As a blogger you can have a lot of influence over whether someone buys a product. If you write about a specific product or service many times your readers will take your advice and buy that service or product just because you said so.

The most recent report interviewed 17,000 people in 29 countries and is called “When did we start trusting strangers.” It conclusively proves that as we thought, social media is now directly impacting the way we buy products and services. The publishing of billions of thoughts, opinions and experiences online in the form of blog posts, videos, ratings, reviews and photos is fundamentally changing the way everybody online sources opinions on products, brands and services when they buy something.

Since they are already reading your blog and consider you an authority on whatever topic you choose to write about it is natural for them to trust you on other things.

Blogging helps us create communities. That is why we have followers. Just be careful what you suggest to your readers. They are relying on your to steer them in the right direction.

Live the good life for less with Champagne Living.

As a business owner you also have the same power of persuasion to promote your own products through your business blog.

When did we start trusting strangers?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: influencers global)

You may want to read the article from the quote above on Mashable

Melanie from Blogging Basics 101 shares tips the women from 5 Minutes for Mom on how to leverage multiple blogs to build a successful blogging career.

Here are some of the questions answered in this interview with Melanie:

• Is blogging a job or a hobby for you?
• How many blogs do you have?
• How do your blogs work together?
• What made you want to take your blogging to the next level?
• What are some tips to making money from blogging?

Juggling Multiple Blogs to Build Your Blogging Career


Juggling Multiple Blogs to Build Your Blogging Career from 5 Minutes for Mom on Vimeo.

The internet has continuously grown and evolved over the years and it seems like there is something new and exciting coming up that is the new hit online. Blogs have been around for quite some time and it seems that blogging is the new trend of the internet. Can blogging be a new career?

Blogging for a living and running it as a career is possible and it has a number of benefits. Many people are blogging for a living because of how easy it is and how beneficial it can be for you and any business or web sites you may have.

Perhaps the best thing about blogging is that you have total control over what happens.You can say whatever you want, start any type of conversation you like, and change the direction of the conversation at any time. Many people like the freedom and ability to do whatever they feel like with blogs.

In addition, many like the fact that it is much less formal and more conversational. You can still act professional, but you do not necessarily have to be in sells mode the entire time. You can be more relaxed and just go with the flow. It may seem ridiculous that you can actually make money and make a living out of something so casual, but that is exactly what attracts so many people to this.

Part of having complete control with a blog comes the ability to customize the blog however you want. You can create whatever design you choose to, do whatever font and style you wish, and change the entire page however many times you want. Every blog is different, there is no one to tell you how to run your blog.

The biggest perk of them all, though, is the SEO elements that are related to blogging. This is where people are capable of doing this for a living. In order to optimize your blog for the search engines, you simply have to install and activate the appropriate SEO related plug-ins. These can help you climb up on the search engines and get your blog seen by hundreds of thousands of internet surfers.

When you have an audience, you are able to run your blog however you wish and by writing interesting blog posts people will come by to see what else you have to say.The best part about blogging is that it can be considered a career, but it is enjoyable at the same time. It seems more like a hobby than a job for most people.And for that very reason, people are blogging for a living more and more every day.

Learn the best free home business marketing tips and discover how you can start and easily operate your own blog.The Home Business Archive shows you how. Visit: http://www.tlmarketing.net/ Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_Lindstrom

Scadesigns.com offers custom and template-based Web, Blog, and Ad Banner designs.

Shelly, is a young mom that is just starting out in the world of design but she has already done some great work.

I especially like the total blog redesign she did for Unexpected Bliss. Oh, and by the way, you definitely should visit Unexpected Bliss and subscribe to their feed. It is very entertaining and you will find more giveaways to enter there.



