I’m willing to bet the answer is yes. Or if not yet, very soon.

I’m continuing to follow the State of the Blogoshpere 2008 by Technorati, and found a few more interesting facts.

Over 51% of all respondents to their survey admitted they have more than one blog. Once you start, its easy to become a huge fan of the results! I fall into this category. I blogged for a number of months through my personal, free blog on Blogger. Once I began seeing results, I quickly moved it to my own blogging account, and opened up several niched blogs. (And I guarantee you I’m not finished starting niched blogs.)

I also found some interesting facts on women bloggers.

Female bloggers really take the time to learn how to maximize their profitability when it comes to blogging. They may be slower at creating a blog, and blog on more personal issues, but they know how to use it to its maximum potential once they start.

• Female bloggers are twice as likely to sell through an ad network as men.
• They are more likely than male bloggers to participate in a blogroll
• They are more likely than male bloggers to produce content for other blogs.
• 36% have converted business leads from their blogs – vs 27% of men.

If women are this sophisticated in using a blog, imagine how well they utilize blogs to learn more about products and services, and how willing they are to do business with companies that have blog presences.

So if you are selling to women, are you blogging? This trend will only continue, so get blogging today.

Some of the statistics were expected:

• 133 million blog records have been indexed by Technorati since 2002
• 7.4 million blogs posted in last 120 days
• 900,000 blog posts in 24 hours
• 57% of US bloggers, 73% of European bloggers, 73% of Asian bloggers are male
• Almost 3/4 of bloggers are college graduates

The one thing I did take note of:

Globally,

• 83% of female bloggers and 76% of male bloggers blog about personal issues
• 38% of female bloggers and 50% of male bloggers blog about professional issues

This means a world of opportunity is open for us as business owners!

People read blogs, probably more than they even realize. And in the very near future, blogs and websites will completely merge, with most people never knowing the difference. It all comes down to content, and how you manage the content. If you’re good at it, you’ll succeed. (I loved this quote from the report and thought I’d share)

“The word blog is irrelevant, what’s important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world.”

Seth Godin, Author, Tribes
sethgodin.typepad.com

Bottom line – it’s time to step up and build the foundation for your business online. By learning the basic tools now, and using them to their full capacity now, you’ll be setting the stage for growing your business in the future.

Start with a basic blog design. Start blogging. Merge it into your marketing plan. And see your business grow.

According to the survey, 36 percent of respondents preferred to get some or all of their information from online sources. Print media continues to decline, Internet resources are rising, and television is remaining fairly constant. 

The study then divided up the population into groups based on how they receive their news.

The oldest population prefers traditional methods; the 35 and under group is moving towards online methods only. Online news gathers are more affluent, better educated, and have an 8 in 10 chance of having attended college. Fewer than half of this growing crowd watch television on a typical day.

Who is your target audience?

I constantly work with small business owners who set their target market towards the affluent crowd. If you’re not providing quality information online in a timely manner, how will you be reaching your target audience?

The affluent buyer is online many hours per day. They understand search, and can quickly find answers to their questions by doing a few searches. If you’re not there, they won’t find you.

How do you know if anyone is reading? Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can track what’s happening on your site.

1. Take a look at your statistics through your blog hosting company. Or set up a site statistics tracker to be able to see your results. [If you host with us, you have access to all of your stats - ask me how if you're unsure.] I’m excited to have had over 2400 unique visitors to my blog last month.

2. Check your signup rates. Whether you have an RSS feed signup, or you have a signup for an ezine or free report, watch how many people are signing up each day. We’ve been growing our signups at a rate of 45 percent per month. Your signups for RSS feeds can be through places like Feedburner. Or if you have an ezine system, you should be able to log in and look at your list statistics.

3. Search Engine Optimization – yes you can watch your blog to make sure you are achieving results. This blog currently has a pagerank of 3, and has 216 pages indexed by Google. Not bad for a blog started in April.

If you haven’t tracked your statistics before, give it a try. Just seeing how you’re growing and reaching out to new people can give you the motivation you need to keep blogging. 

750 million people use the search engines each month searching for products or services.

To find those products and services, these same people type in over 61 billion keyword searches each month to find what they are looking for.

Sounds like a lot, right? You really want to be there hanging out at the top of the search engines, right?

Well yes. And no.

The trouble is most people don’t understand what it means to be at the top.

If you’re a photographer, you don’t really need to be at the top of the keyword "photography".

If you’re a bronze sculptor, you don’t really need to be at the top of the keyword "artist".

When people type in generic words like "photographer" or "artist", it’s only a guess as to what they really want.

Are they looking for a school to take a class? Are they looking for someone to commission to work with? Are they doing research?

So why spend the money, time or effort trying to get to the top of these generic keywords?

Instead you need to niche down and get to the top of your exact keyword phrases. Things that people will really type in when they are trying to find you.

bronze sculpture vs artist = 1,240,000 vs 638,000,000 searches

Florida wedding photographer vs photography = 489,000 vs 412,000,000

And when you type in these key phrases, a funny thing is happening. It’s not just websites anymore that come naturally to the top of the search engines. It’s blogs. And social media sites.

Are you marketing your business with social sites yet? Why not?

According to his article, Technorati now tracks 70 million blogs, up from 35 million less than a year ago. And according to the latest research, 22 of the 100 most popular websites in Q4 of last year were blogs.

More and more, people are relying on blogs to gain valuable information. Why? Because it’s the easiest and most effective way to share information quickly with your readers and with the search engines.

When I do research for articles, I’m usually looking for statistics or for current figures and ratios in online trends. Things change quickly online. Facts that were valid in 2006 for the most part no longer apply today in 2008. So I need information posted within the past few days – weeks at the most.  Blogs and blog directories are a great way for me to find the information I need.

By searching in blog directories like Technorati, they provide search results based on the date is was posted; not just by keyword. So I can find information that was posted just minutes before – not just the highest ranking keyword related site.

So as a business owner, if you’re writing on current issues, and you’re hitting on keywords that people are searching for, you have a higher chance of “being found” because your information will be at the top of the search results.

1. Write blog posts frequently and concentrate on writing about things of interest to customers and media.

2. Write appropriate titles that will capture the attention of readers. Don’t create titles for SEO purposes – make sure they attract the attention of your reader first, SEO second.

3. The more you write, the easier it is to find you. You can become an authority in your niche fairly quickly – just start writing.

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

Overwheliming, the answer is Yes.

According to the BlogWorldExpo:

• Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog
• Over 57 million Americans read blogs
• 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years
• 9% of Internet users say they have created a blog
• Over 120,000 blogs are created every day
• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs
• 51% of blog readers shop online

Convinced of the importance of blogging?

Are you blogging for business?