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I’ve spent the past few days catching up on my reading. That may sound easy, but I have books and magazines piling up in several rooms of my home. While I can’t say I got through them all, I did get through a bunch of them.

It seems everything I pick up has something written about blogging. Blogging had picked up steam over the past year, and is now the "in-thing" for all business owners.

Unfortunately, a lot of what I see written is for the individual who wants to break away from their job and start writing/blogging for a living.

There is a distinct difference between blogging as an individual to create your own business - your own income source outside of a traditional job - and writing a blog for your business. 

Here are three things to keep in mind:

1. When an individual decides to blog, she can choose anything of interest to her. She can start with a general topic, or niche it down to something she loves. It can change all the time.

When a business decides to blog, the owner must lay down ground rules on what to blog about. The structure needs to be in place, especially if others will be writing for them.

2. In many cases an individual starts blogging because they have a love for something. They fill their blogs with content, and then decide how to monetize it after achieving some success.

A business owner must decide how to monetize a blog before they start blogging. Will you be using your blog to attract clients for your services? Will you be placing graphics on your site to sell your products?

3. When individuals become professional bloggers, they usually make a good portion of their income from advertising other companies products/services. They sell ad space on their blogs, and make income from a variety of sources.

A business owner has to think of their own business first. In many cases selling ad space to other companies may not be appropriate - why would you want to sell your competitors products?

In all cases, a business owner must constantly assess the blogs purpose, and make sure you’re blogging for your own business’s benefit.

I saw some amazing stats today for Facebook.

• It’s the 6th most popular site in the world.
• 56 percent are 25 and older
• Over 55 percent are women.
• 35 percent of members earn more than $60,000 US per year.
• 23 percent make over $100,000 US

So who is your target market? If it’s women, Facebook should be a part of your marketing strategy. They’re out there communicating, making connections - and spending money. 

Three tasks you may not have known about Facebook:

1. Start up your Facebook account with a profile. That’s all about you. Your photograph. Your likes/dislikes. Your interests.

2. Add a page. Pages are all about your company. You can list your business summary, website addresses, and product/service information.

3. Groups are designed to develop common interests. My Professional Photography group has over 750 members - and growing daily. Anyone who is or has a desire to be a professional photographer can join. It provides a place to communicate about all kinds of tips for professional photographers.

Are you on Facebook?

You can write on your blog day after day. But if no one is reading it, it won’t do you any good.

You’ll often hear big names quote statistics in the thousands. Authors, speakers and consultants that have a worldwide audience can gain readers in the thousands in just a few months. I myself added 162 new readers to one of my blogs just this past weekend.

How did all this happen? Marketing.

The only way to build up your business is to market what you do. Your marketing goes beyond a brochure for your products or services. You also need to build up your interest.

If you’re writing on your blog several times per week, you have the first task down. The second task is harder to build, and harder to understand. You don’t want to share your ideas with an unknown audience. You need to target who’s reading and give them what they want.

Imagine someone comes in and reads one of your articles. They find it interesting and want more. At this point they don’t want a sales pitch - they want more information similar to what they’ve just read.

The more you write, the more they will stay. Once you peak their interest - it may take one blog post, or it may take 20 - then they have a desire to connect with you. They may sign up for your RSS feed. Or want your newsletter. In either case, they don’t want the sales pitch - just the ability to keep connecting with you.

Now that they’re on your list and hear from you again and again, you can begin casually dropping promotion ideas. Nothing hard-selling; just an occasional item on what you are offering.

I’ve been on lists for months before I decide to make a purchase. I keep up with them through every newsletter and through every post. And when I have a need, I almost always have a resource to go back to.

What are you doing to provide quality content to your readers that will keep them reading?

More women than ever are now blogging in some fashion.

According to an article published in Advertising Age, BlogHer and Compass Partners recently conducted a study that showed more than one third of all women in the U.S. aged 18 to 75 participate in blogging at least once per week. Of those 53 percent read, 37 percent post comments, and 28 percent write or update a blog.

So…

Are you a woman business owner? Why not try blogging for yourself? I love blogging for two reasons. First, I can blog whenever I have time. I often get up at 6 am and sit down and write a few posts. I’m fresh and full of ideas at that time of the morning. I’m also active in the late evenings after my daughter is in bed. It’s a great time for posting comments on other people’s blogs. Second, it’s brought in a lot of opportunity. I’ve created a lot of sales for my products and services, and I’ve also received a lot of media exposure - which means I’m writing articles for more publications.

Do you sell to women? With over 53 percent of women reading blog posts, and women in charge of most household purchases, now’s the best time to start Blogging For Business.

photo by JadeGordon

When you designed your traditional website, you may have included a variety of testimonials on a separate page, or possibly down one of the sides of your site pages. In either case, testimonials were used as support to get people to take action.

With your blog, you have even more power in using testimonials, or case studies.

When a prospect reads your copy and your sales letters, they may be attracted to your ideas. But there might not be anything that pushes them over the top. Case studies can do that. They

1. They provide the true benefits you provide to your client base.

2. It adds a sense of reality to your business, giving your prospects the ability to see your products and services in action.

You can provide as much or as little information as you desire - anything from how they found you, to the results of what you offered. You can provide photos, videos - really the sky is the limit. Why not have your client create a video with your product or service in action?

