Business Blogging Is Not About You

One of my blog readers once posted the following comment on an article:
"Thank you for opening my eyes on the power of blogging. Before reading your article I had a negative point of view on blogs. In my opinion it was a loud statement saying 'I need attention, does anyone care?'
I learned as I was growing up to be as secret as possible, since it gives less opportunities for people to find your weak spots and make a fool of you. It's a way of thinking that I have been trying to get out of for a while now. And now that I am building a business I realize that I need to let people know me in more than one way. What a shift!..."
This perception is understandable given the flood of "me-centric" blogs in existence. Writing about yourself and your family is fine for private blogs, when the purpose is to stay connected with family and friends.
But for professional bloggers, business owners, and marketers, focusing your blog on you, your company, and/or your product breaks the most cardinal rule of the new marketing model.
Rule number one for professional bloggers is that it's not about you -- it's about your readers.
Interrupt advertising - the old method - used TV, magazine, radio, and newspaper ads and other media to shove products and companies in your face. It had one goal: to generate revenues to the company.
What Has Changed?
The new model of permission marketing isn't about you. It isn't about your company. It isn't about your product.
It's about your customers. It's about fulfilling their desires. It's about creating value for them on their terms. Your customers are in the driver's seat; you simply provide the mode of transportation, meaning the products and services that they want.
The nature of the media has changed. Media consumers aren't forced to listen to you anymore. TV viewers have TiVo. Radio listeners have iPods. Website users don't have to sit through commercials - if they don't find what they want immediately, they're gone.
How To Succeed In the New Model
The only way to succeed under the new rules is to create value for people on their terms. If you're a real estate agent, you can't blog about how great you are; you've got to provide content that your readers care about. Talk about changing real estate laws. Give them tips and advice for staging their home and maximizing their returns.
If you're a financial advisor, don't try to convince readers to use you. Give them massive amounts of free, relevant content. Establish your value in their minds.
All of your blogging must be directed towards your readers - solving their problems, fulfilling their desires, alleviating their fears.
A professional blog isn't your platform to shout to the world how great you are. It's a living room where you host and serve guests and focus your attention solely on them.

How to Use Internet Marketing in Your Real Estate Campaign

There are all kinds of ways to promote your real estate campaigns. Most will create flyers and do open houses. Almost all homes for sale will have a big sign in the front yard. But times are changing in real estate. Old ways of doing marketing are still going to be used such as running classified ads in the paper and maybe even doing direct mail to the surrounding houses to see if someone in the neighborhood is interested. But we are now in the information age and you would be doing yourself a disservice if you are not marketing on the internet.
You can ignore it if you want but people are starting their searches for homes online. If you are not getting your inventory into the right locations online then you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. Are you using social media tools to get your information out there? Its all a part of internet marketing. Mobile devices are adding another drop into the bucket of ways to connect with prospects.
Just imagine someone searching for their new home or condo with the latest iphone or smartphone. You might generate leads about your properties by having a website or blog with informative articles that you have created. Over time you create an email newsletter that lets your prospects know what is available in their price range. You are not spending your time driving prospects around to houses. They get to eliminate a lot of homes that don't work for them without you spending your whole day driving around from city to city wasting gas and your time. They can see what they like and what they don't like. Providing you with the helpful information that can let you zero in on the kind of property that will work for them.
Using the internet means that you are going to have to spend time learning new software and new applications. It means changing to your business mentality. You are going to have to make a shift to doing business a little bit differently. The internet is opening the door to new opportunities. Spend the time to learn how to use the newer tools for online marketing and how you can adapt them to your real estate business. That means learning new search engine optimization strategies to help the search engines find your websites and pages. It means taking internet marketing courses that can explain and clear up any questions you have about what it takes to get web traffic online.

