Blogging is a foundational tool in your online marketing campaign. And you should be blogging everyday if you can. This will build quick visiblity, credibility & traffic to your site. It can also drive traffic from your social networks into your marketing funnel when you do it the right way. In fact, if you need a kick in the pants for your blogging, it’s not too late to jump into my good friend, Sandra Martini’s 30 Day Blog Challenge–and it’s free!

But are you using your blog to build relationships?

Here are 3 simple ideas to take your blogging to a new level:

1. Live on the edge! Ask pointed questions that will inspire people to respond to your thoughts and your topic. When your readers respond, always acknowledge their responses–even when you don’t agree. These conversations may be the first steps in new connections.

2. Talk about others in your posts! I don’t want you spamming, but feel free to share other experts opinions on your blog. Add your own commentary, of course. Make sure to include a link to her original post or social media page for quick reference and then let her know you just mentioned her on your blog (sent her a Tweet or post on her Facebook wall/page).

3. Invite upcoming experts to be “Guest Bloggers” on your site. Make sure they are either writing original content for you or repurposing at least 30% of the content for your readers. Allow them to incl ude a small bio box and their photo at the end of their articles with a link. Quickly, you will have other experts promoting your site and thanking you for the opportunity to build their own audience! And we haven’t even gotten into the time-savings opportunities…

Do you see the win-win-win in each of these ideas? When you are leading from a place of “shared abundance” and you value your community and relationships in your business, great things will come!

We have spent the last month discussing how to build content that drives traffic. One of my favorite, high-ranking social media sites is Scribd.com. This is a document hosting site that Google and Yahoo LOVE. In fact, when you upload your press releases, articles, power-points and even excell spreadsheets, the search engines will start scouring and assessing your document for good content almost immediately.

Scribd is a content sharing site that utilizes some bookmarking and networking features to maximize the reach and build credibility & visibility much faster for you than some other sites.

Scribd is also in the process of adding a sync feature with Twitter and Facebook that will definitely build exposure for them and your content on the site.

Best of all, it only takes about 2 minutes to login and upload your weekly ezine article or your latest free teleseminar presentation to start building quality traffic back to your site.

You may have noticed a recent survey I did about what online business owners want and how they want it. Turns out that most people really want to know how to get more traffic to their website.

Whether it is converting your social network onto your list or just getting more eyeballs on your site, there are a few key techniques that work to create a steady stream of quality people checking out your stuff!

1. Drive traffic to your blog. Whether you have a website or you are active on Facebook or Twitter, you want to be strategic about the links you include in your “about me” section. Our 21st century way of doing business is about connecting and conversing. So your blog is going to be a better choice to carry the “conversation” than your website. Conversely, directing people to your blog over Facebook is also the better choice because this brings them closer to you, gives them a taste of your business and your brand, and allows you to actually track the visitors and the subscriptions.

2. Post on your blog often. I recommend at least 3-5 times a week. You want to include short tips and relevant information to your market. The more you post, the better the search engines like you and the more valuable you are to your market.

3. Share other people’s content. Review blogs daily and note valuable content. When your competition posts something of value, review the post on your site with links back to his/her site.

4. Guest blogging. Allow other qualified experts the ability to post quality, unique content on your site. This allows you to be the hub of information in your industry. Allow your guest blogger to include a “resource box” at the end of the article/post with a link back to his/her site. You can also be a guest blogger on someone else’s site. Make sure that the blog is complimentary to your services as you do want to attract people interested in what you have to offer.

5. Article marketing. This is my favorite strategy for driving quality traffic. You can post your article on various “portals” or directories that host your articles for people interested in republishing your content for their own newsletters or publications.

It sounds like a lot of writing, but don’t forget that you can repurpose your articles to be used on multiple sites. Make sure to repurpose at least 30% of your content so that Google doesn’t knock you down, but also so that you customize your content for the different readers. And create a system around when you post, what you post and where you post. This will help you keep track of what you are doing and how much time to spend.

A great question came through my last survey asking for a TOP 10 LIST for social networking—kind of a check-off list to see if you are doing it right or not. So I created one. Let me know what you think!

1. Set up your profile with information about you as a person! Let your personality shine!
2. Include work/education/experience as it directly relates to your expertise. ALSO include experience that relates to who you are as a person. Include information about your activities and interests when you are NOT working.
3. Manage your virtual “noise” level on your profile! Don’t add too many extras and make sure the applications/widgets you do add are reflective of who you are (do you see a common them here?). (more…)