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Currently there are over 30 million blogs on the internet and thousands more being created each week. Assuming ownership of one blog per person, that’s a minimum of 30 million people slinging around their personal opinions on all that exists under the sun. This is a good thing. The free exchange of thoughts and ideas is what prevents the world from becoming a stagnant pool of dictatorship with the appropriate green scum floating on top.
However, to steal a line from the movie Spiderman, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. Blogging has become a way for the voice of the people to be heard. We must be careful, though, not to abuse our power through thoughtless acts that hurt the credibility of bloggers and blogging. One place that continues to be our Achilles heel is when good posts go bad.
In the United States, libel and slander are the two categories of defamation. In many states, courts have begun treating them the same as the only difference between the two is that libel is a false written statement about a person, place or thing that harms his/her/its reputation while slander is the verbal act of the same offense. Whether blogged on the internet or whispered offline to your mother, the common denominator is that what is said is false.
Since I’m psychic, I already know what you are thinking. ‘The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects me. As long as it is the truth, I can say whatever I want.’ Well, sort of. As crazy as it sounds, truth is not the silver bullet defense for every case of libel or slander. A judge may require that besides being true the information relayed is in the public interest to know.
So reporting that the CEO of a major corporation had been caught pilfering money from the employees’ retirement fund would probably get dismissed from civil court whereas telling the world that your neighbor has smelly feet could get you into more trouble than you want. Even if it were true, why would it be in the public interest to know that your neighbor’s feet could clear out Yankee Stadium?
Now, the First Amendment does protect your right to an opinion. If you think that the Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap, you are certainly free to tell anyone within earshot as long as you make it clear that it is your opinion on the subject. Likewise, if a person puts forth a negative sentiment with regards to their experience with you and it is clear to any reasonable person that it is their opinion, your legal recourse against them is severely limited.
Parody and satire are also protected. If they weren’t, Saturday Night Live and South Park would have never made it past the first episode. And criticism of a public performance such as a symphony, a play and even a book is protected under the Fair Criticism and Comment clause.
Now the internet contributes some interesting layers of complication to the whole blogging shebang. Instead of being contained in a localized area, libel has the potential to cross international borders and not every country handles these cases the same. One of the major problems courts around the world are having to deal with is the one of jurisdiction. If I live in the US and I libel someone who lives in the UK where exactly does the case take place and who’s laws do we go by? Several cases have set a scary precedent that leans towards being able to sue anywhere around the world for libel published on the internet.
Then there is the issue of third party liability. Say you are a responsible blogger who is careful about her posts to avoid a troublesome libel accusation. One of your readers posts a libelous statement on your blog. Can you be held responsible for that person’s actions? Well, so far the law has only made provisions for internet service providers stating that they cannot be held responsible for how their customers use their services (as it pertains to defamation). Likewise, blog service providers such as Google and Six Apart would likely be immune to any lawsuits arising out of a person’s use of the service.
Whether or not you would be held responsible may come down to if you moderate your comments. If you allow comments to be posted automatically, you might be protected under Section 230 of the US Code (for US Citizens). It may be a different story, however, if you approve comments before posting them. It could be argued that your posting of the comments equates your agreement to them. To date, no one has shown up in court to argue this, hence the fact that we are kind of forced to make it up as we go along.
Defamation is a tricky issue and one that needs to be tread carefully if one is to avoid landing in court. Here are a few tips to help keep you out of trouble. Note: I am not an attorney. I don’t even get to play one on television. If you and your blog deal with some highly controversial issues or you’re just not sure how much trouble you would get into if you published that post about your best friend’s boyfriend, I recommend getting in touch with a lawyer to get the best advice.
Blogging is a great way to meet people and stay current in the world and doing so responsibly will only make the experience better. Stay safe, stay sane and most of have fun.
Indigo Black is a freelance writer with an innumerable number of interests that include: writing, blogging, erotica, mythology, philosophy, web and graphic design. Currently, she is the administrator of SmutWriter, a resource site for erotica authors and Blogilepsy, a resource site for avid bloggers.
We all know that blogs have taken the internet by storm (if you don’t know what a blog is, skip this article and move on to the one announcing the wheel). Millions of people are posting their thoughts, ideas, dreams, gossip, advertisements, and complaints on the web through personal weblogs. It seems that blogs are taking over. Well they’re not… yet.
