Small / Medium Business Blog Process Outsourcing as a Website Traffic Building Service

You are a small or a medium business owner. You have a well designed business website. It is a Search Engine Optimized (SEO) website for a limited set of keywords. However, with changing rules of SEO and new competitors entering the market, your select keywords stand a slim chance of surviving the onslaught. What are the chances that your website will remain on the top when a potential customer searches those special keywords on a search engine? To make matters worse, Search engines change their algorithms without any notice and suddenly your site is no longer in top 10 results. So what is the solution?

How about hiring a Blog Outsourcing company to add a Business Blog to your website? (If you are not familiar with Business Blogs, read my earlier article here: http://ezinearticles.com/?id=50041 ).

A business blog can do the SEO magic when it is embedded to your business website. Business blogging needs discipline to write every other day to bring potential customers to your business website. If you have the time and inclination, you may write the business blog yourself. However, if you feel, you should concentrate on your business; you can outsource this task to a Blog Outsourcing Company. Here is a link to first such company: http://www.ideologicllc.com.

What are the benefits of a Business Blog?

1. Improves searchability of your business website, thus increasing the chances of prospective clients visiting your business website.

2. A Business Blog provides instantaneous Customer feedback with comments.

3. A Business Blog has a potential to become centralized knowledgebase with articles containing tips and tutorials about correct usage of the products or services.

4. You can use a Business Blog to share product development status, thus passively achieving pre-launch marketing of the product.

5. The Business Blogs can help in branding a product online.

6. Your Business blog can help in building your business reputation.

7. Believe it or not, a business blog can project you as an expert in your niche business area.

8. Business blog lets you do your own "press release" on the website.

What happens when a business blog is outsourced?

A blogger from the Business Blog Outsourcing Company meets with the business owner or representative once every month and strategically selects few topics which are of interest to the company's current and prospective clients and prepares keyword rich articles to be published on the company's blog either every other day or once in a week, depending on the plan selected by the company. Results can be phenomenal. Instead of select keywords for the website, each blog posting has separate keywords which are used by the potential customers searching the internet for specific products or services.

What is the justification for outsourcing a Business Blog?

It is said a business person must concentrate on expanding and improving the business. If he/she tries to do everything, then nothing gets done. So, if a task can be done by secretary, it must be done by a secretary and if a task is difficult or there is lack of time, hiring outside help maybe the best way to get that task done. Business blogging is same way. Writing is a time consuming task, so it is better left to a professional blogger or writer who can better construct the article, intersperse it with business-specific keywords keeping search engine criteria in mind.

Can a professional writer or a blogger do justice to the task of writing about a business, product or service, where he/she has no expertise? The answer is yes. This is no different from a situation where a professional writer writes articles in a magazine about various businesses, products and services. Knowledge can always be gained and then combined with the skills of a professional writer. End result is an article that captivates reader's attention till very end and has a potential of converting a prospect to a loyal customer.

Harish Keshwani is a Strategic Blogging Consultant, Software Developer, Blogger and an Entrepreneur. He is focused on consulting and guiding small and medium businesses in setting up their blogs and managing it for them as an outsourced process.

He guides corporations of small and medium size to realize the potential of blogging for their business. With appropriate content, he helps companies to keep their customers satisfied and in close touch. He promotes blogging as a marketing and customer response tool to the companies.

His contact information is: Email: businessorati-at-gmail-dot-com Company: Ideologic L.L.C.-A Small/Medium Business Blog Process Outsourcing Company. Website: <a target="_new" href="http://www.ideologicllc.com">http://www.ideologicllc.com</a> Blog: <a target="_new" href="http://www.ideologicllc.com/wp">http://www.ideologicllc.com/wp</a>

Why Every Artist Needs a Blog & How to Create an Artist Blog

As an artist, the key to selling more artwork is maximizing its exposure. The internet is an increasingly popular tool for promoting original art, and if done properly, can be quite profitable.

One of the most effective (and free!) online marketing tools for artists is the blog. Artist blogs provide an easy way to display your art, discuss your creative process, post exhibition announcements and more. Best of all, blogs require no working knowledge of HTML and the search engines love their dynamic content.

What is a blog and how will it sell my art?

