If you’re looking for a simple, inexpensive, yet highly effective way to not ONLY get targeted traffic and leads for your MLM or home based business…. but to also brand yourself and stand out from the crowd… then Blog Marketing is without a doubt where you’ll want to focus.

Blogging will allow you to quickly become an authority figure, establish new relationships, build a bigger opt-in email list or down line - And Crush Your Competitors!

Here are just a few of the many benefits blogging can offer you and how it can help you succeed with your home business- no matter what company, product or service you’re promoting.

1. Blogs are simple to setup and inexpensive to maintain. No Technical or HTML skills are required.

2. When done correctly, blogs are updated frequently with fresh content so search engines love them.

3. Blogs allow your readers to write comments and interact which helps you to reach out and form new relationships.

4. If you choose to write about a topic that relates to your business that you are knowledgeable about , by blogging you will help to brand yourself and position yourself as an authority on the subject.

5.   People tend to view blogs as more trusted sources of information. What is written in a blog is much more likely to be believed then or your standard website.

6. Blogs are very cheap to set up which makes it great if you’re on a shoestring budget and trying to build your home business in your spare time.

7. Marketing and Promoting them is also cheap and you can generate traffic to your blog much easier then to a standard website and on a smaller advertising budget.

Blogging has become a ‘global’ phenomenon!

Technorati.com, which is the leading blog search engine, states it is currently tracking over 112 million blogs worldwide!

Technorati has been conducting annual studies on blogging since 2004.

Their recent report, the ‘State of the Blogoshere’, can be found on their website and it’s a great resource. Now I’m just going to point out a few key highlights of the report but its pretty detailed so if you happen to be interested in trends and stats like I am, then I recommend you check it out.

In June 2008, Technorati tracked blogs in 81 languages and bloggers from 66 countries. Bloggers are collectively creating close to one million blog posts every day.

Needless to say, blogging is here to stay.

In a specific section of their report, the What and Why of Blogging, it mentions professional and business bloggers.

It states that:

• The majority of corporate and professional bloggers have seen a positive impact as a result of their blog. Half are now better known in their industry.
• Blogging has brought many unique opportunities to these bloggers that otherwise would not have been available.
• One in four have been invited to participate in an event as a result of their blog
• One in five have contributed to a print publication as a result of their blog
• And almost as many have found themselves on TV and/or on the radio.

Can you begin to see and envision the benefits and impact blogging can have on your own business?

Businesses, small and large, are increasingly adding blogs to their marketing repertoire. Search Engines love them…peope love to read them. What could be better?

The benefits of starting a blog and blogging on a regular basis go on and on. The biggest ‘take away’ from this is that blogs are now mainstream and a fantastic opportunity for new leads and building relationships online.

As one of the faculty members of iMarketingMasterminds.com, I created a 6 part video tutorial series for our members called ‘Rockstar Blogging’.

Here are 5 Blog Marketing beginner tips

Here are some tips from the iMM video series to get you started- sooner then later:

1. How To Start a Blog: Set up a wordpress.org self-hosted blog instead of a free one like blogger.com. You’ll have a lot more flexibility and features this way. Blogger is fine for a personal blog or hobby but not the best choice for your business.
2. Register yourname.com and place your wordpress blog there so that you can begin to brand yourself - stand out from the crowd.
3. Content is King! The most important part of owning a successful blog that Search Engines will love and that will have your readers coming back to your blog again is to constantly add fresh, quality content.
4. Adding social media links and buttons like the ones below this post make it easy for visitors to bookmark and share your quality content. This can easily be done using one of the many social media wordpress plugins available. I show you how to do this in Rockstar Blogging.
5. Keep these three simple but powerful words in mind: Underpromise and Overdeliver. This means giving people more then they expect. The results of adding this philosophy into your blogging and your business in general can be remarkable.

In my next post I’ll share with you how to implement a killer internet marketing strategy that combines Blogging, Personal Branding, List Building and Social Networking all in one.

Until then -Maybe you can help me…

I’ve already produced a pretty extensive Blogging Video series in iMarketing Masterminds but there’ s so much to show you that I want to add many more.

This is where YOU come in…

What is your #1 challenge in getting started blogging?

What type of blog training material would you like to see more of :

The Basics such as how to set up a blog, customizing themes, plugins etc?

or would you prefer more tips and training about blog traffic, getting backlinks and SEO?

Post your comments, suggestions and feedback. Inquiring minds want to know