It’s true; I came of age during the 60s. While this places me in some people’s stratospheric age groups, my age is merely a number to me and I’m thrilled to have grown up in such interesting times. Being a Baby Boomer surrounded by Hippies and other sorts of rebels brought many ideals to my purview … some more palatable than others but each of them born from a cry for freedom by my generation.

After recently re-theming my GetIncomeBlog.com, my interest in writing to it has been renewed, along with the traffic that comes to my site. I use several tools to determine how you all get here and, during the past month, the viewership statistics that I’ve been monitoring inform me that there are folks out there who appreciate my articles. Seeing what keywords you’re using is also fascinating.

I don’t write any of my articles to obtain your admiration, however. I write them because of a conversation I’ve had with newer online marketers or offline business owners has reminded me of something that will help them and want to pass along this information to you too. Whether or not you are a grizzled veteran, reminders about how things work in business and the entrepreneurial world is helpful.

I read such an article myself today at Yaro Starak’s blog. This young man is brilliant in his writing and has really done well for himself by blogging. I was unaware of this site until today when I was evaluating a competitor’s backlinks. Even though the article I read at Yaro’s blog wasn’t brand new, it spoke to many things that I’ve been writing about lately.

A colleague recently opined that a blog was nothing more than an online diary. Network marketers, BizOp chasers, and another group of business people whom I will lovingly refer to as “Elitists” tend to say that blogging is not important. But people like Yaro convince me and others who are determined to establish an Online Brand image that having a blog with high-quality content is essential. I can’t think of one reputable top gun marketer who isn’t using a blog as a component of their branding strategy.

But let’s get back to the statistics on my blog. On a “bad day” here at GetIncomeBlog.com, I am getting about 5 – 10 times more traffic that I used to get on a “good” day and I’m just beginning to ramp up. On a “bad” day, I spend very little time thinking about the “low” traffic volume. I merely smile and tell myself that everything is relative … a canon of my youth.

Although social network sites are a great venue for acquainting yourself with new people and finding potential business partners and recruits, each site has its own nuances.  If you are a blogger, some are much easier to feed through RSS than others.  MySpace makes it a little more difficult than most.

While researching the best method to feed my blog posts to my MySpace profile tonight, I happened upon the most useful site.  These wonderfully helpful people made it easy for me create a nice looking widget that stealthily produced an RSS feed to MySpace.  I would like to express Kudos to the folks at http://www.springwidgets.com! 

Although my interest in internet technology has led me to great proficiency with website design and delivery, my real skill lies in being curious enough to want to know how things work … and not giving up when it isn’t straight forward.  Technology may seem tedious to many but it is my belief that, even though some tasks can be outsourced, knowing how it is done helps a lot when negotiating services fees. 

Website delivery is a hobby that is also profitable for me but there are many more skills in my tool chest that my inherent curiosity has led me to develop.  As an internet marketing professional, I have spent a lot of time researching how other internet marketers conduct their businesses.  I wouldn’t recommend some methods but having awareness about them helped me determine what sort of internet marketer I wanted to be and how to go about attracting the sorts of people I’d like to be in business with me. 

If you keep in mind that you are the product, every communication you put on the internet is part of your brand image.  If you are consistent in your message and careful to not muddy your branding strategy, people who are researching you will see that.  If your goal is to be a leader, you must demonstrate that you have a vision others can follow and something that will help them accomplish their goals.