Building and using business blogs has become a standard for many online marketers in terms of marketing on the internet. However with the growth in popularity of online social sites many have begun using these communities as their primary marketing platforms.

In particular Twitter is being touted as a site that can supply all your business needs concerning marketing and traffic generation.

Does this mean blogging sites are now endangered in terms of their ‘leading’ role in web 2.0 online marketing? Actually this would hardly seem the case and here are 5 very strong reasons why.

Self-Hosted Blogs

Most blogs are self hosted meaning you own the site and the content and are therefore in total control. Online social sites have rule and regulations set forth by the site administrator governing behavior.

The ability to ‘personalize’ your space on a social network site is non-existent therefore ‘branding’ yourself is very difficult. You can not build a solid foundation to an online business on a site where you have no control.

Blogs Gain Authority

Comments or content you share at a social site are not displayed for very long thereby they will have no long lasting affect. On a blogging site every post, comment or useful information is always available for viewing and tends to build up the authority of the site itself.

The more content posted the more authority the blog will gain. This is a great foundation for building credibility and a business.

Symbol of Commitment

A blog is a symbol of commitment since it takes effort to maintain the site. Commitment is exactly what people look for in businesses since it is a sign of reliability. This leads to an increase in trust which is a vital asset to have when marketing on the internet. Online social sites require only that you ‘show up’ and chat a little thereby demonstrating very little effort or commitment.

The Strength is in the Link

Socialization communities normally link to blogs as opposed to the other way around. That kind of says it all right there since it seems these communities need to ‘defer’ to blogs as a source of reliable and useful content. This does not bode well however for the credibility of social network sites!

Analytics

Blogging sites have analytic capabilities allowing then to function more fully as a business platforms. These capabilities allow the site to improve and grow and are a necessary tool for anyone serious about building a lasting business.

Business blogs have become the adopted standard for online marketers due to their flexibility, ease of use and ability to interact with customers. Recent trends however indicate an increasing acceptance/reliance upon using certain online social sites such as Twitter as free standing marketing platforms.

These social communities offer the same attraction that blogging sites do in terms of interaction and ease of use but comparisons stop there. The ability of social sites to help people ‘build’ a business when marketing on the internet is in question.

The 5 reasons mentioned above as to why blogging sites are not likely to fall from favor as online marketing platforms merely fortifies their dominance. While many social network platforms such as Twitter are great traffic sources they do not offer a solid platform upon which to build a long lasting business.

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About the Author:
TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. To learn more about the effectiveness of business blogs as marketing platforms and to also receive a free instructional manual that teaches valuable niche research techniques simply visit:http://blogbrawn.com/
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When I first got interested in blog design, Blogging to the Bank was one of my first purchases. It was great advice on making a lot of money from blogging. My only complaint is that there was not quite enough information on building blogs for a complete beginner.

Blogging to the Bank has gone through several valuable upgrades over the years. The author keeps adding and updating information to keep up with changes in the business climate and the internet.

I still like the package, and I recommend taking a look if you want to make money with blogging:

http://www.blogdesignjournal.com/likes/Blog2Bank3/

Text messaging on a mobile phone

Want to drive more traffic to your blog? Here is an effective way to get blog visitors that you may not have thought of: a text messaging service.

A hot topic in the Internet marketing world right now is the generation gap between young users. More and more Internet users avoid email as much as possible. They prefer text messaging, Twitter and Facebook, unlike the “older” generation who prefer email.

Text messaging is huge, and you can use it to drive traffic to your blog.

A new mobile marketing site called 84444.com allows you to set up interactive text message marketing campaigns from your computer that can send traffic back to your site from the huge market of mobile texters. Think about how you can use that for SEO/SEM!

Using the self-service system at 84444.com and an existing list, you can direct customers to a particular website in real time. This is instant traffic!

Want to see how it works? Text the keyword LENS to 84444 (the short code) to get a discount on eye glasses.

Want to try it out—for free? You can get a free trial account (no contract, no setup fees) and set up a free trial campaign that allows you to send 25 free text messages.

With mobile marketing, you can set up sweepstakes, polls, and other interactive activities and send mobile coupons that can be used on line or in person.

As always with blog promotion, the only limit is your own imagination (as long as you stay with in the terms of use of the participating service providers and the applicable laws).

Clearly you also need to be sensitive to text user needs and preferences. Do not spam. Tightly target users with offers they will be glad to receive.

I’m excited about text marketing for traffic. I have not only set up a trial account; I have also signed up to be an affiliate.

For more information on the interactive text marketing industry and more ideas on how you might use text marketing to get traffic for your blog, you should read the Text Message Blog, which reports on mobile marketing.

