Blog Sense

Blogs' Way with Words Adds to Success

2006-12-10T04:23:00.000-08:00

The following paragraphs summarize the work of blogging experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of blogging. Heed their advice to avoid any blogging surprises.

There are many ways to make your blog a successful one. Blog writers put a lot of work in their writing and for the most part, want readers to visit. But, there are thousands of blogs available for readers online. If you want to make your blog successful then you must consider what your reader wants.

A blog is an easy and instant way to share your thoughts and feelings with readers. It is easy to build readership to your blog when you are ready to share your writing with others. Because there are so many other blogs on the Internet, if you want your blog to be a successful one, it is important to help your blog stand out from the thousands of other blogs that are available to readers. A few simple tips can help make your blog add up to success.

Allowing your readers to leave comments is a great way to make your blog more successful. Even if you are posting random thoughts about your day, you will feel more accomplished if you know someone is reading your work. A successful blog will enable their readers to contact them either through email or through comment boxes on the site. In addition, a successful blog writer can gain more readers by doing the same for other writers. By visiting other blog sites and posting comments, a writer can encourage others to read their blog. In addition, your readers will feel important and included when you respond nicely to their comments. Even if someone responds negatively to your writing, a successful blogger will still thank the reader for his or her opinion. Communication is a great way to a successful blog.

So far, we've uncovered some interesting facts about blogging. You may decide that the following information is even more interesting.

Another way to make your blog writing successful is to look into track backs. A track back is the system used to notify a writer when another writer writes about their blog. It sounds confusing, but it is really simple. If you read a blog by someone else and decide for whatever reason to write about that blog in your own blog, a track back will tell the other writer about your blog. Usually, this will lead to that writer reading your blog and can evolve into communication. Over time, you can even link the blogs together and share readership. Track backs can help start communities of like-minded individuals and get others who might not have otherwise found your blog, to read your blog. Track backs can also increase the amount of traffic to your blog site.

Successful blog writers also make good use of tag boards. Tags are the links that help a reader navigate quickly through a site. Using keywords, a blog can list all entries containing certain keywords together. When a reader wants to read about that one subject, they only need to look at the tag board and select what they are interested in reading. Tagging is highly recommended for blog writers that want to increase their traffic to their site. This is also an important feature for business. Not all blog-hosting sites will offer this feature, but it can be downloaded to most blog sites. When you use this feature, or any feature that involves links to other blogs or websites it is always a good idea to check the links to make sure they work. Readers will become frustrated when the links available on your site are no good.

Another way to a successful blog is to write about what your reader wants to read. This can be done easily when you are able to link with other people with similar interest. For example, if you are a stay at home mom and want to write about your life with a two year old, do not try to get readers that are only interested in pet care. Visit parenting boards and communities and get others with the same interests to visit the site. In addition, make sure that your site is edited for spelling and typing errors before publishing and that you have updated your site frequently. Not updating your blog on a regular basis will lead you to lose readers to other sites that are kept up to date. Also, look into blog hosting sites that eliminates annoying ads or screen pop-ups. Most of the time, you might have to pay a small monthly fee for these ad-free sites, but if you want to build readership, this can be a small price to pay.

There's no doubt that the topic of blogging can be fascinating. If you still have unanswered questions about blogging, you may find what you're looking for in the next article.

Articles for Website Content

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About the author:

James Mahony is the founder of Articles for Website Content

, A site dedicated to Articles for Website Content

Articles for Website Content

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The Buzz About Blogs

2006-09-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

The "blogosphere" is continuing to grow at an amazing pace. In fact, the number of published blogs is expected to double about every five months. ... Read more.........

Search engines are after one thing - providing their users with the most relevant and up to date information to match the search term that was used.... Read more.........

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6 Ways That Blogging Can Save You Money

2006-09-12T23:41:00.000-07:00

6 Ways That Blogging Can Save You Money Copyright 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul Even though I've had several personal blogs for years, I've only been... Read more.........

Shorten Your Blogging-RSS Learning and Submission Curve by Robert Hart A blog is a frequent, online publication of comments,... Read more.........

Blogs are a great way to keep in touch with your customers. Why? No spam filters. Blogs are proactive tools and not reactive like an email. If... Read more.........

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The Huge Marketing Potential Of A Simple Blog

2006-07-23T05:34:00.000-07:00

A Blog (also known as Weblog) is traditionally a webpage where pre-surfer or a blogger logs all pages he/she finds interesting. In other words, it is a Web page that contains brief, chronologically arranged items of information. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

Weblogs provide a series of annotated links to items such as news stories, and often include personal rants. They are maintained by one person, most commonly someone who is involved in Web design or some other tech-related field.