Here are the Services Scadesigns.com offers:

Web Design

Custom Design

Blog Design

Custom Design
Headers
Premade Templates

Graphic Design
Advertising Banners

Here prices are very reasonable. Just check these out:

Custom Advertising Banners from $30.00
Pre-made Blog Templates starting at $45.00
Custom Headers from $50.00
Custom Blog Designs for Wordpress only start at $125.00
Custom Theme designs for Blogger starting at $65.00



Do you like the banner you see above? It can be yours for free! Enter to win by visiting the Scadesigns.com blog and leaving a comment and at the end of the contest. She will randomly select a winner. The winner will then have the banner customized with their website or blog name.

Winner will be notified Monday, August 4, 2008
Please be sure to enter an email address that you check regularly when submitting an entry.

This article is reposted by permission from David Adams of FlickerLister. Please visit his blog at http://www.flickerlister.com/blog/

While commenting on blogs is a great way to generate interest in your own blog, you do need to be selective on when and where you comment -

1) Comments must contain some ‘value’ for both the blog owner and the comment reader. In other words if the comment does not contribute to the discussion in some way, it will have a negative impact on your reputation.

2) Not all posts on a site should be commented on - pick and choose which posts you wish to spend time and effort writing a comment about - commenting on every single post can come across as being spam, rather than having something valuable to contribute - even when the comment may be on target and well written. If your name is the first or second commentor on every single post on a site, you start to come across as ‘the creepy guy’.

3) Not all blogs will result in well targeted visitors to your niche site, so be selective on the blogs you comment on, or if you want to participate on a blog that is off topic for your niche do so without linking to your blog.

4) Posting on a number of blogs can become a drain on resource - is an hour spent commenting on a couple of blogs worth the increase in visitors that could have been gained by using that hour to write an informative article, and which one will result in the best long term gain?

Like alot of people who read Problogger.net, I participate in a number of blogs and websites across a wide spectrum of topics. Those related to one of my sites will generally have a site linked via my name, any that have no relevance are done without a site link.

This article is reposted by permission from David Adams of FlickerLister. Please visit his blog at http://www.flickerlister.com/blog/

This article is quite interesting. I especially like this quote:

"A question Dr. Kim often fields from friends and associates is, “How does that make money?” He answered the question in an entry on his personal blog last month. It can all be “boiled down to one simple accomplishment: building traffic,” he wrote. “That’s it. If you have a site that attracts a lot of visitors, you will be able to make money. On the Internet, traffic equals power, which subsequently equals money.””

Here are the details and link to the full article:

My Son, the Blogger: An M.D. Trades Medicine for Apple Rumors
By BRIAN STELTER
Published: July 21, 2008
Dr. Arnold Kim’s Web site, MacRumors.com, has become such a popular technology site, he has stopped practicing medicine to blog full time.

Click here to read the full article.

Darren Rowse at Problogger wrote a nice article about how leaving comments on other blogs can actually drive traffic to your blog.

He does emphasis that, "the strategy of building traffic to your blog by leaving comments on other blogs only works when your comments ad value and are relevant to the post. If you don’t adhere to this you’ll just end up hurting your reputation" which is good advice indeed.

You never want to comment on every post you read and your comments should be relevant to that post or conversation. In other words, you need to offer something of value and not just say Hi!

Darren also produced this wonderful video that lays out the entire process while showing you how a tool called Crazy Egg can actually show you where people are clicking on your blog or website.



Amazing is what I call it! Technology never ceases to amaze me even after all I have done and used. You really should try it. There is a free option at https://crazyegg.com/pay/plans

A lot of websites today, especially those with shopping carts, are made up of Dynamic web pages. A dynamic webpage is one that is driven by a database. Most of the information on a dynamic web page does not appear until a person accesses that page. The database then brings up what the person is looking for.

This is a good thing for online shopping but not so good if you are looking for good search engine results. Search engines usually cannot access the information or data on a dynamic page to index it because it changes all of the time.

Add some Static web pages to your website.

A static web page is one where the information is permanent and does not come from a database. Therefore, the search engine can index it and it will show up on search engine results.

