They are very versatile and easy to manage, compared to a big Website.

They offer a place for people to comment and share insights.

And they look good! Well, most of them anyway...

But perhaps most important, for a small business owner, is the blog's potential for making money.

In the lines that follow, I outline the basic strategy for creating a Blog Hub, which can then become the center of your small business's online marketing efforts.

A VISITOR-FRIENDLY SPACE ON THE WEB

Blogs are some of the most visitor-friendly places on the Web.

Because they are non-threatening.

When people think of a blog, they don't think about getting a sales pitch.

They think about receiving information.

Your blog's first and foremost job is to gather folks together (think of your blog as a virtual meeting place for the people you reach out to in your business) and provide them lots of information, along with an opportunity to interact with you and other visitors through comments.

That's what they expect when they come, and you don't want to let them down, right?

Moreover, along with the great information you provide, people will (thanks to the Blog Hub Strategy) look for an opportunity to take the next step and do business with you.

THE BLOG HUB STRATEGY AND YOUR "FEEDER SPOKES"

So once you have a blog in place, you need to start to get visitors to it, so it won't just be a ghost town. Remember, the search engines will take some time to find you, so if you just rely on your content to get search engine attention and visitors, you might have to wait awhile.

With your blog positioned as the center or "hub" of your online marketing efforts. however, you can start feeding your own traffic in.

And you do this by adding "spokes" in the way of feeder sources that bring you visitors.

These feeder spokes are such things as links from your social networks, links from your article bio boxes, links from forum posts, links from other blogs, links from your other websites, etc.

Your blog is the starting point for people to really get to know you personally, since it's the part of your social media sphere that offers you the best opportunity to not only establish your identity as a businessperson, but also to show off your expertise.

MAKING YOUR BLOG "STICKY"

A blog with high quality content is what used to be and still occasionally is referred to as a "sticky site."

This means that people will bookmark you and come back at regular intervals, most commonly when you post new content. Having good content is an integral part of a Blog Hub Strategy, since your content is why people come visit you in the first place.

Plus each time someone comes back, your relationship with them is cemented further. That's why you absolutely MUST post regularly to your blog if you want to use it as any kind of a sales and marketing funnel. By posting regularly to your blog, you feed your visitors' hunger for information. The Web is an information medium, after all. People are starving for good information on tons of topics.

You then need a way to follow up with people. This is normally done through email, rather than through your RSS feed. Utilizing the Blog Hub Strategy as a marketing tool means using your blog to make money, and the best way to make money from your readers is to follow up with them by email at regular intervals with more great content and an occasional irresistible offer just for them.

You also need to implement monetization features on the blog itself. These features include things like paid advertising, links to sales pages for affiliate offers, reseller offers, and products or services you provide personally.

Try not to do any heavy selling within the parameters of your blog itself.

IN A NUTSHELL...

Here then is a quick rundown of the 4 central tenets of the Blog Hub Strategy from a marketing perspective:

1) Send visitors to your blog via social networks, links in directories, links in your article bio boxes, links from your other websites, and anyplace else you can think of.

2) Post plenty of solid, informative content on your blog that will demonstrate your expertise in your business field and that will also help people. Don't feel like you are "giving away the farm." You can never give away too much. Giving away valuable information will only endear you to people more, despite what some naysayers might say.

3) Have a way to capture visitors' email addresses so you can follow up with them by email with your offers, updates, general news, and just to keep in touch.

4) Monetize by selling advertising and by having links in sidebars to sales pages where people can click through to and thus have the opportunity to purchase from you. Try not to do any heavy selling within your blog posts.

The Blog Hub Strategy is a formidable marketing weapon and is not being used to its full potential by most bloggers, which is why many of them are not making much money.

It is a highly effective and profitable strategy!