Weblogs (blogs) are also changing the face of online business. Consumers now have the power to influence a much larger circle of peers. People share negative consumer experiences at least ten times as often as positive ones. Corporations beware! Hell hath no fury like a consumer scorned! And with the advent of blogging, dissatisfied consumers have more power and influence than ever before.
Many businesses now face the problem of negative press floating around inside search engine results - a trail complaints and accusations left by disgruntled bloggers. Such negative online publicity is very damaging in what I call “search culture.” Search culture refers to that portion of consumers who now do all of their product and company research on the web. Negative publicity affects them so much because they follow the top search results for every query.
Searchers don’t even have to click on a negative article or blog to read that brief description below the link. That one piece of information alone can cast a negative light on any given product or business. I have personally searched for a particular business or inspirational author and found more than enough complaints on the first page of results to make me wary of that individual or company.
If I’m trying to learn new information about a product or person, I search Google or Teoma. If the top results are comprised of consumer complaints, I am less likely to look much further. The immediate sense of danger quells any curiosity or desire to take a risk on something new.
That is why search is so powerful, why search engine optimization is so important, why people should be more careful with what they write, and why companies need weapons like blogs and press releases to combat the evil hordes. The combat metaphor may seem a bit much, but some of you know what I’m talking about. It is a battle to reach the people. You must do whatever you can to reach them first. Someone will shape their opinions. It is only a question of “whom”.
How can a company blog to ethically combat negative press? Let’s lay out a scenario. XYZ Company discovers that within the top ten search results for their product names are customer complaints about usability. XYZ quickly researches the content of the complaint and responds with a blog post that solves the users’ problems or suggests alternatives.
Blogs are an effective way to manage public relations. Every company should have a blog on or connected to their company website. Consumers should have the opportunity to ask their questions and voice their complaints directly. Responding to these issues will both quell unnecessary bad press and win back some of your dissatisfied customers. Everyone wants to feel special and important. A company who responds to customer questions and complaints via weblogs communicates a commitment to customer satisfaction.
After selecting your blog’s subject or topic, do some brainstorming. In two minutes, write down all of the terms or phrases that are related to your blog’s proposed subject. And don’t stop until time is up! If you can’t think of anything to write, just keep writing the last term on your paper. For example, if you wrote “scientist,” keep writing the word “scientist.” I can practically guarantee you that you will think of other words to write before long.
Once you have your list, allow it some time to cool off and keep adding to it.
After a day or two, review your list and cross out any term that is unsuitable for your future blog for any reason. Then review your list carefully. Does it contain enough terms for you to write about? Can you possibly split those terms into smaller aspects? Could you apply those terms to other audiences and their needs and problems? If so, congratulations! You will have plenty to write about and build upon in future posts. You will also stay motivated and continue posting.
One last consideration is naming your blog. You should think about brainstorming possible names before settling on one. Look at your list of names the next day. Do you like any of them? Which one appeals to you the most? Can you still revise the name so that you will like it even better?
Once you have carefully thought through these issues and started blogging, you should have a successful blog that you will look forward to working on in the months ahead.
Thank you for reading and good luck with your blogs!
Dorothy Zjawin’s two blogs include http://www.PoundsRedux.blogspot.com and http://www.earnmoneyfromwriting.blogspot.com. And her website, http://www.profitable-pen.com is devoted to writers who are interested in mining their journals for ideas.
The secret weapon behind the awesome success of many Blog Adsense affiliates has to do with their articles or the way in which they use their content creatively to market themselves.
There is little doubt that bloggers are the kings of marketing with articles and this ability is the real reason behind the phenomenal success that many Blog Adsense affiliates currently enjoy.
Creative bloggers are the ones who came up with the concept of link-baiting articles which at its’ best can attract hundreds of high traffic links to a blog within a few short hours. Amazing when the rest of us spend a fortune and many months trying to nurture and build just a dozen links pointing at our sites. Blog Adsense affiliates use link-baiting to court controversy or to provide a valuable resource that other bloggers will want to link to.
The increased traffic that results from link-baiting articles usually has a major impact on the blog Adsense affiliates’ earnings from both the Adsense program and other affiliate programs.
Little wonder that many blog Adsense affiliates have seen traffic to their blogs increase in leaps and bounds. Imagine the impact of generating just one link-baiting article every week. That is the reason why many blog Adsense affiliates remain very much ahead in terms of earnings.
Learn more about the best home business opportunity from a blogger who rakes in thousands of dollars… and growing from their home business.
