What To Blog About

04 April, 2009 0 comments

The first consideration here is whether you want to report on what’s going on all over the Internet, that is, regurgitating content, or whether you want to churn out original content. The former isn’t as bad as it sounds—“regurgitated” is just the technical word we’re using. It essentially means you’re aggregating content and links, with some of your own commentary, of course. What gets created is one place for people with a particular interest to visit, instead of them going about all over the Net looking for the interesting stuff. What will be the personal and distinguishing aspect here is, of course, your commentary: a blog that just aggregates can be pretty boring. Besides, it will not have an identity.

If you’re planning on writing original stuff, amongst other things, you should be a good writer. That’s about all we can say here. Do some introspection and self-analysis: are you a good writer? Ask your friends—close ones, who’ll tell you the truth—do they think you’re a good writer? It’s a bad idea to jump into original writing without some writing flair and experience. The idea of a blog of your own—with entirely your writing on it—may seem very appealing indeed, but it will be just lost in the clutter if you’re not what people call a good writer.

Naturally, you can develop your skills, and if you try your hand at writing, you might even discover that you do have the flair. It’s something like playing a musical instrument: it comes naturally with some people; for some, it’s just a matter of practice before they become a pro; and some people will remain mediocre players however hard they try. We’re telling you like it is!

Next up is some rather obvious advice: blog about what you’re most comfortable with, what you’re most passionate about, and what you know about. (These will help the cause if you’re a less-than-perfect writer.) Looking at it the other way, don’t create a blog on some topic just because you want to be known as a writer on that topic. It’ll show at some point or the other that the topic isn’t your core competency, as it were.

To belabor the point, the topic should be such that your hand moves freely along the keyboard as you think about it. Now passion and knowledge can, in certain cases, compensate for each other: people will read your blog even if it’s written a dry manner if it conveys a good deal of fresh, authentic information. The other way, if you’re really passionate about something, you can earn a readership even if your coverage is less than complete. Don’t let the idea of “letting your knowledge out” bother you. On a cynical but realistic note, it’s unlikely that no-one else on the Internet knows what you know—if it’s worth knowing, it probably is out there in some form or the other!
Another important point is not to fear being lost in the crowd. We’ve come across people who don’t blog on their favorite topic because “there are too many of them out there.” This shouldn’t be a deterrent—it’s a challenge! It’s a challenge on two counts—using your writing and other skills to turn the topic into something so interesting that people will read you instead of someone else, and using your knowledge to bring out at least some gems that the others haven’t touched upon.

Finally, remember that a good blog on a little-discussed topic, one that caters to a niche audience, has a good chance of being a
success. It’s as with anything else—if you don’t have too much competition, you can create your own space. Think about uncommon
things that interest you.

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Improve Your Writing Skills

03 April, 2009 0 comments

Be on a constant run to improve your writing skills. Form is as important as content. You don’t need to be able to write a gripping thriller, but everyone likes to read a well-writtenblog. Grammar and punctuation is one thing—which we’ve already mentioned; maintaining a style is one thing—which also we’ve already mentioned; but the bottomline is, to be famous (which, we’re assuming, is your idealistic ultimate goal), you need to write well.

We can’t teach you how to write well. But when we say “writing well,” we’re referring to such things as twisting phrases to make them more interesting; using language to make a dull topic more approachable; making your posts gripping enough to hold your readers’ attention for at least the span of the post; avoiding cliches and cliched phrases; not going into “lyrical digression”—where the writer increases word count and wastes bandwidth by avoiding the central topic and beating round the bush and only then coming back to the point at hand, as we have done with this phrase.

Good writing is an art, nothing less—it’s as much of an art and skill as playing a musical instrument is. There are several resources on the Internet on how to improve your language and writing skills; a good place to start is www.poynter.org. It’s meant specifically for journalists, but you’ll find there more than a couple of tips on good writing.

We did say form is as important as content, but it works the other way round too—content is as important as form! If you do write well, don’t be under the delusion that that can be your selling point. Not true. No-one these days has the time to read just for pleasure—reading a post of yours should be worth your readers’ while.

A final word: fonts are important. Choose a font in keeping with your content. Avoid horrible fonts like comic sans in any situation!

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Blogging Etiquette

02 April, 2009 0 comments

Just like you never leave the table till the last person has finished eating, blogging too has, over the years, developed its own eti- quette and mannerisms that one should keep in mind when speaking to the world. Think of the blog as your newspaper that a whole bunch of people are giving their time to. You wouldn’t want to inadvertently put them off now, would you?

1.Own Up To Mistakes.
Bloggers are an unforgiving lot, especially those who’ve been around for a few years. You’ve got to be particular about any claims you make and make sure that you’ve got your bases covered and your facts right. It’s always advisable to stray from purposeless claim making, especially if it’s about some sensitive issue. But if you do end up making a mistake, own-up and own-up fast. Mistakes are quick to be noticed and quick to be criticized. They can seriously damage your reputation as a blogger and affect the number of visitors you get at your blog.

2. You Need Street-Cred.
As with most things these days, you need to have some reputation to make a mark. And that reputation needs to be built. The easy way to build your reputation is by becoming a expert in any par- ticular area that you are specially interested in. This is easy. Choose any topic of interest and research it on the Internet for six months and you will know more about it than most people. Reputation as a consistent blogger with an informed and well articulated point of view will more or less guarantee a loyal group of frequent readers. You also need good rep to ensure that what you say is ‘bought’ by your readers. Otherwise, you’re just another chap with a big mouth.

3. Don’t Be Away Too Long.
Long spells of no updates are not recommended. If you must be away , or are unable to update for a reasonably long period (even two weeks is long in the blogging world these days), let your read- ers know that you are going to be away. You can’t expect visitors in the same numbers when you haven’t updated for a while. Consistency also pays in building your reputation as someone who can be trusted to have content regularly. The longer you stay away the more you risk losing readers.

4. Be Inspired, Don’t Copy.
One of the biggest turns offs to blog readers is plagiarized content or using somebody else’s material and passing it off as your own. You have to have your own style when blogging. Developing your own style and voice in your writing will take time. There are no shortcuts. Now this style can be ‘inspired’ from the writing style of somebody else, but it cannot be a direct rip-off. You just can’t afford to be seen as a copy-cat. If you want to use somebody else’s material be sure to cite the source and provide a link back to the site from where you got the information. If you want to directly use the text of what is said on the other cite enclose it in quotes “…” and preface it with something like “xyz.com reports” or “according to xyz.com” and so on.

5. Be Controversial, but careful.
Being controversial is sometimes a sign of independence. Of course, many times it’s an attempt to get popular quickly and cheaply. If you decide to be controversial—for whatever reason: to increase the pop- ularity of your blog, because you strongly feel about something or any other reason—do not lose your sense of civility. It’s true that your blog is like your own kingdom and what you say on it is entire- ly within your right to expression. However, if you have voices of dis- sent on your blog you should, as a matter of courtesy, allow them to be aired. Don’t just allow positive comments. Be ready to handle both the praise and criticism. Of course you may choose to edit or delete comments that are full of four letter words and foul lan- guage. Allowing both praise and criticism on your blog will send clear signals to your readers. You will jump up in their esteem as a serious blogger who is willing to allow discussion both sides of an issue. Otherwise, you risk losing their respect and being labeled as a propaganda swilling, pompous, self-adulatory windbag! Professional blogging usually means that you are becoming an authority on some specific topic area. This will mean that at times you will need to take the extra effort to do stuff which you may consider tedious, boring and not cool. For example as part of your blog you may be required to review different graphic designer soft- ware tools. It maybe that you have a preference for one particular tool and really dislike another. You will need to be objective and be able to articulate why you dislike a particular and learn to sepa- rate the “facts from the fiction” of your personal likes and dislikes. That is not to say you should not express your likes and dislikes. One of the advantages of being a popular blogger is the level of authority that you can command with your reader population. If you can clearly state why you dislike something it will get your fans thinking along those lines and they may agree with you. Of course they may also disagree.

