Your Opinion: Is Having A Blog As An Internet Marketer Important?

My personal opinion is no, it's not worth it. There are too many blogs out there now and too many experts telling you how it is, and how to do things. The problem with that is in one day you can read multiple blogs telling you opposite things.

As an addicted surfer, an internet marketer and a obsessive learning junkie I gave up on reading blogs a while ago. While I love to get other people's opinions, especially from people with experience, I started to find I was reading mutliple blogs that became more about the writer's ego than about the information in them.

Again, that's my personal opinion, some may disagree.

It's a lot of work to maintain the content on the blog. You have to review the opportunity costs of it all. Is the time spent writing for your blog worth more than you could be making using that same time elsewhere? You might find that simply commenting on existing blogs will get you the same effect. Posting to forums like this helps too.

You bring up some good points regarding IM blogs. Thanks.

I wasn't really talking about relationship building. Myspace, LinkedIn, and places like WarriorForum (as you mentioned) is good for that ... That isn't a problem. More of, with a blog, people can look at what you have to offer upfront, gives them a feel of who you are and just makes you look more pro.

Regarding Underground Marketers :p. We all know there are lots and lots, but ones who are in that area are looking to rack in money, not socialize and build connections I suppose?...

Anyways, thanks for your help.

You could still build a following if you wanted to, a good IM'er could dominate 30-40 niches in 3-4 months of link building and have a decent blog.

I only own websites, but I reckon if I wanted to build a blog then give me a year and I'd have a half way decent one.


If you think you can't , well you can't, and I don't mean that in the law of attraction way, I mean it in the you-won't-be-bothered way.

The only way to make money online is to work really, really hard.

Good luck (sincerely) to those who do

Actually once you start a blog if you post 10 to 15 posts within the first 10 to 15 days or so you then only need to post 1 to 3 times a week or so and you can maintain your rankings. If you post 3 times a week this give each post time to be seen by your readers, pinged, submit the RSS feed, submit post to Social Sites and Blog Carnival.
You will also want to have a few plugins for your Wordpress blogs, All In One SEO Pack, Twitter Poster, Google Site Map Generator, WP Automatic Upgrade, WP-Shortstat, WP-Generic Footer, Sociable, WP Head and Akismet.

And yes it will help the traffic to your money site if you have a blog.

Hope this helps

Joel

I think having a blog is great for every internet marketer because it helps establish your web presence online and allows you to brand yourself a bit more. I know I trust people who are more established online than those I know nothing about.

Blogging definitely helps establish your online presence and that's soooo important nowadays.

Write high quality and write often, keep people coming back by sharing what you have learned.

There are so many blogs that give you nothing, so they get nothing (meaning followers)

I think it's a good idea.

Suppose you're on FaceBook or Twitter and you post up a dozen thingies telling people to visit your pre-sell page for product X, Y, or Z. Ya know, people don't like that--you'll lose friends.

Now, suppose you post something about "recipies for starving Internet marketers" with a link to a page. Now, that sounds like fun and it's not hard selling anything. The link goes to your blog post (I just did this by the way) and visitors can read your post. But while they are there they may opt-in to your list or check out some of your products. A blog can be a "soft landing page" for web2.0 traffic you send there. There are tons of other reasons to have a blog as well.

Below are some blogs set up by some big Clickbank gurus and demi-gurus (a few aren't CB guys) you can check out. See how each of them entertain, inform and yes--sell.

Net Frontier Marketing (Alex Goad)

Jonny Andrews Blog, Where Entrepreneurs Freak Out Like Little Girls (Jonny Andrews)

Jeff Johnson Underground Training Lab (Jeff Johnson)

Internet Marketing | Butterfly Marketing | Mike Filsaime’s Blog (Mike Filsaime)

Follow The Foxy (Andrew Fox)

Michael Rasmussen’s Internet Marketing Blog (Michael Rasmussen--Excellent!)

Craig Beckta Author of Secret Affiliate Code and Secret Affiliate Code 2... - Part (Craig Beckta)

Eric Rockefeller | Internet Marketing Rockstar (Eric Rockefeller)

Adeel Chowdhry’s Personal Blog! (Adeel Chowdhry)

http://masscontrolsite.com/blog (Frank Kern)

Income.com Blog (John Reese)

SEO Expert, Brad Fallon SEO Expert - StomperNet and other SEO Experts (Brad Fallon)

Michael Cheney - behind the I.M. curtain (Michael Cheney)

FabianTan.com (Fabian Tan)

Awesome. Thanks for the list Mike. Will help out alot to checkout some of the bigger guys around at work :p

First off it's important to know that it will take some effort and time.
alot of time. But the reason why blogging is such an important factor
in this business is because it shows that YOU are a real person.

