blog good techniques Peter Harvey

2006-12-12T15:04:00.000-08:00

Blogging - Everyone Else Is Doing It - So Why Can't I
Rob Stokes

The Internet and the software which has been developed to run on it have made it extremely easy for anyone to publish content and have it accessible to millions of people. In effect, consumers have been given a voice to air their views to a massive audience. Something which before the Internet, they could never have done.

In recent years one of the biggest examples of this has been the massive growth of weblogs (blogs), wiki’s, podcasts, vlogs and moblogs - together they form what is loosely known as social media; the ability for anyone to publish almost any content without the typical costs and hindrances associated with traditional media.

This new publishing freedom has resulted in an explosion of new content. However the term social media, or citizen journalism as it is sometimes called, may be a misnomer as many companies can do it as well!

What is Blogging?Blogging is currently the most common form of social media, in fact as of October 2006, about 100 000 new weblogs are being created each day - that’s more than the number of books published in the US each year!

The word blog is derived from the term "weblog" which was coined by Jorn Barger in 1997. We started using blog over weblog when Peter Merholz broke the word weblog into the phrase "we blog" in the sidebar of his weblog in 1999.

A blog is essentially a website typically driven by a content management system which features articles (blog posts) and comments on the blog posts. They come in all shapes and forms - from personal diaries shared with friends and family, to arms of political campaigns, media programs and updates on current affairs. They also range in scale from the writings of one blogger, to the collaboration of a large community of writers.

The world of blogs, bloggers and blog posts is commonly known as the blogosphere which has evolved rapidly since its inception. Blogs have given consumers and companies a voice and blogging has opened up a world of information sharing possibilities.

Blogs are not a fad that will lose popularity any time soon - they are here to stay and companies who want to be taken seriously by their consumers need to consider the benefits of starting a corporate blog or at the very least listen to what is being said about them in the blogosphere.

Blogging and RSSPioneered by Dave Winer, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has taken blogging to a whole new level. An RSS feed is an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) file automatically generated by a blog or indeed almost any website or Internet service. Users are then able to “syndicate” or subscribe to this feed using a feed reader or aggregator. When a new post is available, the reader fetches its contents and puts the headings and usually some or all of the content of the post into your reader or directly onto another blog. When a blog is updated, its RSS feed is as well so information spreads very quickly and automatically.

In layman’s terms, RSS eliminates the need for the user to constantly check a site or blog to see if it has been updated. Their feedreader automatically does this for them and presents fresh information as it becomes available. This means that a user can constantly monitor potentially hundreds or even thousands of blogs and websites without having to spend the time visiting each one to check for fresh content. Some examples of feed readers include FeedDemon, Newsgator and RSS Bandit.

Understanding the subject of blogging is made far easier when one immerses oneself in it, so set up a feed reader and get to it. You’ll soon lose yourself in this fascinating world of content sharing and strong opinions.

Better BloggingBy October 2006, Technorati, a blog tracking engine, registered 57 Million blogs tracked. They also acknowledged a consistent pattern whereby the number of blogs doubles every 236 days. However despite the massive growth of blogs, most do not make it past 3 months. According to Technorati, only 55 percent of bloggers are still posting 3 months after starting the blog with very few in comparison updating their blogs weekly or more.
Whether one is starting a blog for personal or corporate marketing purposes, there is no guarantee that anyone will ever find it. In order to ensure a blog’s success it needs to be marketed. Here is a list of suggestions on how to go about doing so:

Search engine optimisation: By ensuring that your blog is search engine friendly, search engines can be a major source of traffic. It is important that your chosen keywords are used in your blog headings, content and meta tags and that the search engines are able to spider all aspects of your blog.
Comments and trackbacks: By treating the blogosphere as a series of ongoing conversations and actively being a part of these conversations through comments and trackbacks, other bloggers will get to know you, link to your blog and a gradual stream of visitors will result.
List your blog in blog directories: Similar to search engines, directories are human edited and managed. Although the traffic volume is not as massive as search engines, many users do visit directories and this could be a great place for them to find out about your blog.
Ping web services with your updated content: Sites like ping-o-matic and FeedShark offer a service whereby they ping multiple web services, blog directories and search engines to let them know that your blog has fresh content.
Content - know your audience: Your blog posts must be interesting and useful to your readers. Develop your unique voice and don't be afraid to post things others will not agree with.
Frequency: The regularity of posts is important, as there is a direct correlation to blog repeat visitors and the number of times it's updated. Post 3-5 times per week at a minimum. Web sites and blogs that are updated often get spidered by Google more frequently.

A Holistic ApproachBlogging works in synergy with other eMarketing services, once again proving that a holistic approach is vital to ensure success on the World Wide Web.Blogs and SEOYou’ve heard it a million times… Content is king! Because search engines love fresh, relevant content, blogs are a great way to give them exactly this. Essentially by writing one post a day, a blog allows you to add a fresh page of content to your website each day. The nature of blogs also makes them an excellent source of links to your website. Provided your content is engaging, other bloggers will link to it and search engines view these links as popularity votes thereby assisting in improving your rankings.

It is important however that the blog is set up to be as search engine friendly as possible. Start by ensuring that all blog posts are assigned a unique page which is easily indexable by the search engines. This can be achieved by ensuring that each page has a link to it which the search engines can find and follow. Pages must be tagged with keywords relevant to your SEO strategy. This means putting important keywords in your post headings, page URL and meta tags, particularly the title tag.
Blogs and Viral MarketingIn a similar vein to blogs being used as a natural link attraction tool, they can be extremely useful as a viral component to your online marketing strategy.
With valuable and engaging content, people will begin talking about and linking to your site. The blogosphere is an interconnected environment and as a result items which are interesting or remarkable are talked about and shared amongst bloggers. Over time this interest brings eyeballs to your site and ultimately awareness to your brand.
It’s Not Always Happy Day’s and SunshineAlthough word of mouth can have a tremendously positive impact on a brand, it can also cause immense damage. One of the best examples of the blogosphere influencing brands negatively is the now infamous “Dell Hell” scenario.

It all started when blogger, Jeff Jarvis had a terrible customer experience with Dell Computers. In true blogger style he documented his experience on his blog and word quickly spread to the point where it was even covered in print by Business Week. However Dell failed to respond to his musings and the bad customer experiences continued as did the negative comments on the blogosphere. Jeff’s rantings become known as Dell Hell and a recent scientific study by responsesource.com showed first that Dell has sustained long-term damage to its brand image and secondly that the cheerleaders for the poor reputation of Dell’s customer services, are bloggers.

With blogs wielding this level of power, it is critical that brands understand how to manage their reputation online and if necessary take proactive steps to limit the damage which can be caused by negative word of mouth. Online Reputation Management is something all companies need to be considering.

On a final note, a great thing to remember about blogs is that a blog is simply a method of publishing content on the Web. Calling something a blog now is a focus on the technology used on the server, the content management solution. Of course, there's a significant culture that's grown around this particular technology, but that culture is bound to remain a subculture. Not because the number of people who are involved in blogging is going to shrink but rather because the number of people reading content published using Movable Type, Blogger, or any of the other tools is going to grow. Fast.
This article has been taken from Quirk eMarketing’s complete online guide to eMarketing – eMarketing 101. The services offered by Quirk eMarketing include everything from the conceptualisation of a comprehensive online marketing strategy, through to the implementation of the various eMarketing methods needed to make that vision a reality.
blog good techniques

2006-12-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

Vlogging – Making Money With Vlogs, Videoblogs, Or Video Weblogs On The Internet - For Free
Tino Buntic

A few success stories had a remarkable affect on blogs (weblogs). Ever since people realized that they can make money from blogging the popularity and the vast number of blogs on the internet rose dramatically. People hear that they can make money by writing on their home computer and and publishing it on their blogs, and all of a sudden there are over 50 million blogs on the internet. Now, not all 50 million bloggers are making any money. Only a handful of the leaders are. Most of the leaders have been blogging for years and were the early adopters and that’s why they have become popular.
That's usually what happens – people hear that there is money to be made and then saturate the market. They follow. By that time it’s almost too late and you’d have to be really lucky or really innovative to make a name for yourself. It would have been much easier had you started blogging before the craze became so publicized.
What does that mean for vlogs or videoblogs? Vlogging will become very popular and many people will be making money with vlogs in the near future. It won't be as popular as blogs because it is more time consuming, more expensive, and requires a different set of skills. Not everybody is good in front of the camera and not everybody can afford a digital camera. However, if you already own a digital camera and want to start a videoblog, you can publish it for free by visiting freevlog.org.
Vlogging has only been around for just over a year now and there are a few popular vlogs. But the vlog market is nowhere near the size of the blogosphere. So if you want to be a first mover on the internet vlogging is a good bet.
Tino Buntic created TradePals to provide free advertising to business professionals across The United States and Canada. Many professionals have created a TradePals profile, including this marketing consultant from Hampshire, Illinois, this commercial carpet cleaner from Fresh Meadows, New York, and this design-build engineer from Alpharetta, Georgia. Please visit TradePals to create your own free professional profile.
blog good techniques

2006-12-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

The World Of Blogging
Steve Hill

Do you have your own blog? Have you cottoned on to the benefits that having your own blog can bring? In this article I am going to write about the crazy world of blogging and about the ways in which it can help an online business to attract continued and repeat traffic. This traffic of course is what most webmasters strive for and a good blog which is well optimized can help them to attain their goals.
Blogging is not exactly a new concept, it has been around for a couple of years now. I must admit I was a bit slow to join the bandwagon of blogging. I thought it would be one of those overnight crazes but it looks like it is here to stay. I have read many of these blogs and in my opinion most of them are quite poor in quality. They did not really inspire me to come back and were seemingly only there to make money from programs such as Google adsense. There were however certain blogs which did inspire me to return, blogs such as the one Matt Cutts runs. This is a blog that I will read whenever I have the time.
Around a year ago I decided that it was about time I had my own blog. I did not want it to be just an average run of the mill blog, I wanted it to look very professional and for it to be of value to the people who visited and read it. In this way these people are likely to return time and time again and other webmasters are also more inclined to add those all important links to the site.
My area of business is based around speech therapy, basically helping people who have a stammering or stuttering problem. I had a stutter for eighteen years before finally managing to achieve fluency at the age of twenty-two. The stuttering blog that I now have receives a lot of traffic and is very well placed in the major search engines for its keyword phrases such as stuttering blog.
I have heard that some bloggers find it a bit of a hassle to keep posting to their blogs. This in my opinion should be seen as a kind of hobby rather than a choir.
The huge advantage of a blog is that content is constantly being added to the site. This is for obvious reasons a lot better than having just a static site.
My advice would be to get your blogging shoes on today.
blog good techniques

2006-12-04T18:31:00.000-08:00

4 Quick Tips for Coming up with Blogging Topics
Tim Priebe

Do you blog on a regular or somewhat regular basis, but sometimes have trouble coming up with topics for your blog? Here's a few helpful hints to get you going when writer's block strikes.
1. Google is your friend
Search Google to see what questions people have about the field you're in. Try combining one of the following phrases with a keyword related to your field of expertise.
How do I I'm having problems Is it possible to I need help Quick question
For example, if a cartoonist who gave advice to other cartoonists were using this method, he might search for the following:
"How do I" cartoonist
or maybe...
"I'm having problems" cartoon
or even...
"Quick question" "comic strip"
Hopefully you get the idea.
2. Sign up for a forum
Sign up for a forum or even an email discussion group that's about the same topic your blog is about. That way you will always have a source of questions. People often drop into such forums with a question or two.
And don't worry if others have answered it on the forum. Your blog will likely have different readers. While you shouldn't plagiarize, you can certainly use their post as a jumping off point.
3. Read other blogs
Read the blogs others have on topics similar to your own. And again, while you shouldn't just copy their post, you can use it to spur yourself on. You might even mention that you were inspired by their post and put a link to it. Then say where you agree and disagree with them.
An added bonus to this is that you can email that blogger and let them know you linked to their post. They may even be willing to link back to your blog, giving you another source of readers.
4. Ask your readers!
This one is a no-brainer. Seek out input from those who know your readers best. Your readers! Occasionally (or frequently) ask them for topic suggestions. At the very least, make it easy for them to contact you with any questions if they already want to do so.
These tips are simple, but can be effective if you ever hit a brick wall when trying to start your blog post of the day.
While we're on the topic, feel free to let me know of any web-related topics you'd like me to cover.
Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com
blog good techniques

2006-11-30T21:04:00.000-08:00

What Does Google Think About Blogging?
Matt Ambrose

Any internet marketer worth their salt will tell you how Google’s algorithms love the keyword rich content of blogs. But what does the Google hierarchy actually think about the explosion in content flooding the internet on a daily basis? After all, it can’t make their job any easier trying to classify millions of websites constantly being updated every day?
In an article in The Economist for ‘The World in 2007’ Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, provides an insight into how he thinks the internet is playing a healthy role in shaping how people use software, gather information and communicate. He comments that:
The lesson is compelling: put simple, intuitive technology in the hands of users and they will create content and share it. The fastest-growing parts of the internet all involve direct human interaction.
It has never been easier for people to find and share information. Anybody with a PC and internet connection now has their own electronic printing press and a potentially global readership. Relationships are now increasingly being built based on interest rather than geography. This is an aspect which many traditional marketers are struggling to come to terms with. Many still seem to have the terms ‘internet’ and ‘bubble’ irreparably connected in their minds and continue to treat the web as only a temporary phenomenon:
business models based on controlling consumers or content don’t work. Betting against the net is foolish because you’re betting against human ingenuity and creativity.
If businesses don’t start appreciating how there has been a paradigm shift in how people access and share information then they are underestimating what is going on in the online world. They are going to struggle to get their messages across if they don’t understand how it’s now a two way conversation and not a long range bombing campaign.
In an interview, discussing his Economist article, Schmidt comments that:
It’s clear, over the next few years, that people will have access to farmore information then they can ever handle. And that is a goodthing: that more information crowds out bad ideas, bad information, bad governments, bad behaviour.
Schmidt is describing how the spread of blogs and social networks should eventually lead to a rise in transparency in the way information is presented. Anybody posting inaccurate or misleading content will inevitably be caught out by an increasingly web savvy audience who can expose them in forums strewn all over the web. Being honest and genuine in how you engage and project your message will be the only way to communicate if you want to remain relevant to your audience.
Schmidt revisited his point, on the growth of transparency, in a recent speech to the British Conservative party. He discussed how:
Politicians must realise the results produced by the Internet. Many do not understand the phenomenon, its deep dynamics and implications.
Politicians are a lot like salesmen. Their role is to sell their message by appealing to their voters’ desires. Worrying about whether the message was genuine, or had any real substance, was secondary. All that mattered was influencing mindsets to garner votes rather than to actually engage in a political debate.
Schmidt believes that the internet’s growth as an information sharing resource means that politicians and businesses will have to start becoming more transparent and engaging if they want to continue being listened to. Google evidently intend being a leading innovator and driving force in how these new values will be propagated online.
Matt Ambrose is a freelance writer from the UK. You can find more information about Matt on his website http://thewritewords.me.uk.
blog good techniques

2006-11-29T15:46:00.000-08:00

10 Big Benefits Of A Busy Business Blog (And How To take Advantage)
Matt Jackson

The blog; what can be said that hasn’t been said before? In all truth, very little, but there is still a seeming lack of businesses willing to take up the “challenge” of running their own blog. Those that have done so often report their findings and invariably they are positive reviews of both the blogging process and the results of their business blog. In a bid to hammer the point home we’ve compiled a list of ten advantages to establishing and maintaining a business blog.
It is important to note the word “busy” in the title of this article. It isn’t there simply because it begins with a B and lends itself perfectly to the alliteration in the title. It’s meant to outline the fact that a blog is at its finest when it is regularly filled with quality content. A blog with no content is just a template.
1 - Quick And Easy
Two words that every business owner and manager loves. A blog is simple to set up even for the technologically challenged. There exist a number of free blogging services, and while these aren’t ideal for a business blog they do offer a way to start. Setting up a blog is not like setting up a website. In the worst case scenario you will need to install a software application on your website and tinker with a few settings.
2 - Inexpensive Setup
The only word more popular than quick and easy is inexpensive. To integrate a blog into the page of your site costs very little money, especially as somebody within your organization can usually do it. Even outsourcing the task will cost only a couple of hundred dollars. Remember that a blog could become one of the most powerful marketing weapons you have in your arsenal and consider that a couple of hundred dollars might just pay a salesperson for one day’s work.
3 - Provides Easy Access To Company News
A business blog can be written in one of numerous styles, or a combination of these. One huge benefit is the ability to inform your customers of any changes, new products, latest offers, and much more. This, in turn, can lead to direct sales. People love to frequent blogs and pass their time reading the same ones on a regular basis. Captivate your audience with compelling content and you will receive a growing list of market leads. Remember that individual blog readers generally prefer a personable style but if your operation is a business-to-business one then you will need to vary your style accordingly.
Typically, companies have used newsletter and e-newsletters to offer this kind of regular contact with their customers and potential customers. Using a blog is easier and it can be updated much more regularly than when offering a weekly or monthly newsletter.
4 - Search Engine Friendly
Search engine optimization is a particularly beneficial form of online marketing. It can be used to gain search engine traffic for given keywords or search terms. Your blog offers the opportunity to promote your website for hundreds or even thousands of different keywords. Search engines particularly like promoting blogs because they offer a large amount of content that is updated and added to on a regular basis.
5 - Appear Accessible
It doesn’t matter whether you are not, but you and your company will appear to be more accessible especially if you allow freedom for all your visitors to post comments. Accessibility is often a stumbling block for many potential customers that still prefer to deal with companies offline. A blog makes you more approachable and so alleviates this concern.
6 - Appear Authoritative
The appearance of authority is also important to online businesses. Customers will be much more likely to use your service or purchase your goods if they see you as an authority on a particular subject. Give your views on the latest events in your industry, offer reviews of related items and comparisons of several items. Do anything, within reason, that makes you look like an authority on your topic area.
7 - Brand Awareness
The more a customer hears the name of your company the more likely they will be to remember it. It takes, on average, around seven items of direct communication between you and your customers to make a sale. A blog with hundreds of posts gives you the opportunity to name drop your company occasionally and ensure that your readers think of you next time they are looking for a particular product or service.
8 - Relationship Building
Another difficult aspect of building a relationship with your customers online is building a rapport with them. Because a blog enables you to speak more freely and in a more informal and personable style than your website does, your readers will soon feel like they know you. The more they know, like, and trust you the more likely they are to visit your main site, click your links, purchase your product, and line your pockets with virtual gold.
9 - Gain An Insight Into Your Customers
A business blog enables you to gain insight into your customers. It does this in several ways. Predominantly, by allowing your customers to leave comments on your posts, you get a good feel for how they take to everything you say. You can also track which posts are being read more often and which generate a greater number of clicks, emails, and much more. As far as market and customer research goes this is hugely beneficial information.
10 - Reduce Calls And Emails
OK, this isn’t one to tell your readers but you can use a blog to pre-empt questions that customers might have. By sending readers to your blog you can gain all of the above benefits and you may reduce the amount of niggling questions that you get asked by customers. Of course, you might also receive a lot more orders by email, but nobody wants to reduce those emails.
Maintaining A Successful Business Blog
While there are free blogging services available they generally offer ad-supported blogs with a restricted amount of templates and options. To truly take advantage with a business blog your best bet is to use a commercial application or pay for a commercial service. These enable you to integrate the blog into your own domain incorporating your own design. This ensures that you offer the full benefit to site visitors while making it easier to point blog visitors toward the appropriate pages of your site.
Regular content is imperative to the success of any blog. This content needs to be informative, accurate, and written in a way that will appeal to your visitors. Every blog demands different content and by producing the right content on a regular basis it will pay dividends.
In some posts you should try to find an opportunity to link to at least one page on your main website. Try not to get carried away by placing too many links or linking from all your posts but if you mention a particular product, link the name of that product to the corresponding page on your site. Alternatively include a paragraph at the bottom of the page that includes a link to a related resource (on your own page, or an affiliate link). If you are using a blog to make money through affiliate links then you should be careful to only use affiliate links in a relatively small proportion of your posts.
Matt Jackson is a blog writer, website content copywriter, and a big fan of alliteration in article titles. Through his website, WebWiseWords, he offers a full blog writing and posting service for businesses of any size and industry.
blog good techniques

2006-11-28T08:55:00.000-08:00

Bloggers - Will They be a Fixture in Corporate America?
Taryn Simpson

How did Blogging get so popular so fast?
It does seem that blogging caught on like wildfire. Why is it so popular? Because it's human nature to voice your 2 cents on a subject, whether good or bad. Not to mention, there are blogging sites popping up all over the place, the templates are nice looking and easy to use and best of all, they are FREE. What does this mean for domain companies? website provider and builders? Bloggers are pulling the rug out from underneath them.
How did Corporate America become involved with blogging?
The same way tv and radio became involved with them. Bloggers voice their opinions much like a stock analyst. When do you get this information from the analyst? When the television program airs or in a radio program. When does the public learn about bloggers' opinions? At any moment on the internet. The internet is surely becoming bigger, faster and foremost in our world of information.
Corporate America and the Blogger
It only makes sense that businesses want to attach themselves to the most vocal and prominent bloggers. It is just another way of making themselves attractive to the wordsmiths rather than focusing on stock analysts. Bloggers have a reputation of being the new kid on the block that happens to be the underdog. This makes a perfect spoil for conglomerates to embrace the bloggers so that they can voice their opinions.
Bloggers are the new look of "every man". Symbolically, the blogger has turned Wall Street on its' collective ear as the "new every man" is suddenly being given new clout via a computer. It's no wonder Corporate America has hired bloggers to blog on their behalf. This just isn't a payoff, they are being analyzed just as the stock analysts have done in prior years.
It's just that it's nice to know that the "every man" has a voice in Corporate America.
Taryn Simpson is a published author and freelance writer with over 15 years of HR experience. Ms. Simpson owns her own writing company, Simpson - E Publishing which offers clients ghostwriting of novels/articles, web content, brochures, newsletters, press releases and more. Be sure to visit my blog: http://www.Musings-From-A-Writer.blogspot.com
blog good techniques

2006-11-27T18:09:00.000-08:00

How To Write Blogs
Mihaela Lica

Introduction
A blog is a web document. When you write it you have to think about your audience and understand their needs. On the other hand you should think what you want to achieve with a certain blog and write accordingly. Here are a few guidelines that will help you improve your writing style.
Why Blogging?
Blog does mean Web log and many bloggers do use this online tool to create virtual diaries. While such bloggers blog for pleasure, other bloggers blog for business. There’s enough potential in a blog, as long as it has a professional style and valuable information. Here’s what writers might achieve with a good blog:
Public recognition: are you an expert in your field? Let people know it and provide unique, qualified information. Soon you will be listed on different sites as a “guru”.Targeted traffic: no one just happens to “land” on a blog page. Web surfers search for information. The tags you used to describe your blogs are the baits that will determine a surfer to click on a certain link, visit your blog and (probably) read your content.Earn extra income: through blog advertisements, AdSense and more.Blog Writing Styles
I have seen many ways of writing and many styles. Obviously there are many ways to write blogs, but I’ll list here three:
Just write and don’t care about grammar or typing, after all it’s your blog and “if they don’t like it they shouldn’t be reading it”. (You’re right, I am being sarcastic!)Just write but do pay attention at least at the spelling – no one will kill you if you have minor grammar errors when you are not a native speaker. Write professionally… and that’s exactly what this article is all about!Blog Writing Standards
Maybe I have a wrong tile: “How to Write Blogs”. Perhaps “How to Write Business Blogs” would be a better headline. But I don’t want to limit the topic. After all, although not all blogs are created equal, professional writing has some clear standards.
These standards start with a rule: plain English. Yes, you’ve got that right. Plain English is good English. It helps delivering your message clearly and concisely. And this is the writing style needed on the Web. Surfers want to get the information without too much effort. Reading essays online is problematical. Have you noticed how tired your eyes get after reading the long paragraphs of an article?
You need to write in a readable and clear writing style. Even the offline media journalists practise this style. Novelists argue sometimes that newspapers and magazines have a poor, simplistic style. Wrong! They have a plain style, to make it easier for the readers to understand and absorb the information.
It is important for a blog to be written in a clear, plain style, or the visitors will surf away.
Standards for Styles
If you want to start a polemic the best approach is a “teasing” approach. Do it carefully and try to avoid narrow sarcasm. Joke if you must, but never be offensive. After all, we owe respect to our readers. That’s if we want them to respect us.
If you plan to educate don’t tease. Don’t joke. Avoid narrow sarcasm. Be concise and direct, as your readers don’t have time for riddles and if you bore them too much with gibberish talk, they’ll surf away. This is the standard for business writing too.
Notice how I wrote this article: I used short phrases and one point per paragraph. This means writing concise and direct.
Writing Titles
Help your visitors “scan” your content (they’ll do it anyway), as you want them to. Take a look in your newspaper. What do you see? Titles, subtitles and summaries. Now all you need to do is mirror the style of your newspaper. Let’s start with the titles.
There are three styles of titles: informational (business style), teasing (polemic style) and cute (entertainment style).
Examples:
How to Write Blogs – InformationalTo Blog or Not to Blog? – TeasingBlog-a-boo! – Cute
Each style has another purpose. As this is an instructional article – more a tutorial – I chose the informational title. Short titles have a higher impact than long titles, especially when they summarize in a few words the entire content, providing a clue on the purpose of the article.
Writing Summaries
Newspapers use the inverted pyramid style to deliver the information. So should you. Why? The first paragraph of your article will convince the surfer to go on reading. So start with the conclusion and give details as your article goes on. My introduction explains clear my purpose. If you wouldn’t be interested in learning how to improve your writing skills, you’d be long surfing on other Web pages!
Additional Writing Tips
As you’ve probably noticed I used some lists in this article. This is a good technique: it helps readers remain focused. Usually you should keep each line of a list short, unless you need to provide a brief explanation on a certain topic.
Use bold words for emphasis, but don’t over-do-it! The same goes for italicizing or underlining words. Use easy to read fonts and legible colors. (No yellow or other light colors on white and avoid dark backgrounds in general!) Instead of Conclusion
This article was checked for accessibility and readability using StyleWriter and scored "excellent" for each of the following: style index, average sentence and passive index.
Mihaela Lica is a professional journalist, with more than 10 years experience in the field, four as TV journalist. Since 2002 she works as an online public relations and media consultant, making all possible efforts to promote quality web content. Read her SEO and web development blog if look for more interesting articles.
blog good techniques

