These days, blogs are among the most important secret weapons that internet marketers can employ. They are a terrific way to have opinions stated in an un-moderated and public place, where ideas and insights can be shared among everyone who wishes to read them.
For internet marketing, blogging builds credibility for the website through the many opinions and ideas that are shared there. The company, and its bloggers, become recognized by their readers as a resource for useful information. Therefore, people will not only visit once, but will return again and again to find out what else is new.
Blogging itself is an extremely inexpensive, quick, and simple way to reach out to thousands of website visitors. It draws people who are in your direct target market, making relationship building a much more natural process once that visitor takes their use of your website one step further and makes a purchase of whatever product or service you are selling – and have been covering in your blog.
Blogs make you an expert in your field. That’s right, with the right researching and writing skills (or with a skilled writer and researcher in your employ) then you can become an expert in your field as far as your website blog is concerned. To be an expert, all you need to do is keep up with the latest in your industry within your blog posts, and maintain it regularly.
To make sure that you’re headed in the right direction with your blog, check up on other website blogs in your industry to see what they have posted. Naturally, this doesn’t mean that you should be posting the same things as your competition. In fact, that is among the worst things that you can do. Certainly, you’re allowed to share an opinion now and then, but your blog will need to stand out if it is to be taken seriously. If you are simply reiterating what others are already saying, then you will be seen as old news, and will be overlooked in favor of the original thinkers.
To start your own blog on your website, you need to have the right tools in place. Blogger and Blogware are only examples of the many different options that are available to you.
When you post on your blog, make sure that you’re doing it because you have something to say, and not because it’s time to post. Your blog posts need to be interesting if you are to keep a steady readership. If you’re not interested in what you’re writing then the odds are that your visitors won’t be interested in what they’re reading.
To keep up the interest, don’t take yourself too seriously. Of course you are allowed to write about serious and important topics in your industry and about your products, but you can also include some trivia and humorous commentaries that directly or indirectly relate to your blog topic and will amuse your readers. This is perfectly acceptable in blog posting and is, in fact, encouraged. It allows the readers to feel that they have made a real “contact” with you, and that you take a real joy in what you do.
Blogs aren’t just good for creating regular visitors to your website, but they are also quite beneficial for bringing in new visitors as well. You’ll find that when you are writing about any given topic in your industry, you are using the words and terms that apply to your topic. As these words become more frequently used throughout your website, for example, within your recent and archived blog posts, search engine spiders will pick up on their use and may increase your ranking for those keywords.
To sum up, here is what you need to benefit from your blog:
• The right blogging tools
• The motivation and commitment to contribute regularly
• Something relevant to say!
• Some skill in writing – if you don’t, hire someone who does
• Some knowledge in your industry – if you don’t, hire someone who can research this information
• Some perspective, not just vague ramblings
If you have these, you’re all set to start taking advantage of what blogging can contribute to your internet marketing strategy.
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Friday, March 9, 2007
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Types of Blogs You Can Build
The types of blogs you can build are limited only by your imagination and by your willingness to conduct research. For instance, while some bloggers focus on general topics, such as cars, other bloggers narrow the scope of their blogs even further to sub-topics, such as luxury cars or antique cars. From an optimization standpoint, a blog with a narrower scope would likely outperform a blog with a broader scope in terms of conversions or clicks-per-visitor. So, if your goal is to make money, the types of blogs you can build are somewhat limited.
In terms of actual topics for the types of blogs you can build, there are about 9 major areas that are popular for current blogs: business, culture, community, politics, religion, science, travel, online diaries, and gossip. Most blog directories use similar topical categories to order blogs.
In addition to the topic for the types of blogs you can build, you will also want to consider the program used to generate it. This is another way that directories categorize blogs. For instance, blogs can fall under the category of the tool or software that was used to create them. Some blogs are created using Google's Blogger. These blogs are often lumped together in directories as the same "type" of blog. They actually have an auto-surfing system that allows you to jump randomly from one Blogger blog to the another.
