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About 3 months ago I did a presentation to a small business network group in my local community about the benefits of starting a business blog vs. starting a business website.

After the presentation, I was approached by a local business owner who told me that his business was not attracting enough clients and offered to pay me to build him a business blog to help him better promote his business and generate more leads.

I spent a few days helping my new client set up a web hosting account and getting his business blog built, and even agreed to visit him on the weekend to show him how to manage his blog. When I arrived on Saturday morning for our training session as arranged, my client introduced me to a local neighborhood teenager and asked me to train this young person instead, telling me that she was going to run his blog as he found the whole “internet” thing too technical and overwhelming. He then left the room, and I spent the next half hour or so showing his young “assistant” how to post articles to his business blog and how to access and use the training area containing the step-by-step videos and tutorials.

This morning I received an email from my client. In the email, he conveyed his dissatisfaction at getting – and I quote him directly here, “ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSE/RESULT ! If I got even one or two inquiries/calls that would have been enough. But I got absolutely NOTHING !!!”

After going over his email a couple of times, I went to get myself a cup of coffee, then came back to my desk and thought about this. I have built over 70 blogs this year using the exact same system I used to set up my client’s blog and I have gotten very positive results (i.e. visitors, newsletter subscribers, sales, etc …) with every single blog I have set up.

So, I decided to investigate things a little bit further and take a look at the results my client’s blog was getting before sending him a reply.

The visitor tracking system I set up for his business blog (which I show how to set up in my “how to start a blog” video tutorials), showed that his site received over 90 unique visitors in the past 30 days.

I state on my blogging video tutorials sales letter that even blogs installed on brand new domains usually get indexed in the search engines within 2-3 days. I also point out that, once your blog is fully set up and configured as shown in the tutorials, the only work required to start growing your business online is to make a habit of posting regular content to your blog. In other words, just write short articles educating people about aspects of your business and post this information to your blog once or twice a week, and your business will start growing online.

Since the traffic analytics results showed that visitors were coming to my client’s blog, this, to me, was a good indicator that the system I set up for his blog was clearly working. So … no problems in this area.

I then decided to see if he was doing the work required, which, as I have just stated, consists of simply adding a new post to your blog about your business on a regular basis.

My client’s blog has been running for around 3 months as I write this post. I expected, therefore, at the minimum rate of 1 new post a week to see at least around 10 – 12 posts on his blog. When I looked at his blog, however, I saw that only 5 articles had been added to the blog by his junior assistant. I then looked at the actual content of his blog posts. A couple of entries were incomplete, with paragraphs just ending abruptly in mid-sentence with no continuation. More importantly, there was no call to action at the end of the articles asking visitors to take the next step (e.g. contact the client for more information, book an appointment, etc …).

As I did end up pointing out in my reply email to this business owner, it is completely unrealistic to expect a site with rather poor, or very little information to produce positive results in a highly competitive market, especially when the content has not been checked before being published and actively fails to “sell” the visitor into taking any type of further action.

I then pointed out to my client that I have not only built an entire step-by-step training and support system to help those who purchase my product or avail themselves of my services, but I have also included hundreds of dollars worth of free resources that show you how to grow every important aspect of your business online.

The issue here, then is not that business blogging doesn’t work. Like most proven systems, it works if you work it and it doesn’t if you don’t.

It takes a great deal of effort, commitment and perseverance to make any business work – online or offline. So, when it comes to starting a business online, or even just a business blog, here is what you absolutely need to know before you begin on your journey:

1 – The World Wide Web is not a magical, mystical realm where hungry customers suddenly appear out of electronic “cyber-thin-air” and come running madly towards you waving their wallets and credit cards in the air, desperately eager to buy your products and services just because you’ve set up a web presence. Cyberspace is governed by the same laws that govern the rest of the universe and if you are not going to put in the work, time or money required to learn how to use the medium successfully, then absolutely nothing is going to happen, either for you or for your business, no matter what anybody tells you or tries to sell you.

2 – Doing business online is more often than not extremely challenging, frustrating and sometimes even downright monotonous. Servers, sites and computers crash, internet connections go down, equipment fails, security measures get tested consistently by hackers and malicious users, software scripts have limitations, or require bug fixes and need to be constantly updated, data needs to be regularly backed up, customers get confused, lost, disappointed or extremely irate if your business processes are not clear, new technologies, strategies or competitors seem to come along just about every hour of the day to threaten your very business existence … and everyone expects you to be available online 24×7x365! If you’re not prepared to deal with all of this on a daily basis, then you really need to seriously question your decision to grow your business online.

3 – A blog is an extremely powerful tool and it can help you grow your business online fast, but it is not a “Big Red Button” that you only need to press once, then sit back and wait for it to generate you endless leads, customers and revenue. You still have to learn how to plan, design and implement sales and marketing systems, do effective keyword and online marketing research, test and analyze your results to improve your business performance,craft effective ads, emails, blog posts and sales letters that convert internet users into visitors, visitors into prospects, prospects into customers, customers into clients, clients into referrals, etc … and every else that a business requires to run successfully.

4 – If you’re NOT getting the results online that you were expecting, then ask yourself if your expectations are indeed realistic or not. Make an honest inventory of what you have put into your business in terms of planning, effort, time, learning and money. Look at your online business systems and decide if there are any tools, resources, membership sites, information guides, courses or expertise you need to purchase to help you leverage your time and efforts, or help you achieve better results faster. Avoid blaming others for any lack of results and look for the hidden opportunities in your mistakes.

5 – If you’re serious about making a success of your business online, then make sure you have systems in place that will give you an accurate measurement of your performance. Start the process using your best possible estimate (from whatever market research data you have available), and keep readjusting and finetuning your direction and efforts by realigning your performance results (i.e. where you are) with your goals and objectives (i.e. where you want to be).

6 – If you’re business blogging, check your results to see what search phrases visitors are using to find you, then find related keywords and synonyms and expand on that topic. By writing more content on a range of similar or related topics you can start to increase your blog’s visibility in a particular niche, or micro-niche and gradually help your blog gain prominence in your specific industry.

7 – There is a difference between delegating or outsourcing work to others and abdicating on your responsibility as the business owner. Successful delegation happens when you first build a system that produces measurable and consistent results in some particular area of your business, then train someone else to run your system so that you can focus on other important areas of your business. Abdication of your responsibility as a business owner happens when, instead of handing over a system for someone else to manage or improve upon, you simply hope that someone else will take over and handle, run, or solve some problem or aspect of your business that you would rather ignore or avoid dealing with.

8 – Having an active online presence has become an absolute necessity for businesses of all sizes in the new global economy. If you don’t know how to market your business online, then someone competing in your market space who does know how to promote themselves using the new available technologies will either end up putting you out of business, or at least make it harder for you to survive or even prosper financially.

9 – Don’t assume or expect that the journey will be smooth, easy, or cheap. There is a steep learning curve ahead of you and if you’re not mindful of this, it can quickly end up becoming a costly way for you to travel around in circles, or start going backwards.

10 – The bottom line: Don’t be seduced by the idea that there is a “big red magic button” you can press that will shortcut your path to business success online. Learn how to grow, market and promote your business online. Invest wisely in tools, resources, systems and expertise for hire that can help you achieve results faster, measure your results, and use these to improve your online business knowledge and your marketing skills.

If you need help getting started, I have created a step-by-step video tutorial program that shows you how to start a business blog that will help you grow your business online fast, and have also included hundreds of dollars of excellent business-building resources for FREE to help you through each of the different stages of growing your business online. For more details, please go here now: Starting A Business Blog

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