A new phenomenon that has become immensely popular amongst Internet users is “Blogging”. The term refers to making an online journal and which uses a reverse chronological order to display contents. It is at the blog owner’s discretion how many blog entries to make and when. New posts may be put up once every day, a week, a month or more than once. He can also opt to post less often. It all depends on his own choice.
More often than not, the postings on a blog are interrelated in some manner. This is, however, not the case always and bloggers may write about anything they want to randomly. The reasons why a blog owner may decide to start up a blog may be varied. The topics can may be private or of a public nature. In this article, I will unveil to you the difference between a private and a public blog. Also, the use of blogs for personal reasons and creating and maintaining a blog for professional use will be highlighted.
Private Blogs viz-a-viz Public Blogs
Blogs can be divided into many different categories. One way to do that is to separate them into private and personal blogs. In private blogs, only people that have been approved and given permission by the blog owner can view posts and leave comments. Giving a blog a public or private status depends on the blogger’s level of comfort with the idea of other’s reading his posts. To further illustrate the point, let’s take the example of a person who wants to blog about his anger and frustration at different things happening in his life.
This would make for very perosnal writings so the blogger may choose to make his blog private so as to avoid family or friends stumbling upon it by chance. On the other hand, a blogger who is writing in order to promote his business or a cause that he feels strongly about would want others to visit his blog. This is due to the fact that the more traffic he is able to generate for his blog the more financial benefits he would procure for himself or he will be able to arouse curiosity and awareness about his cause.
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Here are 5 things that you should avoid doing as you blog to create traffic for your site:
- Avoid talking negatively about your competitors ? Readers will automatically pick up when you create a negative attitude and it will turn them off from your site and do exactly the opposite of what you are trying to accomplish.? If you use your abilities and product confidence versus slinging mud, it will be much more effective in the long run.? You can look at the results of political elections as this is a common technique, mudslinging, that is often used and that will often come back to bite you in the tail.? Another thing to think about when using this approach is that you may just find yourself in a defamation lawsuit if you are not careful.? Stick to talking about what you do and how well you are doing it and you will find it to be more productive and better for business.
- Never give the reader a reason for not reading your blog ? for some reason, a lot of bloggers feel the need to apologize in the beginning of their entry for their inability to write or their lack of experience.? All you have done is told the reader to go elsewhere because you have no idea what you are doing.? To be perfectly honest, people are not really critiquing your writing, it is about how clearly you can convey your message about whatever it is you are trying to sell.? Overtime, your writing will get better, but you can never recover from lost business.
- Stay away from making your posting look like your opinion - Quite frankly, nobody really cares what your opinion is, but they do want cold, hard facts that will prove the effectiveness and usefulness of a product or service.? Quote professional reviews and factual data to support what you are stating in the article.? Give them a reason, lots of them to buy what you are selling.
- Do not get caught up in making a business blog a personal blog -? If you want to do that, create a blog to share all of your personal experiences but keep that out of a blog that you have created for the purpose of being a business outlet.? If they are there for a service, they could care less that your dog did a cute little trick that morning, keep everything related to the product or service that you are selling.
- Stay on track ? another pratfall of beginner business bloggers is that they tend to talk about stuff that is not related to the niche that they are trying to capture.? You must stay on track and give information about what you are selling, not something cool that you saw in another market niche.? Again, you are just giving your readers a reason to go elsewhere as they are not getting what they came to your site for.? Stay on track and keep your entries relevant to your business.
Search Engine techniques for optimization of blogs are extremely important for bloggers if they want to increase the amount of traffic that a blog attracts and to make it successful in reaching out to a large audience. Bloggers who are interested in building high traffic to their blog and
maintaining a successful blog should pay particular attention to search engine optimization techniques which can help to improve the search engine rankings of their blogs. Search engines all employ some type of ranking algorithm which is used to determine the order in which websites are returned when an Internet user searches for information on a particular topic.