2006-11-24T13:22:00.000-08:00

How To Supercharge Your Blog And Improve Your Visitor's Experience
B Hopkins

Your blog is your means of expressing yourself to the world. It is a very powerful way of branding yourself and a very effective means of building a relationship with your readers. In order to take advantage of the power of blogging, you should make sure you follow some simple rules that will keep you on the right side of blogging and make both your visitor's and your experinece much more enjoyable.
Be Timely With Your Postings
If you publish a blog called "The Wednesday Afternoon Report", and you start out posting to it every Wednesday afternoon, then your audience will begin to expect a new posting every Wednesday afternoon. You can think of your blog like a newsletter. Consistancy is key. This consistance is what will increase the number of visitors that come back to your blog. Returning visitors gives you the opportunity to build a relationship with your readers.
Give Credit to Where Credit is Due
Sometimes the perfect and most timely posting is commenting on a news item, another blog posting, an article, or a web site. This is appropriate to do, but you should give credit and a link to the source document. You can link to the source document from within your post, or link to it as a footnote at the end of your post. If the source document is another blog, you can refer to it through what is known as a trackback link.
Be a Good Networker
Your blog is a good place to spotlight other bloggers. Most blogging software out there allows you to do this through a feature referred to as a blogroll. It is basically a list of links to other bloggers who you like, or other bloggers that are blogging about the same subject as you. This will add value to your visitors experience and give them additional resources to explore.
Structure Your Blog Site Well
Structure your blog so that it is easy to read, and find past postings. Don't put so many graphics that it detracts from what you are trying to say. Highlight relevant postings that you may have made in the past that relate to your current posting. A good way to highlight your past postings is to link to them directly from the blog post, or if they are more general, and relate to many postings, you can list the links to your latest postings to the side, next to your main blog entry.
Another good technique to use with your blog is to separate your postings into categories when it makes sense. That way, visitors can access a more specific group of postings they may be interested in. For an even more robust blog, a search function will allow easy access to your postings, especially when you have quite a few posts.
Keep Your Blog Content Fresh
You will want to set up your blog so the most recent postings are placed at the top, or on the first page, which is like the reverse format of a diary (where the most recent entries are on the last page). Most blogging software today is setup to have the latest postings at the top (or on the front page of the blog) to allow your newest postings to be seen first by your visitors.
Be Consistant and Reliable
The best way to be reliable is to provide content that is true and accurate. Double check your facts and be prepared to back them up. Remember, your blog is a powerful means of branding yourself, and if you keep to the truth, you will build the strength of the words you say in your blog, and magnify the influence you have with your readers. Once you build your word, your recommendations will then truly mean something to your readers.
Respect Privacy
There are many privacy issues that come into play with a blog. If you have a newsletter that your blog readers can subscribe to, you should make sure to respect the privacy of your subscribers and never rent or sell their emails to a third party. You may promote a third party's goods or services to your list, but those emails should never be given to a third party.
Another area where privacy may come into play is within the actual postings themselves. If you refer to someone by name, from your personal life in your postings, you should get permission from that person first. Other potentially sensitive issues, such as partnerships, business dealings and internal company policies should also be considered as being appropriate, before posting these things to your blog.
Give Readers a Reason to Come Back
Blogs that have a personal and human component are more interesting to read than blogs that have no personality. Putting unique and personal experiences in your blog, like how your computer meltdown experience relates to today's posting, add a wonderful new dimension to your blog. Visitors actually want to connect with you and sharing your personal experiences is a great way to connect with them.
Increase the deliverability of your message by being passionate and conveying emotions in your postings. People are emotional beings and connect on an emotional level rather than an intellectual one. Adding emotion to your blog will add an additional way for your readers to connect with you.
Blogging can be a very rewarding experience, a powerful way to connect with your visitors, is very flexible and can be done to fit anyone's style. However, no matter what the style of blogging you choose, certain rules should still be followed to make the reader's experience more enjoyable. You can also learn other techniques to increase reader participation and reader response rate that can make your blog a powerful tool to earn and additional stream of income. Research the many good ebooks available, that cover these techniques in detail.
blog good techniques

2006-11-23T19:17:00.000-08:00

Getting Started With Video Blogging
Sammie Wingfield

If knowledge is power, then after you have finished this article, you will be feel like Mighty Man when this subject is brought up in casual conversation.
Video blogging is the next generation of publicizing dreams and food over the internet. everyone knows about passage blogging. Now they use tapes for a better way of expression. This form of communication may entail a lot of property, but it is all value it. If movies say a thousand language, tape blogging exceeds that by far.
A tape blog entails superior diskette places on web situates, a closer attendant, and a entire new set of lists to backing it. Video blogs can be fed through RSS. This is technology of syndicating your web situate to other RSS aggregators.
Video blogging facility with people on the internet expressing their selves. Now if you put this on a commerce prospective, you are up to a lot of payback. Think of it as a potent tool in making screening your prospective buyers your line of food or your military. Its just like screening a commercial all for boundless. And if you tape blog through RSS, then most perhaps you are getting your intention sou.
We hope that you have gained a clear grasp of the subject matter presented in the first half of this article.
People like to see what they are available to buy. Some would like to see resilient and be certain that they are getting their moneys value before shelving their dimes on it. All of us know the realize of a thirty next commercial. The realize of tape blogging is parallel to that. You show your creation, people beware it. If they like it, they buy it. If you represent it good enough, they'll buy the creation even if they don't entail it.
Now on the web, stuff are sweet greatly static, distinct in television in which all are poignant. If you publicize something that is portable, it would most expected discover while. Now imaging your creation parading in all its royals through tape blog. You'll get ring call tips in no time.
If your commerce is just initial up, you can start a tape blog right at your own home. All you entail is your web camera, mirroring, tape software, and light. For as long as you know how to use your camera, then you can start a tape blog.
Invest in a good web camera. The elevated its resolution is the better the yield. And you like to represent your property in the optimum way so get the best one feasible. Make a brisk report, or just capture your property in one go. Just make certain you are getting the best profile for each. Get those creativity juices flowing.
Light are important in a creation ion. Make certain you illuminate wholly the matter you are available to use to start tape blog. The brighter the matter, the crispier the metaphors will be. You can also use lighting realizes for added urge to the representation.
Should you entail sounds for your tape blog, you entail a mirroring. history you speech as a speech over for promoting the creation and its help to clients. Sounds are as important as tapes on a tape blog. It is advisable to make your sound realizes as beguiling as the tape.
Your tape control software can be any list. You entail this to conclude your work. You can add sounds, cancel some bad angles, or append some still movies in there too. Some lists are consumer-sociable and can be worn even with zilch expertise on tape control. Even plain tape control lists should do the cheat. exclusive your background warily too. The light affects the representation so make certain that the background and the light complements each other.
Video blogging is a great tool but it also has it downside. It may dense down the notebook so other may steer exonerate of it. Download time may also be time consuming especially if buyer is still on a dial- up connection.
But don't let those block you. Let tape blogging be an alternative for you, while it is best to still keep the passage and movies represent in your representation to accommodate all feasible audience of your situate.
Today, the more creative you are in representing your creation to the sou, they more you are expected to work. Video blogging offers an interactive way of promotion. You interest the buyers. You fill in them the gain of your property. And at time, those are enough to make a retailing.
Share the information that you have learned with your friends and family. They will be impressed by your knowledge and happy to learn something new.
wsammie@.com
blog good techniques

2006-11-22T14:37:00.000-08:00

The Power of Blogs
Carol Stack

What do you think of when you hear the word "blogging"? Many people think of a teenage girl's personal diary online. They wonder why any professional would ever have a blog.
Blogs have evolved, however, into a terrific tool to promote anything. Businesses are setting up blogs, as well as individuals, who want to promote their products. Blogs are the perfect tool for anyone who wants a presence on the World Wide Web.
Using free blogging software, such as Wordpress, you can have a site up in minutes. Spend a little extra time creating a header graphic and you can have a professional-looking site up in less than an hour.
Although many people still think "teenager's diary" when they hear the word blog, that is beginning to change. Professionals have found that using a blog to communicate with their audience is a great way to build excitement about an upcoming product launch, keep their buyers informed about updates, or just simply communicate with the world. What an inspiring thought that is - to communicate with the world!
It's true, though, that a blog puts each of us in a spotlight for the whole world to find us. Within a few hours of setting up a blog you can have traffic coming to visit. With a good ping list you simply make a post and dozens of sites are told (pinged) that you have added content to your blog. It really is that simple.
Another way to get traffic is to make relevant comments on other blogs with your blog's URL listed with your name. You can also go to answers.yahoo.com and answer questions in your field, again leaving your blog's URL with your name. If your answer is good, people will be inclined to visit your site to see what else you are saying about the topic.
If you regularly post, get links coming to the site, and provide good, solid content, you should succeed in getting a decent amount of traffic within a short time. There are blogs that are getting about 100 visitors a day after 3 months online and there are blogs getting a million visitors a day after a year. It depends a lot on the number of people interested in the topic.
Monetizing a blog is not hard. If you are selling a product then you will be focused on promoting your product. Don't provide the visitor very many choices except to buy your product. In other words, don't have Adsense or affiliate products on prominent pages. Place them on pages that visitors end up on if they are not interested in your product.
If you don't have a product then you can use an assortment of money-makers such as Adsense, Chitika, and affiliate products. If you go this route, don't depend on just one revenue source. Have several affiliate products, Clickbank products, and pay per click advertising.
There is no reason why anyone with a computer and an internet connection could not make money with a blog. It is very simple. The blog does most of the work. All you really have to do is set it up and then post interesting content. Don't put it off another day.
Carol Stack enjoys writing. She lives with her husband, children, and various dogs and cats in the United States. She has several blogs, including http://www.selfpublishinghelper.com where she posts about online publishing using blogs, article syndication, video, and more.
blog good techniques

2006-11-22T14:36:00.000-08:00

The Power of BlogsCarol Stack What do you think of when you hear the word "blogging"? Many people think of a teenage girl's personal diary online. They wonder why any professional would ever have a blog.
Blogs have evolved, however, into a terrific tool to promote anything. Businesses are setting up blogs, as well as individuals, who want to promote their products. Blogs are the perfect tool for anyone who wants a presence on the World Wide Web.
Using free blogging software, such as Wordpress, you can have a site up in minutes. Spend a little extra time creating a header graphic and you can have a professional-looking site up in less than an hour.
Although many people still think "teenager's diary" when they hear the word blog, that is beginning to change. Professionals have found that using a blog to communicate with their audience is a great way to build excitement about an upcoming product launch, keep their buyers informed about updates, or just simply communicate with the world. What an inspiring thought that is - to communicate with the world!
It's true, though, that a blog puts each of us in a spotlight for the whole world to find us. Within a few hours of setting up a blog you can have traffic coming to visit. With a good ping list you simply make a post and dozens of sites are told (pinged) that you have added content to your blog. It really is that simple.
Another way to get traffic is to make relevant comments on other blogs with your blog's URL listed with your name. You can also go to answers.yahoo.com and answer questions in your field, again leaving your blog's URL with your name. If your answer is good, people will be inclined to visit your site to see what else you are saying about the topic.
If you regularly post, get links coming to the site, and provide good, solid content, you should succeed in getting a decent amount of traffic within a short time. There are blogs that are getting about 100 visitors a day after 3 months online and there are blogs getting a million visitors a day after a year. It depends a lot on the number of people interested in the topic.
Monetizing a blog is not hard. If you are selling a product then you will be focused on promoting your product. Don't provide the visitor very many choices except to buy your product. In other words, don't have Adsense or affiliate products on prominent pages. Place them on pages that visitors end up on if they are not interested in your product.
If you don't have a product then you can use an assortment of money-makers such as Adsense, Chitika, and affiliate products. If you go this route, don't depend on just one revenue source. Have several affiliate products, Clickbank products, and pay per click advertising.
There is no reason why anyone with a computer and an internet connection could not make money with a blog. It is very simple. The blog does most of the work. All you really have to do is set it up and then post interesting content. Don't put it off another day.
Carol Stack enjoys writing. She lives with her husband, children, and various dogs and cats in the United States. She has several blogs, including http://www.selfpublishinghelper.com where she posts about online publishing using blogs, article syndication, video, and more.
blog good techniques

2006-11-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

Business Blogging - A Crash Course for Busy Executives
BR Cornett

If you're a business owner or corporate executive, but you don't yet publish a blog, I know what you're thinking: "What's the big deal about blogs, already? Aren't they just online diaries?"
Well, yes and no. Let me explain.
What is a Blog?"Blog" is an abbreviated version of "weblog," which is a term used to describe frequently updated websites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. Blogs are published using third-party content management systems, which makes them simple to manage – even for beginners.
The Evolution of BlogsIn the "early" days of blogging, most blogs were personal in nature. Blog authors posted their daily thoughts, rants and musings for friends and family to read. While the diary-style blog is still common today, a variety of other blog types have evolved as well. Today, blogs run the gamut from personal, educational, political, promotional, etc.
The Business BlogAs is usually the case with Internet technology, it didn't take long for companies to see the potential benefits of blogging. Early adopters of the business blog had the corporate courage to share internal happenings with their customer base. Many people found this newfound openness refreshing, and word spread about the effectiveness of business blogs.
Over the last couple of years, tens of thousands of companies have launched business blogs. Some of these blogs have become successful by offering engaging commentary, news and helpful information from company leaders to customers. But just as many business blogs have failed as a result of their owners misunderstanding the medium.
Why Should I Blog?Business blogs are becoming popular for a number of reasons. Because of their user-friendly interface, people update their blogs more frequently than they might update their regular websites. Some of the most popular blogs get updated once or twice a day. In addition to adding freshness and usefulness to a website, this also improves search engine visibility.
Blogs also add a social, interactive element to your website, because you can turn on a feature that allows moderated comments from readers and customers. When such interaction grows over time, it can have far-reaching effects.
What Should I Blog AboutSome of the most popular business blogs are published by "thought leaders" in their respective industries. The authors of these blogs have had the courage to come out from behind their anonymous corporate websites to share their true thoughts and feelings about their products, their companies and their industries. These authors also know that the blog is not the place for brochure copy or other promotional content.
To get an idea of how you might create a business blog, look to some that are already popular and successful. Here are some to get you started:
Seth Godin's marketing blog: www.sethgodin.typepad.com. John Jantsch's small business blog: www.ducttapemarketing.com/weblog.php Matt Cutts' Google blog: www.mattcutts.com/blog/ Bob Parson's CEO blog: www.bobparsons.com/
The Many Personalities of a Business BlogOne thing you'll notice about each of these blogs, is that they have their own style and persona. That's because the authors have their own styles and personas, and the best business blogs truly represent their authors' personalities.
Summary of Blogging BenefitsA business blog can help keep your website fresh and improve your search engine rankings. Some business blogs take on a life of their own, attracting more attention than the company ever dreamed of attracting. Business blogs also broaden your communication with customers by encouraging dialogue.
Perhaps the best benefit of all is that blogs are flexible enough to support any business goal, so you can determine exactly how your blog will operate and how it will support your communication goals.
* You may republish this article online if you retain the byline and the active hyperlinks below. Copyright 2006, Brandon Cornett.
About the AuthorB.R. Cornett writes and works for Intra-Focus, an Austin marketing company specializing in Internet marketing, website development and CRM. Intra-Focus serves clients from many industries and from all over the country. Learn more by visiting www.intra-focus.com
blog good techniques

2006-11-19T18:26:00.000-08:00

The Growing Popularity of Blogging
Rita Lambros-Segur, M.H.

With the recent phenomenon of blogging for personal fulfillment and for profit, the question arises as to how does one get started creating one? The answer really is nothing, provided that your only goal is to spend no money at all.
If you are thinking of all the bells and whistles, and maybe even a video blog (vlog) the answer to “what you need to get started” might be several hundred dollars to invest in tools that could make your climb to the top faster and smoother.
One of the most important things you will need to get started is some form of keyword research tool or database. Currently, there are dozens of these products on the market. Some are free and others charge a monthly or yearly fee. And of course, you usually get what you pay for. The most popular tool on the market is probably WordTracker, which offers a limited trial version for free—or a fully-functional version for $7.50/day or $45/mo.
There are about 9 major areas that are popular for current blogs: business, culture, community, politics, religion, science, travel, online diaries, and gossip. Most blog directories use similar topical categories to order blogs.
After deciding on your blog theme and keywords, if you're hosting a blog and you want to monetize it with Adsense, you may want to add a thumnail generator. A thumnail generator will create code that, when inserted in your blog, will generate scraped-thumnail pictures from related searches on Google images—and will place them next to your contextual ads, increasing the click-thru rate.
Conversely, if you're planning to sell your own products, you may want to add an autoresponder which will allow you to greatly improve your conversion rate by allowing you to put all follow-up emails on autopilot, rather than doing them personally or strictly using your salespage.
Blogs can fall under the category of the tool or software that was used to create them. Some blogs are created using Google's Blogger. These blogs are often lumped together in directories as the same "type" of blog. They actually have an auto-surfing system that allows you to jump randomly from one Blogger blog to the another.
Other types of blogs you can build include social networking blogs, which allow members of the same network to interact with each other using various blog functions. Two examples are Livejournal--which was one of the original social networking blog systems--and Myspace, which is currently the largest, boasting a base of around 80,000,000 users. In recent months, marketers and business persons have begun using Myspace to introduce their product to potential customers.
If you're interested in software that's both easy to use and able to publish and maintain thousands of high quality websites with the "push of a button", you may with to check out Traffic King Pro CMS (content management system) which publishes both blogs and static webpages very eloquently.
blog good techniques

2006-11-18T16:03:00.000-08:00

4 Steps For Niche Blogging Success
Khemal Dole

Niche blogging has become an extremely popular method of earning revenue with webmasters and internet marketers over the years. The reasons for this are because blogs tend to be easy to get indexed by the search engines, they are very easy to maintain and update and they provide interaction with the visitors and the owner.
There are four simple steps that you should take in order to be successful with niche blogging and they are:
1) Find a niche. This is extremely important as it is very hard to compete with marketers and companies that dominate the much larger niches and they also tend to dominate the search engines for their keywords therefore making it much harder for you to gain good rankings and drive free traffic from the search engines, there is also the fact that the larger niches tend to have millions of competing websites all trying to get higher up the rankings.
You must choose a niche that you can compete in. You can find niches everywhere such as around your home, in the middle of your town, in shops, on article sites, in newsgroups, in magazines, in newspapers and many more places. Nearly anything that people will seach for on the internet can be classed as a niche market for you to earn revenue with.
Always be on the look out for good niches and never stop looking.
2) The content. People will only enjoy and come back to your niche blog if there is great content on it, I mean, why would anyone want to read a blog that was full of bad information? They wouldn't. You need to research and gain knowledge in the niche that you will be working in and you must be able to provide valuable and interesting information to your blog readers.
You can gain knowledge all over the internet and learn about nearly anything you wish with just a little searching. Look through the search engines, websites, articles and even other blogs.
The more you know about your niche, the more chance you have of providing an excellent blog for your market and gaining loyal readers.
3) The traffic. If you want to earn revenue via your blog then you will need to get traffic to it, there is nearly no other way at all to do it. The good news is that there is traffic everywhere on the internet and it is not particularly hard to get it.
You can get traffic to your blog through link exchanging, banner ads, submitting articles, doing press released, using forums, pay per click, email marketing, social networking and many more methods, all you need to do is find out where your market prospects are and drive them to your blog.
Find websites related to your niche that receive a lot of traffic and find a way for you to gain some of that traffic either using paid methods or free.
4) The monetization. You have to monetize your blog in order to earn money, obviously. You can monetize a blog through a number of methods such as adding pay per click ads to it, affiliate links, links to your own products or resell rights products, accepting paid ads, capturing email addresses and marketing to them and more.
The best way to find out the most profitable monetization method is to simply test them. Test which method brings you the most money and stick with it, all you need to do is switch each method around after a certain time period to find out.
Khemal Dole owns and operates http://www.PaychecksDirect.com, a completely FREE service which helps many first-timers and even experts find their perfect Work At Home job.
blog good techniques

2006-11-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

9 Simple Ways to be an Effective Blogger
Krista Goon

Plan to start blogging? Here are 9 tips to ensure you are on the right blogging track.
1. Focus your expertise
Always begin your blog with a theme or a focus. Although you can start one blog for all topics - both business and personal issues - it’s also best to separate your business from your personal blog particularly if the target audience is different. This helps you focus on the theme of your blog and enable you to blog easily without running off tangent!
2. Blog regularly
Commit time to blogging. Blogs are a little different from websites because blogs are expected to be updated more regularly than websites. Be sure to update your blog regularly. For example, I blog twice a week but I do blog extra if I have the time. However, if you worry you cannot blog regularly, try this time-saver tip of mine – set aside a day to draft 4 or 5 blog entries all at one go. Use them on days when you’re pressed for time or have writer’s block and cannot think of anything to blog about.
3. Show your personality
Don’t be afraid to show your personality when you blog. In fact, a blog is the best place to show the best bits of yourself – share as much as you can about how you feel and why you say the things you do. Don’t be afraid to use humour or honesty. Your readers will love you for being frank. Having said that, do set some personal rules as a blogger. My personal mantra is that I don’t cuss or have four-letter words in my blog.
4. Encourage feedback
Your blog exists because you want to start ‘conversations’ with your readers. You have an opinion to share and you want others to share theirs too. Some bloggers prevent their readers from leaving comments by turning off the Comments feature on their blog. I say enable your readers to provide you feedback but moderate comments – remove those which are rude. If you worry about spamming, plug in extra security by getting readers to register before they can leave comments and get the comments sent to you for approval prior to being posted to your blog.
5. Use photos to sell
Photographs always capture attention and convey emotions. They also help break the monotony of large sections of text. Remember to re-size them before you upload them to your blog. This keeps photograph sizes standard and consistent. I use photos which are re-sized to 400 pixels wide by 300 pixels tall. Don’t have gorgeous photos? Get them free from free stock photo sites such as freefoto.com or sxc.hu
6. Include links to other blogs
Include links to other blogs or websites. The mistake most people make is that they don’t want to link out because they’re worried their readers will leave. Don’t worry about them leaving - focus on writing quality engaging content. Your mission is to get them hooked enough that they will bookmark your blog and return often!
7. Use proper grammar and spellcheck
I can’t stress enough the importance of using proper grammatical language when blogging. You don’t have to be an expert in a language to use it well. Just remember that what you blog should be easy to understand without spelling or grammatical errors.
8. Ensure readability
When you blog, keep in mind that you need to ensure that your readers will be able to read easily. Follow newspaper conventions: use subheads to break up long paragraphs, keep one idea to one paragraph and use bulleted lists if the information is too unwieldy. Don’t torture your readers by having white text on a dark or black background. It hurts the eyes! Black text on white or light background always works best.
9. Be personal
The easiest way is to constantly use ‘you’ and ‘I’ liberally throughout your blog. This keeps it casual, friendly and easygoing. You definitely don’t want to blog in the third person because that would defeat the purpose of your blogging. Imagine you are having a conversation with your best friend. Use this mental image when you are blogging and you’ll never be stuck for ideas or words!
Krista Goon has been blogging since 2003 (she writes for 3 different blogs - all on different topics) and has given talks about blogging. Find out what else she is raving (or ranting about) in her blog over at http://www.MayaKirana.com
blog good techniques

2006-11-15T18:17:00.000-08:00

Blogging Goes Mobile
Wouter Van Dyck

Mobile blogging is a brand new phenomenon that has quit unnoticed entered the blogosphere. One of the reasons that the blogging community is interested in blogging is that there able to make frequent updates and postings that keep their fellow bloggers up to date with their current situation. Mobile blogs or ‘moblogs’ take this to the extreme by allowing their users to post things when there not in front of there PC. The difference between moblogging and regular blogging is that you use your phone or pocket pc to post on your blog. Those new mobloggers keep the internet community up to date with events of importance that occur all over the world, making international communication a lot faster. Moblogging has a brief but exiting History, you can read more about it at my blog
Lot of people feel that the limitations of blogging have a lot to do with geography. After all, there is only so current that a blog can be when you need to run home to your PC in order to post on your blog. However, mobile blogging marks the beginning of a thrilling new era when web-based communication can happen spontaneously from any location. There is almost no place on the planet that remains off-limit for moblogging.
Mobile blogging is still in its infancy because the technology that makes it possible has only recently hit the global market. The first moblog technology became available over a decade ago, but it is only the past two or three years that mobile web devices have become user-friendly enough to appeal to most consumers. Current mobloggers rely on email and SMS to submit blog post or entries. Usually some kind of script responds to an incoming email or SMS message to create a new blog entry.
As camera phones and other mobile technology become more popular, more and more bloggers are getting away from their desks and are hitting the streets. However, if moblogging has a future on mobile devices , it will most likely succeed on devices that have more sophisticated input possibilities than a numeric keyboard alone. The last months moblogging is becoming more and more widespread than a year ago, and the mobloggers are quickly attracting a lot of attention from the blogging community. It’s a bit early to say if moblogging will become the most popular kind of blogging, but we can say beyond a doubt that moblogging is here to stay.
The reason why moblogging has such a potential to revolutionize the blogosphere is that mobile blogging makes it possible to blog from the sites where current events are unfolding. A blogger with a mobile camera phone can post pictures from, say the foot of the podium of a Rolling Stones performance, or from the stands during the final moments of the world series. This enables bloggers to experience the same real time thrills that live television coverage provides, but in a more democratic medium. The combination of mobility and individual control that moblogging provides certainly places mobloggers on the cutting edge of today's communications technology, and it is hard to imagine that the number and prestige of moblogs will not continue to grow in the coming years.
You can read more about moblogging on my blog: www.bestaboutblogging.blogspot.com
blog good techniques

