A merchant I was talking to the other day asked to me, "Aren't feeds for bigger companies with IT people on staff?" All they knew about feeds was that bigger companies , news providers etc., were using them. After I explained how that particular merchant could use a feed for her business, she were quite excited about the prospect of doing just that.
The particlular merchant I was talking to in fact, had no web site, and did not see the need for one. But after we discussed feeds she definately thought that a feed service could benefit her business.
Feeds can benefit any business online or not. below are a couple of samples of how feeds can be used.
In the first scenario the particular merchant does not have a web site. A compnay such as ours can develop a feed for that merchant. We can have a web page developed with the information the merchant wants on it, such as weekly specials, etc. We host the feed and web page on our server. We update the feed and web page for the merchant on a contract basis. The merchant simply contacts us with the new information they want their customers to know. They can contact us by e-mail or by phone or even by snail mail if they wish.
In their retail outlet they will pass out a flyer or brochure announcing their new feed service for their customers. The flyer will have the URL of the page we have developed for the merchant, the URL of the merchant's feed, how the customers can get a free reader, and instruction and education pages for the customers so that they can become familiar with the benefits and safety of feeds. They will be interested since they can receive information about that merchant with No Spam, No Junk Mail amd No Virus download threat.
Customers that enter the feed into their readers will get updated information about that particular merchant. The merchant does not need a web site to do this or have people sign upfor a mailing list. The customer is in control since they can add, and delete, any feed from their reader at any time.
For a merchant that has a web site, but may not have time to develop a feed or pages, they can do the same thing as above. They can have us, or a company like ours, to handle the feeds, pages and hosting. The merchant can post the feed information on his or her web site for people to get a free reader, the feed URL, as well as edcutional material aboutr feeds that we supply for their customers.
For people that have web sites that were developed by others, and have little or no knowledge of how to update their site, we also provide web site maintenance. We can update their site with any information they wish.
This feed service can be offered by online and offline businesses. Any business or organization, whether corporate, a bricks an mortar retail business, a home based business, or online business, can use this service to better help their customers and/or members find the best deals on products and services and information from right in their community and from around the world.
For more information on feeds and our business packages please go to the following site: http://1feed.com/temp/addafeed
Bob Power has been an Inteet entrepreneur for longer than he would like to remember. He is the president of http://1Feed.com and http://Clubrss.com, both of which is deducated to the education of feeds.
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It never occurred to me to have an artist's blog before I read Kristen Royce's article on "Why Every Artist Should Have A Blog".
One of the great things about having an art blog is that you can update it right away. It can often take days or weeks to update an art web site. You can also edit a post and correct it immediately. And it is also possible to go back and edit or "tweak" a post after you have published it on your artist's blog any time you want to.
You can do very different things with an art blog than you can with an art website. They are a great combination.
An artist's web site is like a constant one-person show. An artist's blog has a very different tone than an artist's web site. An artist's blog is like having an ongoing chatty art conversation.
The subject matter can be much more personal in an art blog. You can talk about events and information that just would not fit in with an artist's website.
I am in the early leaing stages of art blogging and I am finding that art blogging can be a whole lot of fun.
� Mary Baker 2005
Mary Baker is a contemporary realist painter, whose studio is in Newburyport, Massachusetts. This New England city, north of Boston, has been the inspiration for the artist�s realistic oil paintings. Mary Baker is a professional artist and has shown in New York art galleries.
You can visit Mary at her website, Mary Baker Art at http://www.marybakera rt.com, see her beautiful paintings and read her articles on a variety of subjects including a four part series on Art, Artists and the Web. A list of articles can be found on her Site Map and Mary's paintings can be seen on every page of Mary Baker Art.
You can also visit Mary Baker's artists blog, Mary Baker Art-Blog to find art information for artists and people who are in the art world.
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 inteal 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.masteewmedia.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!
For more tips and ideas on how to make money blogging, be sure to visit my "Why Marketers Should Blog" weblog at (what else) http://www.WhyMarketersShouldBlog.com
Depending on who you ask, blogging has become either the web�s great equalizer or the next spam. You don't have to be a whiz at any fancy scripting languages or know what "" means to have a blog. Although often associated with personal jouals or as an extension of a discussion forum, blogs are easy ways for companies to connect inteally: employee to employee, and exteally: company to customer/client.
