In this post we are going to help with these questions. We are going to tell you, and show you, how to use a blog for business.

Before we get into step by step instructions of how to blog, we will cover the basics of why you should be blogging, and why it makes sense to use a blog for business.

It all begins with establishing yourself online, creating a brand, and having a home base to drive traffic to.

Let them get to know you. Provide value by teaching something, and build a list at the same time

Blog posts are published on the internet. Each post has it's own unique URL and therefore can never get buried or lost or forgotten. They can also be updated at any time.

It's recommended to update your posts now and then. Doing so will renew the page indexing by Google each time.  You can watch the post climb in page rank as you continue to add value to the article. You want your website to be the one that's seen by people that do Google searches. That's what this is all about.

Blog posts are also easy to access. They can be found fast with a simple search at your blog page. Just put your keyword in the search box and you'll get a listing of all relevant posts. Very convenient for the reader.

Blogging is an exceptional way to provide information that is continuously ongoing and advancing. Keeping people informed with useful information is a great way to build up subscribers and followers. You'll become known as an authority figure in your niche.

Use your blog as a home base to drive traffic and for sharing to all your other various social media platforms. You can create a wheel. Your blog is the hub with spokes linking your other online properties and pages.

Build your mailing list on your blog by offering a free compelling offer in exchange for an email.

Link building is another important factor for Google ranking. Notice I said link building this time, not list building. Building a link profile and a linked network is pretty major for getting ranked and for building up your domain authority. That's why you want to tie everything together.

You can build links internally. Use anchor text to link with other pages of your website. You can also link build externally. These are called backlinks and they occur when other webmasters and bloggers link to your content from their websites.

Sharing from your blog can get you backlinks if done right. There are techniques that we will cover more extensively in future posts.

Having a home base for your content is a great way to stay organized. Repackaging your content will help you build up your brand. Different delivery methods with the same content can make it appear new and fresh. It's perfectly okay to do this. It helps to always provide unique and high-quality material that is owned and branded by you.

Everyone who is trying to create a brand, share a message online, or build a business should have a blog. From there you can add a Home Page, an About Me page, and Contact page. There are no limits. You can attach as many pages as you want and have a nice menu at the top to map the site.

Using a blog for business is something a beginner can do. Any person can have one up and running quickly with relatively little online experience, and will learn a lot about internet marketing. There are tools available that make it easy and fast.

Now I'll go through some steps to get started, and provide some tips and resources to help you along with your task of using a blog for business.

First you need a hosting account. I use WPX Hosting which is an upgrade for me from my original hosting account. It's a slightly more advanced hosting company that specializes in WordPress and server speed.

A beginner can use a shared hosting account such as HostGator. That's what I started with and I used it for years. I still use if for certain applications. HostGator is perfect for beginners. The price is right and it's perfectly sufficient for what you'll be doing.

Choose the Baby Plan so you get the unlimited domains feature.

Once you get your hosting account, setting up WordPress is a breeze. In your C-Panel (Control Panel) is a Quick Install button and the rest is fast and easy. Click through and follow the guide.

WordPress will send you an email with your password and login link. Save the email for easy reference.

Now you have your WordPress blog/website, but it's just an empty shell at this point. You have a choice of free themes to choose from. Find the one you like and click to install. It's all done within your WordPress dashboard.

There are premium themes available for a minimal cost. You are welcome to scan through what's available..

Once you have your theme you can add a header image and you'll be able to see the sidebar. It's starting to take shape.

Still there are some things to do behind the scenes for site security, for backups, and for optimizing your posts and pages.

Plugins are like apps. They are as easy to install as the theme. Point and click. But there's thousands to choose from so don't let this rattle you.

You only need a few plugins to start that we will suggest here. They are all free.

There are more plugins you might want to take advantage of once you get going. One great thing about WordPress is that once you get rolling, there are always things you can do, and add, to make your site better.

Another Google SEO factor is something called domain authority. Domain authority comes with time, and with link building with other established bloggers. Not only that but it can take up to 6 months just to get recognized and indexed by Google. So begin now and start establishing yourself with Google and with the online world.

I hope you enjoyed this overview and I hope that you received value from it. If you have a business, and you are not blogging yet, it is my wish that you immediately put in place a plan to start. Not only does it make a lot of sense to blog for business, some will say it's mandatory in this day and age.

Maybe not quite to the degree that they used to, but yes, keywords really do matter. When used properly.. 

A very important key thing is HOW they are used. The days of keyword stuffing are long gone.

There was a time that a person could get an article or post ranked simply by inserting a bunch of their main keywords into the article in any way, shape, or form. Not only does that not work any longer, it will work against you if you do it.

Your keywords need to be strategically placed. Not only in the title, the URL, and the meta description, but throughout the post as well. But it has to make sense. The keywords must fit accordingly, so as to flow with the content.