2006-11-14T09:13:00.000-08:00

Business Blogs - What Works and Blogging Mistakes to Avoid
Jonathan Ginsberg

Does it make sense for you to create a blog for your business? Because blogs are in the news and because they are much easier to create and update than web sites, you may be tempted to jump aboard the bandwagon. When you browse the blogosphere, however, you will discover that many business blogs serve little purpose. Your blog is only valuable if potential customers or clients read what you have written. A boring or silly blog will waste your time, your customers' time and may cost you credibility.
Ideas for Blog Posts That Work
As a lawyer who blogs regularly for my own practice and as a consultant working with other law firms and small businesses, I believe that an effective blog needs to have a "voice" and the posts need to fit within certain guidelines. Here are the approaches that I believe are most effective:
1) Use your blog to chronicle case studies. Everyone likes stories and you can use your blog to describe both positive and negative experiences. At my Social Security disability blog, for example, I frequently discuss my experiences representing clients in Social Security hearings. I speak about both positive and negative experiences and I use these case studies to explain what I am learning from my experiences.
If you are in sales, you might describe a sales call or a presentation. What went well and what surprises did you encounter? If you are writing about an experience that did not go well, describe your errors or problems in terms of a learning experience. Humbleness and a willingness to learn from mistakes can be an appealing trait and a blog can be an appropriate platform for addressing your experiences.
Be aware that all of your case studies should not describe negative experiences, but do not feel that your blog has to paint you only in a positive light.
2) Use your blog to report and comment upon current news in your industry. No doubt your subscribe to one or more industry trade journals or online news sources. You can use your blog to summarize news reports from other places (with appropriate credit) and to offer your own commentary.
In my Consumer Bankruptcy Blog, for example, I frequently discuss new developments in bankruptcy laws and I frequently reference posts from other bloggers. Most blogging software allows you to notify another blogger about your use of his material through something called a "trackback." Since blogging tends to be a cooperative activity, appropriate borrowing of content usually will be appreciated and encouraged. You will end up creating ongoing relationships with fellow bloggers in your content niche.
3) Use your blog to make your readers aware of other resources. Think of your blog as a digest service and share what you discover. Remember, blogs have a subscription feature called RSS, which mans that your blog readers are probably consuming your blog posts on their custom home page (such as My Yahoo, or Personalized Google). They will only stay subscribed if you offer useful content. Unlike regular web sites, your blog readers may have only visited the home page for your blog once. You want them to subscribe to a feed of your posts; you do not need them to bookmark your site.
Blogs That Do Not Make Sense
By contrast, a blog does not make sense if you plan to use your blog to vent about topics unrelated to your business. There is nothing more painful than to see a business owner using a business titled blog to discuss politics, religion or his personal taste in restaurants or movies. If you want to write about these things, set up a personal blog for that purpose.
Similarly, a business blog that exists only to sell something will likely garner very few readers. Blogs are about sharing ideas - potential customers are not going to give you valuable space on their custom home page or RSS readers and subject themselves to a hard sell. You can certainly mention what you do and what you sell, but doing so within a case study or a news update post will be much more palatable to your blog readers.
Finally a business blog that you do not update frequently - at least once a week - will founder. I use my personalized Google page as the home page for my browser and at any one time I may be subscribed to 20 to 30 blogs. If I don't see some activity in a blog over the course of a month, I delete the feed.
Blogs can be a valuable component to your marketing arsenal but only if you publish interesting, relevant and timely material. Blogging for the sake of blogging will waste your time and possibly create resentment within your target market. Your blog is not something that you finish - it is an on-going process that requires regular care and attention.
Jonathan Ginsberg has practiced consumer bankruptcy law in Atlanta, Georgia for over 20 years. In addition to representing debtors in Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy cases, Jonathan serves as a continuing education instructor, assisting other lawyers learn about new bankruptcy law developments and practice management skills.
His consumer bankruptcy web sites include http://www.atlanta-bankruptcy-attorney.com
blog good techniques

2006-11-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

Network Blogging To Create Massive Traffic
George Christodoulou

Just imagine a visitor comes to your website ready and willing to buy whatever you are selling without having to talk to you and without having to even take an extra second to read a word of your sales copy. This is what many marketers do; the only difference between each one of these marketers is that they use different tactics. Blogging is one of these tactics and you will learn how to maximize you business' exposure to pre sell all of your visitors.
Blogs are amazingly easy to use and maintain. This is going to be the basis of the strategy. You are going to have to take this feature of the blog and use it to your advantage. blogs are also simple to create which adds another advantage for this strategy.
They key is quality and quantity for this strategy but if you really want to succeed both of these elements are important. What you want to do is create approximately 5 blogs with a topic that somehow relates to your main website. It does not matter what you are selling, if you want to capture subscribers or get people to just come to read your amazing content.
Now what you have to do is try and create the links in a way that your visitors will travel through your blogs and travel from one to the other. The main reason for these blogs is to generate pre sold traffic to your main site to sell them something or to get them to join something or other so make sure you have a link to your site that sticks out and makes them want to come right in. Show your visitors that watch one of those sites are related so they go to all of them and let them know exactly which one is the main site.
Now here is a practical application for this strategy. Let’s say I want more people to join my membership website that they have to pay for to get into. I want to create a really amazing content rich membership site. All I really need is a few subscribers a month for about 6 months at which point I can start holding contests for referrals and start my viral campaign (that's for another day).
To do this, I would use the strategy and start building my 5 blogs. I would keep the topics similar in each but slightly different so my visitors travel to all of them and absorb some unique information at one. The key would be to have that link to my main site blaring in there faces saying, "hey, come to my site and become a member because the info in here is seven thousand times better then the information in the 2 or 3 blogs you have seen with this link on them" .
That’s all there is to it. It is a lot of hard work if you do not outsource some of the writing and you will get discouraged if you do not make a plan and carry it out. One solution would be to write a month worth of blog posts for all 5 blogs at on time before you launch even one blog. This will help you get through the first month at least.
Post every day and you will see you will have a large number of loyal readers that would be more then happy to join your membership site, buy whatever you are selling; basically they will do whatever you need them to.
blog good techniques

2006-11-12T15:44:00.000-08:00

Seven Reasons Why Blogging Should Be Part of Your Marketing Effort
Jim Estill

I started my blog 18 months ago as an effort to increase communications with my staff but very quickly realized the power of it with my customers and my suppliers. Now I consider my blog to be an integral part of my marketing efforts.
As an active blogger I have come up with seven reasons blogging should be part of any marketing program.
1. Blogs increase communication Anytime you increase communication, you increase profile and sales.
2. Although blogs have been around for awhile, they are still new and topical. People who see that you have a blog will think you are more leading edge. Even if you do not sell technology products, it helps.
3. Owning a blog is like owning a media. Similar to a newspaper, magazine, or a radio station. The advantage of owning a media is that you can say whatever you want where all other media tend to filter what you have to say.
4. You noticed that I said a blog should only part of a marketing program. Blogs on their own tend not to get much readership, rather they have to be crossed promoted so you need to put it on your email tag line, your website, your business cards, etc. People who see your blog address in another media are likely to come to it.
5. Blogging like writing tends to make you an expert. People tend to believe what they read. For this reason you don’t want your blog to be totally self-promotional. Add value. Provide information that helps your customer, amuses them, teaches them etc.
6. A blog should have an angle. People don’t want to log on and hear some promotional material about you and your company. They want to hear something that is a bit edgy, interesting, humorous, and resonates with them. Although you own a media, you still are in competition with all of the other media available. In my case, I have chosen Time Leadership/CEO as the title of my blog and I blog about personal self-development with a focus on time management and efficiency.
7. Blogging will often get picked up by other media and this added press can help you sell. For example, because I blog I have been featured twice in the Globe and Mail and once in Forbes magazine, as well I have been in our industry trade journals. I have also had many speaking engagements as a direct result of my blog.
Blogging doesn’t need to be technically intimidating. Anyone can set up a blog in five minutes. My suggestion is to get an experienced blogger to show you how to start. Or ask your kids.
Blogging is not for everyone. If you want to blog, you need to be willing to dedicate some time and you must enjoy writing. Because I blog about efficiency, I spend a lot of time focusing on my blogging efficiency and I spend less than 20 minutes on each of my blog entries. I do four or five a week; so I spend less than two hours a week on my blog.
I have received some direct sales as a result of my blog. I know from the feedback I have received that many of my customers and suppliers read it.
Blogging is one part of the marketing program.
Jim Estill started his business from the trunk of his car and grew into to $375 Million in sales before selling it to SYNNEX. He is now CEO of SYNNEX Canada a $1 Billion computer wholesaler. he is a regular blogger at http://jimestill.com.
blog good techniques

2006-11-11T19:11:00.000-08:00

Build Traffic With Blogs; Be Creative!
George Christodoulou

Be creative; these are the two most important words in internet marketing.

The reason for this is because everyone is doing the same thing and everybody is trying to copy other peoples successful efforts. This does not work, why would it? If you are copying so are 5,000 others and you will get hurt by this since your visitors will find your site and be turned off by the fact that they have seen the same thing 8 times that day.

Enough about being creative, now it is time to get into the actual, "blogging for traffic" portion.

There is new software and technology coming out all the time. You have to take advantage of this new technology and you have to create new mehtods of utilizing them. This will bring more traffic then you can imagine.

On such new technology is social book marking. Someone had the idea of creating a website that allows you to bookmark any website you found useful and make it public. This will add a lot of exposure to your website. Best of all, this is all free.

There is more then this out there and it get much better but eventually it gets pricey. Don't worry, not everything will cost you an arm and a leg. There is software for everything, remember that when you want to automate something.

This word, "automate" is very important. This is where the infinite traffic comes in. Use a mixture of automating software that will allow you to write your articles, post them to your blog, and send them out to be pinged and to send your RSS feed out instantly.

I have created just such a system of products and software that allows you to automate this process.

3 simple steps are all it takes.

Step 1

Use some kind of content writing software or ghost writing service to write the posts. Write them on the internet on an html page so you can get one post or more a day.

Step 2

Use some kind of software that allows you to post your writing into your blog and to ping it as well. This software does exist, do a little bit of research and find it. Many people actually give it away, even me in a free report.

Step 3

Use a blog ping and RSS feed broadcaster to get your blog instantly blasted across the net. This also increases your blogs ranking in search engines.

That’s all there is to it. There is much more needed to be learned. This is just some of it.
blog good techniques

2006-11-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

Build Traffic With Blogs; Be Creative!
George Christodoulou

Be creative; these are the two most important words in internet marketing.

The reason for this is because everyone is doing the same thing and everybody is trying to copy other peoples successful efforts. This does not work, why would it? If you are copying so are 5,000 others and you will get hurt by this since your visitors will find your site and be turned off by the fact that they have seen the same thing 8 times that day.

Enough about being creative, now it is time to get into the actual, "blogging for traffic" portion.

There is new software and technology coming out all the time. You have to take advantage of this new technology and you have to create new mehtods of utilizing them. This will bring more traffic then you can imagine.

On such new technology is social book marking. Someone had the idea of creating a website that allows you to bookmark any website you found useful and make it public. This will add a lot of exposure to your website. Best of all, this is all free.

There is more then this out there and it get much better but eventually it gets pricey. Don't worry, not everything will cost you an arm and a leg. There is software for everything, remember that when you want to automate something.

This word, "automate" is very important. This is where the infinite traffic comes in. Use a mixture of automating software that will allow you to write your articles, post them to your blog, and send them out to be pinged and to send your RSS feed out instantly.

I have created just such a system of products and software that allows you to automate this process.

3 simple steps are all it takes.

Step 1

Use some kind of content writing software or ghost writing service to write the posts. Write them on the internet on an html page so you can get one post or more a day.

Step 2

Use some kind of software that allows you to post your writing into your blog and to ping it as well. This software does exist, do a little bit of research and find it. Many people actually give it away, even me in a free report.

Step 3

Use a blog ping and RSS feed broadcaster to get your blog instantly blasted across the net. This also increases your blogs ranking in search engines.

That’s all there is to it. There is much more needed to be learned. This is just some of it.
blog good techniques

2006-10-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

6 Things You Must Do If You Want To Have An Effectively Branded Blog
B Hopkins

The term blogging has recently found its way into the standard Internet terminology. While most people don't have a blog, or don't even know the first thing about blogging, they have heard of the term and have at least a vague idea of what it means. If you decide to venture into the world of blogging, there are some things you must do to increase your chances of making your blog more successful. Most of these things are common sense, but some of them may be new to a first-time blogger.
1. Identify the Target Market for Your Blog
You should focus on one topic area, or related topic areas for your blog. If your blog wanders too much in many different directions, it becomes a general discussion blog, and you risk losing the more motivated readers. For example, if your target market of interest is travel, then you would want to focus your blog on topics related to travel. You could broaden your topics to include adventure travel, cruises, all-inclusives, hotels, etc., however the more focused you are in your topics (if you just stick with cruises), the more effective your blog will be in terms of branding you as an expert about cruises, and the more responsive your readers will be to your cruise related posts.
2. Give the Readers to Your Blog What They Want
Unless your blog is set up to just display your random streams of consciousness, the readers to your blog are going to want valuable and timely information that is accurate. If you are making statements about policies or current events, you should back them up with links to the sources you used to make those statements. It is also important to keep the reader interested by giving your own personal insights, or giving a new way to look at current events. Putting your own personality into your blog is essential and will keep your readers interested in what you have to say.
3. The More Creative Your Blog, The Better
Be creative within reason of course. However with so many blogs out there today, it's now more difficult to have your blog stand out from the rest. Your blog must have personality and depth to keep people's interest. Also realize that your blog will not appeal to everyone, and that is OK. Your blog is not meant to appeal to everyone, that is why you first went through the step of determining your target market and targeting your blog to those readers.
4. Your Blog Should Be Clear
While your grammar doesn't have to be perfect every time, or at a college level, it should be easily readable. If your blog is written in such a way that people have to re-read it 3 or 4 times in order to understand it, then you will quickly lose their interest. Remember, your readers don't want to have to work to read your blog, and they shouldn't have to if they know how to read. Make sure your spelling and punctuation are correct. The points you wish to make in your blog posts should also be to the point and clear, and not wander to far from the main subject, as this will confuse the reader, or cause the visitor to lose interest before they finish reading your blog posting.
5. Keep Your Blog Content Up To Date
Think of your blog as your way of communicating with the world. Communication is an ongoing activity and your blog should act in the same way. Make regular updates and postings to your blog to keep the content fresh. One of the easiest ways to do add fresh content is to create a blog posting where you comment about what is going on in the news, and relate that news item to your topic. It may require some creativity, but it should be quite doable.
6. Make Your Blog Interactive.
One of the best ways to keep your readers interested is to allow them to comment on your blog. If your blog is really interesting and inciteful to your readers, chances are they will want to comment on what you have to say. This provides more points of view and is also a very easy way to keep your blog up to date without you having to write everything yourself.
Be sure to keep a close eye on your comments however, as there are spammers who will post irrelevant comments on your blog just to get a link back to their own completely unrelated site. Many blog programs now come with verification features that will force a live user to enter a comment. This doesn't stop spammers completely, but it does stop the automated programs from filling your blog with comment spam.
The world of blogging is a great way to allow individuals to express their opinions, businesses to strengthen their customer relationships, and website owners to bring more exposure to their websites. The more successfully you follow the above tips, the better you will be able to brand yourself as an expert in that area, and the more exposure you will get to your blog and/or business. Your next steps should be updating your blogging style to include the above steps, learning more about blogs, discovering what software is available, and finding out where you can read more about blogs.
You don't have handle the world of blogging alone. Whether you have a blog or not, you can always learn more at this content article directory Don't spend all that time creating and building your blog without learning about how it can earn an income for you. Get Blogging Success today.
blog good techniques

2006-10-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

Why Blogging Is Crucial To Your Business In Today's Business World
Gregg Hall

Intellectual people fill the rooms of successful businesses, and they've all noticed the benefits that both formal and informal blogs have reaped in past years. Moreover, they will not stand aside and watch this train pass them buy, so many businesses have also stepped unto the blogging locomotive.
Businesses use blogs for a variety of reasons, from drumming up business to receiving customer feedback to building team morale. They've examined the blogs out there, and they want a piece of the blog pie that has made other corporations, individuals, and groups so successful.
Successful blogs will look inviting and yet professional. Obviously you want the respect from your customers that you deserve, and so a professional looking blog should demand that kind of respect. At the same time you want a place that people will want to visit, so you need to have a casual, inviting feel to the blog. You can achieve this through your color and style choice, so consider these carefully when creating the blog. The professional aspect of the blog will also come into play when you consider its usability: make it user friendly. Consider posting notes from the supervisors or president of the company to start out with and to invite your customers to continue to visit the site.
Businesses use their blogs in more ways than just to touch base with their customers. Some companies have opted for in house blogs that pertain only to employees. This especially works well for larger companies. Many companies offer employees the opportunity to provide feedback about the company along side the customers who can also provide feedback. Such blogs open the lines of communication around the office between consumers and employees.
Some companies also use blogs to solve in house problems. Employees may have the opportunity to share their opinions about a given issue in the office. These kinds of sites seem to work best when an employee can voice his opinion anonymously instead of risking his reputation in front of his fellow employees.
And finally, many companies have used blogs to build team morale. They give employees an opportunity to share the great things about their company, and administration also posts information about the company that pertains to employees and genuinely builds up the atmosphere in the office. These kinds of blogs are used to post events like weddings involving employees or birthdays or birth announcements.
In the end, the majority of those who have jumped unto the blog locomotive have not regretted their decision. Blogs have opened a whole new line of communication among customers, employees, and supervisors and in the end, everyone benefits from better communication. So what are you waiting for? Start blogging today.
Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach, Florida. Find more about this as well as business books at http://www.executivebusinessbooksummaries.com
blog good techniques

2006-10-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

The 5 Secrets of Top Bloggers
Michael Fleischner

Blogs are becoming more and more popular. If you don't already have a weblog of your own, you've at least posted a comment to one, read one, or heard the term used in everyday conversation.
You may also have noticed that only a small number of blogs are truly known in each industry. As is true with most major media, "the cream rises to the top". The best weblogs have a large following and are valuable sources of information for thousands of readers. There are five primary reasons why some blogs become popular and others don't.
1. Focusing on a Popular Content Area. One of the most important characteristics of a successful blog is appropriate content. In order to gain a large following your blog must cover a topical area that is broad enough to be of interest to a large number of individuals but specific enough to have meaning.
Weblogs that provide information on obscure topics can never have a sizeable audience because the topic is of limited interest. So, if you're going to start a blog of your own, make sure that your content area is broad enough to appeal to a large audience.
2. Content that's timely. The best way to keep your blog readers interested is with timely content. Your blog should cover current events, opinions, and topics. Popular weblogs often comment on current events tied to their particular subject area or industry. Not only is the content meaningful to blog readers, but it encourages them to interact with your blog posts by placing comments.
Timely content is anything that is of current interest. Your best sources for timely content include daily newspapers, magazines, Internet news sites, and industry journals. Be sure to choose timely content that can be discussed and debated. This improves the overall effectiveness of your blog posts.
3. Updated Daily. The blogs that attract the most readers are those addressing popular content areas, covering timely topics, and refreshed on a daily basis. If your weblog adds a new post everyday, then readers have a reason to return. Providing daily updates on a consistent basis helps users to develop the habit of visiting daily. Updated content builds a loyal following while encouraging word-of-mouth referrals about your posts.
4. Comments from Industry Experts. Nothing speaks with more authority than an interview with an expert. The most popular blogs integrate interviews, commentary, podcasts, and other posts that include an expert who offers their thoughts and opinions on a given topic or current event. This is an essential reason why so many people return to the most popular blogs over and over again.
If you're wondering how to recruit experts for your blog, than look to current best practices for blogging and Internet marketing, simply ask. Industry experts are always looking to share their ideas. If you can't arrange for an in-person or phone interview, email the expert a list of questions and ask for their responses.
5. Use Interactive Media and Visuals. It's difficult for blog readers to read flat, boring text day in and day out, regardless of how stimulating a topic may be. The most popular bloggers know this and have enhanced their blogs with audio, video, external links, screenshots, and more.
The best way to improve the overall popularity of your blog is to present blog content in a variety of formats. Visit other blogs and determine what type of interactivity would work best for your blog. You don't need to go overboard, just add interactive content where it makes sense to do so.
By following the lead of today's most popular blogs, your blog can thrive. Follow the blog secrets listed above for enhancing your blog and improving readership. The key is to plan your blogging activities carefully and encourage interaction with your readers. This enhances the overall effectiveness of your blog and makes for a truly great blogging experience for everyone. Happy Blogging!
Michael Fleischner is a marketing expert and the president of MarketingScoop.com. He also hosts a marketing blog that provides the latest commentary on the world of marketing. He has more than 12 years of marketing experience and had appeared on The TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and other major media. Visit MarketingScoop.com to learn more.
blog good techniques

2006-10-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

The Complete Business Blogging Strategy Guide
George Christodoulou

Blogging has been used for years by people who want to share there ideas with there friends and family. they used blogs Blogs are tools that are very multifaceted in the manner that they can be used by everyone for many different reasons including creating income on the internet and advertising existing business. Blogging has been used for years by people who want to share there ideas with there friends and family. They used blogs because they could not normally stay in touch with them so they used these as a window into each other lives. Even though they could not see each other, they could still know everything that is going on in there lives. As time went by, blogs were taken and turned into something amazing, they were turned into the ultimate advertising and income producing medium. Blogs are easy to set up, they are easy to update, and they are easy to maintain, for these reasons and more, blogs have become one of the best ways to produce income and advertise a business online.
If you are now a very technical person and you have no idea how to set up a website or even a blog for that matter, then you are in the same place with many others who want to make money online and reduce themselves to spamming and advertising on myspace, not that there is anything wrong with that, but blogs are a much better use of time and energy. When I first started working online, the first thing I did was create a site that created no income and was so complicated to understand that I had to copy other peoples sites to make it look like something that people would take seriously. From there I swore never to do that again and I have not since. I wasted my time and my money on that website and it paid me nothing. I heard about blogging, I did my research and I was able to turn it into something that I love to do and I want to help others do the same.
Creating a blog is as simple as tying your shoe. Simply decide what kind of blog you want. This can be done with a little bit of research. There will be no easy answer, step by step procedure here because there are many options and they all take consideration. There many blogging platforms existing on the net. The one that I use most often is wordpress. What they allow you to do is create a free blog from there site, wordpress.com. This makes it easy for you to start your blog and get going for no money. The problem with this is that you have to pay to be able to change the blog the way you want it to look and this is a problem. You will see why in a few moments if you continue reading. Another site that allows you to build a free blog is blogger.com. This is a Google based site that allows you to create a free blog and change it the way you want it to look. The downside with this one is that they like to delete random blogs. Creating a blog with these 2 platforms are simple, they offer instructions about starting it and set you on your way.
Once you get your blog started, you want to also know were the income is coming from. Income from a blog can come from many different places. It all depends on what you want and what your blog is capable of. In addition, some of these methods require a little bit of technical knowledge that can easily be learned with a little bit of research.
One form of creating income with a blog is by selling affiliate products. These are products that are created by other people and sold by you. This is not a about selling affiliate products so only a brief explination of affiliate marketing will suffice. Clickbank.com is a marketplace for affiliate products. This means that you can sell other peoples products. These products are called information products, meaning that all that has to be done is the selling portion of the transaction and the rest it taken care of. You receive a commission and you are done. Signing up to clickbank is easy and instructions and more information is provided. All that needs to be done is addition of a simple URL to your blog and if a visitor is interested, they will click on it and if they buy the product, you will earn that commission. Clickbank does not allow a check to be sent out until 5 different credit cards purchase items. The system that is set up allows everyone who goes to what is called an affiliate link to earn you a commission on there purchase.
There is also what is called, pay-per-click advertising, which is when ads are placed on the site that pay you every time they are clicked. This is a very passive method of creating income. A better explained definition can be found at adsense.google.com which is a Google based pay-per-click- program that allows for simple and easy ad creation and placement. This also requires some technical skills because a code is given when an ad is created. All you have to do is learn how to create an ad, which is explained very well, then , a code is given to be placed on a site or a blog, the search engine scans the page to see what it is about, and there are ads on the blog that can create a fine income with enough traffic. There is a lot more to know about this topic, for instance, ad placement which is the place where the ads are placed. In some cases this factor changes some incomes by an increase of hundreds.
The final form of income that can be created, which is one of the more time consuming but much more rewarding, creating a newsletter. This may sound very complicated, but it is not. All that has to be done is an autoresponder needs to be created and code be added to the blog. This is one of the more technical procedures but if you do a little bit of research, you will see that there is a lot that can be learned and that a newsletter is easy to create. The way you make income from this is simple. You place the form on your blog that allows people to join your newsletter and you send them emails every so often with information related to your niche. As that list of people grows, it becomes easy to sell those people products because they become loyal. This can all be done for free at freeautobot.com. They provide a free autoresponder service.
This is basically all there is to making money with a blog. Posts have to be interesting enough to keep people coming back for more every day. Keep posting every single day to keep people coming back. To advertise your blog, use what is called a pinging service which allows a blog to be broadcasted all over the net. One such site that offers this service is pingoat.com. Use this every time you make a post. Try to drive as much traffic as you can to your blog and watch your income skyrocket.
If you would like some help with SEO and are badly in need of a search engine optimization specialist, visit http://www.internebusiness-tips.com
blog good techniques

2006-10-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

Blogging Is Just Instant Publishing: Ask Before You Leap
Angela Booth

If you're new to blogging, or can't get your head around the whole "online journal" concept, relax. Blogging is merely instant publishing. If you're too concerned about the idea of an online journal, you're missing the whole point about blogging. Think of a blog as a business tool.
Essentially, blogging is not about you. It's about your audience, and what blogging will help you to do for them. Right now. Instantly.
Before you plunge into choosing a blogging service or platform, ask yourself some questions:
* Who's my audience?
* What challenges will my blog help my audience to solve?
* What do I want to achieve?
* What challenges could blogging help me to solve?
Let's look at these questions. Please write down the questions, and the answers, because the questions and answers will predict your blogging success, or the lack of it.
If you already have a blog, and you're not happy about the way your blog is performing, the solutions lie in the answers you give to these four questions.
1. Who's My Audience?
Who are you creating your blog for? If you're running a business, who is the target audience for your business? This target audience is the audience for which you're creating your business's blog.
Let's say you own a restaurant. It's an up-market seafood restaurant. Your target audiences are your current customers, and potential customers.
2. What Challenges Will My Blog Help My Audience to Solve?
As an instant publishing tool, your blog can help your audience to solve their problems. Indeed, your blog MUST do this, if it's going to be successful.
In our seafood restaurant example, the owner knows that his target audience is in their thirties, and forties, they're well off, and they're not only interested in good food, but they're also in the age group where they're starting to think about their health.
So the challenges he can help them to solve include helping them to learn more about food and wine so they can increase their enjoyment, he can also help them to learn more about eating well in order to preserve good health. Once the owner knows what challenges his audience face, many, many ideas for blog content will occur to him.
3. What Do I Want to Achieve?
Why blog? What can a blog do for you, or for your business? As an instant publishing tool, creating a blog is much faster than creating a Web site. A blog also has features which make it attractive to the search engines. Therefore, a blog is likely to get more traffic than a static site. Once you have traffic, you can convert that traffic into dollars in any way you wish.
In our example, our restaurant owner might have many aims. He may want to attract customers, but also to attract restaurant reviewers for free publicity. He may also want to become known in the restaurant industry so he can make industry contacts.
4. What Challenges Could Blogging Help Me to Solve?
Everyone has challenges. Make a list of challenges that you face in your business. Can blogging help you to solve a few of them?
Our restaurant owner has a couple of major challenges. His is the third seafood restaurant to open in the area, and he doesn't have an established clientele. Advertising is expensive, but he needs to advertise constantly.
A blog can help him to get higher search engine rankings, and pick up new customers.
Take a few minutes to answer the four questions. It will be time well spent. When you have your answers, you will not only know why you should blog, but also how you can help your blog's audience.
Angela Booth is a veteran copywriter and blogger. Her ebook, Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want, is available at http://www.abmagic.com/Blog/blogging.html
blog good techniques

