Photo Cursory of Kristina B

We see it every December….you know those I gotta-get-in-the-mood-to-improve-myself New Year’s resolutions. Even I do that. Some I stick with. Some I consider sticking with – until about Dec. 29.  And some I thrown out the window by January 3.

I’m not going to preach about how to de-fattify your body or ramble on about rediscovering that old hobby you once loved so many years ago.  I’m going to give you the skinny on how to become a more productive blogger in 2012. That’s what we ALL want. Right??

Now I’m not talking about a touchy-feely pre-plan or plan.  You know the kind when reflection that looks like: “I wrote about something I FELT like writing about. I posted when I FELT like it. I made money from my blog when I FELT like working on it.”

This may be shocking, but that’s how I have done it.  Plus, I know other bloggers who have had this same plan. Let’s be real.  The FEELING plan is not a true plan unless you’re just blogging for fun and have no intention of growing your blog for a business, profit or a bigger cause. If that’s what you are doing, then stop reading and go get a McCafe coffee.

But, if you’re blogging for business, read on my friend – read on!

The way I see it, becoming a better blogger for 2012 is easy as 1-2-3.  Here’s the 1-2-3 pre-plan how-to.

#1. Determine what a good blogger looks like to you. You really can’t craft a plan for blogging success unless you first decide what does it feel like to be a better blogger?” Write down all your answers. Don’t hold back! Write down the crazy, the impossible! DO NOT limit what you want to do based upon what other people are doing, or what your favorite Uncle Charlie has done, or heaven forbid what the general public defines as successful blogging. What the hell do they know!!

#2. Next ask: “Self, what is the purpose of my blog?”  Is it to share your passions and interests? Is it a how-to-blog? A news blog?  A money making blog? What does it mean to move forward from where you were last year? Of course, we all would love to be huge successful bloggers like Darren Rowse from probrogger.net. But do you have the resources to make that realistic?

#3. Now, review 2011. How many blog posts did you post last year? 1,5,69? What determined what you wrote about, when you posted it and the frequency of your post? Use these answers as ground level for making specific goals for 2012.

That completes your pre-planning.  Let’s move on, shall we?  Here’s the 1-2-3-4-5 how-to on the plan.

#1. Sit down in a comfy chair in a quiet place where your creative juices can run wild. Write down dozens, if not hundreds, of subject titles your niche audience would find helpful. I recommend paper and pencil for this. The laptop squelches your inner creativity.

#2. Make a schedule. Yes, I said it. Take a realistic look at how often you can post, consistently. Even if it’s only once every 2 weeks, you need to set it and forget it!  Blog audiences follow blogs because they want to read great content. As long as your peeps know your content is coming consistently, you increase your chances of them sticking around to read what you’re saying.

#3. Find an editor. WHAT???? I can’t afford an editor!! Calm down, I hear you! But even writing experts need another set of eyes before pushing the publish button. If I didn’t have the great Terri S. Turner review my posts, you might think I’m some kind of zoo primate! (Monkey). I know what I want to say, but it doesn’t always come out on paper like it comes into my brain.

You want your readers to enjoy reading your stuff. You don’t want them distracted by grammar and spelling errors. At least find someone with writing experience or a student who likes to write. It WILL make a big difference. Writing Right is vital to success!

#4. TELL EVERYONE ABOUT YOUR POSTS!! Damn, I can’t believe I need to say this one. Hard to believe many bloggers don’t tell their friends, family and colleagues about their blog posts. If your friends and family won’t read and pass along your content, why would anyone else?

#5. And last but not least….DO NOT QUIT! See, there are only a couple of ways bloggers fail. One is writing content that offends readers. I know you won’t do this.  The other way is to quit. You may be tempted, but just don’t quit! Like any other skill, The more you blog, the better you get.

Let me give you a personal example. I love to play drums. My drum teacher used to tell me that to become a great drummer, I should practice the basics consistently. I still practice basic drum rudiments 5-10 minutes a day.  The other day I noticed that a particular rudiment I had been struggling with flowed out of my hands and shocked the shit out of me! Like magic, it sounded great!  My teacher was right, practice makes perfect.

Blogging is no different. Write, edit and promote.  The more you do it, the better you will become.  With some practice, and a little TWT encouragement, I’m sure your 2012 will be the best year ever.

‘Til I babble again…rock on!

So you want to make money with your blog? You want to cash in on this blog money making thing?

