HomeBizNotes.com 
We’ve mentioned here that blogging has become a great promotional tool for businesses, home enterprises included.   In Boost Your Home Business with Blogging I’ve given you suggestions for using a blog for your business.  Then in What Should Home Business Owners Blog About presents more ideas on how a blog can work for you.   At Tips on Maximizing a Blog for Your Home Business, you’ll find additional information.
Now Liz Fuller and Laura Spencer at Business and Blogging give you a checklist so you can determine whether your home business blog measures up.  Take a look at Business Blogs: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Do you …read more

Are you always looking for new tips and ideas for promotion?  You know, that new source of inspiration…
Why not try MySpace, as Kevin at Buzz Networker suggests?
I haven’t set myself up on MySpace yet, although I must do this…especially after reading Kevin’s post.  In Using MySpace to Drive Traffic: a One-Month Test, he sets out to prove, over the course of a month, that this method of promotion really helps one’s business.
“I decided to share some hard numbers and show you how effective it can be,” he says.  Kevin used two studies to do this.
“MySpace is a gold mine for marketing, be …read more

  I’m pleased to announce that guest blogger Yvonne Russell is joining me here at Home Biz Notes as a co-blogger.  Yvonne hosts the very popular Grow Your Writing Business blog and has written several guest posts for Home Biz Notes.
Yvonne writes from Australia and is knowledgeable about traditional businesses as well as online ones.  If you’ve read her guest posts, you’ve already learned about her expertise. 
These posts included:
How to Get the Most Out of Your Advertising Flyers -  Basic Test Marketing  
Start Your Own Specialist Home Based Bookstore
Yvonne will begin posting this week and will include more information for you …read more

I was asked to write a guest post, Virtual Blog Tours – The Latest Innovation for Promoting Your Writing,  for Yvonne Russell’s Grow Your Writing Business.  Going on a virtual blog tour has become a popular technique for promoting one’s writing business and books.  I’ve hosted a number of writers at my author blog, Mary Emma’s Potpourri of Writing and encourage writers to try this method of promotion.
I’ve also interviewed blog tour coordinator Dorothy Thompson on this blog, as she developed this as a home business.  If you’d like to learn more about blog touring or hosting, check out my post at Yvonne’s blog.

We’ve discussed blogging as a way to reach your customers and inform them when you’re operating a home business.  This can be a business on the Internet or one in your home where customers come for products and services.
However, blogging in itself has become, for some people, a way to earn a living.  Although most don’t earn enough to give up their regular job or another home business, a few have reached that point and can earn a good income from this pursuit.
For Richard McManus, of New Zealand, who operates the Read/WriteWeb blog, this has become a career, with his …read more

Bloggers usually enjoy hearing from other bloggers in the form of comments.  Some write their blogs simply as an outlet and a way to share what they’re doing.
Others, who relate blogging to their home businesses, find that comments are helpful in getting an idea of what their customers like and even don’t like.  So they wonder how to increase comments and input on their blog.
Yvonne Russell, of Grow Your Writing Business, has written a great post about comments, Do You Make Readers Run a Comment Obstacle Course?  Even though Yvonne’s blog concerns the writing business, the information she supplies regarding blog comments …read more

Frequently, over the past month, I’ve discussed the advantage of using blogs for a home business…to inform your customers, publicize your products and services, and simply to add interest to what you offer.  I feel blogs are going to become more and more popular as an effective PR method.
How does one learn to maximize a blog for a home business? 
Check out Yvonne Russell’s post, Using a Blog for Your Writing Business,  at her Grow Your Writing Business blog.  She has researched this topic and presents a number of tips that could be utilized by many types of home businesses.
Yvonne, in rethinking her …read more