Blogger Babes Teach You How to Blog for Profit

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Plenty of small businesses use blogging as a way to promote services or build a community around their brand. But blogging can actually be a business in and of itself.

More and more individuals are beginning to take advantage of all the different opportunities out there to monetize blogging.

From gaining paid sponsorship or working with brands on promotional campaigns to developing digital products or e-books, the possibilities for bloggers are plentiful. But in order to build a blog from a hobby into a business, it helps to have a community of like-minded people behind you. Blogger Babes is one of those communities.

Heidi Nazarudin and Ponn Sabra started Blogger Babes in an effort to share resources with other female bloggers.

The network is aimed specifically at female bloggers who focus on lifestyle categories like fashion, beauty, food, travel and DIY. With this niche, the group is able to offer resources that are likely to be actually relevant to members of the community.

Sabra said in an email to Small Business Trends, “While there are hundreds of blogger networks out there, the vast majority of them offer brand-to-blogger paid review campaigns, networking events, and virtual and live conferences. And, they all perform these tasks extremely well.”

“However, no one offers ongoing e-books, kindle e-books, do-it-yourself e-courses, and blogger-specific educational materials written for women bloggers by women bloggers. Heidi and I saw this void in our market and decided to fill it.”

Before starting Blogger Babes, Nazarudin was the CEO of a tech company and Sabra was an author, publisher, and public health official. But both enjoyed running their own blogs and wanted to be able to make a living doing that instead.

“Heidi and I are fortunate to make our own schedules, travel the world, and live our lives on our own terms, because we built our blogs into a business that affords this lifestyle,” Sabra said in her email. “And, we believe if someone is interested enough to start a blog, then she, most likely, is searching for this flexible lifestyle too—which we warmly call the ‘blogger lifestyle’.”

Of course, there are plenty of bloggers that run perfectly acceptable blogs as hobbies. However, as Sabra points out, once bloggers are able to make some money blogging, they’re often able to spend more time improving their blogs. And that often leads to higher quality content.

Sabra said in the email, “Once a blogger consciously and actively decides to explore the opportunities to make money from her efforts blogging, only then will she enter the mindset of a pro blogger. This is the mindset Heidi and I teach, promote and advocate to all our members.”

The platform is free to join. That free membership includes a weekly newsletter full of upcoming events and blogger campaign opportunities, as well as a listing in Blogger Babes’s Member Directory, which brands can browse to find bloggers to work with on their promotional campaigns.

There are also paid subscriptions, which include things like eKits, which offer further information and training related to the site’s monthly blogging topics. And then there’s the Ultimate Blogging Binder, a free digital resource guide for Blogger Babes looking to learn more about building a business around their blogs.

http://smallbiztrends.com/2015/06/blogger-babes-blog-for-profit.html

6 key lessons I’ve learned about blogging

Jennifer Snyder  shares with us her "journey " blogging …..

Seven months ago, I took a leap of faith. A scary risk that I felt I needed to do. I decided to shut down my consistent stream of income creating real estate marketing tools. I decided to turn my complete focus to starting a real estate marketing blog.

I had burned out on creating the tools and just wasn’t enjoying it anymore. What I loved doing was talking about real estate marketing. I loved researching new ideas that would help agents in their business.

I have kept a list over the years of ideas I wanted to write about, but I couldn’t ever find time to do it. Then one day, I just had to write. I was ready and excited to learn about content marketing and about blogging. So I began to write. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has been rewarding.

Here are six lessons that I have learned from blogging over the past seven months and takeaways that you can implement in your real estate business.

1. Consistency is key.

When I started blogging, I set a goal to blog every day for three months. This task would accomplish three things. First, I would build a blog catalog that had a lot of good content. Second, by committing to doing this every day for three months, I would know if I liked to blog. Finally, I would create a routine for myself where writing became something I did every day.

Around the end of the first month, I was going crazy. I found out that I loved writing, but posting every day was burning me out. I was also putting out mediocre content, and that was unacceptable to me. Then I came across a post by Jon Morrow, one of the blogging masters. He wrote that the worst thing any good blogger could do was post every day.