2006-10-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

Blogging Is Just Instant Publishing: Ask Before You LeapAngela Booth
If you're new to blogging, or can't get your head around the whole "online journal" concept, relax. Blogging is merely instant publishing. If you're too concerned about the idea of an online journal, you're missing the whole point about blogging. Think of a blog as a business tool.
Essentially, blogging is not about you. It's about your audience, and what blogging will help you to do for them. Right now. Instantly.
Before you plunge into choosing a blogging service or platform, ask yourself some questions:
* Who's my audience?
* What challenges will my blog help my audience to solve?
* What do I want to achieve?
* What challenges could blogging help me to solve?
Let's look at these questions. Please write down the questions, and the answers, because the questions and answers will predict your blogging success, or the lack of it.
If you already have a blog, and you're not happy about the way your blog is performing, the solutions lie in the answers you give to these four questions.
1. Who's My Audience?
Who are you creating your blog for? If you're running a business, who is the target audience for your business? This target audience is the audience for which you're creating your business's blog.
Let's say you own a restaurant. It's an up-market seafood restaurant. Your target audiences are your current customers, and potential customers.
2. What Challenges Will My Blog Help My Audience to Solve?
As an instant publishing tool, your blog can help your audience to solve their problems. Indeed, your blog MUST do this, if it's going to be successful.
In our seafood restaurant example, the owner knows that his target audience is in their thirties, and forties, they're well off, and they're not only interested in good food, but they're also in the age group where they're starting to think about their health.
So the challenges he can help them to solve include helping them to learn more about food and wine so they can increase their enjoyment, he can also help them to learn more about eating well in order to preserve good health. Once the owner knows what challenges his audience face, many, many ideas for blog content will occur to him.
3. What Do I Want to Achieve?
Why blog? What can a blog do for you, or for your business? As an instant publishing tool, creating a blog is much faster than creating a Web site. A blog also has features which make it attractive to the search engines. Therefore, a blog is likely to get more traffic than a static site. Once you have traffic, you can convert that traffic into dollars in any way you wish.
In our example, our restaurant owner might have many aims. He may want to attract customers, but also to attract restaurant reviewers for free publicity. He may also want to become known in the restaurant industry so he can make industry contacts.
4. What Challenges Could Blogging Help Me to Solve?
Everyone has challenges. Make a list of challenges that you face in your business. Can blogging help you to solve a few of them?
Our restaurant owner has a couple of major challenges. His is the third seafood restaurant to open in the area, and he doesn't have an established clientele. Advertising is expensive, but he needs to advertise constantly.
A blog can help him to get higher search engine rankings, and pick up new customers.
Take a few minutes to answer the four questions. It will be time well spent. When you have your answers, you will not only know why you should blog, but also how you can help your blog's audience.
Angela Booth is a veteran copywriter and blogger. Her ebook, Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want, is available at http://www.abmagic.com/Blog/blogging.html
blog good techniques

2006-10-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

Some Of The Reasons Why You Should Start a Photo Blog Now
Gregg Hall

Web logs or blogs have quickly become one of the most common forms of self expression. They allow people to post their thoughts on the Internet, to be viewed by the world at large. Usually they are done in text, but now technology has opened a whole new generation of blogs, known as photo blogs.
Remember the old expression, "a picture speaks a thousand words"? Photo blogging is the embodiment of this concept. Instead of people voicing the stories that they want to share by writing them out, they do so using photographs. These pictures can often convey sentiments that are hard to express in words and invoke the emotions of those who view them. Not all of them are dramatic portraits that required years of skill to take. They can be as simple as a mother smiling with tears in her eyes, as she holds a new baby in her arms. A picture like this sends a lot of messages, from the appreciation of new life, to the huge responsibilities that parents hold, as symbolized by the child in the mother's arms.
Many photo bloggers are expert photographers and share their art with the world through their blogs. Many of these photographers have received acclaim for their skills and have been recognized as the true artists that they are. They post pictures that they have taken all over the world, from serene mountain scenes, to violent confrontations. All of their pictures convey certain messages by the images that they contain.
Amateur photographers also use photo blogging as a way to establish themselves as artists. They may not be able to travel the world over to obtain their pictures, but can still take them locally to convey their messages. A picture taken of children at play in a schoolyard can carry invoke all kinds of emotions if taken at the right angle and with varying light. Even a picture as simple as a person deep in thought while walking a dog can convey the message of a how an animal can be happy while attached to a leash, while also showing how humans can suffer although they are free to do what they want.
Photo blogging has become so popular that forums have been created for them. Here people can talk about blogging, get advice on techniques or share their pictures. So much for the old photo albums that you used to pull out when you had a visitor. Now you can share all of your favorite photographs with the millions of people that surf the web just to view them.
If you love to take pictures and are proud of your work, consider starting a photo blog. It may be the most rewarding way for you to enjoy your hobby and display your craft.
Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about this as well as photo restoration at http://www.photorestorationservices.com
blog good techniques

2006-10-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

5 Critical Characteristics To Demand From Your Blogging Software.. Does Yours Do These?
B Hopkins

With so many blogging software options available today, it can be a difficult task to decide which blogging software you should use. Each blogging software solution will have its own unique set of advantages and disadvantages, so you should determine your needs first, and then decide which blog software solution will work best for you. Whatever you determine your needs are, your solution should, at least, have the characteristics described below.
1. Your Blogging Software Should Be Easy to Install
There are many blogging software programs available today for many different platforms. Most of them are good and will provide much of the needed functionality a person needs to blog on their website. However, if the blog software isn't easy to install, and if you are not a programmer, you will have some trouble getting your blog started.
Even the easiest of programs to install, will be challenging to someone who is just barely familiar with using a computer, but if the installation is easy enough, you can pay a programmer or even a web designer a small amount of money to install your blog for you.
Blog software is easy to install if you only need to perform the following steps: 1) upload the software to the webserver 2) fill in your specific information, into a form, such as: the URL of the blog, the database information, the username and password to administer the blog, and an email address. 3) click the install button, and your blog gets installed. 4) log into your blog program, and personalize the blog for your own website.
2. It Should Be Easy for You to Change the Look and Feel of Your Blog
Your blog software programmed should be set up so that it is easy to change the look and feel of your blog through a quick menu selection. Most blogging software comes with several pre-defined templates that will allow you to change the look of your blog very quickly and easily.
The blogging software should also be set up so that it is easy to add templates. Usually it is as simple as uploading the new template into the template folder of the blog software - if it is more difficult than that, you should find a different blog program.
3. Your Blogging Software Should Automatically Ping Blog Servers
One of the best features of blogging software, is it's ability to inform other websites that your blog has been updated. This process is called 'pinging'. Pinging is an important feature because it tells the world that you have new content on your blog and they should come and check it out. Pinging is a powerful way of getting exposure and visibility to your blog relatively quickly. Search engines love to find new content so they have services that specifically search the web for new content. When you 'ping' one of these services, you are telling it to check out the new content on your blog.
Some of the better blogging programs available will have an interface that will let you easily choose what pinging services you can ping about the new content on your blog. Most blog programs include some of the more popular services as a standard feature in your blog software. If you want to ping more services, sometimes you will have to go into the program and change the code. A competent programmer should be able to do this for you in a few hours.
4. Your Blog Software Should Have Search-Engine Friendly URL's
Most of the better blogging software programs that are out there today store their entries in a database. This means that many of the pages are dependent upon parameters being passed to them before they can display the pages. For web browsers, the way that parameters are passed are usually indicated by characters such as '?' and '&'. Some blogging software requires that several parameters get passed before a single page, or blog entry, gets loaded.
Search engines usually don't index url's with a lot of parameters passed to them (lots of "&" in the URL), because the search engines can sometimes choke on these types of URLs. The better blogging software programs have an option to automatically 'convert' these URLs to more 'search engine friendly' URLs that don't 'scare' the search engines away. These converted URLs will allow the search engines to index your entire site, and all of your post entries, which makes it easier for visitors to find your blog.
5. It Should Be Easy to Add New Features to Your Blog Software
As you become more comfortable and knowledgeable about blogging, you will eventually find the need to add new features and functions to your blogging software. If your software is designed to be 'plug and play', it should be very easy to add features to your software. All it takes is uploading a new feature 'module' to your 'modules' directory. Some blog scripts require a lot of code changes in order to add new features, and that can be a huge task for someone who isn't a programmer. Sometimes it's a huge task for someone who is a programmer.
If your blog software isn't designed to have easy plug-in add-ons, chances are the software isn't designed for easily adding on new features. If this is the case, you should choose another blogging software program.
If you select a blogging solution that has the included characteristics listed above, you will be well on your way to using a system that will grow with you as your needs grow, and is designed to bring more traffic to your website. The next step is to see what programs are available for you to use as your blogging solution. Some of them are free and some of them cost money.
Copyright (c) 2006 B Hopkins
Your blogging software can lock you into a solution that might not be the best for your needs. Read more articles about blogging at http://www.allwebcontent.com/articles/Category/Blogs/4 Find out how you can make money with your blog here: Learn to Blog for Your Business (Create High Quality Articles)
blog good techniques

2006-10-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

Blogging for Business and Networking
Marsha Maung

Blog – what a funny word. Not only do most individuals have a blog these days, but businesses are beginning to realize the power of the blogging medium. In recent years, they saw how amazing a blog is and how extensive a blog’s reach is. A light bulb went off in someone’s head and the business decides that “Hey, you know what? If a 12-year-old kid can create a blog that generates tens of thousands of page views a day and create a network online, why not a business?”
Hence, the business blog is born.
What is the difference between a personal blog and a business blog? The agenda is essentially the same – to update, advice, provide information and network with people who share the same passion or interest. A blog, although was first invented as an online journal of sorts, have developed into a powerful publishing media. So powerful that businesses are starting to jump onto the blog bandwagon in a valiant effort to create an online network. This is the network whereby they can stay in touch with their customers or potential customers.
But why do you think a blog is so useful to an ordinary person? Why do you think it will help individuals or companies network with others on the internet? How would it benefit an individual and how would it benefit a company? What kind of networking opportunities will a business blog present to a large International company?
Here’s the thing…blogs are so versatile. It’s different from a conventional updating system we used to have on our websites…the FAQs and the what-have-you-nots. A blog is often more personal and when a company uses this to get closer and network with the customers, things are different. For instance, Company A is a large business with a huge network of customers, clients, suppliers, retailers…etc. The company can create blogs…not one, not two, not three…but a blog for each department in the company that deals with different issues…it would see significant increase in sales in a very short period of time.
How? Just put someone in charge of updating each of the blogs – as simple as that! You don’t even say it’s a business blog – let’s just say ‘Paula Simmons’ blog (Human Resource)’ or ‘Terry Hemmingway’s blog (Public Relations)….etc. You get the picture. You’ve just put a face on a particular department in your huge company by NOT naming the blog a blog but simply putting someone’s name on it. This makes the readers feel closer to the company ever more than better.
So, get on with it and create your own blog now. Don’t wait!
Marsha Maung is a freelance graphic designer and copy writer who works from her home in Selangor, Malaysia. She loves nothing more than blowing bubbles in the park with her 2 kids, Joshua and Jared. She designs apparel and premium items at http://www.allmomstuff.com and is the author of "Raising little magicians", and the popular "The Lance in freelancing".
blog good techniques

2006-10-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

Blogging as a Business Tool: Reading and Writing Effectively
Laura Watkins

Simply put, gaining relevant and cutting edge business information should be at the forefront of any good business plan. There are tried and true ways of accomplishing this: subscribing to business magazines geared towards your industry, attending trade-related conferences, or networking with colleagues; all serve their own purpose but essentially target the same result—to acquire valuable, industry-relevant information.
Whether you provide corporate information or intend to supply it, one avenue you may not have considered is blogging. “Blogging,” or writing a blog or weblog is an online journal of sorts, whereby the blogger self-publishes information that he or she deems relevant. Regardless of whether or not you are all that familiar with the blogosphere (a term created to reference the culture of all things blog), you should begin to ask yourself, “How does blogging impact me and my business?”
There are a number of ways in which a blog can benefit those interested in pursuing its offerings, particularly those in smaller businesses. According to Darrell Zahorsky of About.com, “Blogging is a low-cost alternative to having a web presence. For small business owners without the time to learn web html or the money to hire a designer/developer, blogging offers an inexpensive method to get your company's name out on the Internet.”
Even the blogging industry itself has become a business. Businessblogconsulting.com is dedicated to “demonstrating how effective weblogs can be for communicating with customers and marketing to new customer prospects.” Proof that blogging is becoming a significant business opportunity. Blogging also offers quick results to those with precious little time. “Updating the weblog [blog] is a much quicker process than contacting a web designer with changes or doing the coding and uploading yourself” (Zahorsky). It also allows for fresh material to be added at the poster’s convenience, so it seems more current and up-to-date than traditional business sites, which also gives visitors a reason to keep coming back to the site. Sheila Ann Manuel Coggins, writer for About.com, agrees:
“Brick and mortar stores put up new items in display windows regularly. Retail shops are always looking for new items to add to the list of products available. Services are often reviewed and updated. Even restaurants and cafes with a regular menu come up with a 'Special of the Day' for a bit of variation. All business owners know this: customers love seeing new things. If they know that they like the things they see in a business establishment, they would keep coming back. They like to check for what's new or what's different.”
Blog readers and writers alike may also be drawn to the unique look and feel of a blog. In fact, many blogs, (even those with business content) give the impression of that of a personal journal laden with exclusive ideas and suggestions, rather than the stiff, unwelcoming refuse that a fair deal of business sites employ.
Businesses should essentially view the blog as a tool in which they can affordably and quite easily project the image of their choosing, while those individuals seeking industry-related information can relish in the fact that the vast, cold world of the corporate Internet is made to seem a little smaller, and a fair bit friendlier, one business blog at a time.

About the Author:
Laura Watkins is a contributing business writer for http://www.goliath.ecnext.com Goliath is one of the Internet’s largest collections of business research, news and information.
blog good techniques

2006-10-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

Tips on the Art of the Blog
Mary Baker

1) Blogs that are event driven are easier to write.
I have three blogs. The most successful blog is the blog about where I live, Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Newburyport is a wonderful small seaport New England city with a whole lot of interesting things going on. The blog is called the Newburyport Political Blog.
The Newburyport Political Blog is the easiest of my three blogs because it is event driven. There are days when I put up 2-4 posts. I do not have to come up with new and exciting information, because new and exciting things are happening all the time in Newburyport, MA.
2) Search engines appear to like blogs that post on a regular basis.
3) I have found that the tone of the blog is really important.
Instead of using verbs like "can, will, should," I use verbs like "would, could, might, may." That one tip is huge. It helps readers listen to what is written, whereas otherwise they might be on the defensive.
4) A fourth tip would be to keep blog posts relatively short, 450-700 words. My experience is that Internet readers have a much shorter attention span than readers of the printed word.
5) If there were a long post, another tip would be to break the post into shorter blog postings.
6) I find that if I use the first person and state that it is my opinion or my understanding that also makes the blog more reader friendly.
7) If I would like to introduce a subject, I try and do it slowly and incrementally, often over 3-7 posts. This is another huge tip.
Often I begin by introducing the subject at the end of the first blog post. The next post has the subject at the beginning of the blog post. And then following blog posts have the subject in the blog post headline as well as in the text itself.
8) The last tip is that I find that search engines tend to pick up key words in the blog post headline much more easily than they would in the actual content of the blog post.
© Mary Baker 2006
Mary Baker is a professional artist whose studio is in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Mary has her own art website, Mary Baker Art and her own art blog Mary Baker Art-Blog.
Mary is also very involved in Newburyport issues and politics. In the civic world in Newburyport, MA, Mary is known as Mary Baker Eaton.
The The Newburyport Political Blog is about issues and politics in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Even though you might not live in Newburyport, MA, the Newburyport Political Blog is fun to read. The blog has been written about in a number of publications, including The Boston Globe.
blog good techniques

2006-09-29T04:37:00.000-07:00

The Future of Blogs: Your Content and Your Business
Matt Ambrose

Anybody who has seen my main website will know that I might have jumped the gun a bit when I pigeon holed myself as a professional business blogger. It’s been not so much a case of jumping on the blogging bandwagon as jumping too early with nowhere to land.
So whilst I wait for the pro-blogger gravy train to arrive, I thought I might look into my crystal ball and see what other predictions I can try and foresee in the mists of time.
We are still only really at the start of the ambiguous ‘Web 2.0’ with marketers and PR professionals all rushing to find the best ways of utilising the new tools at their disposal. The gold-rush is on to find the best way of gaining exposure and mining the rapidly growing online marketplace.
It has never been easier or cheaper to reach a global audience in a very short space of time.
Web 2.0 has also been synonymous with the growth of the bedroom publisher. Anybody with a PC and Internet connection can now run their own blog or website, and potentially reach millions around the world. This has created a torrent of content flooding onto the Internet on a daily basis.
So much content is being produced that it is virtually impossible to keep track of all the latest updates on all but the smallest of niches. Over 50 million blogs are now being tracked by Technorati with 1.6 million new posts hitting the web everyday! Google and Microsoft are also hell-bent on adding all the greatest literary works known to man by scanning whole libraries onto the Internet. I don’t, however, expect to see Shakespeare or Dickens topping Digg anytime soon.
There is going to have to be a rethink on how we find and distribute content and information. After all, we can’t go on fighting over the top few search engine spots forever!
Once RSS penetrates the mass market, and awareness spreads, people will start using RSS to bookmark their sites of interest. Why waste time trawling through all your browser bookmarks when you can have all the updates delivered straight to your homepage?
But relying on RSS website feeds and topic keyword feeds will only have a limited lifespan. With more and more blogs appearing on every topic under the sun your aggregator will eventually reach saturation point, overloaded with content.
I already spend most of the morning reading through all my RSS feeds - and I only started using RSS a few months ago! If I don’t want this to creep into my afternoons I’m going to have to sleep less, learn to read quicker or limit my daily intake. As I subscribe to more and more blogs this is going to mean missing potentially mission critical information simply due to the constraints of time.
My prediction is that aggregators are going to have to become a lot smarter in the future. Obediently following your instructions and delivering content from all your subscribed sites will simply lead to info overload. They are going to have to almost develop artificial intelligence and be able to predict what content you want, and the most relevant, on a daily basis.
Aggregators are going to have to behave like researchers and reporters. Assessing what sites and content you read and then going out and to find the latest, best and most relevant info available. Your homepage will be your own fully customised magazine with news, video and audio all handpicked to match your interests.
With the proliferation of laptops, smartphones and electronic paper people will have more devices than ever before for consuming content. Thus feeding the demand for yet more blogs and distributed news catering to the tastes of an increasingly widening cross-section of people.
Being able to get your content delivered to people’s homepage will be critical if you want to sell a product or service. At present a lot of people rely on sites such as dealtime and kelkoo to find the best products and prices. Once they start integrating this with reading blogs you will want to ensure that this starts them on a path to your site.
Once aggregators start analysing what web pages you read they will be able to predict and recommend relevant product sites. Knowing how to get your product and service content distributed around the web, linked to on other blogs and delivered to people’s homepages will be crucial in the future online world.
I started this year as a web copywriter and then swiftly jumped on the blogging bandwagon when I saw what direction the Internet was heading in. I write standard web copy, but now also promote the use of blogs to UK businesses for marketing products and services.
Please visit 'thewritewords.me.uk' for more information about my business blogging services and the answer to all your web content needs.
Thanks for reading,
Matt.
Matt@thewritewords.me.uk
blog good techniques

2006-09-27T17:35:00.000-07:00

Blogging Takes Time: Ten Blogging Time Management Tips
Angela Booth

Have you started a blog? Millions of blogs have been created, but most bloggers abandon their blogs after a few entries. Of course, these are bloggers who have no blogging goal: they start a blog, but because there's no lure (like money) to encourage them, they stop blogging.
If you'd like to get more organized so that you can blog consistently, here are ten blogging time management tips.
1. Create a file called Blog Ideas
There's nothing more intimidating than a blank computer screen. Create a file and call it Blog Ideas. Write down any stray thoughts you have about blogging.
Do you have questions about your blogging topic? Your questions can start with: Who, What, How, When, Where and Why - just make a note of the questions. In your Blog Ideas file, these are triggers to get you thinking.
Read other blogs. Reading other blogs will stimulate your own thinking. Agree with a blogger? Why? Can you expand on a point made in another blog?
Carry a small notebook and jot down ideas which come to you at work. When you're driving, place a digital or microcassette recorder on the passenger seat beside you to record any sudden inspirations.
2. Write five to ten blog posts at a time
Carve out time to blog on the weekends - a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon, perhaps. In that time, study your Blog Ideas file, and write a series of posts. These don't have to be polished posts, just draft them quickly. They'll be ready for you to post during the following week.
3. Audio blog
If you're carrying a digital recorder, record some blog posts. This works well for business bloggers. Interview people at your company. Interview your boss, or a couple of your customers.
4. Ask for contributions from other bloggers
Bloggers help bloggers. As you leave comments on others' blogs, and get known in the blogosphere, you can ask other bloggers to "guest blog" for you. Ask them to write just one entry, or to write five.
You'll get lots of takers, because blogging for someone else is added exposure for bloggers, and many will take you up on the offer. Of course, you'll need to reciprocate, and write the occasional entry for others.
5. Out-source - hire a blogger
You can hire bloggers at out-sourcing venues like Elance. This is a good solution for those weeks when your schedule is crammed with other work.
6. Get over perfectionism
When you're blogging, you're not writing a bestseller, nor are you expected to be perfect. If you read any blog, you'll find typos, spelling errors, errors of syntax - part of the charm of reading blogs is their "home made" appeal. Even if you're writing for a business audience, no one expects you to be perfect.
7. Think about your audience. What challenges do they have?
You're writing for an audience, and that audience has challenges that you can help them to solve. Write about the problems that your audience faces. Whatever your topic, this ensures that you never run out of material.
8. Research blogging - get up to speed on blogging
A lot of blogging procrastination is just lack of information. Research blogging. Take a course. You more you know, the easier you'll find blogging.
9. Schedule blogging
Schedule blogging into your day, just as you'd schedule anything else that you have to do.
10. Write product reviews
Whatever your blog's subject area, people are trying to sell products. Review some of the products. Reviews get visitors. Buyers are always looking for product reviews in the search engines, so writing reviews is a way of guaranteeing an audience, and it gives you something to write about.
Angela Booth is a veteran copywriter and blogger. Her ebook, Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want, is available at http://www.abmagic.com/Blog/blogging.html You can visit the book's blog at http://www.dollars2blog.com/blog/ Angela will show you how to turn a humble blog into a great career, or a lucrative business.
blog good techniques

2006-09-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

Blogging For Sales
Loretta Miller

Whether you are an affiliate marketer, or have a website or an online store, blogs can be a fantastic way to draw traffic and people interested in your product. Blogs that are updated on a regular basis with informative content are spidered by the search engines more frequently. If the search engines like the content on your blog, your page rank will increase. As your page rank increases, the likelihood of your site being at the top of the search results also increase. The higher you are listed in the search engines, the easier your site or blog easier to find which means more traffic.
The search engines spiders love new, unique and informative content. If your site is updated regularly, the site will be visited more often by the search engine spiders. Sites that have content that is informative and full of pertinent information will obtain a higher position in the search engine results and these sites are usually indexed much faster. Since blogs are content driven, the search engines will send more traffic to them. This traffic can produce more sales and sales produce greater profits.
One of the great things about a blog is that it is very easy to use. There is no more converting text to HTML and no more uploading to a server. With a blog, you can post new content with a few clicks of your mouse. If you can cut and paste, you can blog. This makes it easy to keep your content new and fresh for the search engine spiders to enjoy. What's more, there are a lot of blogging sites on the internet that are free. You can't beat free traffic being driven to your blog or website.
To keep your content unique and fresh, you can write your own articles, write reviews on affiliate products or programs, or you can use outsourced content. Which ever you decide to use, make sure it is high quality and informative. By regularly adding new content to your blog that is unique and informative, you make your site far more "sticky" increasing the likelihood of it being visited by return visitors. That return traffic means more potential sales for you.
There are many ways you can use your blog. You can use your blog to direct traffic to a website or an online store. You can even direct your visitor to an eBay auction or eBay store. You can have your visitor sign up for email announcements of when you add new content to your blog. If you are an affiliate, you can also have them sign up for announcements of new products that they might be interested in.
Always keep your content in mind. They say content in king, but unique and informative content is KING.
Loretta Miller has a site where the goal is to help people increase traffic to their website. http://increasesalesinfo.com/
blog good techniques

2006-09-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

B-Blogs and Customer Connectivity
Scott Lindsay

Do you have a business blog? Do you have a goal in mind for what you’d like to accomplish with your blog? Do you have topics you won’t discuss in your blog?
Sometimes referred to as b-blogs, a business weblog can be a vital link to existing customers and prospective clients.
Many of the best b-blogs provide visitors with a look at the…
1. Company represented.
2. Individual heading that company.
3. News that affects the company and its customers.
4. Links that may be beneficial to the customers
5. Personality behind the logo.
The genius behind blogging is that the posts are at the discretion of the business owner and are designed to be informal. This allows visitors to gain a sense for the type of person you are and the type of company you own.
Because the format is informal you need to make sure you have a laser-like focus for your blog. Deviating from a pre-set course for your blog could alienate visitors who have come to expect a singular focus. In some cases bloggers have found themselves in legal trouble because they made a libelous remark about someone on their blog.
By keeping your goal firmly fixed, you may find that more than your customers may look to your blog as a trusted resource. Many successful b-blogs are routinely visited by competitors, which should be viewed as a significant source of flattery. This scenario is a strong indication your success is being noticed.
One of the primary reasons b-blogs are a successful means of conveying information to your customers is they are non-invasive. There are no emails to download and no newsletters to process. In the end, those who visit the blog are there because they chose to be there. They come back because they enjoy the connection.
By becoming a trusted source for information in an informal atmosphere, a b-blog can help move a customer to action through a level of trust you have built through your blog.
Some b-bloggers find that when they post at least daily the growth of their visitors increases rapidly. Some will return for the information while others return because they find your personality a source of interest.
Blogs have been used successfully for personal and instructional use. The advent of a business blog is simply another step in the growth of this tool readily adaptable for customer connectivity.
Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. No programming or design skill required. http://www.highpowersites.com
blog good techniques

