If you are new to blogging, then you may be wondering what this post is all about. If you aren’t, then I am sure you have a pretty good idea about what I am going to talk about. For the benefit of those who are not familiar with the term, a blogroll is merely a list of other blogs which you post on your on blog.

So if you are browsing through a specific blog and you see a long list of links to other blogs on one side, you are actually looking at the blogroll. This is one way of letting your readers know that you are recommending the blogs on your blogroll to them. In the same way, if the link to your blog appears in other blogs, you have a form of free advertisement.

With that said, you should pretty much get what I am saying at – blogrolling is good. At the risk of being repetitive, using blogrolls means that you are promoting someone else’s blog and at the same time, your blog is being promoted by others. Seeing it from a business point of view, being in other blogs’ blogroll will enhance your presence on the web.

Imagine if your readers like your blog that much and they link to your business blog in their own sites and blogs? That means higher incoming links and that in turns translates to being in good terms with search engines. In addition to the human factor – people actually seeing your link in other sites – being in the first few pages of a search result is what you are looking for.

So if I were you, I’d get into blogrolling now.

Who isn’t interested in knowing something about the future? That is why we have fortune tellers and all sorts of schemes to give us a peek into what tomorrow holds for us. Why not let this tiny aspect of human nature do your work for you and your business?

Give your customers a peek into what you have in store for them in the near future by posting entries in your blog.

Remember when Sony was still working on the PlayStation 3 and all they had were little snippets of information? How about Steve Jobs and Apple with the iPhone? These two giants in the tech industry know how to build up the anticipation for their products. They know how to give just enough information to their customers and heighten their excitement for what is to come.

You can do exactly the same thing with your business blog.

Make a big deal about a product or service that you are about to release in the near future. Give your customers an idea of what it is about but keep some details hidden – for now. You can even throw in a teaser or two to keep them guessing. Of course, you have to be accurate and honest – you don’t want to be accused of false advertising.

You may not have as big a customer base as Sony and Apple but it doesn’t matter. With such a strategy employed, your blog readers will certainly get the word around. It will only be a matter of time till you get more of the exposure that you are aiming for.

These two characteristics are perhaps some of the two most important advantages that a blog can bring to your business.

Ask yourself, why have you jumped into the blogging bandwagon and set up a blog for your own business? Why didn’t you just stick it out with the more traditional means of marketing and advertising your business? I am sure there is a plethora of reasons behind this move but I am also certain that one consideration is speed of getting your message across to as many people as possible, am I right?

Now think about your blog. How many people can access it at the same time? Theoretically, limitless. How fast can these people receive any new information that you have posted on the blog? You might think that if the check the blog daily then they can gain access to new information as soon as the blog is updated. Right. Yet there is an even better way of distributing your information – through RSS and pings.

That’s right, with this technology, everyone who is subscribed to your blog will receive the posts each time you put out an update. Recipients of the posts include directories and search engines which you are subscribed to. It is as simple as that – write, post, and distribute. No waiting time, no nothing.

Along these lines, updating your blog is just as easy. As long as you have the necessary information, you merely have to write an entry and then post it. Not considering the writing time, updating can take you less than a minute. Compare that to the traditional press releases and printed newsletters.

There are blogs and then there are blogs. In the last post I was talking about meeting the bare minimum and taking things one step further. That is what makes an effective blog – going beyond what is required and reaching out to the people out there.

So what makes a business blog good? Those characteristics that help give your company a strong presence online.

Simple
There is no need to for too much flair – remember, content is what your readers are looking for. They want to find out what you have to offer and this means going straight to the point. Of course, pictures would not hurt either.

Dynamic
The web is dynamic and you have to keep up with it. You cannot rely on old and trusted ideas all the time. Browse the web for other business blogs and see how they do it. Then see if you can adopt some of their principles and make your own blog just as dynamic.

Fresh
The main purpose of blogging is to deliver fresh content on a regular basis. You cannot just create a blog and then forget about it. People come back to blogs because they want to read something new each time. That is why you should also set time aside for maintaining your business blog. Make sure that you will have something new to offer your readers each and everytime. Otherwise, your web presence might just as well be nil.

It is somewhat ironic that after contextual advertising took off giving businesses an alternative to the traditional way of advertising (renting ad space from websites) it was then that businesses, both large and small, came to realize the power of blogs in advertising and thus became more willing to rent ad space. The difference this time though is that advertisers have become more picky in the websites and blogs they choose to “rent ad space” from.

Renting ad space is really profitable. However, not all blogs will be able to really profit from this scheme. To be able to make a profit after all you need to be able to attract advertisers and prove to them that the space you are offering them will be worth the money they fork out. To be able to do this your blog must be/have:

• Really popular. Big companies (meaning big bucks) will only sponsor blogs that have high volume of traffic. This means that if your blog is really new and you’re still building readership then you’d better forget about this for the moment.
• Updated regularly and frequently. Advertisers want a constant stream of traffic for more ad exposure. While you might have tons of readers, if you only post once a week then your regular readers will only be visiting that frequently as well. Advertisers prefer blogs that are updated daily.
• A very good reputation. Some blogs may be popular but if they’re popular for all the wrong reasons then most advertisers will shy away from being linked to that blog. After all, your blog’s reputation will reflect on theirs.
• A solid theme. Businesses with the same target audience as you will be the ones attracted to your site. Without a solid theme your blog will not be as attractive since the ads might not be as effective.