6.To allow comments or not.
Allowing or disallowing people from commenting on your blog will depend on a number of factors including: its popularity and your personal preferences. Some blogs do not allow comments, as they are more in the information posts. In very popular blogs, comments are often disabled as the number of comments for each single post can exceed be in 100s and the blog author may not have the time to moderate all the comments. Some disable comments but provide the option of Trackback links. The trackback link will enable you to write your own blog post referring to another blog and post a link back to your post on the other blog.

7. Don’t steal bandwidth.
If you are going to use an image off a blog, save it on to your own image hosting site. It’s rude to copy the image source and link it directly to your own blog.

8. Attribution.
Always return credit where possible. If you are going to copy a text, or use an image, please return the credit and link back to where you found the material.

9. Be polite. Follow the Golden Rule.
This virtual world we’ve built allows us a bit of anonymity. We may feel like we can write anything we want because we aren’t face to face with the other person. Remember that words are tools to express your thoughts and feelings. They can be used to hurt and to help. Remember that tone is a hard thing to express with words only. Without your body language to back it up, your comment may be misconstrued.

I tell you these things not to frighten you into never commenting or joining in the discussion of a blog, but to remind you to think before you type.

10. Don’t be afraid to have an opinion.
It doesn’t hurt to belong to one side of the fence. In fact, it might make your blog more interesting. If you’re afraid of criticism, you might need to think twice about keeping a blog.

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Explanation & Examples Of Good Blogs

01 April, 2009 0 comments

Here are a few examples of good blogs and an explanation of why we think they’re good. Apart from the content, of course. Note that these are by professional bloggers!

www.datamining.typepad.com/
1. Just the right amount of hyperlinking.
2. External entities neatly arranged on the left, archives and categories neatly on the right.
3. Updated very frequently.
4. Excellent categorisation of posts.
5. Up-to-date; well-informed.

http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/
1. Eclectic but not disorganised.
2. Collation of stuff from the Internet, with sources.
3. Good visual support.
4. Some essay-type, original content for balance.
5. Some posts are pictures, like in a photo-blog; breaks the monotony.

http://www.dailykos.com/
1. Menu on the right, organised well enough despite a lot of material.
2. Quoted text in boxes.
3. The right balance between quoted text and original commentary
4. Good headlines for each post.
5. Relief in the form of polls etc.
6. Hyperlinks in just the right number and places.

http://www.tmz.com/
1. Excellent visual/text balance.
2. Relief in the form of polls etc.
3. Plenty of related articles and links to other resources readers
might wish to look at.
4. Very regularly updated.
5. Tightly focused on a topic.

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/
1. Good visual/text balance, again.
2. Balance of original content and quoted material.
3. Balance between long and short posts.
4. Relief in the form of animations and the occasional readers’ letters.
5. Quoted text clearly identifiable.
6. Links to essays with strong opinions.

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The Benefits of Blogging

31 March, 2009 0 comments

As you have been reading this blog, you have probably been thinking about some of the ways in which you could use a Blog for your own business – perhaps with a view to reaching new audiences, improve visibility on the web and their interactions with customers, as well as actually increase sales. It is now an important part of the online marketing for your business!

Don’t forget that a Business Blog also gives you, your company and those who work for it, a place to collect and share ideas and relevant information with your customers and prospects. This in turn generates mutual trust and builds to a relationship which is more like a partnership than the typical supplier-customer sales relationship.

The benefits that you can enjoy are:

  • Develop your position and your reputation as an expert - Demonstrate your knowledge, expertise and experience on matters relating to your industry and give yourself the chance to show your expert position in your specialism.
  • Business Differentiation - a blog will give you the opportunity to show how your business and services differ from (and are hopefully superior to) those of your competition. Done well, it will set you apart in terms of the benefits you offer.
  • Search Engine Marketing & Visibility – Higher rankings and therefore greater visibility on the main Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN because of the updated content, great (automatic) structure and the focused content which will attract Search Engines and readers alike.
  • Creating a real dialogue with those who matter - You have the opportunity and the ideal tool to start to open up new and very real communications channels with your customers, prospects, partners and suppliers.
  • Public Relations & Press Releases – While not the ideal use for blogs from the point of view of blogging purists, business blogs remain fabulous marketing tools to distribute and then promote your company information and press releases.
  • Lead Generation – additional visitors, better positioning and improved search engines ranking all provide the chance to develop an increased lead generation opportunity. (Lots more ideas available – drop me a line at blogappraisal@theblogcoach.co.uk and I’ll explain how!)
  • Brand Awareness - An ideal channel through which to put your brand in front of the customer and communicate what it stands for – you could be a small company or multinational, either way you are strengthening your online position.
  • Educational Marketing - Show how your products and services can solve your customers problems rather than rely on interruption marketing and “in your face” selling. You could also look at this in terms of relational marketing because that’s exactly what you’re creating, better relationships with your marketplace.
  • Internal Communications – a blog is an excellent tool to help to share information easily within your company, manage projects, develop teams and hugely improve the internal communications.

A Blog is also very easy to use because you can write using a “Word” type of interface which means that you do not need a web designer to put information on the web for you any more - anyone in your organisation with access to the internet (and permission, of course!) can update and add information as required!

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Blogging Ethics Part 2

30 March, 2009 0 comments

Continued from Part 1.

5. White Hat Blogging.
Now, about the Good Guy’s methods. Even the name here draws a parallel, as these techniques are classified as White Hat Search Engine Optimization. White hat methods of SEO involve following
the search engines’ guidelines as to what is and what isn’t acceptable. Their advice generally is:

? Create content for the user, not the search engines.

? Make that content easily accessible to their spiders, and to not try to game the system.


Often, webmasters make critical mistakes when designing or setting up their sites, inadvertently “poisoning” them so that they will not rank well. White hat SEOs attempt to discover and correct mistakes, such as machine-unreadable menus, broken links, temporary redirects, or poor navigation structure. Because search engines are text-centric, many of the same methods that are useful for Web accessibility are also advantageous for SEO.

A detailed case for this common ground, cited by the W3C with respect to Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case, is SEO—A Positive Influence on Web Accessibility . Google has brought
the relationship between SEO and accessibility even closer with the release of Google Accessible Web Search which prioritises better-accessible sites.

Methods exist for optimising graphical content, including ALT attributes, and adding a text caption. Even Flash animations can be optimised by designing the page to include alternative content in case the visitor cannot read Flash. Some SEO methods considered proper by the search engines:

? Using a unique and relevant title to name each page.

? Editing Web pages to replace vague wording with specific terminology relevant to the subject of the page, and which the audiences the site is developed for will expect to see on the pages, and will search with to find the page.

? Increasing the amount of unique content on the site.

? Writing quality content for site visitors instead of search engines.

? Using a reasonably-sized, accurate description Meta tag without excessive use of keywords, exclamation marks, or off-topic terms.

? Ensuring that all pages are accessible via anchor tag hyperlinks, and not only via Java, JavaScript or Macromedia Flash applications or meta refresh redirection; this can be done through the use of text-based links in site navigation and also via a page listing all the contents of the site (a site map).

? Allowing search engine spiders to crawl pages without having to accept session IDs or cookies.

? Participating in a Web ring with other quality Web sites.

? Writing useful, informative articles under a Creative Commons or other open source license, in exchange for attribution to the author by hyperlinking. These along with certain ethics determined by nothing more than common sense form the basis of a good, clean and ethical blog.

6. C.O.B.E.
Some of the points listed in the Code of Blogging Ethics (C.O.B.E.) by Martin Kuhn are listed below. You can find the C.O.B.E. at http://rconversation.blogs.com/COBE-Blog%20Ethics.pdf . Kuhn is a doctoral fellow researching Media Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He began his C.O.B.E. project in December 2004.

