BLOGGING TIPS

Comparing Free Blogging Software

2007-07-08T19:52:00.001-07:00

by: Don Beavers

With the increased interest in Blogging (web Logging), many web hosting providers now provide an assortment of free usage, open source blogging software packages. Among the most popular of these blogging tools are B2evolution, WordPress and Nucleus. Each of these programs offer similar basic features, so the question arises as to which one is easiest to use and would be appropriate for the requirements of your particular website.

The answer lies in the true purpose of your blog website. If your primary goal is to share your opinions and ideas with the general public, you would want to utilize a different blogging tool than a user who was creating product blogs as a commercial sales effort. A blog for search engine promotion would have entirely different requirements. All of these uses are viable reasons to create a blog, however each requires different features to be successful.

WordPress Blogging Software
Available for free download at: http://wordpress.org/

It is hard to beat WordPress for general personal blogging. WordPress is an open source, state-of-the-art personal publishing platform with a focus on presentation and usability. Everything related to creating and updating your blog is available through an intuitive graphical interface. With WordPress there is no need to compile your work. You simply write your column. You then select the features you want and your blog is instantly created and published to your website.

If you are on vacation, you can schedule your uploads for some date in the future or even email your column to the server! The system allows multiple users with multiple blogs divided into categories and sub-categories. This allows multiple family members or friends to create their own blogs along with yours.

Easy customization and the availability of many "plug-ins" that provide more functionality (add new features as you learn) makes this software a very good choice for most individuals.

B2evolution
Available for free download at: http://b2evolution.net/

B2evolution is another advanced web log tool that features an integrated XHTML validator. It supports recursive subcategories, cross posting and has a really cool integrated "skinning" system.

The "skinning" system allows you to create multiple blogs in separate categories with different appearances for each blog. You simply "change the skin" for the blog to create a totally new look and feel.

The "skinning" feature, combined with the built in multi-user administration management tool, makes the system robust enough for more commercial endeavors, such as product promotion blogs. If you have much to publish with multiple themes, this is the software you are looking for.

Nucleus Blogging Software
Available for free download at: http://nucleuscms.org/

Though Nucleus is an extremely robust blogging tool in its own right, it also contains some powerful features that can provide benefits in promotion of your blog.

Nucleus offers the ability to optimize its URLS, creating simple page addresses that do not have and "&" or "=" characters. This makes the pages search engine (and user) friendly. Another great feature is the ability to show the contents of multiple weblogs on one page. This could allow a website owner to manipulate the optimum text / keyword balance on pages for better search engine rankings.

Nucleus also provides RSS and Atom feeds that can be extremely helpful when promoting a website. If part of your blog's function is to work as a search engine marketing and promotion tool, Nucleus is an exceptional software package.

Each of these blogging software packages offer the basic tools that you would need to create a successful blog and all three are PHP - MySQL open source (free to use) packages. You should try to select the software that helps you achieve the long term goal that you have in mind for your website based on the unique extra features offered by each.

Choosing The Right Blog Tools

2007-06-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

by: Gunnar Berglund

Bloggers are constantly discovering new ways to express
their ideas through new markup.
There are bloggers who are using the latest
state-of-the-art “visual” web design programs, but few
others consider using HTML code is not a bad idea
altogether.

The XHTML family can accommodate extensions through XHTML
modules and techniques to develop new XHTML-conforming
modules. These modules permit the combination of existing
and new feature sets when developing content and when
designing new user agents.

With so many different ways to access the Internet, the
XHTML family is designed keeping in mind the general user
agent interoperability. Through document profiling
mechanism, servers, proxies, and user agents are able to
create best effort content transformation. This language is
both RSS and XML conforming. The content can be readily
viewed, edited, and validated with standard XML tools.
XHTML documents can utilize applications (e.g. scripts and
applets) that rely upon either the HTML Document Object
Model or the XML Document Object Model.

Bloggers may also use Movable Type for the weblog. Movable
Type is a powerful, customizable publishing system, which
installs on web servers to enable bloggers to manage and
update weblogs. This enables a blogger to hand edit the
other parts and pages, including the Daily Links, in
TextPad. Bloggers may use a date format string for the
individual entries, and for monthlies.

Movable Type Installation is followed by Plugins. There are
many to choose from. MT Plugin Directory and the Movable
Type Support Forums are two resources that can be referred
to. Most of the plugins make users typographically correct
and enables them to properly use curly-quotes, ellipses,
em-dashes, and en-dashes. A feature of pluggins combines
trackbacks (comments on other articles from other blogs)
and comments into one page. Another use is to create author
comments and addendums in the comments engine. Few plugins
may allow bloggers to add additional fields, example: using
keywords field to create additional fields. Few others
create a collection of links at the bottom of each
individual entry page. Title attributes can be used with
all the links. Movable Type includes a default RSS Feed.
Bloggers may set up individual feeds for each thread and
comments feed by following the naming convention of
individual archives - changing it to an .xml ending.
Bloggers may even add a Subscription Field.

Also, bloggers may consider using a WebDrive in place of a
FTP client. This tool is used to map FTP and WebDAV servers
to a network drive letter in Windows using remote files
like local ones in any application. Blogger may also
consider using validated HTML 4.01 Transitional code with a
validated stylesheet.

Blogs demand more than graphic design and HTML proficiency.
They demand extensive interaction with visitors. So,
installing a Discussion Forum is a must, as it allows
communities to exchange ideas and opinions. Tools that
could be considered are database programming, CGI/Perl
scripting, Flash animation etc.

In addition to this, bloggers may consider having an
Accessory Sideblog - another blog that stores ancillary
information and tools for the existing blog.

Accessory Sideblog allows:

· Easy updation

· Changes in entries/ information from within
Movable Type interface

· Availability of comments and trackbacks

Bloggers may consider buying opensource weblogging
softwares. These easily installable softwares offer
features like: fully-integrated comments, searching, file
uploading and image handling, completely customizable
output through dozens of templates and variables, multiple
author support, etc. For example: few blogs allow bloggers
to provide a template of their page that indicates where
they want your posts to appear. Clicking the "Publish"
button automatically sends their new page to the website
where they want their blogs to appear. Similarly, there are
sites that enable bloggers to place the RSS feed of their
blog onto any html page. For example: bloggers can copy the
completed JavaScript and paste it on any web page they
would like to distribute.

Bloggers can host their blog on their own as well with any
good web-hosting company. They can choose a good web host,
buy space on their server and host their blogs with them.

Make Money Blogging Using These Nine Powerful Strategies

2007-06-13T08:23:00.000-07:00

by: Brandon Hong

I'm sure there are more creative ways to make money blogging, the ideas below are meant as a resource pool for you to draw from, and a launchpad to kickstart the thinking process of making money from blogging....

The question "How to make money blogging" sits high on every blogger's mind.

In fact I received many questions on "How to make money blogging" when I conducted my first webcast to answer my subscribers' most pressing questions on Blogs and Rss.

You can make money Blogging in a number of ways, and in this article I share with you up to nine ways in which you can make money blogging.

1. Make Money Blogging by Selling Advertising Space

Before the advent of Blogs, we have e-zines and selling advertising space on ezines was a popular way to earn extra money. If you run your own Blog, you can let others advertise in your Blogs with banner ads, solo ads, sponsor ads, classifieds and so on.

Now that we have Blogs, you can repeat the same business model that e-zine publishers do, that of selling advertising space.

One popular advertising company that helps Bloggers look for advertisers is Blogads (www.Blogads.com).

Besides placing advertisers ads on your Blog, you can also make money Blogging by placing Google Adsense into your Blog.

In my "Marketing Rampage with Blogs and RSS" Videos, I show you how you can customize your Blog template to include the Google Adsense into your Blog template so that you can make money blogging.

2. How to Make Money Blogging by providing technical services such as Blog hosting or setting up Blog

You can also earn money blogging by providing technical services such as helping people to set up their Blogs or providing your own Blog hosting service.

One example of this is www.typepad.com . This is a Blog hosting service provider that charges a monthly fee. Typepad lets you create your Blog and they will host your Blog for you, and provide you with a number of Blog features.

3. Make Money Blogging by setttin up joint venture marketing

Joint Venture marketing is a powerful marketing strategy employed by many top online marketers.

Basically how joint venture works is this:

You promote person B's products to your subscriber and customer list, and you get a cut from whatever sale that follows from this promotion.

You can apply the principle of joint venture marketing to Blogs as well. If you have a substantial readership to your Blog, you can also promote or endorse certain products to your Blog readers and this way, and split the profits from the sales generated.

This is another way to make money blogging.

4. How to Make Money Blogging from using the Membership model

Over time, if your blog has lots of postings and provide good quality content, you can consider turning it into a membership site and charge access for it, again giving you another avenu

5. Make Money Blogging by turning your Blog contents into products
Another way in which you can make money blogging is to repackage your Blog contents into an e-book or an audio product and sell it. For example, if you run your own Podcasting show or an 'online radio show', you can easily compile your podcast recordings into a CD compiliation and sell it.

6. How to make money blogging by swapping blogs

You've heard of ad swapping when it comes to e-zine publishing, where publishers publish each other's ads in their own e-zines. This way, you save on adveritising costs.

You can repeat the same model to Blogs, as swap ads on Blogs as well. So instead of paying up front, you get to save, which means more money for you to spend!

7. Make money blogging by turning blog contents into RSS feeds and sell it as premium feeds

Your blog contents can be turned into an RSS feed. If the content is good, you can look for web businesses that are looking for good content for related topics and sell their feed to them.

8. How to Make Money Blogging by well, asking!

Hey, who's stopping you from putting a PayPal donation jar or button on your Blog? After all, there are lots of generous people out there you know.

9. Make Money Blogging as an Affiliate Marketer

Another way you can make money blogging is by promoting other people's products on your Blog. This is also known as affiliate marketing.

In affiliate marketing, you get paid a commission when someone clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase. Depending on the subject of your Blog, you can recommend products that solve people's problems.

For example, I had a subscriber who asked me how she can blog about cats and make money from blogging about cats.

I shared with her that firstly, perhaps she might want to go niche instead of targeting the broad category of "cats", and using the example of a Persian cat, which is a niche by itself, she can start a blog on Persian cats, providing valuable information as well as recommended solutions and products to the upkeep and maintenance of Persian cats.

Brief History of Blogs

2007-05-04T01:08:00.000-07:00

by: Andy Wibbels

So where did all these blogs come from? How did they get from an underground geek toy to a mainstream tool that has revolutionized politics, journalism, marketing and the media?

I always find that when I learn about a new technology or way of doing something online, the geeks have already been there (and I say the word 'geek' with complete affection - I'm one too!). Before business became inseparable from the computer, email or the internet, the academics and tinkerers were there first, kicking the tires and playing with the technology. Blogging was no exception.

Many of the earliest internet geeks wrote online journals detailing interesting links and points of view. As this was before programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver, everything was done by hand - and that was a huge hassle. Each time you updated the site, you ran the risk of breaking links inside the website and leaving your readers stranded with the dreaded 'page not found' error. Eventually, the computer programmers and web designers became fed up with all of this manual work and created their own software to automate the process of updating their journal websites. Thus the weblog was born.

In 1999, a website called Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/) launched, offering free blogs to anybody and everybody that wanted them. Blogger provided the blog tool for free as well as the hosting space to host a blog. Millions of people from all over the world logged on and start creating their own weblogs.

The largest conversation in the world had begun. Blogs have changed the way academics do research, journalists write, families connect and politicians fundraise. It was only a matter of time before businesses woke up and realized the power of blogging for marketing online.

Blogging provides a way for companies and customers to meet on common ground to talk about what excites them and makes them tick. It also allows them to closely track where and under what circumstances their products are being talked about online.

Today, blogging continues to grow at a swift pace with more than 400,000 posts added per day and 12,000 new blogs being created every day. Millions of people look to blogs for a good laugh, a great idea, a fantastic tip or an instant analysis. The blogosphere doubles in size
every 5 months, allowing anyone, anywhere, in any language, to make their mark in the world to share their ideas, passion and products.

'Blog' was the word of the year for 2004 according to Merriam-Webster, the famous dictionary publisher. The year 2004 marked a turning point for blogs as a sought after media format. Now it was seen as a venue for gathering large audiences of devoted readers who used blogs to supplement, compliment and fact-check their nightly news.