A "blog" is a web-based diary or journal. The author of a blog, also known as a "Blogger", publishes content on a regular basis about a focused topic. These regular postings typically provide a "community" feel by allowing site visitors to post feedback to your journal entries. This mode of communication can deepen relationships with potential art buyers, leading to increased sales.

Blogs also have the ability to archive all of your previous posts, dynamically creating an individual page for each journal entry. The feature is great for art buyers using search engines to find original art. For example, if you have a blog post describing a painting that you just completed of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset and an art buyer in Florida goes to Google and searches for "painting of Golden Gate Bridge at sunset", there is a very good chance that your blog entry will appear pretty high in the rankings. Cha Ching!!

Many artists have felt the pain of email marketing losing its effect due to spam filters, junk email overloads and virus paranoia. Blogs provide a new way to communicate with clients, fans and industry professionals. This trend can support your email marketing efforts by allowing blog subscription options for site visitors so that they are notified whenever your blog is updated along with providing a permanent place on the web for all of your postings as opposed to newsletter emails that are typically deleted.

How to start a blog

<li>Blog Publishing Tools

To begin, visit some of these free blogging sites, all offering unique template options that even an artist can appreciate, image uploads and syndication ability.

<ul>

<li>Blogger.com (blogger.com) - Simple to set up and multiple authoring ability</li>

<li>MSN Spaces (spaces.msn.com) - Create your own mini site, with an exceptional blogging feature</li>

<li>Live Journal (livejournal.com) - Requires a bit of 'blogging knowledge' to get it set up </li>

<li>Blog Drive (blogdrive.com)</li>

</ul>

If you're interesting in reviewing additional blog features, these sites require a small monthly fee to maintain.

<ul>

<li>Typepad (typepad.com) - starts at $4.95/month</li>

<li>Tripod Blogs (tripod.lycos.com) - starts at $4.95/month</li>

</ul>

Note to artists with MySpace accounts: MySpace provides members personal blogs, but it is important to know that MySpace blogs are not currently listed in search engines, which as noted above, is one of the main reasons to get a blog. While MySpace works to remedy this issue, it is recommended that you blog using a tool that is accessible to search engine spiders.

</li>

<li>Decide on a title for your blog

The title of your blog should be brief and to the point. You can get creative with your language in the blog description / tag line. A focused title will help with higher search engine rankings and make it clear to visitors what the blog is about.

For example, the title for ThePauper.com blog is "Diary of a Pauper". The blog description is "Rants and raves about the careers and lives of starving artists." The title is concise, stating exactly what it is, while the description is a bit more creative.
</li>

<li>Blog theme

It's important to establish yourself as a professional working artist if you want to use your blog as a vehicle to sell your art. Blog theme involves the layout and color of the page, quality of the artwork images displayed and verbiage used for blog postings.

Select your blog template carefully and make a habit to review your blog from the perspective of a potential client. Is the page visually appealing? Do the images of your artwork provide a link to an extra large version to see detail? Does your content have a consistent theme?

Here's a good example of a working blog by mix engineer, Ken Lewis: http://protoolsmixing.com/blog.html

The content theme is exceptionally consistent, plus the colors and page layout match his website.

</li>

<li>What to write

What's beautiful about blogs is that there are no rules on what to write, but if you want to attract and keep an audience, you might consider some of these suggestions.

<ul>

<li>Keep your posts creative and interesting. Move and inspire your readers by being completely honest about your creative process.

</li>

<li>Use keywords in your blog title and post. Using the example mentioned earlier ? if your post is about a Golden Gate Bridge painting, be sure to use that exact phrase in the title and body of your blog. Think about what people might type into search engines to find your content and then use those keywords in your blog. This technique will help increase the ranking of your web page on search engines.

</li>

<li>Post daily, or at least twice a week. If you publish blog entries frequently, you will see more return visitors, subscriptions to your blog and comments from site visitors.

</li>

<li>Proofread and preview your blog entries before posting. Some blog HTML editors have a way of creating weird symbols out of certain characters and a quick spell-check never hurts. (Note: be sure to create your blog entries using Word or some other text editor. Many blogging tools tend to "time out" after a certain amount of time and you could potentially lose hours of work.)

