Blogging - Ten or So Sites You Need To Know

Whether you are already part of the blogging phenomenom that has spread across the World, or if you simply aspire to learn something about the online community, there is plenty of assistance available to you online to help you create or expand your online presence.

To get started online your could try hosting your site on Xanga or Blogger or the very popular Wordpress . All of these sites offer free blogging that can be set up quick and easily and are worldwide communities offering great blog exposure.

Myspace and Facebook are online social networking giants. As such, Google and other search engines love these sites offering great exposure for your blog. Just create your personal page and add links to your blog.

If you are reading this blog you are probably interested in making money online. Well there are numerous sites that help you do this. The first two I want to tell you about are ClickBank and Adsense. Both are affiliate programs whereby you advertise products from each site on your blog through link advertisements and banner advertisements created by the marketer. When a visitor to your site clicks on an advertisement he/she is redirected to the seller's site hosting the particular product. If a product is purchased you will receive a percentage of the profit.

To avoid some of the blogging pitfalls many unfortunately fall into you should try visiting some 'expert' blogger sites. Sites like Marketing Quickies and Blogging to the Bank both offer some great advice on blogging techniques.

You want to get as much traffic to your blog as is humanly possible. Without the traffic, there is no opportunity for income. I always quote a 1% rule as a lower bound for profits. If you have 1000 people visit your site a month you may have 10 person click on an advertisement. Of those 10 people only 10% may actually make a purchase, so you need 1000 unique visitors for just 1 purchase. This is extremist but a good path to follow as it is much better to underestimate things at this early age. Consider adding your blogs to blog directories like Blog Catalog and Yahoo. The same goes for the listings on Google.

Another mechanism for gaining essential exposure for your blog is through submitting your own articles to Ezine Articles. You offer your article up for free use by other bloggers but you can cunningly add your blog link to the end of the article such that it must be posted on all other sites where it is used. This gives you great and essential back links which Google loves!

A final site that is a must is Pro Blogger. This is a hub for blogging advice in an easy to digest format.

That should get you started for now. Good Luck!

Next Time: An Honest Review - Blogging to the Bank 3.0

The advantages of having a blog...

Some people choose to create blogs and others choose to read them, why? The answer comes from the very working principle behind the entire phenomenom. First off, bloggers are like journalists or columnists and the material we find on blogs is often personalised giving it a more associable and interesting theme. We cannot ignore the interactive dimension of blogs which promotes this form of communication advantageously. We have comment boxes for instant feedback, links to a variety of media across the web, the opportunities to make blogging a two way affair are endless.

Lets face it, blogging is becoming trendy. We all have personal sites on popular social networking applications like Facebook or MySpace which in themselves are autobiographical blogs that are communicated through text, photos and videos. You get an idea of what people appreciate in your writing and get the chance to speak up and comment upon events of public interest in an environment free from discouragement and general demeanour. Everything that you post on a blog is easily accessible, reliably so, such that whenever you need it you know exactly where to find it. Blogging gives the amateur journalist the opportunity to get his/her ideas into print without the intermediary of another publication.

Many webblogs offer constructive debate on current news where many will voice their opinions. The feed-back is not always what you expect but it is important to realise that it is what it is, feedback on a particular issue. Whether negative or positive this is at large what you want from interactive debate; a way of finding out how to improve a product, business or website. If all feedback were positive we would have nothing to aim for.

Many businesses have discovered that blogs are the perfect way to regularily keep in touch with customers and even employees since these 'online journals' are regularily updated. Traditional websites are known for being static in their content and approach but blogs remain to be dynamic, informative and quirky enticing the reader to come back week after week.

Next Time: Blogging, Seriously...whats it all about?