That was music to my tired ears. By posting every day, I was doing my blog and my readers a disservice. I was pushing my good content to the bottom. People were seeing only my mediocre content — not good.

I looked at my analytics and saw that my highest-traffic days were Monday and Thursday. Starting in January, I committed to that schedule, and my blog traffic grew like crazy. I found that my writing was better, and I got rid of the blogging burnout.

Takeaway: It’s not how often you create content, it is the consistency that counts. People will respond to your marketing when you consistently show up for them.

2. Good writing matters.

Someone once said to me that because I blog so much, a post must only take me an hour or two to complete. Ha! I wish.

The blogging experts say that a great blog post takes three to four hours to write. They also say it should be at least 1,500 words. I think that is true. Sure, I could write a blog post in an hour, but I know it would be garbage. The Internet is full of garbage, and I refuse to contribute to it. If I am going to put something out there for everyone to see and judge, it has to be great. My readers deserve it.

My writing process looks like this:

1. Brainstorm
2. Research
3. Write
4. Edit twice
5. Read out loud
6. Edit again
7. Find images
8. Publish

It is an intense process, but it is one that has not failed me in the past seven months. I know that if I follow this process, my writing is clear and focused. I also know that when I follow this process, I publish my best work.

Takeaway: Anyone can write a blog, but if you want to be successful, you must write excellent content. Don’t just whip something up in an hour and think it works. Follow a writing process to put your best foot forward. This quality of work is how you gain loyal followers. It’s also a good rule for all your real estate marketing pieces.

3. Be yourself.

When you blog, you have to be more than just yourself. You have to be authentic, and you have to show moments of vulnerability.

Why? Being you is how people connect with your content. This connection is what makes people cheer for you and join your tribe.

For example, I write about marketing ideas for agents. Those posts draw people into my blog. The posts that get them to stick around and engage with me are those where I am most vulnerable. Posts where I document my wins and failures for the month or mistakes that I have made. Those are my most-read and commented-on posts. The Internet is full of the perfect-looking posts on blogs and social media. People like to see the ups and downs that we all experience.

Takeaway: Blogging isn’t just about numbers, beautiful pictures and fun updates. An authentic blogger writes about the wins and losses, not just the good times. The more real you are, the more of a following you will have. Make sure you incorporate you into all the marketing that you do. That is how to create successful marketing campaigns.

4. Exposure is critical.

There is one sound you hear when you first start blogging: crickets. You throw up a few posts, share them on social media and maybe get 10-15 visitors a day. It is painful. Right away, you wonder if this is worth it and if you are going to gain any traction.

The one thing you can’t do is write and write without getting exposure for your blog. You will put all this great content out there and get frustrated because no one is reading it. You will get down and then quit because you don’t see the point. Don’t do that.

You must get exposure for your blog if you want it to grow. How do you do that? Look for opportunities to guest post on popular blogs in your area. Make sure your sphere of influence and clients know about your blog. Create ads on social media for your popular posts. Do everything you can to gain exposure for your blog.

Takeaway: If you make blogging part of your marketing strategy, you must have a plan for it. You can’t throw up a few posts and hope that they will go viral. Like any marketing strategy, you must work to promote it.

5. Targeted landing pages are a must.

If I could go back and do one thing over when I started my blog, it would be to create landing pages. I regret not doing that right away, and I know I missed out on a lot of leads. Without landing pages, I was showing the best of my blog and hoping that people would come back for more. But people are busy and will forget about you unless you give them a reason not to.

The first step to get them to come back is to have a landing page on your blog and get their email address. Landing pages are critical in converting website visitors into loyal followers. Give them something of value on the landing page, and they will reward you with their coveted email address.

Takeaway: Yes, a good landing page is a lead generating machine. More importantly, it is an opportunity to build a loyal following. Create landing pages for your blog so that you can convert your website visitors. Work hard to convert those visitors into loyal email subscribers.

