Everything you need to know about Blogging
What are Blogs?
Having heard the term previously but not having paid much attention most are just to afraid to show their ignorance and ask the question, what is a blog? Lets face it; the term blog does not conjure pleasant images.
Blogs are web logs that are updated regularly, usually on a daily basis. They contain information related to a specific topic. In some cases blogs are used as daily diaries about people’s personal lives, political views, or even as social commentaries. The truth of the matter is that blogs can be shaped into whatever you, the author, want them to be.
Where Did Blogs Come From?
The roots of blogging can be traced back to the mid 1990’s. Who the very first blogger actually was is unclear, as the art of blogging did not really take hold until 1999. The original “weblogs” were link-driven sites with personal commentaries. The very first blogs were human guided Internet web tours. While initially thought of as diaries or online journals, blogs have evolved into the latest fresh web content.
The Future of Blogs
A buzz word in techie circles, “blogging” is the wave of the future. Whether its a fad, or proves to be a new way to communicate with existing and potential customers it deserves at the very least a cursory look.
Why is Blogging Helpful to Businesses or Individuals?
Just as animated .gifs were once cool, blogging is the trendy thing to do. That does not mean that it is not beneficial to businesses. Webmasters struggling to keep fresh, attractive content on their websites to lure visitors back, have found blogs the answer. Content is a necessity for online businesses, both for purposes of being found by search engines but also because it gives visitors a reason to come back.
Now that we have established that blogs are not only trendy but also beneficial to businesses, its important to understand how they can be used to your advantage. We currently manage and update two blogs on a daily basis.
This professional business blog allows us the opportunity to tell potential, or existing customers industry news, updates, or generally how mobile or paging software can be used in specific situations to alleviate problems. The bottom line is we control the content. Its updated daily, which increases the chances that search engines will spider on a regular basis and it helps with page rank because it’s been submitted to all the blogging directories. Initially started on a whim we’ve found it beneficial to report tips, tricks or make visitors aware of new regulations related to the mobile or paging industry.
This blog is less formal and contains marketing tips, or promotional advice for software developers or online marketers. We found that we had overflow from our monthly newsletter. Generating a daily blog would require very little effort and would assist us in creating fresh content which our readers told us was of significant interest.
Blogs & Your Business
The bottom line is you need to determine how a blog will benefit your business, determine a schedule and adhere to it. Let your readers know what to expect and when to expect it. Blogs provide great supplemental content and direct attention to areas of your business that you want to showcase; you direct the content but let your readers guide you.
Creating a Blog
There are numerous online tools that can be used to create a blog. We found that because of security concerns, it would just be best to use a standard html program. In our case we used Dreamweaver and create daily posts. Its really not much more complicated than typing an email. The content is then sent via FTP to a web server. If you want to test the waters there are online web-based tool that helps you publish to the web instantly. The most popular web based tool is likely Blogger
Other Advantages to Blogs
While you may initially create a blog for your existing customers, you may find that you can attract new customers by illustrating your expertise in a specific field. There are numerous websites that act as “blog search engines”, be sure to submit your sites to these websites to increase your exposure. This will also help with your page rank and possibly increase the likelihood you will receive decent ranking with Google. You can also create an RSS feed in order to syndicate blog content and gain additional exposure.
Social Networking Site FriendWise
Facebook social networking site is geared more towards college students. But now there is a social networking site that is geared towards just adults in general and that is FriendWise.com.
With FriendWise.com you will find the normal social network features as on myspace or facebook like creating a website profile, blogs, photo gallery, classifieds, istant messenger, rate photos, groups. But with FriendWise.com you will also find these additional features live chat, creating polls and taking polls also making quzzies and taking quizzes. Even send a crush alert to someone you like.
When using these feaures you will earn points with in return will give you more options a you earn points.
Here are some great easy tips to get you going on the online community social networking site FriendWise.com
Easy steps to make your FriendWise profile stand out.
As there are many users and many profiles on FriendWise, it’s really important for you to have a profile that stand out from the crowd so people will want to have you as their friend, listen to your ideas/posts and mainly come back to your home page.
So, without further say, here are the steps to get more Friends on FriendWise.com
1. Photos - Ensure you pick at least two specially interesting, funny or attractive photos to your profile. It should be your own picture of yourself. If you don’t have any pictures of yourself, you can use free graphics and I highly recommend animated ones. You can grab some off the web and there are many available sites like Photobucket.com for example.
How to add your picture(s) to your account. In the menu bar click MY ACCOUNT then click SETTINGS and then click Profile Picture. then just click browse and find the picture you would like to add to your main profile picture and click Upload Image. Your main pick needs to be avatar size you can do that at photobucket.com just click resize and save it to your mypictures
If you would like to add more pictures to your Gallery click MY ACCOUNT then click SUBMIT ITEMS. From there just click upload picture and you will be able to enter a title for your image and place in the catagory you would like then just click browse and find the picture you would like to add and then just click Upload Image and that’s it it will show up in a couple minutes as long as the image is not to big. It needs to be website size which you can resize at photobucket.com. Each time you submit a picture to the gallery you will get a point.
Here is also what you will find under SUBMIT ITEMS. Write Blog, Create Poll and Create Quiz. For each one you make you will get a point.
2. Backgrounds - don’t keep the original FriendWise layout - it’s very simple. People like and remember non-standard images and backgrounds so I recommend you go to Photobucket.com and search myspace background or layouts and then look at all the available backgrounds and layouts and pick one that matches your liking. Once you found one right click with your mouse on the image and save to your computer. Applying is easy. Just click MY ACCOUNT then click SETTINGS then click Design My Profile. Then click browse and find the background that you saved to your computer and upload it.
To make the image show throughout your profile you will need to make some areas of your profile transparent. To do so click select color then chose transparent for the following Background Color, Background Main, Top Headers, Main Item Background, My Details Background. Now just click Save Profile Settings at the bottom and your background is set.
You will want to add colors to the following sections by clicking Select Colors. Here are the ones you would want to do that with Comment Background, Comment Text, Comment Header Background, and Comment Header Text.
You will now have a very nice looking profile you can see my page Click Here for example so when you are done it will look something like that.
Here is all what you will find under SETTINGS. You will be able to change Account Settings which you will be able to Change your password, e-mail address and other account info. Profile Settings Change what you want to be said on your profile. Profile Picture Change your profile picture.
3. Browse FriendWise for new users that have just joined in. Add them to your friends. This has a major benefit - if your among their first friend and you can get to know them better. Just click BROWSE and then click NEW MEMBERS.
4. Leave comments to all your friends. Comments link back to your profile and also reminds people that your there. In addition people often look at who sent the comment and visit their profile page. .You can find all comment options on the this website spacemycodes.com website. Also you can search some by subject on Photobucket.com.
5. When sending a friend request to strangers make sure you attach a message - many people are suspicious about having strangers adding as their friends and will only add you if you make a proper friendly introduction first.
6. Keep your profile updated. If there are no updates people will stop re-visiting it. If it keeps changing - people need to come back to check what’s new. Don’t let your profile become static.
7. Make sure you tell people about yourself on your profile a person will add you to their list if they have the same interest as you and make it honest. Let the person know what kind of person you are you don’t have to give out to much info but atleast give a summary of what type of person you are and the interest that you have.
Using these tips should help you find new friends
Friendwise.com also has chat parties once a month so it makes it easy to meet new adult friends.
If you invite your friends and you can do so with INVITE at the bottom of FriendWise.com you just need to add there email and you can send a message and you will get 5 points if they join.
If you are a adult you should give the social networking site http://www.FriendWise.com a try.
Increase Blog Traffic With Technorati Tags
Tag and ping is the hot blog promotion method of the moment. You’ve probably heard about it, but may not know exactly what it is or how to do it. When done right, tagging can bring your site tons of targeted traffic from very active visitors.
The tag and ping concept has its roots in the social bookmarking explosion. More of these sites are being created every day, taking some of the market share away from search engines. The key difference is that social bookmarking sites organize their listings based on the votes of actual people while search engines organize their information automatically according to their own algorithm.
The first step is to sign up for a Technorati account, of course. Next, you need to login to your profile and claim your blog. After entering the blog URL, Technorati will verify that you are the blog’s real owner. They currently have two methods of doing this. You can place a small bit of code somewhere on your blog’s home page or simply input your blog login and password. (Because of privacy concerns, Technorati claims that they do not store this information anywhere.)
