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Do Marketers Really Need RSS?

2008-06-30T01:33:00.023-07:00

The recent Forrester Research study, which claims that only 2% of online households in North America use RSS, took the internet marketing world by storm. Does this data really mean that marketers can still afford to ignore this channel?

Soon after the Forrrester study became public, I received a press enquiery asking whether marketers should be interested in RSS now that so few online adults use it.

Is this the correct question to ask? Let's take a look at the bigger picture ?

1. THE FORRESTER STUDY VALIDITY

The Forrester study is just one of those available and cannot be considered as the only relevant study, although it was conducted on a sample of 68,000 households.

Jupiter Research estimates RSS penetration at 12% of the American online population, while the latest report from PEW shows that 9% of the American online population has a good idea of what RSS is. An October 2004 PEW study actually estimated RSS penetration at 5%.

It is also important to understand that Forrester data does not include those that might not even be aware they are using RSS, especially through services such as My.Yahoo, which is actually the most popular RSS reader.

Also, at the same time, Forrester Vice President Henry Harteveldt says that »RSS is critical for any organization that wants to reach out to people under the age of 30«.

2. THE FUTURE GROWTH OF RSS

Regardless of the numbers we put our faith in, the future growth of RSS is without question. Microsoft just recently announced full RSS support in the next edition of their Internet Explorer browser and full RSS integration in the next edition of their operating system, the Windows Vista.

Once RSS becomes easily available to most internet users out-of-the-box and becomes as widely spread as bookmarks, its adoption will grow at an incredible rate. Microsoft has now made sure this in fact will happen.

Consequently, the time for marketers to not only become interested in RSS but also master it is now. Those that test and discover the best possible ways of using RSS for marketing will be ahead of their competition once everyone starts using RSS.

Furthermore, since RSS implementation can actually be free of any charge, there's no reason not to start providing your content in RSS feeds now.

3. GOOGLE SHOWS THE WAY

Microsoft and Yahoo! aren't the only big players to show support for RSS. Google recently launched RSS advertising as part of their Google AdSense program, giving publishers reason to start their own RSS feeds to generate direct revenues.

Those that depend on Google AdSense for part or all of their online revenues actually need to provide RSS feeds, or stand to lose some of those revenues due to their visitors switching to sites and feeds from their competitors.

Face it, today many users are already starting to request publishers provide them with RSS to subscribe to their content. This trend will only continue, with many users selecting RSS as their primary channel of receiving and reading online content.

4. THE QUESTIONABLE RELIABILITY OF E-MAIL

All marketers today are experiencing e-mail delivery problems, constantly wondering whether their messages are getting through or not. Simply put, e-mail can no longer be relied on.

For one, offering your content via RSS as a supplement to e-mail will help you make certain that at least a portion of your visitors, those that decide for the RSS option, will be receiving all of your content without any doubt.

Lockergnome.com decided to start pushing RSS instead of e-mail some time ago, and as a result saw that their RSS feeds are outperforming e-mail when it comes to clickthrough rates for about 500%. Also an interesting fact, they today have 5 times more RSS subscribers than e-mail subscribers.

And two, for your most important content updates, RSS really is becoming a must, especially if you need to be in contact with your existing customers, partners and other key audiences. If you want to be 100% certain that your messages reach your audience, RSS is the way to go.

5. OTHER BENEFITS OF RSS

But all of the above don't even touch all the reasons why marketers should start using RSS today ?

a) RSS will help you generate additional traffic and reach new audiences. Considering the low cost of RSS implementation, this is reason enough to get started with RSS today.

b) RSS helps you to easily get your content published on other sites, thus generating you more credibility and visitors.

c) As a publisher you can use RSS to display content from other sources, thus making your site more relevant and interesting to your existing visitors.

And the list goes on and on.

RSS may not be mainstream yet, but it provides enough advantages even today to make it a must-choice for marketers.

By Rok Hrastnik

Using RSS Feeds to Set Off a Traffic Explosion

2008-06-30T01:33:00.021-07:00

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is the perfect answer to your needs for sharing and distributing content. The way this works is webmasters can share bits of code with one another that give them access to the others forums, newsletters, blogs, information, news, and the like. When this information is shared, it can create a massive increase in traffic. Read the following suggestions regarding RSS feeds and increasing traffic for your website to decide if this is the right marketing tool for you.

Tip #1 Large Sites with Advertising

For these types of sites, like Forbes, Disney, and the like, RSS feeds do in fact increase traffic. This is really a great way to boost traffic for these types of sites so if you are the webmaster of a similar site then trying RSS feeds as a way to increase traffic is a good idea.

Tip #2 Affiliates and Small Sellers

If you are an individual depending on affiliate programs to generate cash for your website, or if you sell your own products, then RSS feeds are a great tool to use to generate more income. You can use RSS to provide interesting news links which will keep your pages fresh and attract additional search engine traffic. If you are a small business and need more traffic and visitors, try using RSS feeds to display fresh, on topic news and see if it boosts your targeted traffic.

Tip #3 Evaluate RSS

RSS allows you to publish your content on other people's websites, so consider creating a feed that contains details about the products you offer and submit it to the major RSS feed directories. Give your feed some time to be picked up by various resources, and you should experience a traffic surge simply by adding RSS to your bag of internet marketing tactics..

RSS feeds set off a traffic explosion for some websites and for others it simply serves to redirect traffic. In order to make the best decision about RSS feeds you need to have all of the information and test whether or not RSS is working well for your site. Give RSS a try and test it, if for some reason it works against you, simply stop using it. With RSS, don't expect your traffic to quadruple overnight... but you should see results in no time at all!

By Michael Turner

17 Mistakes Professionals Make with Their Blogs

2008-06-30T01:33:00.019-07:00

Are you getting results from your business blog? Is it getting harder for you to spend time on your blog because you're just not seeing how it is going to pay off? If so, you're not alone. Hundreds of blogs are started each day and many of them are abandoned after several months because it takes time and energy to keep a good business blog going.

Make no mistake, blogs are a great tool for building community, interacting with potential clients, and marketing your services. And, it's not enough to set one up and post occasionally. You have to use it effectively to drive traffic and gain readership.

We've discovered several common mistakes professionals make with their blogs. Mostly, they aren't using some the features available to them with their blogging software, because it hasn't been sufficiently explained. Eyes glaze over with the mention of RSS, pinging, trackbacks and permalinks. Professionals may be ignoring these things, hoping they don't really need to know. But they do if they want results from their business blog.

Here's a list of what we found on a recent trip around the professional business blogosphere:

Content:

1. Not posting frequently enough. (Recommended: 2-3 times a week.)

2. Content is not focused, and the target audience is not clearly defined.

3. Posting articles that are too long, instead of using extended post features.

4. Not linking profusely (because the professional isn't researching their field on the internet).

5. Poor spelling, bad grammar and typos.

Design

6. No name of author in tag line or on side bar.

7. No author photo.

8. No signature or name in the footer; no way to tell who wrote post on a multi-author site.

9. No subscription form; no way to get blog updates through RSS or email.

10. No way for readers to leave comments and use trackbacks.

11. Too many categories or none at all.

12. No information about their business services and products.

13. Calendars for no reason at all (what is the point of those calendars anyway?).

Marketing

14. Blog isn't submitted to blog directories.

15. Not pinging each time a new post is published.

16. Not using trackbacks referring or linking to other blogs.

17. No blogroll or list of favorite blogs or websites.

If you're considering using a blog to build your business, optimize it by taking time to learn the features and steps that will ensure success. A blog is like any other marketing tool - you've got to use it correctly to get positive results.

Here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Get an ebook and take the time to learn about your blog software or hosting provider.

2. Hire a professional blog expert to coach you on how to rev up your blog.

By Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff

What Is A Blog? - A Beginners Guide to Understanding Blogs

2008-06-30T01:33:00.017-07:00

A blog is short for weblog, which simply means a website that is updated frequently with new information and is organized by date and submission. Blogs are typically a way of journalizing information whether it be personal, business, or what have you. It's like an editorial and a journal all mixed together and available online for constant updates and submissions.

As a beginner, you probably want to know more about blogs and why people are using them.

Blogging started out when the Internet was new and the individuals who were technology savvy found it fun and entertaining to post different things they found on the web for other people to visit and enjoy. It caught on quickly and a community of blogs developed, allowing people to read other peoples blogs. As time went on, new technology was developed that allowed even the non-techie to create their own blog and join the blog culture.

Blogs are popular because they relay experiences, interesting thoughts, comments, photos, web links, and plenty of other information that people find interesting. Today, blogging is really popular and many people will send you a link to their blog so you can keep up with their experiences such as vacations, studies, pregnancies, and any other thing you can possibly think of.

What started out as a way to navigate the web and figure out all of the newness that was the Internet of the early '90s, turned into a way for people to journalize their experiences, share photos, and keep people up to date on their lives. In response to the popularity of blogs, many websites launched software and free sign-ups for blogs so anyone could have their own blog and share their experiences with the entire world.

And so, blogging has continued to grow and weblogs have multiplied into the millions. In fact, there are so many blogs on the web that you can practically become part of your own community with people worldwide, sharing your life, experiences, and thoughts with people you would never have met. Blogs truly are linking people together and they are an amazing phenomenon.

If you are interested in blogging, all you have to do is join one of the many blog websites that will allow you to set up your own account and have your own blog space on the web, giving you a personal space to share photos, experiences, stories, links, and basically anything else that you care to share. Many people even find that writing blogs are excellent stress relievers and quite cathartic, so you might receive some additional benefits from your blog than just the joy of sharing your personal information. Go online today and find a blog website where you can set up an account and get started!

By Michael Turner

Should My Home Business Have a Blog?

2008-06-30T01:33:00.015-07:00

It's fair to say that blogging has taken the Internet by storm over recent years. And it's no surprise that today there are hundreds of thousands of new blogs being launched every day.

But as a home-based business owner, should I have a blog?

To put it bluntly, if you conduct any part of your business over the internet, then Yes, you should have a blog.

So what is a blog?

Wikepedia describe a blog as ..... a weblog (usually shortened to blog) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally in reverse chronological order). Although most early weblogs were manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of "blogging".

You might be thinking that to set up a blog is far too advanced for me, but that is furtherest from the truth. Blogger.com is a Google-owned hosted blogging platform that is 100% free to use and literally takes only minutes to set up and start posting.

Secondly, you might be thinking it's going to cost too much. Wrong! The only cost is your normal web hosting. You don't even have to purchase a new domain for your blog. It can be easily attached as a sub-domain to your current business website eg: http://blog.MyBusiness.com or as a directory: www.MyBusiness.com/blog/.

So why should your home-based business have a blog? Will it benefit me?

The truth is, a blog is just one part of your marketing strategy, although it can quite easily end up being the most valuable and cost-effective way of marketing your business to new and existing clients.

Come to see your blog as a means of getting closer to your intended market.

With a blog, you are giving your home business a personality. You are chatting informally with your market and building that much sought after long-term relationship and trust.

With credibility and trust being what separates successful home business to those that fail, a well-delivered blog can help build a strong rapport with your customers, via you offering insights into your business and your industry. In a low-pressure setting (ie: there should be no hard selling at all), you are networking with your customers in a way that humanizes your business.

So how can a blog work for my home business?

Let's take an example. Your business (which by the way, you run from home) sells PDA add-ons.

By including a blog as an addition to your e-commerce site you could deliver news, facts, figures, views ... in fact, anything to do with your industry.

You can have your rant and raves on topics close to you. You could offer inside tips on using PDA's. You could provide links to other sites of interest that your customers would appreciate.

Your market will love you for your openness and willingness to chat informally, and in time you become perceived as an expert in your field.

But a word of warning. Don't start up a blog just to push sales, offering little but mere "buy from me now" posts. This is a sure-fire way of actually losing credibility.

If you view a blog as a way of communicating better with your customers (ie: talking 'with them' rather than 'to them') then you are well on your way to blogging success and more importantly ... business success.

By Martin Neumann

RSS Feeds Just Got Better!

2008-06-30T01:33:00.013-07:00

We all know that in the world of online internet marketing we need our sites to get good quality targeted traffic on a daily basis. Whether we are just trying to improve our web site traffic just in general or as a specific need to increase our revenue from affiliate programs and adsense the life blood of our business is and always will be quality laser targeted visitors.

So in order to produce high quality web sites we all needed to fill our web site pages with good content rich features and articles, this being a two-fold strategy. Not only do we need high quality content to please our visitors and hopefully get them to return to our sites in the future, good quality content also seduced the major search engines into sending their bot crawlers to our sites on a daily basis and thus ensuring that our web sites were placed and ranked well in their search results. After all, well-ranked web sites in search engine results equals more high quality laser targeted visitors and the cycle continues.

In our quest to fulfil the needs of this web content rss feeds came to the rescue, known by some as Rich Site Summary, rss feeds offer a means of placing a link on your web site from a feature source of interest and this will usually be updated daily by the owner with new features and articles. This is a giant leap forward as far as web content is concerned and enables many web site owners to produce high quality web sites with fresh daily content of interest to their visitors.

Placing an rss feed on your web pages now means that your site is continualy updated daily with all the latest news and views of interest to your site visitors and members, ensuring that visitors not only have a site worth visiting but book marking and visiting again on a regular basis.

This will produce the life blood of any website constant and improving web traffic.

By Terry Till

The Blog Revolution: How To Use Blogs to Generate Solid Web Profits

2008-06-30T01:33:00.011-07:00

Blogs were originally only meant to be 'Web Logs', or personal journals for members of on-line communities to stay in touch, sort of like 'underground news media'. But, it didn't take long for net-repreneurs (internet entrepreneurs) to catch on to their popularity and to find ways to use them to make money. The human mind is infinitely creative and nothing really stays the same.

This awesome entrepreneurial spirit transmogrified Blogs into what they are today: very powerful marketing weapons that have almost made some other forms of advertising, redundant. It never ceases to surprise me how ingenious people are when it comes to finding new ways to generate cash flow, particularly in web marketing - what a power-house!! It leaves real-world business for dead (in my opinion).

Traditional safelists are becoming somewhat threadbare. Isn't it amazing how quickly business changes on the 'Net, and isn't it weird how safelist people 'spin their wheels' by posting, posting, posting, when most messages go to 'junk' in-boxes to be automatically deleted. You can send out a whole lot of messages with safelists, but only a tiny percentage are likely to be actually read by a real person. Maybe that's why email traffic is threatening to choke the Internet. Because of this, many canny web business people have now shifted to Blogs as their main tool for promotion. Many others, like me - who continue to believe that safelists have a role (when properly used) -have made Blogs a valuable extra facility in their marketing toolboxl.

Blogs have become so popular because they are so very user-friendly for advertising. They are practical, easy to set up and very convenient to use. Keeping content up to date is very easy for webmasters who otherwise would have to spend hours uploading and downloading files. Be warned, however, that setting up a 'Free' Blog, will mean you will have a lot of other people's ads on it (There's no such thing as a 'free lunch'). It's always worth paying because, yes, you get what you pay for.

Anyway, There are probably five key methods (and a whole lot more) you can use to ensure that Blogs pump up your web profits.

1. BLOGS ARE MAGNETS FOR SEARCH ENGINES: Go on, get on to Google and, whatever topic you search, you'll inevitably see that the search engines have thrown up a number of Blogs in the top ten results. This is because Blogs are constantly showing fresh, new and key word friendly content just like your web pages should; that's a Blog's very reason for being. Imagine the value to you of having your own Blog pop in the top end of search results. The ubiquitous search engines clamor to highlight fresh, appropriate content - they love it. Constantly re-newed and freshened Blogs leave stale, ageing (and rarely updated) web sites for dead.

2. BLOGS LOVE TO LINK TO EACH OTHER: Yes, Blogs love to stick together, creating networking 'heaven'. Just one link on your Blog could see visitors drop in from all over the place. Wow - visitors queueing to click your links; how powerful is that for an advertising and traffic generating system. Awesome.

3.YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL APPRECIATE REGULARLY HEARING FROM YOU: You see, Blogs today have this great 'comment' facility which means your people - your customers - can ask you questions and give you valuable feedback almost immediately. This is almost like a 'chat' system, and is quicker than email. Forget about having to manipulate your source codes, Blogs make this unnecessary. Blogs have an amazing comment system that allows your customers to immediately post feedbacks and queries. And that's what service on the net is all about today - quick responses, dependable advice and getting what you want, when you want. Now. And Blogs can do it.

4. PUMP UP YOUR ADSENSE PROFITS: If you're into Pay Per Click marketing, well Blogs are ideal for you. Then can stimulate even more regular traffic than your basic garden variety web site. Google AdSense, god bless 'em, even lets Blog owners show as many as three appropriate ads, and these must relate to your theme and content, on their Blog pages. It's Blogging marvelous!! Here's the key reason why your Blog should have a 'niche', a specific theme, a targeted audience. Take time to give some thought to this when you set up a Blog. What about AdSense? The more visitors - and they're likely only dropping in because of what you specifically offer - who click on your Blog's Adsense ads, the more income you can earn.

5. BLOGS ARE A DREAM FOR AFFILIATE MARKETERS: Like me, I just bet you are enrolled in more affiliate programs than you can count. The problem is how to continue to promote all of them. ANSWER - You can easily use Blog 'reviews'. Simply design each Blog entry around the particular affiliate program you want to focus on that day. Extol the virtues of the program, product, service or what-ever, give good advice about the PROs and the CONs (this objectivity impresses the hell out of potential buyers who are usually pleased with honesty) and include your affiliate link, almost as an after-thought. This is not hard-sell territory. This is the 'soft-sell' Most 21st century people run a mile from 'hard sellers' but they will take time to listen if they believe you are giving good, solid, valuable advice. Providing such good, valuable info encourages your people to come back for more. Hey, you don't even need to create an individual page for every affiliate program because Blogging makes this unnecessary. What a time saver!!

Whew. Blogs do get me a bit excited. And these tips are only the tip of the iceberg. I am sure you can be creative in the marketing use of your Blogs because they have enormous potential. Just check out the exponential growth of Blogs today and you'll see what I mean. If you want fresh Blog ideas, all you have to do is cruise through a few of them. Check out what the pros are doing and, do the same. Remember, imitation is the ultimate form of flattery.

Don't let anyone try to tell you that the bottom is falling out of web marketing. The awesome growth and popularity of Blogs shows that they could not be more wrong.

By Happy Blogging!!

Blogging: A Profit Making Internet Option

2008-06-30T01:33:00.009-07:00

Blogging is a relatively new form of communication, closely related to the newsletters of days long past. Your thoughts, ideas, and activities are posted for the world (or a chosen few) to view, and if you choose to include the option, leave a comment. By creating a Blog and adding to it every day or relatively often, you create in your reader a desire to see "what was said next". They will return to read what you post next. Particularly, if what you posted the first time is interesting, valuable information, presented in a manner that is fun to read. A few ideas to get you off and running with your informational Blog, might include: travel, a new baby, planning your wedding, building a new business, working with your clients, developing a new product, counting your blessings, or ideas you are interested in sharing.

No matter what topic you choose, if your goal is to create an unending stream of income, generated by your Blog site, through promoting products, sites, and opportunities to visitors such as yourself. This book will help you attain your goal.

An alternative to the news filled Blog, which includes entries on a regular, or daily basis, is the Informational Blog. An Informational Blog is a site where information is presented on the one page format, along with any advertising you wish to include, and the content is so intense that it draws people back time and time again to reuse the site. Informational Blogs can be as long or short as you wish. Informational advertising links run down either side of the page, promoting topics similar to the one you are writing about.

These Blogs are chock full of information, links, ads, and ideas that promote the content or purpose of the Blog. A Blog of this type will run on "Auto-Pilot" for many weeks at a time, just earning you money, while you go out and play with the kidlets, take a vacation, or build a "real" business on the side.

Have a desire to communicate and something important to say, Blogging can get your point across. Concentrating your knowledge on one topic brings a specific traffic to your site.

Jan Verhoeff

Blogging will Soon Take Over the World

2008-06-30T01:33:00.007-07:00

In recent years, it's been pretty obvious that "blogging" (Web + Log = Blog) has simply taken over the internet.

Early blogs were first used by creative (bored?) indivuals, and larger news companies. http://info.cern.ch/ was one of the earliest blogs, followed by NCSA's "Whats New" and also NetScapes "Whats New" blog. After this point the blogging scene exploded.

What exactly is blogging? Many consider blogging in it's truest form a type of internet diary. In it's most pure and basic form its simply a single, scrolling webpages with a few links on the side, and an archive table, and larger, prominent updates in the center of the pages. Users usually post small excerpts about daily life, recent events, or news.

Creative writers often attract groups of people, who will pursue and follow that blog, often posting comments on updates. Some writers write outrageous, offensive things that also attract readers. Some people write about personal experiences, and some just flat out write whatever they want!

RSS, (really simple syndication) also started directly because of blogs. Rather than visit an indivual site over and over again to read the updates and posts, coders started using xml to enable these updates to be available anywhere in the world. In response, RSS has created a whole new chapter in the SEO world, all because of blogging.

Many people have begun to weave affiliate links and even sell there own products through their blogs, relying on their dedicated readerbase to generate huge conversion rates. Programs like WordPress can generate ENTIRE web sites simply by advanced forms of blogging. One of my own sites, www.emoneyreport.com utilizes this program. Instead of bloggin real life experiences, we blog our article updates and program reviews. Very nifty!

Even major search engines are taking part in the blog scene. Most noticably, Google, purchased the site www.blogger.com. Now google controls the largest, most successful blogging site to date! Google indexes and spiders every post created on this site, EVERY day. It's common practice to create a blog, write small posts and link to your own site through the blog, and doing this you can get spidered and indexed within a day!

We have to ask ourselves, whats next for blogging? Will blogging become the next form of linking? Who knows? All I know for sure is that I like what blogging has become, and that it allows my site to generate income for hundreds of people all over the internet.

How to Promote Your Blog for Free Online

2008-06-30T01:33:00.005-07:00

11 Ways to Promote Your Blog

1. Ping weblogs.com and other search engines. When you ping a blog, you are telling the search engine that you have updated your blog content and that your listing should be refreshed. Weblogs.com is a blog update notification service that many individuals and services use to track blog changes. Pinging your blogs to the search engines is the fastest way to get the search engine robots to visit your blog. Also, many people browse these sites to find something new.

2. Submit your blog address to blog search sites and directories. You can submit your blog's url to websites such as Technorati, Daypop, Blogdex and Popdex. For a complete list of websites where you can submit your url, go to http://www.guidetorss.com

3. If you have some cash you can promote your blog using pay per click search engines such as Yahoo Search and Google Adwords.

4. Set your blog to display RSS feeds and submit your blog's RSS feed to the major RSS feed directories online. A good place to start is http://www.guidetorss.com which provides a list of the top RSS directories.

5. Put your blog URL in your email signature. If you're a regular at any online discussion forum, you can also add your url to your signature line at the bottom of each message you post.

