Now days when someone says “A little birdie told me” then it’s not because they heard a whisper around the office. It’s more likely that they have been twittering or tweeting!

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A business blog is a type of self managed website. As a blogger you can easily add new pages or posts (articles, news items etc) to your blog site and communicate with visitors through comments. As you educate your clients and prospects, you will become recognised as an expert and as an expert you will see many benefits, including:

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By now you must know that Blogging is a HOT topic. In fact, it has become an essential in many business marketing plans for 2009. If you’re ready to learn more about Blogging for Business and how it could benefit you and your business then I have some great news for you.

On Tuesday evening, March 31st I will be holding a ONE TIME ONLY Free Teleseminar on the Topic of BLOGGING FOR BUSINESS.

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These Online Publicity methods are all non traditional forms of generating publicity and interest in both you and your business. All are free and highly effective, so why not give them a try….

1. ARTICLE MARKETING
Article marketing refers to writing articles on your area of expertise or industry and then publishing those articles wherever possible as a way of promoting you and your business. Online this means submitting your articles at sites such as www.ezinearticles.com and relevant websites that accept articles for publication.

Don’t forget this can also be used offline, in fact the same articles can often be used with perhaps some minor editing to submit to magazines, papers and other offline media. For example I recently slightly tweaked one of my popular Email Marketing articles for a Real Estate publication.

2. BLOGGING
Blogging is a way to gain ongoing exposure online for you and your business. Ideally this is in the form of you publishing articles (which can also be used in Publicity option 1 above), news, events, press releases and industry updates on your blog which allows your readers (both prospects and clients) to learn more about you, as well as provide another way for media to find you. It is becoming more and more common for media channels such as TV, magazines and radios to source information and opinions from Bloggers and to contact Blog authors for interviews and further comments on their area of expertise.

3. SOCIAL NETWORKING
You may have read my article recently about Facebook (if not you can read it here), where I mentioned how popular this online social networking community has become. Facebook is a great way to get free publicity, although how far your message reaches may depend on how many friends you have! Simply by updating your status on Facebook you can let your network know about new projects that you are working on and generate interest.

You can also do this with Twitter which is a service that allows you to keep others up to date on what you are doing at any time. To learn more about using Twitter for marketing and exposure I suggest reading this great article at http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/twitter-guide/

by Belinda Jackson

© 2008. Web Chameleon Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Want to use this article on your website or include it in your email newsletter? No problem! But you also MUST include the following:

Belinda Jackson, Online Marketing Mentor, is founder of Web Chameleon, Chameleon Mail and The Business Blogging Program.  To learn how to attract and retain your perfect clients using Online Marketing, and increase sales & income then sign up for your free Online Marketing Report and Marketing Newsletter by visiting www.WebChameleon.com.au/.

Earlier this week I was interviewed by Janet Beckers of Wonderful Web Women for her Online Marketing teleseminar program. It was a great call, I really enjoyed it. I’ve put together a summary of what was learnt; its a bit like a cheat sheet written from the call content!

I discussed my Three P’s of Online Marketing. A successful online marketing strategy needs:

• Presence - you need a place online, ie a website or blog. Simply put, you need to have a place where people can find you and you can start interacting with them;
• Promotion - use online tools such as search engine optimisation (SEO), and offline methods, like brochures, business cards and networking to promote your website or blog;
• Persuasion - use your blog to persuade people to join your mailing list.  It’s much easier to persuade them to join your list first and then allow them time to get to know you and become a customer - ideally through the medium of an email newsletter. 

So your blog may become your presence online and by fully taking advantage of the possibilities with the Wordpress software which runs your blog you can actually make your blog your primary website with pages and tons of other functionality.  A Blog will also provide the ultimate SEO tool, as Google loves blogs and they are easily optimised for search engines.

Your Email Marketing in the form of an ongoing newsletter becomes your persuasion tool. Your blog or website should ultimately capture visitors details so that through your newsletter you can turn prospects into clients.

This is how an Email Newsletter in combination with a Blog can be A Winning Mix.

