This is a great article for beginners to find out something about how to promote and monetize there blogs.
Blog Marketing- what you should know
Blog marketing is just what it says. It is a method of marketing or selling by means of blogs. Blogs are a simple and easy way to establish a presence on the Internet. They can be used to bring your business or product to the many millions of searchers on the Internet. But what exactly are blogs?
Blog is a derivative of the term Weblog. They started out as personal entries or diaries on the web, and soon were adopted and adapted by business to reach more market, hence the term blog marketing.
Blogs have an obvious advantage over traditional websites. Whereas it may take days, weeks and even months sometimes for websites to be listed on major search engines, blogs usually take hours or even less. This is because of the ever updating nature of a blog. Search engines love fresh content and blogs have established a reputation for providing fresh contents.
Before deciding to blog on any topic or niche for money, there are certain things that you must consider.
1. You must determine if there is enough traffic for your chosen niche or market
2. I your niche willing and able to pay for your services and or products, i.e how hungry is the niche?
3. How stiff is the competition?
4. How technically challenged are you?
5. How do you monetize your blog
Determine demand for your niche product or service
This is really simple and there a many free and paid service to help you do just that. My favorite free service for this is the Google Keyword Tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Another free tool is the Yahoo Search Marketing Keyword Tool at https://secure.overture.com/s/dtc/center/?mkt=us
Once there, type in your keyword in the keyword search box and hit enter and Google will return to you the number of searches on your keyword and related terms for the previous month. The higher the number of searches, the better. That however will depend on your competition.
How Stiff is your competition?
To find out, take the same keyword and open up a Google search window. Type in the keyword/phrase in quotes and hit enter. Google will return the number of competing pages or sites on the net for your keyword phrase. The lower the better.
How do you know that people are willing to pay for your product/service
You can find out by visiting forums that are related to your niche and looking at the questions people are asking. You can register at the same forums and ask questions to determine if people are willing and able to pay for your product.
How do you monetize your blog
There are several ways to do this. One is through Google Adsense which you can sign up for at http://www.google.com/adsense. It is easier to get approved if you have a blog or website up and running before applying for adsense account.
The other method is through affiliate marketing. As an affiliate marketer, you do not own your own product but you are selling or promoting somebody else's product in exchange for a cut in the profit. Some places to sign up for affiliate products are at Commission Junction at www.cj.com or Linkshare at www.linkshare.com
Which blog platform to use for publishing your blog.
There are two different blog platforms out there- Self-Hosted and Hosted by the blog service. Hosted by the blog service is where you simply visit the blog service, sign up for an account and begin to create your blog. This usually is the best option for beginners and those who are technically challenged. A good place to start is at www.Blogger.com.
Now that you have your blog up and running, what is next?
Promote your blog. Share your blog url with friends and family, update your content regularly and be sure to ping or notify the blog directories when you make a post. This brings the search engine robot to your blog and increases your chance of ranking high on the engines. Make meaningful posts at forums and other blogs and leave your blog url in your comment box to generate backlinks for your blog.
This is a time consuming exercise, the good news though is that there are special operations software that make this a breeze. For further information on that, see the resource box.
Austin Akalanze is a seasoned Internet Marketer and a prolific writer. His articles have been published in several directories all across the net. He is webmaster at Akanett Web Publishing