? Promote free expression by posting on your blog on a regular basis as well as visiting and posting on other sites in the blogosphere. (Interact. Don’t be a loner.)

? Avoid restricting access to your blog by certain individuals and groups and never remove posts or comments once they have been published. (Essentially, be honest—don’t get overly protective about your blog. A blog is more dialectical than rhetorical, or, at least, it should be that way—unless you’re famous andexceptionally brilliant.)

? Emphasise the “human” elements in blogging by revealing and maintaining as much of your identity as is deemed safe.

One of the best “white” blogs

(Don’t cower under a nick forever, though that’s OK right in the beginning.)

? Promote equality by not restricting specific users or groups of users from your blog.
(Simple. Be “democratic,” as we’ve mentioned in this book.)

? Minimise harm to others by never knowingly hurting or injuring someone with information you make available on your blog. (“First, do no harm.”)

? Build a community by linking your blog to others, and maintain a blogroll to encourage visitors to your blog to visit others and facilitate relationships between you and your readers. (This, again, deals with being social, and the human element.)

? Strive for factual truth and never intentionally deceive readers. Make yourself accountable for information you post online. (Remember, when you’re blogging, it might seem like you’re doing keystrokes at your desktop—but there are real human beings out there reading what you’re writing.)

? Cite and link to all sources referenced in each blog post, and secure permission before linking to other blogs or Web content.

? Promote interactivity by posting regularly to your blog, honouring such etiquette and protocol policies that are posted on blogs you visit, and make an effort to be entertaining enough to
inspire return visits to your site.

Bloggers should:

? Never plagiarise. (Be honest to yourself and you’re safe.)

? Identify and link to sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources’ reliability. (Similar to what we just said: you’re actually reaching out!)

? Make certain that blog entries, quotations, headlines, photos and all other content do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context. (“Out of context” is key here. Often, you see something someone said, and latch on to that one phrase—don’t.)

? Never distort the content of photos without disclosing what has been changed. Image enhancement is only acceptable for technical clarity. Label montages and photo illustrations.
(Not following this rule is pretty much the same thing as lying, and since a picture is worth a thousand words…)

? Never publish information they know is inaccurate — and if publishing questionable information, make it clear it’s in doubt.

? Distinguish between advocacy, commentary and factual information. Even advocacy writing and commentary should not misrepresent fact or context.

? Distinguish factual information and commentary from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.

? Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by blog content. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.

? Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.

? Recognise that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of information is not a license for arrogance. (These three tenets apply to journalism as well.)

? Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity. (Don’t be a tabloid. At least, try not to be; even if you maintain a gossip blog, don’t over-sensationalise things)

? Admit mistakes and correct them promptly. (This can come from basic humility.)

? Explain each blog’s mission and invite dialogue with the public over its content and the bloggers’ conduct.

? Disclose conflicts of interest, affiliations, activities and personal agendas. (This is important so readers can put your content in context.)

? Deny favoured treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence content. When exceptions are made, disclose them fully to readers. (That’s what black hat blogging is all about.)

? Be wary of sources offering information for favours. When accepting such information, disclose the favours. (Ditto.)

? Expose unethical practices of other bloggers. (If you’re sincere enough.)

7. Green Hat Blogging.
We wonder if there is any debate that has a real unanimous conclusion no matter what the topic is, here is one such argument which balances both sides of this Ethical Blogging coin. This community calls itself Green Hat Bloggers, and claim to be make the balancing act between the Good and the Evil. Well-known blogger Jason Golod’s take on this is to be found at www.golod.com/2005/
12/white-hat-black-hat-how-about-green-hat/.

8. Common Sense.
It wasn’t long ago that bloggers and money had nothing to do with each other. But as the blogosphere exploded into the public consciousness over the past year—blog search engine PubSub estimates there are more than 8 million blogs—it was inevitable that the captains of commerce would latch onto this increasingly popular form of personal media.

Ads + Content = Green Hat

Black hat, White hat, or Green hat… you don’t even need to understand these terms, strictly speaking. Just use common sense! If you’re thinking about making a career out of blogging, the
best way to ensure a steady revenue stream is by building a solid reputation. Remember, there are no shortcuts!

We believe we’ve spoken enough in the preceding pages to get you started off on your blog. But, as you know very well, there’s at least a million times more info on the subject on the Internet. Here are some sites and Web pages we believe you’ll find useful—if what you’ve read has kept you interested.


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Blogging Ethics - Part 1

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1. The No-Nos.
In the previous posts, you’ve seen what it takes to be a blogger, what to write about, how to make the moolah, and so on. The idea of making money from the comfort of your desktop is an enticing
idea indeed, but it is this idea that drives many a blogger into promoting one’s blog by unethical means. Rapid changes in search engine optimisation, or, in simple terms, the advent of smarter
technology, would mean only one thing—the death of your blog. Greed kills. To be less dramatic, they’ll catch you sooner or later! Promoting a blog or seeking revenue from it is no sin, but it is
the extent to which this is done that decides a blog’s ethical aspect. We’re assuming you’ve understood that making money from a blog demands a lot of page views and means there should
be ads on the page.

2. Black Hat Blogging.
There exist greedy folks who place too many ads and links on their page, and promote their blog by making use of certain underhanded SEO techniques. These, and more, are blanketed under the
term “Black Hat Blogging.”

Since we’re all Google addicts here, let’s get a closer insight into its search engine and how it works. Firstly, Google uses an algorithm called PageRank, which does what it’s supposed to do-rank some pages over others, which appear earlier in the search results. (Technically, it’s not just the original PageRank algorithm now, but we’ll just say “PageRank” for simplicity’s sake.) PageRank analyses links available for the search engine and assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. PageRank was developed at Stanford University by Larry Page (hence the
name PageRank) and Sergey Brin as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine.


Search engine optimisers widely agree that the things that influence a page’s rankings include:

? Keywords in the Title tag.

? Keywords in links pointing to the page.

? Keywords appearing in visible text.

? Link popularity (PageRank for Google) of the page. “Black hat” SEO are methods to try to improve rankings that are disapproved of by the search engines and/or involve deception. This can range from text that is “hidden,” as for example, text coloured similar to the background, or by redirecting users
from a page that is optimised for search engines to one that is more human-friendly. As a general rule, a method that sends a user to a page that is different from the page the search engine
ranked is black hat.

Search engines can and do penalise sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines’ algorithms, or by a manual review of a site.
An infamous example is the February 2006 Google removal of both the BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany sites for use of deceptive practices. However, both companies quickly apologised, fixed
the offending pages, and were restored to Google’s list.

3. Spamdexing.
Another such method is known as spamdexing, or search engine spamming. This is the practice of creating Web pages that will be indexed by search engines in order to increase the chance of a site
or page being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned.

“Google bombing” is another form of search engine result manipulation, which involves placing hyperlinks that directly affect the rank of other sites. Some blogs are created for monetising the
site using advertising programs such as Google AdSense. Such “Made for AdSense” (MFA) blogs have no redeeming value except to get visitors to the site for the sole purpose of clicking on advertise-
ments. MFA sites are considered to be spamming search engines and providing surfers with less-than-satisfactory search results. These types of sites are being eliminated in various search engines, and sometimes show up as supplemental results instead of being displayed in the main results.

4. The Legalities.
Blogging has brought with it a range of legal liabilities—employers have fired employees who maintain personal blogs that discuss their employers. The major areas of concern are the issues of proprietary or confidential information, and defamation. Several cases have been brought before the national courts against bloggers, and the courts have returned with mixed verdicts.

In Britain, a college lecturer contributed to a blog in which she referred to a politician (who had also expressed his views in the same blog) using various uncomplimentary names, including referring to him as a “Nazi.” The politician found out the real name of the lecturer (she wrote under a pseudonym) via the ISP, and successfully sued her for £10,000 (Rs 9 lakh) in damages and £7,200 (Rs 6.5 lakh) in costs.

