Blogging is a great way to get traffic to your website, and if you create a blog for no other reason than that, you are practically certain to get positive results. Blogging and traffic are made for each other, and there are several ways of using blogs to promote products on your site.

The first question is what kind of blog? Wordpress and Blogger (owned by Google)are the most popular blogging packkages on the planet. This offers you four blogging options, and three ways of creating a blog to get traffic to your website.

Why four from just the two blogging packages? Here is the answer to that question, and how if you create a blog using each, you will maximize your earning potential from your products:

Blogger

Blogger is blogging software owned by Google. Most people run their blog from BlogSpot, Bloggers blogging host. When you do that you have less control over your blog than if you operate it from your own IP address. Blogger is very easy to use, and very easy to get started with, and is popular with those who don’t want to worry about templates, plugins and designing their own blogs.

Wordpress

Wordpress can also be run from the Wordpress hosting site. However, where Wordpress scores over Blogger is in the fact that the software can be uploaded to your website, and can be run from there. This enables you to use any of the thousands of Wordpress plugins and templates that provide an almost unlimited degree of functionality in your blogging that will help to drive traffic to your website.

When you create a blog with any of these two different packages, whether run from your own computer or from the blog host, you are able to provide fresh content daily to your virtual website. Because that is what a blog is: it is in effect a web page, in the same way that a Squidoo lens and a page on a website is a web page.

Blogging and Search Engines

Blogging allows you a presence on search engines such as Google and Yahoo, and allows those with little idea of SEO or even of web design, to sell products online. There was a time when blogs were a rarity and something new, but blogging is now a way for anybody that knows how to create a blog can drive traffic to their website or to their blog page and help them make money through free advertising.

Whatever you use it for, howver, a blog has to be advertised to get readers. No readers and there’s not much point in the blog. Blogging is not advertising: it is a means of expressing yoruself and your thoughts. However, you can aslo use it to advertise, not only your feelings, but also your products and your websites if you have any. Now, you might think I am being a bit duplicitous here, stating that blogging is not a means of advertising yet can be used to advertise! Yet both statements are true. Let me explain why.

Is Blogging an Advertising Technique?

Yes and no. You can create a blog in order to get traffic to your website, and in that respect you are using your blog for advertising. You can place a link to your website: your squeeze page, sales page or just a content page. The problem you have, and it is not a diffcult one, is how you are going to get people, not only to read your blog, but also to click on one of the links? The link could be placed at the bottom of every post, and on a permanent page on your blog, but how do yet get traffic to your blog: you have the same problem now as getting traffic to your website!

What you have here is that blogging can be use to promote another site, whether it be a website, another blog or a social networking site such as Facebook, MySpace or YouTube. You can use all of these to promote and sell products. However, how do you get people, to find your blog? Creating a blog is fine, but that is only the start.

Use Article Marketing in Blogging

There is one way, and that is article marketing. By writing articles about your niche or product, and then including a link to your blog in the article, you can use the article to advertise your blog. If you can persuade a reader to click on your link, they will reach your blog on which you provide them with links to your website, your other blogs and your Facebook and MySpace home pages.

Perhaps you can’t write, and maybe don’t know how to use articles properly, or even where to get them. Well don’t worry. If you want to make the best use of the internet than create a blog, get blogging and then use the help provide online to make best use of your blog make money.

Blogging and traffic go together, and it is easy to create a blog to drive traffic to your website or any other online web page (such as another blog). You only need to know how.

Using article marketing as an online promotional method is good way to improve your website ranking and number of visits to your web site. When you decide to write an article for promotion of your website, you should pay attention to some basic rules while writing your article:

* First of all, you need to provide original content, giving your reader an added value. If I come to your site to read your article, or read your article in some of article directories over the Internet, I’ve came there with a purpose, then please give me a reason to read on and to come back and find new useful information.

* Real reason of writing articles, beside of giving useful information away, is to ensure future visits to your website so that you can present your services, tell people about your products so that a visitor can build trust in you and buy some of your products or services. (Of course, you can converse  your web site traffic to profit with advertising, but it’s not part of our consideration in this article).