However, not all search engines use the same algorithm for this purpose. As a result there is no simple solution to optimizing a blog for high rankings on all search engines. There are a few tips though which can be useful with most search engines. These tips include using relevant keywords, generating back links to your blogs and using image tags in a beneficial way.
The Importance of Keywords
The use of relevant keywords in blog posts is one of the most common and also one of the simplest ways to optimize search engine rankings. However, not all bloggers agree on the best ways to use relevant keywords to optimize search engine rankings. Some bloggers believe keywords must be used often to create high keyword densities while others believe using keywords at lower densities of 1%-3% and paying attention to placement of the keywords is the most worthwhile strategy. Still other bloggers argue that simply using relevant keywords as they come naturally in the flow of the blog posts is sufficient to ensure search engines understand the content of the blog.
Regardless of the keyword strategy a blogger opts to employ all bloggers can benefit from researching relevant keywords. They may have a blog which pertains to a general subject such as gardening but may not be aware of the search terms typically used by Internet users when researching this subject. Fortunately there are many programs available which generate related keywords for a particular time which provides the blogger with other keywords they should consider incorporating into the blog. For the example of a blog pertaining to gardening the blogger may want to use additional keywords such as container gardening or home gardening to attract more interest from search engine users.
Generating Favorable Backlinks
Back links are also another common factor used in search engine ranking algorithms. Many search engines consider the number of back links pointing to a website as well as the quality of the websites which provide these back links. This means the search engine rankings of the website which points to your blog could influence the amount of weight the back link contributes to your own rankings. This is because some search engines consider higher ranking websites to be more valuable than other websites which do not rank well and therefore reward websites receiving back links from these high ranking websites quite favorably.
Some search engine algorithms also consider whether or not the back links are reciprocated or not reciprocated. In these cases non reciprocal links are usually considered to be more valuable than reciprocal links. Also, back links which come from link exchanges or link farms are typically not considered to be very influential to search engine rankings.
How Images Can Improve Search Engine Rankings
Bloggers should also be aware that any pictures used on their blog can be used to improve search engine rankings with some search engines. This aspect of search engine optimization is often overlooked because many bloggers believe the pictures are not viewed by search engines. While this is true the search engines do crawl the code of the blog in addition to the content on the blog. This means the search engine will view the information provided in the image tags. Bloggers can take advantage of this by using the image tags to provide relevant keywords which can bolster search engine rankings. However, care should be taken to ensure the keywords used in these tags also accurately describe the image because blog visitors will often see the text included in these tags when they scroll over a picture on the blog.
When you?re trying to think of new ways to increase interest and traffic for your website, consider the use of a very simple tool that people will enjoy. Many people like to read a ?tip of the day? in many different areas. By creating a ?tip of the day? in your particular area of expertise that relates specifically to your own products and services, you serve two purposes:
You provide your target audience with valuable tips and information on a consistent basis.
You keep your website in front of your target audience, reminding them that you have products and services when they are ready to browse or buy.
Setting your ?tip of the day? up on your website in a neatly designed box, with a specific graphic or colors that attract attention, or with some other unique design feature, will make it more appealing and easy to spot. Don?t repeat tips or you?ll bore your readers. Consider new and unique tips as much as possible. Search the online resources for websites that offer help in creating tips, work with an experienced copywriter to create a long list of tips that you have available at your fingertips, research information in your area of expertise, and find new ways to provide valuable information via simple daily tips.
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When you have an opportunity to promote your blog what part of your blog do you promote?
In 99% of the promotion that I see bloggers doing they promote their blog?s homepage URL. This is a reasonably good way to go – but perhaps there are a few other ways to approach promoting you blog that could potentially be more effective at converting new readers.
Straight from Problogger. Read more >>
There are over 61 million results when you type in the word Blog?What does that say to the new website business owner? The obvious thing it says is everyone has an opinion and they are more prone to share on the web then in person. A more important view to take is there are 61 million possible clients to purchase your product and share your website. Word of mouth is now and always has been a great way to advertise.
