Keith Goodrum

Now is the time to start a blog. Many people have discovered that they are a great tool to get your ideas out to promote you and your business; it builds a relationship with your readers, and the platform simpler than ever to get your message out. For this reason they are more popular than ever.

Here are three reasons why you should start a blog.

1. It’s the best form of marketing and branding you can do for your online business - One of the easiest ways to market your business is to build trust with your market. Relationships and trust build a sense of community. And when you have a sense of community there is no need to use hardcore marketing to make sales.

2. You can use a blog as a direct line of communication - Ryan Healy in his post titled Copywriting Is Not the Most Important Skill said: “It’s my belief that communication is the most important skill you could ever learn.” A blog opens a direct line of communication between you and your readers. This is a great platform for communication. In fact many times you start getting feedback within hours of posting… priceless information.

3. A blog is easier than ever to start - The tools to start a blog are easy to learn & use. You can have a blog started within minutes if you choose to use one of the free services like blogger.com, wordpress.com, or typepad.com. If you wish to host the blog on your own domain, you can be up and running within a couple hours. Where else can you start a business so fast, or so inexpensive?

One of the complaints I hear is people hesitate to start blogging because they believe it would take huge amounts of time to write a blog post everyday. Many people abandon their blogs because they cannot find the time to write blog posts. They are caught up in a busy life, and it tough to carve out the time.

It would take me hours to write a simple blog post…

I had the same problem. It use to take me hours to write a simple 300-word post. It was agonizing, slow and frankly became a drag. I would go through spurts of writing several posts at a time…. then go weeks, even months without posting. My blog looked like it was abandoned at times.

I finally made the decision to figure out how to write faster. After trying many methods without much success… I finally figured it out. I found a speed writing technique, and modified it to make writing blog posts. I can now write a regular blog post in 10 minutes or less. It has been working great, and producing great results.

I’ve recorded this technique, and will be releasing it as a new product called “10 Minute Blog Post”. In it I show you how to write a blog post in 10 minutes. You get to see how I prepare, write and edit a blog post. You get to look over my shoulder as I write one of the posts I wrote for this blog.

Tomorrow Thursday May 1st “10 Minute Blog Post” will be released…

Of course there will be special pricing. Now, I have to warn you these recordings are not pretty. I’m not a professional presenter, and my Camtasia skills suck. It ain’t going to win any awards… it ain’t even going to be nominated.

So, if you are looking for pretty, flashy recordings with fancy graphics… save your money. This is not the product for you. But the information is valuable, and that’s what’s important… how to write a blog post in 10 minutes.

One of the big questions asked is… How do I get traffic? I’ve even found myself asking this question. In fact I found myself asking someone this very question just the other day. As soon as I asked… I realized I knew the answer, and got a little angry with myself.

My hard drive is full of traffic generation ’secrets’ in one form or another. Some were paid; others were included as bonuses and the rest were free. So, I started reading them. A pattern started to emerge; the same tactics, strategies and techniques kept popping up. Of course many would have a different twist, but the principles remain the same.

Then the light bulb went off (or on) in my head……and got me thinking. So I sat down and wrote out all the things I do to get traffic to this blog.

Here are top 10 things you can do, right now, to get traffic…

1.Put up a blog post - Yep original content will get traffic to your blog. Search engines are looking for new, original content. They do this because their customers (people looking for information) demand it.

2.Submit a post to a blog carnival - This is a powerful way to pull traffic from the blogosphere. Submit one of your best posts to blogcarnival.com.

3.Leave a relevant comment on another blog - Leave a strong comment and people reading will click on your link to see what else you have to say. Leave a lame comment and you will be ignored. Avoid comments such as “I agree.” “Good Info.” –these are lame-o! If you have a relevant comment to post, then write it out.

4.Write and submit an article - Articles still work… Articles still work… Articles still work. Hope I made the point clear. I still get traffic from articles I wrote months and months ago. Don’t know what to write about? Why not rewrite one of your blog posts?

5.Record a video - There are people who don’t have time to read, and get their information by watching videos. A video is a great way to find another source of traffic that would normally miss your blog. Hey, look at how popular You Tube is!!

6. Add some friends at Twitter – Go to Twitter, and start looking for people who have the same interest you have. Add them as a friend. They will usually check out your profile, and visit your blog. Make sure your profile is good, and gives them a reason to visit your blog.

7.Sign up for MyBlogLog & add some friends - For the same reasons you add friends at Twitter you add friends at MyBlogLog.

8.Drop some Entrecards – There has been a lot of talk about Entrecard driving junk traffic… but I can tell you that many people who comment here are coming from Entrecard… nuff said.

9.respond to a forum post - It in vogue to bash forums, but it still gets you traffic. Make sure your are adding valuable comments. This will get people curious to see what you are doing on your blog. One quick tip… make sure your signature file only has one or at most 2 links.

10.Make sure you are using trackbacks - Trackbacks kill two birds with one stone… you get to write a blog post responding to the other bloggers post, and you get to add a relevant comment.

These are 10 things you can do to start getting traffic to your site today.

Here are a few other posts I found about driving traffic to your blog:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/01/04/7-types-of-blog-posts-which-always-seem-to-get-links-and-traffic/

http://www.blogtrepreneur.com/2008/03/03/increase-blog-traffic/

http://blog.2createawebsite.com/2008/02/18/how-i-doubled-my-blog-traffic-in-2-months/

http://newsletter.theebookcavern.co.uk/6-creative-ways-to-generate-traffic-for-your-blog.html

http://www.searchengineguide.com/mack-collier/10-easy-ways-to-grow-your-blog-traffic.php

But, once again it is only as good as the action you take on these tips…

Mike Ambrosia gave me my first break as an online copywriter. I sent him a direct marketing letter for my copywriting services. He called, we met and he hired me to write Easy Product Profits. It was fun, and exciting seeing how a product gets created from the inside.

I now consider Mike a friend, and we still keep in touch. His story about starting his online business is interesting. Today he wrote a little about it on his blog. The post is titled I’m Better Than You? He worked a full time job, and still managed to build his business. Check out his daily schedule…

All of my on line success (until recently) has been PART TIME. I had a full time J-O-B and worked on my business at night. For about 4 years I averaged just four hours of sleep per night. Here was my typical day:- 4:30 AM, wake up
- shower
- breakfast/newspaper
- 5:15 am, emails, misc. stuff on business
- 6:15 am, go to work
- 4:30 pm, home from work – check emails
- 5:00 pm, family time
- 6:00 pm, dinner
- 6:30 to 8:00 pm, work on sites
- 8:00 to 8:45 pm, play with son and put to bed
- 9:00 pm to midnight, work on business
- Midnight, go to bed

That was it for four years. Lots of work and commitment.

Of course, there is a lot of things I did, people I met and so on that have helped me along the way. We call
that networking.

But I hear the same excuses all the time…

Mike of course is not better than any of us. He is making the point that anyone can create the business of their dreams. We all have the same 24 hours each day.

Head on over to his blog and check out the rest of the post…

http://www.mikeambrosio.com/im-better-than-you?