Search Engines and People Love Local Blogs
        By Stu Leventhal - Guru Marketing Tips - Editor

What Real Estate Stats Should a Local Realtor Publish, Post, Blog About… by Gerri Leventhal of FIND NJ HOUSE

REFERENCES:

Blogging with Comedy Rocks Cyberspace!

BUSINESS IS SERIOUS BUT GOOD JOKES STILL RULE THE BLOGOSPHERE
      by Stu Leventhal - Guru Marketing Tips

One of the best things about Blogging is that it is casual and informal Writing! This means you can test things on your blog and no one will slight you for it. Try out your humorous side, your dramatic side, your sensitive side...


GURU MARKETING TIPS BY STU LEVENTHAL
Find out how your blog can be used to dominate your market place and crush you competition! "The Web is a fascinating, exciting, ever changing fun place!" - Stu Leventhal

• Blogging in 21st Century: Introduction to Online Journaling

• How Can Online Blogging Be Profitable to Ordinary Individuals?

• Cost can never be a problem because free blogging services are quite popular all over the world. If you choose sites like Blogger or LiveJournal, you are sure to get exactly the kind of platform you are looking for. They are absolutely free.

• If you are not very comfortable with web designing techniques, you need not worry. Creating your blog is not as complicated as designing template for a website. These blogging services provide a wide range of templates from which you can choose the one most suited to your tastes.

• You must also use your discretion while blogging. Especially if you are incorporating your blog within your website, or creating a blog to increase awareness of your product, you need to keep in mind that this is an open forum which is read by all. You do not want to say anything that may end up angering your clients. Politics and religion are the two most controversial themes, and therefore anything about those must be carefully blogged about.

• Anything that is particularly reader friendly and does not anger too many people is considered ‘safe’. If your aim is indeed to increase the ranking of your site, you will have to make sure many people read it. You can do this by making your content user friendly.

• Also keep an eye on what other people write or say on their blogs. This can give you a general idea of what kind of responses those articles receive, and you can get valuable tips from them.

• Never make the blog post too long uselessly. It must be well written. Long posts tend to get dreary and they are not ‘catchy’ enough for people to sit and go through them.

• Update regularly. Since you don’t need to write long posts, that is not much effort. Ideally, blog 3-7 times a week.

• Be entertaining where required, everyone can do with some light hearted humor, without being derogatory.

• You need not stick only to text. Video and photo blogging are fats catching on and are interesting ways to share your thoughts, and make your videos and photographs well known.

• Be yourself. Do not to ape, imitate or copy someone else’s content.

• How to Start Your Own Blog in Less than 15 Minutes

• Theme: Determine what you would be writing about or the nature of the content that you would be sharing with your readers. This depends mainly on your interest. Topics blogging to the field of politics, poetry, arts, current affairs, or almost anything under the sun can be chosen. You can stick to one theme or you can choose to write about whatever concerns you on a day to day basis. Since it is your very own web journal, you can make it as flexible as possible in all aspects.

• Blogging Provider: Next you need to decide upon which blogging service provider you would like to use. This depends on the kind of reviews that you get about them from friends and acquaintances, or something about them that you may have read online. Otherwise, you can always try out something and find out if you like it. You can try out one of these popular sites: Blogger.com, WordPress.com, Typepad, Blogagotchi.com, Livejournal.com, JournalHome.com, TheDiary.org, Mindsay.com, Blog.com, Diaryland.com, Blogdrive.com, or Xanga.com.

• Templates: A wide range of templates will be made available on any blogging service you decide to start you blog. Select the one you most prefer or like.
• Freebies: The advantage with these blogging service providers is that they make your blogging experience as dynamic and interactive as possible. They enable you to install add-on features that include button, pictures, blog chalks, imoods, tagboards such as myshoutbox.com, guest maps, guestbooks, comment boxes for readers' thoughts and views, etc.

• Additional Features: These interesting ones may not be free. By paying a price you can avail of them.

• Nature of Blog: You must determine who should read your blog-whether you want it to be read only by a select circle, or must it be open to all. This will depend upon the content, mainly.

• Layout: Again, there will be a wide range to choose from in terms of layout and color schemes.

• Content: You could pick up a specific theme and write about it consistently, or merely decide on any random topic as and when it interests you. You could try putting up content for a while and see the kind of response you get, and alter or modify it accordingly.

• Blogging Circle: Blogging is a great way to come in touch with people from across the globe. You can surf and visit other people’s blogs. Do not spam in their comment section, but write a genuine comment if you have something to say about a particular post.

• Skins: You can customize and personalize your blog as much as you want. Using software like Photoshop you can create your own skins and make your blog attractive as well as make it reflect you own personality.

• Publish: Finally when you are done selecting the setting and preferences, selecting a content to put up, you need to publish the content. Do not, however, forget to send the link to your blog to your friends and acquaintances so that they may come visit you.

• Update: Update frequently otherwise visitors may stop coming to your blog. It will also give you more confidence to churn out more well worded posts in the future.

• Personalize: Even though you might be discussing general and universal themes, add your own personal touch to make things lighter and interesting.

• Theme: If you have a theme blog you can Google for other blogs of a similar kind and build you network.

• Spelling and Grammar: Make sure you proof read your posts. Spelling and grammatical errors can be a major put-off for many readers.

• Advertisements: You could play host to sites like Google AdSense and earn revenue by placing their links on your blog.

• Writing Content and Getting Constant Traffic to Your Blog

• Reader Friendly Content: At all costs keep your content – articles, poems, photographs, videos – reader friendly, that is to say, it should keep more and more readers interested. Your reader must be at the center of you post in a way that your reader must feel that he is gaining something out of reading your post. This is the basic rule in marketing.

• Worthwhile: Never let the reader feel that he has been tricked into reading your post or clicking on your blog link. You are thwarting all your long term chances of that reader coming back to your blog, in which case your blog rankings over the long term are in a dicey position.

• Check for errors: Making grammatical and spelling errors can be a major put off for many readers. They may not visit your blog again simply because the errors that you make are too high. Always proof read your blog. A small typo here and there can be understood, but make sure you don’t make any major errors.

• KISS: Or, Keep It Short and Simple. This is the thumb rule you must follow at all point. Long winding posts tend to get boring. And it may contain nothing that is interesting to the reader. Also no one has the time enough for your blog, no matter how well you write. In fact, your blog will be much more appreciated if you put your thoughts simply and shortly.

• Interesting: Make sure that you hold your reader’s attention by making your posts snazzy. They must not be written in a tone that is tiring to read. Write short sentences and keep then crisp and precise. Always hit the point immediately in the course of your article.

• Link: Keep linking the blogs you read to yours in order to build a network those people will be in turn encouraged to link you. Remember, linking increases rankings.

• Keywords: Using the keywords of your posts frequently increases the search ability of that particular article of yours which in turn leads more people to visit your blog.

• Clear Thoughts: Make sure you put your thought clearly before the readers so that it does not become tedious for them to read.

• Colloquialism: You can write in a friendly tone. Avoid using too many slang words, but otherwise, if your post demands it, you can be colloquial.

• Post Title: A catchy post title or headline is half your business solved. It can glue a reader to your post almost immediately. However, do not put misleading post titles, or you will lose creditability.