A blog is often a mixture of what is happening on a particular website and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people. Blogs can be used to introduce products to potential customers.

People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems, most notably Blogger at blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process.

Blog as a marketing tool:

Blogs offer huge marketing potential. They are highly strategic tools that can strengthen relationships, share knowledge, increase collaboration, and improve branding. Besides, blogs can represent the real voice of the website.

A weblog can take the form of a diary, a news service (or summaries of and links to current news items on a topic), a collection of links to other Web sites, a series of book reviews or products, reports of activity on a project, the journal of an expedition, and much more. Businesses can use this tool to effectively advertise their products or services.

One of the most interesting ways to use a weblog is by allowing it to function as a discussion forum for customers of your products or services. In this case, the webmaster can give posting rights to other people visitors and customers, and their posts may or may not be reviewed before they are published to the Web page. Customers, in such a way can post favorable comments about the websites offerings. Some weblogs are set up in such a way that only the owner or the owner and certain other people have posting rights, but anyone else can add comments to the posts.

Weblogs when used with newsletters present immense marketing opportunities:

- Articles within newsletters can be linked to a blog, extending life and creating a massive conversation.

- You can offer a bidirectional forum to customers to get true, personal opinions on your products and services.

- Company experts can start a blog and become industry experts, helping your company edge out competition and, through this interactive forum, draw customers into another exchange of information and thoughts.

- The beauty of this interplay is you can layer your blog with editorial controls.

How to create a Weblog?

The majority of weblogs are now created using software or services designed specifically for this purpose. Some of the software is free - and some of the organizations that provide weblog software will also provide free server space to house a weblog so that it is publicly accessible on the Internet.

There are also commercial versions of some of the free software; these commercial versions often provide more features. Some weblog software is available only as commercial software. Alternatively, bloggers can create and maintain their weblog using free software or a free weblog service, but use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to load the resulting weblog to their own Website.

There are many blogging softwares available easily on the Internet. One of the most popular weblogger is Blogger which can be used for free at http://www.blogger.com. Most webloggers simplify the process of Website creation. However, they do require basic knowledge of FTP, Website structures and a few technical terms. Besides, creating an advanced weblog requires knowledge of HTML.

So get out there and start your own Blog it s free, easy and can work seamlessly with the rest of your website or newsletter.

About the Author

Get your FREE step by step guide to setting up your first blog, visit: http://www.trafficstrategiesonsteroids.com/blogsetup.pdf - http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com
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HOME BUYERS OPT FOR LUXURY -- NOW

2006-07-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

San Jose Mercury News - Even on a budget, buyers want a sense of luxury in their homes,'' she said. Technology and electrical upgrades are Mercury News real estate reporters and editor at realestate@mercurynews.com or comment on the Square Feet real estate blog at Read on ..

Olympian - sentiment has created a booming time-management industry catering to millions of Americans who want to regain a sense of Cindy Krischer Goodman is a columnist for The Miami Herald. Send her e-mail at cgoodman@herald.com or go to her blog at Read on ..

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Still Lonely At The Top, Joe s Sweeps

2006-07-10T01:05:00.000-07:00

Shelbyville Daily Union - Joe s failed to score in the fifth and the expected blowout was bogging down in mediocrity. Then in the sixth, Joe s Pizza delivered. Ginger and Nick Allen led off with singles. Kevin Reedy reached on an error, followed by three straight RBI Next

PhysOrg - Video files, having become extremely popular due to increased quality and more widespread prevalence of broadband technologies, can be easily shared without bogging down a single computer, as seen in a traditional Internet server model. Similar to Next

TechWeb - The new switches all feature auto speed negotiation, address learning, and 802.3x flow control to keep data from bogging down at the switch level. All ports are 10/100/1000 Ethernet, said Linksys, allowing users to migrate from Ethernet to Fast Next

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Gangs using Web, MySpace for bragging

2006-07-08T06:49:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES -- Some of the country's most notorious street gangs have gotten Web-savvy, showcasing illegal exploits, making threats, and honoring killed and jailed members on digital turf. Continue.........

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Rahmatullah Hashemi: Talibanned

2006-07-06T20:46:00.000-07:00

Outside Beltway - Hot Air broke the news and provides reaction from Clint Taylor of Townhall s Nail Yale Blog (which is currently down Although one would think that an institution such as Yale would have the common sense in the first place not to enroll the Read on ..

AZCentral.com - Jim Paxon's wildfire blog "> We can reduce risk to lives and property with a good dose of common sense and some guides like Firewise . Let s all Read on ..