Once you’ve claimed your blog, you can set up your profile information, with a customized description and up to 20 tags of your choice. Your blog will be listed when people search for these tags. Like any search engine, you’ll probably be listed lower for the more competitive phrases until you get several incoming links for those keywords.
As you’re writing your blog posts, think about which keywords you would like to “tag” on that page. One of the major differences between tagging and regular SEO is that you can tag several keywords on the same page. Unlike search engines, social bookmarking sites will list your page under different keyword topics.
The goal of these social types of sites is to help surfers find quality sites that are relevant to their search terms, so you can get listed under many different tags. The tag word itself does not have to be used on the page, but you should try to stick with related terms so you don’t get flagged for spamming.
Now you need to add tags to your blog posts. Wordpress has a few useful plugins to help with the tag code and there is similar code available for Blogger as well. With the Wordpress plugin, you can add [tags]keyword, keyword[/tags] while you’re writing the post and you’ll get a list of tags at the bottom. You can also add the [tag] code to words inside your post and they will be added to the list of tags.
When publishing your posts, make sure Technorati is in your ping list and your posts will be automatically be listed under the tags you selected. When surfers search for those keywords, your blog will be listed in the results. If they like your blog, they can vote for it and increase its popularity. Try to focus your tags on the tightest niches possible to get the most narrowly targeted traffic.
As new alternatives to search engine traffic appear, they create new opportunities for clever marketers. Technorati is just one of the vast numbers of social bookmarking sites that have been launched in the past year. Keeping current with these new marketing avenues will help you stay a step ahead of your competitors.
Get A WordPress API Key For The Akismet WordPress Plugin
With the growing popularity of blogs and the ease to obtain links through comments on blogs, it didn’t take long for programmers to come up with automated tools to blast link packed spam comments to unsuspecting blogs.
Some just turn comments off for their blog but to me that eliminates one of the great features of making your blog interactive for your visitors. Comments can open discussion between the reader and the blogger. Your blog’s visitors can even subscribe to a post’s comments, getting notified of any new comments, keeping your readers coming back.
The WordPress plugin, Akismet checks comments posted on your blog posts against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.
To activate Akismet from your WordPress blog dashboard, click Plugins, scroll down and click Activate next to the WordPress Akismet plugin. After you do that you will see a box near the top of the dashboard that reads:
Akismet is not active. You must enter your WordPress.com API key for it to work.
Click the link in the message, and then the Akismet Configuration panel will open. You should then see this in the middle of the screen:
Please enter an API key. (Get your key.)
On the top of that page click the Sign Up tab, fill in your information and if you have a self-hosted blog choose the Just a username, please option.
Be sure to use a good email address in here to get your login information and WordPress API key, click the box to agree to legal junk and click next.
Check your email and click the confirmation link from WordPress to activate your account. You should then see a page that reads, “Your account is now active!” Click the login link within the text of that page and login.
You should now be at the WordPress.com site, if so click the dropdown box on the very top right of the page and choose “Edit Profile”, now you are in the Global Dashboard.
Within the WordPress Global Dashboard you can now see your WordPress API key on the right side of the page. Oh, and by now you should have also got the API key in an email from WordPress also! But you should still edit your profile while you are in the Global Dashboard.
Now its time to place the API key in the Akismet WordPress plugin; go back into your WordPress blog dashboard, click the link on the Akismet WordPress plugin warning box near the top of the dashboard. Paste the WordPress API key in the box and click update options.
If the warning box is not visible check to see if Akismet is activated, click Plugins and look for the status of the plugin on the right. You will notice that all activated plugins are highlighted green. When Akismet is activated you can configure it by clicking Plugins, and look for the Akismet subpanel (white text in the dark blue bar) directly below and to the right of then main panel menu.
Keeping comment spam out while allowing your blog visitors to comment, will not only keep your blog clean but more interactive and help generate more traffic.
Blog Search Engine Optimisation
As mentioned in previous posts, using blogs to generate additional traffic for your primary site can pay huge dividends. Just “doing it” can mean significant increases in traffic, but what you really want to do here is - as in your main site - generate qualified traffic.
Post Writing - Content Creation Discipline
By that, I mean you want to draw in people who want exactly what you offer. That requires a disciplined approach to content creation;
- Research and consider carefully what your post is about, and know why you are writing it - the objective!
- Identify the keyword phrase/s that people are using to find information relevant to the topic you will write on.
- Ensure you place keywords in the post title, and early in the first paragraph, with some additional emphasis on the words, such as bold / italics.
- Include “exact match” keyword phrases throughout the body of the article.
- Add tags/slug i.e. a short list of specific relevant keywords - this may be used in the post page Keyword meta-tag.
- Write a concise Excerpt, loaded with keyword phrases - this may be used in the post page Description meta-tag.
- Use the Spell Checker!!! This article may be the first introduction a potential client has with your business.
Remember that “You NEVER get a second chance to create a first impression!”
Business Blogs Should Inform & Educate
In a business blog, which is there to inform & educate potential clients about aspects of your business, try to provide useful information, without a blatant sales pitch. By all means, encourage readers to “Inquire about Free Personal Advice” or “Contact us for More Information” but don’t overdo the sales pitch. Your goal is to convey your depth of knowledge and experience, and build credibility.
Blog Search Engine Optimisation
To maximise the penetration of your Blog posts, it is not sufficient to just write it and forget it. You need to ensure that your Business Blog is properly “optimised” to produce unique, accurately categorised, and clearly labelled content. This requires a SEO package implementation on your blog to ensure that your Posts, static Pages and Category pages are UNIQUE! We think Wordpress is the fastest and easiest blog platform to customize. It also has a comprehensive array of free SEO options, and following comments are specific to Wordpress.
This is best done dynamically, with installation of plugins that provide automation of;
- HTML Page URLs - using mod_rewrite to generate verbose, keyword-rich page file names.
- Page Title Tags - if you write good post titles, these can be used verbatim in the Title Tag.
- Page Description Meta-Tag - uses the post Excerpt, or the first 20 words of 1st paragraph.
- Page Keyword Meta-Tag - used the post Tag or Slug to generate keywords.
Accurate Content Cataloguing Pays Dividends
The combined impact of attention to detail in posting generation and publishing, plus Search Engine Optimisation finesse on the page production, will deliver dramatic improvements to blog traffic. At the same time, it wil ensure that visitors get exactly what they were seeking due to the resulting accuracy of your content cataloguing efforts.
That will encourage them to bookmark the site, or specific page, and to come back looking for additional details.
How To Write And Tag A WordPress Blog Post
Writing a Wordpress blog post is pretty straight forward. Tagging a WordPress blog post is the extra step to get more traffic, higher search engine listings and page rank.
To get started click Write on the main panel and the Write Post screen opens. Then follow these steps to write your post and tag it using the Ultimate Tag Warrior and Tagalize It WordPress plugins.
* Fill in the title box of the new post.
* Choose or create a category for your post on the right side under Categories.
* You should have check marks in both boxes in the Discussion options panel.
* Do not put a password in the Post Password panel! That will keep your post from displaying on your blog. Only those with the password will be able to read it!
* Under Post Slug (optional) you can create a smaller URL address for your post in here. If you don’t create a Post Slug your post title will be the URL address. Without a Post Slug your post’s URL will look something like this: yourdomain.com/category-name/your-post-title/
Using a Post Slug will shorten the last part of the URL to what you create in the Post Slug box. Try to make it shorter but still relevent to the title of your post
* Choose the Visual or Code tab to write your post. Clicking the Visual tab (default) will allow you to type in a “what you see is what you get” editor. The Code tab is for writing in code, you can use this to write or paste HTML or other code into your post.
The WordPress plugins Ultimate Tag Warrior and Tagalize It will play a big role in optimizing your posts and blog.
A tag is simply the term used for keywords in blogging and the above plugins help create and manage your tags as you write your posts.
If you are writing a post about work at home you would want to create a category for the tag work at home and tag it throughout your post. Shown below:
[tag]work at home[/tag]
The plugins used in this instance do several things.
* An optional feature can create a category for the words you tagged if one doesn’t already exist.