2006-09-23T19:05:00.000-07:00

B-Blogs: A Business Prerequisite
Scott Lindsay

“How does business change when everyone is a potential publisher? A vast new stretch of the information world opens up.” – Stephen Baker and Heather Green
As a Business Blogger (b-blogger) you do not need to reinvent the wheel and you don’t even need to be an especially gifted writer. Simple software solutions are available to allow you to blog with confidence even if you feel technologically challenged.
Link and Click
One of the principal benefits of blogging is you can simply provide an opening sentence or paragraph on a subject that may be of interest to your clients. Once this is accomplished you can simply provide a direct link to the story you wish to cite. You can also include an associated photo. The client then has the ability to see first hand the information you found so valuable in relation to your business; it’s services, goods and future.
The information you can provide may be tied to the movement of stock in relations to a product you carry. New advancements in scientific research that has a bearing on a product you carry or new uses for an existing product.
Comprehensive Coverage
Many b-blogs have a list of outside links that may be interest to visitors. The purpose of a blog is not to withhold information or to provide that information on a time-released basis. For most b-bloggers there is a realization that the information they have to share is available elsewhere on the worldwide web, so being as timely as possible simply makes sense.
“There are some 9 million blogs out there, with 40,000 new ones popping up each day.” – Stephen Baker and Heather Green
Point of Comparison
Companies that have made blogging a priority have seen as many as five million visits to their blog. When you have web traffic at that level you can see how a search engine will recognize your blog site as authoritative and reputable and provide your blog with a higher rank.
“Given the changes barreling down upon us, blogs are not a business elective. They're a prerequisite.” – Stephen Baker and Heather Green
Commitment
Operating a b-blog takes discipline and an understanding that this IS a marketing tool. It is possible that a b-blog might take some time to attract visitors and it may be tempting to simply give up on the prospect and drop this marketing element from your overall business plan.
The good news is you will save a few minutes a day by not developing your b-blog. The bad news is someone else will see the potential and work at building their reputation as an expert in the field – and they may likely be recognized as such.
Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. No programming or design skill required. http://www.highpowersites.com
blog good techniques

2006-09-22T11:27:00.000-07:00

Blogs and Forums: A Two-Pronged Approach
Scott Lindsay

When discussing online marketing there is the inevitable comparison between a Business Blog (b-blog) and an online forum. The feeling is that the two serve essentially the same purpose and it is a simple matter of defining which approach may be best for your company.
The comparison between these two approaches is something like comparing apples and oranges. They are both fruit, but that’s about the sum total of their similarities.
B-Blogs
A b-blog is designed to allow you a controlling interest in a conversation between you and your customers and guests. Your guests can provide feedback, but they can’t post.
B-blogs allow you great flexibility in timely release of company information in an informal and nonthreatening way.
Forums
A forum is offered as a means of allowing member interaction and conversation. Generally speaking a forum will be member-directed and in most cases a moderator or administrator will simply act as referee when needed. They may also answer a few questions along the way.
B-blog Benefits
As the owner of a b-blog you have the capability of keeping an informal line of communication with your customers and prospects. You can keep your clients updated on a variety of aspects related to your business. There is very little work that needs to be done with a b-blog to keep it maintained.
Forum Benefits
When you develop a forum for your business you are welcoming individuals with an interest in your products or services to network with other likeminded consumers. In a best-case scenario a forum will allow customers to discuss your product or service, provide tips to other users and develop friendships with other customers based on mutual interests.
Since this approach is consumer-centric it may seem a less than ideal means of online marketing. The truth is, a forum is less about active marketing and more about learning customer trends and preferences. If you pay close enough attention to what your customers are saying to each other you will learn more effective ways to connect with them.
It is a bit surprising, but a forum board somehow allows openness in communication that you won’t likely find in face-to-face conversations.
Combining Benefits
By combining these two truly unique online marketing principles you maximize your effectiveness in reaching your customers while allowing them the opportunity to provide honest feedback. Sure, they may not realize that’s what they’re doing, but an astute netrepreneur will take the information clients voluntarily share with each other and maximize customer satisfaction whenever possible.
Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. No programming or design skill required. http://www.highpowersites.com
blog good techniques

2006-09-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

How a Blog Can Benefit Your Website
Daryl H. Bryant

Ok, so the latest craze on the Internet is ‘blogging’. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. If you have not heard of blogging, then maybe you’ve heard of a blog. If you’re still unsure what I’m talking about then maybe you should get out more.
Ok, I’m seriously just kidding. A Web log or ‘blog’ is a personal website consisting of regularly updated entries displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogs read like a diary or journal, but with the most recent entry at the top. Web logs or blogs are a type of Web content typically created by independent writers (although some reporters for media companies create blogs on newspaper or magazine sites). Some blogs are personal journals; others resemble newsletters or columns. Sometimes, they contain links to other sources of content and other times they are the main source of content like on this site.
So why are blogs so cool? Why is everyone blogging these days? Well in my opinion, it all comes to two main factors. First, blogs are very easy to setup, maintain and add content entries with minimal web experience necessary. There are many descent blogging software tools that allow you to effortlessly setup and maintain a blog all on your own. My favorite is Wordpress. Wordpress offers you an easy and powerful way to start blogging right away… plus it’s free! The second reason in my opinion, why people blog, is because it provides them with a great means to add more content for their website. As we all know, content rules the Internet. With more content, you are guaranteed to receive more exposure, hence why I believe so many people are blogging these days.
Ok, so now you might be thinking to yourself, “Maybe I can start a blog and easily add more content to my website.” If you’re thinking this, this is good. So if you’re considering a blog for your website, let me ask you a few questions first before you dive in head first.
Do you have a topic that you feel comfortable to write about on a regular basis?Are you knowledgeable enough on this specific topic to be writing articles on the Internet?Do you have the time in your busy schedule to create an article or more every week?These are the three basic questions to help you determine if a blog is for you. If you’ve answered ‘No’ to any of these questions, then a blog is definitely not suitable for you. You must be comfortable and knowledgeable about your topic as well as have the time in your schedule to operate a blog of your own. However, if you’ve answered ‘Yes’ to all three questions, then I would highly recommend creating a blog for your website. Why? Because it will provide you with the following benefits:
More content = more exposure - Adding more content to your site will ultimately lead to more visits, hence more exposure.Credibility on your chosen topic – Writing articles on your topic could cause you to build a reader base that will continue to come back to your site to read more about your topic.Increased business – As you receive more exposure and begin to build your credibility, you will be sure to increase your business and gain qualified business leads. It’s a great marketing resource.Knowledge – By writing about your topic every week, you will be sure to stay abreast on the latest trends and news relating to your topic.Fun – Blogging offers you something different, a way to break up your day. If you have a blog, then enjoy it and have fun with it.Well I hope I’ve provided you with some basic information on what a blog is and how it can benefit your website. If you think that a blog is for you and fits into the idea of your website then go for it… create your own blog, start blogging and enjoy it!
I wish you much success!
At Hudson Horizons, we provide website Content Management conversion for the small to mid-sized business to easily allow our clients the ability to manage the data of their website on a day-to-day basis.

2006-09-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

BlogBiz
Michelle Bery

How do you know if your blogging is a hobby or a business? Consider the following:
Are you behaving in a business minded manner when you blog?
Does your blog, even if silly or comical, have a purpose to draw readers or traffic with the intent of creating an income?
Are you putting in enough time and energy into blogging to make it profitable, or are you half heartedly approaching blogging as a side hobby?
As you increase your income, are you investing, reinvesting or utilizing the income for livelihood, or are you considering it 'mad money'.
There is a difference in how you perceive your income and how you will behave. If you feel it’s just extra money to have fun with, you may not be taking a serious business perspective of blogging that you need to take for profit long term.
As you increase your business, you need to be flexible and grow with the business. This means that what worked in phase one may need to be upgraded or changed in phase two, and phase three and so on and so on.
In the past, have you followed through with goals and activities? If the resounding answer is no – then beware, being self-employed, even a blogger business, may not be right for you. However, if you have a support system, a partner or a plan B, where if you start to fall downward you have a way upward, then blogging as a business is certainly a possibility.
Some real positives of having a blog as a business is that it is easy to start up, and easy to maintain, especially if you use a service to help you glean the most from your business as you can.
Another great thing, if you are not a people person, that is fine! If you are, good – communicate more with your fans! Having positive working relationships is very important and yet, with blogging, you can make money and not really have to develop super close relationships. Many people find close relationships, especially working relationships, to be very stressful. Again, if you have a service to help you, this is two-fold easier.
Blogs are great because as far as a business goes, there are minimal decisions in this line of career. Most business owners make decisions constantly, have a lot of overhead and are under pressure. However, with blogging you have minimal overhead if any, and your big decisions are often simply when to renew your service contract with your supplier/manager. Usually the partner/manager/supplier in blogging makes all the nuance decisions that can drive you crazy.
If planning and organizing are not your strong suits, never fear… you can certainly hire someone to do this for you; again there are organizations that take all of that nitty-gritty stuff away from you for a small fee. But you can also learn how to organize yourself but realize this can mean you may be working at your blog a few hours at a time when you’d normally be spending time with family or friends. Again, blogging will make you money if you go toward this goal as a business, not a hobby.
Make sure you survey family, friends on peers in what they may enjoy seeing or having in a blog. Maybe they will voice that they’d like to have a place to write in themselves about their experiences, or just read inspirational experiences or informative comments. Perhaps, they want an informative site where they can both interact with others and, purchase equipment or books. Figure out what you like, then start seeing how you can tie your interests in with other’s desires.
As you initially start your business you can add ideas or subtract things that don’t seem to be working, but in whole marketing research will give you a nice, firm foundation; if nothing else, it gives you a target starting point which is easier for you to focus on.
This actually takes you to the next subject of thought, which is a strategy to market. Once you know what your survey tells you, you can easily, as outlined above, develop a strategy. Again, it’s knowing how to take an interest of yours and make it marketable.
In your blog, don’t just write! Sell! Sell a product or service. Although some people can make money just from writing, through banners and such, you will have more success actually offering a bit more. However, if you have a service working with you, they can certainly help to promote you as well as place banners and other marketing tools in to help you get your business off the ground.
Think of unique promotion strategies. Though if you have a service, again, you will not have to worry as much – it still is a good idea to create promotions yourself that are highly unique to your specialty. Make sure your prices are competitive or at the least, considered well within your target market. The moment the Blog is up to the moment the client or consumer has what they want from you; and the entire process should be quite enjoyable!
Michelle is a bona fide professional blogger. If you're aiming for six figure online profits then you NEED her fresh, upbeat advice!

2006-09-19T19:48:00.000-07:00

Blogging: A Writer’s Journal
Scott Lindsay

A novel way for a writer to keep prospects and fans in the loop on their progress as a writer is through the use of a web log or ‘Blog’.
“This notion of self-publishing, which is what Blogger and blogging are really about, is the next big wave of human communication. The last big wave was Web activity. Before that one it was e-mail.” – Eric Schmidt
This online tool has allowed many writers to share thoughts, humor, politics, and more with any and all who would visit. Since the Internet is a device of connectivity it also allows for immediate feedback in ways standard publishing cannot offer.
Essentially the web has created a means for someone who has not been discovered to find an audience who is interested in what they have to say.
For some, a blog is intended to be private in that they do not promote the blog for mass consumption, however with the growth of blogging it has become more difficult to ensure your blog will remain essentially a private journal.
As Eric Schmidt pointed out, blogging has become a form of self-publishing. In this case the author becomes the editor and publisher and has total artistic control. The use of Google Adsense can also provide residual income to help pay for any costs associated with your blog.
A blog can be very useful to a writer. It provides an outlet for regular writing, but it also allows people who enjoy your work to take in your regular posts and feel a greater connection to you. Some random blog-thought has been transformed by their owners into long form articles and stories.
“At its best, blogging is all about change. The format suits writers who want to move fast.” – Naomi Darvell
Many blogging sites allow the use of photographs and audio. For instance, if you had a book signing you could use photos from the event in the body of your blog. If you have a recording of a portion of your book that you are authorized to rebroadcast it also can be placed in your blog. Links can be provided to encourage visitors to check out similar blogs by other writing friends – and best of all a blog can assist visitors in finding where they may find other work you’ve produced along with information on how to purchase any available books you may have.
People who enjoy reading blogs will find a circle of blogs that entertain, inspire, and make them think or laugh. Having a blog that is tied into a personal website can go a long way in connecting with those who may already have an appreciation for your work.
Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of FaithWriters (www.faithwriters.com) and many other web projects. FaithWriters has grown to become one of the largest online destinations for Christian writers. Members include writers from all around the world.

2006-09-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

Blogging Is The Ultimate Marketing Tool For The 21st Century
Allen Taylor

Blogging has become quite the popular sport. People blog the news, sports, politics, their personal lives, and even business. But should you?

As a marketing tool, there’s no question that blogging is a powerful tool. But is it right for everyone? Probably not. However, it is a great way to add valuable content to most web sites.

The popular search engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask – expect webmasters to update their web sites frequently. In fact, one of the best ways to climb in search engine rankings is to keep those sites updated with fresh content. Blogs provide that content so naturally and effectively.

Blogs don’t have to be huge tomes to be successful. In fact, some of the best and most successful blogs are short and sweet. A well-written short blog is actually better than a long, boring Moby Dick-like piece that no one wants to read. Fifty words with two or three dashes of a useful keyword phrase will score big points with the search engines, and if it is useful information for your target audience then you’ll also gain ground with those human visitors you want to turn into customers. Do that three to seven times a week for a year and you’ll have a web site that search engines can’t say “No” to.

It won’t even take a full year. You can build a successful and useful web site in three to six months with valuable blogging that inspires, entertains and enlightens your readers into being valuable, paying customers.

If you do see blogging as a part of your marketing future, don’t develop a narrow view of the skill. It takes more than just throwing out a few phrases and keywords to make a successful blog. You must ensure you are communicating with your audience so ask them what information they want to see and provide them with benefits. And blogging doesn’t just have to mean writing your journals online either. There are two other forms of blogging that are gaining more popularity every day. Which you use depends on your company’s goals, personality, and vision.

Audio blogging and video blogging can be powerful forms of communication. Again, they aren’t for everyone but don’t rule them out. Are you a singer or someone who makes a living with their voice? If so, you might consider a blog that incorporates audio. Maybe not every day, but in some kind of creative and useful way that promotes your voice skills so that potential customers can evaluate your voice and audio technique.

This principle also applies to video blogging. Perhaps you are a struggling actor or video engineer. If one of your core competencies involves corporate video production then video blogging could help sell your services. It’s worth considering, don’t you think?

Blogging is here and so is the 21st century. This powerful marketing strategy can be of benefit to almost any business. I’d encourage you to check it out.
Allen Taylor is an award-winning journalist, freelance writer and copywriter. He specializes in low-cost marketing for small businesses. He writes the York-Adams Blog and manages blogs for clients.

2006-09-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

Blogging Directory
Darren Dunner

Have you looked at your website traffic lately? How much visitors actually visit your site everyday. One of the best ways to attract the visitor to your site is by writing informative blogs. A blogging directory with a high page rank can do wonders to lift the traffic of your site. Thousands of people are already successfully blogging to create better relationship with their prospects, increase client loyalty and enhance their visibility and brand recognition.
If someone takes the time to get word our there about themselves and their services or products then they are serious about business. If you are one of these people then you need to get max exposure for your blogs and just writing a blog is not enough anymore. The competition is fierce so find blog directories as some of them offer a free listing. A Blogging directory is a perfect solution to people who are in search of new information online.
Most of us know what a blog directory is. Most of us have some knowledge that everyone who has an online presence needs an online blog. Most of us do not realize that blogging in the wrong way is a waste of your time!
Before getting into more information on Blog Directories it is important to know that your blog needs to be set up properly. Here are a few things to know:
Submitting your blog in an effective blogging directory can· Boost your website traffic· Increase the size of your email list· Build trust with prospects and clients· Can you earn you huge money online
Today you can search and find blogs everywhere on the net, it seems when you search the major directories that blogs show up in top positions. Is your blog appearing in these places? If not, then maybe you don`t know something that these other bloggers do know.
Before getting into more information on Blog Directories it is important to know that your blog needs to be set up properly. Here are a few things to know:
Install your blog directly on your site Make sure you are using full search engine friendly urls with these blogs Do not copy other blogs and post them on your blog as this is duplicate content and will hurt you Add at least 1 post a week if not more.
Don’t waste time on this anymore, get your blog, get listed on directories and increase your page rank. So what are you waiting for make up your own blog and start blogging.
Copyright 2006 Darren DunnerDarren Dunner writes for www.surrealblog.com offering you the latest information on on all types of blogs.

2006-09-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

Is Blogging An Effective Internet Marketing Strategy?
Heath McGregor

Blogging is fast becoming an addicting pastime for both everyday internet users and on line business owners. Many tech savvy teenagers and generation Y individuals are using blogging as a medium to express their emotions and ideas about what is going on in their life. Savvy internet marketers have also discovered that blogging is a interesting way to keep in contact with their customers and to interact with their customers and it won't cost you a cent.
In 2004 and 2005 a blogging technique known as "blog and ping" was one of the most powerful strategies to accelerate search engine rankings and get fast results. But since the technique worked so well spammers resorted to using this technique in excess and search engines effectively reduced the weighting of this particular method.
Can blogging still be used as a way to boost your internet presence and traffic?
In short "yes" but the rules have changed and it is not as effective as it once was.
Some guidelines are:
1. Do you have an interest in blogging as a way to communicate with your clients.
2. Do you have enough content to deliver to your customers on an ongoing basis?
- You have to have enough content to spark an interest and a following from your visitors and customers or else it is a waste of time.
3. Does what you have to say provide any value or usefulness to your website visitor or customer?
- Do you have an opinion, offer advice, product reviews or service information that is of benefit to your readers?
4. Do you customers use the internet and would they interact using this medium?
- If customers do not use your method of advertising or promotion how can you expect them to find your information?
5. Do you have the available time to spend blogging?
-Most bloggers will post to their blog once every few days at a minimum
If you answered "no" to any of the above questions then blogging is NOT an effective medium for you and your business - period.
If you answered yes then blogging can be an effective tool to:
1. Make your clients or customers aware of new products, services or information.
2. Be newsworthy and write reviews, tips, articles, links to non-competing resources and more.
3. Receive comments and feedback from customers and blog visitors. You can learn more about the needs of your clients through the feedback of your readers.
4. Receive back links from other blogs and article sites (if you send them to directories). More back links usually translate to higher search engine results which is good for increased website traffic and improving your business turnover.
Setting up a blog is simple. You can either install blogging software on your server or use a host service such as blogger.com. I personally recommend that you install on your own server as you will develop more control and you cannot be shut down by a controversial blog post (as you can be with blogger.com).
About The Author
Heath McGregor is a small business internet marketing consultant who can help you grow your business and achieve more traffic, higher sales conversion and expand your business opportunities. To learn more about Heath and get some of his free Internet Marketing advice visit his blog at http://www.heathmcgregor.com.

2006-09-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

Podcasting Through Your Blog
Rakesh Ojha

Podcasting is sharing audio or video information through Rss syndications of your blog. People subscribed to Rss feeds can download and listen to your files on their personal audio or video players such as mobile or personal computer. Famous Podcast services are iTunes and CastPodder.
Videoblogging and Podcasting is the next big thing at the moment and hold great potential to be money-spinner in the near future.
Wordpress users can install the software and instantly start podcasting. All you need to do is link your favorite audio or video file in your post and wordpress will automatically add this to your Rss feeds more specifically Rss 2 enclosure feeds, available for subscribers.
There are many plugins available as well if you are not satisfied with the default feature, such as WP-iPodCatter to create valid feeds for iTunes podcast directory or SmartCastTM from Feedburner.com.
Steps to create your own prodcast included the following.
1) Create a music of your choice with various softwares such as wavepad for Windos or Audacity for Mac OS X.
2) Upload your music file (mp3 most often) on your server.
3) Create a post and add the link to your music file (URL).
4) Hit the Publish button and pray to god everything goes fine! This is called Podcasting.
5) Promote your blog and Rss feeds
If you are a regular podcaster, you can very well create a new category through your admin specifically for podcast so that every time you add a new post, you can assign it to this category. This way all your posts will be under a single category and it wil be easy to promote this category’s Rss feed.
About The Author
Rakesh Ojha is a SEO specialist and Online Marketing Consultant with over 5 Years in SEM Industry. Contact him at rakesh@searchengineoptimization4u.com or visit his website at http://www.searchengineoptimization4u.com.

2006-09-14T21:02:00.000-07:00

Videoblogging - An Instant Way To Market Your Product
Nik Chauhan

What is Video-blogging?
Video-blogging is a web-log which uses video as its primary presentation format. It is the next generation of posting ideas and products over the internet. It is usually accompanied by text, image, and additional meta data to provide a context or overview for the video. It is an excellent art of blogging.There is a saying that "pictures say thousand words”, so it video-blogging describes that part. Video-blogging often take advantage of web syndication. Web syndication allows the distribution of video over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom.
Video-blogging works with people on the internet for sharing their views and also way of expressing them. From business perspective it can greatly benefit in a way to showcase your products. In a way it can be used as a great marketing tool for your line of your products or services. You can provide a small demo of the product through a commercial so the visitor can get what the product is about. All of us know the influence of a thirty second commercial. Video-blogging can be used as part of advertising. If the visitors like the product they will buy it. It's just a matter of how good you showcase your product in that small commercial.
To hold the visitors on to your site provide the videos frequently and dynamically just like television provides information. Provide the new and unique information. If you post something that is mobile, it would most likely catch attention.
Requirements for video-blogging :
If your business has started recently, you can create video-blog at low cost; just you need the following things:
1. High resolution Web Camera.2. Microphone.3. Video software for editing.
Build the video which will entice the visitor to come back to your site to visit.
Video-blogging can be a great tool for marketing your product. But it has also some disadvantage:
1. It may slow down the computer. 2. Download time may also be time consuming if it is a dial- up connection.
But these are just the factors which you can counter.
In the present world the more you are creative in presenting your product to the market, the more you will succeed. Video-blogging is another art of presenting your creative ideas and products. So use video-blogging to full effect and see the orders would start to flow-in.

2006-09-13T22:47:00.000-07:00

Blogging A Vital And New Way Of Internet Marketing
Nik Chauhan

Blogging in a blog is way an old concept. A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a persons life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people. Blog is an opportunity for visitors and readers to react on the said page. It has evolved from views publishing to a marketing tool.
Potential reasons for using blogging as a marketing tool are:
1. Simple.
Blogging does not require any skill. It is one of the simplest marketing tools. It’s like having a virtual piece of paper and you just write your ideas, experiences, new products, and hope it entice your reader to also try your product.
2. Authentic.
Blogs are informed by freedom of speech. It's the truth, their truth, and nothing but unbiased. It’s about experiencing the views about products before trying out. Nothing is held back. One would definitely want to buy a tried and tested product.
3. Free.
Blogging on a blog site is totally free, which allow sharing views about the product without any pay. Therefore blogging is eternal to the internet marketing. It is one of the great tools for those who are starting up their own business. Most sites see it as something to augment current marketing tools and thus offer it for free.
4. Builds credibility.
As you get experience in writing about certain things or products, readers will definitely come and visit your blog for their own information. It will definitely make other blogs to link to your blog. As you become expert in your own field even companies will get in touch with you for advertising or to make you an affiliate.
5. Builds your market.
- By using subscription.
- By using your e-mail.
- By joining a blog network.
- By understanding your readers.
- By using RSS
Build and grow your new or established business by making use of blogging as effective internet marketing tool.

2006-09-12T20:49:00.000-07:00

Start Your Own Blog in 3 Easy Steps
Michael Fleischner

By now you've probably heard of blogs or even considered starting one of your own. Weblogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although many focus on photograph (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting). Blogs are a popular communication vehicle that are simple to create and maintain.
You can start your very own blog in as little as 3 easy steps. After hearing about the popularity of blogs and learning about the multiple benefits of creating a blog, I set out to start my own. After doing some additional research, I found a number of popular sites that actually let you create and host your own blog at no charge. What's even better is that the process of creating your blog is incredibly fast and simple. I suppose this is why blogging has become some popular.
Step 1: Choose a Purpose or Topic
One of the most important things you can do to ensure a quality blog is to determine the purpose of your blog and the topic you will be writing about. For example, a number of individuals who host blogs do so for the purpose of sharing their ideas on a particular topic. Others are simply looking for an outlet to make posts on just about anything- without a real agenda. Often times, these individuals are simply looking to drive Adsense revenue.
Regardless of the purpose you choose, select a topic that provides you the flexibility to contribute on a regular basis. Often times you will develop ideas for your next post based on the comments of others. This is one of the best ways to develop new content that is relevant to your readers.
Step 2: Select a Blog Provider
There are a number of websites that offer free blogs. However, the two largest and easiest to use are Blogger.com and WordPress.com. These sites have millions of users and have been offering free blogs for some time. The benefit of using established blogging hosts is the reliability and ease of use you can expect. I personally use Blogger for my marketing blog. The service is very easy to use - even for a web novice like me.
Step 3: Launch Your Blog
If you're selecting Blogger to launch your blog, all you do is simply create an account, name your blog, and choose a template. From there, you can begin posting to your blog immediately. Many of the blog providers, like Blogger give you the ability to choose from a number of blog templates. Advanced users can design their own blog template.
Wordpress, another blogging tool is also very simple to use. After creating a username and entering your email address, you create a blog name and title. You'll receive a confirmation email that provides instructions on how to begin.
Once you've launched your blog and made a number of posts, you should really focus on generating traffic. Not only will the traffic support any online business you may be supporting, but it can also improve the overall quality of your weblog.
Some simple techniques for generating traffic to your blog include:
a. Registering your Blog with DMOZ and other Blog Directories
b. Designing your blog for search engine optimization
c. Generating Links to your blog via link exchange and article marketing
d. Updating content on a daily basis
e. Establishing a pay-per-click budget
One thing you'll find about starting you own blog is that blogging is both simple and fun. As you develop a loyal readership, you'll find blogging to be a great learning experience as well. Simply put, there no reason why you shouldn't start blogging today.
About The Author
Michael Fleischner is a marketing expert and the president of MarketingScoop.com. He has more than 12 years of marketing experience and has appeared on The TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and other major media. Visit his marketing blog directory for further details.

