The Marketing Mind Set

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If you are new to blogging chances are you may be unsure of what the best and most effective approach to gaining maximum benefit from time and effort invested. A primary goal for blogging should be to gain visibility, credibility and market reach for your efforts. The following are some easy to apply strategies that will get you well on your way to becoming a competent blogger.

Determine Your Purpose
The first thing you need to do is determine what is the purpose of your blog. Are you blogging for fun or is this a viable part of your overall branding and marketing strategy?

Here are some common reasons for having a blog:
Establish expert status
Keep in touch with clients
Reach a global market
Blow off some steam
Create your online personality

Blog Consistently
To be effective you need to blog on a fairly regular basis. Your postings can be short, but need to be relative to your purpose. Many bloggers post information from other sites as a way to keep their readers informed on a particular topic. Doing this makes your job pretty easy. Other than doing a few google searches for information and posting the information, there is not a lot for you to do. The advantage to this is it's fast and relatively easy. The disadvantage is you are not establishing your own expertise if this is the only type of posting you do. Why not offer a bit of both?

Driving Visitors
There are a number of effective ways to get people to view your blog. One is to use key words relative to your market and industry. Whenever you post something you want to include those key words. Next you can announce to your opt-in subscribers you have a blog and give them the blog address. You can add your blog address to your sig (signature) file that you use at the end of your email messages.

Write articles specific to your market and industry. Add a resource box at the end of your article with a link back to your blog. If you areticle is of value there is a very good chance readers will visit your blog. Post your articles in various online article directories to optimize exposure and reach. A quick google search with the words "article directory + your topic" will bring up various locations to submit your articles to.

One of the most popular is EzineArticles.com. To access go to www.ezinearticles.com

Subscribers to Your Blog
Make it easy for people to sign up for your blog. You can add in a simple form by visiting www.feedblitz.com and/or www.feedburner.com.

Utilize the power of RSS feeds.
People can subscribe to the feed and receive updates as you add new content to your blog.

Keywords
Keywords are a way to improve your search engine ranking. Choosing the right words is extremely important. Keywords are what lead search engines to your blog. Before you begin blogging think of the keywords you need to include specific to your market and industry. The more targeted your list the more effective your postings. Analyze your business and your market.

Think of any words that your readers might be search on to find you that relate to your company, industry, product or service. For example my market uses words like:

Making money on the Internet
Internet marketing for authors
Internet marketing for speakers
Internet marketing for consultants
Self Publishing
Writing
Authorship

This is only a partial list. However, it is a very broad and general list. The more targeted I can be the more my ideal client will find me in a search.

The way to narrow your target words down is to use a keyword selector tool. A reliable selector tool will help you to narrow the search by indicating how often people search on specific word combinations.

Two resources you can check are WordTracker and Overture. To learn more go to: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ and http://www.wordtracker.com WordTracker offers a free trial product. This is a great first step. Become familiar with the product before you decide to purchase it.

In Conclusion
Blogging can be a fun experience and it can create great opportunities when done correctly, consistently and conscientiously.