6. Install a blogroll. A blogroll is a collection of links to other weblogs. Services such as Technorati spider your links to tell who's linking to you and who you're linking to. If you show up on someone's Technorati link list for their site they're likely to visit your site to see what you said, increasing your exposure. Blog owners can also visit your site to check it out if you show up on their referral logs.

7. Be an active commenter. Try to leave comments on the blogs that you regularly visit. Most comment systems also provide a way for you to leave a link back to your blog which begs a visit at the very least.

8. If you plan to have anything printed up, put your blog's web address on it. You can print your blog URL on business cards, stickers, leaflets, etc.

9. Take advantage of blog software features that help to promote your Blog. For example, if you're using Blogger, you can do this by turning on: "Email This Post", "Post Pages" "Site feed" and the Blogger Navbar. These features will help attract new visitors to your blog.

10. Exchange Links with other Bloggers or blog owners. This is another effective strategy for generating targeted traffic to your blog for free. It involves contacting other blog owners for a possible link exchange partnership. All you have to do is locate blogs that are related to yours and contact the webmaster to swap links.

11. Write articles or free reports for other webmasters to publish and put your blog url in the byline. The 'byline' is the short paragraph that goes at the bottom of each article and describes who the author is and what they do. If you write good content, your articles will be published by other webmasters and many readers who like your article will go on to visit your blog. You can submit articles for free at: http://www.going-platinum.co.uk/

By Chileshe Mwape

Should Affiliates Really Use Blogging and Pinging To Get Indexed?

2008-06-30T01:33:00.003-07:00

There seems to be a huge craze lately with everyone trying to blog and ping to get their websites indexed into the search engines. Although this can be a great tool, all marketers should first understand exactly what they're getting themselves into before starting.

This article is to serve as a beginners guide to getting started with blogging and pinging.

1. What is a blog?

A "blog" is short for "web log." A web log is an online diary or journal. The main aspect blog is that it is frequently updated - at least once a week, sometimes every day or even more.

Since blogs are regularly updated, they tend to carry more value than regular static HTML pages (in some cases).

2. What is a ping?

A ping is a program that sends out a brief request for a response from another computer or server. When you ping on the Internet, you send out a program to see if a remote server is responding.

3. How do bloggers use pings?

Two main reasons to use pings with blogs: First and foremost is to let the search engines know that you have updated your website so they can send their spiders.

Secondly, pings also update the websites on the internet who are using your blog on their site (through a feature called RSS feeds, they are displaying your messages on their site).

4. So what is the big deal about blogging and pinging?

Smart affiliate marketers use blogging and pinging to help get their sites crawled and indexed by the search engine spiders a lot quicker than they normally would.

They set up a blog either on their main site or on a sub-domain of their site. They then post links to their product pages on their blog and send out a ping to all the major servers on the Internet.

That ping says "This site has fresh content, time to go add it to your database!" It's a trigger that sends the search spiders looking for updated pages on your site. When they find the new pages, search engines tend to index them much faster.

Blogging and pinging will not get you into EVERY search engine overnight. As of this writing, it is most effective with getting into Yahoo. But often MSN, and even Google, will follow in short order.

Combine blogging and pinging with good link recruiting for the best indexing.

Also, blog and ping on a regular basis if you want to "stay" indexed in the search engines.

6. Is blogging and pinging a requirement to get indexed?

No. You can get indexed quickly by getting plenty of natural backlinks. But for backlinks to be most effective, they have to appear as if they were natural and this can take weeks if not months. Blogging and pinging does seem to drastically shorten the process.

7. Is there a downside to blogging and pinging?

Yes, some marketers are starting to abuse this strategy and the engines are getting wise to it! If you go over-board you risk getting your website completely banned and removed.

Also, many marketers are blogging and pinging for a few days and then forgetting about the website - your website will likely be de-indexed if you do not continue to naturally blog and ping.

The bottom line is that blogging and pinging is a great strategy right now to help you get your website indexed faster. However, the old natural way of getting incoming links is still the best and most assured way - not to mention the long-term benefits of having incoming links.

If you have not yet started blogging and pinging, I suggest you start with a practice website first, not your main website.

by Anik Singal

Why Every Artist Needs a Blog & How to Create an Artist Blog

2008-06-30T01:33:00.001-07:00

As an artist, the key to selling more artwork is maximizing its exposure. The internet is an increasingly popular tool for promoting original art, and if done properly, can be quite profitable.

One of the most effective (and free!) online marketing tools for artists is the blog. Artist blogs provide an easy way to display your art, discuss your creative process, post exhibition announcements and more. Best of all, blogs require no working knowledge of HTML and the search engines love their dynamic content.

What is a blog and how will it sell my art?

A "blog" is a web-based diary or journal. The author of a blog, also known as a "Blogger", publishes content on a regular basis about a focused topic. These regular postings typically provide a "community" feel by allowing site visitors to post feedback to your journal entries. This mode of communication can deepen relationships with potential art buyers, leading to increased sales.

Blogs also have the ability to archive all of your previous posts, dynamically creating an individual page for each journal entry. The feature is great for art buyers using search engines to find original art. For example, if you have a blog post describing a painting that you just completed of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset and an art buyer in Florida goes to Google and searches for "painting of Golden Gate Bridge at sunset", there is a very good chance that your blog entry will appear pretty high in the rankings. Cha Ching!!

Many artists have felt the pain of email marketing losing its effect due to spam filters, junk email overloads and virus paranoia. Blogs provide a new way to communicate with clients, fans and industry professionals. This trend can support your email marketing efforts by allowing blog subscription options for site visitors so that they are notified whenever your blog is updated along with providing a permanent place on the web for all of your postings as opposed to newsletter emails that are typically deleted.

How to start a blog

Blog Publishing Tools
To begin, visit some of these free blogging sites, all offering unique template options that even an artist can appreciate, image uploads and syndication ability.

Blogger.com (blogger.com) - Simple to set up and multiple authoring ability

MSN Spaces (spaces.msn.com) - Create your own mini site, with an exceptional blogging feature

Live Journal (livejournal.com) - Requires a bit of 'blogging knowledge' to get it set up

Blog Drive (blogdrive.com)

If you're interesting in reviewing additional blog features, these sites require a small monthly fee to maintain.

Typepad (typepad.com) - starts at $4.95/month

Tripod Blogs (tripod.lycos.com) - starts at $4.95/month

Note to artists with MySpace accounts: MySpace provides members personal blogs, but it is important to know that MySpace blogs are not currently listed in search engines, which as noted above, is one of the main reasons to get a blog. While MySpace works to remedy this issue, it is recommended that you blog using a tool that is accessible to search engine spiders.

Decide on a title for your blog
The title of your blog should be brief and to the point. You can get creative with your language in the blog description / tag line. A focused title will help with higher search engine rankings and make it clear to visitors what the blog is about.

For example, the title for ThePauper.com blog is "Diary of a Pauper". The blog description is "Rants and raves about the careers and lives of starving artists." The title is concise, stating exactly what it is, while the description is a bit more creative.

Blog theme
It's important to establish yourself as a professional working artist if you want to use your blog as a vehicle to sell your art. Blog theme involves the layout and color of the page, quality of the artwork images displayed and verbiage used for blog postings.

Select your blog template carefully and make a habit to review your blog from the perspective of a potential client. Is the page visually appealing? Do the images of your artwork provide a link to an extra large version to see detail? Does your content have a consistent theme?

Here's a good example of a working blog by mix engineer, Ken Lewis: http://protoolsmixing.com/blog.html

The content theme is exceptionally consistent, plus the colors and page layout match his website.

What to write
What's beautiful about blogs is that there are no rules on what to write, but if you want to attract and keep an audience, you might consider some of these suggestions.

Keep your posts creative and interesting. Move and inspire your readers by being completely honest about your creative process.

Use keywords in your blog title and post. Using the example mentioned earlier - if your post is about a Golden Gate Bridge painting, be sure to use that exact phrase in the title and body of your blog. Think about what people might type into search engines to find your content and then use those keywords in your blog. This technique will help increase the ranking of your web page on search engines.

Post daily, or at least twice a week. If you publish blog entries frequently, you will see more return visitors, subscriptions to your blog and comments from site visitors.

Proofread and preview your blog entries before posting. Some blog HTML editors have a way of creating weird symbols out of certain characters and a quick spell-check never hurts. (Note: be sure to create your blog entries using Word or some other text editor. Many blogging tools tend to "time out" after a certain amount of time and you could potentially lose hours of work.)

Publish your blog
Finally! Your blog looks great and has unique content. Now, depending on the blogging tool that you selected, follow the steps to publish it to the World Wide Web. Test the live URL that now houses your blog. If all of your graphics appear correctly and the copy is flawless, then you want to make sure that you promote your blog on your personal website, in your email signature and by word of mouth.

Using the tools you already have to spread the word while testing your dedication to frequent posting is the best way to get started. Part 2 of will unveil tons of ways to promote your blog online.

By Kristin Royce

Profit Pulling Niche Blogs with Wordpress

2008-06-30T01:32:00.029-07:00

When it comes to building and creating profit pulling niche blogs niche sites) Wordpress really shines and really beat Blogger.com heads down.

Wordpress is more than just a blogging software.

In the past when blogging first evolved, marketers did not give it much thought...until they discovered the power of syndication through RSS feeds.

With Rss feeds, they can now reach out to a target markets they normally would not have been able to.

Wordpress has an in-built syndication function, unlike Blogger.com where it still needs some configuration.

In addition, Wordpress has some powerful features that make it a marketer's dream tool:

(a) Automatic Pinging

Wordpress will automatically ping the blog directories listed each time you publish a post.

http://www.wordpressvideos.com

(b) Categories

It might not seem like a big deal, but when you realize that you can name the category using keywords you want to target, then BAM!

It hits you like a rock. You can have multiple categories named using keywords you want to target, and write your post under that category. With proper planning and carefully spreading the same keyword in your post, you can achieve higher Search Engine rankings easily.

(c) Plugins

Plugins give Wordpress additional functions and features. All you need to do is upload the Plugin file, Activate the plugin file and you're set to go.

(d) Easily change the theme of your blog (site)

With Wordpress, everything is just point and click (or plug N play). You can easily change the theme and layout of your Blog without having to learn about web design.

Wordpress is easy to master. Visit www.wordpressvideos.com where you'll find a collection of expert video tutorials with Monthly Updates and other bonuses to help you in your online business.

By Brandon Hong

NEWS FLASH! Article Directories JUMP-ON The RSS Syndication Band Wagon

2008-06-30T01:32:00.027-07:00

Quick question... do you publish 'Articles' on a regular basis?

I'm talking like on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

If so, then your in for a real treat.

If you haven't heard, RSS(Real Simple Syndication) is taking the Internet by storm because of its many Benefits, especially for someone(you) who provides fresh 'Quality' content on a regular basis.

Not only does RSS GUARANTEE 100% delivery to whoever opt's in to your feed(s), it can also 'Syndicate' your content across the Internet in an instant to thousands of websites and portals delivering an avalanche of FREE targeted traffic to your website(s) at NO Cost to you what so ever.

WoW! Was that a mouthful or what? It gets better, so hold on.

We all know that without Traffic to our website(s) we have no business.

We also know that the Internet is starving for fresh content on a Daily basis to feed its evergrowing appetite for information.

The upside to this IS if your someone(you) who publishes articles as one of your means of online promotion for your website(s) then your in for a real ride.

As you well know Article Directories are one of the primary places article publishers(like yourself) go to submit their articles.

Why?

Simply because this is where website owners go to find fresh related content to publish in their newsletters or on their websites on a daily to weekly basis to feed their audiences need for Information.

And with time always being a major factor, adding fresh related content can become quite a chore for a website owner who is already hard pressed for time as it is on a daily basis while trying to keep up with all the other daily duties a online business requires.

So with that being said, how does RSS and Article Directories fit into the mix and how can You benefit from this technology by providing and submitting fresh 'Quality' content on a weekly basis to Article Directories that offer RSS Syndication?

The answers simple.

The Article Directories(at least most of them) NOW have RSS Feed databases available under any category your article falls under for those website owners who looking for RSS feeds and have websites that are RSS ready.

Whats this mean for you?

This means everytime you submit your new article to the Article Directories that offer RSS Syndication and they approve your article to the particular category you request upon submission and lets say for example 1000 websites have that RSS Feed category plugged into their RSS Feed list, guess what?

The next time that RSS feed updates(usually within 24 hours) guess whose article is going to show up on all those 1000 websites INSTANTLY?

That's right... Yours!

Whats this mean for you? Simple... more Traffic and more $$Profits$$!

Are you starting to see the HUGE benefits to RSS and Article Directories adopting this new technology?

Do you see the benefits this will give the person(you) publishing articles to these directories on a regular basis?

I think you do because I know I do.

RSS Syndication is truly becoming the cornerstone of how content is delivered and/or syndicated online and it has only begun.

Once everybody else Jumps-On the RSS band wagon after seeing the true benefits of RSS Syndication and how it can deliver their content to their target audience without any worry of being redirected into the trash can like email, You the publisher will benefit for years to come receiving FREE targeted traffic, collecting more leads and making more sales without having to do anything But provide fresh 'Quality' content to these Article Directories on a regular basis.

So... the only thing you have to do now is find those Article Directories that offer RSS Syndication and start submitting your articles to them.

If you don't write and publish your own articles maybe you should consider getting started and/or hire a Ghost Writer to write them for you.

Below I have listed a few resources for you that offer RSS Syndication for you to get started with. I would of listed more but there's just to many.

(Note: Some of the resources below are free and some are paid just so you know in advance.)

Blogs: A Fool Proof Way to Attract Visitors

2008-06-30T01:32:00.025-07:00

Blogs might seem like an old hat at this time as by now really everyone has one him- and herself. But exactly this fact is what makes them such a valuable promotion tool even for long existing websites (that are no blog and don't have one yet): The wide and large userbase. There are thousands of bloggers around in every kind of niche that will visit every new blog they can find with great interest and thus making great new customers for your existing website. And the best thing is it doesn't even take much work to add your own blog to your website and promote it. This article will take you through the only three steps that are needed.

1. Create Your Blog

I won't get into the technical details of creating a blog here much. You can find more tutorials on how to set up a blog on the internet than anyone could ever need and in the end it doesn't matter if you use WordPress, TextPattern or any other blogging software. However make sure your choice provides a RSS Feed for your articles as this will be later for promoting your blog. It also matters what you add to the layout of your blog: Since you want to use it as a promotion tool for your website you will want to include one or several prominent links to your homepage on the blog and don't give your visitors many choices through links to other sites.

2. Write Something

This one might be the hardest part for many people, especially for those with no earlier blogging experience. However it isn't quite as hard as it sounds: You just have to write little articles, news and thoughts about the topic of your main website(and be sure to include a link to it in everything you write!) and the more often you do this the better your blog will perform.

3. Promote The Blog

That's easy again! The first and best thing you can do is to ping your blog. That actually means to tell all those big blog content aggregation sites out there that you have added a new article to your weblog. They will then spider it some time later and place a link to your fresh content on their site thus driving visitor to you. The best thing about pinging is that you can ping all the important blog aggregators out there at once with the Pingomatic. The next step is to add your new weblog to all the RSS directories out there. Those are basically the same as normal directories, just that they index the RSS Feed and not the site itself. You can find a big list of them here.

After those three steps everything should start to get rolling automatically. How far it will roll however is totally tied to your content: The more often you update your blog the more success it will probably have and therefore drive more visitors to your website.

By Thomas Höfter

Im a Failed Blogger!

2008-06-30T01:32:00.023-07:00

I've never been popular in my whole life. I think there must be something inside me that didn't get enough attention as a kid or something because I seem to find myself looking for it all the time. I think about some of the career paths I have walked down: I've been a musician, a pastor (who gets to get on a platform and talk to people - getting attention - even if I do have something selfless to say - I like the feeling I get when I feel like people "get it" - anybody else have this in common?), I've been a stand-up comedian (here, there's a real pressure to get people to like you because if they don't, they let you know fast). I even started "blogging" because a lot of great bloggers are out there and they seem to know how to type just the right things to get lots and lots of feedback. Heck, I figured I'd tried everything else, why not see if I get some feedback, too. And you know what I found out?

Blogging is frackin' hard! And what is the whole point of a blog? To get comments. Yes, it is! You know good and well that to write things because you have to simply "get them off your chest," you could write in a diary or a journal (by journal, I mean, the "book," not the "webjournal"). You could even type it on your computer and save it away in your "My Documents/Private Diary of 2 am Thoughts." Nobody would ever have to see it. But, you don't. Why? Because we have something inside us that wants people to give a crap! We don't want our thoughts to remain silent. Especially controversial thoughts. Why? Maybe because controversial thoughts gain ATTENTION! And with attention comes what? More feedback. And I am no different. Musician. Artist. Comedian. Pastor (Actually, I should use the word "Preacher" here instead of pastor.). And now, Blogger. The only difference is that nobody reads my blogs. Well, if they do, they rarely comment on them.

I got fired because I blogged. I wanted attention. I got attention all right. And you know what? I still blog! Why? Because I'm an idiot? No, because I figure somewhere out there, somebody might just care enough about what I'm saying that they'll comment back. Maybe even get a whole revolution of blogs going. Who knows? Maybe I could be one of those "Expert Bloggers" - you know who you are, if you are even reading this - that draws conversations and big dialogues over at my blog because I'm just cool enough to get people's attention.Only I'm not cool enough.

And I've commented on other blogs. My, oh my, how I have commented and "prostituted" myself all over the blogosphere. Who cares, I guess. Some guys (and gals) are really popular. They can write, "I had an orange today," and they still receive thirty-five comments ("Hey, Me too!" - by JoeBlogg, among thirty-four others saying, "Hey, I love oranges!"). Nothing for me, though. Sadly, I actually make up my own comments and put fake names on them just so if by some chance somebody comes along and reads it, they'll think, "This guy must be cool. He must be popular. People are commenting on his." Sadly, I have done this before.

I'm a failed blogger. I could hang my head in shame and bow out gracefully. But, I will probably continue to post these random thoughts because somehow, it means something to me. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow, somebody will see it and the whole "Emerging Pilgrim Blog Revolution" begins. And if not, maybe I'll just take it on the road. Time once again to hit the Comedy Clubs. At least there if I don't get laughs, I'll get some food out of the deal.

By Bryan Thompson

10 Benefits of Being a Blogger

2008-06-30T01:32:00.021-07:00

I have been a blogger since September 2004 but only began to take it seriously this year. My blogging journey began when I stumbled upon a company owned by Google named Blogger.com that offered free tools to build a website.

In fact Blogger provides you with free several templates which you can customize in addition to a domain name hosted on their server. You can host your blog on your domain if you like to. Here are some benefits I found while blogging:

1) Easy to manage. A blog can be set up by even a novice in no time. All you have to do is post and publish. Blogging can get as simple as that or even more complex.

2) Easy to update. Blogs can be updated weekly or daily instead of sometimes monthly for a static website. Even adding a few paragraphs a day can be done in no time and can be beneficial to your search rankings.

3) Get spidered quickly. Search engine spiders crawl blogs with greater frequency than static webpages. I have had webpages that took over eight months to be indexed in Google where as Yahoo sometimes index my blogs in weeks sometimes days.

4) If you write articles then you can post all of them on your blog in addition to free reprint content that is widely available everwhere. The more content you have the better.

5) You can get your website indexed quicker. An article or a piece of news about your website with an optimize anchor link will send the spiders your way in no time.

6) Sell advertising space. If you have a popular blog then you can create a revenue stream by selling ad space. Blogads is one of several places where you can sell your ad space to major companies.

7) Similar to offering ad space, you can add Adsense to your blog to monetize your content. What I love about Blogger is that once you plug in the Adsense code into your main template, a new page is created and Adsense is automatically displayed when you make a post.

8) Review your affiliate products. If you have a blog that is in a niche then you can find affiliate programs for that niche and do reviews of them for a commission. Every time someone purchases the product or service through your link you make money.

9) It is still early to catch on. Blogs and RSS feeds are used by the minority of internet users which makes it excellent for you to start blogging right now. Less than 10% of the Americans which is the biggest online market use this emerging trend.

10) Can be syndicated. An easy way for your readers to stay in touch with updates is to add your blog to their My Yahoo and My MSN. They can see the latest information and how long ago it was added.

11) Yes a bonus! Savvy marketers know that if you add your blogs to My Yahoo you can have it indexed in no time by Yahoo. You can use these two websites to inform blog directories that you have updated your content.

a) http://WWW.Ping-o-matic.com

b) http://WWW.Rssfeedpromoter.com

So with all those benefits in mind there is no reason you should not start your own blog. So when do you decide to go blogging?

By Nicholas Dixon

Your RSS Feed Might Look Like Spam

2008-06-30T01:32:00.019-07:00

RSS feeds seem to be the breakout technology for the year. With more users turning to them for driving traffic to their site, it's no wonder that a trail of RSS feed spam is following in the wake. A careful editing of your RSS feed could make the difference between being classified as genuine content or RSS spam.

RSS search engines are just beginning to pick up steam. As more RSS feeds become searchable, the number of visitors will increase and spam is sure to follow. It is an unfortunate side effect of free communication. While RSS users can typically unsubscribe to feeds they deem as spam, browsing with keywords in an RSS search engine is where the problem arises.

RSS spam largely consists of three main types most often found in the RSS search engines. The first type is keyword stuffing.

Keyword stuffing involves filling each RSS feed article with high-value keywords for a specific topic. The articles are not intended for human visitors, but instead for search engine robots to direct traffic to a target web site. This RSS spam technique is nothing more than an adaptation of the typical keyword-stuffed web page, often banned by major search engines.

The second type involves RSS feed link farms. These RSS articles often contain very little content, if any, other than a simple keyword. Their main attraction is the feed title. Clicking the feed title takes the user to a blog containing tens or hundreds of other blogs and RSS feeds, each directing to more links within the farm. The goal of this type of RSS spam is to trick the user into clicking advertisements or directing them to a product web site.

The third type is the creation of fake RSS feeds. These appear as legitimate, but often duplicated, article content. Whether they provide value or not is certainly debatable. These feeds are usually created in mass, using automated scripts, and appear similar in nature to the link farms. By attracting the users to seemingly valuable content, they hope to gain advertisement clicks or product web site traffic.

Your RSS feed might happen to fall into one of these three categories. While you may currently be experiencing increased traffic from the RSS search engines, these directories are working on filtering out the RSS spam techniques. However, you can still take advantage of RSS feeds and their power by following an RSS-friendly guideline.

Refrain from using automated scripts to create online content used by your RSS feeds. Instead, write your own original thoughts, product descriptions, and reviews. It takes a little more time, but the search engines will value this content much more highly, your visitors will appreciate the unique content, and the subscription count to your RSS feed will grow. It is also important to keep your feed updated with changing content as opposed to using a static feed, which remains the same. Search engines value dynamic feeds and will likely rank you higher as a result.

