Blogging and Building 101

Okay, catchy title huh? Well, I’m definitely not the worlds number one blogging expert, in fact if you read my blog you’ll know that I was a late bloomer catching onto the blogging band wagon… and like everyone else often times struggle on what to put on my blog.

Blogging is a great way to get your message out there, and I know so many people who ask me how to market online, where to start, and what to do, and blogging as I’ve mentioned before is a simple place to start.

Why blogging? More often than not, many building their business online, especially those newer to online marketing or mlm are at loss as to where to start in building their business online. Often times they can’t afford to purchase costly leads, maybe they don’t have tons of time to call people, or any additional money in their budget to use for heavy marketing campaigns or purchasing solo ads, ezine ads, and definitely not PPC, and that makes it difficult other than friends and family on how to grow their business.

But starting a blog is simple and free.

You don’t have to be an expert, you don’t need a domain name, you don’t need to have a hosting account, heck you don’t even need to know html or how to design a webpage to start a blog. With WordPress.org (my personal favorite) or blogger.com you can get started for free and make a great looking blog.

One of the hardest things when getting ready to set up a blog is what to say on your blog. I mean you may be a great cook, but from a business or opportunity standpoint a blog on cooking probably isn’t going to help you attract people to your business, well unless it’s about cooking. Let’s face it, not everyone is a self proclaimed expert on internet marketing, mlm building, lead generation, html design, network marketing systems, how to build a list, how to market affiliate programs, and maybe had little to no success in mlm to tell people about. (yet) So where do you start if that’s you?

Well if your promoting the #1 A Juice Company, start a blog on that, you could start a blog called, Joe Smith’s A Juice Blog, or better yet use your name. www.yourname.wordpress.com and while our doing that why not go to godaddy and get a domain name with your name and hold on to it until your ready, you just never know, I mean I had plans on doing that for a long time and when I finally got around to it, guess what my name was gone, so I use my name with my middle initial since that was available.

Once your blog is set up choose a nice theme, if your using wordpress when you login to your dashboard you’ll see themes on the left side of your dashboard, and you can choose any theme you like. Make some categories for your blog such as your companies conference call information, product news, compay updates, etc… then start posting.

Then just write (post) just as if you were talking to your best friend or your downline. Write about your companies upcoming events, your conference calls, any news or product updates, exciting facts you may have found about a particular ingredient (be careful NOT to make medical or income claims), welcome and or congratulate new members on your team, give details on your compensation plan, tell people about your great company website and juts have fun with it. Remember you can delete any post and probably right this second nobody is even reading it, so that may make you feel more comfortable in the beginning.

Most of the time you are not going to want to post multiple posts in a day, but with wordpress you can save your posts as a draft, meaning you can write your posts, save them as a draft and publish them later when you are ready. Try to post at least a few times a month to start, maybe a few times a week, if you have alot to say, post every day

As you go along you can start adding widgets, plugins, and links to your facebook or twitter account and more to your blog. The more you post, the more comfortable you get at it, the better your posts become, and before you know it you’ll be attracting people to your blog and start feeling like a blogging pro. : )

Building Your Web Presence

Today I wanted to talk about the importance of building your web presence of getting your own personal website and utilizing your social media outlets to build your network.

One of the easiest ways to learn setting up your website, or almost anything for that matter is to research things, play around with things, get a feel for stuff and learn on your own.   There are plenty of resources on the internet to learn html to build your website, templates, affordable webhosting, and more…. in fact many of the sites have built in website builders where you can design an awesome website without even knowing or understanding html! Yikes, I still remember my first “homemade site” about 11 years ago! Wow things have changed since then.  Back then it was lots of blinking stars, rainbow bars, bouncing smiling faces, cartoon characters, blinking bullet points, bright primary colors, animated clipart, and all that stuff… today that look probably wouldn’t get you very far or have someone take you very seriously.

Today though you don’t need to do all the learning of html codes, learning your away around an html editor, trying to design tables or place your graphics as there are tons of cool sites out there that make it simple for just about anyone to design a website. In fact, if you can type and drag and drop things on your computer you can design a nice simple personal website, even a blog.

It isn’t that hard but you should take the time now to start building your web presence and getting that first page up and running.  In fact with some website builders you don’t even need to purchase your own domain name, but I do recommend that.  The cost of a domain is about $10.00 a year and is a definite good business expense that you won’t want to skimp on.

Many Great WebSite Builder Sites that you can try

Wix – A Great Flash Website builder offering free and paid versions. The free version typicaly says powered by Wix but is a great place to go if you are looking to build a flash site with no experience.

Weebly -Another great website builder whether you want to do a blog or a full blown site, as easy as drag and drop. This is a popular one and am also an affiliate of this one I like it so much.

Webstarts -Dozens of templatges, drag and drop videos, photos, and more.  No html knowledge necessary.

If the task of setting up your own personal page seems daunting, you can start out with a blog, they are one of the simplest methods to build your web presence and pretty easy to use and understand.  So I recommend either blogger.com or wordpress.com for a great place to get your blog started.  You can go to www.wordpress.com and set up a blog, choose a template without even getting a domain name if you want.  These are both great places to start on blogging.

Once you have your blog or website built, be sure to put your link on your Twitter and Facebook Page.

Hope that helps on building your website presence and helping you start to brand yourself online.

Live For Prosperity,

Rhonda