Moms Online Business Coach» Internet Marketing

5 Types of Blog Posts

Kristen — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The time has come… I NEED to teach my mother how to blog. I have no problem teaching the theory of blogging or the “how to” stuff or even breaking it down to the simplest form so that she can do it herself and be successful. It’s the “finding the time” that is the hardest part. I’ve actually started recording short snippet videos for her and the last one I recorded was the video version on the article below about the types of blog posts.

Here are the 5 Types of Blog Posts

How you create your blog posts depend on the type of blog you are writing for and what the goal of that blog is.

If you want to keep your blog fresh and interesting, you should post often. Creating different types of blog posts will help to keep your audience interested. It will also keep you from getting bored with your blog.

It really doesn’t matter if you are blogging so that you can earn income from selling ads or affiliate products off your blog, selling your own products or services. You should try mixing it up with these 5 types of blog posts.

1. The Review Blog Post.

Review blog posts can help you monetize your blog. You “review” – take a closer look at – a product. When you review a product and include an affiliate link, you’ll make a commission off of each sale generated with your affiliate link. Review blog posts should go over some of the major pluses and minuses of the product. Even if you loved the product, you should keep your review balanced by mentioning a few things that could have been improved. Your audience will appreciate your honesty and be more likely to trust your recommendation.

2. The INSIGHTS Blog Post.

Quick tips are great “in between” posts since they are so short. They are normally between 100 and 250 words. If there’s a great bit of information that you want to share with your niche but it doesn’t really warrant a full blog post, you can post a quick tip. The tip should be focused on one key area of the niche. For example, “How to Grease a Muffin Pan” is a perfect quick tip article for a cooking blog.

3. The Tips Blog Post.

Blog readers love lists! If you’ll look at the most popular blogs you’ll see that they make good use out of this type of blog posts. You can make lists fit any niche topic imaginable. They are great ways to convey information online because they can easily be scanned by web readers who like to skim over information. You can create resource lists that will help your readers find information on your niche. You can also create lists of different ways to accomplish a goal in a niche, like “5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Sales Letter.” The possibilities are endless.

4. The INTERVIEW Blog Post.

Although these require a bit of preparation, they can be very valuable to your blog. You can interview someone in your niche and share the results of the interview with your blog readers. This will not only help provide valuable content for your blog, but you can also get more traffic to your blog. Likely, the person who you are interviewing will publicize the event on their blog and around the ‘net which will bring more traffic back to you.

5. The Tutorial Blog Post.

Like quick tips, how to posts help you provide valuable information to your readers. However, unlike quick tips, these posts go into detail on a certain topic. Some how to posts are even separated out into two or three part courses. For ideas on what to create how to posts about, look at the most frequently asked questions in your niche and develop posts around those topics.

There you have it, 5 simple ways to juice up your blog writing and give your readers some variety!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

5 Types of Blog Posts

5 Ways To Make Money Online – Free Report

Kristen — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:36:31 +0000

I have bought and used several reports over the last year from Internet Marketer, Justin Michie. I’m excited to tell you that he has done it again with the release of his new report titled “Internet Marketing Gone Wild” This 60+ page report gives you detailed step-by-step instructions on how you can make money online without previous experience and without spending any of your own money.

If you have ever been in a situation when you need cash fast then you’ll love having this free report to fall back on. One of the methods listed in this report will show you how you can have money coming into your Paypal account just a few hours after setting up the technique. You can easily make $100 or even $1,000 with this tried and true money making method. But this report doesn’t stop there.

The Internet Marketing Gone Wild report will also reveal a new twist on outsourcing that you can use to make $100 an hour. No kidding, this is a legitimate way to make money online that I’ll bet you’ve never thought of. This method takes a little bit of set up, but then requires very little work on your part and it pays off in a big way.

It will show you everything you need to know to bring in thousands of dollars on a consistent basis month after month. You can truly become self employed by following the methods Justin lays out for you in this free report.

In this report you’ll also read about a special method to make money online that you can build upon month after month. To use this money making technique, you don’t need to spend any money, have a website or even need a whole lot of experience in Internet marketing. This technique is perfect for the newbie just starting out.