Also get the bloggers’ amazing free report How I used only free articles marketing to get thousands of hits daily at my site.
If you haven’t noticed already, blogs are the new big thing on the Internet. In case you don’t know what a blog is, I’ll let you in on the not-so-secret secret. A blog is a website that is in journal or diary form. Essentially, it’s a place online where you can write about your life and your interests and share yourself with the rest of the world. Journals used to be secret books you hid under the bed, so this is a huge change in paradigm for this medium. Now, it’s about telling other people in the world what you think and do. The blogging community is already massive; there are millions of human beings with these new, simplistic websites, everywhere from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo.
For a little research into the blog craze I went to one of the biggest blogging sites, http://www.blogger.com which is now owned by Google. This site is pretty cool, and within a very short time you can have your own free template-based blog set up complete with your specified name. Your URL or web address usually has the name ‘blogspot’ after it, which can look a little unprofessional but I’ve heard that there is some way of getting around this obstacle. Otherwise, you can always go to a web-hosting company and set up a blog which will be more original in its design, as well as having any address you like. Meanwhile, I checked out three blogs at Blogger to see how and why people are making their online journals.
At http://funnycute.blogspot.com/ I found a really interesting social diary made by a cartoonist. One thing that made the journal entries so attractive to read were of course, the cartoons. She really is a great artist. The images-as they are self-drawn, add much-needed life to the text, as well as producing an individual authenticity which gives visitors instantaneous deep insight into the personality of the artist. Her blog site is obviously very popular as each entry has around 50 comments made by others attached to it. This is one of the main reasons why people write blogs: to connect with others of like-mind. This blog is well constructed as it has a good biography of the human being who it belongs to, lots of links to other blogs that relate to its general topic (in this case ‘cartoons’), and it has a link to the artist’s personal website. See, that’s the real phenomenon, to have both a blog and a general website. With the blog we get to see the workings of the mind behind the artist, whereas at her personal website, in this case: (http://www.katienice.homestead.com/), we get the opportunity to have a look at her professional portfolio.
The second blog site I checked out was at http://www.birdchick.com/blog.html. This site interested me because of photos of birds and other animals that accompany each day’s journal writing (again that essence of true life and not just text on a page makes it interesting). Here is a person whose site definitely focuses on the one central theme, in this case bird-watching. A standout on her blog’s home page is the long list of blog links, both to other personal bird-watching blogs, as well as to general media-owned bird-watching sites. One cool section of the list is dedicated to bird webcams. These are actual websites that have 24-hour-long camera shots of certain areas where specific types of birds are known to frequent (E.G. Great Horned Owls). What’ll people think of next? Again there is a link to the blog owner’s own personal website, http://www.birdchick.com/, which I assume is supported by a web-hosting company. Check it out, it has a cool photo of the blogger holding a huge hawk (I think it’s a hawk, I’m not very knowledgeable about the world of Ornithology!) on her arm. She’s even gone to the trouble (unless someone else out there did it) to put her website up in French as well.
The final blog I visited was called ‘Paradise Found’ which was located at http://tomquinn.blogspot.com/. An interesting point about the blogger at this site is that they reside (in the blogger’s own words) on a small speck of rock in the middle of the Atlantic (Bermuda). This just shows that even in a place so remote that people have even believed it to be supernatural (’The Bermuda Triangle is where planes and ships are often reported to go missing never to be seen again), the Internet is alive and well and individuals are sharing their experiences, hobbies, beliefs, and interests with the rest of the now-interconnected planet. The blogger here calls his blog a ‘Photo blog’. Every diary entry contains at least one photograph personally taken by the photographer himself. There is also a link to his site at http://flickr.com/photos/tquinn/ where he has an archive of over 400 pictures that he’s taken. Again this pattern of blog for thoughts and personal points of view matched up and linked to a general website showing actual work, a portfolio, or general life interest, seems to be the way most people are now communicating with each other over the Web.
Today we are gaining so much more insight into what life is like for other people in the world. It seems that having both a blog and a website has been a natural progression undertaken by people who truly want to share themselves and their ideas with the rest of the human community.
By Jesse S. Somer
http://www.m6.net
Jesse S. Somer can now see how having both a blog and a website can mean sharing a greater depth of one’s individual personality with the rest of humanity.