6. Email list is bread and butter.

I wrote a post on Inman about why email marketing beats social media. Boy, has that been proven to me over and over during the past seven months. My email subscribers are the most loyal, kind people, and I am grateful for them. They show up for me in a big way when I ask them to.

For example, when I did my first webinar on landing pages I had more than 100 registrations. All but four people came from my email list. I was blown away.

When I send out an email letting them know there is a new blog post, 45 percent open and read the post. When I share my new post on social media, the numbers are around 10 percent for reading my post. This data shows me that email subscribers are more connected to me than my social media followers.

Takeaway: Yes, social media is hot and an essential part of any marketing strategy. But email marketing is still king when it comes to connecting with your prospects and clients. Building an email list is critical to stay in front of your database.

The journey of blogging has been scary, fun and rewarding. If you have ever considered starting a blog, I recommend that you do. It has been worth it to me both professionally and personally to take that leap.

In part two, I will share six more things that I have learned over the past seven months — including a battle I am still trying to win.

http://www.inman.com/2015/05/18/6-key-lessons-ive-learned-about-blogging/

How To Chose Amazing Images And Create Stunning Visual Content

It’s often said that to achieve success in content marketing, brands should “act like a publisher.” But how do publishers act? What should brands specifically be emulating? For our second installment of our “Ask an Editor” series, I sat down with Vicky Wasik, Visual Editor at Serious Eats, to learn how to create a beautiful and compelling content hub.

Wasik is a Brooklyn-based photographer specializing in food, events, portraits, and travel photography. Her photographs have been featured in print and online by publications including Conde Nast Traveler, The Huffington Post, Edible Brooklyn, Edible Manhattan, New Orleans Magazine, The Village Voice, and The New York Times. She also has worked with brands such as Whole Foods, Oreo, Walmart, Plated, Chivas Regal, and Barilla.

What websites do you look to for design inspiration?

Vicky Wasik: Lucky Peach uses some really interesting graphics and illustrations for their features (this Chinese dumpling guide is one of my favorites). I think Bloomberg has some really strong photography that blurs the line between editorial and photojournalism: this Iceland feature is so cool. The images are huge and beautiful, and it feels like you’re scrolling through a magazine rather than down a webpage.

image: http://cdn.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2e82a53c6f9e74ed281ad92980ec654c-900x515.jpg

Illustration by Monica Ramos for Lucky Peach

What are some tips for choosing an authentic image?

If an image looks too staged, fake, or uninteresting, skip it. For example, if I’m looking for a photo of a chili pepper, I’ll look for something with personality and texture, even a little imperfection. This shot…

…with the warm wood and nice depth of field is way more appealing to me than this one on a plain white background.

What are your guidelines for selecting images?

I always make sure the image is consistent with whatever content it is supporting. My job is to select the primary image for each post that will be used across our social media platforms, on our homepage, and at the top of the post, so it should be relevant to the story and compel someone to click on the link.

For example, maybe I have a story about making peach pie, and the best image from the story is a beautiful shot of flour being sifted onto a surface. Even though it’s a really strong shot, out of context it doesn’t really tell you what the story is about, so I’ll probably choose something that at the very least shows a pie crust, maybe even some peaches. The flour-dusting image can be used later in the post.

Photo: Vicky Wasik for Serious Eats

What is the most overlooked aspect of image selection?

Context. It’s so important to make sure the image you select makes sense in the context of the article it supports or represents. For example, one of the first stories I edited for Serious Eats had to do with absinthe. I knew I had a great image from an old shoot I did at a bar of the absinthe being poured out of one of those fancy drip dispensers over a burning sugar cube, which, it turns out, was specifically called out in the article as being the wrong way to do it. So even though it was a great photo, it was the wrong choice for this article.

Photo: Vicky Wasik for Serious Eats

How do you maintain a consistent visual identity across platforms and social channels?

At Serious Eats, we pull images from our posts and use them with quotes or leads that will compel someone on Facebook or Twitter to click on the link. Pinterest is also huge for us in terms of sharing recipes and cooking tips/techniques. Something we’re starting to do more of is using collages like this one with text overlay to draw in more readers from Pinterest. On Instagram, we alternate between using more candid behind-the-scenes shots and actual recipe “beauty” shots. We see social media as a way to show off our personality, not just duplicate already published material.