In India, blogger Gaurav Sabnis resigned from IBM after his posts exposing the false claims of a management school, IIPM, led to the IIPM management threatening to burn their IBM laptops as
a sign of protest against him.

Black hat methods might seem easy to implement in the beginning, but one should remember that by going against the rules, they are only pitting themselves against the largest, smartest and
fastest workforces on the planet—the search engines! Yes, it is about writing smart code, but eventually, the complexity and the work hours it demands would easily outweigh the net revenue earned.

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Why Start Email Marketing? Part 1

29 March, 2009 0 comments

You can achieve outstanding results with email marketing, while investing only a small amount of time and money. Combine that with the potential to target more precisely than direct mailings, that’s a real win for the small business owner. If you have a business that you want to grow, a great effective way to market your company is through the internet. Starting an email marketing campaign can be a simple, successful and fairly inexpensive process. A common myth about email marketing is that only large corporations can afford the technology and reap the benefits. However, the truth is that email marketing can benefit both small and large companies. There are even outsourced email marketing services that allow you to try out email marketing with a small amount of upfront cost. With this in mind, here are some benefits for starting an email campaign and a few tips on how to start your marketing campaign and make it a successful one.

First off, email is inexpensive.

It is far less expensive on a cost-per-contact basis that other advertising options such as ads, telemarketing, print advertising, banner ads, etc..
One great benefit of email is that is creates a quick response cycle. With direct mail advertising it can take up to six to eight weeks to get a response, with email it can be in as little as 48 hours. Another great benefit to starting an email marketing campaign in the face the email has a wide reach. In today’s world filled with technology, email is a part of many people’s daily routine. Not only can a recipient immediately act on messages received, but can effectively drive traffic to your website using links.


In tough economic times, it is crucial to continue marketing your business, and maximize the marketing dollars you’re spending. Email marketing is a perfect way to keep your business in front of your customers’ and prospects eyes!

Sometimes, people unfamiliar with email marketing get nervous about it because the first thing they think about is spam, or they’ve heard that most people don’t open their email, right?


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Why Start Email marketing? - Part 2

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Targeted mailings that pique interest result in high email open rates, and an opportunity to build relationships with your customers and make some sales. As for the spam issue, mailing only to people who have given you permission to do so minimizes the risk of being labeled a “spammer”. Using myself as an example, I have mailed thousands of emails to my clients, and prospective clients, and have not had one spam complaint.

Here are some few reasons why you must start email marketing now!

1. Starts email Marketing today.

Starting today will help build your subscriber base. Now that e-newsletter can contain formatted text, embedded images and even polls and surveys you’re no longer limited to boring plain text to get your message across. Soon you’ll be able to include forms, multi-media, and other marketing tools that you can deliver to your subscribers’ mailboxes. (With their permission, of course.) The best way to grow your subscriber base and take advantage of these new tools is to start right away.

2. Email marketing is inexpensive.

Email marketing is an affordable way to stretch a tight marketing budget. Unlike direct mail, there is virtually no production, materials or postage expense. Email marketing can cost as little as fractions of a penny per email.

The expenses involved in email marketing involve having a hosted website with email capacity. You may also want to consider subscribing to a list management service, such as Constant Contact or aWeber, to help manage your email campaigns. The fees for this service range from about $15 to $20 per month, which includes unlimited emails.

3. Email marketing is highly targeted.

You can easily segment your email database into different groups, so that your promotions go to individuals most likely to respond to your offer. For example, you may send one offer to existing clients, and send a different one to prospects who’ve expressed interest in your products or services.

4. It’s Measurable.
Unlike other marketing vehicles, results from email campaigns are easily measured. Results are reported in terms of “opens”, which report how many people saw your offer or newsletters, Click Through Rates (CTRs), which measure how many people actually clicked on the links in your email, and in a many cases, who actually clicked on those links.

5. Email marketing is proactive.

Email marketing enables you to proactively communicate with your existing customers and prospects, instead of passively waiting for them to return to your website or storefront.

It is a highly effective way to communicate promotional offers, news, seminars, which may result in an increase in sales, drive traffic to your website or store, and develop customer trust and loyalty through relationship building.

Sending out a monthly email campaign will keep your business in front of your customers’ and prospects eyes.

6. Email marketing generates an immediate response.

Promotional emails include a call to action that can result in immediate responses. Initial campaign responses generally occur within 48 hours of the time the email campaign is sent; testing and refining your campaigns is immediate. If you use a list management service, you can gauge the open rates of your email campaigns, which provides useful and immediate information you can use to tweak your campaign messages.

7. Email marketing is easy.

The Web-based email marketing products available to small businesses are easy to use. The services available through Constant Contact and aWeber, as well as others, include professional HTML templates, list segmentation and targeting capabilities, as well as automatic tracking and reporting of your email campaign effectiveness, such as for open rates, bounces, and spam reports.

If you’re not a “techie”, have no fear. You don’t need a Webmaster or technical person on staff to handle the development and distribution of your email campaigns.

Email marketing works because it allows precise targeting of your marketing message, it builds loyalty and trust with your customers, it is inexpensive, and best of all, it drives sales. Include email marketing in your arsenal of marketing tools!

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What to consider when starting a Business Blog

28 March, 2009 0 comments

Whether you are a large corporate organization or an independent consultant or small business owner, as you start a Business Blog, there are a number of elements that you should be looking to consider to give your blog every opportunity for success. While the exact requirements will differ according to how you intend to use your blog, there are certain questions that you will want to have answers for before you start to write it. In particular, there are three key questions which will underpin all of your blogging activity; they are:

i) What do you want to do with your Business Blog? Make sure that you have a clear vision of what you want to do with your Business Blog – are you using it as a customer service tool, as a marketing or branding method, to promote a particular product or service, as a market research or product development tool or any number of specific uses it is well suited to. Going through this process will ensure it has focus and will not become a “jack of all trades” and “master of none” - the more focused it is, the more successful it is likely to be.


ii) Who is your target audience for your Business Blog? Avoid trying to make it be “all things to all people” – it isn’t possible. Once again focus is important, so decide on your target audience and write the blog for them with content they are looking for and a style that they will warm to. If you have lots of different groups that you wish to appeal to then you might be better off setting up separate blogs to cater for each of these specific areas.

iii) What results are you looking to achieve? What goals do you have for your Business Blog and just as importantly, how are you going to measure them? There is going to be time and effort involved and you will be looking for specific results at the end of it - therefore, from the start, it’s good to know what results you are looking for. So decide on the criteria you want to work with and how you wish to measure them.

Following on from these, there are a number of other areas which are sensible to consider. Some are technical in nature while others relate to the running of the blog and its promotion.

i) What Blogging software to choose? There are a number of options available each with different benefits – by deciding what you wish to do with it, what it will be integrated with and what degree of control or customisation you require, you will be able to focus in on which would be best for your needs. The best advice is to choose one which will grow and develop with you as well as fitting with your current business and technical requirements. Free hosted software (such as Blogger) will seldom do this or give you sufficient control, so look at Wordpress (full version) or Movable Type for self hosted systems and Typepad for a hosted solution as good starter points.

ii) Should I host it on my website or on a different domain? As a general rule, if it sits comfortably alongside your website and complements the information on it, then integrate it into your website. If, on the other hand, you are looking to present an objective view on your industry or want a separate identity for branding purposes then choose a separate domain name and run it separately.

iii) What to call the Business Blog? Either let it reflect your company and branding, or make sure it contains your keywords … or preferably both. As a rule of thumb, though: choose something which you are still going to feel comfortable with in a year’s time. You might like to check some additional ideas on choosing a Business Blog name at www.betterbusinessblogging.com/blogging-basics/what-to-call-your-business-blog/.

