Editor's note: It's time again for another in our weekly series of PowerBlog Reviews of business weblogs. Welcome to the fifty-fourth Review.

This week's Review is about the Online Marketing blog. It's the brainchild of Lee Odden, the founder of TopRank, a search engine optimization firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

Lee is part of that growing number of professionals who use blogging as a kind of enforced discipline to stay up to date on their areas of expertise. Blogging requires them to efficiently gather news and information. The act of digesting the information and communicating it in a blog makes these professionals even more knowledgeable. Blogs are great knowledge management tools.

At the same time, Lee is providing a valuable service for clients and the public. Blogging also gives him a chance to practice what he preaches, i.e., blog optimization and promotion.

If you are writing a business blog, you are going to want to attract readers. After all, you don't want your hard work to go unnoticed, right?

I've learned quite a bit from reading this blog. You can too.

One of the things I like best about the Online Marketing blog is its niche focus. Lee adheres closely to the topic of search engine optimization, along with hard-to-find information about online marketing. That's what makes it so valuable.

For instance, Lee has an an excellent blogroll of search marketing blogs. I've noted before in these Reviews that compiling a niche-focus, single topic blogroll can be a source of competitive differentiation for a blog. People will bookmark the blog simply because of the great blogroll.

Even better, you'll find very specific posts with step-by-step instructions. Take, for instance, this post about RSS Marketing. It has enough detail to be truly useful. And it is about a subject that only the most knowledgeable insiders are aware of today. But I predict that leveraging RSS for promotion and marketing will become red hot later in 2005 and 2006. Blog posts such as this are one of the factors that set the Online Marketing blog apart.

I recommend spending 15 minutes studying the way this blog is set up and organized. Look at the header, the footer and everything in between. You'll come away with at least a few tips on blog optimization.

Now, it's time for a few lessons directly from Lee, the expert. Lee says there are three components to a well read blog: content, frequency and distribution.

"Content should be flavorful and to the point. Post often. When I started posting several times per day, our traffic increased significantly. When I invited another person to post, it helped even more.

What's great about blog marketing is that you can promote your blog as a web site to traditional search engines and directories as well as to blog/RSS search engines and directories. Using Technorati tags and maintaining bookmarks through del.icio.us and furl.net is having a modest impact on quantity of traffic but it has brought very high quality traffic.

Make meaningful, helpful posts on other blogs in your category. It's the best way to get links and create new connections. Use keywords in your post titles, archive URLs and text links to posts."

• Don't hire a PR firm. They charge a fortune to do what you can do better yourself. The exception to this rule would be the specialists who guarantee a certain result (such as x number of large market radio interviews for $500).



• Apply very early to every awards program you can find. While many awards are closed off to independent publishers, most aren't. This is a low-cost way to get a chance to call yourself an award-winning author, which helps open doors that otherwise would be closed.



• Subscribe to PR Leads. This monthly service feeds you with requests from media reporters seeking experts for particular stories. You can spend $10,000 from a PR firm and get far fewer high quality leads than you'll get in one month of PR Leads for less than $100.



• Target your market. For me, this Business Blog Tour has been much more effective (and inexpensive... and fun) than attempts to get at broad market media.



• Be very patient. The book industry moves at a stunningly glacial pace. It takes six months or more to get printed books into bookstores. Business people in particular are busy and distracted. It can take a long time and repeated exposure to get their attention.

"It is easily seen, that if every member of the race should strive to make himself the most indispensable man in his community, and to be successful in business, however humble that business might be, he would contribute much toward smoothing the pathway of his own and future generations." These words were spoken 100 years ago by Booker T. Washington, founder of both The Tuskegee Institute, now known as Tuskegee University, and The National Negro Business League, known today as The National Business League.

I have quoted Washington's statement many times and particularly to people who feel that their small one- and two-person businesses don't count as "real" businesses. Washington realized that slavery had taught American blacks many profitable skills and trades. Things like carpentry, cooking, farming, tailoring and shoemaking were seeds for businesses that could be started at home and with little or no capital. And to utilize those skills to start even the smallest business was both honorable and the right thing to do for the advancement of the race.

The philosophy behind Mr. Washington's words is filled with the entrepreneurial spirit, and the statement is as true today as it was 100 years ago. This message is not only for African Americans but also for all who want self-sufficiency and independence as entrepreneurs.