At one time or another every blogger experiences some kind of block and wonders what they should be writing about. It is just the same with business blogs. The fear of not knowing what to say on a blog is in fact one of the most common laments I hear from business bloggers.

There are many places and situations from where business bloggers can find inspiration, but it often takes practice. As you become a more seasoned blogger with a number of posts and time behind you; you'll start to learn how to recognize topics and ideas. Sometimes when uninspired, the best place to start is, believe it or not, your calendar.

There are many days each and every year with events and holidays that bloggers can use as a jumping point to start writing their blog. We all know the popular days like Valentines Day, Mother's Day and New Year's Eve but there are so many fun and unusual events going on throughout the year that you can use to full your blog up with. The great thing about these kind of dates and events is that they are evergreen. Even though it is based on one season it comes around again and again giving you more opportunities for traffic over and over.

Here's an example: Did you know that February is International Expect Success Month or that the first Sunday of every August is Friendship Day? These are excellent topics with wide appeal. No matter what your market is, you can surely find something to tie these events into your business blog.

On International Expect Success Day, a school supplies store could blog about how to have a well rounded discussion with your child about the many faces of success, or ideas for teachers who want to use this day in their teachings. Any blogger can ask their readers to share their visions for success or to tell about past success.

Friendship Day, can benefit even the most unlikely blogs. For example, a handy man's business blog can talk about how some customers have become good personal friends. We know that happens a lot. It also shows your readers - potential customers and referrers, you are approachable, easy to work with and likeable. People do not hire those they do not like.

There are plenty of other local, international and even spiritual events. You can do a search on the internet and find many websites with event calendars or you can even gather the information and make one of your own. For an example, you could take this month and adopt it as your company's affiliate recognition month. There is no doubt you'll find many great events and ideas to fill your blog up all year long.

Lynette Chandler is passionate about helping small businesses market themselves with new media and technology based tools. She's also prepared calendar for you to jumpstart your blog. Grab yours at Blogging Starter Pack Blog

Getting your blog off the ground is not as tricky as people make it out to be. If you follow some really basic steps then it can be as eating a piece of pie. I have found a couple great blogs that have taught be something very unique and extremely rare. What I have learned will benefit any and every blogger out there. Read on to find out more.

If you talk to bloggers about how many readers they had from the word go most of them will say absolutely NONE. They will tell you that it takes weeks if not months to get a small, simple blog off the ground and get people reading, reviewing, and subscribing to your blog. How would you like it if I told you that you did not have to weeks promoting your blog? How would you like it if you didn't even have to spend days promoting your blog?

Well I am going to tell you how you can get hundreds if not a thousand visitors to your blog in its first week. There are a few things that you will have to do. The steps are really simple to follow and you can either do it in one big load in one day or you can spread it out spending no more than half an hour or so a day over the span of about a couple weeks for best results.

Content

Many bloggers will start out with one to five post on their first day and then post once a day or week. This is the first thing that they are doing wrong to get their blog off the ground. You ask all of the bloggers that have done this and they will tell you that it took a week to a month before they started to get readers.

Having five posts when your blog is started is not enough to get people to hang around and keep reading. You have to have enough posts pre-written so by the time your blog goes live you can post them all one after another. This will allow a visitor to be able to have a look around at what your writing and the more they read the higher the chance that they will subscribe or come back for more.

To get returning visitors from the start you have to have ATLEAST 20-30 post pre-written and ready to post as soon as your blog goes live. If you have 20-30 quality posts ready to go you can be assured that your visitors will stick around and read.

Tagging

While researching blogs and blog promotion I came across something called Technorati Tagging. I had never seen this before and I didn't have a clue what they did so I looked into it further. I found out that Technorati Tags are actually able to deliver mass amounts of traffic. They way it works is as your writing your post when you come across a word that could categorize your post you add [tag] and close the word with a [/tag) (change the ) with a ]) around it. This will 'tag' that word and once your blog is pinged to Technorati your blog will be placed under the category of that word. When someone searches a word that you have tagged your blog will show up.

Social Bookmarking

You will definitely see results by social bookmarking. It is very simple and all it requires is a little time. All you simply have to do is notify them of your post :O that sounds so hard. I managed to find a great list of the best social bookmarking sites. Take your pick of these top 20. They are all great and will improve your search engine results greatly.

1. 30daytags
2. BlinkBits
3. BlogHop
4. BlogLot
5. BlogMarks
6. BlogMemes
7. BlogPulse
8. BmAccess
9. browsr
10. Fark
11. CiteULike
12. clipclip
13. clipmarks
14. Complore
15. Connectedy
16. Connotea
17. de.lirio.us
18. del.icio.us
19. digg
20. diigo

Tell Other Bloggers

If you are after highly targeted traffic then this is a MUST. Before your blog goes live search through Google and other search engines for blog that are highly ranked on the topic you are writing on.

Create some personalised emails for each of the blogs you find (I recommend around 30-40 as you should recieve 75% positive results). Do not email the bloggers until you have made your initial posts.

By notifying other bloggers about your blog you will get the 'word' out and you should recieve some good traffic and links from these other blogs.

You’re Done!!

If you do all this correctly then not to long after you made our first post you should be receiving some quality views. This has to be the easiest web promotion for your blog ever. You will be receiving many return readers if you have followed these steps because the traffic is so targeted. If you wish to read more on this topic just head over to http://www.splur.net as we will be adding this full article to it soon.

At www.splur.net we provide you with a great free directory to submit your links to and a complete section will soon be added with all the traffic generation tips and tricks you need!!


Article Source: http://greatarticlesformoms.com

It happens so often it's almost like clockwork. Business blogs are started with high hopes and then disillusion sets in when the results aren't what they hoped for. A lot of it has to do with these simple but common mistakes.