A few other points about Blogging that were covered on the call;

• Blogging is an ideal medium for small business owners and solo entrepreneurs to market yourself online. A blog (short for web log) is a website where content is entered and displayed in chronological order, with most recent entries at the top of the page. Blogs can be simply text, or may include other media such as images, videos, audio and links to websites.
• Bloggers, or blog authors, write about anything and everything - both personal and business - which is why blogging is the perfect way to position yourself as an expert on your chosen topic. Some bloggers use their blog as their main website and even make money from it.
• I expect blogging is going to really take off and expect savvy business owners to get into blogging in a big way to market and grow their businesses online.
• Your blog allows you to have a two-way conversation with your target market, as readers can comment on what you are writing about. From a business perspective, this allows you to be in direct contact with your prospects and customers and, as an added bonus, search engines love blogs and rank their content highly for a number of reasons.
• There are several options to set up your blog: hosting on your own domain or getting a free blog, which is hosted by the blogging provider. As a business blog, I would recommend hosting your blog on your own domain because you have control and it provides better branding for your business.
• I recommend Wordpress or TypePad for blogs, and primarily work with Wordpress for my own and my clients blogs. Wordpress is free software that you can load up onto your own domain and hosting account. TypePad hosts the blog for you on your domain after you set up an account (there is a free trial).

RSS  stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a system that allows you to subscribe to regularly updated web content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. Similar in concept to subscribing to an email newsletter, the regular updates are called “feeds” and are delivered (retrieved) to your RSS Reader.

RSS makes it possible for you to keep up with your favorite blogs without having to revisit them to check for updates. So it’s much easier than checking them manually and saves you lots of time if you have quite a few blogs you like to keep an eye on.

RSS content can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader” or an “aggregator”. You subscribe to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader OR when you are at the blog you want to subscribe to you need to click on the RSS icon to initiate the subscription process.

 The reader that I use is Google Reader and you can set up an account at www.google.com/reader. If you already have a Google account for email, adwords or anything else it’ll be simple to set up from within your existing account. Other popular readers are available from Yahoo and also www.bloglines.com  - actually there are many to choose from.

The reader will check all of your favourite blogs for you automatically for new content, downloading any updates that it finds. So when you log in to view your reader it will show you all the updated content from your favourite blogs just as you would check email.

I came across the video below recently and it’s a great explanation of RSS so if you’d rather watch then read then here you go!

Today is the launch of my all new Business Blogging Program and I am so looking forward to working with a group of fantastic entrepreneurs and business owners ready to create their own blog over the next 4 weeks!

For more details visit www.businessbloggingprogram.com  

Why blog?

Do you agree that “experts” generally;

• Can command higher fees
• Lower price resistance
• Get loads more referrals
• Convert clients easier
• Gain the respect of peers and clients alike
• Get loads more free media publicity and media attention
• Get asked to speak at industry and business events

Yep, well it’s true. Those who shine in their industries as experts are the “go- to” people,. They are the ones that get called on by media, get asked to speak at events and that clients beg to work with!

A business blog is a marketing tool that puts you in the public eye and that allows you to become the expert. You’ll be uploading articles, information and other industry specific information that will serve to educate your clients and prospects and that will put you into the limelight as an expert.

One of my biggest passions with online marketing is Email Marketing, and it still is. For anyone who already does an email newsletter then a blog is a natural progression and believe me launching your blog will be a breeze as you’ll have content ready to use.

A blog provides a great platform to show off your expertise and build credibility. With many of the same advantages of an Email Newsletter, a Blog allows you to showcase your knowledge and expertise to your clients and prospects who visit your blog. If the content and information on your blog is helpful end interesting to your readers you will soon build a loyal following.

Here are some other great benefits of a blog:

A blog is easy to set up & maintain: During this program I will teach you exactly how to set up your blog - step by step instructions will be provided. For those who opt for the gold upgrade option, we’ll do all the work for you and set your blog up to suit your needs. If you don’t already have a website then you’ll soon have your own website, a blog can be an extremely effective website!

Your blog will have functionality so you can easily add pages and posts, edit content and make loads of changes easily and quickly. Seriously, if you can use Microsoft Word you can edit your own Blog.