A blog, believe it or not, when properly prepared creates content, and quite often is put very fast in the top ten of Google. Why it is so, try reading the following contribution to enlighten yourself:

A blog of domestic implements from a few features, allow search engines to crawl the content very quickly. The result was the fastest I have ever witnessed, added a new post within 20 seconds (including the top 10 ranking) for relevant phrases. How can this come about?

BlogPing

BlogPing is a protocol that implements any popular blog system. It serves primarily two things:

1. Blogs to notify each other (They were linked)

2. Notify search engines (Google Hello, I have published a new page)

Especially with the integration of Google Sitemaps that go on WordPress with a click of the hand, you need a search engine’s new content page to look once more. Sitemap opens directly to crawl a new page.

High degree of optimization of the source code

In WordPress usually retains very accurate web standards. A title is reported only as such. The same is true with other HTML tags. The quality of the templates is such, that the code can almost always run easily to W3 validation process. This also simplifies the search engines crawling a site.

A clean URL structure

WordPress provides the possibility of a rational use of URL structure. This is also helpful.

Performance

In conclusion, you don’t have to worry about the performance website. Because WordPress is indeed far from being resource-saving, it also provides a plugin called wp-super-cache.

Good internal linking

A blog encourages even the structural reasons to link an already written word. This is partially automatically handled by features such as tag clouds and the category classification of the contributions.

Latest content

Many blogs are designed to publish updated information. This is also one of the reasons for the short-term transport in the top ten. It is because blogs often contain the latest information about a topic. This also fits with the current real-time strategy Google uses. One carried a no-name content that is thought to be of high quality and watched the development of the link as the residence times, etc.

Another point concerning the timeliness is: A blog is posting updates itself. This is done firstly through features such as tag clouds or looking for constant movement on the sides. Another way is by comments that are received every now and then.

Blog instead of conventional web pages?

I am always wondering if it is best to ask a blog instead of a static Web site. The answer is clear: Why not? WordPress is ultimately nothing more than a content management system. Of course, it can create quite conventional looking pages. One thing is certain: Blog contents are not mainly preferred, because they are thought to be blog content. They are preferred because WordPress is so well optimized, and can be optimized by plug-ins.

Find the best premium WordPress themes for your WordPress powered blogs from the large collection of themes at ThemesAndMods.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/advantages-of-blogging-wordpress-blogging-1683945.html

Blog marketing is truly only as difficult as you make it out to be. However, if you have never had a blog before, and never marketed anything in your life before now, it may be a little more difficult to understand.

If that is the case, you should start of with a blog and just journaling in it to see what it is like. Keep it updated so that you can see what is required to get readers, and try some of these techniques listed below.

While you are learning all about the aspects of blog marketing, you are going to find that comments on a blog are also a very important aspect of blog marketing. You will want to be sure that you always answer and acknowledge the comments that are made to your blog as well as others.

When you show that you are an actual person that can hold a conversation, you are showing others that you are real and that you really and truly have the best intentions for your blog. Make sure that no comment goes unanswered.

When you do this and do it consistently, it will show your readers that you will acknowledge them and answer their questions. That will in return make them come back to see what your answer was if they asked a question.

Having contests are another way that you can market your blog. Having contests on various things would be a lot of fun, and something that will keep your readers coming back.

Everyone loves to win things, and you can also make the prize that you are giving away relevant to the market you are promoting on your blog. Some do not realize how effective this aspect of blog marketing can be. While others are reaping the rewards.

Another huge aspect of blog marketing is the track back feature. When you have the track back feature on your blog, you are allowing other people to link to your blog. Maybe someone has a post to post on their blog that is relevant to one of yours. They can use the talkback to your post, and send their readers to your blog so that they know what they are referring to.

Another good thing to remember is that if someone gives you a track back, it is a courtesy to return that to their blog if at all possible. This is something that most bloggers all ready know and something that new bloggers should know.

Something else that is a big thing in blog marketing that is frequently overlooked is using SEO on your blog, which stands for search engine optimization. SEO will help get your blog out there and read, and will also help you get a better ranking with Google. Being as high as you can be in the Google search engine results is something that you want. Doing this will allow your blog to get out there so that people searching for things that are relevant can find it.

While there are many aspects of blog marketing, you are going to see that these are all the most important. If you have all of these tools and techniques in place, then chances are you are getting some great traffic. If not, just keep working on it. Your hard work is going to pay off and you will be glad that you did.

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Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/feature-of-blog-marketing-1294462.html

When you planned to create your website, you knew that it could reach millions of potential visitors. But now that your website is live, visitors are few and far in between. So, where are the visitors? And why aren’t they coming?

To understand what’s going on, we will need to debunk the oldest myth of the web: Built it and they will come. In reality, quite a bit more work is involved.To get people to visit your website, you also need to (1) make sure that your website can be found and (2) give visitors something worthwhile when they arrive.