There are tools and services available, which aid in keeping an RSS feed updated with your changing content. Such services include FeedFire for converting your web site content to a periodically updated RSS feed or software such as FeedForAll for creating and editing RSS feeds.

A successful RSS feed is very much the same as a successful web page. It may take a little more time to digitize your thoughts, but the end result is well worth the effort. By avoiding the tricks in RSS feed spam, you can help make the difference in quality of feeds and enjoyment in your readers.

Blogging Tutorial

2008-06-30T01:32:00.017-07:00

Let's start at the beginning. What is a 'Blog' and why would you care?

Plain and simple. A blog (short for web-log), is nothing more than an electronic journal or a diary to enter your thoughts or ideas by using web-based programs.

However, a blog can be so much more than just plain opinion columns or diary entries. It can quickly become a valuable news source in which bloggers (people who blog) link to a number of other news sources and other blogging sites.

Bloggers are the *construction workers* of the Internet. They literally build "Internet highways" that lead readers from one website (or one blog) to the next, offering an extensive variety of information. Journalists and publishers haunt blog sites in search of trends or emerging stories. Others just search blogs for gossip and tidbits to share with their friends.

A blog can also be used to enhance your online business or even your personal site. It can be used to offer tutorials or free content you may not want to include on your regular website.

In fact, a blog can be a website in and of itself! Blogs are designed to be whatever it is you want them to be, giving you complete and creative control over every aspect of it.

Using a blog can be very beneficial to you whether you have an online business or you simply need some sort of *emotional expressive outlet.* And, blogs are extremely easy to create, use and profit from, even if you have never made a blog in your life!

Express Yourself.

Let's not talk about a profit for a minute.

How would you like to express your thoughts, opinion, point of view, comments, or simply tell the world what you think of e certain topic or issue, or what you stand for?

And how about, ? simply sharing your thoughts with other people?

People are starting to spend more and more time browsing through blogs and communicating through their blogs rather than with any other forms of online communication.

And that's because a blog is something you personally own. It's your own blog. You identify with it. Even if you've never designed your own website, this IS your website. This IS your web presence.

Let's say you're a teacher, or work at the office, or a mechanic, or whatever you do for a living. You can share your thoughts only with the few people that you work with or hang out with.

But by having your own blog, you can tell the world. Simply, express yourself and be heard by the world. This is how you do it.

How To Express Yourself With a Blog

At the time of writing this article, I created a blog at http://www.blogger.com in literally 2 minutes. I called it, "Blogging For Fun."

It's located here: http://blogging-for-fun.blogspot.com/

It's going to be my blog for fun (as the name implies), non business related - just having fun sharing everyday information with other bloggers.

Then I went to http://pingomatic.com/, and I submitted my blog to all of the "blogging services."

And now, all I'm going to do is wait until my blog gets picked up and read by other bloggers. Meantime, as I'm browsing through other blogs, I'm going to link to some of them that catch my interest.

Later when I post more of my thoughts and comments, I'll check these blogs that I had previously linked to, just to see if there was new information posted by those bloggers.

And I'll even give them my comments in response to their thoughts or comments. Well, that also goes for other people too. As they read my blog, they can submit their comments to me too.

And that's all there's to it. A simple online communication. But, ......... you're communicating with the world.

There are so many blogs today that they have their own search engine. And the engine tracks millions of bloggers worldwide that add millions of blogs each and every day.

O.K.

How Would You Profit With a Blog?

To put it in the simplest way possible ... same as mentioned above.

Share information with the world - with one slight difference. "Profit in Mind!"

When you go back to my blog "Blogging For Fun," you'll find two links back to my website.

Oooops!

I shouldn've told you that. :-)

If you have a website of your own, use your blog to simply send traffic back to your website where you have your products displayed. Post your articles in your blog, overview of your product or service, comments, announcements, your newsletter and whatever else you want to post or however you want to reroute the visitors back to your website.

Or ...

If you don't have a website, the blog IS your website. Use it just like your website. Post product reviews with your affiliate links, banners, Google AdSense and everything else that you would use your website for.

But ...

Don't ever forget one thing - a thing that I learned the hard way.

Don't turn your blog into a pure sales pitch. A Blog is an online journal. A Blog is best known and accepted as a source of information - a FREE information.

If you're just promoting the hack out of your latest affiliate/MLM programs and such, you won't get much sympathy, if at all. As I already mentioned, I learned this lesson the hard way.

Be open and share information with the visitors of your blog, just as I am sharing this information with you.

More and more you show to other bloggers that you just want to share your thoughts and comments with others, more and more of them will accept you as a source and perhaps even link to you.

If just one, I mean just one blogger links to your blog, do you realize what you've done?

You have just gained access to a major highway. Other bloggers are linked to that one blogger, who are linked to other bloggers, who are linked to other bloggers, and other bloggers, and other bloggers, and even more bloggers, and ...

You get the picture.

You'll get bloggers visiting your blog that are coming from maybe "20 blogs away" who somehow worked their way through the links into your blog. That means you'll be getting traffic from who knows where and from who knows who.

And how do you make that traffic a highly targeted traffic?

Be very specific about your subject, and post comments, reviews, articles and such - only on that subject. Link to other bloggers who are following the same subject. They will link to you too and that's how the story goes.

Let me give you a few profit blogging tips

Tip 1:
You DO want to link to other bloggers who are running blogs on the same subject as you are. Your visitors will see your blog as a resource and bookmark it.

Don't worry that you might be sending some traffic away to other blogs. You will want the same treatment in return. Your chances for other bloggers to link to you are bigger when you're providing other resources. Your blog is not a dead-end street.

Tip 2:
When you're writing an overview about your product that you're selling, be extremely short and to the point. 2 - 3 paragraphs only. And those paragraphs have to be educational or informative. Inform and educate your visitors. Don't sell to them.

Spread your overview in many blogs. Shortly cover only one feature of your product in each blog. Tell them what you're going to talk about in your next blog.

Of course, put a link on some keywords back to your website. Or, at the end of each overview, put your URL and say something like: "If you don't want to wait until my next blog, you can get complete information at my site" - or somewhere along those lines.

Tip 3:
If you just want to use your blog for promoting your affiliate programs or such, write your personal experience with the program. Don't just provide the same sales pitch that was provided to you by the website you're promoting and the one that 20 thousand other affiliates are repeating.

Tip 4:
Don't use the words "I think" and "should" when writing overviews and informing people about your product or service. They're dangerous. They will quickly reveal your lack of confidence, experience and expertise. When you know something for sure and you're very confident about it .... .... .... You will not "think" that they "should" look into it .... .... .... You get it?

Tip 5:
Share information with the visitors of your blog. Inform them. Educate them about your product. But don't try to sell them anything.

When you open your favorite magazine or a news paper, what do you read and where do you spend most of your time? The section with the content and all the stories, or the advertisements?

Why do you keep on buying that same news paper or a magazine? Because of the information presented in there or because of the advertisements?

You get it?

Your blog is your "news paper" or your "online journal" that other people will want to visit over and over. They will want to come back and link to your blog because of the FREE information you're providing and not because of your advertisements.

Of course, while your visitors are reading your blog, think of ways how to sell them something or make them click on the link back to your sales page.

By Steve Dimeck

Blog or Ezine? Top 7 Reasons to Blog Now!

2008-06-30T01:32:00.015-07:00

Many of my small business clients ask me: "What is a blog and do I need one?" As a marketing consultant and business coach, I too had to address those questions in my own business.

A blog is a form of online journal that business owners use to develop customer relationships and establish credibility. Blog authors write and post relevant content frequently - daily, every couple of days or weekly.

After publishing an ezine for some time, I decided to give up my monthly ezine for a blog. Of course I could do both -- for the more points of contact with my target the better. But for now, I'll share my top seven reasons why I choose to blog over a monthly ezine:

Interactivity: Blogging puts the humanity in technology. Readers can leave comments and respond to each other. Adding video and audio to a blog also significantly enrich the learning experience, allowing for various learning styles. Ezines on the other hand, are fairly static.

Convenience & Ease: I can communicate with my audience quickly and efficiently without the elaborate set-up and content requirements of an HTML ezine.

Inexpensive: Lots of blogs are free. For example www.blogger.com. I like Typepad at www.typepad.com. For a minimal charge of $4.95 per month, I get a professional looking blog with upgraded features. Compare with a professional ezine/contact management program costing $19 per month.

Increases Visibility: Search engine spiders love blogs for the simple reason that they constantly seek new content. Frequent postings are crucial for success. As a result, bloggers gain increased Web presence and higher search engine rankings. For example, Google, Yahoo and others often index blog entries within days of posting as opposed to waiting weeks for ezine postings.

Content Management: When I set up this blog I created keyword-based categories for the topics that I'll write about in the future. Each time I post, I select which category my post applies to and voila! My posts are catalogued by category and date. This feature is essential fodder for future e-books and other informational products. Try content management with your ezine articles on your website - things can get unwieldy fast.

Clearly, blogging is an essential addition to my marketing toolbox. It's also effective for any service-based entrepreneur who needs to build client relationships and increase visibility.

By Lena Claxton

RSS, Feeds, and Aggregators

2008-06-30T01:32:00.013-07:00

When you work online all the time, immersed in bits and bytes, hands automatically resting on the keyboard, where the lingua franca is a mish-mash of acronyms and abbreviations - it is easy to forget that the average person has no clue what we talk about. It can be very daunting for the Internet neophyte with all these terms, technology and hardware. That's why I wrote this. Because I don't want people to be afraid to either ask (via comments on this thread) or to click/use buttons they don't know or use.

Way back when I started blogging (6-7 months ago!), I was a complete n00b in these blogging terms too. Now while I'm not exactly the lead programmer at RSS central I do know a thing or two, but when I really think about it I'm only just paddling at the moment so maybe I can help others get into the paddling pool too!

RSS

Really Simple Syndication, let's break it down into the real basics. It is essentially a broken down look at the web page/site, stripping all the presentation and layout, and removing all the neat graphics and cool toys that generally clutter webpages. What's left is an RSS file (in XML format).

Surprisingly out of 1,000 blog readers (who are themselves a small elite minority among Internet users) 66% have not even heard of RSS and 23% said they understood but did not use it. Where do you stand?

Feeds

This is just a another way of writing what RSS can do. Feeds are a blog's (or site's) method of syndicating content, arranged concisely in an XML format and, as mentioned above, stripped of any extraneous presentation. The "feed" comes from aggregators requesting that RSS file to display as content for their subscribers (feeding their need for your well-written articles!).

Aggregators

It's a straightforward description for what it is: it aggregates RSS feeds from whatever source you tell it. These are also sometimes called "newsreaders" although this term is falling out of favor.

There are two types: software and web-based. Software has a following - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_news_aggregators#Desktop_news_aggregators, but web-based is beginning to draw more of the usage. Rapidly expanding online aggregators such as http://www.bloglines.com/, or http://my.yahoo.com/ are leading the way. With blog traffic up 31 percent since the beginning of the year, readers will need a way to sort through the blogosphere, and aggregators are that way.

The main advantage of aggregators is that they allow you to gather all your feeds in one place, and read them without having to navigate all over the place.

Adding Your Feed

You will have noticed button labeled RSS, often times they are orange rectangles (they are also labeled XML). That is the feed button - clicking it will show a lot of XML code. Note the URI, copy it. Then go to your aggregator, software or web-based, and paste that URI as the feed address and save. That will allow the aggregator to know where to fetch the feed and it will do it automatically from that point on.

What's The Advantage?

A big advantage to RSS is that you, the subscriber, is in control. Let's say you go to xyz.com and look for an article on Blogging software. You find it, but there are advertising banners, fly-ins, pop-ups, and then just as annoying you have to click three or four times to go to the "next page" with yet more of the same. With a feed (and appropriate aggregator) you get just the article (content) without all of the extra stuff.

The Future of RSS

So what is in store for us with RSS? I don't have a crystal ball but some things are plain to see. The future of RSS is bright and yet at the same time likely to be mired in specification wars, mainly due to Microsoft's insistence that they rename RSS to 'web feeds' for the upcoming IE7 release. You can read more about this hotly debated subject at http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/76104/microsoft-defends-rss-rebranding.html and at http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/009849.html

There is no doubt though that RSS is here to stay. It has become an integral part of the blogosphere, a method of aggregating large amounts of content from hundreds of blogs into one place. From a blogger's point of view RSS is essential to building and keeping an audience. Wary of clicking on subscriptions, Internet users finally have a way to grab your content (updated every day, right?) when they want it. For the blogger they now have a way to syndicate their articles, sharing them among other sites who publish those articles. Those who syndicate get content, and the blogger gets exposure.

By Richard Dows

Why Blog?

2008-06-30T01:32:00.011-07:00

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 home business owners 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."

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.

Jill Hart is the author of the e-book, 2 Weeks Devotional Journey for Christian Work at Home Moms, and the founder and editor of Christian Work at Home Moms CWAHM.com. This site is dedicated to providing work at home moms with opportunities to promote their businesses while at the same time providing them spiritual encouragement and articles.

By Jill

How Bloggers Are Making Thousands of Dollars From the Google Adsense Affiliate Program

2008-06-30T01:32:00.009-07:00

There is no doubt that the Google Adsense program for publishers and site owners is one of the most successful affiliate programs anywhere. There is increasing evidence that many bloggers have managed to find the right formula to make thousands of dollars every month from little more than a handful of blogs with carefully created and compiled content.

Unfortunately this has also led some unscrupulous bloggers to try and steal other writers work and post them at their blogs like it was their own. Alas there will always be some bad apples in most baskets.

So what are these successful Adsense bloggers really doing to rake in a couple of thousand dollars on a monthly basis? What's their secret?

Cashing In On The Blog Advantage for The Adsense Affiliate Program

When it comes to attracting traffic, blogs have a definite advantage over web sites. It is amazing how quickly a decent blog can attract quality links to itself. These links usually bring in lots of traffic very quickly. Bloggers carrying Adsense ads in their blogs are taking full advantage of this fact.

What this means is that a blogger can set up brand new blog now and within the next few hours will be drawing in traffic. If they already have another handful of blogs with some reasonable traffic, then by simply setting up a few relevant links to the new blog, traffic will take off in a hurry. And of the new blog is able o attract some high-paying Google Adsense PPC (pay-per-click ads) then the impact on their affiliate program income will be almost immediate.

The other advantage is that search engines love blogs so much that they will always tend to rank them higher than websites in any search. The fact that blogs are updated regularly and the rapid growth in links they enjoy are some of the reasons for this. This higher ranking means higher traffic.

When I was starting out in Internet marketing my first site took ages to attract search engine traffic. A new blog I started attracted a couple of serach engine hits within a day or so, even before I had done any serious search engine optimization.

No doubt, in making their decision to actively promote Adsense amongst blogs, smart Google executives must have been fully aware of this fact.

This advanatage that blogs enjoy over web sites is one of the key factors that many bloggers are using to draw the sort of monthly income that other folk need several months and in some cases a whole year to bring in.

Carefully Research Keywords For The Adsense Affiliate Program

While traffic is important in making money from the Adsense affiliate program, keywords are much more critical. Most keywords will attract the sort of ads that pay only a few cents for every click that happens at your blog. A few keywords will draw in ads that pay a couple of dollars. A single click can sometimes pay $100.

Bloggers who are making big money with the Adsense affiliate program are spending a lot of time researching Adsense keywords. What makes this task even more difficult is that keyword prices are constantly fluctuating as different advertisers bid differently for their ads. The clicks ads receive also have an impact on the bid price. With the new Google system, advertisers have an option of raising their bid price.

So if you want to join the ranks of Adsense bloggers earning serious money, there are really no two ways about it, you will need to be an Adsense keyword specialist. This is not as difficult as it may sound at first because there are tons of information available online for free that cover this subject.

Set Up Several Blogs For Your Adsense Affiliate Program

Adsense money is not easy money, at least not initially. One of the things that leading Adsense bloggers have done is to set up several blogs catering for different niches and then linking them to each other to maximize on the traffic received.

By Christopher Kyalo

The Best Marketing Tool For Your RSS Feed and Its Free

2008-06-30T01:32:00.007-07:00

Do a search on Blogs on Yahoo and you get 236 Million Results.A Yahoo Search on RSS yields 558 Million Results. A Yahoo search on RSS Feed enclosed in Double quotes Yields over 96 Million results. How do you get other People to display your RSS Feed when you are going up against such intense competition?

What if you could go Viral with your blog. Viral marketing is word of mouth marketing. When I was about 8 Years old my dad said to me what would you rather have $100,000 a Day for 30 Days or 1 Penny Today, 2 Penny's tomorrow and each day double the amount of pennies for 30 days. I replied $100,000 a day of course. Wow did I make a huge mistake $100,000 a Day for 30 days would equal 3 Million Dollars. If you Double a penny a Day for 30 Days you would receive over 10 Million Dollars.

That is the power of Viral marketing. Viral Marketing is how services like Hotmail got started. Every time someone sent an E-mail from their Hotmail account the recipient saw the message get your free Hotmail account. I challenge you to find anyone who has not heard of Hotmail. I challenge you to find 10 people who have not had a Hotmail account at one time or another.

It had to happen sooner or later. A brand new free service that allows you to go Viral with your RSS Feed. Now you can use the same tools Hotmail used to promote your RSS Feed (Blog). How Powerful is that.

By Mike Makler

Is Your Site Ready For The Coming RSS Revolution?

2008-06-30T01:32:00.005-07:00

Recently, there have been many developments in the RSS arena. Changes that will make RSS a major force on the web and a dominant contributing factor to your computing experience. Online marketers should pay special attention to the RSS wildcard in any future marketing ventures.

If you're like the average surfer or computer user (you're probably scratching your head) what the heck is RSS? Never heard of it?

'RSS' stand for 'Really Simple Syndication' and its original acronym stood for 'Rich Site Summary'. RSS is basically just a simple code like xml or html. Truth be told, many surfers who use the web every day probably never heard of html either.

However, there is one very important distinction you should realize about RSS -- one fundamental difference that makes it such a revolutionary element. It changes how information is transmitted on the web, it sends out or syndicates a site's contents. Don't come to us, we will deliver.

Surfers can view the contents of your site without actually having to go to your site! RSS is usually associated with Blogs and Blogging because Blogs use RSS Feeds to syndicate its contents.

Why all the fuss? Why is RSS so revolutionary?

Basically, in a very simple and practical way, RSS changes 'HOW' information is exchanged on the web. It changes how content is accessed, instead of the surfer visiting websites and getting the information; with RSS a site's information is sent or syndicated to all interested parties.

RSS has the potential to change every website on the net into its own mini-broadcasting system. Sending out videos (broadcatching) and audio feeds (podcasting) to those you have subscribed to receive this information.

Websites can now go from being a 'static' force, just sitting there waiting for visitors to come pay a visit; to a more pro-active broadcasting force, sending out content, news and information. The implications may be enormous and far reaching.

Already, we see some major Internet and Computer Companies gearing up for the coming RSS revolution! Perhaps, the most significant and revolutionary is Microsoft's Longhorn announcement that the next version of Windows will have RSS integrated not only into its browser but also into their operating system.

This will place RSS firmly into the heart of your computing experience. It will change how you use the Internet and it will change how you use your computer. If that wasn't enough, Microsoft's new list extensions to the RSS standard will be under the 'Creative Commons License'.

There is even a group offering $100 million in RSS venture capital funding. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts -- RSS Investors will offer funding in the developing technology of RSS. What's a revolution without fuel! www.news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5778367.html

Another Internet company you may have stumbled upon while surfing, is also gearing up for RSS. Google is already using an xml powered sitemaps system to help it index the whole Internet. Webmasters, can use xml to keep their websites constantly updated in Google.

A while back, Google also bought Blogger.com which is an online blogging system (Personal web logs or journals where people give their take on the state of the universe as they see it!) that also takes advantage of syndicated feeds to distribute its content.

Google is already going 'head-to-head' with Microsoft in the 'desktop battleground' with the release of Google Desktop 2. Google is also finally accepting the RSS standard by placing it in the Sidebar feature ... users can personalize this sidebar with their own RSS and Atom Feeds. In the past, the Atom syndication standard was favored and promoted by Google.

These are just two companies that are gearing up for RSS. There are millions more who are starting to use RSS feeds to broadcast their message, product or content. RSS is a marketer's dream. The opportunities to advertise, promote and sell your products with RSS are endless. More and more businesses are just realizing the enormous potential of RSS. Real estate, insurance, tourist industry...

So what about you? Do you run a website? Are you geared up for RSS? Are you taking advantage of RSS?

If you haven't joined the RSS bandwagon, don't worry, this revolution is very easy to join. Here's a few quick pointers.

First, set up a blog and RSS feed for your site. This can be done within a few minutes with a no-cost system like Blogger.com which is owned by Google. You can even host this blog on your own site. Another system that offers more options is the free 'wordpress' blogging system. Find more out about it here: www.wordpress.org

But blogs are just one area of RSS, make sure you have Google Sitemaps set up on your site. If you need help with this procedure click here: www.bizwaremagic.com/Google_Sitemaps_Explained.htm

There are other simple and easy ways to use RSS on your site. Tags, content feeds, RSS search... Click here for further help on the different ways you can use RSS on your site: www.ezinearticles.com/?id=14366

Get your site ready, don't delay. The RSS revolution is already started.

Microsoft and Google are just two companies that are taking advantage of RSS. You should follow their lead and start gearing up your site for RSS if you haven't already. The benefits are enormous and the consequences of not having or using RSS could be crippling to any online concern. With or without you, RSS will change the web and the way we use our personal computers. However, this is one revolution you definitely should consider joining. The stakes are just too high and besides, what's a revolution without you?

By Titus Hoskins

Blogging Dollars in 7 Hours or Less

2008-06-30T01:32:00.003-07:00

Need to make money fast, but you don't want to spend a single cent to establish an online business? Fret not, dear friend. You could actually start earning from the web with zero capital, zero obligations and zero risks! All these can be accomplished within 24 hours! Read on and I'll show you how.

Hour 1

Try to find a profitable niche. Niches are highly specialized segments of a market where the demand is high and the supplies are low. There are few competitions in a niche, allowing you more opportunity to establish your online presence.

Think of a market that you could cater to. Then narrow it down by enumerating its subcategories. The more you are able to reduce the subject, the higher the profitability will be. For example, the general market you thought of is about dogs. A subcategory of this would be about Chihuahuas. A further subcategory would be about Chihuahua grooming.

Hour 2

Once you have found your niche, run a search at www.inventory.overture.com or www.nichebot.com . The results would show how many searches were made for that subject. The more searches there are, the higher the demand is for that topic.

Run a similar search of the same subject in any of the search engines on the net. The results would reveal your competition. Naturally, you would want a subject that has less competition. This would mean that you're looking for one that would produce few results in your searches.

Hour 3

Once you've found a lucrative niche, it's time to look for its relevant keywords. Run a search of the topic at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox to get a list of related keywords and keyphrases. Keep a copy of this list.