Internet Marketing Advantages - Simple Truths Behind The Hype

If you are looking to create a new income for yourself that will see you rapidly exit the rat race and give you the freedom to work as and when you want to and from wherever you wish to whilst earning a very decent income, then internet marketing is a definite way forward.
Internet marketing advantages are numerous, but one of the main things that many online entrepreneurs state as being the reason they got into the business is the time freedom and flexibility that such a business can provide. You make your own hours to run your business, if you wish to work from 6 am - 9am and have the rest of the day to yourself that is your choice. As long as there is an internet connection, you will be able to work. Want to do a couple of hours whilst on a short getaway break with the family, it's all possible as long as there is a connection to the net.
As the business owner you have complete control and you will decide the outcome of your business. If you are just starting out and learning the ropes, you can take time and learn them effectively without having to answer to anyone or make a loan payment on your premises. By taking time to effectively learn your craft you are putting in the foundations of a very solid business that will allow you to market and sell anything you can think of on the internet. This is truly one of the main internet marketing advantages.
Taking this concept a step further and putting it in financial terms to you the would be internet entrepreneur, once you learn to market online you are not limited to selling one line of products to one type of customer. For example you may decide that your main business is to sell information products to people interested in fishing, you can bet the same marketing methods used to be successful In the fishing niche will work in areas such as golf or karate.
Another of the internet marketing advantages that is seldom talked about is that you have the ability once you have learnt how to market online to go and show other businesses that are offline how to market their products and services online, in effect setting up as a consultant, you can command large sums of money for work such as this and often for very little effort. Small offline businesses are crying out to be shown how to market online and will gladly pay you to do so.
To learn the secrets of internet marketing and how shockingly simple it is to earn a substantial income online be sure to check out the link below.

Get PAID to Blog: WARNING! Do NOT Start a Blog for Money WITHOUT Doing "THIS" First!

Are you thinking about starting a blog for money? Does the idea of parlaying your "prose" into PROFIT sound amazingly exciting, inspiring and and IDEAL way to make a full time living... without having to leave your house?
What if I were to tell you that 99% of blog will NEVER make more than $100... EVER? (and most won't even make that)
Or that EVEN if you are a really good writer, the chances of making real money don't go up that much either?
Or that no matter how excited you are right now, there are more than 10,000 blogs ABANDONED every month... that start out with similar enthusiasm but simply end up in the proverbial trash can of good ideas that go nowhere?
As a professional blog marketer and content creator with MILLIONS of readers in more niches than I can count, I'm going to give you 3 SPECIFIC things you MUST do to build a successful blog that makes real money... and are very easy as well.
1 - You need OFFSITE content to start. Article directory submissions (like this article you are reading right now), press releases, and other techniques you use to drive traffic from existing authority sites either in your own niche, or simply from around the web are a GREAT way to jump start your readership
2 - Focus on content that creates COMMUNITY. Believe it or not, my BEST performing blogs are community blogs, where my readership does MORE than 50% of the content creation for me. It's a special template or blog theme that facilitates engagement, interaction and participation... and it's the most POWERFUL way i've discovered to rapidly build rapport, relationship and skin the deal synchronicity between yourself and your readership (and is the FASTEST way to get lots of "Google" love as well)
3 - Lastly, ALWAYS build a traditional direct response mailing list, that allows you to "mail" your subscribers. Some bloggers think of this as aggressive or intrusive, but if you use an autoresponsder ethically and to engage and entertain your list, you will have a growing asset, a growing blog, and a BRAND and bank account to match, I promise!

Using a Blog to Market Your Website

Browse to virtually any website these days and you'll see a few common items: a Homepage welcoming you to the site and providing general info on what's contained therein, an About Us page and a Contact Us page, perhaps a page detailing a company's Products or Services and a Store or Checkout Counter, and if you're lucky, a Site Map.
In website building, these are considered the primary landing pages of a basic website. But they are no longer the end-all and be-all of a successful, marketable site. And any website builder who considers their free website complete after publishing these pages is sorely mistaken and most likely destined to fade into the over-saturated shadows of online obscurity.
The problem with stopping your website building efforts after completing these fundamental, and unarguably essential, web pages is that they are also static pages, which means they rarely change.
But in order to get the attention of Google, Yahoo, Bing and all the traffic they deliver, you need to constantly be providing a fresh supply of dynamic content, that is new web content that adds value to your website on a regular, consistent basis. As many website builders have found out in recent years, there is no better way to do this on a free website than with a blog.
A blog is like an online newsfeed of short, relevant items posted in list form on a single web page in reverse chronological order, meaning the most recent information appears at the top. Providing visitors to your free website with an active blog, meaning one that is regularly maintained and updated, makes your website, and therefore your brand, a continuous, valued presence in your readers' lives.
By constructing your blog postings around your targeted keywords, it also ensures you of continually increasing your relevance in search engine results, sending you climbing ever-higher in their rankings. This is why utilizing a website builder that includes blog-making capabilities is imperative to your online success.