Justin is known for over delivering so although the report says it will show you 5 ways to make $100 a day, this free report actually contains a bonus method for a total of 6 ways to make $100 dollars a day.

The 6th method revealed in this report will show you how to make money online by using one of the easiest methods available on the Internet today. Plus, you can actually make much more than $100 per day from most of these methods, that’s just the starting point. If you are serious about building an Internet Marketing business then this is a great place to start:

Grab Your Free Report HERE

Getting this free report is an easy decision since similar reports sell for $47 or $97. The great part is that you can use one of these money making methods or you can use all six of them for maximum profits. Keep in mind, these techniques will not make you a millionaire overnight. You will have to put some time and effort to make money, but it will be time well spent.

If you are looking for a way to build a real online Internet marketing business I’d recommend you check out the Internet Marketing Gone Wild report – You don’t want to miss out on this one!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

5 Ways To Make Money Online – Free Report

Site Sell Review by SBI Drop Out

Kristen — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:52:35 +0000

I’m embarrassed to start this post like this, but I’m going to tell you my first “failure” online.. I bought Site Build It. I started all hot and heavy, printed out the all the information, read the action guides every night instead of my bookclub books, tinkered with all the tools then it just fizzled out and I went on to the next thing. I let it shrival into the virtual black hole before I ever let it start to glow.

Like I said above, I was new to the world of online marketing and business, I didn’t know fully what to expect or what it takes to make an online business. Then suddenly I went from excitement of the idea of making money while I sleep to cringing at the fact that I am….

A Site Build It Drop Out!

Fast forward, a year and half later and after intently studying everything I can get my hands on, I highly regret not realizing the power of this one stop solution when I had it! That is my honest statement- I regret being a Site Build It Drop Out!

When I am browsing the internet, wading through the search engine results or visiting forums, I can pick out a SBI owner with one glance, I don’t even need to click into their website for proof they are using SBI. It’s because they, unlike me, just followed the steps, instructions, training that is provided and didn’t get distracted or lose focus like I did. Ken Evoy, founder of SBI, gives you the perfect recipe of education, tools, forum support and so much more that anyone can use this all in one solution for their first website or their 40th. Just like baking the perfect pie, you must follow a recipe from start to finish, SBI gives you the recipe for a high ranking, profitable, online business if you just follow their recipe.

On a side note: I have to say that I have also been very impressed with how active and helpful Ken is with all his SBI owners. You can also check him out on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/KenEvoy and see for yourself he’s authentic to his business.

Site Build It Action Guide; Principles For Any Website Owner

If you don’t believe me when I say they have a recipe for you check out their Site Build It Action Guide- you don’t have to be a SBI owner to put this information to use on your own website.

Site Build It Tools

I’m being totally honest here, buying Site Build It today will cost you just under $300.00 so why would I suggest you invest that much money on one website? Yes, you can go with some of the cheap monthly web hosts, but then you will need to add on all your tools and programs. Site Build It contains everything you need from simple point and click web creation, to blogs, video, keyword tools, content tools and they are all in one place, supported by one company and paid for once. Just look at the long list of Site Build It Tools that you will have at your finger tips!

Why I Failed With Site Build It

I thought about why I didn’t have any success with Site Build It because anyone that knows me, knows that I will not promote any product that I don’t think is worth it- and this is a serious investment of both time and money, it’s not a $5.00 report that you read once and put it away.

So, when I go back in and look at it now with more experienced eyes I realize I had all the tools I needed for success at my fingertips the problem was me. I have to take full responsibility for my lack of action. However with that said, here are a few more mistakes I made:

1. I bought SBI before I had a clear goal and understanding of what my topic would be. You must have your market/niche clearly defined or else you will get lost in the journey and do what I did and wade from one topic to another.

2. I continued to try to look at other methods of making money online and I should have only focused on the information and plan that was right in front of me- it’s all there.

3. I didn’t leverage the forums and knowledge of those that have successful SBI sites. Only recently have I come to realize how “Modeling” is imperative for online businesses.

