Sue Seward
At Lake Travis In Austin Texas
April 28, 2010
Branding U Online with your Blog
A blog is much like a personal website only its focus is more of a personal journal or diary that's opened up for anyone who chooses to read it.
A blog is a wonderful complement to your personal website, newsletters, articles, and overall building your personal brand online.
Your blog writing will center around a specific topic related to your target market. Each post will contain your personal thoughts, experiences, resources, training, coaching relevant to your topic. The key is to develop your style of writing and anyone can do it. When I started online in 1996 I had no degrees or writing experience.
I just dove in and did it! Today I'm a published MLM author. Who would have thought?
Much like the personal website, a blog is another tool to share who you are and begin establishing relationships. However, with a blog, your site visitors can leave comments and the relationship becomes a two way conversation and connects you to your readers.
Everyone seems to be moving in the direction of blogging online so if you have a business and would like to promote your business online, this might be the perfect time to learn about blogging or if you already have a blog why not get paid to blog or self-fund your blog? Especially in this economy when it's time to think
outside the box! So many people now days are looking for extra ways to earn more income and pay expenses.
By making connections with other entrepreneurs online, I've come across a new blogging network that actually pays down 5 levels to refer the blogging service to other people - (I just imported all of my blog content from blogspot). All of my content for the last five years imported right into this blog network which uses Wordpress.
This sort of takes me back to the ole .WS Global Domains International days way back over twelve years ago. You may remember them. I still to this day receive a commission check deposited into my bank account every month from that program and have not done any marketing to grow that program in over ten years. I referred a few people way back then and it just sort of took off with Viral Power.
I've had two brainstorming sessions on the phone with one of the owners of this blogging network. She's gone over some of the features of this blogging network and I'm extremely impressed and excited about the possibilities it has for anyone with a business or anyone who loves blogging. I have those audio recordings too should you decide to try the blogging network yourself and will send you those recordings to help support you with setting up your blog.
There is a resource training center available included in the network as an affiliate, with step by step how to videos and chopped full of valuable nuggets to help you expose your business online. In over thirteen years online this is something I've been looking for for quite some time and so have my online networking
colleagues!
I plan to start more training centered around blogging myself so more people understand how to use a blog, brand themselves and expose their business to more people. This network however, shows you step by step how to get your blog set up and running fairly quickly and how to advertise your home business.
People contact me often asking.. "Sue how can I get a personalized website to promote my business and build a presence online and brand myself?" We used to using website builders, now it's all about blogging!
Anyone can promote their business and brand themselves with this blogging network and at the same time earn some extra money referring others or just have your own blog paid for.
I've already had several new subscribers to my online marketing training newsletter because of this blogging network!
This may or may not be a valuable blogging network for you. It sure is for me because after being online for over thirteen years I've been looking for a streamlined platform to promote my coaching and my primary business and really love the fact that we can refer others and earn some extra income to pay expenses like leads and ads for our business for instance. That's why we love self-funded programs and this one just happens to have viral power to help boost your brand even more.
The network is Free for the first 30 days so why not give it a whirl!? It's very affordable at only $9.95 a month after that to start your own branding online. With just ten referrals your blog will be paid for and the network will help you get listed at the top of the search engines too and you will be able to promote your business in our exclusive Group Advertising Network.
Right now I'm paying over $70 a month for various personal websites and planning to eventually streamline everything into this self-funded network for $9.95 a month.
Go take a peek and see if this might be something you can use to promote your business too and join our network of professionals all blogging for success. Several of my networking colleagues have already decided to try it out and are already loving all the features and training they are receiving to promote their business -
http://sueseward.ismyblogs.name
Here are a few tips to getting started with your blog - remember with the above network we also offer you a free resource and training center filled with golden nuggets to help you on your blogging journey to success in Branding U!
1. Who is your ideal reader?
2. Examine the reasons or purpose of why you want to publish a
blog.
3. How do you want your readers to feel when they read your blog?
What's your writing style - humorous, visionary, educator??
4. What do you want your readers to do when they read your blog? -
call to action
5. How much time do you have to devote to your blog each week?
Start planning a schedule for writing.
6. Name your blog. Think in terms of keywords and target market.
What's your niche? How does it relate to your online presence?
7. Sign up for a blog account - this network is free for the first 30 days and only $9.95 a month after. Using Word Press you'd have to pay $9.95 a month for Host Gator anyway....
9. Set up your blog.
- Choose a template that best suits your style with colors, layout, and side bar items. Personally I uploaded my own Lake Travis photo for my header.
- Choose colors that complements your personal website, logo/header
- Set up your content categories and lists
- Develop your "author profile"
10. Drive traffic to your blog site:
- Submit to blog directories and search engines -
- Submit to regular search engines like Google and Yahoo - (this will be done for you when
become an affiliate with our blogging network)
- Have a sign up form on your blog so visitors can get your posts by email - this can be set up with an Aweber account. Don't have an account?
Sign up for an AWEBER autoresponder account - then be sure you sign up as an affiliate-
http://aweber.com/?215379
- Syndicate your blog with RSS feeds. Any website you have may offer an RSS feed feature. When you set this up, this means that whenever you post something on your blog, it will show up on the website you've placed the RSS feed.
Also when I write a post on my ismyblog.name blogging network there is a share button with a bunch of other networks to post my blog to such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Ping.fm, Yahoo, Plaxo, Linkedin, and a lot more...
Talk about Viral Power. Be sure you register for some of these networks if you have not already do so. For instance with ping.fm you can post a message and viral power it out to more that one network at a time depending on which networks you are registered with. When I post something on ping.fm it gets posted on Twitter and Facebook at the same time.
I've already been receiving more hits to not only my blog and networking newsletter, which I have connected with my blog, it is also attracting visitors to my primary business website as well because there's a link for my business connected to my blog. Nice benefit of a blog.
When posting on my blog through wordpress, I can have it show up on my personal website because our site system allows for RSS feeds.
11. Create links to your blog:
- put a link in your email signature file
- on your personal website or any profile pages within social
communities
- Article Resource Box
- in your newsletter
- Business Cards
12. Blogging is another resource for online networking. Comment on other blogs related to your target market, build your credibility, and drive traffic to your blog. When you post on another's blog, your name/ID profile will be a hyperlink back to you.
Let me know who to connect you with!
Sue Seward
Branding U - Online Marketing Coach
http://www.livingmyownlife.com/
More Blog Training =======> http://www.quickbizsites.com/ecommercehomebiz/follow_sues_blog/
"You Can Have Anything You Want When You Help Enough Other People Get What They Want!" Zig Ziglar
