Blogging – What’s it All About? 

Everyone has heard about blogs and bloggers, but how much do you really know about blogging? Are you blogging at all? Do you know how to write an effective blog? Do you know the benefits blogs can bring to your marketing? Do you know the best places to post your blogs, or how often? There is so little known about such a common topic that could really benefit your business.

 Why Should You Blog?

Blogging is a brilliant tool that should definitely be used as part of your online marketing strategy. Not only is it a great avenue for getting people connected to you, it’s also a simple and effective way to direct them to your website. By posting frequently you also raise your online profile, which is great for public awareness of your company and your SEO. One of the most immediately enjoyable things about blogging, though, is getting people to comment and seeing discussions start. This again draws attention to the blog and back to your company, especially if you do it well and consistently.

 What Should You Write About?

There are several elements involved in writing blogs, everywhere from topic and content to tone and style. Blogs are an excellent place to connect with people, so I always keep my causal and personable. I like to cover current events as well as professional and personal topics. By varying what you write about, you are virtually unrestricted with new topics. It also presents a well rounded blog site, and keeps your readers interested. If you only ever blogged about politics, only die hard political fans will remain interested in your posts. And don’t shy away from controversial topics – they are great for starting conversation!

 What Should a Blog Include?

You blog should always include some thoughts by yourself, and usually that involves an opinion or a story – or both. It’s good to get people involved and get comments and discussions going. One of the best ways to do this is to have questions at the end which either invite people to share or provoke them to action in some other way (like asking for advice). Keep a positive or humorous tone about it – nobody wants a downer. So if you have a negative story to share, like a horrible experience, be sure to put a twist on it so people can sympathise without getting depressed!

How Often Should You Post?

Some people only post once a week, other people post several times a day. The once a week people generally tend to be conservative business people who are afraid of flooding their site. The multiple times a day bloggers tend to be social bloggers. I prefer to be more in the middle of the road and post once a day. This keeps SEO up, gives my readers something to look forward to each day, and increases my online profile. You can post as often or as rarely as you like, but I would say a minimum of two to three times per week, and preferably every day. Every once in a while you could do two blogs in a day.

The most important thing you can remember when writing a newsletter is that most people aren’t going to read it. There are some things you can do to increase the number of actual readers out of subscribers, but always keep in mind that maybe one out of five subscribers will actually read your newsletter. In this article, we’ll go over some things you can do to increase the number of readers for your newsletter, not just the number of subscribers.

Something that people often forget and the thing that absolutely should be done first, is to make sure your subscribers know exactly what they’re getting. Clearly state your newsletter’s contents and theme and clearly title it and summarize its contents in a short paragraph so that readers don’t have to figure out what it’s about by actually reading it. You won’t do yourself any favours by getting subscribers for something they don’t know about, and most people will cancel once they realize that your newsletter doesn’t have anything that interests them.

A good way to break up the research for yourself is to figure out a variety of topics to write about. Finding three or four major topics and then breaking those up into sub-sections and then those sub-sections into articles and newsletters. Breaking up topics like this will allow you to generate fairly detailed material on a number of different subjects, while still being original and useful with your newsletter. If you’re having a hard time writing about a given topic, go a little broader, which will help you use more information in a single newsletter to provide more material.

In the end, even if you follow all of these steps, even if you’ve got the best newsletter available, very few of the subscribers will read every one. Don’t be afraid to promote your newsletter on related blogs, websites and even through other newsletters on similar subjects. All you want to do is make sure that your content is relevant, readable, and accessible. If you can write content that is actually useful for readers, easy for them to understand, and interesting enough that they want to read it in the first place, then your reader base will be that much more likely to read what you send them. The more people that actually read your newsletter, of course, the more people will continue to read and subscribe to what you write.

Social networking is all the latest rage in marketing today. And for a good reason, too. It’s an extremely effective tool which, if you use it well, can really help your business. If you aren’t familiar with the term “social networking,” it refers to online communities and groups such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ecademy, MySpace and so on. It’s a place where people share business and social news, incite discussions, increase their contacts and raise their online presence.

By virtue of being online you are able to make thousands of connections in a fraction of the time it would take to meet that many people in person. You are more likely to make contacts across the country and around the world that you could without an online presence. This gives you an even larger network, which means more people are forwarding your details to people who could use your services, etc. This also means that you have a wealth of information at your fingertips for other business services that you could utilise for your company (or your life!).

Another brilliant aspect of social networking is the multiplication of your information. So for example, if I post information about my online business services on Twitter, I have just over 30,000 people following me who will see it. And if even 1% of those people ReTweet me (re-post that information), then I have another 3000 postings about my business for the one I put up. And those 3000 postings are going out to all the people following the person who ReTweeted me. This means that one little post about my business is now reaching 100,000-200,000+ people. This is the power and the magic of social networking. And to answer your suspicions, yes I have gotten not only great contacts but also new business from sites like Twitter and Facebook.

A final and hugely important element of social networking is that it builds your online presence. This is very important to any business as the world today is online. People are more likely to go to the Internet before to look for businesses than they are to go out driving around. Since social networking includes various posts, blogs and listings, it vastly increases your SEO margin and makes you more likely to get noticed out of the sea of businesses. Also, each site can be used to point contacts back to your website to promote your business.