iv) Look and Feel of the Blog. If you are using it as part of your website, then integrate the look and feel with that. There’s no need for your visitors to really know that they are on a blog - remember it’s the benefits that blogs offer that is important, not the technology. If it is on a separate domain, then design your Business Blog with the image you want to portray but don’t use the default template that the blogging software provides. Why? Default template = zero differentiation!

v) How will it integrate with your other marketing activities? Blogging is an excellent marketing tool, as well as having being strong in other areas. However, it is not a magic wand to cure all marketing ills, so it is necessary to decide how to best use it in conjunction with your other marketing, business development and customer service activities.

vi) Who will be blogging and how often? If you are a small business or individual, then the decision about who will be blogging will be a straightforward one. For a larger organisation, the decision will depend on what the blog is focused on and hence who will be the best person to write with knowledge and passion about it. As for how often you should blog, frequency isn’t as important as consistency so try to post regularly and keep your readers informed. As a caveat, however, you should be posting at least twice a week to give yourself the best chance of success.

vii) How to deal with comments? Receiving comments on a blog is one of the more satisfying aspects of blogging because it shows that you have engaged your readers enough for them to want to comment. Some companies, however, view it with dread because of possible comments being aired which are not entirely positive. While I would always recommend being open to and responding to comments, the decision ultimately is in the hands of the blogger.

If you have thought through these elements, then you will be in a much stronger position to set up your blog and concentrate on writing the posts and building your readership with a strong base in place.

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Top Ideal ways To Increase Google Pagerank

27 March, 2009 0 comments

Google Page rank is based on back links. Back links are Links pointing to your website from another website. The more back links you have the higher your PR will be.

1. Join forums, forums are a great way to achieve links to your website. In most forums you are allowed to have a signature and in your signature you can put a link to your website. But another important note to look on is making sure the forum is somewhat related to your website. You will still get credit if it’s not, but if it’s related to your website than you will be accomplishing two tasks at once.

You will be advertising for your website (bringing in targeted traffic) You will also be building your websites presence.

Your websites presence is very important to your survival. The more people see, or hear about your website the more credibility you will have and this increases your chances of having these visitors come back and possibly become leads.

2. Submit to search engine directories. Search engine directories are a good way to get a free link to your website. They also increase your chances at being listed higher on popular search engines like Google, and overture.

Most search engine directories allow you to submit to their website for free. This will allow you to increase your web presence by being listed on another search engine, and it will also be a free link.

Remember the more links you have the higher your PR will be

3. Using ezine ads (or newsletters). Creating an ezine will probably be the most beneficial step you can take to increasing your web presence. When you create an ezine you will be able to keep visitors coming back to your website for more by using signatures and giving special deals.

Ezine’s will also allow you to increase your back links. By creating an ezine you can submit your information about your ezine to an ezine directory. This directory will than link to your website(thus giving you a free link).

4. Creating and publishing articles. Articles are an easy source of generating new traffic. You can include your signature in your article. This will bring in more traffic from article submission directories.

Your signature usually consists of 4 to 8 lines. Usually the first line would be the title of the website that you are trying to advertise. The last line would be the link to the website and the lines in between these would be a sales pitch to draw your viewers into your website.

5. Links from related websites. Gaining links from related websites can be one of the most frustrating tasks you can attempt.

They are very easy to find, but can be somewhat difficult to obtain links from.

To find related websites, all you have to do is go to a search engine… say Google… and type in your subject. Maybe your website is based on ford mustangs.

You go to Google and type in ford mustangs, than you look around for pages that are somewhat related to your website. After you have done this (which should be very easy) you have to contact them in some way to get your link posted on their website. This can be the most difficult task because a lot of webmasters ignore e-mail’s from people requesting links because they don’t see the importance of it at the time. Some other reasons could be that they are rarely online, or they delete spam mail and sometimes delete their important emails in the process.

Important note: When looking for link partners don’t just link with websites that have a page rank of 4 or higher. Link with anyone and everyone you get a chance to. If you link to someone that has a page rank of zero, this will not hurt your page rank. It will only increase it because you are getting a link back to your website. Google doesn’t look at your back links page ranks to determine what yours is going to be. It simply looks at how many back links you have.

So if Google one day decided to link to a website that was just created and this website has a page rank of 0 and has a domain that goes something like this: mywebsite.geocities.com it’s page rank wouldn’t increase even though Google’s page rank is 10, it’s rank would still be zero because it would only have that one back link.

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Getting Noticed: Part 2

26 March, 2009 0 comments

Continued from Part 1.

6. Search Me!
A ridiculous number of books have been written about it, but there are few things on the Web as arcane as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)—you never know what’s going to boost your search engine ranking and when. SEO-ing your blog works better if you’re using your own hosting and content management sys tem—the options available to you are far more comprehensive than free blog hosting. However, there are a few things you can do to enhance your free blog’s search ranking.

7. SEO-ing Your Free Blog.
Firstly, let go of any illusions you might have that Blogger users are at an advantage just because Google owns Blogger. The following tips apply almost universally too:

a. Choose your blog and post titles appropriately. You’ll need some thing catchy to grab potential readers, but search engines would prefer that you include at least one keyword indicative of the post’s content in every post title.
b. Stick to a general theme for your blog. By their very nature, blogs are riddled with search keywords, and themed blogs more so.

c. Update your blog regularly. Search engines love the “live” Web sites that are updated with new content on a regular basis.

d. Register yourself on every possible blog listing.

e. Exploit the power of being linked to—make comments on high traffic blogs (not the I-like-your-site-you-might-like-mine kind, mind you), start discussions, and get yourself blogrolled on as many people’s blogs as possible.

f. Wherever available, always make sure that you have a perma link for each post—this helps search engines index them better.

g. Add your blog feed to your My Yahoo! and My MSN accounts. This will get you listed on Yahoo! and MSN.

8. Your Own Hosted Blog.
If you’re using your own hosting, SEO becomes much easier thanks to the number of options you have. WordPress, for one, offers you its own CMS which you can deploy on your server, and there are a lot of things you can do with it.

SEO And WordPress.
To optimise your WordPress blog, use the following tips:

a. Permalinks Again: By default, links to posts in your blog will look like this: http://www.yourblog.com/?p=11. Search engines don’t like this much, so go to Options > Permalinks in your admin panel and in the Custom text box, enter “/%catego ry%/%postname%” to change the link’s appearance to http://www.yourblog.com/technology/phone_review. This makes your blog not only SEO-friendly, but reader-friendly as well. This applies to all CMSes, in fact—most of them support SEO- friendly URLs, either as an inbuilt feature or using a plugin— you just need to make sure that the Web server supports URL renaming.

b. Edit The Page Title: By default, your page title (the one you see in the search pages) goes thus: Blog Name | Archive | Post Title. You want to bring the post title to the beginning, so search users can instantly know that they’ve found what they were looking for. To do this, you need to replace this code in header.php:

With this:

c. Get Sitemapped: Get yourself the Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress from www.arnebrachhold.de/2005/06/05/google- sitemaps-generator-v2-final. Sitemapping your blog will make it easier for Google bots to index updated content for your site. This tip applies even for non-WordPress blogs, and you can get the Google Sitemap Generator at www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps.