Jesse S. Somer is a creative writer working at M6.Net: ‘The web-hosting company for humans.’ M6.Net is working hard to help humanity experience the power and freedom to develop their own part of the Internet, to share their information and connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Blogging, the hottest trend in online publishing right now,
is currently spreading like wildfire across the Internet.
A cross between an online journal and a bulletin board,
everyone from rock starts, politicians, business leaders
and your average “Joe” or “Jane” can instantly become a
center of influence online using blogs.
But, as with any social interaction, certain rules apply
(my grandma calls them manners) in order to be viewed as
behaving “properly.”
One of the things that gives blogging such strong appeal as
an online publishing method revolves around “comments.”
Blogs that allow “comments” enable readers to respond and
elaborate on the information posted by the blog owner.
These comments and the free exchange of information,
opinions, links, and new ideas creates the dynamic and
growing content that makes blogging such a popular online
activity for both publishers and readers.
However, rules and unwritten customs about the proper use
of “comments” on a specific blog are also where most of the
problems and controversy will arise.
Since a successful blog eventually becomes a community of
people (albeit in cyberspace), proper social behavior is
critical to be an effective and accepted member of the
community.
Keep these basic rules in mind when approaching a new blog
that allows commenting by readers so you won’t find
yourself on the wrong end of a scolding by people who
operate with a different set of rules than you.
As with any social circle, violating the group’s rules and
customs will instantly cause a negative backlash.
** Keep It Relevant **
Stay on topic with the post you’re commenting about in a
blog.
Nothing will earn you the wrath and disdain of your
fellow posters and the blog owner faster than posting an
off-topic comment.
** Watch What Others Do **
Different blogs operate under different rules. What rates
acceptable in one blog would earn you a verbal thrashing in
another.
Before posting (especially if you have not posted to a
specific blog before), look to see the types and quality of
posts others make regularly.
Are they long or short?
Do they contain a link to the person’s website?
Is there a “signature” under their name?
** Be Polite **
It’s fine to disagree with people when making a comment,
whether it’s the blog’s author or a comment made by another
reader.
It is not, however, acceptable to launch a personal attack
on anyone or make nasty comments in someone else’s blog.
If you feel the need to do so, do it in your own blog.
It’s the same principle of you can say whatever you want in
your own house, but when you’re in someone else’s house,
you act right (and better than you do at home).
** You Can’t Respond To Everyone **
If you operate a blog and someone asks a question, try to
respond, but both sides should understand that you can’t
respond 100% of the time.
We all get busy and a blog, unless it maintains a paid
membership, is often supported as a labor of love.
© Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.IGottaTellYou.com/blog/
About the Author:
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the
co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to
use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted
visitors to your website or affiliate links…
Simple “Traffic Machine” brings Thousands of NEW visitors to
your website for weeks, even months… without spending a
dime on advertising! ==> http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com
The items covered here are:
1) Don’t Wait before Blogging.
2) Using Blogs to get your site found quickly.
3) What have Blogs and PR got to do with Indexing.
4) How to get your large sites pages found quickly.
5) If you’re using Adsense on those Pages - learn from this.
6) If you’re selling Clickbank products - you need this.
1) Don’t Wait before Blogging.
If you’ve been looking at creating a blog but don’t know how or why to do it, stay tuned for a new product announcement that’ll help you out.
Just to show you how quick and easy it can be, I’ve created several new blogs and fed them all through ‘feedburner’ to add tracking facilities and I’ll be conducting some tests and giving you the results when I’m done.
I now use Blogger for 30 different blogs. It’s easy to use, you can include Adsense within their interface easily, you can have it ftp the files to be hosted automatically on your own website etc. etc.
If you want tracking, whether you host the blog your self or not, you can go to Feedburner and ‘burn’ the feed. This will not only giving you tracking stats but also let you tweek it to be more compatible (Bloggers default output format is .atom) and also add other revenue streams to it.
I’ve blogged an introduction to RSS which I believe is currently the best free information around Here , and the ‘burnt’ version is: Blogging
Video tutorials for setting up a blog, configuring the blog, pinging, ‘burning feeds’ etc. are available here:
http://pheedcentral.com/blogandping_offer.html
2) Using Blogs to get your site found quickly.
If you’re struggling to get new websites found by the Yahoo Search Engine, here’s a little tip you might like.
Set up a Blog with whichever service you prefer (I like Blogger.com)Go over to Yahoo.com and setup a ‘MyYahoo’ account. It’s free.
Then on your MyYahoo homepage and goto the section that says ‘choose content’ and then tick the box that says RSS Headlines (BETA).