Sounds like a great idea to me! But how do you pull this off? You don’t know what to advertise, where to get banners and links, or how to get them on your blog. What is an up and coming blogger to do??

Drum roll…..enter, THE WEB TRAINER!

Conceptually, making money with your blog is straight forward. Write great posts, tell the world, and count your money. That’s it!

Ok, not quite.  In addition to great content, you’ll also need some affiliate banners and links.  Here’s how to add them to your site.

Downloading a Banner Plugin

Before you can get affiliate banners and links on your site, you gotta get your WordPress blog ready to accept them. You can do this by manually by placing ads directly into the WordPress theme files, or choosing to use a cool WordPress plugin.While there are advantages to both, let’s just work with the plugin option.

Step one:  Go to the Interweb and download an easy-to-use, highly effective banner ad WordPress plugin called “Max Banner Ads”. Get it here.

Step two:  Download the plugin to your computer.

Step three:  Login to your WordPress administrative area and head to your “Plugins” tab and click “Add New”.  Look for the”Upload” link on the Install Plugins page.

After you upload the plugin, WordPress will ask if you want to activate the plugin. Make sure you activate it, otherwise it won’t work. WELL Duuuuu!

Making the Plugin Work

Now that the Max Banner Ads plugin is installed and active, we need to fiddle with the settings.  Head over to the “Tool” tab in your WordPress admin and look for the “Max Banner Ads” link.  You guessed it… click on the link!

At first glance, you might want to bag out of this banner thing.  Don’t.  We can get passed those icons, zones, clicks, impressions, and controls settings.  Just stay calm; The Web Trainer will explain all those headings.

Let’s start with a zone. In online advertising, a “Zone” is nothing more than a location on your blog that is designated for ads. Kinda like those annoying highway work zones that are marked off with cones and flashing barriers.

With the Max Banner Ads plugin, there are four pre-set zones. I recommend that you just stick with the default settings.

• Within The Post
• Sidebar Widget
• Top of First Post
• Bottom of Last Post

Preview: This will show you what the banner or text link looks like in the zone

Impressions: This is how many times the banner or text ad is displayed on a page. If you look at a blog post 3 times for example, you would have “3 Impressions” for that zone. Make sense? This number will always be higher than clicks.

Clicks: This numbers tells you how many times someone clicks on the banner or link.

CTR (%): This is “Click Though Rate”. This number gives you the ratio in percentage on how many clicks you are getting against the number of impressions. (clicks / impressions) × 100
For example, the CTR on a 120-impressions per 12 people who have clicked through to your blog or affiliate program is a 10% CTR.

Plugin Controls

What exactly do these silly drawings (icons) mean?

Red Cross Icon: You can add a banner or link ad to this zone from this icon.

Pencil Icon: You can edit the zone setting here.

Green Circle Icon: Resets your banners impressions and clicks back to “0”.

Red X Icon: Deletes the zone including all the banners associated with it. I HIGHLY recommend you don’t delete the four pre-set zones unless you’re a WordPress wizard!!

Bracket Icon: This is WordPress short code that you can use if you want to place your zones manually in your WordPress template.

I think that covers the major things you need to know for now. But as you know, nothing beats the tried and true method of just trying it out and see what happens!!! Now let’s move to adding a banner to your site!

Adding a Banner to the Side Column

Adding a banner to your side column on WordPress is the most common area or “Zone” bloggers use to display ads and promotions.

Now a bit of TWT (The Web Trainer) advice. Try to promote just one or two products in your side column. The temptation for bloggers is to load your site bar column with a bunch of banners, with the thinking that your visitors will need what you’re offering. And that may even be the case. But advertising studies show that focusing on one or two products results in higher revenue. I know, hard to believe it’s true since many big name bloggers run multiple ads on their sites. So you ask, if the big guys do it, shouldn’t you do it too?

NO.  Let me explain why.

Big time bloggers have built a massive following – people who love and enjoy their content. The ads at this point become more like resource links than ads to their readers. They have built loyalty and trust. two things you need before you do much advertising on your blog. Now back to installing the banner.

Make sure you have a banner that will fit in the side column area. If your banner is too wide, the plugin will resize it to fit. A 125px to 150px (pixels) wide banner seems to work well.