Google is now looking more for high quality content that has value and that reads well. Therefore, the keywords must be integrated and a relevant part of the article.

There are tools and methods of keyword research that will help you learn to choose good relevant long-tail keywords.

Keyword Tool is free and it's easy to use you. Type in the main keyword and the tool will show you a lot of variations of that word. They are listed in order by how often they are used in searches. This will give you ideas.

You can also use Google Search itself.

First you'll get the SERP results (Search Engine Rank Page) so you can see what others are doing, and secondly you'll see at the bottom of the SERP page Google's "related searched" listing which is a great way to revise keywords.

Google Search can also tell you how popular a keyword is. Realizing this can help you deter from trying to compete with words and with bloggers that are just too big and too competitive to even mess around with.

To find out start first with a general and popular keyword and note the number of pages of results. 

Now try a long-tail keyword. Use "quotes" around the phrase so the results are only for that particular phrase or set of words. Look at how many pages of results you get. Do you notice the difference? Would you rather compete with words that bring back 100's of pages, or a handful of pages?

Do you think it would be easier to get on the first page of Google using long tailed keywords?

If you answered yes, you are correct.

If you have expanded to the level of doing some Google Adwords advertising, you can use the tools for deeper research. They will show you search volumes, costs per click, even who the competitors are and how many.

Choosing the right keywords for PPC Adwords will save you money and get you better results with your campaigns.

You might have to upgrade into a paid version of the Keyword Tool to get the information you want. This is a more advanced keyword research.

When doing your keyword research, always make note of the companies and domains that are ranking at the top.

Are the top page rankers huge companies and bloggers that have tens of thousands of subscribers and millions of website visits each month? You would want to stay away from even trying to rank with those giants. 

This is why we say that it's advantageous, especially when you are getting started, to go after a much narrower niche and target market. The narrower the better.

This is also why we talk about long-tail keywords. You use those to narrow your niche.

Keywords must be used correctly. Place them in page and post titles, preferrably at the beginning of the title.

Also place your keywords in the meta descriptions and "sprinkle" throughout the post content where it makes sense.

If you are using WordPress, the Yoast SEO plugin will make your life easy when it comes to placing these keywords. Yoast is a free SEO tool that is a favorite for most WordPress bloggers and marketers.

Make sure you keep the flow and that it reads naturally. This is a big thing for you to learn and use in the right way because a lot of your competitors will not be doing it correctly. You can fill a void and jump over them in the page rank results.

The use of keywords and SEO is not an exact science. It's not a black and white picture. There are some grey areas and it will require some testing and tweaking as you go.

No one really knows the exact Google algorithm. There are indicators to learn however and you can do well if you follow those indicators. Google is constantly changing so it is something you will want to keep track of.

But it's a learned skill and once you have it, it's with you for life. It can be very worth it. Learning SEO is a good investment of your time and your money.

Getting ranked on the first page of Google for your chosen niche can bring lots of additional traffic to your website and result in a steady growth of your business.

Thank you for reading. Hopefully now you realize and understand that keywords really matter with Google and SEO ranking. I didn't think about it too much when I was new to online marketing, but now I'm fascinated with it all. There's a lot involved but worth it to learn. Check back often as I'll be adding to this post with updates and additional information.

Get on my newsletter for more Internet Marketing for Beginners Tips and Tricks.

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This is what we are doing now and you should too ... intensive internet marketing training. Learning how to blog and build a website. Use this as your homebase and your hub for feeding your social platforms. It is the key to building your own brand online. Providing good content that has value and benefits. It will attract other networkers to you. They will see the benefits and will want to do it also. Include all other aspects of internet marketing such as SEO, video marketing, and list building.

Making a decision to learn how to market online and building your own brand online could be the best move you will ever make. It's not easy. It requires hard work and daily action. But it's worth it in the long run. We've been down this road and we learned some hard lessons. It's not fun wondering what to do next, or if you've made a mistake even getting involved. People quit days later after realizing they don't know what to do to make it happen.

So your priority becomes promoting you, and why people would want to join you. This will bring better results than if you are always branding the product and the company. Of course you have to do some of that, but it's also quite necessary to provide your own value as well. Naturally your friends will join you, but no one has ever built a walk away income with just their friends and family. Your reach will need to extend far beyond that. Learning how to market online will help you pull that off.

When you get good at online marketing you'll be able to choose any company you want or build any business you want. It won't matter ... you'll be able to build it. You will be the nucleus, and if you choose a good company or a good product, you'll then have a one, two punch.

We spent years rambling about, bouncing around, going here and going there, not knowing what to do first or what to do next. Don't do what we did. Decide now to learn how to market online, and then choose what you are going to build.