The bad part about blogging is the fact that it allows individual opinions to be posted live and in color for the entire internet community to view. So you want to try to follow the old adage about pleasing the world. Remember you can?t please everyone so don?t try. Try to view it as individual critiques. If most of the critiques are in favor of what you have to offer keep going in the direction your in. If the bloggs are critical about certain points, use this to tweak your website or product.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Problems being worked on as of 9:30pm EST 10/16/08
The popular Blogrolling.com link list server site was hacked by Islamists. Since that time, the site?s home page has gone offline repeatedly, and the blogrolls hosted on the site are being served only intermittently.
The Blogrolling staff has set up a status page on Twitter where you can keep up with the fate of your site. It’s located here.
Thanks to 1389 for the info.
This is a tough issue for every blogger – how often should I post? What about vacation? What about days when I just don’t feel like blogging? Darren Rowse, a blogger’s blogger, offers 2 great posts about this issue…
Finding Your Blogging Rhythm (Part 1)
Finding Your Blogging Rhythm (Part 2)
From Wikipedia: “Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (c. 1398 ? February 3, 1468) was a German goldsmith and printer who is credited with being the first European to use movable type printing, in around 1439, and the global inventor of the mechanical printing press. His major work, the Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible), has been acclaimed for its high aesthetic and technical quality.”
There are moments in history that define an age. Gutenberg experienced one when he produced his Bible. Gutenberg represented a progressive change in society and culture. He brought about a shift, if you will, that has had a lasting impact on all that we do. I like to visit Borders frequently – daily if possible, but usually once a week or so. I like to stand on the top step going up to the coffee shop and look out across the aisles and aisles of books. Millions of volumes of knowledge have been produce in the last four centuries, and thousands of new books are published each year. Gutenberg defined ours as a “print society” by his work.
Fast forward to 1990 and see the first web site. Yes, that’s right, 1990 – eighteen years ago. If that does not shock you with the reality of the rapidity with which the modern world advances, you’re stuck in the 80’s. This is a new age. The “information age” was a premature underestimation of the power of the world wide web. I don’t know that there’s a word to describe it, but I think we could hint at it by calling this the “connected age.”
I’ve often said that the internet began as a web to which we could connect, get information, then disconnect. What was that old thing called? Dial up? Today, it’s a cloud. Touch the weather icon on the screen of a GPS-enabled iPhone and you’ve got the seven day forecast for the exact spot where you’re standing.
It’s not surprising that the web has developed an economy within itself. We speak of the economy on local, national, and global levels. But we fail to realize how much the online world is an economy unto itself. This has produced an atmosphere of anonymity where one can work from home by staying connected to the cloud that is the world wide web. You can blog, consult, design, sell, and market online in your PJ’s and earn an honest living. There’s nothing wrong with that. But within this new online economy is a severe poverty as well.
This online poverty can’t really be measured in monetary terms, as the internet is one place a web site can exist that has no financial purpose at all. For zero dollars, you can have an online home somewhere on the web – and that’s a good thing. Poverty online, in my estimation, is not so much a poverty of finance, but a poverty of purpose.
Yesterday, I stopped at a gas station that contained some slot machines. I watched a dozen or so people feed dollars into machines and mindlessly press a button over and over and over. Their faces were expressionless – they were cold and dead on the inside and sacrificed their purpose and hope on the altar of the possibility of that one big hit that may or may not ever come. And even if it came, even if they walked away rich for a day, they would have produced nothing of lasting value for themselves or anyone else.
Every day, hundreds of thousands of people send spam, post affiliate links, write on message boards, buy another domain in hopes that they’ll hit and walk away rich for the day. This reduces the value of blogging. I get “followed” on Twitter by people who don’t know me and don’t care about what I do – they just have something I should click on. Just as Gutenberg inadvertently invented the possibility of the publishing of trashy magazines, the internet has afforded us the perfect environment for self-absorption, for financial leeching, and for pointless banter in the name of dollars.