Not Asking For Comments

Bloggers always agonize over the lack of comments. But the problem is not that people don't read the blog or don't want to comment but the blogger hasn't given the opportunity for readers to comment. Just like asking for people to order a product, you've got to coax people to spend their 3 or 4 precious minutes to comment on your blog. Ask for opinions. People love giving it. Ask for reader's experiences, input or help to accomplish something. Ask people to suggest something to you e.g. You're getting incorporated, ask people for suggestions, tips and recommendations. Asking also tells people you're open to suggestions and alternative views, further improving the image people may have of you.

Not Hosting On Their Own Domain

Give thought into your blog. Don't just jump on the bandwagon. You need to figure out where it's taking you before you hop on for the ride. Like any web site you may build, think of your blog as a long term marketing communication channel. A Blogspot or Typepad URL is not only unprofessional, you don't own it. Nothing against these blogging services; they're excellent tools but for long term marketing purposes, go for your own domain.

This way you control where you want to publish the blog to. Tomorrow, if you outgrow these services, you can easily export your blog to another tool, another host without losing too much established traffic. A domain is also easier for people to remember and easier for you to publicize.

Not Maximizing Their Blog Content

Many businesses quit blogging because they feel it's too much work. True, like everything else, you gotta work on a blog but you don't have to break your back over it. Sometimes you may have a paragraph here and there about a topic that just isn't big enough for an article. You know what? You're going to have many more of these impromptu thoughts and ideas – publish it to your blog. Later, you can come back and gather these paragraphs, compile them into a complete article or even a book.

That's only one way of maximizing your work. Have you written articles in the past? How about e-courses, audio transcripts or books that aren't in publication anymore? Recycle. Break them up and post them on your blog. In fact, if you have lot's of this type of content, you can even get your assistant to post them for you.

Publishing Too Often

I know what you're thinking. This sounds like complete the opposite of everything you've ever learnt about blogging. Truth is, the blogging world changes. What works yesterday may not today. This is one of them. There are countless blogs already jostling with you for your reader's time. More are being started by the day.

Who has the time to read so many blogs? It's come to a point people are forced to cherry pick the blogs they read. Even when they do read yours, you're not safe yet. If they can't keep up with your blogging pace, they'll drop you no matter how good your information is. Keep a balance. Feed information to your readers not dump a truckload on them. Every market is different. Some can tolerate higher number of posts a week, some can't. You should know your market and test accordingly.

Falling For Short Term Methods

Ah, this is my favorite. If you can have a favorite pet peeve that is. Every week, you hear about people dishing out the newest, coolest blogging tactic, best blogging tool that's sure to sky rocket your business to success or bull doze your way to the top search engine listings. Consider how any offer will help you advance your business two, five or tens years from now. Is it really in line with your marketing direction? If it isn't drop it. It also helps a lot if you can have a reliable source whom you can consult and help put things into perspective for you. One of the most powerful qualities of a blog has nothing to do with search engines, tagging or pinging. These things do have a place, but they aren't as powerful as the relationship opportunities between you and your customers.

Although these mistakes are common, they are also very easily rectified and don't cost much money. All of these suggestions are born out of my own trial and error and they've worked out nicely. Try it yourself.


Affectionately nicknamed Tech Diva by her peers, Lynette Chandler regularly dispenses blogging and RSS help to countless business owners. Visit www.BloggingStarterPack.com to learn more about blogging and get a copy of her video free.

If you would like to set up your own blog, just follow these quick and easy steps to get started. You’ll be blogging in a matter of minutes!

There are a variety of options for setting up your first blog, but I am only going to mention two of them here. These are the two fastest and easiest ways to get started blogging, and they are also the two best ways. One of them is even better than the other…

The first option is Blogger.com. I consider it second best. It is free to set up a blog there, and fairly easy to use. You can set up an account, choose a template, and begin blogging.

The second option, and the one I use myself and recommend to others, is WordPress. There are other options out there, but WordPress is free and widely supported.

If you already have a web hosting account, check with them first. Most of them offer WordPress as a free add-on within their hosting accounts, and it is a simple one-click install.

If you don’t have a hosting account, or if you wont be using the same hosting account for your new blog, I would recommend that you open an account with HostGator. For only $9.95 you can get an account that lets you set up an unlimited number of sites, blogs or domain names. So if you choose to set up additional blogs or websites in the future, it wont cost you any extra.

Most people who start out on Blogger.com, and decide that they want to move up in the blogging world, end up switching over to WordPress. This is the reason that I recommend you just go ahead and start out on WordPress. That way you won’t have to worry about starting over, or convincing readers to subscribe to your new blog when you make the switch.

But if you do start out on Blogger.com, I would recommend that you get your own domain name. Your domain name will be the www.myblogname.com. If you don’t register a domain name, your address will be http://myblogname.blogspot.com . If you choose to make changes later, you will lose any PageRank and incoming links that you have worked hard to build. So it makes sense to start out with your own domain name.

You can register a domain name for only $8.95 at Godaddy.com.

Here is your quick checklist for starting a blog:

- Pick a topic for your blog
- Register a domain name for your blog
- Check with your current host, or set up a hosting account
- Use the one-click install within your control panel
- Start blogging!

Once you set up your blog and begin blogging, you will want to explore all of the options that are available. There are many themes or templates that you can use for free, customizations that you may want to do, and of course techniques to promote your blog.

But first you have to get started... so go ahead and follow these easy steps and set up your new blog today!

Best,
Lynn Terry

Lynn Terry blogs daily at ClickNewz.com where she shares Online Business and Marketing tips. For even more tips on this topic, see her article on Blogger vs WordPress at www.clicknewz.com/782/blogger-vs-wordpress/
Article Source: http://greatarticlesformoms.com