* PLR articles are not as good as original ones, so please avoid adding info about yourself at the end of unmodified PLR article you just bought. Such articles can be rejected by article directory editors and they can not compete with original content given in your own article. Write your own article instead.

* Don’t assume that you will get some serious benefits by stuffing your articles with keywords that will make your article more “SE optimized”. Avoid such practice and write as you speak, having in mind the main subject of your writing.

* Use maximum two links to your web site in resource box and, if HTML is allowed, use max 3 keywords for an anchor.

* Always have reader of your article in mind as, at the end, you’re writing for him, so bear in mind what he might be looking for in your article written on specific subject. Be really specific, take a small portion of a wide subject and write about some details;

By following previous steps, you can be sure that you’re article will be bringing targeted traffic to your web site after it gets accepted by different article directories over the Internet.

Copyright (c) 2008 Troy Foote

Nobody said that article writing is easy. Yet the benefits greatly outweigh the hard work. With a successful campaign you will see increased profits, website exposure and a sense of accomplishment. To learn more about article writing, please read on.

Every so often I am asked how many articles each week an article marketer should be engaged in writing. This could be because the asker is a beginner to article marketing, and views the task with a heavy heart. Let’s face it, even though article marketing is very effective, unless you love to write them, well…you hate to write them. That much would be considered obvious. So, why the question? Clearly it is so the person asking the question will know exactly when to stop. Write no more and no less than is necessary to achieve successful results with the laborious efforts of article marketing, right?

To write articles every day, especially if you are not used to it, or don’t like to do it, would be the equivalent to dragging your lead bottom to the gym to work out. It can be a drudgery, whose very effort will drag every ounce of energy from the depths of your soul. Well, that’s fine, but like working out, you know article marketing is good for you. It’s certainly good for your business. In fact, to some, it is considered the lifeblood of one’s business.

So, what do you do to get yourself motivated into following through with your article marketing strategy? The best thing to do, in keeping with the workout analogy, is to start small, build up that resistance to it, then gradually increase your output to a level that you are comfortable with. That threshold of tolerance could be different from person to person. Only you can find out what your article marketing threshold of output tolerance is.

Maybe one or two articles every week is all you can put up with. Fine. Run with that, but get familiar with all the steps in the process as you do, from idea brainstorming, through researching the topics, then tackle things one sentence at a time. Step by step, speed up, until you are where you like yourself to be. That place will be where you are happy with the results of your article marketing efforts.

The next step in building up tolerance in article marketing is the submission process. This means sending your completed articles to the top article directories online. Take your time here, in order to get it right, as each article directory has its own terms and conditions for authors. Take the time to read through and familiarize yourself with each of the directories you will be targeting in your article marketing efforts. Submit to them one at a time, making sure you do things right. Couple this process with increasing your article output, and combined these two activities will increase your results in your article marketing strategy. After a couple of weeks to a month at the most, you will find yourself pleased that you took the time to suffer through the effort.

The bad news is that you will never be able to stop writing articles. Not if you want your article marketing to be worthwhile and produce the results you want in the form of targeted and converting traffic to your site or blog. But the more articles you write, the greater these results will be, and the easier article marketing, and in particular the writing side of it, will be. Seeing those growing traffic numbers will be motivation enough to make writing at least three to ten articles a week seem like nothing at all. Of course, if you are that put off by writing articles, but still want to participate in article marketing, then you can always hire a quality article writer to take on the task for you, and you can have as many articles written as your budget allows.

Article writing is an expertise. Both talent and skill are compulsory factors needed to master this artistry. Some people are gifted with the talent of drawing attention with their command in fiddling with words. This helps when it comes to writing, but writing articles calls for more than just talent. It requires dedication and working in a coordinated manner.

Organized research

Organized article writing begins with research work. Research forms the main parameter for fabricating a function called article writing. We need to research for the desired issues on the web. This helps us in writing for the readers giving them their worth value. Readers appreciate such thought process.