Although blogging is a comparatively young, its use is flourishing all over the web. Forrester Research reports that "online consumers who regularly read blogs increased from 2% in 2003 to 5% in 2004."(1) Though this reported 2004 number is relatively small, just Google the word "blog" to get a real sense on how blogs have proliferated the web.(2)
Blogs are seen as unfiltered honesty, because of that visceral truth to their immediacy, opinions of bloggers are highly valued, but blogging is more than just opinions and updated "what I�m doing reports," the best blogs blend both editorial opinion and passion on a given subject. So, how can blogs benefit your business? They can help create new way to connect with your clients/customers.
For example, if you're a doctor attending a medical conference. While away from your practice, getting caught up with the newest and latest drug therapies and medical techniques you�re unable to connect with your patients. With blogs, you�ll be able to relate those incredible new treatments to your patients. In tu, they can read that post, comment to it and later call or email your practice to make an appointment.
Blogging creates a new way to relate to your business to others. It creates a two-way relationship with those reading your blogs each of you contributing to a common dialog. In the eyes of your blogging readership, this makes you accessible. Staying connected in this manner also strengthens existing relationships those patients, clients and colleagues.
Blogging is egalitarian; you don't have to be a company CEO to get a message out. Blogging can be an effective workflow tool when used within an organization. Inteal organization blogging (or dark blogging � blogging behind a firewall) can extend project discussions long after a meeting has adjoued, and keep track of discussion threads that project or various other important work topics.
Blogs compared to databases are cheap and compact:
"Instead of deluging in-boxes with email... or dropping twenty grand on some dreaded knowledge management system for 'enterprise class corporate environments,' businesses can install a blogging application behind the firewall for a couple hundred bucks or point employees to a free blogging provider and encourage to 'do their thing.'"(3)
Not all company assets have to remain under lock and key. Sometimes you do want your digital assets to be a public announcement, and when you�re ready to do so, blogging can be a profoundly effective communications tool. Finding a balance between showing your company�s a public face and putting a human one to it, can be overwhelming, below are some resources to get you started:
- - - - - - - - - -
Blogging Resources:
- Blogger � http://www.blogger.com
- Live Joual � http://www.livejoual.com/
- MovableType � http://www.movabletype.org or http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/
- Web Logs Inc.(recently purchased by AOL) - http://www.weblogsinc.com/
- Xanga � http://www.xanga.com
- Word Press � http://www.wordpress.com
- BrokenKode � Rin a Manji custom tempate for Word Press http://www.brokenkode.com/manji
- Flickr (to share company photos) http://www.flickr.com
- Blog on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
- - - - - - - - - -
End Notes:
1.) Charlene Li, "Blogging: Bubble or Big Deal?" Forrester Research, 5 November 2004, http://www.forrester.com
2.) When Googling the word "blog" search results retued were 436,000,000 as of 3 January 2006. In October, the number of blogs was greater at 475,000,000 on 7 October, 2005.
3.) Biz Stone, "Blogging in Business," Who Let the Blogs Out? (St Martin�s Griffin: New York, NY. 2004), 155-156.
- - - - - - - - - -
Ms. Veniegas is an alumni of the University of Washington Marilee joined the Marketing team at Essential Security Software, Inc. in 2005. She also serves as one of the ESS site editors for I Want My ESS! a stolen work and SMB resource site.
