I’ve got to tell ya… as a busy business owner, a lot of bloggers have been getting on my nerves lately. Especially those who blog about the business side of blogging.

When it comes to self-importance and mis-information many of these self-appointed ‘experts’ rank right up there with the opines and opinions of the Ancient (mainstream) Media.

Debbie Weil is NOT one of those people. But some of the comments associated with one of her recent posts on the readership of blogs were the final straws that broke the camels back and pushed me off the virtual plantation in defense of my true business owner brethren.

What is a blog to a business owner anyway?

It sure as heck isn’t what full-time “professional” bloggers say it is. That’s a totally different world. A parallel universe of reality that is much more closely tied to journalism (and a job) than to business ownership.

If you’re a busy business owner, then all that a blog is to you — is a tool. A tool to get:

• Targeted traffic

• To build a qualified prospect list

• And to make more sales!

As a busy business owner running one off-line business and one click-and-mortar business, and after starting and selling three other businesses — I take offense at what many of these experts espouse as “rules” for successfully using blogs in business. Not so much for me, but how misleading that advice is for other business owners new to blogging.

I frankly don’t care how many people are subscribed to the RSS feeds on our business blogs. And I’m not all that concerned with how many people are commenting on our business blogs either. (The vast majority of people who comment are other bloggers, a limited audience.)

What I am concerned with is the positioning of our business blogs in search engines for our top keywords.

I’m concerned with prospects finding one of our products or services when they go to a search engine (any search engine) and try to find solutions to their problems.

Providing solutions to people who are looking for answers, when they are looking for those answers is what business owners are (or should be) concerned with. NOT posting on some schedule annointed with holy oil by ‘they-that-are-the-blogosphere.’

Business owners are busy, so what matters most to us is the bottom line!

Here’s what I mean…

After traveling to the mainland to close two real estate investment deals, signing a deal with a New York publisher for a series of books, facilitating a couple of seminars, and preparing to launch two new products — we’re finally back home in Hawaii.

I fire up my powerhouse desktop to do an in-depth check on our subscriber lists and see that they’ve grown by the hundreds.

I pull up our stats and tracking analysis programs and find that after over two weeks of not posting on this and other blogs, our targeted keywords are still in the top 10-20 of dozens of search engines!

(Yes, that’s right — we target not just the top three engines. But we’ve tracked tons of prospects and clients from dozens of what some would consider ‘lower level’ search engines. But that’s a story for another day. :))

I check on my good friend (and contributing author to “Business Blogging Secrets Revealed“) Thomas Pierce’s blog who due to his real-world business obligations has not posted in months. And low and behold, look at that — he’s still pulling down top search engine rankings for dozens of keywords!

Those results are what count! Those are results that can be monetized from the standpoint of a real-world business owner.

They’re a testament to good search engine optimization and good off-line marketing techniques teamed with blogging.

That’s what I’m interested in. That’s what I care about when using blogs for business growth. And if you’re a business owner — that’s what you should care about too!

Puff VS.. business boosting results

I research the search engine rankings of many of these bloggers who blog about the business of blogging. You know, they-that-are-the-blogosphere. These are bloggers telling you for instance to post multiple times per day, (while doing it themselves.) Yet… I can’t find them! At least not in the top 40 results for keywords that are directly related to what they’re trying to promote.

Sure, you can find them in Technorati (sometimes), but what normal non-blogging person searching for solutions on the web uses Technorati?

And what about something slightly more ‘mainstream’ like http://blogsearch.google.com? Most of these bloggers stating they’re expert advisors for business owners are fighting for constant positioning in the search results.

With simple SEO (search engine optimization) techniques we use in conjunction with our business blogs, we’ve locked in a pay-per-click type postilions in this new search tool (yet - we don’t pay a dime for them!)

As just one example, in Google’s blogsearch, Advanced Business Blogging appears in just such a position for our top level keyword ‘business blogging.’

This type of result is pretty easy to achieve using the right SEO tactics combined with simple blogging strategies. And with the right approach, you can even do it without the excessive posting frequency advised by so many experts. What’s not easy to achieve, and infinitely more important are top rankings in regular search engines where the general public is looking.

The ‘experts’ who advise business owners from the exclusive vantage point of those-that-are-the-blogosphere have a rude awakening coming. The assumptions they make advising owners on how to use blogging for business, are certain to crumble over the coming months.

They’ll come crashing down as the excessive burdens and tight little box of rules ‘professional bloggers’ and blogging evangelists overwhelm the business owners they were trying to help.

Busy business owners who operate in the real world with clients, cash flow, overhead, and … more to worry about than how many people are pulling their RSS feed. And busy business owners have no problem using every white hat and grey hat SEO tactic they can get their hands on.

Blogging for business DOES have its place.

It’s one of the simplest, most powerful search engine optimization and marketing tools ever put into the hands of small business owners. A tool that makes it easy to harness the power of the internet and team it with off-line strategies. And it’s an important part of an overall effective marketing plan.

But harnessing its power does not mean that you have to play by the rules of the blogosphere. Like Neo in the movie, Matrix, you must learn how to bend the rules (and sometimes break them altogether) if you’re going to achieve your ultimate potential as a business owner. Blogging is just one more area you need to do this.

As a business owner you have a destiny, a duty, and a calling to help a certain segment of society. Falling prey to those who live inside the Matrix of the blogosphere will keep you from using blogging to help you achieve that destiny.

• Thinking for yourself
• Learning to think outside the Matrix of the blogosphere while being fully cognizant of it
• And learning proven strategies that will allow you to bend its rules to your benefit.

THOSE are the practices that will set you, your business, and your profits free!Copyright © RPM Success Group Inc. 2002-2006. Other bloggers and journalists are allowed to excerpt and link to posts (as is common with bloggers,) as full credit/attribution is given to AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com and RPM Success Group Inc.

Learn how to unleash the maximum marketing power of business blogs, podcasts, and RSS (in any industry, profession, or niche) with Marketing With Business Blogs™.

John-Paul Micek is a published author and weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin. As a Click-and-Mortar Business Coach he helps small business owners integrate offline and online marketing strategies for rapid, reliable business growth. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].