Instead of trying to say "go to this website for more information"
the following above sounds too "robotic"

If someone said "hey come check out my review I posted on my blog"
it makes them sound real. people want to deal with other "people" online

If you don't like to write then try vlogging and that in my opinion
is more profitable. Just look at frank kern's blog. Almost all of his
posts are videos and that's exactly why he can do a launch that
makes him $1 million dollars in just 53 minutes.

Make other people know that you to are a person. and not just
a business man in a suite behind a website.

IDK this is just my $0.02

What if you are already making money and looking to establish yourself. I'm not saying this is me. I still feel like I can be making more. But what if?

My opinion is yes... and no. It really depends on what you're doing.

If you're marketing an infoproduct of some sort, or if you're trying to build name recognition, then yes. But the key is to tie it in to a more complete social marketing system that encompasses Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, bookmarking, and so on. You don't sell directly on those other platforms, but you can use your blog to soft-sell your product.

I've been doing IM for probably about 5 or 6 years now, but the only infoproducts I've produced so far have been under different aliases. I didn't use a blog for marketing purposes, but if I created something now I would. I started doing behind-the-scenes stuff like CPA that didn't require a "presence", so I never put the time into running a blog.

Now that I've set up some income streams, I'm starting to explore other areas of IM that include social networking. I just recently started a blog, but it's not to promote me or any products. I just felt like it would be nice to relay some information to the community whenever I read something interesting or a thought pops into my head. I don't really care if the blog becomes popular, it's really more of a creative pursuit of mine and a testing platform to try out different techniques. If people get something out of it, great. If not, well... sorry, but I tried. I'll do my best to make it informative and interesting, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

Whether you start a blog or not is up to you. It doesn't take too much time, but it can be an important component of your marketing strategy. Yes, there are a lot of blogs out there. But there aren't that many good ones, so if you make your content consistent and high quality, you'll stand out. Cream rises to the top.

Nice blog Creative design... The Dog and Cat post was entertaining lol.

Thank you, Admiral.

I doubt you're going to find anything groundbreaking on there, but I try to keep it informative. It's almost impossible to come up with something that a million people haven't already talked about a million different ways. And to be honest... whenever I do come up with something new, I tend to hold my cards close to my chest. It doesn't help to go blabbing about it to everyone.

That being said, I'm constantly coming up with ideas that I will never have the time to really implement. So I'm sure they'll wind up on the blog. And more cartoons, too. :-)

From my perspective as a "taking action newbie" my blog has been invaluable.

For me it's more like a diary for myself. I plan to blog about things I am doing in the hope that I can look back in years to come and see "how I started it all"

My blog has only been live for a week but I have made some good contacts from it and had a great deal of encouragement. I look at it as my base from where I do everything, I don't know why but this helps me in my going to work mindset. I guess I can look at it as my shop front or my office.

I am also hoping that it will be of use to others to use as a reference if they too are new to IM. I agree with other comments about the saturation of blogs, it's becoming less interesting to read blogs because they generally end in sale's pitches.

My advice as a "newbie" is that a blog is very useful.

Make a really good title for each blog post and you'll get to those interested readers before others do...Post in digg and go viral.... Maybe not a million, but half of that would do. no?

I'll be checking in for the cartoons, and I'm sure there is a few things I will pick up for seo.

Thanks.

Thanks Admiral

Amy & Joel have some great points.

Most people with a blog consider it their home... And last time
I heard of anyone without a home would soon become labeled as transient.

Just a thought.

Thanks for your reply Steven.

Of course, if you where to put up a blog representing yourself, putting up BS content would simply make you look like an idiot. You can't build a following with BS.

Feel free to go into those 10 pages, put together a report, and launch a WSO

Your blog is your hub and your archive. You go out to the various places your audience hangs out, engage them there, and bring them back to your blog where you can nurture the relationship, build trust and authority. Blogs not only attract search traffic, but they are loyalty magnets.

During a launch they are also very useful tools, or if you are putting out list bait, link bait, etc etc

I can't imagine not having one, and not just because I am a blogging advocate

A blog gives you a voice on the internet. Blogging has been very vital to my online business. You can increase your profits greatly if you are a good writer.
Blogs works great when you have it intergrated into your website. You might want to check out my blog at Home Business Blog.

And the service i used to set up my money making site and blog FREE of charge is the Plug in profit site. You are only required to provide a domain name and hosting.

Thanks Chris,

I see I can take your word on what was said for sure as you have a blog up and it looks like it has a nice amount of followers and quality content.

Hi Admiral Wahbi,

I got your PM from Warrior Forum. I am unable to respond there because I don't have 50 posts.

Anyway, I can do the modifications you want.

You're looking about one hour of billing time, which is $55.

Let me know if you want me to proceed.

rpayne [at] robert-d-payne [dot] com

OR

Skype = rdpayne

Regards,
Robert