The
word blog came from web logs, which were originally meant as online
journals when they were invented for the Internet. Throughout the
years, they fulfilled a social function that got many people addicted
to its features and expressive appeal. But it was only recently
when marketers began realizing the moneymaking potentials of these
blogs. Today, various ways of earning from them have been
discovered.
It
makes sense that you should fully understand blogs and blogging and RSS
(Really Simple Syndication). This is necessary so that you can
make the most out of blogs when applying them to your own online
business effort and web site marketing strategy. The best way I
know to learn the details about blog and RSS and how they work is by
reading the book Blogs and RSS Revealed.
This book also comes with a set of audio files that you can listen to
or burn onto a CD to use to further understand how to use blogs and RSS
to make money online.
Now,
why are blogs seemingly tailor-made for Internet marketing and an
Online Home Business? I can think of a number of reasons for this.
Blogs are easy to use. Just write down your
thoughts then press a button to publish, and immediately afterwards,
your entry would be uploaded for all the World Wide Web to see.
Blogs are easy to update. Simply press the EDIT button, or write some new thoughts and publish them again.
Search engines love blogs. Blogs dominate the first few pages of search engine results. This is an undeniable fact.
Blog entries can be used as RSS feeds. RSS,
which is the abbreviation for Real Simple Syndication, is slowly
becoming the industry standard for follow-ups and message deliveries.
Most blogs are free. You could sign up for an account, and you�re ready to go.
A
glance at these outstanding characteristics would reveal the vast
potentials of web logs for the keen eyed businessman. You see,
the trouble with conducting an online business is that you have to work
with some things that are beyond your control, search engine placement
being one of them. Every person with an online venture is at the
mercy of the search engines, as the latter would supply 80% of the
potential customers that the former needs.
But
with blogs, a substantially higher search engine placement can be
arranged. Simply create a blog dedicated to the subject of your
business or niche. Publish informative entries in its pages, and
include links to your main website. The result? Since blogs
would place higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), it would be
viewed by a larger number of people. And since your blog would
contain links directing the visitor to your site, and such links are
one way (which search engines also love), your website will be taken in
for the ride!
Blogs are also being used as alternatives for websites themselves. The rave these days is to create a lot of niche mini-sites.
The reason behind such a strategy is that only a few online ventures
cater to niches, hence a website dedicated to such would surely gain
consistent traffic. The problem is, creating one website is
difficult enough, what more when you have to build twenty, thirty or
even a hundred of them? Hence, web logs became better
options. First, because they're free. Second, because
they're easy to use. And third, because of the reason we've
previously discussed: search engines love them!
But
how do you make these mini-sites earn by themselves without selling any
product? For that matter, how do you make one blog earn under the
same circumstances?
Simple. Populate them with Google Adsense ads. Google Adsense, of course, is a Pay Per Click (PPC)
program that would reward you for every click your visitors make on the
ads that Adsense will display on your pages. One site with a high
volume of traffic is enough to earn an amount comparable to a day wage,
and perhaps even more. What more a battalion of sites built for
such a purpose? Blogs make the latter a very easy possibility.
There
are two main types of blogs that are being used today.
Blogger.com and WordPress. Blogger.com is run by Google and the
blog you create exists on their server. WordPress blogs, on the
other hand, are installed on your web site server.
Which
blog type is preferred? Both blogs are good for running Adsense
ads but Wordpress blogs are more customizeable for use as online
business niche web sites. If you are interested in WordPress
blogs, an excellent video resource to learn how to set them up, how to
populate them with Adsense ads and Amazon ads, and how to make them
more search engine friendly can be found in Wordpress Codebreaker Videos.
This series also expounds on how to install themes and plugins to and
how to set up a large ping list and much more.
Because
WordPress is open source and highly customizable, there are great tools
available to help you use it effectively and with the least amount of
time taken. If you get to the point to where you are setting up
several WordPress blogs, you may want to consider a tool called WordPress Elite.
WordPress Elite allows you to change themes on the fly without
uploading any files, improves the permalink structure, installs 9
plugins, manages all the login details for all your blogs from one
location and much, much more. WordPress Elite will save you vast amounts of time with administering all your blogs.
Niche
blogs are very popular right now because niche marketing has recently
taken off. Niche blogs can be set up using either Blogger.com or
WordPress. A niche is defined as a special area of demand for a
product or service. This presents us with an interesting idea for
making an income using niche marketing and specifically, niche
blogs. Find a high demand niche, like for example, how to lose
weight, build a blog around it and use Adsense ads on the blog to
generate income. How can you do that? There is an easy step
by step process to follow that you can read that will show you
how. The process of niche marketing using blogs
is one of the easiest and fastest ways to start earning an income
online. Take a look at how easily you can get started, and I
think you'll agree.
After your blog is established, make sure you submit the blog's RSS
Feed to RSS directories. This will syndicate your blog content
across the web and drive traffic to your blog, which is what you want
for your niche marketing efforts.
So
you see, blogs can greatly help promote your business� main website, or
they could be your primary hubs in cyberspace by themselves. They
are easier to set-up and more convenient to maintain. And by
their very nature alone, they have a higher likelihood of generating
more income than, say, a site that is newly built.
The online home business of web blogs can be easily promoted by using the different useful techniques of search engine optimization. The advertising is very profitable for the advertisers who try to improve the traffic of the certain websites in the search engines with good results. The advertising agencies are running their business more successfully by employing all the strategic tools of pay per click management. It is very valuable to monetize your blog concerned with the specific business if you want to publicize your business products on the web.
