Your Blogging Services Portal

Before you even start creating your blog you need to be clear on what kind of content that your prospects and customers want and have need of.

Then you can start to figure out how you’re going to “package” this content. What I mean by that, is how are you going to present the information – what type of blog are you going to have?

Although blogs are as individualistic as each business is, there are 5 common types of blogs that businesses use:

1. Consultant Blog

• Usually is one person sharing their opinions, observations and advice 
• A way to highlight your expertise in a specific area and build an active readership who trust you to guide them 
• Used by service-based businesses such as professional organizers, marketers, coaches, financial planners and so on

2. Specialty Blog

• Written by one or more contributors who focus on a subject of shared interest (i.e. Weight loss, spiritual practices, golf, animal lovers, car collectors) 
• Builds an online community and encourages connection and interactivity 
• Used by businesses that service that particular common interest in some way

3. Feature Blog

• Showcases creative type of business 
• Can have lots of pictures of recent projects, video clips, audio clips of songs/music, links to an online store, information and sign up for events 
• Used by artists, designers, musicians, performers, illustrators, authors, speakers, custom furniture makers, auto builders

4. Industry Blog

• Usually are companies that specialize in a very narrow area of their industry and often sell to other businesses 
• Provides information on anything that impacts the industry: trade shows, materials, new product lines, equipment innovations, industry news and shipping news 
• Used by manufacturers, engineering, construction, insurance, machinists and so on

5. Tourist blog

• Features the local area with lots of pictures and information showcasing the area 
• A way to provide information for people visiting, such as: updates on upcoming events, local weather, favorite places to visit, faqs and so on 
• Used by tourist attractions, water-sport companies, fishing guides, ski hills, art, music and film festivals, bed and breakfasts, and many other similar types of businesses

Take some time to figure out which type of blog would serve the information needs of your target group and the needs of your business the best.

But don’t forget to make sure it’s also something that you connect with and feel comfortable promoting and doing on a regular basis – as a blog is definitely a commitment for you!

Find its uniqueness and individuality. Your blog needs to get noticed first before it can even start earning bucks for you. It does not have to be a complicated process. For example, blogger has blog templates you can use and help you set up your blog in five minutes. After setting up, come up with your worthwhile postings. Be spontaneous, be individual, be creative, but don’t be authoritative and boring.

Simplicity is the key. Avoid lengthy blogs as they drive the reader away. Short, incisive, insightful posts are best, so long as they are consistent with your blog’s complete identity and individuality. By keeping everything simple and concise, you are able to post regularly so that other bloggers don’t wait forever for your next post. Pretty soon, you get comments and comments mean traffic to your blog. Answer comments and take them at face value. 

The spontaneity of blogs is what makes it so attractive to almost everyone. When you begin to lack that spontaneity and begin to sound too authoritative or naive, you may lose some of the energy or even some of the traffic coming your way. Be consistent in your postings, be conscientious in your writing, and be available to as wide an audience as possible. Share it with as many friends and contacts you have. 

2. Now that you have established your blog and its viewership, make it earn.

How will your blog earn bucks for you? Take blogger, for example. It can assist you and automatically set up Google’s AdSense. Through AdSense, your blog can display banner ads and all as advertisers that find your blog’s topic and your postings’ titles related to their wares post more and more ads to your blog. As your blog audience gets to check out those ads and click them, you get paid for that. You can even do affiliated marketing through your blog if you wish.

You might want to keep in mind the keywords you use and their corresponding strategic placement in the blog. The frequency of the keywords’ use in your blog adds up to theme establishment in terms of categories and titles. You get better results and more visits then. Another thing is the consistency and the timing of your posts. If you regularly post to your blog, your readers are assured of the next installments and they will want to check out again and again new postings. You can even help them along with RSS feeds that will further widen and quicken your blog’s readership and viewership, not to mention increase its earning potential.

Keep updating your blog. As long as you keep your blog interesting and gratifying, aside from merely informing or sharing, you maintain that essential traffic and potential for advertisement views that translate into the money-making machine that is your blog. As more and more people check out your blogs, and in the process click on those advertisements, money comes flowing your way as you get paid for the mileage the advertiser gets through those visits and clicks. Blogging is just one of the excellent forms of income from the internet. By just keeping your mind and eyes open, you can be sure that you will find blogging can really earn you some cash.

Targeted Web Traffic is getting visitors to your site who are interested in what you have to offer. These visitors have to be able to find your web site first. The two most common ways visitors will find your site is by typing in a word phrase into a search engine or linking to your web site from another web site. There are several ways to get your web site on the search engines results page and on other web sites. Many of these ways are free. Here are three free resources you can take advantage of to get targeted web traffic to your site.

Writing articles and publishing them on article web sites is a great way to bring attention to your web site. And sometimes these same articles will quickly rank on search engine results pages. This gives you another opportunity for visitors to find your site. These articles should have keywords or search phrases in them that visitors use to find information on your website topic. For example, if you have a website on aquariums. You would want your article to have phrases in it about aquariums or fish. These keywords should be considered in all three ways I discuss to get web site traffic.

Keep in mind, one article will not get the amount of targeted web traffic you are looking for. You will need to write and submit several articles focusing on the topic or niche of your web site. Most article web sites do not allow you to put links to any web sites in the body of the article. However, they do allow a bio box about the author to be used and a link can be placed in this text that points to your web site. Before publishing any articles, review each article web site’s policies.

Social media sites like Squidoo or Hubpages are sites where the members create and provide most of the content for the site. These types of sites allow you to directly link to your web site. So, you can create a page on the site that discusses the topic that your web site is about. You can include links to your web site allowing the visitor to the social media site to follow the link or click through to your site. This then brings targeted web traffic to your web site because the visitor wants more information on the topic of your web site. As with all 3 of these web site traffic ideas, these social media sites want good content and not one big advertisement. Being spammy and not providing any useful content may get your page deleted. And there goes all your hard work.

Blogging and Microblogging are similar and are both ways to get targeted web traffic. Blogging can be done by having your own blog web site or using a community blogging website. Wordpress has both types. I believe it is better to have your own blog so you are in control of the blog contents. Blogging is a platform that encourages the question “What’s on your mind?” to be answered. This type of site allows you to put in your own content, create links to your sites or other sites, similar to social media sites. Updating your blog weekly is a must. The search engines love new content. These updates can be short. Microblogging are sites that encourage very short entries, some only a couple of lines. One of these sites is Twitter. If blogging asks, “what’s on your mind?”, microblogging asks, “what’s on your mind right now?”As with blogging, you can link to your web site with microblogs, but be sure to provide good, informative content.

Using all three of these traffic generating ideas together will help bring in a steady stream of traffic. All of these ideas should be done on a consistent basis to keep the flow of targeted web traffic going to your site. Although I have only listed a few resources, there are almost unlimited resources that can be used to get web site traffic.