My favorite milestone for blogging was when 'Blogs' appeared as a category on the Jeopardy game show. I'll take blogging for one thousand, Alex!

About Andy: Andy Wibbels is a blogging evangelist and creator of the Easy Bake Weblogs seminar that has helped hundreds of small businesses all over the world leverage blogs and RSS news feeds to increase profits and save time. You can download his free special report on business and blogs at http://easybakeweblogs.com/.

How to Build a Niche Site With a Blog

2007-04-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

by: Linda J Bruton

Building niche sites is all the rage these days.

The basic strategy is very simple. Find a niche market that isn't oversaturated. Develop a list of related keywords people are searching on. Then write an article optimized for each one of your keywords. Once you have your articles, upload them to your site. Monitize your site with affiliate links and Adsense.

For this kind of niche site to be effective and make money, it is imperative that you get free traffic, and a lot of it. And that's exactly where a blog can be your best friend.

At its very simplest, a blog is just a structure. It's the bones of a web site. A blog is a simple way to publish and display your content online. Most of us think of blogs as a chronicle of news events, or commentary on news and items of interest. Or personal diaries.

Few people stop to think that you can build any kind of website with a blog. In reality, a blog can be used very effectively to build a niche site. The fact of the matter is, a blog is the easiest way to publish your niche site content. But the biggest reason to use a blog is that it can drive traffic to your site a lot faster than a statically-built site. A niche site built with a blog is a very powerful strategy.

First, choose your niche and research your keywords. Write your first article based on one of those keywords, just as you would when building a regular site. Then set up your blog and publish that article. Your niche site is now live.

To make your site structure the most effective, be sure to choose a blog that allows the use of Categories, such as Word Press or Moveable Type. Use your 10 most important keywords as the name of your Categories. Then file all your secondary keyword articles under those Categories.

Why is this so important? If you keep building your site with keyword-rich articles, eventually you could have hundreds of pages. Each of those pages will have a link to your 10 Categories. And each of those links will use the anchor text of your most important keywords. As a result of all those internal keyword-rich links, your site will end up ranking very well in the search engines for your Category names.

Now it's time to set up your traffic strategy. This is where a blog can really shine. There are many special RSS/blog directories that are hungry for feeds. By submitting your new blog to these directories, you can start getting traffic almost immediately. Quite often these feeds will result in a lot more traffic than all the major search engines combined. This is why it makes so much sense to build your niche site as a blog. You can have twice the traffic, and get it much faster than with a static site.

Here is a list of some of the top RSS/blog directories you should submit your site to:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

Once you've submitted your site to the directories, you can get it indexed by Yahoo almost immediately by adding your RSS feed to your MyYahoo page. If you don't have a MyYahoo page, just go to http://www.yahoo.com. Now click on the MyYahoo link at the top and set up your free account. Once you have your account set up, click on Add Content, then add the URL of your blog RSS feed into the Find Content box.

When you go back to your MyYahoo page, your blog plus your first post should be shown. If you go look at your web stats for your site, you'll find that the Yahoo spider has already made a visit! Your new site should be indexed in Yahoo in just a couple of days. This is a strategy that some marketers were selling for $50 just a few months ago. And it works like a charm.

Every time you add a post, you can alert the RSS/blog directories by "pinging" them. There is a wonderful site at http://www.pingomatic.com that makes this very easy. You just have to type in your blog URL and Pingomatic will send your ping to Yahoo and about 15 other large directories. That will bring the spiders back to your site almost immediately!

During the first month, I would suggest that you write and add a new article every day. Blogs that are frequently updated get the most traffic. And you'll find that the major search engines will spider your site every day. At the end of a month, you'll have a 30-article niche site that is already getting a lot of traffic. If you've monetized your site with Adsense and related affiliate programs, you should also be making money already.

Once you've started building your niche sites with a blog, you'll never go back to doing it the old way again!

About the Author

For more tips and ideas on how to make money blogging, be sure to visit my "Why Marketers Should Blog" weblog at (what else)
http://www.WhyMarketersShouldBlog.com

Blogging Advice - Give Your Readers What They Want

2007-04-17T05:10:00.000-07:00

by: chris hickman

Web gives a lot of exposure; weblog stabilizes the exposure with a profound purpose. The purpose of a Weblog is to complement e-newsletters, serving readers in a way that extends a blogger's expertise and leadership in the market.

So, what is it that is expected from a blog? A blog is considered to be a place to inform and to be informed. Straight talk is what readers consider to be an ideal blog message. Straight talk is a four or five sentence of direct, informative content about a specific issue or bit of news.

Blogs consists of human expressions and is expected to have a soulful purpose. Blog posts are expected to be a personal post, as it can convey blogger's emotions. So, these messages are mostly written in first person singular and are rich in emotions. Blogs are also expected to provide details from the writer's life: missed flights, break-ups, rodents under the stove, computer breakdowns, muggings, and tamale recipes and more.

A blogger should always remember that if there are doubts that readers will discount the article entirely based on its context; they shouldn't consider linking it at all.

Authentication of the message is one important aspect that a blog post is expected to adhere to. Blogs are expected to be clear about its source. This avoids chances where readers may cease to trust the bloggers. These chances may take shape if discovered that the information source has been disguised or the blogger didn't make the source of an article clear. The readers might have evaluated these sources differently had they been given all the facts. Into every aspect of the practice of weblogging, transparency is one of the weblog's distinguishing characteristics and greatest strengths.

A writer's goal and priority should always be clarity.

It is a bloggers responsibility to focus exclusively on producing content that attracts the reader. What determines the right kind of content? This can be determined by reading other blogs and hitting whatever is hot in discussion or high in trend.

The most compelling bloggers are necessarily the ones with the most insightful analyses and the best links; besides this the most successful are those who get the reader interested in their own ongoing story. Because bloggers on similar subjects link to each other, the reader finds it easier to understand opposing points of view. For bloggers, not linking to others is a death sentence for their ratings.

About The Author

Chris Hickman owns a full info site about Weblog blogging. Check Out his site at http://www.ez-weblog-blogging.com.

Details of Getting a Blog

2007-04-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

by: Daniel Punch

Blogs, the abbreviation of Web Logs (online journals), are becoming more and more popular all the time. People are starting new blogs at an astounding rate so it’s safe to assume that there are constantly people out there who want to know how to get a blog going. Despite personal feelings about the actual quality of the majority of blogs out there on the Internet, that’s what I hope to be able to help you do with this article.

First things first, you need somewhere to deposit your thoughts. You need to decide how you want to attack this. Your choices are:
- To use a blog hosting service such as eBloggy (http://www.ebloggy.com) or BlogEasy (http://www.blogeasy.com).
- To host a blog yourself on a server of your own choice.

Both options have their free or paid subsections. The blog hosting services mentioned here are free but there are paid services out there. MSN now offer ‘Spaces’, which are essentially blogs attached to your MSN account and may be of interest to some. Web hosting can also be free or paid but you’ll find it difficult to find a free service that will offer you the features you’ll need to run a blog backend. One place to look is your Internet Service Provider (ISP) that may offer some free web space. This web space often contains as many features as many professional web hosting packages although it offers less space. Blogs tend not to take up a whole lot of room so this shouldn’t be a problem. The advantage of hosting your own blog over using a service is that you have greater control over how it works, how it looks etc. You also don’t have to put up with there being ads on your page (unless you find some free hosting which usually has advertising put at the top of your site). The downside is that it can be a bit more complicated to function.

If you’re going to host your own blog you’ll need to find yourself a blog backend. This is the program that runs on the server and allows you to upload new journal entries while allowing other people to view them. You’ll have to either choose a backend that fits within your web hosting package’s limits or a hosting package that meets the backend’s requirements. The general requirements are PHP and MySQL but you can get some backends that work solely with PHP or even Java. It’s important to make sure that you can change the read/write permissions of the PHP files on your server (using CHMOD or an equivalent, talk to your host—they’ll know what you’re talking about). There’s a nice breakdown of many different beckends and their features and requirements that can be found at, http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm. I personally use Pivot because it doesn’t require MySQL and it has RSS distribution, which is nice.

Once you’ve got yourself a hosting package and a backend you need to install the backend. This can get tricky but most of them come with an install program and you should be able to work through it if you follow the instructions that will undoubtedly come with the package. If you run into difficulties your hosting provider’s support team should be happy enough to help you along.

So now you have yourself a blog up and running; it’s time to fill it with content. What you write is up to you. Generally people write about their lives, how they feel, what they think, and similar topics. You can be much more diverse and creative than this though. You could for example post creative writings on your blog, as well as discuss news and current affairs, or anything else that you can imagine. It’s your personal space to write what you like and get it out there for others to read and give their opinions on.

Making people come and read your blog could take some effort. You need to make them aware that it exists and keep it interesting so that they continue coming back. Nothing kills off a readership base like a lack of updates. At first you can start small with your ‘publicity’ by telling friends and family about it. Put a link to your site in your MSN or other messenger program nickname. Put a link in your email signature so that everyone you email sees it. Get your friends interested and they’ll tell others and you’ll probably be able to build up a small community with relative ease. For attracting the broader public you need ways to let the wider community know you are out there. Spend time at other people’s blogs, make it a habit to head over there and read their posts. If it’s appropriate put a link to your site in a comment box or guest book on their site. Visit forums related to blogs (or just forums in general) and become an active member there. As long as you have a link to your site in your signature, people will probably head on over for a look.

You can also submit your blog to lists such as Blogrank.net (http://www.blogrank.net). These are sites dedicated solely to getting people into blog sites, and while it may be hard to climb into the higher ranks, simply having your site listed will probably improve your hit rate. You could also submit your site to as many search engines as possible. Perhaps you could even write yourself an article like this one with your link in the bio field. Beyond this you’re going to have to work out your own methods for publicizing your site. Just think creatively about how and where you can get a link put in and you’ll be fine.

Getting your blog set up and running can be an involving task but the results will be worth it. A final word of warning: Don’t get too engrossed in your blog. You need a life in order to be able to write about your life! As I wrote in a previous article it has been found that blogging can sometimes have a detrimental effect on a person instead of the positive effect that it was designed for. Try not to write only for yourself; it’s a public forum for others to read so try and write entries that will be of some benefit to the wider community as well as to you. Blog safe and have fun!

About the Author

Daniel Punch
M6.Net Web Helpers
http://www.m6.net

Nobody Reading Your Blog?

2007-04-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

by: Bolger Redet

So you got a your own weblog. Everything looks great, you have nice layout, some nice pictures and last but not least excellent articles.

You also update your blog on a regular basis but nobody seems to read it ! You start to think where did I go wrong. Well if your blog is really good you just need to be patient. Also make sure you submit your blog to directories specialized in blogs and search engines.But even if you did all this you might get not the amount of readers you wished for.

Get unlimited readers for you blog !

Smart people started to notice blogs are very popular so they came up with a great ideas. Blogexplosion.com is such great idea. The concept is simple, if you read other blogs then other people read your blog. So the more blogs you read the more people will be reading yours. Sounds good you might think. Well it actually is a very good concept. Just register your blog for free and login, then pick a category blogs you would like to read and start reading. You must read each blog for at least half a minute, after that you can select another blog. For each blog you have red you recieve a credit. This credit means one other member is going to read your blog.

Again great concept. But there is a downside, first you have to spend of lot of time reading blogs in order to get other people to read yours. You can choose to read only blogs in a specific category (of your interest) but it is still really time consuming. Other people who are reading your blog might do this because they only want other people to read their blog.

You can imagine these are not the most interested readers you wish for. But blogexplosion.com also offers non members to search their directory for blogs. These visitors are potenial quality readers for your blog! Other downside is that you can not only earn credits by reading other blogs, you can also buy them ! If everybody is going to do this then this concept doesn't do so well anymore.

About The Author

Bolger Redet is webmaster at http://www.bloxster.net a free quality weblog hosting service. Bolger is working on the bloxster.net website to provide their users tools to publish multimedia content

How to Boost Traffic to Your Blog:Keyword Research

2007-04-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

by: Ryen Kim

How to use keyword research as traffic building method?

