Nancy and I talk about business and family and life all the time. We decided to let you all in on our conversations!

Every week we will talk about what is happening in our businesses as well our lives. These conversations will be recorded and posted on our blogs and on Facebook.

You can download these calls and put them on your MP3 players or your phone and listen while you are driving or waiting in line somewhere. (I like to listen to training while I am fixing dinner. If you have been following what is happening in our family, I am in the kitchen a LOT these days!)

In our first ‘conversation’, we talked about our morning routines. Life has changed a lot for me this year. Both kids are now working and for the first time in their lives they aren’t home. If any of you home school, you will understand the significance of this event!

When you home school you are with your kids every day. This was a blessing! Many moms wait until their kids are in school to get work done. I gradually built a business while the kids were at home. Now they are both working and it has been an adjustment.

We also talked about Facebook. Facebook is constantly changing and it is important to stay on top of the changes. We discussed the new rule concerning usernames and the SSL change coming October 1st.

Nancy made several new videos on how to increase user engagement on Facebook. She is such a natural at conversing with fans on Facebook! If you want to learn how to engage your visitors, go ‘Like’ Nancy’s page and just watch what she posts and how she comments.

The last item we mentioned was the Charity Event we are sponsoring. The Lord laid it on Nancy and Steve’s heart to donate to an orphanage in Guatemala and we are now turning it into an event! You can donate products or services to this event. All the proceeds will go to helping this orphanage! More details later….

So if you want, you can listen to this ‘conversation’ here or download it to your computer or favorite listening device.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Every business needs a blog!

• A blog is one of the easiest ways to get found by the search engines.
• A blog provides a simple way to give people updates about your business
• A blog is easy to learn to change on your own
• A blog provides an RSS feed that allows to automatically get your news

First you have to choose the best blogging platform to meet your needs.  A blogging platform is the software that enables you to transform your content into a website.

Two of the most popular blogging platforms are WordPress and Blogger. There are advantages and disadvantages to both of these options. You can decide what is best for your business after reviewing the pros and cons.

BLOGGER

ADVANTAGES

• Very easy to use
• Easy to set up (just follow the steps)
• Nothing to install
• You don’t need your own hosting
• Free to use
• You don’t need a domain name
• Posting is easy
• Themes are easy to change

DISADVANTAGES

• Limited flexibility – design of themes
• Limited flexibility – functions
• Domain name will be:  “yourblogname.blogspot.com”
• Ownership – this is my biggest problem with Blogger! Your content and blog reside on Google’s servers.  They can remove your blog!

WORDPRESS
NOTE: WordPress.com is like Blogger in that there are limitations and ownership issues. However, I am going to be talking about WordPress.org which is installed on your hosting.

ADVANTAGES

• Free to use – you can download and install the software for free
• Installed on your hosting – you own it
• Installed on your domain – you own it
• Tons of diverse and unique themes which can give your website/blog a unique look
• “Plugins” that are free which increase the functionality of your your blog/website
• OWNERSHIP – You own the domain, the hosting and the website/blog
• More professional
• The functionality allows you to setup a website or a blog or a “website and blog”

DISADVANTAGES

• More intimidating to setup
• Will need to buy a domain name (this is optional for Blogger)
• Will need to have hosting
• More difficult to learn (once you learn how to add posts and pages, it is simple to maintain)

If you have a business, then I strongly recommend that you setup a WordPress blog on your own hosting.  You maintain ownership and it looks more professional.

There is a place for Blogger!  If you have a personal blog, Blogger is great to use.  I use Blogger to feed my main business site.  Since Blogger is owned by Google, it gets indexed and has a high page rank.  I create content on Blogger and link to my main website.

If you need help setting up your WordPress blog, we do it for you in BestofNancy.com.  If you want to do it yourself, there are over 20 videos in Internet Tutor showing you step by step how to setup a WordPress blog on your hosting.

Please post comments or questions below.

Starting a blog is one of the easiest ways to promote your craft!

Contrary to popular belief, it is easy to do!

If you have never started a blog, then sign up on the right for my easy blogging course.  I take you through the every thing you need to know to get started.

I will go over some basic options for setting up your blog as well as some different techniques that you
can use to make it popular and profitable.

In the first lesson I talk about how to choose the  right blog platform to suit your blogging needs.

Starting a blog is fairly easy, but keeping a blog interesting and fresh is a whole other matter.
According to blogging experts, the key to keeping a blog going is to post frequently. This means that you’re going to need a ever present stream of content coming into your blog.

You may be intimidated by the thought of having to come up with lots of topic ideas. So in the next lesson
I start you brainstorming great topic ideas for you blog posts.

Whether you are blogging to make money directly from the blog or blogging to drive traffic to an affiliate
program, you should know about these five kinds of blog posts. (I cover some ideas like lists or review and more.)

The simple truth is that a blog without readers is pretty much useless. If you’ve been blogging for a while and have only been getting a trickle of viewers to your posts, you need to put a traffic building plan into action.

I go over a quick guide to the five most popular (and most effective) traffic building techniques.

Next I cover methods that will help you make money from your blog, no matter what niche you are in and how
you are using your blog.

Starting a blog is one of the most easiest ways to make money online.

Let me know how I can help.

Linda
PS BestofNancy members receive free blogs and support.