* The tag will become a hyperlink to the category tagged, optimizing your internal linking structure helping Search Engine Ranking.
* They will display your tags on the bottom of your post and can be easily carried into some Social Bookmarking sites.
* They will embed keywords in the code of the post’s page helping SEO.
More tagging options can be used by the Tagalize It wordpress plugin to tag words that pings two popular blog directories Technorati and Ice Rocket. This will alert those sites that you have content about the tagged words. A pretty easy way to get the word out about your blog. Be sure to add your blog to the those two directories also.
To tag Technorati and Ice Rocket use the following:
[Tag-Tec]Word or phrase for Technorati[/Tag-Tec]
[Tag-Ice]Word or phrase for Ice Rocket[Tag-Ice]
Once you are done writing and tagging your post click Save and Continue Editing, scroll down to look over your post in the Post Preview box, make sure all your tags are properly formatted and closed and scroll back up to make any changes.
You can add more tags as a comma seperated list directly below the post editor if you wish. Or look up more tag suggestions with the tags (keyword) suggestions tool.
Once you are happy with your post click Publish, if you have the WordPress plugin Smart Update Pinger installed and activated it may take a few extra seconds for your post to publish while it pings your blog.
After your post is published click (View site) at the very top of the Dashboard. This next step is very important so be sure to click the title of your post to bring it up in its own page.
Using the WordPress plugins Gregarious and or Share This you should now start Social Bookmarking your post. Scroll down to the bottom of your post and click the green Share This icon. Click on as many of the sites this shows and start joining them.
If you have just the Gregarious plugin you will see a group of icons below your post. The same goes here, join as many as you can.
Now everytime you make a post be sure to click the post’s title to show it on its own page and click on the Gregarious and or Share This social bookmarking icons and start bookmarking your post.
Using the plugins and options outlined in this article will help increase traffic to your blog, but are only a start, there are many differnt ways to use a WordPress blog.
Web 2.0 Has Business Owners Blogging The Success Stories of Their Company
People is not just the name of a magazine, it is the subject of virtually every story published today. How people use a certain product. Why they behave the way they do. And what activity they’re engaged in that is charming, disarming, or alarming. It’s all about the people.
Most business publications tell us about people we can never identify with, even though we love to read about them. They have seemingly unlimited resources, celebrity contacts, and brilliant well-connected friends.
Fun to read but with very little direct relevance to us, except for the moral, legal, and ethical dilemmas and lessons each article contains.
Research demonstrated conclusively that online readers of web site content were looking for stories about regular people, putting Main Street faces online where their story could be told.
People want to read about successful business owners everyone can identify with, along side practical, insightful articles written by business professionals from a range of industries.
They were looking for evergreen content, because thought-provoking, idea-generating articles that were first published in 1999 are just as popular today as recent blog posts.
To date we have written and published almost 100 profiles of successful business owners. Each business owner who participated was nominated as a thought leader, someone whose story deserved telling, by his or her trade association.
Individuals were interviewed at length over the phone around a set of questions crafted to bring out how the company was formed, when and by whom and some of the challenges they overcame along the way.
And each success profile described their plans for them future - especially how they believed the Internet would help them grow their business in the future.
You see it occurred to us that there were lots of stories from Main Street that people would want to read about. So we made a few calls to our association executive contacts in a dozen industries and the rest was easy - time consuming, but easy.
As it turns out, our assumption was accurate.
The success stories along with a handful of how-to articles featuring the tactics of successful business owners account for a scant 1% of the content on our web sites and yet they receive over 32% of the web site’s traffic. One profile, published in 2002, accounts for 10% of all web site impressions. People still access it several hundred times a week.
Experience dictates that no matter where someone is in the development of their business, there are people who are behind them on their own path toward success. People want to read about experiences they can leverage and tactics they can make their own.
Fortune 500 companies have in-house writers, contract authors, along with advertising and PR professional people who spend their days telling the world how great the company is.
Mainstream everyday companies do not have that luxury, until now.
Web 2.0 in the form of user created content from blog posts and comments provide business owners an opportunity to start a blog of their own that offers insights into their company.
Business owners with specific expertise can comment on other people’s blogs, like those being set up by their industry’s trade association or professional society, and adding to the discussion that’s already taking place among like minded individuals.
And because blogs require virtually no resources and little if any money, every business owner can tell their story and follow the progress of other businesses they admire.
It is quite possible that a single posting on a relevant blog post will be the opening round in a never-ending dialogue between business owners. Business owners seeking advice can quickly and simply add a comment or a question to the original post and those with relevant advice to share can add their insights as well.
Instead of just being an historical account of the business like our original profiles are, blog posts and their follow up comments may take on a life of their own extending well into the future.
Let your light shine. Tell your story online. The people who’ll find it will be those who are looking for the insights you have acquired the hard way.
Be somebody’s new role model.
9 Ways of Invigorating a Tired E-commerce Blog
It’s well known that the search engines are suckers for fresh content. Sites that are updated regularly fare better than those that remain static over long periods of time. This has always posed a problem for us store owners, because simply adding a few new products each month just isn’t going to suffice in competitive markets. Nor is shuffling the featured products around on our home pages every now and again!
Thankfully blogging goes a long way toward solving this dilemma. Get into the habit of making frequent, regular posts to a blog and sites soon take on that fresh, organic quality the search engines love.
Of course, as well as helping rankings, blogs are also great way of interacting with clients. Sharing views and news with visitors and allowing them to comment on posts creates a sense of community around a store. This does wonders for conversion rates.
So blogs and ecommerce are a healthy combination - but what about the writing itself? It’s vital that a blog is kept ticking over but posting fresh material every few days can soon become taxing! So here a few tips and ideas for when you run out of inspiration.
1.Product news.
The arrival of new product lines should always be announced on your blog. If nothing else it provides an ideal opportunity to get keywords into action, so use them in the titles of your posts as well as the body. Similarly you can also use your blog to inform customers when a particular item is back in stock.
2.Additional product reviews
Not everyone likes long copy and you may prefer to keep your actual store’s product descriptions short and to the point. But your blog provides an ideal opportunity to pull out all the stops for the more obsessive customer. Add extra photos, tell anecdotes - use all that extra space to your advantage. With a little care and attention you can nail plenty of keyword variations.
3.Apologies
Whenever there’s a problem with your store or something goes wrong, address in it your blog. Say sorry if necessary. Customers will appreciate your honesty!
4.The future
Good websites are always a work in progress and you should keep your customers informed of any changes on the horizon. So if you are planning on offering another payment method in a few months, talk about it. Say why you’re doing it and when it will happen.
5.We’re great!
Create a a blog category exclusively for your customer testimonials. Then whenever you receive a complimentary email, ask the customer if you can post it. You should be able to collect a nice backlog of such comments for days when you don’t have any news. Then you can just post a testimonial to keep the spiders happy! Of course, this tactic also serves a double purpose in that you’ll soon have a fully functioning testimonial page which you can link to from the main site.
6.Sales and promotions.
Offering any discounts this week? Don’t just tell your newsletter subscribers, post it.
7.Happy holidays!
There are countless different festivals, holy days and holidays celebrated at different times throughout the year. Mention them. Your customers may be of various nationalities and religious persuasions so don’t limit yourself to Happy Christmas and Happy Halloween!
8.News close to home.
You should never approach your store’s blog as a personal diary. After all your customers don’t want to hear about what you had for breakfast. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t mention momentous or life changing events. Maybe a member of your staff is getting married or expecting a baby, for example. Depending on the overall personality of your store this may not be something that you’d like to do, but in the right circumstances mentioning this kind of news can endear you to your customers very effectively. Everybody likes to be reassured that they are dealing with 3 dimensional people, not just a faceless money making machine. Just don’t overdo it.
9.Current bestsellers.
If a particular product is really popular, it’s worth mentioning for two reasons. Firstly it can create a sense of urgency in your customers if they think that stocks may be getting low. Secondly, if a lot of people are buying a certain product there are probably a lot of people searching for it as well. When you’ve got a hot keyword, pepper a post with it and then feed it to the spiders!
Building Traffic with a Blog
One you have a site up and running it becomes very important to get some solid traffic to it. No traffic means no sales, customers… no business, really.