If you are serious to make money from blog, you must think about keyword before you write. And use that keyword repeatedly (more frequently than your high school English grammar teacher would say "it's a good English.") in your blog.

Why you have to use a keyword?

Using keyword in your blog is one of powerful ways to bring traffic to your blog. Why? It's simple. People search using keywords to look for information. If your blog includes those keywords, they will find your blog from the search engine result page and will come to you to find the information they were looking for. But is that really simple like that? Not exactly. Two things must be considered.

The keyword you're using must be related to your blog topic. When you're blogging about 'racing car' for example, if you use 'basketball' as a keyword, it won't help you bring the traffic. Moreover, if the visitor came to you to find information about 'basketball', he will leave your blog having bad impression on you because he couldn't get any relevant information from your blog.

So, the rule number 1 is to use the keyword related to your topic.
Suppose you discovered high demand keyword (a keyword many people uses) related to your blog topic, does using that keyword guarantee you a lot of traffic? What if many bloggers are talking about similar topic using that keyword? If so, although many searchers use that keyword, probably they'll go to other bloggers who are ranked more highly in the search engine than you.

The point is that you have to find the keyword that has high demand but a few supply. In other word, you have to find 'niche keyword.'

How to find the 'niche keyword'?

It's two fold. First, find the demand and then the supply.

1) How to find the demand of the keyword?

Use a keyword search tool. I found Search It is handy and best of it's free. A con is that an additional promotion page provided by SBI (Site Build It) will be open. But you can close it and that doesn't harm you from using search tool, Search It.

Here is a short introduction on how to use "Search It!"

Once you get through Search It, you will see Search It! window which has 4 boxes. Suppose you want to talk about 'car',
- choose 'Brainstorming' at step 1 box in the "Search It" window,
- choose 'overture suggestion' at step 2 box
- type 'car' (without quote) at step 3 box
- click 'Search It!' button (you may notice that there is step 4, but you don't need to fill it at this stage. If you try write something the program will tell you that you don't need to choose at this time.)
- then a leading page will be open, which explains the technique you are using. Click 'Please .....results.' link to see the result.
- the resulting page looks something like,
  
  Count SearchTerm
  
  3467549 car
  
  1914166 car insurance
- You see the number in Count column? That's the demand of the keyword.
- You also notice that other search terms are shown in the result page. Save this keywords and count somewhere, in case you have to refer it later.
2) How to know the supply of the keyword?
- For this end, you don't need any other tools. Just go to Google, Yahoo or whatever search engine you like and type car in the search box.
- Look upper right bar of the search result page and you can find something like "Results 1 - 10 of about 301,000,000 for ''car". The number '301,000,000' is the approximated number of supply. For sure, not all of them are blog, but realize that if you talk about car you're just 1 out of 301,000,000. This means that you may not pick up "car" as your keyword and choose other topic if you want many visitors to find your blog from the search engine. This is why you need to save above demand table somewhere.
- Now that you know the topic "car" is too competitive, the next thing you can do is to find the number of supply for other keywords from the table you saved. Continue this step until you find less competitive keywords.
You may choose several keywords and use them in your blog. But remember that if you post a short blog, it's better to focus on only one keyword. If it's long, you may choose primary and secondary keyword.

To sum up,
- Use Search It to find reasonable demand of the keyword related to your blog.
- Check the number of supply from a search engine, for example, Google.
- Choose the keywords that have high demand and low supply.
- Finally use that keyword in your blog repeatedly with the frequency of a bit more than your high school English teacher would tell you.
You may want to know how to write so that you can increase traffic, which is the topic of how to boost traffic to your blog: part 2. You can read it at Traffic to Blog:Part 2.
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.

How to Profit from your Home Business Blog

2007-03-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

by: Ian Canaway

Copyright Ian Canaway 2004-11-30
http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com/

A blog is a simple tool which all affiliate marketers should be utilising to explode their affiliate sales.

I set up my blog in about 15 minutes at http://www.blogger.com/ it’s a completely free service, and it’s really easy to set-up. I followed directions on an excellent article on getting a new website listed in Google in 48hrs check it out here, http://www.scamfreezone.com/gg/ . I just followed the advice in the article and got started with no problems in no time.

I've been doing a lot of research with regards to blogging and came across a case of a 19 year old kid who was making something ridiculous like $50,000 a year with a blog on mobile phones, from his bedroom! So clearly there is a good earning potential through blogs, but they do take time to grow and build up a readership. Treat your blog as a marathon not a sprint, because it will take time.

Blogs provide a very simple, quick and easy means to add fresh content to your website. As I’m sure you’ve heard many times over ‘content is king’ in the search engines eyes and if you can provide high quality, regularly updated content your website should benefit with regards to your search engine ranking.

By providing fresh, high quality relevant content you will gain an increase of both first time visitors and repeat visitors, they will come back to check out your new content. Providing it’s interesting, relevant and useful to them. You will begin to build relationships with your readers, increasing your credibility and building their trust in you.

These repeat visitors will be exposed to your messages more and begin to trust you and your recommendations. This in turn will fuel sales and referrals. Just make sure you don’t recommend a product you haven’t tried because if it is bad you will lose all credibility!

Never recommend something you haven’t tried and tested your self.

You want to send traffic directly to your blog, do it through multi-dimensional strategies. Have a subscriber box for your newsletter to build your list from your blog. Use it as an exit pop-up from your main site or thank you page for new subscribers, directing them to relevant content immediately. As once your prospects have got to know you through the blog they are much more likely to explore your website and check out whatever you are offering.

Whenever you sign-up for an affiliate program or buy a product, review it in your blog and be brutally honest, your readers will love you for it. Take a completely unbiased view point and talk about both the positives and negatives of each product. In essence you are providing more of an insight into the product than the sales page itself, almost a sample, this will help convert those prospects that are ‘sitting on the fence’ so to speak. Obviously when you review your affiliate products, make sure that you use your affiliate links.

It has been shown that prospects are 7-10 times more likely to buy from a blog recommendation than from other sources!

Other ways that you can generate extra income through your blog are through the Google ad sense program, selling banner/link space as your traffic increases or as I mentioned earlier by adding you own opt-in sign up form to which you send your newsletter or other targeted offers.

Your blog can be syndicated using RSS, which I won’t go into here, that’s another article. But savvy webmasters can use your blog content on their web pages. This benefits them as they have regularly updated fresh content for their website and benefits you through increased exposure and free targeted traffic.

Be passionate about your blog, love your blog. If you do not then it will become obvious through your posts and you are unlikely to be anywhere near as successful as you could be.

Add to your blog regularly provide good quality content and reviews and you will be on your way to blogging success.

“A man would do nothing, if he waited until he could do it so well that no one at all would find fault with what he has done”. -- Cardinal Newman

Get that blog started today!

(Feel free to use this article online and in your email newsletters as long as you leave it intact and do not alter it in anyway. The byline and biography must remain in the article.)

Resource Box:
Ian Canaway is the owner of http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com/ and you are invited to come and have a look round his new home business blog at http://ahomebusinessblog4u.blogspot.com/
For home business tips, advice and product reviews. Happy Blogging!

About the Author

Resource Box:
Ian Canaway is the owner of http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com/ and you are invited to come and have a look round his new home business blog at http://ahomebusinessblog4u.blogspot.com/
For home business tips, advice and product reviews. Happy Blogging!

How to Make Money With Your Blog

2007-03-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

by: Ryen Kim

Make money blogging is fun: you enjoy blogging and getting money from blogging. As long as "making money with your blog" is concerned, it doesn't matter matter actually whether you enjoy or not. The way generating money from blogging is the same regardless of whether you enjoy blogging or painfully doing.

Let's get to the point.

Every business has the same process. That is, make potential customer come to you and sell your product, service or information.
Paraphrasing it into blogging term, let the readers come to your blog and make them click the link like "Buy now", "Join Now", "Adsense Ads", etc.

We call readers as traffic. And about how many out of your readers click the link refer we as conversion rate. Of course, the higher the conversion rate, the better.

Specifically, make-money blogging follows for steps:

Step 1: You blog, if not, start blogging.
Step 2: Bring traffic to your blog.
Step 3: PREsell with your blog.

That is, your blog content attract your reader to do some kind of action: buy your own product or go to the link you prepared, for example. But did you notice the word "PREsell"?. That's the most important thing in your make-money blogging plan. Many experienced Internet marketers say that people are not buying anything when you extensively try to sell something. This makes sense if you recall your own experience. Did you buy something when a blogger tried to sell something? Maybe not! Instead, give your readers useful information and create the warm mood by giving them the benefits of product that you have in mind. And then, only then place a link so that your readers click through. This is so called PREsell.
Step 4: Monetize: This is your final goal and the monetization has two streams.

-Sell your own product, service or information, if you have one.

-For the blogger who don't have their own product, it's still possible to earn money from their blog thanks to the many affiliate programs among which most popular one is "Google Adsense". But it's just one example out of hundred affiliate programs. if not thousand.

In short, make-money-blogging is doing step-by-step action: that is, you blog, bring traffic, PREsell your blog readers and finally monetize. Without bringing traffic and achieving PREsell, it is not possible to monetize your blog. That's why you need to keep in mind the fact that make-money-blogging is step-by-step action.

Due to the space limitation, I can't explain all the detail. If you want to know more about each step, you can read it from the article, what blog can make money?.

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.

7 Tips for Choosing the Right Blog Software

2007-03-23T18:20:00.000-07:00

by: Michael Turner

Choosing the right blog software for your new blog requires that you ask yourself some questions and make a list of all of the features and tools you need as well as your budget. Once you have this information written down you will be prepared to start shopping for blog software. However, keep in mind the following seven tips for choosing the best software for you.

Tip #1 Ping Updates
These allow you to update your blog and are very important in blog software. Make sure the blog software you are interested in provides automatic ping updates.

Tip #2 Comments
Whatever blog software you choose, you'll want to make sure that it has an area for comments from visitors. This will help you understand what is successful in your blog and what is not, as well as guide you in future blogs. This is a really great tool and should be part of your blog software.

Tip #3 Trackback
If you are discussing your blog on another blog, or simply adding information to another blog, trackback will allow you to update this information. This is a little confusing, but trackback allows you to talk on your blog about information on another blog and ping the writer of the other blog to let them know what is going on. Trackback is certainly a feature you want in your blog software.

Tip #4 Pingback
Pingback is similar to trackback, but it just sends a URL to the other blog to let them know you are talking about their blog on your blog. This is not used as much as trackback, but you will want a blog software that has at least one of these two functions.

Tip #5 Web-based
The point of a blog is you can post information instantly online, so you want your blog software to be similar to a word processor and web based without a shadow of a doubt.

Tip #6 Archiving
You want a blog software that supports archiving, and most of them do. The reason for this is you will want to save all of your past blogs by the date they were published and archiving allows you to do that.

Tip #7 Categorize
Another great tool you will want in your blog software is the ability to categorize. You want to keep your blogs organized and in categories, if you have them, so this option is really a great one for most bloggers.

There are lots of types of blog software available. You just need to do the research and compare what you find with what you need and then... start blogging!

About the author:
Michael Turner reveals step-by-step how you can increase search engine traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it now at

Blood Test for Your Blog?

2007-03-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

by: Nick Smith

Are you contributing to one of the estimated 36.1 million (and growing) blogs online? Or are you thinking of entering the fray and starting to publish a blog for your small or home business? Make sure you are publishing the right type of blog for your kind of business, or all that writing time will have been for naught.

The Blog Blood Test

Just as there are different types of blood, there are many different types of blogs, and each serves its own purpose. Giving your blog a blood test will help you determine which type of blog is best for your business and what may be wrong with the one you've got now.

Blog Blood Type 1: Customer Relations - Blogging is one of the best ways to put a face and personality on your business, especially if you operate entirely in cyberspace. Those that best employ their blog in strengthening relationships with their customers spend a lot of time interacting with customers, answering questions, providing useful tips, and keeping them informed of business happenings. These blogs focus less on the company's products and more on the company's culture and outlook. The goal of this type of blog is to engender customer loyalty and establish a consistent flow of interested website visitors.

