Inspiration Business

Archive for March, 2009

Are you getting results from your business blog? Is it getting harder for you to spend time on your blog because you’re just not seeing how it is going to pay off? If so, you’re not alone. Hundreds of blogs are started each day and many of them are abandoned after several months because it takes time and energy to keep a good business blog going.

Make no mistake, blogs are a great tool for building community, interacting with potential clients, and marketing your services. And, it’s not enough to set one up and post occasionally. You have to use it effectively to drive traffic and gain readership.

We’ve discovered several common mistakes professionals make with their blogs. Mostly, they aren’t using some the features available to them with their blogging software, because it hasn’t been sufficiently explained. Eyes glaze over with the mention of RSS, pinging, trackbacks and permalinks. Professionals may be ignoring these things, hoping they don’t really need to know. But they do if they want results from their business blog.

Here’s a list of what we found on a recent trip around the professional business blogosphere:

Content:

1. Not posting frequently enough. (Recommended: 2-3 times a week.)

2. Content is not focused, and the target audience is not clearly defined.

3. Posting articles that are too long, instead of using extended post features.

4. Not linking profusely (because the professional isn’t researching their field on the internet).

5. Poor spelling, bad grammar and typos.

Design

6. No name of author in tag line or on side bar.

7. No author photo.

8. No signature or name in the footer; no way to tell who wrote post on a multi-author site.

9. No subscription form; no way to get blog updates through RSS or email.

10. No way for readers to leave comments and use trackbacks.

11. Too many categories or none at all.

12. No information about their business services and products.

13. Calendars for no reason at all (what is the point of those calendars anyway?).

Marketing

14. Blog isn’t submitted to blog directories.

15. Not pinging each time a new post is published.

16. Not using trackbacks referring or linking to other blogs.

17. No blogroll or list of favorite blogs or websites.

If you’re considering using a blog to build your business, optimize it by taking time to learn the features and steps that will ensure success. A blog is like any other marketing tool – you’ve got to use it correctly to get positive results.

Flush out the writer in children. Blogging could draw out a young writer and open doors to their future. Consider encouraging your child to start blogging!

Children love having an audience. The instant recognition and approval that comes from a crowd just can’t be beat. Employing blogs to help develop good spelling habits, grammar skills, and develop a love for writing at a young age is an innovative concept that has potential benefits:

Benefits

1.) Responsibility/Commitment – Daily Posts

Regular updates require children to be disciplined and responsible.

2.) Communication – Increased Communication with Friends and Relatives

Blogging or journaling gives children the opportunity to connect with relatives who might live some distance away, communicating important timely issues.

3.) Technology – Exposure to Internet Technologies

Children are growing into technology-laden world. Exposure to innovative Internet technology will help them with communication skills and résumé-building.

4.) Improved Writing Skills

When presented with an audience, children will want to present their “best” work.

5.) Improved Editing Skills

Proofreading is an important skill that is difficult to teach. Editing of daily entries will help children learn how to present their ideas clearly and professionally.

6.) Improved Spelling

Automated spell-checking helps children be aware of spelling errors when they occur.

7.) Typing

Getting children acquainted with keyboards at a young age will help them become familiar with their layout and function, quickly making them proficient typists.

Because blogging involves the Internet, parents and teachers should also take the opportunity to educate youngsters about the dangers of the Internet. The Internet is global in its reach and developing safe Internet habits at a young age is critical. Remind children not to disclose personal information including names, addresses or location of events they plan to attend.

Blogs are very hot and happening in the virtual world. Everyone who is an avid net surfer seems to be blogging nowadays. Blogs stand for web blogs or web logs. The one who posts these blogs is known as a blogger and the process of posting a blog is known as blogging.

Blogs are the latest development in the world of Internet marketing. Used properly, they can be a great tool for helping to market your articles and get more visibility for your website.

In general, blogs are casual and conversational. Blog entries are written in the first person and create a far more personal atmosphere than a typical website. The use of blogs has become so popular and commonplace that a whole new subsection of the Internet has been created. Dubbed the “blogosphere,” it is a massive interwoven community of bloggers who support and visit each others blogs and spread news throughout the blog network by linking and cross-posting.

If you decide to start a blog to help promote your website, you should be prepared to put quite a bit of effort into maintaining your blog. Frequent posts are not only good for search engines, they are also necessary to maintain your readership. If your blog lies dormant for weeks or months, people will stop visiting and probably won’t come back even if you start posting again. Blog readership is based largely on trust, and if you break that trust by deserting your blog, it is difficult-or even impossible-to win that trust back.

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Of course you should. I practice this for quite a while and I never looked back. I think this is the perfect combination. You get the best of both worlds. Did you know that 90% of all millionaires made their fortune with real estate and 10% with the internet or the stock market? Well, this doesn’t leave any room for the paycheck workers, doesn’t it?

I once read a small phrase that totally changed my life “Trading hours for money doesn’t bring you any wealth”. This powerful phrase stuck with me ever since. Take a moment and think about this. We all do it by being employed by an employer we trade hours for money. How many hours per week can you trade without completely giving up your life? 60, 70 hours max. This doesn’t leave much room for a family life or having some fun, doesn’t it?

Well, enough of this depressing stuff. Let’s talk about something fun. Did you know you can actually make money while you’re sleeping? It is called residual income.

With your internet business you want to achieve residual income through selling membership subscriptions to any form of service that charges monthly dues. Typically you will receive your share of this as monthly installments. You do the work once and you get paid over and over again.

With real estate you achieve the same effect with rental properties. Although your involvement in the process is a little bit bigger, but it is still manageable. You have to collect the rent and making sure it is paid on time. On the other hand you have to pay all the bills like mortgage payments, insurance, taxes and sometimes utility bills. Depending on the type of lease agreement you have with the tenants.

This takes care of the residual income part. As a rule of thumb if your residual income covers your living expenses you’re on your way to be successful. Now you can start doing the fun part with real estate. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a landlord. I personally don’t like this part of investing in real estate.

The fun part for me is to work deals with real estate. It could be buying an old property way below market, fix it up and sell it with a profit. Another method in dealing with real estate is called flipping. In this case I simply control the property through a contract and then assign the contract to another buyer. Of course I will collect a fee for my services. I prefer the second method because the least amount of money and work is involved. Fixing up properties can turn into a time and money consuming project.

The point I want to make is that you need to establish some sort of residual income to cover your basic living expenses in order to expand your business.

Of course you can do all of the things mentioned and still working full time. That’s what most people are doing. However you have to decide if the extra income is worth the effort. You will need a lot of time to do both investing in real estate and running an internet business.

As human beings, we’re very good at thinking that really bad things only happen to other people – or that by virtue of Murphy’s Law, they are inevitable and unavoidable. The same attitude applies in many businesses despite well documented casualties from recent events such as flooding and supply chain issues. Crisis planning is an essential component of being a well managed and resilient business and offers the best chance of staying up and running after a significant disruption.

What qualifies as a business crisis?

The nature of a crisis can vary widely – from natural disaster, through a leaked memo containing sensitive information to the office next door involving you in their crisis by default. In other words, a crisis can come from almost anywhere but by definition is unexpected and has the potential to have negative consequences. A crisis may affect the safety of staff, the availability of resources, critical systems, shareholders and potentially threaten the mid to long term success or existence of the business.

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