© 2004, John Calder

If you've been on the Internet for even a minimum amount of time over the last couple of years, you've probably seen or at least heard about blogs. The term blog is a contraction of "web log", and as the name implies, a blog is really just an online journal or notebook. Now that sounds like a place to write "Dear Diary" entries that are open to the world, but smart marketers can use a blog for a lot more than that.

In today's world of email spam filters, and questionable email delivery and open rates, a blog can help you reach your customers, prospects, and target audience regularly. If your blog offers value to them, they will want to read it, and will anxiously look forward to your next post. If you open your blog for comments, that could help create a sense of loyalty, belonging, and community that may ultimately lead to more sales for you. Through RSS technology, your readers can add your blog to their newsreader software, and be alerted immediately when you make new posts.

To get started, you will need blogging software. You can find many excellent packages, both free and paid, that you install on your own site. You can also find free and paid hosted blogging services. As with any software, you need to compare features to pick the blog software best suited for your needs.

More important than which software you use, is to make sure you use it. You've heard that the first and most important secret to internet marketing success is to do something. That's true with a blog too. You need to regularly and thoughtfully post material your target audience will want to read. Whatever you do, post. Write about what's on your mind, your views, your thoughts. Give to your readers, and they'll give back to you.

Begin your search for the perfect "blog" tools for yourself over at www.HotScripts.com

Author Info:
John Calder is the owner/editor of The Ezine Dot Net.
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use to helpbuild your online business today!
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© 2004, John Calder
http://www.TheEzine.net

Do a search on Google today, and you may see an offer to "...Get the latest web results on (your search) emailed to you with Google Web Alerts." Marketers should be quick to realize this can be a useful way to monitor your own business, your competitors, your markets, and search results for your keywords.

You can set up a Google alert to monitor the top 10 Google News stories, the top 20 Google web search results, or both. Enter a search term, tell Google the type of alert you want, how often you want Google to check for alerts, & your email address. After you confirm your alert by email, you're all set.

Just think - you can use a Google web search alert to monitor search results for your highest-ranking pages, your best-paying keywords, and new markets you're thinking about entering. By signing up for alerts of volatile keywords, you can get a good idea of when a Google dance is occurring. And of course, you can monitor the ranking of your own and competitors' business pages as well.

With a Google News alert, you will be able to monitor client news if you're involved in design or SEO work and industry news around your niche sites. One really nice aspect of the alerts service is that you can use Google's advanced search capabilities to create your alert. Just go to Google's advanced search page, select your search parameters, and search. From your results page, click on the link at the bottom to start creating your alert.

And to sweeten the deal, Google Alerts are free!

Author Info:
John Calder is the owner/editor of The Ezine Dot Net.
Subscribe Today and get real information YOU can
use to helpbuild your online business today!
http://www.TheEzine.Net
RSS feeds are available.

Just a short post - I'm back to blogging again!
I've been offline a while (meanwhile my site
auto updated itself and carried on writing its
own newsletter - check the archives if you
don't believe my words ;) but now I'm back
online - for good!

Asap I'll post new articles again... meanwhile,
have a great week!

Cheers,
Saul