Our tagline is “The Destination for Delicious” so every image we use needs to echo that statement. We recently published this guide on Where to Eat Chinese Food in NYC and decided to use illustrations as the main design component of the page. We didn’t want to go too far from our food photos, but we still wanted to add a little bit of whimsy.

What are some of the biggest mistakes you see brands and publications making when it comes to their visual identity or image selection?

The new trend is to use photographs that are bigger and better, which is great, but often the images are blown up too much and look super pixelated if they don’t have a high enough resolution. It’s important to check that the size of your image is appropriate for the size of the space on your website.

Do you have any tips for thinking outside-the-box with image selection (for example, something to represent a business instead of a computer)?

Whenever I’m stuck trying to figure out an image and I don’t want to go the obvious route, I’ll either re-read the text or talk to the writer or editor about the article to get a better sense of it. Sometimes just having a quick conversation can highlight an aspect of the story that you didn’t see before or that might not be obvious, but can inspire you to look for a different type of image. I’m also a big fan of using the “related image” section of a stock site and spending some time going down that wormhole.

Key Takeaways for Brands:

• Make sure your images make sense in the context of your content.
• Try not to use staged or uninteresting stock photos. Instead, look for photos with personality and texture.
• Think outside the box when it comes to visuals – consider illustrations and graphics as well as photographs.
• Be strategic with your visual identity across platforms. What you post on Pinterest might be different than what you post on Instagram.

http://www.business2community.com/expert-interviews/chose-amazing-images-create-stunning-visual-content-01218864

Is Email marketing Dead ?

Minding your Ps and Qs in email marketing – three tips to keep your campaigns on the right side of compliance

mail marketing isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s thriving. As The Drumreported late last year, email marketing spend in the US is projected to reach $3.1bn by 2019, up from $2.1bn in 2014. Driving much of this growth is consumers’ increasing preference to open – and act on – emails from their mobile devices. Fifty three per cent of total email opens occurred on a mobile phone or tablet in Q3 2014, according to Experian, while email is now the second-biggest marketing channel for mobile purchases.

Clearly, we’re in a period of email renaissance.

As email marketing budgets increase, it’s important that marketers have a proper understanding of the difference between email marketing best practices and email marketing laws and regulations. This is especially true now that the US is nearly alone amongst developed countries for its continued allowance of opt-out email policies. Almost all other developed nations have adopted laws and regulations requiring that companies receive prior opt-in consent before sending marketing emails, following Canada’s switch in 2014.

Minding your Ps and Qs when it comes to email marketing best practices and laws is imperative. As more commercial emails are sent each day, and consumers are increasingly tethered to a digital device for nearly all-day access to email, the onus is on digital marketers to ensure they follow not only the letter of the concerning commercial emails, but that they also follow an ever-evolving set of email compliance best practices.

‘Best practices’ aren’t the same as the law

Every marketer knows the concept of 'best practices'. The tried-and-true, but often unwritten, standards that guide many of the things we do in digital advertising. But it’s important to keep in mind that best practices are not technically law.

Here are three things to keep in mind to ensure you’re on the right side of email marketing compliance:

The US CAN-SPAM Act remains an opt-out law
The law is silent on the type of consent needed for a company to send marketing emails to individuals. All that is required is an unsubscribe link. While the US continues to allow opt-out email campaigns, this may change in the coming years. Therefore, for now, it is advisable to only send marketing emails to email recipients who have opted-in to being contacted, at least until the laws that govern commercial email activities are clarified.

Unsubscribe links: Don’t mail without them
Leaving an unsubscribe link out of your marketing email is a quick way to receiving a large fine from the Federal Trade Commission. Remember: you must include an unsubscribe link in every commercial email; it must be easy to find; and it must provide the free and unimpeded option for a recipient of an email to request to never receive a commercial email again from your company.

