If you conduct any business online or maintain a website to compliment your offline business, then blogging is quickly becoming a mandatory part of your future. And if you are not currently blogging, chances are after realizing the potential of these traffic-enhancing goldmines, you soon will be!

Blogs, derived from the words “web log” were originally thought of as simply online diaries a place for people to record their thoughts and inspirations. At first, no one took blogging very seriously and these collections of online thoughts were simply passed off by many as hobbies or creative outlets and nothing more.

But then Google came along and started to recognize the unique and original content that these trite little sites presented and the rules of the game suddenly changed. After all, unique content is what makes the Google world go round, and what better way to command the attention of Google than by creating a dynamic environment with content that is solely your own.

At this stage, a whole new SEO world emerged and in the process, brought with it traffic opportunities like never before. People began blogging on more than what they had for dinner last night. They started to blog about new products, exciting travel adventures and all things related to online commerce.

The evolution quickly continued and today, with RSS feeds, sites like pingoat.com and many other content clearinghouses, blogging is big business and not to be overlooked by hungry entrepreneurs looking to establish a web presence.

What currently makes blogging so attractive is the sheer speed with which blogs and blog posts are able to get indexed in the search engines. It is a simple matter of static versus dynamic and the search engines love the dynamic.

Let’s take two different scenarios to see how traditional websites and blogs differ in their index-ability:

Scenario One:

One person creates a website to advertise gardening products and services. Each page of the site contains the traditional information about the company; it’s founders, the services they offer and the products they sell. Maybe, at best, the site has articles and content that is updated with some small frequency that are relevant to the avid gardener. When visitors arrive at the site, they have the option of signing up for the company newsletter and receiving valuable tips and new offerings.

In this scenario, the Webmaster or business owner will need to tend to many SEO related tasks in order to get and maintain high search engine ranking for a tight list of selected keywords related to the gardening niche. Not only will this activity require great skill, it will also involve many hours to achieve the intended results.

Scenario Two:

The same business owner as above also creates a blog to supplement their company website. Now, instead of focusing on simply one set of tightly selected keywords, the blog itself remains a broad overview of the gardening niche, while each individual post reflects a drilled down topic within that same niche.

So when the business owner writes a blog post about the benefits of “organic vegetable gardening in backyard containers,” this individual post becomes a keyword rich, targeted wonder and when indexed by the search engines has a far greater opportunity to bringing highly targeted traffic to the blog based upon that single post.

Through time, the blog expands with many similar posts that are targeted to sub niches within the broader gardening niche and can even be categorized from inside the blog structure itself. What has now been created in Google’s eyes is an extremely dynamic, naturally evolving site that is content rich and niche specific.

When properly constructed and promoted, each time the business owner posts to the blog, that individual post can get indexed in anywhere from two to twenty four hours on average. This opportunity is far greater than any options available at the static website.

Additionally, when the business owner endeavors to have a visitor signup for a newsletter, further segmenting can occur and subscriber lists can be refined and targeted. And because the blog is the front-end showcase to the original website, each blog post has the opportunity to link back to specific and relevant products at the main site.

When properly structured, blogs are the biggest SEO asset to a website that currently exists. The wise business owner will recognize these benefits and when implemented, will enjoy many opportunities that do not currently exist with traditional websites alone.

When looking to start or grow an existing Internet business or even offline business there is one fact you cannot get away from. That simple fact is without traffic your business is going nowhere. This simple truth is universal to all Internet businesses and is tantamount to building a Wal-Mart on the moon it could be the biggest and best-stocked store ever but if no one can get there it is dead before it starts.

One of the best ways of promoting an online business and enhancing an offline business is with the use of web business directories. There are a few key benefits to this for your online and offline business and in this article we will look at some of those key benefits. Among these is the main lifeblood of business and that is traffic, directories can help generate this in a few key ways.

The first benefit to both on and offline businesses are web business directories. These are among some of the highest trafficked websites on the Internet with some of the highest Alexa rankings there are. The largest of these directories and probably the best known would be Yahoo.com another large directory would be DMOZ (The Open Directory Project).

Alexa is a division of Amazon.com and it runs a web traffic rating service that ranks a website’s traffic with the ideal ranking being number one. Some of the websites with high (actually the lower the number the better) traffic rankings are Yahoo #1, Ebay, MySpace, YouTube and Google.

The reason this number is important to potential web business directories you are looking at is traffic, these sites get lots of it. This is good for you as many people look to directories to find what they are looking for over search engines for the key difference between them. Based on human editors almost no web directory databases use robots as where search engines employ robots called bots, which use mathematical algorithms to index websites.

Many people consider the human element of a web directory to equate to a higher quality of listing as a human can notice simple subtleties that a computer just cannot notice. This human factor is what also gives the sites a higher authority ranking expressed through the high Page Ranks most established web business directories enjoy. Why is this Page Rank factor important to you and your business? Simply put Google gives greater credibility to sites through higher Page Ranks expressed on a scale of PR0 to PR10 with ten being the highest you can achieve.

When you list your site in a directory with a high PR some of that Page Rank passes on to your site and in essence it boosts your Page Rank which helps improve your results in the SERP’s (search engine results page). This brings it all full circle as the higher your score in the SERP’s the more traffic your website will get. The number of incoming links you have to your site (back links) directly relates to your position in the SERP’s. Simply put the more one-way links you have the better your websites traffic will be.

