When you first open up your blog for business, you hope or expect lots of people to find it and leave you lots of comments and feedback.  Sadly, this rarely happens, unless you are a celebrity!  So you plug away, writing article after article wondering how other people manage to succeed in getting lots of comments when you are lucky to get one!  So you cheat a bit and retweet your own post a few times and ask your friends to retweet it too!

But unless you get very good, very quickly you are not going to get many comments.  I tried putting the odd comment on other people’s blogs, but rarely got any reciprocation!  Then I started to hear about syndication!  I looked into it and discovered that people were getting together into little groups to leave a little ‘love’ on each others blogs and other content all over the internet!  Wow, I thought, great idea!

I looked into one system that everyone was talking about, but decided against paying to have someone read my articles.  They aren’t THAT bad!!  Then I joined a forum called ThatMLMBeat!! And started to hear about two syndication groups that were in the process of joining together!  And you could join FREE!

So with some trepidation, I joined their ranks.  It all seemed simple enough!  You were put in a particular colour group each week; around 10 to a group.  Each person puts their own details on the system, their social media sites and their blog.  Then each day of the week, Monday to Friday only (which suits me) you syndicate a couple of people out of your group.

You comment on their blog, you like them on Facebook, add them on Linkedin, watch their videos on YouTube or whatever.  Then one day a week, they all come to see your work and suddenly your comments start to rise.  You get more friends on your social media sites and more retweets!!  Wow, you have got to love that!

And another great thing is that if people don’t do the syndicating they are meant to do, they slowly fall down the charts and then fall off the end.  So they no longer get syndicated!  If you do not feel that the article you are reading is up to standard, you do not have to comment or syndicate.  That keeps standards up!

The benefits of syndication go well beyond the extra traffic I am getting on my sites! I always found it difficult to comment on other people’s work.  Probably scared of saying something that someone didn’t like!  Now, I am typing a comment before I even put my mind in gear!!  So that’s great.  Syndicating also keeps me on my toes! I know by Sunday usually what day people are going to syndicate me, so I work on making sure there is something new for everyone to read or listen to!  Which again is always good for the search engines.  Regularly updating your blog gets you higher up the rankings!

And another thing!  Before I started syndicating, I had somewhat lost interest in Facebook, which considering the numbers of people logging on everyday, was a bit like business suicide!  I found it difficult to know what to say.  Well syndicating lots of other peoples blogs has put an end to all that.  I have a plethora of interesting material to put out on Facebook, so my name is appearing on the news stream regularly.  I’m rocking Facebook again!

And I am meeting some incredible people and finding out more awesome stuff everyday! I have to admit my first thought was ‘will this be worth the effort of reading all these peoples blogs??’  Well I have to tell you that ‘yes’ absolutely it is worth every minute I spend syndicating.

So, of course, I must give a great big shout out to TSA Tribes for being absolutely awesome.  When you give, you receive, and I am receiving such alot from you guys.  Thank you, everyone!

 Why do you need a blog if you are marketing on the internet?  A blog is a MUST for your business in 2010!  But why?  And how can you make money from it?  So many people are shouting that we must get a blog, but you need to understand what the purpose of your blog is.

 1.  You Blog is the ‘Nerve Centre’ of your business!  Everything else is connected or linked to it in some way.  It is the hub, around which all the rest of your business revolves.  It is a friendly, homely place where people hang out and chat, and generally feel comfortable!  If it was a real place, it would be a coffee bar!! lol

 2.  A Blog can generate repeat business.  When someone becomes a customer, they may subscribe to your newsletter or list, or subscribe to your RSS feed, and this leads to repeat business!!

 3.  Market Research.  Because a blog is regularly updated, customers will come back time and time again to see what is new, and you can get them to give feed-back in the form of comments, on what they like, dislike or want to see more of.

 4.  You can keep product reviews in front of your buyers, and introduce new products and services.

 5.  It can be easily syndicated to other sites, which all point back to your blog.  This means that you have your link on other websites such as Twitter and Facebook and other social media sites, and these links all point to your blog.  You need as many links pointing to your blog is you can, because they all help send traffic to it.  Other people who have blogs may be willing to have your link on their own blog.  Also if you submit articles, you can make these link back to your blog page.  If you have lots of links out there, you will raise your ranking considerably.  Alot of traffic equals alot of business.

 6.  It is reasonably easy to set up and very easy to maintain, saving you time and effort in the long run.

 7.  Search Engines love blogs.  This is because they are regularly up-dated and added to, something which search engines love on any web page.

 8.  The site is always fresh, because it is constantly moving on, changing from videos to articles, news items, offers and comments, so it is appealing however many times you visit it.

 9.  Customers and visitors expect a blog nowadays from businesses.  They know about them and expect to be able to visit and check out the latest news in your company and to see if you have any offers on.

 10.  They are lots of fun.  You can mess about with your blog, interacting with your customers and really connecting with them.  This will lead to quality leads for your business and is the reason so many of the BIG Network Marketers have an excellent blog online.

A recent headline in Business Week Magazine said that Blogs will change your business and they advised “Catch Up…or Catch You Later”!!!