How To Make Money With Blogs



Making Money With Blogs: March 2006

Monday, March 27, 2006

Blog, Blogging and Blogger - The Hottest Trend in the 21st Century By Jeff Wang Wang

The Buzz word in the internet industry today is the word “Blogging”. If you have not heard of it, read on to find out the hottest trend that is happening across right now in the 21st century. The word “Blog” could be the next craze that is sweeping across the world ever since the Internet took the world by the storm.

Accordingly to Dictionary.com, the word ‘Blog’ is defined as followed “an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a web page; also called a Web log.” It goes on further to state that the “blog is typically updated daily, blog often reflect the personality of the author”.

Traditionally back in the past, people penned down their private thoughts into a diary book. The content in the diary book would be considered private and exclusive to the author only. In fact, if you attempt to read somebody’s diary without permission, you would be labeled as “Very Rude”. However, with the introduction of “Blog”, it is set to change all that.

People started to chronicle their private life details into an online diary called blog. What started to change is that people not only started to discard away their hard copy diary book for online blogging, but in fact, they started to pen down their private thoughts in world wide web for the public to read. What a drastic change in the Trend!

In fact, soon after, blog started to take a life of its own. Gradually, blog started to evolve into marketing blog, business blog and customer service blog. There is even one blog AsianHottestBlogger.com where blogger contestants are voted by the readers as the hottest blogger for the month after reading the interesting blog post that the blogger contestant has posted.

The entire “Blog” Craze is happening all over the world right now. If you are still not into it, it’s time to jump into the bandwagon right now to capitalize the opportunity before it’s over.

Reasons to Start a Blog By Tom Takihi



Blogging is taking the online world by storm. It is the fastest rising new activity on the internet. It is allowing people to post their thoughts not only about personal things but also about the world at large.

Blogs, otherwise known as web logs, is both an online diary and a guestbook. Anyone can set a blog account or function on their website and then post entries on it. As part of the blogging function, it can either be set up as a private journal where people can just read what is posted or it can be set up in such a way where readers can get together and then place their own comments on your entry or to each other.

Blogs can be considered as opinion pieces on a particular topic or field. There are topic specific blogs where entries are limited to the topic set by the blogger. There is also an area specific blog which can be a resource on particular place. There are also blogs that are set up as a source for news on a highly specialized topic of field that would otherwise be ignored by the general media. Blogs can be used by internet marketers and business owners to promote a website or use the internet traffic generated by the blog to promote a product, service or an affiliate program (as a separate source of income).

Internet marketing professionals highly encourage website and business owners to start their own blogs because they acknowledge that it is a powerful tool for internet marketing.

Here are some reasons why starting a blog is a great business move:

Blogs allow you to stay in touch with the subscribers and clients. A blog allows you to keep communication lines open with so that you can always interact with subscribers or readers. It also helps nurture trust in you as an individual and owner of a business owner.

It’s a great way to get regular feedback. A blog’s feature that enables readers to post comments is a great way of getting feedback from your clients. Clients and readers can comment on what you have posted and these replies can help you determine what they need.

A blog is not labour intensive. You don’t need a knowledge of HTML or other web designing skills to make and post blogs. Most bloggers use WYSIWYG HTML editors to help in the blogging function. These very easy to use and require very little technical skills, if at all.

A wonderful way to disseminate information. The biggest benefit of blogging is that you can post articles in the form of articles or reviews. These articles can help lift your reputation as an expert in your field.

It is a big help to your page ranking. Blogs are so rich in content that search engines can’t get enough of them. The fact that blogs also offer new content makes it attractive to search engines.

It is a great vehicle for advertising. Blogs can be a great venue for advertising because of the potential for the community to achieve a massive number of participants. It is also a cost effective advertising platform.

How to Make Money Online with Blogs By Brice Mattson

You spend hours every day with your weblog. It's become a labor of love. Wouldn't it be nice to find a way to earn some extra money with your weblog?

There are ways of making money online with blogs. The method you've probably seen on most blogs is to host ads, such as with Google Adsense. You let Google put their ads on your site and get paid when people click on the ads. These get mixed reviews. Some say they make a lot this way, but many people don't report much income. Since they are free to ad to your site, it doesn't hurt to try.

Affiliate programs work on blogs as well as they work on websites. Affiliate with companies that sell products related to your site. When people click on the link in your blog and purchase a product, you profit. This is another way of making money online with blogs that doesn't cost you anything. If you are passionate about a product and write about it, this can work well.

If you have a website, blog about some aspect of it and provide a link. Your weblog can effectively sell the product, and all the customer has to do is click to your site and order it.

You will never make money with your blog unless people can find it. Search engines seem to prefer blogs because they tend to be content rich. It helps to stick to one topic. If your blog serves a niche market, it will have less competition.

All of the methods above are very effective and will make you money, the one thing that has to be remembered is that if your blog is hosted somewhere else other than your server, you will have to be careful not to spam your site with ads.

Everyone knows that Blogs are the future of the internet, they are search engine friendly and get listed very quickly, which is why many people are hosting their blogs on their own servers now because they see the importance to their business. The last thing any Internet Business Owner wants to happen is that their blog is shut down at Blogger or any other free blog hosting site.

Making money online with blogs is possible. Consider your blog as another avenue for making money online with little or no cost. Write about what you love, market your blog, and see if the money will follow.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Invasion of the Blogs By: Meryl K. Evans

Lemmings are cute, but dumb. If you tell them to jump off a cliff, they will. Just like the people who start blogs because everyone is doing it. Guess what happens after a little while? The blogs die.

In managing a list of many Web sites, most of which are blogs, I deleted countless sites from the list because the sites and blogs no longer existed. The people ran out of steam or had no reason to start them in the first place.

How do you know when a blog is right for your business? Learn why people start blogs, how they find their niche and how blogging tools can be used for more than blogs.

Blog content is king

Some people like to read blogs, others like to read newsletters, still others like to rely on feeds and some read a few or all of them. No matter the method the information is distributed, each medium has one thing in common: content. Having a blog connects your newsletter and your business with all of these readers and delivers important content in a particular style.

I've been blogging since June 2000. If you review my early blog entries in meryl's notes, you'll notice they're more personal. When blogs first hit the scene in the late '90s, they were personal diaries and journals. Like the blog business, my blog has transformed from personal to business speak, although I still add personal notes here and there.

A few bloggers tend to talk about their work, their products and their little world. That might work for celebrities where fans want to know everything about them, but it doesn't work for the average business person. Other business people want information on how to succeed and when a blog spends time hawking products offering information of no value, few people will return. The people whose products sell well are the ones who provide valuable information. Readers already know what kind of information they're getting, so they trust that when they buy something, it will be of the same or better quality. This value must be reflected in their blog. It's much like people who only sign up for a newsletter after first seeing an example.

Who should venture where one has not blogged before?

No one wants to be a lemming (I would hope). How do you decide whether or not to set up a blog? The answer isn't black or white (what did you expect?). Ask these questions:

* Can you regularly update it -- at least five times a week?