What benefit is this to your offline business you may ask? Simple. As the world embraces the technology of the Internet and more and more people turn to it for solutions to problems the more your business presence on the web becomes increasingly crucial. Many people use web business directories as the modern day Yellow Pages. These directories can have advanced listings capabilities which can be anything from a few lines to extremely detailed business information such as business phone, address, product listings, photos of the business, etc.

This is an affordable way for an offline business of getting an online presence without actually having to build their own website. It can give the offline business a quick and simple way to join the modern way of doing business to a generation that is as comfortable doing business online as their parents were with a telephone.

They use the Internet as a way of gathering information to save time and make more informed decisions when they do chose to spend their hard earned money. In the end it boils down to this, web business directories are a way of connecting businesses and customers together in a more efficient way and to a larger, more informed audience.

Squeeze pages should be an integral part of your on line business! It’s a technique which works to build your ‘opt-in’ list.

A squeeze page is really a ‘trading’ page - you are trading something of value to your visitor and they in turn give you information about themselves.

No matter how great your site is things constantly distract people and your visitor can be gone before you know it. Not only that, if they become distracted they may not remember what site they were on or why they had navigated there in the first place.

I have bookmarked many a site then forgot about it for one reason or another.

Now had the visited site used, or been, a squeeze page not only would they capture the visitors information but their follow up email(s) would remind the visitor of the site and the purpose of their visit.

This is why using a squeeze page and getting permission to follow up with your visitors can be so powerful. Caution: you want to make sure the visitor understand how you plan to use the information they give you.

What goes into creating a good squeeze page? Not a great deal is really needed.

Layout:

Keep the layout simple and to the point. Capture only the minimum amount of information needed for the follow up - name, email address is all you really need. Asking for state, country or phone should only be done if it is important to the follow up.

People are often reluctant to give up a phone number - especially on the first contact. They fear being put on lists or being called at all hours of the day or night. It is important the visitor understand his/her information will be kept confidential.

Remember that you can, and should, acquire more information as you develop the relationship between you and your customer.

Make a template with your HTML editor, which you can use over again just by making minor changes to the information, depending on your present offer.

There are also a number of places on the Internet where you can find ready made templates - both for free and at no cost.

Graphics:

Graphics can project the image you want to have. Do you want to display only the product? Do you want to display the product and your logo for branding purposes? Though squeeze pages aren’t really used for branding - that should be an objective of your main site(s).

The offer:

You need a quality offer to entice the visitor to hand over her/his information. Preferably, this will be something of a free nature and should be something which solves a problem for the visitor. Free reports are great items for squeeze pages. And these items need not be your product but can be products for which you are an affiliate.

Remember that by using a squeeze page of your own, you acquire the customer information rather than the affiliate site capturing them first.

And that is the goal of your squeeze page - to help you build your customer list!

Multi-Level marketing or MLM as we all know, doesn’t always have the best of names in the business world. Admittedly some of it is deserved. However, your MLM endeavors need to find a way to make people see that it’s above board and financially beneficial to them. Use written reports and articles that can help them see what you do, how you do it and what’s in it for you.

Topics

As with any other type of business, you will want to make your topics relevant to the business at hand. Otherwise, the point of writing them is non existent. Provide a service for those who you are trying to draw in. The something for nothing applies here very well. Offer them information or your own experiences about how to gather new leads or how to cold call, and you will find people interested in your methods and willing to come back to read them again or visiting your site in anticipation of the next report or article.

Offer Links to pertinent Materials

Offering further information in the guise of links to items they may find relevant or interesting will gather you more users. If the links come from your site, be certain that they open in a new window to keep them viewing your materials as well as the newly opened window. Losing your visitors to another site that you’ve linked to isn’t an option that you want to entertain.

When you offer your content, gather email addresses. Requesting an email address from the users is a small price to pay for an informational-rich report or newsletter that gives them a lot of content about the very thing they are interested in building. However, selling those email addresses that you’ve gathered is the most certain way for the word to spread that if they sign up for your newsletter they will gather an inbox full of irrelevant email. Provide assurances that their email remains on the site with you and doesn’t go to any other site.

Using your reports to promote yourself as an expert in your field

When your users are accustomed to reading well-researched reports and great materials from your site, they will be tempted to come back time and time again. If that material is also pertinent to what they are trying to accomplish such as learning how to better make cold calls or how to recruit more effectively, they will come back to read all that you have to say. This implies that you should use well-written articles and research your materials so that you do know exactly what you’re talking about prior to providing the material for download.

Check your facts, your statistics and make sure that what you write is exactly correct.

Nothing will turn off a site user faster than to read what he/she thinks to be correct information only to find that what you’ve offered isn’t what they need, or worse yet, isn’t remotely correct.

If you give statistics, make sure they are absolutely correct and provide the places where you found them so they can double check themselves. Provide your reports on a regular basis such as once a month, once a week, or every two weeks, so that people grow into a habit of coming to visit the site and seeing what you have to offer on a regular basis.

Earn their trust by offering pertinent, timely content designed to do exactly what they need done. Offer some means of interaction so that if there is a question about your report or article, there is a way for you to take those questions and answer them for your website users. Interaction sells both you and your web site.

Providing something for nothing, issuing a report that doesn’t ask for a return investment on their part is a means to gather information for your website use and to help yourself to be established firmly in your peers’ mind as an expert in the field of MLM marketing. Offering this service on a regular basis will afford you extra traffic to your web site and a good name in the field you are a part of.

Using your knowledge to provide a means for your associates in MLM marketing to gather some knowledge of their own will provide great rewards aside from the traffic and the visits to your web site on a regular basis. A free report generates more than leads. It generates goodwill in the sales community.