Twittering Your Way To Fame
June 12, 2009
Word of mouth has always been one of the most effective ways to grow a business. People take ads with a grain of salt, but they tend to trust friends and relatives when told that a certain movie is great or a new restaurant has fantastic food. Pre-internet, such “trustworthy” spread of news and subsequent growth was a slow, but generally steady, affair, dependent on face-to-face or telephone chats between friends. Today, a website can go viral in a matter of hours, thanks to the power of networking sites like Twitter.
What makes Twitter unique and worth a serious look by any company interested in harnessing it for advertising purposes is its timeliness. It was founded on the premise of “What are you doing right now?” It uses text messages for instant messaging, popping them straight onto connected users’ cell phone or computer screens in real time, without an email filter in between. Twitter messages are limited to 140 characters. Short, sweet, to the point, and all given a sense of urgency by that “right now” hook.While the majority of Twitters involve things like “I’m driving to work” or “I’m eating peas, yuck”, well-directed Twitters like “I just found the coolest shoes at ABC Company” set up grounds for action by the recipient. Say that a sociable person with a cell phone and a host of “followers” discovers your site. She thinks it’s the hottest thing she’s seen in weeks. She Twitters. A fast 140 characters later, and all 270 of her Twitter contacts have been informed of your site. How many of them subsequently check it out and tell their friends depends on what they’re doing at that precise instant or on how much they like her taste in shoes. But you can bet that a certain percentage will. Whether from genuine interest or boredom or a general desire to participate, some will pass the word on to their friends, who pass it on to their friends . . . all at the speed of network connections.
Think of the possibilities when a determined marketer sets out to build a brand, capture email addresses, and generate “buzz” via a cell-phone network that is growing every second around the world.
Twitter, by its immediacy and its brevity, captures at a glance the busy, tech-savvy people taking a quick break from work, the young people using cell phones to stay connected with friends, the traveler killing time at the airport. It is the perfect blend of technology and human networking, and businesses would be foolish not to try and capitalize on its power.
Blogging Is An Internet Marketing Method
June 2, 2009
Blogging has become and is still the fad that many people use to talk about whatever they want, for some it’s very addicting. Many teenagers have resorted to blogging as an outlet for their emotions, a little online nook where they can blurt out whatever just bugs them or whatever makes them feel elated. Savvy marketers have discovered that blogging is one of the best Internet marketing methods that won’t cost you a cent.
What exactly is blogging? Blog is the widely used term that refers to web log. Basically, a blog is an online journal. A blog could be set up to no cost at all, and can be used for just for the fun of it or for business reasons.Blogging for your Internet business is one surefire way to boost the visibility of your products and services. Here are a few ways to boost your internet advertising with the help of a blog:
1. Make your clients or customers abreast on your website’s alterations. Your new products and affiliate websites could also be announced through your blog.
2. Keep track of your business objectives and plans through open writing. Your blog content can be easily stored through archives. What could be better than searchable information that could be easily accessed by anyone browsing the web, right?
3. Air your opinions, advice or reviews on specific services or products that are related to your business. Publishing is a very easy process with blogging.
4. Include links that will fetch back links and subsequently improve your ranking on search engines. This could be better executed through putting well-written articles in your website. Affiliate links could also be included in your blog to earn more extra income.
5. Collect response through the ability of blogs to fetch comments from your blog readers. You can learn and improve your products and services through with the feedback from your readers.
6. Connect easily with other bloggers. When other bloggers notice that you have something good in your blog, they will put you in their favorite lists that will automatically link you to their blogs.
So, how do you set up a blog? Here are some of the options you can make use of to take advantage of this fun way to advertise your Internet business.
Either you load a blogging software or let a blogging hosting service do it for you. Host services such as LiveJournal and Blogger.com are the most popular in this field. Those hosts will provide you with easy instructions on how to put up your blog.
4 Tips For Attracting New Blog Readers
June 1, 2009
Blogging has made it easy for anyone to publish content online. Regular, fresh content is important for anyone looking to increase their online visibility, but this content is useless without an active readership. Here are some tips on how to increase yours.
