This blog was started by Annabel Candy a freelance writer and copywriter.

Born in England, I've traveled in over 40 countries, lived in eight of them and have both British and Kiwi passports. But don't hold that against me.

I now bash my keyboard in Noosa, Australia, writing travel stories and travel tips on my popular travel blog Get In the Hot Spot (which all started here) and sharing blogging tips at Successful Blogging which I set up to help other writers tap into the power of blogging.

You can also find me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Google+.

5 Ways a Blog Will Improve Your Business

Some business people are quite strategic about blogging. They already know the multiple benefits to be gained from blogging and they have a clear plan on how to start their own blog and tap into those benefits.

But when I started blogging I was in the dark about how it could help my business, mainly because I wasn't interested in using blogging as a business marketing tool.

In fact, I only started blogging because I wanted to learn about blogging in case any clients were interested in it (I'm a web designer and web copywriter) but mostly I wanted to have an outlet for my creative writing.

But as my blog evolved and my readership grew I accidentally discovered how effective blogging can be as a marketing tool for small business owners so I set up Successful Blogging to share my blogging tips.

These are the five main ways blogging can help improve your business and by improve I mean grow it and increase your income.

These benefits aren't just theoretical either. They are real benefits which I've personally experienced by writing my blog and which many other small business owners are enjoying too.

If you're really serious about boosting your business and gaining a competitive edge in your field I strongly recommend you consider setting up a blog as soon as you can. Here's why.

5 Ways a Blog Will Improve Your Business

1. Find and convert new customers

New, relevant blog posts give people a reason to visit your company site that a static website never can. They also make it easier for your friends and customers to recommend you to other people and spread the word by word of mouse which is similar to word of mouth but much more far-reaching.

2. Retain customers and get repeat business

If people like your blog and subscribe to it they are giving you permission to market to them and that's powerful. Blogging is a simple and cost-effective way to keep in touch with people via email newsletters which are automatically generated each time you publish a new blog post via free services like Feedburner or paid email management services like MailChimp and Aweber.

Of course, when I say people are giving you permission to market to them you need to do that in a respectful and relevant way - usually by providing useful information which they really want to read.

3. Establish yourself as an authority in your field

The very act of writing a blog will make you become an authority in your field if you aren't already and through your blog others will rightly start to see you as the authority or go-to person in your field. Your blog posts will show people that you really care about your business, understand it and are constantly trying to improve it.

4. Get noticed by the media

Just like small business owners journalists are busy too. Journalists, newspapers, magazines, television and radio want good stories to share with their readers, viewers and listeners but they don’t have time to hunt them down. If you can send them a quick email with a link to the story all written for them on your blog with images ready to use they’ll love you for it. So blogging can get your free exposure in offline as well as online.

5. Improve your search engine ranking for your website

Blogging will help your website rank higher with the search engines because:

• Google loves website or blog content and the more content the better. A blog lets you slowly and naturally grow the content on your website.


• Google loves related content so keep your blog posts relevant to your business topic.


• It loves new content so recent blog posts will be preferred over stale content circa 2007.


• It loves links in from other websites to yours and if your blog posts are interesting and relevant other people will naturally want to link to them.

Blogging is a great way to showcase your passion, expertise and unique selling point and almost any business can benefit from blogging. It has proven benefits in terms of getting and retaining clients plus improved search engine optimisation.

Other than that blogging is also fun, a great way to improve your writing and selling skills and network.

I hope you'll give it a go so you can experience the benefits of blogging for yourself.

For the Love of Travel

I'm nuts about travel. I always have been.

I loved it as a child and I find the more I travel the more I want to travel.

I hope I get to see the whole world!

Here's a great travel blog and post that answers the questions:

Why do people travel?

Personal Writing for Writers and Bloggers

Have you seen the series on personal writing for bloggers who want to share more personal writing with their blog readers.

It covers everything bloggers and writers need to know about personal writing including storytelling tips, the benefits, getting started and what to write about. Find out how to get personal without overdoing it.

I love personal writing for fun, therapy and sharing universal experiences. We all go through a lot of the same stuff and personal writing makes the journey less lonely.

Want to get personal and create writing your blog readers can relate to? Check out these personal writing tips.

Make sure you've read blog writing tips too.

Blogging Evolution

I'm Annabel Candy, an Australian travel writer with British and Kiwi passports.This is where my blogging journey started with one post in 2006 in which I declared I was going to:

"stare fear in the face and overcome my fear of being read, my fear of being judged."

I never wrote another blog post for three years.

But since I set up my blog on my own domain name I've got thousands of lovely readers for my personal writing and travel stories at Get In the Hot Spot. I've also written a book called Successful Blogging to help other writers and small business owners tap into the power of blogging.

I hope to see you there.

Still Blogging and Web Copy Writing

I've moved my blog to its own domain name:

Inspiration, Information & Idiosyncrasies for people who want to live their dream.

By me, writer and travel fiend, Annabel Candy, now living my dream in Australia and planning more bold moves daily. Dip in, dare to dream and enjoy the journey.

We've set up our Australian business:

Internet marketing, Website Design and Web Copy Writing Queensland in Australia

Please visit, you'll be glad you did:)

New Blog : Click Here

Thanks for visiting. This blog has moved. Please click on the title above to visit:

http://www.getinthehotspot.com/

Because dreams do come true: Annabel Candy moved from New Zealand to Costa Rica and Australia with her family. To hear how she made her dreams come true, get help making your dreams a reality and find out how not to move overseas just read it and subscribe now.

Many thanks and good luck with all your travel plans!

Real Estate and the First Home Owner Grant

All new expats to Australia should be eligible for the first home owners grant so that is a nice welcome. It is currently about $14,000 for an existing house and $21,000 for a new one. It does expire in June but most sources say the government will continue it after that date. On the down side, some pundits believe this grant is what is propping up the Australian housing market which is remaining resilient compared to the 20% drops in the US and UK housing markets. Hence, if you sell up in GB, USA or NZ your house money may not go as you would have hoped. Unless things drop here in the future of course. Time will tell.
See http://www.firsthome.gov.au/ for more information.
My husband, who is a real bear, says that $14,000 is nothing anyway if the value of your home goes on to drop by 20% and that it certainly true. It is definitely a case of buyer beware.