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Simon Phipps gets it right (finally)

2006-07-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

ZDNet Blogs - If you want to include this posting in your blog: Simon Phipps gets it right (finally) by ZDNet 's Ed Burnette -- At EclipseCon 2004, Sun's Simon Phipps gave a keynote address before a tense audience on the virtues of open source. The presentation was

TODAY'S BLOG TOPIC: Big public meetings tonight in Mansfield, Ontario
Mansfield News Journal - Many News Journal readers have spoken out on the News Journal's blog in the last two weeks about Mansfield City Schools and the Ontario police chief situation. Today's blog topic is about two big public meetings happening today/tonight of the

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Can You Really Profit From Blogging?

2006-07-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

There are new ways to increase your profit from the countless money-making ventures in the Internet. People do not fail to constantly discover and make these new ways possible.

One of the recent innovations to hit the Internet lately and is gaining wide popularity is the use of blogs.

Blogs or weblogs are the newest hip and trendy way to be published online. It is like a personal diary online where entries are constantly uploaded and updated.

The nature of blogging has grabbed the attention of Internet Marketers and advertisers because they envisioned that there are more to blogging than just being a personal write-up. For them, blogs can be used to bring in more visitors to websites that would mean more profit.

Why do these people see the potential of blogging? Well, they are equipped with hard facts. Study them and see the great promises of blogging.

Though used by more techno-savvy internet customers, only 38% of them know what blogs are. Only 0.03 % of the 34.5 million has seen the potential of blogging in generating sales and attracts customers to contact companies. But this does not stop marketers. More and more people are using blogs that a separate search engine was established just to locate specific blogs classified in subjects. The engine has been monitoring 654,108 weblogs with 25,074,570 active links and additional 55,943,837 links being tracked. Today s Blogosphere (meaning blogs worldwide) has been ballooning in population and it will not stop as time forwards making millions of entries with 23,000 blogs a day or 1 blog every three seconds. Blogs is the only source of Opt-In Full Permission subscription source for the Internet marketers. With blogging plus a lot of ways to imitate in the Internet just to be in like homepages, spam and emails, it has destroyed already the possibilities and weakening of one-to-one communication instead you will find it truly harder to connect with your existing and possible customers online.

What is great with blogs is its openness and freedom because you can write whatever you like or specifically write on your field of expertise aside from it is very user-friendly that you do not need to study programming to learn and get training.

The key for your blog to get notice and generate the visitors it needs is a regularly updated blog and new information uploading as often as everyday. Search engines love these kinds of blogs because it means the website is not stagnant. It should be as lively and active as possible to welcome visitors converted to customers and profit. Contents is very valuable so be sure what you upload is useful chunks of information.

Once you have created relationships with your clients, you are now ready to incorporate more to your blog to help accumulate profits. You can join affiliate programs that will allow you to sell products through links found in your blog. Commission will start pouring in. You can also ask for donations to help you maintain your blog.

If you have taken care of a stable, steady flow of traffic (visitors) to your site, you can provide advertising spaces for your blogs and advertisers will pay you. An example of which is the use of Google Adsense wherein Google ads will be posted on your blog site. And for every click of the ad, you will get your share of the pay.

Sounds pretty interesting to earn more, right?

Wait till you here more of how to make money from blogs.

1. Adsense from Google Mentioned from the previous paragraph, is indeed a very good way to use your blog as a place for advertisements.

2. Books or ebooks This is also an additional way to attract visitors in your website by recommending libraries where you found the books you have read and would like to share. By making your blog site interactive, you can ask people to read some of the books and encourage them to give their reviews, suggestions and comments. Amazon affiliate links will link all the recommended books.

3. Donations You may ask for donations though the possibilities are slim. Amazon and Paypal services utilizes the honor system that you might want to imitate and develop more. Set up goals for this, on how you go about raising your profit on your own.

4. Hosting other ads You may want to try blogads. This is the most cost-effective way to generate income and reach more audience.

5. Merchandise You can provide giveaways and merchandises to your customers especially if they are consistent with their purchases and visits. Suggestions of products are mugs, pens, shirts and keychains. Produce them with logos of your company.

6. eMinimalls Sophisticated form of ads that provides more information than other ads.

7. Learn your market Know what they need, want and demand. Get their ideas using online surveys. Ask them to answer the surveys.

8. Content is crucial Be sure that all your articles in the blog are informative and very useful so that people will be attracted to your site and convince them to purchase. Update yourself constantly with information.

9. Affiliate Programs If you opt to sell other people s products, you can join affiliates programs closely related to your site and business. Affiliates do not sell the products but instead warm-up customers so that as soon as they arrived on the site of the merchant, they have an open frame of mind to buy the products.

10. Sell your blog This is possible as long as your blog has what it takes or you can buy other blogs yourself for purpose of business. Choose blogs that are already established and has steady flow of traffic.

