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Whattya Mean You're Not Blogging Yet?

You call yourself an affiliate marketer but you're not a blogger?

Please tell me it's not true!

You don't even need your own domain if you use a service like Blogger.com.

A free Blogger.com blog is a good option if the thought of having your own domain and building your own web site is an obstacle to getting you started in your own online business.

Of course, I still stick by my recommendation that every affiliate SHOULD have their own domain for the sake of creating a businesslike and professional appearance.

Honestly, nothing is easier to set up than a blog, especially if you decide to install Wordpress on a Cpanel host or server (like Datawebpro offers) using Fantastico.

One click, a couple of text blank entries and you're ready to blog!

Best of all, blogs are the fastest way to get free traffic known to Internet-Marketing-kind.

So, have I got your attention yet?

If you read the NPT Blog, you've probably noticed that I post more frequently now than when I started my blog.

There are a number of reasons for that.

First, blog posts are generally more informal and conversational than a newsletter which tends to be more structured.

That makes a blog easier to write, and easy is good.

Secondly, a blog is super simple to manage.

You don't have to create individual HTML pages or uploading files to your server. Just write your message, click 'Publish' and your message is posted and available for all the world to read.

That means when I learn something of interest to NPT visitors and newsletter subscribers, I don't have to wait until NPT Newsletter Tuesday to tell them about it. I just blog it immediately.

So, for example, if you get some promotional copy with your links embedded from your affiliate manager, you could simply login to your blog, cut and paste the material, and Voila! there it is!

You could do that... but I suggest you change the wording and create an original post in your own style.

Lastly, I've discovered that the free traffic coming to my blog is phenomenal. The more I post, the more traffic I get.

If you look at the 'Archives' for the NPT Blog you'll see the first entry was made in November 2004.

Confession... I didn't really start bloggin until February 2005. I just posted some previous newsletters and changed the timestamp to reflect their original publishing date.

At the time I started my blog, NetProfitsToday.com had an Alexa ranking of somewhere around 60,000 as shown in the graphic below.

And I've seen it go as high as 2,827 as shown in the image captured on Aug 16th, 2005.

Not bad, eh?

By allowing comments to be posted to your blog, you build community, which makes your site still more interesting for visitors.

And when the site is more interesting, people stick around longer.

Something that encourages even more traffic are the RSS-to-Email "Blog Alerts" that allow folks to subscribe to receive my blog posts via email, instead of using a feed or news reader.

Aweber offers this service, and has posted an article "Convert RSS to Email Newsletters Automatically" to show you how easy it is to set up.

Actually, I've found response to the NPT Blog so successful that I recently started blogging at my online dating review site, Sage-Hearts.com as well.

Now all I have to do is either stop taking month-long vacations every 3 to 4 months, or find someone with success as an online dater to write about various aspects of that topic...

(Interested? Please let me know through our Support Desk).

To sum things up... Blogging is fun, it drives free traffic and it PAYS. What could be better than that?

Learn More about Blogging

If you want more information about the benefits of blogging or how to set up and run a blog, you might be interested in two books I read this week.

Blogging to the Bank

First is Rob Benwell's "Blogging to the Bank" which promises a "proven system that can take anyone from zero up to $500 per day in just 30 days".

Rob's system is pretty basic to execute, and he gives you a thorough step-by-step tutorial on how to set up and drive traffic to your new blog.

He shows actual search engine results for one of his sites and shares information on how to test and track your own results.

I must admit that Rob loses me with a couple of his recommendations for traffic generation that require the use of additional software. To me, it's a process that amounts to little more than blog and search engine spamming.

What I do appreciate is that Rob proves that fresh content is in fact far more effective for driving traffic than the tedious work of getting backlinks to your site.

His 39 page "Blogging to the Bank" digital report currently sells for $47.00, but I've heard that he plans to raise the price.

Blogging for Dollars

The second book that I reviewed was Derek Gehl and Scott Paton's "Blogging for Dollars" which is a 115-page real book that comes with a 96-minute instructional DVD.

Derek and Scott cover all the essentials - and then some - without going overboard with uneccesary information.

Topics include the number of ways you can use a blog, how to create a blog to generate traffic and sales for an online or offline business, how to monetize your blog, secret elements of a highly successful blog and a step-by-step tutorial which shows you how to set up your own blog in 5 minutes or less.

The next sections cover how to rank #1 in the search engines and get free traffic to your blog and even more 'insider secrets' for driving targeted traffic to your blog.

Numerous examples of popular and successful blogs are shown.

Last, but perhaps most importantly, they what makes good content for a blog, discuss how to write hugely popular blog posts, and how to generate a constant flow of fresh content.

At $139.95 "Blogging for Dollars" is somewhat pricier than Rob's book, but it does have considerably more meat to it.

And as a bonus, the first 250 folks who register will also get to attend a live 60-minute teleseminar for free.

Derek and Scott emphasise the point that now is the time to start blogging if you haven't already, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Whether you go out and open up a Blogger account, install Wordpress on your site tonite, or opt to learn a little more about blogging first by reading either Rob's "Blogging to the Bank" or Derek's "Blogging for Dollars", I highly recommend that if you're not blogging yet... start soon!

You can wait 'til next Tuesday for the next NPT newsletter, or sign up for NPT Blog Updates and get the news as it happens!

Need help right now? Visit the NPT forum.

'Til next time, promote and prosper!

Cheers,