Add your feed url(s) to this, so that they are shown on your MyYahoo page.
Yahoo will be around with 48 hours. I’ve created videos of this that I’ll release very soon.
3) What have Blogs and PR got to do with Indexing.
The reason that Blogs and PR are linked to getting indexed is this:-
A) When you setup a blog it’s not quite the same as having a new website because there’s one major difference - Even if they don’t have the facility built in, you can effectively ‘announce’ the presence of your blog (and any new content you add to it) by ‘pinging’ (sending an announcement to) several large blog directories. In effect, this is like doing the ‘add url’ on a search engine, except that blogs get visited Very quickly whereas it could take ages for your site to get indexed this way.
If you use Blogger then there’s a tickbox labelled “ping Weblogs” which if selected, will announce your new content to the Weblogs.com service whenever you post new material - this has the effect of getting the Googlebot (not mediabot) to visit your blog sometimes within minutes. Thus, if you’ve linked to some new pages on your site (some deep pages) - they usually also get a visit pretty quickly.
It’s like getting a link from somewhere you know gets spidered regularly - except you can cause it to be spidered. (which is nice).
If you want Yahoo to come and see you quickly too, whether you’re using Blogger or a different blogprogram, you can create a free MyYahoo account and add your feeds to it - that’ll have the effect of ‘announcing’ them to Yahoo.
Again, the reason for this isn’t to make your blog rank well - it’s to get the links to your actual websites new pages to get spidered quickly because you’re using the blog to call the bots for a visit and linking from the blog to your new pages.
B) The Page Rank comments - These are a reflection of the fact that in general, higher page rank sites get visited by the bots more frequently (since you can have a high PR from good internal linking and a few high PR incoming links from sites without much traffic - this is a generalisation and NOT a rule), so it’s more likely that if you’re not blogging and pinging that a few high PR links (from traffic heavy sites) will be a good alternative.
If you want even more, here’s something I wrote on another forum recently (and in my blogs) about getting a high page count site indexed quickly:
4) How to get your large sites pages found quickly.
No-one can guarantee that your site will be indexed in 24 hours since the only person with ultimate control is Google.
However, the key to getting a new site fully indexed is deep linking.
If you were to just leave the site and get links to the index page, you could end up waiting 9 months to get it all in.
Have you created a site map(s).
Depending on your site, it may pay you to create several site maps for different parts of your site.
The basic principle is this:
The Search Engine Bots will investigate pages that they find links to from pages that they’re already visiting (you know this since you mentioned blog and ping).
When they do this, the work on a portion of the pages they’ve found about about at a time, so the more pages and the deeper the links to those pages - the longer it will take and the more times the bot will need to come back to get more.
So, the most effective thing you can do is: Create several site maps which cover lots of pages that have fairly shallow linking the get to them all (normally 2 levels max).
So rather than having 1 huge site map that lists every page. Create 5 site maps of 1000 links, or even more.
Then - Get links to these separate site maps aswell as your main index page. From as many different, high quality, high traffic sources as you can.
Blogs, RSS, Forums, Directories are all good examples of these.
If you get desparate you can buy links from high PR sites, but there’s no need.
Any of the large, popular forums probably get visited by the bots every day (my own site does).
If you’re not sure where to find directories to submit to, I’ve put together a huge list here: http://www.moneyandmotivation.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=162
If you want places to submit your blog/rss feed, I’ve put together a good list here: http://pheedcentral.com/weblinks/Submit_Your_Own_RSS_Feeds/
Jason Bradley has a product called IndexTracker that you can use to track indexed pages across all of your websites. I use it a lot.
Blog and Ping tutorial videos are available here:
http://pheedcentral.com/blogandping_offer.html
5) If you’re using Adsense on those Pages - learn from this.
Improving Adsense click through rates is something that any ppc advertiser should be interested in.
Well, I’ve spent some time now looking at all the various keyword research tools for selecting the most profitable keywords to target with Adsense.
To my delight, I also stumbled upon an ebook written by a guy called Jonathan Legar that covers it all. He also provides you with a huge list of profitable keywords (including some that are as much as $100 a click - yes you heard me right)
I just had to tell you about this amazing resource.
I know you’ll just love this resource.
http://hop.clickbank.net/?techtrader.astracker
When you see that Jonathan is also going to let you reprint over 11,000 article - this is a Must Have for any website owner or PPC advertiser.