Now, you can have a personl journal and at the same time make money out of it.

About the author:

Daegan Smith the owner of Net MLM Articles and the leader of the fastest growing team of successful home business enterpernuers on the net. Find out how we're creating financial freedom all across the globe and how to get in on the action FREE =>http://www.comlev.com
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Shorten Your Blogging-RSS Learning and Submission Curve

2006-06-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

Shorten Your Blogging-RSS Learning and Submission Curve
by Robert Hart

A blog is a frequent, online publication of comments, web links, and news. It is an online Enzine of sorts. People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with automated published systems, most notably is blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger alone.

So start your blog now and be ahead of the crowd for a change. A secret I'll share with you here before going any further is after you set up your blog goto FeedBurner and follow the instructions to burn your feed. Then publicize your feed by inserting the msn and yahoo chicklets to your blog.

I know it sounds complicated but if you can follow simple instructions and cut and paste it should only take a few minutes. Caution you must be familiar with HTML so as not to make mistakes. If you're not sure ask a friend. This info is for you if you're familiar with the web - if you're a newbie it'll take a bit longer to implement

Once the chicklets are installed onto your blog, login to them using your yahoo and msn id's and add them to your my msn and my yahoo templates. From then on when you make an entry to your blog it'll automatically log itself onto msn and yahoo and broadcast itself to the web in addition to your rss feeds. Once this is done goto PingOMatic and ping your blog to be indexed within days; not weeks or months.

Here are the reasons you should not ignore Blog advertising:

Remember when all search engines were free, and simply submitting your web sites got you listed quickly? Gone.

Then it was FFA pages, they brought in a ton of free traffic, built links to your site, and added to your mailing list like crazy. Tried one lately? Safelists were an online goldmine for a while... until bottom less email accounts were introduced.

Website sumbmissions now can take anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks to be indexed. While blogs and rss feeds can be indexed anywhere from 2-8 days which is better for you??

So once again I implore you to be one of the first in line and not be last again. This is the new trend just beginning to breakthrough. A few years or months from now you'll be able to sit back and smile as you watch the rest of the net stampeding to catch up.

Robert Hart
Affiliate website marketer, Info Broker, Webinar Moderator, Author
Dataminer Advantage I've a background in I/T and telecom and been in affiliate marketing for 6 yrs
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How To Avoid Blog Burnout

2006-06-27T03:58:00.000-07:00

Blogging is a time consuming process. Bloggers are also extremely passionate about what they do. But there's only so much time in the day and only so much abuse a body can take. So how do you avoid becoming a burned-out business blogger?

Blogging is a time consuming process. It involves the process of gathering, reading, digesting and compiling information into a nice, meaty post that gives your reader an insight into the unique way you see and understand issues.

Most serious business bloggers have at least two or three blogs that they write simultaneously. I have ten, but don't update all regularly.

Bloggers are also extremely passionate about what they do. Their blogs are a labour of love and they often tend to lose track of time, reading, writing and updating their blogs.

But there's only so much time in the day and only so much abuse a body can take. So how do you avoid becoming a burned-out business blogger?

Here are a few tips to help keep you and your blog(s) fuelled up and running for the long haul.

1. Get your priorities right

Is starting a new blog really going to help your business (or personal) objectives? If not, then don't. Simple as that. Save your energy for the tasks that help you achieve your objectives.

2. Discard the chaff

Do you have blogs that are not "hot" anymore? If you have a blog that's not getting much traffic or is about a topic that no one wants to read about anymore, give it a quiet burial.

3. Grow up

Are you continuing to blog (whether it serves your purpose or not) out of some misplaced emotional attachment to your blog? Then you probably need a 12-step program.

Lots of blogs are abandoned everyday because they stopped serving their purpose, or more often, because the bloggers just grew up and moved to greener pastures.

Find more appropriate ways to spend your time or promote your business.

4. Get a life

Blogs are a poor substitute for family and friends. We bloggers tend to take our loved ones for granted because we work from home (and anywhere else we can). Its important to schedule our day to make time for family, especially when there are children around.

5. Get "un-wired"

In order to keep the ideas coming you need to do things that nurture your mind and body. Shut down your PC and get away from it for a while.

Go for a movie, take a walk in the park, workout in the gym. Get out of the house and get some fresh air. You'll be amazed at how easy (and fun) it can be it to get your creative juices flowing again.

6. Give yourself a break

If you missed blogging about something important because you had something else equally pressing to attend to, don't beat yourself up over it. Stick to a realistic blogging schedule.

Nothing is so important that it can't wait a day or two. Sometimes rocrastination is not a bad thing at all. If it helps, write a bunch of posts at a time, so you can take a break and attend to other matters when you need to.

