Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category
The types of blogs you can build are limited only by your imagination and by your willingness to conduct research. For instance, while some bloggers focus on general topics, such as cars, other bloggers narrow the scope of their blogs even further to sub-topics, such as luxury cars or antique cars. From an optimization standpoint, a blog with a narrower scope would likely outperform a blog with a broader scope in terms of conversions or clicks-per-visitor. So, if your goal is to make money, the types of blogs you can build are somewhat limited.
In terms of actual topics for the types of blogs you can build, there are about 9 major areas that are popular for current blogs: business, culture, community, politics, religion, science, travel, online diaries, and gossip. Most blog directories use similar topical categories to order blogs.
In addition to the topic for the types of blogs you can build, you will also want to consider the program used to generate it. This is another way that directories categorize blogs. For instance, blogs can fall under the category of the tool or software that was used to create them. Some blogs are created using Google’s Blogger. These blogs are often lumped together in directories as the same “type” of blog. They actually have an auto-surfing system that allows you to jump randomly from one Blogger blog to the another.
What does it take to be successful as a blogger? Aside from the patience and diligence that it takes to maintain your upkeep – to keep new information on your blog – it also takes some sort of consideration as to how you will improve your blog in the future to stay ahead of the competition.
In this article, I will provide some recommended blogging tools & resources you can use to stay ahead in terms of both innovation and optimization techniques.
The first item on this list of recommended blogging tools & resources is SEO Radio. While this tool isn’t specifically for blogs, it is an excellent resource from search engine optimization expert Brad Fallon that will help you understand how to optimize your blog for search engines. You can find out more at http://www.seoradio.com/.
A blog is basically an online journal wherein you can digitally pen down your thoughts, ideas, opinions and practically anything that you want people to read. Blogs come in different styles, formats, and settings, depending on the preference of the user. Many blogging sites, offer built in features such as hyperlink, straight texts, pictures etc. Some blogging sites, even allow you to put video and mp3′s on your blogs.
Instead of writing texts, some bloggers choose to make their blogs more audio friendly, by using spoken word entries. This is called audio blogging.
Basically a blog contains these features:
With the recent rise in advanced social networking sites and the subsequent attention they have received from media outlets, people commonly perceive weblogs–which are the staple of social networking–as a new invention; however, this isn’t entirely true. Adding information to web-logs or “blogs”–blogging defined today–has been around for over ten years–and has gradually gained strength on the Internet as means of communication.
While people blogging in the early 1990s generally limited their blogs to personal information, such as chronicles and diaries, bloggers defined today includes blogging on a wide variety of different topics–from politics to cheese-tasting; however, blogging defined today is very much the same: a simple means to better facilitate communication.
Blogging defined is one of the most effective means of Internet-based communication because it is relatively easy and requires little time investment. Using a blogging interface like WordPress or Google’s Blogger, a blog owner can add a new entries to his blog while he sits in a meeting at work or watches events unfold on TV. Rather than fooling around with messy code, he can simply enter his message textually in his blog; and then update it in a matter of seconds.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a tool useful for saving or retaining updated information on websites that you frequently visit or websites that are your favorite. RSS utilizes an XML code which scans continuously the content or subject matter of a certain website in search for new informations then transmits the information updates by way of feeding the information to subscribers.
RSS feeds are generally being utilized in blogs or news sites, though any website wanting to broadcast and publish information can use them. Once new information is sent, it will contain a headline, a little bit of text, and either a rundown or a brief review of the news or story. A link is needed be clicked upon to read further.
So as to accept RSS feeds, a feed reader is needed, called an aggregator. Aggregators are widely and freely available online, and all that is needed is a bit of searching, you will be able to locate a certain interface that best interest you. What’s more, RSS feeds can likewise be read and retrieved from cell phones and on PDAs.
RSS which stands for really simple syndication is a format that is associated with the XML family of file formatting. It functions by continuously running through the websites to scan for updates. It then sends these updates to all of the people who are subscribed to these websites using a feed. This is used most often in web syndication.
To be able to use an RSS feed, you need to have an aggregator, also known as a feed reader. These aggregators are available widely online, so it won’t be that hard to scour the net to find the one that you’re looking for. There are a variety of aggregators to choose from. Best of all is that you can download them for free.
RSS feeds are often used in blogs, news, and entertainment websites. Anything that relays information to subscribers, and is often updated. These updates are then sent to all of the subscribers of these sites that carry RRS feeds. The updates are summarized, so you’d have an idea what stories they are referring to. If you are interested in the information it’s relaying, you can then click on the text to get the longer version of the text.
The topic of this article is especially important, as it is hotly debated: why focus & density matters. While some would state why keyword focus & density matters – because it is one of the best ways to optimize your page for traffic – other would challenge that premise altogether. There are essentially two things which will be used to rank your blog – your onpage factors and your offpage factors. The bulk of your onpage score will quite simply be determined by your keyword focus and density. This is why keyword focus & density matters.