* Do you have something to say other than just linking to others?

* Do you read other blogs or feeds?

* Can you provide information of value to others not just to yourself?

* How large is your newsletter subscriber list?

* How many unique visitors do you get on an average day, week or month?

The big decider is whether or not you can write in the blog almost daily. The people behind the high traffic blogs post multiple times a day. Though resourceful, merely linking to other sites doesn't give visitors much reason to make the effort to come to yours. Reading other blogs or feeds is a great way to learn how to carry a discussion. Find other blogs covering topics similar to yours and check them out. Disagree with their opinions? Write about it and explain your reasons. Cross-blog discussions are common, and that's where trackback comes in handy.

Trackback is a blog feature. If you decide to comment on another blog posting in your blog instead of in that blog's comments page, then you link to the conversation through the trackback link. Trackback is similar to the permalink, the permanent URL for the blog entry, but it has a different URL for copying and pasting in your blog's trackback box.

Aside from the technical aspects of operating a blog on a daily basis, subscriber list size and Web site traffic are good indicators of what kind of reaction you'll get when opening a blog. Starting from scratch with little traffic means you have a long road ahead and lots of work to do. There is no magic formula anyone can sell you for $97 to make your blog an overnight success. But with some perseverance and ingenuity, your blog can engage many prospects and clients.

Pick a niche

Considering there are numerous blogs out there, pick a niche topic when starting a blog for a better shot at attracting and keeping an audience. meryl's notes focuses on three areas: webby, geeky and wordy. In reality, this is too much. What I need to do for my readers is create three separate blog entry points, so those interested in writing, newsletters and Internet marketing get nothing but the wordy entries. Those interested in Web design get the webby stuff and the technophiles receive the geeky content.

I also manage a personal blog separate from meryl's notes. It's about cochlear implants and deafness. This could fall under the geeky category, but it's a personal blog and doesn't belong in meryl's notes. This blog is written for a different audience.

The blogging tools for both of my blogs come with syndication capabilities so those using feed readers or aggregators can read the content through the software. For an explanation of syndication and feed readers, refer to What Is This RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom Business? When sending a new issue of a newsletter, comment on it or link to it in the blog, that way the blog and feed readers will get the goods, so all three bases are covered.

Blogs in disguise use the same tools

Blogging tools aren't just for, well, blogging. Such tools are an excellent way to help you update your Web site more often than you otherwise would. I use it to manage the list of tableless Web sites. Using blogging tools is much easier than the way I managed it before, updating the HTML files by hand. Though using a blog tool, it isn't a blog. In this case, the blog tool has become a content management system (CMS).

Small business owners don't have a need for the fancy and pricey CMSes out there. They find it easier to use blogging software to manage their sites or hire someone to adapt the tool for their site. Women's Spirituality is one such site. Karen Casey may not use the blog, but she does have discussions surrounding the articles she writes.

Blogs have found a place in businesses and people are finding creative ways to use them. Some companies have a blog on the intranet for communicating project status, jeopardies and metrics. They're used for knowledge management. With information pouring in, blog tools provide a way to share, organize and process the information.

Being a follower can be good or bad. No one wants to walk off a cliff with the lemmings, but everyone wants to succeed. Best practices won't help, since the decision to blog is based on the organization's mission, needs and goals along with its target market's desires and needs. A blog about lemmings? There is one, sort of. Or maybe you'd like to start your own and talk about dumb business moves.

Author Bio
Meryl K. Evans (www.meryl.net), Content Maven, is the editor of eNewsletter Journal and Shavlik's The Remediator Security Digest. She writes columns for PC Today, InformIT, and MarketingProfs. Contact her to get content that inspires action.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com

Make Money Blogging By: Matt Bacak

You have created a blog and your blog is dedicated to a niche industry. Have you ever thought that the blog could make money for you? We would look here in this article, ways and means, to make money blogging. Lets first have a look at what are the prerequisites for a blog needed to make money:

1. Blog needs to be dedicated to a niche market.
2. Updated regularly.
3. Enough back links (Don't worry for it. Directory submission would be enough to begin with)
4. Good blog host or application (blogger, Xanga or typepad recommended), and
5. High quality articles or news items supported with images.

Get the above criteria in place and Hurrah... You are ready to make money blogging.

Top 5 Ways to Make Money Blogging
Lets now take a look at top 5 ways using which you could make money blogging:

1. Google Adsense Google Adsense delivers text and image ads to the authorized websites/blogs depending on the content of the website. Small code is required to be pasted at proper locations on a webpage and Google automatically recognizes the page. Google shares the revenue it gets from the advertisers whenever a visitor clicks on these ads.

Google bills advertisers on price per click basis (PPC). Advertisers are required to pay only when any visitor clicks on their ads. They bid against each other for the keywords in order to receive better placement and thus prices for each keyword differ from one another. It is better to choose keywords for your blog which pays high $ per click.
2. Amazon Amazon Associate program is another important way to make money blogging. The Amazon Associate program gives opportunity to website/blog publishers to promote any product from its inventory by adding a predefined code to their website/blog, which, when clicked by a visitor, takes them to the relevant product page. Once the visitor buys the product, the blog owner will be compensated with a commission.
3. Blogads You can use Blogads as an effective tool to have a better control over the advertisers in your blogs. You can analyze and compare your profits with any one of your online agencies. Blogads can be simply specified as an advertising service used for the web logs or blogs. From the total money generated by Blogads, it retains 20% of it and the remaining money is paid to you through PayPal or checks.

Alternative Services:
* Crispads is another useful network focused on the blogs. You can put your advertisements in their blogs using Crispads. You can move through their RSS/ATOM feeds that help in generating revenues.
* Tagword - It is similar to Blogads. It makes you select the ads and their price.

Users can place their text-based ads in the site within minutes and the ads will be displayed instantly on the website.
4. Affiliate Programs Your affiliate programs can help you earn a lot of money for selected products and services. Lot of websites offers you to become affiliate members. These affiliate programs can provide a better reach and an in-depth exposure to the products. The commissions for the sales differ according to the quality of the product, sales and marketing strategy involved. You can gather information related to the commissions by looking into the catalogues of Link Share and Commission junctions.
5. Text Links Text links has emerged out to be the best form of moneymaking source that you can use instead of cluttering or crowding the page with ads. You don't have to make these text links prominent within your website. This link can act as an extra value to your site and will also help to promote the rankings of other sites. In most of the cases you will find these text links placed in the bottom of the web pages. The best part of this strategy is that the publishers send and accept links as the market continues to grow.

Author Bio
Matt Bacak became a "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours.
Recent Entrepreneur Magazine's e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets To Unleash The Powerful Promoter In You! Sign up for Matt Bacak's Promoting Tips Ezine ($100 value) just visit his website at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com or http://promotingtips.com.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com

AdSense Tips For Bloggers By: ReveNow.com

If you have joined the blogging revolution that is sweeping the net, and you think you might want to make a little revenue - or a lot of revenue - from your blogging efforts, you need AdSense tips for bloggers. Blogging has opened up an entirely new way of how non-technical people interact with the Internet, and now, anyone can publish anything about any topic - without having a website - and anyone can profit without even having a product!