So everybody's bloggin', but what makes one web marketer's blog a hotbed of marketer activity and massive sale converter... while another blog just sits there collecting hits but getting no real business? Check the Five Bloggin' Bloopers that will kill your credibility and drive business right into the other guy's lap... then avoid them like the plague! Blog Blooper 1. Not branding yourself. How will people who land on your blog via the links and search engine results know who you are unless you tell them? Try to close every blog entry you write with a signoff or call-to-action. Example: "Need a copywriter? Email dina@wordfeeder.com." This way, no matter what your fans are reading, they'll be reminded of you, your website and what you can offer them. Blog Blooper 2. Sharing too much personal information. If you're blogging for business, stick to business. Sure, it's okay to reveal a few amusing details now and then... but if you gab too much on your blog, all you'll succeed in doing is attract other gabbers. Remember your purpose in all this, and keep your topics closely geared fulfilling the business needs of your target audience. Blog Blooper 3. Too many links to competitor sites. Your fans will love you for sharing resources, and if you link to "friendly neighborhood service providers like yourself", this will endear those marketers to you and your blog and prompt reciprocal links back. However, be sure to choose your outbound links wisely. Select complimentary service providers... not ones who offer exactly what you do! Blog Blooper 4. Not enough "spice." Post an intriguing or controversial viewpoint, and your readers are more likely to jump into the conversation with posted comments. The more activity on your blog, the more people are "following along" as the plot develops, and the more repeat visitors you'll get. If everyone's flocking to your blog, that means better page rank for you. So please do "spice it up!" Blog Blooper 5. All "pickup articles," no personality. Hey, now there's a great way to develop your web style - only post other people's tips, stories and advice. Nothing like drawing a crowd and then sending them away to other folks' website because you never took the time to reveal your opinions, advice, or even your line of business for that matter! Sure, search engines feed on article content, but you MUST develop your blog persona or you will NEVER get business! Okay, now that we've laid down the blogging laws, it's time for you to hit the blogosphere and make a name for yourself. Start from scratch and have fun with it. I know you can blog like a web marketing pro. Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved. Are YOU Content With Your Content? Get Top Secret Marketing Tips from the Web's Biggest Gurus and Expert Authors on The First Annual Web Content Awareness Day on FEBRUARY 9, 2006. Go to http://wordfeeder.com/wcad/landingpage.html for details. Are You Content With Your Blog Content Avoid the 5 Blog Bloopers that Will KILL Your Credibility
So everybody's bloggin', but what makes one web marketer's blog a hotbed of marketer activity and massive sale converter... while another blog just sits there collecting hits but getting no real business? Check the Five Bloggin' Bloopers that will kill your credibility and drive business right into the other guy's lap... then avoid them like the plague!
Blog Blooper 1. Not branding yourself.
How will people who land on your blog via the links and search engine results know who you are unless you tell them? Try to close every blog entry you write with a signoff or call-to-action. Example: "Need a copywriter? Email dina@wordfeeder.com." This way, no matter what your fans are reading, they'll be reminded of you, your website and what you can offer them.
Blog Blooper 2. Sharing too much personal information.
If you're blogging for business, stick to business. Sure, it's okay to reveal a few amusing details now and then... but if you gab too much on your blog, all you'll succeed in doing is attract other gabbers. Remember your purpose in all this, and keep your topics closely geared fulfilling the business needs of your target audience.
Blog Blooper 3. Too many links to competitor sites.
Your fans will love you for sharing resources, and if you link to "friendly neighborhood service providers like yourself", this will endear those marketers to you and your blog and prompt reciprocal links back. However, be sure to choose your outbound links wisely. Select complimentary service providers... not ones who offer exactly what you do!
Blog Blooper 4. Not enough "spice."
Post an intriguing or controversial viewpoint, and your readers are more likely to jump into the conversation with posted comments. The more activity on your blog, the more people are "following along" as the plot develops, and the more repeat visitors you'll get. If everyone's flocking to your blog, that means better page rank for you. So please do "spice it up!"
Blog Blooper 5. All "pickup articles," no personality.
Hey, now there's a great way to develop your web style - only post other people's tips, stories and advice. Nothing like drawing a crowd and then sending them away to other folks' website because you never took the time to reveal your opinions, advice, or even your line of business for that matter! Sure, search engines feed on article content, but you MUST develop your blog persona or you will NEVER get business!
Okay, now that we've laid down the blogging laws, it's time for you to hit the blogosphere and make a name for yourself. Start from scratch and have fun with it. I know you can blog like a web marketing pro.
Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.
Are YOU Content With Your Content? Get Top Secret Marketing Tips from the Web's Biggest Gurus and Expert Authors on The First Annual Web Content Awareness Day on FEBRUARY 9, 2006.
Dina Giolitto is a copywriting consultant and ghostwriter with 10 years of experience writing corporate print materials and web content. Trust her with your next e-book, article series or web project, and make a lasting impression on your audience of information-hungry prospects. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com for more details.
