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One of the reasons successful business blogging is working for small business is because of many of its direct and in-direct effects. In this series of articles, I’ll be talking about some of these effects and how they occur, including increases in traffic, better search engine results, and the enhancement of online company brands.

One of the other side-effects of successful blogging can be, and often is, an increase in sales. This occurs for a myriad of reasons, four of which I’ve listed below.

First, as you begin to consistently give your prospects information they can use, they return for updates on a regular basis. As they begin to see you as an authority on your topic matter, in their minds it seems less of a risk to buy from you as they begin to trust you more, and rightfully so.

The logic is that if you know enough to be able to blog effectively about your subject, then you’re knowledgeable in your field - which means that your product likely addresses a solution they’d be interested in purchasing.

Second, it illustrates that there is a human, approachable presence at your site. By blogging, you’re showing that someone is in fact “at home”, and that your web property is presently being maintained and updated, giving a prospective buyer more security as they weigh their options and approach a buying decision.

Third, the conversations that occur through blogging build a bridge of trust and loyalty. It’s human nature to tend towards the familiar, and to trust it. When you blog frequently, your return visitors see you as the familiar.

Once they become buyers, this trust can elevate to loyalty. They’ll begin to come to you repeatedly for information and when given the choice, will want to buy from you, the known, rather from someone else they don’t know.

Fourth, if you take care to configure your blog in a way that takes advantage of its inherent search engine friendly architecture, your blog can help your site show up for searches for more terms, bringing you both readers who are generally interested in your topic matter, and those who are looking for a solution and are ready to buy.

Many blog systems have some of the necessary tools that can help you optimize your blog for better search engine placement by manually configuring settings in the template or modifying the code to make it more compatible. But if you’re not a techie, or are a busy professional, you’ll want to find a system that incorporates all the most needed tools for you already.

An increase in sales is just one of the reasons blogs are working for business online, from the small business to larger corporations. With Google embracing blogs with the Google Reader and Blog search, and Yahoo including blogs as sources in the Yahoo News section, business blogging is no longer seen as a theoretical test for increased exposure. They are an essential component to your online marketing strategy.

Tinu Abayomi-Paul is the co-owner of Leveraged Promotion, which provides many solutions for companies who prefer to out-source their online promotion needs. You can read more about Business Blogs and Your Market Strategy in the Business Blog Promotion and News section at http://blog.leveragedpromotion.com

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In the previous article, we discussed how blogs can help you generate traffic for your main website. But what if you don’t have another site? Or what if you want your blog to be your main website, the exclusive carrier of your moneymaking ventures?

This can be achieved, of course. Such is the versatility of web logs.

Standalone blogs are best utilized for online businessmen or women who have decided to pursue what many people call as nicheing. Yes, the word is ungrammatical, but it is a term that many Internet marketers have come to embrace with fondness. Nicheing involves the creation of many sites that cater to particular niches. Niches, of course, are very specialized markets, most of which are so obscure that they do not garner the attention of businesses, hence creating high demands with low supplies. The purpose of nicheing is to find these markets and provide for their needs. These enterprising businessmen would earn through the following ways:

* Creating and eventually selling products that aim to serve the said niches.

* Selling existing products that the said niches need.

* Providing for information that the members of the said niches can access for free, and enrolling the site that contains the information in a Pay Per Click (PPC) program like Google AdSense.

Regardless of what path the online entrepreneur decides to take, he should first create a site that serves as the repository of his commercial methods. Niches can be very rewarding. Since there is but a few competitions in the field, your search engine placement is sure to be higher than usual. Traffic should also be at a sustainable level since the members of a niche have nothing else to visit. This will mean a greater possibility for more sales, if you’re selling a product, or a higher Click Through Rate (CTR) if you’re enrolled in a PPC program.

Now, making a site can be quite cumbersome. You have to deal with the aspects of web design, graphic creation, and content writing among other concerns. What more when you have to create numerous sites for numerous niches?

Thankfully, blogs will make things a whole lot easier for you. Every online marketer who has attained success with niche marketing can attribute this to their proper exploitation of blogs. Whereas it would take you a couple of weeks to come up with 10 websites, it would only take you a couple of hours to come up with 10 blog sites. The sheer convenience and ease of web logs have made nicheing a very potent business model.

Blogs can very much substitute for a regular website. As we have previously discussed, high quality content is, ultimately, what will drive traffic to your site, and this kind of content can easily be carried through a blog. Also, you don’t have to change the entire page whenever you want to update your content, as you would with a regular website. With blogs, all you have to do is to write your update in a designated box and press the publish button. Of course, different blogging software have various features, but none comes more loaded than Wordpress (www.wordpress.com).

Blogging is the way to go if you want to create, and maintain, several niche sites. And Wordpress is the weapon of choice for most Internet marketers. To fully realize the potentials of the medium, therefore, you should be able to exploit all the features that Wordpress does offer. Again, David Pankhurst’s excellent report on powerful Wordpress secrets (http://www.malkeenan.com/top10tricks) will help you excel in this area.

Look out for the next article, where we’re going to discuss how you could efficiently integrate the Google AdSense program into your blog, and make it a passive income generating machine.

Copyright 2005 Mal Keenan

Mal Keenan is editor and publisher of Home Business Tips Newsletter.

Visit his work at home opportunities website for more ideas, articles and resources PLUS your free 30 page home business success e-book.

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