Adsense for blogs make perfect sense. Google's advertising programs are designed to work with sites related to the keywords for the ads that are being presented. Each time you add content to your blog, the Google spiders gobble it up. The more you update, the more the Google spider visits your page. Ultimately, you move up in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for the topics that you write about. You see where this is going. The higher your search ranking, the more traffic you receive, which ultimately leads to higher revenue from AdSense ads.

The beauty of blogs is their potential for rapid growth. If you become known as an expert in your area of expertise, word of mouth spreads quickly and your blog can become very popular. So it is vital that you always teach something with every blog entry. You want your readers to come back frequently and they will if they know they will learn something. Not only will your readers bookmark your blog and return often, but they will link to your blog enthusiastically as well. People in forums will refer to your blogs and discuss what they learned. Websites will link to you as a valuable resource. In short, an informative blog can grow very quickly if the information it provides is valuable.

It is important to write about specific topics, and sprinkle your blog entries with specific keywords to get the best results - and the highest revenue - with your Google AdSense ads. There is a method to the madness. Start your revenue generating blog by testing the waters.

Decide what area you would like to write about and then do some keyword research. Research is easy if you use Google's keyword tools found at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox. The keyword tools are located in your Google AdWords account. Yes, you need a free AdWords account to be successful but you don't have to fund it to use the keyword tools. Look for keywords related to your subject that are high paying. These are keywords where the bid amounts are high. Make a list of the top paying keywords, and use that list to determine what topics you will write about.

Remember, you want people to visit your blog time and time again, and build up a readership, make sure that your blog is well written and informative. Don't just target keywords for the sake of targeting keywords - the writing needs to make sense! Writing valuable content is the first step to generating traffic to your blog, and traffic is needed to profit from AdSense ads!

You are allowed to use the AdSense ad units in two different places on each page. You can accomplish this in a couple of different ways. First, you can add the AdSense ad code to the template for your blog. This is done through the control panel for your blog, and some knowledge of HTML is needed. The other option is to paste the AdSense code directly in your blog post each time you submit a new post. You can use it once at the top and once at the bottom, or once after a few paragraphs of the post, and again after a few more paragraphs.

Get that code in there however you see fit - but then pay close attention to the results so you can see what is working and what isn't. Tracking is everything if you want to make real money!

Of course, you need to advertise your blog as much as possible as well. Make sure that you provide Trackbacks to other people's blogs as often as possible, and that you visit blogs, leave comments - and leave a link for your blog as well!

Discuss this topic in the ReveNow AdSense Forums: www.revenow.com/forums/

Author Bio
ReveNow! is an AdSense marketing resource covering AdSense, AdWords, affiliate marketing, and SEO.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com

Monday, March 06, 2006

Marketing Optimization 101 for Blogs

Marketing Optimization 101 for Blogs
By: Rok Hrastnik

Truth be told, most blogs aren't really optimized for marketing effectiveness. Even more so, some blogs are absolute marketing machines, but they at the same time fail to fully capitalize on that fact by not being really optimized marketing-wise.

Blogs may be Web 2.0, but bloggers should not ignore some of the good old internet direct marketing tactics that have been working for marketers online almost for a decade or more.

Here are the absolute 101 basics you really shouldn't ignore ...

1. DON'T FORGET E-MAIL DELIVERY
Bloggers are often abandoning or completely ignoring e-mail as a tool to deliver their content to their readers. As an RSS evangelist I certainly believe in using RSS to get your content to the world, but only as a supplement to e-mail delivery.

While RSS provides us with many unique benefits, it is yet to reach mainstream adoption. Until it does, marketers and publishers should not even consider abandoning e-mail delivery, or risk ignoring most of their potential readership.

If you're still wondering why you need e-mail, consider the potential you might be wasting without it. Someone visits your blog, likes the content and would like to be notified as new content of interest becomes available, and he does not know what RSS is or even care. If you fail to capture his e-mail address and consent at that exact moment, he might never again return to your site, either because he forgets about it or because dozens of other sites capture his interest even before the next day.

2. E-ZINE PUBLISHING IS STILL A MUST
Publishing a blog is not a replacement for an e-zine. If nothing else, publish a weekly or monthly e-zine of your top blog posts, available in a single easy-to-consume format.

Some simply do not have the time to watch your blog regularly and others will only want to receive a quick summary to get only your best and most crucial content. Publishing an e-mail e-zine will do that for you, giving you the opportunity to communicate with the widest possible long-term audience for your blog.

3. E-MAIL AND RSS SUBSCRIPTIONS
Providing e-mail (e-zine) and RSS subscriptions is important to the success of any blog. But neither of these will do you much good if your visitors don't actually see them and if you don't give them enough incentive to subscribe.

Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will see them.

And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer, calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal information.

4. EXPLAIN RSS
Most internet users still do not know what RSS is or how to use it, and consequently the RSS buttons on your blog mean absolutely nothing to them.

To overcome this problem, create a special RSS presentation page and link to it next to the RSS subscribe button. On that page explain:

* What RSS is
* How the visitor will benefit from using RSS
* Where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!)
* How they can install it (provide step-by-step instructions)
* How they can subscribe to your RSS feeds
* Why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds
* Then, on this same page, include the links to all of your RSS feeds.

5. TOP CONTENT
If you update your blog frequently, your less recent top content keeps being pushed down and down, where most of your blog readers will never bother to look for it.

Overcome this frequent blog problem by creating a list of your top posts, clearly displayed and available from each of your pages. Depending on the topic you cover, you might want to place these headlines as close to the top of your blog as possible, in order to quickly entice your new visitors to start reading the best of what you have to offer and then use this content to convert them to loyal readers and subscribers.

6. THE HEADLINE
The site or blog headline will tell your visitors what to expect from reading your blog and will answer their key question: "What's in it for me?"

Make sure that your blog headlines gives this reason and the story inviting enough for your readers to keep reading.

7. LEAD YOUR VISITORS TO YOUR MDA
MDA is the Most Desired Action you want your visitors to take on your site, ranging from a subscription to your e-zine to requesting more information about your services or ordering your product / getting more information about it.

Your blog will be of great help in this area, but only if you actually lead your visitors to this action. Putting this information in your menu simply is not enough.

Experiment putting some copy for your MDA directly below each blog post (on your permanent blog post archives pages) and also prominently in your left- or right-hand columns.

If you're providing multiple services or products, promote each of them next to the appropriate posts, based on post topics.

And yes, this is more important than having dozens of Google AdSense ads on your blog ... if you want to use your blog as part of your marketing mix.

8. LOOK DIFFERENT
Blogs are usually not heavily designed and most of them look exactly the same. While light design is one of the positive sides of blogs, you should invest some effort in making your blog stand-out visually. Don't cram it with design, but still make sure it's different than every other blog in the market.