Blog need food! That might sound like the climactic speech from a caveman movie, but it's actually a hard truth of blogging. Business and marketing blogs need quality content on a regular basis in order to attract readers and search engines. In other words, you must feed your blog regularly if you expect it to grow. The challenge is coming up with quality content on a daily or weekly basis. Here's one solution: Robotic Research Assistant Imagine having your own Web-crawling robot, surfing the Inteet 24/7 to find relevant information you can use in your blog. Think of the time you would save, having this content delivered to your inbox every day. How much would a robot like that be worth? Would free work for you? Feed Your Blog with Google� Alerts With Google Alerts, you can enter a key phrase related to your blog and then be notified whenever Google "sees" a new Web document that includes your phrase. In other words, when Google indexes a new page related to your topic, Google Alerts will email you. You can set up the notifications daily, weekly or "as it happens." As of this writing, Google Alerts is still in beta stage. But take it from me -- it works wonderfully. A lot of the alerts you get will come from press releases and other developments within your chosen area. That makes them the perfect supplement to your blog. All you have do is summarize the information in your own words. There you have it, your very own research robot to help with your blogging efforts. Give it a try. Just visit Google's website and click on the "more" link. Then click on "Alerts" and fill in the blanks. Now you've got your own, customized Web crawler! * Copyright 2006, Brandon Coett. You may republish this article in its entirety, provided you leave the byline, author's note and website hyperlink intact.
I mentioned in my previous articles that RSS technology can be successfully used as an improved substitute for emails.
People simply subscribe to RSS feeds and they can use multiple RSS Readers to read those feeds. All major search engines - Google, Yahoo! and MSN now offer personalized "home pages" for their readers and the ability to subscribe to numerous feeds from those pages, and to read them right there. So they all now have built-in RSS Readers, so to speak.
What I didn't quite realize before is that blogs can now also perform many functions of forums. In fact, forums in the future might give up most of their power of interactive two-way communications to blogs.
Why? Let's look at forums closely. What are the main purposes of forums? To provide the place for people with certain common interests to hang out and to interact with each other and to interactively communicate with the host of the forum.
When the publisher of the newsletter sends e-mails to the list of his subscribers, it's a one-way communication. If he really cares about his subscribers, he wants to provide them with the way to communicate back to him, to ask questions, to give their opinion, tell about likes and dislikes, request additional information on the particular subject, etc.
Emails are not really a choice anymore, many publishers receive so much spam that they simply delete e-mails from un-known sources.
So forum is a great way to create a community, to let people help each other and let them talk to other people and to the host of the forum.
Also, it's a great way to create new content on auto-pilot. Hopefully you will have a few knowledgeable members in your forum and they will post thoughtful answers to other people questions. And those answers will lead to new questions, and on, and on, and on.
You just got yourself a constantly growing source of useful unique content, and search engines love fresh unique content.
However there are a few noticeable drawbacks in the forum structure. First, when you let people to freely communicate with each other, they unfortunately have a tendency not only to help other people, but bash them as well. Some are helping, others are bashing. You want your forum to stay a friendly place where people are willing to help each other, so you need to take some administrative steps - hire moderators, ban "bad apples", etc.
Also, it's not so easy to give forum a life. You need to get at least a few hundred people to subscribe to your forum in a short period of time, or it will slowly die. And you need to keep people active.
Even if your forum is thriving (which is of course a good thing), you have another issue. it's hard to maintain control over the topics in the forum. You created it with a purpose of discussing certain topics, but in a while forum will start living the life of it's own and you never know what other topic will pop-up. It may be a good thing, it may be a bad thing. But it certainly doesn't help to keep this place in a line with your initial concept.
Ok, so let's summarize the drawbacks of the forums: possible bashing posts and additional administration costs, forums are hard to launch, hard to keep the posts in a line with your initial concept.
Now let's look at blogs. They have a fantastic feature called "comments". That means any person who visited your site may leave a comment about your post (if you enabled comments in your blog settings, of course). They may tell you what they like, what they don't like, ask you questions, etc.
Those comments could be followed by the comments from other people about previous comments, questions, answers, recommendations - and you get the ball rolling.
It's up to you to decide, however, whether to post any particular comment on your blog or not. If the comment bashes another visitor or doesn't add any value to your blog, why should you bother posting it? Simply delete it and the end of story.
And with blogs people tend to keep discussion close to the topic of the post, thus allowing you to maintain the theme in line with your concept.
Which of forum's drawback haven't I covered yet? Launch? Well, with blog it's a breeze. You're not launching the place for interactive communication per se, you already have a blog. So you simply email your list and let them know that you provided them with a place to ask you questions.