Best practice in has become less clear. Until recently, you were considered to be in compliance if a marketing email sent on your company’s behalf by a third-party provider included two unsubscribe links. The rationale was that recipients could unsubscribe from either the advertiser’s emails, the third-party partner’s emails, or both. A second camp has emerged, claiming that only one unsubscribe link should be included in commercial emails, so the recipient can easily unsubscribe from all parties associated with the email without the risk of only unsubscribing from one subset.

A reputable marketing partner with experience in email marketing will be able to guide you as to which best practice is most appropriate for your email marketing campaign.

Design your emails for mobile 
By now, most marketers have mastered desktop-based email marketing best practices. But mobile email best practices remain perplexing for many digital marketers. 

To avoid the ire of Internet Service Providers, which want to make emails load as quickly as possible on consumers’ mobile devices, it’s important to ensure your email creative is optimised for mobile. That means clean, simple designs without a lot of embedded links; simple, short copy; and no multi-layered images that can eat up the battery life of mobile devices. Complexity has no value when it comes to email creative in the mobile era.

Ultimately, maintaining email marketing compliance requires two critical components: diligence in understanding the various laws and regulations governing email marketing activities, and working with a credible marketing partner that can help guide you through this evolving maze while ensuring your campaign reaches ROI targets.

http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2015/05/01/minding-your-ps-and-qs-email-marketing-three-tips-keep-your-campaigns-right-side

Top 8 Proven Benefits of Business Blogging

Many small business owners put off blogging thinking this “fad” is just a waste of their time and effort. This line of thinking is not what successful Digital Marketers have with regards to business blogging.

As much as 81% believe business blogging is a critical business process according to Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing Report.

The latest iteration of this report, generated from a survey that involved 3,500 marketing professionals, revealed that blogging is one of the most important lead sources for their business and is highlighted as having the most substantial impact in terms of ROI performance.

These figures are just some of the factual evidences that proved blogging as a very important business resource. If you’re still not convinced with these figures, then let the following top proven benefits change your mindset about business blogging.

1. Business Blogging Generates Relevant Traffic  – eMarketer previously predicted that as much as 60% of the entire American internet population will read blogs at least once a month. Figures could have gone way over that threshold, with the likes of HubSpot confirming that at least 46% of people online read blogs at least once a day.

2. Business Blogging Helps You Generate More Leads – Companies that harnessed the power of business blogs reaped the fruits of their efforts by generating up to 67% more leads than businesses without blogs.

3. Business Blogging Helps Your Acquire New Customers – The 2013 version of HubSpot’s report highlighted the same figures, with as much as 82% of marketers surveyed getting a new customer by blogging daily. The latest update of HubSpot’s report highlighted that blog content creation is the top inbound marketing project for companies in North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

4. Business Blogging Generates a Positive Marketing ROI – In 2013, HubSpot reported that as much as 79% of companies with blogs generated a positive ROI for all their efforts. The recent version of this report highlighted that blogs remain to have the highest overall impact in terms of generating a positive ROI, with businesses and marketers who focused on business blogging generating up to 13 times more likelihood of generating a positive ROI.

5. Business Blogging Establishes You as an Industry Expert or Leader – The Internet is a great equalizer with the fact that even small businesses can go head-to-head with large corporations online by developing the trust and loyalty of their targeted customers. They can develop such clout as an industry leader or an expert through the valuable information they can share though their business blogs.

6. Business Blogging Develops Stronger Customer Relationships – One of the attributes of business blogging that differs itself from traditional push advertising is the engagement and interactive facilities present in blogs that can help you develop stronger relationships with your customers. You and your audience can engage in healthy conversations through the comments areas commong to most blogs.

7. Business Blogging Builds a Strong Social Media Presence – In Social Media marketing, your brand and business can be discovered by targeted audiences that can eventually turn into leads and sales. But like any other digital marketing channel, social media needs content, preferably evergreen content that you can generate through your business blogs.

8. Business Blogging Drives Long-Term Results – Consider this fact: HubSpot reported that as much as 70% of website traffic each month was not generated by their active posts for that month – but from posts that were published in previous months. What this means is that an article or a blog post you publish today can still create a big impact on your business for days, months or even years to come. That’s long term benefits for you!