I recently spoke to a guy who was seriously interested in joining YourNetBiz.  He asked me a few questions that I am asked time and time again by prospective team members, will I succeed?  Can you guarantee my success and that I’m going to make lots of money!  And if the opportunity is so good why isn’t everyone joining up?

This is actually a very important question and one which I will try and answer, but obviously this is my own personal perception – everyone has their own thoughts on this matter!

Yournetbiz is a business and we all know that not everyone succeeds in business regardless of what type of business that is, online or offline. This is a Fact.  No amount of training, resources, and money can guarantee that your business will succeed.

Let’s go back to the beginning.  Not everyone chooses to set up their own business.  Some people don’t like taking risks, others like the comfort blanket of a regular guaranteed income.  Some people like to be employed; they enjoy knowing what tasks they will be doing every day, where they are going etc.  Others don’t like taking orders and think that they could do a better job than their boss.

I could go on and on with the differences  but the point I’m trying to get at is that whilst I love running my own business as the pro’s far outweigh the negatives (in my mind) some people don’t want to run their own business for whatever reason.

So why go into business?  Do we suddenly wake up and say “there has to be another way”; are we forced into it through the present financial climate?  Is it a lifetime goal?  Personal circumstances change?

Regardless of how we get to setting up a business I think the key ingredient is having the right mindset.

Often we decide to start a business without really understanding what it actually involves.

So, let’s go back to the original question of whether you can succeed.  I could give you the usual comment that there are no guarantees and I don’t know if you will succeed etc. but give me your money anyway lol!

But I won’t for the simple reason that isn’t actually true.  I strongly believe that if you have the right mindset, are passionate about the product/services you are promoting, work hard (THERE ARE NO get rich quick schemes), are disciplined with your time and willing to learn then success can be achieved.

Is it really that easy?  Don’t you need certain business skills? Be able to sell?  Well people buy from those they like and trust.  If the product is good, shouldn’t it sell it self?

Time and again I am inundated with people wanting to sign up to Your Net Biz, they think it’s easy, they think they can earn money and lots of it immediately.  Why do they think that? Are they lead to believe it by the marketing and the hype?  Is it the fault of us as mentors that is making them think this?

There will always be some people who will succeed in business regardless of what it is.  I myself have run and sold a successful business and am now working with other opportunities like Your Net Biz.  Does that guarantee me success?

If you look at the top business men, most of them have some kind of failure in the past, I know some big names who have even gone bankrupt but have built themselves up again and are now multi-millionaires.

Is business success determined by how much money you earn? Or by how much time you have to spend with your family?

When I used to carry out my training I was often asked by people, why are you training them and giving away all your secrets, they will then become your competitors.  My answer was always simply that I believed that there was enough room in the market, that competition is healthy and more importantly, only a few will actually carry out what I have said to do.

The same principal applies with yournetbiz.  As your mentor I can’t guarantee that you will succeed but what I do strongly believe is that if you do carry out my suggestions together with having the right mindset you will succeed.

Is it really that simple?  Try it, I dare you to prove me wrong!

So, who said marketing was expensive?  Who said paid marketing was the best way?  Below are 50 of my favourite FREE methods to market my business.  I try and use them all and have had very successful results with each and every one of them.  Which methods will you use?  Don’t forget to let me know how you get on and which results work well for you.

1. Networking
2. www.youtube.com
3. www.viddler.com
4. www.facebook.com
5. www.ecademy.com
6. www.linkedn.com
7. www.trafficswarm.com
8. www.craigslist.org
9. Forums
10. http://www.bttradespace.com/
11. www.twitter.com
12. http://hubpages.com/
13. http://www.squidoo.com/
14. www.myspace.com
15. Ezines
16. www.bebo.com
17. http://www.ezinearticles.com/
18. www.wordpress.com
19. www.blogger.com
20. http://www.thearticledirectory.org/
21. www.digg.com
22. http://www.jumptags.com/
23. www.vivastreet.co.uk
24. www.ebay.com
25. http://www.usenet.org/
26. www.problogger.com
27. http://www.affiliateshowcase.com/
28. http://www.prweb.com/
29. http://www.prleap.com/
30. www.clickbank.com
31. http://www.trafficexchangelist.com/
32. http://www.hitvortex.com/
33. Postcards
34. Flyers
35. Back of Car Bumper
36. Testimonials
37. Article Submission Sites
38. Free Classified Ads
39. http://www.socialmarker.com/
40. http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/
41. http://www.weebly.com/
42. http://www.mybloglog.com/
43. www.ping.fm
44. www.businessscene.com
45. http://www.business-scene.com/
46. http://betternetworking.co.uk/
47. http://technorati.com/
48. www.gumtree.com
49. http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com/software/link-management-assistant/
50. Network with your family, friends, colleagues and wider circle

I hope the above tips help you.  There are many more free places to promote your business, but these are just a few to get you started!  It’s important to remember that effective marketing doesn’t always equal big budget.