By Donna L. Johnson

Promoting your blog was the topic in a recent #BlogTrends chat on Twitter. The first question the moderator asked was, “Is paying to advertise a good way to promote your blog? Why or why not?”. One of the participants responded, “if you mean getting business cards and paying for a .com I think those are good ways to invest.”

Let me see exactly where to start with dissecting the above statement.

I came across several definitions of advertising. The one I liked best is from the Small Business Encyclopedia at Entrepreneur.com:

To call the public’s attention to your business, usually for the purpose of selling products or services, through the various forms of media, such as print and broadcast notices. (more…)

By Holly Reisem Hanna

I always thought I had really cute business cards, but after attending the Blissdom Blogging Conference and seeing the really cool designs that other bloggers had – my poor business cards paled in comparison.

We all know what fantastic marketing tool business cards can be, but what should we include on them?

Should they be clean and simple or flashy and creative?

Should you include all methods of contact – or is simplicity the key?

I went on a hunt to find out what makes for the perfect business card and it seems we can learn a lot from gemstone industry. Just like gemstones, business cards need certain characteristics to make them stand out from the crowd. (more…)