Creating and maintaining a blog can lead to profitable means to your business, by giving away things for free. Namely information. Ideally you can share some valuable insight through your expertise and networks to your audience, who will want to know and learn more from your valuable information. A few easy ways to blog and share some of your expertise:
Top +10 List
By simply providing a list of up to 10 (non competing) sites about a specific subject, your audience who trust your expertise will be thankful you have provided them with other expert opinions, and you only have to produce a short list of sources you all ready review.
Bookmarks
By simply connecting a bookmark service site (such as Delicious or Digg) any pertinent articles you review can be shown on your blog, further helping your audience gain knowledge easily, positioning you as an expert by simply referring your sources, while building your blog content effortlessly. It only takes a few simple clicks of the mouse to add to your list.
Case studies / Featured Client (with testimonials)
It is a good idea to occasionally showcase a successful (award winning) project or a prominent client, providing an overview of the project(s) at hand, your solutions, and the outcome. By incorporating some client testimonial into the post, you will have a readily available endorsement and a "soft" advertisement for your services.
Multiple Writers
The more professional opinions you can share, the greater your wealth of knowledge. It is ideally best to only post 2-3 times per week, so splitting up this between multiple writers or departments, and you may only have to blog once a month. By providing more information from your best resources (your staff) you will quickly position yourself as an industry expert, and greatly increase your chances of retaining more viewers.
Your blog could also generate revenue through affiliate marketing, or even ads if you are in the right business.There are several ways to generate subtle revenue streams. A few ways to generate revenue from blogs:
Reviews
By setting up an affiliate program, you subtly get a commission from the sale of a particular item. The beauty is that this sales process is hidden. It is not in the form of a banner ad, but simply a link. Provide a book review as a blog post, provide the direct link to sites such as Amazon, and receive commission on that sale. You are helping your customers and yourself at the same time. Personal trainers think ….supplement and equipment reviews. Restaurant Bar owners think beverages. Consulting firms think books, online sites. Affiliate marketing is the #1 income producer on the web today.
Ads
This is where web 2.0 comes into play. They are not annoying banner ads, yet custom messages toa specific demographic or group. Facebook and Google charge big fees to post ads on business pages because
they can guarantee your message is reaching the right audience. Get
these visitors to your bog, and pay to host ads that
would be beneficial to your captive audience.Think travel agencies are just making their money from booking fees,
not anymore. They are not paying to advertise. Advertises are paying
them. And this is done as service. often on their blogs, by providing further information on destination, not an annoying unwarranted ad.
I have heard many times that that today's blog is the equivalent rush to create home pages in the late 90's when the world wide web was just catching on. Now we are fully immersed in web 2.0, where the user is the creator, and are soon to be into web 3.0. Make sure you are staying abreast of the latest technologies and trends, and be sure to stay ahead in the marketplace.
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