You really gotta get with the times, man. Blogging is the bomb.

FaceBook Helps You Start Your Own Social Network

Starting another social network seemed like a big task a few months ago. How do you get all those new users to sign up with yet another social network?

I think there will be thousands of new social networks and I think there should be, especially those that are more niche-oriented and who target a specific group rather than everyone and anyone.

This is from a story at the NYTimes that explains how easy FaceBook is making it for others to start their own social networking website.

Facebook Helps Social Start-Ups Gain Users

By JENNA WORTHAM

A growing number of start-up companies are outsourcing the sign-up process. They are making use of a Facebook service that lets users log into new sites using their Facebook credentials. The free service, Facebook Connect, can help nascent Web services recruit a healthy crowd of users in a hurry, and help the users find their friends on those sites.

At the same time, the service reinforces Facebook’s role as the central hub of the social networking world.

Most sites hedge their bets by also creating ways for people to sign up directly, or to use their log-in information from Twitter, in addition to Facebook, as Plancast has elected to do.

Facebook Connect has helped give rise to a new wave of social Web services that benefit from piggybacking on Facebook and its 400 million users.

Are you building your own social network yet?

What Does A Blogging Consultant Look Like?

by Chris McElroy

You know, normally you can find a definition of a word or phrase by typing “define: your phrase here” into google and come up with a lot of results. Currently there are millions of blogs and there are hundreds of people who call themselves “Blog or Blogging Consultants”, yet when you type “define: Blogging Consultant or Blogging Consultant” into google you get no definition.

That is probably a good thing for most blogging consultants because without a definition, there is no standard to hold them to. I’m not claiming to be the blogging guru of all time or anything of the sort. So before you “blogging consultants” out there start getting defensive about this, think before you write. If you get too nasty about the post I may ask you to define “blogging consultant” and without google many of you couldn’t do it.

Now that is out of the way, lets talk business. Every business should have a blog. There are so many reasons for your business to have a blog it would be hard to write them all in one blog post, so lets assume you know your company needs a blog.

So do you hire a blogging consultant? What qualifications do you look for in a blogging consultant? What does a blogging consultant look like? How much should I pay a blogging consultant?

Lets start with “Should you hire a blogging consultant?”

The quick answer is yes, but lets go into why first. There are a lot of things that go into making a blog popular. Technorati tags, submissions and pings to bloglists and blogsearch websites, learning how to get on the right blogrolls, etc.

If you are new to blogging it takes awhile to catch on to most of these things and most blogging consultants say that all of the above is necessary if you are going to have a successful blog.

There are more things to add to the list but this article isn’t about how to run a successful blog, it’s about blogging consultants. Hiring a blogging consultant can save you from making a lot of early mistakes and get your blog found a lot quicker than trying to do it on your own.

Now all the blogging consultants are liking me again. I can tell. But will it last?

What qualifications do you look for in a blogging consultant?

Here is where things get ugly between me and the blogging consultants. Most blogging consultants are . . . well . . . bloggers. Many of them have what they think is a successful blog although many bloggers have different ideas for what success is.

Some think it’s defined as how much they made on google adnonsense last month. Others count success by number of visitors to their website or the number of comments that appear on their blog. Still others measure their success by what the other bloggers think about them.

What do all of those bloggers who are blogging consultants have in common? They all think that having a successful blog automatically makes you a qualified blogging consultant. I told you it was going to get nasty. After this article if I measured my success by what the other bloggers think of me then I’m doomed!

Fortunately I don’t measure my success in terms of what the other bloggers and blogging consultants think. Lets get back to those qualifications for a blogging consultant.

First of all a blog is a website. It is a website that is updated often in most cases, but it is still a website. Each blogpost becomes a page of that website. So with a blog you are creating more webpages to your website as often as you post to your blog.

Now I have a question for you. Would you first look to hire a blogger to do search engine optimization for your website? Would you first look to hire a blogger to handle your AdWords campaign? Would you first look for a blogger to build your website for you?

The answer to all of the above is probably no, unless the blogger also has experience in those fields and not just for their blog. Actual websites they have built, optimized, and marketed for themselves and for clients.

A blogging consultant should not just be a blogger. They should also have all of the skills necessary to run a website. Now the blogging consultants are all mad at me again. But think about it. Many bloggers know how to write. They know how to get into the right circle of blogger friends who will link to them. They know about blogging.

So if all you need to know is how to write a blog, then hiring a blogger who knows how to write is the answer, but if you need someone who is going to manage your blog for you including posting to the blog, search engine optimization, link popularity, (and not just from blogrolls), and marketing, then you need to hire a webmaster who also blogs.

Okay, How much should I pay a blogging consultant?

How much do you have? Just kidding. A lot depends on the type of blog you want or have. A corporation blog has to pay more, not because they have more, but because there are all kinds of legal and policy matters that have to be considered with every single blog post and every single link to or from another blog or website. A small business blog doesn’t have many of the same issues as the corporate blog, but still has certain standards that need to be met.

If you have ever hired a webmaster, not a web designer, a webmaster, (Thats another article), or a Search Engine Optimization Company, or a Search Engine Marketer, or even just a Marketing Consultant, (The just was in there just so I could make consultants mad again.), then you have an idea of what a blogging consultant should cost.

Now keep in mind, if you are hiring a blogging consultant to strictly teach you how to blog, then it’s not worth as much money as when you hire a blogging consultant who is also going to perform all of the services a Webmaster and Internet Marketer would provide plus search engine optimization.

Ha ha! I still didn’t say how much it costs. It’s coming. Read on.

What does a Blogging Consultant look like?

He or she looks like someone who has more than just a blog or blogs. Someone who also owns and manages several websites for themselves and for clients. As I said before a blog is still a website.

If Jay-Z Was An Internet Marketer – Music Video