Of course, your offpage factors should also be optimized for keyword focus, too. For instance, if you’re planning to optimize your blog for the keyword “Sunflower Seeds,” you will want to use the keyphrase “Sunflower Seeds” in the anchor text of all of your links. This means that the title of your link in any directories you submit to will say “Sunflower Seeds.” This is arguably a far more important form of optimization; however, it is still an argument for why keyword focus & density matters, but simply from an offpage perspective about focus, rather than density.
For onpage factors, you will want to consider your title, your headers, and your keyword focus and density for the body of your site. Before you even create your blog, you will want to figure out what keyword you should optimize for. An easy way to do this is to determine how many people search for your keyword. You can use overture’s inventory tool to do this. You can then compare that number against the amount of competing pages by Googling that keyword in quotations. You may also want to check out competing pay-per-click bids through your Google Adwords account if you plan to publish Adsense ads.
What is RSS? RSS stands for more than one thing. Usually, RSS stands for “really simply syndication,” but it can also mean “rich site summary,” or “RDF site summary” — RDF standing for “resource description framework.” That answers the question of what is RSS, but what can it do?
What is RSS in the context of really simple syndication? It is a tool that allows sites to give a quick summary of important links and descriptions in XML format. This essentially allows them to syndicate their content by allowing other blog owners and webmasters to use this summary as part of a list of summaries on a specific topic.
Blogmasters and webmasters collect these various summaries with something called a feed aggregator or a feed reader. Rather than asking “what is RSS?” this tool will ask “where is RSS” — and then find it. An aggregator finds RSS feeds to aggregate from selected large sites – such as Yahoo and MSN – and selected smaller sites, such as hand-picked personal blogs and news sites.
Blogs have increased popularity over this past months. Many people have started to create their personal blogs to express their thoughts and feelings. Internet companies have also started their blogs to inform consumers on the latest product news and reviews.
Because of this, blogs are also being used as internet marketing media. Before, internet marketing is done by placing banners and links on popular websites, such as news and information sites. Links were also included on newsletters and marketing letters sent to the members of their mailing lists.
Many people spend time reading blogs. People read their friend’s blogs, their favorite author’s blogs, blogs on topics that they are interested in, and blogs on product reviews. With the increasing popularity of blogging, it is even feared that people rely on blogs to get the latest news.
Any blog owner who wishes to get traffic without constant promotion and marketing will have to use some form of search engine optimization. While search engine optimization is a hotly debated topic, most experts agree on two things: in order to best optimize for search engines, you must establish reciprocal or one-way inbound links; and you must also optimize the content on your pages for specific keywords.
The first phase of any search engine optimization project is researching those keywords. Before you start to optimize, you must determine which keywords will pull the most traffic for the least amount of effort. You can do this by purchasing a subscription to Word Tracker or you can do this by using Overture Inventory to search “aggregate search” records for all possible keywords for which you could potentially optimize your blog. Record all of the returns you receive for an Overture Inventory search you perform on your given keyword. Your next step will be to analyze the site or page supply for your keywords. You can do this by searching for each of the returned keywords on Google. Not only will you want to record the search return data in terms of numbers, but you will also want to look at the top competitors for those keywords (i.e., are the PR 9 home pages or are they a deep page for an unranked site?) Optimal keywords for search engine optimization purposes will have high search counts, low site returns, and low-quality competition in the top slots.
Your next step should be to perform onpage search engine optimization. You can do this by using your selected keywords as titles and headers on different pages of your blog. You will then want to fill those pages will good information about the keyword in question; additionally, you will want to optimize it for a keyword density of 1.5%.
Other than direct sales and adsense, are there any other methods you can make money from using your blog? Yes, there are several, but three are usually used more often than others: 1) lead generation; 2) affiliate marketing; and 3) newsletter subscriptions.
Of all the other methods you can make money from with your blog, lead generation may be the most promising. This is an especially true if the market your blog is in is related to anything financial. Mortage and refinance leads are especially good, as they bring in tiered commissions. Your first commission will come when you generate the initial lead – which will simple entail getting someone to fill out a completely free form; this lead will earn you anywhere from $3 to $12. If this lead then goes on to refinance her home with the company in question, you could earn a windfall of several hundreds or several thousands of dollars.
The other methods you can make money from with your blog include affiliate marketing and newsletter subscriptions. Affiliate marketing generally consists of either directly signing up as an affiliate through someone’s website – or signing up as an affiliate through a third party. You will then use your blog to market this person’s products for a share of the total price. If you sell information products from Click Bank or Commission Junction, you can earn as much as 75% per sale; however, if you sell physical products, such as chairs and tables from Link Share retailers, such as Wal Mart, you will earn a 7-15% commission at best.