When I saw my first blog, I wasn't impressed.
 
The first blogs I ever read were embarrassing tales of teenage
angst better left private, political diatribes from both the 
rabid right and the rabid left, and jargon-filled tech rags 
that made my eyes glaze over.
 
And yet everyone was talking about blogs and that I would soon
be left behind if I didn't have one. But they never gave me a 
simple explanation of how it would benefit me. They talked about 
RSS - you know, the obligatory "real simple syndication" - 
followed by a long, boring, techie article filled with jargon 
that wasn't simple at all. They talked about syndicating my 
site, but not how that would benefit my business.
 
No one ever told me, "Hey, fool, listen up! How would you like 
a 3 or 4 line text link to your site on thousands of other sites 
getting you tons of traffic and backlinks like crazy on all the 
SE's?"
 
If they had, trust me. I'd have been blogging my heart out!
 
Eventually I did start a blog simply because it was getting 
harder and harder to get my ezine delivered. This particular 
ezine delivers tips to network marketers. Now if you've had any 
experience with spam filters, you know that any email with the 
"M" word (MLM) or the "N" word (network marketing) practically 
lights up the scoreboard! I even tried using "M*L*M" or 
"net*work mark@eting." But that got old eal fast. Trying to 
sound like a halfway intelligent professional while writing 
like a first grader on their first day of school just didn't 
cut it. I was starting to confuse even myself!
 
So I decided to start a blog, and then just email my list with 
the link to the article every week. Not only has that greatly 
increased the day to day traffic to my site, but I discovered 
a couple of interesting benefits along the way.
 
One big bonus was how easy it was to publish to my site. Doing 
things the old way, I wrote and delivered my ezine. Then I 
converted the article to html and FTP'd it up to my site. Then 
I had to download and update my article archive page. Then I 
had to download and update my sitemap. Then I would download my 
index page and add a little blurb about the new article to get 
it indexed faster. All told, several hours of mind-numbingly 
boring work.
 
Not so with a blog. I just write my articles in NoteTab, then 
copy and paste them into my Blogger control panel. It adds all 
the HTML and places it into my chosen template, FTP's it to my 
site, and updates my archives - all in the blink of an eye! 
Talk about an easy-to-use content management system. Even a 
10-year-old could have done it.
 
After I posted my first article on my new blog, I realized I 
could get some new backlinks to my site by submitting the blog 
to some of the many blog directories. So I spent a few hours 
sumbitting my blog.
 
But my eyes didn't really open until a couple of weeks later. I 
started realizing I was making more sales than usual and popped 
in to check my web stats. To my astonishment, I realized I was 
getting 50-100 more visitors per day. I checked my referrer logs 
and then my backlinks on Yahoo and found over 100 new traffic 
sources and links!
 
I clicked through on some of those links and then a big 
lightbulb lit up in my head. Those new referrers were from 
the many people using RSS feeds on their sites. And their site 
visitors were actually clicking on those links and finding my 
site.
 
Now I was hooked!
 
Think about that - 50-100 more visitors per day, and 100 new
backlinks. All from one article that I posted to a brand new 
blog that took 5 minutes to set up on Blogger.com for free! How 
many free marketing techniques get those kind of results right 
out the door? And how much better would my results be from 
regular posts to my blog and submitting it to even more blog 
directories? Or from simultaneously posting those blog posts 
to article directories?
 
That was 2 months ago, and I'm discovering that the answer is 
every bit as exciting as I had hoped! Not only that, but I'm 
discovering more and more ways to improve my results. And ways 
to use blogs in new and exciting ways that I don't hear other 
people talking about.
 
I know that many marketers are under the impression that blogs 
are just for geeks, or that blogs are just some new toy everyone 
is getting but no one knows what to do with. If that has been 
your belief, I hope you'll take a second look! 

For more tips and ideas on how to make money blogging, be sure
to visit my "Why Marketers Should Blog" weblog at (what else)
http://www.WhyMarketersShouldBlog.com