Other types of blogs you can build include social networking blogs, which allow members of the same network to interact with each other using various blog functions. Two examples are Livejournal--which was one of the original social networking blog systems--and Myspace, which is currently the largest, boasting a base of around 80,000,000 users. In recent months, marketers and business persons have begun using Myspace to introduce their product to potential customers.
Another type of blog you can build is a video blog or "vlog." These usually contain videos and allow other posts to attach media in comments.
The last types of blogs you can build are geographical blogs. With such a robust blogging atmosphere--with users weighing in from all over the globe--directories, such as Blog Wise will allow users to search for blogs by geographic location. If you believe you have some information you can contribute about your specific region, you may want to start a regional geographic blog.
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In terms of actual topics for the types of blogs you can build, there are about 9 major areas that are popular for current blogs: business, culture, community, politics, religion, science, travel, online diaries, and gossip. Most blog directories use similar topical categories to order blogs.
In addition to the topic for the types of blogs you can build, you will also want to consider the program used to generate it. This is another way that directories categorize blogs. For instance, blogs can fall under the category of the tool or software that was used to create them. Some blogs are created using Google's Blogger. These blogs are often lumped together in directories as the same "type" of blog. They actually have an auto-surfing system that allows you to jump randomly from one Blogger blog to the another.
Other types of blogs you can build include social networking blogs, which allow members of the same network to interact with each other using various blog functions. Two examples are Livejournal--which was one of the original social networking blog systems--and Myspace, which is currently the largest, boasting a base of around 80,000,000 users. In recent months, marketers and business persons have begun using Myspace to introduce their product to potential customers.
Another type of blog you can build is a video blog or "vlog." These usually contain videos and allow other posts to attach media in comments.
The last types of blogs you can build are geographical blogs. With such a robust blogging atmosphere--with users weighing in from all over the globe--directories, such as Blog Wise will allow users to search for blogs by geographic location. If you believe you have some information you can contribute about your specific region, you may want to start a regional geographic blog.
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Thursday, March 1, 2007
7 Benefits Of Building Niche Blogs
In this article, I will describe 7 benefits of building niche blogs.
A "niche" refers to a targeted market with profit potential that is not saturated with competitors. The whole idea is to realize the benefits of building niche blogs and then find the niche markets out there and start building.
Benefit #1
Niche Blogs are essentially niche websites that are alive!
That's because your blog will grow as you continue to publish posts or pages regularly to your blog. In contrast, many niche websites are seldom modified or updated after they are created.
Benefit #2
Blogs are designed to publish and update contents easily once you have them set up, configured and running.
Once you get the hang of it, it's a matter of getting into that habit of writing blog posts and pages and publishing them regularly.
Benefit #3
They are either FREE or cost very little to set up.
You can create your blogs easily by visiting blogger.com or wordpress.org and taking time to study and learn the "how-to".
Benefit #4
You can make money with your niche blogs in many ways, such as:
- Publishing third-party ads in your blogs (eg. Google Adsense pubishing)
- Recommending affiliate products and services in your blogs (eg. Amazon)
Benefit #5
Unlike websites, blogs are interactive. Visitors, or blog readers, are usually allowed to post comments for a blog post (or article) to the blog owner.
This 'dialog' helps to build rapport and relationship between the blog owner and his visitors or members.
Benefit #6
Since blogs are usually updated regularly via blog posts and pages, blogs will rank higher in search engines as compared to websites. In contrast, you have to do a lot of tweaking to a niche website through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques.
Search engines will visit your blogs more regularly as you blog more regularly.
Thus, you can also place links of your other websites to get them indexed quickly by the search engines.
Benefit #7
A blog's syndication function is its most powerful benefit!
You can syndicate the contents of your blog by allowing other website publishers to publish your feed (or channel) on their sites. This helps to bring more traffic to your blogs as the visitors of these sites subscribe to your feed via web-based or desktop newsreaders.
So, with the above benefits, doesn't it make a lot of sense to start building niche blogs as quickly as possible?