Google loves Blogs. This is a huge advantage and you’re gonna love this one. We all now how powerful Google is and you need your website to be appearing on Google when prospects search by your keywords. Well the software behind the blog (we’ll be using Wordpress) is Google friendly and with a few simple tweaks you can have a search engine optimised website instantly!

Plus because blogs generally have loads of content, and you’ll be adding more content all the time Google is going to love your website and you’ll get lots more traffic from them.

A blog is a communication channel. Your clients and prospects can comment on the articles and posts on your website and therefore provide feedback and direction for you. It builds community and loyalty.

A blog develops with you. The template that displays your blog can be updated with small or large changes at anytime and you can continue to update your blog with content weekly or however often you like. You’re in control.

The goal of the Web Chameleon Business Blogging Program is to make you an Expert in your industry and get you to this expert status through the marketing medium of a blog and blogging, so that you can get some of the above benefits.

I expect 2008 to be a HUGE year for blogging. I encourage you to consider getting on board the blogging journey with my help.

With the launch of my own blog a couple of weeks ago I have been heavily engrossed in reading and researching everything on the topic.

It feels like my head is about to explode with all this info.

So rather than waste all this valuable knowledge I’ll be launching my own program to help you get started blogging and market your blog so that it brings you results that you desire. I’m just finalising details and will let you know as soon as I can.

PS I will be limiting numbers to ensure participants get exactly what they need from the program. It will be a focused program covering everything you need to get started and to market your blog confidently, quickly and easily.

 More details soon….

Have you considered launching a blog as a business marketing tool? There has certainly been a lot of media coverage lately on Web 2.0 and Blogging. I expect it to only grow in popularity and more and more savvy business owners will figure out the advantages and jump on board.

For now, here are SIX Benefits of Blogging….

1. A blog is easy and costs little to set up. In fact I’m even starting to see people launching their very first website using the blogging platform. Yes that’s possible, and there are many advantages not the least of which is that the blogging software that will run your website is FREE and it’s easy to work with.

2. A blog is easy to maintain. In recent times CMS’s have been all the rage. A CMS is a Content Management System which is a system built into your website to allow you to easily edit your own web pages. Well a Blog has built in CMS functionality so you can add pages, edit content and make loads of changes easily and quickly. Seriously, if you can use Microsoft Word you can edit your own Website/Blog these days.

3. Google loves Blogs. This is a definate selling point for blogs. I’ve been doing a little testing myself and in just 3 weeks I have 20 pages from my new blog already indexed on Google. The software behind the blog is Google friendly and with a few simple tweaks you can have a search engine optimised website instantly!

4. A blog provides a great platform to show off your expertise and build credibility. With many of the same advantages of an Email Newsletter, a Blog allows you to showcase your knowledge and expertise to your clients and prospects who visit your blog. If the content and information on your blog is helpful end interesting to your readers you will soon build a loyal following. Tied in with an Email Newsletter, this is relationship Marketing at it’s best. And it works.
5. A blog is a communication channel. Your clients and prospects can comment on the articles and posts on your website and therefore provide feedback and direction for you. It builds community and loyalty.

6. A blog develops with you. The template that displays your blog can be updated with small or large changes at anytime and you can continue to update your blog with content weekly or however often you like. You’re in control.

A blog is perfect for any entrepreneur or business owner who has a passion for what they do, is an expert in their field and wants to build a loyal community of prospects and clients.

Maybe I’m geting a little carried away but I wanted to test this fast track way to get a listing on Google a little further. So after posting my Blogging Introduction post this evening, I gave it 25 minutes then went and ran a new search on Google for the term “Blogging Introduction” and hey presto there was my post and blog at position 5 on the 1st page of google for a search of “Blogging Introduction”.

Of course blogging is powerful for ranking on Google, however there is a lot more to blogging than just that. It’s also a fantastic way to build a relationship with your clients and prospects and I’ll be covering more on that soon.

On a final note for tonight, look out for my blogging teleclass series that I am putting together and will be launching very soon. I look forward to teaching other small business owners and entrepreneurs how to get started quickly and easily with blogging.