I admit it. I enjoy blogging for my business. It’s a great way to bring in regular traffic, recommend products and make sales. But not only is it not for everyone, it’s not for every kind of product.

Take one of my sites, for example. No blog, just information on the product. Earns in the $1000 range many months. My own efforts for it are much less than for blogs I have that earn less. The topic changes little enough that I’d be hard pressed to write about it regularly. It’s an obvious choice for a static site, updated only as needed.

But if you’re going to be adding information regularly, running the site as a blog or even just using it as a backend and making your site look like a static site is a very good idea. Blogging software combined with Feedburner or other services makes it easy to offer RSS feeds and email updates to your website. You get more chances to bring people back to your site. Why wouldn’t you want that?

The trouble with blogging is that it is time intensive. Sure you can hack out a quickie post in a couple minutes if you need to. But can you do it regularly enough? Will it be interesting enough? Will anyone even care?

Planning is Key

No matter which route you choose, you should work up a plan so that you know how much you’ll be working your site. Don’t assume that you’ll have the energy to do 10 posts a day, every day. That’s a tough schedule to maintain, especially if you plan on quality to go with that quantity. But even just a few posts a week can be enough to make a good blog.

Before you really try to get things started, write out a few posts. Don’t have them be on topics that must be posted immediately. Use them to fill in the blanks as you figure out a realistic work schedule for yourself.

It takes much the same if you’re planning a static site. A one-page site is suitable for some purposes, but not for others.

Draw People Back to Your Site

Since many sales are not made by the first impression, you need to have some way to draw visitors back to your website. On a blog it is easy to make prominent links to subscribe to the RSS feed or by email. Some bloggers even place the suggestion to subscribe at the bottom of each post. This is a very natural placement, as visitors will have just finished reading and may be feeling like hearing more from you.

But don’t give up on this with a static website. You can offer an ecourse that expands on your topic and keeps your offer in front of your subscribers. Keep the information useful to keep your subscribers reading.

It’s Up to You

Despite its many advantages, blogging isn’t the right choice for every business. It takes more of a commitment to regular content production, and if that’s not your business model it’s not going to work.

There’s a lot to think about with your home business, but one factor often gets overlooked. What happens if you get sick?

I mean seriously, can’t get to the computer sick. Not just “I have a cold” sick.

This is something that is going to happen to pretty much everyone at some point. And it’s not just you getting sick that can be a problem It could be a family crisis that keeps you away. A natural disaster could knock you down. What do you do?

One of the nice things about running a website is that your earnings are often not tied directly to the work you do. If you freelance or sell things that you need to ship this can be another matter entirely.

You should always have somebody you can rely upon to do at least a basic takeover if you need them to. It could be your spouse or other family member, but if you’re seriously ill they may be distracted by this as well.

One good option is to have a virtual assistant who can help you out. You may not feel the need to have one regularly, but if you have a file ready and a virtual assistant who would be willing to take you on as a client, you have a start.

Work up a list of the vital functions that someone would need to take care of if you weren’t able to. This can include dealing with customers (even if they can’t do your job themselves, someone else can at least explain to customers what the situation is), responding to emails and doing basic updates to your site.

Your file should include all basic logins needed for this.

One thing I keep on one of my sites is a page that has a list of all my sites and resources. I use this on a daily basis rather than having all my login pages bookmarked. This also means that if someone needs to access my sites for me, they will have a fairly easy time finding them. All they’ll need is the login information for that page, and for the pages they’d need to access.

Since we’re including a consideration for natural disasters as a problem, you may want to have your virtual assistant be in a different area so that you probably won’t both be knocked out by the same situation.

If you blog, you’ll want some basic posts ready so that the blog can keep going, or at least allow someone to post that you’ll be back when things get better. You don’t want your readers to think you’ve jumped ship on them. You can also put out the call for guest bloggers.

Similarly you’ll want someone able to handle any forums you may run. A good forum will keep itself running, but will need a moderator to control the spam and any issues that may arise between users.

It’s never too soon to start thinking about “what if” so that you can keep your home business running. A little planning now can save you a lot of stress later.

Despite the people you hear about making a delightful living as bloggers, it’s not an easy way to make money for most people. It’s hard work. Coming up with post ideas can be time consuming. And it can really be frustrating if you aren’t getting feedback or you get a lot of negative feedback.

And yet you cannot let that stop you.

Finding Post Ideas

One of your best resources for blog post ideas can be other blogs in niches related to your own. You don’t want to copy them, of course, but you can be inspired to do your own take on the topic. Just give credit where credit is due and make sure your opinions stand out. Writing a post that says, in essence “I think exactly what this other blogger thinks” isn’t going to make much of an impression on your readers.

Keep up with news stories related to your topic as well. Subscribe to appropriate RSS feeds for your news. Google News can make this pretty easy, for example.