Hour 4

Open an account with a free blogging site. Or, if you already have your own website, download the Wordpress software at www.wordpress.com . It's free. And Wordpress can be easily integrated with any website.

Set up your account. Fiddle with the controls. You'll discover that using a blog is as easy as writing down your thoughts and clicking on a button to publish them for all the online world to see.

Hour 5

Enroll in any affiliate program of your choice. You could choose more than one, of course. Just make sure that such program is offering some products that cater to the niche you have chosen. Try to find a program that offers highly sellable products and generous commissions. Don't settle for a commission rate of less than 20%. Look for something that would give you at least 40% for every successful sale you would be able to refer. A good place to start is www.clickbank.com , but eventually you would want to "graduate" to something grander. But for your initial foray, ClickBank would suffice.

After enrollment, you would be able to immediately choose the products you want to pre-sell. Get the affiliate links for them. Do not lose these affiliate links.

Hour 6

It's time to put that blog to good use! The premise heart of this budget-friendly strategy is your blog. Blogs are excellent and cost-effective alternatives to websites. Search engines love them, and they have their own linking network as well. Also, they are easily updatable, and search engine spiders love consistently updated content.

Write an interesting piece about the niche you have chosen. It may be a personal review of one of your affiliate products, or your views on the niche in general.

The trick here lies in being able to strategically insert your affiliate links in your blog entries. It must be subtle. You won't want your blog to look like a blatant sales page. Your entries should be highly informative, first and foremost. Content is still king, and it is what will drive visitors to your site.

Hour 7

Go to www.pingomatic.com . Ping the blog directories and the search engines that can be found there. This would inform their spiders that your content has been updated, and they will check it out come the next relevant query. What does this mean? Fast indexing for your blog site!

So there you go. A zero dollar, seven hour marketing plan that would rake in some earnings. It doesn't stop there, however. Try to post a new entry everyday, and ping the search engines afterwards. Soon enough, you'll have a high traffic blog site where you could expose your affiliate links to a whole lot of people!

Good luck!

Google AdSense and Blogs

2008-06-30T01:32:00.001-07:00

If you have a blog, or are thinking about starting a blog, then you are definitely going to want to read this article. It's all about how to line your pockets with money that's just waiting to be made without working much harder than you already are.

No only are blogs the hottest thing on the 'net right now, but they are custom-made for Google's AdSense program. Why? It's simple. Blogs represent constantly changing and fresh content to Google's search engine spiders. Feeding fresh content to those little spiders is just like tossing raw meat to a tiger. They just gobble it up. The more pages of your blog that get indexed, the more traffic you get. And the more traffic you get, the more exposure your AdSense ads get. Are you beginning to see where I'm heading here?

It's not just Google that loves new content, all of the major engines do. In fact, some web-savvy bloggers are testing Google ads on one page and Overture ads on the other. It doesn't take too long to see which ads are doing the best when you have nearly side-by-side comparison statistics to look at. Just don't make the mistake of putting Google and Overture ads on the same page together. While they won't kill each other like a pair of Siamese fighting fish in the same bowel will, you will be violating both sites' Terms of Service, and it isn't worth killing the goose (geese) that laid the golden egg.

It's a snap to set up Google AdSense ads on your blog. Everything you need to know is right inside of the Google control panel. What's not so easy is figuring out what ads are going to appear on each page. Since Google targets your key words, and your blog articles could possible wander towards any subject, you never know what you're going to get.

Well, "never" is a strong word because there actually IS a way to pre-test your blog's ads before you post your newest edition. Here's what you do:

? Write your blog article like you normally would

? Plug in your AdSense code and then post your newest page to a sub directory that's not part of your blog.

? Click refresh a few times until Google wakes up and starts sending ads.

? If you don't like what you see then fine-tune the article until you see the types of ads that you're looking for.

With some ads paying as much as $5 per click or more, I'd certainly spend an extra 30 minutes or so tweaking my blog. That's for sure.

If you're working hard to get your blog in front of visiting eyeballs, then it doesn't make any sense at NOT to be using Google AdSense to draw every penny out of your site that's possible. OK, that's the end of the article. Now get busy tweaking your blog and checking your ads. You've got money waiting to be made!

By Diane

Use RSS to Get Your Sites Indexed Overnight

2008-06-30T01:31:00.021-07:00

As you may know, Google has it's very own blogging service called Blogger.com. If you start a blog with them, you'll have your own page on the blogspot.com domain which is currently ranked number 32 of the most visited domains on the planet according to Alexa. What does this mean to you? If your pages are being linked to by a site with that high of a ranking, it will increase your sites ranking. But that's merely a side benefit of using this method. The real benefit of following this guideline is having your pages indexed nearly overnight.

You're going to end up using two services, Blogger.com and Yahoo.com. You won't have to limit it to just Yahoo, but we'll start there. When you have a blog on Blogger.com you are provided with an RSS feed of the content that you post. By adding the RSS URL to your free "My Yahoo" page, you force Yahoo and Google to talk to one another and what their talking about will be your content. You essentially make it seem to both of the search engines that there is something worth looking at and therefore they send their spiders to crawl your blog. Now when the spiders crawl your blog they'll also crawl any other link that you have posted. If you update your blog on a semi regular basis and include any new links to pages you have created or affiliate programs you've joined, those pages or links will get indexed, and often overnight.

So how do you go about accomplishing all of this? It's really not all that difficult. Start out by getting your blog setup and begin familiarizing yourself with how to post to and change the look and content of your blog. If you don't know HTML that's OK, there are plenty help files that show you exactly what to do. When you start your blog, and when you sign up for new programs try to use the same unique identifying name. For example, mine is TheBestWaytoCash. I can shorten it to BestWaytoCash or TheBestWay or just BestWay depending on how many characters the site allows you to use. Later, you can do a search for your unique name to see if your sites have been indexed.

After you have your blog set up, you'll want to add the RSS feed to an RSS reader. We'll start out with your "My Yahoo" page. If you don't have one yet, get one right away. It's free and fun to have anyway. On your "My Yahoo" page locate a link that says "Add Content" and click it. The next page will have a large "Find Content" field. Just to the right of the empty field you'll find a link in small text that says "Add RSS by URL", click there. On this page you'll see a blank field with an "Add" button next to it. Type your RSS URL in and click "Add". Try it with mine to see how it works. My RSS feed is (http://thebestwaytocash.blogspot.com/atom.xml). Leave out the (). You'll notice that the only difference between your regular URL and your RSS URL is the /atom.xml on the end. That's because /atom.xml is one of the types of RSS feeds currently being used. I'll have more on the various types of RSS feeds in future articles.

From this point on, you should try to post new content to your blog as often as you can. Readers tend to like shorter more frequent articles rather than longer less frequent ones. You will end up getting some readers if you have content worth looking at. In my next article, I'll show you how to increase your page rank and make your indexed links mover toward the top of the search engine results.

Till next time, have a great day and good luck.

Talk to you soon,
By Scott Riedy

How to Make Money from Your Blog Content

2008-06-30T01:31:00.019-07:00

Writing a blog can be fun and exciting, but it can also be rewarding. If you do not know how to make money from your blog content then you need to consider implementing the following suggestions in your blog.

Make Money Tip #1 Adsense
Adsense is an incredible service offered by Google to help you make money and help others advertise as well. Basically, with Adsense you choose several ads that blend or complement the information talked about in your blog. Then, when individuals click on the ads that are present in your blog, you receive money! Best of all, Adsense is free to use on your site, so this is a great opportunity to make money without really having to do very much.

Make Money Tip #2 Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate programs are another great way to make money as well and work on the same premise of Adsense. The web surfer has to click on the affiliate website's link and when they do so they are redirected from your blog to the link they clicked on. You will get paid affiliate income for the click, and if they make a purchase when they are on that website you will get paid affiliate income again.

Make Money Tip #3 Blog Ads
Blog ads can help you make money as well. Blog ads are not too different from Adsense or Affiliate marketing, but they are in the sense that blog ads connect web surfers with advertisers. Then, when any ad placements are made a commission is exchanged.

Make Money Tip #4 Business Blog
You can use your blog to simply converse about any topic that is important to you, but you can also use your blog as a tool to help you make money. Advertise your business services; make your blog a business blog by focusing at least part of your blog on your business services. This way, you can still communicate whatever it is you need to and make money as well.

When it comes to making money from your blog you can do so easily with these tried and true tricks of the trade. Whether you utilize Adsense, affiliate marketing, blog ads, a business blog, or a combination of all of the above, you will certainly benefit and make money. Don't delay and start implementing these types of money making strategies in your blog today. Not only will you make money, but your blog will become more popular as well.

By Evelyn Lim

Use These 7 Ideas and You Will Never Suffer From Blog Block Again Guaranteed!

2008-06-30T01:31:00.017-07:00

Is this you? It has been 3 or 4 days since you updated Your Blog. You know you need to make a Blog entry but you suffer from the Dreaded Blog Block. Here are 7 things you can write about so you will never suffer from Blog Block Again

1 - Write An Article

Do you have an Article handy that you wrote before? Have you been meaning to write that article but still haven't gotten around to it. Maybe now you should. Need a topic for that article just ask yourself some of these questions

What am I good at?

What do I like to do?

What do people ask me for advice on?

Is there a better way to do a task?

2 - Someone Else's Article.

Also known ass OPC (Other People's Content) Just go to an Article Directory and Find an Article related to your Blog. Have an opening sentence or 2 why you chose the article and a closing paragraph with related link to one of your web pages

3 - A Blurb about one of your web pages.

A Short 3 or 4 line Summary about your web page and then direct them to your link for more information.

4 - A Quick Tip

A Tip is something that is too short to qualify as an article but important enough to deserve a Blog Entry. If you are a Gardner you may write a short 2 to 10 Line Tip on the best way to keep the rabbits from eating your Carrots.

5 - A Review of your Website

This is a fantastic way to draw attention to your web site. Write a review of your web site. Gloss over the Weak Spots Brag about the good points. (Just don't over do it)

6 - A Review of your Blog

If you have more then one blog then see Step 5 and write a review of your other Blog or even a post in your other blog

7 - Coming Attractions

It's 3am you have a great Idea for an Article but you just don't feel like writing it now. Create a Blcg entry stating that you will write the article Shortly with a brief summary of the Article. This gives you something to write about now and ensures you don't forget to write the full article later.

Here are a few Bonus Ideas to ensure you never suffer from Blog Block.

Quote of the Day

Fact of the Day

Software Review

product Review

the latest Rumor or Gossip

Current Events

When all else fails write about something cute that your Child, Grandchild or Pet Did.

By Mike Makler

Even a 70 Something Technological Challenged Mom Can Get Started in Blogging With These 10 Tips

2008-06-30T01:31:00.015-07:00

Blogging is all the rage. With these 10 Simple Steps even My 70 Something technological challenged Mom was able to Join the Growing number of Bloggers.

Step 1 Pick a Topic

Pick a Topic or Theme for your Blog. Your theme should be something you are good at or something you like. Things to Blog About

your Hobby

Your Passion

Your Job

Sports

Politics

N.Y. Yankees.

Promote a Web Page

Step 2 Pick a Title

Pick a Title for your blog. If your Blogging about Model T Fords then Your Title should be something like

Restore Your Model T.

Henry Ford and the Model T

Model T Pick Your Color as Long as It's Black

Model T They Don't Make Them Like that Anymore

Step 3 Pick a Sub-Domain Name

When you sign up for your free Blogger Account you will need a Sub-Domain Name. Your Sub Domain should be related to Your Topic Your WebSite URL will be something like http://sub-domain.blogspot.com. Have 3 or 4 Sub-Domains in mind in case one is taken.

Step 4 Get Your Free Blog Account

Go to http://blogger.com and sign up for a free account

Step 5 Your Blog Description

Log in to Your Blog account and Enter your 500 Character description (After you log in click on the setting Menu and Basic Setup.) Use Keywords related to your topic in your description.

Step 6 Some Key Blog Settings

On the Basic Menu be sure and Set - Add your Blog to our listings? to YES

On the Publishing Menu be sure and Set - Notify Weblogs.com? to Yes

On the Formatting Menu set up your Time Zone

On the Archive Menu be sure and Enable Post Pages

On the Site Feed menu see the Address for your Feed http://sub-domain.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Step 7 Your First Post

Click Posting and Create and Type in the Title and Body of your first post. Be Sure and make it related to your topic.

Step 8 You Ain't Got a Thing If You Don't Do That Ping

Go to http://pingomatic.com and set up your Pings. Pingomatic will announce your Blog to many of the Major Blog Search engines. Be sure and Book mark the Pingomatic page after it is done pinging. You will want to ping every time you post to your blog.

Step 9 Get a Feed Burner Account

Feed Burner allows you to Burn Your Feed so it can be viewed in a web browser Here is a Sample Feed Burner Feed about the NY Yankee's http://feeds.feedburner.com/YahooSports-Mlb-NewYorkYankees.

After you burn your feed in Feed Burner be sure View it in a web browser and click the Add to Yahoo button.

Step 10 Blog Early and Often

Post and Ping Often. If you suffer from Blog Block here is a helpful article to help you find topic to write about Guaranteed!

http://ewguru.com/blogblock

Congratulations you are now an offical member of the blogging community.

By Mike Makler

How to Use a Blog to Dramatically Improve Your Web Business!

2008-06-30T01:31:00.013-07:00

A blog is an online journal in which the author publishes his or her thoughts and opinions on a subject which interests them. A good blog will be updated frequently with new points of interest which the blogger (author) and readers can discuss.

Recently, blogs have appeared all over the internet. Thousands are being created every day on every subject imaginable. Everyone has interests and so you can always guarantee that other people will have the same interests as you. If you start a blog on something you are interested in you can be sure that thousands of people will be interested in what you have to say. Having thousands of people reading and following the content in your blog has enormous potential. Here are some great ways in which you can use blogs to your advantage.

1. A blog is a great way to promote your web business. Your blog should be about the same subject as your web business because this way you can easily promote the products and services that you are trying to sell. Due to the fact that you can guarantee your readers will be interested in the product you are offering, it looks like you are doing them a favour and not just blatantly advertising to them. A blog is also great for keeping your customers and prospects updated on new products or deals available.

2. A blog is an unbeatable way to build yourself a great web presence. One of the main reasons why visitors will not buy from you on the internet is because they fear that you are not trustworthy. However, if you have a blog which is updated regularly with high quality comments that show you know a lot about what you are selling, this will build your credibility immediately. Visitors will see the amount of time and effort you put into your blog and will think it very unlikely that you are going to cheat them. Boosting your credibility using a blog will skyrocket your sales.

3. A blog will help you build better relationships with your prospects and with your existing customers. Capturing prospects' email addresses is made very easy with a blog. To build a good relationship with your readers, follow up with them privately on comments that they make. For example you could say that you found a comment they made particularly interesting and then give an intelligent, knowledgeable response. They will feel particularly good about themselves that you have sent them a personal email response and this will encourage them greatly to purchase a product that you are recommending or promoting.

4. A blog is an excellent way to boost your search engine rankings. Many websites receive over 80% of their traffic from search engines and so this is a major advantage. Search engines love blogs because they are frequently updated with fresh content. Due to this, new blogs are often indexed a lot more quickly than new sites. A good blog, full of interesting, quality content can reach the top Google and Yahoo positions very quickly. If your blog has links to your website within it, then you can guarantee that this will boost your website's search engine ranking as well.

5. Blogs in themselves can be a great source of income. Google Adsense is a great way to make money quickly because Google's technology makes the ads that appear to be relevant to your blog's content. You can guarantee that your readers will be interested in what appears in Google's ad boxes. Every time someone clicks on a Google ad you get paid! Affiliate sales are another way to make easy money with blogs. Just promote someone else's product subtly within a comment and you could earn up to 75% of the sale. Making money through an affiliate program is extremely easy and my strong recommendation is http://www.clickbank.com.

Most importantly, make sure your blog is based upon something that really interests you. Blogs can be very time consuming but so long as what you are writing about interests you, then you will find blogging a very enjoyable experience.

For more information on this subject or about making money online go to http://www.info-ebooks.co.uk

100s of free ebooks and software products are also available at this address. Gain free access to these by sending a blank email to:

infoebooks@freeautobot.com

Thank you for reading

By William Johnston

Seven Sizzling Ways to Turn Targeted Traffic Towards Your Blog!

2008-06-30T01:31:00.011-07:00

Blogs are an unbelievable way to achieve success on the internet. Blogs can establish a web presence, express your opinions and generate serious profits. However, without visitors a blog is useless no matter how good the content. With thousands of blogs being created every day, you need to know exactly how to get people to your blog over everyone else's. Here are 7 breakthrough ways to bring traffic to your blog:

1. Optimize your posts for the major search engines. Search engines love blogs because they are frequently updated with fresh content. All blogs have the opportunity to make it to a high position on search engines but here are a few tips to beat your competition for the top spots.

Make sure you use plenty of primary keywords in the titles of your blog posts.

Make sure you use secondary keywords in the body of your posts, however be careful not to use too many since this will make your post sound unnatural.

Use keywords in the anchor text of links in the body of your posts since links have a higher importance to the search engines than ordinary text.

If possible try to use your most appropriate keyword in the URL of your blog. Search engines love keywords in the URL and this will have a serious effect on your positioning.

2. Write posts that people will want to read. Put yourself in the position of someone following your blog. Always write relevant content which will be of interest to your blog followers. Good content will lead people to recommend your blog. As a rule, each post should contain a single topic. If you wish to discuss two topics then break it down into two posts. This makes life easier for readers and makes information easier to find. A great mistake that many bloggers make is writing large, infrequent posts. Get into the habit of writing short posts but making sure that you post regularly at least 3 times a week. This way, people will return to your blog because they are sure there will be something new to read.

3. Use your blog posts as articles. Writing and submitting articles is a sure-fire way to gain more visitors. Just turn your blog posts into articles by formatting them, and perhaps adding a bit more detail. This way you are building traffic and writing for your blog at the same time. Recommended sites for submitting your articles are http://www.ezinearticles.com and http://www.goarticles.com.

4. Build links to your blog. This will also have a great impact on your search engine ranking, especially Google. Build links to your blog by exchanging links with other blogs of the same topic as yours. This way you can guarantee targeted traffic. Come to an agreement with another blogger that you will each write a positive review on each other's blog. This way you will get a good testimonial for your website and receive a link on another blog. If you have a main website, then make sure you link from every page to your blog. This way you gain lots of links and whichever page visitors enter your website, they will always have the opportunity to visit your blog.

5. Ping the blog services. There are many services which track and connect blogs all over the world. By sending a small ping to all of these services you will let them know that you exist. They will come and check you out and this could spell serious visitors if your blog is full of good content and is regularly updated. Sending this ping is not at all difficult. Just go to http://www.pingomatic.com where you can send a ping to a number of services very quickly for no cost.

6. Submit your blog to blog directories. Just like if you have a website or an ezine, it is essential to submit your blog to the top directories. A good listing in these directories could mean 100s of visitors every day. You can find a great list of blog directories at http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/. And don't stop at blog directories. Don't be afraid to submit your blog to the big directories such as Yahoo and Dmoz.

7. Capture your readers' email addresses. This is vitally important because it is essential that you can keep in touch with your readers so that you can update them about your blog and make sure they are still reading. Just make sure you have a subscription box on every page of your blog and offer a free bonus such as an ebook as a reward for subscribing. With a good list of subscribers, you can conduct surveys to find out what topics your readers want your posts to consist of. Keeping in touch with your readers will lead them to trust you and they will continually come back to your blog and will recommend it to their friends.

Just be imaginative. Keep trying different techniques to getting people to your blog and see which methods work best. Remember, creativity is one of the keys to internet success.

Get the Internet on Your Own Terms

2008-06-30T01:31:00.009-07:00

RSS for the Rest of Us

I don't know about you, but I'm seeing a whole bunch of articles and websites telling me that I need to get into this RSS thing.

Is it really time?

RSS (it stands for "Really Simple Syndication") is the latest wave of internet technology designed to take advantage of the "Content is King" mentality. Imagine getting direct access to the content you want, without having to give out your personal information. Wouldn't that be nice?

Here's how it works: You find a website you like and look for the little orange XML button, or a link that says "Syndicate this site". When you click that link, you get the raw feed of content from that site.

An example:

My Simplified Selling site allows you to syndicate my content. That means you don't have to remember to visit my site to discovers articles of interest, but instead they are fed to your preferred RSS reader (more on this in a moment) at your behest.

That means you no longer have to open your browser and visit a particular website to see what's new, to find out if anything interesting has been posted. All you have to do is open your RSS reader and content from all over the web is gathered into one place and presented for your review. An RSS reader is one-stop shopping for online information.

RSS Readers

There are hundreds of RSS readers on the market. You can collect RSS Feeds on your "My Yahoo!" page, or your "MyMSN" page. Current, updated content from your preferred sites is presented for your reading pleasure. Check the first few lines and if you're interested, just click and you are instantly transported to that particular article. No more hunting around on a site looking for an article you like.

Newsgator (www.newsgator.com) is a third-party add-in that turns your Outlook mail client into an RSS reader. Not to be outdone, Microsoft has incorporated an RSS reader into the latest release of Outlook.

You can also get stand-alone RSS readers from Bloglines (www.bloglines.com) and RSSReader.com (www.rssreader.com). A quick Google search for "RSS Reader" returned over 2 million pages. You'll have no trouble finding an RSS reader that you like.

But why?

That's really the question. Of course we know why the internet folks want you to subscribe to their content, but why would the average websurfer want to go through the hassle of setting up and subscribing to RSS feeds?

Privacy

RSS feeds are more private than newsletters. Unlike when you subscribe to newsletters (where you must give your email address to the content provider so that the information can be emailed to you) when you subscribe to RSS Feeds, you don't have to give your email address (or any personal information) to the site owner, because they aren't mailing you their information.

Something to consider - it is possible that content providers will start asking for personal information when subscribing to an RSS feed. It hasn't happened yet, so subscribe today before they start!

Portability

When I change email addresses or work on a different computer, I don't lose the content I like, because my RSS reader is keeping track of the content I want to see - without the involvement of the content provider. It's like radio stations on your Walkman. The station manager doesn't know when you change the station and if you move across town, you don't lose the stations. It's all in your Walkman. When you're using an online RSS reader (like My Yahoo! or MyMSN), your subscriptions are available from any computer, anywhere in the world.

No 'Unsubscribe' Headaches

When I'm tired of getting a newsletter, I am required to contact the publisher and "unsubscribe" to make the mailing stop. With RSS, you don't have to interact with the website owner to get off the list. Simply click the button in your RSS reader and it will stop collecting data from that site. You are in complete control.

No More Spam

Today, RSS is pure content. Because you didn't give out your email address to subscribe, you know that you won't get spammed. The internet folks have an incentive to keep the feed relatively ad-free. While you're reading their content in your RSS reader, if the content stops being interesting or becomes non-stop pitching, it is very easy for the reader (you) to disconnect. Most of these folks would rather keep you tuned in than to lose you forever.