Go to your Max Blog Ad dashboard and click the “Red Cross” icon to add a banner. It looks like a lot to do here, but really it’s quite easy. Just follow these steps:

1. Under “Add New Banner” choose whether you are going to place a banner or a text link. In this example we will be doing a banner, so leave the default setting to “Banner Ads”
2. Name your banner. This is for your reference only, so name it something you can quickly look at to identify, like, “AnytimeBlogger 125×125 Red Banner”.
3. Then you need to add the image URL: If you are getting the link directly from an affiliate program, you could put the URL to the banner here. Otherwise, click the “Upload Banner From My Computer” radio button and browse your computer for the banner you want.
4. Next, put the URL linking the banner and its site. If this is an affiliate program, you will need to get the link from the affiliate site.
5. Last but not least, I always click the “Open in new window”.
6. Then hit save!

Now go out to the front of your blog and refresh! What do you see? NOTHING??? WHAT? You broke it! Just kidding, you’re not quite done yet. We need to do one more step.

We need to add the MBAN Sidebar Widget to get our new banner to display.

Displaying the Banner

Head on over to “Appearance” then “Widgets”.  Look for the MBAN Sidebar Widget tool and drag it to the sidebar widget where you want to display the banner.

When you open the MBAN Sidebar Widget, you will more settings. I recommend leaving the default settings until you get more comfortable with using this plugin.

NOW refresh your blog and you should see your new shinny banner! Just to be safe, click on the banner to make sure it is linked to the correct site.

You are now a banner master ninja.  I’m so proud of you.

In conclusion, always remember less is more with ads on your blog!  If you want to learn more about WordPress, scamper on over to my WordPress Training Video site AnytimeBlogger and get your WordPress basic training NOW!!

‘Til next time, Rock on!

Resource Links:

Max Blog Press Banner Ad Plugin
WordPress Training 

WordPress link categories are a part of blogging software that stays hushed in the corners.  Personally I don’t get why nobody talks about link categories.  When used correctly, they greatly enhance your WordPress blog’s ranking and end users experience.

As with many areas of WordPress, setting link categories is simple and straight forward.  The most important part is the brain- strain thinking part.  You need to make sure you choose the link categories that fully optimize your seo potential. Example: http://yourdomain.com/keywordcategoryname/keywordpostnam.html

Managing a set of links, or a blogroll

Use the Links menu in your dashboard. These links will show up on your blog if you have added the Links Widget from the Appearance -> Widgets page.

Manage link categories

Click the Link Categories option in the Links menu.

Adding a new Category

Use the Add Category form on the left. Fill out the Category name, a Description (optional), and then click the Add Category button. The link categories you have already created will appear in a list on the right.

Modifying existing link categories

Hover over the Link Category name and then click on the Edit, Quick Edit, or Delete. These options appear below the Link Category name. Link Categories don’t have many options, so Quick Edit will usually be the best choice.

The Links column on the right shows how many links are using that category. A link category will only show up on your blog if the category has one or more links. To learn how to assign link categories, see the Edit a Blogroll Link page. If you click on the number listed in the Links column, you will be taken to the Edit Links screen filtered by the Link Category.

If you don’t assign a link category for a new link, it will be assigned the default link category. This is managed in Settings -> Writing.

So, as you can see, this is no big deal. Enjoy the link love!

Rock on kids!

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This process can be done using FTP, but in this lesson I’m going to do it without, so hold on tight!!

If you prefer pictures over words, stop reading and just you play the video above this post! I’m sure you will find me to be quite the online thespian. But if you are a die-hard reader, this post will tell you everything you need to know about favicon making! So here we go!

First, what is a “Favicon” anyway?  Favicon stands for “Favorites Icon”. It’s a little custom icon that appears next to a website’s URL in the address bar of a web browser. It also shows up in your bookmarked sites, on the tabs in tabbed browsers, and as the icon for Internet shortcuts on your desktop or other folders in Windows. And little would be an understatement! A Favicon is only 16×16 pixels in size.

So Mr. Web Guy, why would I use a Favicon anyway? Generally, bookmark lists get messy and cluttered. Having your bookmark stand out with a nice graphic reminder of your site is a great way to get noticed. HEY, LOOK AT ME AND MY COOL ICON!!!

 Now that we have that BS (basic stuff) out of the way, let’s put a little favicon on your WordPress blog.

In order to make this an easy process, you will need a few things. Here is the list, in no specific order:

1. A graphic for the favicon
2. Your WordPress administrator login access
3. Your cPanel login access
4. A bag of fruit snacks

You will first need the graphic you want for your favicon. It can be anything you want! But, there is something you should know. The image will be shrunk down to 16×16 pixels. Frickin small! So you might want to avoid a photo. It’s just that the image is so small; photos sometimes end up looking like a blur or a smudge mark.