Relate your own experiences to the things you blog about. I posted recently about how freebie marketing worked in getting my daughter interested in karate classes.

And of course, brainstorm. A single concept can explode into dozen of posts if you just start thinking about it. Many people like to use mind mapping while others do more of a free association. However you do it, just get going and write it all down. Don’t do it in your head; you’ll forget too much.

Finding Readers

This is the part I’ve always found most challenging. With so many new blogs started every day it takes a lot of effort to build your readership.

The very first thing you should do is make it easy for your readers to subscribe to your blog feed, so they keep coming back. Have both an email and an RSS version available. Not everyone knows about RSS even if they use it in their My Yahoo or feed reader, so give them the options.

Then get the word out. Comment on other blogs. Good comments, not just “Great post” as every blogger sees all too often. Many sites will just delete such comments, as they add nothing to the conversation. And the conversation is a big part of what makes a blog interesting.

Network too. I’ve had some great interactions with other bloggers on Twitter, for example. It’s amazing how many bloggers are on there. It’s very casual sort of conversation much of the time, and it can be easier to make a quick (140 character) tweet to someone than to meet them other ways. Your tweets still have to give some value to get people interested, but it can really work well.

Coping with Negative Feedback

Negative feedback will happen, no matter how good your posts are. It doesn’t matter what you do, you cannot please everyone. And that’s a key thing to remember.

There are also people who simply delight in saying horrible things to people online just because it can all be anonymous. It can be ridiculous, but there it is. Don’t let yourself be drawn into heated exchanges with people. It’s better to keep your temper and learn to dismiss the people who are only trying to make you angry.

Genuine criticism, on the other hand, can be quite useful. If someone catches you with incorrect information, thank them. Hopefully they will at the same time point you to a better resource for information.

Your Own Doubts

It’s easy to doubt yourself, especially if you start comparing yourself with other bloggers in your niche. They can sound so knowledgeable!

If you aren’t sure, you can even ask questions in your posts. Questions can be a great way to get readers participating, and no one will think poorly of you for asking. Most of us feel uncertain pretty regularly. We know we don’t know everything and odds are there are others who know a lot more. But you still know a lot more about your topic than other people too, right?

Don’t Give Up

It takes a long time to succeed as a blogger in most cases. The blogger who appears to be an overnight success may have been working at it for years. They may have had several failed blogs. They’ve definitely been working hard to gain the knowledge that is interesting their readers now. Nice as it would be to succeed so quickly, for most it takes a bit longer. Be prepared for that and keep trying.

A great niche is one of the requirements for a successful online business. You aren’t going to do well if you don’t stand out in some way or if you try to market to everyone.

Researching a niche is generally frustrating, though. Pretty much any niche you can think of will have a lot of competition in it. How are you supposed to stand out? More important, how are you supposed to earn anything?

One important thing to consider right now is that very, very few niches lack for competition anymore. At least not if they’re profitable. A great number of people have been trying to or succeeding at making a living online, and many of them have come up with some great ideas.

This isn’t as bad as it may sound. If someone’s making a living at the niche you wanted, you have know there’s a market there. If no one is, either you’ve stumbled across a very rare gem or you’ve found one of the many niches where there are no buyers.

The Big Secret - They Aren’t All Serious Competitors

Just because you see a website in your niche doesn’t mean that they’re serious competition. Many people do well in a niche because there aren’t any really good competitors in it. Just think about how many times you see ebooks telling people that all they have to do is throw up a quick affiliate site and they’ll start earning the big bucks.

If that’s your main competition, you may be able to do very well by putting in more serious effort. Go over what the competition is doing, and figure out how to do it better.

Sometimes standing out is just that simple. You find a way to do it better. You might provide better information, you might keep your site more up to date, you might be more helpful on a personal level.

Heck, you might just have a generally cooler site.

I’ve been using Twitter for a few weeks now, so I decided it was time for an update on my experiences with it.

It is interesting. I’ve been able to interact with a variety of marketers, some quite well known. I’ve been directed to articles I never would have noticed otherwise, but were quite interesting.

I have 92 followers as of this writing. That’s not bad considering that I don’t really do much to build the following there, although I do have links to my Twitter profile on some of my sites. But that’s 92 people who might just notice what I have to say.

I do a mix of tweeting things going on in my daily life with links to articles I’ve written or found interesting. I don’t really have the focus I think I should, yet.

How Many Accounts?

Right now I have one account. I am considering spitting it out to a second account, so that each is more focused. Considering that I feel you need to tweet several times a day for any particular account I can’t say I can see going beyond that.

I haven’t decided for certain to do that yet. There are advantages, certainly, to focusing things on a particular niche with an account, just as there is for any other form of marketing. But it’s an additional amount of work I’m not sure I want to put into Twitter yet.