9. USE YOUR OWN DOMAIN

Having a subdomain.typepad.com type sub-domain might be the easiest choice, but don't forget that your domain name is your permanent online address and part of your online brand.

Consequently, invest a couple of dollars to get your own domain name, to enforce your brand, as well as making it easier for your readers to access your blog.

10. DON'T FORGET YOUR KEYWORDS
What keywords do you want your content and blog to be found under in the search engines?

Don't forget to implement these keywords in the titles and body content of your blog posts. I'm not saying you should write your posts to please the search engines, but at least keep them in mind and use them when possible, without taking anything away from the actual content.

11. INTERACT WITH YOUR READERS
If you're blogging for business, don't forget about business oriented reader interaction.

Mainly, solicit questions from your readers, pertaining to your field of expertise, and then respond to them via your blog. Post interesting client case studies. When you get a review, post it or link to it. And so on...

12. BLOG SPECIFIC PROMOTIONAL TACTICS 101
a] Intensively market your RSS feeds

b] Ping the search engines and directories after you update your blog, using a free service such as http://www.pingomatic.com

13. DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CONTENT
And of course, none of the above won't make any difference at all if you don't provide high-quality, interesting and frequent content.

These 13 points are of course only the most basic stuff, but enough to help you get on the marketing optimization train.

Author Bio
Find out immediately how you can power your online business with RSS and use it in all of your marketing. Request the free 28-page Business Case for RSS report, with easy-to-follow instructions, examples and advice on how to get the most out of RSS in the shortest possible time. Get the free download here: http://rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/case/index.html?src=sa20

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com

Sunday, March 05, 2006

How To Get Your BLOGS Site Feed Listed In Yahoo! and MSN Within HOURS

Author: Cory Threlfall

BLOGS... they seem to be the talk of the Internet marketing world these days, and for good reason.

Not only do the Search Engines love them for there Content Rich pages, you also have the ability to plug your Blogs "Site Feed" into an RSS feed and then have it syndicated to thousands of websites and directories giving your content more exposure to your target audience.

RSS(Real Simple Syndication) is a very Powerful technology that has been around for quite some time and when used correctly, can build an audience overnight.

If you want a crash course on what RSS is, in more depth, since the nature of this article is to show you how to get your Blogs "Site Feed" listed in Yahoo! and MSN, I've provided a link to a page full of articles on RSS related issues. http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-articles.htm

Now, depending on where your Blog is hosted, whether its through a free service like Blogger.com -- http://www.blogger.com or hosted on your websites server you should have a "Site Feed URL" that has the .XML extension.

This is your "Site Feed URL".

You'll usually locate it within your Settings area of Blog control center.

Here's what mine looks like as an example:

http://theiwe.blogspot.com/atom.xml

This URL is intended for a RSS News Reader, so disregard its appearance.

Once you find your "Site Feed URL", copy and paste it into Notepad because you'll need it for the next steps coming ahead.

Now, what you need to do is go and set-up an My Yahoo! and My MSN account.

I've provided the links for you below.

- My Yahoo! ==> http://my.yahoo.com

- My MSN ==> http://msn.com

It should only take you about 15-20 minutes at the most.

If you already have accounts with My Yahoo! and My MSN, read on.

This is assuming you already have your accounts set-up, so your next step is to Login to your My Yahoo! account.

When you login, you'll be taken to your Yahoo! page immediately.

What you want to do next is go look under the Yahoo! search box to the left and click on the "Add Content" link.

This will bring you to a new page.

From there, over to the right by the "Find" button you'll see an "Add RSS by URL" link, click on it.

A new window will open with a "Web Form". Simply copy and paste your "Site Feed URL" from Notepad into the web form and click on the "Add" button.

Now, you should see your Blogs name infront of you. Simply click on the yellow "Add To My Yahoo!" button and your feed will be added.

The next thing you should see is your "Site Feed" with your "Headlines".

Click on one of them, it should take you to your Blog, to the desired Headline you chose.

Your My Yahoo! page should Now have your Blogs "Site Feed" Headlines listed at the bottom.

Scroll down to check. If you don't see them, it sometimes takes up to 24-48 hours for them to appear, so just check back later.

Now that thats done, everytime you update your Blog with NEW content, it'll "Automatically" update on your My Yahoo! page and everybody else's pages who have subscribe to your feed, plus, within 24-48 hours your feed will get Spidered and Indexed by Yahoo!.

Talk about getting the word out in a HURRY with very little effort on your part.

This is "Viral Marketing" at its Best in my mind.

And... it's so simple to implement.

Okay.

Now it's time to do the same to your My MSN account as what you did above to your My Yahoo! page.

Here's the link to go login(click on Sign In from main page): http://www.msn.com

Once your login to your My MSN account you should see an "Add Content" link under the MSN logo to your left. Click on it.

A pop-up should now be displaying. Simply copy and paste your "Site Feed URL" from your Notepad into the web form provided and click the Search button(the green button with the arrow).

You should now be looking at Check Box with your Blogs name beside it. Check off your "Site Feed URL" and then press the OK button at the bottom.

PRESTO! Like magic... your Blogs site feed has now been added to your My MSN page which will then be spidered in the next 24-48 hours and Indexed by MSN.

That's the Power of BLOGS(Web-Logs) and RSS(Real Simple Syndication)combined with two Internet giants.

The only thing you have to bring to the table IS, fresh, quality content that your audience WANTS, and do it on a regular basis.

You can do the same because I just showed you HOW.

In conclusion, creating BLOGS and using RSS as a vehicle to syndicate your Blogs content is a Sure-Fire way to get your content spidered more frequently by search engines and the exposure it deserves, which in turn, will build you a large audience of buying customers that TRUST you.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

How to Get Your Blog Noticed Quickly and Widely By Gregory White

1. Submit your blog to all of the directories listed on http://pingomatic.com/. Pingomatic will ping 15 services all at once.

2. Ping your blog after every post at http://pingomatic.com/

3. Here's a real gem: Submit your blog to http://www.pingoat.com/ Pingoat will ping over fifty blog ping services all at once. So you don't have to hunt for ping services and manually ping them. Pingoat pings over fifty blog ping servers (growing) with just one click.

4. Ping your blog after every post at Pingoat at http://www.pingoat.com/

5. Sign up for a free account at BlogExplosion.com and register your blog there: http://www.blogexplosion.com/

6. Submit your blog to all of the directores listed at http://www.rss-feeds-directory.com/blog_lists.html

7. Sign up for a "My Yahoo" at http://my.yahoo.com/ and attach your blog to your own "My Yahoo" account. This will get your blog included in Yahoo very quickly. This is worth the effort to stop what you're doing right and do it, since Yahoo has a PR 9.

8. Use this code: "http://add.my.yahoo.com/content?url= http://www.yourblog.com/urblog.xml" in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own "My Yahoo" account.

9. Sign up for a "My MSN" at http://www.my.msn.com/, and attach your blog to your own "My MSN" account. This will get your blog included in MSN very quickly. This is also invaluable because MSN has a PR 8.