1). Increase Your Syndication
Make sure to keep up to date with the more popular bookmarking and directory hotspots and use TrackBack URLs so you can tell how far your new content has spread and identify any new active readers.
2). Comment on the Blogs of Others
Joining the discussion on the blogs of others is a great way to attract attention, increase engagement and create new readership. Be careful not to create the impression that you are just hunting for links, but rather add some value to the conversation and ultimately try and create the same activity in your blog’s comment sections if they aren’t already a place for conversation.
3). Promote Your URLs
Promote your blog URL as well as your RSS feed URL. Use your blog address when commenting on the blogs of others, feature it on your email signature, on all your social media profiles and everywhere else available. Encourage RSS subscriptions by including the link in your newsletters and all other communications.
4). Optimize Each Post
This might sound like a given, but you’d be surprised as to how many optimization and syndication opportunities are overlooked. Create a checklist of steps towards better optimization and syndication. High quality content with great optimization will make your blog easier to find, and harder to resist for returning visitors.
Follow these tips and blogging will be one of the most powerful tools to boost your online presence.
How To Build A Credible Blog
May 30, 2009
A blog is a simple form of an online journal that is easy to create and maintain successfully. The success or failure of a blog is a combination of several factors like writing content effectively, promoting a blog and attracting more readers. A credible blog can easily attract a good number of readers and it can be easily built by using the following strategies.
- Quality of the content in the blog
The information in the blog is the main ingredient to gain the credibility of the blog. The information in a blog should be reliable and useful for the reader. The blogger should be clear on the objectivity and the fairness of the information. The information should quote the reliable sources and better to avoid controversial sources. - Consistency in blogging
It is very important to stay focused on the scope of the blog, while in the process of building a credible blog. The blogger should not step out of the focus area of the blog and beat around the bush. - Experience of the blogger
Blogging on a particular topic for longer periods enhances the proficiency of the blogger on the topic. Using this proficiency in writing blog posts will be very helpful for the blogger to increase the credibility of the blog. - Design of the blog
The appearance of a blog should be professional and tidy enough to gain the confidence of the reader. The layout should be chosen appropriately based on the target audience, focus area, and the purpose of the blog. - Writing skills of the blogger
The blog must be able to convey a message clearly to the reader without any blunders. No matter how informational the content may be, writing it in poor quality raises questions on credibility of the blogger. There should not be any grammatical mistakes or typos, which reduce the quality of the blog. - Interaction with readers
Responding to a valuable comment for the blog post will often help the blogger to make loyal visitors. Interacting with the readers will encourage them to visit the blog frequently. - Permanence of the blog
Maintaining a good blog for a long period helps to enhance the credibility of the blog. It is easy to build credibility for a blog, with a good history of consistent postings, for longer period.
Credibility of the blog depends upon genuineness and quality of the information provided in the blog. Other factors mentioned above will help in increasing and maintaining the credibility of the blog for longer periods.
4 Tips For You To Make Money With Blog
May 29, 2009
Blogging used to be a platform for you to talk about any topic and share your opinion about what you think. Today, blogging has become more common as a tool for you to make a living with. You can run your affiliate marketing business with your blog and if you are not interested in marketing, you can still make money with blog by advertising on your blog.
So, read on for more tips to profit with your blog and to make extra cash for your pocket.1. Be visible
Whether you are running an affiliate marketing business or advertisement campaign, it is crucial that your readers can see your link easily. This is the same reason why merchants are displaying their product at your eye level in the supermarket.
However, this doesn’t mean that you need to stuff your blog with affiliate links or advertisements; you are going to annoy your readers and force them to go away. What you can do is to anchor your keywords or simply display your affiliate link under your signature.
2. Building a base
Successful bloggers understand the power of returning readers. They are like your repeat customers whom you can sell over and over again to. Imagine you are running an advertisement campaign. You can’t expect your readers to respond to your campaign the first time they see it. You need to warm them up and get them to see your point only then they will respond to you.
