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I have a couple of friends who are doing Internet Marketing, and are raring to get into blogging. I guess I will need to clear some things up about blogging and blog marketing, because I am starting to see some getting misconceptions of what blogs can or cannot do.

So here is it – Blogging and Blog Marketing for Internet Marketers 101

1. Blogs can target a wider niche

Many powerful Internet marketing courses out there, even the ones from the world known gurus like Derek Gehl, advice that the most important part of the whole process in setting up an Internet Business is the one on niche research – finding the market.

They would advice us to get on tools like WordTracker or Overture to do some research – to get some statistics on the market, the demand in terms of number of searches per month, the supply in terms of the number of websites talking about the topic of interest, getting a good keyword with a high Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI).

That means that, instead of targeting “Horse Riding Tips”, you will want to go niche and target “Horse Riding Tips for Kids from 5 – 7 years of age”. The point is, the more niche you get, the better it is because when these people come to your site, what they see is a product that is really catered EXACTLY for them, answering their deepest concerns, making them make a purchase on the spot.

Over these few months of blogging and reading from the blogosphere however, I’ve noted that the key for any blog to be successful, is the frequent updates of powerful, thought (and conversation) provoking content. Blogging and blog marketing is a totally different thing from Internet marketing, like the sites that sell e-Books, guides, etc.

But really, how long can you last if your blog title is “Horse Riding Tips for Kids from 5 – 7 years of age?”. Would you be able to post daily, or would your posts die off after the first month? For blogs, you can afford to (and most probably NEED to) target a wider niche.

“Horse Riding Tips” sounds wonderful for a scope for a blog – and then you could have a category that is for posts that address the issue for kids between 5 – 7 years of age. Having a “Horse Riding Tips” blog updated once every two days is much much much better than having a “Horse Riding Tips for Kids from 5 – 7 years of age” blog that is updated once in two weeks.

Are you an Internet Marketer who wants to use a blog to drive traffic to your site? Have you already run out of ideas to write? Try widening the scope a little.

2. Blogs are NOT laptop-to-ATM converters

Remember eventually that the things blogs do best is create conversations, building relationships, engaging your readers, getting feedback, and building a community of readers. Not making money. While there many “A List” blogs that can make six figure incomes from blogs, I would say it takes at least a year of fanatic blogging and a lot of good thought in the grey thing between your ears to get there… unless you are one of those irresponsible spammers who create 400 blogs a day and use someone else content.

I think the true blue blogger loves to write their own blog posts, and will probably never outsource their blog articles (note that outsourcing your posts and inviting trusted friends to be co-authors are two different things). Bloggers want to reach out to the community. Internet marketers normally just want content on their site.

3. Blogs are NEVER “Autopilot”, Splogs are

There are a lot of programs out there that claim to build an autopilot blog. You install the blog software, you install a plugin or some software, and then wallah! Content appears auto-magically. There are programs out that that do that… but I would say I am quite ashamed of them. They create splogs, not blogs. In my opinion, they work for today, but not tomorrow.

Its not that I’m not tempted to make a quick buck, but I want to do it without converting the Internet from the Information superhighway to an Information super-junkyard. The Internet is a wonderful thing that has just started and will be the primary medium for our future generations to work and do research on. Have you thought about what you are doing when you are creating a splog?

The only way I can think of, to get blog on autopilot is to get co-authors to come in and write the content for you everyday. Then again, would that be called your blog?

4. Blogs are all about organic search traffic

Basically, you don’t see many PPC ads that have landing pages on blogs. Bloggers who are interested to market their products or services normally build a HUGE archive of keyword targeted posts (which would take considerable time), and then do a little promotion after they are done with their post. The search engines do the rest.

We have heard so much about why Google loves Blogs, so blogs are very powerful in getting organic search traffic.

5. Blogs have a lot of repeat visitors

Every blogger writes in a unique way, which is so different from other blogs, and this, combined with solid content, is the key to get visitors returning again and again and again every single day, to read updates.

This is very much unlike Internet Marketing – where you develop a 12 page long sales copy and then leave it there on autopilot after you have tweaked and did all the split testing. Internet marketers build relationships with their customers in the email box. Bloggers build relationship with their reader using their blogs!

So you see, there are very distinct differences between Internet Marketing and professional blogging, and of course, there are advantages and tradeoffs for each profession.

via blogopreneur