There are so many things out there that you can do… and I know it’s hard to decide what’s right for you. But I will tell you this. There is nothing more powerful than building relationships with like minded individuals. That in and of itself can rocket your business forward.
Building alliances and sharing lists etc. with other businesses with related products or services is how the big boys get to be big boys.
The people with lists of 100K or more didn’t do it overnight and with little opt in forms on their sites & a bit of traffic… some might of over a long period of time, but most likely it was through big campaigns and joint ventures (just like I have done recently with Fabian Lim – we did a simple ad swap and it both brought us tons of new subscribers!).
There is no need to worry about spammy or tricky techniques to grow one’s online business… there are tried and true methods that marketers have been using for years that have not changed… that existed before the Big Dot Coms… and still exist today.
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Blogging, in my mind, brought balance to the Web Universe & helps us focus on what’s important… content.
It gives us an opportunity to streamline our delivery… it quickens our ability to be heard…
It provides us with a simple content management system, yet powerful & flexible.
I use WordPress… I used to use blogger.com, but I like controling my content on my own server. I don’t like the fact that they can swipe out your business if they don’t do things to their liking…
Is there an advantage to having a blog from a search engine perspective? No, not really.
You could have the same results if you just added fresh content to a site that is crawled regularly… of course, it does speed up the process of getting to that point… but in the end, the same rules apply.
AND it depends on the SE you are targeting. I know my blog is bombarded by MSN for some reason… My most current blog is only 3 months old, but most of my traffic comes from MSN. It’s amazing sometimes how quickly their spider is there after I publish/ping.
It’s great to have RSS capabilites built in with any blog…
I think, the most important thing blogs have done for people is given something that is already designed for them and provides everything including content management without them doing a thing if they don’t want.
Simplicity.
I love WP because it’s easily modified for one. Plus I LOVE the category function.. I love that it’s set up to connect to other blogs… with a natural linking mechanism built right in.
A perfect match for doing what the web was designed to do. Link.
Links make the (Internet) world go round…
Oh, and comments… what a great way to build a following and stay in touch with your community of visitors by allowing them to comment on your posts and you in turn can communicate with them within those comments…
Search… what a great search function built in. Even I use it!! I’ll often want to go back and reference posts I made. All I have to do is do a search!
I could go on and on… but I think you get the picture. I like WordPress blogs.
I think every website should have one either internally or through a sub-domain. Why not!? You have a new product or a new article on your website… reference it in your blog and POW! crawled and one quick inbound link.
The real beauty is, it forces us, reminds us, makes it easy to create fresh content. And that makes the SEs happy and our clients, customers and community happy, too.
I will tell you, I have numerous websites AND Plenty of opportunity to add fresh content… all I have to do is FTP. But do I do it? No….. Why? Too much work I suspect… too many steps… create a new page… enter and format content… upload etc.
A blog. If I had a thought right now… If I wanted to comment on this thread, all I have to do is go to my favorites and hit my “Press It” link… a window will pop up with this thread’s link already embedded with a title and I make a few comments, format and BOOM! Fresh content…. PING!
10-15 minutes a day… a small article a day… that really adds up! 30 a month! 365 a year!
Easy. Just easy… But unfortunately, most of us are not consistent enough. Myself included!
Excellent article! All it takes is fresh and useful content on a regular basis (daily) and you will make on the internet.A wordpress blog is the best “content management system” there is.