And since most blogging platform nowadays come with the RSS feed feature, it will be good that you can activate it for your blog. Although it might take you sometime to get it done, but it is well worth the trouble when you see money coming to your blog.
3. Marketing
Just like any successful business, you need to market your blog so that you can make money with it. And to some of you, marketing might feel like asking a donkey to go against its way.
Actually, it doesn’t need to be that difficult. What you can do is to start commenting, sincerely, on other blogger’s blog and leave your blog address below your signature. Bloggers are interested to know how they can improve their blog and when you help them on that, they are willing to link to your blog when you ask them to.
4. Tracking
Some of you might think that tracking is a waste of time and as long as you have quality post, you will make money with blog. Unfortunately, money never comes so easily.
Let me ask you this, do you know how many clicks you have for your affiliate links? Then, do you know how many visits you have when you publish a new post? If you don’t have the answer to those questions, how do you know which past of your blog is helping you to make most money?
By the way, tracking codes nowadays are easy to use and you can even make them invisible if you want. And when you have the figure from tracking, you will know where to focus your energy so that you can get the best return.
WordPress Vs. Blogger.com
May 28, 2009
One of the most popular things out there on the internet is setting up your own blog. It’s sort of similar to keeping a diary, except for the whole world to see. You just write down your thoughts, ideas, pictures, likes, dislikes, and opinions on anything you want to talk about. People love to talk about themselves anyways, so why not let everyone else know what you think?
Some people set up blogs just for fun. There are those people out there that just love to write, so they sit down at their computer and start typing. An hour or so goes by, and they have a couple pages done without even really noticing it. It’s a good way to let out your frustrations and also to let others know how happy you are.
However, there also people out there that want to setup their own blogs to potentially make themselves a nice chunk of change. For those people, it’s important to know what blog to use, and which one will get them the most amount of traffic and all of those good things. Two type of blogs that many people use are WordPress and blogger.com.
You’re probably wondering, okay what’s the difference and which one do I want to use?
Well, many people choose to use blogger.com because it’s free, quick, and easy to setup. However, one of the bad things about blogger.com is that you don’t really have control over it, because the people at blogger.com can shut down your blog for pretty much no reason at all. You are essentially just putting your work in other people’s hands. This means that all of the work you put in, whether you like to blog or not, could be gone in a second. All of your work is gone and you have nothing to show for it.
If you’re looking for a more permanent solution, I strongly suggest using WordPress blogs. They do offer a free hosting service, but if you want a long term blog you should probably host it on your own server. They also offer a free software download where you can put your blog on your own server. The service is totally free and also can be setup in a few minutes. The only thing you need is an hosting account, which can be purchased for less than $10 and you can have unlimited domains or blogs on them. As you can see, the $10 or so is well worth the money.
One very important factor that separate WordPress from all the rest of the blogs out there, is that it has a huge number of plugins and tools you can put on your blog. These plugins and tools are definitely not available on blogger.com so this is one distinctive difference between the two. These tools and plugins offered on WordPress make your blog much more favorable to the search engines, and that is what you want.
One last thing to remember to determine differences between WordPress and blogger.com is that with WordPress you have full control over your blogging, while at blogger.com you don’t. Having full control of your blog is probably the most important thing that you need to have when setting up your blog.
WordPress is an excellent platform to use if you want to run your own blog because it’s structure and design enables it to get very good results in the search engines. However it can still be improved further, so here’s 5 simple WordPress SEO tips:
1. Create keyword rich post titles.
It’s important to note that you don’t just want to write posts for your regular readers because you want to attract many new readers as well. So to do this you want to write post titles that contain the keywords relating to the content that you have just written.
2. Create a strong permalink structure.
It’s open to debate which permalink structure is the best for SEO purposes, but whichever one you choose you must use one which includes the title of the post within the URL. It’s no good creating keyword rich titles if they don’t actually show up in the URL for that particular post, so this is an absolute must.
