Blog consultant Wayne Hurlbert analogizes blog consulting with religious evangelism:

Whether the company is a traditional bricks and mortar business, an online business venture, or both, a business blog can pay huge dividends for any business bottom line.

The benefits are numerous, ranging from improved search engine rankings, to better customer relations, to more effective public relations, to ever more powerful marketing. Blogging succeeds in all of these areas. We all know those blog advantages to be true.

What we need to do now, is spread the word.

As bloggers, we need to become missionaries for the concept of business blogging. Some bloggers refer to those who spread the blogging gospel as blog evangelists. While I hesitate to consider the business blogs to be in the realm of religion or cults, I do understand the zeal for sharing the good news….If you have business associates and clients, you should be recommending that they add a business blog component to their online marketing efforts.

I tell business owners about the “power of the blog” every chance I get. Acquiring such a low-cost, effective marketing tool should be standard operating procedure for any business.

According to a recent study at Glamorgan University Business School in Wales, women and men prefer different features on web sites. “Masculine” and “feminine” pages on business sites could become the latest trend.

I love cake. In fact, I love cake so much, I look at people who hate cake as if they’re Martians.

“You don’t like cake?” I exclaim. “What kind of human being doesn’t like cake? Cake is so good.”

After scenes like that, I’m usually worked up enough to stop by CakeLove or Love Cafe, two stores owned and operated by Warren Brown. I secretly hope he’ll be there on days I go in to scan a myriad of choices. Will it be a $7 slice of chocolate or cheese cake, or a $3 vanilla cupcake with lemon frosting? Man, just thinking about it…but it’s only 8:30 in morning. The store’s probably not open yet anyway.

Brown has been in the store during most of my visits, but he’s usually behind the counter with a plastic cap on his head mixing dough. One time I saw him in Love Cafe sitting on one of the couches.

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But is that really him? Comments are being moderated, so the one I just left hasn’t appeared yet. Trump writes:

Recently former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski was convicted for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the company. It was his second go-round in court — the first one ended in a mistrial. You may remember Mr. Kozlowski from the original trial. A video of his lavish party on an Italian island, allegedly paid for with company funds, was last year’s scandal du jour. The retrial was a more low-key affair, but it served to remind us of how much business corruption there has been over the past few years.

The people at the forefront of these squalid affairs give business a bad name. Maybe they’re greedy, maybe they’re “ethically challenged,” but ultimately they’re incompetent. If you have to lie, cheat, and steal, you’re just not doing it right. My career is a model of tough, fair dealing and fantastic success–without shortcuts, without breaking the law.

Well, if that’s really Donald Trump blogging over there and accepting comments, I look forward to reading what he and his readers have to say.

Update (8/12): It’s been 24 hours, and my comment and trackback still haven’t been posted! My comment was benign, definitely not troll material. Advice for bloggers old and new moderating comments: if you can’t or won’t approve comments in a timely manner, don’t enable them at all.

Business blogger B.L. Ochman says to Trump: “You’re fired!”

Kevin and Gregg at Pundit Review radio are leaving Blogger (I’m glad!), and I’m helping them do it.

Blogger is an excellent platform, and best of all, it’s free. For business web sites, however, I recommend more flexible and powerful platforms like WordPress (my favorite and also free) or Movable Type.

Pundit Review’s archives will be imported to a new system, and the site will undergo a custom design. I will also develop blog promotion and online marketing strategies for the site. I’m excited to have a fellow blogger and two radio talk show hosts as new clients.

Jeff Jarvis, a media critic, consultant and blogger, has a must-read article in yesterday’s Guardian (Use BugMeNot to get around the annoying registration):

[M]ainstream news is under assault by scandals, declining credibility, shrinking audience, disappearing advertising dollars, exploding online competition … and those darned bloggers.

So newsrooms are at last getting serious about plugging into the internet. Last week, the New York Times announced it is merging its print and online news operations. In their staff announcement, executives said this ends a separation that “allowed our digital operation to flourish, to experiment”, so now they can “raise digital journalism to the next level” - and, one hopes, so they can electrify old journalism as well. At the same time, CBS News has decreed that all its 1,500 journalists will now feed the internet. Take it from me: that’s easier announced than accomplished.

Traditional journalism’s gradual merging with online journalism is inevitable. People are plugged in to computers, and wireless will only become cheaper. Old school journalists have little choice in the matter, so Jarvis gives them seven suggestions on how to be a “digital” journalist. I agree with all except the first: burn the business cards.

He may be referring to an attitude more than a card per se, but they’ve proved invaluable for me as I visit blogger conventions and meet others. Instead of scribbling blog URLs on pieces of paper, people can hand out basic business cards containing the information. Some like to include their e-mail and physical addresses and phone numbers; others list only their names and URLs.

Get 250 for free at Vista Print. All you pay for is shipping.

Update: One can never read too many blog studies. Visit Business Week’s blog (blogging journalists!) and click on the link for “Behaviors of the Blogosphere.”

Radical idea. Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion writes:

As blogging and other forms of consumer generated media surge, people will begin to expect the same tone of voice from all the sources they “consume.” What’s more, they will also expect to have a say in what media covers and the ability to give transparent feedback. The Cluetrain is going to hit big media just as hard as it hits corporate communications.

As a result, it is my belief that media companies that are heavily invested online need to consider going to an all-blog format. Social media is not an add-on. It’s not a feature. It’s a way of life that evolves journalism from monologue to dialogue.

Music to a blog consultant’s ears. I have vague recollections of the massive resistance of businesses to even put up web sites. These days, just as the business world is finally recognizing the importance of online communication, they have to deal with a brand new niche medium called a blog. And I’m more than happy to assist.

Learn how to build traffic.

I guess so. But not really. Real blogs have, at the very least, a permanent link, the ability to link to a specific post.

Check it out.