How Responsive Are Twitter Followers?

I can’t say that I’ve gotten a great response on Twitter yet. Some of it is due simply to numbers. 92 really is a small number there, and people are not terribly likely to notice a tweet if they aren’t online at the time. Matter of fact, it can be easy to miss a tweet just by stepping away from the computer, depending on how you check on the people you’re following.

But at the same time I do understand that people can be very responsive on Twitter. People have asked questions there and gotten dozens of responses, just about instantly. That’s not something you can get just anywhere.

Making Twitter Easier to Use

I use Twhirl to keep up with what’s going on with the people I follow on Twitter. As I recall, it was a tweet from Maki that brought it to my attention. There are other programs that do similar things, and of course you can use it from your cell phone if you can do SMS messages.

Who Do You Follow?

Finding interesting people to follow is a big part of the fun. I started out searching for a few of the names I knew would be on there, and then added in by using keyword searches and seeing who looked interesting.

As with anything of this sort, a lot of accounts weren’t particularly active, some with many months since their last tweet. I don’t follow those, as a rule.

Another tactic I used to find people to follow was to look at who people I already follow are following. It’s a way to see a lot more accounts than I would have otherwise.

I also found Who Should I Follow while using StumbleUpon. It’s an interesting concept. You enter your Twitter name, and it makes recommendations. I thought the results were interesting, and did follow some of the people it recommended. Only time and tweets will tell me for sure if they’re good choices.

The Hazards

Biggest hazard to Twitter is that it can be a time suck. Reading all the tweets, following interesting links, tweeting… it can add up.

On the plus side, tweets are short. Reading them doesn’t take much time, nor does tweeting.

It’s just like forum marketing or anything else where it’s possible to get sucked too deep into the social side of things. You need to remember why you’re there and keep some focus on your goals while still having fun and being interesting. No being an obnoxious marketer!

Benefits on Other Social Media Sites

Tonight I had one of the people I follow on Twitter locate me on StumbleUpon. That’s another friend on a site I use regularly, and someone I’ve made some sort of impression upon. Not a bad deal at all.

Other Twitter Perspectives

Of course many other bloggers have posted their thoughts on Twitter, so I’ll close this out with more links you may enjoy.

5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence
Building Your Twitter Presence Part 2 - Pre-Prepared Tweets
Building Your Twitter Presence Part 3 - TweetBaiting
Twitter Networking 101
Tweeting Outside The IM Niche…
Social Marketing Pitfalls & The Twitter Time Suck
Why Twitter Is Not Stupid!
So How Do You Find People on Twitter?

If you want to make money from your website, you’re going to have to monetize it. The immediate questions that come to mind are when, what type and how much?

When Do You Monetize?

There are all kinds of theories about this. Some say to wait until you have some traffic, so that your early readers aren’t scared off by the ads. Others say to do at least a little right away.

And then there are the people that go beyond whole hog. You know the sort. The ones who put nothing but banners up and forget about content of any sort. But they hardly count as they rarely make anything from it.

I’m inclined to go with monetization right from the start. Not everyone likes seeing ads, but if they object so strongly do you really need them anyhow?

What Kind of Monetization Should You Use?

Your focus should be on providing interesting content to people you hope will allow you to earn money in one form or another. That means that both your content and monetization should be attractive to your current and potential readers.

There are a few kinds of ads to consider. The 125×125 ads are very popular in blogs right now. You will often see two columns of them off to the side, or sometimes just one. They’re big enough to get the point across without taking up excessive real estate on your site.

You may also see more traditional banner ads or large square ads beneath content. The idea here is to draw the eye as the reader finishes the article.

But you should not forget to monetize from within your content. Review relevant products and include your affiliate link. Keep it honest, of course. Dishonest reviews can quickly cost you your reputation. So can sloppy reviews.

You can also just throw in links when you mention a product, without doing a full review. Do this primarily for relevant products, but if you’re writing about how cute your cat is and decide to talk about how you take photographs of your cat, a link to the kind of camera you use isn’t so bad an idea.

How Much Should You Monetize?

Everyone has an opinion on this. Some feel even one ad is an intrusion. They probably never read magazines or newspapers, as those have far more advertising than just about any website. But no matter how much some want online content to be utterly free, even free of advertising, most people aren’t running websites just for the fun of it. They want to earn some money.

You should find the balance that works for you. Speaking frankly, I would say I monetize less than I should. It’s something I ought to take the time to work on, so I can increase my income. It would probably have more of an impact on my bottom line than spending hours writing articles, which is something I do willingly.

Placement is one of the major keys to solid monetization. If all your ads are in one place, they’re easily ignored. There’s a reason why people talk about ad blindness. Spread things out so that there are more chances for readers to notice your ads.