What does Gutenberg have to do with the open media revolution and the purpose of blogging? Everything, in my opinion. Gutenberg decided that the first thing published with 42 characters of movable type would be the Bible – the most meaningful piece of literature ever penned. It inspires hope and purpose in all who trust its message. I’m not writing this blog to debate the value or validity of the Bible (as that’s settled firmly for me). Rather, I hope to call us back to purposeful web engineering. In our content, our design, even in our economizing of the web, let us instill purpose.
Poverty exists in the real world where hope dies and purpose is extinguished. We live at the beginning of a new age – a brave new web wide world – a globally connected culture. Let’s build it with purpose. I can’t decide what you will create, design, or write about. But I can issue a challenge to do it with meaning. You can’t take wealth with you to the grave. If it comes, wonderful, but don’t live for it. Blog with purpose.
photo credit: wilhei55
If anybody has “been there, done that,” it’s John Chow. He posts here an article by Jim from TheNetFool.com about how to make a career out of blogging. The one thing I would add (as I mention in the post’s comments) is that sometimes you need your own blog as a workshop to increase the skills you can offer to clients who hire you to blog, rather than narrowing things down to only one avenue of blogging. It’s a cool article…
How You Can Make a Career Out of Blogging | John Chow dot Com.
Seth Godin is an expert marketer who manages to stay well above the get-rich-quick marketing mantra. He’s kind of an artist and just recent wrote a post called “Maybe you can’t make money doing what you love.” His premise is that sometimes, when you try to monetize your passions, you lose them and your gift is cheapened.
In the realm of blogging, this is essentially true as well. Not every blog should be monetized. I operate a blog about web design, but I don’t offer any advertising since the ads wouldn’t fit with my design and would probably point potential clients to my competitors. I also operate a blog about my life as a Pastor. I monetize it only in that I recommend some books off of Amazon and have a few affiliate links, but I’m careful and selective.
One of the problems with Adsense, and other ad networks, is control. You’re often limited on sizing, design, and advertiser selection. Affiliate programs usually offer a bit more control, but you still have to be careful about how an ad distracts from your creative genius. What kinds of blogs shouldn’t be monetized?
1. Some personal blogs. If you blog for family, do you really want to hit them up with ads or affiliate banners? The ads will basically distract from the unique personality of the blog.
2. Religious blogs, with some exceptions, shouldn’t be monetized much. Why? Because your greater purpose should probably be to speak to skeptics, who will see your monetization as an offense.
3. Corporate blogs, again with some exceptions, probably aren’t the best place for advertisign because the blog itself is the ad for your business.
Donations sometimes serve as a decent alternative, but almost nobody really donates, so it may be an ineffective use of begging. If you have time, I’d suggest operating multiple blogs so that you can monetize one or two, but not all four or five.
One last factor to consider is that you should always be giving away content. I give away free WordPress themes. You might give away an ebook or free advice. Just remember always that it’s “more blessed to give than to receive.”
photo credit: Caveman 92223
Now here’s an article worth reading not only for its value to us as thinkers, designers, writers, etc. but it’s also a good read for the soul. In the biblical realm, this is about “tearing down strongholds” or “removing your stumbling blocks.” An article like this can keep us from slipping into the abyss of discouragement during difficult times. Keep up the creativity!
Overcoming Your Own Constraints @ chrisg.com.
So you want to start blogging? But you’re not sure what it is or how to begin? There are a ton of great blogging tips sites out there (this one included), but most of the articles are intended for people who are already set up and running. If you’re a newbie, where do you begin?
I started blogging years ago as a means of communicating what was going on in my life with family and friends. Now I also write articles for other sites in addition to several blogs that I run myself. This article is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to blogging, but rather to offer some lessons that I’ve learned over the years (the hard way sometimes). And let me point out, it would take much more than this article to get you online – I hope to spur you on a wild and frantic Google search for more information, provide you some links, and hint around at some tools.
Catch A Vision
What are you going to blog about? There are quite a few different kinds of blogs…
- Personal Blogging – for sharing your life with the world.