9. The Community.
This is the “getting famous with the people” part we talked about earlier. Once you’ve done all you can for the search engines, you need to get yourself noticed.

a. Take a long, hard look at the content you’re generating. Are you another armchair columnist airing your views on news items like a billion other bloggers? What makes you unique? There’s a huge difference between getting people to come to your blog and getting them to stay there. There’s no trick that will help you if your content is poor or run-of-the-mill. Naturally, writing style plays an important role too. Don’t underestimate the spell check, and proofread every post before you publish.

b. Update your blog regularly. Regular updates will keep your readers coming back for more, and it’ll help with the search engines, too.

c. Take part in discussions inside the blogging community. Intelligent comments on others’ blogs (don’t spam them) will generate interest in you. Doing so on high-traffic blogs will ensure that someone will visit your profile, and subsequently your blog.

d. Get into link-exchange deals with similar-themed bloggers—get them to link to you on their blogs, and vice versa. In general, make sure that there are links to your blog all over the place— get your friends to put you on their blogrolls, use step 3 above to others to deem you worthy of blogrolling, and so on.

e. E-mail people when you’ve made a new post. If you get stinkers for spamming, just stick to e-mailing people when you have some killer “don’t miss this” content.
f. Get Dugg: lots of blog owners Digg their own blogs, resulting in the site’s paranoia when it comes to blogs. However, participate in the Digg community as well, and people might end up Digging your blog for you! Finally, remember that blogging is an ever-changing realm, and there’s nothing you shouldn’t stop yourself from trying if it isn’t illegal.

Bloggers are journalists of sorts, and there exists such a thing as ethics in journalism. In addition, when you maintain a blog, you’re garnering the trust of many people—which may not hit you in the face while you’re sitting at your computer. Ethics does come into play in such a situation, and while we’re not going to be preachy, we think we should talk a little about the ethical aspect of blogging.

Go Back to Part 1.

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Getting Noticed: Part 1

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After all the effort you put into your blog, you can’t allow it to fade into darkness, can you? There are two aspects to keeping your blog in the public eye, so to speak—getting famous with people, and getting famous with the search engines. Both can be tricky.

1. Hello, World!
When you start a new blog, it’s automatically listed on the provider’s (Blogger or WordPress, for example) directory listing, unless you’ve explicitly asked for your blog to be kept private (in which case, why are you reading this?). There are, however, spe cialised directory services—Technorati is one name that should sound familiar—that are dedicated to the cause of telling the world about all the blogs they can read and enjoy. Visitors to such sites can search for blogs on topics they want to read about and rate them; naturally, you want to be one of these blogs.

2. Technorati (www.technorati.com).
It wasn’t very famous even a year ago, but Technorati’s importance in getting your blog noticed has increased to the point of being crucial. It indexes and categorises blogs on the Web, and also tracks statistics such as the number of Web pages linking to your blog.

Getting Started.
You need to sign up to use Technorati; on the Join screen, you have Technorati has become a necessity for bloggers everywhere the option to “claim” your blog—basically informing it of the blog(s) you own. Once you’ve claimed your blog, you need to add a bunch of information about it so that Technorati can index it according to its subject and keywords or tags. What you put in here will play a key role in Technorati visitors’ inclination to read your blog, so
write your blog description to grab attention—nothing inaccurate, mind you—a wacky introduction to your site will pique curiosity and get you more visitors. You also get to use 20 tags, where you should put in keywords or keyphrases indicative of your blog’s content. These could be “technology,” “holiday in Australia,” and so on.

Once you’ve done this, Technorati will begin tracking your blog for new posts and check how many people are linking to your blog or posts in your blog. Now all you can do is hope that visitors to Technorati end up at your blog. You can claim your blog either by providing your blog’s username and password, or pasting the supplied code into a post.

Technorati categorises blogs by tags, so make sure that every one of your posts has one. It’s not difficult—just make sure you’re cat egorising your posts, and Technorati will use these categories as tags. If your blog host doesn’t give you this feature, insert the fol lowing HTML code at the end of your post:

Some Text

This tells Technorati to file this post under the tag “yourtag”. This needn’t be limited to just a Technorati link, though. For example, using this code:

Some Text

will file the post under the tag “forum”—the text after the last slash in the URL will be interpreted as the tag. Most blog hosts now automatically “ping” Technorati every time you make a new post. If yours doesn’t, then you can use a pinging service like Ping-o-matic (www.pingomatic.com) to ping
Technorati and all other blog directory listings.

3. FeedBurner (www.feedburner.com).
Your blog-host no doubt creates an RSS feed for your blog (ditch it if it doesn’t), so readers don’t need to constantly visit the site to read your content, instead doing so from the comfort of their default RSS reader. FeedBurner takes the simple functionality of RSS and “burns” your feed by adding a host of options to help you snag more subscribers.

The Burning Feed
Once you’ve completed the ridiculously simple registration process, you’ll be asked to burn your feed by supplying the URL of your blog’s RSS feed. Configure your feed title, and your feed will be assigned a FeedBurner URL instead—http://feeds.feedburner. com/yourfeedaddress, for example, letting you customise the“yourfeedaddress” part.

Once you’ve claimed your blog, FeedBurner enables the BrowserFriendly and StandardStats services to make your feed more readable in browsers and track your feed statistics respectively. The next page lets you configure StandardStats, and we rec ommend checking the Clickthrough option. This lets you track the number of times a link in your post is clicked; if you’re linking to corporate Web sites, these statistics should play a role in snag ging advertisers.

Optimising Your Feed.
When you login to FeedBurner, click on the title of your blog to be taken to the control panel, from where you can select the various ways to configure the way your feed looks in an RSS reader. Here are the options you have:

a. SmartFeed:This has quite a simple purpose—to ensure that your feed is compatible with virtually any RSS reader available. Recommended, because you never know what reader someone is using.

b. FeedFlare:Enabling this feature lets you put links into your feed posts that will help users give you feedback or tell their friends about your blog—“E-mail the Author”, “Digg This”, “Post to Del.icio.us”, and so on. At the bottom of the page, you need to use FeedFlare so it’s easier for readers to tell their friends about your blog select your blog host, and the site will give you a piece of code to insert into your blog template to make the FeedFlare links appear on your Web pages.

c. Link Splicer: This lets you include your favourites from net working sites like Digg and Del.icio.us and tell your readers what you like to read about. It doesn’t play any role in driving traffic to your blog directly, but it will give people a sense of knowing you, which will in turn keep them visiting your blog with the same, if not greater, regularity. Overall, though, there’s no pressing reason for you to have this enabled.

d. Splicer: Much like the link splicer, this lets you include your photo feeds from Flickr, Buzznet or Webshots in your feeds. Again, no direct role in getting you more traffic.

e. Geotag your feed: This lets you add your geographical latitude and longitude to your feed. Mostly pointless; if you find any use for this, do write in.

f. Feed Image Burner: Lets you add a “Powered by FeedBurner” image or any custom logo to your feed.
g. Title/Description Burner: Lets you change the title of your feed without having to change the title of your blog (something you’d have to do otherwise).

h. Convert Format Burner:Lets you select a specific format (RSS or Atom) to convert your feed to. It’s best to avoid activating this— SmartFeed will do all the dirty work of making your feed stan dards-compatible anyway.

i. Content Type Burner: This lets you choose a custom MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) type for the feed. If you’re not sure what to do with this, leave it alone.

h. Summary Burner: This lets you add a little teaser about your blog to your feed. We recommend using this—a well-written description will draw in the crowds.

Publicising Your Feed.
FeedBurner also offers services to help you increase the number of subscribers for your feed.

a. BuzzBoost: This publishes your blog’s feed as plain old HTML, which you can then use on any site you control, and thus drive more visitors to your blog.

b. Headline Animator: The Headline Animator gives you the code for a scrolling display of your latest posts that you can paste in the template of your site, or better yet, in your e-mail signature. On online forums that allow it, use this code as your signature to get people to take note of your blog.

c. FeedCount:This is a simple bit of code that displays the current number of subscribers to your feed. It has little or no role to play in actually getting you traffic, but is good to use for bragging, nonetheless.

d. E-Mail Subscriptions: Enabling this option gives you the HTML code required to offer readers the option of subscribing to your blog’s feed via e-mail. Once you’ve got enough content and subscribers to your feed, you will qualify for the FeedBurner Ad Network (FAN), which allows you to use your feed to make money.

4. BlogExplosion (www.blogexplosion.com).
BlogExplosion is a unique service that drives traffic towards your blog in exchange for spending some time reading others’ blogs.