Depending on your kind of business, this can be quite difficult. If you’re selling things that other people are selling it can be very hard to get your pages ranked. This is especially true if you’re just using standard descriptions rather than creating your own, or if you have a company generated webpage that gives you no control over these things.
One of the simplest ways to handle this is to start a blog. If you have your own domain, I strongly recommend getting the free Wordpress software (one click install on most hosts) and using that.
But if you don’t have a way to put a blog on your site, there are many free options. Blogger is quite popular, partially because it is from Google, and people feel it may get spidered more often, but also because they don’t mind you advertising on it. Some other free blogs do not want you using their sites for commercial purposes of any kind.
The danger to any free blog is that it can be deleted at any time, with little or no notice. But so long as you follow the rules this will only rarely be a problem. Hosting your own is far safer.
On your blog, you want to write posts and articles that will bring people to your blog and get them interested in your products. It is not so easy as writing blatant ads, which most people won’t read. You want to write articles that will make people want to use what you have to offer.
Free tips relevant to the products are generally a very good idea. They can be fun to write, and if you get creative and think of unusual uses, you can get people who might not have purchased your products to try them.
Most blog posts are fairly short. You don’t have to write a novel. Sometimes even just a few sentences will do… just so long as those sentences have something interesting to say.
One of the most important things about blogging to promote your business is to make sure that you post regularly. Weekly is a bare minimum, but most successful bloggers post more often than that. Some even post many times throughout the day, every day. You just have to figure out what works best for your business.
Posting on your blog is not enough. You need to ping as well. If you’re using the Wordpress software, it can be set up to ping automatically. You at the very least want to ping one of the services that will ping other sites for you.
Ok, ok, I’ll tell you what pinging is. Otherwise that last paragraph will be just nonsense to some people. A ping is a signal sent to sites that accept them, that lets them know that you have new content for them to look at.
You can do this manually by visiting sites as well. One of the most popular sites to ping is Technorati. If you sign up for an account and claim your blog, you can go in and manually ping it if you can’t figure out how to do it on your blogging software. On Wordpress software, you just have to go to Options - Writing to tell it where to ping.
Once your blog is up and running, it can be a huge help to your other site in building both traffic and sales. And you might just enjoy the blogging part of it too.
How To Decide Between Free Web Hosting And Paid Web Hosting For Your Blog
There are many choices for web hosting companies available and for blogging there are many free choices offered as well. The question that comes to mind to me is, “Is free webhosting cheap?” What I mean by that is what is it going to cost me in terms of functionality and accessibility. Let’s take a look at some of the comparisons between free web hosting and paid web hosting.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last couple of years then you know that blogging has become a formidable force on the internet and has allowed many people to get an online presence that may otherwise have been unable to do so. Many of these people are making their living by blogging and some like Jason Calcanis have become wealthy from it. Jason built a network of blogs over about eighteen months and sold them to AOL for nearly $30 million! That’s a pretty good ROI. Anyway, I digress, back to our discussion on web hosting.
If you have decided that you want to operate a blog your next choice will probably be what blogging platform or software you want to use to accomplish you blogging. Relax, it’s easy. Most of the blogging software out there today is open source which means it’s, you guessed it, free! In this instance free is not a bad thing, I use Wordpress almost exclusively, it is free and has more options that I care to learn or use. There are other blogging software options available, but I won’t go into them here because this article is about web hosting.
As far as web hosting for your blog you can choose free web hosting or paid so let’s take a closer look at our choices. First off, you can choose Blogger which is owned by Google. Blogger is a good program especially for beginning bloggers because it is easy to use, it is web based, and the price is right. It’s free. With that said however, if your intention is to blog professionally and possibly run a large number of blogs with automated content then Blogger is not for you. I have seen Google shut down many blogs because they considered them to be spam. If you want control over your own destiny then you want to use paid web hosting and have your blogs on your own server, or at least a shared server.
Still in the realm of free web hosting you also have a fairly new option from Wordpress who now offers a free web hosting for Wordpress blogs at their .com site as opposed to the .org site where you get the software and plug ins. The problem is that like Google, they are very restrictive with what you can put on your blogs and how you update them.
Another big issue with free web hosting is that you will usually have to display advertising of some sort which “pays” for your web hosting. This is great for the web hosting companies because it gives them tons of virtual real estate out there with their name on it, not so great for you. If you are blogging professionally, and if you are trying to make money for it then you are blogging professionally, you do not want any distractions on your site that leads visitors away from your site unless you are being paid for it like you do when someone clicks on an Adsense ad or affiliate banner.
My recommendation is that you pay for your own hosting because it gives you a wealth of choices, much more storage space, and takes almost all restrictions off of you within reason. There are still some web hosting companies that will not allow you to host gambling or porno blogs but other than that you are pretty open. Paid web hosting is not that expensive. You can get an account that will host as many blogs as most people will want to deal with a few bucks a month. So for the cost of a domain name and your hosting you will probably be around $100 a year. That is a pretty cheap investment for something that enables you to plug into all the ways of earning money on the net.
Create Better Blogging By Defining Your Niche
Some bloggers will post topics that vary greatly. Other bloggers feel most comfortable when they are posting on a specific topic. The question has always been: which way is best? Studies show that defining your niche creates better blogging. So, using this discovery, it is assumed that it is best to choose one route to take, and stick with it. This can mean that you choose one broad topic and use it to create your entire blog topic list. You will likely get repeated visitors if you are posting on the same subject matter in any case. If you are still not sold however, check out these other explanations for why defining your niche can lead to more successful blogging.
Knowing the Topic
While it can be boring to post on the same topic each day, there is one thing to be said about it. You will certainly know your topic. The more you post on a topic, the more thinking and research you have to do on the topic. When you devote a lot of time to one topic, you will become more and more familiar with it. Therefore, by sticking to one topic, instead of being a “jack of all trades” writer, you will most likely become an “expert” writer on your topic. Knowing a topic well will eventually make the writing process a lot easier. When you know a lot of information on a topic, blog posts will come easy to you. You will soon get to the point where you don’t have to research any longer and can simply use what you know to write. All writers will tell you that at that point, it will take much less time to do your work.
Variations of Your Idea
Although you will be writing on one specific topic idea, you will be creating variations of your idea for your posts. For instance, when your niche is weddings, you can create a post on wedding gowns on one day and a post on wedding bouquets on the next day. The list of wedding topics could go on and on for months or years. There is so many variations you can think of that you can stay within your niche without changing topics altogether. This will allow each blog topic to be fresh and new each day. Brides, grooms, gowns, honeymoon site, all can be part of your blog. Even, how to choose your bridal rings will make interesting blogging. You can visit the various corners of your topic and still stick with your niche.
Creating Specific Posts
When you do go within your niche to create posts, you will be able to write specific posts that will attract a more targeted reader group. This will be great if you are relying on search engines to point people to your site. When you have specific posts that will bring in readers that are looking for topics like yours, your blog will be a success. You can bet that these readers will likely keep coming back to your blog in order to read other posts, which will be great for you as a blogger. If you are planning to ad advertising to your site, having a specific niche will help bring in more money since the ads placed on your site, will also be specific to your blogs. Choose your keywords carefully and add specific words to your blog. This will generate more traffic and can encourage more clicks on the ads placed on your site. With a program such as Google’s Adsense, you can earn money with each click.
So, as you can see, defining your niche is something that you should strongly consider as a blogger. When you jump from topic to topic in your blog, you can confuse readers and never have the opportunity to establish a steady reader group that can sustain your blog. When you do have a niche that you are knowledgeable in, you will see that readers will value your information and opinion and your blog will be a hit! Go ahead and think about a topic that interests you the most. Think about different variations that you can use for more specific topic posts and try them out. You will quickly see that trying this approach can work wonderfully.
Banishing Blogging Myths
There are certain myths that have grown up around blogs, bloggers and the blogosphere in general. Here are just some of them and some clarifications:
Anyone can start a blog! Not just anyone! There are some requirements, some more obvious than others. Obviously, you need a computer that you know how to use, an Internet connection and some experience using the Internet. You also need a host for your blog; there are blog hosts that are free and some that cost a small amount per month. One last requirement is not just an ability to communicate your thoughts but also a willingness to do so.