Profiting through ads is no new concept. When targeted ads entered the scene though ads became a whole lot more profitable both for the advertisers and publishers. What’s even better is that anyone can now become a “publisher”. Bloggers are a prime example of ordinary people cashing in on ads. There are lots of opportunities out there for bloggers but only if you know where to look or at least how to look for them.

To help you get started making cash here are some ad opportunities you might want to check out.

Advertising Programs

• Google Adsense - They paved the way for contextual ads. Since veryone knows about Google Adsense there really isn’t any need to say more. You can also try Yahoo! Publisher Network and MSN Adcenter, which are both still in Beta.
• BlogAds - BlogAds blggers realy do make money. Right now the average blogger earns $50 a month although there are some that do earn up to $5000 a month! The problem with joining BlogAds is that it is by invite only. Of course, you can squeeze out an invite from one of your online friends.

Consumer Generated Ads

Consumer generated ads are ads made by the bloggers. Instead of depending on the advertiser to make a pitch, YOU will be the one to make the pitch and add a link to the website of the company or product you are promoting. If you are interested in this highly controversial ad technique then the best place to start is PayPerPost. Other consumer generated ad sites include LoudLaunch, Blogitive, and Blogsvertise.

A picture paints a thousand words – or so the saying goes. Call it cliché but I believe that this saying holds a large amount of truth. Now imagine your business blog. Why does it exist in the first place? There could be many answers to this question, I know, yet one of the main reasons businesses set up a blog of their own is to catch the attention of their customers. They want to gain new customers and retain old ones. I am sure that you don’t think differently.

So back to using pictures for your business blog…Let’s say that you offer a certain service. Whatever this service is, there might be aspects that you just cannot explain in words. Though words can be powerful, sometimes they are just not enough. What can you do? This is where pictures come in.

If you put photos in your blog detailing the service that you offer, you can present a visual image to your clients. They can see for themselves just exactly what you are offering to them. Sometimes, people need visuals in order to fully understand the message that you want to get across. Take for example a spa service detailing all that they have to offer. Contrast that with a post which has text and this picture:

Do you see what I mean?

Just a note on using pictures for blogging, though. Be careful to represent your product or service as realistically as possible. Sometimes, pictures can be larger than life. If this happens with your blog, then you might be in for customer dissatisfaction.

One of the core activities of any business is to gather information regarding their customers. In order to provide services or products which cater to their target market’s needs and preferences, a business has to have an accurate gauge of the market’s pulse, so to speak. As such, market research is one of the most important endeavors of any business.

Any businessman would know that in order to obtain results which are as accurate as can be, market research has to be conducted with as wide a coverage as possible. In order to achieve such a coverage, money has to be expended – a considerable amount. Yet there is another way to conduct market research without having to expend too many resources – both in terms of time, money, and personnel.

A business blog can do just that. Take the example of Stone Creek Coffee, a coffee store chain in the U.S. When they to make their presence felt online, they chose the blog to do the job. Tom Pionek, technology and marketing director, shares that their blog present more opportunities to interact with customers as compared to press releases and similar forms of business communications. Their blog also went on to serve as way of getting feedback from the customers – a form of market research.

According to consultant Dana Vanden Heuvel, blogs are “one of the largest free, for what that’s worth, market research test-beds. It goes beyond the focus groups and some of the other market-research vehicles that people have used in the past or companies have used in the past.”

With more and more people turning to the Internet for information, a business blog could give you the edge that you need.

Communication is the key to most relationships in society. From families to friendships to business relationships, communication is integral to the success of the interaction. In business, communication does not come automatically. Perhaps within the company, the flow of communication is a bit easier to facilitate.

The communication between customers and businesses may be a bit tricky, however. Despite the honest intentions from the business side to have a free exchange of ideas between them and the customer, you cannot blame the customer for thinking that there is a hidden agenda. After all, we want them to purchase our goods and services.

Advertisements and traditional media is the bridge between the corporation and the customers. Just how effective this method is, we cannot really discount as it has been working for countless years now. Yet taking things one step further – short of the CEO walking around and talking to customers face to face – the business can reach out to its clientele in a more personal manner through a blog.

Blogs, by their very nature, have a personal down-to-earth touch. Though we do have business blogs, people tend to associate blogs with a “real” person. If you take advantage of this fact and work your business blog as an ordinary person would, you can enjoy an open channel of communication between you and your customers.

You can post anything relating to your products, your services, and maybe even insider tips. At the same time, customers who read your blog would have the chance to air out their concerns and questions through the comments section. In this way, your blog serves as a venue for open forum, which is always good in the eyes of customers.

For many businesses – if not all – influencing the way of thinking of the general public is quite important. In fact, it could be critical for some. How is this so? Think about it this way – if you establish yourself as a credible source of information and people believe you, they would, to a certain extent, do what you say and behave accordingly. This is important for a business when it comes to establishing the quality and worth of your product or service. Essentially, this is what marketing and advertising is about. You engage in these activities in order to make people aware of what you have to offer and to have them believe that you are offering only the best for them. You are influencing public opinion.

How about if you can all the above for a much lesser price? I am talking about blogs. Due to the boom the blogosphere has experienced in the past few years, there have been many studies conducted on its effects on people. I have good news for you – people tend to rely a lot on the information that they gather from blogs.

With this in mind, what is keeping you from engaging in blogging? A blog for your business will probably be visited more than your main web site. People would tend to look for fresher information which is reliable. Having a good business blog would not only establish you as an authority in your field but will also help mould the opinions of readers to your advantage.