Using BlogExplosion.
Registration is simple enough, after which you’re ready to start earning “credits”—one BlogExplosion credit is the equivalent of one person visiting your site. When signed in, click on Surf Member Blogs. You’ll be taken to a member’s blog, and there will also be a frame at the top with a countdown and an image with a bunch of numbers (to prove you’re not a bot). You need to stay on this blog till the countdown says Go, and then click on the number indicated to move ahead to the next blog. For every blog you visit, you get 0.5 credits.

Increase traffic for your blog by spending some time on BlogExplosion.You could go ahead and earn credits gratuitously by just spending an hour or so on the service without reading the blogs you’re presented, but it’s always a good idea to spend some time posting reviews about others blogs—they might feel compelled to return the favour, and a good review can help boost your readership. When you’ve amassed the credits you want for a session, go back to My Account and choose Assign Traffic. Indicative by name, this lets you distribute your credits to any number of blogs that you own and increase their traffic by that much. Hit enough cred its, and you’ll also be allowed to include your own ad in the BlogExplosion top banner. Another way to rack up the credits is to rent out ad space on your blog. The Rent My Blog option lasts a week at a time, and lets other BlogExplosion members use your blog for their ads.

5. Other Services Online.

Nothing on the Web is complete without a bunch of clones, of course. Here are some other blog directories and services that you should be a part of:

a. Weblogs (www.weblogs.com): Another blog directory, though not as deep as Technorati. It simply tracks newly-updated blogs.

b. Moreover (w.moreover.com): This is a service that tracks news goings-on all over the world. If you own a news-related blog, get yourself listed here.

c. BlogStreet (www.blogstreet.com): This is a directory of Indian blogs, so you need to register here, especially if your content is India-centric. Blogs are classified by city and language, and there’s a Digg-like “Buzz it” link for every blog too.

Continue to Part2...

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What It Takes?

25 March, 2009 0 comments

So what does it really take to make it big in the blog world, and, for that matter, the Web world as well? Of course there isn’t some instant mantra that you can follow to get blogging success, but by following these simple tips, you can make your mark and, probably, a few bucks as well.

Pen… err… Keyboard Ready!
First of all, before getting into the real, nitty-gritty of the blogging business, it is important that you have the keyboard at hand at all or most times. This doesn’t mean that you need to carry a laptop with you at all times. It just means that mental notes of things you want to blog about are often forgotten, so it is adviseable to write it down somewhere (backs of bus/train tickets, napkins at restaurants, etc., make for reasonable idea remembrance). Ideas are no respecters of time and place, they may come at you in the oddest of moments. If you are planning to be a dedicated blogger, always keep a pen and shorthand pad within easy reach. Better to jot down the fleeting idea, rather than lose it. It may be that one such idea will be your greatest post and float you to the top of the blogosphere. You never know.

Put Thoughts To Words.
A great idea is just an idea until you tell someone about it. To blog, you need to be able to write. Which doesn’t mean that you need to be a ‘writer’ per se. Basically, you should be able to spill out the idea in your head, in words. The reader must be able to see what you see, and ‘get’ what you want to say. The better the articulation of your thoughts, the better the reader’s experience, and more likely will be the connection with your thought. So get your words as vivid as your thoughts. There are few things to keep in mind when spilling your thoughts out on paper. Do not get into long sentences. This is a sure shot way to lose readers. This does not mean that you cannot use long sentences.

Sometimes what you have to say cannot be said any shorter, but use them sparingly. The objective is to keep the reader’s mind engaged. Too many short sentences can also be
disorienting. Group your thoughts into paragraphs. Keep a logical flow from one thought to the next. Till you get comfortable and confident with your writing, be prepared to proof read what you’ve written. If you are using Microsoft Word you can also use their Spelling and Grammar
(Press [F7] or Tools > Spelling and Grammar ) tool to check for spelling and grammatical errors. Remember that the tool is just a guide and you will have to make your own judgment and decide
what is right. For example, a general rule of writing is to avoid passive sentences. MS Word may highlight certain sentences as passive. Your decision to change it to the active voice should be dependant on the context and not just what MS Word says! Also, turn on readability statistics (Tools > Options > Spelling and Grammar > Show Readability Statistics). This will further help you get a general idea about how readable your post is. There are three readability metrics that are helpful:

Passive Sentences: Shows the percentage of passive sentences in the entire document. Lower is better. Aim for anything less than 5-10%

Flesch Reading Ease: A measure of how easily readable your document is. On a scale of 0 to 100, higher is better.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: A measure of how easily readable your document is to grade school (primarily US/English speaking) kids. Lower is better. Aim for a typical score of between 10-12. Again, remember that these tools are just a guide. The final decision is yours.

Topical… Or Not!
This is one of the great debates in blogging. Should blogs be personal diaries? Should they be opinions on things of ‘popular importance’? Should they be a description of how bad your
lunch was?

We say, you don’t need to confine yourself to ‘genre-ising’ your blog. Write about anything and everything you fancy. As long as you’re true to your words, and you feel that it’s a though that has readership potential, go ahead, blather all you want. There is also a merit in discussing just one topic like rock music, or cricket, or bus travel. But decide where you have more things to write about, consistently, and go with that. What you write about will in part be dictated by your blog’s theme, your objectives (if any!) in maintaining a blog and of course what’s buzzing in your mental word factory. In general if you decide to focus on a particular topic you should stick to it. Though of course, it being a personal blog, going off topic once in a while will be a refreshing change that will break the monotony of stick-
ing to the same subject.

Language No Bar.
This is the next wave in blogging. Regional language blogs. Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Chinese, French, Spanish, Swahili. Blogging is not just an English language fad. Regional and foreign language blogs are an untapped market. There’s tonnes of readers looking out to read content in their own language. Desi Pundit (http://www.desipundit.com/), a popular Indian blog, is available in, apart from English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Bangla and Marathi! Hindi Blogs (http://www.hindiblogs.com/) is a free Hindi blog aggregator and is a great place to get into the whole Hindi blog movement.

Consistency Pays.
The blogosphere is littered with one post and ten post blogs. If you wish to make a name or earn an income from blogging you will need to be there posting to your blog regularly. If today is April and your last post was in January, the likelihood of anyone reading your blog is slim to nil. With blogging, you have to be regular. Which is not to say that you should think of it as a daily chore, but more that you need to have at least some schedule of regularity in your updates. You may choose to write everyday, or you may choose to write once or twice a week. Whatever the regularity you decide, stick to it. It is the only way you can try and ensure regular visitors at your blog. Choose a regularity that you are sure you can keep.

Be Prepared To Have No Readers!
At the beginning, it is quite likely that the only person who visits your blog, is you. Things are usually slow when it comes to visitors on blogs. Remember that there are millions of blogs on the web all vying for readers’ time, and though you’re not just another blogger, you are just another blogger in the bigger picture. To build a loyal reader base you need to be persevering enough to go a long time with a very few set of visitors. But perseverance does pay and will pay in the long run. Be persistent and consistent and you will see the results soon enough.

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Professional Blogging

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Unbelievable as it may sound, there are many people making a full time living and income from blogging. The road to financial independence through blogging however is not easy. The primary requirement is a change in mindset. You have to stop thinking like an employee and start thinking like an entrepreneur. To rely on your blog as your sole source of income will require to you to focus all your efforts in this direction. Of course since blogging involves the written word you will need to practice writing. And there is no better way to do that than by—what else—maintaining a blog. Inculcating the habit of writing will help you cross the first major milestone on your road to blogging success. It is a good idea to write down a formal set of objectives on what you want to do with your blog and where you want it to go.

Goal setting will help clarify and remove doubts about what the blog is supposed to do. Start with a plan and be ready to change it if things are not working out expected. This is the entrepreneurial mind set. The Web and blogging is a highly fluid and dynamic environment and you have to be on your toes to find out the latest opportunity that you can capitalize on.