Monetize your Website or Blog with BidVertiser
A "niche" refers to a targeted market with profit potential that is not saturated with competitors. The whole idea is to realize the benefits of building niche blogs and then find the niche markets out there and start building.
Benefit #1
Niche Blogs are essentially niche websites that are alive!
That's because your blog will grow as you continue to publish posts or pages regularly to your blog. In contrast, many niche websites are seldom modified or updated after they are created.
Benefit #2
Blogs are designed to publish and update contents easily once you have them set up, configured and running.
Once you get the hang of it, it's a matter of getting into that habit of writing blog posts and pages and publishing them regularly.
Benefit #3
They are either FREE or cost very little to set up.
You can create your blogs easily by visiting blogger.com or wordpress.org and taking time to study and learn the "how-to".
Benefit #4
You can make money with your niche blogs in many ways, such as:
- Publishing third-party ads in your blogs (eg. Google Adsense pubishing)
- Recommending affiliate products and services in your blogs (eg. Amazon)
Benefit #5
Unlike websites, blogs are interactive. Visitors, or blog readers, are usually allowed to post comments for a blog post (or article) to the blog owner.
This 'dialog' helps to build rapport and relationship between the blog owner and his visitors or members.
Benefit #6
Since blogs are usually updated regularly via blog posts and pages, blogs will rank higher in search engines as compared to websites. In contrast, you have to do a lot of tweaking to a niche website through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques.
Search engines will visit your blogs more regularly as you blog more regularly.
Thus, you can also place links of your other websites to get them indexed quickly by the search engines.
Benefit #7
A blog's syndication function is its most powerful benefit!
You can syndicate the contents of your blog by allowing other website publishers to publish your feed (or channel) on their sites. This helps to bring more traffic to your blogs as the visitors of these sites subscribe to your feed via web-based or desktop newsreaders.
So, with the above benefits, doesn't it make a lot of sense to start building niche blogs as quickly as possible?
Monetize your Website or Blog with BidVertiser
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Blogs Creating a Buzz with Businesses
Businesses are buzzing about blogs. A blog--short for Web log--is simply a digital diary or online forum. Technically speaking, a blog is an online journal that is regularly updated with content and built on a platform with automated syndication. The appeal of blogs is driving businesses to find ways to capitalize on these unique public journals. Almost 80,000 new blogs are created every day, according to the semiannual State of the Blogosphere report from Technorati, a Website that indexes blogs. There are some 14.2 million blogs in existence, 55 percent of which are active. Business publications are rapidly bringing blogs to the front lines, boosting their presence on the Web and search engine performance.
How Businesses Are Using Blogs
Blogs can be created to cover almost any topic. Here are some of the ways you can use blogs to benefit your business:
* News -- Since blogs can be syndicated, any content addition is easily distributed throughout the Web. Company news can make great content.
* Education -- You can use blogs to educate consumers about products and services. Google's Adwords Blog is a good example of this usage.
* Commentary -- Insightful analysis of industry-specific news and events makes great blog content.
* Promotion -- Blogs can be a great channel to promote new products or services. This promotion can be achieved through a combination of news, education and commentary. Blogs and Search Engines
Blogs tend to perform well with search engines. Search engines have historically looked for content-rich Websites that are updated frequently. Search Engines like unique and popular content; they also favor content with keyword links. Blogs contain these elements, which makes them a great match for search engines.
In addition to helping your Website rank well in search engines, a blog can provide quality links back to your main domain. Plus, it can expand your traffic and presence on the Web, all of which can add up to more sales.
Tips for Developing Blogs
Here are a few quick tips to help you have a successful blog:
1. Keep it simple: Blogs should be easy, quick reads that link to other pages that are more in-depth.
2. Keep it fresh: Blogs should be updated frequently. Good content should be added a minimum of three times a week.
3. Provide useful content: Add content that is useful for others to read and your blog's popularity will grow.
A blog can help you better serve your customers, plus enhance your brand image online.
