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If someone were to tell you that you could create a global business, completely for free, with nothing more than the tools you already have, and the investment of your time, you’d question their sanity.

Nevertheless, it’s true. If blogging appeals to you, you can create a viable Internet business within a few months: for free.

Blogging is a new development in online businesses. Essentially, it’s instant publishing. Because entrepreneurial blogging is so new, you have a great opportunity to build your business before others copy what you’re doing, so get started now, and start building your own online empire.

Let’s look at five business models for your new Internet blogging business. These five models can be combined if you wish - there are no rules in blogging. You can change the business model of a blog at any time, to a model which generates more income.

Each of these models has the potential to earn you a six-figure income. They are:

Affiliate blog(s)

Web publisher blog(s)

Sales blog(s)

Service blog(s)

Blog network(s)

Let’s look at these models one by one.

Affiliate blog(s)

Many businesses develop affiliate programs, because they can recruit a sales force of thousands of people, with little expense. The appeal of affiliate programs for affiliate marketers is that you don’t need a product or service - you can start selling others’ products, on commission.

If you intend creating an affiliate blog, select the products that you’ll be selling before you create the blog. This is because you want to be sure that there is a wide range of products that you can promote. There’s nothing worse than developing a blog, and finding out that the well is dry: you’ve picked a niche where products rarely change, and in which the products are so standardized that there’s nothing new to write or podcast about.

Web publisher blog(s)

In this model, your blog is the online equivalent of a magazine. Just as a magazine has features and advertising, so does your blog. In this business model, your content is vital, because you’re counting on your content to attract advertisers.

If you choose to develop a Web publisher blog, you’ve got great models - the thousands of magazines which are published each year. Check out a couple of your favorite magazines. Usually a monthly magazine will have a theme for each monthly issue, with two or more stories devoted to this theme. The magazine publishes its editorial calendar a year in advance, so that advertisers can line up their advertising for a specific issue.

Sales blog(s)

In the sales model, you devote a blog to a single product, or range of products. When offline companies start blogs, their blogs are sales blogs - they’re using their blogs to sell their products. If you have products that you want to sell, a sales blog is an excellent business model. You could sell a product that you’ve created - an ebook, a DVD, or art work - or products that you buy from others, and resell.

If you’re already running a business, you could start an entrepreneurial blog to act as the marketing arm of the business.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a business, look into having products created for you, or buy products which you can resell on your blog. Look in your local Yellow Pages for manufacturing companies: you may be able to find products that you could resell at a profit. Of course, there are many wholesaling companies online, but the benefit of dealing with a local supplier is that you can inspect the products that you’re selling, to ensure quality. Your shipping costs will also be low, resulting in more profit for you.

Service blog(s)

While the sales blog sells products, the service blog sells services. If you have a service that you sell, then you could create a blog to generate customers for your services. Or, you could sell the services of other people, via a blog.

If you’re selling a service, you know that it’s hard to differentiate yourself from the thousands of others who are selling the same service. A blog is a way to do that. If you’re a dance coach, for example, you’ve got plenty to write about. You’ll attract lots of new business, and you can bring in additional income when you solicit your equipment suppliers to advertise on your blog.

Blog network(s)

Blog networks are groups of Web publisher blogs formed into a network. There can be half a dozen, or hundreds, depending on the ambitions and interests of the owner of the network. Blog networks usually derive their income from advertising.

If you want to develop a blog network, your aims will be to: develop a mission for the network, as well as a clear idea of where and how you’ll add blogs to the network, and where and how the revenue stream will be built.

So, there you have it. Five different business models for your blog-based Internet business. Now all you need to build your new Internet business is enthusiasm, inspiration, and time.

Copyright 2006 Angela Booth

Angela Booth is a copywriter and veteran career blogger. Her new ebook, Blogging For Dollars, helps you develop a lucrative blogging career, and gets you started as a blogging entrepreneur. The ebook will be available from August 2006. Read the book’s blog at http://www.dollars2blog.com/blog/

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While a blog can be almost anything from a personal diary to an expostulation of the most arcane data or research results, keeping the blog going is one of the most important aspects of blogging. This is particularly true if your goal is to use your blog as part of your internet business marketing strategy.

Unfortunately, many would-be internet entrepreneurs get lured into programs by the prospect of lots of money made easily. The truth is that MOST of these people, even highly-motivated, intelligent people who have been successful in other spheres will fail. The money does not come quick, and when it does come, it usually starts as a trickle. Frankly, the motivation of anticipated ease and wealth does not stand up for long under the harsh light of reality. Just as people drop out of network marketing, internet marketing, and other home businesses due to expectations not being met and no reward, people let their “internet business opportunity” blogs fade away due to lack of interest.

PASSION

Many successful network marketers, internet marketers, and marketing courses will tell you to find a niche. They will advise you to make that niche something about which you are passionately interested. In reference to blogs, I agree and go one step farther. Center your blog around something you would choose to write about, talk about, read about, discuss, or attend lectures on almost every day if you had the leisure. That way, no matter how your “internet business” does or does not respond, you will be motivated to return to your blog regularly, reading comments, responding to them, and providing new content.

NEW CONTENT

This is key to a blog’s success. Even your best friends might not wish to visit you regularly if they knew they were going to be served coffee cakes left over from their last visit. New, fresh content provided regularly entices previous visitors to return and establishes your blog as a center of information or discussion. If the content is accurate and informative, this establishes you as knowledgeable and worth heeding. If your comments are friendly, genuine, and responsive to the comments of others who have posted, you will be seen as a friend whose advice can be at least listened to, if not taken whole.

