Marketplace

Blogs aren't just for telling your far flung family members about your recent trip anymore, they are used more and more as a way to drive highly targeted website visitors to your site with the intent of making a sale.  The reason blogs are becoming the mainstream for internet marketers is due in large part to the way search engines work, for that reason you need to have some basic understandings of the ins and outs of blogging, and that's where this blogging guide can help.

I mentioned search engines and the way they work as the driving force behind the increasing popularity of blogs as a business website, here's what I mean.  All search engines love to give their customers, anyone who uses that search engine to find things online, quality results.  Very often quality results and fresh content go hand in hand.  For this reason the search engines love fresh content.  When you put up a 'regular' static website the content doesn't change very often... if ever.  With a blog, on the other hand, the content changes often which keeps that site fresh which keeps the search engines happy and they will reward the blog owner by giving them a higher page rank. 

When your blog gets a high page rank you will get a lot of free, targeted traffic and that is the name of the game. There is one thing that all online businesses have in common, they all need a constant supply of targeted visitors to their website.  Any tool or technique that can help a website owner get more traffic, especially for free, is a welcome addition.

The next thing you'll want to keep in mind when starting your blog is that if you want to build a business around it you need to be willing to invest a little money.  You don't want to stick with  the free Wordpress or Blogger platforms because you don't actually own anything.  If you buy your own domain name (for around $10) and you have that domain hosted (around $10/month) you will actually own that little piece of internet real estate.  You can do whatever you want with your domain, including sell it. 

You also want to think carefully about what the topic of your blog will be, this is really important if you plan on making money with your blog.  Careful choice of the niche market you're going to build your business in is something that is too often overlooked.  If you take some time to pick a good niche market, the rest of your business building will be much easier.  Picking the right niche is about 90% of the battle.

Using the information in this blogging guide can really help you set off on your new blogging career on the right foot. Just be willing to invest some time to learn new concepts, than put into practice what you've learned, and you'll be amazed at how much money you can make online, and how much fun you can have making it.  Good luck!