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I'm sure you've heard it before about a gazillion times... know your audience. It only makes sense though. I do not need to spend a lot of time here. It kind of goes without saying that you will know who your target audience is. But even so... knowing who your audience is, and what they need to hear might be two slightly different things. It's crucial to provide content that your readers have an interest in, and in a way that will capture and keep them.

There's big talk about the importance of being consistent and regular in your online content. And it's true, you do need to be somewhat consistent. But that doesn't mean writing randomly about the sky just to get something out there. You do have to have a topic, and you do need to know something about it. So study up on your chosen topic if you need to. We are all a mouse click away from the largest information source in the world and it's all free, so use it.

Headline your article, and some of your paragraphs too. Headlines should not be tricky or cute. That's hard to pull off. Headlines should do nothing but tell the reader what they are about to hear. Use your headlines to "hook" the reader, but never in a deceptive way. Creating good "hooker" headlines is a skill that you will learn and get better at. When a reader stays you know they are intrigued and want to learn more.

Gone are the days of keyword stacking and rambling just to deliver content. Google, and your readers, want to see real content that means something. You can suggest, recommend, teach, opinionate, summarize, educate, or narrate, but just make sure your reader walks away feeling as though they got something from reading your post. Provide value and benefit. That is what will keep your audience coming back for more.

Will you agree that some of the reason for doing all this is to be found on the internet when people search for something? That means writing blog posts the way Google wants to see them written. They are the ones that need to be kept happy when it comes to page rank (your ranking or positioning in the search engine results).

There was a time when a blogger could write in just about any way, at any length, and stuff a bunch of keywords anywhere in the content. Not any more. Now google wants to see high quality content, details, and explanations, and quite frankly so does your readers. They can get filler and fluff anywhere. Google also wants to see longer posts than before. Keywords need to be strategically placed within the content in a way that makes good reading. It should all flow and make sense.

Images do three things. They provide more SEO juice for Google, they get the readers attention, and they break up your content so it's more visually stimulating. Your images should relate to your topic in some way. It can be indirectly, but it should have some kind of connection, even if it's symbolic in a sense. You'll be able to keyword tag your images which is one of the SEO magnets. Your images can also be found in search engines for additional exposure back to your brand. Images are one of the most attention grabbing pieces of content used today. So are videos.

The main thing is to get started. You can learn and get better as you go. You won't break anything and you won't be spanked. These are simply guidelines and things to work towards. Just get started and you'll be surprised how fast you get the hang of it. 

So there you have it. The A,B,C's of writing blog posts. It's not rocket science and it does not have to be perfect. It's better to be constant and conform as best you can to these simple basics. The rest will all come with repetition. You'll be fine. Writing blog posts does not have to be a dreaded chore. You can enjoy yourself doing it. So have fun and happy blogging to you!

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Try content marketing and get yourself noticed. There are two things that I learned early in my internet marketing career that must be done to even think about becoming successful online - Getting Seen, and Becoming Known.

It's a simple concept

Do you remember having a favorite teacher in school because they taught cool stuff that actually meant something to you? Stuff that you could use in real life. Stuff that might benefit you in some way? Or how about that friend who was unique and that always had something interesting going on. You were always open to hearing what they were up to right? You may even have thought that you could learn some things from that person.

Consider the 5 points below to get you started with content marketing. Start your journey of becoming that go-to person for some of you contacts.

1. Choose A Topic

Everyone is good at something .... everyone has something to share on some given subject ...everyone has something to contribute that others can get some use from.

2. Create a Website for Your Content

3. Create Your Content in Multiple Formats

4. Build Your Email List

The money is in the list. Yes we do hear that all the time don't we? Over and over again. So are you building a list? Have you learned how to build a list? Using content marketing is an excellent way to do it. Show people good value and they want more. Once you get people to opt-in to your list trust me you will not have trouble knowing what to send them next. One great method is to use others people stuff. Spin it into your own words and put your brand on it. You don't copy and paste. You use other peoples material to get you started ... to get the gears turning in your brain ... and take it from there. Makes sense right?

5. Market Content on Social Media

Well of course! You are on social media ... I am on social media ... everyone is on social media. So use it to your benefit! Share everything on social media, and the great thing about content marketing is that it doesn't get boring. You are mixing up all your delivery methods. Nothing is ever the same. Share your blog posts, your how-to vidoes, your explainer videos, your voice over videos... there are so many different variations of videos and thats the #1 method today. AND ... put share buttons on everything! When your content becomes so good that people start to share it on social medis... then you know you are well on your way.

Now .. rinse and repeat

You will develop a style and a routine that gets easier and easier. You might start with a blog post, turn it into a podcast, then a video of you, then a power point type video with voice-over. You can take your blog post and turn it into several social media posts. Bring images into the mix. Brand your images with your name and website domain. You get the idea right?

Content Marketing - the simple strategy of sharing material in different formats that people find useful and benefit from.