The Power of a Direct Sales - Network Marketing Blog

First, it's important to understand the nature of a blog. It's designed to build relationships with people through authenticity, value, and service; the very same elements that create a dynamic network marketing organization.

A blog is much like a personal website, only its focus is more of a personal journal or diary of your thoughts, experiences, or coaching on a particular topic. Each blog post or "diary entry" is left open for everyone to read.

Because of this authenticity, a blog is a fast way to build your online presence as it provides an ideal venue for network marketers to establish their credibility and expertise. Your blog will carry an informal voice that enables your visitors to get to know you, trust you, and like you. Blogs brand and promote you.

Blogs also invite interaction. Since your readers can post comments to your writing, you are creating a conversation with your possibility thinkers deepening the relationship and building rapport. Through your reader's comments, you'll discover what they're thinking about, what solutions they're looking for, or what questions they may need answering.

Blogs are quick and easy to update making it ideal for busy networkers.

When done correctly, blogging is one of the best ways to get listed in the search engines through keywords and consistently serving your readers with fresh relevant content.

Through your blog's RSS feed, your blog readers can opt into receiving your blog posts instantly to their desktops, a reader, or by email allowing you to stay connected, create your network, and build your list of possibility thinkers.

Your blog content will give concentrated value on your topic. Whether your focus is sharing your mlm journey, personal development, motivation, or the nuts and bolts of building a network marketing business, you have the ability to make readers do more than just think. You can change the way they feel, set them on a new path, inspire, inform, and challenge them to action.

1. Who is your ideal reader?
When you identify your target market, you will begin to define the theme of your blog and the topics for your writing.

2. Examine the reasons or purpose of why you want to publish a blog.
Will your blog focus on educating others on your particular niche or will it be more of a personal journal documenting your experiences?

3. How do you want your readers to feel when they read your blog?
What's your writing style? Will you write as a humorist, visionary, educator, or nuts and bolts trainer?

Writing Tips:
Keep your posts short and focused - remember to use an informal voice and to inform with value.

5. Select a Title and name your blog.
Think in terms of keywords and your target market. What's your niche? How does it relate to your online presence? Make it catchy!

6. Sign up for an account at a Blog Platform.
Explore which type of blogging tool would work best for you. There are at least three choices to consider: Self-hosted blog platform, Blog hosted tool by a third party, or blog software built right into your current website hosting. It really depends on what you are comfortable with and would like to focus on developing.

Here are our top picks for hosted platforms:

http://www.typepad.com
http://www.blogger.com
http://www.wordpress.com

You may have a blogging platform built right into your personal website building system

Or, you move towards a self hosted blog format at http://www.wordpress.org

7. Register your blog name or title as a domain name for your blog.
By transferring a domain name to your blog, you'll begin to establish your personal brand and your blog through your domain.

8. Create your blog design.

Choose a template from your blogging platform that best suits your style with colors, layout, and site side bar options.

Choose colors that complement your main or personal website, any logos or headers. You want your visitors to move seamlessly through your sites without being "jolted" around as they tour your online marketing package.

Set up your content categories for your entries. What specific topic areas will embrace the overall theme of your blog.

Develop your "author profile" page with a short bio, photo, and what your visitors can expect from your blog.

9. Establish a regular writing or posting schedule.
How much time will you devote to your blog? Make a commitment to at least one post per week. Posting 3 or more times a week awards you as a serious blogger!

10. Start a "Blog Idea" folder on your hard-drive.
Once you know what you're blogging theme will be, starting becomes a lot easier. Set aside a day to brainstorm 20 post ideas you could definitely see yourself using on your blog. Keep filling the folder with snippets of ideas that you can grow into quality blog posts. You can gain blog ideas by perusing other newsletters and blogs, gaining inspiration from quotes, expanding on ideas in your favorite books, recommending tools or resources, sharing life's daily happenings...whatever motivates you and will give value to others.

Idea Tip: Have at least 3 to 5 blog posts ready to go when you start blogging. This will reduce any stress if you're not confident in writing on a schedule.