3. Install the All-In-One SEO plugin.
There are a few SEO plugins that all do pretty much the same thing but this is the one I personally use. It basically enables you to create fully optimized blog posts. You can list keywords and tags for each post and you can also arrange the title and meta descriptions for every one of your posts. Plus you can also ‘nofollow’ certain pages on your blog so overall it’s a very useful plugin.
4. Install the Google Sitemaps plugin.
This is another plugin that I recommend using for all your WordPress blogs. It basically allows you to automatically submit your pages to Google whenever you create new posts on your blog. So you therefore know that Google will always be indexing your site.
5. Build lots of backlinks.
Finally you should of course create lots of backlinks to your site. This is arguably the most important point because you need lots of backlinks to compete for the more popular keywords. If you can combine both onpage and offpage SEO techniques then you should have a very popular blog on your hands.
For more SEO tips and resources, please click here to read my reviews of Wild SEO, the brand new SEO course, and SEO Elite, the powerful SEO software.
Blogging: Tips To Make You A Better Blogger
May 18, 2009
In the world of blogging you can literally go from zero hits to your blog to well over a thousand per day in no time. There really is no secret to it you just need to do the basics and your blogging “career” will be in full swing.
In this article I give some tips that have helped me and others who also blog so I know they work. I can’t guarantee they will make your blog as popular as Perez Hilton’s but they will definitely make a huge impact through improving your blogging skills.Experience
A blog can be a place of opinion or one where you share your expertise, either way you need to write from an area of experience. In other words when people read your blog are they going to take you seriously? They will if you can relate from real world experiences whatever it is you are blogging about. For example if you have a weight loss blog then write about your own experience, what worked and what didn’t. Give people a reason to trust what you write.
Daily
I find it better if you write something everyday. It doesn’t have to be pages worth of information every single day, it could be just a blurb. Sticking with our weight loss blog example, today you can write a healthy recipe that you liked and then tomorrow write something more in depth. By writing something everyday, regardless of how small or even trivial it might seem, it carries a lot of weight with blog readers because your blog is current.
Proof Read
One of the worse things you can do as a blogger is post a blog then has not been proof read. When this happens you run the chance of grammatical and spelling errors and that makes your blog look very amateurish. You do not need to write as well as a Pulitzer Prize winner but it should at least if nothing else be legible.
Visual Appearance
Your blog should have a nice streamlined look to it. Even the free blogging sites like Blogger and WordPress give you the ability to customize your design. Your design should match your content and whereas it is ok to put up some Google ads (or other ad networks) to generate some revenue, you should limit just how many. Too many and they will make your blog look terrible.
Marketing
Without some type of marketing no one will ever see your blog. There are a variety of methods you can use. For instance, the first step you should use is to tell all of your friends and relatives. You know they will at least check it out. Second, take advantage of the social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and of course Twitter. Third, visit like kind blogs (blogs that are about a similar topic to your own) and post comments on there with a link back to your blog. Fourth, add blogs you like to your blog roll and ask other bloggers to do the same for you. Fifth, take part in online discussion on message boards that are related to your blog. Just make sure you put a link to your blog in your signature line. Combine all of these methods and you will increase visitors to your blog in no time.
Blogging can be fun and at the same tedious but you have to stick with it. Blogging popularity won’t happen overnight but it will happen if you implement the strategies posted above and remain consistent in your approach.
Tips For Blog Marketing
March 7, 2009
Blog marketing is not all that hard if you know what you are doing. However, if this is your very first blog and you are wondering how to get readers to it then you are in the right place. First let me just say that marketing your blog is going to require patience, and being consistent. You will have to update your blog frequently if you want to keep readers coming back for more. We are all guilty of making a blog, wanting it to be great, putting only one entry into it and then never going back to update it again. I think everyone in cyber world has done this at one time or another. Here are some great tips to use when trying to get your blog out there and get new readers.
