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Nobody who has an online presence, or who is involved in any
form of online marketing, can afford to ignore blogs, or web
logs as they were previously widely called. It is now pretty
obvious that any entrepreneur, who insists on continuing to
ignore blogs, is bound to live to deeply regret the decision.
In recent times blogs have quickly climbed up the ladder of
importance in online marketing to a point where no serious
online marketer will fail to include blogs in their arsenal of
key marketing weapons.
Blog power Actually, there is no denying the sheer power of
blogs. For instance the growth rate of websites has declined in
recent times and most of the growth online is now being driven
by this new kid on the block. It is estimated that a staggering
40,000 new blogs are being launched daily.
Then there is the fact that blogs seem to almost effortlessly
gain traffic very quickly in the sort of volumes that websites
take years to achieve. Part of the reason is that blogs seem to
link to each other very easily and virtually at the least
excuse. It is amazing how quickly the average new blog
accumulates links to itself. Links and traffic are naturally
close relatives because people mostly use links to get to a site
or blog. Little wonder that many blogs gain traffic at such a
breakneck speed.
Blogs are also now threatening the media establishment as we
have known it for years. Two recent examples that have clearly
underlined the importance of this medium were the last American
Presidential elections and the tsunami tragedy in Asia which
were both widely covered in blogs.
But then how does an online entrepreneur or marketer seeking to
effectively promote their business online benefit from blogs and
all the advantages they seem to come with?
Actually there are several ways.
Use blogs to drive traffic to your website The most obvious way
an entrepreneur can use blogs, is to drive traffic to their
site. Many online marketers have been very successful in using
blogs to direct heavy traffic to their websites.
There are in fact two main kinds of blogs being used to drive
massive traffic in the direction of various websites. The first
is the sort of blog that is closely related to the subject of
the site it links to. The other type of blog will tend to have a
popular topic with little or no relation to the website topic.
Here the idea is to attract huge volumes of traffic and then
direct as much of it as possible to the website using attractive
and catchy headlines on links situated at the blog.
Both types of blogs work pretty well and what?s more, there is
nothing to stop an online marketer from using both types of
blogs at the same time to win and direct even heavier traffic in
the direction of their website. The fact that blogs are easy to
maintain makes it simpler for virtually any small business to
have several blogs successfully running alongside their main
website.
All you have to do with blogs covering unrelated topics to the
site you want to direct traffic to, is to be careful to ensure
that it atracts the kind of people who qualify as prospects for
your site. For instance, it will not help if your main site
focuses on a product for women and yet your popular blog
attracts mostly men and very few ladies.
Use blogs to test your ideas As vital as it is, research has
never been cheap. Now blogs have made it virtually free. Online
marketers are using blogs extensively for testing purposes. What
makes blogs even better research tools is the fact that visitors
can leave comments under posts that they make on your blog.
These comments can be invaluable in gauging public reaction and
can help any online marketer to tailor their products better to
fit client demand.
Even by simply using your existing blog stats, you can collect
valuable research data. For example you can check which pages
and posts are most popular with your visitors.
The secret behind the leading online marketers is the fact that
they usually test extensively. It is the only way to constantly
improve something. Blogs allow you to test all the time and are
therefore extremely valuable to any top online marketer.
Use blogs to finance your marketing efforts for your website
These days the blogs fairy tale has gone even further. If you
have a reasonable amount of traffic, you can apply to post
google adsense pay-per-click ads. Every time visitors to your
blog click on the ads, you get paid.
Now this opens up a wide range of different opportunities. For
example you can finance a huge chunk of your online marketing
expenses from your google income from the blogs. So launching a
blog or blogs alongside your website will not drain your scarce
resources, if anything it has the potential to pay for itself
and give you a profit.
There is no doubt that blogs are set to make an even larger
impact in our lives in the future. No online marketer should be
left out of these exciting developments.
About the author:
Article by David Callan. David is an Internet Marketing
professional and is webmaster of http://www.akamarketing.com.
Visit his site for articles about Internet Marketing and search
engine optimisation.
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