You don't have to bother whether you have a one question or dozen for this particular post. The blog won't die as long as you're posting new information on it. Some people will like one post, others will want to comment on another - and that's how you get your interactive community, with little effort and no headaches!
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FREE gift for you: 2 valuable inteet marketing e-books
So how does one set the rates in their blog Inteet advertising rate card? How does a blogger decide how much to charge for their ads?
There is a very simple rule here. You will need a blog Inteet advertising rate card that will attract as many advertisers as possible. Rather than looking at it from the point of view of how low or high the rate is, look instead at how effective and profitable it is to the advertiser. To do this you cannot avoid a comparison with PPC ads.
If an advertiser is already paying 20 cents per click and your blog Inteet advertising rate card charges them what works out to about 5 cents per click and there is a promise of the same or an even better conversion rate, you have won over that advertiser.
The problem with most people in the advertising business is that they concentrate so much on what is in it for them. Shift your thinking slightly into what is in it for your advertisers and you'll be rewarded by a flood of clients flocking at your blog ready to sign on as advertisers. This kind of thinking starts right at the beginning with your blog Inteet advertising rate card.
Visit the writer's blog to read the rest of this article and to get more blog business opportunity Ideas. Or hire a low cost writer who will change the destiny of your blog. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Kyalo |
Somebody needs to care about what you think or you might as well be talking to the wall. The Inteet allows you to blog about anything you want. It doesn't automatically create readers though. If you're blogging about something nobody cares about it will never be found and read, let alone responded to. One way to increase your blog topic response is to make sure there is a market for your topic. How could you do that?
Search On Your Topic
Go to the major search engines and type in the words you typically use when writing your blog posts. What web sites come up? As you visit each web site look for several things: how they talk about the topic, the types of products and services they offer, their Google Page Rank, articles, information pages, ezines, testimonials and, particularly, blogs.
The goal is to get a sense of how your topic is covered by other web site authors. This help you determine who cares about your topic and whether you've got a market place to connect with. When you explore other related blogs look for posts with comments to gage the level of interest in your topic.
Searching the Inteet using your own words helps determine the size of the audience who sees things from your point of view. Is it a brick wall or an open door to a huge market of interested fans?
Evaluate Their Keywords
Make a list of the keywords and phrases you believe people you're interested in connecting with would use to find web sites on the topic you blog about. This is different than searching on the words you use to cover your topic. Although, it may be a good idea to merge the two lists to effectively reach your target market.
With list in hand, go to http://www.overture.com and click on "Visit the Resource Center" and then click on "Keyword Selector Tool". Use the Keyword Selector Tool to see how many people are searching on your blog topic. How many people using your topic's related keywords are likely to care about what you think?
Another way to check out who might care about what you think is to use the Google Suggest tool. Go to http://www.google.com and click on the "More" link. Next, click on the "Labs" link and scroll down to the "Google Suggest" link on the bottom of the left column. Again, how many people care about your blog topic?
Which ever way you use to size up your blog topic's market place of interest, you'll have a better handle on who cares what you think. If your blog is only an exercise in expression the numbers won't matter. But, if your blog is part of a small business marketing effort, you'll want to constantly search on your topic and evaluate their keywords.
So, if you blog on a particular subject and want your blog to be read make sure what you think is something that somebody cares enough about to search on using the keywords you're writing about. Or else, you might as well be talking to the wall.