10. Use this code: "http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id= rss&ut=http://www.urblogfeedaddress.com/urblog.xml" in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own "My MSN" account.

11. Place the link and description of your blog in your signature, so that any posts to Forums, Outgoing Emails, Autoresponder Courses, etc, will promote your blog.

12. Post a link and description of your blog on each of your sites.

13. Place your blog on all the major search engines. AddMe.com will submit your blog free to the top 14 Search engines here:
http://www.addme.com/submission.htm

SubmitExpress.com will submit your blog free to the top 20 Search engines here:
http://www.submitexpress.com/

14. Use Article Directories as a resource for articles to post on your blog. Here are a few:
http://ezinearticles.com/
http://goarticles.com/
http://www.knowledge-finder.com/
http://www.informit.com/articles/

15. Locate blogs with a lot of traffic and place useful comments in their comment box. Be sure the blog and your comments are relavent to both your blog and theirs. Senseless posts won't help you, they'll hurt you.

16. Once you get around 5 to 10 posts on your blog, start a PR campaign and announce it to all relevant channels.

17. Make a blog post as often as possible. More than once a day is not really necessary. Remember, if you can't write that much, go to step # 14.

Greg White, Internet Marketer, Author, Consultant and Project Manager has been running successful web projects since 2001. His sites and blogs cover Blog Marketing Tactics, Internet Marketing Tactics and a variety of 'Niche' topics, in addition to starting and marketing profitable web project.

How To Build Traffic To Your Blog By Priya Shah

With the growing interest in blogging as a means of online promotion and branding, a lot of marketers are starting blogs to promote their opinions, products, books and services.

But a blog is like a website. "Write and they will come" isn't exactly a magic formula to bring in traffic by the boatload.

If you need to promote your website in order to build traffic to it, you need to promote your blog as well.

Here are some ways you can become a well-read and influential blogger.
1. Write Posts That People Will Want To Read

This should be common sense, but many marketers tend to forget that their readers are real people and that you need to use the principles of online copywriting to make your headlines and copy interesting to your readers.

If you write posts that people enjoy reading, they will reward you by returning to your blog regularly.

Make your posts conversational, pithy and topical. Keep them short and stick to one topic per post.

Write often and regularly so that both readers and search engines visit your blog more often.
2. Optimize Your Posts for Search Engines

I cover this topic in detail in my article on "Search Engine Optimization For Blogs"

But here are the most important rules to follow to get your posts listed for keywords of your choice.

* Make sure your blog URL contains the primary keyword you want to optimize for
* Use your primary keywords in the title of your post
* Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post
* Use your keywords in the anchor text of links in the body of your posts

3. Submit Your Blog and RSS Feed To Directories

If you publish a blog you should submit your blog and RSS feed to big directories like Yahoo and Dmoz, as well as the numerous blog directories and search engines.

Here is the best list I've found of places to submit your feed or blog, compiled by Luigi Canali De Rossi, who writes under the pseudonym Robin Good.

Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites

Another list of sites to submit your Blog
4. Ping The Blog Services

There are a number of services designed specifically for tracking and connecting blogs. By sending a small ping to each service you let them know you've updated your blog so they can come check you out.

Bookmark the Ping-O-Matic ping results page so you can visit it and quickly ping a number of services with a single click.
5. Build Links To Your Blog

I recommend the methods here as the best ways to get links pointing to your blog.

* Link to your blog from each page on your main website
* Trackback to other blogs in your posts
* Post legitimate comments on other blogs with related topics
* Offer to exchange links with other similarly themed blogs and websites

6. Edit Your Blog Posts Into Articles

One of the best methods for promoting your website is to write articles and submit them to article directories.

The suggestion for extending this to edit your blog posts into articles and submit them to directories came from the coach at "Explode Blog Traffic" who also has other noteworthy suggestions at his blog.

You'll find an extensive list of article directories here
7. Create Buzz About Your Blog

Creating a buzz about your blog posts and topic in the local and online media will give your marketing a viral component.

* Create a controversy around your blog or it's topic.
* Distribute bumper stickers or other merchandise with your blog's URL and tagline.
* Write a press release about something newsworthy and tie it in with your blog topic.

8. Capture Subscribers By Email

It may seem strange for a blogger to send out updates by email, but email is still the #1 choice of most people who want to receive news and information.

Using a free service like Bloglet to manage your subscriptions is easy and it allows your subscribers to manage all their subscriptions from one interface.

However, if you want more control over your list and don't mind mailing out the updates yourself, you can use an autoresponder system to capture and follow-up with subscribers.

RSS Responder is a new script that allows you to keep in touch and follow-up with your subscribers without the hassle of email.

These tips should give you a good start to building your blog traffic.
---

Copyright © 2004 Priya Shah

Blogging for Dollars By S. Housley

Blogging for dollars might sound like the latest game show or some new drinking game, but it's the latest craze to hit the Internet. Bloggers began blogging for a number of reasons, but as the blog movement has increased in popularity, they have found ways to monetize their blogs and are seeing their commitment pay off.

Whether a blogger's focus is to communicate with customers or just to have fun, they have begun looking at ways to earn revenue from their blogs. The most popular ways for bloggers to earn some added cash for their pet projects are:

1. ) Google Adsense in Blogs Google AdSense allows webmasters to dynamically serve content-relevant advertisements in blogs. If the visitor clicks one of the AdSense ads served to the blog, the website owner is credited for the referral. Webmasters need only to insert a Google-generated java script into the blog or blog template. Google's spider parses the AdServing blog and serves ads that relate to the blog's content. Google uses a combination of keyword matching and context analysis to determine what ads should be served.

2. ) Affiliate Programs (Product Endorsements) Affiliate Programs work when an affiliate web site receives income for generating sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant website. Generally, bloggers will mention or endorse specific products and if site visitors purchase the product, bloggers will receive a portion of the sale.

3. ) Product Promotion Businesses use blogs to detail how specific features or product add-ons can increase functionality and save time. Content-rich product promotion will help with search engine placement.

4.) Banner Ads While less popular than in the past, websites with high traffic levels can still earn decent revenue by selling banner space.

As the Internet evolves bloggers will continue to seek out ways to monetize their opinions and thoughts. Daily journals and online blogs have become more than just a communication means to many.

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for the NotePage http://www.notepage.net and FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com product lines. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com , and http://www.small-business-software.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=S._Housley

Blogs Explained By Steve Veloudos

It seems like Blogs are everywhere these days. You can't seem to surf the Internet without seeing the word Blog somewhere. The intent of this article is to explain the basics what a Blog is and how you can use them to help promote your business and gain valuable information quicker that surfing the Internet.

The word Blog is short for web log. Basically a Blog is just an area set aside you to write articles that can easily be accessed with a special program called a RSS reader. In case you're wondering RSS stands for real simple syndication.

When you set up a Blog you select a template that will house your information. Once you have the Blog set up you can post whatever information you like. It's really a fast way to get your articles and information up on the web and the templates look great! You don't have to mess with all the technical end of getting something up on a web page (HMTL layout, FTP, ect...). The real cool thing about Blogs is that you can get the software to read them for free. Also, you can set up an account and create your own Blog for free!