What Learned From Site Build It

I learned one of the most important online marketing lessons that I still always refer to:

Content + Traffic + Presell + Monetize

I highly suggest you check out that link with the full explanation because it is the best foundation I have found for understanding how to make money online.

So, there you have my review and honest feedback on why I like Site Build It and if you are looking for a new online business, adding to your online business or just looking for a way to earn a little part time cash on autopilot- save your time and money and start HERE.

If you are still unsure about this all in one system check out the Site Build It Demo.

Keys to Site Build It Success

Here is my last thoughts on your success with Site Build It…

Have an “idea” of what markets/niches you enjoy and use the forum to help refine your ideas if needed
Enjoy the topic- it’s much easier to write on the topics that come easily
Print out the Action Guides and follow them. Period
Set a schedule- hold yourself accountable for new content and don’t slack
Don’t think this a get rich quick process- this takes your time/dedication
Don’t think your not technical enough because that’s just a cop out

Now, again, check out all the FREEBIES HERE and realize if you have step by step PROVEN recipes here for free, think what’s on the other side…your SUCCESS!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Site Sell Review by SBI Drop Out

Need Some Fast Cash?

Kristen — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:02:57 +0000

I wanted to share with you a great technique- the “Mom-preneurs shop-thon”. I found this while cruising blog to blog and I wanted to point this out to my readers for a few reasons.

1. Creativity- How fun and creative is that little graphic? But the overall method shows how many different and creative ways you can use a blog.

2. Low Advertising Fee- $5.00 is a very small investment into targeted traffic- you are being put front and center with the target market- women shoppers – as long as that is your target market.

3. Make Money -from the blog owners standpoint, she just made a nice little sum of money on that blog post.

4. Backlinks- while this blog doesn’t have high Google PR, it does have pretty good traffic AND you know that each one of those businesses is going to be advertising their involvement with the event. For the blog owner, that means more backlinks to her site from all the others.

5. Networking- prime opportunity to network and meet other small business owners and perhaps find partnerships.

What can you do with this type of blog post strategy on your site? I’m thinking of several ways I can use this on my own site, remember, be creative!

Do you have a creative blog posting strategy that helps you monetize your blog? We would love to hear about it, leave your URL below and let us all come for a visit!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Need Some Fast Cash?

Online Viral Marketing Strategies- Say What?

Kristen — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:27:27 +0000

While out walking this week with a girlfriend, who only uses the internet to shop, she made a couple comments that lead us into talking about online viral marketing strategies. She didn’t understand why I spent the last week writing a Special Report then GIVING it away. In fact that entire topic made her furrow her brows and ask what viral marketing was and how it relates to giving away my work.

I simply asked if she liked to get things for free, and I don’t mean the left over garage sale stuff, but if you walked into a store and they actually GAVE you something that added value to your day, how would that effect your future with that store?

The concept of online marketing is full of twists and turn and is action B hangs on action A being complete. However, the pure simplicity of viral marketing is what makes it so easy for anyone to put into action. She was amazed at the pure velocity of the Viral Free Ebook for Web Traffic results that I posted a couple days ago.

Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands and then to millions.

Online Business Marketers Want Thousands of People To Catch Their Virus

Public health nurses offer sage advice at flu season: stay away from people who cough, wash your hands often, and don’t touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses only spread when they’re easy to transmit. Viral e-mail marketing works great on the Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive especially with the world of social networking.

Digital format make copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you must simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without degradation. Short is better. Remember the K.I.S.S. standard….Keep it Simple Stupid. The shorter and easier to remember is always better than long and complicated.

The Search Engine Guide had a great post on the viral marketing that is part of a larger viral marketing series and is well worth the read for anyone that is ready to move forward and take action to make their own viral marketing campaign.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Online Viral Marketing Strategies- Say What?

Will You Be The Next Stomper?

Kristen — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:51:15 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

If you own an online business, you are well aware of how important search engine optimization (SEO) is very important is for your business. If your website has high page ranking on search engines, you get large volumes of traffic directed to your website through search engines organic traffic (i.e. free traffic). The more traffic you get, the more potential sales.