Anyone can set up a blog! Some blogs are much easier to set up and use than others, this depends on your blog host (e.g., blogger, iblogs, typepad, tblog, etc.). Some blog hosts take you through a couple simple set-up steps and you’re off writing your first post but there are others that get far more technical than the average user may be ready for.
Blogging doesn’t take up that much time! That depends! Some posts, when you have a clear idea of what you want to say, may take just a few minutes while you may struggle for days (literally) with others that involve complex issues or thoughts. In general, blogging is a daily activity for the serious blogger (some bloggers write up to ten posts a day) and a once-a-week activity for the casual blogger.
Most blogs are political! Many blogs focus on political topics but most blogs are just bloggers discussing their lives, loves and travels. A list of the 50 most visited blogs at BlogHub (http://www.bloghub.com/top50blogs.htm) shows very few political blogs.
Blogs are in competition with the main-stream media! This is true in a few cases (not as many cases as bloggers would have you think). Just recently, there have been some very popular and influential social and politically-oriented blogs that have caused main-stream media outlets to back-track and change their coverage of important events.
Bloggers just criticize and have no new information to add! This may be true in some cases but blogging today is much more than the personal activity it used to be. Corporations, media outlets, public personalities, politicians and experts in almost every field have now joined the ranks of blog producers. Considering all this expertise, one would have to say that bloggers have a lot of new information to add to any debate.
You can’t believe anything you read in a blog! That’s a bit of an overstatement. You’ll run across bad information and even intentional untruths in blogs but, for the most part, bloggers who state facts are stating what they honestly believe to be fact. It is always up to the readers to verify that any information they receive is accurate information.
The blogosphere is a meritocracy! Does the cream rise to the top? Of course it does but outside of the world of the dairy, a lot depends on how you define cream. If you consider the those bloggers who have the highest readership to be the “best” than yes, the blogosphere is a meritocracy with readership being the ‘payoff’ for being the best. The best, however, is not always the most popular. You will, while surfing, run across some extremely intelligent, extremely poignant and extremely erudite bloggers who have a very small readerships, as evidenced by very few, if any, comments to their posts. That can be explained by those blogger’s lack of willingness to ‘play the game’ that must be played to attract a large readership, e.g., aggressively promoting their blogs, spending many times more hours reading and commenting on other’s blogs than they spend writing for their own, listing their blog on every available directory, etc.. Every one of us has a different definition of success, to some, a large readership is adequate success, to some using their blog as a money-making device and actually making some money is the ultimate success while to others, like those with an intentionally low profile, feel that simply creating posts that are perfect expressions of what they want to say is reward enough.
How To Express Yourself through Blogs
Picture these three scenarios:
You are at a costume party in a room full of strangers. You are dressed as an 18th Century dandy; you’ve studied the mannerisms, have affected the perfect accent and you charm every partygoer you meet. Beneath the facade, outside the realm of this party you may be a banker, a steel worker or an unemployed poet but here and now you are Monsieur Baudelaire, the fop who speaks of temperament and style as the be-all and end-all of a meaningful existence.
You are at work where you are always the no-nonsense professional, respected by peers and underlings and depended upon by your manager to perform your tasks with skill, technical proficiency and a pleasant demeanor — an expectation that is hardly ever unmet.
You are at an informal get together with family, close friends and neighbors; you talk about sports, literature and fashion with people who know you and who understand your opinions, your quirks and your few flaws — there is no facade, no pretense, you are unabashedly you!
These scenarios that represent three versions of you in the real world are also three (of many) approaches you can take to presenting yourself to your readers in the virtual world, through your blog: as a character of your creation, as the professional at whatever you do, or as the real, unadulterated you, complete with flaws. Your blog and your blogger persona are your creations and are limited only by your choices. Consider also that whatever it is you write, in whatever form, even if it is spoof or satire, it will be considered by your readers as an expression of your true feelings.
People express themselves in many ways and for a growing number of people the need for some sort of public expression of thoughts, feelings, style or creative expression is filled by blogging. Expressing your thoughts in written words, however, is not as simple a task as it may seem to be; many people, in fact, find that it can take hours to accurately transfer the most seemingly simple thoughts to the written word. Thoughts and feelings do not require the organization or structure that is required by the expression of those thoughts and feelings.
Some things that make the task of expressing yourself through your writing much easier are improving your grammar, improving your vocabulary and practice, practice, practice.
Grammar! As a rule you should always write to your audience — they are the ones who need to understand you. Perfection may be necessary when you are writing for an audience of scholars and grammarians who require it but, regardless of your audience, the better your grammar the better you will be understood and the easier it will be for you to transfer those thoughts to paper. There are literally hundreds of English grammar guides available online and very reasonable English grammar guides available in bookstores; good grammar is a tool you will never regret learning to use.
Vocabulary! Finding the right words to express your thoughts is much easier when you have more words in your armory to choose from. You may be tempted to learn some suitably obscure words to impress your readership but too much of that will only confuse them and turn them away from your writing. Research has shown that the average adult in the U.S. reads at an eighth-grade level so arming yourself with a recondite vocabulary will not be helpful (nor was our reference to a ‘recondite vocabulary’ unless you knew that recondite means “difficult to understand”). Arm yourself, instead, with a good dictionary/thesaurus.
Write Often! Practice makes perfect or, to be honest, it at least helps you approach perfection. Try to make a meaningful entry in your blog every day, that may not always be possible but do try! Two of the wonderful things about blogging are its flexibility and availability — your blog will always be there (baring computer problems) when you need it and you’ll find that the more you write, the easier it will be to write. Keep in mind, however, that even a professional writer who writes for hours every day is seldom completely satisfied that the words that came out adequately express the thought that went in so don’t allow yourself to get too frustrated, take a short break and then try again.
How To Optimize Your Blog For The Best Search Engine Results
If you are interested in trying to make money from your blog, you probably want to know how you can best optimize your blog for great search engine results. After all, most people stumble upon blogs when doing a search for something. If you use these optimization tips effectively, it may be your blog more people are drawn to. So, check these tips out and experiment with your own blog. Note what has the best results and stay with it. Change the other things around a bit until you get the results out of them that you want.
Simple Content
Many experts say that the best way to optimize your blog is to keep everything very simple. You can choose one quality content topic and make it your base. Then from there you can use variations of the topic in order to keep everything going. This may seem like a broad and useless tip, but once you get into blogging more and more, you understand how important it is.
Put More Out There
If you are trying to get more of a presence on search engines, be sure that you have something to show. The more content you have, the more likely you are to show up on a search engine. Bigger sites always do better than smaller sites. It is simply a numbers game. Search engines will see your site in a different manner, depending on how much content you have. The more content you have, the more there is a chance there will be that someone will stumble onto your site.
Ask Search Engines for Help
Few people know that you can actually submit your site to search engines. Submit your site’s URL and ask to be put into the index. This can take a while, but if they do list you in the index, you will see a larger increase in traffic. Beware however of a service that asks for money in exchange for getting your sites into search engines. These can be a little misleading at times. There are ways to do this without needing to pay anyone at all.
Keyword Pay
A great idea for optimization is to identify the most popular keywords. By doing this, you are essentially targeting the keywords that people most often search for. When you do this, you have an edge over the competition. When you know exactly what the people are looking for, you can give them just that. Once you have a list of keywords, simply create articles that use these keywords. By creating these articles, you are putting yourself out there to be found. When someone does a search for those keywords, your blog just might pop up on their screen. Be careful not to use the keyword so much that your article does not make sense however.
Daily Updates
If you really want the best optimization, you should update it daily at the least. The more you update it, the more often search engines will index your blog. Therefore, you will want to be sure your blog is always fresh. Adding new information is the best way to update your blog. The more new information you have, the better off you will be! Just be sure that when you do update, it is for a good reason. You should always remember that content can have a purpose, but it should always be quality content. If you compromise content, you are only allowing yourself to strip the creativity from your project. If you are happy with doing that, by all means go ahead. However, as a writer, you will have a certain responsibility to web surfers. Unless you want everything on the web to be useless, do your part!
Use these tips to help optimize your blog and get the most from search engines. The more you post and use these tips, the more results you will see. If you earn your living from the number of clicks your blog or your ads get, this will essentially mean more money for you. You can use all of them or some of them. Experiment with them to see what works best for you and your blog. Put these tips to use and watch your results rise today!