2006-09-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

Understanding The Purpose Of Business Blogs
Itay Paz

The purpose of blogs should be to increase profits and establish a better relationship with your prospective and current customers. They are a great way for you to get in contact with your target audience and keep them up to date about your business.
A business blog can help you boost your sales; however, you need to understand that this is not its main purpose. To understand how you can effectively use a blog to your company's advantage, you first need to understand what a blog is.
A weblog, frequently referred to as a blog, is a web page that is comprised of postings that are frequently updated and listed in chronological order. Essentially a blog is similar to a journal.
There are two different types of weblogs:
1. Personal Blog - blog used for posting personal opinions, research links, etc.
2. Business Blog - a tool used by companies for the purpose of communicating with customers, colleagues and/or employees in order to share knowledge.
If you choose to create business blogs it may be a challenge to get your target market interested in reading it. That is why you need to create a blog that has purpose. A blog with purpose is updated regularly, and provides readers with real information.
What can a blog do for a small business owner? The following is a brief breakdown of the different benefits a business blog can provide:
Low cost - A business blog is cheaper than having a website, it is also easier to use. Therefore, if you are just starting out and don't yet have the time to learn html, or have the money to hire a web developer or designer who can do the job for you, a blog is a good alternative for the time being.
Share your expertise - Perceived value is important for an online business, as it is difficult to gain the trust of internet users. A blog is a great way for you to show your readers you are an expert in your field, and you have something useful to offer them. This is how you can build confidence. Encourage sales - You can monetize your business blog by posting announcements concerning:
* New products and/or services * Discounts * Items that have been discontinues * Upcoming products and services * Sales * Holiday promotions * Etc.
You can begin your business blog by using a free hosting service if you want to save money. Two great, free weblog services include blooger.com and MSN spaces.
If you want to make your blog something that only subscribers or your customers can access, you may want to make a private business weblog. There are different programs that can provide you this service such as MSN.
It doesn't hurt to test business blogs and see if it can benefit you business, especially since there are a number of free options you can take advantage of. It may just be the ticket to help you boost your sales and create customer confidence.
About the AuthorItay Paz is now sharing his knowledge with other Internet Marketers through his new Internet Marketing Hype Ezine. Itay's online magazine will provide you with exceptional insights of Internet Marketing in a simple and easy way. http://www.internetmarketinghype.com

2006-09-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

Niche Blogs and WHY They Make Such An Excellent Affiliate Marketing Tool
Cory Threlfall

Blogs or more specifically... Niche Blogs are simply blogs that are topic focused and target a specific market and/or niche.
More importantly though, these blogs contain targeted information that their target market is searching for.
This is KEY.
As an affiliate marketer we are always told that information, whether its an article, review, ebook, ecourse, report, mp3 or pod cast, is a key Pre-Selling tool before your potential customer decides to buy what it is that your offering.
This is where Niche Blogs come into play because of there many capabilities and functions.
The biggest advantage Blogs have is they give you the ability to syndicate your content and/or information through a technology called RSS(Real Simple Syndication).
The types of content you are able to syndicate are as follows:
- Articles - Product Reviews - eBooks - eCourses - Special Reports - Mp3 Files - Steaming Video(A.K.A Pod Casting)
Are you starting to see the advantages to blogs or more importantly, having a network of affiliate Niche Blogs?
I hope so.
Also, with your blog comes an RSS Feed that your potential visitors can subscribe to.
Whats this mean for you?
Simple. When ever you post to your affiliate Niche Blog or network of Niche Blogs guess who will INSTANTLY receive that post?
That's right, who ever subscribes to your RSS Feed.
Are you starting to see the many benefits of having a Niche Blog and incorporating it into your affiliate marketing mix?
Only you can answer that.
Another great thing about Blogs in general is that search engines love them and everytime you post to your Niche Blog it "Pings" the search engines and other RSS Directories you've submitted to letting them know that there's new fresh content for them to come and index.
The more you post, the more pages that will be produced, which means... more for the search engines to index, which means... more traffic to your Niche Blog.
The best way to take advantage of your new source of traffic and maximize your Niche Blog profits is to modify your blog template and add Google Adsense and your affiliate programs marketing materials to it.
By doing this, everytime you post to your Niche Blog your marketing message will always be there and Google Adsense will display targeted ads related to your content.
Now, I can't go into alot of detail on how to modify blog templates in this article simply because that's an article within itself and then some.
All I really wanted to get across to you is the advantages to having your own Niche Blog as part of your affiliate marketing mix to help market your affiliate programs to your target audience.
Blogs are here to stay so we might as well take advantage of them in any way that we can.
Copyright 2006 The IWE, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
About The Author
Cory Threlfall is the Editor and Publisher of a online webmaster publication called... The Internet Wonders eZine, where you'll receive 'Daily' via the Web or RSS syndication Expert Articles, Product Reviews, HOT Tips, and More on how to Promote and Build your business online. http://www.internetwondersezine.com.

2006-08-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

Seven Step to Blog Success
By Aaron Wittersheim

So blogging is as easy as one, two, three, right? Perhaps that's oversimplifying it a bit. Whether you intend to blog for business or pleasure, success requires preparation and implementing a few simple techniques.
1.My goal is … ? The first step is to define what, for whom and how you will write. Zero-in by asking yourself these questions: Will my subject matter be extremely specific, in the middle or broad? Do I want to build a large audience, or am I after a particular niche? Will I write as an expert, a commentator, a journalist or an entertainer?
2.Find your on-line voice. In the blogosphere, familiarity breeds large audiences. Blogs are a highly personal form of communication. Visitors want to know who you are. If your writing style seems unnatural or continually changes, readers will not be able to figure you out and disappear.
3.Deliver Quality. The most-effective blog posts are brief and informative. If you do not have something interesting to say, find a different topic or keep thinking.
4.Deliver Quantity. Visitors come back for quality, especially if they can get a lot of it. Serious bloggers post one or more times a day. Anything less than four posts a week will mark you as a dabbler, unless your content is very, very strong.
5.Think link. The key to building an audience is linking to other bloggers and getting them to link back to you, known as back-linking. Start the process by leaving meaningful comments on other blogs, adding hyperlinks to your posts and displaying a “blogroll” of your favorite blogs. You also should register with major blog-tracking sites such as Technorati™ and Icerocket.com.
6.Don’t be afraid to feed. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, may be the best-kept secret on the Internet. No reason to be intimidated: RSS is a convenient tool that allows visitors to subscribe to your blog. By subscribing, a person does not have to come to your site to check for new content. Offering subscriptions is a snap.
7.Track results. No need to rely on intuition when evaluating your blog’s success. You have many tools at your disposal to measure activity, most of them free. For example, your blog’s traffic log reports the number of visitors and the pages they hit. Technorati™, among others, shows you who is writing about you and linking to you. Feedburner™, a popular subscription service, provides detailed information about your blog’s circulation. And, simply noticing how many comments are left on your posts will reveal a lot.
Down the road? A host of bloggers offer high quality “how-to” tips; they often recommend and review the best books to read. Search engine marketing firms provide sophisticated techniques to drive traffic to your site, and blog consultants help devise and fine-tune business blog strategies. With experts around the globe and 50 million blogs up and running, you have a pretty big support group.
Aaron Wittersheim is president of Whoast Inc., a suburban Chicago search-marketing firm. For more information, visit http://www.whoast.com.

2006-06-28T20:19:00.000-07:00

Blogs, Blogs, Blogs! What They Are, and Why They Matter
Trey Pennewell

I remember that it was not that long ago that I did not know what a blog was or what one was for. Now blogs are everywhere and anyone with a computer and Internet access may be writing one. If you are new to this whole blog phenomenon let me explain a little about what a blog is. Blog's got their name from combining two words "Web log" to make one word, "blog".

For most people, blogs started out as something like an online diary for friends and relatives to read. Instead of going to the trouble of sending out individual emails to all of your friends and relatives to let them know how things are going in your life, you could simply write a blog for all of them to view. This way everyone could know all of the interesting developments in your personal life and you could save time and energy by not writing to everyone individually. This was the origin of blogs. Oh how far we have come since then.

Blogs then grew into marketing devices, ways to get revenge, and methods of raising awareness on important issues. Some of the more famous blogs are ones written by current disgruntled employees of large corporations. These large corporations, such as Microsoft, have been scrambling to deal with the bad public relations created by these blogs written by angry employees.

There are many ways that you can set up a blog. Whether you want to use a blog for professional or personal reasons you can find a service to help you out. Many companies have been scrambling to create blogging software for consumers. However, there are also many blogging sites that will let you use their software for free. Of course, the software that you have to pay for comes with many added features that the free blogging software does not include.

Online businesses are beginning to realize the impact that a blog can have on their business and the number of people that they can get visiting their websites. Blogs generate new text on a regular basis, depending on how often you update it, which helps in search engine rankings. The major search engines such as Google and Yahoo give higher rankings to websites that have regularly updated content. Blogs make this happen in a very simple manner. The only trick to all of this is to make sure that your blog is directly accessible from your homepage. This is a rather simple process of changing some of the HTML coding.

By using a blog to add new content on a regular basis saves you the trouble of redesigning your entire website every time you want to add content. It would not be realistic to go in to your website a few times a week and change the content because it is so much work. However, a blog will accomplish this for you in a matter of minutes. Some website owners have taken the blogs even further and incorporated keyword densities into their blogs. This further aids the websites search engine rankings and helps to drive more potential customers to the website. As you can see, having a blog on your website can offer a great deal of benefits.

In addition to the fact that you can increase your search engine rankings with a blog, many people may come back to visit your site on a regular basis just to see what new information you have to offer them by way of your blog. For example, if your blog offers weekly updates on what is new in your product or service line, a potential customer may be interested but does not make a purchase today. Then this potential customer returns in a week to read your blog and continues to do so until he or she reads something in your blog that convinces he or she to go ahead and make the purchase.

Blogs are very versatile marketing tools. You can update your blog with industry news, news about your particular company, new product offerings, or new services that you are providing. Any of these methods, or a combination of them, can be extremely effective in closing a sale on a potential customer who is sitting on the fence.

No matter how you choose to employ blogs to improve your website, always be sure that you have connected your blog to your website in an easy to read and easy to find format. Link your blog to your homepage so that visitors do not have to search for it. If you can customize your blog template to look just like the rest of your website, then your visitors can move between your blog and your website with the feeling that they have not left one to enter the other.

Blogs have grown enormously over the past year and all indications are that they will only continue to grow. Blogs are more than a passing Internet fad; they are successful business tools that are already being utilized by many successful webmasters.

About The Author
Trey Pennewell is part of the http://BloggerSupport.com technical crew. If you need help configuring your blog or matching your blog design to your website's design, please review our programs. Trey is also a ghost writer at http://thePhantomWriters.com. On September 5, 2005, TPW had more than 50 Pre-Written ghosted articles available for purchase on a wide variety of topics.
blog good techniques

2006-06-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

10 Tips to Better Business Blogging
Hendry Lee

Blogging opens up a new way of communication, but having a blog is just the beginning of a journey to the exciting blogosphere. Owning a business blog is entirely different than a personal blog. If you are just starting out, expect to make mistakes, but don’t give up!

It helps to think about the growth of a blog as exponential. Well, not all of them end up like that. But especially if your company is not a popular brand, your blog will grow somewhat slowly in the first few months or even a year. The good news is, if you stick at it for long enough, it will snowball and bring great impact to your marketing.

First time bloggers need to understand this: business blogs which are here for the long haul require a lot of work and time. Consistency and frequency are two most important keys to building a great blog and attracting an audience. A blogger who underestimates this will more than likely be throwing all their efforts down the drain.

Here are 10 tips to use and promote your blog:

1) Write like you talk. Don’t talk at your readers, but in a personal tone like you talk to a friend. A good trick to do this is by defining a clear target market and then takes it down further to an individual. Every time you blog, write to the person as if you are talking to him/her.

2) Choose the right person to blog. A blogger should know your company or the topics you want to blog about inside out. No one knows your business and market like you, but if for some reason you can’t do it, delegate to one - or a group of bloggers - who know your business. The right person may not even be somebody in marketing, but possibly could be in customer support or a technical person.

3) Post regularly. Frequency matters, after some time as you establish an audience, readers expect you to post content often. That’s the reason they come back to your blog or subscribe to your RSS feed. Consistency creates stickiness.

4) Bloggers are generous linkers. Do link to other posts, news resources, authority sites and give credit where credit is due. Doing this appropriately can help you in building relationships with other bloggers in your industry. Bloggers appreciate the links and will often link back.

5) Encourage feedback and conversation. Commenting is one of the most unique features of a blog. If you keep people for writing comments on your blog, they will do that on their own blog. Use trackback when necessary to continue the conversation.

6) Know your keywords. Having the right keywords can help your ranking and is one of the important on-page factors for search engine optimization. A keyword or key phrase is basically what people enter into search engines like Google and Yahoo! to find you. Common places search engine robot look for keywords are in the title, various heading tags, body copy, text formats, and link texts.

7) Add supporting pictures. Visual content improves a blog, but should enhance what you write in the post. Using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) blog editor, you can do this without having to know any HTML code, and are very easy once you begin.

8) Promote your blog consistently. Renew your signature file to point to your blog, tell your newsletter readers about it, promote it in your presentations, talk about it on the next networking event, and so on.

9) Encourage RSS/Atom feed subscription. There are always people who like your blog on the first visit, but forget about it tomorrow. If you hook them with your blog’s RSS/Atom feed, your content will be syndicated automatically the next time you update your blog and chances are better they will remember you.

10) Socialize. Blogging is essentially a social tool. While you can involve in discussion across multiple blogs, networking propels your efforts to the next level. Bloggers tend to link to other blogs they know.

No one can build a successful blog overnight, unless he/she is a very influential or a famous person. Don’t blog just because your colleague says that it is going to be the trend.

Blogging requires a lot of resources, but if done properly, can be a great marketing medium from which you can reap later. A blog extends your marketing reach to the next level, but remember, it should be used in addition to other marketing strategies.

Hendry Lee helps business owners integrate technologies into their marketing. He actively blogs about Small Business Blogging. Subscribe to Blog Tips for Business to receive short and practical tips to start and get the most out of your blog.
blog good techniques

2006-06-26T05:31:00.000-07:00

Blogging - Trying to Understand the Psychology Behind It All
Ted Gross

For many years while in high tech as a CTO, I was fascinated by the development and progression of chat systems from their very first appearance in Internet land. Though this was not part of my normal everyday running of any of the companies that I worked with, it became a hobby of mine. I also gave seminars around the world, entitled, "The Technological Advance and Psychological Effects of Chat Systems". These led me to use the term "viral technology". (This has nothing to do with computer viruses - though the way it works is somewhat the same.) The seminars then advanced to "Understanding The Nature of Viral Systems on the Internet".

In the next few posts I am going to try and explain all this, and why it is so important to understand that in such seemingly simple things as getting a blog up, working and making it popular. Viral Technology, is an important factor here. We have until this point have only "scratched the tip of the iceberg" as the cliche goes. And there are so many things to understand and deal with. However, being a writer and author, first and foremost, my mind works on different very illogical connections at times. What I am going to try to get at in the next couple of posts is an understanding of how the circle of content-SE's works, and what is important here. I think by way of examples and using "real life" understanding on the virtual Internet, we can get a better grasp of what is going on and what it is not.

It is critical to understand that we are not only dealing with technology here. We are dealing with psychology and the Internet has a way of digging deep down into individual motivations and actions. Let me first give you an example I found to be incredibly interesting and totally revealing.

On one of the forum boards I sometimes log into, which is populated by a serious and highly intelligent (for the most part) group of people, there are threads for just joking or ranting, as there are on all other Forums. Since many are "virtual" friends these threads are populated by people who banter, give and take, and joke around from time to time to take time off from the vicissitudes of life. Sometimes members ask for serious advice in regard to family and children etc. Now one such member, discovered that her young son had developed an incredible interest (or so she thought) in her "boobs". She wanted to know if this was normal, for a child of that age to discover the difference between sexes. So she began a thread on the topic. And the thread developed. At first serious, but of course, since everyone there are "virtual" friends the joking started. What was interesting to follow, is that both Males and Females started in joking ways of course, to describe either the size of their chests and/or how they liked or disliked the male population looking at them of if they wanted their breasts smaller or larger etc. The males revealed the size of their wives and girl-friends chests and other such what one might call normally "intimate" knowledge. Some even said: "My (wife or husband or boyfriend or girlfriend) would not be happy if they knew I was writing about this". All of this was done in a semi-serious and joking manner.

What was interesting is that I am 100% sure, some people would type out a response, post it, and then say to themselves, "Did I really say that in PUBLIC???" I am willing to bet, based upon experience and studies, that many of these people would NEVER consider SAYING out loud what they typed - say at a party of friends or a dinner or a social gathering.

The Internet makes us free with our thoughts. It allows us freedom that we don't otherwise have, to reveal our "other-side". The reasons for this are many, not the least of which that we are behind a screen. No on can see our facial expressions (not talking about cams here - a whole different subject) or our body language. Most important - we cannot be physically touched. There is always that barrier. And it would be well to keep that in mind.

To be sure there is the downside of all this. Fakers, charlatans, people acting as someone from the other gender - horror stories galore. However, one thing cannot be denied: (This is not the place to discuss this issue. It is worthy of probably a few hundred articles in and of itself. So I will leave it for now with just the chapter heading.)

The Internet has created a whole new psychological study of the human mind and the way it works. And this is CRITICAL to understanding why some things, some sites, some blogs - make it, while others, seemingly so much better and so much more savvy fall by the wayside. Obviously we want our blog to "make it".

One of the greatest original "pull" and "attractions" of blogs is the ability for many to get out their "private" thoughts to the world at large in a journal or diary manner. They can reveal what they would be too scared or too shy to reveal with words and lips and mouth in a public setting of individuals all sitting around a table. Though, I for one, do not enjoy or visit blogs of this nature, it remains true that most blogger's are doing just that. And what is more important to understand, is that many of the blogger's do not care how many hits they get. It is the catharsis of getting it out. The act of putting it "out there:" that is all important.

Since we are dealing with technology and the desire to build a blog that WILL GET A FOLLOWING and hits, we must understand what motivates and interests people to come to and read what we are posting and saying. We must understand the WHY? as well as the How? This certainly will lead to a much more comprehensive understanding of the motivations of our members and visitors to our blogs.

The next article in this series deals with a definition of "Viral Technologies" and from there we will have a greater understanding as to how to begin to spread the word of our blogs with methods that apply the technological and psychological. Remember though this is not mathematical science. It is just one of the ways to understanding what is going on. It is not foolproof nor does it always work. But it will possibly give us a deeper understanding of the "virtual world" we sometimes live in, and probably more importantly, a better understanding of ourselves.

This article is already published here at ezinearticles.com and you can read it by going to: Viral Systems & Technologies - What Are They?

Copyright © 2006 Ted W. Gross. All rights reserved. (You may publish this article in its entirety with the following author's information with live links only.) Ted W. Gross's very popular blog, Cobwebs Of The Mind contains daily updated posts and articles on technology and writing. He also owns Amor Enterprises which maintains Virgin Earth Article Submissions which is designed to accept articles about any country or place in the world. Ted Gross is also a published author and maintains a web site for his works.
blog good techniques

2006-06-26T05:30:00.000-07:00

2006-06-25T00:32:00.000-07:00

Basics of Blogging - Keywords, Tags, Categories - Oh Vey! I Am So Mixed Up!
Ted Gross

Okay so now we know all there is to know about content and keywords. Hah! But you did get the basics. It may be a good point to stop and talk about Keywords, Tags, Categories and all that as well. Logically, in progression this should come much later, but because there seems such misunderstandings about Technorati, Del.icio.us and other tagging systems, it may be a good place to put this down.

These articles began because of a thread at Absolute Write called "What Is Your Technorati Rank?" On perusing that thread I realized that many writers were placing their hopes in something that just was not going to happen. More so, they were actually misreading the importance of certain "rankings" and thus ignoring the more important factors.

If you read the previous articles in this series you now hopefully understand "keyword basics". So we are going to use Technorati for our example.

So along comes techie #1 and says:

"Hey, you know what. Blogs are becoming mainstay business. They are great for people with no knowledge of HTML and you can literally put up a web-site Weblog in minutes. So now they are multiplying over the net faster than rabbits, and the Search Engines are ignoring them for the most part as most of them contain personal musings and ramblings. So why not create a sophisticated search engine for blogs?"

"Great idea," says techie #2, "a search engine from blogs. And that means anyone who has a blog will want to register with us. But how are we going to build it. Obviously, normative search engine technology is not what we want."

"You know what?" says techie #1 "we are going to take keywords, call them by a different name and create a closed system!"

And thus Technorati was born.

What essentially goes on in Technorati, is you define what you write with "tags", Technorati tags. These are keywords, (with a special HTML parameter). Keywords just like you will learn to use in your meta tags. Technorati then in a CLOSED SYSTEM connects all the blogs with the same keywords. Technorati does not look at content to a great extent (to my knowledge), they pay attention to the tags re: keywords that you input. If you do not input keywords they use your keywords in your Blog setup.

Okay this is great for all those people looking for blogs say about hairdressing. So they come to Mr. & Mrs. Hair's blog because the Hair couple input keywords as Technorati tags. Simple.

Technorati now goes one step further. Technorati rates your blog based upon a few parameters. One of those "important" parameters is how many other people in the Technorati Network (Only those IN the network, or those using Technorati tags) have linked to your blog or a post on it. So by gaining links (there is no concept on Technorati as "bleeding links" as far as I know), you move up in the ladder. But even Technorati also keeps track of how popular your blog is. You can have 200 links into your blog, but if no one visits then your standing will not go up to the top 100.

Okay, that is Technorati. Important for bloggers? Well it is a popular site, and growing. So the answer would be yes. Important for Google, MSN and Yahoo --- not on its own...yet there is one critical Caveat.

When someone links to your site in a blog or web site, the href HTML links are in the code. The Search Engines when they read the code with their bots (see how much web lingo you know already!) sees these links. Those get added to the amount of sites linking to you. They are "hot links" or "back links" into your blog or posts in your blog. So linking not only works in the closed world of Technorati tags, but also works in the Wide World of Search Engine placement. Those links are important. Now if you get linked in a very popular blog, that counts for a lot in the world of Search Engine placement. (As we discussed in the previous articles.)

So while it is nice to know your Technorati ranking is going up, what is IMPORTANT is to remember to use their tools of tagging and linking to get others to discover and link to your blog. That gets noticed by the Search Engines. Not immediately to be sure but if you are being hit a great deal and have links to you, sooner rather than later the Search Engines will pick up your blog and your keywords. They will NOT look at the Technorati tags though, they will look at your meta tag keywords and your content. (Oy Vey! so many things to remember)

Del.icio.us and others work on the same concept, though del.icio.us is more centralized and called a "social book-marking service". Just remember the rule of thumb:

The more sites that link to you and your post, no matter for what reason, the better it is for you and your position in the Search Engines.

Okay now what are Categories? Categories really belong in Wiki format, and this is not the scope or place to discuss Wiki and the technology behind it. I own a new Wiki site, and you are welcome to peruse JewishPedia because on a Wiki site you can view all the code to each article.

Categories in blogs (Wordpress implements them automatically) are a way to search for something. I have Categories in my blog, but this is a code implemented Category Listing in Google's blogger system, where when you click, the blog does a Google Blog search in my blog for all articles related to that word. And thus it depends on Google's specific Blog Search Engine (not their regular search engine).

Remember, Google and others have specific Blog search engines. It is important to be on the top in those as well, BUT for mainstream, if you are using a Blog for whatever reason, your goal is to be in the normative search engines as well, and in a good placement there.

So there you have it. Tags = Keywords. Technorati uses them in the closed world of Technorati. The employ linking counts as well. These keywords and links, if done correctly, are also very useful for Search Engine rankings if your blog is popular. deli.ci.ous uses them for "social" blogging.

So don't give up on Technorati. Just don't believe it is the golden answer to be good rankings in the Search Engines. It is but one of the myriad of possibilities.

"The more sites that link to you and your post, no matter for what reason, the better it is for you and your position in the Search Engines."

Copyright © 2006 Ted W. Gross. All rights reserved. (You may publish this article in its entirety with the following author's information with live links only.) Ted W. Gross's very popular blog, Cobwebs Of The Mind contains daily updated posts and articles on technology and writing. He also owns Amor Enterprises which maintains Virgin Earth Article Submissions which is designed to accept articles about any country or place in the world. Ted Gross is also a published author and maintains a web site for his works.
blog good techniques

2006-06-24T17:06:00.000-07:00

2006-06-23T06:25:00.000-07:00

4 Tips for Using Blogs to Increase Your Freelance and Small Business Income
By Yuwanda Black

Blogging has been around since 1995 and the creative freelance community, perhaps more than any other sector, has used it to create business opportunities for themselves like no other group.

Although no one knows how many blogs exist, according to the search engine Technorati, the leading authority on blogs, there were some 22 million blogs as of this past spring.

I have seen this phenomenon really take off in the last two years. In addition to a resume or a professional profile, freelancers who contact me looking for work will often list their blog as an additional source of information.

Following are four tips for using blogs to increase your chance of securing freelance assignments and/or increasing your business’s bottom line.

1. Cohesive: Unlike personal blogs, a professional blog should contain a cohesive body of work. For example, if you are a financial writer, you might want to include entries commenting on what's happening in your sector.

Posts can be critiques, comments and feedback on popular news topics. This serves two purposes: a) shows that you stay on top of current events in your industry, and b) that you can write intelligibly about it.

Own a retail store: Use your blog to feature fashion trends, what body type they look best on, post photos of celebrities in the latest looks.

2. Update regularly: Many bloggers update daily; some weekly; others less regular. Black advises that professional blogs should be updated on some type of consistent schedule, no less than bi-monthly.

Anything less than this can be too infrequent. Like a store window, you have to update it to keep potential customers coming back.

3. Personality: I advise bloggers to let some of their personality shine through in their posts -- in a professional way, of course. This is perhaps the most important use of a professional blog space. Why?

Because your personality is unique to you. You will not appeal to everybody, but those you do appeal to can easily be turned into life-long, loyal customers once they are bonded to you. How do you get potential customers to bond?

As an example, say you offer commentary on a recent hot topic in your sector; let some of your dry wit, quirky observations and personal experiences shine through. This begins the bonding process. People do business with those they know, like and trust.

A blog space is a perfect place to build all three of these sentiments. Once bonded, it is so much easier to make the sale because a “relationship” has already been established.