Think of it like television. If "CSI: Crime Scene Investigations" becomes a long series of commercials and no plot, people will change the channel, many never to return. So the producers see to it that they have interesting content that keeps viewers returning for more. RSS will likely follow the same route.

Get yourself an RSS reader and start subscribing to feeds today. You'll get the internet on your own terms.

By Chris Ellington

Boost your Search Engine Rankings with an RSS Feed

2008-06-30T01:31:00.007-07:00

I'm here to teach you about how RSS Feeds can boost traffic for your website. You may have heard of it, but I guarantee you are not harnessing the full power of the tool. RSS Feeds are very hot, and the marketing pro's are getting their websites listed in Google within 2 to 3 days.

What is an RSS Feed?

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." Think of RSS this way: Whenever a writer who belongs to a syndicate writes a column, they don't just write it for their local paper, every article goes up on the newswire and any paper who belongs to the syndicate can reprint it.

First, you have to download an RSS Reader, a program that combines all the news online in one place. You can download a reader for free at www.RssReader.com. Once you've downloaded a reader, you can click any topic that suits your need, and only those topics will be delivered right to you.. Why would I put RSS on my website?

An RSS feed can be thought of like this. Let's take five news sources (Yahoo, MSN, CNN, ESPN, FOX). An RSS reader would scan all five news sources and take each headline and create a summary of the article. Now, you can actually sort the news stories and have only the ones you are interested in delivered right to your website from all five news sources. Search Engines are crawling websites and looking for fresh content. If you have an RSS Feed, you are getting up to the minute news stories. These constantly change whenever a new story comes out. The Search Engines will give you a higher Page Rank because it thinks your page is updated on a regular basis.

How do I add one to my website?

I tried an RSS Feed for the first time, and it took less than five minutes. Here's what it looks like:

Bush Celebrates Shuttle's Launch (AP)
NASA sends shuttle back into space after long pause (Reuters)
Shuttle Discovery Blasts Into Orbit (AP)
NASA's aging workhorse returns to space (AFP)
NASA Returns to Flight as Discovery Reaches Orbit (SPACE.com / LiveScience.com)

As you can see, this is my very first RSS Feed. All the news stories within the last hour regarding the shuttle launch are now listed for me and my visitors to read. Guess what? It took less than 5 minutes, and I instantly have an RSS Feed. Why do I need one?

Search Engines are crawling your site and if you are not providing quality, up to the minute content then you are getting placed further down the rankings. Your competition who has this information is getting FREE advertising from the Search Engines who are placing their page 1st or 2nd when users search for a particular keyword.

How do I put an RSS Feed on my site?

You can now place an RSS Feed on your website in THREE easy steps.

? Step 1: Search for topics that you are currently interested in (use Yahoo).

When you see an orange RSS or XML box like the one above, you know that article is compatible with a feed. Copy the URL of the webpage.

? Step 2: Go to http://www.feeddigest.com and paste the URL in the digest for them to create a two line code for your webpage. You can also copy and paste the long page of code if you understand programming.

? Step 3: In Frontpage, Go to Insert - a web component - html markup and paste the two or three line script that RSS Digest gave you. Check it out! Your first RSS Feed! Try it yourself right now, create your first RSS feed in under five minutes, FREE! The only way you can truly learn about them is for you to JUMP in FEET FIRST!

By Kit Elliott

Blogging For Fun & Profits

2008-06-30T01:31:00.005-07:00

Unless you've been under a rock for the last year, you've heard the term "blog" once or twice.

To most people, a "blog" simply represents a glorified online "diary" where geeks, computer nerds, and lonely teenagers record their thoughts in cyber-space.

However, many people don't realize that "blogs" are quietly revolutionizing the way companies and customers interact about everything from existing products to new ideas and improvements in customer service.

In short, "blog" style communication has come of age and anyone with an online business better sit up and take notice fast!

In the beginning, "blogs" were basically an online diary to record your thoughts; but "blogs" have now evolved into dynamic websites that non-technical people can update immediately without html editors or ftp programs.

Blogs allow their authors to make instant website updates through a computer anywhere in the world with a Web browser and Internet connection.

Blogs also allow readers to respond to the author's posts, provide additional information, links, expanded opinions, and more.

In short, an active "blog" creates an interactive community with the author as the hub and the readers as the spokes of the wheel that keep the whole cycle turning round.

Unlike traditional "static" web pages where content rarely (if ever) changes, an active blog evolves in a state of constant and never-ending renewal.

With blogs, smart online businesses re-discovered a principal that small "mom and pop" stores understood for years: know your customers and stay in close tune with their wants, needs, and desires.

Large companies throw billions of dollars down a black hole every year to literally "guess" what people want to buy. Most call it the "Marketing Department."

On the flipside, smart online businesses understand that blogs allow you to avoid guessing what's on your customers' minds and provide an active and up-to-the-minute means for them to tell you exactly what they do and don't like about your services, products, and virtually any other aspect of the market.

This lightning fast communication makes it possible for small companies to literally snatch huge market share away from more traditional companies.

Blogging also has a distinct advantage over traditional email newsletters in that subscribers can get udpates without having to receive an email message. Through the power of RSS (real simple syndication), subscribers get notified of updated content though an rss news reader.

Bottom Line: publishing a blog with an RSS feed that your readers can subscribe to means your content NEVER gets blocked by a SPAM filter.

Blog software basically comes in 2 flavors: hosted and stand-alone. Hosted blogging solutions make it extremely easy to get set up with a blog, often in just a couple of minutes.

If you know how to type, you can create a blog. Log on to Blogger.com and you can set up a blog free of charge and start posting in just a few minutes.

Blogger.com (owned by search giant, Google) will even host your blog on their servers.

Typepad.com, which charges as little as $4.95 per month, is also an excellent hosted service offering additional features that enable you to quickly get your own blog up and running.

The alternative is stand-alone blogging software installed on your own website.

A very popular solution is Moveable Type, available from moveabletype.org, which provides a very versatile and powerful suite of tools for creating a full-featured blog to rival that of any size company in the world.

This is the solution I've chosen for my blog at

http://www.IGottaTellYou.com/blog/

Whichever blogging solution you choose, if you plan to successfully conduct any form of business online, understand that a "blog" must form an integral part of your overall plan for customer communication and interaction.

By Jim Edwards

What are Blogs and How Do You Profit from Them?

2008-06-30T01:31:00.003-07:00

'Blogs' or 'Blogging' have existed for several years and there are still many people who don't know what one is and how important it is to making you money.

A blog is a web log. It's used to add contents of a diary or news by the owner (blogger). For example, I may want to blog about the latest affiliate programs there are and ones that have good commissions as soon as I know about them. People can visit my website and see new contents on my website regularly.

A blog should contain information about a similar topic. For example, cars, computers, stamps etc... The good thing about blogs is that you can write whatever you want on it. Your visitors can even comment on what they think about a particular blog. With a blog you do not need to have any programming experience. You can update a blog easily by just typing what you want just like with a word processor. What an easy way to update a website.

So now we know what a blog is, what's so good about a blog? Why are so many talking about it?

Owners have found that updating fresh content to their websites has been made easier by using blogging software. Before blogs were popular, people had to create the content, get it transferred into HTML by the programmer, and then uploaded to the website. All this hassle is gone with blogging.

Perhaps, the most important thing about having a blog is that the search engines love them. Yes, search engines love new content. It means a website is not static, therefore search engines will visit that website often and get them indexed. If you have a blog, search engines will have your website in their listings quickly.

Blogging should be done regularly by your business. The customers should have the feeling that your blog will be updated regularly so that they will feel the need to visit often. If your blog is stagnant, then people will not go back. This is not how blogs are used.

What a lot of people don't know about blogging is that it can also help make you money. Yes - blogs can be profitable too.

One of the ways you can profit from blogs is to provide valuable content to them, and keep them regularly informed. Once you have created that relationship with them, you can place affiliate links within your blogs. These have to be products or services that you recommend to your readers to use. Good commission comes with using this idea.

You can even ask your readers to donate money to maintain your blog. Stress that your blog is a free service and you hope that they will support you etc...

Once you have a lot of visitors to your blogging website, you can use Google's Adsense which shows Google's ads on your blogs. When your visitors click on those ads, you'll get a percentage of the payment for each click. With a lot of visitors, this will add up to a nice check every month.

You can even have an advertising space at the top of your blog. Advertise this space. You can charge people weekly to advertise what they want. You may even have more than one space for advertisements. The more popular and more visitors your blog gets, the more you can charge for these advertising spaces.

The blog http://www.home-business-setup.com shows the ways in which money can be made which I've discussed throughout this article. Notice the AdSense at the top of the page and also the text link which other people will pay for once they know the blog gets traffic. Just shows that there are so many ways to profit from blogging that it would be crazy if we don't start now.

By Alan Cheng

12 Reasons Why You Need A Blog

2008-06-30T01:31:00.001-07:00

"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.

By Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian

Blogging For Fun & Profits

2008-06-30T01:30:00.023-07:00

12 Reasons Why You Need A Blog

2008-06-30T01:30:00.021-07:00

What are Blogs and How Do You Profit from Them?

2008-06-30T01:30:00.019-07:00

RSS Directory Submission: The Key to Blog Promotion

2008-06-30T01:30:00.017-07:00

According to Technorati, there are over 15 million blogs as of July 2005. And during July, an average of 80,000 new blogs were created each day. If you own a blog, how are you going to promote it in order to stay ahead of the competition?

Fortunately, there is a simple, yet very effective method: RSS directory submission. Submitting your RSS newsfeed to specialized news directories benefits your site in several ways.

RSS directory submission increases your readership. When a person is looking for newsfeeds to add to their RSS reader, it is highly likely they will visit an RSS directory to find newsfeeds on their subject of interest. I recently visited a directory looking for personal business blogs. I subscribed to several, and now read them via RSS on a regular basis. Someone else may have an excellent business blog, but since they weren't listed in the directory, I was unable to discover their site.

RSS directory submission enables your content to be duplicated and linked to from other sites. One of the key benefits of syndicating content through RSS is that it increases your reach. You can publish an article, then have excerpts of that article placed on hundreds of other websites - with links back to the original on your site. Many webmasters want to have fresh content for their visitors, and embedding an RSS newsfeed is the easiest way to do that. You'll want to make sure that you are listed in RSS directories when a webmaster visits looking for website content - or your competitors may get the free promotion!

RSS directory submission provides immediate link popularity. RSS directories are similar to other web directories - you get a free, one-way link back to your site when you are listed. Think about this. Most RSS directories carry a pagerank (PR) of 5 or higher. When you multiply that over 50 RSS directories, that is a lot of links back to your site - meaning increased search engine rank and more visitors.

There are several ways you can submit your RSS newsfeed to directories. The first, obviously, is by hand. You can get a list of the directories (http://www.rss- software.net/rss-directories.php), then go to each website and add your feed manually. Since there are many RSS directories, this can take quite a while. To save the webmaster time, two ways of automated directory submission exist.

The first one is RSS Submit (http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html), a program that automates the directory submission process. All you have to do is open the software, enter the URL for your feed, and RSS Submit will instantly send the feed information to approximately 40 directories. You can also manually submit your site to another 25 directories using RSS Submit's auto-fill function.

The second method is appropriately named: RSS Directory Submission Service (http: //www.rssdirectorysubmission.com). This service is similar to RSS Submit - you give them your feed URL, and they submit it to over 50 directories. The difference between the two is price: while RSS Submit costs $44.95 for a personal, non- commercial license. RSS Directory Submission Service charges $8.95 per feed submission. And since sites usually only have one feed, the RSS Directory Submission Service is more economical for most RSS publishers.

Regardless of the RSS directory submission method you choose, make sure to do it! You will find the effort small compared to the benefits you receive.

By Josiah Mackenzie

An Example of a Business Blog: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Blog

2008-06-30T01:30:00.015-07:00

Think of a product or a service that your business provides to customers. This product may requires lots of instructions to assemble, tips to use efficiently, or simply requires lots of questions to be answered before it can be used. What are your options? Provide a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list on your website, OR write a FAQ Blog.

What will a FAQ Blog achieve that a simple FAQ List on your website cannot achieve?

FAQ Blog may be designed to answer one Frequently Asked Question per day in great details and is properly categorized for easy access. Answer may include some other tips and tricks useful for your customers. This approach can help your customers to become power users of your product / service and in turn become your emissary to the prospective customers.

Typically a Weblog has a comments feature, where a reader may post their comments, questions and appreciation. With proper moderation of comments, FAQ Blog can almost become a Customer Service center on Auto-pilot once there is a good collection of Frequently Asked Questions answered.

This Weblog can ultimately become a detailed and easily searchable manual of your product / service which serves dual purpose of satisfying existing customers and attracts prospective consumers.

Ideal businesses that may opt for FAQ blog are software development companies, consumer product companies, web hosting providers and insurance agents.

By Harish Keshwani

Top 7 Reasons Why Your Business Should Use RSS

2008-06-30T01:30:00.013-07:00

In today's online world of high-speed websites and giant portals, every established Internet business boasts of delivering content via RSS.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary), a simple XML based technology allows anyone to easily share content on the web. It's a brand new way of reaching out to your users and subscribers without the fear of getting flamed or being slammed of illegal mailing.

RSS has almost become like an important accessory for content oriented websites. No wonder it has become one of the fastest growing publishing standards on the web.

Since publishers can easily make their content syndicated through RSS and thus drive more targeted traffic to their website or blog.

Here are the top 7 reasons why your business should use RSS:

1. Improve Search Engine Ranking - Search engines are desperately looking for content that is fresh and is updated on a regular basis. Since RSS allows you to update your content from time to time, the search engine spiders visit your site more frequently. Resulting in better ranking and more traffic from the major search engines, as well as RSS specific search engines and directories like Feedster and Syndic8.

2. Automate Delivery of Your Content - Delivering your content manually involves many hassles and other automation methods are out dated. Whereas RSS makes your content delivery automated. You don't need to send a message like email, each time you provide an update. This makes your business almost hands free and puts the distribution of your publication on autopilot. As a result, your subscribers get freshly updated content of their choice at regular intervals. They get an ongoing, automated delivery of information from you without any chance of it getting blocked.

3. Easily Generate New Targeted Subscribers - A lot of web users are switching to RSS feeds to receive content they like. You can establish a direct connection with your subscribers as soon as they add your feed. RSS can bring you new targeted subscribers to your website with little effort. Since most of the people today are reluctant to give out their email address (thanks to heavy spamming), RSS can act as a real savior for your businesses. What's more, your messages will never get blacklisted or filtered and will always be delivered promptly, unless and until your subscribers choose to end the relationship. Not only can RSS build a strong relationship with existing subscribers but will also help in attracting new potent subscribers who are interested in what you offer.

4. Drive Quality Traffic From Other Websites - Syndication is the process sharing content. Therefore, RSS allows you to easily publish your content on other websites. By publishing your content on different sites you'll reap profits for a long time. You can very well reach new audiences of different interests, giving your website the ability to gain new visitors from the different corners of the web. With that, your sales also dramatically increase because of the additional targeted traffic you receive due to the extra exposure. Finally, you can achieve a higher ratio of profits and also gain recognition as an expert in your field. Since giving your business a professional recognition is important and that is exactly what happens when you start sharing your content with other similar websites.

5. Broaden Your Marketing Horizon -When you're marketing on the Internet it's important to keep yourself updated and in the process broaden your marketing horizons. With RSS, you can explore new marketing realms. Your resellers or affiliates can promote your products very easily using RSS. Giving them complete freedom of marketing without much effort. You can also provide them with RSS feeds of articles written by you customized with their affiliate links and let them distribute them. And coming to the higher end of it, you can distribute RSS product feeds and digital catalogues just like Amazon started doing not so long ago. There's much more which you can come up with when you combine marketing with RSS. You'll actually have a chance to do something new in the over-crowded Internet marketing field.

6. Widen Your Content Distribution - It's very important to widen the distribution of your content if you want to reach a larger number of people. And it's not so easy to experiment with your content when you're using email. RSS provides the right platform for you to try out content distribution in many ways. For example, you can now categorize your content delivery because RSS will help you widen your present distribution. You don't have to worry about publishing a monthly or a weekly publication. Syndication of your content enables you to efficiently provide daily content updates to your subscribers or as often as you want. Providing useful content to your subscribers from time to time builds a deeper relationship and a better understanding.

7. Increase Brand Awareness - Building brand awareness on the Internet can be difficult when you have clones of your product popping up everywhere. In fact, the online competition is so cut throat that it's almost impossible to survive if you don't build a strong image. Syndicating your content through RSS helps you make an unshakable impression and get that most wanted response from your subscribers. Since, they are the ones who choose to receive updates from you, it gives you a good platform to showcase how different you are from your competitors. RSS is a technology which is soon catching up, pretty fast, so the "really" early bird gets the worm!

There are numerous ways by which you can make your content work through RSS. You just have to choose the one which is suitable for your business and syndicate your way to success!

By Mustafa Khundmiri

3 Ways to Publish RSS

2008-06-30T01:30:00.011-07:00

As RSS news syndication gains popularity among users, new ways for publishing RSS are emerging. In this article, I examine the three most popular methods, and help you decide which one works best for you.

1. Blogs
Weblogs, or blogs, as they are commonly called, are the primary reason RSS gained popularity. In fact, one of the earliest uses for RSS was for bloggers to monitor other blogs for updates.

Most blogging systems will produce RSS newsfeeds automatically. All you need to do is enter content, and the blogging software will build a newsfeed based on the information you enter. No extra work is needed. Just add content to your blog, and you have a newsfeed.

But there is one major disadvantage to using a blog for publishing RSS: you do not have complete control of the RSS output. Most blogging software will simply take an excerpt of your blog entry (eg, the first 15 words), and use that to create your RSS item. As you can imagine, this can lead to problems. The first 15 words of a blog entry don't always capture the essence of that article.

2. RSS Publishing Software
Because of the inadequacy of blogs as a reliable and accurate RSS tool, new stand- alone software was developed. This software has one purpose: to provide the user with an easy way to create and publish RSS newsfeeds from their desktops. No longer do you have to write a long article in your blog to produce RSS feeds. All you have to do is enter a title for your news item, and (optionally) a couple sentences to describe that headline - and your feed is better than the blog-produced feed.

Examples of RSS publishing software for Windows include FeedforAll (http:// www.feedforall.com) and Newzalert Composer (http://www.castlesoftware.biz/ NewzAlertComposer.htm). Mac users have their own tool in Orangebox for Macintosh (http://www.globalsyndication.com/orangebox-for-macintosh).

3. Online RSS Publishing Systems
While subscribers to feeds generated by RSS software enjoyed the simplicity and clarity of the new feeds, some publishers began to run into problems that came with the publishing software. They missed the convenience of blogging's online publishing that allowed them to add news -- regardless of whether they were at their home computer.

News publishers wanted the accessibility of online blogging with the accuracy of RSS publishing software. The new demand lead to the emergence of online RSS publishing systems such as FeedServer RSS Hosting (http:// www.globalsyndication.com/rss-hosting). This new format of RSS publishing allows webmasters to login to an online control panel and publish their news - without having to worry about restrictive software licenses. Since most online RSS publishing systems run on a subscription basis, you can make use of the free trial or subscribe for one month and evaluate if the service meets your needs.

So which system should you use to publish RSS? It depends on your needs. If most of your readers manually visit your site to get new information, a blogging system may be sufficient. However, if you plan to take advantage of the full capabilities of RSS news syndication, you would do well to use a stand-alone RSS publishing system. RSS publishing software will satisfy your needs if you plan to use one computer only. But if you're looking for flexibility and a lower startup costs, look into the new online RSS publishing systems.

By Josiah Mackenzie

Marketers Still Dont Get RSS Metrics - How We Really Can Measure RSS

2008-06-30T01:30:00.009-07:00

Even after all that's been written and explained, even reputable online marketing publications such as ClickZ still don't get RSS metrics.

In an otherwise good RSS marketing article, Add RSS to Your Marketing Mix, Heidi Cohen has this to say about RSS metrics:

"From a marketing perspective, RSS's measurability is still evolving and therefore limited. You can't tell who has received your feeds as you can with e-mail."

Yes, RSS's measurability is still evolving and probably will evolve beyond e-mail metrics. In some ways it already has ...

And it's also true that you can't tell who has received your feeds ... if you're using the most established RSS approaches and just the basic technologies.

However, once you connect your feeds with your existing user databases, you can in fact go beyond what e-mail metrics offer.

Here are some possibilities ...

a] Use the "unique feed URL" approach, where each subscriber receives a feed with a unique identifier, based on which you can track precisely what feeds are being requested ... namely what annonymous user is requesting what feed.

b] If you'd like to integrate annonymous feed subscriber data with named (registered) user data, you can easily provide feeds only upon registration or only to logged-in users, and actually connect each unique feed URL with a named user. Especially if you provide feed customization this won't be a problem at all. Once you've integrated this data you can measure every and any iteraction your user has with your feed.

c] If you don't want to force your visitors to register in order to subscribe to your feed, you can still use the unique feed URL approach, which you connect with a user session, cookie or other identifiable information. Once your RSS feed subscriber registers you can integrate the data you already collected based on existing feed interaction and website interaction with his new user account.

d] The other approach you can use is user authentication, where you limit access to your feeds with a username/password combination. If each unique users receives a unique combination, you can track everything based on this information.

There are other possibilities as well, and the actual implementation of those above is somewhat more complicated than it seems at first sight. It does for example also require a more complex internet marketing strategy. It does require using more complex tools than the simplest RSS publishing solutions available on the market. It does require integration with your user database and internet platform.

But the point is that it's not only theoretically possible, but also in praxis. And in fact simple for companies with their own advanced internet platforms.

Just a quick disclaimer ...

a] If your feed gets widely syndicated you can in fact lose view of who's receiving your feed, even if you're using unique feed URLs (you can of course measure this as well, by analyzing user agent data). Using the user authentication model solves this problem as well.

b] Even if your feed does get widely syndicated, that's still comparable to your e-mail messages being passed around by users. And if we take in to account that measuring open-rates is getting increasingly difficult due to users blocking images, e-mail metrics don't look that shiny anymore.

If you'd like to find out more about RSS metrics, simply start by reading our collection of RSS metrics articles, reports, interviews and news at http://rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/content/cat_rss_metrics.php

I'm also hoping that there'll soon come a time when responses like this will no longer be needed, because marketers will finally understand the power of RSS metrics.

By Rok Hrastnik

Avoid Bad Manners While Blogging

2008-06-30T01:30:00.007-07:00

Blogging, the hottest trend in online publishing right now, is currently spreading like wildfire across the Internet.

A cross between an online journal and a bulletin board, everyone from rock starts, politicians, business leaders and your average "Joe" or "Jane" can instantly become a center of influence online using blogs.