To be a professional blogger the first requirement is to have tons of visitors. This can be achieved only one way. Have plenty of good original content that is readable again and again. When you start out blogging this is your primary goal. Attracting visitors will naturally mean deciding on your topic area or niche. To decide on your niche is no small task. As a gen- eral rule of thumb, chose a niche where you have some level of interest. This is a motivational factor that can make or break your blog. As long as you are able to consistently sustain a level of inter- est in a chosen subject area you will be able to blog on it.

The next step is to define your audience in as broad terms as possible. For example if you are a Photoshop fan and you want to blog on it—it might be a better choice to keep your blogging to the entire gam- bit of Graphic Designing. Thus you will not only be able to maintain the interest level you will also have a much wider range of topics to chose from. Additionally, your audience will not be just limited to Photoshop users. If you think that you are not up to the task of doing all required to make money from your blog there are plenty of companies, organizations and blogging networks that are looking for bloggers to hire. Of course, this does mean that you need to have some level of writing skills and ability to blog consistently. People who will want to hire you as a blogger will be looking for samples of your work. Ideally, this should be available on your blog itself. Not only will this be good practice for your writing skills, it will also provide you with a ready resume that you can point potential employers to.

Your blog can also serve as a ready reference for non- blogging jobs like copy writing or technical writing. One of the advantages (and possibly a disadvantage as well) is that most writing / blogging jobs do not require a formal college degree. The employer will be more interested in your creative ability and knowledge of the subject. Finally, do not give up your day job just yet. Success in blogging is not a short-term possibility. You will need to “nurture and water” your blog so that it grows both in content quality and readership. A formal written objective will help keep you focused on the task and enable you to benchmark yourself for success. Pay attention to what is happening and analyze the reasons for success so that you can build on it as well as the reasons for failure so that you can take corrective action.

The road to becoming a successful, financially independent blogger is long and hard but the rewards of reaching your goal can be very satisfying.

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An Introduction To Blogging

24 March, 2009 1 comments

Maintaining a diary was something many parents advocated to their school going children. It served two purposes: improve language skills and handwriting. The beneficial side effect was that it was a record of one’s daily activities as a child—something that was interesting to read in later years. Now…

Diaries are seen as intimate friends by those who maintain them. The private accounts, the writer’s intimate thoughts and ideas which are detailed in diaries offer a glimpse into the person’s true nature. This makes diaries interesting reading and probably the most famous of such an account is the one by Anne Frank which chronicles her and her family’s life under the Nazi rule during World War II, and which was ultimately published. Tragic accounts aside, the content of a diary—no matter how mundane from the writer’s perspective—can be interesting to people in a different place and time.

1. What Is A Blog?

A Web Log (or just “blog”) is the broad term applied to the online variant of the personal diary. Unlike diaries, blogs are intended to be public. Thanks to the ease with which blogs can be put online,
people who have anything to say have eagerly jumped on the blogging bandwagon, making blogs a powerful social networking tool, and when combined with the power of the Internet, transcends
geographical borders. Putting one’s thoughts and ideas online makes it easier to find like minded people to collaborate with.

2. The Uses Of Blogs.
People blog for many reasons—some use it truly as an online diary, detailing their lives. The mundane-ness of a blog entry is what endears it to the readers—events that offer a slice of life of a citizen in one country can be interesting to people in another. Furthermore, the relative anonymity that the Net offers allows even introverts to open up. Some blog to convey a message to the world, especially when other channels are not available, or when revealing information through the usual channels would prove detrimental to their existence, as in the case of Chinese bloggers.

Some use blogs to convey a message in a more informal manner than is possible through usual mass media channels, as in the case of politicians who use their blogs to reach out to their constituencies or organisations who reveal information about themselves that does not make it to mass media channels—like the internal working environment—which could be of interest to prospective employees. Information put up in a blog is seen as more sincere since it is shorn of all the trappings of a mass media presentation. This helps build a rapport with the targeted audience, which would probably explain why organisations encourage their employees to blog (with strict limits on what can be put online, of course).

3. Types of Blogs.
The word “blog” give the impression that the account is textual in nature, probably due to the association with the diary. But on the Net, it is commonplace to see blogs with pictures (why type in a thousand words when a picture will do?) called photo blogs. Video blogs are a step further from Photoblogs (why put up a thousand pictures when a video will do?). Audio blogs incorporate audio
clips (why type out a long message when it can be recorded and played back?). All of the above are similar in the aspect that they are the expression of personal opinion of a single entity, what dif-
fers is the medium of communication. Moblogging which is the latest trend in this field of activity refers to reading and posting to blogs via a mobile phone.

4. Blog Statistics.
There are no confirmed and updated figures with regard to the number of blogs in the blogosphere. Like most initial efforts at diary writing, blogs too are abandoned as quickly as they are created. And, as this chapter advocates, many sign up to blogs because they would like to try out the features of the platform first hand before committing to it. Any figure put up will be wrong if only active blogs were to be considered—of course, defining an “active” blog is a subjective matter again.
The most recent available statistics state “The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months. It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago. On average, a new weblog is created every
second of every day”, and a blog search engine claims to index 5.5 crore blogs.

Some Esoteric-sounding Jargon.

  • Blog, Blogging, Blogger: “To blog” means to write a entry into the blog. The person doing the blogging is called a blogger.
  • Blogospher: The World of blogs and bloggers, a subset of the WWW.
  • Post: A blog refers to the entire site, and every entry in the blog is also called a post. “To post” means to write a post to the blog.
  • Vblog: Short for Video blogs. The post is usually in the form of a video clip, also called a Screencast.
  • Blogroll:Bloggers include links to other blogs they regularly visit, in their blog. This is the Blogroll. Linking between blogs is seen as an important part of creating a popular blog.
  • Podcast/Audiocast: A blog where the post is an audio file that can be listened to.
  • Trackback: When a blog is quoted and linked to by another blog, it becomes a trackback to the former blog. Trackbacks are an indication of a blogs popularity and authority.
  • Permalink: A Blog page can contain many posts. A Permalink refers to the unique URL that points to a particular post. Having a permalink allows direct access to a post, rather than a page.
  • API: Short for Application Programming Interface. The “interface” offers clues to what this refers to: it is a set of routines with which two programs can interact.
  • RSS: Short for Really Simple Syndication. This offers a way for the creator of an article to distribute it to a large audience. The creator of the article generates an RSS feed, which is a document created in XML. People desirous of being informed need to subscribe to the RSS feed, which can be read using specialised applications called feedreaders. ATOM is another syndication format like RSS.
  • Bookmarking: It is difficult to remember all the URLs you visited. A bookmark makes this exercise easier by storing the URL as a link. All browsers have a bookmarking feature, which can be used to track your favourite sites. Bookmarking sites allow you to keep your favourites list online so that it is accessible from any place. An example of such site is del.icio.us.
  • Community Editing: This refers to a process where the relevance of a news item is decided by the masses, rather than a single authority. For example, visitors to Digg.com can read news submitted by other visitors and rate them. News items receiving a higher rating are automatically propelled higher up the list, eventually ending up on the home page.
  • Social Networking: Simply put, making new acquaintances and keeping in touch with existing ones.
  • CMS: Short for Content Management System. There are a class of applications which ease the management of dynamic sites. “Dynamic” sites are those which have a high frequency of updating. For example, a Web site containing a bulletin board where many people come and interact would need to display the latest message typed in. Without a CMS managing this, it would be impossible for a Web administrator to make modifications to the webpage code everytime someone adds a message. Blogging software are a type of CMS.
  • Pinging: In the context of blogs, pinging means informing a server that tracks blogs about changes to a blog. Blog tracking sites like weblogs.com, technorati.com, etc., update their listings every time a ping is received, so visitors to such sites can have access to the freshest blog posts.

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