It`s unfortunate that many small business owners are hesitant to start blogging because they find that they can`t write quickly or even find a series of topics to work on. So, today, I`m going to show you how to write a week`s worth of posts in just a couple of hours.

Step One: Come up with ideas
Obviously, the idea is the most important part of blogging. You can keep a notepad handy and write down ideas as they come to you throughout the week, but if you are just sitting down to do this right now, you`ll need to brainstorm a bit. Think about the most common questions people ask you about your business and write these down.

Step Two: Write the basic points
Your next step is to break the answer to each question into three parts. Write down three points to answer each question. These should only be one sentence long.

Step Three: Flesh it out
Write 3-4 sentences elaborating on each of the three points you just made. This is the step that will take the longest. If you want to speed things up, just do it all assembly line style and work on topics that you know.

Step Four: Add an intro and an ending
This is just a couple more sentences at the beginning and end of the blog post to introduce it and to complete the post. And there you have it . . . 5 quick blog posts. It shouldn`t even take you a full 2 hours.

There`s no reason not to start blogging to promote your website. In fact, if you haven`t yet begun, now is the perfect time!

Did you know that the average person has to see the same message 7.5 times before they actually take action? That means you need to be getting your message or product in front of potential clients several times, but that`s not an easy thing to do unless you are blogging.

Creating clients is hard work. You have potential clients that might stop by your business website, but most of them won`t buy right away. So you`ll need to ensure that you keep them coming back. The best way to do this is by offering free, useful information that they can keep coming back for. If you have a blog, you`ll be consistently updating it with more information that they can use.

Blogging is a great way to build links, get the search engines to notice you and also to create a great way to connect with your readers. Get them to subscribe to your blog and you`ll be able to continue placing your product and message in front of them while offering free info that they can make use of right now.

You`ll be surprised how quickly people respond to blogs. Getting them to comment on a post is a sure sign that you`re heading in the right direction. Blogging for business works.

In short, the answer is yes. However, for many small businesses, a blog seems like a time consuming way to promote your business. That doesn`t have to be the case, though.

Blogging for business is something that every business can do with virtually no budget and it will bring in potential clients. And it really isn`t as hard as you might think!

Blog posts don`t have to be long. In fact, many blogs get away with just 100 -200 words. You can say a lot in that little bit, if you word it right. No time to write? Then you can hire a ghostwriter who will not only write the posts for you, making them search engine friendly, but will even post them for you for a nominal fee.

By making good use of the articles that are written on your blog, you can catch the attention of the search engines, which will help boost traffic. Also, you can do article marketing, which is completely free, to gain more attention for your blog, and comment on other blogs. It works very well and there`s really no reason why a business shouldn`t try blogging.

I’ve seen a few WordPress themes that have an archives in the sidebar that doesn’t work. What do you do when you have a non-working archives link?

I found a great plugin. It’s the SRG Clean Archives plugin by iDunzo. You can put the archives in your sidebar, but I like to create the archives as a page. When you click on the Archives tab you’ll go the Archives page and get a list of links to your past blog posts. You can organize the archives any way you want - by category or by month and year, and you can localize the language as well.

If you do use the SRG Clean Archives plugin you’ll need to go in and delete the archives link in your sidebar on the template. Otherwise, you’ll still have the broken link. Very useful plugin.

Should your blog theme and website design match? From a branding perspective the obvious answer is Yes. But that may not always be the best answer. I think it really depends on the purpose for your blog.

I’d say that any blog that exists on the same domain name as your website should have the same design theme. It acts as an extension of your website. But a blog that is on a separate domain name may be something else entirely different. It may or may not have the same design theme depending on its purpose. But when?

Ultimately, only you can answer that question, but here are a few helpful tips that might help you decide:

• If the primary purpose is to promote your website then you can make the design the same as your website’s
• If the content is similar in nature then give them a similar design
• If it is the only blog you have and its purpose is to drive traffic to your website
• If the brand is important enough that you want your blog visitors and your site visitors to see the connection
• If the blog is product-based and you want to ensure that the product is connected with your company name

There may be other reasons to give your blog the same design as your website, but these are the most basic reasons that I can think of. Think long and hard before you start a blog with a different theme than your website. Blue Chip Marketing Tips is its own brand, a separate brand, from Melberg Marketing even though I use this blog to promote the latter. The content is similar to the website and many of my readers know the two are connected, though it isn’t absolutely essential that readers know this. I’m using BCM as a branding tool on its own. That’s an editorial decision and it’s worked well for me. Will it work for you?

I just wanted to drop a line to remind you of two upcoming seminars for small businesses. One is free and the other costs just $50, but you will get pounds and pounds of value from both seminars. I promise!

The first seminar - the free one - will take place on September 15, 2008 at Latuff’s Pizza in Menneapolis, Minnesota. This is our monthly Biz Bloggers Meet-Up Group. It’s a free event but we will collect $4 from everyone for the pizza. The location for Latuff’s is 11333 Hwy 55 in Minneapolis. We’ll be sharing tips on how to make the most out of your business blog and networking. For more information and to RSVP go to http://blog.meetup.com/409/. We meet at 5:30 p.m.

The $50 seminar will take place the next day - September 16, 2008 - at Byerlys Community Center Ridgedale. We meet at 6 p.m. In this seminar I’ll talk about search engine optimization and how to use a blog to attract new business by targeting it toward search engines. In other words, can you really achieve high rankings with a blog? The community center is located at 13081 Ridgedale Drive in Minnetonka. For more information, go to SocialWebTraining. See you there!

