Inexpensive Ways to Market Your Business

A couple of days ago, I realized that I hadn't blogged on the Kreative Mix blog for several weeks. While I had a lot of information to post regarding small-biz resources, I had to finish integrating my Boutique website so I really couldn't make the time. Now that the Boutique and the Boutique Blog have been up and running for the last two weeks, I'm back!!!! If you haven't visited the blog yet, please click here to check out the Boutique Mix Blog!!!

Here's a great article by Sherri Lononon on blogging to promote your business.

Blogging to promote your home business is a great way to boost interest in products or services. It is also a solid website promotion technique that, when used correctly, can generate more traffic for your home business website and improve your site’s search rankings. Getting started, however, is often the biggest stumbling block many home-based business owners face

While it might sound like a daunting task, the simple reality is that blogging is one of the most cost-effective and even enjoyable marketing tools home-based business owners have at their disposal. Most who are not yet familiar with blogging don’t realize how easy and cost-effective it is.

Getting started involves nothing more than following a simple step-by-step process.

Decide how you want to host your blog
Decide which blogging platform you want to use
Register with the blogging service
Set up your blog layout
Start posting your content

Hosting Your Blog
The best place to start is deciding whether your home business blog should have its own URL or web address or if one provided by a service at no charge will do. For example, an owner who wants to start blogging for home business can choose to purchase their own website domain name and have a blog assigned to it or they can have their blog hosted by one of several blog providers for free on the provider’s own servers. If you already have a website, you just need to consider if you want the blog to become an integral part of your website or if it will exist on its own, hosted by the blogging service provider. If you don’t have a home business website or a domain name, your blog can actually serve as a free online presence for your home business.

A free address hosted by a blogging service provider might read something like this: www.myblogname.blogcompany.com.

Either method will serve the purpose of getting your message out and can increase traffic to your website, but for search engine optimization reasons, it’s generally recommended that your blog be hosted on your website, if you have one. The reason for that is that any incoming links to your blog or to any of its individual posts will link to your website’s domain instead of the blog provider’s domain and incoming links are important for “organic” or natural search engine rankings. Additionally, some see a branding benefit to having their blog hosted on their domain with an address like blog.mybusinessname.com or www.mybusinessname.com/blog. Either way, if you have a website you want to link to your blog and link your blog to your site.

Selecting a Hosting Platform
Once the decision on where your blog will be hosted is made, the next step is to actually get a blog. There are a number of really good services out there that make blogging for home business a snap to set up. Two of the most popular choices include Google's own Blogger and WordPress. Both offer free blog hosting on their domain as well as a number of templates you can use to quickly set up your blog. If you want to host the blog on your site, these platforms offer wizards that help you do that.

Because both are popular blogging platforms, additional templates are available on the web and you can customize a template to match your home business branding by using logos and color schemes that tie into your Web site. This is a good thing to do for your business identity regardless of whether you host your blog on a free service or you host it on your own home business website. WordPress also offers inexpensive domain hosting through a number of service providers.

Registering with the Blogging Service
Most blogging services are fairly easy to sign up for and start using. Just complete an online form, verify your account and you’re ready to roll. You might consider registering for an acount with both WordPress and Blogger and see which platform you find more to your liking. If you’re planning to use a pre-built template, you might also want to base your decision on which provider offers the templates you like most that fit with your home business.

Don’t set up your permanent blog name while you’re testing. You can always handle that later and delete your test blog. Whether you host the blog on your Web site, with its own standalone domain, or on the blogging service’s platform, you’ll use the blogging service’s interface to create and manage your posts

Setting Up Your Blog’s Layout
Next you’ll want to create your page layout or design scheme. For beginners, selecting a “pre-cooked” template is the easiest way to go as you can always customize it later and then start writing. If you need a professional looking blog, you can also outsource the template setup and graphics to an independent graphic designer.

As mentioned earlier, Blogger allows you to drag and drop page elements in order to create and edit your page layout. Experiment to see what works best for you. With Blogger, you can even include ads within your blog – offering you the opportunity to make some money with your blog over the long haul.

Start Posting Your Content
After a blog is set up and ready to go, all that is really necessary to tap into the power of this tool is a willingness to sit down and write. Many who get into blogging for home business do their own writing. Some companies choose to hire professional copywriters to ensure their blogs are content rich and search engine optimized. The choice is really up to you. Both can work quite well as long as content is engaging, optimized and updated on a fairly regular basis. Since the goal of blog marketing is increased awareness and promotion of your home business, posted content should be of sufficient interest that it will attract incoming links, resulting in increased traffic and search ranking power for your blog and/or website.

Blog content can be identified and categorized through “tagging” or labeling your individual blog posts. Doing so can improve search ranking power for your posts and can also help your visitors find what they’re looking for when they visit your blog. Don’t overdo blog labels – use only those that really pertain to the post you just created.

Post often. After all, if someone happens upon your blog you don’t want them to find the latest post written 6 months ago. Exactly how often is a matter of widely differing opinion, but one to three times per week are good goals.