And with a blog, you can add these again and again. And you can continually build rapport because of the comment section attached to each post.

Your own raving fan section - free with your blog.

Where else can you gain immediate exposure?

Where else can people have an immediate say?

It’s all about the blog.

BlogHer, a social community for women who blog, has an exclusive on-camera interview with presidential candidate Barack Obama. This isn’t a network or cable television station. This is an online source of influence. And Barack knows it, and is using this "new" media very well.

Blogging isn’t about writing a little bit about your company, your products and services, and sharing it with a few friends. Blogging is about sharing your knowledge, your opinions and your thoughts with the world. Blogging puts you in the position of building up your expertise, and allows you to share that position with a huge audience - virtually anyone, anywhere in the world.

Imagine writing a post that is shared with hundreds of fans, friends, and media representative. Imagine posting an opinion that puts you in the authority - and gives you the ability to rise to the top of a few popular sites because of your strong opinion. Imagine growing your business just because your opinion is on the top of these sites, and hundreds of new contacts now know your name.

It’s all possible. In fact I meet and connect with several new people every day just because I blog. Blogging leads to new resources, and these resources always lead to new contacts.

Imagine where I’ll be a year from now with a few new powerful contacts every day.

Where will you be?

Being a professional photographer for over 18 years, I understand what it takes to promote a photography studio.

It’s hard to promote the business without showcasing your photography. Yet how do you get your photography online, and front of your prospects?

Blogging.

Sure it’s nice to have a fancy website that showcases your work in a Flash presentation. But does it bring in clients? I’m willing to bet the answer is no. Unless you have a huge name, and a huge following, no one will find your Flash website because the search engines won’t find it. And you usually spend thousands of dollars to put up a few of your best images - and then leave it set unchanged for months at a time.

Blogging gives you control.

• Photograph a client on Tuesday morning - put up her photos on your blog Tuesday afternoon.
• Photography a wedding on Saturday - put up 100 images on your blog Monday morning.

People came to us because we had 20,000 images online - on our website - at any given time. They stayed on our site because they could get lost in the feeling of our photographs. They didn’t see the best-of collection. They saw album after album, and loved what  they saw. We stood out because we weren’t doing what everyone else was doing.

Are you?

As a creative professional, you’re probably looking for as many ways as possible to get the word out about your business. I’ll bet you spend well over 40 hours a week working with clients, and marketing to bring in more clients. If you don’t do it all, who is?

You’ve probably experimented with websites and online marketing. And just when you thought you had some of that figured out, along comes blogging. Is it really necessary to build a blog too?

Ask yourself these questions:

• Would I benefit from building up my expertise and credibility in my niche?
• Can I find clients in more than one location?
• Am I ready to expand my business?
• Am I finding it harder and harder to gain clients using email and other more traditional online marketing methods?
• Do I enjoy trying new forms of marketing just to see what they can bring in?
• Do I have a pretty good marketing plan in place - now I just want to rev it up a bit?
• Would I enjoy being online every day, working with my blog and building up online relationships?

Is blogging for everyone? Of course not. But blogging is quickly becoming one of the most effective ways of interacting with prospects and clients, and building your expertise up in a short and powerful way. 

I surf every day, looking for different types of blogs. If I like them, I either sign up for their RSS feed, or add them to a growing list of sites to check back in on once in awhile.

Of course I also find a bunch of blogs that simply don’t work. So today I thought I’d share 5 Things Not To Do With Your Blog.

1. Don’t blog for SEO. Sure, blogs are wonderful because they do attract more attention on Google and other search engines. But if all of your posts are exclusively written for SEO purposes, they will be a bit, well, boring. Imagine seeing the same title again and again: what would make you want to read any of the posts? If you’re blogging on a regular basis, some posts will be written to attract keywords, and to be well suited for SEO. Use other posts to make your blog exciting, and keep people reading. Overall, if you’re active with your blog, you will attract attention.

2. Add some photos, videos or graphics. Copy is a bad thing when it goes on and on. Because a blog lists multiple posts on your home page, without the break up of graphics and photos, the text seems to run on forever. Graphics give the eye something to focus on. It gives you a reason to want to read.

3. Lots of ads. How about post after post, with an ad in each one? And each ad is for the same thing? Is there any desire to read further and click on an ad? I don’t think so.

4. Lots of blinking, moving, cartoonish graphics moving around the screen. Don’t these graphics give you a headache? I know I move on as quickly as possible when things are blinking at me. If I’m going to read online, I want it to read like a novel. I want to be able to spend the time to understand the reader, and focus on what he or she is saying.

5. Blog all about you. A blog is about your opinions, your thoughts, and your resources. I want to know how you feel about certain subjects, and learn more about your expertise. But I don’t want to hear about your products and services again and again. Use caution when promoting your stuff - people will find out how to work with you when they feel comfortable with you. 

There’s always another way to do it.

In this case, it’s receiving RSS feeds from your favorite blogs. Instead of sending them to a feed reader program, why not send them to your email account? You can view your feeds as easily as your email, whether you’re in the office, or out on the road with your Blackberry. 

Simply login with your email address, place your favorite feed URL into the system, and you’ll soon get your favorite feeds in the form of an email.

Want to make this feature available to those that follow your blog? Put this handy subscribe widget on your blog, and have them sign up for your blog posts via email instead of RSS.

Just another option for you to manage your blog.

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