Interesting. A Comscore study reveals large number of growing websites are local. Look at Table 2.

Blumenthals highlights which of those are local and which ones are likely to entail a large local focus. Here are the sectors that completely or mostly local:

• Retail - Mall
• Retail - Movies
• Travel - Hotel / Resorts
• Retail - Tickets

Three out of four are retail. One thing I think this definitely means, particularly in urban areas where there should be a large amount of competition in these areas, is that companies in these sectors should seriously consider a blog, which will increase their competitive advantage in the search engine war.

Companies making the transition from print advertising to online marketing might wonder whether web page design is like print page design. This is a legitimate question and it deserves a thoughtful answer. My answer, the one I’d like you to keep in mind is, yes and no.

Cliche, I know. But it’s also true. In some respects, the two are a lot alike. In other ways they are completely different.

Design is design, right? The purpose for any page design - whether print or Web - is to attract a reader’s response. You want your copywriting and visual elements to work together to elicit a positive reaction - close the sale. That’s the point to any kind of page design, whether we’re talking web page design or print page design, but that’s really where the similarity ends.

Web page design is a bit more complex and a lot harder to nail down that print design. With print design you are dealing with a two-dimensional canvas. Web page design is a four-dimensional canvas. Consider:

Print Design
Brochures, flyers, newsletters
All are solid and flat
Words sell, graphics enhance
Limited space
Say too much, lose the sale
Say too little, lose the sale
Say the wrong things, lose the sale

Web Design
Blogs, websites, and html newsletters
Words sell, graphics enhance
Audio and video capable
Unlimited space
People thrive on information
Biggest danger is not saying enough
It is almost impossible to say too much (almost!)

The essential difference between web page design and print page design is that with web design you can include elements that you can’t include with print design and once you publish something it has no time line. A print page can be discarded or discontinued and you know that the information at some point is no longer valid. Once you publish information to the web is there forever and even if the information is outdated, you’ll have a tough time retrieving it. Let’s explore that:

E-mail Newsletters - Hit send, it’s gone. No getting it back. Better make sure it’s accurate and you better make sure that if your information is timely or has a deadline that it is carefully and intentionally spelled out.

Blogs - Blogs are, by nature, timely. Make a post today and this time next year it is obsolete. It’s a given. People expect that. But the blog post is still there and will always be available for viewing. If you want to correct a blog post with incorrect information in it, you’ll have to make another blog post and make sure that your readers can find it. Simply removing a blog post leaves a cache copy of the incorrect information in cyberspace.

Websites - You have a window in the beginning to catch information before it is indexed by the search engines. Once a web page is indexed, it is difficult to have the information de-released. You can change your web page, but there is still a cache copy of the old page until the search engines crawl the new page again. Even then, websites like archive.org will make the old page a treasure for centuries.

I mentioned that web publishing is four-dimensional. I’ve already talked about the time element. The third dimension is what you can do with audio, visual, and links. Programs like Flash and technologies like podcasting and video marketing allow you to do things on web pages that you can’t do in print. A rising trend is the use of spokesmodels on web pages. You can actually turn your web page into a running infomercial. This type of technology plus the element of linking between pages - and between websites - makes web page design a completely different publishing platform than print design. There is more to think about, there are more ways of doing what is possible, and your imagination is the only limitation. The offset is that with web page design, there is much more potential in terms of monetization and reputation success.

A new trend is emerging in the blogging community and that is guest blogging. It’s really nothing new. But guest blogging allows people within the same niche to network and share ideas on a topic through another person’s property. Anyone can do it, but there are a few guidelines I’d recommend before you start shooting off guest blog posts.

If you have an interest in being a guest blogger for another blog in your niche, you should first subscribe to that blog’s RSS feed and become a regular reader. If you are not a regular reader of a blog within your niche then there is really no reason the blogger should let you have a spot on his blog.

Also, before you submit your name as a guest blogger, try commenting on that blog a few times. Leave some useful comments on post that interest you. Make adding value your No. 1 goal for every comment you leave. Don’t be a spammer.

After you’ve become a regular reader and contributor to a blog, send a short note to the blogger praising them for their blog and offer yourself as a potential guest blogger. Be patient. You may not get an immediate response. Bloggers are busy people and he or she may be thinking over your proposal and planning to get back to you. So if you don’t hear anything after a few weeks, just keep waiting. Don’t pester the blogger and keep sending e-mails asking about your proposal. You’ll just annoy them and they may decide not to use you even if they were considering it before.

Guest blogging can be an opportunity for you to reach a new audience, but the most important thing as a guest blogger is that you improve the blog on which you blog as a guest. If you can’t do that then don’t offer yourself as a guest blogger.

If you live in Minnetonka, Minnesota then you have a second chance to attend Caroline Melberg’s Biz Blogging Basics course for $50. Most experts would charge $100 per hour, but you’ll get 3 hours of expert knowledge for just $50. Here’s what you learn in Biz Blogging Basics:

• What a blog is and why every small business needs one
• Why search engines love blogs
• 5 things to look for in a blog hosting provider
• Why you might want your blog on a separate domain name as your website
• How to set up and organize your blog
• How to promote your blog
• How a blog increases traffic to your website
• What type of blog you should set up for your business
• How a blog can make you money

The course is scheduled for August 7 in Minnetonka, Minnesota. If you run a small business you’ll need to take the Biz Blogging Basics course and learn what business blogging is all about. For more information about Biz Blogging Basics head over to SocialWebTraining.com and look for it on the calendar for August 7.