Many people try to do some SEO for their websites but fail to get results simply because they do not make their SEO strategies effective.

For many home businesses this is due to lack of actual technical knowledge, time or just being low on the priority list. What is the alternative to spending hours learning your own SEO? To start, you can pay many willing companies hundreds, even thousands of dollars to do it for you, you can hire a virtual assistant to help you with specific tasks or of course, the pay-per-click advertising.

If you are true to running an online business, then even if you outsource the tasks related to your SEO, I strongly suggest you understand the basics of SEO. Simply put, I can sum it up in one sentance:

The Search Engines want to give visitors (web surfers) quality content that is related to what they are looking for.

Here are a couple tips anyone can put to use:

Spend some time researching on keywords and phrases. Use keyword research tools such as Wordtracker or Keyword Elite to find the best key words and phrases for your niche. Make sure that you use precise keywords which your potential customers would use while searching for information on the internet.
Next, you must optimize your website for your target niche. Provide relevant and keyword-rich content on your website such that your website will appear on search engines when your potential customers type your keywords.
It is important that you use your keywords and phrases in designing and categorizing your website or blog. Whatever products or services that your offer on your website for your niche, use your best keywords as this will help you to make your website show up on search engines for these keywords. It’s also important that you make sure that the design and layout of your website makes it easy for search engines to index your content.
Make sure that your website is useful and attractive so that other webmasters will want to exchange links with you. You will need to exchange links with other websites, but first you must make sure that your website is interesting and has high quality content so that other webmasters will be keen to exchange links with you.
Use your keywords in the internal text links on your websites because this can also help to increase your ranking on search engines.
All your web pages must have your keywords or phrases because search engines will pick these up first. Don’t forget the Alt Text for your pics!

These SEO can make your website rank high on search engines and also maintain that position in the long term but we all know that is just scratching the surface.

Because then comes…..

Stomping The Search Engines 2.0

If you run in the Internet Marketing space of online business or follow Ed Dale and his Thirty Day Challenge then you will know that Stomping The Search Engines 2.0 is now being released, I’m a day late in this post, but better late then never!

What is Stomping The Search Engines? Well, my friend Lynn Terry over at Clicknewz is giving a full review of the product ..she was lucky enough to get the sneak peak…but I have no doubt that this PHYSCIAL set of CDs is going t blow the socks off anyone that wants to take their online business to the next level.

The Stomper team sold the first set of audio cds for the $400.00 range. This builds on that course plus offers the 40 plus page physical “magazine” FOR FREE… ok.. they have a membership site built onto the backend for the $35.00 a month range, but they are being totally honest about it and giving you crystal clear cancellation instructions. There are no tricks here, just people that are in a position to share their knowledge and help you be successful.

These Stomper guys know Search Engines, they STUDY Search Engines and they have businesses that use Search Engines. So go ahead and check out Lynn’s post of the full review, I’m not giving you a direct link to the “Sales Page” from here because I want you to use Lynns affiliate link. Even though it’s a free product, the numbers coming from her site are a bonus plus, frankly, it’s a good review and it’s worth reading. Go … Stomp The Engines…

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Will You Be The Next Stomper?

Step 1 In Building Your Backlinks

Kristen — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:37:03 +0000

As the search engines are evolving each and every day, it’s getting harder and harder to get top search engine rankings.

The search engines now, highly favor, websites that have a large number of quality, one way links pointing to them. Because of this, it’s absolutely critical that we consistently try to get other websites to link to us, WITHOUT us linking back to them.

Yes, reciprocal linking is becoming less and less valuable. Submitting your website to website directories is an excellent way to get, quality, 1 way links pointing to your websites. You see, many of the website directories online have a high amount of page rank and have been online for several years.

These are 2 of the most important criteria for determining what a good link is, vs what a bad link is. These two criteria are:

The age of the website linking to you
The Page Rank of the website linking to you

With that said, many of these directories have both a high Page Rank AND are old websites, giving them more authority and power in the search engines.

