Many new blogs pop up almost every single day. Some are good and some just a train wreck. I think many people that launch a blog are under the impression that once you launch you write some posts and your famous! It really doesn’t work that way. We do see some really great blogs with quality work put into them with a realistic mind set understanding that it will take sometime and hard work to really become a blog with some authority. Here are somethings that we have noticed not to with your blog if you are trying to really grow your business or online presence. Some serious blog marketing efforts are required to get your blog visible.

1. Don’t Cover Your Blog in Ads: If someone gets to your blog and the every space is covered in a Google it just kind of looks tacky. There is no problem with trying to monetize your blog but take a tasteful approach. If you look a little too greedy you will not get any returning traffic.

2. Don’t Write Once Per Month: There is nothing worse than coming to a blog and not seeing any updates for a few months or so. Once per week maybe week and a half are fine but once you start to approach the thirty day mark you will quickly see any traffic you have drop. Even if you start writing again it might be tough to get some of those people back.

3. Purchase Some Server Space: Get a blog that has your own domain hosted on your own server. having your own url structure and your own blog gives you freedom to do what you want. Recently music blogs have been seeing blog posts removed for anyone that uses a free Google blog because they are picking up posts that bands have given permission for a link to an MP3 as piracy. This is the stuff you have to worry about if you don’t have your own blog.

4. Stop Promoting Yourself: if you sit there and self promote over and over you are just going to loose all your traffic. It is fine to write about announcements at your company or even a new service or product offered once in a while but do just demand business on each blog post.

5. Use Photos: I think the use of a photo or video with your posts will keep the reader hanging out a bit longer. It is important to have a little more than just text. Even thought they are there to read not look at pictures a good user experience is important.

Are you experiencing writers block lately? Do you feel like you write and write but can’t seem to get ahead? Or are you just running out of things to write about? Just give it sometime. Maybe what you need to do is change up your blog marketing writing style a bit and test out some other things. Often times you just need to give things a fresh new approach on what your are doing. Change is good and you should re-invent yourself from time to time.

Analyze what you have been writing about for the last 6 months or so. If you have any analytics software take a look and see what the most popular posts have been and what people are enjoying reading. This will give you an idea of what your visitors are interested in reading and can help you with your long term blog marketing efforts. If you haven’t done this try reviewing some products in your industry. Do this as a campaign over a three or 6 month period and see how it works out for you. Pick a handful of popular products and do a blog post every week on one product of your choice. Write a 400-500 word blog post, complete with prices, product specs and photos of the product from various angles and see how that works for you. If you can even sign up with an affiliate network and find the products that you want to write about you might be able to make some money with your blog post but don’t let that be your goal. Start writing some product reviews and attempt to optimize your post and title to drive as much search engine traffic as possible.

For all of you thinking about launching a blog to become rich or famous just stop now, seriously. We all hear about bloggers who make 200, 300 grand a year with their blogs but there is something you don’t know. Chances are they started blogging when the blog and blog marketing was first invented and have never stopped.

Launching a blog and writing 50 posts and wondering why your affiliate ads are not generating enough profit for you to stay home is a ludicrous way of thinking. Time, patience and years and years of writing is what it takes to really make money from a blog through your blog marketing efforts. Not to mention proactive blog marketing efforts, partnerships, trade shows and everything else that comes along with owning a business. You do know that a blog should be run like a business right? if you are going to launch a blog do it because you have a passion for a niche or industry and you want to write about that topic. If you make money from it than that will be a bonus. There was a recent post done about a blog that was averaging a few million unique visitors every few weeks and the amount of income they generated from that much traffic was not even worth writing about. Making money from a blog should always be a secondary interest.

Negative online publicity can easily make or break your business. Digital voices travel at lightening speed online and it is important to be able to hear those voices before everyone else does. StepRep is new online tool that allows you to monitor your reputation a real time. A major factor that sets this tool apart from it’s competition is that is has the capabilities to track your reputation through the various social platforms. Places like Twitter where word can travel unbelievably quick, often times by the time you hear it naturally it can sometimes be too late. Platforms like this where voices travel fast and the importance of catching them early is crucial. StepRep allows you to monitor, manage and build your reputation from one website. Negative online press could can bring your business to crawl or even a halt very quickly so it is crucial for any individual or business to hear what the online community is saying about you.

With the emergence of whistle blowing websites like Rip Off Report and social platforms that allow for opinions and voices to be heard over a wide audience it is important to be able to hear it. One wrong move and your online reputation can be tarnished for ever. StepRep allows you to log in right through your Google account allowing to closely monitor Google chatter for what people might be saying about you or your business. Once you are in the site is is very user friendly to operate. Even a novice can log in and navigate through the various pages and set themselves up to be monitored.

For more information about how StepRep can help your please visit the StepRep website and start monitoring your online reputation.

You know that age old saying how everyone has an opinion well sharing yours on your blog is one way to get noticed. Especially if your opinion is controversial. Blog marketing does not have guidelines and comes in many different shapes, sizes and colors. These days thinking outside the box is really the only way to get your hands on some good website traffic.

When someone feels the need to express their own opinion you can bet your bottom dollar that someone else will want to challenge that opinion. Before you know it you will get a surge of website traffic chiming in on the discussion and voicing their opinion to the original post or others that might be leaving their comments. If you currently write about a controversial topic your opinions will most likely spread like wildfire through your industry allowing your website to really grow in traffic. It is important to be unique and offer a unique spin on everything you discuss in order to get people coming back. Make sure your content can be used by your readers in some sort of way. It has to peak their interest. This will be a great way to stand out from your competition and if you position it the right way you can quickly become and industry expert.