CSI Blog 4 Business

When I first started blogging for my fitness business, I was so bent on being “businessy,” that I rarely allowed my feelings to come through.  Then I started this blog to talk about how to work the web and make it work for you and now I find myself expressing myself more and more and not being as “businessy.” Isn’t that something?

I am expanding my reach for both my blogs by joining a couple of communities and really getting involved in them. Yes, I am a member of Facebook and Twitter and even a couple of Ning sites, but these sites are different. They are actually blogging communities and you really do find yourself leaving more of yourself inside the posts. We help each other, talk to each other and offer all kinds of advice. It’s a lot of fun and I am actually learning a lot about myself, my business and the other bloggers who are also members.

So, if I share a little more, its just because I feel that I can and thank you for allowing me to do it.

I have been a member of the Atlanta Bloggers Meet-up group for some time, but have not been able to attend an actual meeting, until last week. Boy, I’ve been missing out! I knew it deep down, but you know how you just don’t listen to that little voice in your head that says, “Go, go go!” But, you tell yourself that you can afford to miss it?? Well, now I know that I can’t afford to miss another one.

Here are some things that I learned from this past Wednesday’s meeting:

Why are you blogging in the first place?

Simple question, but how about the answer? Why are you blogging, fun, profit, something to do? A few years ago no one even knew what a “blog” was, let alone a blogger and now it’s a way to make money, if you choose to take that route. If you are just starting out and just want to blog for fun, go right ahead, share all your thoughts, impressions and information, no one’s going to stop you. But if you are blogging for profit, there are a couple of things that you should figure out first.

1. What category does your blog fall into? You should pick one and stick to it, it’ll make it easier for you to choose directories to list in and for search engines to classify your content.
   1. News & Politics
   2. Business & Finance
   3. How to/Self Help
   4. Techie
   5. Entertainment
   6. Sports
   7. Culture & Social
   8. Niche
2. Who is your audience”
   1. Women
   2. Men
   3. Teens
   4. Specialized or Niche groups
3. How will you market your blog?
   1. Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace
   2. Buy Advertising
   3. Hire an SEO expert

1. Invest time in learning and implementing SEO tactics

1. How much time will you spend marketing your blog? How will you measure the affectiveness
2. What type of content will you create?
   1. Hire other people to write and post for you
   2. Write all the content yourself
   3. Create videos and post them
   4. Create podcasts and post them
   5. Review products or services and post the reviews
3. How will you generate revenue?

1. 1. Affiliate links
   2. Sell your products and services
   3. Lead generation
   4. Sell advertising

What’s In It For You?

It’s a little twist on the classic WIIFE (What’s in it for me) theory that resonates throughout advertising, but this time, you need to look at what you are going to get out of this, verses what you are going to put into it. Since you are looking at this blog as a business or at the minimum another income stream, you will need to look at how you will measure the effectiveness of the routes that you are taking to make money and see if they are indeed working. You will also have to come to terms with the fact that in order to make this project a success, you will have to dedicate some time to making it successful. Sure, all of us wish upon the dream that our content will magically strike the hearts of millions and they will come to our blog in droves just to see what we are up to. That could happen, but will it? Who knows? The only sure way to find out is to put your content out there and make sure that its seen by the people who are looking for it.

Finally, take a step back and imagine that you have been working on this blog and putting all these strategies in place for one year. Where do you think you will be in one year? How will your blog have blossomed and matured and what is the status of the income stream from your blog? More importantly, what are you able to do now that you couldn’t do before because of the income that you are now making from this blog?

Once you can answer these questions, you will be able to set your plan in place to make your dream a reality and create a blog that meets all your needs and helps you to achieve the lifestyle you crave.

Last week I told you about a blogging group in my post about getting more traffic to your blog. I told you that I would keep you posted and that is exactly what I’m doing. We started the group with 5 awesome ladies who all want to improve the frequency of our blog posts and what I have come away with so far is really so much more than that.

Fast Friends

You know how you meet someone and you just click? Well, I feel that way about each of the ladies in the blogging group. We are all helping each other with our goals and really helping ourselves in the process. One member of the group told me about SITS, she had just joined and said that it would be a good investment of my time. She was absolutely right. It is an awesome community of women bloggers who support each others blogs by reading and commenting. I’ve joined and so have most of the other members. So already, we have a built-in community within the community!

We have also discussed other ways of supporting each other and not only discussed, but doing! We are posting and answering and commenting and talking all over the place. That’s awesome!

Down to the Business of “Work”

Our blogging group’s first phone conference is next week. This is when we are going to get down to business of “work.” I put that word in parentheses because I don’t really consider this work, I mean come on, what are we talking about; reading fun and exciting blogs, learning new things, then commenting? That is pretty kewl if you ask me. As a result of that, I am learning so much, meeting new people and interacting with others who I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Till Next time!

