The plethora of blogs to choose from is amazing!  We can post blogs about dog training, health care remedies, shoe trends, business advice and pretty much anything you can imagine.

Blogs are great for keeping up on the latest and greatest in the world and can also be beneficial for link building and driving traffic to your website. Regularly posting accurate and interesting subjects to your blog is the key to having a healthy blog life.  Once you create and generate readers you are bound to succeed.

Blogs can be created and utilized by anyone.  If you know how to turn on your computer and search via the engines online you can create a blog.  Very little technical knowledge is needed which is great for small business owners to large business owners or you and your friends.

Here are a few links to some user-friendly, free blog sites to help you get started:

• WordPress
• Blogger
• blog.com
• thoughts.com

If you’re new to the whole blogging craze and just aren’t quite ready for your own blog, you can start by posting on other people’s blogs. Find a blog that’s related to your business in some way, but that’s not a competitor, and start by replying and commenting on its posts.

Remember the most challenging part of a blog is posting creative and accurate information to capture an audience.  If you know who your audience is, what they like and what their interests are, then you are set.  If you are unsure you may want to do a little research or test market your idea’s before you start the posting process.

Turn your business on and start blogging.

It was Black Friday yesterday and if you weren’t up early morning shopping the deals, perhaps it wasn’t the worst idea to hold back and miss the holiday rush.  For myself, I’ve never been motivated to go out to shop the deals the day after Thanksgiving fearing long lines and crazy shoppers.  In addition, I can tell you from experience working in retail that I would dread working it because many shoppers seemed to care more about the products they were buying rather than the people that are serving them.

In any regards, I’m sure that the shopping reports will soon be out to tell us how bleak the future economy looks.  So with all the issues surrounding us about how money is tight, the stock market looks grim, and sales are down, I though we could all use a little break from some of the headaches and look at some free places to promote your company’s Website online without spending a single dime except for an Internet connection.

Free Directories- probably one of the oldest resources available to promote your Website for free is in Web related directories ranging from general interest to niche directories.  In recent months, Google and other major search engines have placed less emphasis on directories as a linking tactic, but I still recommend to clients that they are a good place to start, just don’t over do them.  Below are the free directories I believe worthwhile and shouldn’t take you more than a couple of minutes to submit to.  If you would like more to submit to, be sure to check out Info Vilesilencer for a complete list:

• DMOZ
• Liberians Index
• Illumirate

Start a Blog- probably one of the best things you can do to improve your Websites link popularity (aka- boost your search engine rankings) and drive traffic to your Website is by starting a blog.  Having a blog on your Website does a couple of immediate things: it adds syndicatedable content to your website, adds more content that other website owners may want to link to, and offers 100’s of other places to submit your Website including free and paid blog directories.  If you currently don’t have a blog, here are some great places to start (please note that the below sites do not require hosting):

• Blogger
• WordPress
• Livejournal
• Windows Live Space

Once you have started your blog, Top Rank’s Online marketing Blog publishes a great up to date list of Blog Directories you can submit to.

MicroBlogging Sites- if you are able to grasp the above concept of blogging, you may want to jump into the arena of microblogging (Define).  In short, instead of blogging entire articles, you share thoughts and activities that occur through everyday life.  It’s like texting on your phone with the possibility of reaching the whole world.  Sound interesting? Then check out the power of Twitter and Plurk.

Social Networking Sites- if you haven’t entered the social media landscape, I would make this a 2009 MUST goal.  They aren’t hard to get involved in and the useful resources they offer are immense. For business networking I recommend: Linkedin & Merchant Circle.  If you would like to get your company in touch with a younger demographic and claim your space in some of the most popular social destinations online, check out Facebook and MySpace.

Free business search engine listings- even if you don’t have a Website, you can still get your company into the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  Each of them offer free business listings that allow you to list all the relevant information about your company including your address, phone number, coupons, and more.  Check to see if you are already listed, but even if you are, it isn’t a bad idea to check them out carefully and make sure that they are 100% accurate.  (Tip- many of them use “user ratings” to rank their local search results.  Thus, find yourself a friendly client to give you a good review…wink, wink.)

• Google Local Business Center
• Yahoo Local
• Windows Live Local

Stay tuned, because in part II, I’ll cover several others including where to submit your shopping feeds, press releases, and more.  In the meantime, make sure you check out the resources above and that your company has good presense in each.