This is a good news/ good news story!  In spite of shrinking budgets due to a tough economy, or perhaps you are just starting your business, you can implement Internet marketing strategies with little or no cost methods!

Maybe you have a website, but it needs to be updated, or you’re long overdue with getting your site up, or you want to launch a new product or service.  Now is not the time to put those projects on the back burner due to “money”.

In fact with a little elbow grease and ingenuity you can update your website, or launch a new website on a shoestring budget.  The web doesn’t know that there is an economic crisis going on, and it just continues to grow at the speed of light.  So don’t miss out.  Take Action now, you will be glad you did as the economy improves and your sales begin to grow again.

This is the first in a series of articles on how to apply internet marketing tools and techniques with little to no money!  The first topic looks at a powerful and easy to use tool…blogs! Search engines love blogs, it’s easy to use the software to write posts, and good content spreads thru the web…faster than you can say click!

WordPress for Your Blog

The ease of use, speed with which you can get your blog up and running and the hundreds of easy ways to customize your blog, make WordPress the blogging software of choice.  And best of all, it’s FREE!   To get started you simply visit WordPress .com.

Web-Hosting of Your Blog…2 Options

FREE

When you arrive at Wordpress.com, you have two choices regarding hosting.  The first is to have Wordpress host your blog, at no charge to you!  If you select this option, your blog will be up and running in minutes. 

You can choose your own blog name to individualize it.  For example, if you want your blog name to be Travel Tips for China, your blog’ domain name will be: http://traveltipsforchina.wordpress.com.

Self-Hosting

If you want to host your blog under your own domain name, then you choose the self-hosted version of WordPress software.  In this case, your domain name would be: www.traveltipsforchina.com.

Again, the software is free, but there will be costs associated with registering your domain name, paying hosting fees and (if you’re not technical) service fees to download the Wordpress software to your site and get it set up.  You will have some setup costs and ongoing hosting fees, but these should not exceed the cost of a weeks worth of your favorite Starbucks drink!

Add a link to your blog from your current website, and guess what your old web 1.0 site, has just joined the web 2.0 world!

WordPress Blog Design

WordPress comes with two designs (or themes) installed and ready to go.  They are the WordPress Classic and WordPress default themes.  After you have downloaded the WordPress software, you will find this information in the Design Tab on Your Administration panel.

In the event that you want something a little more interesting, WordPress has also provided a link to it’s free library of other WordPress Designs.  If you click on the link, you will be able to peruse over 500 FREE themes.  If you find one that you like, just follow the Wordpress instructions to upload the theme folder to your wp-content/themes directory and it will be ready to go!

If you want even more customization, there are many templates that you can purchase for under $100.00.  You can read about some of my recommendations here.

Add your Logo and blog name to the blog header and congratulations, you are up and running on a shoestring budget.

To learn more about how to write your first post, add photos and multimedia, simply visit http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page.  This is a WordPress tutorial that will take you thru each step in the process.  If you’re like me and prefer having a hard copy book by your side, I recommend WordPress for Dummies. In traditional Dummies style, it provides easy to follow step-by-step instructions that will make you a WordPress pro in no time.

Blog Sites to Inspire You

In case you’re still not sure if this is for you or how you would use a blog, here are a couple of great examples covering a wide variety of topics:

Is your business related to food, then visit http://www.eatmedelicious.com for inspiration

Interested in Alaska Politics, then visit http://mudflats.wordpress.com

Are you a health care provider, then visit www.highonhealth.org

Is your business about business, visit http://virtualbusinessconcepts.wordpress.com

How about real estate, check this blog for inspiration www.phoenixrealestateguy.com

And in case you’re wondering, you’re in good company when you use WordPress.  In addition to millions of entrepreneurs and small business owners, large companies like Dell, Delta, CNN, CNN Money, Xerox, Southwest Airlines, Sony, to name a few use the power of WordPress and Blogs to market their service and products!