</li>

</ul>

</li>

<li>Publish your blog

Finally! Your blog looks great and has unique content. Now, depending on the blogging tool that you selected, follow the steps to publish it to the World Wide Web. Test the live URL that now houses your blog. If all of your graphics appear correctly and the copy is flawless, then you want to make sure that you promote your blog on your personal website, in your email signature and by word of mouth.

Using the tools you already have to spread the word while testing your dedication to frequent posting is the best way to get started. Part 2 of will unveil tons of ways to promote your blog online.</li>

Kristin Royce is a search engine optimization and online marketing professional contributing online marketing and promotional content for artists to The <a target="_new" href="http://www.theartrepreneur.com">Artrepreneur E-Zine</a> and newsletter.

The Artrepreneur offers articles helping artists focus on proven techniques to accomplish any goal. Read More: <a target="_new" href="http://www.theartrepreneur.com">http://www.theartrepreneur.com</a>

Copyright ? 2005 Arctic Mouse, Inc. All rights reserved.

RSS Publishing for Webmasters

Since the recent rise in interest in RSS there has been a slew of RSS sites and RSS software. RSS has been proclaimed as the next big thing. There has been many wild claims about the benefits of publishing an RSS feed such as it will generate floods of traffic to your website.

If you have never heard of RSS publishing then you might want to take a look at this <a target="_new" href="http://newsniche.com/rss-publishers-faq.asp">RSS Publishing FAQ</a> to get yourself up to speed. More and more webmasters are starting to publish an RSS feed, those of you who are bloggers will be lucky enough to have RSS publishing capabilities built into their blogging software. The rest of us will have to rely on third party software.

The amount of RSS publishing applications has grown recently due to the demand from users needing simple to use software. You can of course edit an RSS file in a text editor which is relatively straight forward but time consuming. This is the reason that most webmasters need RSS publishing software, most webmasters want to be able to publish an RSS feed with has little hassle as possible.

There are a number of applications that I am aware of and I have listed them for you at <a target="_new" href="http://newsniche.com/rss-publishing-tools.asp">http://newsniche.com/rss-publishing-tools.asp</a>. Most of the titles I have seen are free and this is a good way to familiarise yourself with RSS publishing and test out the benefits of having an RSS feed.

All of these applications are great except for one thing. Publishing an RSS feed means using another piece of software where you need to cut and paste your content for it to be published. Do not get me wrong, this additional software is a great time saver for webmasters, but what they really need is an application that is integrated into their existing web publishing software. I am sure this will happen soon for many of the major titles but it would be nice to see some independent software writers produce an all inclusive publishing system.

I realise that every webmaster has different needs so such a piece of RSS publishing software may not be for everyone but it would sure make RSS publishing a whole lot more attractive to webmasters. By the way if you are using such a piece of software or you are a programmer currently writing RSS publishing software then let me know at rss{at}newsniche{dot}com.

Allan is the webmaster at <a target="_new" href="http://www.newsniche.com/">http://www.newsniche.com/</a> an RSS resource for webmasters. Learn how to use RSS to attract and retain visitors to your site.

What the BLOG?

Blogs Are the NEW Secret Weapon for Reaching Your Tarket . Just like you, I hate being marketed to. Every day we're bombarded with over 3,500 marketing messages. And frankly I'm sick of it! But blogs are different. Blogs are a two-way conversation between blogger and bloggee (plus all the readers in between). Through commenting and cross-linking, you can share feedback. You can build your network. You can become, dare I say it, an Internet celebrity !

See blogs add humanity and instantaneous expression to the web. Like ezines, blogs are a way for your customer to get to know you.

However, unlike ezines, blogs help you with search engine rankings . Did you hear me? I said, unlike ezines, blogs help you with search engine rankings. That's a big one.

Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Week, even the FCC (Federal Trade Commission) all believe blogs are here to stay. Recently Michael Powell, chairman of the FCC, started one. His initial post drew over 30,000 readers. A Microsoft spokesperson says Bill Gates is considering starting a blog. And filmmaker Michael Moore built a blog to promote his controversial new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11.