7. Quality, not quantity

Blog frequently, but not too often. Most bloggers will agree that two or three posts a week is a pretty good frequency. I usually manage to make that grade, but never push myself more than I have to.

The key is to make your posts count. Don't post about anything and everything in your field just because you have to.

Posts that are original, meaty and full of opinion are more likely to get read and linked to than posts that are just a few words with a link to the news source.

So if you're beginning to forget what your family looks like, if you think blogging is taking over your life, and your sanity, step back a bit and get things in perspective.

Stop letting your blogs rule your life.

As for me, when it's a choice between the blog and the beach, the latter wins hands down.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Priya Shah is the CEO of eBrand360 and publishes an internet marketing newsletter . Her areas of specialization include search engine optimization and business blogging. Subscribe to her free Blogging eCourse.

This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.

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Blogging for Profits

2006-06-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

Bloging (the act of writing to a blog) has become one of the fastest growing trends this year and many internet gurus believe that this is the new biggest trend. Well, you might ask yourself what is the big deal I don't even know what a blog is?

To put it simply a blog is a big deal because it can mean a lot of money for you. First, lets define what a blog is then I will get to the good stuff the money and riches! Blog is short for web log, it is just the two words pushed together. You can kind of think of it like a Captains log on a ship, or a diary. It is a quick and easy way to add content to the web with out having to use html. It is instant, quick and really easy.

Now you might ask yourself why would I want to keep my diary online? It basically is a great way to make money. Let me explain that in a little more detail. For most search engines there are two major factors in how well you rank, first is the content of your site and second are the links to your site. Meaning the more key word focused content and the more links you have the higher you will rank in the search engine. We all know it does not pay to be listed number 1 million out of 5 million for a keyword. So everyone is competing for the top 10 spots. Well, the quickest and easiest way to rank above the others is to add tons of key word focused helpful content to your site. The more value you add to the internet the more value you will get out of it. So you can help yourself by helping others and providing knowledge for free in the form of content. A blog creates a very easy way to publish this content because it will publish your content tot he web as soon as you are done typing and best of all there are no html skills required. In fact you can blog for free which I will talk about in article 2. Secondly a blog is a great way to use some basic linking strategies that will help get your site into the search engines. So by setting up a blog you can quickly publish high quality key word focused content and you can include tons of great links to your site.

So let me quickly recap for you why you want to blog. A blog provides a quick, often free way to publish your content on the web and an easy way to link to your website for more traffic. These are important for any webmaster that wants to make money because it all converts to more traffic to your website and more traffic means more people purchasing your product.

So now that you know what a blog is and why blogging is such a great thing you probably want to know how to get started blogging right now! That will be covered in Blogging For Profit The series #2.

About The Author

This article was written by: Chris Ryerson who is the owner and designer of over 10 sites that are currently on the web. If you are interested in reading this article and other articles like it you can go to http://www.crowntemplates.com/articles. You may also want to check out the wide variety of Templates and Free Webmaster tools at Crown Templates.

marketing@crowntemplates.com
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The Buzz About Blogs

2006-06-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

The blogosphere is continuing to grow at an amazing pace. In fact, the number of published blogs is expected to double about every five months.

Right now, there is a new blog published every second, according to Technorati, the search engine that keeps track of Weblogs. In March there were over 7 million blogs, that number is now over 14 million.

Weblogs have become the homepages of the 21st century and are used for everything from sharing recipes, personal opinions and travel adventures, to the latest in political and economic news.

Blogs are also facing their share of controversy and praise. Reporters Without Borders recently published their short list of the seven best blogs out of 60, which won the Freedom Blog Awards for defending freedom of expression.

Winners (who are chosen by the public who vote for their favorite blogs) included Shared Pains which describes life in Afghan, and Mojtaba Saminejad, an Iranian whose blog is published in the Farsi language. (He received a two-year prison sentence in 2005 because of his blog). Another winner, Jeff Ooi, publishes the Malaysian blog Screenshots which is in English. Because he allowed a comment on his blog back in 2004 which reportedly insulted Islam according to authorities, he was also threatened with imprisonment.

This award marks the first year for the event, but Reporters Without Borders hopes to make it an annual one. The organization follows and reports on freedom of the press around the world.

In oppressive countries, such as Iran (which shut down almost all independent newspapers in 2000), blogs have provided a way for journalists and others to express themselves and share the latest news and happenings. But speaking up in such places often has serious consequences, such as one blogger in Iraq who was jailed by authorities after speaking up about what was simply a local problem.

China is another repressive area. Recently Chinese authorities declared that all bloggers had to register their blogs with them, or risk being shut down.

