There's another great list available with "lessons learned" regarding blogging. But unlike most similar lists, this one deals more with WHY to blog than HOW to blog. And perhaps that's more important for new bloggers to understand.

The list I'm referring to is by Lee Odden of Online Marketing Blog.

Here are a couple of gems:

The feedback loop to blogging can get addicting and like other addictions, can have serious side effects. Consuming a large part of your productive and free time without a corresponding return on effort is one of those side effects. These effects can be abated by having a clear blogging strategy and following blogging guidelines.

and

Online Marketing Blog has been a very effective tool for building credibility and opening doors to connections with search engines and people in the search marketing industry that would otherwise might not have happened.

If you want to understand why blogging is one of the most important things you can be doing to boost the success of your online business, read the entire article by clicking here.

If you're new here and like what you see, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up for my free email updates. Thanks for visiting!

B.L. Ochman has written an excellent article on her blog about the "12 Tenets of Social Media Marketing."

It's not only incredibly helpful and informative, it's fun to read.

Here are just a few gems about social media marketing:

V. Thy communications must pass the “who cares?” test.
Abandon ye all communications which are long-winded, formulaic, boring as hell and laden amidst superlatives and marketing babble.

VII. Thou shalt not talk shit.
No one in any social medium will tolerate bluff or bluster. They dislike anyone who takes forever to make a point.

VIII. Thou shalt not make someone else speak for thee.
Writeth thy own comments, blog posts, articles, and emails. Flog not. Do not think that nobody will know. Never, never let a lawyer write anything, as all they talk is useless double-speak.

Be sure to check out the entire article about social media marketing here: 12 Tenets of Social Media Marketing

This article was submitted by Dale King and offers some great tips on how to make the most of your frequent visits to online discussion forums!

Forum Profits: How To Make Money From Forum Traffic

In this article, I'm going to reveal the secret to making money with forum traffic.

An Internet forum is a facility on the World Wide Web for holding discussions, or the web application software used to provide the facility. Web-based forums, which date from around 1995, perform a similar function as the dial-up bulletin boards and Internet newsgroups that were numerous in the 1980s and 1990s. A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, computer games, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of different topics.

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OK, this is funny… nothing to do with online marketing, I just wanted to share:

In a recent study, more than 125,000 people helped determine the three keys to success for online video advertisements:

1. Brand identity was so prominent from the start of the ad that people remembered the brand along with the content of the ad.

3. The online ads were part of a larger offline marketing campaign.

These may seem like common sense to anyone who has studied the art of copywriting, and I was glad to see these sensible conclusions from a serious research effort.

(If only creators of TV commercials would pay attention!)

But one of the keys that is left off that list–and the most important, in my opinion, for online marketing–is that the ad should elicit some emotion from its viewers. It can be funny, shocking, enlightening, scary, uplifting, whatever…as long as it's a strong response that gets people talking about it and–even better–sharing links to it. In other words, it's "viral."

Key number 2 is an important element and can make online video ads more effective than expensive TV commercials because it allows tracking of results.

I'm certain that if the effectiveness of TV commercials (or lack thereof) could be accurately tested and tracked, companies would realize they're wasting millions of dollars on totally ineffective ad campaigns (such as the current "Got Milk" ad series featuring aliens desperate for the "wonder tonic"–worst TV ad campaign EVER (and I'm a science fiction fan!)).

Anyway, you can read about the source of this informative research and more interesting results at Bob Johnson's Blog on Internet Marketing.

I just watched a nice motivational video that was sent to me.

It's called 212 Degrees - The Extra Degree. It shows how that one little degree–or little bit of extra effort–makes all the difference.

Perhaps it will inspire you to make 2007 your most powerful and successful year ever!

Here's the link: 212Movie.com

Have you noticed I've added a new page, Free Downloads?

Check out the free resources already there, and be sure to check back often. If you have any suggestions on other free resources that the readers of this blog may enjoy, just let me know.

Here's the link again: Free Downloads.

To build a great website, you should follow these nine simple tips for best results.

1. Build it with SPEED in mind.

A typical website visitor will decide within 10-20 seconds whether to explore your site or click away. If you don’t grab their attention immediately, they’ll be gone.

You need to consider:

(1) how quickly your site loads;

(2) how quickly a visitor can find something interesting.

Most people have high-speed connections these days, but not all. If large graphics, videos, java script or anything else causes a delay in the time it takes your site to load, do not use it on your home page.

People are in a hurry; they’re usually looking for something specific—give it to them as quickly as possible. Do not waste their time (or your valuable home page real estate) with useless text such as “Welcome to our site” messages.

2. Do not use a Flash introduction (where a video or animation starts when someone lands on your site).

Creative website designers love these. Serious Internet marketers never use them. Why? Because most people landing on your site will not stick around to watch the fancy bells and whistles. Most will not even bother with the “Skip Introduction” option—they’ll just click away… probably to a competitor’s site.

3. Focus the site on your target market.

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Marketing Sherpa has just released their 2007 PDF report on Marketing Wisdom.

Marketers from 110 organizations contributed test results and lessons-learned stories for this fifth annual Wisdom Report, which includes great tips on topics including:

Mechanisms for collecting money

If you've read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, you know about the basic methods for making money with your website and copywriting techniques to convince your site visitors to buy whatever you're selling.

After you have used quality content to convince website visitors to give you money for a product or service, how do you collect that money?

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In Part 1 of this series, I covered the most common methods of earning money with a website. A vital element is Copywriting, which I'll cover in this installment.

Copywriting is a specific form of writing with the sole purpose of selling. Whether you’re selling your own product, affiliate products, merchandise or anything else, you’ll need to write a “sales letter” that appeals to emotions and answers the prospect’s question, “What benefits will I gain from this product?” Effective copywriting

An in-depth explanation of copywriting is beyond the scope of this series, but here are 11 basic tips:

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Some people create websites strictly to provide a free resource or service. They have no desire or intent to earn money from their sites. (Hard to believe, huh?)

If you are one of those people, please feel free to skip this series because its purpose is to show you how to earn money from your website.

Most websites are designed to earn income. Either they are created specifically to sell something–-such as an information product (ebook or whatever), consulting service, affiliate products, or other merchandise-–or they incorporate revenue-generating elements into their design.

Here are five of the most common methods for earning money from a website:

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One-Way Inbound Links to Your Site are Gold!

Search engines place more value on one-way inbound links than reciprocal links (where you and another webmaster swap links to each other's sites) because they see them as genuine, unbiased recommendations of your site.

Here are a few ways to obtain quality inbound links to your site:

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Some people have put off creating a blog because of some misconceptions… "myths" about blogging. Here are the four most common blogging myths, along with facts and tips.

Myth 1: You need to be a good writer to have a successful blog.

Fact: While it’s true that blogs are predominately made up of written content, much of that content can be provided by other people (syndicated article authors, blog visitors who leave comments, other bloggers, etc.). Some successful bloggers write nothing more than brief introductory sentences for content generated by others. An example is Internet Marketing Newswatch.

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Here's a short video by Dr. Tim Berry about the importance of strategic planning for your online business. Around the 3-minute mark, he makes some observations about the challenges new online marketers face… then offers some tips to overcome them.