But who has time to read a blog anyway? Exactly! The job of a blog is to cut through the information overload and deliver searchable, relevant and current content. <a href="http://www.blogads.com">BlogAds.com</a> recently conducted a survey of over 17,000 blog readers. Here's what they report:

<ul> <li> Blog readers are older and more affluent . 61% of blog readers are over 30, and 75% make more than $45,000 a year.</li>

<li> Blog readers are more cyber-active . 54% of their news consumption is online. 21% are themselves bloggers and 46% describe themselves as opinion makers. </li>

<li> Blog readers are media-mavens . 21% subscribe to the New Yorker magazine, 15% to the Economist, 15% to Newsweek and 14% to the Atlantic Monthly. </li>

<li> Whether on the left or right, blog readers have traits in common that often are absent in today's public spaces: passion and initiative .</li>

<li> Blog readers have apathy towards traditional news sources . 82% say that television is worthless. 55% percent say the same about print newspapers. 54% say the same about print magazines. </li>

<li> Meanwhile, 86% say that blogs are either useful or extremely useful as sources of news or opinion . 80% say they read blogs for news they can't find elsewhere. 78% read because the perspective is better. 66% value the faster news. 61% say that blogs are more honest.</li>

<li> Blog readers appear united in their dissatisfaction with conventional media and their rabid love of blogs.</li> </ul>

Don't you want to be a blogger too? How about looking at some samples of the good, the bad and the bizarre?

Model citizen blogs : <a target="_new" href="http://www.marketingsecrets.com/blog/">http://www.marketingsecrets.com/blog/</a> - John Reese's blog. Hey, the guy just made $1,080,496.37 online in a single day. Here's a good rule of thumb. If Reese is doing it, you should be too.

<a target="_new" href="http://www.talkbiz.net/ramblings/weblog.php">http://www.talkbiz.net/ramblings/weblog.php</a> - Copywriter Paul Myers keeps us up-to-date on SPAM and other Internet marketing nightmares.

<a target="_new" href="http://www.thinkbigrevolution.com/">http://www.thinkbigrevolution.com/</a> - Michael Port's weekly calls to inspire those who aspire now have an online connecting point. Designed by Andy Wibbels.

My Blog: <a target="_new" href="http://www.red-hot-copy.com/blog.htm">http://www.red-hot-copy.com/blog.htm</a> - my blog today (see end of article).

Bizarro Blog : Jeff Bridges' site is considered a "blog." It's hand-written! (Yes, really). <a target="_new" href="http://www.jeffbridges.com">http://www.jeffbridges.com</a>

I've been dipping my toe into the blogging pool since earlier this year. Now I've decided it's time to really learn how to do this stuff with an expert who will take me by the hand through the scary forest of the blog-world. I'm going back to school! Through another client, I met blogging guru, Andy Wibbels. Sure, he has a funny name, but he is adorable! And his writing style has me rolling on the floor. Well Andy is a self-professed geek. And Andy knows blogs. He says it's easy and I trust him. Read more about it here. <a target="_new" href="http://www.easybakeweblogs.com">www.easybakeweblogs.com</a>

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

International copywriting trainer, author and speaker, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero has been a freelance writer and journalist for over 25 years. Her words have made her clients hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now she focuses her vast experience on teaching others the skill of copywriting. Lorrie is the author of a highly acclaimed copywriting course, creator of the Red Hot Copywriting Bootcamp and founder of Copy Campus , a unique membership resource site designed to support copywriters and entrepreneurs on all levels. Visit her site to learn more at <a target="_new" href="http://www.red-hot-copy.com">http://www.red-hot-copy.com</a>.

3 Ways to Publish RSS

As RSS news syndication gains popularity among users, new ways for publishing RSS are emerging. In this article, I examine the three most popular methods, and help you decide which one works best for you.

1. Blogs
Weblogs, or blogs, as they are commonly called, are the primary reason RSS gained popularity. In fact, one of the earliest uses for RSS was for bloggers to monitor other blogs for updates.

Most blogging systems will produce RSS newsfeeds automatically. All you need to do is enter content, and the blogging software will build a newsfeed based on the information you enter. No extra work is needed. Just add content to your blog, and you have a newsfeed.

But there is one major disadvantage to using a blog for publishing RSS: you do not have complete control of the RSS output. Most blogging software will simply take an excerpt of your blog entry (eg, the first 15 words), and use that to create your RSS item. As you can imagine, this can lead to problems. The first 15 words of a blog entry don't always capture the essence of that article.

