Ideally, your Facebook and Twitter programs should interact with your blog, as you create awareness and show your expertise. Your blog should always be educational and informative as this, once again, helps to rapidly build up your credibility.

When you set up a blog, you can use a number of great website development tools to help you expand it. Consider syndication, where your blog posts are sent to other blogs on the Internet, where the owners are looking for great, targeted content in your niche. Of the many seo services out there, this can be one of the most powerful techniques.

One fundamental thought you need to bear in mind is that people are always looking for social proof before they buy something online. This is why you should integrate testimonials within your main sales site as prominently as possible. Sites such as Amazon.com have done this quite well because they fully focus on social proof. Here, there are always many items of feedback related to every product concerned. They even show you “what others bought” to give you an additional “feel-good” bonus. When it comes to your blog, try and establish an interactive relationship with your readers. The commenting area in a blog is very important and if a thread starts, do everything that you can to keep it going, even if there is a small element of controversy contained within! The idea is to convince visitors that your blog is the place to be and encourage them to sign up for your RSS feed, bookmark and come back.

Bookmarking sites abound on the Internet. Here you’ll come across virtual social networks, where like-minded individuals get together to share their interest in the subject or niche. Sometimes you can find bookmarking sites that are really targeted, such as technology, while others are more generic. Work out which bookmarking sites would be best for you to join and to help promote your interest in that niche. As we have said before, regular maintenance and involvement is most beneficial. Your bookmarking accounts should be personalised, with photographs, biographies and you should aim to establish a friend network within.

While it is certainly possible to bookmark your own sites and your blog postings, for example, if you can get many others to do so as well this is far more powerful. Maybe you can find club membership where others would bookmark your content, for you? Within search sites, you would, through a reciprocal deal, bookmark their content in return. Alternatively, you can opt for virtual assistant services that will bookmark your content for you. When you have something unusual or unique to talk about, bookmarking can really help spread the word. Your content has a chance of going viral and creating a wave of traffic to your sites. While on the subject of notification, you should remember that each new blog post should be “pinged,” which is a semi automatic notification service, and helps to update the engines that your blog has new material, worthy of interest.

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an Executive Virtual Assistant who assists businesses and individuals with achieving their professional goals. Want to find out more about online business building success strategies? Contact VMF Now!