|
| Thursday, March 18, 2004 |
| How To Build A Successful Blog |
- By: Gregg Hall
If you want to build a successful blog, there are three main things that can certainly help you get started. Although many people think that building a successful blog is one of the easiest tasks out there, they are wrong. A successful blog takes more than just setting up a blog page to chat about your life. You need to focus on these three building blocks in order to even have the framework for a successful blog. Even these three building blocks are not enough however to make your blog successful. Read on to learn exactly what you need to make your blog as successful as possible.
The Look
The first building block for a successful blog is The Look. What this means is that your blog should start with an appropriate style. You can begin when you first start your blog. Many blogging software programs will help you out with the style of your blog. If you are using a blogging program that caters most to beginners, you will see that it will offer different templates for you to choose. There will be something for everyone. You can go through the templates to choose which colors you like best for the layout. Experiment with the layouts to see which templates look best on the computer screen. You can always go back and change the template later if you want to change the look of your blog. Make sure that if you are creating your own blog, without using a pre-created template that you make it look as professional as possible. You can even hire a professional to do the job for you if you wish. The more professional your blog looks, the more seriously your readers will take your posts.
The Content
The content of your blog is the second key building block you will need for a successful blog. While you can choose to create posts that have no direction or purpose, you will find that when you post interesting commentary or short information filled articles that your traffic will increase. Although you may think it is interesting, most readers will not enjoy reading about your day to day activities, unless you make them into humorous stories.
It should also be noted that the more content you have on your site, the more successful your site will be. It is basically a numbers game at this point. The more you post, the more chances you will have the one of your posts will attract the eye of someone searching for a related topic.
The Ads
The third building block is advertising. Bloggers can make a steady income using advertising on their blogs. The trick is to have a good mixture of ads and content however. If you fill your blog with ads and have no content for readers, they will be distracted and not visit your site again. A good rule to remember is that you should never have more than two or three ads per blog page. This is an important rule to remember. You should not overwhelm you readers with ads. You should only present them so that the readers can further explore them if they wish. Don’t use flashing ads or other bold ads that will annoy your readers. Choosing the right type of advertising program is part of it as well. Look into an easy to use program such as Google Adsense if you want a quick way to get started in the advertising arena.
The Dedication
The most important building block of a great blog is dedication. You must be willing to be dedicated to the blog. You have to put in the time and energy to get positive results. Even if you have the other three components, unless you take the time to update your posts each day, you will not be getting optimum results. Dedication can help a lot. It can hide the fact that you are a beginner and allow you to create a beautiful and functional blog. No matter how little experienced you are dedication can cover that up. You can have a great blog as long as you take the time to give some of your energy to the project.
If you want to build a successful blog, there are three main things that can certainly help you get started. Although many people think that building a successful blog is one of the easiest tasks out there, they are wrong.
Gregg Hall is a business consultant and author for many online and offline businesses and lives in Navarre Florida. See more articles on blogging and internet marketing at http://www.theinternetmarketingsecrets.com |
posted by birdflu2006 @ 10:11 PM  |
|
|
|
| Tuesday, March 16, 2004 |
| How Blogs Can Help You With Your Online Business |
- By: Brandon Hong
1. With a blog, you can easily brand yourself as an expert in your subject area and promote yourself all over the net. Blogs have taken a life of its own, and there are many blog directories springing to life.
Each blog directory is classified according to various topics of interest, and you can submit your blog to the major blog directories.
You can then easily attract readers to your area of specialisation, and slowly brand yourself
as the expert from the many readers who visit these blog directories each day.
2. Search engine will rank your web site higher if you have a blog on your site. This is because search engine "spider bots" like fresh content, and with a blog, you can just spend 5 - 10 mins per day posting what you want to share for that day and that's it.
Do that on a consistent basis, and the search engine spider bots will come back to your site more
often. Having a blog on your own site is so simple my 9 year old cousin can do it, and you will
learn how in my multimedia course.
3. Blogs allow you to build and foster a closer relationship with your visitors and readers,
building trust and rapport. Blogs allow readers to post comments, and it promotes interaction.
With good relationship with your readers it will be easier for you when it comes to recommending
products and services because they trust you.
4.Blogs are a one stop push button publishing system.
You can easily set up a blog with Google's Blogger in three easy steps. Likewise, now that Wordpress has offered free Wordpress blog accounts, you can again easily set up your free Wordpress account.
With a blogging account, you can easily publish anything online, unlike the usual way of publishing where you have to create and edit the page using some web site editing software and uploading it to your hosting account.