But, as with any social interaction, certain rules apply (my grandma calls them manners) in order to be viewed as behaving "properly."

One of the things that gives blogging such strong appeal as an online publishing method revolves around "comments."

Blogs that allow "comments" enable readers to respond and elaborate on the information posted by the blog owner.

These comments and the free exchange of information, opinions, links, and new ideas creates the dynamic and growing content that makes blogging such a popular online activity for both publishers and readers.

However, rules and unwritten customs about the proper use of "comments" on a specific blog are also where most of the problems and controversy will arise.

Since a successful blog eventually becomes a community of people (albeit in cyberspace), proper social behavior is critical to be an effective and accepted member of the community.

Keep these basic rules in mind when approaching a new blog that allows commenting by readers so you won't find yourself on the wrong end of a scolding by people who operate with a different set of rules than you.

As with any social circle, violating the group's rules and customs will instantly cause a negative backlash.

** Keep It Relevant **

Stay on topic with the post you're commenting about in a blog.

Nothing will earn you the wrath and disdain of your fellow posters and the blog owner faster than posting an off-topic comment.

** Watch What Others Do **

Different blogs operate under different rules. What rates acceptable in one blog would earn you a verbal thrashing in another.

Before posting (especially if you have not posted to a specific blog before), look to see the types and quality of posts others make regularly.

Are they long or short?

Do they contain a link to the person's website?

Is there a "signature" under their name?

** Be Polite **

It's fine to disagree with people when making a comment, whether it's the blog's author or a comment made by another reader.

It is not, however, acceptable to launch a personal attack on anyone or make nasty comments in someone else's blog.

If you feel the need to do so, do it in your own blog.

It's the same principle of you can say whatever you want in your own house, but when you're in someone else's house, you act right (and better than you do at home).

** You Can't Respond To Everyone **

If you operate a blog and someone asks a question, try to respond, but both sides should understand that you can't respond 100% of the time.

We all get busy and a blog, unless it maintains a paid membership, is often supported as a labor of love.

By Jim Edwards

Do You Know The 3 Key Ways to Blog to Promote Your Online Home Based Business?

2008-06-30T01:30:00.005-07:00

Most People who Blog and Ping only use 1 Method to promote there online Home Based Business. Their are actually 3 Keys ways a Blog can help you promote your Online Home based Business for little or no cost to you. If you aren't using all 3 Methods then you are missing out on some huge marketing opportunities.

The 3 Methods are

Blog and Ping

Article Distribution

Article Writing

It is highly recommended that you get a Separate Blog for Each of the above methods and possibly even a 4th Blog to Blog and Ping your other Blogs. There are many sources of free Blogs on the Internet. http://blogger.com is a very popular free blog service that also happens to be owned by Google. Another nice feature of Blogger is that they allow you to manage many Blogs from one account.

Method 1 - Blog and Ping

Blog and ping is probably the most popular way that people use Blogs to Market their online Business. Basically you create a Blog entry about your online web page then you Ping all the Blog Services and tell them you updated your Blog. This Method tends to get your Web Page and Blog Pages indexed faster by Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Method 2 - Article Distribution.

There are Many places on the Internet that have articles available that you can freely republish as long as you keep the resource Box, By Line and Copyright of the Author Unchanged. You simply find some articles related to your web page and then place them in your Blog. Of course you could write an Opening Paragraph introducing the Article or a closing paragraph summarizing the article. Make Sure that your Opening and/ or closing Paragraphs refer to your online Web Site. After you Update your Blog you Ping all the Blog Services as in step 1.

Method 3 - Article Writing

I firmly belive everyone has an Article or 2 in them. I am no Journalist far from it and I Write Articles. When I was in college I wrote 2 term papers the first one was for a mandatory Freshman English writing class that everyone had to take and the second one was my very last semester. I broke my leg Skiing the day before my last final and the teacher told me to write a term paper because she didn't want to create a special final just for me. So if I can write an article anyone can. If you need help writing that article here is a 'how to' article you can look at. (http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/articles/article-in-you.html)

Now that you wrote that article Publish it to your Blog and then Ping as in steps 1 and 2. Don't forget to include a Resource Box in your article. Lastly be sure to submit your article to the article Directories. (http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/article-submit.html)

Super User Tip. Create a 4th Blog and make entries to it whenever you update any of the above 3 Blogs. Then Ping the Blog Server for some extra exposure. You may want to use a different Blog Server like Bloglines for this 4th Blog.

By Mike Makler

What the BLOG?

2008-06-30T01:30:00.003-07:00

Blogs Are the NEW Secret Weapon for Reaching Your Tarket. Just like you, I hate being marketed to. Every day we're bombarded with over 3,500 marketing messages. And frankly I'm sick of it! But blogs are different. Blogs are a two-way conversation between blogger and bloggee (plus all the readers in between). Through commenting and cross-linking, you can share feedback. You can build your network. You can become, dare I say it, an Internet celebrity!

See blogs add humanity and instantaneous expression to the web. Like ezines, blogs are a way for your customer to get to know you.

However, unlike ezines, blogs help you with search engine rankings. Did you hear me? I said, unlike ezines, blogs help you with search engine rankings. That's a big one.

Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Week, even the FCC (Federal Trade Commission) all believe blogs are here to stay. Recently Michael Powell, chairman of the FCC, started one. His initial post drew over 30,000 readers. A Microsoft spokesperson says Bill Gates is considering starting a blog. And filmmaker Michael Moore built a blog to promote his controversial new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11.

But who has time to read a blog anyway? Exactly! The job of a blog is to cut through the information overload and deliver searchable, relevant and current content. BlogAds.com recently conducted a survey of over 17,000 blog readers. Here's what they report:

Blog readers are older and more affluent. 61% of blog readers are over 30, and 75% make more than $45,000 a year.

Blog readers are more cyber-active. 54% of their news consumption is online. 21% are themselves bloggers and 46% describe themselves as opinion makers.

Blog readers are media-mavens. 21% subscribe to the New Yorker magazine, 15% to the Economist, 15% to Newsweek and 14% to the Atlantic Monthly.

Whether on the left or right, blog readers have traits in common that often are absent in today's public spaces: passion and initiative.

Blog readers have apathy towards traditional news sources. 82% say that television is worthless. 55% percent say the same about print newspapers. 54% say the same about print magazines.

Meanwhile, 86% say that blogs are either useful or extremely useful as sources of news or opinion. 80% say they read blogs for news they can't find elsewhere. 78% read because the perspective is better. 66% value the faster news. 61% say that blogs are more honest.

Blog readers appear united in their dissatisfaction with conventional media and their rabid love of blogs.

Don't you want to be a blogger too? How about looking at some samples of the good, the bad and the bizarre?

Top 6 Reasons for Having a RSS Feed - Come and Explore the Possibilities!

2008-06-30T01:30:00.001-07:00

Getting traffic to your website can be hard. No one just randomly types in "makelotsofmoneyonlinequicklyandfromhome.com" and with this market slowly being filled in, it is hard to get a good rank on Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, and all the other major search engines. Although paying for advertising is effective and gets targeted results, RSS feeds are the way to go for free, cheap, and somewhat easy advertising.

First off, if you don't want to write articles yourself, no problem. The web is a great resource for finding articles written by respected authors who are willing to give you their article for free (as long as you include their signature at the bottom of the article). It is very easy to take these articles, publish them on your website, and then make a RSS out of them. But enough of the rambling, the top six reasons for having an RSS feed on your site:

6. Reputation - A good RSS feed will increase your reputation as a honest and willing to help business, not just a business that wants to take your money, and nothing else. A feed with quality articles shows that you want to help the reader learn more about a topic instead of just give the reader a sales pitch. Making your business prospects knowledgeable in the area that you are focused will hopefully show how your product/service is superior in it's design.

5. Advertising - A RSS feed can be used to advertise your website for no money at all. If you submit it to RSS directories, the name of your website will appear at the top of your feed every time! Not only does it appear, it also functions as a link (but we'll get into that later).

4. Increase in traffic - Designing your RSS feed to only include part of your article forces the reader to click on a link back to your site. One could only assume that if they enjoyed the article your wrote, or published, then they would enjoy browsing the site where it came from.

3. Links back to your site - Not many people think of RSS feeds as a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) potential, but they include dozens of links in every feed! Publishing your feed on RSS directories puts in place the opportunity to create links with the specific keywords that you desire, and hopefully we all know how the more links you have with keywords in them, the higher ranked you will be on search engine searches.

2. Exposure - Are you a new website? Has anyone ever heard of you before? Well RSS feeds definitely get your name out there on the market. Quality articles associated with your name boosts your exposure and reputation as a quality website who is worth doing business with.

1. Targeted traffic - People look at your feed as a representation of your site. If you have a feed that relates to dog bones, obviously if they are interested in buying dog bones, your site will come in mind.

By Jeffrey Abbott

Why It Took Me So Long To Blog

2008-06-13T23:05:00.001-07:00

When I saw my first blog, I wasn't impressed.

The first blogs I ever read were embarrassing tales of teenage angst better left private, political diatribes from both the rabid right and the rabid left, and jargon-filled tech rags that made my eyes glaze over

And yet everyone was talking about blogs and that I would soon be left behind if I didn't have one. But they never gave me a simple explanation of how it would benefit me. They talked about RSS - you know, the obligatory "real simple syndication" - followed by a long, boring, techie article filled with jargon that wasn't simple at all. They talked about syndicating my site, but not how that would benefit my business.

No one ever told me, "Hey, fool, listen up! How would you like a 3 or 4 line text link to your site on thousands of other sites getting you tons of traffic and backlinks up the ying-yang on all the SE's?"

If they had, trust me. I'd have been blogging my heart out!

Eventually I did start a blog simply because it was getting harder and harder to get my ezine delivered. This particular ezine delivers tips to network marketers. Now if you've had any experience with spam filters, you know that any email with the "M" word (MLM) or the "N" word (network marketing) practically lights up the scoreboard! I even tried using "M*L*M" or "net*work mark@eting." But that got old real fast. Trying to sound like a halfway intelligent professional while writing like a first grader on their first day of school just didn't cut it. I was starting to confuse even myself!

So I decided to start a blog, and then just email my list with the link to the article every week. Not only has that greatly increased the day to day traffic to my site, but I discovered a couple of interesting benefits along the way.

One big bonus was how easy it was to publish to my site. Doing things the old way, I wrote and delivered my ezine. Then I converted the article to html and FTP'd it up to my site. Then I had to download and update my article archive page. Then I had to download and update my sitemap. Then I would download my index page and add a little blurb about the new article to get it indexed faster. All told, several hours of mind-numbingly boring work.

Not so with a blog. I just write my articles in NoteTab, then copy and paste them into my Blogger control panel. It adds all the HTML and places it into my chosen template, FTP's it to my site, and updates my archives - all in the blink of an eye! Talk about an easy-to-use content management system. Even a 10-year-old could have done it.

After I posted my first article on my new blog, I realized I could get some new backlinks to my site by submitting the blog to some of the many blog directories. So I spent a few hours sumbitting my blog.

But my eyes didn't really open until a couple of weeks later. I started realizing I was making more sales than usual and popped in to check my web stats. To my astonishment, I realized I was getting 50-100 more visitors per day. I checked my referrer logs and then my backlinks on Yahoo and found over 100 new traffic sources and links!

I clicked through on some of those links and then a big lightbulb lit up in my head. Those new referrers were from the many people using RSS feeds on their sites. And their site visitors were actually clicking on those links and finding my site.

Now I was hooked!

Think about that - 50-100 more visitors per day, and 100 new backlinks. All from one article that I posted to a brand new blog that took 5 minutes to set up on Blogger.com for free! How many free marketing techniques get those kind of results right out the door? And how much better would my results be from regular posts to my blog and submitting it to even more blog directories? Or from simultaneously posting those blog posts to article directories?

That was 2 months ago, and I'm discovering that the answer is every bit as exciting as I had hoped! Not only that, but I'm discovering more and more ways to improve my results. And ways to use blogs in new and exciting ways that I don't hear other people talking about.

I know that many marketers are under the impression that blogs are just for geeks, or that blogs are just some new toy everyone is getting but no one knows what to do with. If that has been your belief, I hope you'll take a second look!

What Is This RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom Business?

2008-06-13T23:04:00.013-07:00

It's been a long day at work and you're in no mood to cook dinner or go out. Time to count on the reliable pizza delivery guy. The order is called in and he promptly arrives with smokin' hot pizza within 30 minutes as promised. If it were only that easy with a picky family where no one can agree on the same restaurant for dinner. One wants Mexican, another wants Chinese, and another wants a burger and Mexican. Instead of running to three different places, you call a delivery service that goes to all of them and brings it to you. What could be easier in getting a meal without cooking it or fetching it?

RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom are the food delivery guy of the Internet. The content they deliver is mixed and cooked elsewhere on the Internet just like the meal isn't made on your door step and the acronym fellows bring the content to you via software or an online application. Instead of trying to remember all the places where you like to go to get the latest news, it all comes to you once you order your food.

Click on any of those orange or blue RSS, XML, or RDF buttons and you see unreadable text. Some of it is readable, but reading between the is slow and difficult. In this case, you've got the raw ingredients of the content known as a feed. To make it easily readable, download a feed reader that can interpret (aggregate) the ingredients or sign up for an online service that can do the same.

When the software or application is ready to go, click on the orange or blue button (or "Syndicate This Page," or whatever is along these lines) and copy the resulting URL from the address box. Paste it into the application to cook the ingredients where it's delivered to you ready for your enjoyment.

Syndication is a not a new concept on the Internet, but it's growing in popularity as more Web sites and newsletters are churning content to turn it into syndicated files, which are fed into an aggregator. Think of it as the content that's ready to travel anywhere it needs to go. Grab the feed and feed it to the aggregator, another way of bookmarking (or creating a favorite) a site because you wish to come back again another time. But how often did you go back to the site through your bookmarks / favorites?

Instead of schlepping from site to site in search of information, I have it all in front of me via the aggregator. The feeds are sorted in folders by topic for easy finding. If I'm writing about the latest virus or worm, then I open the security folder with the security-related feeds and scan them. Scanning content through aggregators is easier than on a Web site because it's in one folder with headlines and maybe a short summary. On a Web site, you're only getting the benefit of that site's news and no where else. The folder has news from over ten resources including blogs, news sites, and newsletters.

Any content can be syndicated. It's a matter of having the backend process in place, which is dependent on the application used for managing the content. If a site doesn't have such resources, then there is software for entering content to create a file with the feed for posting on the site.

Most aggregators have exporting capabilities so the feed can be shared with others interested in the same topic. If you're interested in my security feeds, I can export them into, in most cases, an OPML file and you can import it into your aggregator.

Spam filters are preventing readers from getting newsletters or they get lost in the spam pool. Offering a feed for the newsletter is a compromise. Readers can get the content, only instead of it coming to the emailbox, it comes through the aggregator. It's a way around spam. Like everything else, it has its advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:

Filters can't stop the newsletter from reaching its destination.

The recipient will get it - if the server is down, it'll download next time and email can get lost.

The feed can be syndicated providing more exposure for your content.

Disadvantages:

Rely on readers to open aggregators like they open email client, but some aggregators are built-in with an email client like NewsGator and there are online aggregators like Bloglines, which can be your home page.

Metrics won't be as complete, but it's still there through the links.

Not as pretty as HTML-based newsletters.

If the feed is automatically created, what have you got to lose? You're providing another way for your readers to get your content just like you can get pizza in different ways: go to the restaurant, have it delivered, or make it at home. More applications are adding syndication capabilities, which make the process effortless. Some have said they won't read something unless it has a feed.

Syndication works better than bookmarks. With bookmarks, you click on a site that might have the security information and arrive there to find it doesn't. So, back to the bookmarks to click on another site. Lather, rinse, repeat. With aggregators, there is no jumping from site to site. Scan the headlines right there until you find what you need.

There was a time when we didn't have the option to have pizza delivered to our doorstep. When we're too tired, we know we can rely on the delivery guy. In term of content, expect to see it show up at your doorstep more often than the pizza guy plus it's cheaper with the cost only coming from the software though there are many free options available. Syndication is here to stay and should be added to a company's communication toolbox rather than as a replacement. Witness it by watching for RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom out there.

By Meryl K. Evans

Marketing with Blogs and RSS Feeds

2008-06-13T23:04:00.011-07:00

Perhaps you still don't realize or fully understand the power of RSS Feeds as a marketing tool.

After all, email works fine, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, the truth is:

1. It's getting harder to send e-mails to the prospect's inbox because of SPAM filters

2. People are getting numbed by the amount of e-mails they receive everyday

3. People are not reading their e-mails

4. It's getting harder to get people to opt-in or subscribe to your newsletter or content.

With RSS feeds, this changes the playing field:

1. RSS feeds can bypasses email - Eat your hearts out! Rss feeds can be read by desktop software and delivered right to your prospect everytime they turn on their PC

2. RSS feeds allow you to syndicate content rich news in your niche market and attract targeted prospects

3. People who subscribe to newsfeeds are generally in the higher income bracket and educated. They want to find news and information to solve their problems. Can that person be YOU?

4. E-mail doesn't allow yourself to be branded all over the Net. With RSS feeds, your content gets circulated/sydnicated and you can brand yourself as an expert.

5. RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS feeds directories, which will list your site within 24 hours which measn more traffic for you

These are just some of the few examples of the use of RSS feeds you can use in your marketing.

What are you waiting for? My multimedia e-book cuts to the chase and shows you in VIDEO how to start a blog, create a feed, track it, list it in Yahoo, submit it and mORE..

Get a copy of "Marketing Rampage with Blogs and RSS" NOW! www.marketing-rampage-with-blogs-and-rss.com and learn the $299 Secret - How to get listed in Yahoo for FREE

By Brandon Hong

Is a Blog Right For Your Business?

2008-06-13T23:04:00.009-07:00

Lemmings are cute, but dumb. If you tell them to jump off a cliff, they will. Just like the people who start blogs because everyone is doing it. Guess what happens after a little while? The blogs die.

In managing a list of many Web sites, most of which are blogs, I deleted countless sites from the list because the sites and blogs no longer existed. The people ran out of steam or had no reason to start them in the first place.

How do you know when a blog is right for your business? Learn why people start blogs, how they find their niche and how blogging tools can be used for more than blogs.

Some people like to read blogs, others like to read newsletters, still others like to rely on feeds and some read a few or all of them. No matter the method the information is distributed, each medium has one thing in common: content. Having a blog connects your newsletter and your business with all of these readers and delivers important content in a particular style.

I've been blogging since June 2000. If you review my early blog entries in meryl's notes, you'll notice they're more personal. When blogs first hit the scene in the late '90s, they were personal diaries and journals. Like the blog business, my blog has transformed from personal to business speak, although I still add personal notes here and there.

A few bloggers tend to talk about their work, their products and their little world. That might work for celebrities where fans want to know everything about them, but it doesn't work for the average business person. Other business people want information on how to succeed and when a blog spends time hawking products offering information of no value, few people will return. The people whose products sell well are the ones who provide valuable information. Readers already know what kind of information they're getting, so they trust that when they buy something, it will be of the same or better quality. This value must be reflected in their blog. It's much like people who only sign up for a newsletter after first seeing an example.

No one wants to be a lemming (I would hope). How do you decide whether or not to set up a blog? The answer isn't black or white (what did you expect?). Ask these questions:

Can you regularly update it - at least five times a week?

Do you have something to say other than just linking to others?

Do you read other blogs or feeds?

Can you provide information of value to others not just to yourself?

How large is your newsletter subscriber list?

How many unique visitors do you get on an average day, week or month?

The big decider is whether or not you can write in the blog almost daily. The people behind the high traffic blogs post multiple times a day. Though resourceful, merely linking to other sites doesn't give visitors much reason to make the effort to come to yours. Reading other blogs or feeds is a great way to learn how to carry a discussion. Find other blogs covering topics similar to yours and check them out. Disagree with their opinions? Write about it and explain your reasons. Cross-blog discussions are common, and that's where trackback comes in handy.

Trackback is a blog feature. If you decide to comment on another blog posting in your blog instead of in that blog's comments page, then you link to the conversation through the trackback link. Trackback is similar to the permalink, the permanent URL for the blog entry, but it has a different URL for copying and pasting in your blog's trackback box.

Aside from the technical aspects of operating a blog on a daily basis, subscriber list size and Web site traffic are good indicators of what kind of reaction you'll get when opening a blog. Starting from scratch with little traffic means you have a long road ahead and lots of work to do. There is no magic formula anyone can sell you for $97 to make your blog an overnight success. But with some perseverance and ingenuity, your blog can engage many prospects and clients.

Considering there are numerous blogs out there, pick a niche topic when starting a blog for a better shot at attracting and keeping an audience. meryl's notes focuses on three areas: webby, geeky and wordy. In reality, this is too much. What I need to do for my readers is create three separate blog entry points, so those interested in writing, newsletters and Internet marketing get nothing but the wordy entries. Those interested in Web design get the webby stuff and the technophiles receive the geeky content.

I also manage a personal blog separate from meryl's notes. It's about cochlear implants and deafness. This could fall under the geeky category, but it's a personal blog and doesn't belong in meryl's notes. This blog is written for a different audience.

The blogging tools for both of my blogs come with syndication capabilities so those using feed readers or aggregators can read the content through the software. When sending a new issue of a newsletter, comment on it or link to it in the blog, that way the blog and feed readers will get the goods, so all three bases are covered.

Blogging tools aren't just for, well, blogging. Such tools are an excellent way to help you update your Web site more often than you otherwise would. I use it to manage the list of tableless Web sites. Using blogging tools is much easier than the way I managed it before, updating the HTML files by hand. Though using a blog tool, it isn't a blog. In this case, the blog tool has become a content management system (CMS).

Small business owners don't have a need for the fancy and pricey CMSes out there. They find it easier to use blogging software to manage their sites or hire someone to adapt the tool for their site.

Blogs have found a place in businesses and people are finding creative ways to use them. Some companies have a blog on the intranet for communicating project status, jeopardies and metrics. They're used for knowledge management. With information pouring in, blog tools provide a way to share, organize and process the information.

Being a follower can be good or bad. No one wants to walk off a cliff with the lemmings, but everyone wants to succeed. Best practices won't help, since the decision to blog is based on the organization's mission, needs and goals along with its target market's desires and needs. A blog about lemmings? There is one, sort of. Or maybe you'd like to start your own and talk about dumb business moves.

By Meryl K. Evans

If an RSS feed is the Yahoo Backdoor, is a Blog Googles?

2008-06-13T23:04:00.007-07:00

Though the answer is in a book I wrote this July, the question is still asked of me repeatedly. Why does it work for some sites and not others? And how come some blogs get indexed in a day and then are dropped, and others stay in Google indefinitely?

Well, let's take one question at a time. The answer to whether you can blog your way into Google search results is yes, sometimes in six weeks, often in 24 hours.

Yes, you read right, in less than 24 hours. Under certain conditions, the search engines actually want you to succeed at this.

