This is a guest post by Amy Harrison, whose previous article here was very well-received so I’m pleased to have her here for you again. My fiancé builds custom banjos for a living (hands off ladies, he’s all mine…). Recently he remarked that another maker’s website included a whole host of details such as wood…
Category Archives: Business Blogging
The Bass Player’s Secret Of Getting Into Your Customers’ Heads
This is a guest post by Paul Wolfe. If you’ve thought about creating a product or service to generate revenue for your online business, you’ve probably heard some version of this advice: create something that there is a demand for and you’re guaranteed to make sales. Michael’s take on it was to create a persona…
Why Business Blogging Will Never Die (or, Blog like Gandalf the White)
Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. ~J.R.R. Tolkien From time to time, you’ll see articles like this one recently in the New York Times and feel a little pang of doubt in your heart. You feel concerned because you bought into the whole “blogging thing”…
What is Business Blogging?
Business blogging is different than any other kind of blogging. When you have an online business, you need traffic to your website and you need that traffic to convert into sales. A non-business blog, on the other hand, is a lot more like a magazine: it can make money for its owner via advertising and…
5 Secret Weapons for Online Business Success in 2011
A secret weapon is something only a few people are using, and they’re getting killer results. I’ve identified what I think are going to be the top “secret weapons” of 2011. These are tools few online business owners will be using, but those who do are, in my estimation, much more likely to experience greater…
Best Practices vs Originality: When to Lead, When to Follow
We humans are social creatures, which is why social media is such a success despite much of the population’s self-proclaimed technological retardery. We like nothing better than to do what everyone else is doing because it feels safe. After all, if it worked for others, shouldn’t it work for us? Yes and no. There are…
Five Things Every Freelancer Needs to Know about Blog Marketing
If you’re a freelancer of any kind trying to make your living by getting clients over the web, you probably have a blog. If you’re struggling to get a steady stream of clients who pay well, your website — and how your blog fits into it — may need to be examined. What I do…
5 Ways Blog Marketing is like a Thanksgiving Turkey
I know a lot of other folks you read are posting stuff like “Here’s what I’m thankful for this year” etc., etc. I’m not going to do that. I’m grateful for most of the same things everyone else is. Big whoop. What’s more fun for me is trying to draw an analogy between cooking a…
What is an Influencer?
http://vimeo.com/16430345
If you can’t see the video below on influencers, visit the blog to watch it. INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo. Hat tips to Dave McClure for posting this originally on his blog and Wayne Sutton for sharing it via Google Reader, which is how I discovered this remarkable video. Are you an…
Why Blogging is so Freakin’ Important to Online Business
Somewhere back in the 90s, everything changed and we now live in a different world. A new world. Sure, you can still start a business like “back in the old days,” but I wouldn’t bet money on your success if you did. Cluetrain was right. Out of this sea-change comes a new kind of entity:…
10 Small Business Blog Tips (that Make a Big Difference)
In business blogging the “little things” add up to a cumulative effect. What little things have you overlooked on your blog? Here are ten little things that add up to a better impression on your readers—if you’ve paid attention to them. If you’ve missed these, well, you may not be making as good of an…
5 Relationship Marketing Power Principles Business Bloggers Must Know
This is a guest post by James Hipkin. Is traffic to your blog important to you? “Sure it is. But, with so many blogs competing for traffic, how do I get some?” There are lots of things you can do. Many, many blog posts have been written about generating traffic. In fact, Michael has written…
Why To Blog As Yourself (Even if That’s Not What You Sell)
I’m Holly, I run a copywriting company, and I make money by not blogging about copywriting. I didn’t start out this way, of course. Cottage Copy is a month old, and about the only thing I knew about business online then was that you needed a blog on your website. I’d read all the sites…
Real Estate Blogs: Move Beyond Listings, or You’re Dead
The internet is hitting every industry on the planet like a global tsunami, and real estate is no exception. Real estate is moving online in a big way: listings data is becoming aggregated and widely available. Even Google is getting into the game. This makes life very… interesting for real estate agents. Most agents don’t blog….