Blog Blood Type 2: Sales - As you can imagine, most businesses that blog do so because of the perceived benefit to their bottom line. While very little quantitative research has been done with regards to the actual monetary impact of blogging on overall sales, the ubiquity of sales-oriented blogs indicates some kind of return-on-investment. Sales blogs focus on product developments and benefits to the customer. There is less online interaction with customers via the blog as the goal is to move readers off of the blog and onto the product pages. The goal of a sales blog is to encourage visitors to purchase a product, service, or information that the company is offering.

Blog Blood Type 3: Personal Web Journals - These blogs make up the bulk of the 36.1 million web logs online. The majority are personal accounts written without regard to size of readership or monetary value. Many have heralded free blogs as the Internet's greatest achievement, allowing virtually anyone with an internet connection to publish literally whatever they want, and all in a matter of a few minutes. There are as many purposes for personal blogs as there are bloggers. Perhaps the most common theme is the chance to be heard.

I've Taken the Blog Blood Test…Now What?

Which category did your blog best fit in? Did you find that you're writing one type of blog but desiring the benefits of another? If you haven't already started your blog, which type do you believe would best match your writing abilities and desired outcome? Simply put, if you're not writing the best type of blog for the benefits you want, you'll never get them - and you'll waste a lot of time in the process.

If your current blog is doing exactly what you want it to, leave it alone. If you find that some changes are necessary, consider the following questions:

Do I think I can drive actual sales from the blog?
Would I rather spend my writing time interacting with customers (both positive and negative) or writing about my product? (Remember the blood test)
Am I the best person to author my blog, or is there someone else who could do a better job?
Do I want to stage the blog as a company-sponsored communication tool or would I rather it appear as a kind of third-party, objective review?
How much time am I willing to spend writing?
How free do I want to be with regards to frequency of posting and responding to customer comments?

Millions of others are already blogging, but don't let that stop you from starting. Give your business the blog blood test and see which type works best for you.

About the author:
Nick Smith is an internet marketer with an internet positioning strategy. For information about a DNA blood test and other DNA products, visit Genetree.com.

What Blog Can Make Money?

2007-03-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

by: Ryen Kim

How to blog to make money from it?

Truly the whole picture of making money blogging is simple:you blog (B), traffic comes to your blog (T), you PREsell to them (P) and finally monetize (M).

You may ask me "I have blog and peoples are coming. I need to know how to monetize, though not sure about what the PREsell means. So, tell me how to monetize, NOW." Understandable request. But before you rush into monetization, there is something you must take care of, otherwise you'll rush in vain.

I read some articles talking about "how to monetize or in what way can you make money from your blog." They were OK and nothing was wrong. But most of them were missing one thing, very important one. If you have a lot of traffic, say 10,000 visitors a day, you may need to focus only for how to monetize. And the way of monetization is simple, something like placing banner, affiliate text link, Google Adsense, (listed a few) on your blog page. What you have to realize is that "B--T--P--M" is really STEP-by-STEP. Monetizing will work only when you make a good success in previous three STEPS (B--T--P)

What blog can make money?

The answer is Any Kind! So, the right question should be "what blog can make more money?"

The answer is Well Prepared Blog! :-) What to prepare? Why not just posting? If you want to just blog and you don't care things to prepare, maybe you're not serious about making money from your blog. Otherwise, please read on.

First, I want to say this, "DON'T BLOG unless you know what you're going to blog!"

By this, I don't mean only conclusion of you blog. Before you blog, sit back from your keyboard and take a time to answer following 3 questions:

1. About what topic am I going to write? Are many people want to know about that topic?

2. With that topic, what product or link am I gonna introduce?

3. And how am I gonna do that?

What do I have in mind about those questions?

1. About topic, I'll do a little bit of research before I write. Have you heard about "keyword research"? There are free tools fit for keyword research. Not only for blog but for any kind of writings, if Internet is involved, I do keyword research first. For example, for this article, I took a little bit of time to find what kind of keyword people are using when they want to look for information about how to make money from blog. And I found people are using "make money blogging." This keyword research has two fold benefit. One is that it helps you fine what kind of topic people want to read. The other is that by using these keyword you'll have better chance to be positioned high in search engine result page.

2. About question 2, I'm thinking about what monetization method I'm going to use. Am I going to introduce an affiliate program, a book or place Adsense?

3. The purpose of asking question 3 was to emphasize the word "PREsell". In blogging, though you want to sell something or want your visitor to click links, don't rush it.

What do you do if you see a blogger is doing nothing but a sales pitch. You leave him once and for all, don't you? So PREsell is the key of how to write.It is something like creating a worm mind to your suggestion.

If you want to make money from your blog, start writing it only after you know what keyword is related your topic and what kind of monetization you can apply. This can make a huge difference.

If you want to know about how to do a keyword research, you may want to read this blog, Traffic to Blog: Keyword Research.

To sum up, a blog that can make more money is;

1. a blog talking about the topic people want to read and this can be found by keyword research

2. a blog that uses the the keyword in the post so that search engine can easily pick up

3. a blog that PREsells product by creating warm mood.

About the Author

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

2007-03-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

by: 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

Creating an Effective Corporate Blog

2007-03-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

by: Colin Ong TS

The terms “blog” and “blogging” have become part of the new economy dictionary and are an extremely cheap and efficient way of disseminating information through the web. A blog is best described as an online diary that readers can also post their thoughts. Many subject experts and academics have created open blogs (free access) that are read by thousands of readers and futurists are predicting that these blogs will emerge as the new mega magazines.

Which leads to the question about why companies are slow to create corporate blogs in order to promote their organizational goals and ideals. The reason for this lax attitude is that corporate blogs can be misinterpreted for techies and the employment of full-time blog administrators as too costly.

Before creating a corporate blog, determine some guidelines. Here are some tips:

Clear Organisational Message

Before starting a corporate blog, you have to be very clear about the organizational message and direction. The reason is that your blog will be read by the public who may also be potential customers who have different global perceptions. You do not want your blog to convey negative perceptions of your organizational values.

Determine Success Targets

The setting up of a corporate blog is not just an opportunity for people to ventilate or post their comments online. There must be clear success targets. Feasible short term targets are the generation of new sales leads and increase in customer database. In contrast, a medium term target can be the creation of new alliances.

Promote Your Alliance

Your corporate blog can be used to highlight your current alliances and give your customers a better understanding about your global reach. You can invite representatives of these organizations to either be guest bloggers or have a separate blog within your main corporate blog. With enough online exposure, your corporate blog can also evolve into a dynamic networking online community.

Great Feedback Channel

Invite your customers to post their comments in the corporate blog and get your blog administrator to act on the feedback as soon as possible. This will give the image that your organization is very serious about all feedback and you can also rectify the problem before it escalates. The more advanced blogs can also provide immediate sms to blog administrators once a feedback has been posted too.

Value-add to Your Print Newsletter

A corporate blog can value-add to your current monthly print newsletter. One way is that some online postings can provide article-ideas for future newsletter issues. Blog visitors can also request for print newsletters to be posted to their homes.

Test Out New Products

Your organizational engineers and sales team can use the corporate blog to test out new products and ideas. This is an effective and cheap solution as your blog readers should already have a good idea about how these ideas should co-exist with your other products.

Security Measures

Ensure that your corporate blog has security measures that prevents spamming to your blog readers. This will ensure that spamming will not create a definite negative image about your company. Your blog administrator should also ensure that there is no flaming and that all potential debates should not be a battle of personalities.

Not Infringe Intellectual Property

Some blog posters may introduce other websites which may have beta versions of new products. To some blog readers, this may be purely educational but the implication for your organization is that it may infringe intellectual property

About the Author

This article is contributed by Colin Ong TS, Managing Director/Chief Trainer of MR=MC Consulting (http://www.mrmc.com.sg) and Founder of 12n Community (http://www.mrmc.com.sg/12n). He can also be contacted about corporate blogging at colin@mrmc.com.sg

Blogging - what's it all about?

2007-03-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

by: Inka-Maria Kunz

A blog usually is a web page that contains brief, discrete hunks of information called posts. These posts are arranged in reverse-chronological order (the most recent come first) and each is uniquely identified by an anchor tag which is marked with a permanent link that can be referred to by others who wish to link to it.

A blog is a means of communication and there are many different types of messages carried by blogs. Some are nothing but pointers to other web sites, while others run long essays, some are personal diaries, others feature technology, and some are edited by one person, others by teams.

There are hundreds of thousands of blogs on the Internet, and new blogs are created every day. Can anybody and more importantly can you blog? Yes, there are bloggers of all types, equipped with all levels of technical skills. Bloggers approach their sites with as much variety and passion as the general Net public approaches the Web itself.

The most commonly used blogging tool is Blogger. It requires the least amount of commitment in time or resources, allowing you to go from wanting a blog to having one in about five minutes and at no cost. The Blogger software is the property of Pyra Labs (www.pyra.com). Blogger is often credited as the reason for the explosion of blogging that’s occurred in the last couple of years. It is a web-based tool, requiring no installation of software on your personal computer or on your server if you happen to have a web site. You access the tool through the Blogger web site (http://blogger.com) and the blog pages are posted to your web site or to Pyra’s BlogSpot (http://blogspot.com) community blog server. For more detailed information on this see O’Reilly’s Essential Blogging.

Re-read anything before you publish. Electronic text can expose unintended meaning easily and it will also make what you say a lot more focused. If nothing else, it should help you catch spelling mistakes! Blogging is a way to share your opinions and thoughts to the rest of the world. If you post interesting things, share links with other bloggers and post comments on other blogs. Linking is the way of the Web that is the key of successful blogging.

In order to keep your blogs really fresh, invite a group of your friends / colleagues and give them blogging access. That way you will have several reporters blogging information and you won’t end up killing yourself, trying to keep your blog populated with good information. If you use Blogger, upgrade to Blogger Pro. You can have your team post to the blog from email, create and syndicate your blog as an RSS feed, and a whole lot more! Adding the ability to post comments on your blog extends interactivity and usefulness to the blog itself. Blogs are about community and information, and commenting is a real way to gauge your viewer’s blogging efforts. Blogging is one of the quickest ways to update your site. Syndicating others’ blogs into your own site is another. There is a wealth of information out there – just tap into it!

About The Author

This article was written by Inka-Maria Kunz, CEO of a flourishing multilingual translations agency with offices in Germany and New Zealand. This article may be printed or used in its entirety with full author contacts and details. For more information, translations or purchases of a new website/e-business, contact the author thru the official website www.linguatransl.co.nz or the blog www.linguatransl.blogspot.com.

Blogging Explained in Simple Terms

2007-03-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

by: Elizabeth Kirwin

By now, if you haven’t heard of Blogging, you must be in a coma, seldom watch or listen to the news, or never use the internet. Bloggers are the newest and most popular ‘authentic’ voice on the internet.

Blogging Defined

First, let’s begin with an accurate definition of Blogging. Blog is short for Web Log. To blog is to upload text onto the same place on the internet daily, weekly, monthly, or at least with some predictable frequency. The best bloggers are trained professional writers, people who write because it’s their passion, and politically inclined individuals who need a bully pulpit for their ideas. Some bloggers are traveling long distance over an extended period of time, and they want to communicate with family and friends. The traveling bloggers do not have enough time to e-mail everyone – so they blog. Family and friends can check their blog for updates on their whereabouts, their adventures, mishaps, and golden opportunities while they’re on the road.

Is Blog a Noun, Verb, or Adjective?

I have seen Blog used as a noun, verb and adjective. This means blogging is a thing, an active principle, and a way to describe something. If you want to blog (verb) and do it well, the best advice is to blog on a subject you know quite a good deal about. Chances are, most people who blog with a good solid background in their subject area, do not readily run out of good material. Also, people who read blogs (noun) constructed in this way will walk away enriched, educated on a particular subject, and are more likely to return.

Blogging as Gossip or for Profits

As a professional writer and a creative writer, I am enjoying the popularity of the blogger (noun). Why? Because bloggers are bringing back respect for the individual voice in writing. Their popularity is sometimes based upon the depth of their knowledge on a particular subject. Or, as in the case of bloggers who helped reveal the true identity of White House Press Corps gay hustler Jeff Gannon, bloggers can turn a little vicious gossip into an international news story, which I personally find amusing and enlightening. Since bloggers uncovered this scandalous man’s double life, blogging has gained a great deal of attention. In fact, marketing and public relations firms are now using blogging as a tool in their whole package of increasing a client’s media visibility.

