Today’s inspiration is to look at your FAQ. If you don’t have an FAQ use those questions that people are always asking you. Don’t have any of those, ask for them! Make a whole blog post asking for people to send you there questions. Finding out what people want to know about may give you a whole new perspective. Yes, you know your topic, but things that you may take for granted others don’t have any idea about.

Take these questions and let them lead to a whole new set of blog post. You can even set up a series or a day of the week specifically designed to answer people’s questions.

There are different ways to accomplish this.  Different methods work for different people and niches. Find a method, or methods, that work for you and work it.

If you Google internet traffic I am sure, you will find a ton of great products out there for you to purchase. I know that I have purchased a number of these resources myself. I wish that I had one that I could recommend to you, but in reality, I don’t.  What I do recommend is word of mouth, or type as it may be. Building a list is a great way to start. You have to have a “fan” base so to speak. When you blog you need to put it out of Facebook, twitter, your list, and anywhere else that it can be seen.

Write articles that are in the same vein and post them to article marketing directories. Include links back to your site for more information. Encourage people to bookmark your site and subscribe to your newsletter and RSS feed. Make it as simple for them as possible.

The thing is you have to get the word out. Tell everyone that you know you have this blog and you want them to read it and help you spread the word. Don’t forget your email signature and your business card. Don’t miss an opportunity to get your blog onto other’s computer screens!

But other than trying to be kool, how do you know when to capitalize words?

There are a few basic rules that will always point you in the right direction.

#1 – Always capitalize a proper noun. Texas, North Star Mall and George Washington are all examples of proper nouns that should always start with a capital letter.

#2 – When you are using a quote the first word should always be capitalized. I told my daughter, “Please put the clothes in the dryer.”

#3 – Capitalize a position when it refers to a specific person. This one can get a bit tricky. Here is an example sentence. Tonight on TV, President Obama will address the nation. President is capitalized. We are all wondering who will run for president. It isn’t capital in that sentence. See the difference?

#4 – Make the first letter of the first word of a sentence capital.

#5 – Titles have each word capitalized. Except of course words such as the, and, it

These are just 5 rules to follow and the most common in my head, but for a complete list, you can check out GrammarBook.com. Please remember there is a time and place for cool writing, but you can really irritate someone with poor grammar!

How does this text speech fit into our grammar?

To be honest, it doesn’t.

When you are limited to the amount of characters you need to use in text messages, it makes sense to shorten your words.

When writing about expertise online, it doesn’t make sense at all. Many will even tell you not to use contractions.

When writing for articles online, clients or to pass along information, you want the material passed along in a professional manner. Using text language to many is rude. Avoid it at all cost.

Think even of your twitter and your facebook. Remember if you are using these for business, they are your image. Even if you do not work online, your twitter and your facebook portray you to anyone who has a mind to look you up. Such as someone you have applied for a job. Keep all of your online correspondence crisp and professional. Avoid the image that text language gives off.

Your grammar may not be perfect. The occasional misspelled word is going to be missed. One thing you can have control of is the words that you use. Avoid all text lingo. Give off the image that you want.

I have heard it said when you are writing for the web to write like you talk. It may be great for a personal blog post. One where you are catching up family and friends to what is going on in your life. It is not appropriate if you are posting an article to draw in readers and potential clients.

My father will tell you the high school I attended was miserable when it came to teaching the basic grammar skills. Most of what I learned, I learned as an adult. If you read what I write, no doubt you will find grammar errors, especially spelling errors. I can’t spell. I love spell check, but sometimes it lets me down at the most inopportune moments.

So this brings up a new weekly feature here at Written Word Service – The Monday Morning Grammar Hint. These may be things you know and always do. They may be things you just needed a reminder.

The important thing is we try to do our best when it comes to grammar. An occasional grammar faux pas can be excused. Never capitalizing the word “I” may just be so downright irritating readers and potential clients never come back. Leave the slang and cute grammar to those personal blogs. Unless of course you have a mother and friend like I do. I know they were both gritting and gnashing their teeth when they saw this title!

Many bloggers do not know their audience. They spend hours detailing great information. They have wonderful rich content. The unfortunate part is that it goes no where, because it is not aimed at anyone.

Think of it as an arrow. If you are out there and you want to target practice with your bow and arrow, you have to have a target to shot at. Otherwise you are just out there working out your arm.