And finally,

4. The basics apply: no profanity, nudity, racist or otherwise obscene content. This is never acceptable.

It's amazing what you can tell about a person by having several months of their work in front of you. Certain personality quirks shine through, which can lead to an employer choosing Candidate A over Candidate B.

Is this an effective, or even a professionally accepted, form of canvassing for freelancers and small business owners? I think so.

Freelancers and small business owners are often at the forefront of technology. Freelancers are because they must update their skills more often than in-house employees to stay competitive. Small business owners often are because they usually do everything from the bookkeeping to the marketing, and need to work more efficiently. Technology helps them to accomplish this.

I think that as long as a blog is a professional representation of a person or their business, I see them as an additional selling tool -- a really powerful one.

As more and more of the work sector begins to telecommute and/or freelance, which cuts down on face-to-face time with employers and clients, blogging is another way to give potential employers more than "just a resume."

May be reprinted with inclusion of the following: ©2000-2050, Yuwanda Black. Yuwanda Black is the publisher of InkwellEditorial.com: THE business portal for and about the editorial and creative industries. http://www.inkwelleditorial.com/ offers first-hand freelance success stories, resume tips, editorial e-courses, advice on the business of freelancing, job listings and much more!blog good techniques

2006-06-22T05:26:00.000-07:00

Blogging: How Personal Should I Make My Business Blog
By Christopher Conlan

As a "blogmeister" I'm often asked "How personal should I make my blog?"

This is a great question. The answer for everyone is different.

There is no set answer to this question. It’s important to remember that your blog is a living extension of your business, and ultimately you. So keep in mind the image you want to portray, the goals of your blog and what your audience is looking for.

Howard Stern is a good example. Howard is often challenges his audience to “change the channel, no one is making you listen.” It’s part of his image, his schtick. It’s one reason why people do listen. The part of his audience that hates him tunes in because they love to be angry!

Does that model work for your “toy train” online business? I’m not sure. Let’s use the “toy train” business as a “model” (notice the clever play words).

1. Who is my audience?

Your audience ranges from Neil Young (who owns Lionel) to possibly 10 year olds who build and collect model train sets. Their experience level ranges from the new collector/modeler to the experienced hobbyist. This is important in determining the “feel of the read”…are you writing for a 35 year old who wants hard facts and analysis, or a 12 year old who wants to have fun and learn. The beauty of blogging is you can have both. Think about separating categories for your audience. Have Product Reviews, Product Releases, Kids Corner, How to, Ask the Conductor, Tips and Tricks, etc. as specific categories and post accordingly.

2. How and Why Do They Buy?

Does my audience buy on a whim, or do they buy when they “find the solution”? Are new product releases an important feature my audience is looking for? Do “Product Reviews” increase the possibility that a potential customer will pull out their credit card and purchase?

3. What do I find interesting?

This is probably the best indicator of what to write. If you haven’t already, take some time, visit, read and write down what it is you like about the blogs you frequent in your market target. Chances are if you like it, other people will to. Now take your list of “likes” and combine them and create “a better blogtrap”.

4. Why would I read this blog, subscribe, come back or make a buying decision here?

In addition to a blog being a vehicle for you to get your information out there and attract and keep an audience, your blog can become an interactive, user supported community. Think about the features you like on other people’s blog, and maybe even ones that don’t exist. What about having a contest for the best train picture, the coolest design, etc. Let users post their pictures and vote. Offer a prize. Allow members to email and print articles they like. Encourage them to ask and answer questions.

5. Is it fun for me?

Running a successful blog takes time, but you don’t have to become a shut-in. Structure your blog from the beginning to fit your schedule and your passion. Try and post something everyday. Your posts don’t have to be 1,000 words each, they can be about something you learned the day before, big or small. Don’t be afraid to ask your competitors or customers to help you keep the blog going by posting their valuable information. Always give them attribution, or at least a link to their site if they ask. Remember, your blog is a “service” that transcends petty competition. It has no ego, ex-wives, jealous husbands or personal problems. It just wants to be useful and used.

For me, I like to read blogs where the personality of the owner comes out. I read blogs mainly for the strength of the content, technical information or news, but the blogs I return to the most, the ones I subscribe to and pass on to friends and employees are the ones that are fun to read and provide valuable information.

Sometimes the personality of the owner adds a level of trust and intimacy between the reader and the author that raises the articles/posting above the clutter of the Net.

So decide for yourself how personal you want to get.

When deciding what to write for my blog (www.theblogmill.com) I like to pretend I’m Clint Eastwood:

“Did I write 6 posts or only 5. In all the confusion I kinda of lost track myself. But being this is The Blog Mill, the most powerful blog in the world, and will blow your head clean off, I have to ask myself one question ‘Do I feel plucky? Well, do I, punk?’"
So think about what you like, what your audience wants to read and how your personality fits into to your overall blog strategy and start posting.

Kaboodle Ventures Affordable SEO The Blog Mill - Main The Blog Mill
blog good techniques

2006-06-21T01:41:00.000-07:00

America's National Pastime - Blogging (Kvetching)
By Karen Fish

According to the latest Time – CNN poll as reported by Wolf Blitzer in the situation room, Kvetching and Internet Poker have replaced Baseball as America’s favorite pastime. Kvetching has spawned a huge industry in the United States of America now that the manufacturing jobs have been relocated to China. “Kvetch”: “to complain, blame, harangue, scapegoat, get freaked out about, drive crazy, whine about, gossip, spin, twist the truth, lie and tell the truth about but do nothing about it except kvetch.”

Kvetching is the fuel of the internet, a multi billion dollar industry. The internet has turned the Earth into a worldwide Kvetchfest. Every blog is a series of daily kvetches by literally hundreds of millions of people world wide. Blogging is now replacing psychiatry as a way for people to vent their fear, frustration, anger, and sense of worthlessness. Soon blogging will render psychiatry obsolete. Instead of lying on a couch for 45 minutes complaining about what your father said to you when you were 5 years old, as your Doctor sits silently thinking about what to buy his mistress for her birthday, and then saying, “I’m sorry our time’s up for this week I’ll see you next Wednesday”, for $100 per session, people can now sit down at their computer and kvetch for free for as long as they like to the entire world.

Not only this, but the search engines’ super computers index every single word of every single person’s kvetch, so that if you search “Bush” you will come up with 228 million search results. Unfortunately the search engines do not yet display all 228 million results for each word, but they do display a thousand, and getting your kvetch into the top thousand has spawned an entire industry of snake oil salesmen called SEO experts. For a modest fee these people will tell you which words to use in your kvetch, submit your kvetch to millions of search engines, and promise to get your kvetch into the top ten kvetches for your keyword, the big time, where millions of people can read about your problem and feel sorry for you and send you comments, emails, and invite you to join their group of people with similar complaints. The NSA is now recording every telephone conversation that you make, writing down the name and number of the person you called, and recording every word of every blog that you write. It is as though they are recording on super computers every thought that comes into your mind. Even George Orwell could not have imagined this. It is like we are robots gone mad and our brains are mini computers and the government is the main computer trying to reign us all in, to defragment the system before we blow up the earth once and for all.

Kvetching is the fuel of the media, newspaper commentators and television commentators. You can now watch the talking heads in high definition. They have divided up into groups, Democrats and Republicans. Now the Republicans are kvetching about the other Republicans, as well as the Democrats. The Shiites are kvetching about the Sunnis and the Kurds and the Muslims are kvetching about the Hindus. The Americans are kvetching about the Iranians and the Iranians are kvetching about the Jews and the Americans. The psychiatrists only exist now because the search engines are not permitted to hand out medications, although that is changing. Drug companies are buying up our email addresses and spamming our mail boxes with invitations to purchase anti depressants over the internet without the intervention of any doctors. They are not concerned that many of these anti depressants cause even worse depression and cause the bloggers to commit suicide. The doctors are getting their revenge on patients who left them for their keyboards.

There is a deeply spiritual reason why computers are so popular. We know from countless people who have had near death experiences that after death many of us go back into a tunnel of brilliant white light. We experience a sense of complete relief and ecstasy, not a care in the world, all of our troubles left behind. Looking into the white light of our computer screens for hours on end we become one with the white light that is our holy spirit. We feel as though we are back in the womb, back in heaven from where we came, free from all worldly cares, like nuclear world war 3, global warming, Armageddon, pollution, crumbling economies, which worries are shouted at us constantly by the newspapers, televisions, and computer screens, sending us reeling to psychiatrists, drugstores, and SEO experts.

More American soldiers have committed suicide in Iraq than have been killed in combat. Imagine the stress they are under. They are in a country where they are universally hated, protecting people who hate their guts, watching their best friends get killed and their legs and arms blown off every single day, frightened to death that this will be their fate as they round the next turn, all for a country which was tricked into going to war and no longer believes in the war. Instead of sending more troops, the United States needs to send over more SEO experts. Don’t worry. Soon it will all be over. Jesus is coming on a flying white horse to save us all again, and to meet George Bush in Jerusalem, to congratulate him on his successful crusade, reclaiming the Holy Land for Christianity as the Pope did with his Christian Army 1,000 years ago. As Albert Einstein said to his lover of 20 years, “If you didn’t kvetch you’d have nothing to say at all. So keep on kvetching, you kvetch.”

Karen Fish is a writer currently living in Los Angeles California. The Temple of Love http://www.thetempleoflove.com/

2006-06-20T05:46:00.000-07:00

Photoblogging: Explosive Persuasive Power
by Inge Haupt

Perhaps it all started with the advent of music television; perhaps the portability of the digital camera, or ‘cool’ factor of the camera phone, but nowadays we are all about the visuals. We experience our world through a constant stream of sound and colour and have taken it on as an integral part of our daily existences. This could be what has led to the rapid growth of the phenomenon of photoblogging.

In November of 2003 there were discussions about the end of photoblogs; as displaying photos of people without their permission was brought into question. In fact Italy has restricted the use of images of people if permission to display their photo has not been expressly granted. However, this clearly hasn’t had any effect on the growth of this exciting new trend with roughly 17000 registered photoblogs on photoblogs.org. Books have even been written on the subject, such as Create Your Own Photo Blog by well-respected photographer and blogger, Catherine Jamieson

The photoblog community is growing and people who had little or no knowledge of photography are being exposed to different points of view as well as being asked to comment constructively on the work. There is the feeling of a supportive atmosphere – a place in which professionals and amateurs can come together, showcase their work, learn from and appreciate one another. The vast array of sites is also testament to the creativity evoked by the combination of concept and immediate online contact. The mirror project is a site where photographers are encouraged to submit work in which they have used reflective surfaces to capture their images, with some startling and compelling results.

The benefit of setting up your own photoblog seems to far outweigh the usually minimal yearly cost. Photographers have access to an almost instant response to their work. They can judge their success directly from comments and suggestions as opposed to the traditional way of having to find a gallery to display their work, or trying to sell it to shops or vendors.

This means that everyone can be a photographer or even photojournalist nowadays. Take this photograph from Jide Alakija, for example. Jide has been using shutterchance.com, one of the preeminent photoblogging sites, to exhibit a series of photographs taken during demonstrations against organ harvesting in China. His photos have produced quite a following and in this way he has been able to bring the petition to a larger audience.

With instant access to a multitude of viewers around the world, photoblogging is becoming a powerful tool. If the pen is mightier than the sword and an image is worth a thousand words, then the photoblog could be the most influential new instrument of the 21st century.

2006-06-19T03:26:00.000-07:00

The Essentials of Blog Posting
by Liane Bate

Blogging has probably been the most fun internet marketing activity I’ve undertaken in my online business. I love to write, and reach out to my website visitors with new information, news, reports, opinions, or articles that I’ve created that expose a little of my personality and give my readers something they want to hear. Not only is it fun, but it’s free, profitable, and generates hoards of traffic to your site, provided that you make quality posts with quality content and know how to market your blog. There are good ways and bad ways to blog, so here are a few essential things to keep in mind when making your blog posts:

First you have to write something that people will be interested in reading, and reading regularly. Posting your articles to your blog is the best way to get quality content on your blog, but it’s also good to write about your own personal experiences and opinions. Your articles should be at least 500 words, and your personal comments can be shorter, but still containing quality content. You don’t want to post just one fantastic article packed with content, you want to post many, and try to make a blog post every day, every other day, or even weekly so that your readers know that your blog is fresh and updated regularly. The first few months that your blog is launched are critical months when you want to attract a readership and give them enough that they bookmark your site to come back to it frequently. Giving your blog a domain name that’s easy for them to remember and represents your content with good keywords is also a good idea.

There’s another thing you can do with your original articles to gain exposure to your blog, and that is submitting them to a blog carnival. This means submitting them to a site that features and summarizes maybe 5 quality articles on a specific topic. Other blogs will link back to this carnival host, giving you more quality traffic. Also, when you make a blog post, you can link to other people’s blog articles, which leaves an entry on their post to your post. It may attract other bloggers to you, who may in turn link back to your posts. A good article directory to submit your articles to maybe once a week is Ezine Articles.

Once you have a blog, you want to expose it to the right audience. A good way to do this is by making comments on other people’s blogs whose content is related to your content. If you randomly post comments all over the place on blogs unrelated to what your site is about, then you won’t generate the kind of traffic you want. Stick to your niche, and you will get readers from that niche wanting to click on your blog link at the end of your comments. It’s also a good idea to encourage people to make comments on your blog posts, and to reply to these comments to keep a conversation going. The more comments that are left on your blog, the more other people visiting your blog will realize you have something important and valuable to say, and they will want to read it to find out what all the buzz is about.

I have also joined a blog traffic exchange to get traffic to my blog, but you can also submit your blog to different blog directory sites, such as Blog Top Sites. This site allows you to add a small bit of HTML code to your blog so it can be rated in a particular category and will help get you more traffic and better ratings. If you remember to not only create quality content for your blogs, but also market your blog effectively by commenting, linking, and submitting regularly to the right places, you will be on your way to having a popular and well-visited blog!
Liane Bate owns a Plugin Profit Site web business, is a member of Success University, and the IAHBE. http://www.HonestMoneyMaking.com

2006-06-18T06:25:00.000-07:00

The Truth About Cats and Blogs
David Hobson

There are those in the online community who tend to look down their noses at blogs, seeing them as nothing more than vanity sites--a public version of what used to be a personal journal or diary. When they hear the word “blog,” it conjures up images of angst-ridden teens sharing their own poetry, of ill-informed zealots spouting off their personal politics, of techno-geeks babbling amongst each other about new technological developments and of self-absorbed individuals posting photo after photo of their pet house cat, believing that the rest of the world actually cares.

There is some truth to this sentiment. Part of the blog explosion stemmed from the opportunity to make one’s voice instantly and readily available to the rest of the world to hear. Many people who have little of real importance to say, but who have a strong drive to say it do operate their own blogs. There is a lot of noise out there and way too many pictures of cats.

However, those who discount blogs as mere exercise in vanity and self-indulgence are missing out on a powerful moneymaking opportunity. Blogs should be eschewed as a passing fad. Although the tool we call a blog has been misappropriated by some who feel the latest pictures of Fifi sleeping beside the keyboard passes for quality content, a closer examination of blogs shows a great deal of potential for revenue production.

If someone told you it was possible to produce an attractive, easy to use website that allowed you to regularly post instantly categorized and organized content using a highly efficient interface, what would you do? Undoubtedly, you would ask them exactly how this could be accomplished. The answer to your question can be found at the root of Boring Betty’s Daily Diary. The answer is a blog.

Blogs allow users to build content rich sites with very little effort. Most platforms allow one to produce an endless series of presentation options and to organize their material into categories, as well as chronologically. Bulking up the site is easy. You get the content. You click a button and the platform software does the rest.

The ease of use is what spurred your crazy Uncle to update the world about his crackpot “who shot Kennedy” theories. The attractive output is what led the girl down the street to make her love letters to a pop star a matter of public record. The very impetus that has led to so many otherwise useless blogs is exactly what makes them an efficient money maker.

If you have avoided hopping on the blog bandwagon because it all seems like an over-hyped fad, it is time to take another, more objective look at blogging. Look at what blogging can do for you, not what other people are doing with it. Blogs are a remarkably flexible tool and one that you can utilize to build winning sites--whether you take pictures of your cat or not.

Kind regards
David Hobson

2006-06-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

5 Ways to Improve Your Blog
by Christopher Conlan

Blog, Blog, Blog. It’s like getting the theme song from The Bridge on the River Kwai stuck inside your head. A blog can be your best friend, or your worst nightmare. If used in “moderation” a blog can be a benefit to your bottom line, but beware, blog are addictive. It’s easy to get caught up in your blog and lose focus on your core business goals, so here are 5 simple ways to make your blogging life easier and more successful.

So put down the proverbial blog crack pipe, and remember the blog is there to serve you, not the other way around! Blogs (or Web Logs) aren’t new, but they have become a fast mover in the world of web design and search engine optimization. A blog is a website first and foremost, with a small twist. It usually has a neat user interface that anyone can publish their latest news, product updates, whimsical thoughts, technical specifications, customer service/FAQ information and more. You can use a blog for just about anything you can think of. The more creative you are the better.

There are plenty of low-cost or free ways to get started blogging. WordPress, Blogger, Easy2Blog, B2Evolution and more are all free. I’m a WordPress guy myself because I dig plug-ins, but if you don’t know anything about programming I would suggest Blogger (Google) or Easy2Blog (easy as the name suggests).

The 5 Ways to Improve Blog Performance are more for those of you who have are using publishing software such as WordPress. So here we go (remember, a blog is a website).

Content
There are plenty of ways to get content for your blog. It’s best to keep it relative to your topic. Ezinearticles and GoArticles are great places for free, syndicated articles for your blog. Just be cool about it and remember to cut and paste the text or code exactly as it is and give attribution to the writer (the author link).

Simply syndicating everyone else’s articles isn’t enough, you need to add your own viewpoints. Try and write one a day, even if it’s not 500 words or more. Be careful. It’s easy to become obsessed with adding content to your blog. Spend more time on adding content on the front end (when you’re building the original blog structure) and then simply commit yourself to 10 minutes a day writing at least one post for your blog. It’s easy for a BLOG to become a BLOB that your reader’s will soon turn away from.

Categories
Set up and manage several different categories related to your “topic”. You can publish the same article into different categories. Example: if your blog is about Search Engine Optimization you may have 5 different categories (plus the main category). Your categories could be – On Page SEO, Off Page SEO, Link Building, Directory Submission, and Site Design. Not every article or post will be relative to each category, but some will overlap. Don’t go crazy and put every post in every category every time. You’ll lose readers and value.

Blog Search Engine Optimization
There are a series of tools/plug-ins that will help with search engine optimization for your blog. DagonDesign has a great plug-in for WordPress and it’s free and easy to install. Having clean URLs for your posts is extremely important. When you post an article about “Choosing Colors for Your Website” you don’t want your post URL to be www.blahblahblog.com/?=ID1234 . In WordPress, for example, you want to at least choose the built in selection “Date and Name based” (click “Options” then “Permalinks” in the Dashboard view”). If you feel comfortable and are a bit crafty you can create a custom permalink structure.

Submit your Blog to Blog Directories
In addition to the traditional directory submissions you would make with any website. Most of these directories require a link back to their directory. There are two ways to handle these links (1) create a new page called “links” or resources” and post the links there (make sure you use the HTML editor/button on the post page otherwise the link will show up as code and won’t count), or (2) put the link on your main page in the sidebar.

Keep in mind that the blog directories are for the most part human edited so it may take some time for them to confirm your link and blog content so be patient. Also, it’s a good idea if you’re setting up a separate links page to write down the URL of that page, the directories will ask you for the location of the backlink to their directory when you fill out the form. Most of the general SEO principles for a regular website apply to blogs. Don’t forget to put a link to your main website and to your blogs main page in the footer of your blog (and tag it properly for maximum effect).

Blog Design
Almost every blog is designed using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS is a great tool for website design and especially blogging. It allows you to create new pages on the fly without redesigning each page. For WordPress (and Blogger, etc.) there are a ton of pre-designed, free templates, themes, skins, layouts (all the same thing) out there you can download, customize or use “as is”. Be a decent blogger and make sure you leave the backlink in the footer for the designer. If you don’t know anything about customizing blogs you can follow the link back to the original designer or the person who “ported” it to the blog format, they may be able to help you with customizing the blog for a couple hundred dollars. Matt at http://www.dagondesign.com/ can help you out here.

Calls to Action
Just like your website, your blog should have specific calls to action so that reader’s can interact with you. Whether it’s a simple “contact us” form mailer or a more elaborate ecommerce function, once you “got ‘em” there, they need something to do. Again, Dagon Design has a cool form mailer plug-in that’s easy to add to your site. You may have to create a separate HTML page and link to it from your blog (put it in your header so it’s on each page) if you want to add a shopping cart. These are just the first 5, stick around for more, or visit our blog at http://blog-template-layout.com and check out what’s new.

Remember, your blog is just an extension of you and your business, so give it some personality, define some goals and make some rules for your blog.

2006-06-16T04:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Diary, Dear World – All About Blogging
By Khieng Chho

The Internet has changed the way we live, breathe, and even write – in fact, it is mainly due to the blogging phenomenon that we receive headlines, change them, and even get the latest buzz on issues newspapers and popular media will not dare tackle. Blogging has become so common, it has prompted dictionary makers to create new terms. For instance, each article on a blog is called a “post,” “entry,” or “blog post.” A person who blogs is called a “blogger.”

But what is blogging, and why is it so popular?

Blogging refers to the activity of updating one’s blog. What is a blog? A blog is a web log, or an Internet-based publication which contains articles about a variety of topics. Blogs are either run on dedicated hosting services, or they can be run on any ordinary web hosting service using scripts meant for blogs.

Blogs often focus on a particular subject. They can tackle movie reviews, political issues, important local news, or one’s personal opinion. Most blogs serve as online diaries, and will contain personal images, artwork, and writing.

Blog posts will contain the following elements.

• A title – Some personal bloggers have modified this, and have added subtitles to add “meat” to their entries. They may indicate the music they are currently listening to, their current mood, and the subject of their post. Journalistic bloggers will often link their title to similar articles available online.

• The body – This is the main content of the blog. It can be a fictional entry, in the case of story or novel blogs; or a non-fiction entry, in the case of other blogs, such as news blogs or diaries.

• A permalink – this is the link to the individual blog entry, which other bloggers can use if they would like to link or refer to the article.

• The date – this is simply the date, time, and sometimes place in which the entry was first posted.

Some blogs may also contain the following.

• A comments section – this enables readers to make comments or react to the blog entry. This is also a useful way by which other bloggers can make themselves, and their blogs, known.

• The tags – this is the section where bloggers list the categories under which their current article falls. For instance, a post on “Saving the Whales” can be categorized under “environment,” “whales,” and “ecology.”

• Trackback – Also known as pingback, this is a list of links of other sites that refer to the article or post.

There are many different kinds of blogs available, depending on the topic they tackle. A few types include the following

• Personal – These blogs focus on personal experiences, and feature an online diary, usually with images or artwork. Some photoblogs fall under this category, where bloggers post pictures instead of writing about their experiences.

• Paid – Some bloggers are paid to blog their career experiences, or the latest news about a company.

• Socio-cultural – Some blogs are devoted to socio-cultural experiences, and can allow people of other cultures a glimpse into the quirks and specialties that make other cultures unique.

• Science – Some scientists have taken to blogging about their research findings, or to share laboratory techniques. Such a method, however, has been met with derision in the science community, since it overrides the traditional peer-based review of research.

• Political or News – Some blogs focus on the latest news, and can even offer political opinions on certain subjects.

Blogging is definitely here to stay, and it can influence cultures and headlines through the widely popular medium of the Internet. Have you tried blogging yet?

Khieng 'Ken' Chho - Online Blogging Resources. http://blogging.1w3b.net/

2006-06-15T01:18:00.000-07:00

Five Reasons You Should Be Blogging for Business Right Now
By Suzanne Lieurance

Although web-logs (called blogs) started out as personal online diaries, today’s blogger can be anyone from a stay at-home-mom to a corporate mogul. And even the stay-at-home mom is likely to be blogging for business, not simply sharing her personal life with the online world.

If you're a small business owner, here are five reasons you should be blogging for business right now:

1. Creating an online presence is easy with a blog. Today, everyone expects anyone with a serious business to be visible online. But that doesn't mean a small business owner has to shell out big bucks on an expensive website right from the start. Instead, start with a blog. A blog can be set up easily and quickly at little or no cost - so no matter how small your company might be, you can be online blogging for business in (literally) a few minutes. You can also update your blog much easier and quicker than you can a regular website. You don’t have to wait for a webmaster to make changes for you.

2. A blog lets you develop relationships with your customers or clients. If you blog regularly, your readers get to know more about you and your services. They can also leave comments for you on the blog, so you can interact with them through this site. Research shows that people are more likely to do business with someone they know. Post to your blog daily (or at least several times a week) and readers will get to know you, trust you, and feel confident to buy your products and or services.

3. A blog gives you additional opportunities to network with other small businesses. You can provide reciprocal links at your blog. That just means you put a link to another company's website or blog on your blog and that company puts a link to your blog on theirs. You benefit from these links because your blog attracts additional readers from these other sites.

4. You can use your blog to help build your mailing list. A good way to do this is to offer something free in return for joining your mailing list. Free ebooks related to the products or services offered by your business are perfect "give aways" to use for this purpose. Put a sign-up box on your blog where readers can join your mailing list and automatically receive your free products via email.

5. By regularly posting to your blog, you become an "expert" in your line of work. People always turn to experts when they need help. Establish yourself as an expert in your field and people will turn to you when they need the particular type of products or services that you have to offer.

These are just five reasons you should be blogging for business right now. Once you start blogging yourself you'll notice additional benefits too, so don't wait. Start blogging!

Suzanne Lieurance is a freelance writer and the creator of the Lieurance Group, a co-op for freelance writers and graphics designers. If you just don't have time to create a business blog, visit the Lieurance Group's blog at http://www.lieurancegroup.blogspot.com or email them at lieurancegroup@hotmail.com and learn how they can start blogging for business for you.

2006-06-14T02:28:00.000-07:00

Blogging For Business - What Should I Blog About?
By Donovan Baldwin

While a blog can be almost anything from a personal diary to an expostulation of the most arcane data or research results, keeping the blog going is one of the most important aspects of blogging. This is particularly true if your goal is to use your blog as part of your internet business marketing strategy.

Unfortunately, many would-be internet entrepreneurs get lured into programs by the prospect of lots of money made easily. The truth is that MOST of these people, even highly-motivated, intelligent people who have been successful in other spheres will fail. The money does not come quick, and when it does come, it usually starts as a trickle. Frankly, the motivation of anticipated ease and wealth does not stand up for long under the harsh light of reality. Just as people drop out of network marketing, internet marketing, and other home businesses due to expectations not being met and no reward, people let their "internet business opportunity" blogs fade away due to lack of interest.