A logo or an image seems to work the best. Take a look at Amazon, ebay and Google to see what they have done with their brands. There are places online you can go to and make one from scratch:

• http://www.favicon.cc/
• http://favicon-generator.org/

This method is ok for creating a icon, but you might find it a bit hard to work your way around  these programs; and quite frankly, you will get almost as much mileage out of just uploading a very clear image of a graphic you have.

Go to this website: http://faviconr.com. This cool site will take your image and convert it to a 16×16.ico file format.  Very slick. Then you just save the file somewhere on your computer so you can upload it.

TWT Note: http://faviconr.com

To get your new .ico image, just click the “Choose File” button on the faviconr.com site, find your image on your hard drive. Then click the “Generate Favicon” button and let the site do its magic! Within a matter of seconds you will have a spiffy new “favicon .ico” image to use on your WordPress blog.

Now let’s upload the new favicon .ico to your blog root directory. This may sound a bit techy, but it really isn’t. First, login to your web hosting cPanel and scroll down to the “File Manager” icon.

Once you’re in your WordPress files, look for the file named “wp-content” and double click to open it.

Then double click and open the “themes” folder.

Look for the blog theme you are currently using. Double click and open that folder.

TWT Note: If you change themes, you will need to move your favicon.ico image to the new theme.

This is what your WordPress Root folder should look like. If it does, you’re in the right place!

Now, upload your new favicon.ico file into this directory. Simple.

 Click the “Upload” icon in the upper right side menu on your File Manger page. This will open a new window and it will ask you to “Choose a file” and upload it. This is such a small file that it won’t take but a second or two. You will know it’s done uploading when the progress bar in the lower right hand corner of the page displays “Complete”. This part of your mission is now complete! Nice work!

 TWT Note: To make sure your icon is there, click the “Reload” icon just above all the files.

Now comes the really fun part…diving head first into CODE!!!!

I know what you’re thinking…if I see all that WordPress code, I’ll freeze! Like a deer in the headlights! What if I break my site??? What if I erase something important??? Well fear not my WordPress grasshopper. I have some very insightful advice for this part of the tutorial. Follow my instructions and you’ll be fine. If not, you’ll screw up your site and you will be down for days!!  LOL!  Just kidding (sort of). Really, this isn’t very hard. Let’s look. (To be on the safe side, you can always make a backup of the file you are going to edit, so you have a backup, just in case you do mess something up.)

First log into your WordPress admin and go to the “Appearance” tab.

Then go to the “Editor” tab and click on it. Below is what you will see once you click the “Editor” tab.

TWT Note: In the dropdown menu o the upper right, make sure your theme is picked.

Once you arrive here, make sure you are looking at the correct theme files. Look at the upper right corner of the page and make sure the dropdown menu has your theme picked. If not, click the dropdown menu and pick your theme. This will load all the pages for your theme.

TWT Note: Once you click this file, it will load all the code for that page in the editor window.

Here comes the tricky part. Scroll down the page and look for a line of code that looks something like this:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" href="<?php bloginfo( 'stylesheet_url' ); ?>" />

Find this line of code, place your cursor at the end of it and hit “enter” on your keyboard to make room for one small line of code that will be place directly under it.

Now place this code directly under it:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/favicon.ico" />

Then, here we go, click the blue “Update File” button on that page. Wait to make sure it saved. Then go to the front of the site, refresh the page and you should see your new favicon in the browser tab!

TWT Note: If the icon appears, have a drink to celebrate! If it doesn’t, drink two and try again!

And there you have it WordPress fans! That wasn’t so bad, was it???

Now, a few more things you should know.

You could get by with using a .png, .gif or I believe .jpg image. You would just need to adjust the last part of the code you put in your WordPress header code to reflect that.

• <link rel="shortcut icon" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/favicon.png" />

• <link rel="shortcut icon" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/favicon.gif" />

• <link rel="shortcut icon" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/favicon.jpg" />

However, I have noticed that Internet Explorer won’t display the icon if it is not a .ico file. Same goes for some older browsers. So, to be on the safe side, I would just make your icon a .ico file and move on with life!

There, you have found another great nugget of wisdom from The Web Trainer. Or you have just found a new way to waste a little more time! Either way, I’m glad you stopped by and I’ll see you at the next tutorial!