Get submitted to blog directories and search engines.
One of the most up to date and best lists of blog directories can be found at:

http:www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55

Submit your blog to regular search engines like Google Plus, you can set up a feed on MyYahoo.com so your site gets regularly spidered by the Yahoo search engine.

http://www.my.yahoo.com

Invite Email Subscriptions to your blog.
Have an opt in form on your blog so visitors can receive your posts by email. This can be done through http://www.aweber.com, the industry's leading autoresponder system, or you can sign up for a service such as http://www.feedburner.com which will provide a script to place on your blog for email subscriptions.

Feedburner is a free tool for bloggers with tons of cool options & features. For your readers, it creates a user-friendly RSS interface. For you, it gives you detailed stats on your subscribers.

Claim your blog on Technorati.
By opening an account and registering yourself at technorati, you can "claim" your blog. When people search technorati for content using your keywords, your blog will pull up in the search results.

Add your blog's RSS feed to other websites
You can place your RSS feed on your personal website or profiles on various social networking sites such as Squidoo, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The RSS allows for each entry post to be displayed simultaneously onto other sites as soon as you publish your entry.

Create more links to your blog:

in your Social Networking Profiles

in your Article Resource Box

Twitter Tweets. Facebook Notes, etc

Business Cards, Brochures, etc

Community Forum Posts

in your Newsletter

in your Email Signature File

Give people ways to Connect with You:
The best way to create conversations with your readers is to open up your comments features. Developing relationships is essential to the health and growth of your blog and brand.

You can also gather traffic to your blog by commenting on other blogs within your niche or target market. Your comments should be of such value that someone reading your message will be interested in you and link back to your site. When you're placing comments, you'll have the option of placing a link back to you.

Give people ways to Share your Content.
If your blogging platform doesn't have an integrated system for sharing content, you can use social bookmarking plugins like "Share This". Become an active promoter of other people's ideas as well, and in turn receive visibility,

Write value rich content! - Your blog posts need to embrace the qualities of being interesting, original, thought provoking and provide real value to your readers.

Creating "impact" content is key in attracting and retaining readership. Each blog entry should Educate, Entertain, Empower and Engage your reader. Your blog posts should be "remarkable" meaning it leaves a mark on everyone who reads it.

Your Blog Title and Tag Line - Your blog's title is a quick way for your readers to figure out what your blog theme or topic is all about. Think of keywords and target market when selecting a blog title. The title is branding you and your blog. Add a tag line under the title to help add more clarity and focus to the topic of your blog.

Post - Each blog entry is called a post and carries its own unique post title. Typically, your most recent blog post will appear first or at the top of your blog's home page with previous posts in reverse chronological order.
Eventually, your posts will roll off the page and into your archives.

Archives - This is a collection of your past posts on your blog, organized by month. As you create new posts, the oldest posts will roll off the home page and "recycle" into the monthly archives.

Comments - Your blog readers can leave their responses to your post. The ability for your reader to leave comments engages them to interact with you. These will appear right below your post. You can also write a response to their comments creating more conversation.

Permalink - Permalinks create a permanent and direct link to a particular blog post. This is important when you want to link someone to a specific post. If you send them to your blog's home page, they'll need to search for the post. If you give them the permalink, they will be brought directly to that post.

Tags - This allows you to "tag" each blog post with relevant keywords or phrases. This helps people to find your blog posts in searches at Technorati.com.

RSS Feed - RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Subscription. Instead of your your readers going out to your blog every day to see if it was updated, your readers can subscribe to your feed and will receive your blog posts directly into their feed reader. RSS is a spam proof, virus free way for your readers to stay connected with you.

Trackback - When you enable this feature, a "trackback" is a link within a blog post to another blog. Essentially what this does is send a message from one server to another server letting it know you have posted a reference to their post. The beauty is that a link to your blog is now included on their site.

Blogrolls - A blogroll is a list of your favorite blogs or websites. It tells your readers a little more about who you are by viewing your preferences.

Ping - Each time you publish a new post, a notification or "ping" is sent to various online services to notify them that your blog has been updated with new content.