2. RSS Publishing Software
Because of the inadequacy of blogs as a reliable and accurate RSS tool, new stand- alone software was developed. This software has one purpose: to provide the user with an easy way to create and publish RSS newsfeeds from their desktops. No longer do you have to write a long article in your blog to produce RSS feeds. All you have to do is enter a title for your news item, and (optionally) a couple sentences to describe that headline ? and your feed is better than the blog-produced feed.

Examples of RSS publishing software for Windows include FeedforAll (http:// www.feedforall.com) and Newzalert Composer (http://www.castlesoftware.biz/ NewzAlertComposer.htm). Mac users have their own tool in Orangebox for Macintosh (http://www.globalsyndication.com/orangebox-for-macintosh).

3. Online RSS Publishing Systems
While subscribers to feeds generated by RSS software enjoyed the simplicity and clarity of the new feeds, some publishers began to run into problems that came with the publishing software. They missed the convenience of blogging's online publishing that allowed them to add news -- regardless of whether they were at their home computer.

News publishers wanted the accessibility of online blogging with the accuracy of RSS publishing software. The new demand lead to the emergence of online RSS publishing systems such as FeedServer RSS Hosting (http:// www.globalsyndication.com/rss-hosting). This new format of RSS publishing allows webmasters to login to an online control panel and publish their news ? without having to worry about restrictive software licenses. Since most online RSS publishing systems run on a subscription basis, you can make use of the free trial or subscribe for one month and evaluate if the service meets your needs.

So which system should you use to publish RSS? It depends on your needs. If most of your readers manually visit your site to get new information, a blogging system may be sufficient. However, if you plan to take advantage of the full capabilities of RSS news syndication, you would do well to use a stand-alone RSS publishing system. RSS publishing software will satisfy your needs if you plan to use one computer only. But if you're looking for flexibility and a lower startup costs, look into the new online RSS publishing systems.

Josiah Mackenzie is an entrepreneur and small business owner. His website (<a target="_new" href="http://www.josiahmackenzie.com">http://www.josiahmackenzie.com</a>) contains fresh tips and advice for business and internet marketing.

Josiah also manages marketing for Global Syndication (<a target="_new" href="http://www.globalsyndication.com">http://www.globalsyndication.com</a>), an RSS solutions company.

What are Blogs and How Do You Profit from Them?

'Blogs' or 'Blogging' have existed for several years and there are still many people who don't know what one is and how important it is to making you money.

A blog is a web log. It's used to add contents of a diary or news by the owner (blogger). For example, I may want to blog about the latest affiliate programs there are and ones that have good commissions as soon as I know about them. People can visit my website and see new contents on my website regularly.

A blog should contain information about a similar topic. For example, cars, computers, stamps etc... The good thing about blogs is that you can write whatever you want on it. Your visitors can even comment on what they think about a particular blog. With a blog you do not need to have any programming experience. You can update a blog easily by just typing what you want just like with a word processor. What an easy way to update a website.

So now we know what a blog is, what's so good about a blog? Why are so many talking about it?

Owners have found that updating fresh content to their websites has been made easier by using blogging software. Before blogs were popular, people had to create the content, get it transferred into HTML by the programmer, and then uploaded to the website. All this hassle is gone with blogging.

Perhaps, the most important thing about having a blog is that the search engines love them. Yes, search engines love new content. It means a website is not static, therefore search engines will visit that website often and get them indexed. If you have a blog, search engines will have your website in their listings quickly.

Blogging should be done regularly by your business. The customers should have the feeling that your blog will be updated regularly so that they will feel the need to visit often. If your blog is stagnant, then people will not go back. This is not how blogs are used.

What a lot of people don't know about blogging is that it can also help make you money. Yes - blogs can be profitable too.

One of the ways you can profit from blogs is to provide valuable content to them, and keep them regularly informed. Once you have created that relationship with them, you can place affiliate links within your blogs. These have to be products or services that you recommend to your readers to use. Good commission comes with using this idea.

You can even ask your readers to donate money to maintain your blog. Stress that your blog is a free service and you hope that they will support you etc...

Once you have a lot of visitors to your blogging website, you can use Google's Adsense which shows Google's ads on your blogs. When your visitors click on those ads, you'll get a percentage of the payment for each click. With a lot of visitors, this will add up to a nice check every month.