Make money from your Website or Blog with BidVertiser
How Businesses Are Using Blogs
Blogs can be created to cover almost any topic. Here are some of the ways you can use blogs to benefit your business:
* News -- Since blogs can be syndicated, any content addition is easily distributed throughout the Web. Company news can make great content.
* Education -- You can use blogs to educate consumers about products and services. Google's Adwords Blog is a good example of this usage.
* Commentary -- Insightful analysis of industry-specific news and events makes great blog content.
* Promotion -- Blogs can be a great channel to promote new products or services. This promotion can be achieved through a combination of news, education and commentary. Blogs and Search Engines
Blogs tend to perform well with search engines. Search engines have historically looked for content-rich Websites that are updated frequently. Search Engines like unique and popular content; they also favor content with keyword links. Blogs contain these elements, which makes them a great match for search engines.
In addition to helping your Website rank well in search engines, a blog can provide quality links back to your main domain. Plus, it can expand your traffic and presence on the Web, all of which can add up to more sales.
Tips for Developing Blogs
Here are a few quick tips to help you have a successful blog:
1. Keep it simple: Blogs should be easy, quick reads that link to other pages that are more in-depth.
2. Keep it fresh: Blogs should be updated frequently. Good content should be added a minimum of three times a week.
3. Provide useful content: Add content that is useful for others to read and your blog's popularity will grow.
A blog can help you better serve your customers, plus enhance your brand image online.
Make money from your Website or Blog with BidVertiser
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Learn More About The Evolution Of Blog And Bloggers
Ever since the introduction of blog development tools like Blogger, Pitas etc. in 1999, the personal publication tool weblog or simply blog has undergone many transformations. In the infant stages, until 2001, blogs were viewed as personal publishing platform where one can post his or her experiences, complaints, happy moments and pet peeves. Since it world business community has identified the potential of blogs to harness as a powerful marketing tool. Today blogs don't confine to letters and words. You can find photo blogs (where one can publish photos), audio blogs, also called radio blogs where users can download and listen to audio messages or music and video blogs or vlogs where video files are published.
Majority of blogger platforms today allows the users to publish syndication feeds (RSS or Atom). The feeds are especially helpful for ardent blog readers to keep in touch with the latest updates of a blog - be it anything like photo blogs, radio blogs or video blogs, the user can get the latest content via a desktop based feed reader or a web based feed reader like Google Reader.
There is an estimated 35 million blogs worldwide and the number is fast increasing. The main reason people becoming bloggers is that they need little knowledge about HTML or any software. They can publish to the photo blogs or radio blogs (audio blogs) via a web browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox. The blog platform will do all the necessary background actions.
The taking over of Blogger (blogger.com) by Google is the biggest turning point in blogging. Blogger.com allows bloggers to not only publish their posts, but also allows them to publish their own ads, to experiment with the template. Ads by the supported platform is absent in blogger blogs. Typepad is another blog platform that individuals and companies use.
Companies see blogs as excellent method of attracting and retaining visitors. Google blogs are the biggest example of corporate blogging. Each and every updating about the company is published in department blogs and the subscribers of news feeds can see the updates as and when it occurs.
There are many attempts to cash in on the enthusiasm of bloggers. Almost all companies now promote affiliate marketing through blogs and blog advertising is fast picking up. Bloggers make use of the pinging service by technorati, blogot etc. Pinging service tell search engines that new content is available at the blog. Pinging and newfeeds keeps the search engines busy visiting the blog.
Bloggers that publish text blogs, photo blogs, radio blogs or audio blogs and video blogs enjoy the democratic nature of the blogs. There are no editorial content and interaction with the readers is easy because of the comment feature. Blogging has emerged here to stay. And it will be the medium through which companies sell their products and services in the future.
Monetize your Website or Blog with BidVertiser
Majority of blogger platforms today allows the users to publish syndication feeds (RSS or Atom). The feeds are especially helpful for ardent blog readers to keep in touch with the latest updates of a blog - be it anything like photo blogs, radio blogs or video blogs, the user can get the latest content via a desktop based feed reader or a web based feed reader like Google Reader.