To help combat these and similar problems around the world, organizations are being set up to provide global support among bloggers for those who are being repressed.

One of the biggest controversies right now, is whether bloggers should receive journalistic status. Some people see blogs and bloggers as a kind of counterbalance to what they see as media arrogance, while others call them vigilantes. Recent events with Newsweek, CBS News and others have caused a division between the main stream media (MSM) and bloggers who feel the truth is out there and they want it told.

One thing both bloggers and the mainstream media agree on, is that things have been forever changed. The tools of mass media are no longer the property of the press alone, they re also freely available to the people. What that means to us in the future, or what changes blogs will bring about to the way we receive and act on the news we get, no one really knows.

Not as controversial, blogs have also become a mainstream tool of large and small businesses everywhere.

Blogging provides a simple and low-cost method for businesses to stay in touch with their customers, get free publicity and build a business brand.

As technology continues to evolve, and the number of blogs continues to rise, it remains to be seen whether blogging will remain an effective business and marketing tool. But one thing is for certain blogs are here to stay.

About the Author

Sandra Stammberger is the owner of Insider Scripts. At Insider Script's programmers are working around the clock to develop affordable, powerful money making scripts that will help you drive traffic to your business. http://www.insider-scripts.com

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Embarrassing Employee Blogging And What It's Telling Corporate America

2006-06-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

Nothing has embarrassed and worried corporate America in recent years the way anonymous employee blogging has. In fact if executives have nightmares and wake up in the middle of the night in panic and sweating, then that nightmare is bound to be about employees blogging some devastating corporate secrets.

These anonymous tell-all blogs always manage to pick up huge audiences within a very short time. In recent times, internal tensions within well known companies have quickly become public knowledge. A few of these companies have made things worse by firing these bloggers when they have been discovered, only for them to become celebrities and to quickly land plum jobs elsewhere, leaving their previous employer suffering backlash from the public.

But even as we dread the anonymous and damaging blogging, it is useful to ask a few questions.

For instance, what drives an employee to anonymous blogging? What kind of corporate environment forces the hand of this new breed of blogger?

These are interesting questions that should be answered with great honesty by many company executives in these organizations that have suffered damage from bloggers within. And more so from many others who fear just such a repercussion. This is because many of these blogs are really about ideas for improvements at the companies. Many of the ideas brought forward seem to be workable and the sort of great suggestions that many corporations can greatly benefit from.

While we cannot rule out some of the bloggers being nothing more than troublemakers, it is important to ask ourselves if we have done enough to create an environment that allows for the free flow of ideas from our people without victimization. Or have we just paid lip service to the process. Why should an employee with an open line of communication in the company choose instead to go the route of the anonymous blogger?

There is a lot that anonymous blogging is saying to corporate America. But are we listening?

Copyright 2005 Chuck Yorke - All Rights Reserved

About the author:

Chuck Yorke is an organizational development and performance improvement specialist, trainer, consultant and speaker. He is co-author of "All You Gotta Do Is Ask," a book which explains how to promote large numbers of ideas from employees. Chuck may be reached at chuck@peoplekaizen.com http://www.peoplekaizen.com/
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Blog-based Sites vs. Traditional Sites

2006-06-22T19:20:00.000-07:00

Blog-based Sites vs. Traditional Sites

So you want a website for your business. Why should you use a blogging tool rather than a page-based content management tool?

Blog-based sites have a number of advantages over a traditional static site or a site driven by page-based content management systems.

Blog-based Sites:

Build Credibility:
Research shows that business build credibility on the web by showing that there is a real company and real people behind the website.

Blogs make it easier to be more personable. No, there's no "be personable" button or checkbox in a blogging interface that would force you to abandon third-person corporate speak, come out from behind the curtain, and be personable on your web site. Many businesses are simply using blogging tools to power their press or news room area on a traditional website, taking advantage of blogs low costs, highly usable interface, RSS feeds, built-in archiving, etc.

But blogging does encourage a first-person, more "business-casual" style than a traditional website, mostly due to bloggings roots as a personal online journal. The Cluetrain Manifesto's main point was that with the advent of the Internet, markets are now conversations. Blogs are perfect tools for allowing and encouraging businesses to be part of that conversation.

Businesses that use blogs to reveal themselves as real people with names, faces, opinions, interests -- and yes, some flaws -- will ultimately be more successful online that those who choose to remain faceless, nameless, and third-person.

Are Able to Handle Smaller Chunks of Content:
This is a tough one to get your head around. Typically we think of websites as a collection of "pages", linked together by a navigation bar. Many CMS systems support this paradigm - you log in, find your "page" and edit the content that exists on that page. Pages become the "unit of measure" for a site - if someone asked you how big your site is, you'd answer with the number of pages it contains.