Make sure that your blog has the track back feature. Let me tell you why. When you have the track back feature on your blog, you are allowing other people to link to your blog. Maybe someone has a post to post on their blog that is relevant to one of yours. They can use the talkback to your post, and send their readers to your blog so that they know what they are referring to. Another good thing to remember is that if someone gives you a track back, it is a courtesy to return that to their blog if at all possible.
Having a Google account and submitting a sitemap is almost a must when you are blog marketing. Doing so will allow Google to know how often you are updating your blog and they will automatically know of any changes that you have made to it as well. This will let Google get those new pages indexed faster and get them into search results much quicker than if you did not have the sitemap. There is a certain way you have to do the sitemap for Google, and they can explain that to you. Just know this is an important step to blog marketing.
Exchanging links with authority blogs and websites that are in your same market is another great way to get the word out about your blog. The authority sites are going to have a higher page rank, and will also be listed high in Google’s search results. So do some searches and check those out and see if they are up to exchanging links. If they are not, you could always just add those into your blogroll. You do not need permission to do that if they are not into linking. However, in the world of blogs, most blog owners are thankful for all links, and are willing to return the favor.
You are going to want to be sure that all of your posts are formatted. Doing so will leave out any confusion for the search engines and you will have everything nice and neat and all organized. The label tags are there for a reason when you are dealing with blogs. So using them and not leaving them out is a great idea.
Tracking is another part of blog marketing that is so very important. You want to be able to track your visitors and clickers to know where they are coming from. You want to be able to tell what keywords they searched on to find your blog and where they did their searching. Doing so will help take out all of the guess work when it comes to blog marketing. You will know what keywords are working, and which are not.
Allowing RSS feeds from your blog is also another great blog marketing tool. You are going to find that when you allow RSS feeds, your blog is going to end up all over the internet with a link back to it and that is a good thing. This is a wonderful way to get links to your blog with little or no effort. People that subscribe to your blog’s RSS feeds are able to then post your blog posts on their sites or blogs. Which in return gives you a link on their site or page that they have you on.
Blog marketing is only as hard as you make it. Use these tips and get your blog out there and seen today!
The Difference Between Blog and Email Marketing
March 4, 2009
Blog and email marketing are two totally different things. They are two complete different ways to market something, whether it is a product, or a service. You are going to find that just because someone may use email marketing to make an income, does not mean that they always use blog marketing as well.
Blog marketing is when you use a blog to promote a service or a product. You can market the product or service so that it appeals to others, and is something that they might want or need. By using a blog you can get the word out about the product that you are using and let others know all about it. There are several ways to do this. It can be done as simple or as complicated as you want. For example, you can market your blog by exchanging links with other blogs that are relevant to yours. You can also leave comments on other blogs that will in return get you more visitors and readers to your own blog. Don’t forget to update your blog as often as possible as well. As that will make a huge impact on your blog.
Email marketing is when someone uses an email to get the word out about a product or s service. You simply would have your visitors to sign up for newsletters, and then send an email out to all of them that did so. However, you will also find that email marketing is great for many other things than just getting the word out. You can put affiliate links in your newsletters and hope that your readers will sign up under you and you will get a commission for those things.
Marketing in every way is pretty much the same. You have to know who your audience is and who wants what you are selling. Once you know this, the rest of it is cake. Whether you are email marketing, affiliate marketing, or email marketing. Even if you are into marketing offline, the same will apply. You will need to know who wants what you have to sell and you should have no problems selling it.
Blog and email marketing are alike in many ways, but yet also very different. When you are using a blog for marketing, you are going to see that you have to post what you are selling on the blog. But for email marketing, you can use an email to those interested parties. When you use a website to have people opt in to your newsletter for email marketing, you know that you are not sending spam, but something that they requested from your site. This is something that they asked to be sent when they sign up for a newsletter. Where as if you are marketing a blog, you would do this much the same way as you would a website, and get visitors to come to you.
Whichever you prefer, whether it is blog marketing or email marketing you can still get the results that you want and that you are looking for. Just know that it takes time and persistence to achieve what you want, and get it from marketing online. Patience is key to getting your blog out there to everyone that is interested in it.