Make Sure That Your Website Can Be Found

The first step to building traffic is to ensure that potential visitors can find your website. This means that you need to make sure that your website can be found in search engines and directories. Some basic things which need to be accomplished to be most effective in this regard include:

search engine submission – Submit your website to search engines.

directory submission - Submit your website to directories.

inbound links – Get other people to link to you. This will help to get visitors as well as help search engines find your website.

search engine optimization – Getting in search engines is not enough. You also need to be at the top of search engine results pages. After all, if you are on page 55 of a search, it is unlikely that visitors will be able to find you. So you need to apply search engine optimization techniques to improve your search engine visibility.

Give Visitors Something Worthwhile

Once visitors come to your website, you need to provide them with something useful in order to keep them there. The something useful could be quality content, a great product, a useful service, or a free tool. But whatever it is, it must be able to hold a visitor’s attention, cause them to return, and perhaps recommend the website to others.

So… How Long Will It Take?

Back to our original question, How long does it take for a blog to become popular? Answer: There is no specific time required to make a website popular. It all depends on the type of website and the techniques used to market it.

Some websites, for example, can achieve great popularity in as little as a week, whereas others may take several months or even years. So the question that you should be asking is: What is the best way to make my website popular?

Some suggestions that we have for increasing the popularity of your website include:

Continuous Blogging. The frequency with which new content is added to your website will go a long way to generating traffic. In other words, you will achieve popularity faster if you blog everyday as opposed to once a week or once a month.

Link Bait. Every website needs a bit of viral content, content that will get visitors talking and referring their friends. This is a great way to get a boost in traffic and lots of inbound links.

Press Releases. Another great way to spread the word is to create a press release and submit it to syndication services. Press releases could be used to anounce your blog or some special tool or content series that you might have added. We like press releases because they work for themselves and make their way all around the internet without much help. They’ll also get you lots of inbound links.

If you have a new website, don’t just wait for traffic to come to you, or you will be waiting for an eternity. Instead, get the ball rolling by making sure that people can find your website, providing useful content, and by using our suggestions above.

Sofia Sapojnikova
Vesta Digital
http://www.vestadigital.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/how-long-does-it-take-for-a-blog-to-get-popular-1282461.html

1. Perpetually tag your content. Tagging can be a extensive way to classify your posts and will give you an edge over at Technorati.

2. Command a niche market. Choose a niche in which you have some experience or that which you are willing to learn. Can you continue writing for over 2 or 3 years on the topic? If so you found the sweet spot.

3. Submit (Bookmark) your posts to Digg, Technorati, Flickr (Flickr is a service offered by yahoo for uploading and sharing cartoon. Don’t get confused with flicker.com which surprisingly yahoo has not yet bought), Del.icio.us, Stumble Upon and other such sites to increase traffic to your blogging blog.

Submitting your articles to these and other such social networking sites will increase the number of individuals who shall view your content leading to an enlargement in traffic to your site. Enable your readers to bookmark your posts to such sites as well. There is a neat trick to bookmarking which you will find here.4. Readers search for blogging blog through tags. However, search engines push traffic to your blogs. Hence, not paying attention either one will cost you dearly in terms of traffic. 10 words must be the maximum size of your title tag.

5. Make it a mark to update your blogging blog regularly. You can lose your hard earned reader base very quickly if u do not post good quality posts to your blogging blog on a formal basis. Regular posting helps in not just retaining your reader base but also improving it as word spreads about the quality of your blogging blog on the web.

6. Scour the web for good quality content from other blogs related to your niche. This will keep you in the good books of other bloggers who will not hesitate to quote u and provide a link to your blogging blog to their readers. Do not hesitate. Become a blogger now

7. Spice things up by providing good and relevant photographs, presentations and videos along with text. This enhances the value of content on your blogging blog and will increase traffic to your blogging blog. If you notice the affiliate blog by Shawn Collins, you see that most of his posts are composed of videos which are rightly done. Having videos gives you the advantage of getting viewers from sites like YouTube, Metacafe, DailyMotion etc.

8. Add content to your blog intelligently. Try to give definitive answers to questions related to your niche with your recent blog post. This is the best way to quickly increase popularity of your blog as u would have done what no other blogger in your niche succeeded in doing.

Try answering one of your reader questions. This will spark of a communication between the readers and the author and also raise a sense of community within the blog. Earn money with forex trading tips

9. Find out which posts fetch you the maximum traffic. look at what you wrote in the blog post. If you did something different, then it has obviously helped bring more traffic to your site.