Public Relations and Marketing Blogging

If the Public Relations and Marketing firms gain a stronghold on blogging activities, perhaps the ‘authentic’ individual voice that began the blogging craze will be lost in the rubble. This is the worry of many devoted bloggers. Or, maybe this trend could strengthen the position of political or gossip oriented bloggers. Perhaps the ‘devoted bloggers’ who were working in the restaurant and retail industry, will now find they’re being offered the opportunity to blog for money instead of slave away over a hot grill, or at a cash register.

This is where the whole blogging debate takes over.

Ethical versus Unethical Blogging

Who actually has the ‘right’ to blog? What does an authentic blogger look and feel and sound like? How do you identify a slick, Public Relations blogger? Should blogging remain in the realm of the individual voice? Or will it be usurped by multinational corporations and governments for their own devious purposes? These are all valid questions, and I’m afraid I do not possess an answer to any of these ethical questions about blogging. I feel that the individual person, company, or entity must answer these questions on their own. But there is one thing I am absolutely certain about. Everyone has a right to blog, just as every one has a right to write and publish their work in the public sphere, which includes the internet.

For some ideas on how to increase web site traffic by blogging, visit http://www.sidhecommunications.com and read the companion piece to this article: Start Blogging to Increase Internet Traffic: We Blog.

About the Author

Elizabeth Kirwin has published work in national magazines and newspapers. She is co-owner of Sidhe Communications http://www.sidhecommunications.com in Asheville NC. She develops web sites, newsletters, brochures, and internet marketing plans for businesses, non-profits, and health care ogranizations nationally. For more information, e-mail ekirwin@bellsouth.net.

Web Blogs Defined, Explained and Understood

2007-03-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

by: Sharon Housley

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. The first is our new business blog at:

http://www.notepage.net/blog.htm

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.

The second blog we manage is at:

http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/blog.html

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 http://www.blogger.com.

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.

Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com , and http://www.monitoring- software.net

The Huge Marketing Potential Of A Simple Blog

2007-03-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

by: Ian Canaway

A Blog (also known as Weblog) is traditionally a webpage where pre-surfer or a blogger "logs" all pages he/she finds interesting. In other words, it is a Web page that contains brief, chronologically arranged items of information. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

Weblogs provide a series of annotated links to items such as news stories, and often include personal rants. They are maintained by one person, most commonly someone who is involved in Web design or some other tech-related field.

A blog is often a mixture of what is happening on a particular website and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people. Blogs can be used to introduce products to potential customers.

People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems, most notably Blogger at blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process.

Blog as a marketing tool:

Blogs offer huge marketing potential. They are highly strategic tools that can strengthen relationships, share knowledge, increase collaboration, and improve branding. Besides, blogs can represent the real voice of the website.

A weblog can take the form of a diary, a news service (or summaries of and links to current news items on a topic), a collection of links to other Web sites, a series of book reviews or products, reports of activity on a project, the journal of an expedition, and much more. Businesses can use this tool to effectively advertise their products or services.

One of the most interesting ways to use a weblog is by allowing it to function as a discussion forum for customers of your products or services. In this case, the webmaster can give posting rights to other people – visitors and customers, and their posts may or may not be reviewed before they are published to the Web page. Customers, in such a way can post favorable comments about the websites offerings. Some weblogs are set up in such a way that only the owner or the owner and certain other people have posting rights, but anyone else can add comments to the posts.

Weblogs when used with newsletters present immense marketing opportunities:

- Articles within newsletters can be linked to a blog, extending life and creating a massive conversation.

- You can offer a bidirectional forum to customers to get true, personal opinions on your products and services.

- Company experts can start a blog and become industry experts, helping your company edge out competition and, through this interactive forum, draw customers into another exchange of information and thoughts.

- The beauty of this interplay is you can layer your blog with editorial controls.

How to create a Weblog?

The majority of weblogs are now created using software or services designed specifically for this purpose. Some of the software is free - and some of the organizations that provide weblog software will also provide free server space to house a weblog so that it is publicly accessible on the Internet.

There are also commercial versions of some of the free software; these commercial versions often provide more features. Some weblog software is available only as commercial software. Alternatively, bloggers can create and maintain their weblog using free software or a free weblog service, but use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to load the resulting weblog to their own Website.

There are many blogging softwares available easily on the Internet. One of the most popular weblogger is "Blogger" which can be used for free at http://www.blogger.com. Most webloggers simplify the process of Website creation. However, they do require basic knowledge of FTP, Website structures and a few technical terms. Besides, creating an advanced weblog requires knowledge of HTML.

So get out there and start your own Blog…it's free, easy and can work seamlessly with the rest of your website or newsletter.

About The Author:
Get your FREE step by step guide to setting up your first blog, visit: http://www.trafficstrategiesonsteroids.com/blogsetup.pdf - Ian Canaway will help you launch your very own money making website today that's 100% ready to take orders and pull in massive profits for you right now. guaranteed! http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com

Copyright Ian Canaway - http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com

The Future Of Next Generation Weblogs

2007-03-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

by: Bolger Redet

In the earlier days having a blog was an instant hit. People who embraced writing web logs from the beginning, did get a lot of extra exposure. Now the mass is jumping on a train which already left the station some time ago.

The success of the first blogs explained

The first blogs on the web were non commercial and that was the first ingredient for their success. Second, web logs are quality content and can be made really easy. As we all know search engines like Google really love good content. The first blogs could be on top of search results in mayor search engines like Google in a matter of days, where other (big) websites struggled to get the same result in years. This could happen because web logs contain loads of text which is related to quality content. Other traditional websites tweaked their sites with tricks that did not compete with the awesome power of blogs: honest quality content.

These days loads of people have their own blog and I must say 90% is not even worth reading. Because the amount of people having a blog is exploding, search engines which finally were able to find some good content related websites, now have to struggle with the millions of blogs with absolutely no good content at all. Many blogs are not updated on a regular basis, they are often made to sell products or used for marketing the thousands “get rich quick schemes” around on the internet. They really lack the power a good blog can have.

Next generation blogs

But there are really good blogs around and web logs will definitely stay around for a while. Beside that there is a new generation blogs on their way. Blog techniques are changing fast, many people start to put photos and pictures on their blogs. This caused a very interesting phenomenon. The first pictures of the London bombings where spread by blogs so fast, that they did beat the big television networks and news agencies. People actually submitted their pictures made from the scene with their mobile phones on their blogs. Other blogs picked up the news with the photo material in minutes and spread them around with lighting speed. I think this is the evidence that blog are really powerful things and earned their place on the internet. With the implementation of video on blogs their importance and popularity is even growing. This makes us consumers of news and multimedia much more independent from big commercial TV and news agencies. Those guys have other interests to consider then provide us with objective news, quality TV and radio programs.These advertisers and investors want everything to be a commercial success, rather then not so commercial quality content.

If you want to start your blog then here are some tips.

These days you can’t make any money from having a blog. You are way too late to do that at this stage. Use web logs for their own purpose e.g. provide quality content. This is the only way to attract people to you web log.

Pick a quality blog hosting provider on the internet where to host your blog. There are free providers like blogger.com and Bloxster.net, both of them are free and provide features for your blog you really need. There is no reason why you should go for a paid service. The bigger the blog community not always means this is the best choice, because the servers of these providers often can’t handle the hughe amount of traffic and need to be shut down for maintenance very often. So bloxster.net would be a good pick

Post pictures with your articles to enhance your blog. If you have a startup band or you want to be the new rising pop star on the block, place a link to your demo (make one in mp3 format), and place it on your blog. This is called pod casting. While traveling submit travel stories and photo’s to inform people at home or fellow travelers about your adventures. You can even stream video on you blog!

Most important write and provide quality content and update your weblog on a regular basis. Also take the time to promote your blog and rss feed to web blog directories because the competition of other blogs is fierce!

About The Author

Bolger Redet is webmaster at http://www.bloxster.net a free quality weblog hosting service. Bolger is working on the bloxster.net website to provide their users tools to publish multimedia content

Why Blog?

2007-03-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

by: Jill Hart

It seems everyone these days is talking about blogging. Everywhere I go, I find articles and forums devoted to this craze. I also have heard from many moms who are trying to figure out what a blog is and how they can use one to their benefit.

The term “blog” is short for “weblog”, which just means an online journal or “log”. You can jot down personal thoughts and notes, post articles you’ve written or keep track of interesting websites you find. The sky is the limit, it seems, when it comes to blogging. A blog is something entirely of your own creation and you can use it to share your thoughts with the world, well….with anyone you can get to read it anyway.

One of the main debates going on about blogs is whether blogging can be done to improve Search Engine rankings for businesses or to create a buzz about business websites. Both of these can be true if the blog is used correctly. Many resources show that once a blog is created, many times it is listed in Search Engines within 48 hours. This was true of the blog I created for Christian Work at Home Moms.

These are many ways to create a blog. The easiest by far is to use one of the free tools available online, such as Google’s Blogger. You can create your blog for free using their online tools and templates(nothing to download). After you have created the blog, you can then publish your blog through them and “Wa-La” – your blog is posted online for the world to see.

Once you’ve created your blog, you will need to decide how you will use it. Will it be a personal blog, full of thoughts and comments for yourself alone or maybe your family? Or will it be a business blog, with articles and tips for potential customers? If you want your blog to be found by others, blogging experts recommend that you begin by setting the title and descriptions for your blog. These are similar to the the title and descriptions you set for your website. Try to make them meaningful because they are what people will see when your blog is returned in a Search Engine. If your description is simply “my blog”, you may not draw the attention you’d like.

If you are blogging in the hopes of attracting customers, make sure to use wise use of words and links in your blogs. Try to avoid the “click here” link. Instead, opt for links within descriptive sentences. Add the HTML link within the sentence and attach it to the words that are closely related to the page or site you are linking to. For example, to link to my website I would not use “click here” as my link. I would say, “Please visit Christian Work at Home Moms for home-based work resources” with the link within the text.

There are many ways to get your blog noticed outside of optimizing them for Search Engines. For instance, there are entire websites devoted to listing blogs dedicated to any topic that you can think of. One of the best such websites devoted to women-created blogs, is BlogDaisy.com. You can also use free tools such a FeedBurner.com to track the traffic on your blog and to create a dynamic title box that can be used to display your blog headlines on your website or even in your email signature. Each time you update your blog, these headlines are instantly updated.

There are many ways to use a blog for either personal or business use. If used correctly, a blog can be a terrific tool to inform potential customers of your business. Be sure to update your blog at least once a week so that the content remains fresh and you remain in the Search Engines.

About the Author

Jill Hart is the author/editor of Christian Work at Home Moms, http://www.CWAHM.com.

12 Reasons Why You Need A Blog

2007-03-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

by: Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian

"Why Should I Blog? I Simply Don't Get It"

This post on a popular discussion forum set me thinking - and I came up with 12 reasons you should blog.

Read them and get started on your blog. Or better still, go get your blog up and running and THEN come back and read this :)

#1 - You Do Not Need To Know HTML

One of the biggest hurdles many hopeful website creators face is they don't know to design a webpage. Blogs overcome this - all you do is type into a box, and the blog software automatically converts it into a webpage and publishes it on the World Wide Web for anyone to see.

#2 - You Are 'Forced' To Keep Your Content Fresh

Blogs are essentially online diaries. It doesn't make sense to write in your diary every month or two. Similarly, running a blog itself 'forces' you to update it often. And refreshing your blog often makes it more useful to readers and consumers - and by extension, to search engines who are in the business of presenting *their* clients with valuable resources.

#3 - Your Blog Is AUTOMATICALLY Optimized For Search Engines

Search engines love fresh content. But that's not the only way blogs are powerful tools to rank high. Indeed, most blogs are structured to offer a high degree of search engine optimization.

All sections of your blog are linked together. The terms used as link 'anchors' are keyword-optimized. Categories can be created to host themed content. Navigating through your blog is intuitive. Archives can be customized, and generate hundreds of pages of content that act as 'search engine spider bait'.

