Online blogging is a wonderful way to impart pertinent information to the rest of the world. And, as a result, many people are taking advantage of this avenue of expression. If you are in business, however, and you want to let your blog "do the job" for you, you probably need to adhere to a different set of "rules" than the individual who is simply blogging as a hobby, to vent frustration, or to seek an audience to pontificate to. On this article, let's call the business blogger as a "Professional Blogger," and the hobbyist blogger as a "Social Blogger.

The Social Blogger, typically, is mostly blogging for entertainment. As a result, they blog when they have a few extra minutes or when they get around to it, and they blog about a myriad of topics. One day they may write about the wonderful new restaurant they ate at the night before, and five days later they might vent about how poorly their favorite baseball team is doing. They will talk the high price of gas, or how they have begun their Christmas shopping earlier this year. While their thoughts and approach might be very focused, even profound, in each individual blog, they tend to take a "shotgun" approach where their choice of topics is concerned -- spreading a wide range of thoughts to their reading public.

The Professional Blogger, on the other hand, can’t pursue such a haphazard approach to their blogging -- or at least they shouldn’t. Rather, the Professional Blogger needs to be blogging with a specific purpose in mind, always mindful of the fact that their blog site should strive for a depth of content in what they write. Their blogging has to be intentionally focused on areas of expertise -- and they must also purpose to provide a steady flow of content posts per week. They must continually be adding quality content to their blog site, to bring back readers for more. They must not be lackadaisical about this -- they are using this as a major part of their marketing plan and therefore must attend to it constantly!

The Professional Blogger needs to be targeting keywords that they want to win a Page 1 ranking on in Google, Yahoo or Bing. Once these target terms are determined, they pursue these top page rankings by creating best in class content surrounding those keywords, and, as a result, they also establish themselves as an expert in their field.

While it may seem easy to define keywords you want to write about, the real trick is to isolate the "winnable" words or phrases, since what's most important is picking terms to blog about that both relate to your expertise, and have some potential to win you a Page One Ranking. Page One rankings will get your blog qualified visitors, who may convert into names to your email list, qualified leads, product or service buyers, donors, etc.

The subtlety of finding Internet success though, can find you, like the old TV character Maxwell Smart, "missing it by just that much." Let me give you an illustration.

Suppose you want to win a page one ranking for "e-mail fund raising," You already have a wealth of information on the subject, and have been most successful in helping clients with the endeavor. You now, however, want to use the Internet to "recruit" new clients, and decide that blogging is the route to go. So, you diligently begin adding appropriate keyword content to your blog and, lo and behold, nobody is beating down your door to have you help them. The reason? People are not searching on line for "e-mail fundraising," they are searching for "ephilanthropy" -- by the millions!

Obviously, this situation could be frustrating to the point of devastation! To determine the keyword marketing terms to work at, you can either hire a Premier Blogging Service company such as Randall Mains' company Pathmaker Marketing, or you need to invest hours, days, or possibly weeks to research them yourself, using Google's Keyword Tool or something similar.

Determining your area of expertise should, at least theoretically, be a little easier. However, you may want to take a broad term and "narrow down" your area of expertise. Let’s use our example of "e-mail fundraising." Fundraising is a term used by non-profit organizations. Now, you may want to concentrate on e-mail fundraising for churches. To be more specific, you may want to be an expert on e-mail fundraising for churches with under 500 members. Once you determined what you want your "niche" to be and you have accurately identified the marketing keywords you want to win pages for, you can begin to employ your blogs as a valuable sales tool!

The bottom line is this: when blogging, make use of targeting keywords that you've thoroughly researched so that you know you can win Page One rankings that will bring you readers. That process is called Keyword Marketing, and it can pay off in spades for you.