One thing I should note is, you can read Blogs with your standard browser and post comments on the content of the Blog. An optional way to read Blogs is by using a RSS reader program. You simply subscribe to whichever Blogs that you want to and they are available immediately in the reader. Personally I like to use the reader because you have all of the Blogs that your interested in one place and you don't have surf all over the Internet to read them.

The free reader that I use can be downloaded here: http://www.rsspublisher.com/.
To get your very own free Blog, which you can post to go to: http://www.blogger.com/start.
I think you will find that they are very easy to set up and post to.

The are many advantages that Blogs offer over a web site or ezine.

1. You don't have to mess with an HTML layout. You just post your info and the info looks wonderful because the Blog uses the template that you set up.

2. You can post as often as you like. I can't imagine that I would send an email to my ezine every day but with a Blog you can post as much as you would like.

3. Email spam filters do not block Blogs because they are not an email communication.

4. You can make as many Blogs as you like on any subject.

I hope this will help you start your own Blog and officially start you down the road to being a Blogger!

***************************************
Steve Veloudos owns and operates Zebra Music LLC. It's a one stop shop for jingles, radio production, custom music, library music, and sound design. Visit Steve's web site and get free monthly music that you can use for your productions.
http://www.zebramusic.com
zebra24@msn.com
480-540-7768
***************************************

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Veloudos

Blogs By Thomas Byers

Blogs

Blogging has become a full fledged craze
that has changed the political and marketing
scene for ever. Their are now Blogs earning
6 figure sums for the owners

Click Here For The 6 Figure Blogging Article

If you read that article you will see that not
only are Blogs profitable but that some people
are earning big from their Blogs.
You must however go after a specific niche
that is much in demand or something that has
high public intrest like political events or social
change. All have been the theme of specific Blogs
that have millions of readers and create huge
amounts of income.

Here are the 10 most popular Blogs in the
world as measured by links and amount of
readers

# 1
Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things
67,001 links from 19,265 sites.
# 2
Engadget
65,581 links from 14,884 sites.
# 3
PostSecret

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.
By frank warren
21,503 links from 12,892 sites.
# 4
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
52,885 links from 10,988 sites.
# 5
The Huffington Post
43,867 links from 8,341 sites.
# 6
Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog
17,745 links from 6,963 sites.
# 7
Instapundit.com
30,793 links from 6,513 sites.
# 8
Thought Mechanics
By Theron Parlin and Matthew Good
7,673 links from 6,177 sites.
# 9
Crooks and Liars
By John Amato
23,827 links from 6,010 sites.
# 10
Detroit Free Press www.freep.com
16,232 links from 5,949 sites.

And you can believe that those 10 Blogs are
creating a huge income for their owners. Is their
something you can create along the same theme
as one of those Blogs. If not you should also
know that the most popular categories of Blogs
are

1. Political
2. Self Help
3. Recipes and Cooking
4. Fishing
5. Automobiles
6. Scrap Bookig

And the list continues but I'm sure you can begin
to see the possibilities.The more specific you make
your Blog the more readers you will have on any one
subject but you don't want to get to specific. While
Homemade Recipes could probally be a highly read
Blog Raisin Recipes might not. Sure you would get
some people wanting to read about Raisin Recipes
but if you broaden it out to Homemade Recipes you
have the potential of a much higher number of
readers. And the more readers you have the higher
potential you have for income.
You can make really great income on your Blog
from Google Adsense and other types of advertising
and affiliate programs. Another really good income
producing program for mainstream Blogs is
Xml Feed www.nbcsearch.com. And there is a wide
selection of mainstream affiliate programs that
can give you a really nice income especially for a
popular Blog. Some great places to check out for
income sources for your mainstream Blog are

http://www.revenuegateway.com/

Premium Affiliate Network www.QClix.com

5 Star Affiliate Programs www.5starAffiliatePrograms.com

There are of course many more but those are
some of the best and pay their affiliates on time.

Now some of the people making the most from their
Blogs pick out affiliate programs that sell items simular
to their Blogs theme. For example Recipe or Cooking
Blogs sign up for affiliate programs selling cookware ,
unique spices , exotic meats or etc. While Fishing Blogs
might sign up for affiliate programs that sell Fishing
Supplies , Books on Fishing or even trips to remote
fishing spots.

Think out side of the box. Can you come up with a
new spin on a popular item or is there something that
you have a lot of knowledge about. If so pursue it. Who
knows maybe you will be the next six figure blogger.

You need a ideal , a written out plan of what you want
to do and you need to get started with your ideal. Why
put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Maybe all
your life you have collected all your family recipes from
generations past. You could have there the basis for a
very popular Blog but you never know until you take the
chance and give it a try. Remember that from small seeds
great things grow. And if you leave your ideal in the
back of your mind or in that dusty box under the bed
you will never know. After all you can easily find
hosting for free or very cheap for a mainstream Blog
and if you are writing about a popular item people will
find you. Before you know it you could have that six
figure Blog.

You don't even need a unique, new ideal. It can be old
knowledge, repackaged and remarketed in new ways.
Look at all the diets out there. There are only 3
variables in the diet game: food, exercise and mental
attitude. Susan Powter, in her hugely successful diet
infomercialand book, "Stop the Insanity!" doesn't teach
anything new. She teaches old stuff in a unique way.
And MAKES TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS DOING IT!

The formula is pretty simple:

Identify a Core Human Desire/Need

Find new technology for solving this Core Desire/Need
and/or Find a new way to market to this Core Desire/Need
Sometimes the line between success and failure is razor thin.

Can you develop and come up with a six figure Blog ideal.
Of course you can. But it will take effort , planning , and
the desire to succeed. I don't remember who said it but
the longest journey begins with the first step. If you
think you have that ideal give it a try. You never know
until you try.

16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog By Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff

You've got your blog set up and you've started posting pithy, useful information that your niche market would benefit from and enjoy. Days go by, you keep publishing, but no one comments and your traffic stats are barely registering. What do you do?

Like any website you own, you must do some blog promotion to start driving traffic to your site. Here are 16 steps, in no particular order of importance, that you can start doing now to get traffic moving to your blog.

1. Set up a Bloglet subscription form on your blog and invite everyone in your network to subscribe: family, friends, colleagues, clients, associates.

Http://www.bloglet.com

2. Set up a feed on MyYahoo.com so your site gets regularly spidered by the Yahoo search engine (see tutorial on http://www.biztipsblog.com)

http://www.my.yahoo.com

3. Read and comment on other blogs that are in your target niche. Don't write things like "nice blog" or "great post." Write intelligent, useful comments with a link to your blog.

4. Use Ping-0-matic to ping blog directories. Do this every time you publish.

http://www.pingomatic.com

5. Submit your blog to traditional search engines: http://www.submitfire.com

6. Submit your blog to blog directories. The most comprehensive list of directories is on this site:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

Tip: Create a form to track your submissions; this can take several hours when you first start so schedule an hour a day for submitting or hire a VA to do it for you.