#4 - You Get A Built-In Linking Structure

With very few exceptions, most blogs are structured to be a tightly integrated network of links - to other sections of your blog! It's quite easy for a visitor to get 'lost' within your blog... without ever leaving it.

Calendars link to posts on specific dates. 'Recent Post' listings point to your freshest content. Archives connect all your earlier posts. Search boxes let browsers look for certain kinds of content. And it all happens automatically, without you spending hours on creating a link structure or sitemap!

#5 - You Generate Multiple Content-Rich Pages

Every post you make on your blog is content. And by intelligently setting up your archiving preferences, you can turn each post into many different forms of content, each on a page of its own. Blog regularly for a few months, and you could end up having a 100+ page website - all filled with relevant, keyword-optimized, themed content!

#6 - You Can Keyword-Optimize Your Blog Extensively

All parts of your blog's template can be customized. And a very powerful way to do it is by inserting relevant keywords. It's a do-it-once job that will give you ongoing benefits for as the life of your blog. You can include keywords in your blog title, description, blog post headings, trackback links, comment invitations, archive titles, and category names.

#7 - You Create An Online Community

If your blog is on a specific theme, you can build a loyal readership and develop an online community. You can even take it a notch higher by tying it in with a forum or membership site. Ask for comments, suggestions, ideas and feedback, or invite reader participation. Pretty soon, your blog will be growing organically - even if you don't write a lot!

#8 - You Initiate Conversations With Readers

Of course, the first step is yours - to initiate a dialog with readers. You could do it with your blog post, asking a question or by inviting comments and interaction. Your blog will be read by an audience that's already interested in your subject or theme. This conversation will be priceless to you, the blog owner.

#9 - Your 'Inbound Link' Process - Trackbacks

Blogging is about distributed conversations online. Links are an integral part of such an informal network. Trackbacks are a kind of blog technology that make it possible - and simple! Your blog will benefit from the inbound links a trackback will bring, and you'll also get extra traffic from other sources.

#10 - You Can Syndicate Your Content Easily

Getting readers for your content is good. Getting your content out where many more readers can see it is GREAT! Syndication (via RSS feeds) is built in to most blogging platforms, giving you a quick and easy way to get a wide readership for your blog posts.

#11 - You're Creating Stuff Search Engines LOVE

Search engines exist to offer their audience a compilation of the best resources on a subject or keyword. Your blog is the answer to a search engine's prayers! By sticking to a theme and presenting the content in an organized, structured, intuitively connected pattern, your blog will be appealing to search engines in a way only a very professionally planned and designed website can ever hope to be.

#12 - You Get 'Alternate' Traffic Sources

Remember what we saw about blogs being linked and networked together? Bloggers like to share opinions with others. And when they 'talk' about you, they are going to point to your site, or a post on your blog, to show their readers what they mean. They become 'alternate' traffic sources - for YOU!

Other tools like blog rolls, furls, favorite bloggers and more can drive sporadic - but sometimes big floods - of traffic your way. And best of all, it's effortless and costs you nothing!

Not yet convinced? Well, then maybe blogging isn't quite your cup of tea. But if you trust me, try it - you just might be pleasantly surprised.

About the Author

Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian is author of 'Blog Profit Ideas Exposed - 33 Ways To Profit From Blogs" - http://www.BlogProfits.com - and 'How To Profit From RSS Feeds" - http://www.RSS-Marketing.com and publishes 8 different 'niche' blogs and has been reporting on marketing with blogs and RSS feeds since 2001.

Blogosphere Networking

2007-03-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

by: Thom Singer

Blogging seems to be taking over the world, or at least everyone seems to be talking about blogs. However, there are a surprisingly large number of people who have no idea of blogs, blawgs, blogsphere, etc....

I was recently at a social gathering with some very educated and sophisticated individuals. In the conversation I mentioned my new book (“Some Assembly Required: How to Make, Keep and Grow Your Business Relationships” and my blog (“The Business Development / Networking Blog”). Everyone immediately understood the concept of a book.....but the idea of a blog created many a puzzled face.

I was asked a lot of questions (some folks had heard of blogging, others had not). The following are the top questions, and my feeble attempt to answer them:

1. Why did you start your blog?

I started it as an experiment to help educate myself about blogs. My company is interested in having an industry focused blog, and I decided to take it upon myself to jump into the blogosphere and get my feet wet. In addition, I write a recurring column for Professional Marketing Magazine, and I thought that regularly writing a blog would give me some good practice and help me uncover themes for future articles. I also felt I could use it to help promote my new book.

2. Has it been worth it?

Yes!!! On all three of the above reasons I have exceeded my goals. I now understand the commitment involved if we create an industry blog. I have already created a lot of positive material that can later be turned into articles for my marketing column. AND.....I have sold a bunch of copies of my new book .....even before it is released.

3. Are all blogs the same?

NO. There are as many types of blogs are there are writers. I have categorized them into three types, but I am sure others would have arguments about these areas:

A. Corporate Blogs. These are hosted by companies to promote their products and services or to communicate with clients.

B. Philosophical / Content Blogs. In this type, an individual (or group of individuals) writes on a specific topic and shares their opinions with the readers. Topics can range from business to sports to politics to religion, etc.... I would put The Business Development / Networking Blog in this category. The blogs from which I learn the most are philosophical/content blogs.

C. Diaries. In these blogs people record their daily experiences the way one would write in a diary. Some of these can be quite entertaining, as they allow the voyeur in each of us to look into someone else's private world. However, reader beware...some of these can reveal a bit more than you want to read (or see).

4. Why would I want to read blogs?

They are a great way to discover information on any particular topic or variety of ideas. Many bloggers have very good sources of information and they certainly have opinions. As with any media source, you need to beware of the authors intent and ulterior motives. Also, blogs can just be interesting to read.

5. What have you learned from writing your blog?

Like the term "World Wide Web" only a decade ago, "Blogs, blogging and the blogosphere" are the new new thing, and are not just a "fad". If people are not yet aware of blogs, they will be soon. More and more blogs are created every day and blogs will soon touch everyone who surf the internet.
Having your own blog, however, is not for everyone. You must be committed to writing on a regular basis, and not shy about sharing your opinions. I have learned that a blog can go stale if you do not make posts on a regular basis.

I also learned that when you blog, you are actually networking. At first it seemed like this was one sided, until I began to hear from people who were regularly reading my blog. I have developed new friendships with many bloggers who write about similar topics. Often one blogger will email another with a compliment or suggestion, and they will begin to correspond regularly. Just like any other type of business friendship, the relationship grows over time. This blog-networking leads to mutual understanding and respect between the bloggers and then can lead to business relationships and referrals.

6. Should I start a blog?

That is a question every person will have to answer for himself/herself. I
would suggest you begin by reading other blogs and getting familiar with what is out there in blog-land. If you believe that you have something to say...then by all means, start a blog. But remember to be patient and persistent. Like writing a book, it takes time and there is no guarantee that you will become widely read. However if you are dedicated, you will uncover many unexpected benefits from your blogging experience.

If you are interested in easily learning about blogs, I suggest you start by reading the posts and links in the series called “31 Days to Better Blogs" at www.problogger.net, hosted by Darren Rowse. This is the best collection of advice to the experienced and novice blogger.

Don’t forget to read my blog at www.thomsinger.blogspot.com.

About the Author

Thom Singer is the author of "Some Assembly Required: How to Make, Keep and Grow Your Business Relationships" (www.thomsinger.com), and write "The Business Development / Networking Blog" (www.thomsinger.blogspot.com)

7 Questions BEFORE Blogging

2007-03-09T21:38:00.000-08:00

by: Priya Shah

Blogging is the latest buzzword in online marketing and PR.

But with so many marketers jumping on the blogging bandwagon, few people are giving a thought to whether blogs are really up their alley, or taking the time to consider the best ways of going about it.

If you are planning to start a business blog, ask yourself these questions before you take the final plunge.

1. Do you really need a blog?

Writing and maintaining a blog takes a certain degree of commitment, as well as a passion (or at least a liking) for stringing words into a decent sentence. If you don't enjoy writing that much, you could always create an audio or video blog.

But would your business objectives really be served by starting a blog? Or could other methods of online marketing - like SEO, ezine advertising or newsletter publishing work just as well, if not better?

2. Whom do you want to reach with your blog?

The first step to reaching your audience is understanding where they go to find information about your products.

If your audience largely consists of people who live in your town or use products that they search for in the newspapers, offline advertising might be more suited to your purpose.

If however, your target audience belongs to one or more of these segments, a blog might be just the thing to boost your business.

- Internet users

Does your target audience really use the internet? If not, then starting a blog (or any online activity, for that matter) will just be a huge waste of time and effort.

- Blog readers

Does your target audience read blogs? Or do they prefer to get their information in their inbox? If the latter is true, then an email newsletter might be a better option than a blog.

- Search engine users

A blog is an excellent way to boost your search engine rankings and get listed for a lot of your target keywords. If you know that your audience uses search engines to find information, a blog will increase your chances of getting their attention.

3. What do you want to achieve with your blog?

There are a lot of things that a blog can do for your business. Blogs can help you -

- Increase your visibility and search engine rankings

- Brand yourself, your products, your services, your company

- Build a community and network with people who have similar interests

- Expand your reach to those outside your current sphere of influence

- Establish your credibility as an expert or thought-leader in your field

- Put a human face on your business

- Reach out to potential customers and stakeholders

Deciding exactly what you want to achieve with your blog can help you get focused, so that you can spend your time and effort in activities that help, not hinder your business objectives.

4. How much time can you spend on your blog?

Serious business bloggers not only spend time writing their own blogs, but also spend a great deal of time reading up on current events and browsing other blogs in their field for information.

If you are prepared to put in the time and effort required to do that sort of research, your blog will serve as a good branding tool for your business.

If not, you should either hire someone to do the research or seriously rethink your decision to start a blog.

5. What blogging platform will serve your needs best?

Deciding your blogging platform is an important step that you should take only after becoming familiar with the features and benefits of each option.

The reason it is so crucial is because it can be extremely difficult to migrate an established blog to a new platform once you have started it. Moving your blog can result in you losing your data, search engine listings and readers, so don't take this decision lightly.

Decide which platform will best meet your marketing objectives, time constraints and personal preferences before you make your first post.

According to T.L. Pakii Pierce who writes at "How to Blog for Fun & Profits!" http://blogforfunandprofit.blogware.com, if you are short of time, and want to spend more time writing, then a hosted solution like Blogger, Blogware, Squarespace or Typepad might serve your purpose better.

This might also prove a better option if you want to get started as soon as possible, are new to the internet, or are unfamiliar with scripts or code.

If, on the other hand, you're a control freak (like me) and don't mind spending some time and effort to customize your blog, then a server-installed software, like Wordpress, b2Evolution or Movable Type might be just right for you.

If you don't want to install the scripts yourself, choose a hosting solution with Fantastico, which comes with a one-click install of a number of blogging software.

6. How do you plan to promote your blog?

Why is it good to know this before you start your blog? Because it will help you decide where best to invest your time and effort when you need to build traffic to your blog.

You'll learn more about the methods to promote your blog when you subscribe to the email course below. Some of these tasks can be outsourced, while others you would have to do yourself.

Decide what you want to take on and look out for service providers to handle the other functions so you can start building traffic to your blog as soon as possible.

7. How will you assess the success of your blog?

To determine how successful your blog is in boosting your profile or profits you will have to measure your blog traffic and track sales or leads that have come through it.

Planning this in advance will help you take more informed decisions about your blogging metrics, choice of blogging platform and degree of customization you require on your blog.

Understand that blogging is not for everyone. It's just another form of communication.

Don't get so hung up on the technology that you end up ignoring more appropriate ways of communicating your message.

Some things may be easier to communicate face to face, in a conference room, or even through the good old telephone.

But if you asked yourself all the questions above and decided that blogging meets all your objectives, then a blog may be just what the doctor ordered for your business.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Priya Shah is a former journalist who writes on business blogging and publishes an internet marketing newsletter. Subscribe to her free eCourse on Blogging for Marketers

SEO For Blogs

2007-03-09T16:37:00.000-08:00

by: Priya Shah

Copyright © 2004 Priya Shah
http://www.priyashah.com

Blogging software is really a simple Content Management System (CMS) that easily adds new pages and integrates them into your site's navigational structure and linkage.