Not only that, but there are literally thousands of website directories on the internet that are absolutely free for you to submit your website to! While it does take time to find these directories and then manually fill out all of the required criteria to submit your website, it is an excellent way to help increase your search engine rankings.

There are some good website directory submission software products on the market. The best of which is a product called Directory Submitter created by Brad Callen. You can see the details of the program here http://moms-business-coach.com/directorysubmitter

I decided to try it out after it was recommended to me, after all…

1. Its Free

2. It simplifies a process

3. It will help build traffic to my site that will ultimately help grow my business

So really, why wouldn’t you at least TRY it?

Step by Step Here Is What I Did To Start Building Backlinks

I visited the site above website

I clicked on the big DOWNLOAD FREE Button (by the way they also have an free Article Submitter)

I downloaded the zipped folder to my desktop

I then opened the program and followed the on-screen directions and chose to have a desktop short cut

I then launched the program and filled in the “new project” fields that include the basic information like your url, the catagory, sub-catagory, titles, description and keywords.

**This is where it is very important to have done your keyword research to know what keywords to use as your anchor text links!

Once you have your information entered you simply click from one site to the next off the list they provide with over 350 free directory sites. (Each site is listed and includes the PR rank)

The information is populated automatically for you all you need to do is verify the information and click submit.

Note: Some of the sites do require a reciprocal link so I kept another tab open and created a page in my blog for “links” then as each site that required a link I cut and paste, saved and moved on to the next site. By the way, I unchecked the box that says “Ping” in my blog post dashboard so I didn’t get accused of ping spamming every time I re-publish each minute. OR you can install the MaxPress Blog Ping Optimizer plug-in that automatically keeps you from over pinging the sites.

Summary

Esentially you simply enter your website details into the software program 1 time, and then click on any of the 1600+ website directories in the software and it will automatically fill in all of the submission criteria for you. Click the submit button and then your site has been instantly added to the website directory.

So, not only does it save you time in finding all of these directories, BUT it saves you an incredible amount of time filling out each and every website’s submission criteria. To learn more about this free program, visit the link below:

http://moms-business-coach.com/directorysubmitter

Still sounds like too much work? Try out the lost cost directory submission services below

Enjoy!

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Step 1 In Building Your Backlinks

Behind The Scenes of Great Internet Marketing

Kristen — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:13:58 +0000

Image by Rickydavid via Flickr

Have you ever noticed one of those top online marketers, with an email list in the hundreds of thousand, and said to yourself…

“If I could just get him to do a mailing about MY product, I’d have it made!”

Have you ever watched the top online marketers and concluded…

“They would never return my phone calls, answer my emails,or respond to my PMs!”

Have you basically felt LOCKED OUT of that elusive inner circle… that “good ole boys’ club?”

If this sounds like you, I’ve got news for you. I’ve just discovered this website that contains over 40
different interviews that reveal to you “How To Break Into The Internet Marketing Inner Circle.

These are interviews by people who have had major product launches. They are interviews of joint venture
brokers, sharing their secrets. They are the interviews of:

- People who have done major successful product launches

- People who rub elbows daily with the top online marketers

- Copywriters, programmers, product creators,ghost writers, and people who do product fulfillment for the top dogs

- People who have built email list of nearly a million

- People who have the cell phone numbers of some of the top online marketers

These are all very well connected people and they tell you in a shockingly open fashion, how you can break into their “inner circle.”

You need to go check out this amazing site right now, before your competitors find out about it.

It’s at: http://moms-business-coach.com/recommends/innercircle

There’s a LOT more there but I don’t want to sound hypey. Some things don’t need it .

Go take a look now, and be sure to listen to the MP3 that’s a sample of one of the 40 interviews. It will fill
your mind with so many ideas, that you’ll want to come over and hug me. You don’t need to do that though

All I ask is that you USE this incredible information that I’m sharing with you.

Internet Marketing to Wealth 2

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Behind The Scenes of Great Internet Marketing

Simple PDF Press Release Strategy Review

Kristen — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:21:24 +0000

Today I’d like to tell you about a product that created a “light-bulb” moment for me.