You’ll also want to consider how much you monetize by each type. All banner ads of a single type makes for easily ignored ads. A mixture of banners and text, placed appropriately throughout the page, should provide you with better results.

What About Google AdSense?

Certainly the quickest way to monetize is through Google AdSense or similar context sensitive ads. They give you relevant ads for very little effort. But they aren’t necessarily the best way to monetize, even though I still use them extensively.

Think of it this way. Many ads will be from affiliates or sites with affiliate programs. If they’re making good money from having their ads on your site, you can probably earn more by promoting the products on your own. Not always, but you should look into it and figure out the best ways for your site to earn money.

If you start out with AdSense on your site, be careful. You want to be sure that you don’t get so comfortable with that income that you never try anything else on that site. Easy doesn’t equal smart.

Above all else, don’t be afraid to try to earn money. You’re working hard on your site. You deserve something for your efforts.

Normally I give these things a few days before upgrading. I like to see the bugs get worked out before I suffer through seeing what happens to my sites in an upgrade.

But Wordpress 2.5 had some issues that were bugging me. So I went for it.

This is a generally important upgrade anyhow. There’s a security issue that isn’t public yet, and they’d rather see people fix it before it becomes an issue than after. Sounds like a good practice to me.

I’ve noticed with interest some discussion about whether or not blogging is the right business model to use. Much of this is started by SiteSell’s new page discussing when blogging is not the right option.

Then again, Problogger has released a book on blogging. It’s now available for preorder on Amazon.

I have to say, I’m biased in favor of blogging. I have regular websites, and they do quite well. But blogging gives me some flexibility that is more challenging for a website to offer.

Almost… almost everything I say on a blog of mine could be read at any time and still be relevant. I’m not much of a news blogger, and that’s one of the areas where Ken Evoy of SiteSell acknowledges that blogging does well.

But some of the problems he addresses aren’t an issue for every blogger.

Yes, blogging can be stressful, if you’re too focused on a high level of production. That’s an easy trap to fall into, especially in competitive areas such as tech or news. Everyone wants to get in on the story first or at least very early, to get all the links.

Then there are bloggers like me. I blog a fair bit, but not constantly. Sometimes not even regularly.

He also doesn’t quite have it entirely right about the hierarchy of blog posts. Yes, they’re reverse chronological, but they’re also organized into categories and sometimes even subcategories. There’s a lot of flexibility there. And even if you use category pages to show what’s in the subcategories on a regular website, you have to use some sort of order that is often chronological by when you wrote it… whether or not the piece is dated.

But he has a lot of really good points too.

Many people dive into blogging because they hear about the big successes, such as Darren Rowse. They don’t take the time to build their blogs properly. They may have no idea what they’re doing overall, but darn it! They’re going to make a ton of money off this thing.

And that is where SiteBuildIt excels. It gives you the tools you need to build your site correctly. If you follow their course step by step, your site will be quite carefully developed, with both users and search engines in mind. The blindfold you didn’t even know you were wearing is gone.

Since Darren Rowse’s book is only on preorder right now, obviously I can’t review and compare it right now. But I can note that his blog generally has excellent articles and I’ve gotten some great ideas there. I’d be willing to trust that his book is of good quality.

So What Has Worked Best for Me? Sites or Blogs?

Honestly, I’m having some pretty decent success with each. I’m often prone to use my blog to provide new information for my sites, linking to posts from the blog on regular website pages as appropriate. In many ways it’s an easier way to manage the content.

If you know what you’re doing, you can work your advertising and so forth pretty well with a blog.

In terms of searches and traffic, my oldest website does best by far. The website itself is static, but it does have a website attached to it, which does bring in some of the traffic. That should scarcely be a surprise. But my next best site is a blog that’s about a year old.

The thing I like about my blogs is the RSS feeds so that people can subscribe to them. I use Feedburner so that I know about how well each blog is doing in that area. I’m not a big name blogger by any means so far, but I’m working on what I have.

SiteBuildIt does offer that feature too, however, so it’s certainly not a reason to choose blogging over SBI. Any kind of a site feed is nice because it allows people who like your work to subscribe through a reader or even email if you set that up, and know when you’ve updated. It’s a great tool.

Sure, subscribers may read your latest post and then bounce away, but you’re bringing them back. Hopefully over and over again.

It really boils down to how much help you want. If you want a lot of help figuring out the best ways to build your website, SiteBuildIt may well be for you. If you just want to get going, you may want to blog since it’s cheaper and relatively easy to get started. But success may take longer.

And then there’s how much you really know about the internet and marketing already. If you’re new to the whole idea, SBI is very likely the right choice. It will save you hours upon hours of research and quite possibly keep you from making one or more false starts.

On the other hand if you’ve been looking over this whole online marketing thing for a while, you may be comfortable with going it on your own, or you may have found a resource you would prefer to use. There’s a lot out there.