- Corporate Blogging – for sharing information within or about your company.
- Product Blogging – for sharing news about newly released products.
- Political Blogging – for sharing political viewpoints.
and on and on. You get the picture. Each different kind of blog requires a different style and approach, and a different blog design. Decide your topic and stick to it. The blog you’re reading is about blogging. There are a lot of subtopics, but it all revolves around the central idea of blogging. So pick a topic and stick close to it and search engines will love you for it.
Further, catch a vision for who you want your audience to be. The whole world? Techies? Parents? Health nuts? etc. Your audience should determine what kind of content you offer on your blog. This phase of blog development happens on a legal pad or a moleskin, not the web.
Pick a Platform
There are free blog sites, paid platforms at an affordable rate, or you can go the self-hosted route. If you’re planning on monetizing your blog with advertising or affiliate marketing, I’d highly recommend having your own domain name and a self-hosted blog, but if you’re just wanting to speak to your loved ones on screen, go with a free hosted service like Blogger. A few of the most popular hosted services include WordPress.com (we’ll get to the self-hosted WordPress issue in a second), TypePad, Expression Engine, and Moveable Type.
For most blogs, I recommend going the route of a self-hosted blog with your own domain. How do you accomplish this the easy way?
- Register a domain name – reserve it for at least 2 years.
- Purchase a shared hosting plan.
- Install your platform (more on my favorite in a second).
- Upload your theme and any necessary plugins.
- Start writing!
Obviously that’s abbreviated, but you can find a ton of resources to help on this site and others to get you through the details.
My own favorite self-hosted blogging platform is WordPress. I would not argue that it’s better than everything else. There are pros and cons to various systems. You can read more about that here. But WordPress does happen to be the most popular blogging software and one of the easiest systems to use. If your hosting plan comes with cPanel and Fantastico (most Linux hosting plans offer them), then you can click through a few screens, enter some information, and the blogging software installs itself. Then you’re ready to log in and begin. There are a multiude of free themes available that are easy to install.
What To Write, What To Write…
How do you find inspiration for writing? Surf. Read. Google. Watch the news. Create a post a day to rise to the top of many blog search engines, but it’s certainly not a requirement. The best content is original, personal, helpful, and practical. It’s also easy to read. Long paragraphs belong in an encyclopedia, blogs are more like short bursts or bulleted lists. Video and pictures help, links are great, and mentioning other bloggers is cool too.
How To Monetize Your Blog
Again, this is too broad a topic to cover here in any detail, so I’m just going to mention a few things that you can do to earn some capital, if for no other reason than to pay for hosting, software, and design.
Other Essential Blogging Tips
- Leave comments on other blogs, read comments on yours, and reply – it’s called comment luv!
- Subscribe to the feeds of blogs and use them as a resource for inspiration and conversation.
- Promote offline and not just online – tell people you’re out there.
- Network through FaceBook, Twitter, and other networking platforms.
- Don’t create duplicate content, so don’t post large amounts of identical text in more than one place and always be respectful of copyrights and licenses.
- Optimize your site by writing good titles, using good keywords (but don’t overdo it), and linking to relevant resources.
- Do it for fun. If money comes, that’s fine, but keep it fun.
There again, this is not intended to take you from start to finish, but rather to provoke your thoughts at the outset. Maybe this article will spur you onward in your quest for self-expression. If so, why not begin by leaving a comment?
photo credit: kwerfeldein
Most bloggers go for SEO, myself included. We want to rank high and get the top spots. But is SEO all there is to it? No, it’s actually more about trust, likeability, and relevance. Google thinks this way and so if you want to have a future-proof blog (as Google tweaks its algorythm), then you’ll focus on authority. Here’s a great article from Chris Garrett…
Authority Versus Pure SEO
I thouhgt this was a pretty cool list to put together – well-known marketers from all walks of life and from different fields. Makes for a pretty cool springboard into surfing some great marketing sites…
? Lo’s TOP 50 COOLEST Marketers | Red Hot Blog.