As soon as I read “Simple PDF News Release Strategy For Internet Marketers” by Patrick Pretty, I saw the beauty of the strategy. It’s part of my arsenal now. Consider making it part of yours, regardless of your e-marketing experience level.

I have always thought that Press Releases are a “hit or miss”. There are two people that send out press releases, ones that work really hard and write it and submit it themselves or hire someone to write one for you. The later of the two can be pricey, I’ve seen people charge over $100.00 for one press release and that doesn’t include submission services.

I then hear online business owners complain about putting all this work into their press release and have no results, they mail it off blindly to their local papers and hope for the best and are often disappointed when nothing comes from those efforts. I’ll admit, I’ve fallen into that category myself however, I’ve also had a press release land me an interview with a local paper that generated almost $10,000.00 in business in one weekend.

I’ve seen read a lot of different press release strategies and how to write them and paid for them to be written but in all honesty, it wasn’t until I read this Special Report that it took my way of thinking about press releases and completely turned it on it’s head.

I’ve always known the “potential” of a great press release to hit media, find new customers and build backlinks to my website. However, this takes the “hope” and “wish” out of your press release activities and puts in place a solid strategy- REALLY. I didn’t even really want to buy it at first since it focused on the internet marketing industry but then I decided that with Patrick Prettys good looks and knowledge of the Interenet Marketing world, if they use press releases I’ll have to give it a try, after all there is a full refund available if I thought it wasn’t worth the paper.

Perhaps you already know that Patrick Pretty as Internet Marketing’s “Sensational Master Of Eye Candy.” That’s parody, of course. Patrick is a professional writer with more than 20 years’ experience. He’s also a fine Internet Marketer.

“Simple PDF News Release Strategy For Internet Marketers” opened my eyes to a new way of making money online. It’s the “real deal.” A person never can get enough of those, right?

Patrick and Willie Crawford were two of the driving forces behind the success of “20 Ways To Make $100 Per Day Online,” one of the bestselling eBooks of the past year. What I didn’t know before reading “Simple PDF News Release Strategy For Internet Marketers” was that Patrick wrote the sales copy for “20 Ways.”

I also didn’t know that Patrick used a crazy-simple PDF News Release Strategy for “20 Ways” and other products. It’s a way to get short- and long-term sales. Remember my “light-bulb” moment? You’re also apt to have one before you get very far into the report.

Everything you need to get started is right inside the report. You get templates to make News Releases with Microsoft Word and Open Office. Patrick also has included two bonus products designed to help you make even more money. This is what’s known as “win-win.” It’s an exceptional value, one you’ll appreciate. I know I did.

“Simple PDF News Release Strategy” is suited for beginners, intermediate and advanced marketers. It will be a welcome addition to your arsenal, whether you create your own products or simply sell your own product or the products of others.

The report offers a strategy that a business in any niche needs to know about.

You’ll notice that the moment you arrive at the site.

Take a look today. I know that this report transformed my way of thinking about press releases and I will make much better use of them.

The Patrick Pretty PDF Press Release Strategy Review

Overall Summary?

“Simple PDF Strategy For Internet Marketers” is well worth your time.

P.S. The bonuses included with this product are exceptional.

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Simple PDF Press Release Strategy Review

Your Personal Guide to MyBlogLog

Kristen — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:17:14 +0000

Online Marketing for your home based business can be a time consuming process and trying to complete with millions of other online businesses can become disheartening.

However, there are ways to simplify your online marketing or “get more bang for your buck” with your efforts.

I have had a MyBlogLog account since March ’08 and have seen a fair amount of website traffic stats from people finding my site from the network. So, I decided to put a little more effort into learning how to use this free resource and here is what I found. Please note this is an introduction to MyBlogLog. Like all tools and resources you can get into heavy details but this is high level, beginner application stuff.

What is MyBlogLog?