Numbers, numbers, you know you want them and basically need them in order to convince potential advertisers that you have the juice to get your readers’ eyes on their products. Of course, you don’t have to blog for numbers, but it helps. Even if you just want to blog to the world; I’m sure that you’d like some eyeballs on your posts. So here are 10 tips that will help you get the numbers you crave for whatever reasons you choose.

1. Install “Tweet This!”

Tweet This! is a great plugin that automatically adds a “Tweet This Post” alert link to each and every post and page, making it easy for your readers to share what they just read with their friends, fans and likers. It can also automatically Tweet new blog posts to Twitter so you don’t have to worry about doing it manually.

2. Get 2 Posts for the Price of 1 “Publish”

Save time and take some work off your plate by integrating Twitter with your Facebook page. This way when you Tweet, it also posts to Facebook. Take it one step further when you install Tweet This! and publish your post. The Facebook/Twitter integration will automatically publish that same post to Twitter and Facebook. OK one more, link your Facebook Fan Page to your Facebook profile and you’ll get 4 posts to one “publish.”

3. Set up an “Idea” or Clip File

Setting up an Idea or Clip File helps you when you’re creating your editorial calendar (explained in Tip #4). All day, every day, you’re reading, listening and exploring. Take the best ideas from the stories you read, videos you see and podcasts you listen to and put them in a file. It can be an electronic or paper folder or a combination of both. Use the ideas that you file as foundations for your future posts.

4. Create an Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar allows you to plan upcoming posts and alert your readers as to what you will be writing about, so they can look forward to reading your wonderful posts. You can plan what you’re going to write about weeks or even months ahead of time.

Here are two suggestions on how to do it:

1)      Create a spreadsheet and save a slot for each post’s subject or title, along with the date the post should go live. For each post write a sentence or two that explains what that post is about.

2)      Develop theme days: Mondays=”List Days,” Tuesdays=”Review day,” Thursdays=”Opinion or rant days” and so on.

5. Create a Blogging Schedule

I just shared with you about creating an editorial calendar; it’s only natural that you now create a schedule of when you’re going to blog so you can actually produce that calendar. Consistency is the best way to create a following. So whether its twice a week or every day, set up a schedule to write your blogs and post them and then stick to it.

6. Set up Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a totally Free tool from Google that allows you to track your website visitors, where they come from and what they do while on your site. If you don’t know how to set it up, check out this article and start tracking.

7. Watch Your Words

A blog post is just that, a post. It’s not a dissertation or report or term paper. It’s really more of a space for you to share your knowledge, feelings, expertise or just plain “ordinaryness” with your readers. With that in mind, SEO experts advise keeping posts between 250 and 1000 words. This is only a guide, so say what you have to say, but do it so that your audience WANTS to read it and come back to for more.

8. Ask Questions

Engagement of your audience is just as important as getting people to read your blog. So when they visit, give them something to think about, ponder on and talk about. The simplest way is to ask a question. Answering questions brings more questions and more comments AND keeps readers coming back.

9. “Digg” and “Stumble” Your Posts

Both Digg and StumbleUpon are Internet-based communities that allow members to discover and share their favorite links, websites, podcasts and articles they find on the Net, with their friends. StumbleUpon allows you to announce the site you found to your friends, while Digg allows you not only to announce it, but also vote for it, which gives it a rating.

10. Start a Blogging Group

My final tip is to start a blogging group. Keep it small and simple and make the main goal be to get you blogging consistently and involved in the whole blogging process. That’s what I’m doing. I’ll keep you posted along the way.

Happy Blogging!

Facebook is huge, with over 400 million users now it’s the place to be, both personally and for your business. Love it or hate it, you need to get yourself in Facebook shape quick.

You likely already have a personal profile on Facebook. In this session I’ll take you how to set up a Facebook Page for your business or brand and how to work it.

There are now more than 3 million active Pages on Facebook and half of these are local businesses.

According to Facebook the average user becomes a fan of 4 pages every month. That means exposure for you, your cause, your organization and your business.

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How I replaced my day-job with earnings from this blog

In less than 2 years I went from not knowing what a blog was to making more with one than my corporate desk job.

This is by far one of the best posts I’ve read about how to make money blogging! Check out Bob’s blog post here>>

by Lawrence on April 27, 2010

Now that you have a Facebook Fan Page, blog and Twitter account, what’s next?

Good question. These are all forms of social media and each are effective in their own right.

Read on>>

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Which format do you feel helps your business the most?

Leave a comment on this post and receive a listing in our Business Directory.

By Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc.,

(Great post from Small Business Trends)

Brace yourself: Facebook is trying to take over the world. Or, if not the world, at least the entire Internet. With Facebook partnering up with popular sites like Yelp, many SMB owners may feel as if their load got lighter. I mean, why waste time worrying about your building your blog or your own site when you can grow your Facebook presence instead? If Facebook’s opening up the doors so that people can take you with them, you don’t have to worry about anything else anymore, right?

Read More>>

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How often do you post on Facebook or update your Fanpage, verses posting on your own blog.

Leave a comment on this post and you will be able to be listed in our Business Directory.

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