And with Wordpress, you can instantly link all your posts and pages together, unlike your standard web site where you have to link web pages manually.
Blog saves time and is a quick and easy way to build an online presence.
5. Incoming Links
Blogs, especially Wordpress blogs has a feature called trackback. Trackback basically allows someone to post a comment on another person's blog with a link
pointing back to your own blog.
This is one way to get incoming links to your site. And we know that the more incoming links you have to your site, the higher your site will rank for certain keywords.
These are just some of the powerful ways Blogs can help with your online business.
These are just some reasons how blogs can help you in your online business.
Now, you might be wondering: How can blogs help me with my business?
The answer is Plenty.
Brandon is blogs & rss author. He'll show you business strategies to get more responsive visitors, more sales, plus obtaining quick listings in Google, MSN, etc with Blogs and RSS.
(C) http://www.wordpressvideos.com |
| posted by birdflu2006 @ 9:53 PM |
|
|
|
| Monday, March 15, 2004 |
| 4 Easy Ways to Build a Blog |
4 Easy Ways to Build a Blog - By: Jinger Jarrett A blog is an important communication tool for business. You can use your blog to distribute information to your potential customers, as well as build a relationship.
So how do you build a blog?
There are several ways that you can do it, but it all depends on how much time you want to spend on configuring your blog, as well as the types of customizations you want to do to your blog.
Below are several places where you can either get a blog, or get the scripts to build your blog.
Blogger - http://www.blogger.com - This is by far the easiest of all the blogs to build. It takes about 30 seconds to create a blog, and you don't need to know HTML. If you decide that you want to customize your blog, it does have an extensive knowledge base, and you can quickly learn how to add to the template to make it your own. It's also very search engine friendly.
Word Press - http://www.wordpress.org - Word Press is one of the most popular blog scripts on the internet. It has tons of features, and it's search engine friendly. Some of the most popular blogs on the internet use this system for blogging. Some examples of features include plugins that allow you to create an mp3 player on your site so that you can use for podcasting. Other features include: technorati tags, photos, sitemaps, and an extensive collection of templates so that you can use to change the look and feel of your blog.
The code is light and fast, and it is search engine friendly.
Nucleus CMS - http://www.nucleuscms.org - This is the system that I use for my main blog. It has a few features that Word Press doesn't have, like the ability to create an ezine from your posts and send them as email. You can use a cron job to automate the process, and you can send out your ezine when you want it to go out. This is especially helpful if you want to build a list of subscribers.
It's allowed me to combine two tasks: blogging and ezine creation.
There's an extensive collection of plugins you can use to customize your blog, as well as a theme system. The only drawback here is the lack of themes. However, new themes are being designed, and it's pretty easy to design your own, or customize one of the theme available.
Code is search engine friendly, and you can use plugins to create a Google Sitemap, add keywords, as well as technorati tags. You can also create multiple blogs from one installation.
Drupal - http://www.drupal.org - This is really a content management system, instead of a blogging system, and instead of just creating a blog, you can create a community of blogs, or a complete community, including forums, group meetings, and more. The code is very search engine friendly.
There is a rich text editor so that you can code your posts.
Regardless of what system you choose to create your blog, choose a system that you feel comfortable with. You can quickly and easily use blogs to build relationships with your customers, as well as distribute your content. By building and writing a blog, you can demonstrate your expertise on your topic, while building relationships with your customers and readers too.
Ultimately, blogging can become one of the best tools you can use to market yourself and your business, and it's free to implement. Blogging is a quick and easy way to make contact with your customer. It's also free. Here are four ways you can set up a blog to build a relationship with your customers. Jinger Jarrett is the "Internet Marketing for Free" lady. She will show you how to use free techniques to market your business. Get thousands of dollars in free internet marketing stuff when you Visit her blog at Internet Marketing for Free |
| posted by birdflu2006 @ 9:48 PM |
|
|
|
| Friday, March 12, 2004 |
| How to Earn Passive Income With Your Web Site |
How to Earn Passive Income With Your Web Site - By: Lee Collins If you’ve read Robert Kiyosaki’s book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” you know that passive income is the best kind of income to have. Passive income is defined as “do it once and get paid forever” income – something I’m sure we all want more of, right?
There are a lot of ways to achieve a passive income, but if you have a web site one of the easiest ways is with Google AdSense.
So Just What is Google Adsense?
Google AdSense is a fast and absolutely ridiculously easy way for people with websites of all types to put up and display relevant Google ads on the content pages of their site and earn money.