How to tell the difference between a dynamic and static webpage?

Look at the end of the webpage address.

A dynamic page will usually end in .php, .asp, .aspx or have a Session ID at the end of the address.

Example: http://www.limaugeboutique.com/categories.php

A static page will usually end in either .htm or .html

Example: http://www.limaugeboutique.com/lavender.htm

There are certain things your website needs to be successful. While some features are super important others are optional or my personal perference. I will explain as I go.

What key features or pages should your business website have?

• About Us
• Contact information
• Telephone number
• Hours of Operation
• Search

About Us:

Too many business websites are impersonal. This page gives the visitor some information about you and/or your business. You don't need to get too personal. You could share how or why you started your business, your goals for your business, or what your main product line includes.

People like to connect with a real person and I think this page gives them piece of mind that you are indeed a "real" business and they would be dealing with a "real" person.

Contact Information:

Believe it or not, many websites forget to include a way for the visitor to contact them. You should include this information, whether just an email address or physical address and email, on ALL pages. You never know how someone is getting to your website. They could be coming in "through the back door" meaning they don't come to your website through your index page and if they never visit your index page they still need a way of contacting you.

Telephone Number:

If you want visitors to contact you by phone this should be easily visible on all pages as well. I suggest putting it at the top of the page. Take a look at either of our websites and you will see the phone number big and bold at the top right.

http://www.limaugeboutique.com/
wholesale.limaugeboutique.com

For Contact and Telephone information, never make the visitor search for this information. It should be easily visible on all pages.

Hours of Operation:

Whether you have a physical store or work from your home you should set hours of operation. If you don't then people will be calling you at 10 pm on a Sunday (yes it has happened to us). If you work at home and the phone rings after your hours of operation you should discipline yourself not to answer the phone. Also, don't assume that the visitor to your website lives in the same timezone as you do. Include the abbreviated timezone next to your hours of operation as well.

Here is a list of Abbreviations for timezones:

http://www.timeanddate.com/library/abbreviations/timezones/

Search:

If you don't have a way for your visitor to search on your website you just might lose their business. I visited a website just yesterday looking for fabric and while their website was very well organized they had no way of searching for fabric. They probably have over 2,000 pieces of fabric on their website. Without a search I would have to look at every category and at every piece of fabric until I found what I wanted. Unless someone really wants your product that bad they will just move on to the next website if they can't search.

If your web host or shopping cart software does not include a search feature then add this free search feature to your website. You will need knowledge of copying and pasting html code into your website. I have used it on many websites I have designed and it blends in nicely.

http://www.freefind.com/

On our Blog we talk about new products in our line, give ways of using our products in projects and recipes, share a little bit about our hobbies and interests, and also share some website optimization and search engine ranking tips to help you grow your online business.

I do suggest that you keep the personal info to a minimum. When you start getting into opinions about politics, religion, lifestyle choices, etc. you move away from having a busines Blog and risk alienating your customers.

Remember, your customers come to you for a product or service. They do not really want to know your opinion about life and current events.

Keep it professional!

A blog can be a personal diary, a daily rant, a political soapbox, a collection of links, writings about your personal thoughts, or in the case of a business, a way to drive traffic to your business website.

Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them out there and there are no real rules. Best of all - it is FREE!

A blog is basically a place, similar to a website, where you write free stuff on an ongoing basis. New posts show up at the top of the first page so your visitors can read what's new. They can leave a Comment on a post or link to it or email you or just read it and move on. As you write more posts they drop off from the front or homepage and go to secondary pages. A visitor would have to search or find them through a category link.

For a business owner it is important to not only have a website to showcase your products and/or service but I do suggest having a blog, if you have time, just to draw more traffic to your main website.

If something is free and can benefit your business you should definitely take advantage of it.

Here are some websites that let you setup a Blog for free.

www.blogger.com/ (suggested for the newbie blogger)
www.wordpress.com/
www.livejournal.com/

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