Don Osboe authors The Profit Puzzle course to help you plan, finance, start up, run, grow, sell your small home based business ideas. The web site's small home based business directories link articles, books, courses, products, services, web sites, blogs, and software covering objectives, management, finance, personnel, marketing, operations, production and resources. For your free course and directories: http://www.profitpuzzle.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Don_Osboe |
So you want to join in on the blogging phenomenon? Before you get started, there are a few things you should know about blogging. Blogging is a lot like an online joual. There are thousands of bloggers online posting each day. It is a trend that started in 1997 and has continued to grow steadily. If you are interesting in blogging, but have not yet began, read over these five things you should know before you begin. You Can Be Personal Many times new bloggers are really not sure what to post. They know that their blog is a personal space, but they are afraid to make their posts personal in any way. The best bloggers do put themselves out there via their posts. They will post what's on their mind and their views or opinions on pressing issues. They may do so in a humorous manner or be quite serious. Sometimes new bloggers are afraid to post their true thoughts because their blog can be commented upon. The fact is however that not everyone will agree with your thoughts and posts, but you should not let that hold you back. These are people who don't personally know you, so their comments really don't matter much anyway. Don't be afraid to let your true feelings show on your blog, after all, that it what an online joual is all about. Don't Be Too Personal Although it is fine to be personal in your posts, you might not want to be too personal in how much you disclose about yourself. For example, including your phone number or address in a post or on your profile is probably not a good idea. You should think smart and only allow people to know things that you want them to know. For your own safety, you might not want to post your last name either. When someone has a lot of information about you, it is easier for them to victimize you through identity theft, harassment, or other crimes. So, stay safe and never post really private information. Never Use Real Names When you are posting, and keeping it personal and real, there can be times in which other people in your life come up in topic. Be very careful including other people in your posts. First, never use their real names. This is a huge mistake. Unless the person gives you permission to write about them, you should never do so. It will only lead to trouble. If the person you mention reads your blog, they could get offended that you are writing about them. Even if the post is positive, it can be seen much like talking behind their back. Try to keep the posts about you or celebrities or other public figures. Let everyone else's business remain their own. Keep It Fresh One of the best things you can do as a blogger is to keep your blog fresh. This means that you should be posting often and changing things around when doing so. Post on different topics so your audience can stay interested. Also, post at least twice a week. People who will become fans of your site will want to read as much as possible on your blog. Updating your blog regularly will allow them to be entertained. If you only post once a month, chances are no one will remember to keep checking your blog and your traffic will not be impressive. You Can Blog For Free Before you pay an arm and a leg for a blogging space, you should know that there are sites where you can blog for free. Yes, for no charge at all you can set up your own blog. These sites are great for the new blogger. If you want something a little more sophisticated, you might have to pay for it. The free sites are very well maintained however. They are easy to use and offer several different templates for you to use when designing your blog. They automatically update your posts for you, which make them a breeze! Remember, you should not pay a large fee for your blog, especially if you are new to blogging. Do your research and find the free sites!
Below you will find 3 simple ways to increase subscribers for your BLOG.. 1)Give them options : Even though RSS and Blogging has been around for many years, many people still do not know much about them. Many people still use e-mail as the best form of receiving quality information in the form of ezines and newsletters. Question is, How can you reach both these sections in one single way ? The answer is 'YOU CANNOT'. It is best to offer your readers what they want rather then just giving what you have to give.You can offer RSS Feed url to the people who love to read news in this format because they do not like to give their email id out.You can also add a newsletter subscription box to the people who still prefer reading latest news and updates though the use of email.This way you can target both types of audiences. 2)Reach users's desktop : This is a new way of catching the consumer : By reaching his/her desktop with the news updates. The solution -> Blog exprss - A blog reader tool that can be customized.The user does now have to give away his email adress and the newsletters publisher is sure that his messages have a 100% viewership ( His emails are not stuck in the spam folder ). 3)Old but effective technique of ADD ME : Other ways you can increase subscribers is by adding a 'Add to favorites button' on your blog.Also there is something else which is now replacing these 'Add to favorite' buttons.Yes it is 'Add to Rss reader' that are taking over. For example you can add a Bloglines.com image button to your site and the reader can just click on it and thats it.They have added you to there bloglines page. Example : http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://www.yoursite.com/rss2.php - Make sure you replace the domain name to your blog site.
It seems like Blogs are everywhere these days. You can't seem to surf the Inteet without seeing the word Blog somewhere. The intent of this article is to explain the basics what a Blog is and how you can use them to help promote your business and gain valuable information quicker that surfing the Inteet.
The word Blog is short for web log. Basically a Blog is just an area set aside you to write articles that can easily be accessed with a special program called a RSS reader. In case you're wondering RSS stands for real simple syndication.
When you set up a Blog you select a template that will house your information. Once you have the Blog set up you can post whatever information you like. It's really a fast way to get your articles and information up on the web and the templates look great! You don't have to mess with all the technical end of getting something up on a web page (HMTL layout, FTP, ect...).� The real cool thing about Blogs is that you can get the software to read them for free. Also, you can set up an account and create your own Blog for free!
One thing I should note is, you can read Blogs with your standard browser and post comments on the content of the Blog. An optional way to read Blogs is by using a RSS reader program. You simply subscribe to whichever Blogs that you want to and they are available immediately in the reader. Personally I like to use the reader because you have all of the Blogs that your interested in one place and you don't have surf all over the Inteet to read them.