Blogs and blog posts are naturally search engine friendly because they are text-rich, link-rich, frequently-updated webpages that use stylesheets or CSS, and have very little extraneous HTML.

Optimizing a blog is very similar to optimizing a website, and optimizing a blog post similar to optimizing a web page. But depending on the blogging service or software you use, the results may look somewhat different.

If you follow some simple rules for search engine optimization, your blog can rank much higher than static website pages in the search engine results pages.

Here are the most important rules to follow to get your posts listed for keywords of your choice.

1. Use your primary keyword in your blog domain

Whether you purchase a separate domain (recommended) for your blog, or host it on a blogging service or a subdomain of your own site, try to ensure that your URL contains the primary keyword you want to optimize for.

For example, if you want your blog to get found for the keyword "rss" get a domain with the keyword "rss", or use the keyword in a subdomain as in http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/rssnews/

Getting a domain name with your own name might make for good branding, especially if yours is a personal blog.

But if you're doing it for business and want the targeted traffic to flow your way, keywords in the domain or subdomain are a move in the right direction.

2. Use your primary key phrase in your blog header tags and the title of your posts

If your primary key phrase is "business blogging" make sure that the word business, or blogging, or both, appear in your blog headers (the H1 or H2 tags) as well as the title of each of your posts.

Most blogging software will take the keywords in your post title and put them into the file name of the permalink posts it creates.

For example, if you have a blog on Blogger and title your post "Search Engine Optimization For Blogs", Blogger will automatically create a page with your post and name the file "search-engine-optimization-for-blogs.html" or something similar.

With other server-side software like Wordpress and Movable Type, you may require the mod_rewrite command to save the title of your entries as a permalink.

3. Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post

If you want to get listed for secondary keywords use them infrequently in the body of your post and pepper your blog titles or links with them appropriately.

Don't overdo this or your posts will end up sounding unnatural and spammy to readers.

4. Use your keywords in the anchor text of links

Keyword in links have more importance than simple text.

Use your primary and secondary keywords in the anchor text of links when linking to other blog posts or to other pages on your main site.

Link keywords where they naturally appear in the body text, but again, don't overdo it, or you'll end up with spammy looking pages.

5. Make sure search engines can spider your blog easily

Set up your blog so that the side navigation bar is present on all pages.

Make sure your archives and previous posts are accessible from all pages of your blog so they get spidered easily.

6. Get backlinks from other blogs or websites

Links pointing to your blog or posts are essential to build pagerank and make your blog rank higher in the search engine listings.

I've seen many people recommend Blogrolling as one method of building links to your blog.

BlogRolling is a one-stop linklist manager for your blog or journal.
http://www.blogrolling.com

But all this service actually does is give you a bit of javascript code that "calls" the links.

As far as search engine rankings go, this method of linking is of little use, because spiders can't read external javascript code.

Instead I recommend that you focus your linking efforts on the methods here.

* Submitting to Blog Search Engines and Directories:

Submitting your blog and RSS feed to blog search engines and directories is essential for getting high-quality links back to your blog. Here is the best list I've found of places to submit your feed or blog.

Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

* Link Exchanges:

Many similarly-themed blogs are often willing to exchange links with other blogs and form richly interlinked networks or communities. Link exchanges with other blogs are easy to implement with most blogging software.

* Trackbacks:

You can also get links back to your blog using trackbacks. One of the disadvantages of using Blogger is that it does not automatically create trackback urls that others can use to link back to your posts.

Haloscan is a free service that will automatically add comments and trackbacks to your Blogger blog.
http://www.haloscan.com

But if trackbacks are an important component of your linking strategy, I would advise using another software or system that adds this feature automatically.

* Comments:

You can also get back links to your blog by posting legitimate comments in response to posts on other blogs.

7. Update frequently

There's no better food for search engine spiders than fresh content.

Post and update your blog frequently using all the rules outlined above and there's no reason why your blog will not get you top rankings in a short period of time.

8. Stay put

Once you create your blog, try to stick to the same domain and blog host or system for as long as you continue to publish.

You could end up losing a lot of your traffic, your readers and all your search engine listings if you decide to move.

For more ways of building traffic to your blog, read the article "How To Build Traffic To Your Blog."
http://www.blog-maniac.com/build-blog-traffic.htm

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Priya Shah publishes an internet marketing ezine at http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com by day and doubles as a Blog Maniac by night http://www.blog-maniac.com Blog Brandz http://www.blogbrandz.com is the legitimate offspring of her affair with the blogosphere.

Making Money With Your Blog

2007-03-09T02:16:00.000-08:00

by: Nell Taliercio

I’ve sure you’ve heard before that it’s a possibility to make money with your blog and you may be wondering how this is possible. And were they really meant for making money or just for journaling your personal thoughts? I’m not sure what they were intended for but they are great ways to make money.

I have a personal blog which is just my own private little place to go online and jot down my thoughts, but I also have my business blogs.

Back In The Beginning

Now to be honest with you in the beginning of my blogging experience I really wasn't sure what I should do with my blog. I knew I wanted to make money with it, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what I could do to not only be a value to others so they would come back to my blog, but that I would still enjoy writing it.

So it was really important to me that I find a topic in which I would be excited about, and have enough to offer so that I could blog every week or so. After starting a blog that was meant to just be an add on to my business at MommysPlace.net and struggling with the direction of that blog, I came across one of Alice Seba’s blogs. Which she used to write about her experience through a traffic product.

Every couple of weeks or so she would update her progress through this course. She would tell us all about her successes with this product and how great it was for her business. And it made me think of how I could do something similar.

Product/Service Focused Blog

This is when the light bulb moment went off in my head. This is when I realized what I should have been doing all along. I have been a member of a exclusive coaching program for mothers in business.

Since joining this program my business has seen great success. My income has increased more then five times what it was before I joined and my traffic has increased even more then that.

I enjoy and believe in this coaching program and it happens to have an affiliate program. I often got email from other work at home mothers who wanted to know my thoughts on this program.

Taking a cue from Alice’s blog I decided to start my own such blog. And named it http://MomMastermindsJourney.blogspot.com - okay, not a catchy title, but I'm no good with picking names

I used this blog for the purpose of documenting my successes with my business. My projects, new content added to my website, keyword phrases I was ranking for…etc. Basically anything that had to do with my business, that was directly or indirectly because of my joining Mom Masterminds, I jotted down.

Not only was this the best move I could have made for my promoting this affiliate link it also served as a great way to really see for myself the successes my business was achieving and also to keep me on track.

This is one way you could make money with a blog. There are other ways you could make money with a blog if you don’t want to devote a blog to one service or product you’re promoting.

Side Kick Blog

For instance, my blog at http://www.mommyworkingvirtually.com is a side kick to MommysPlace.net and my forums. This is a blog in which I update my members on additions to the website, newsletter and forums. Updating any important telecommuting or business news and can promote my adsense and any other affiliate programs.

So this blog serves more then one purpose. My main goal with this blog is to get traffic to certain sections of my website. I have a large website and it’s not always easy for people to find my information. So this is a great way for me to keep certain new pages or sections of my website in the public eye and get traffic to those pages. It also serves as a way to make money with adsense and affiliate programs. And lastly it gives exposure to my forum and my newsletter.

There can be many ways and many topics in which you can make money and gain exposure to other businesses you may have or can help in creating you as an expert in a certain field.

Just take the time to really think about what you could be writing about and then how you can make money with that as well. You can take a look at others blogs to get an idea and see what other people are looking for.

Making Money With Your Blog - Resources:

Blogs to Riches- is an ebook that details ways you can make your blog profitable. And the really cool thing with this is if you list the publishers link on your blog for 45 days he will give you this ebook for free! If you don't want to wait that long you can also purchase it for a low price. Read more about Blogs to Riches - www.blogstoriches.com

Increasing Adsense - is an ebook about how to increase your adsense revenue. This ebook isn't specifically geared towards blogs, but the information you will learn you can use with your blogs. (As well as websites and forums...anywhere you have adsense.) www.adsense-secrets.com

* Don't know what adsense is? Go to www.google.com/adsense to learn more.

Ready To Blog?

Are you ready to take the leap into a blog? If so, it’s really very easy to set up a blog. The one resource I have used for all my blogs has been blogger.com. This is free, easy, and fun. There are many templates to chose from and you can customize yours if you would like.

I have used the general template for my mom masterminds blog and I have customized my http://www.mommysworkingvirtually.com blog with different colors and fonts then what it came with. I also have that hosted on my own domain, but you certainly don’t have to do that.

Submit Your Blog

After you create your blog you will want to submit it to blog directories to help get your blog out in front of the public. Some of the directories you can try are:

BlogWise - http://www.blogwise.com
Blog Search Engine - http://www.blogsearchengine.com
Blog Hub - http://www.bloghub.com
Blog Daisey - http://www.blogdaisey.com
Get Blogs - http://www.getblogs.com
Is Blogs - http://www.lsblogs.com

Feeds

Next, you need to add feeds to your blog. What is a feed? Good question. I don’t know the exact way to describe a feed nor do I have a lot of valuable information on this subject.

This is still very new to me, but I can tell you briefly what a feed does. You add a little graphic to your blog. It can be for someone's yahoo page, msn page and other ways.

When they click on that they can add your blog to their personal yahoo page. Then every time you add a new post they are alerted on their yahoo page that you have posted AND it even shows the topic of the post and how long ago it was posted.

This is one of the best resources I’ve found in keeping people coming back to your blog. They can subscribe to it so easily and they will be automatically updated whenever you have posted. It’s pretty easy to add an RSS feed to your blog. The resource I personally use is at www.feedburner.com

Watch Out Blogging World - Here I Come!

Now, see how simple this really can be? You can make money with a blog, gain exposure for another business or websites, can create yourself as an expert on a certain topic, can create a blog for free, get it listed for free and start an RSS feed for free! Now get out there and start blogging.

About the Author

Nell Taliercio is the publisher of a weekly telecommuting newsletter that helps moms and dads work at home. Read more about the newsletter and get your free listing of job links at http://www.telecommutinganswerlady.com - and for more telecommuting and home based business information head over to http://www.mommysplace.net

7 Tips for Successful Blogging

2007-03-07T20:16:00.000-08:00

by: Michele Schermerhorn

So, you have a blog! Do you have traffic? Do you know how to build traffic to your weblog? There are seven proven methods for building readership of your blog. They start with defining the purpose, or life, of your blog. Then, after you have a blog worth promoting, driving traffic is crucial to your ongoing success at blogging.

Here are seven tips to help you build and hold an audience for your blog:

Tip #1: Provide quality content.

On the Internet, whether you are talking about websites or blogs, a lot of space is given to content. Everyone directs you to provide quality content. But, what is quality content? The quality of your blog’s content is directly related to how well you have defined your ideal audience.

A successful blog is written with a distinct audience in mind. In this way, you can provide content that is unique to your audience’s issues, needs, or desires. If you create content they like and wish to return to read, you have quality content.

The second issue is to stay true to your audience and tone of your blog. If people are reading your blog, it’s because they like your topic and tone. Try not to stray from your typical topics and style too much. This will give your readers a reason to link back to your blog on an ongoing basis, as will posting on a regular basis.

Tip #2: Blog regularly

If you don't update your blog often enough, blog readers will move on to other blogs. There are too many blogs out there competing for attention. Blog readers will go where they can get enough of what they want.

Successful blogging takes a commitment of your time. When you begin blogging and wish to capture an audience, you should be prepared to blog every day. In this way, you can develop an audience who counts on you to help them begin or end their day.

This means you should also try to post at the same time each day. Your readers will get accustomed to your schedule and check your blog at the appropriate time. The time of day is not as crucial as the consistency in your posting.

Since you now have quality content and a regular posting schedule, it’s time to drive traffic to your blog. Your readers will do a lot to promote your blog just by telling their friends. Don’t count on this alone! You need to do some additional work.

When you post, make sure you set your blog to “ping” blog tracking sites every time you add a new post. Think of this as a means to get their attention. The ping says “Hey, we just added a new post”. An alternative to automatically pinging from your blog is to use pingomatic.com. This is a one-stop place to automatically ping everyone you should notify of your new post and only takes a couple of minutes to accomplish.

