Keep your attention on the questions that your market might have, paying particular attention to the problems that they might have.  If a number of people come out with the same problems or challenges, you’ll know for certain how to address them and how to provide a solution for them.  This is how you will come out with products and services that will virtually sell themselves.

Make it your business to visit these sites at least three times a week so that you can stay on top of your market and their concerns. You can do a keyword search for blogs at:

• www.blogsearchengine.com
• www.technorati.com

For discussion forums and groups you can search:

• http://groups.google.com
• http://groups.msn.com
• http://groups.yahoo.com
• www.forumgarden.com

Social networking sites such as:

• www.myspace.com
• www.facebook.com
• www.meetup.com

So get started and see what you can come up with for your business and let us know what you find.

To Your Success,

Juliette & Robert

Choose a post title that is at least 6 words long and includes your important or chosen keywords. For example, if you are doing a blog article on how cheap it is to use homemade soap, you might choose a keyword friendly title such as “Homemade Organic Soap is Gentle on Your Skin and Pocketbook”.

Be sure to include your primary keyword in the first sentence of your blog article, and then once for each additional paragraph. Do not try to overstuff your article with keywords because your article will end up sounding unprofessional and you may get penalized for keyword spamming by Google.

If you are writing your blog articles using Word, it is always a good idea to pop them into notepad and then into posting text box in the admin section of your blog. This makes sure all the extra code from Word is stripped out and your upload is nice and clean.

Always try and work one of the following into the body of your article – your business name, your chosen primary keywords that represent your business, or the names of specific beauty products you sell. This helps to increase your business revenues, and from a search engine point of view, helps Google automatically connect the dots between your website, blog site and others websites that either carries your product lines, or syndicates your blog content.

Post a minimum of 3 times weekly with original content. If you are not a great writer, hiring a professional writer with a background in beauty writing is fairly easy to do, and not overly expensive. It is important to have quality content that reflects a high level of professionalism, which will affect how others see your business. It is also important to check spelling and grammar on each and every blog article before it is published to your blog site.

Finally, if you use content from other sources, make sure you acknowledge the original source. Never claim content as your own, even if you are doing so without malice. A simple link at the bottom of the article back to the original article will generally suffice. In some cases (and check the fine print at the bottom of the article) you may need the author’s permission to reprint the article, study, or information.

If you use the newer versions of blog software available, such as WordPress, you do not need any HTML or advanced computer knowledge. With just a little bit of practice, you can have your beauty blog up and running. In no time at all, you will be able to upload and add images to your articles, hyperlink and cross promote topics and products like a professional and use your blog posts to increase revenues and traffic to your business website.

To Your Success,

Robert & Juliette

It is no longer a matter of “if” you will have a blog for your beauty business – if you want to stand out online and attract a new pool of customers to your business, you must have a blog. The question becomes “how” do you use your beauty blog as a strong marketing tool and implement to help your small business succeed.

Here are some important tips to keep in mind:

Expect to update your blog often! This means adding blog articles on a regular basis. A rule of thumb is that 3 times a week should be the minimum for a small business trying to increase their Google ranking and search engine exposure.

Avoid being narrow-minded; be creative in your content choices. Just because your beauty business focuses on facial creams, does not mean that you cannot offer articles on all spa etiquette, bath bombs and how to prevent dry skin. Think about the secondary markets that tie into your product or service. If a consumer is searching Yahoo for dry skin and comes across your article on dry skin remedies, they may just be interested enough to purchase your facial creams.

Cross linking is critical for blog success. In each blog article that you write or have written, be sure to embed a good quality keyword link back to your main website. For example, if a sentence in your blog article reads “professionals recommend at least one facial every 4-6 weeks to keep skin young and youthful”, hyperlink the word “facial” back to the page on your beauty business site where your facial creams are for sale. Cross linking and cross promotion are key to the success of your online business.

Stick with what most are comfortable with. WordPress is the most widely used and accepted blog format. It is free to use and easy to install. They offer hundreds of free templates to choose from that even a beginner can install. It is best if you stick with a widely acceptable blog format for ease of use and instant comfort and recognition by your site visitors. We recommend wordpress.org.

Toot your own horn! Most of the current WordPress formats allows you to include a widgets (an add-in blog enhancement that allows you to do more with your blog). Great widgets to add to your blog is banner advertising (so you can run banner ads that lead readers back to your sales website and product catalog), and syndication or RSS feeds so that others can offer your beauty info content on their website (this is excellent for search engine placement because if others think your content is important enough to put it on their website, Google ranks it as important).

A blog for your beauty business can only be a good thing. Just remember to set it up properly, use a format that your customers are comfortable using, and keep the content very fresh by adding new articles on a regular basis.

Having a blog is the most cost effective and powerful way for you to connect and build a relationship with your prospects and clients. Furthermore, search engines love blogs.

What is a blog?

A website that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyper-links provided by the writer.

What is blogging?

A person writes entries in, add material to, or maintains a weblog.

What is a blogger?

A person who keeps a weblog (blog) or publishes an online diary. Pro bloggers are bloggers who make money blogging.

In upcoming post we’ll be sharing information with you on how you can use blogging to get more traffic and to help you convert that traffic to sales.

To Your Success,

Juliette & Robert Samuel