Have fun with it.
6) If you’re selling Clickbank products - you need this.
If you sell Clickbank products, you’re probably aware of the fact that the Clickbank Marketplace is updated regularly, and as an affiliate it can be difficult to remember what products you’re advertising and whether there are any more in that same category of CB yet.
Well, now you can forget about the hassles of keeping up with the product in Clickbank, or buying tools to let you search Clickbank, and then working out how to advertise those products on your web pages. You know it sounds simple, but it can be a real pain to get setup and maintain.
If you take a look here: http://www.imvisionary.com/cmd.php?af=186978
You’ll find a new tool - It’s only just being released (not yet in the open) and you’ll see that it gives you an really easy, cheap and quick way to market ClickBank products.
It’ll synchronise with Clickbank Whenever you want and you can even search for products to promote.
I’m not going to give you a sales pitch here, just go and take a look at it.
If you’re not sure how it might work and you want more - I’ve even created a 6 minute video walkthrough of using it.
(It was 1am and I was tired, but you’re worth it)
If you followed everything I wrote above - you’re in for some happy days 
Your friend,
Andy Henry
Andrew Henry is an Internet Marketing consultant and online web business owner. Helping individuals and small businesses learn how to reach their goals on a daily basis.
Andrew is now educating people on the subject of RSS and Blogging via his site at http://www.pheedcentral.com which offers both free introductory advice on RSS and Blogging and supporting video tutorials.
Perhaps you still don’t realize or fully understand the power of RSS Feeds as a marketing tool.
After all, email works fine, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, the truth is:
1. It’s getting harder to send e-mails to the prospect’s inbox because of SPAM filters
2. People are getting numbed by the amount of e-mails they receive everyday
3. People are not reading their e-mails
4. It’s getting harder to get people to opt-in or subscribe to your newsletter or content.
With RSS feeds, this changes the playing field:
1. RSS feeds can bypasses email - Eat your hearts out! Rss feeds can be read by desktop software
and delivered right to your prospect everytime they turn on their PC
2. RSS feeds allow you to syndicate content rich news in your niche market and attract targeted
prospects
3. People who subscribe to newsfeeds are generally in the higher income bracket and educated.
They want to find news and information to solve their problems. Can that person be YOU?
4. E-mail doesn’t allow yourself to be branded all over the Net. With RSS feeds, your content gets
circulated/sydnicated and you can brand yourself as an expert.
5. RSS feeds can be submitted to RSS feeds directories, which will list your site within 24 hours
which measn more traffic for you
These are just some of the few examples of the use of RSS feeds you can use in your marketing.
What are you waiting for? My multimedia e-book cuts to the chase and shows you in VIDEO how to start a blog, create a feed, track it, list it in Yahoo, submit it and mORE..
Get a copy of “Marketing Rampage with Blogs and RSS” NOW!
www.marketing-rampage-with-blogs-and-rss.com
and learn the $299 Secret - How to get listed in Yahoo for FREE
Brandon Hong (Infopreneur, Author, Online Marketer)
brandon @ brandon-hong.com
http://www.Marketing-Rampage-With-Blogs-And-Rss.com
I monitor a lot of blogs, forums and news sites with my trusty RSS reader. One of my favorite sites is SitePoint, which is a terrific discussion forum for webmasters, programmers and domain name investors.
I’ve had some great conversations on the forums and via IM that have been very enlightening.
In a recent post, one of the SitePoint forum guys was lamenting the fact that he was having trouble getting to 100 unique visitors per day.
There was some good, solid advice that I would like to share and build upon:
1. Make sure your posts are optimized with popular keywords. I would be careful with this one because you don’t want to lose your blogging voice or make your pages read awkwardly by jamming in as many keywords as you can. Do check for the most popular keywords in your universe, though, using a tool like WordTracker. As a poster on SitePoint said, using the competition values in WordTracker allows you to pick keywords that haven’t soaked the web yet.
2. Use a service like PinGoat to ping blogger indexing sites every time you change your site. Pinging is basically extending an invitation to indexing services like Technorati, IceRocket and Feedster to come to your site and index it. The more indexing you get, the more exposure you get. PinGoat is a terrific service that pings them all at the same time.
3. Update your Google Sitemap every few posts and resubmit it. A Google Sitemap is an interesting and amazing phenomenon. Here is how Google explains it:
The Google Sitemaps program is two-way communication between webmasters and Google. You can give us information about your site so we can index it more effectively, and we can show you how we see your site and tell you about any trouble we’ve had crawling it.