The free reader that I use can be downloaded here: http://www.rsspublisher.com/.
To get your very own free Blog, which you can post to go to: http://www.blogger.com/start.�
I think you will find that they are very easy to set up and post to.
The are many advantages that Blogs offer over a web site or ezine.
1. You don't have to mess with an HTML layout. You just post your info and the info looks wonderful because the Blog uses the template that you set up.
2. You can post as often as you like. I can't imagine that I would send an email to my ezine every day but with a Blog you can post as much as you would like.
3. Email spam filters do not block Blogs because they are not an email communication.
4. You can make as many Blogs as you like on any subject.
I hope this will help you start your own Blog and officially start you down the road to being a Blogger!
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Steve Veloudos owns and operates Zebra Music LLC.� It's a one stop shop for jingles, radio production, custom music, library music, and sound design. Visit Steve's web site and get free monthly music that you can use for your productions.
http://www.zebramusic.com
zebra24@msn.com
480-540-7768
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If you belong to any of the following groups, then this article is for you.
* You already have a business and a website that serves as the official hub for your online sales. The website may be serving as an online store for your enterprise.
* You need a venue wherein you can promote your affiliate links.
* Your already have a website, which may not necessarily be a commercial one, and it is enrolled with a Pay Per Click (PPC) program, like Google AdSense.
Success in these fields depends on one essential principle which you might have already realized: traffic is the key to your online business thriving.
You may have in your digital inventory the best products in the world, but they won�t mean squat if no one would get to see them. This is why each and every online businessman will fight tooth and nail just to have a piece of the Inteet traffic. After all, the more visitors who get to visit your site, the more potential clients you have.
And blogs can most definitely help you drive visitors to your pages. Here is how you could use them to achieve such a purpose:
1. Download the Wordpress blogging software, which is available for free at www.wordpress.com . An alteative is to go with blogger.com. I have posted instructions for setting up a Blogger blog at your own server in this PDF file: http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com/blogsetup.pdf
2. Remember that good content is always at the heart of a progressive online traffic stream. People are always looking for information, and if you will give them that, they would read what you have to offer. Dedicate your blog to the subject of your main website. Publish informative entries that would hook your readers and make them come back for updates. In between purely educational entries, strategically include a link to your site by suggesting their importance to your readers.
3. Using the above mentioned strategy, you could also include your affiliate links to pre-sell your affiliate products. The more traffic you drive to your affiliate merchant�s site or sales page, the more chances you will have of effectuating a successful sale and bigger commissions.
4. Links from blogs are unilateral, meaning, they are one way links to your websites. The more traffic a unilateral link generates, the more it becomes prominent in online searches. Avoid reciprocal links at all costs! Do not include a link to your blog from your website. Search engines abhor reciprocal linking.
5. 80% of your traffic will come from the search engines. You have to tweak your blog to attract the attention of the search engine spiders. Now, blogs are already search engine friendly. However, there is a very big possibility that you would be competing with other blogs on the same subject. You have to make sure that once you upload your blog, it is able to outperform its competitors in the search engine rankings.
One way you can do this is by using the title of your post to match the keyword phrases you are targeting, plus put a sprinkling of your keyword phrase in the post itself. I am doing this with great results.
6. Check your blog offline. It should be as readable and as navigable as possible for your prospective readers. Make appropriate adjustments if necessary.
7. Upload your blog to a reliable server that has enough bandwidth to accommodate many viewers.
8. Constantly update your blog. Search engines love regularly updated content, so publishing new entries will greatly increase your blog�s page rank, and consequently, your main website�s traffic.
9. Accepting links from other related blogs will also bring to your site some traffic from sources other then search engines. The way that a blog is designed fosters the building of a community of blog sites, and this will provide for an added stream of visitors for you.
10. You could also decide to enroll your blog site in the Google AdSense advertising program. This will give you an additional income stream. We will discuss this in future articles.
Blogs are excellent promotional tools for your existing business. Use them well and you will harvest the rewards in a matter of weeks.
Copyright 2005 Mal Keenan
Get Your Hands on My FREE and Exclusive 7 Day Blogging Report by Sending and Blank Email to freeblogreport@getresponse.com In this Report I Reveal All The Secrets for Creating and Running A Successful Online Blog.