Want more? See the infographic below!

http://www.business2community.com/infographics/top-8-proven-benefits-business-blogging-infographic-01219725

5 (MENTALLY) HEALTHY WAYS TO USE PINTEREST

Earlier this week I shed light on a very real sickness that many people (and some of you) are suffering from called Pinterest Paralysis. It’s a chronic condition but not incurable.

A couple of my friends have recently sworn off Pinterest. They left because of how it makes them feel and the pressure it places on them to have a “picture perfect life”.  So they just quit.

I get it.

And 100% support their choice to stop using Pinterest altogether. But what if there was another option to avoid the endless pinning and comparing and feeling badly about ourselves?

What if there was a better way to use Pinterest?

One that left us feeling inspired  and organized instead of discouraged and confused (and wondering where the heck the last 30 minutes of our life just went).

THERE IS A BETTER WAY…ACTUALLY THERE ARE FIVE
Today I’m sharing 5 healthy ways to use Pinterest and I’ll follow it up with three simple tricks to make Pinterest less of a time suck and more of a springboard to progress.

Quitting Pinterest isn’t an option for me because I use it daily in my work. Also, I love it for personal reasons. Now, I don’t want you to think I’m bashing Pinterest one post and then singing its praises the next.

That would make me emotionally unstable, right?

Which I’m totally not…unless I’m hungry.

Big “Aha” moment ahead–>  Pinterest is dangerous for our confidence and productivity when used with the wrong mindset or habits. It’s an incredibly helpful tool when we have clarity of purpose and a set of personal guidelines. 

Sound strict and boring? It’s not. I promise.

HEALTHY WAYS TO USE PINTEREST

1. As a Search EngineNotice I did not say a “browse & repin engine”. When I wanted to make a fabric mobile for my client Chrissy’s nursery, I used the search bar in Pinterest to see what other DIY fabric mobiles looked like.

I went to Pinterest with a clear idea of what I was looking for. My goal was to research and see if someone else had figured out a brilliant shortcut to save me time or money.

For this type of thing, Google can turn up all sorts of crazy images. I’ve found that Pinterest is a better place to find higher quality content faster for most things home or craft related.

2. As an Organizational ToolPinterest is like a creative Type A person’s dream. (Ahem…guilty.)

It gives you the ability to bookmark websites with images, group them into categories, and then leave yourself comments. This is super helpful and can save you tons of time. I have secret boards for each of the following:

A. Books I Want to Read(Friends would always tell me about a great book they read, and my mental note system would fail to help when I wanted to remember it. Now when someone tells me a book title I look it up immediately and pin the URL using my Pinterest app on my phone.)
B. Vacation
(Before a trip, I’ll research shops and restaurants I want to visit in the area. It’s handy to have everything right on my phone via the Pinterest app.)
C. Meal Plans(I will pin 10-15 seasonal dinner recipes onto this board. That way when I’m creating my grocery list for the week, I can just check this board and pick from options I chose earlier.)

3. As a Tool for Collaboration
When I helped plan my friend Stacie’s baby shower, two other friends and I used a secret Pinterest board to pin and discuss everything from the theme to the invites to the recipe for punch. Since we were all busy with different schedules, this allowed us to have an ongoing conversation without having to constantly be meeting in person or group texting.

I use secret boards to communicate with and get feedback from my clients about their project from the inspiration stage all the way to the final “Shopping List”.  My two most used tools for project management in my design business are Pinterest and Google Docs. In a visual industry, there is no other medium that makes it easier to communicate aesthetics and share resources better than Pinterest.

4. As a Personal Style Board
Being exposed to lots of new ideas is not always a bad thing…this is one way to help you figure out your likes and dislikes and target things you’d like to incorporate in your style somehow. It’s usually a low-risk way to experiment with new ideas. BUT there is some danger here…

WARNING: Exploring your personal style can be a slippery slope to the comparison trap. Make sure that when you are hunting for rooms or things that feel like “you”, you are starting from a place of confidence and curiosity. The second you start to feel “less than”, you’ve had enough. Shut that laptop and come back to it later.