How to Use the Secret Desires of Your Customers
What are Your Secret Desires? No, no, not those kind of secret desires. As a business owner, you have daydreams of what success looks like to you. You probably don’t go around talking about these publicly, because they feel private and personal to you. You’d likely be a little embarrassed to lay them bare before…
Why You Are Not A Service Provider
This post was inspired from a conversation I had with Chris Brogan at BlogWorld Expo 2009. Chris is so damn productive, I have given him a nickname. Henceforth, he is “The Broganator,” but that is beside the point. We were standing around in a little circle with a couple other people after a session Chris had…
Attract Customers Like Magic to Your Business Blog
Business blogs are often described as a way to reach customers, but it’s not true. Blogging does not help your business reach new customers. It is the exact opposite which is true. A business blog is a way for your customers reach you. This is much more than a clever switching around of words. We have…
Make Your Customer the Hero
The best subject about which you can write on your business blog is not your business, but your customers. Make your customer the hero. You are the that person in the hero’s story who provides the sage advice or the whiz-bang gadgetry the hero needs. But you’re not the hero. Your customer is. People don’t…
Don’t Just Save Your Business, But Make it THRIVE by Asking This Simple Question
Asking the right question makes all the difference. I have such a question to share with you, but before I present that question to you, I’d like to ask you another question, first. See if any of the points below describe you: Are you experiencing any of these warning signs? You’re having trouble coming up…
Eavesdrop on My Audio Notes and Hear the Birth of an Information Product
I’m always working on something, but I haven’t let you in on the process until now. You get to “eavesdrop” on me talking about a new information product I’m working on in this audio post. I suppose I should be all hush-hush about this and not spill the beans until I’m ready to offer it…
Do You Have a Cornerstone Product?
A cornerstone product is a term I use for the focal point of your blog’s monetization efforts. Your cornerstone product is the product for which you are known. For example, when I was consulting with Vicki Flaugher I told her that for a blog called SmartWomanGuides.com, having the SmartWoman Guide as an ebook or a…
The Top 10 E-commerce Blogging Tips to Skyrocket Sales
Get a blog. Yeah, no kidding, right? If you go check out a bunch of e-commerce websites right now, you will see the majority of them don’t have blogs at all. That means no new content is being added to the site. That means Google isn’t indexing the site frequently. It also means that the…
4 Power Questions for Killer Business Blog Posts that Grow Your Business
If your business blog isn’t supporting your business objectives, you gotta wonder why you’re bothering. But accomplishing that is not as easy as it sounds. Or is it? Next time you write a post for your business blog, and you really want to kick it in the head and get results, ask yourself these four…
The 5 Elements Every Business Blog Must Have
When you sound like a broken record about something, that’s what we call a niche. I write about business blogs. A lot. But I realize that I’ve been running along with basic assumptions in place. I want to address those assumptions in this post. I’m going to make this post as basic an explanation as…
How to Start a Business Blog Ebook Now Free, No Subscribing
I am no longer requiring RSS or email subscriptions in exchange for the How to Start a Business Blog ebook. It’s yours to freely download or even embed on your own site (at the bottom of this post). If you find it valuable, you will subscribe to my blog anyway. Valuable content is incentive enough….
SOBCon 08 Reports – David Bullock
David Bullock gave a rockin’ presentation on business development. Speak/Write the Process Determine Outcome of every step Set the Sequence do the Process Refine the Process Rinse, Repeat Flowcharting tools: flowchart.com simpleflowchart.com gliffy.com Your Major Marketing Channels Your customers Your List Your Identity (offline, online, speaking, podcasts) Your Successes Internet Offline What Are They Saying……
Is the Word Blog Holding Us Back?
Feed readers: watch this video at Vidder: Is the Word Blog Holding Us Back? Is the word “blog” holding us back? It might be. The problem with “blog” and “blogging” is that these words are connected to a specific technology or tool. The tool itself is a means to an end. What is that end?…
Wait! Don’t Click That Publish Button!
Don’t click that publish button! Blogging seems so easy in some ways. Hey, you just splat something out onto the screen and click Publish, right? No. Hell, no. Consider: Did I just write something for my target audience? Did I just write something they really want to hear? Am I adding to my legacy? (in…
Web Site for Your Business in Plain English, Part 1: Where to Start
Would you like to finally be able to understand and decide your options for starting a Web site for your business? That’s what I’m going to help you with in this article. Trying to figure out what kind of Web site your business should have is tough. The choices are endless and the technology is…
What Public Relations 1.0 Teaches Us about Business Blogging
Guest Blogger Week continues here on Remarkablogger, with Lidija aka Lid of BlogWell. Good marketing, regardless of the vehicle that is used to push it out, is all about effective communications. One of my favorite books is Ogilvy on Advertising (1983) by David Ogilvy. In it, he points out that in 1983 he was still…