Because the Google AdSense ads relate to what your visitors came to your site to read about, Google AdSense gives you the ability to earn advertising revenue from every single page on your website—with a minimal investment of your time.
Just post the code on your web page(s) and Google does the rest automatically!
What Can it do for Me?
In three words, earn you money.
More relevant ads on your pages translate into more clicks—and more money that you receive. Because when users click on an ad, Google will pay you.
How cool is that?
Is Google AdSense Right for My Web Site?
Google has a huge advertiser base, so they have ads for all kinds of businesses and for just about every type of content no matter how broad or specialized it is. And since Google provides the ads, you don’t have to spend time talking to your advertisers.
AdSense represents advertisers that span the spectrum. These advertisers range from large global brands to small and local companies. And ads are targeted by geography so global businesses can display local advertising easily.
How do I add Google AdSense to my site?
It's essentially as easy as:
1) Create your AdSense account
2) Create the look and feel of your ad
3) Copy the snippet of code
4) Paste the code into your web site source code
Creating your Adsense account is easy. Just go to Google.com and click on Advertising Programs. Select AdSense and input the required information.
Once your account is approved, you need to log in and create an ad for your web site.
Google has many options available but in my testing I have found two of the ad types to perform better than others. The 'Adsense for Content' Link Unit and the 'AdSense for Content' Ad Unit 336x280 large rectangle.
Lots of Money from This?
While we can’t guarantee results, of course, since a lot of your success lies in your own hands but there are ways to assure a higher degree of success with the Google AdSense program.
When building the ad code you need to ensure you choose colors that complement your site.
Contrary to popular belief you don't want the ads to 'stand out' but instead to blend in with your site and look like part of the content.
Google provide many customization variables to help you achieve a balanced look for your ads.
And be sure you follow the guidelines so you don't wake up one day and find your account shut down. Google is exceptionally picky about following their terms of service so BE WARNED!
A lot of webmasters are making a lot of money using AdSense, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be one of them. If you’ve read Robert Kiyosaki’s book, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” you know that passive income is the best kind of income to have. Passive income is defined as “do it once and get paid forever” income – something I’m sure we all want more of, right? Lee Collins has published a special report “10 Free Google AdSense Tips” to help you get started earning a passive income from your web site TODAY! Get the report only at http://www.socosolutions.com. |
| posted by birdflu2006 @ 7:32 PM |
|
|
|
| Tuesday, March 09, 2004 |
| The Importance of Blog Design |
- By: Jeremiah Patton
Blogs have increased popularity over this past months. Many people have started to create their personal blogs to express their thoughts and feelings. Internet companies have also started their blogs to inform consumers on the latest product news and reviews.
Because of this, blogs are also being used as internet marketing media. Before, internet marketing is done by placing banners and links on popular websites, such as news and information sites. Links were also included on newsletters and marketing letters sent to the members of their mailing lists.
Many people spend time reading blogs. People read their friend's blogs, their favorite author's blogs, blogs on topics that they are interested in, and blogs on product reviews. With the increasing popularity of blogging, it is even feared that people rely on blogs to get the latest news.
While getting news reports from blogs isn't reliable, some people look for product reviews through blogs. In some cases, this is more dependable. While it is true that some media persons are being paid to write good reviews about a certain product, blog writers write about their actual experiences on products and services from a company.
Since there are many people who read and start their own blogs, blogs are a good medium to market a product. With the increasing blog traffic means increase in product sales.
Blog traffic can be increased by joining affiliate programs and sites, which will list your blog under a certain search category or name. You can also have your blog advertised in popular websites. This, however, will cost some money and is not advisable if you have just started blogging.
A writer who has just launched his/her blog will want as much traffic as possible to increase advertisements on the site. Also, some advertisers pay every time their link is clicked or the page that has their link is viewed.
When you have increased traffic on your blog, you should try to keep you visitors coming back and recommending your blog to friends and colleagues.
This can be done by having informative or amusing content and good blog layout and design. You may develop your blog's content or you can also acquire the services of a web content writer to provide you with the blog articles.
The blog's layout and design also plays a big role. While most of the companies offering free blog hosting offer pre-selected templates, there are also some that allows customization that if you utilize this feature correctly can increase your blog's traffic.
Here are a few tips to make your blog stand out from the millions of blogs out there that have standard designs.
* Customize the banner
The banner usually has the most generic designs that are common to the blogs from a blogging company or service.
You can personalize this banner by having a graphic with the dimensions of the banner. You can also edit the graphic so that it will also include the title of your blog.
In this case, you can create your own graphic or you can purchase professional looking graphics online for less than $10.