DO IT FOR YOURSELF

Of course your blog should be written in such a way as to please the visitors who drop by, just as your home should be a warm welcoming place for visitors who drop by there. You are the one who lives there, however, and when the visitors go home you should enjoy hanging around, rearranging the furniture, hanging a new picture, or just pouring a glass of wine and sitting down in your favorite chair. Making the blog FOR YOU will encourage you to return often yourself.

FINALE

Begin with a subject which delights and intrigues you, add a regular dip back into the refreshing stream of your interest and wonder, share this with others. If you want money from this, link to your money-making site or sites and have fun every day. When you go to bed, the blog will still be there chatting with your visitors, telling them what a great person you are and inviting them to return for another visit.

Donovan Baldwin is a graduate of the University of West Florida (1973) with a BA in accounting. He is retired from the Army after 21 years of service. He has worked as an accountant, purchasing agent, optical lab manager, restaurant manager, instructor and long-haul, over-the-road truck driver. He has been a member of Mensa for several years, and has written and published poetry, essays, and articles on various subjects for the last 40 years. He has blogs on the subjects of weight loss and health, hybrid cars and alternative fuels, and internet business and marketing.

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When I first heard of the word “blog” years ago in the mid 90’s, I was puzzled as to why I did not hear it earlier, having been immersed in the English language for more that 4 decades!

Naturally, I reached for my half-a-dozen copies of dictionaries on the shelf to check for its meaning but I could not find one. The reason is simple the word “BLOG” simply did not exist in my dictionaries including the Oxford Dictionary!

A frantic search led me to Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang that eventually gave me a clue. It says “blog noun An Internet website containing an eclectic and frequently updated assortment of items of interest to its author. 1999-. [Shortening of weblog.] So blogger, noun”

Not happy with this half-hearted and vague explanation, I ventured into the Web to do further “research”.

Lo and behold! I’ve got some more meaningful citations. Below is a list of these.

- Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site.

- A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.

- A blog is information that is instantly published to a Web site. Blog scripting allows someone to automatically post information to a Web site. The information first goes to a blogger Web site. Then the information is automatically inserted into a template tailored for your Web site.

- A short form for weblog, a frequent and chronological publication of comments and thoughts on the web. They usually include philosophical reflections, opinions on the Internet and social or political issues.

- Web LOG is a journal kept on the internet. This journal is often updated daily and contains all information that the person maintaining the BLOG (Blogger) wishes to share with the world. Also applies to websites dedicated to a particular topic and being updated with the latest news, views and trends.

There’s no need to go on because I’m now more than satisfied.

Many years have passed since and blogging has come a long way indeed. Not only can you do all the above mentioned, you could now make full use of it to promote and expand your Internet business.

Savvy marketers have discovered that blogging is one of the best Internet marketing methods that is free because you could create your blog almost immediately at no cost compared to the setting up of a conventional website.

Putting information in your blog to help establishing your presence in the Web is now a growing phenomenon. Blogging for your Internet business is one surefire way to enhance the visibility of your products and services.

With the continuing improvement in software technology, publishing, introducing plug-ins, banners, pictures etc to create a fun and interesting “website” has become a breeze even to those with old and rusty brains like me.

Here is what you could do to improve your Internet online business:-

1) Give advice to your visitors on specific tips, tricks and opportunities related to your own business with the objective to increase awareness not only about yourself but also your business. This will establish you as an authority with customers, prospects and casual visitors through your publications.

2) Encourage readers to leave their comments and feedback. Positive feedback could some times help you to improve your website design, layout, content and hence your buisness.

3) Make announcement and broadcasting on any new changes or offers available in your main websites, for instance, new products and/or services.

4) All your postings in your blog could be kept in an Archive file which is very friendly for retrieving. You can therefore keep track of all your business plans and old but important information. 5) Any articles which you have written and posted could be reprinted by others for their own websites with your permission on condition that the resource box about the author remains unchanged i.e. with all your important URLs intact. This would link your websites to other websites hence exposing your business to more visitors.

6) Try adding fresh and quality content to it on a regular basis since search engines like fresh content. As a result, search engines will list your website in their directories. As soon as you have pages of your blog in the search engines, you’ll start attracting free traffic to your site without having to paying a dime for it.

7) Include links that will fetch back links and subsequently improve your ranking on search engines. Affiliate links in the form of advertisement banners could also be included in your blog to earn more extra income.

You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. You can have some kind of link exchanges with other bloggers for mutual benefits of increasing traffic to your blog and other main websites.

9) In summary, there’s almost no limit to what you could and want to do with your blog. You can include your ideas, opinions, expertise in your field of work, resumes, home recipes, pictures, streaming audio or video clips, e-books, poetry, products, services, consultations etc., etc.

What are the main differences between a blog and a website then? You may ask.

Most websites are relatively permanent with only occasional updating. With blogs, you could post any new content almost on daily basis. Also, websites are usually less personal as far as their relationship with the visitors is concerned.

Visitors to your blog could leave comment after their visits which sometimes could prompt a follow-up discussion between you and them resulting with both parties learning from each another.

So how do you start blogging? There are many host services providers you could join. Among the most popular are Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com. I’m using Blogger.com which I find serving my needs just perfectly.

In closing, you must realize that to be successful in running your business blog, you need to be very passionate about products and services. Share your ideas, opinions and thoughts to assert yourself as an authority in your field. The visitors who are your customers or potential customers would remember your blog and keep coming back.

COME BLOG WITH ME TODAY and ride the crest of the business blogging wave! Happy blogging!

Copyright 2005 Woon Sung Liang

About The Author: John Woon (Sung-Liang Woon) is a Latex Consultant with about 30 years of experience.

1) Multiple Internet business opportunity SECRETS: http://easyhomebiz.blogspot.com

2) Hypertension and the Heart: http://hypertension2.blogspot.com

3) Diabetics’ Valuable ONE-STOP Guide: http://diabetics-guide.blogspot.com

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