Your blog is needy.

“Feed me! Feed me!” it cries.

Ah, but you’re busy. And you’ve been ignoring it for a while.

Now you’ve decided to come back, dust off your business blog or professional blog and restore it to its SEO/traffic/attention/revenue-friendly ways. And you’re wondering what to do.

How do you revive your business blog?

Here’s how.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” – Alice
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” – Cheshire Cat
“I don’t much care where …” – Alice
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” – Cheshire Cat

Is most of what you’re doing online pointless?

I had the incredible opportunity to join several of my close friends on a group phone call today. We talked about online marketing strategy and the difference between building a blog/website and building a business.

There was a special synergy that brought at least one of the participants to tears (in a good way).

That call got me thinking about the relative pointlessness or meaningfulness of each marketing activity I do online to promote my consulting business.

Barack Obama.

Quick! Say the first word that comes to mind.

…

Was it “change?”

“The change we need.”

“Change we can believe in.”

Obama owned that word in 2008. His masterful social media campaign gets a lot of the credit for that.

Do you love the power of words? Do you relish them?

Most blogs consist entirely, or almost entirely, of words.

Words can create. Words can destroy.

Words wield scary power for businesses.

Your blog is going to help or hurt your business in 2009.

How careful are you about the words you use or avoid on your business blog?

What are you going to do this week to become more so?

Welcome to Week 3 of the Visionary Blogging Links series!

Every Friday at Visionary Blogging, I share the best URLs I’ve discovered over the past week that have to do with business blogging or professional blogging in general and blogging/social media strategy in particular (for non-profit organizations, for-profit corporations, entrepreneurs, etc.).

Over time, I’ll add some of the very best links from my Links series to the Resources page (still a bit messy, but I’m working on it!). Bookmark that page and my ever-growing Blog Improvement Tips page for future reference.

You’re welcome to suggest links for this series. Just leave a comment here or contact me directly.

Last week I surprised you with a $750 blog consulting contest here at Visionary Blogging.

The prize: a $250 blog consulting package to boost any professional blog, including:

• A 130-point blog inspection in PDF format
• A video screencast with blogging tips
• A 30-minute phone consultation to discuss blogging strategy

Entry was simple. All you had to do was answer my question, “How can I help you?”

Winners were to be selected randomly from among all entrants.

I promised you results today. Here they are.

Robyn Tippins (Twitter: @duzins) asked me the following question on Twitter last week:

Is Facebook Connect worth the time for a business blog?

Great question, Robyn! Here’s my answer.

First, for those new to this subject …

What is Facebook Connect?

Facebook Connect is a simple way to integrate Facebook into your blog or website. For example, TechCrunch currently has a blog post comment area that looks like this (minus the cool sepia effect):

Why or why not use Facebook Connect?

Some reasons to use Facebook Connect on your business blog:

• Some people have Facebook accounts but aren’t registered at your blog. If registration is something you require in order for people to be able to comment on your posts, Facebook Connect might make it more appealing for these folks to register and interact more with your blog.

I hope this list saves you some grief in your professional blogging.

10. Publish sporadically.

9. Spend too much time consuming content.

8. Spend too little time creating content.

7. Fail to plan effectively or not at all.

6. Expect the world to adore your blog without any marketing effort on your part.

5. Fail to pay close attention to numbers that indicate blog growth rate.

4. Fail to produce content that serves your intended audience.

3. Fail to serve the right audience.

2. Fail to love your audience to bits.

I’ve just added another free guide to my growing blog consulting guides area (22 and counting).

It’s called How to Improve Your Blog Community. It includes my best advice from more than three years as a blog network editor, social media event organizer and new media consultant.

Specifically, it covers the following:

• What a blog community is
• Why your blog community matters
• 4 common aspects of all communities
• 10 ways to measure blog community growth
• 5 steps to building your blog community
• How to get “unstuck” in your community-building efforts
• 6 excellent resources for further reading

Grab the printer-friendly PDF version (848 KB).

Let me know what you think! More guides coming soon …