This video is a bit of a blog-umentary. Well, somewhat anyway!

You see, the last video and blog post I did was titled “Setting Up Dreamweaver FTP”. More specifically, I was looking to get ranked for two words:

“Dreamweaver FTP” Monthly Search Volume:
Broad match: 14,800
Exact match: 1,000

“Setting Up An FTP Site” Monthly Search Volume:
Broad match: 18,100
Exact match: 320

So I set the seo wheels in motion. Got out my “12 Tips for Video Marking Success” cheat sheet and began to hammer out the video and blog post. Before I began, I checked my ranking against these keywords using a very cool site called SEO Tools for You. Obviously I was at a “0” for both phrases, as I hadn’t had any content on the web on the subject! Yet!
I first upload the video to YouTube. Once the video was fully uploaded, I napped the URL of the video, embedded it into my WordPress blog post, wrote some killer content to go with it and hit save. Now, I use the “All In One seo Pack” plugin to handle my titles, description and keywords for my site. Make sure you have a great key word rich titles, descriptions and key words for your post!!

Then, off to TubeMogul I go. Uploaded the video and let them do the rest. Easy!
Now for the test! Drumroll please! 20 minutes after the blog post was published, I was ranked 51 on Google and 9 in Yahoo for “Dreamweaver FTP”. Shit!! That’s fast! Now I know it’s not on the first page, but let the other video site weigh in with Googles little algorithm and see where it goes!

The other phase, “Setting Up an FTP Site” I was ranked 11 on Yahoo and 41 in Google.

I’m thinking video has power. I will report back in the next few days to let you know where it lands!
Thanks for hanging around! Rock on!

P.S (The numbers you see on the screen shots are as of four hours after I published. So I have gained a little since then!)

Installing WordPress Themes are not as difficult as they seem! In this lesson, I will show you how to install a WordPress theme I downloaded from a WordPress developer’s site. WordPress has made it so darn easy to install a theme that even a politician could do it. No. Wait. Never mind. But you can! You need zero coding skills or software to do it! Just point, click and configure.

But wait, what is a theme you ask? According to WordPress.org:

Fundamentally, the WordPress Theme system is a way to “skin” your weblog. Yet, it is more than just a “skin.” Skinning your site implies that only the design is changed. WordPress Themes can provide much more control over the look and presentation of the material on your website.

A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog. These files are called template files. A Theme modifies the way the site is displayed, without modifying the underlying software. Themes may include customized template files, image files (*.jpg, *.gif), style sheets (*.css), custom Pages, as well as any necessary code files (*.php). For an introduction to template files, see Stepping Into Templates.

Let’s say you write a lot about cheese and gadgets. Through the use of the WordPress Loop and template files, you can customize your Cheese category posts to look different from your Gadgets category posts. With this powerful control over what different pages and categories look like on your site, you are limited only by your imagination. For information on how to use different Themes for different categories or posts, see The Loop in Action and Category Templates.

So, if all that gibberish makes sense, your WAY smarter that me!

Enjoy and Rock On!

Download the TwentyTen Tech WordPress theme here.

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Finding the best WordPress hosting company to keep your WordPress Blog or website up and running is an important part of building your online business. But with so many options to choose from, how can a small business owner ever find time to sift though the mountains of information available?

Enter The Web Trainer!. With ten years of experience in the web hosting industry, I have tried and reviewed dozens hosting company, talked with customers, industry leaders and have found one with the best service and most value:

HOSTGATOR!

And here is why. They can provide 99.9% uptime level guarantee mainly because they use only brand-named technologies to ensure high quality and reliability. Their server response time is really fast. Servers are based in various data centers around Dallas, Texas. And thery are considered by many to be best the WordPress hosting provider available. And frankly, their customer service is something ALL companies, not just technology companies, should model. I find myself comparing other companies to them when I need support.

1. Best Value Offer: $7.95 for “Baby” Plan if your pay for one year, you get to host unlimited domains
2. WordPress Blogs: Fantastico 1-Click WordPress Installation & Upgrade

If you want to save a little coin, use this promo code: “thewebtrainer“. And nothing beats a little savings! Rock on!

So, if you are looking to get your first hosting account or move from the crappy provider you have now, check out one of the best WordPress hosting providers here!

And now, a little about the different types of web hosting.

