Free blogs are a GREAT way to extend your marketing dollars. There are MANY different free blogging platforms like wordpress.com and blogger.com. Doing a google search revealed 460,000,000 of them! Setting up a blog takes minutes and will help your marketing efforts.
That having been said, I think free blogs are a great feeder into a “real” wordpress blog like this one. There are limitations to free blogs like being able to add advertising and customized contact us forms.
If you are going to commit to growing a blog (free or paid), there are some key things you need to focus on…
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If you want to set up a self hosted wordpress blog, WebHostingBuzz.com offers custom IP addresses (good for making blog networks) and one click WordPress setup. If you want even easier, we set up self hosted wordpress blogs for $500!
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Identify your blogging objectives – Before launching your blog site, you need to go through your list of objectives first. Ask yourself why you need to establish a blog in the first place, are you driving traffic to a website or collecting email addresses? You also need to identify your target audience for your blog so it will be easier for you to identify what sort of topics you should write about. Your blogging objectives should also include establishing a specific identity or branding style so you can effectively differentiate yourself from the others.
Draft a series of topics for a month or a monthly theme – Once you have setup your blog, your biggest challenge would be to regularly fill it up with new entries. Remember that your blog hits will depend mostly on what’s been published on it. Since you are blogging for business, it would be good to align your blogging topics with your business plans–include things such as interesting industry information, products or services to be launched, industry reports, new client acquisitions, among other things. You might also want to try having a monthly theme to keep your blog’s consistency.
Learn about SEO – To keep your blog site successful, make sure your blog is properly optimized so it can also attract more readership. Search engine optimization involves a lot of different processes which mostly relies on keywords sprinkled in blog posts for better chances of making it on the top ranks of search engines. Make blogging a more effective marketing tool by using the power of SEO.
