Blogging for Fun and Profit

A blog is an online version of diary where people write and display almost anything - their opinions, photos, jokes, thoughts for the day and more. People also share stories about their pets, their passion for soccer, stamps... the limit is only your imagination!

In the last few years, blogging has emerged to become a much more meaningful activity than simply maintaining a personal diary. People use it to advertise their products and services, in fact, quite a number of companies even create their online presence by using a blog instead of a website.

Create Your Own Blog

Starting a blog is free. You can create one at http://www.blogger.com - a free service from Google Inc. You don't need to register a domain name or buy hosting. When you sign up at Blogger, everything happens online. Your blog will be hosted by Blogger and you get an URL like http://yourdomain.blogspot.com. You simply log in to your account and start to write. This is much easier and cheaper than buying your own domain and hosting, then hiring someone to do the web design, writing and coding.

Another free blogging service available online is WordPress which is also very popular and easy to use. WordPress supports more features than Blogger while allowing you to customize your blog with various plug-in. You can check it out at http://wordpress.org.

Monetize Your Blog

While blogging for your own interest, you can in fact maximize the potential of your blog for many marketing or commercial purposes.

The quickest and easiest way to turn a blog into a money-making enterprise is to include advertising on your blog. This can be done with contextual ad programs like Adsense - an advertising program by Google. Basically, you get paid when people click on the ads displayed on your website or blog. Google Adsense program is free to sign up. You can visit http://www.google.com/adsense to learn more about the rules and guidelines of the program. Other Adsense type ads that you can use for blog monetizing are SearchFeed, AdBrite, and Yahoo's Publisher's Network (YPN).

Affiliate program is another potential way to make money blogging. By focusing on the subject of your blog post, you can promote relevant products from cost per sale affiliate programs like ClickBank and Amazon. You can write a review about the product or service with your affiliate links embedded inside so you get the commission whenever a sale is made.

Boost Your Blog Traffic

Blogs are quickly indexed by search engines, but you need to update it regularly. Search engines love fresh content and regular update will ensure that your website is indexed and ranked high up as well. The higher up it appears, the more traffic will come to your site, which means more sales. You can actively participate in forums discussion or post comments on other blogs to get more link back traffic.

Whether you use your blog for fun or for work, remember that it's a highly potential tool any which way. So what are you waiting for? Start blogging away right now!

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About Lewis Low

Lewis Low is the founding editor of OnlineBizPromo.com. For more Practical Online Business Ideas and Work-From-Home Opportunities, visit his Work-At-Home directory at http://www.OnlineBizPromo.com


And here is another random article you might be interested in...

Dramatically Increase Sales with The KISS Test

We've all heard the term KISS at one time or another - "Keep It Simple, Stupid." However, the majority of salespeople violate this basic principle more often than not.

Let me start with some examples of what I'm talking about. At one position I held, I sat next to someone who could have been a top salesperson. He and I both operated much the same in that rather than cold call, we ran our own personal marketing programs to generate leads and simply took the calls that came in as a result. The problem is what he did with the calls. When someone called me, ready to buy, I immediately went into closing the deal and making arrangements to either come out with the paperwork or to fax it over. He, on the other hand, went into a full-length company story and a lot of other information that he absolutely should not tell a qualified prospect unless they ask for it. The end result is that people who called ready to sign up for one of our services lost interest and didn't buy anything at all.

Another example is what happens every time I try to make a business purchase. Here I am, saying "Yes, I'm going to buy," and the sales rep lauches into a company story about how long they've been in business, who their big clients are, and on and on. Lucky for these salespeople, the product usually sells itself and I still buy. However, I'm willing to bet that a lot of people don't. Nothing is more frustrating than picking up the phone saying, "Hi, here I am ready to buy," and having some rep go into a story bragging about how great the company is and all that they can do. That comes off as pure arrogance to a business owner. What's more, talking about your big enterprise clients alienates most small business owners. They assume their needs will be placed second to those of the big dogs and that they'll be treated as just a number when calling for service.

I think most training is at the root of this massive problem. Every course I've taken has gone through the steps of a sale. The problem is, what if all the steps don't take place? Consider "objection handling." When I was working for that company I mentioned earlier, many of my prospects had no objections because my marketing pieces took care of them in advance. By assuming that each of these steps are going to take place, a lot of salespeople will cause something to happen when it really shouldn't have to begin with. If a prospect doesn't come up with any major objections, don't give them a reason to!

I've seen a lot of managers require their reps to fill out a "lead sheet" that documents each step of the sale. This assumes that each of the steps will happen when they may not. If you're required to maintain these types of records, skip anything that doesn't happen naturally. Don't induce a prospect to enter a selling phase that may not only be unnecessary, but may cause you to lose the sale entirely.

Use the KISS test when you're selling. Always ask yourself if what you're doing is actually necessary. Believe me, you'll save yourself a lot of wasted time and lost sales by doing so. I did.

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About Frank J. Rumbauskas, Jr.

Frank Rumbauskas is the author of Cold Calling Is a Waste of Time: Sales Success in the Information Age. He is the founder of FJR Advisors LLC, which publishes training materials on generating business without cold calling. For more information, please visit http://www.nevercoldcall.com.