It only takes a few minutes and is free. When you do this right it can bring a lot of good, targeted traffic to your site. Unfortunately many people do not fully understand this concept and there are many people abusing the system.

So what's a blog? Blogging is just a short name for a web log. These are actually short comments written about personal matters or your business. They are similar to a daily diary.

Different types of blog:

+ News

+ Teasers

+ General comments

+ Comments leading to new content or products on your site

+ Blogging and RSS feeds

Here is how to set up a blog:

1. Make a blog at http://www.WordPress.com

2. Put relevant keywords in the title.

3. Use keywords for your display name (In settings click on publishing and make sure ping weblogs .com is set to yes)

Here are some tips to make your blog efficient:

Make it relevant: Attract targeted visitors by keeping your blog relevant.

Many people will just make personal blogs. Now this is a waste of time as these types of blogs will not draw the right crowd. Make your blog a business blog attracting those who are interested in your business and gaining you potential customers.

Make it interesting: Make your blogs interesting-compel your visitors to click through to your website and content. Always link to interesting content on your website-pre sell your visitors with all sorts of interesting content and resources about your products and services.

Get indexed in Google fast-use blogger.com (Google's own blog site) to make your blog and link back to content on your site. Googlebots will find your blog and follow your link to your site. Do not advertise here: Do not do blatant ads-readers do not appreciate this and nor does Google.

Here are some tips for marketing:

* Make signature files with your blog link included- use in all emails

* Put your blog link in your bio box for every article you distribute

* Submit to all the blogging directories

* Promote your blog link in your newsletter, on your website and anywhere

* Blog often-every 1-2 days

* Attaching your blog to an RSS feed

So how can you improve your Page Rank with blogs?

Blogging will help you improve your Page Rank in the following ways:

* By getting you indexed quickly into Google's search engine

* Providing valuable resources to visitors-improving quality

This is one of the easiest and cost effective promotions you can do. Because it is so easy and free there is a fair amount of abuse of this method of promotion. You will need to be very careful how you blog for this to be completely effective. Try to always remember the Google way. Write quality and interesting blogs; use anchor text links with good keywords and link them back to good content. If you do this you will raise your Page Rank and see your sales improve.