You can even have an advertising space at the top of your blog. Advertise this space. You can charge people weekly to advertise what they want. You may even have more than one space for advertisements. The more popular and more visitors your blog gets, the more you can charge for these advertising spaces.

The blog http://www.home-business-setup.com shows the ways in which money can be made which I've discussed throughout this article. Notice the AdSense at the top of the page and also the text link which other people will pay for once they know the blog gets traffic. Just shows that there are so many ways to profit from blogging that it would be crazy if we don't start now.

Alan Cheng, is the owner of Online Money Machine, the system designed to help one start a profitable internet business. To receive your free report "10 Critical Factors to Making Money Online", sign up at the <a target="_new" href="http://www.onlinemoneymachine.com">home business</a> website.

Writing Quality Blogs

Writing?Blogs?Blogs are on-line journals where people express themselves through writing. Writing?Writing is the process where one puts down words of a language on a format that others can read. This process has not been around very long, to use one of my writing teacher's favorite sayings, &quot;Writing has only existed for one day in the one year that humanity has existed.&quot; Speaking and thinking come much easier than writing. These processes just flow out naturally like a river of consciousness; sometimes we hardly have to think about doing them. Anyone and everyone can write words down on paper but that doesn't mean it's 'good writing', myself included. Like most things in life, our society already takes writing for granted which is proving to expose more of our ignorance. Writing is a new form of expression, and if we want to do it in a way that the masses can connect with our ideas, we have to think much more simply and clearly about this art. Now that was quite a big paragraph, you've got to wonder if I really needed to say as much as I just did to introduce this article on the best way to write your blogs on the Web. I didn't even mention this main idea, and that's what an introduction paragraph is meant to be for. This is a common mistake in many blogs out there. We try to get too many ideas across in one paragraph, sometimes even in one sentence! The key, as in all things in life-is to keep it simple. Simplicity means that readers won't get confused about what your journal entry is actually about. Introduce your main general topic at the start, and use the subsequent paragraphs to discuss separate ideas that relate to this topic. Try to tie everything up in the concluding paragraph, your main argument and the reason why you've written in the first place. Grammar and sentence construction are not easy systems to master, especially if you come from a school system that spent more time telling you about historical battles and quadratic equations than on how to read and write. This is a real problem. When we speak we can get messages across to others easily, but if we put these words down on paper, the writing just isn't interesting and doesn't connect with people's curiosities and fascination. When you write you are not talking to a close friend. You can't use slang and colloquialisms that only your local community can understand. The aim is to connect with all the people in the world, so let's make it crystal clear and enjoyable to read. Your computer has spelling and grammar checks, as well as access to a thesaurus. Use them, but remember that the machine can't decipher all the intricacies of language. Language is a world in itself, and much of its territories are undiscovered by the masses. So, again keep it simple. Short, precise sentences with single ideas are great. Many words in the English language have the same meanings (synonyms). Use the thesaurus so you don't repeat the same word over and over throughout the text. It keeps the story fresh and doesn't turn the reader off. There's nothing more boring than repetition. Using different words can be a lot of fun and a learning experience, just make sure you use a dictionary (also on the computer/Internet) to make absolute sure of the word's definition. Readability?Simplicity?Make your blog accessible by all people. You can even take into consideration that many readers will have learned English as a second language. As I've said in previous articles, keep to the point-don't go on tangents. Stick with the article's topic, and definitely stay within the realms of your blog's main area. If your blog is entitled &quot;Jazz music&quot;, people who go there don't want to hear about how your football team won on the weekend! Please be consistent. How irritating is it to visit a blog that hasn't been written on in months or years? I hope these little tips will help you on your quest to producing 'good' writing that brings new friends and acquaintances of similar outlooks into your world. If you want people to read, the aim is to produce an emotional reaction in your reader. Pretend you are writing to another form of yourself, if it were not readable, interesting and fun?would you stick around?

Jesse S. Somer<BR>M6.Net<BR><A target="_new" href="http://www.m6.net/">http://www.m6.net</A><BR>Jesse S. Somer is a 'grasshopper' writer attempting to inform other beginner writers on how they might one day become masters or 'sensei's'.