Why Your Marketing Plan Should Include A Blog
Blogging is a great way for a business to effectively market their product or service without spending a lot of money. There are many benefits of business blogging. Businesses that keep up with a blog can introduce their products or services to consumers and can better communicate their customers. In addition, businesses that blog can understand what their customers want and serve them better.
A blog, sometimes called Weblog, is defined as a web page that serves as a journal or diary for individuals. Most blog writers update their blog on a regular basis and writers often share what most interests them. Individuals are not the only ones that have found blogging beneficial. Businesses have learned that this new way to communicate is a good marketing tool for their products and services.
Every company should consider have a regular blog for their businesses. Larger businesses may opt to hire a several special writers with certain areas of expertise to update their blog. A smaller company may have one writer that can effectively write about their product. The idea of blogging for any size business is to get the word out to readers. A reader who frequents a certain blog is more likely to share the blog with others. Also, blogging is a great marketing tool because it allows consumers to be better informed.
When a business chooses to blog, it allows them to introduce their product or service to consumers. Keywords and search engines help consumers quickly find the blog they are looking for with ease. For example, if a company specializes in making handmade jewelry and keeps a blog that is on a search engine, then that search engine would list their blog on a search. Blogging allows customers to research the product they are looking for with ease.
Companies that keep a regular can also use their blog to communicate with their readers and customers. There are many features that a blog site can offer that will allow a reader to enter comments and contact the writer. Companies that encourage their readers to leave comments can take the comments and improve their services and products. In addition, companies can email their customers back and let them know that they are interested in what they have to say. In addition, a company that uses blogging to market their service or product should always rely on an experienced writer to update the blog. Business blogs should be polished and easy to read.
Another good reason why businesses and companies should include a blog in their marketing plan is because a blog provides a unique way to understand what customers want. Companies that are in tuned with their customer’s needs and wishes can better serve them. Keeping an updated blog will initiate more customer communication that can help a company know right away how to improve. Blogs provide good public relations and are generally much cheaper to maintain than a regular web site. Also, a business that keeps a blog can reach out to other complimenting companies and link those blog sites together. This will help build readership and customers.
When setting up a blog for business purposes it is important to look for a blog-hosting site that can offer the right kind of features. Most businesses will use a site that can offer them more search engines and options to add links and URLs on their page. Free blog sites may not have the capabilities to offer as many features as the ones that charge a monthly fee. The search engine option is very important for a company that keeps a blog. This will ensure that readers can easily locate the company’s blog page. Also, a company setting up a blog should always keep the links and contact information within the blog current. A customer will not want to continue using a blog page that is full of broken links or outdated contact information. If a company relies on their customers to read the blog, then those customers will always rely on the company to make their blog experience a positive one.
Blogging can be a great marketing tool for any size business. It is important for businesses to realize that blogs are not a passing fad, but a unique way to interact with customers and gain recognition in a particular field.
How To Find Winning Ideas for your Blog Topics
Blog topics are an important part of a successful blog. Some bloggers simply write about whatever is on their mind, creating an online journal of sorts. Successful bloggers know however that to have a great blog, you cannot always write about what you want to write about. You must also keep the interests of your readers in mind when writing. After all, if you want a successful blog, you have to depend on the readers to show up often. To keep your blog as fresh as possible, consider using these five ways to find winning ideas for your blog topics.
Do Your Research
Smart bloggers know that each day there are popular search terms listed on large search sites. Bloggers can use these search terms to help them get more traffic to their blogs. Each day a blogger can look at these popular search terms and creating posts using them. If the blogger is lucky, they will increase their traffic due to more people looking for that term. By researching the topics that are hot with readers each day, bloggers can create things specifically for the readers. Doing research may take a little time and you might never be writing about what you want to write about, but you will likely have more traffic than ever.
Ask Around
If you have been blogging a while you might have began to hit low points where you really have no more topic ideas left. Some writers call this “writer’s block” while others just see it as a small hurdle to be surpassed. When you have come to this difficult point, the best thing to do is ask around. Talk to interesting people you know. You can ask them what topics they find most interesting at the time. If you would rather be a little more subtle, simply bounce a few topics off of them to see which ones they respond strongly to. Use the topics that they respond strongly to in order to gather ideas for posts.
Use the News
The news is a great place to gather topic information for your blog. News teams research and investigate for hours to gather their topics. By using similar topics, you can skip all of the hard research work and still be a success. Never use their ideas exactly, just take them and use them to develop your own. For instance, if there is a major political issue going on in the news, consider creating a post about what you think about it. You don’t have to use the news story, just the topic idea along with your own words.
Follow the Lead of Others
When you are looking for great blog topics, consider visiting popular blogs to see what they are talking about. Don’t steal their ideas, but use the visit to stir up great ideas of your own. Sometimes when you see others working at their highest potential it can spark new potential in yourself. You can see which topics get the best response for their blog and decide if you could get the same response with a similar topic.
Sleep On It
If all else fails and you are still trying to come up with a list of interesting blog topics, consider this interesting strategy. Go to sleep each night with a clear head. In the morning, before you even open your eyes, target the first thing on your mind. Write it down immediately so you don’t quickly forget. Then use these things to develop interesting blog topics. You would be shocked at how inspiring our first thoughts can be. They are so interesting because they are not clouded with any outside stressors from reality. They are simple thoughts typically that can be used successfully on a blog.
These five ways to find winning blog topics are proven to be among the best. A blog topic is one of the basic important aspects of your blog. Be sure that you pay attention to which topics get the best response on your blog so you will know which ones are most effective. Use all or some of these tips to help you get on your way to better blog topics right away!
Mistakes that Can Bury a Blog
Too often bloggers complain that after a great start, a year later their blog is as dead as can be. This is a common problem that almost always revolves around a small list of common mistakes made by the blogger. A blogger can sit back and expect the blog to do all of the work for him or her, which is a terrible way to approach blogging. A successful blogger would tell you that great blogging takes a certain amount of dedication and hard effort to make it work. You have to put effort into a blog to sustain it, especially after the first month or so of completing the design. Many people work so hard during the initial design phase that they get lazy after it is complete. To avoid this happening to your blog, check out these five common mistakes that can bury a blog.
Infrequent Updates
One of the biggest mistakes a blogger can make is to “forget” about posting. The most successful blogs are updated with new posts at least once a day. Some larger blogs are constantly being updated. You should try to create new posts as often as possible. If you miss a day here and there, it will be no big deal. However, if you miss a week or more without posting, you might as well consider the blog dead already. You have to take a few moments, even as few as five, a day to create interesting posts or content. If you are writing short and concise posts like you should be, this should not be that challenging. It is easy to keep your blog updated, if you make it a priority.
Too Much Advertising
Most bloggers today do want to make a profit from their blog. This is a trend that can get out of control quickly however. If you are interested in adding ads to your blog, do so with caution. There is nothing wrong with a few appropriately places ads that offer viewers links to places that correlate with your blog’s content. However, adding a massive amount of advertisements on your blog is a mistake. If you have a bunch of flashy ads on your blog, your content will get lost within the hoopla. Therefore, you should always limit your ads to three or less per page. Make sure you place them in appropriate places that let your content shine through. Don’t allow enormous ads to fill up your pages either. They will simply annoy readers. Be smart about including advertising on your blog!
Unprofessional Look
Looks do matter when it comes to your blog. The more professional and crisp your blog looks, the more your readers will take you seriously. If you are interesting in boosting traffic, you should try a more serious layout or presentation for your blog. If you can afford to hire a professional, you should. If you choose to do it yourself however, you must make sure the end product is good. If you have a sloppy blog that looks “homemade” you will not likely have a great response. Try different layouts and approaches to see what gets you the most traffic.
Graphics Overload
Pictures can add a ton to your blog and draw in more readers. However, when done excessively, much like ads, pictures can drive people away. The main reason too many pictures can ruin a blog is because there are many web surfers who still use slow internet connections. When they try to load your page, it will take an excessively long time to do so. This in turn will likely drive them and anyone else with this problem away. Try limiting to a few pictures per page.
Inappropriate Content
Everyone knows that the web is a place where you can freely express yourself. However, if you want your blog to survive, you might want to think about that freedom of expression. Although you should always say what you feel, you can do so in appropriate manners on your blog. There are ways to say anything on your mind, without using profanity or any offensive lingo. If you want your blog to be successful, you cannot be inappropriate with your content.