Why You Need To Focus Your Internet Marketing On Aspects That Are Scalable

A lot of people who get into Internet marketing are so concerned with making money now that many of them fail to focus on scalable aspects. They fail to focus on scalable aspects because they have bought into a lot of the hype they have heard about how easy it is to make money on the Internet. I'm going to kill those false notions and give you some reasons why focusing on scalability is so important.
The first reason you need to focus your Internet marketing on aspects that are scalable would be because if you don't create a business that is scalable you're going to be limited in the amount of money you can make. Being limited to the amount of money you can make is very similar to owning a regular brick and mortar business. There is only a certain amount of hours you can be open, but the Internet transcends this.
The second reason why you need to focus your Internet marketing on aspects that are scalable is because if your business isn't scalable chances are you will have to continue investing a lot of time into it. Anyone who is serious about Internet marketing has an ultimate goal of making a lot of money while putting in very little work. But this usually pertains to getting others to do the work or investing money. A business that is unscalable will not have either one of these advantages.
The last reason why you need to focus your Internet marketing on aspects that are scalable is so that ultimately you can focus on building other businesses while other people do the work for you. When other people are doing the work for you then you are making money off of their individual efforts and not investing your own time, which of course will limit the amount of money you are able to earn.
I understand that some people only have a goal of making so much money when it comes to Internet marketing, while others are shooting for the moon. But in any regard being able to have scalability is important and for many reasons. After reading this article you should understand that scalability gives you the power to increase your income as much as you want, along with being able to save you time in the future but make you more money as well.
You'll also be able to build other businesses as a result of the time you're able to save as your business grows and you're able to pay others to do some of the work for you. This should be the ultimate goal of any business, having other people working to build your wealth.

The Best Blogging Platform: Blogspot Vs WordPress

The best blogging platform for you to choose to use will be the one that you are most comfortable using and the one that best suits the purpose of your blog. There are other blogging systems available through social media sites that not a lot of people are making the best advantage of often because they aren't aware that they can be used for any number of purposes, if the site suits the topic of your blog. The most common blogging platforms people chose to use today though are either Blogspot or WordPress.
Advantages of WordPress:
The advantages offered by the WordPress blogging platform are far too many to be fully discussed in this short article. I shall only mention a couple of my favourite reasons here why I enjoy (nay love) WordPress.
First and foremost, it's so easy to use. When you first approach learning how to use it, it may seem bewildering. I have been using XSitePro for years and felt daunted by WordPress until I actually stopped watching all the videos available on line showing me how to use it and started actually using it. The lessons I learnt from this is that once you start the 'doing' and it isn't new anymore, then it stops being scary.
Like everything else in life, new things need to be learnt first and once you've learnt them, they become part and parcel of your life and easy to do. The other advantage to WordPress is the number of free training videos online dealing with everything you need to know, and a heck of a lot that is handy to know.
WordPress is "alive". It is an ever expanding and growing system of managing content and putting it online. It is designed for people who haven't been to University and studied computer programming for four years. The number of widgets now available for easy insertion into a blog number in their Thousands. The thing that most new Wordpress bloggers next need to know is which widgets to use for what. And you guessed it~ there are free videos to show you what they do and how to use them.
WordPress comes in a free hosting form available through WordPress themselves or you can download the programme onto your own domain site and use the programme from there.
The Advantages of Blogspot:
Blogspot as a blogging platform has its place in the blosphere too. It is a darn good way to start blogging and because it is hosted by Google, there are no other hosting costs involved. It is perhaps even easier to use than WordPress initially but doesn't have anywhere near the capabilities of WordPress. Still, if you are just starting to blog, Blogspot is probably the easiest place to start. If you are just looking for an online diary, then Blogspot will serve you well.
One other advantage that I believe Blogspot has is that it seems to get indexed faster than the WordPress blog hosted on WordPress.
The shared advantage of WordPress and Blogspot is that they are both free. In this day and age, that alone has to be a huge plus when starting a blog.