10. Do update your old posts once in a while. Search engine likes to see fresh blog post added on and when you do an update you not only give new fodder for search engines but also provide value to your readers. Your reader might be reading the post you wrote back in 2001 in “present year”. Having a sentence “Updated in 2009 with so and so” gives the reader a feel of your dedication.

It is natural to make the mistake of taking your self too seriously when you become successful. You might find instances where you took rigid stances at the cost of your readers. This does not mean you should avoid topics of high emotional value.

However, handling even such topics dispassionately will help you get appreciated by your readers. Hence, not only do you avoid losing readers but this approach will help you actually pull more traffic to your blog.

11. Successful bloggers often find themselves in the happy position where a particular post attracts a lot of traffic. Do not become complacent when this happens. Rather, add even better posts to the blog to convert your latest readers into permanent traffic for your blog.

12. The basic purpose of a blog is to communicate with people. If you are scared of revealing too much information and if you would prefer to keep all that you know about your niche close to your heart, just give blogging a skip. However, if you are going to blog, make it a point to reveal as much as you know in each blog.

Readers are quick to recognize when a person is adding hitherto unknown aspects and facets of the niche. Your blog shall be rewarded with a lot of traffic for your blog post.

13. It is one thing to provide comprehensive information on a topic blog post. However, it is a completely different thing to present information in boring manner. This will help you pull additional traffic to your blog.

Become a blogger

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Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/bbecome-a-blogger-1024577.html

I just signed up at a new site for blog advertising, social networking and getting paid to post: SocialSpark. Register your blogs there and let advertisers find you.

Meanwhile you can make friends, who can vote your blog up or down in the rankings. You can also add applications to your profile page, just as you can on Facebook. (There are already hundreds.)

You also get a set of tools for tracking traffic and other stats on your blog. To install the tools, so you can view the stats on your SocialSpark dashboard, you paste a code snippet into the theme code of your blog (not into a widget). But you have to add code anyway to claim your blog.

The service is still in beta testing, according to the site. But registration is open now, and there are already over 1000 blogs listed.

To get ads from SocialSpark, your blog must be over 90 days old and have at least 20 posts. So what are you waiting for?

BlogCatalog.com has come up with an interesting replacement for the BlogRush widget. It displays your own blog posts (on however many blogs you have registered with BlogCatalog) and some other activities such as Diggs. You’ll see one in the right-hand sidebar of this page.

You can choose from about eight colors, and you set the width (in pixels) and the number of items to display (so you effectively control the height as well). If you have several blogs, this is a great way to send traffic from one to another.

Besides the WordPress version, you can create BlogCatalog widgets that work with Blogger and TypePad blogs as well. It is easy and fun.

BlogCatalog offers four different widgets in all. If you scroll down, you will see their Recent Viewers widget (with dozens of tiny pictures). Those are also highly customizable. You can choose the size, number of pictures, color of the frame and the text, and so on.

Widgets are just one of the benefits of belonging to the BlogCatalog community. You can get great exposure for you blogs there, join groups, make friends, and find many interesting and entertaining blogs. I highly recommend it.

Below that is a similar widget, created at MyBlogLog.com, another online blog-listing community where you should list your blogs if you haven’t already.

As I’m currently updating my old blogs and developing new ones, I will be checking on all the old favorite blog registrars and trying out new ones. I’ll report back here on the best ones I find.

The best blog design in the world is nothing without lots of good content. We know that we need to post often, but sometimes it’s hard to keep up. We let things slide.

So Eric Giguere has posted a challenge on his blog: Write a page a day for every day in February. And he’ll give you a copy of his $97 best-selling book on how to make money with Google Adsense if you complete the challenge.

You can’t lose with this challenge. No matter what happens, you get a lot of work done that you need to do anyway. And if you complete the challenge, you get a very nice reward.

All you have to do is post a comment with the URL for each day’s post to Eric’s blog for that day. Doing that gives you a free backlink to your blog, which is great for search engine optimization (SEO).

[To clarify, you just make 29 posts in February. For each of your posts, you put a comment with a link to it in one of Eric's posts. Your dates don't have to match up exactly.]

By the end of February, you will have 29 free backlinks from a very popular blog, which helps your Google PageRank. (And his blog readers will see your links and maybe click on them, which could bring you more traffic and word of mouth.)

Plus, one lucky blogger will win a copy of Eric’s super-duper software, PLRSiteBuilder, which automates the creation of web sites built to make money with Adsense ads. How cool is that?

You can sign up till February 8, and you have till March 10 to post the comments with links to your daily pages. Why not give it a try? See Eric’s blog, MEMWG, The Unofficial AdSense Blog, to sign up.

If you don’t want to take the challenge, I recommend reading Eric’s blog anyway, because it’s an excellent blog on how to make money with your blog—and that’s a good thing, too.