5. As a To Do List
Raise your hand if you’ve pinned something saying, “Oh, I’ll totally do that!”. And then completely forget about it. (Repeat 37 times.)

Two hands raised over here.

I’ve got a cure to help you actually be productive. Create one board title “To Do” (or “To Cook”) and then only add ideas or images that you actually see yourself doing. Simple, right?

If you know you’ll never take time to learn how to crochet that coffee mug cozy, then don’t pin it! In fact I would only allow 6-8 pins at a time on this board. (Too many pins become white noise or overwhelming, and you’re likely to avoid or ignore them.)

This is important…Once you attempt or complete something from this list, delete the pin or move it to a new board titled “I Did This!” or “Go me- I Own Pinterest!” or something of that nature. Having a board like this is the equivalent of crossing an item off your pen and paper to-do list.

We all know how good that makes us feel.

http://www.thedecorfix.com/5-healthy-ways-to-use-pinterest/

The Essentials of Blogging for Small Business

This article is the third in a series of five posts on the basics of online marketing for small business. The series is designed to inform and empower small businesses about their online marketing options and give them the confidence to explore the potential growth opportunities that are available through online marketing.

In this article we will focus on blogging and content marketing. According to Search Engine Journal "60% of consumers feel more positive about a brand after consuming content from it" and 76% of marketers using a blog as part of their content marketing.

Blogging can be important for small businesses who want to communicate with their customer base and boost their SEO rankings.

What is Blogging?

A blog is a collection of articles which are categorically targeted to a particular niche or industry. Blog content is updated regularly and for small businesses it stands as a communication tool between you and your customers and potential customers, providing them with highly valuable content, keeping them up-to-date with useful information such as the latest industry news and/or special offers that you are providing.

Why you should you blog?

Through posting simple things such as helpful tips, special discounts or the latest industry news you can effectively maintain your customer relationships and give people a reason to visit to your website.

More recently blogging and content marketing has been widely used to enhance SEO strategy. Writing articles around the keywords that you are targeting will help to improve rankings in search engines. Furthermore, if you write unique and valuable articles, other websites will link to your content and as a result; this will increase your website's back-links.

In addition to blogging on your own website you can also become a guest blogger on websites who are talking to your target market. Offering articles helps the other blog website serve valuable content and it helps you to position yourself as an expert. These articles can also link back to your website which can generate traffic and is good for SEO purposes.

What to expect:

To get the most out of a blog, you need to make regular posts. This requires dedication and time. Having said that, if you plan ahead it can be fairly easy to provide fresh content several times a week. Once you're in a good routine of posting articles, you can expect to gain an understanding of what content works the best for your business. You can also expect to build a great audience of followers who comment on your articles and join in on the discussion. This sense of a community is great for building and engaging a social media audience and can also great for SEO.

In order to blog successfully and gain a following online, you either need to have excellent existing exposure, or build this up by posting very regularly. Although this can be a big commitment, there are tricks of the trade that can make producing content less of a burden. Because of the time investment that can be required for blogging it is usually best implemented as an integrated part of a bigger online marketing strategy to ensure that it is worth it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bianca-rothschild/the-essentials-of-bloggin_b_7186242.html

Becoming the MacGyver of Internet Marketing

MacGyver connects a car battery to a horn, a metallic door handle triggers a horn blast that stuns intruders and you’re supposed to think he has all the answers to Internet marketing? Of course! Anyone who can stun people with a car horn and metal doors deserves consideration when tackling the task of making Internet marketing tools work together seamlessly. If he can save the world with one small invention at a time, then surely you can control the success of your Internet marketing campaign. Luckily, we’ve combined some of the best MacGyver-like solutions with some of the best tools for Internet marketing.