For would be website owners and authors, uploading your files to the server maybe as simple as it sounds but it goes beyond that. The time spent in uploading files is the tip of the ice berg. Choosing an efficient web hosting company can make or break your website. The web hosting company is the backbone of the data that you are asking them to keep. This data needs to be available all the time at break neck speed connections. Mistakenly chose a web host that is not capable of doing the job and the site is bound for the graves. Even if it has the best content and graphics if the web host cannot deliver the demands of the site, it will all be at lost.

Shared Web Hosting

By the word shared this means there is a sharing of website on a single server. This type of package is most common amongst less demanding websites that are more on text and little on graphics. This web hosting package shares the hardware and the connections to the other websites being hosted on the server. This website can range from a couple of hundreds to the tens of thousands that will be sharing for the hardware. The website that is being hosted at this type of web hosting is bounded by a quota of hard disk space and bandwidth. Since there are many websites that are hosted in the server, a client should expect that the website could lag due to the server’s slower response time.

Virtual Private Server Hosting

This type of web hosting is just like the shared hosting package that shares the hardware resources of the web server but this provides the clients more control of the website. The data are still stored on the same computer but with lesser hosted websites since the hard disk of the host server is partitioned to each website. This process in turn can dedicate an individual Internet Protocol or IP address to each partition.

Reseller Web Hosting

Commonly a reseller web hosting package is similar to shared web hosting. They are just called reseller since this goes through a third party booking and not the web host company itself. There are web hosting companies that offer discounts to resellers who are typically website designers and authors that include web hosting as part of their services.

Dedicated Web Hosting

This type of web hosting is the most expensive type of web hosting package. Since dedicated hosting handles only one website per server, the website owner absorbs all the cost in maintaining the website such as power, hardware, line connection and technical personnel – unlike in Shared and Virtual Private Server Hosting wherein the cost can spread out to the websites that are leasing the server. This package is advisable for demanding website parameters such as e-commerce and customer relations management sites that are data intensive and a slow connection would mean loss sales.

Part 2

Part 3

This was a little talk I gave about why I think WordPress is the best solution for most small businesses. I was presenting at WordCamp Kansas City 2011 in Overland Park , KS. What a awesome event! Everything from the organizing to the speakers and yes, even the food was top notch!! Check out our local site and see what else Kansas City is up too!

Online video rules. Plain and simple. But how do I get my academy award winning YouTube video on my WordPress blog so I can show of my acting skills? Like most anything you can accomplish online, just knowing a couple of cool tricks can take you a long way!

So, in this YouTube video tutorial, I demonstrate how to take a video from YouTube and put it into your WordPress blog. Now, this will work the same on a standard HTML website, but we are focused on WordPress in this lesson. Give it try! Please leave me a comment to tell me how it went! Rock on!

1.Blogging is good for your organic SEO.  Blogging builds backlinks to your pages. If your content is awesome, then people discuss and share it, creating links to your pages on their websites, blogs and social platforms like Twitter and YouTube.

2.Blogging builds corporate authority.  A business with a popular blog seems more informed and articulate than one without, enhancing corporate reputation as a superstar organization.

3.Writing enhances your personal profile and street cred. Not only does a blog build your company’s reputation, it showcases the talents of your ninja staff members who contribute. This allows them to develop personal online profiles that help grow company and staff reputations.

4.Blogging extends beyond 140 characters.  I hear people suggest that a corporate presence on Twitter means they don’t need a blog – they are networking and marketing without one. But a blog allows you to continue Twitter conversations in more depth, and to justify your tweeted opinions. The two platforms work very well together, like peanut butter and jelly. Yummy!!

5.Blogging encourages you to remain on top of industry developments. If you’re a regular blogger, then you’re always looking for new ideas and potential posts. That gives you extra motivation to research, attend conferences and events, debate with your peers and read other blogs.  That prevents you from becoming complaisant and keeps on you on top of our rapidly changing industry.

6.You develop deep web archives of useful information.  When you’re absorbing so much information, it can be hard to remember which research article you read about a particular subject or whose blog post you would recommend. But if you’ve blogged your reactions to these, then you have filed your reactions, thoughts and links – allowing you to access them again in the future.

7.You’re more likely to be approached by the press. If you’re regularly putting out informed opinions on industry events, then you establish your reputation as an expert worthy of press attention.  Once you have a successful blog, you can even approach specialty publications and offer articles, further enhancing your corporate reputation.