PASSION

Many successful network marketers, internet marketers, and marketing courses will tell you to find a niche. They will advise you to make that niche something about which you are passionately interested. In reference to blogs, I agree and go one step farther. Center your blog around something you would choose to write about, talk about, read about, discuss, or attend lectures on almost every day if you had the leisure. That way, no matter how your "internet business" does or does not respond, you will be motivated to return to your blog regularly, reading comments, responding to them, and providing new content.

NEW CONTENT

This is key to a blog's success. Even your best friends might not wish to visit you regularly if they knew they were going to be served coffee cakes left over from their last visit. New, fresh content provided regularly entices previous visitors to return and establishes your blog as a center of information or discussion. If the content is accurate and informative, this establishes you as knowledgeable and worth heeding. If your comments are friendly, genuine, and responsive to the comments of others who have posted, you will be seen as a friend whose advice can be at least listened to, if not taken whole.

DO IT FOR YOURSELF

Of course your blog should be written in such a way as to please the visitors who drop by, just as your home should be a warm welcoming place for visitors who drop by there. You are the one who lives there, however, and when the visitors go home you should enjoy hanging around, rearranging the furniture, hanging a new picture, or just pouring a glass of wine and sitting down in your favorite chair. Making the blog FOR YOU will encourage you to return often yourself.

FINALE

Begin with a subject which delights and intrigues you, add a regular dip back into the refreshing stream of your interest and wonder, share this with others. If you want money from this, link to your money-making site or sites and have fun every day. When you go to bed, the blog will still be there chatting with your visitors, telling them what a great person you are and inviting them to return for another visit.

Donovan Baldwin is a graduate of the University of West Florida (1973) with a BA in accounting. He is retired from the Army after 21 years of service. He has worked as an accountant, purchasing agent, optical lab manager, restaurant manager, instructor and long-haul, over-the-road truck driver. He has been a member of Mensa for several years, and has written and published poetry, essays, and articles on various subjects for the last 40 years. He has blogs on the subjects of weight loss and health, hybrid cars and alternative fuels, and internet business and marketing.

2006-06-13T01:51:00.000-07:00

Blogs Are Your Internet Marketing Secret Weapon
Mark Nenadic

These days, blogs are among the most important secret weapons that internet marketers can employ. They are a terrific way to have opinions stated in an un-moderated and public place, where ideas and insights can be shared among everyone who wishes to read them.

For internet marketing, blogging builds credibility for the website through the many opinions and ideas that are shared there. The company, and its bloggers, become recognized by their readers as a resource for useful information. Therefore, people will not only visit once, but will return again and again to find out what else is new.

Blogging itself is an extremely inexpensive, quick, and simple way to reach out to thousands of website visitors. It draws people who are in your direct target market, making relationship building a much more natural process once that visitor takes their use of your website one step further and makes a purchase of whatever product or service you are selling – and have been covering in your blog.

Blogs make you an expert in your field. That’s right, with the right researching and writing skills (or with a skilled writer and researcher in your employ) then you can become an expert in your field as far as your website blog is concerned. To be an expert, all you need to do is keep up with the latest in your industry within your blog posts, and maintain it regularly.

To make sure that you’re headed in the right direction with your blog, check up on other website blogs in your industry to see what they have posted. Naturally, this doesn’t mean that you should be posting the same things as your competition. In fact, that is among the worst things that you can do. Certainly, you’re allowed to share an opinion now and then, but your blog will need to stand out if it is to be taken seriously. If you are simply reiterating what others are already saying, then you will be seen as old news, and will be overlooked in favor of the original thinkers.

To start your own blog on your website, you need to have the right tools in place. Blogger and Blogware are only examples of the many different options that are available to you.

When you post on your blog, make sure that you’re doing it because you have something to say, and not because it’s time to post. Your blog posts need to be interesting if you are to keep a steady readership. If you’re not interested in what you’re writing then the odds are that your visitors won’t be interested in what they’re reading.

To keep up the interest, don’t take yourself too seriously. Of course you are allowed to write about serious and important topics in your industry and about your products, but you can also include some trivia and humorous commentaries that directly or indirectly relate to your blog topic and will amuse your readers. This is perfectly acceptable in blog posting and is, in fact, encouraged. It allows the readers to feel that they have made a real “contact” with you, and that you take a real joy in what you do.

Blogs aren’t just good for creating regular visitors to your website, but they are also quite beneficial for bringing in new visitors as well. You’ll find that when you are writing about any given topic in your industry, you are using the words and terms that apply to your topic. As these words become more frequently used throughout your website, for example, within your recent and archived blog posts, search engine spiders will pick up on their use and may increase your ranking for those keywords.

To sum up, here is what you need to benefit from your blog:

• The right blogging tools

• The motivation and commitment to contribute regularly

• Something relevant to say!

• Some skill in writing – if you don’t, hire someone who does

• Some knowledge in your industry – if you don’t, hire someone who can research this information

• Some perspective, not just vague ramblings

If you have these, you’re all set to start taking advantage of what blogging can contribute to your internet marketing strategy.

Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic
Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North http://www.15dn.com, where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.

2006-06-12T05:08:00.000-07:00

Make Money With Your Own Blog

Joan Masterson

Well, basically, setting up a blog means that you are creating a little space of your own on the Internet where you can make posts about anything that interests you. Of course, if you are going to be blogging on a variety of topics, the best way to make money with it would be to have different blogs for different topics otherwise your blog will be just one big jumbled mess that nobody would want to read about.

So what topics should you blog on? Well, I would suggest blogging about your own interests or favourite hobbies. There are always people out there who could learn from your specific experience.

Let's say for instance your favourite passion is your love for dogs. You could blog about anything pertaining to dogs. Do you know how to potty train a dog in a week? Lots of people would love to know how to get their dogs not to do their potty work inside the house :) Or do you have a recipe for a dog biscuit that your dog absolutely adores? There are lots of people who absolutely adore their dogs - I am one! And they do a lot of searches on the topics of dogs, cats, puppies, kittens etc. So why not make some money out of sharing your own knowledge to help those people? Share your tips with them and they will just love you for it!

So, how would you make money out of having a blog even if you don't have a product to sell? One word: Adsense. Adsense is a program offered by Google that pays webmasters and blog owners to display Google ads called Adwords on their sites, and if you have a blog that gets many visitors, they will click on the ads which means that you will earn money from it. To learn more about how to apply for and start using Adsense on your own site, visit : Google Ads

Some tips before you apply for the Adsense program:

1. You have to have an existing blog or an existing site.

2. Your website has to have at least 10-15 pages of relevant content. If you have a blog that you want to apply adsense to, you have to have at least 5 or more posts on your blog.

3. Your blog or site must have a clean, easy to use interface. No under construction pages or broken links, or too many animated gifs, or pop ups.

4. You don't have to have a professionally designed website or blog. The simpler your site is the better for the search engines to spider, and the better it will be for your visitors to navigate.

How to get a blog? You can either have blog that you can host at your own website, like Wordpress Wordpress is an easy to set up php script that is free for download.

Alternatively, you could use any of the free blog services like: Blogger to set up a blog that will be hosted on their server.

So to recap: Select a topic that you would like to blog about, set up a blog, make a couple of posts a day on your blog, wait about 5 days, then apply for the Google Adsense program.

Once you have been approved for Adsense, you should submit your blog or website to the major search engines. If you don't know the major search engines, do a search for "free website submission". You will find that there are a lot of sites that will allow you to use their services for free to submit your site or blog to various search engines.

Their are various blog directories that you should also list your blog with. Once again, do a search for blog directories, and submit your site to all the the ones that you can find.

Tell others about your blog, your family and friends etc. Ask them to tell others about your blog. That way you will start getting instant traffic. Just a word of caution: do NOT ask family and friends to click on your adsense ads, and under no circumstances should you click on any of the ads yourself - that is a sure fire way of getting banned by Google and you will have lost a valuable income source!

Now that you know how to start your own blog, you have no excuse not to make money online! Happy blogging!

Joan Masterson is the owner of http://www.womenatwork.co.za - and http://www.set-4-success.com - sites that offer free work at home resources and information.

2006-06-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

How To Boost Traffic To Your Blog:How to write a better blog?
Ryen Kim

Sources of traffic and how to write blog that boost traffic?

Where does the traffic come from? Where my readers come from?

It's essential to know the sources of traffic. Then, you know where your effort should go to boost traffic to your blog.

The sources of traffic:

Your blog itself

Major search engines and Directory: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL,...

External links

First thing first. Whatever techniques or tips you hear about how to bring traffic to your blog, don't get lost the foremost important thing: your blog itself!

Your blog itself should be something people like to read and like to link.

People are not waiting for you. They even don't know you. But they'll start noticing you if your posts cater their interest and they'll spread your blog to their friends. The quality of your blog is superior to any other techniques such as search engine optimization (SEO). But it seems some blogger apt to forget this yet the majorities are providing good blog. This is common sense, right? Nothing new, huh?

OK, here are four tips how to make your blog attractive:

Write something controversial,topical, and pithy. And make your blog title attractive but don't forget to include keyword in your title. The word "keyword" will appear several times in rest of post, meaning it's just important! You may want to read, Traffic to Blog:Keyword Research, to know why keywords are important and how to find keywords that brings traffic to your blog, if you haven't read. It also guides you how to find topical keywords.

Write as frequently as possible.

If you just started new blog, write everyday. If your blog already have decent traffic, just keep on writing as frequently as you can. Both readers and search engines look for new information. You provide new information and they will come.

Write fresh content.

Don't just copy from others. This not only troubles you in legal matter but also makes your readers leave you. If you find less traffic comes to your blog though you write every day, check whether you're posting fresh content.

Fresh content doesn't mean that it should deal with brand new item. It does mean that new point of view, additional point of view, or even imitation of topic but filled with recreated content.

Provide internal link within your blog.

If you have related post to other post, link each other within your blog content. This helps your reader find more information out of your blog, stay with you longer and even come back to you again.
Furthermore, it is one of SEO techniques. By doing inter link you can have more back links, though they are less valuable than external inbound links. More technically it can be used to improve the page rank of certain blog. For example, suppose you have 5 related post, 4 have page rank 4 and the other page rank 0. If you want to increase that page rank of 0, you link all the other 4 posts to that post. It'll surely improve the page rank of the lowest one. But be aware that when you link back the higher page rank post may not keep the original page rank. So do it under your plan and do it moderately. Don't abuse this technique because search engines may consider you as a search engine spammer.

The bottom line is that moderate is always good.

In the second bullet, I wrote "You provide new information and they will come." Oops, it's WRONG! They don't come. They don't know whether you provided new information at all. You have to let them know you wrote new information. This is related to the topic that how to optimize your post search engine friendly. If you want know more about this topic, you may want to read Search engine optimization for bloggers.

About the Author

Ryen Kim is an MBA, specialized in marketing research and analysis. His current focus is blogging and home based affiliate business as a work-at-home scheme. He is a founder of Blog Sites and running Hom Based Affiliate Business web site.

2006-06-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

How To Boost Traffic To Your Blog:How to write a better blog?
Ryen Kim

Sources of traffic and how to write blog that boost traffic?

Where does the traffic come from? Where my readers come from?

It's essential to know the sources of traffic. Then, you know where your effort should go to boost traffic to your blog.

The sources of traffic:

Your blog itself

Major search engines and Directory: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL,...

External links

First thing first. Whatever techniques or tips you hear about how to bring traffic to your blog, don't get lost the foremost important thing: your blog itself!

Your blog itself should be something people like to read and like to link.

People are not waiting for you. They even don't know you. But they'll start noticing you if your posts cater their interest and they'll spread your blog to their friends. The quality of your blog is superior to any other techniques such as search engine optimization (SEO). But it seems some blogger apt to forget this yet the majorities are providing good blog. This is common sense, right? Nothing new, huh?

OK, here are four tips how to make your blog attractive:

Write something controversial,topical, and pithy. And make your blog title attractive but don't forget to include keyword in your title. The word "keyword" will appear several times in rest of post, meaning it's just important! You may want to read, Traffic to Blog:Keyword Research, to know why keywords are important and how to find keywords that brings traffic to your blog, if you haven't read. It also guides you how to find topical keywords.

Write as frequently as possible.

If you just started new blog, write everyday. If your blog already have decent traffic, just keep on writing as frequently as you can. Both readers and search engines look for new information. You provide new information and they will come.

Write fresh content.

Don't just copy from others. This not only troubles you in legal matter but also makes your readers leave you. If you find less traffic comes to your blog though you write every day, check whether you're posting fresh content.

Fresh content doesn't mean that it should deal with brand new item. It does mean that new point of view, additional point of view, or even imitation of topic but filled with recreated content.

Provide internal link within your blog.

If you have related post to other post, link each other within your blog content. This helps your reader find more information out of your blog, stay with you longer and even come back to you again.
Furthermore, it is one of SEO techniques. By doing inter link you can have more back links, though they are less valuable than external inbound links. More technically it can be used to improve the page rank of certain blog. For example, suppose you have 5 related post, 4 have page rank 4 and the other page rank 0. If you want to increase that page rank of 0, you link all the other 4 posts to that post. It'll surely improve the page rank of the lowest one. But be aware that when you link back the higher page rank post may not keep the original page rank. So do it under your plan and do it moderately. Don't abuse this technique because search engines may consider you as a search engine spammer.

The bottom line is that moderate is always good.

In the second bullet, I wrote "You provide new information and they will come." Oops, it's WRONG! They don't come. They don't know whether you provided new information at all. You have to let them know you wrote new information. This is related to the topic that how to optimize your post search engine friendly. If you want know more about this topic, you may want to read Search engine optimization for bloggers.

About the Author
Ryen Kim is an MBA, specialized in marketing research and analysis. His current focus is blogging and home based affiliate business as a work-at-home scheme. He is a founder of Blog Sites and running Hom Based Affiliate Business web site.

2006-06-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

Blog Your Way To Profits
by: Florie Lyn Masarate

Everybody has picked up the trend of blogging. And blogging has picked up the money-making scheme.

If you have a blog and have not used that to make money online, then you are being left behind by the others who are already making some good profits from blogs.

How do they do that?

Selling advertising though blogs.

This is the most common ways of making blogs produce income. The process is simple. If your blog is one of those more famous and well-read, you can it to sell ad space all by yourself. But for those not so famous blogs, there are services that can be used to set up an ad program. The widely used one is Adsense.

Adsense lets you choose some ads that are somewhat related to what your site is about. You are then paid based on the number of the readers that clicked on the ads to check them out. Why people opt for Adsense is because they can get it for free.

Blogs as an affiliate program.

This is another one of those click-through opportunities. This allows blogs to serve as a medium between the affiliate sites and the readers. When a visitor became interested on something that you have promoted on your blogs, they can click on the link that you have provided that will lead directly to the affiliate site.

Once the customer has decided to buy or avail of what is offered, you will get a commission based on the sale made.

Soliciting though blogs.

As opposed to the first two mentioned, you are not offering something to your readers. On the contrary, you are counting on their kindness and seeking out their help. You can ask for contributions, whether money or goods, for a certain cause.

If your readers are taken or is moved by what you have written, there is a likely possibility that they will be more than willing to help you.

Blogging to market.

Blogs are a way of generating new businesses and getting potential customers. If you already have a product or service being offered, you can try and offer more and new things though blogs.

They can be your own or in reference to other site or business that you want to offer your readers.

With the publicity that blogs are getting nowadays, there is no doubt that it has become one of the most effective income generating tool online today.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.uprinting.com.

About The Author
Florie Lyn Masarate got the flair for reading and writing when she got her first subscription of the school newsletter in kindergarten. She had her first article published on that same newsletter in the third grade.

2006-06-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

How to Start a Blog and Make Money Online
by: Suzanne Morrison

If you are new to the internet and wondering what an earth this blogging craze is all about, or if you already have your own website and you’re wondering why everyone keeps advising you to start your own blog, read on. I’m going to explain to you what a blog is, why you need one, how to set it up, promote it and of course, make money from it.

Blog is short for “web log” and is similar to an online diary or journal. The craze of blogging began in the very late 1990s and has started to become more and more popular over the last couple of years. Almost everyone seems to have a blog these days, from CEOs of large companies to webmasters, from world travelers to teenagers. Even my Dad has his own blog now! A blog allows you to communicate informally with people via an online journal, but it’s more personal and unstructured than a website and easier and cheaper to set up than a website.

If you have your own website, but haven’t yet started a blog you can easily start one using a free service such as Blogger or WordPress. Try to post to your blog at least once or twice a week on topics related to your website. Blogging will help your search engine rankings and open up the communication channels between you and your visitors or customers, encouraging them to interact with you and give them a reason to return to your site in future.

If you don’t have your own website and are looking to set up a blog quickly and easily I recommend opening a free account with Blogger. You can blog about anything you like, for example a hobby, a vacation, your home town, something political, a sport or your business. Just be sure to pick something that you are interested in and knowledgeable about. You can host your blog for free on Blogspot – all you need to do is pick a name that is relevant to the topic of your blog. Once you have set up your profile and chosen a template, blogging is as simple as sending an email to a friend.

There are many ways to make money from your blog, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

- Google Adsense - this is free to join and easy to set up. The ads will match the content of your blog and you will get paid every time a visitor clicks on an ad.

- Affiliate Programs – sign up for affiliate programs related to the topic of your blog and display links to related products on your blog. Clickbank, Trade Doubler and Commission Junction are good places to start, or do a Google search for “affiliate program” + the topic of your blog to find more affiliate programs. Whenever someone clicks through your affiliate link and buys a product, you will receive a commission. If you are knowledgeable about your topic you could also write product reviews to help increase your affiliate sales.

- Sell Advertising Space – if you have a popular blog you can charge people to advertise on your blog. This could be in the form of a text link, a banner or a graphic.

You are not going to make money with a blog unless people can find it. As soon as you have started to post to your blog it’s time to start promoting it. You can get your blog noticed by…

- Submitting your blog to blog directories – just search for “blog directories” in Google

- Asking other bloggers to exchange links with you – you put a link on your blog in exchange for a link from their blog.

- Writing an article related to the topic of your blog and posting it to article directories. Remember to include an author’s resource box with a link to your blog.

- Pinging blog ping services every time you make a new post – pingomatic.com and pingoat.com are two sites you can use to do this.

- Participating in forums related to the topic of your blog. Put a link to your blog in your forum signature.

Finally, once you have your blog monetized and you have started promoting it don’t forget to post regularly. The most important aspect of every successful blog is frequent posting, so be sure not to let the virtual dust gather over your blog!

About The Author

Suzanne Morrison blogs regularly on various topics including travel, home business and internet marketing. You can visit her Plug-In Profit Site Blog at http://www.pluginprofit.blogspot.com to find out how she makes money online.

2006-03-11T20:33:00.000-08:00

Blogs! What They Are... And Why They're Becoming A Power Tool For Internet Marketers Cory Threlfall

BLOGS! What a crazy name for the "NEWEST" Internet marketing trend to hit the Internet. But, I like it. It makes this new form of communication kind of mysterious in a way, though, BLOGS have been around for quite some time and only recently have been recognized as a VERY valuable asset to Internet marketers. Recently, I was visiting some Internet marketing related Forums and noticed many of the threads having similar "Subjects" saying... "What the heck are BLOGS?" So, I did a little research and this is what I came up with since I was Very curious myself. I think it's best that I clearly define to You exactly what a "BLOG" is so that as I go through this article with you, you'll have a clear picture in your head of what a Blog IS and so there won't be any confusion. A "BLOG"(A.K.A. Web Log) by definition is: A combination of online diary and/or guestbook. You sign up for a blogger account and then you enter the information You want on your Website. Then you can set it so that only you can place entries on it or so that anyone can. Then you can either keep a private journal or you can have a place where your readers can get together and place entries to each other or to you. So... there you have it in a nut shell. To simplify it even more let's just say BLOGS are a place to go and post your personal thoughts that you can share with your subscribers and/or readership and receive feedback. Now, for the purpose of this article, now that you know the true definition of a "Blog", I'm going to share with you some reasons WHY they're becoming a widely recognized "POWER TOOL" for Internet marketers around the world. So, with that said, lets go to Reason #1. Reason #1. Great way to stay in touch with your subscribers. Blogs are a great way to stay in touch with your subscribers and/or readership and builds regular readership Traffic to your little community where you can interact with them. It also helps build rapport, which in turn, will help develop that TRUST in You, Your Products and/or Services that You recommend. Reason #2. It's a great way to get "Feedback". Blogs are a great way to get Feedback from your subscribers/customers simply because they have the ability to leave comments on each "Post" you make which will then help you find what it is they're looking for making YOU look like a "Hero" in there eye's and putting $Money$ in your pocket. Reason #3. Can be managed by ONE individual. Blogs require NO "HTML" experience, making it easy for ANYONE to get started. Most "Blog" communities online use what is called a "WYSIWYG" HTML editor. Did I lose you there with the "WYSIWYG" abbreviation. That simply stands for... "What You See Is What You Get". It's one of the easiest HTML editors to use, making it easy for You to get started right away. Reason #4. Your able to list your "Main" website details. When you sign up for your Blogger account you're given an area to set-up your "Personal Profile" where your able to list your Main website and URL, plus, any other personal information you wish to share that will be displayed on your Blog. Reason #5. A great way to publish "Information". This is probably ONE of the Biggest benefits to Blogs because you have the ability to post informative information in the form of "Articles and/or Reviews" for your subscribers and/or readership which will make you look like an Expert on the subject and giving you INSTANT credibility in the eye's of your reader. Reason #6. You get your own URL. That's right, you get your own URL you can use in all your promotions and/or on your personal website if you have one. This feature is great, especially for people just starting out and don't have there own website up and running yet. Here's my Blog for you to take a look at. It's called... The Internet Wonders Blog. http://theiwe.blogspot.com Reason #7. Search Engines love them. Search Engines love Blogs because they are so "Content Rich" and are always being updated on a Daily to Weekly basis. When you compare a regular static website, which might be updated on a monthly basis, to a Blog, which is updated on a Daily to Weekly basis with NEW content, you'll gain favor with the search engines with your Blog. The S.E. "Spiders" will then gladly stop by to munch down on whatever NEW content you posted and Index your website more often since that is what Search Engines love and are constantly looking for. Reason #8. The ability to use RSS with Blogs. A powerful feature about Blogs is the use of RSS(Real Simple Syndication) that allows you to Instantly send your Blog highlights to your readership upon publication which will keep your reader up to speed on your business and your Products and/or Services. Not only that, RSS also gives your Blog more exposure to a wider audience of subscribers building a bigger readership in less time. By simply adding an human element to your business through the use of a "Blog", IS a great way to build rapport and gain the trust of your subscribers and/or readership, which in turn, will turn them into buying "Customers". Well, there you have it, "BLOGS! What They Are... And WHY They're Becoming A POWER TOOL For Internet Marketers". I hope this article clearly answered the questions you once had about "Blogs" and the benefits of starting one of your own.
About the Author: Want to get MORE 'Insider' marketing Secrets on How-To drive HUGE amounts of Laser Targeted Traffic to your website? Then you need to subscribe to Cory Threlfall's ezine called... The Internet Wonders eZine at -- http://www.internetwondersezine.com

2006-03-11T20:30:00.000-08:00

Constructing Quality Blogs
M6.net

WritingBlogsBlogs are on-line journals where people express themselves through writing. WritingWriting is the process where one puts down words of a language on a format that others can read. This process has not been around very long, to use one of my writing teachers favorite sayings, Writing has only existed for one day in the one year that humanity has existed. Speaking and thinking come much easier than writing. These processes just flow out naturally like a river of consciousness; sometimes we hardly have to think about doing them. Anyone and everyone can write words down on paper but that doesnt mean its good writing, myself included. Like most things in life, our society already takes writing for granted which is proving to expose more of our ignorance. Writing is a new form of expression, and if we want to do it in a way that the masses can connect with our ideas, we have to think much more simply and clearly about this art.
Now that was quite a big paragraph, youve got to wonder if I really needed to say as much as I just did to introduce this article on the best way to write your blogs on the Web. I didnt even mention this main idea, and thats what an introduction paragraph is meant to be for. This is a common mistake in many blogs out there. We try to get too many ideas across in one paragraph, sometimes even in one sentence! The key, as in all things in life-is to keep it simple. Simplicity means that readers wont get confused about what your journal entry is actually about. Introduce your main general topic at the start, and use the subsequent paragraphs to discuss separate ideas that relate to this topic. Try to tie everything up in the concluding paragraph, your main argument and the reason why youve written in the first place.
Grammar and sentence construction are not easy systems to master, especially if you come from a school system that spent more time telling you about historical battles and quadratic equations than on how to read and write. This is a real problem. When we speak we can get messages across to others easily, but if we put these words down on paper, the writing just isnt interesting and doesnt connect with peoples curiosities and fascination. When you write you are not talking to a close friend. You cant use slang and colloquialisms that only your local community can understand. The aim is to connect with all the people in the world, so lets make it crystal clear and enjoyable to read.
Your computer has spelling and grammar checks, as well as access to a thesaurus. Use them, but remember that the machine cant decipher all the intricacies of language. Language is a world in itself, and much of its territories are undiscovered by the masses. So, again keep it simple. Short, precise sentences with single ideas are great. Many words in the English language have the same meanings (synonyms). Use the thesaurus so you dont repeat the same word over and over throughout the text. It keeps the story fresh and doesnt turn the reader off. Theres nothing more boring than repetition. Using different words can be a lot of fun and a learning experience, just make sure you use a dictionary (also on the computer/Internet) to make absolute sure of the words definition.
ReadabilitySimplicityMake your blog accessible by all people. You can even take into consideration that many readers will have learned English as a second language. As Ive said in previous articles, keep to the point-dont go on tangents. Stick with the articles topic, and definitely stay within the realms of your blogs main area. If your blog is entitled Jazz music, people who go there dont want to hear about how your football team won on the weekend! Please be consistent. How irritating is it to visit a blog that hasnt been written on in months or years?
I hope these little tips will help you on your quest to producing good writing that brings new friends and acquaintances of similar outlooks into your world. If you want people to read, the aim is to produce an emotional reaction in your reader. Pretend you are writing to another form of yourself, if it were not readable, interesting and funwould you stick around?

By Jesse S. SomerM6.Nethttp://www.m6.netJesse S. Somer is a grasshopper writer attempting to inform other beginner writers on how they might one day become masters or senseis.

blog good techniques

2006-03-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

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