Five Things You Should Know Before You Start Blogging
So you want to join in on the blogging phenomenon? Before you get started, there are a few things you should know about blogging. Blogging is a lot like an online journal. There are thousands of bloggers online posting each day. It is a trend that started in 1997 and has continued to grow steadily. If you are interesting in blogging, but have not yet began, read over these five things you should know before you begin.
You Can Be Personal
Many times new bloggers are really not sure what to post. They know that their blog is a personal space, but they are afraid to make their posts personal in any way. The best bloggers do put themselves out there via their posts. They will post what’s on their mind and their views or opinions on pressing issues. They may do so in a humorous manner or be quite serious. Sometimes new bloggers are afraid to post their true thoughts because their blog can be commented upon. The fact is however that not everyone will agree with your thoughts and posts, but you should not let that hold you back. These are people who don’t personally know you, so their comments really don’t matter much anyway. Don’t be afraid to let your true feelings show on your blog, after all, that it what an online journal is all about.
Don’t Be Too Personal
Although it is fine to be personal in your posts, you might not want to be too personal in how much you disclose about yourself. For example, including your phone number or address in a post or on your profile is probably not a good idea. You should think smart and only allow people to know things that you want them to know. For your own safety, you might not want to post your last name either. When someone has a lot of information about you, it is easier for them to victimize you through identity theft, harassment, or other crimes. So, stay safe and never post really private information.
Never Use Real Names
When you are posting, and keeping it personal and real, there can be times in which other people in your life come up in topic. Be very careful including other people in your posts. First, never use their real names. This is a huge mistake. Unless the person gives you permission to write about them, you should never do so. It will only lead to trouble. If the person you mention reads your blog, they could get offended that you are writing about them. Even if the post is positive, it can be seen much like talking behind their back. Try to keep the posts about you or celebrities or other public figures. Let everyone else’s business remain their own.
Keep It Fresh
One of the best things you can do as a blogger is to keep your blog fresh. This means that you should be posting often and changing things around when doing so. Post on different topics so your audience can stay interested. Also, post at least twice a week. People who will become fans of your site will want to read as much as possible on your blog. Updating your blog regularly will allow them to be entertained. If you only post once a month, chances are no one will remember to keep checking your blog and your traffic will not be impressive.
You Can Blog For Free
Before you pay an arm and a leg for a blogging space, you should know that there are sites where you can blog for free. Yes, for no charge at all you can set up your own blog. These sites are great for the new blogger. If you want something a little more sophisticated, you might have to pay for it. The free sites are very well maintained however. They are easy to use and offer several different templates for you to use when designing your blog. They automatically update your posts for you, which make them a breeze! Remember, you should not pay a large fee for your blog, especially if you are new to blogging. Do your research and find the free sites!
How To Build A Successful Blog
If you want to build a successful blog, there are three main things that can certainly help you get started. Although many people think that building a successful blog is one of the easiest tasks out there, they are wrong. A successful blog takes more than just setting up a blog page to chat about your life. You need to focus on these three building blocks in order to even have the framework for a successful blog. Even these three building blocks are not enough however to make your blog successful. Read on to learn exactly what you need to make your blog as successful as possible.
The Look
The first building block for a successful blog is The Look. What this means is that your blog should start with an appropriate style. You can begin when you first start your blog. Many blogging software programs will help you out with the style of your blog. If you are using a blogging program that caters most to beginners, you will see that it will offer different templates for you to choose. There will be something for everyone. You can go through the templates to choose which colors you like best for the layout. Experiment with the layouts to see which templates look best on the computer screen. You can always go back and change the template later if you want to change the look of your blog. Make sure that if you are creating your own blog, without using a pre-created template that you make it look as professional as possible. You can even hire a professional to do the job for you if you wish. The more professional your blog looks, the more seriously your readers will take your posts.
The Content
The content of your blog is the second key building block you will need for a successful blog. While you can choose to create posts that have no direction or purpose, you will find that when you post interesting commentary or short information filled articles that your traffic will increase. Although you may think it is interesting, most readers will not enjoy reading about your day to day activities, unless you make them into humorous stories.
It should also be noted that the more content you have on your site, the more successful your site will be. It is basically a numbers game at this point. The more you post, the more chances you will have the one of your posts will attract the eye of someone searching for a related topic.
The Ads
The third building block is advertising. Bloggers can make a steady income using advertising on their blogs. The trick is to have a good mixture of ads and content however. If you fill your blog with ads and have no content for readers, they will be distracted and not visit your site again. A good rule to remember is that you should never have more than two or three ads per blog page. This is an important rule to remember. You should not overwhelm you readers with ads. You should only present them so that the readers can further explore them if they wish. Don’t use flashing ads or other bold ads that will annoy your readers. Choosing the right type of advertising program is part of it as well. Look into an easy to use program such as Google Adsense if you want a quick way to get started in the advertising arena.
The Dedication
The most important building block of a great blog is dedication. You must be willing to be dedicated to the blog. You have to put in the time and energy to get positive results. Even if you have the other three components, unless you take the time to update your posts each day, you will not be getting optimum results. Dedication can help a lot. It can hide the fact that you are a beginner and allow you to create a beautiful and functional blog. No matter how little experienced you are dedication can cover that up. You can have a great blog as long as you take the time to give some of your energy to the project.
How to Start Making a REAL Living with your Blog
There are many bloggers who make incomes of several thousand dollars per month from their blogs. These are not casual bloggers who only want to see their words and their name online or who just want to put forth a point-of-view, these are serious bloggers who have made blogging into a full-time (or nearly full-time) job.
Here are some of the ways they make money from their blogs and ways you can also blog for bucks:
Advertising! There are many advertisers waiting for you to approach them, these are programs such as Google’s Adsense where you allow companies to place their ads . . . ads related to your topic . . . on your blog. Each time one of your readers clicks on an ad on your blog, you earn a small amount of money (a predetermined amount). A slightly different approach is used by companies such as CrispADS. With this type of service, you tell them how much you want to charge for advertising space on your blog and they will attempt to find an advertiser who will pay that price (plus a commission for the go-between company). These are just two of a large group that is expanding daily.
Blog Feeds! RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and ATOM Feeds are two of the dominant blog feeds. The object of a blog feed is to distribute every new post you add to your blog to a list of subscribers; you make your blog posts available to RSS or ATOM, people who want to read your stuff on a regular basis can subscribe to your posts and read them on a newsreader. The latest trend is to include advertising to these blog feeds and, as before, if your subscriber clicks on an ad that is included with your feed, you get some money. There are no BIG bucks here yet but its a rapidly growing field.
Affiliate Programs! Online companies have been offering affiliate programs to bloggers for years, some of the big ones are Amazon, Linkshare and Clickbank. They work by providing you a unique URL that you add to your blog. Any readers that click through to the company and buy something are providing you with a commission. Another version of the affiliate program is the “mini-mall” concept offered by companies such as Chitika eMiniMalls. The mini-mall works (like the affiliate program), through a link on your blog that takes your reader to a page with a variety of merchandise — all sales earn you a commission.
Sponsors! Large corporations are very aware of the blogosphere and of the growing number of people who read blogs and, in response, they are using blogs to advance their business interests — blogs may never replace the Michael Jordan-type superstars for corporations but blogs are already gaining many fairly lucrative corporate sponsorships. If you have a blog that is dedicated to a particular topic, e.g., digital cameras, that is published on a regular basis, that has a good readership and is recognized as an authoritative source for digital camera information, your blog may draw the interest of a corporate sponsor and you may be approached to run their advertisements for new products on a long-term basis. If and when you reach that point you know you’ve made it to the big time, professional blogger’s league.
Your Product! The methods mentioned above are just a few of the very many ways you can start making money from your blog . . . but there is a catch!
As you probably noticed every scheme mentioned and every other money-making blogging scheme you’ll find requires a great blog . . . a blog that draws hundreds of readers (as a minimum) on a regular basis. To reach this stage of readership you need a blog that offers the reader some type of unique, quality content.
If blogging is to be a money making business for you, you’ll need to treat it like a business by dedicating your time, energy and creativity to its success. Also, like any successful business, you need a product or service that is a ‘customer magnet.’ Your “product” is your content: it could be news or information or entertainment but whatever it is, it must be unique and interesting.