8.Blogging enables conversations with customers.  Your readers and customers can comment on blogs, allowing you to enter into conversations with them. Positive conversations and interactions build consumer loyalty.

9.Blogging helps you network. Business executives and staff can use corporate blogs to build connections with relevant business leaders. If influential people read your blog, share it and discuss it with you, then you build your network and circle of influence.

10.Blogging encourages repeat website traffic.  Add regular, useful content to your website and people will visit regularly. Boosting engaged, interested visitors to your website increases sales conversions.

11.Your competitors are blogging.  So many companies have active blogs.  Companies ignoring blog platforms risk looking outdated and behind the times. If your competitors are benefiting from a blog, then you could be too.

12.It enhances your PR.  Whether you have an extensive PR team that’s regularly pitching stories to the nationals, or barely any PR budget at all, your blog enhances your PR strategy. It’s an additional channel to showcase your PR efforts and it can be the basis of your PR if you have a very limited budget.

13.Blogging shows you are in touch with your sector.  A blog allows your customers and peers to see you regularly commenting on and discussing developments in your industry. This gives them confidence that you are not out of date. Besides, it makes you look cool, Fonzie.

14.It enhances sales (if you’re careful!).  A blog must never be used to overtly sell or market to readers; it should be useful and entertaining. However, you can publish posts inspired by a new product or service, and you can link to relevant sales pages on your websites without offending most readers.

15.A blog gives your company a personality.  Blogs are conversational and more informal than most other businesses communication forums.That lets you showcase corporate brand and personality, helping you engage visitors and build brand loyalty.

16.Blog posts keep on giving.  Email and PR campaigns are one-off events. But a blog post is archived and constantly available online. Even after it leaves long your homepage, people stumble across it through Internet searches and inbound links, meaning it continues to work for you.

17.You learn from discussions.  Not only will keeping a blog motivate you to stay on top of industry news, you can also learn from comments and debates inspired by your post. Always take the time to read what people say about your posts. Sometimes, highly informed individuals (who’d charge a hefty consultation fee if you asked them for their opinion!) will freely share their knowledge and opinions in response to your article.

18.It’s a useful, marketable skill.  You can add strings to your web marketing bow by acquiring blogging skills – an increasingly important tool.

19.The price is right.  Blogging is a budget-pleasing way to market yourself and your “Coolness Factor.” If you can’t afford a marketing drive, then a blog allows you to raise brand awareness and interact more effectively online. While a blog takes time, it is a PR strategy that the whole team can help out with, allowing you an online marketing foothold with little financial investment.

20.You can address online reputation issues swiftly.  If your company is being badmouthed online, or if it has made an honest mistake, then a blog allows you to respond quickly. Whether you’re correcting misinformation or apologizing for a gaffe, a blog post lets you be authentic with the online community. It’s also friendlier than a statement. I look at this as online street justice!

21.You’ll be at the front of your readers’ minds.  Regular readers automatically think of your business the next time they come to need your product or service, because they visit your site so often. So make sure what you write adds value. Value equals loyalty.

22.Blogs showcase your brand. If you’re writing interesting articles that people want to share and discuss, then you widen your brand appeal. As the online community distributes your posts, it raises brand awareness of your brand in a positive way, hopefully! Oh ya, being a little dorky can work well too.

23.You’ll enjoy it.  Don’t look on a regular blog as a drag or a chore; it can be great fun. Writing interesting, useful articles on demand is a challenge but it’s an exciting one. Set yourself goals like increasing your subscribers or generating more comments or tweets with every post and you’ll soon see what fun a blog can be, you know, like a going to an amusement park. Wait, maybe not THAT fun, but you get the idea.

24.It’s so easy, a caveman can do it.  A blog, particularly in WordPress, is easy to create, set up and populate. The only difficulty you might find is coming up with ideas, but as soon as you get into the mindset of looking for your next post, you’ll soon find the ideas start to flow.

25.You can host guest posts.  Once you’ve created a company blog, you can invite industry peers, suppliers and ninja’s to write guest articles for it. They will then share their posts with their fans and followers, spreading your brand awareness across an even wider audience.  You can even offer to write guest posts to other blogs, further boosting your corporate and personal reputation.

In conclusion, I believe we have learned two things:

One: As you can see, blogging has become a tool that is not just for people who want to share stories of their cat Fluffy, but an awesome tool to make your business an online powerhouse.

Two: I can count to 25 all by myself!

Till next time, make it happen. Rock on!