Basically you create a special xml file and tell Google to go look at it. It uses the file to better index the site. And it definitely works. There’s even a Plugin for WordPress that will build the perfect sitemap for Google. You can read more about sitemaps by visiting the Google Sitemaps page.
4. Post relevant comments on blogs related to your content area. Look around, find people blogging about the same stuff as you. Monitor their blog sites and participate in the discussion. Be sure to include a link to your site in all of your comments. It’s a great way to correspond with like-minded people and get your name and site name out there.
5. Search for link partners and link exchanges at least once a week. If you find a site you like, include it on your link page and drop the site owner an email. He or she will most likely list your site as well. Join a couple of free or cheap link exchange sites and stick to your subject area when exchanging links. Always visit the prospective link exchange site and ask yourself if you would be doing your readers a service by sending them to that site. If not, don’t link to the site.
6. Write great content, and don’t plug stuff unless you are familiar with it and approve of it. If you write interesting content about subjects that interest people they will always find you. Don’t hustle your readers if you are going to plug something for money, make sure the product or service is something you would use and recommend. If people sense a hustle they will not convert and they will not come back.
7. Watch your keywords and make sure they are performing. DigitalPoint has a terrific tool that will help you track your keyword placement over time so you can see how your efforts are doing.
8. Perform some basic Search Engine Optimization. Learn how to not only optimize your posts, but optimize your entire site. You can get some great tips and tools at SeoChat.com
9. Shake loose a couple of bucks and buy some ad space. Once you’re certain your blog looks and operates perfectly, spend $100 on Adsense ads and see how that helps.
10. Be patient. It isn’t going to happen overnight. It will take weeks or months to get things rolling.
100 uniques a day is attainable. Get Blogging!
Matt DeAngelis runs AffiliateBlog.com. Matt is the former CTO of Modem Media, a pioneer in the Internet ad space. As a foot soldier in the Internet revolution, Matt devised the technology behind many of the most successful ad campaigns of the time.
AffiliateBlog is his latest venture, and was started as a resource to help site owners and bloggers get more revenue from their sites.
1. It is perfect for creating a web presence for independent professionals who have something to say and who need people to get to know them and what they can do for them.
2. Having your own business blog gives you credibility and a forum where you can show your expertise.
3. Readers can comment directly onto your blog, creating interaction and interest.
4. No more waiting for your web designer to update your web site.
5. You can post to your blog yourself, about any issue, daily if you wish, and get it broadcast into the blogosphere instantly.
6. The search engines love blogs and will pick up your keywords easily, boosting your rankings, making it easier for people to find you on the web.
7. Customers are drawn to personality behind the business. Human voices convey intimacy beyond PR-babble. (To read about this topic read The Cluetrain Manifesto. The first chapter is available free online: http://cluetrain.com/apocalypso.html.)
8. You can network and build up a community of like-minded readers. You blog, people comment. Others blog, you comment. Before you know it, more people have heard of you and your business because the buzz gets passed around.
9. You can test out new ideas and get instant feedback. Get your customers and prospects in on the act now and let them help you help them - invite them to talk back! Let them see how you develop your products and services and they can show you how to best to serve them.
10. You can use your blog side-bars to promote your products, your affiliate products, run blog ads, sell books, and any other product or services you have. You don’t have to include this in the body or content of your article; therefore your posts - your writing - can remain content rich and free of promotional hype.
Finally, email marketing and electronic newsletters are struggling because of over-crowded inboxes, spam problems and filters.
- On the average, 64.7% of the business e-mail you send is not even opened, let alone read. [source: Q3 2004 Email Trend Report, DoubleClick ]
- E-mail marketers are seeing their open-rates range from only “mid-20s to just over 50 %” [source: ClickZ.com]
- That means that you are losing at least 50% of your prospective buyers or readers. How much does that amount to in losses over the course of the next few years?
- AOL receives roughly 2 billion e-mail messages a day, of which about 75 percent are blocked and another 4 to 7 percent are sent to the bulk folder. [source: ClickZ.com]
Sit up and pay attention. The time to start blogging for your business is now.
Denise Wakeman of Next Level Partnership, and Patsi Krakoff of Customized Newsletter Services, have teamed up to create blogging classes and marketing services for independent professionals. You can read and subscribe to their blog at http://www.buildabetterblog.com