IFTTT as Out in the ColdIn “Out in the Cold”, MacGyver is trapped in an avalanche while skiing. He can signal a rescue team from beneath the snow with a ski pole and parts of his ski suit. He pulls the grip and point off of his ski pole, giving him a 5-foot long hollow tube. He tears off some cloth from his ski suit in roughly a square shape, and then a long, narrow piece and his zipper pull. He ties the square into a parachute with the narrow piece and attaches the zipper pull to give it a weight. He feeds the whole bundle into his pole and blows it out the other end, which he has poked through the surface of the snow. Then there is just a few moments before the team rescues him. What a great happy ending right? What would you do to get out of the bind where you feel constantly buried under the need to posts your blogs all over the web and social media? “If This Then That” or IFTTT might be for you.

“If This Then That” is one of the chain reactions and learning to acclimate to what is important in relation to your blogs, social media, and general content. Do you want to have a blog post built on popular website blogs of a particular site or just automate your RSS feed and social accounts to help cross-post blogs easier? It’s a pretty nifty tool to have in your pocket. If MacGyver could get out of an avalanche with just the tools above, think how far you can get with something like this.

Hemingway as Phoenix Under SiegeIn “Phoenix Under Siege,” MacGyver moves a lock from the opposite side of a door with an electromagnet using two 12-volt batteries, a sink faucet as the metal rod, and some copper cabling to wind around the faucet. He connects everything and slides the lock out of place. That sounds like a lot of work just to connect a few parts to make a little magnet, right? What does that have to do with Internet marketing?

Simple. MacGyver uses what is around him to make all the parts connect as a whole. That’s what Hemingway does for style. You’ll be surprised at the simplicity having Hemingway check your work. All you do is fix some of the most missed, but still important, problems. Whether you’re writing a blog or trying to make all of the social media posts grammatically correct, you need Hemingway.

Like MacGyver, who moves things around to make it part of a whole, when you move around your descriptive words, run-on sentence, and overused vocabulary, your content becomes more accessible, and more reader friendly for sharing.

ManageFlitter as The Secret of Parker HouseIn “The Secret of Parker House,” MacGyver finds a skull under a recently destroyed gazebo. MacGyver uses the pencil top erasers,, modeling clay, glass eyeballs and cotton wool to reconstruct the skull’s face. That’s some miracle worker stuff right there. How can you make such simple things come together and make such a big difference? In walks ManageFlitter. This tool allows you to use what you need and discard what you don’t to make the perfect Twitter account. You can follow and un-follow people, marks spam accounts, bots, and people who don’t return the follow, and much more. It uses keyword search to refine the potential followers, and it begins with a free trial to test the waters. As you perfect your Twitter account and list, you can direct traffic on a more individually targeted basis.

Find the target, hit the eraser on the head, and direct more and more traffic to your site.

Analytics as GX-1Maybe my favorite MacGyver solution was in episode“GX-1”. Here MacGyver builds a hot air balloon from scratch to escape a Soviet search party. The balloon was made of homemade super glue, old clothes, a parachute, welding equipment, a refrigerator, and metal box. Turning such small, everyday things into something so critically important and at such a massive scale are exactly what an analytics tool can do for you.

Regardless of the tool (Google Analytics, Core Metrics), they all provide the same pivotal piece of any Internet visibility and marketing solution: data. Data is an invaluable resource when trying to figure out what aspects of your Internet marketing strategy to put where. Depending on the mediums you’re looking to plug in (social media, website traffic, email, etc.), you can start to present information about your product and target audiences that have specific and unique traits and needs. Remember that you’re looking to fill a gap, a need, or fix a problem. Analytics can help you identify the problem and fix it with the right business solution.

This doesn’t just direct traffic, but also yields traceable and measurable ROI results.

Get To MacGyveringThe ever-omnipotent Internet defines MacGyver as “Someone who can jump-start a truck with a cactus.” That’s what is happening with these AWESOME Internet tools. Sure, just like the Internet, you could probably jump start a car with jumper cables or go the long and arduous way of having these elements work for you. So can anyone, so why not make that cactus, or these wonderful tools, work for you? Get out there and find your solutions in that pile of seemingly disposable waste we call the World Wide Web! You can do it!

http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/becoming-macgyver-internet-marketing-01217874