Marketing Blagger

I started blogging in September 06 using the free blog platform my host provided. At first I thought it was great: simple posting, easy editing, adsense, no problem.
After a couple of months, I started to realise something wasn’t quite working. I had zero comments, very little traffic and no new customer enquiries - although a few sales guys had been in touch. Strange as I kept reading how blogs and other Web 2.0 stuff are so great for business growth. All I can say is after 5 months I’d achieved very little, except some fairly original content on shoestring marketing tactics.

So I decided it was time to try something different and to upgrade my blog software. After all, I was enjoying writing the blog. So I did a little research and decided on WordPress, rather than Typepad and others - mostly because it’s all open source and free. Of course, I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice, so I started looking for some guidance and stumbled across Gobala Krishnan - The WordPress Guy - and his internet home business blog.

I’ve got to say this guy is great. I bought his Easy WordPress System and it got me up and running in no time. I think I paid about $47 (so around 25 quid) which is a snip. I grabbed the Marketing Blagger domain name, bought some UK based hosting and got started. Of course, there were a few stumbling blocks to get over, but Gobala’s support desk, albeit a little slow, has always risen to the challenge and helped me to over come these.

So where am I at now. I’m hitting 50 unique visitors every day which is nice, Adsense is bringing in a trickle of money, I have two blogs and I’m on the verge of launching some internet marketing and affiliate campaigns to start generating an income - alongside my regular marketing consultancy work.

I suggest anyone looking at blogging as a way to make money online would do well to read some of Gobala’s blog. Especially his advice on WordPress, plugins and more. His latest idea is to get other bloggers to review his blog to get more traffic - well he’s actually taken the idea from John Chow - another big name internet marketer, but that’s all good. Check out his review me page here.

For any aspiring internet marketers you should check out a decent blog I’ve recently start to read written by internet mogul John Chow. His blog John Chow dot Com is designed to help you make money online. He is offering to link to your blog if you write a review which should help to send you a ton of traffic your and boost your page rankings.

So what’s good about John Chow’s blog?

He has a great post on the seven habits of successful bloggers which will help any newbies. I particularly agree with his ideas that giving out link love is important, particularly if you want to get some traction with other bloggers in the blogosphere. Also posting regularly is vital. If your readers are picking up new content regularly through their RSS feeds then they’ll keep coming back - assuming your content is good.

It’s also interesting to read about the salaries some of these “internet moguls” are taking home. Seems some of the most well known bloggers are earning well in excess of $100k US a year. Now if that doesn’t inspire you, then I don’t know what will.

Happy blogging!!

By the way - this is also a great example of viral marketing.

Thanks to Duct Tape Marketing I’ve come across what looks like another blinding marketing tool. This one’s for those of you interested in advertising on email newsletters.

The product is called Amigo and is offered by UK based Carson Systems. Essentially it matches newsletter publishers to relevant advertisers based on content. For example, if you’re selling iPod accessories and you find a newsletter being published to a community of podcasters, then you can advertise your products in the text.

Just like paid for search, you set a price per click and a total ad spend per campaign so you can control your costs. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Yes I think so and I’m fairly confident it will be. But Duct Tape is running a test campaign so I’m going to wait and see how they get on before jumping on the band wagon.

How will you manage the site once it has been launched?Building your site is only the first step in successful website marketing. Once launched, you’ll need to maintain it to get the most value for your outlay. You should think about content updates, hosting, domain name registration, security updates, managing interactions with browsers (blogs, contact forms, forums) and more.

Do you have the skills and time internally to manage this, or will your agency be responsible? If you are going to manage this internally, do you need to train up a member of staff, if so what costs are associated with this. Can your design agency train your staff, or will they provide a maintenance pack / instruction manual to help.

Choose your designers carefully if you think this could be a problem for your business. If you choose a cheap agency they may not have the capacity to provide ongoing support.