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Blogging Basics
If you are already maintaining a web site for you home party plan business, having
a blog can add to, or enhance, your existing web presence. The ability to provide
your customers, and readers, with fresh content on a daily, or weekly basis can keep
your business running even during lean months.
Blogging is also a great way for small business owners, with little web design knowledge,
and small budgets to establish a professional, attractive, web presence. Many designers
charge much less for a completely customized blog design and installation than they would
charge for complete, traditional, html or flash website design.
Allowing users to comment on your blog posts can increase your home party plan business
and reputation tremendously. Many prospective clients make their decision to buy a product
or use a service based solely on testimonials and reviews left by other customers. Since
comments often offer feedback on your products and services, they can sometimes be
more affective than the most expensive, well thought out, advertising campaigns.
These comments can also serve as an unofficial Frequently Asked Questions section. Often
surfers are more likely to read the comments on posts that relate to a question or problem
they may be experiencing than they are to visit your sites FAQ. By making it possible for
clients to post comments publicly, and answering comments publicly, you might keep someone
else from asking the same question. This will cut down on the amount of emails you have to
answer and phone calls you might otherwise receive.
Let's Take Your Blog One Step Further
Blogging for Profit
Blogging is becoming an increasingly popular way for entrepreneurs to earn a living online
whiledoing something they really enjoy. In many cases bloggers can profit with very little
effort. There may be quite a bit of work involved in the beginning with designing a method
of gaining revenue and promoting the blog but once this is established simply maintaining
your blog with regular postings may be enough to keep the revenue rolling in.
Two of the most popular methods for generating a profit from blogging include advertising
methods. This includes advertising with AdSense and securing independent advertisers.
Using AdSense to Generate Revenue
Using Google's AdSense is one of the most popular ways for bloggers to generate revenue
from their blog. This method is so popular because it is also very simple. AdSense is a program
offered by Google where bloggers agree to have advertisements on their website and are
compensated when users click on these advertisements. Bloggers simply have to create a blog
and submit the website address of the blog as well as some other information to apply for
participation in AdSense. Once a blog is approved the owner is given code they can simply
copy and paste to have advertisements displayed on their blog.
Google then serves appropriate advertisements each time the blog is accessed. Whenever
possible, the advertisements served on the blog are closely related to the content of the blog
because Google crawls the website ahead of time to determine which advertisements are
relevant to the content. So, if you have a home party plan business, Google will recognize
this in your writing and the ads that appear on your blog will be related to the home party
plan field.
Blog owners do have some ability to place restrictions on the types of advertisements which
may appear on the blog. For example the blog owner can specify adult advertisements are
not to appear on the blog and Google will filter these out.
How Advertisements on a Blog Generate Revenue
Many bloggers use advertisements on their blogs to generate a profit. This method of
advertising is more difficult than using AdSense but it can be financially, significantly more
beneficial to the blogger. This method of advertising is similar to the type of targeted
advertising often seen in magazines. For example magazines for parents often feature
advertisements which will appeal to parents such as advertisements for toys, children’s
clothing or foods popular with children.
Likewise a magazine for runners may feature advertisements for shoes, athletic clothing,
races or training equipment. In these cases the advertisers pay for advertising space in the
magazine in the hopes that the magazine’s audience will be enticed to purchase products
or services after seeing these advertisements. Blog owners can use this type of advertising
but it can be hard to find willing advertisers. However, there are some factors which may
make an advertiser more willing to have an advertisement appear on a blog.
One of the most important factors for advertisers is the amount of traffic the blog receives.
This is important because advertisers who are paying for ad space are more likely to invest in
a blog with high traffic than one with very little traffic.
Another important factor for advertisers is the focus of the blog. Advertisers are more likely
to purchase advertising space from a blog with a specific focus of interest to the advertiser’s
target audience. Like the examples listed previously of magazines for parents and runners,
advertisers want to advertise on a blog which is already reaching the same target audience.
Bloggers who utilize advertising on their website may be compensated in a number of different
ways. Some advertisers may pay a set fee for the advertisement to run on the website for
either a set amount of time or for a set number of page views. This means the advertiser
may purchase space for a set number of days, weeks or months or may purchase space for
a set number of times the advertisement is served to website visitors.
Alternately the advertiser may choose to compensate the blogger according to the number
of times specific actions occur. This may include users clicking through the advertisement or
users making a purchase after clicking through the advertisement. The type of compensation
ffered will have to be worked out between the blogger and advertiser beforehand to determine
a fair method of payment.
All in all, it doesn't hurt to have more then one avenue in which you have income coming in. When
you are out doing a home party or meeting with customers, your blog is at home working for you
automatically, generating profit. That's not hard to take is it?
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