You have to know your target market. Are they men or women? Are they college age? Early 30s or retired? Are they professionals or hobbyist? All of this information makes a difference into how that you right.

Find your target. Define them as closely as you can. Then write to them.

You may be saying that you have such a wide target. It’s proven that you can no market to everyone. Pick a target and aim for it. Think again of that arrow thing.

By writing to that one person you will be able to focus on their needs and what they want. But just because you are hitting your mark there does not mean others won’t read your blog as well. It’s a happy side effect. But first you have to tighten in on your target.

Knowing who you are talking to will help your blog be read, enjoyed and help to bring in loyal customers and clients.

A great place to start is with your FAQs. Take the questions you are often asked and turn them into articles, blog entries or even other written material. You can take one question and turn it into a whole series of blog entries. You can then take that material and use it as a special report all bundled up. This gives you material that your audience has questions about.

Another great way to find topics is to see what is going on in your niche. You could look at message boards, magazines, ezines or newsletters. See what topics are hot, or even what topics are not being covered and blog on those.

Keep a small notebook with you. It is amazing what great ideas you can get for your blog when you are doing other things. They may be totally unrelated and a great idea springs to your head. Jot it down quickly so the next time you are looking for ideas you have a head start.

Blog about what you know. Blog about areas that you area that you are interested in finding more about. Blog about answers to questions you know others have. All will bring your readers in and keep them interested.

Remember if you need any help with this, with what to write or would like someone to manage your blog for you, please free to contact me at judithldavis@gmail.com

You get that you should blog, but now comes the crunch… when are you going to blog? Doing it every day seems like a monumental task, but you know you have to post something daily? Right, or kinda right. Let me explain.

WordPress has a great feature. You will find it in the Publish box on the top of the right hand column. The last option is publish. The immediately is the default choice. Once the Edit is clicked a world of possibility floats out to you.

Let’s say that you write your best on Monday morning. You could easily sit down and write a whole series of blog post on that day. The rest of the week you have full of other important task, but you know Monday morning your calender and your mind is all set to go with the writing thing.

WordPress lets you post all of these and pick when you want to post them. You write 5 great blog post on Monday and have them post each day of the week. You are all done with your blogging for the week!

Think of weekly features. You want to have a tip of the week every Friday. You already have 10 great tips. Go in and put them in for each Friday to post a tip. You are done with your tips for the next 10 weeks.

WordPress keeps track and post them on the date and the time that you put in when you edited.

This is a great tool, be sure to use it to your advantage!

Remember if you need any help with this, with what to write or would like someone to manage your blog for you, please free to contact me at judithldavis@gmail.com

There is no definitive answer to this, but there are a lot of clues for success.

Putting up a static page is the most some people do. Their thinking may go, I now have a web presences, people will come. That is a far cry from the truth. Unless you have a huge name, like Walmart, then that just isn’t going to happen.

You need a page that is updated regularly and changes frequently.

Why?

Well it has to do with the search engines. Search engines like to see change. They like to see websites that are active. One way to do this is to blog, and to blog frequently. This shows the various search engines that the website isn’t something that was just put up and the information is becoming outdated.

So what is “blogging frequently”?

I have heard it said that you should blog several times a day and other opinions say several times a day. I don’t think there is a correct answer.

I do however think there is a minimum. To have a webpage crawled by the search engines you should blog at least once a week. I recommend to my clients that they blog at least 3 times a week. If you feel that you can do it more, then do it!

WordPress has a great tool. You can go in and make multiple blog entries and have them published at dates in the future.

How does that help you? You can go in once a week and do all your blog post for that week. You can do 3, 5, 7 or even more. Set the dates when you want them published and even the time of day. Then you can just forget about it.

You do have to remember to go in the next week and do more post though. You can do this by the week, by the month, or if you are feeling really ambitious by the year!

The thing is you have to blog. You have to keep giving your audience information and content. A blog is a great way to do it. Let your readers, clients and customers see that you have something of value to offer.

Ok, so what are you waiting for? Go blog!

One thing she said last night really stuck with me, and really made sense!

No matter what business you are doing online, you have to be doing internet marketing. You can be a writer, which I am, MLM, selling physical goods, or a service business, but if you aren’t doing internet marketing it is not going to be a business operating at full potential!

This is why I am doing this internship. I want to learn all that I can about marketing. Not only to help my own business, but so that I can help my clients.

Are you an internet marketer? Do you know how to market the products that you sell? Learning internet marketing is not a bad thing at all.