7. Add a link to your blog in your email signature file.

8. Put a link to your blog on every page of your website.

9. If you publish a newsletter, make sure you have a link to your blog in every issue.

10. Include a link to your blog as a standard part of all outgoing correspondence such as autoresponder sequences, sales letters, reports, white papers, etc.

11. Print your blog URL on your business cards, brochures and flyers.

12. Make sure you have an RSS feed URL that people can subscribe to. The acronym RSS means Rich Site Summary, or some may consider its meaning as Really Simple Syndication. It is a document type that lists updates of websites or blogs available for syndication. These RSS documents (also known as 'feeds') may be read using aggregators (news readers). RSS feeds may show headlines only or both headlines and summaries.

To learn how news aggregators/RSS readers work, see this site: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-readers.htm

13. Post often to keep attracting your subscribers to come back and refer you to others in their networks; include links to other blogs, articles and websites in your posts

14. Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts. What is TrackBack? Essentially what this does is send a message from one server to another server letting it know you have posted a reference to their post. The beauty is that a link to your blog is now included on their site.

15. Write articles to post around the web in article directories. Include a link to your blog in the author info box (See example in our signature below).

16. Make a commitment to blog everyday. 10 minutes a day can help increase your traffic as new content attracts search engine spiders. Put it on your calendar as a task every day at the same time.

Tip: Use a hit counter to track your visitor stats: how many unique visitors, how many page views, average length of visit. You can get a free hit counter at http://www.sitemeter.com

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 blogs at http://www.biztipsblog.com, http://www.coachezines.com and http://www.bizbooknuggets.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Denise_Wakeman

Dare to Be an Eccentric Blogger By Kim-Marie Ward

A lot of writers keep journals or blogs onlinen, but unfortunately, they aren’t always being used to their fullest advantage.

Look around the internet and you can find a variety of journals and so many of them are the same: what people did today, who they saw, where they were. But the truth is, they’re most interesting for the blog-keepers than their readers (unless those readers are also friends). While that’s fine for the masses to do, it is an untapped resource for writers.

You can make better use of your journaling time by being more descriptive, and blatantly so. Some writers feel guilty even contemplating such a thing, worried that friends and family might think they’re being “fake” or “too artistic.” However, in your defense, you are a writer. You have a right to use whatever you have at your disposal to improve your abilities. You have license to be eccentric so just let them assume your exercises in creative journal writing are just part of the whole “Writer Mystique.”

Try describing your world, as though you’re writing a novel. For example, you’ll see that many journal-keepers may mention places or people they know, but not tell us much about them. Next time, try painting a word picture of what you see. Keep in mind that there doesn’t need to be natural progression with each entry as there would be with a novel. This is an exercise in expanding your writing capabilities.

For example, instead of “I wish it would stop raining,” try: “Six days of steady rain has left me feeling as gray as the unrelenting dark outside.”

Or, what about the people in your life? If you’ve never described them before, do so now. Try your mother, your significant other, a friend, or an enemy:

Anna Grable is not a typical mother. I always thought of her as “The Reluctant Mother” and when I told her about the nickname yesterday, she reacted exactly as I knew she would. She threw her head back and laughed. “You know me so well, you clever girl. It’s perfect!” she cried, clapping her pudgy hands with glee. I suddenly wished I hadn’t told her. Part of the beauty of our relationship is that we pretend we’re like most mothers and daughters – we pretend not to understand one another. It somehow made it easier to deal with her strange behaviors when I was growing up. When she was waking everyone in the house at two o’clock in the morning to wash walls, or when she wouldn’t come to my school plays on the premise that she didn’t understand the stories, it was easier to say “She’s an odd one,” than having to face the truth. The truth was, and is, Anna is the most selfish woman I’ve ever met. She’s self-indulgent, and addicted to attention, going out of her way to garner it whenever and wherever she can, and avoiding all situations where she is not the star. She likes to think she’s eccentric, and she took the “Reluctant Mother” label as proof of it. I expect it will be a topic of conversation with her friends, who, like me, indulge her in spite of ourselves.

It doesn’t have to be great. It only has to be descriptive in some way. Let go of embarrassment and just experiment. Stretch and exercise your writing “muscles.” Not only will your blog be more interesting to read, your growing ability will transfer well to your fiction writing, and you will have a storehouse of information to use if ever you need it.

If you’d rather keep your creative journaling private, then by all means, do so. I keep mine semi-private in that the one where I do my creative journaling is one my family and friends don’t see; however, strangers seem to enjoy it! I’ve even convinced them I have a fascinating life – simply because of how I write there.

Kim-Marie Ward is a freelance editor of both non-fiction books and fiction novels, a ghostwriter, and has written several articles for various ezines and newsletters (online and in print). She's an active member on http://www.Writing.Com, an online community for Writers. Stop by and visit her portfolio at: Kim-Marie on Writing.Com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kim-Marie_Ward

How to Make Money Online with Blogs By Brice Mattson

You spend hours every day with your weblog. It's become a labor of love. Wouldn't it be nice to find a way to earn some extra money with your weblog?

There are ways of making money online with blogs. The method you've probably seen on most blogs is to host ads, such as with Google Adsense. You let Google put their ads on your site and get paid when people click on the ads. These get mixed reviews. Some say they make a lot this way, but many people don't report much income. Since they are free to ad to your site, it doesn't hurt to try.

Affiliate programs work on blogs as well as they work on websites. Affiliate with companies that sell products related to your site. When people click on the link in your blog and purchase a product, you profit. This is another way of making money online with blogs that doesn't cost you anything. If you are passionate about a product and write about it, this can work well.

If you have a website, blog about some aspect of it and provide a link. Your weblog can effectively sell the product, and all the customer has to do is click to your site and order it.

You will never make money with your blog unless people can find it. Search engines seem to prefer blogs because they tend to be content rich. It helps to stick to one topic. If your blog serves a niche market, it will have less competition.

All of the methods above are very effective and will make you money, the one thing that has to be remembered is that if your blog is hosted somewhere else other than your server, you will have to be careful not to spam your site with ads.

Everyone knows that Blogs are the future of the internet, they are search engine friendly and get listed very quickly, which is why many people are hosting their blogs on their own servers now because they see the importance to their business. The last thing any Internet Business Owner wants to happen is that their blog is shut down at Blogger or any other free blog hosting site.

Making money online with blogs is possible. Consider your blog as another avenue for making money online with little or no cost. Write about what you love, market your blog, and see if the money will follow.

About the Author:

To find the Best Home Based Business Ideas and Opportunities Visit: http://www.siriusfreehomebiz.com/blog

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brice_Mattson

How To Drive Traffic With A Blog By Jack Humphrey

Blogs are different than regular static sites. Although a blog is really just a fancy word for a content management system, therefore it is just a regular site with enhanced and easy editing, a blog has a sense of urgency and "newness." People read blogs because there is a general feeling that the information posted is more current compared to static sites.