There is an estimated 35 million blogs worldwide and the number is fast increasing. The main reason people becoming bloggers is that they need little knowledge about HTML or any software. They can publish to the photo blogs or radio blogs (audio blogs) via a web browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox. The blog platform will do all the necessary background actions.
The taking over of Blogger (blogger.com) by Google is the biggest turning point in blogging. Blogger.com allows bloggers to not only publish their posts, but also allows them to publish their own ads, to experiment with the template. Ads by the supported platform is absent in blogger blogs. Typepad is another blog platform that individuals and companies use.
Companies see blogs as excellent method of attracting and retaining visitors. Google blogs are the biggest example of corporate blogging. Each and every updating about the company is published in department blogs and the subscribers of news feeds can see the updates as and when it occurs.
There are many attempts to cash in on the enthusiasm of bloggers. Almost all companies now promote affiliate marketing through blogs and blog advertising is fast picking up. Bloggers make use of the pinging service by technorati, blogot etc. Pinging service tell search engines that new content is available at the blog. Pinging and newfeeds keeps the search engines busy visiting the blog.
Bloggers that publish text blogs, photo blogs, radio blogs or audio blogs and video blogs enjoy the democratic nature of the blogs. There are no editorial content and interaction with the readers is easy because of the comment feature. Blogging has emerged here to stay. And it will be the medium through which companies sell their products and services in the future.
Monetize your Website or Blog with BidVertiser
Sunday, February 25, 2007
How to Add Your Blogs RSS Feed to Your HTML Site
One of the advantages touted by blog proponents is the ability to use your blog (and/or other blogs) to automatically add "fresh" content to your site. Search engines like regularly updated content, and will get in the habit of dropping in to see whats new!
However, as you will have quickly discovered if you've had a go at this already, getting the content flowing is somewhat tricky. Everybodys talking about it... but nobody's saying hey, you can do it this way!
It depends a little on how your site is constructed. For normal people (read non-technical types) who are intent on good search engine rankings, you've probably had the good sense to build your site in HTML. That actually makes it a little bit harder! :-) It just seems that all the web-geeks out there use PHP or similar arcane web construction processes, and of course they make this stuff look easy. However, us normal people can be left sucking air a bit...
RSS to HTML - to use JavaScript or not?
There are quite a few JavaScript RSS to HTML applications available - some free, some at modest cost. My advice? Don't go near them! The problem with JavaScript here, as in any other area, is that the search engines will simply skip right on by that section of your page. Yep, that's right - a complete waste of time if you are trying to deliver "fresh" content that a search engine spider will find and index.
RSS to HTML - use a hybrid PHP solution?
Nothing worth having comes easy... but hey, you know that already! Until someone comes up with a better/easier solution, you are going to have to get your hands dirty with code! What I found, after a day of searching down dead-ends, was a nifty little application called CaRP. Its a PHP-based tool, there is a free version, and it actually works!
Achieving this took an hour or so - uploading CaRP, installing a MySQL database for it, running the configuration file, and tweaking settings to display the feed as required. A small block of PHP code must be installed in the HTML page where you wish to display the feed. Execution of PHP scripts within an HTML page has a couple of requirements.
- First, your Hosts server must be configured to allow this.
- Second, you will have to edit (or create) the .htaccess file in your site's root directory and add a small block of code that allows script processing for your site. This can be configured as site-wide, or for a single page only.
CaRP allows multiple ways of customising the way feeds are displayed. For a start, you can set global formatting to apply to all feeds from within the config file. E.g. you might want to set a default font size on channel titles, and a different size on text within items. You might also want to change the total number of items displayed per listing, and set all links to open in a new window. (Recommended!)
Then, within the individual HTML page where you specify the feeds to be displayed, you can add different formatting attributes to different feeds.
The CaRP application has good documentation, which you will probably have to read... yes, when all else fails, read the instructions!
Good luck!
Monetize your Website or Blog with BidVertiser
However, as you will have quickly discovered if you've had a go at this already, getting the content flowing is somewhat tricky. Everybodys talking about it... but nobody's saying hey, you can do it this way!
