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 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!

When 73% of Internet users first start their research online, it pays to spend some time ranking well in the search engines. If you don’t then you don’t exist.

That’s why I’ve put together a new workshop to address the needs of small business owners who are just now trying to take their business online. The title of the workshop is The 7 Things You Can Do to Make Google Fall in Love with Your Website. In addition that workshop, I’ve a great bonus: How to Turn Your Business Blog into a Search Engine Magnet.

The beginning of your Internet marketing should be your own website. In my workshop I’ll tell you how to go about optimizing your website so that it can be found by people searching for your products online. The topics I’ll cover in depth in this workshop are:

• Search Engine Optimization – what is it?
• Why Search Engine Optimization is critical to your online success
• The 7 things you can do to make Google fall in love with your website
• Blogging – what it is and why you should care
• How to launch your own business blog – the right way
• How to use your business blog as a search engine magnet

In this workshop I’ll cover everything you need to know to make your website the best that it can be and to rank well in the search engines. The cost is a measly $50 and you can register online by going to www.SocialWebTraining.com. Oh, and just in case you’re wondering what date it will be, look for us on September 16, 2008 from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. See you there!

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.

The headline caught my attention: “Former Blog-Basher Patrick Goldstein is Blogging.” But what does that have to with underwear?

Mediabistro, a website for writers, recommends that he blog in his underwear.

So this got me thinking. Why not? As long as you aren’t video blogging, no one will know, right?

Yes, that’s true. No one may know, but you are writing your business blog so you should maintain a level of professionalism about it. One thing that attracts people to the idea of starting their own business at home is the temptation to work in their underwear. But, if truth be known, you will be much more productive if you don’t. Just because you are working at home doesn’t mean you aren’t working. You will be a lot more motivated to keep your mind on business if you dress for business. But if you must … underwear or not, just blog. It’s good for business and that’s why blog-haters are now changing their minds and joining our ranks.

Let’s face it, the Web is getting more and more social every day. If you do any online marketing at all then you will likely be confronted with the decision to perform some type of social media marketing to include blogging. But what should you know about it?

For starters, it isn’t always about closing the sale. Companies that focus on making sales are being short sighted. It’s all about building relationships and that’s where the power of blogging and social media marketing come in. You may meet people online - in chat rooms, discussion boards, forums, social networking sites, and even on your own blog - with whom you never do business, but they could still benefit you in numerous ways.

One way these non-customers could benefit you is through referrals. By focusing on relationship building instead of sales, when you connect with someone who isn’t a customer and has no intention of being one then you could be setting yourself up for future success by opening a door to other customers through that person’s contacts. Build that relationship and it could lead to referral business down the road.

Too many businesses think that their blog should close sales. It doesn’t have to close sales to be effective. Nor does social media marketing. What you really want to do is increase your presence, build your brand, and build relationships. Everything else is icing on the cake.

(Source) If you’re a small business blogger, it’s not enough to only write about your industry. If you hope to capture local traffic, you have to write about the location, too.

This quote from Matt McGee’s blog on small business marketing gets to the heart of what local business blogging is all about. If you don’t write about your local community then you won’t rank for local terms and phrases. It’s very important that you do. If you really want to write about your local community then it’s imperative that you key in on local phrases and place names. If you are writing a real estate blog and you live in Topeka, Kansas, don’t just write about real estate but write about Topeka, Kansas. That means getting involved in the community. Intimately.

To blog successfully about local places you have to get out and meet people. That means introducing yourself and talking to the people involved and not just relying on the Internet to do your research for you. Meet people, talk about their lives, and truly write a locally-focused blog. Otherwise, you’re just another industry blog trying to fill the void of hyperspace with talk about your industry. The competition is a lot less stiff locally.

1. You want to learn how to blog for your business (obviously)
2. You like to drink coffee
3. It’s a good place to network
4. You’ve heard of Caroline Melberg and you think she’s really groovy
5. It’s in Wazyata, Minnesota and you know where that is
6. 51 members is just not enough
7. You don’t know what Web 2.0 is, but it sounds better than mowing your grass
8. Your prospects for getting a date that night are about as good as the price of gas going down
9. You’ve got an additional $4 in your budget
10. You’d do anything in a pizzeria

The Biz Bloggers Meetup Group is the only place in Wayzata where you can learn how to blog and use Web 2.0 strategies to improve your business. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Aaron Wall wrote a great blog post recently about content development. The post answers the question about whether you should include certain content on a blog post or on a static website. It’s a question worth answering, and I like the answer that he gave:

But if your site is real and you aim to create a real brand your best content needs a permanent home, and should be set apart from your average blog post.

Blogs are great ways to market your business, but don’t get caught up in the trap of writing content for your blog that takes all day to write. Blog posts are better off being used for quick-to-market information. The here and now of marketing. If you have detailed information on a topic that you want people to be able to reference for years then it’s better off on a static website where it will garner long-term attention from search engines and people. Blog posts don’t really do that.

Even better than the above-quote paragraph, Aaron Wall concludes his insight with this summary:

Average content with an aggressive launch and great marketing outperforms great content with no marketing.

This is an exemplary truth of marketing of all kinds. Even off line, for years, marketers have been successful positioning mediocre products simply by marketing them effectively while more innovative and useful products went by the wayside simply because they could not be marketed effectively. Online, the principle still holds true. If you want to succeed, you’ve got to be good at marketing. Blogging is just one slice of that pie.

The question will inevitably arise, Should I sell other people’s stuff on my blog? It’s an important question and not a real easy one to answer, but I’ll give you a few tips on how you should go about answering it for yourself.

You’d think that your business blog, which is all about trying to obtain new customers for your business, might be all about your business and that you should try selling other people’s stuff. That might be sage advice most of the time. But it could also be deadening advice.

People look to you as an expert in your field. If you blog about a specific niche then they want to know your opinion on something. They’ll also expect you to be honest. That means two things. First, if you see a product that you like, that you genuinely is recommendable for your target audience then by all means recommend it; they’ll respect you for that if you are honest about your recommendations. Secondly, never ever recommend a product you don’t like just because you’ll earn a commission on it. There is no surer way to lose credibility with your audience.

Blogging is marketing. There are a certain number of people who are not going to purchase your service because they’ll want to do it themselves. Why not make money on them anyway? You can choose a product that you genuinely recommend and offer it to your blog readers as an alternative to your service. Make sure that it is a product that you would purchase yourself (it helps if you already have purchased it so that you can write about it honestly). Then, don’t be afraid to make the recommendation.

In the end, it’s really all about how you want to position your blog. I know some bloggers who never recommend anything outside of themselves. If they have a product they want to offer besides their service, they develop it themselves. That OK, but it does take time and money. Meanwhile, you have a certain percentage of readers moving on. Ultimately, it’s your decision, but it helps to make it on the facts.