Easy way to define MyBlogLog is by the Wiki:

MyBlogLog is a social network for the blogger community that is based in part on interactions facilitated by a popular web widget that many members install on their blog.[1] Bloggers sign up for free accounts on MyBlogLog and can initiate a blog community for one or more blogs they author. Other registered members can subscribe to these communities, effectively bookmarking them for future reading and sharing them with their own contacts. Bloggers can then display widgets on their sites which show MyBlogLog online community members who have recently visited their page. These widgets also contain links to visiting members’ community pages, and are one way in which users connect with one another. All members can see certain basic information about how many people visit their blog, what links they clicked and where they come from. Members may also view more extensive information about traffic on their site for a small monthly fee.

One more side note: Yahoo has acquired MyBlogLog and I think that offers good insight not only into the uses of the site but as an indicator of how Yahoo views social networking potential.

How do you use MyBlogLog?

When I originally joined MyBlogLog I thought it was only a way to see who visited your site in a nifty little widget in my sidebar. However, I have recently learned about the various other “powers” of this tool when used the right way.

Visit MyBlogLog and when you select the “Join/SignUp” button you will be given the below screen.

That’s right! You are seeing it right, you can simply sign in with your Yahoo ID since they are owned by them it does make sense.

The benefit of using your Yahoo ID is you will find when you hop from one blog to another it automatically recognizes you, as long as you are signed in to your account. I’m sure you have seen a blog that has the MyBlogLog widget on the sidebar that shows the latest visitors and once you have your own MyBlogLog account, Voila! You will show up there too! It’s an easy and fun way to see who is actually visiting your website.

Adding MyBlogLog Recent Visitor Widget to Your Blog

If you have a blog, and a MyBlogLog account you can create the above widget and customize the colors and options to fit your own theme, well, as long as it fits one of their seven color options.

For the Self Hosted WordPress Blog, this is sooo easy by simply adding the WordPress MyBlogLog Recent Visitor Plug-in.

If you don’t have a Self Hosted WordPress Blog you can follow the instructions that will fit your blog set up by following the instructions on MyBlogLog.

As you may have noticed by now, I am a big fan of conversational marketing. So, how can you use this as an effective, community building tool?

Now that you can see WHO is visiting your blog and it’s not just an IP address in your web stat counter you have a couple options to take it a step further.

If the person leaves a comment, return the favor and visit their site if they leave a site url in the comments as most do.

Or as Pixelhead suggests: “If the person does not leave a comment, but shows up on your widget, click on their avatar and either: leave them a message on Mybloglog or visit their site and leave a comment. Mybloglog requires you to add them as a contact before you can leave them a message on their profile page. In the message thank them for visiting your site and I would suggest making a comment about their site after you have visited it of course.”

Your MyBlogLog Profile

When you login to your MyBlogLog profile you will need to add your blog under “My Sites and Services”

VERY IMPORTANT: You also have the option to add your RSS Feed- take the opportunity and add your Feed both your original feed and your feedburner feed!

Once you have your blog settings created and the system works on your screen capture move along and click on the “ADD SERVICE” option. This is where you can add all your other social networking and make your own mini-powerhouse!

Add as many of your accounts as you can, and if you don’t have an account with one of the options, make one.

Connect with Cyber Friends

If you are interested in using social networking to create a group of followers and grow your network you can use this site to help you connect the pieces. You can find your fellow cyber friends with these easy steps:

1. As I stated above add your profiles. They make it easy for you by even making the list and providing the initial part of the url for you, all you need to do is enter your personal username for that account. So go pull up that spreadsheet I told you to make earlier and just copy and paste. It took me about 10 minutes to populate all the fields.

If you took my other piece of advice on trying to keep your usernames the same or similiar then MyBlogLog even has a button that you can click that will search all the sites for you using your common username and populate the fields for you.

Privacy Note: At the bottom of the screen you will see that they state “Account information you share on this page will be used to retrieve your publicly-available updates from those sites for re-distribution across MyBlogLog.com and Yahoo!. Public updates are also available to third parties via an RSS feed of your profile as well as the MyBlogLog AP”

2. At the bottom of your profile page you will see the link for the “friender”

You will have a few options under different tabs. The image above shows the “connector” tab. This tab shows all the services that I added to my profile and what other friends interact on what service with simple Green X’s. This means that they also have an account with that service.