It depends a little on how your site is constructed. For normal people (read non-technical types) who are intent on good search engine rankings, you've probably had the good sense to build your site in HTML. That actually makes it a little bit harder! :-) It just seems that all the web-geeks out there use PHP or similar arcane web construction processes, and of course they make this stuff look easy. However, us normal people can be left sucking air a bit...
RSS to HTML - to use JavaScript or not?
There are quite a few JavaScript RSS to HTML applications available - some free, some at modest cost. My advice? Don't go near them! The problem with JavaScript here, as in any other area, is that the search engines will simply skip right on by that section of your page. Yep, that's right - a complete waste of time if you are trying to deliver "fresh" content that a search engine spider will find and index.
RSS to HTML - use a hybrid PHP solution?
Nothing worth having comes easy... but hey, you know that already! Until someone comes up with a better/easier solution, you are going to have to get your hands dirty with code! What I found, after a day of searching down dead-ends, was a nifty little application called CaRP. Its a PHP-based tool, there is a free version, and it actually works!
Achieving this took an hour or so - uploading CaRP, installing a MySQL database for it, running the configuration file, and tweaking settings to display the feed as required. A small block of PHP code must be installed in the HTML page where you wish to display the feed. Execution of PHP scripts within an HTML page has a couple of requirements.
- First, your Hosts server must be configured to allow this.
- Second, you will have to edit (or create) the .htaccess file in your site's root directory and add a small block of code that allows script processing for your site. This can be configured as site-wide, or for a single page only.
CaRP allows multiple ways of customising the way feeds are displayed. For a start, you can set global formatting to apply to all feeds from within the config file. E.g. you might want to set a default font size on channel titles, and a different size on text within items. You might also want to change the total number of items displayed per listing, and set all links to open in a new window. (Recommended!)
Then, within the individual HTML page where you specify the feeds to be displayed, you can add different formatting attributes to different feeds.
The CaRP application has good documentation, which you will probably have to read... yes, when all else fails, read the instructions!
Good luck!
Monetize your Website or Blog with BidVertiser
Saturday, February 24, 2007
You Won't Believe It's This EASY to Make A Fortune With Blogs
Indeed, it is not only possible to make a fortune with blogging, but it is easier than most people can imagine.
If you really want to make a fortune with blogging you need as many blogs as possible. That's the most important single determinant to making a fortune with blogging.
Just one blog can't make you millions. Even a few blogs can't make you millions. You need to set up and manage as many blogs as possible... because when it comes to making real money, it is a NUMBERS game.
I know your next question will be - How can I easily create as many blogs as possible, right?
Well, I admit that you just can't create as many blogs as you want manually. You have to find a way to automate the process. After all, you and me just have 24 hours in every day. We need to find ways of getting the best from these 24 hours. And with the right software, this can be possible. There are great software that can help one to achieve in minutes what others do in hours and even days.
I know your next question after this will be - How can you easily manage the posting of content to as many of these blogs as possible, right?
This also shouldn't be a big problem because there are now tools and software that can be used to automate this process. Of course I am not talking about blackhat software that tries to steal content from the search engines and/or other people's websites. I am talking about completely whitehat software out there that can be used to automate the process of content posting to as many blogs as possible.
But like I have always warned my friends that are interested in making a killing in blogging, you should take your time to search for credible blogging software that will do this for you.
If you have these right whitehat blogging software and have a mindset of creating as many blogs as possible, you can indeed join the few smart bloggers out there that are making a killing with blogging.
An alternative to making a fortune with blogging is to hire an avalanche of people to handle the various aspects of blog creation and content posting. But this is CRAZY because why should anyone spend such a huge amount hiring staff when there are incredibly software available to help with the various aspects of blogging?
One such software is Easy Blogger Creator Pro. It automates the task of building niche specific blog farms. You can go Here to their site and watch a Free Flash Tutorial on how to use the software before you buy.
EasyBloggerCreator.com
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