The unit of measure for blog content is a "post". Each new entry is a post, and usually contains (at the minimum) a title and a body. Sometimes there is also an "extended entry", which is used when you see a "Read More" link.

Typically the home page for a blog is a collection of the most recent posts. Each post might also have it's own unique page - otherwise known as a permalink. Posts often get assigned to a category, and a category might have it's own "page" that contains links to all the posts in that category.

But a post might also be a product in an online catalog, a single link in a list of favorite sites, one event in a historical timeline, or contain an image that gets randomized in the site header. A single web "page" may contain posts or lists of posts from one or multiple weblogs. Sidebar content chunks may come from a seperate weblog than the main site content. One post might contain your site copyright date that gets used on every page in the site.

By breaking the traditional "page model" of websites, blogging tools offer the capability of serving up a variety of content types, entered and maintained through a single interface. Adding a product to the online catalog can use the same interface and process as a new image header or a new chunk of content.

Smaller chunks of content are also more resuable. A single product might get pulled from a product catalog and featured in the sidebar of another page. One event of a corporate timeline might get randomized into a "related information" section on a products or services page.

Are More Likely To Be Updated:
Well, maybe. ;) With a blog-based site there is really no excuse for not having up to date content - all you need to do is put a title and some body text into some fields, and click "Update". The site will handle all the navigation changes, page additions, archiving, categorizing, etc. Posts can be smaller than typical web pages, so it doesn't matter how small your update or news item is, stick it on the site.

Are More Affordable:
Depending on what blogging tool you choose, $300 can buy you a software license and a year of hosting. And no, that's not limited by users or seats or CPU's. And yes, that includes email and server traffic reporting tools, etc. Try to beat that deal with any halfway capable commercial content management system.

Are More Search Engine Friendly:
The blog development community keeps a closer eye on search engine optimization than the page-based CMS developers. When Google announced their new sitemap program, there were add-ins for Moveable Type and ExpressionEngine available that day. URL structures, semantic markup, permalinks, RSS Feeds, other blogs linking to you...these all drive search engine positioning.

Blogging also offers the advantage of building a site with a larger footprint. Imagine how large your site would be if you updated it weekly or daily with something new about your area of expertise? Google sees over 800 "pages" of content here on Boyink.com, a distinct competitive advantage over a similar company who puts a 12 page site online and never adds to it.

Are More Scalable:
What would happen to your website if you actually started to add content daily? How long would the current navigational model hold up? Would your menu bars be able to accomodate a new chunk of content every day?

Blog sites are designed, by nature to hold an ever-increasing amount of content. Many blogs add new content weekly or even daily. Blogs use date and category archives as scalable containers for this content.

Are More Likely to be Standards-Based:
Blogging tools have appeared on the scene in the last 3-4 years, so don't have the table-based legacy that older CMS systems have to work through. Blog designers also wanted their sites to be easily "skinnable" or personalized, and being based on CSS makes that easier to do.

Are History-Builders:
By not deleting "old" content, blogs can build a corporate history. For some companies this is a requirement -- a corporate lawyer might need to know what was on your site two years ago as part of litigation. Do you have backups of your current site?

A searchable corporate history might also prove useful to new employees - giving them a sense for how the company came to be where it is today.

About the Author

Michael Boyink specializes in developing blog-based business websites, Internet Strategy and Information Architecture.

Find out how your company can 'Get Boyinked!' by visiting www.boyink.com.
Blog Blog Bloggingto the bank Blogging

Blogging Is a Good Thing

2006-06-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

In the 'good old days' - about three years ago - you used to keep in-touch with your customers using phone calls, email messages and face to face meetings. Nowadays the world has changed. People expect even more frequent updates, yet it's nearly impossible to meet with every business contact on a regular basis.

Thankfully, blogging has come to the rescue. Setting up a blog on your web site - and having an associated RSS feed - means you can keep in constant touch with your clients and potential customers. Plus you don't have to email them and they can get your latest news without having to visit your web site.

Whenever you add new content to your blog, the RSS Feed automatically gets updated in everyone's Reader program or web browser. That means you are guaranteed to be able to keep in touch with clients and prospects. You don't have to do anything other than produce the content. Equally, you don't face the problems of email filters and anti-spam programs blocking your email. Furthermore, people tend to read RSS Feeds because they have subscribed to them whereas they tend to ignore non urgent emails.