I'm aware that these statements may cause some controversy, but that won't make them any less factual. Since September, Google has been set up to show you proof of this, which we'll go over in part two. My new blog has been spidered and indexed daily since it was created.

Not only is this possible with your blog, the way that blogs are set up make them one of the most conducive web site mediums to attract more traffic from multiple sources quickly. The trick to getting this to work for you, is in understanding which conditions have to be met first.

And we'll come back to that shortly. First let's talk about what's typically wrong with the process most people take to get their sites listed.

Most people submit their sites to Google and wait six to eight weeks to see if they were included. Other people know that the fastest way to be spidered is to leave your link at a site that is already getting spidered.

But even among those people, when they don't see their site in Google exactly the way they'd like, they give up, and say it didn't work.

So what went wrong?

The place that the majority of people go wrong is in trying to trick the Googlebot into thinking their site matches its standards for inclusion for their desired high traffic keyword, instead of aligning themselves with the purpose that the search engine fills.

You may think that if you study all the search engine tricks, you'll have the traffic from the search engines and it will then follow that yours will be the site people come to for the keyword they want, which in turn, will get 1% of those people to buy what's at your site.

If you think that, I'm not here to tell you that you're wrong - sometimes that works. I'm just saying that there are other easier, faster, less expensive ways. Some of them only have subtle differences from the way you know.

The truth is, even if we could somehow reverse engineer the secret Google algorithm, it periodically changes. So mastering that system would be temporary, even if you could do it.

Did you know that you don't even need the traffic for your most desired keyword to be successful? You just need some targeted traffic that converts well. Some of the most financially successful sites generate amazing profits in the tens or hundreds of thousands with a few hundred or thousand visitors every month.

The method I most suggest to get the kind of search engine results that can power those kinds of sales, is aligning your site with the purpose the search engine seeks to fill. It is faster, more effective and involves far less effort.

You should still make sure your blog meets all the basic search engine optimization guidelines. However, the very nature of a blog makes it easier to meet more of these requirements with less continual struggle.

Let's look at the facts, and see how blogs align themselves more closely with one of Google's purposes as a search engine. Here's what you need to keep in mind:

1- if you get your site's link in the path of the search engine spider or robot of your choice, in this case Googlebot, if may follow it.

2- the way to get it to follow the link is to make sure it can "see" your link

3- if your content fills a need that the search engine's database of links has, it will include your link, and,

4- if your link fills a deficit better than any other site, in accordance with Google's secret formula or algorithm, it will rank your page well.

So now, the only missing component necessary to our success is now finding out how to be the best site Google finds for a category that has a deficit.

One of the strengths of Google, as perceived by people who like it, is the vast amount of fresh content it contains that is relevant to almost any topic, or keyword, typed into it, no matter how narrow or broad.

It follows then, that one purpose of this database of links is to provide fresh, relevant content on topics its users desire. The freshest, most relevant, most topical information found on the web today are in blogs, as well as their corresponding RSS or Atom feeds.

A blog's very function is to contain constantly updated focused content, on one topic or field.

When blogs first started, the topic was often a person's life. Business blogs, instead, are updated records of a certain kind of information relevant to an industry, a company or a topic, aligned with the interests of their visitors.

So you need to know the following things in order to get your blog included on Google's search engine results pages.

? Where to leave your link so that it will get spidered

? How to make sure Googlebot sees your link

? How to set up your blog so its content fills a deficit

? The best way to make sure your blog does this better than other sites.

There's a specific formula of success for this, one of many that will work not just one time, but repeatedly.

We've run out of space for the moment, but part two picks up with the specifics of how your blog needs to be set up and how to determine exactly where Googlebot can find your link.

By Tinu AbayomiPaul

Business Blogging - 5 Tips to Help You Smashl Through Writers Block

2008-06-13T23:04:00.005-07:00

It's inevitable. Everyone hits the wall. Whether you've been blogging ten weeks, ten minutes, or ten months, eventually you'll find yourself with absolutely nothing to say.

Or so you think.

So what in the world do you do when you're stumped?

1- Talk about what you've already talked about

Pick a topic you've gone over before and give it some spin.

Try a new angle, like playing devil's advocate. For example, if you are a search engine journalist, and last week your position was that most mainstream sites need Google traffic to survive, try proving your point from the "con" perspective, instead of the "pro" position.

There are dozens of ways to write about the same thing. By putting your point another way, you might give someone in your audience what a client of mine referred to as an "Ah-ha!" moment. That's when they realize the true value of the items for sale at your site to them and their business.

2- Talk about what someone else is talking about

If you want to have a popular blog, find other bloggers in similar areas, and talk about what they said in their posts. Friendly debate can often spark the soap-opera like drama that will have both your audiences visiting both blogs to see what "the other fella" had to say.

As an added bonus, if both of you are using Trackback in your blogs, you've got yourself a mini-link party that other people who are speaking on similar topics will want to join..

3- Have yourself a good rant

The intimate nature and voice of blogs lends itself well to the opinionated, angry ramble. But as a professional, don't let yourself get too unfocused, and remember to back up your opinion with facts.

4- Feature someone, something or somewhere

I like to call mine "of the Day".

As I zip around the Net conducting my business and research, if my attention is called to a resource or tool that my audience might find useful, I hit my blog bookmarklet and save that bad boy for later.

Then when I get too busy for a full blown tip, I'll crown the resource, feed, tool, download or freebie the featured "Deal of the Day", changing the word deal to something else more appropriate as needed.

After a while, my audience started to look for it as a feature, as opposed to being upset at the interruption in my mad, mad rambles.

5- Let someone else talk for a change

Invite a guest blogger, or post an article that offers free reprint rights, the same way you would in a newsletter. Of course you want to leave the resource box intact, or let the guest promote their site, which brings me to the most common complaint about this tactic.

"But I don't want to send people away from my site."

Guess what? You'll never believe what I found out. Ready?

In a recent startling discovery, I've found that 100% of my visitors eventually turn off their computers or take otherwise drastic measures that cause them to leave my site. Apparently this is beyond prevention, though you can stall them for hours sometimes with good content.

Of course you don't want to send them on their way prematurely, but if you're a good blogger, and have done what you can to make sure they sign up to your blog email updates or site feed, they'll be back. Just be sure that you're giving them a good enough reason.

In the meantime, since they're going to leave anyway, it might as well be somewhere that gives you some direct or in-direct benefit.

So there you have it - enough material for five more days of posts.

Happy Blogging!

The 6 Top Reasons Marketers Should Blog

2008-06-13T23:04:00.003-07:00

If there is a downside to blogging, I have yet to find it. The more you learn about blogging, the more there is to like.

In fact, here are 6 mouth-watering reasons why every marketer should be blogging:

1- Fast Search Engine Spidering and Indexing of Your Site:

Did you know that Google owns the most popular blogging platform on the planet? Blogger at http://www.blogger.com is used to produce thousands of blogs. Even a complete internet newbie can set up a blog in about 5 minutes at Blogger. And guess who can be counted on to come by and quickly spider all those new blog posts as they are written?

Yahoo is also embracing blogs and feeds in a big way. Savvy marketers know that adding their blogs and feeds to their MyYahoo page can bring the Yahoo spider to their site almost immediately.

One of the reasons that blogs get spidered so quickly is that most of them produce a feed. Many blogs automatically "ping" (or notify) some of the large sites that carry these feeds and make them available for syndication. Search engines spider these sites many times a day. Blogger, for instance, pings Weblogs every time you make a post. You can also "ping" a free site called Pingomatic (http://www.pingomatic.com) every time you add a new blog post. Your ping will notify Yahoo and 11 other large feed sites that you've added a post. If it only were so easy to get Google to notice new pages on regular sites!

If you have a new site that you are having trouble getting indexed, adding a blog or RSS feed is one of the quickest ways to get the spiders to come calling.

2-Blogs can Build Your Backlinks Quickly:

If you've spent time trying to get reciprocal links to your site, you know how frustrating, boring, and time-consuming it can be. I've long considered reciprocal link building to be one of the worst ways to develop link popularity. Many SEO experts consider one-way links to be far more effective.

A blog can build one-way links to your site fast. If you've just started a blog, you should submit it to the large blog and feed directories. Here is a list of the Top 55:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

Once you've submitted your blog to these directories, you'll find your backlinks growing quickly. This past year, more webmasters are using RSS feeds on their sites to keep their sites fresh and spidered frequently. Software applications such as RSS Equalizer, Express RSS, and CARP make this easy.

After starting my first blog, I was amazed at how many different sites carried my feed with a link back to my site! These links can multiply exponentially over time.

Now tell me something. Wouldn't you rather be spending your time adding content to your site than trying to get questionable reciprocal links? Especially when it doesn't take any extra time?

3-A Frequently Updated Blog will Keep the Spiders Visiting Your Site Often:

Most of us are aware that the search engines like sites that are updated frequently. If you have your blog set up correctly, every post will update several pages of your site. Then pinging Yahoo and the blog and feed directories at Pingomatic can bring out the spiders in just a few hours. This is a great way to get new pages of your site indexed quickly and frequently.

4-Your Site is Stickier and More Appealing to Visitors:

A blog on your site is an easy way to keep your site updated on a regular basis. The upside is that visitors will come by more often. If they find your blog interesting and informative, they may bookmark your site. That means you have a much greater chance of making sales. And you have a ready-made audience for any new products you launch.

A blog can also add a human face to your website that potential customers will trust and respond to. Most marketers know that people buy from people they like and respect. A well-written blog is a great way to build a relationship with your visitors.

5-A Blog Is The Fastest And Easiest Way To Build A Brand-New Website Without Training:

Even a 10 year old could set up a blog at Blogger.com and be blogging almost immediately. No HTML knowledge is necessary. You don't need to know how to FTP. You don't need to know how to link the pages in your site together. All you have to do is type in your post and click on the "publish" button. And yet you can still set up an attractive, spiderable site in record time.

Blogs can be used for any type of site, not just for online ezine delivery or a place to announce new products. Using a blog you could quickly build a niche site. Just research the best keywords for your niche. Then write articles around those keywords and post them to your blog. Include your keywords in your title. You now have an instant niche site that will be spidered quickly and be easy to maintain.

6-Keyword competition in RSS feed sites is much less than in the SE's:

Google, Yahoo, and MSN each have many millions of webpages in their indexes. It can be almost impossible to get top rankings for competitive keywords if you don't have a high PR site with lots of backlinks.

It's a completely different story at the RSS feed sites. The competition for many high-competition keywords is almost nonexistent. Setting up a blog in some of these high-competition niches is a good way to successfully compete.

Marketers spend a lot of time and money getting traffic to their sites, creating backlinks, getting good SE rankings, and building relationships with their customers. A blog can improve your results in all those areas. There aren't very many free marketing techniques that can make that claim!

10 Reasons to Put RSS on Your Site!

2008-06-13T23:04:00.001-07:00

RSS and Blogs are the topics of the moment. Seems like everyone is talking about it. Granted, there is too much hype about RSS and Blogs.

But where there's hype - there's interest!

And with good reason - RSS is posed to be the break out technology of 2005. Those who don't take full advantage of it will be left behind.

If you need convincing - here are 10 reasons why you should put RSS on your site:

1. It's easy and fast! Not to mention Free! You can use a free service like eBlogger and publish your Blog and RSS feed within minutes. You can even place or publish your Blog/RSS Feed on your own site without knowing 'html' or 'xml'. It's all done for you!

Repeat - it's simple to use and very convenient. Publishing your blog is only a few clicks away. (If you need help - just use the link at the end of this article.)

2. Syndicate Your Content. RSS stands for 'really simple syndication' and it's just another way of passing along your information. With the popularity of 'MyYahoo' and the 'Firefox' browser (which has a built-in RSS feed reader) - syndicating your content has gotten even simpler.

The next version of Windows is reportly scheduled to have a RSS feature. If this happens - RSS will explode.

3. Get Your Content Indexed. Using blogs to publish your content is a neat way of side stepping the regular indexing procedure. It gets your content indexed very quickly in most of the search engines.

Search Engines are constantly on the lookout for 'fresh content' - these 'link rich' blogs are a good source of this content. Because blogs are on specific topics - they have a concentrated source of good quality informational material to serve up!

4. Instant Contact. Blogs give you instant contact with your readers or viewers. We live in an 'instant' society - we want everything five minutes ago. Blogs provide this instant gratification. Readers or viewers using MyYahoo have an instant link to your information or postings.

RSS Feeds will instantly spread your information to all interested parties - bringing in targeted traffic.

5. Building Your List. People who pick up your RSS feed or add you to their MyYahoo site - become your subscribers. You are really building your contact list. Have a popular blog or RSS Feed and you can build a large targeted contact list very quickly.

It might not replace your old opt-in email list - but it can be a lucrative addition to it! Take advantage of all those targeted contacts.

6. Link Building. Blogs are link heavens! Build your links thru blogs. All these links will boost your link popularity and increase your search engine rankings.

Plus, by giving viewers/readers a way of adding your RSS Feed creates targeted links to your site. This reason alone is why your site should have RSS!

7. Viewer/Subscriber Feedback. Instant feedback from your subscribers or viewers is easy with blogs. Creating trust and credibility is so much easier when there is immediate communication between the two parties.

8. Keyword Content Building. Blogs are especially good for building 'keyword targeted content' for your site. All these links will boost your keyword rankings in the search engines. Google places a high value on 'anchor text' and blogs are a good place to put all those links.

You can also start different blogs targeted at 'specific related keywords' covering the major topics of your site. Again, search engines love related keyword linking so you can boost your site's rankings by using blogs.

9. Monetize Your Content. Blogs are an excellent way of monetizing your content. Blog sites like Eblogger (owned by Google) even encourages you to use the 'adsense code' in your blogs. If you have a popular blog - this may bring in extra income.

Plus, publishing your ezine or newsletter in a blog can bring in revenue for months if not years to come. All those affiliate links and product promotions get indexed by the search engines and become accessible to a wider audience, i.e. market.

10. Because Everyone Else is Doing It! Might sound a bit 'Jonesish' but you do have to keep up with what other web sites are doing. To remain competitive - you MUST put RSS on your site.

Sites without the 'AddtoMyYahoo' link or the 'xml' button will be the exception rather than the rule in just a few years - if not months. It's simply another way of getting your information 'out there'. It's an opportunity and advantage that you cannot afford to miss.

Proceed without RSS at your own risk!

Building Backlinks With Blogs

2008-06-13T23:01:00.019-07:00

The most boring part of getting traffic to a website is getting backlinks. This is hard, boring, time consuming work. You spend hours finding relevant websites to link to, then spend hours more sending emails requesting backlinks, or submitting your sites to there links pages. And at the end of the day (actually in a few weeks), you have ½ a dozen new reciprocal link partners. that's good and all, but it bores the living hell out of me, and I don't have time for it. And they are only reciprocal links.

One-way links

Far better are one way links back to your pages. These are from websites that link to your site without you having to reciprocate. They are the best links to have, and the best way to get them in the past has been by submitting articles to places like directories, ezines and forums where other people read them, and hopefully give you a link back on there website somewhere.

Using a blog you can build one-way links to your site very fast. If you write articles of interest to others, they will link back to you in articles they write on their own blogs, and bloggers link to other bloggers without even thinking.

Getting your blog seen

"OK, so how do I get my blog in front of other people?" you ask... you automatically submit your blog posts to the large blog and feed directories as soon as you publish them, that's how! Included in your blog software is the ability to ping other feed sites. At SEO-easy.com you can find a free list of 45 directories to add to your Blog, so you can ping them automatically every time you update your blog.

If your blogging software doesn't have the ability to automatically ping, go to Pingomatic.com and submit your blog manually.

Where to put your blog

On your website, that's where. If your blog is hosted outside your website... on blogger.com for instance, move it! You can't get backlinks with your blog if unless it's on a page of your website. The other option is using WordPress or a similar blog package.

WordPress is fast becoming the most popular blogging software in use today. It is included as a free download in with many hosting accounts. Go into your servers admin and look for Fantastico Scripts and it should be there. If your hosting includes cPanel, you will find it is included, all you need to do is install it, and that takes only a minute. If your hosting does not include it, you can download and install it from WordPress.org yourself.

You can place your blog on your homepage - yoursite.com - on another page of your site - yoursite.com/blog - on a subdomain - blog.yoursite.com - but in my opinion, by far the best is yoursite.com

Russell Savige

How to Build a Niche Site With a Blog

2008-06-13T23:01:00.017-07:00

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!

Blogs And Your Work From Home Internet Business

2008-06-13T23:01:00.015-07:00

As a work from home internet business entrepreneur you have several really good tools on the internet you can take advantage of in order to build your work from home business. A blog is just one of those tools that you can use and should be taking advantage of.

In recent months blogs have become more and more popular all over the internet. A blog, or weblog, is a personal Web site updated frequently with links, commentary and anything else you like. People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems, most notably Blogger. (http://www.blogger.com) At blogger.com Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process. This makes it very simple to create several 100 pages within a site all with the same look and feel but with different content. This of coarse is exactly what the major search engines are looking for.

There are several reasons why a work from home internet business entrepreneur like my self would use blogs in their arsenal of marketing tools. The number one reason for me is to gain better search engine exposure. I have several blogs already started. Two are merely work from home business article databases. Every time I write a new article or find a good one someone else wrote, I submit it into my blog which crates a new page in my site. The search engines will find and spider this new page. I also have a work from home tips blog which I try to post several good tips to each week. This is all great content for my work from home internet business web site that my visitors will hopefully want to read.

Blogs also create opportunities for more search engine submissions. Recently with the popularity of blogs special blog search engines have started to emerge. The only way you can submit to one of these special blog search engines is if you have a blog yourself. Blogs create a special rss or xml files that these search engines will look for.

Setting up your blog may initially take some time and effort but it's made much simpler if you use blogger.com. But do not use bloggers hosting service. Be sure to use your own domain and hosting service. This will get you the best results with the search engines. Once you have chosen your main template look and feel of your blog all you need to do is keep posting new and good content that your readers would be interested in to your blog. Eventually over time you will have 100's pages of great content that your visitors will enjoy reading all spidered by the major search engines giving you more traffic and exposure.

By Tom Worsley

7 Questions To Ask Yourself BEFORE Staring A Business Blog

2008-06-13T23:01:00.013-07:00

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.

By Priya Shah

3 Overlooked Ways to Get Hundreds of Links and Prospects to Your Blog

2008-06-13T23:01:00.011-07:00

Did you know that there are free ways that you can get links back to your blog overnight? That after a few days they can number in the hundreds?

No matter what you market on the internet at some point you'll face the issue of increasing the number of visitors to your site. What most people don't know is that there are literally hundreds of ways to get free traffic. Here we'll focus on three overlooked ways to get additional traffic to your site using a blog.

The third most overlooked way to bring traffic to your site with a blog is to read and comment on other blogs.

Now, maybe you've done this before but stopped, because you're
becoming concerned about being considered a link-spammer. In
that case, leave a link to your site after your comments, instead of in the comment form that hot links it.

In the near future, blogmasters will be able to use special code to prevent spam in their comments section, so this will become less of a concern.

Besides, getting clicks from people who read comments, or visits from search engine spiders through your comments, isn't necessarily your direct objective, though it's definitely a plus.

What you want to do via commenting is to enter the blog community that corresponds to your target market. Get to know who the players are and make agreements with them to cycle traffic between you.

Or lurk to find out where your target market typically hangs out when they're online - you'd be surprised at how many inexpensive and targeted advertising sources you can find through this method.

(If you're looking to get linked, there's another way that we'll go over next.)

This tip alone has earned me a few dozen links from prominent blogs in the past four days alone.

These links are worth ten times a reciprocal link because they send targeted traffic from established sources, and come from experts with records of proven results.

You can be sure these kinds of people will check you out before they linked to you, since they may be judged by the quality of the information they share.

The second method to more blog traffic is the most confusing for newer people, and this is probably the reason its benefits remain overlooked.

In the simplest of terms, Trackback is kind of a remote commenting system that incorporates linking. It allows the reader to follow a topic around the web to see other bloggers remark on the same subject. It enables the publisher to remotely cite references to the issue on which they've written.

Once you've made yourself familiar with the blogging community you have entered, you can often pick up the pulse of conversations within your site's theme. Then, when you see issues that you want to expound on, you can send the other site a notification to let them know you cited them on your blog. That link will appear on their site, and often draws visitors to you.
Bloggers who use Trackback often enjoy greater control over
this function in their blogs than they do over linking, as they have the option to reject your reference - so there is a lesser incidence of fraudulent linking. That also gives your link a greater chance of being displayed.

So why don't more people use Trackback?

One reason is that what is arguably the most popular free blog system, Blogger, doesn't have Trackback. However, Haloscan.com can remedy this with their free service - it's a cut and paste away.

Many new bloggers don't get what it is and how it differs from commenting. And of course, the dynamics of it are a little more complex than I've stated. But learn to use Trackback properly, and you won't need to beg for links to your site ever again.

It's harder to estimate an exact number of visitors that come as a result of trackback links. But if you posted five days out of seven, and was able to get a trackback link to your site three times a week, by the end of the year you'd have almost 150 topical links back to your site, which are more valued by search engines than a typical link trade with an unrelated site.

The most overlooked source of traffic for a blog is through article submission. To start with, turn your longer posts into articles and submitting them to ezines or directories. Look especially for directories that ask for the direct link to the article on your own site, and input the permanent link to the post on your blog.

Make sure that your Auto-Discovery tag is in place and it can mean hundreds more prospects, links and subscribers.

It's a shame this is the one of the least used traffic methods for most sites, let alone for blogs. In four days, this method generated just over 1000 visitors. 157 newsletter leads, 98 new feed subscribers, and 206 links to my site. You may not get these same results right away, but using these simple strategies can still get you more exposure than you have now.

These aren't normally the highest quality links, as they rarely make sure of anchor text. However, bloggers are citing me using Trackback, sometimes in lieu of linking to the site where they originally found the article.

To see this in action, do a search on "Can A Ping Really Help Your Blog Get Top Search Engine Rankings", the title of an article I submitted earlier this week.

That article was published within a week of this one- the results speak for themselves. Many of these sites aren't the ones where my articles are normally published.

There are, of course, plenty of other ways you can leverage the content in your blog or RSS feed to increase the traffic to your site. The methods outlined here may be a bit outside the norm, but, as you'll soon find, that's part of the reason they are so effective.

By Tinu AbayomiPaul

Just Tag It!

2008-06-13T23:01:00.009-07:00

Tags - Revolutionary or Just Folly?

Just another trend or something else?

Trends happen overnight! Some catch on fast and explode very quickly into our every day use.

Most of these trends you can ignore as silly folly or at the most fine amusement. Anyone remember pet rocks, Farrah Fawcett hairdos, or last year's killer fashions?

Others, you have to pay more attention to: cell phones, digital cameras, mini-sites, optin lists, or email.