If you want to connect with that person on that service simply click the Green X. You will then get a blue check mark in that square to show that you have connected there as well.

For anyone that has created multiple social networking profiles you will see how powerful this is. Instead of wandering aimlessly and searching and adding one here one there, boom, you can create a very solid network very quickly.

Now, in addition to the “connector” tab you have the “friender” tab. Click on the “Find my Friends” tab and you will see all the cyber friends that you can simply click a button and add to your network.

The downfall of this tool, as all tools and resources have potential downfalls, is the ability to have those people that don’t really care about you or your blog or your business and just want to make as many contacts as possible and get a really big number in their profile or worse use it for spam or porn. I can’t make them stop but I think the advantage of easily connecting with like minded people outweighs this potential issue.

One more important feature: I BELIEVE, I saw a post somewhere, and now I can’t find it (don’t you hate when that happens?) that when anyone you connected with updates any of their services you are notified automatically. I’m going to experiment with this one a little bit because obviousely, if that is true, then that has a great potential- like if you have 300 connections and you make a blog post and it updates your Facebook and MySpace page and notifies all 300 of your connections that you made a new blog post.. all automatically… are you catching my drift on the potential here?? So if you know about this feature or see another post about it, please leave a comment.

Blog Traffic

Depending on your blog you may have little traffic or a few thousand visitors a month, that’s the honest truth about blog traffic. While you can do your best to stimulate and promote your blog, you never know if readers will catch on or not. However, using MBL can help by performing a couple easy and fast steps.

Utilize the Search Box

Enter your keyword or blog topic and see what other blogs are closely related to yours.
Click on the profile avatars of members that show up and add them as contacts after you visit their sites and determine they are a good match to network.
Click on the communities that show up for the search term, and join the communities.
Visit the sites and join in the conversation on these blogs by making meaningful comments. This will result in visits to your blog from both the site owner and visitors to the site that may like your comments.

RSS Feeds

Take the work out of tracking your MyBlogLog account by subscribing to your own RSS feed in your reader or adding the RSS feed of those in your community you like. RSS has so many great opportunities that many people haven’t even started to use. But, for more traffic and backlink potential you can add your MBL RSS feed to RSS directories. And by the way, you can add the RSS feeds to your community members as well because they are all in one place in your profile.

Tools

If you are a serious blogger with multiple blogs then finding your real community and connecting with your readers has big potential. Here is a great option for you, and I’ll be honest I just found this but can’t believe the potential it offers. MyBlogLog Tools by SoloSEO. This company has created tools that specialize in MBL that allow you to:

Compare your visitors
Compare your communities
Compare your communities between contacts

I mean really, talk about getting to know who your contacts are! Why keep spending hours and months on what I call “hopeful marketing” when you can have the people that actually have the same interest and you already know like you delivered to your inbox?

Analyzing

Back in your profile, under your sites you will see the option for “statistics”.

They will provide you with a piece of code for you to copy and paste into your blog template. Once you have it in place and it can start tracking your site details.

In the future that link will bring you to a page showing you some great details and insights into who is visiting.

The FREE option will only give you the top 10 results but you will see each tab with it’s own tab and they provide you with the link details of where your readers came from, what they viewed and where they clicked. They also provide a summary of how many readers and pageviews you had.

Upgrade to MyBlogLog Pro for $3.00 a month via PayPal and you will have access to real time stats and longer lists. I find the stats in the free version fine for my needs.

Summary

Like I stated in the beginning, this is a general overview of MyBlogLog to further your home based business reach and kick around the idea of conversational marketing, but I hope it now helps you see the potential for using this site is much greater then you expected.

Using this as a way to build your community and further your online home based business reach can be cheaper and faster then more conventional methods of marketing.

If I missed an important beginner point, please feel free to leave a comment.

Additional MyBlogLog Resources:

MyBlogLog Blog

TopRankBlog Interview with MyBlogLog CEO

MyBlogLog on Social Media Marketing Explained

home based business

Post from: Online Business Marketing For Home Based Businesses

Your Personal Guide to MyBlogLog