Don't count on Obama's stimulus plan to help your green business survive the economic downturn. With a tough economy and increased online competition, your green business needs a blog to be competitive.

Blogging is the least expensive way to market, as it is just a fraction of the cost of television or print advertising, and most importantly, in can drive lasting traffic, if done correctly.

Blogs are most effective when combined with search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing. Ensuring your blog is SEO-friendly will give you more traffic, more links and better search results.

Making your content appealing and shareable through social media, will generate more traffic, encourage even more links, and give you additional user generated content through commenting.

Blogs + SEO + Social Media = Inbound Marketing Axis of Good

In the Web 1.0 days, marketing was focused on the 4 P's: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. In the Web 2.0 era, marketing can now be classified into inbound and outbound.

Inbound marketing is permission-based marketing and involves attracting customers to you through word-of-mouth marketing, community building, social sharing, social bookmarking, etc. Primary tools of inbound marketing includes blogs, social media, search engines, RSS syndication, free tools, trials, ebooks and public relations. Conversely, outbound marketing is an interruption in your customers’ lives and can include anything from trade shows, direct mail, email, telemarketing, television and radio ads.

Inbound marketing is not only more effective than outbound marketing, it is less expensive and more sustainable. Many inbound media campaigns only require you to invest your time. Inbound marketing also has a longer term return on investment. Years after that magazine is sent to the recycling bin, your wildly popular, resource-rich blog posts will live on the Internet and attract visitors.

Google Loves Blogs

One of the biggest benefits to having a blog is the opportunity for search engine optimization. Google, and other search engines, love blogs! Blogs generally mean content will be updated on a continual basis -- more often than a website may be updated. The more you update your blog, the more Google will crawl and index it, and the more search engine traffic you will get, especially for long-tail keyword content that you didn't have the real estate for in your website.

Since you have complete control over your blog’s content, you can include as many of your targeted keywords as is appropriate. Whether you are writing about green furniture or green marketing, you can fill your blog with the keywords that are important to your business and relevant for your niche. If a potential customer finds your blog in a search query and likes what you have to say, that person is likely to click over to your website and investigate your products and services.

Which brings us to another great SEO benefit -- blogs provide additional linking opportunities. Search engines like links and you can use your blog as a great way to create more internal links to your website, as well as attract external links from other sites. As you know, the more links your site has, the better it will rank.

Next Page; Blogging 101