Working with the theme of the website

The next step towards successful article writing is selecting subjects based on the theme of the websites for which it is written. It helps in preserving the motif of the site and earning revenue at the same time.

Selecting appealing titles

The title of the article should be cautiously selected. Title is the first thing that is noticed by the readers. It determines the faith of the article. Title selected should be appealing to the readers. However, to make the title catchy we should never deviate from the topic. Title should give an overview to the content of the article.

Coordinated writing

The body of the article should be articulated in a coordinated fashion. It should be separated in three parts – Introduction of the topic containing the main points, the main body containing the brief description of those main points and a comprehensive inference derived from the details previously discussed.

Writing in paragraphs

Paragraph building becomes easier after jolting the points down. Each point should be described separately in the main body of the article. It clears the message delivered by the article to its reader.

Composing for the mass

We should consider a mass while writing an article. The words used should be simple and easy to understand without using complex synonyms. This makes the article reach the mass rather than a selected few and helps in increasing the trafficking to the site. However, in writing simple English we should not loose the grasp of grammar and words in the article.

Linking article to the article directory

The motif of article writing for the web is to be marked by the readers to generate revenue simultaneously. To serve this purpose, the article should be properly linked to various search engines through linking software and web sites. We should also use more keywords in the article as it makes the article easily detected when the surfer searches for the same. However, too much use of key words should be avoided.

Building a proper resource file

The tail end of the article should contain relevant information of the article, publisher and special offer, if any. This functions as a resource box. Such resource files helps to popularize the article and the web site simultaneously.

Provide thorough revision

After completing the article, we should relax. After some rest, we should give an exhaustive check to find any discrepancy, if present, in the article before submitting the same.

If such procedures of article writings are acted upon, the results are always profitable.

What are you waiting for?  Do you think that by just studying all those article writing methods, secrets, and techniques is going to make you money?  You know that reading and studying is necessary, but when do you stop?

I, too, have had to answer that question for myself again and again. What is it that holds you back? Fear? Fear of the unknown is what holds most of us back.

Are you afraid that your website will not compare well against the thousands if not millions of websites and web pages floating in cyberspace? Do you fear that it is not as flashy or professional looking as you would like it to be?  Let’s think back a bit.

Remember what it was like when you got your first car? Unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, it was probably a clunker.  Were you proud of it?  Of course, you were. Did you take your girlfriend or boyfriend for ride? Did that old clunker get you from here to there?  Were you afraid of what others would say about it?  No, of course not. You were on the road. You had freedom. You were moving.

When did you upgrade to a newer hotter car?  Probably after, you started making some money.  What is the difference between your old clunker of a car and your clunker website?  None!  You have to start somewhere.  The point is YOU have to start.

Are you afraid that other authors will criticize your writing?  So what!   Are you afraid of some unnamed critic without a face? Are you afraid someone is going to send you an “F” for poor composition or grammar?  I have good news.

The good news: Your high school teacher is not watching! I am not suggesting that you should throw grammar or composition to the wind, not at all. I am saying that you can express yourself much more freely than when you were in school.  Besides, that is what editors are for.  (Note the “for” at the end of that last sentence.  I think it is called a dangling preposition.  I would get an “F” for that.)

I just received an email a few minutes ago from a fellow internet marketer, David Saeger (The Home Biz Guy) about this same subject!  Here is what he said, “Ready, FIRE, then aim … This is the operating philosophy you MUST adopt to succeed with a home based business. That’s backwards for most people who like to aim before they fire.”

In Internet marketing, that is a good philosophy.  You have to start.  You have to move.  The Internet changes daily.  What you learn today, what works today, may not work tomorrow.

Most businesses struggle their first year before they see a profit, not to mention the initial monetary investment to start the business.  In internet marketing, you do not have that concern.

Give it a year.  If after that time you still are not making money, then maybe you should reconsider.  However, that assumes that you have really done something other than study and read about it.

Take action! Just do it!

If you still think that you need guidance in getting started, I suggest that you begin with article marketing read this article-writing review.