* Personalizing photos
Of course, most of the photos that you will be posting will be your own. However, if you don't customize the photos before posting them, you may miss maximizing the enhancing benefits graphics can add to the page. Adding photo borders can help the photo stand out from the page.
It can also add to the design of your blog. You can choose a standard border or you can also create your own border which can be associated with your blog's templates.
* Add a favicon
Don't you think sites with icons on the address bar before the website's URL are cool? Many people do. These favicons add a professional look to the URL. These easy to do using photo or graphic editing softwares.
* Check out blog templates, layouts, backgrounds, textures and skins from sites
There are sites that offer free blog templates, layouts, backgrounds, textures and skins. You can make use of these so your blog will not look generic like most of the blogs hosted by the service provider.
* Include RSS feeds
This is a cool way to inform people with newsreaders about your blog headlines. Tutorials on RSS feeds are available on the internet.
* Audio makes your blog more personal
Not only does audio personalizes the blog; it can also keep your visitors coming back. You can try having streaming radio stations, mp3 file or playlists loading with your blog.
* Advertisements
If you have signed-up with Google Ad-Sense, which I am sure you would like to do, make sure that the ads are conveniently placed that these will not hinder your readers' ease in accessing the information on your blog.
Try using these tips and you can definitely increase and retain traffic on your blog.
Blogs have increased popularity over this past months. Many people have started to create their personal blogs to express their thoughts and feelings. Internet companies have also started their blogs to inform consumers on the latest product news and reviews.
Jeremiah Patton has been utilizing blogging to gain traffic and interest for his work at home business opportunities website at http://www.2ndincome4u.com |
| posted by birdflu2006 @ 11:46 PM |
|
|
|
| Thursday, March 04, 2004 |
| Niche Blogging – How to Get Started |
- By: Jason DeVelvis
Do you blog? If not, you are missing out on a booming business, not to mention the latest fad on the Internet. Everyone is blogging these days – your Grandmother is probably blogging if she has a computer!
Blogging isn’t just fun, it is a business that has really taken off. In fact, many people are making full time livings simply by blogging each and every day. Don’t you wish you could spend thirty minutes or so a day writing an entry for your blog and then go do the things you really enjoy in life? You can if you learn how niche blogging works.
There is blogging – and there is niche blogging. Niche blogging is where the money is. Here is how it works: You do some research to find out what is popular these days. You set up a blog. You find affiliate products for your blog. You write an entry each day. You market your blog. You collect the money. Sounds simple, right?
Well, once you get the hang of it, it is simple – but starting out takes a little more work, and a lot more thought – starting with the research that you need to do. What will your niche be? There are millions of people blogging about millions of topics. The more unique your topic can be the better you will do. Even if you can’t choose a unique topic, the way you blog, or the information you put on your blog should be unique so you can compete with the other bloggers in your niche.
That part isn’t so simple – finding your niche. Start by finding out what the most popular keyword searches are in the search engines. Do a search for those keywords using RSS feed software or using a search engine – type in the keyword followed by the word blog or RSS. How many people are blogging? If the keywords are popular, there are probably hundreds or thousands of blogs in that niche already. Can you use any of those keywords and create a unique blog? If so, go for it…if not, keep searching.
Think about your own interests. If you are interested in a particular hobby or topic, the chances are good that thousands or even millions of other people are. What is your favorite reality television show? People blog about Survivor, and some of those blogs have a huge following. This goes to show you that even if you do choose a topic that many people are blogging about, you can still make it unique enough to become quite popular.
Setting up your blog is simple. You can get your own webhosting account that includes blogging scripts. These are simple to install, and usually only takes a few clicks of the mouse from the webhosting control panel. You need your own domain name, which can be ordered when you order your hosting account in most cases. However, if you are not tech savvy, you may need to hire someone to do a little tweaking for you. Basically, you need to choose the colors that you want to use for your blog pages and put your affiliate ads on templates. Again, if you don’t know how to do this, you can easily – and cheaply – hire someone to do this for you through a site such as Rent-A-Coder at http://www.rentacoder.com .
Finally, you are ready to start blogging and marketing your blog. Learning to market a blog also takes a little work. Now, jump on the blogging bandwagon and start earning some money!
Do you blog? If not, you are missing out on a booming business, not to mention the latest fad on the Internet. Everyone is blogging these days – your Grandmother is probably blogging if she has a computer!
Jason frequently gives tips like this to the subscribers to his newsletter. Visit Adventures In Internet Marketing and subscribe to his newsletter today! |
| posted by birdflu2006 @ 11:52 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