This is true when the blogger is very regular with new material and gives people a reason to tune in frequently.

Promoting a blog, I have found, is far easier than promoting a regular website for many reasons.

Because you can create "news" on your blog at the drop of a hat, you can create buzz. Buzz is infectious, produces links from "buzzed" website owners looking to present their visitors with a buzz, and gets you attention that is harder to acquire for regular sites.

You can promote a blog through RSS and get subscribers who would rather use a "podcatcher" (a newer phrase that simply means they subscribe to your RSS feed rather than your email list with a tool like FireAnt http://fireant.com).

People like being anonymous in this over-emailed world of ours. Getting subscribers to a blog via your RSS feed means you are offering a way for the justifiably paranoid to access your material without committing their personal information in the exchange.

So you have another way to promote here as well. Rather than sending people to your opt-in page only, you can grab RSS subscribers on every page of your blog, no matter which page they come through.

Now you can trade links, or trackbacks, with other bloggers in your niche which is a much more highly respected and valuable form of reciprocal linking that Google actually loves.

Having a blog means you can "podcast." Podcasting is making audio and video files available in your posts that can be picked up in your RSS feed by people using places like iTunes.com to find multi-media content.

This is a MASSIVE new open market of people really getting into iPods, especially the new video iPods, and seeing what their new gadgets can really do.

By creating an informative how-to video and podcasting it from your blog, you can get listed in iTunes and other podcast directories that are practically empty on many niche topics right now!

These are things you can do with a blog that you cannot do very easily or at all with a static site.

Don't forget that there are other directories only bloggers can promote in. Directories like Syndic8.com and Daypop.org are only open to bloggers with RSS feeds.

While everyone else is working down in the trenches on their one-dimensional static html site, bloggers can enjoy promoting their sites in far less competitive areas with extreme amounts of traffic flowing through them.

In short, a good blog with the right plug-ins will give you marketing power I wish I had when I was starting out. My blog would be 7 years old this year and would have an archive section a mile long with content syndicated all over the web established over those 7 years!

This time next year you are definitely going to wish you had started your blog today! Especially when you consider the vast potential of audio and video podcasting and syndicating your content easily through your feed to places that only accept bloggers. Static sites need not apply!

Copyright 2006 Tale Chaser Publishing, Inc.

Jack Humphrey blogs at http://www.jackhumphrey.com. His long running newsletter, now blog, The Friday Traffic Report, has been responsible for untold millions of visitors for his readers. Grab a free chapter of his book "Power Linking" just for stopping by!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jack_Humphrey

Why is my Blog's Revenue so Low? Ilia Boyko

Those who blog partly because they want to earn some extra money often ask the question:”Why is my revenue so low?” There are people who think that blogs simply can not generate much money. They are wrong! Blog can generate you the same amount of money if not more compared to any other website. Now im talking about PPC (Pay per click) sorces of revenue such as google adsense here.

The main problem I have noticed is that people tend to concentrate on wider markets. If you are running a personal diary kind of blog, the chances are that there are thousands of similar blogs around. The more competition you have, the harder it will be for you to make some cash. Instead try concentrating on smaller markets also known as niche markets. Not only it will be easier for you to develop the traffic, the CPC (Cost per click) should also be higher due to advertisers demand exceeding publishers supply.

Secondly you need to have a unique selling point. You need to give your readers something that nobody else does. This should really help you get returning visitors.

Finally it’s the ads themselves. You should channel your ads. This way you will be able to measure your ad block’s performance. One of the most important things is to experiment. Try different ad formats, colours and positioning. Run your setup for a few weeks, note the performance and try something different. Even if you think you have found the optimum ad setup keep on trying to improve it. In most cases you can always tweak something to make your ad performance better.

If you need help finding traffic for your blog, you can always submit your blog stories to the new personal blog news publishing system designed especially for the blogging community at the blog reporter.

Blog reporter is a personal blog news publishing system designed especially for the blogging community.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ilia_Boyko

Blog Revolution By Vinay Rana

Blogging is a revolution in the World Wide Web. It helps the internet users to share their views and thoughts with online community. Blog act as personal web page for the owner of the blog. Blog can be used to publish most happening news or any articles related to owners field and interest. Many people use blogs for their communities and forums, to share their views with others. With the help of blogs you can even share files with each other like photo albums, movies and music. Blog helps a website owner to get feedback from visitors of his website and to get suggestions and comments from the visitors. It also helps in saving their personal data and profiles.

Some websites even let you to send and receive message and files from your mobile to blogs with a single click on the keypad of your mobile. Blog is a real revolution in the internet world.

Blog is also source for content hungry publishers, they can find huge knowledge and information from the blogs. Blogs are getting more and more popular among the young generation.

But, one should be very careful and responsible while publishing a blog because it may have some effect on the society. It should not hurt the sentiments of any community.

In future blog may be used for advertising by the companies for promoting their products, thus creating a whole new scenario for advertisers. It also helps the blog owners to earn some revenue from their blogs.

Take Care

Cyber Force is always with YOU!

cyberforce.info specializes in Computer Technology and other Articles. Its articles have got top positions in google.com, yahoo.com and msn.com.

Website: http://www.cyberforce.info Author's Educational Achievements Masters in Business with Specialization in Marketing and Information Technology Bachelors in Electronic Science

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vinay_Rana

Feed Your Blog With Google Alerts to Save Time and Energy By Brandon Cornett

Blogs need food!

That might sound like the climactic speech from a caveman movie, but it's actually a hard truth of blogging. Business and marketing blogs need quality content on a regular basis in order to attract readers and search engines. In other words, you must feed your blog regularly if you expect it to grow. The challenge is coming up with quality content on a daily or weekly basis.

Here's one solution:

Robotic Research Assistant
Imagine having your own Web-crawling robot, surfing the Internet 24/7 to find relevant information you can use in your blog. Think of the time you would save, having this content delivered to your inbox every day. How much would a robot like that be worth?

Would free work for you?

Feed Your Blog with Google™ Alerts
With Google Alerts, you can enter a key phrase related to your blog and then be notified whenever Google "sees" a new Web document that includes your phrase. In other words, when Google indexes a new page related to your topic, Google Alerts will email you. You can set up the notifications daily, weekly or "as it happens."

As of this writing, Google Alerts is still in beta stage. But take it from me -- it works wonderfully.

A lot of the alerts you get will come from press releases and other developments within your chosen area. That makes them the perfect supplement to your blog. All you have do is summarize the information in your own words.

There you have it, your very own research robot to help with your blogging efforts. Give it a try. Just visit Google's website and click on the "more" link. Then click on "Alerts" and fill in the blanks. Now you've got your own, customized Web crawler!

* Copyright 2006, Brandon Cornett. You may republish this article in its entirety, provided you leave the byline, author's note and website hyperlink intact.

About the Author

Brandon is a writer, marketer and founder of ArmingYourFarming.com, a website offering information products to real estate agents. Learn more at: http://www.armingyourfarming.com Visit Brandon's article marketing blog at: http://www.articlemarketing101.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brandon_Cornett