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A business blog is an asset to corporate bloggers and individual entrepreneurs alike. It's a source of low-cost, highly targeted leads, a showcase for your expertise, an opportunity to build relationships with your customers, and a magnet for traffic to your website. Wow!

Like social media, your blog lets you connect with your customers in a more personal way. It's interactive. It makes you a living human being instead of static website. People can get to know you and begin to know, like and trust you.

Your blog gives you a chance to demonstrate your expertise and establish your credibility. This is where you show your customers what you know with your posts.

And since your posts change frequently, this will build your credibility.

Through your blog, you have the most cost-effective marketing at your fingertips. It combines low-cost marketing and promotion of your products with a way to get information on your target market through their comments and your stats.

If you have a website, writing as little as one post a week on your blog will increase your standing in the search engines. If you SEO your posts, you'll climb higher and faster.

As you can see, successful blogging is a bit art and a bit science. One way to gain valuable insight into it is by listening to already successful bloggers.

In The Secret to Making Money with Your Blog, Nicole Dean recorded interviews with several successful bloggers and is kind enough to share them. Nicole asked them all one question, "How do you personally make money with your blog or blogs?”

Lain Ehmann's advice: The key to making money through your blog is to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. She currently has streams of income making money in

Affiliate sales -Information products -Online courses -Live events -Sponsored posts -Adsense -CPA campaigns -Continuity programs

Still, her advice is to focus your efforts - maximize your efforts with one thing before moving on to another. Then keep building.

Susanne Myer's advice: She uses her blog for two main purposes: building her list and making product recommendations. She tailors her content to the interests of the visitors to each blog. For instance, on her blog for affiliate marketers, she only discusses affiliate marketing. First, she concentrates on getting visitors to join her list. Then, she monetizes by offering affiliate and her own products.

Shannon Cherry's advice: Shannon's approach to her many blogs is that they make money or they're gone. She monetizes with links to her products and services in posts and with affiliate links. She also hosts press releases and announces product and service launches. She makes it a point to monetize all her posts with links and calls to action. Fler advice is to love blogging, provide a service, but monetize everything.

Nicole Dean's advice: Nicole agrees with each person interviewed. She provides valuable information but monetizes everything with links to products. She repurposes her content. For instance, these interviews are blog posts but will also be turned into a book. She builds her list but also asks her list to share her information and product links. Fler advice is to ask your readers what they want you to do for them. You can't read their minds.

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Even if we are self-employed, we constantly work with others in the form of customers, colleagues, employees, and outsourcers. We can react in one of four ways: being passive, being aggressive, being manipulative, and being assertive.

Being passive often means waiting for others to take action before we move on a project. This leaves the fate of your project in the hands of others. The passive person has such low self-esteem that he either automatically agrees with others or even runs away.

Being aggressive usually means that we move without considering others' feelings or ideas, which can cause resentment. Aggressive behavior is competitive; the goal is to win over others.

Being manipulative means getting what we want through devious means and making others feel guilty. It is indirect aggression. Manipulative people fear exposure if they are direct and feel it's safer to control and manipulate rather than confronting and being rejected.

Being assertive involves having respect for the people we work with. It is rooted in high self-esteem and is most likely to give us the results we desire. We don't wait for others to act for us, we don't act without consideration for others when necessary, and we don't try to indirectly control and manipulate others. Instead, assertive people negotiate to reach win-win results.

It might surprise you to know that we all use all four patterns at times. These behaviors are established in us from an early age, and we may not be aware when we're using them. But with some awareness and determination, we can change these behaviors if we want to.

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Once you have set up your account and filled out your profile, what is your next step? Like any social site you want to start interacting with people. One of the easiest ways to do this is by joining LinkedIn Groups.

Before you go ahead and start joining think about the type of groups that would be beneficial to you. What type of people are you looking to connect with? Are you using LinkedIn primarily to find work or to generate leads and contacts for your business?

If you want to promote your services and generate leads then look for LinkedIn Groups that could use what you have to offer. At the same time join groups related to your area of expertise. This way you can offer advice and tips to people, plus this will help build a solid relationship and brand you as a professional.

As we mentioned before LinkedIn will automatically recommend groups for you on your home page. These recommendations are based on how you filled out your profile information. So this area is a good place to start when searching for suitable groups.

The Create a Group is a good feature if you cannot find any suitable groups to join, or if you want to start your own group on Linkedln. This might be a great option for starting a local business network or for a creating a specific niche group.

The Linkedln Group Directory is huge so you want to take some time to go through it to find suitable groups. Look for groups that have a good number of members and ones that are active.

With most groups you have to apply for membership within the group and will need to be approved first. This may be done quickly or it could take a few days. You will be notified by email once you are approved and then it is time to start getting active in your group.

It is important to not join too many groups at first, otherwise your entire day could be taken up with posting and commenting in the group. Instead it is recommended to just join a handful of groups first and then see what the group has to offer. If you are not receiving any valuable content or engagement then leave that particular group and join another.

When being active in the group it is wise to offer advice and helpful tips to other members. Provide them with answers to their questions and be sure to comment on their articles or other posts which they make.

Only after you have been an active member in the group for a while is it a good idea to promote yourself or offer your services. Done the correct way this will look like a natural advancement and not blatant self-promotion.