Right now, there's another trend you should keep your eye on: 'tags'.

What are tags? And why should you care about them?

Tags are a way of sorting and linking all that information in blogs and RSS Feeds. It groups together all the information on one particular subject.

It's a democratic 'search engine' for blogs.

Think of a 'tag' as a 'keyword' to be used in blogging and RSS Feeds (Feed tags are still in the works).

Tags have hit the radar lately because Technorati, which indexes 4.5 million blogs, started sorting blog posts by using tags.

They have created a folksonomy, drawing tags from different sources, mainly Flickr.com which sorts or groups pictures and from del.icio.us -- where you create a tag when you bookmark a page.

Or if your blogging software has categories -- this will be recognized by Technorati as a tag.

If you want to create a 'tag' it's very simple; just place this code in your blog:

Computers (remove asterisks in actual code)

and you will have created a tag for computers.

A tag makes it easier and faster to find information on your favorite subject. It gives you a cross section of real views and opinions floating in the ether.

There are some inherent problems in this system; will the posts grow so quickly and so large -- it's like 'finding a needle in a haystack' or will you have to dig thru a lot of muck to find the scattered diamonds. Or maybe a ranking system will be put in place but this goes against the 'democratic code' of blogging.

Regardless, the traffic and marketing potential of 'tags' could be very beneficial to those who use it to their advantage.

A marketer with a product to introduce or promote could aggressively target tags as part of their advertising budget. As blogging increases in popularity -- it's something to watch!

As a website owner -- tags could be a great source of targeted traffic. And the keyword here is 'targeted'.

It's the kind of visitor you want coming to your site or blog. It can only lead to a better quality visitor. Similar to a visitor coming from the major search engines. One that is really searching for your information.

The next big question, how will marketers exploit these tags to make a few bucks? Everyone knows that's coming!

Will we have a 'tag search engine' that can rival the quality of a Google or Yahoo? Or do we need one?

As with any new trend -- you never know how it will play out.

Some interesting questions have yet to be answered:

Tags are basically keywords for blogs -- but as everyone knows the quality of links to these tags are not all equal. Will someone step in and rank these or will they remain democratic?

Just how will tags work for building content or links to your site? How will the search engines use these tags? How will marketers and advertisers exploit the potential of all this content and the content's viewers?

Will we have tag-spamming? (Just what we need another form of spamming!) Someone flooding these tags with thousands of links to get traffic or sell a product.

Not to hype it too much but there's a real 'we're entering unknown territory' feeling with blogging and RSS lately. Heady days for those keeping a close watch on the events unfolding. There are countless applications probably already in the works for tags!

It could be the start of something big or it could just fizzle.

In any case -- keep your eyes peeled to that cursor! There's probably a tag on the end of it!

This trend may just offer more than fine amusement.

By Titus Hoskins

Should Bloggers be Helping Google Fix Their PageRank System?

2008-06-13T23:01:00.007-07:00

By now, most bloggers have heard the announcement that the Big 3 search engines - Google, Yahoo, and MSN - have united in support of a new tag that will supposedly combat comment spam. The new tag is a nofollow attribute that can be added to links. When added to links in comment tags, the search engines will ignore them.

An excellent discussion of this new tag and how it works can be found at Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050118-204728

Google announced the new tag in a 1/18/2005 post to their own blog: http://www.google.com/googleblog/

And Microsoft added their support to the new tag in this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/01/18/nofollow_tags.aspx

At first blush, anything that can help cut down the comment spam that most bloggers are daily subjected to would seem to be a good thing. It can be pretty upsetting to access your blog in the morning and find 50 junk comments with links to casino, adult, and pharmacy sites. If your blog has any PageRank, you can expect to find more of this garbage polluting your site every day. Fighting the spread of comment spam has become a necessity.

But after first cheering the proactiveness of the search engines, many bloggers have stepped back and taken a closer look and they don't like what they see. You can read a sampling of their thoughts at Search Engine Watch Forum: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3797

Brian Turner's incisive article "New Nofollow Tag Cheers Bloggers but Fails Blogs" discusses some of the potential abuses of the new nofollow tag: http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/archives/2005/01/new_nofollow_ta.html

And Jim Pryke's article "Bloggers Cheer Google As Their Search Rankings Plummet" makes it very clear that not only will this NOT stop comment spam. But it will actually hurt bloggers as a community: http://netinstitute.com/archives/2005/01/20/bloggers-cheer-google-as-their-search-rankings-plummet

For an hilarious take on the new tag and how it will get abused, be sure to take a look at Link Condom: http://www.linkcondom.com

I have to agree with these bloggers that the nofollow tag won't even put a dent in the problem of comment spam. You have to realize that the comment spammers who cause the most problems are the ones who use automated bots to spread their spam onto every blog they find. The fact that they find a blog using the nofollow tag won't stop the bot from posting. If you have a popular blog, you'll still wake up every morning to find 50 casino/pharmacy/adult ads on your blog. You'll still have to spend the time deleting those posts to clean up your blog.

You see, the problem to bloggers isn't that those comment links pass PR. It's the fact that those spam posts make your blog look like garbage. Whether the links pass PR or not isn't the big issue for bloggers. It's the time it takes to get rid of unwanted comments and the detraction to their sites. The nofollow tag won't do a thing about that problem. You'll still have the problems, even if you use the tag.

Think about this: how effective have email filters been in stopping email spam? As most of us know, they've hardly done any good at all. Email spam becomes a bigger problem every day. Spammers really don't care if some of their emails are blocked. They just send more of it to compensate. The same will be true of the automated comment spam bots.

The fact of the matter is, there are already much better tools in most blogging software to fight comment spam AND save the time and effort of the blogger at the same time. There are already a number of plugins for WordPress, Moveable Type, and other blogs. There will undoubtedly be more in the future. These tools are already more effective at fighting comment spam than this nofollow tag will ever be.

What is unfortunate is that the people the nofollow tag will really hurt is bloggers themselves. Traditionally, bloggers have read and commented in each other's blogs. And these comments have added value. When I write an article for my blog, I love it when other bloggers take the time to add their insights on the topic I'm discussing. These comments add content to my site and continue the discussion. This is one of the reasons blogs are so easy to grow into topic-specific information-rich sites that are popular with readers. Unlike static sites, they offer two-way communication between reader and blogger. They become communities.

When someone adds this kind of value to my blog, I am more than happy to give them a link to their blog that passes PR. That will help them build the readership of their own blog, grow the community even larger, and add to the richness of the discussion. These are exactly the kinds of links that any webmaster should want on their site!

Adding a nofollow tag to comments can only quash this discussion. It can only discourage commenters with the most to contribute from taking the time to add to the discussion. After all, if the time I spend on another blog doesn't contribute to the growth of the blogging community as a whole or aid in the visibility of my own blog, am I going to spend as much time and effort doing it?

Anything that decreases the open flow of discussion currently enjoyed in the blogging community is a bad deal for bloggers.

The question that should be asked is this: why is comment spam so profitable? After all, if it weren't profitable, so many people wouldn't be going to such ridiculous lengths to do it.

The answer to this is obviously Google's link-heavy PageRank algorithm that forces webmasters to get every link they can to get their site's indexed and ranked. Most webmasters know that in order to get ranked in Google, they had better have a ton of links to their site.

That's the problem with PageRank as an algorithm. It encourages artificial linking between sites that no longer has any relevance whatsoever to the goal of providing good resources to visitors. Do we really believe that most reciprocal link directories provide a resource to our visitors? Not likely! If websites are real estate, reciprocal link directories are the slums, the seedy bars and tattoo parlors on the edges of polite society.

Whole businesses have sprung up as a reaction to PageRank. I'm talking about the link auction and link selling sites. Under the PageRank system, sites aren't being ranked by who provides the best content, but by who has the deepest pockets to buy the most links. Or, in the case of comment spammers, whoever wants to spread their bots all over the internet spamming blogs. This system has over time totally skewed the natural linking between sites that once dominated the internet - the very thing that Google's PageRank system is supposed to reward.

Ironically, blogs are one of the few places left on the web where linking is actually about providing good content to visitors and rewarding value provided on other sites. Bloggers as a group are the most likely to link to sites because of the content value to their visitors. Their links are very likely to be very topic specific. You don't find that on other sites. These are the kinds of links that I would assume Google would want to encourage through their PageRank system, not those junky reciprocal link directories or purchased links.

It would seem to me that the only effective way to cut down on comment spam and all the artificial linking techniques Google purportedly wants to thwart is not by making life harder for bloggers - the very people who link in the most relevant fashion. But at taking a second look at their own PageRank system and whether it is really serving the usefulness of their own search engine and the whole web in 2005.

How RSS Advertising Can Help Business Gain A Higher ROI

2008-06-13T23:01:00.005-07:00

I recently read the case study conducted by Pheedo, an advertising company on the use of RSS Feeds advertising versus email advertising.

The difference in results were staggering.

Pheedo ran the campaign for 6 weeks and from their results, RSS feeds outperformed the best click through rate in email by over 26% as compared to the industry average of 8.7%.

Surprised? Let's investigate the benefits of RSS advertising versus email ads.

RSS advertising has a number of 'superior' advantages compared to email ads:

1. RSS feeds does not face a delivery issue in an anti-SPAM environment that is being filled with filters, anti-virus software or whatever program that is put in place by the user to block SPAM and unwanted emails.

2. RSS feeds cost ZERO to track. With a burned feed, you can easily track how many people are subscribing to your feed.

With email, if you want to track how many of your mails were delivered, you would have to pay for the additional services.

A simple mathematical illustration can prove this:

Let's say Cost per 1,000 impressions = $50 And you want to do 10,000 impressions per week.

So the cost would be = $50 x 10 = $500 per week.

With Email Advertising, you would need to include email monitoring delivery charges.

So your total cost would be $500 + X per week

where X is the additonal costs for email monitoring delivery

So your advertising costs go up. Mutiply the above figure with 48 weeks (1 year) and you can see how costly it is to run email advertising campaigns.

With RSS Advertising, there is ZERO monitory delivery charges.

You maximise every penny from your advertising dollar, and the costs go down!

3. RSS feeds is 100% Opt-in. We're talking about readers who know what they want and educated enough to know how to subscribe to feeds, either with desktop readers or through the use of some online newsreader such as Bloglines, MyYahoo and so on.

Yes, there is also 'opt-in' email. But then again, opt-in email is getting less effective because of:

a) constant bombardment of emails from other marketers and advertisers, making the subscribers 'numb' to advertising message

b) keywords that trigger off SPAM filter, causing failed delivery message

RSS feeds do not face these two problems. RSS feeds has a 100% delivery rate and has no SPAM issue as it is a feed, not email.

It will be interesting to see the continued developments in the use of RSS feeds for advertising.

By Brandon

What Is The Orange XML or RSS Icon I See More and More On Web Sites?

2008-06-13T23:01:00.003-07:00

This question does not have a one sentence answer! If I just said that one uses this icon to get a site's RSS feed, you still won't understand. So let's try and answer you in such a way that it all makes sense to you and, more importantly, that you learn how to benefit from it.

Let's say that you like my web site very much and you would like to read new content as I add it. At this stage there is no way of informing you when I've added a new page except for notifying you by email. This assumes that you've provided me with your e-mail address - which most people are hesitant to do any way. The other way is for you to bookmark my site - but how many times do people really go back to a site?

What if I told you that you could have a little "window" (called a reader or an aggregator) on your monitor and that, each time I updated my site, you are automatically informed about it. How, you may ask? A headline (called a news feed) and a short summary to inform/tease you is squirted to your reader. If the teaser interests you, all you need to do is follow the hyperlink that will take you to that page on my web site where you can read it all. If you're not interested, you simply delete the headline. The process is repeated each time I add new content.

You can of course subscribe to as many feeds as you want to - from current affairs to people's personal blogs (a blog is short for web log which is a diary or a journal on the internet).

So, what must you do to set it up and how much is it going to cost?

Let's answer the second question first: Setting it up is FREE - it will cost you nothing.

This is how to setup a reader or an aggregator on a Windows system:

Download Microsoft's .NET framework here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=262D25E3-F589-4842-8157-034D1E7CF3A3&displaylang=en"

Install this on you system.

Download RSSReader from here:

http://www.rssreader.com/

Install this on you system.

You are now ready to add your first feed.

As an example I'll walk you through the process of adding my site http://www.perfect-party-ideas.com 's XML feed. Navigate to the site. On the home page you will see the orange XML icon. Right-click the XML icon and then click the "Copy Shortcut" option.

Open the RSSReader and click on the green "+ Add" icon in the top left hand corner. A form opens up that prompts you to enter the URL of the feed. Just paste the URL here (ctrl-v). Well done - you've just added your very first RSS feed.

Let's test if it is working. Click the "Get" icon which is to the left of the "+Add" icon. You should see a number of feeds arriving in your reader. Simply double-click the ones you are interested in to read the summary. Click the "Read more" or "Open in a Browser" links if you want to read the whole article.

Was it that difficult? No, I agree, it's fairly straight forward.

Now you are ready to sign up for more feeds. Why not sign up for my blog's feed as well? I use my blog to document the process of setting up my web site. There I share my ideas, failures, frustrations, doubts, successes, and articles that have I found useful. And, B.t.w. I also tell you how to make money from your web site.

If you're interested in following the exciting journey, just copy and paste this URL exactly as you did with the previous one.

http://perfect-party-ideas.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Congratulations - you have entered the exciting world of RSS!

By Anne-Marie Killer

To Blog or Not to Blog: Are Blogs Becoming More Popular than Forums, Newsletters and E-zines?

2008-06-13T23:01:00.001-07:00

Blogging is hot, and seems to be becoming hotter each month. Although blogging originally was dismissed, by many successful publishers and other online "gurus", the truth is that now, a few years after the "blogging trend" began, there are actually more blogs and more bloggers online than ever before. Blogging, obviously, is "here to stay"!

Actually first documented in 1997, Web logs initially used the abbreviated version: wee-blog, with a Web log editor referred to as a blogger. Since then, all types of Web logs (blogs) and blogging software have emerged, giving rise to this lucrative and dynamic market.

Now, everything from advertising blogs to zoology blogs exist, with every topic in between apparent online. Political blogs are rampant, and groups of bloggers across the globe post regularly on every topic imaginable.

What does a blog supply that an e-zine, newsletter, or forum might not? What has skyrocketed the popularity of the blog over the past several years?

The answers are really quite simple:

1. Blogs are more highly interactive. Posters get to see the results of a post immediately, as the post appears simultaneously after posting. Posters also don't have the usual moderation that appears in forums, where posts may be deleted without warning. Usually, in blogs, more freedom is given, and posts are usually accepted no matter what the content, or the topic.

E-zines and newsletters, with their one sided presentation of views, have decreased in popularity with the increase of the popularity of blogs.

2. Blogs are easy to maintain and easy to start. The sheer volume of choices is staggering! Everything from "blogging software" to "blogging services" are available, and even a novice blogger will find blogging quick and easy to do.

3. Blogs are "Search Engine Friendly Food". Search Engines love blogs, because of the constantly changing content that appears daily. Search Engines are constantly "searching" for new content, and blogs meet this requirement splendidly!

4. Blogs are actually a lot of fun! The entertainment aspects of a blog cannot be dismissed. A great deal of "voyeurism" exists on blogs, where other bloggers continually monitor discussions, both pro and con concerning an issue. Discussions on blogs can be "heated" and interesting, with much repartee occurring daily! Blogs are a rousing form of media, indeed, with many bloggers returning repeatedly throughout a day to view new posts.

For a view into popular blogs of many categories, just visit: http://www.blogit.com

5. Many blogs are capable of syndication. Syndication is a great way to ensure that your writing and your views are exposed to as much of the general public as possible. Syndication is many times included in blogging services now, and this has drawn individuals to the art of blogging continuously.

For an example of a blog service that features syndication, please visit: http://www.typepad.com

6. There are no lists to maintain, or spam filters to worry about with blogs. This is one reason why so many writers and publishers have turned to blogs. E-mail delivery of newsletters and e-zines has become difficult over the past few years, with the advent of spam filters. Blogs are not delivered, and therefore, no methods of defeating filters are needed, and no "non-deliverables" occur, which has been the bane of writers and publishers prior to this.

A good blogging software exists at: http://www.silkblogs.com

7. Blogs are economical. Since no lists are maintained, there are no list server costs. Blogging software and blogging services are also very reasonably priced, giving good value for the money spent monthly consistently. Some blogging services charge others to "read", while others charge writers to "write", but overall the monthly charges are rather minimal either way.

8. Blogs are educational. There are such a variety of informative and educational blogs available now, that a search for any subject usually turns up hundreds of offerings. Differing points of view on all subjects are offered routinely, giving a reader or poster an "insight" into the hearts and minds of other bloggers.

Blogs also, to be successful, however, need to contain the same elements of a popular newsletter or e-zine:

A. Compelling, well-written content. No one, either online or offline wants to read materials that are poorly written or difficult or boring to read.

B. Updated material. Just as in newsletters or e-zines, if material is not updated continually, then the audience eventually dies.

C. Rousing topics. Topics of interest to a wide range of readers succeed more than topics that appeal to very few, or are rather dull topics.

D. A nice layout and visual appeal. A blog is akin to a Web site for written materials, and just like in the design of a Web site, every care should be made to have the blog be visually appealing and friendly to visitors.

Newsletters, e-zines and forums, of course, will remain. But as you can clearly see, blogging, bloggers, and blogs themselves, have definitely added to the "online experience" and will possibly (and hopefully) be around for decades more!

By Vishal P. Rao

How to Get Started Blogging in 5 Minutes or Less

2008-06-13T23:00:00.001-07:00

I put off starting a blog for a long time because I thought it would be hard. I thought it would be technical. I thought I'd have to install scripts and tear my hair out getting them to work. At that point, most of what I'd read about blogs and RSS was just so much geek-speak.

Was I ever wrong!

When I finally got the courage to give it a go, I went to blogger.com and signed up for an account. To my amazement, I had a blog set up in about 5 minutes. My first post was uploaded to my site about 10 minutes later.

The only thing even remotely technical I was required to do was enter the FTP settings for the website my blog would be published on. But even that wasn't a requirement. With Blogger, you can set up a blog on their site, Blogspot, and not even worry about FTP settings.

Since then, I've started 3 Blogger blogs on different sites. Blogger remains one of the most popular blog applications in the world simply because it is so simple to use and set up. If you're a technophobe or don't have the time to learn something completely new, I would urge you to drop by Blogger.com and take a look. You could be blogging - and enjoying the benefits - almost immediately.

Another very simple blogging tool is Wordpress. This blog is my first Wordpress blog, and I'm very impressed with how powerful it is - as well as simple.

Wordpress is installed on your own website, but don't let that stop you. Most hosts that have Cpanel already have Wordpress ready for you to install. Look in your Cpanel for the Fantastico application, click it open, and then choose Wordpress to install. It will automatically install it on your site for you, and you can start blogging right away.

If your host doesn't already include Wordpress in the scripts on your server, you can still pick it up at:

http://wordpress.org/

Then go to the Wordpress Wiki for instructions on how to install it in 5 minutes:

http://wiki.wordpress.org/?pagename=5MinuteInstallation

Wordpress is free, open-source software. It is very simple to install, even for technophobes, and has a lot of online documentation. There are also many sites with free Wordpress add-ons and templates. I'm using a template for this blog that I picked up at Alex King's site:

http://www.alexking.org/index.php?content=software/wordpress/styles.php

The Wordpress Wiki is a wealth of information on all things Wordpress, including installation instructions, help files, a long list of template sites, and all kinds of hacks and extras you can use to modify your blog and make it original.

If you're a Wordpress user, another place to visit is the Wordpress discussion forum:

http://wordpress.org/support/

If you're a new blogger, both Wordpress and Blogger are very user friendly. There isn't a long learning curve. And you won't have to learn any new technical tricks. Why not give one of them a try?

Writing Quality Blogs

2008-06-06T01:21:00.000-07:00

Writing?Blogs?Blogs are on-line journals where people express themselves through writing. Writing?Writing is the process where one puts down words of a language on a format that others can read. This process has not been around very long, to use one of my writing teacher's favorite sayings, "Writing has only existed for one day in the one year that humanity has existed."

Speaking and thinking come much easier than writing. These processes just flow out naturally like a river of consciousness; sometimes we hardly have to think about doing them. Anyone and everyone can write words down on paper but that doesn't mean it's 'good writing', myself included. Like most things in life, our society already takes writing for granted which is proving to expose more of our ignorance. Writing is a new form of expression, and if we want to do it in a way that the masses can connect with our ideas, we have to think much more simply and clearly about this art. Now that was quite a big paragraph, you've got to wonder if I really needed to say as much as I just did to introduce this article on the best way to write your blogs on the Web. I didn't even mention this main idea, and that's what an introduction paragraph is meant to be for. This is a common mistake in many blogs out there. We try to get too many ideas across in one

paragraph, sometimes even in one sentence! The key, as in all things in life-is to keep it simple. Simplicity means that readers won't get confused about what your journal entry is actually about. Introduce your main general topic at the start, and use the subsequent paragraphs to discuss separate ideas that relate to this topic. Try to tie everything up in the concluding paragraph, your main argument and the reason why you've written in the first place.

Grammar and sentence construction are not easy systems to master, especially if you come from a school system that spent more time telling you about historical battles and quadratic equations than on how to read and write. This is a real problem. When we speak we can get messages across to others easily, but if we put these words down on paper, the writing just isn't interesting and doesn't connect with people's curiosities and fascination.

When you write you are not talking to a close friend. You can't use slang and colloquialisms that only your local community can understand. The aim is to connect with all the people in the world, so let's make it crystal clear and enjoyable to read. Your computer has spelling and grammar checks, as well as access to a thesaurus. Use them, but remember that the machine can't decipher all the intricacies of language. Language is a world in itself, and much of its territories are undiscovered by the masses. So, again keep it simple. Short, precise sentences with single ideas are great. Many words in the English language have the same meanings (synonyms).

Use the thesaurus so you don't repeat the same word over and over throughout the text. It keeps the story fresh and doesn't turn the reader off. There's nothing more boring than repetition. Using different words can be a lot of fun and a learning experience, just make sure you use a dictionary (also on the computer/Internet) to make absolute sure of the word's definition. Readability?Simplicity?Make your blog accessible by all people. You can even take into consideration that many readers will have learned English as a second language.

As I've said in previous articles, keep to the point-don't go on tangents. Stick with the article's topic, and definitely stay within the realms of your blog's main area. If your blog is entitled "Jazz music", people who go there don't want to hear about how your football team won on the weekend! Please be consistent. How irritating is it to visit a blog that hasn't been written on in months or years? I hope these little tips will help you on your quest to producing 'good' writing that brings new friends and acquaintances of similar outlooks into your world. If you want people to read, the aim is to produce an emotional reaction in your reader. Pretend you are writing to another form of yourself, if it were not readable, interesting and fun?would you stick around?
Jesse S. Somer