Tip #3: Mention your blog wherever you can

Mention your blog’s address in your email signature line, in forums where you post, on your business cards, on address labels and in conversations with anyone you meet. Use a tag line under your blog address to further entice them to visit. Mine reads:

Michele Schermerhorn
http://www.imarketblog.com
A sassy little marketing blog

Beyond just mentioning your blog in writing and conversation, you must actively participate in the blogging community too.

Tip #4: Participate in the blogosphere

Get involved in other people's blogs. Visit blogs that interest you and are in line with the general topic of your blog. Then, leave thoughtful comments. Almost every comment option on someone else’s blog will allow you to post your blog URL and your email address. Help other bloggers out with traffic and they will help you.

If a blogger really likes your site, they will add you to their blogroll. A blogroll is generally found on every blog which understands linking to the rest of the blogosphere helps drive traffic. A blogroll is a listing of other blogs. Think of it as a “recommended reading list”. Don’t be stingy with your blog roll either. Add those blogs that you read and enjoy to your blogroll too.

Tip #5: Think keywords when you post

Think about keywords with your use of titles, links and blog posts. Search engines, like Google and Yahoo, like keywords. The more targeted your keywords, the better the chances of your blog appearing in search results. Search results can drive that extra traffic you want.

To increase the value of the key words in your content, make certain keywords are part of the hot link in your posts. Don’t use “click here” as the hot link. You will be wasting valuable real estate in your post. Instead use the relevant keywords for the hot link, like “a great marketing idea. This gives the keywords added emphasis with the search engines.

One last thought on keywords for driving traffic; if you want a real leg up in the traffic game, in your linking code add rel=”tag”. This helps Technorati, a major blog resource, index your blog for their directory. But don’t stop there! It’s time to submit your blog to blog directories.

Tip #6: Submit your blog to blog directories

In addition to submitting your blog to the major search engines, make certain you submit the blog to exclusively blog directories like blogwise, blogcatalog, or bloghub. Many people find blogs through these online directories.

When you do submit your blog to these directories, remember to add a description that will entice your targeted audience to check your blog out. For instance, when I post my blog in blog directories, under description I put “General musings, rants, advice and strategies from a battle-worn veteran of the Marketing Wars, online and off”. Your description should help the potential reader understand your blogging topic and the flavor of how you write.

In addition to submitting your blog to blog directories, join a few of the free or inexpensive traffic exchange sites like blogexplosion or blogclicker.

Tip #7: Use free and inexpensive blog traffic exchange communities

There are many sites which can be termed “traffic exchange” sites for the blogging community. It won’t cost you anything to sign up. At the very least, join blogexplosion, blogclicker, and blogazoo. Once you sign up, you have two options to help drive traffic to your blog. Use both of them!

The first method is to earn credits (guaranteed visitors to your site) by using the “surf member sites” function. As you surf through those sites, you will be earning credits (visitors to your blog). When you find an interesting post, leave a comment as discussed above. When you find a blogger you like, add them to your blogroll and let them know you did.

The second method to drive traffic is to purchase credits. The cost is very cheap for the traffic you will drive to your blog. The more traffic to your blog, the more customers you’ll have. The more happy customers you have, the more they will tell others. The more they tell others, the more customers you get. Don’t you love this dance!

In summary, blogging may not be for everyone. However, it can be a great method for bringing your unique perspective to the Internet. You will surely find others who think the same way you do. Some bloggers will entertain you, some will inform you, and some will drive you to tear your hair out. Decide what type of blogger you want to be and be the best you can. See you in the blogosphere!

About the Author

Michele Schermerhorn calls herself a “Corporate Freedom Fighter” dedicated to freeing cubicle prisoners. She has over 30 years experience in the business world. She is President of Online Business Institute Inc. (www.obinstitute.com), authors a sassy marketing blog (www.imarketblog.com), and regularly conducts free online seminars. Online Business Institute Inc. exists to “Create Successful Online Business Owners One Person At A Time”.

13 Steps to Successful Blogging

2007-03-06T06:50:00.000-08:00

by: Ant Onaf

Blogs can be a very marketable and very profitable tool if used correctly. Profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbing the attention of an audience and not doing any actual salesmen selling. In this article you will learn the 13 most essential steps to successful blogging.

1) Where to start?

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Journal Home or Blogger. Starting with a free blog hosting service allows you to begin blogging instantly without having any advance knowledge of scripts, hosting, or programming. It allows you to focus on your content and not the internal maintenance of the blog. The best benefit of starting with a free service is, in the case your blog doesn't become successful you do not lose any money or are you left holding the bill. The great thing about a blog is that they are organized in chronological order, your latest entry is displayed first. When your blog traffic grows greatly and you are ready to upgrade to your own domain then you can simply make your last blog entry the announcement of your "move". Simply add a last entry stating that your blog has "moved" and type the new blog URL address. Which directs visitors to your new blog site, keeping your following, without a major inconvenience to anyone. Upgrade as you need to...but only when you need to!

2) Niche

A niche is a targeted product, service, or topic. You should first decide on a product, service, or topic which interest you. Choose an area which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily basis. You can use keyword research services like Google Zeitgeist or Yahoo! Buzz Index to find popular searched topics. It does NOT matter if your topic is popular as long as there is a audience for your topic and the topic is precisely focused then your blog should be successful. Anything can be considered a niche as long as it has a target audience no matter how large or how small the audience is. A blog about your cat can be a niche or a blog about the species of the cat family can be a larger niche market, if there are people who are interested in hearing about your cat or the species of the cat family...you can even choose to build your audience for a market which an audience does not exist, but first you must build your blog.

3) Update Daily (nothing less)

This step is a must and not a suggestion. Updating your blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting to readers, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a day to day making it more appealing to search engines. Not updating your blog on an occasional holiday or one day here and there is understandable to most, but missing days at a time or weeks is unacceptable and will most likely result in your blog being unsuccessful. To keep your blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is a must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. You should try to update your blog everyday with at least 3 or more daily entries. The best way to accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for tending to your blog and adding new entries. It may even be wise to schedule a set time which you dedicate to your blog each day. Give yourself work hours and treat your blog as a job, what happens if you don't come to work for days or weeks...you lose money or worse you get fired! Same applies here...if you don't update your blog for days or weeks you'll lose visitors.

4) Traffic

It's no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid advertising, free advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing, RSS/XML feeds, and word-of-mouth. You should always use your blog URL address in the signature of your email, forum discussions, message boards, or any other communication media. You should submit your blog URL address to search engines and blog directories. You should submit your RSS/XML URL feed to blog ping services like Technorati, Ping-O-Matic, and Blogdigger. You should confidently share your blog with family, friends, co-workers, associates, and business professionals when it relates. Many blogs can be considered as a collection of articles, for this purpose you should submit your blog entries (those that are valuable and lengthy articles) to content syndicators like GoArticles.com or ArticleCity.com. Once submitted your articles can be picked up and published by others. The trick is to make sure you include your Blog URL address in the "About the Author" passage. What this does is create link popularity and backlinks for your blog, when someone picks up your article from the syndication then publish the article on their website the "About the Author" passage is included with each publication and the link you included is followed, crawled, and indexed by search engines. Imagine if your article is popular enough or controversial enough to produce 10,000 publications across the web. The search engines is bound to find your site in no time with that many publications and credit you a authority on the topic, in return increasing your rank on search engines. The small effort of writing a well written article is rewarding. You should try to write at least 1 full length article every week for syndication and submit your article to at least 10 article syndicators.

5) Track Your Blog

How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one is leaving comments doesn't mean your blog isn't growing. Many visitors do not leave comments but they are returning visitors. I know it sounds crazy but with blogs people are more interested in what "you" have to say! Many visitors do not comment their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd time. Some do not comment at all, but are active daily visitors.

Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated usually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com or Active Meter will do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search engine information. Visitors, returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard for any page counter service you choose.

6) Listen to Your Audience

When using the proper page counter you should begin to see how others are finding your blog and if through search engines then which keywords are being used to find your blog. If constantly your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful. When writing entry titles and entries use the keywords as often as possible while keeping the blog legible and interesting.

7) Multiple blogs

Use multiple blogging accounts to attract more people. This means you should have a blog with JournalHome.com, Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, tBlogs.com, etc. The more blog accounts the better. You can copy/paste from 1 blog to all others. Having different blog accounts is like having a publication in different newspapers. This enables you to attract more visitors and this also increases the chance that 1 of your blogs will be in the search engine results for your focused keywords.

8) Short & Concise

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short & concise (if you can help it). Sometimes there are exceptions to the rule and you have no choice but to blog lengthy entries, but try to avoid this as much as possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of reading. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through your entries. It is good to be detailed and provide useful information, but do not include useless information or run away sentences that veer away from your topic.

9) Digital Art

Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries. Not too much. Once a week is fine. Graphics can sometimes bring your blog to life. Of course, the content of the blog is the most important aspect and you do not want to overshadow your content with graphics, but displaying graphics can add a bit of spice to the blog. Be choosy about your graphics and make sure they fit your entry topic. You should add content with the graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos, pictures, and art is recommended.

10) Keep it Personal

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences which relates to the topic of your blog entry. Stay away from the business style of writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-person narratives. Do not write any of your entries as sales letters, instead share product reviews and personal endeavors.

11) Interact With Your Visitors

You now have the traffic you deserve. You should begin interacting with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as: "Monday Money Tip" or "Picture of the Week" which entices your readers to look forward to each week.

Give your readers advance notice about a product, service, or topic which you are going to review and then talk about later. If the President was scheduled to give a speech then in your blog you should state that you "will discuss the speech and give your opinion after the speech airs. Comments will be appreciated".

Try your best to find exclusive information that not many have. Do not disclose any confidential or secret information which is deemed illegal or can potentially get you into trouble, but try to get the scoop before everyone else does. Such as: If your blog was about Paris Hilton (the socialite) and you had a blog entry about "Paris Hilton Getting Married" then it would be interesting to your readers if you had a actual picture of Paris Hilton engagement ring. Give your best effort to dig and search the internet for exclusive information and you will possibly come up with something useful. Your readers will appreciate this and they show their appreciation through word-of-mouth referrals. Imagine how many readers will tell their friends, family, and others about information they only can find at your blog.

12) Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning your traffic into profit. You should use contextual advertising, like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising is usually text links which use the content of your blog to publish targeted ads on your blog. The payout is usually based on a pay-per-click model, meaning for ever click an ad receives you are paid a small percentage of the profits. In addition to contextual advertising it is good to also use graphical advertising such as: BlogAds.com, Amazon.com, MammaMedia, or General Sponsored Advertising.

13) You're a Professional

You're a professional now! What are you still doing with that free blog hosting service? It is time to upgrade to a domain hosted solution. You need to get a web host and choose a domain name for your blog then check its availability. Select the blogging software you wish to use, such as: Squarespace.com, WordPress.org, MovableType.org, etc. When you have your new blog domain setup and ready for traffic then it is time for you to announce your move on all your previous blog accounts. Your last entry to the blog should be a "move" announcement. The title should be "Moved" and the blog entry should state something like "Old Blog has been moved to New Blog please follow and bookmark this link for future reference: http://www.YourNewBlogDomainName.com". This way all returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem finding your new blog domain.

At the level of a professional blogger you may want to team up with 1 or more other bloggers. This will create a more interesting and more powerful blog. The old saying "two heads is better than one", more authors mean more advertising and exposure because each author will have a vested interest in the blog. The idea of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all authors, while continuing to target the blog topic and keeping the blog interesting for visitors.

Following these blogging techniques should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your blog will become popular or a household name, but the effort should at least put you one step closer. Making money online is not an overnight experience like many may think, but making money online is definitely a foreseeable possibility. As well, growing popularity on the web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.

About the Author

Ant Onaf is the owner and founder of www.JournalHome.com He is an online internet marketer, content writer, and IT consultant. Ant Onaf has years of IT-related experience and Internet-related experience. His ingenuity, dedication, and passion for technology, internet marketing, & writing have made him a monumental icon in the World Wide Web. His blog can be visited at http://www.journalhome.com/AntOnaf