What’s the Difference Between Blogs And Websites?
Online journals, better known as blogs, are becoming more and more popular. When the Internet was first getting started, users rushed to build personal web sites. Web sites are still very popular among web users, but many are now turning to blogs. What’s the difference? This article will examine the main similarities and differences between a Weblog and a website.
While blogs and website are intended to be different, there are a couple of similarities in blogs and sites. Mainly, they are both found on the Internet using a URL or a web address. Both also must have some sort of host to keep the information online. Another similarity of the two is that they both can be maintained by virtually anyone from individuals to companies. Both Weblog and websites can also contain information, pictures, link and keywords, as well. These two types of sites will target readers.
With a blog, information that is entered on the site is generally updated very frequently depending on the writer. Sometimes blog writers even update several times a day. Usually with a website, information is not updated regularly. Websites generally contain information about something that does not change often. When a website is updated, usually the entire page is altered. With a blog, just one entry at a time is updated. After a website has been changed, that information is gone and cannot be seen again by the reader. On a blog, new entries are added, but the old ones are not deleted from the site. Instead, they are stamped with the date and time that they were created, given a title and indexed on that blog page. It makes it easy for a blog reader to go to a certain blog page and read past entries without having to search.
Another main difference between and blog and a website is that a website is generally a little harder to maintain and oftentimes requires a solid understanding of the way the Internet works. With a blog, almost anyone can easily and quickly update a blog. It does not require any special working knowledge of the Internet. In addition, there are many sites that offer blog features and most of the time these can be used for free.
Blogs also encourage people to communicate with each other much more so than with a website. A websites primary function is to provide some sort of information to a reader. While there may be a place to leave a comment or an email address for writing that is not why that site was created. Blogs are used for communication. Writers may choose to make their site private, but most choose to publish their blogs making them public to any one who wishes to read. Most blog hosting sites offer options to add to the site so readers and the writer can leave comments to each other on the site. In addition, there are entire web communities built just for blogs. Blogs encourage those who have similar thoughts, interests or even businesses to share their blog site so readers can find them easily. Blogs offer guest tracking, keyword tracking, hit counters, comment areas, and even tag boards for both the reader and the writer to use.
Blogging is extremely popular right now. As more people begin sharing their thoughts with others, there are more blogs created each day. Blogging gives writers, journalists, professionals, moms, dads and even teenagers an instant way to publish their thoughts on a regular basis. For those who enjoy writing, blogs give a unique opportunity to practice writing skills and experiment with what others want to read. Businesses use blogs to show off their expertise and knowledge in their fields, whereas websites do not always get this type of message out to the readers.
Blogging and websites do have some similarities. They are both found on the Internet and contain information. However, blogs give a writer the unique opportunity to communicate with their reader and update their entries on a frequent basis. Anyone who tries blogging will love the instant gratification of getting their opinions and thoughts out on the Internet right away and getting instant feedback from readers that visit their site.
Affiliate Yourself and Start Earning Income with your Blog Site
Not only are there a lot of people out there blogging for fun, many of them are finding ways to make money by blogging. There are a number of ways an income from blogging can be achieved, but one of the most popular is by affiliating your blog. If you are blogging or considering starting a blog and you are not yet affiliated, you will quickly find that you should. Otherwise, you are just leaving money on the table that you may not have to.
The first thing you may be asking yourself is this: what is an affiliate program? Well, that is a great question and one easily answered. An affiliate program is one where the seller offers a part of the money generated by a sale to those who refer customers to them. There are, in fact, a lot of websites out there who are parts of affiliate programs.
With these companies, you need to sign up. You will, in most cases, be given a unique ID from that affiliate. That ID is for identifying you as the one who has referred the customer to the site and made the sale. If, then, you are successful in helping to sell the product, you receive payment that is generally stated in whatever your affiliate agreement includes. The amount you might get paid ranges greatly. You may make as little as one cent in US dollars or as much as one hundred US dollars depending on the product, the company, and sometimes the amount you help to sell.
Once you have made the decision to use an affiliate program and have figured out which one you want to use, then you are ready to get started. Sign up and register for the affiliate program and start adding your affiliate’s codes to your blog. Ah, but there is the next issue: how do you include affiliate links? There are a few ways you can do that. First of all, you can do reviews about a product and then link to that product through your affiliate program (obviously you would need it to be a product offered by your affiliate program). A second way, if you don’t want to do a review, is to compile a recommended list that is either in a blog entry or along the side of your blog. A third way to get your affiliate program involved in your blog is to use codes or scripts in your coding that will generate random links to products in your affiliate program.
Once you have your links and your program in place, it will be all about product. It is important to note that most people are not going to keep reading a website if they think it is just all about selling. Make sure your content, which you update regularly, is useful to the reader. You want that reader to keep coming back and hopefully working through your affiliates, so you really should concentrate on good, solid, useful content that is going to keep your readers coming back and not make them feel like they are being sold all the time. If, however, you really want to sell, you should try to label your site as a commercial endeavor. Keep those things in mind and your affiliate program will hopefully help you turn a profit.
No matter what your blogging experience may be, it is possible that you can blog for fun and profit at the same time. There are a number of ways to make a profit off of your blog, but the most common right now is to affiliate yourself with certain other sites and products. Affiliate programs generally cost little or no money and can help you make money on your own. They are basically a way of getting commission from helping someone to sell a product or service. So find the ones that work with the theme of your blog and get those codes up on your site. Once they are up, make sure you are finding ways to drive traffic to them without going overboard on the selling and making sure your content is useful. Stick with these tips and stays focused and before you know it, your blog can become a success through the use of a good affiliate program.
12 Steps For Better Blogging
If you are blogging to attract new customers and prospects to your business, it is important that you have a successful blueprint to follow.
With that in mind I created my step by step Blogging Blueprint, which you can find below:
1 While writing a blog, think like a visitor, as this helps immensely. If a blogger dons the visitor’s thinking cap, there is more likelihood the words a visitor will use to query search engines will be present in the blog.
2. Add a good layout and catchy adverts to a blog. This helps because the visitor might want to stay longer reading the blog, rather than scooting away to another site.
3. Once the blog is published, it is a good idea to ‘visit’ the blog assuming to be a visitor. Going over links and various pages can give a feeling of how a visitor will react to the blog.
4. Inspect the site regularly, as this can uncover any broken links. Likewise, it is also a good opportunity to do some site maintenance as well. Jotting down points like what can be added to augment site appeal and what else could be added to the FAQ page can be of immense advantage.
5. Use key words that are more likely to be used by visitors to search for your blogs. If there are individuals who want to read about, lets say, power gardening tools, then missing out key words like power or gardening can be a huge mistake. This is because search engines will give the blog a go-by and opt it out of the listings.
Further, the visitor may even chance upon the blog in the listings, but may choose to avoid the site, because the keywords were not highlighted in the large search engine listing.
6. Posting articles about 700 words in length is considered good if taking into account search engine indexing tactics. You can make the post search engine friendly by inserting relevant keywords and links at the right places.
7. You can incorporate specific key words, which are adored by search engines. Integrate keywords into title, meta and alt tags to entice the search engine spider to give the blog a higher page rank.
8. Listening to feedbacks and visitor complaints can be a blessing for you. Despite a lot of effort, a blog might contain obvious technical glitches or perhaps the content might require further elaboration or alterations.
9. Spamming can sometimes be disguised as intelligent comments, which might include further links or invitations to a spammer’s website. Niche blogs might wish to opt out of the custom of inviting comments.
10. If you are into business blogging, picking up good categories like skin care, dry skin care, skin care specials, exclusive skin care products, etc can be particularly rewarding. A good post on niche products can improve keyword density while providing wholesome reading material for visitors.
11. Many bloggers give up after publishing a few blogs. Although there is no right answer to how often you should blog, the secret of profitable blogging is to publish regularly and as frequently as necessary while avoiding both extremes.
12. Use permalinks (permanent links) where servers allow their use. Permalinks allow the use of words as path names, unlike regular links to articles that may contain percentage signs or shorter cryptic pathnames. The secret is to use key words as path names on servers where the use of permalinks is allowed. This makes the site more appealing to those search engines that also look at links for indexing.