As you can see, there are several advantages to Blogs and RSS Feeds. But it doesn't stop there. Search engines love them. That's because blogs provide fresh and new content - precisely what searchers are looking for. Hence the search engines are actively pushing blogs higher up the search engine ranking. This means if you don't have a blog for your business, you are seriously reducing your chances of a high search engine ranking. You need a blog nowadays to get noticed by the search engines

So how does this all work? A blog is really a fancy name for a web page that gets updated regularly. It's nothing special. There are several methods of writing 'blogs', but they are nothing more than computer programs which allow you to easily update a web page. Far and away the easiest way to start a blog is with a website called blogger.com.

However, for keeping in touch with your customers, RSS is the key. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. What this means is that your blog can be automatically delivered to people who want to read it - you don't have to send it to them and neither do they have to come and collect it. All they need is the address of your RSS Feed and their RSS Newsreader can do the job for them. There are several RSS readers available and new web browsers incorporate the ability to read RSS feeds and keep them updated.

So, blogging is essential. Not only does it improve your web presence, it also means you can keep in touch with clients and prospects more easily. And all the marketing research you can find will tell you that keeping in regular touch with your customers is an important component in gaining new business. So get blogging!

About the author:

Jim Mack is a success coach, mentor and business leader that walks the walk and talks the talk. He has built several successful businesses and now teaches others to do the same http://www.passivecashcow.com http://www.whoisjimmack.com http://www.probuilderpluspowerteam.com
Blog Blog Bloggingto the bank Blogging

Embarrassing Employee Blogging And What It's Telling Corporate America

2006-06-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

The Problem With Blogs

2006-06-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

Millions of people use blogs to share their thoughts with the world. While this means an unprecedented level of free speech, there are two sides to the blogging coin.

People have been recording daily experiences and opinions for thousands of years. What is new is the potential to have a global network of readers.

It s easy. Register on a free blogging tool on the web. Set up your blog and write away to your heart s content.

Many blogs never interest anyone except their authors.

Others attract massive audiences with genuinely interesting content, such as battlefield reports by United States soldiers in Iraq.

Some have high profile publishers, like corporations and marketers who use them to create dialogs with their markets and constituencies.

Blogs are probably the ultimate free press. The flipside is that as quantity increases, quality can decrease.

Bloggers publish without the editorial control under which journalists work. They can churn out self-indulgent ramblings that add no value to anything.

Professional writers cringe when they see the web becoming a showcase for amateur work.

Is this really a problem? On balance, no.

The ability to communicate freely is important. Let bloggers write what they like. We are all free to choose what we want to read and believe.

About The Author

James Bull is a website content writer in Perth, Australia. This is one of his weekly Bull's Rant series of free articles about websites, business and society.

You are welcome to use this article if you make no changes, include a link to www.jamesbull.com.au and acknowledge James Bull as the author.

james@jamesbull.com.au
Blog Blog Bloggingto the bank Blogging

Why Blogging Is Essential To Your Business

2006-06-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

In the 'good old days' - about three years ago - you used to keep in-touch with your customers using phone calls, email messages and face to face meetings. Nowadays the world has changed. People expect even more frequent updates, yet it's nearly impossible to meet with every business contact on a regular basis.

Thankfully, blogging has come to the rescue. Setting up a blog on your web site - and having an associated RSS feed - means you can keep in constant touch with your clients and potential customers. Plus you don't have to email them and they can get your latest news without having to visit your web site.

So how does this all work? A blog is really a fancy name for a web page that gets updated regularly. It's nothing special. There are several methods of writing 'blogs', but they are nothing more than computer programs which allow you to easily update a web page. Far and away the easiest way to start a blog is with a website called blogger.com.

However, for keeping in touch with your customers, RSS is the key. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. What this means is that your blog can be automatically delivered to people who want to read it - you don't have to send it to them and neither do they have to come and collect it. All they need is the address of your RSS Feed and their RSS Newsreader can do the job for them. There are several RSS readers available and new web browsers incorporate the ability to read RSS feeds and keep them updated.

Why Blogging is Essential to Your Business

Whenever you add new content to your blog, the RSS Feed automatically gets updated in everyone's Reader program or web browser. That means you are guaranteed to be able to keep in touch with clients and prospects. You don't have to do anything other than produce the content. Equally, you don't face the problems of email filters and anti-spam programs blocking your email. Furthermore, people tend to read RSS Feeds because they have subscribed to them. Whereas they tend to ignore non urgent emails.

As you can see, there are several advantages to Blogs and RSS Feeds. But it doesn't stop there. Search engines love them. That's because blogs provide fresh and new content - precisely what searchers are looking for. Hence the search engines are actively pushing blogs higher up the search engine ranking. This means if you don't have a blog for your business, you are seriously reducing your chances of a high search engine ranking. You need a blog nowadays to get noticed by the search engines.

So, blogging is essential. Not only does it improve your web presence, it also means you can keep in touch with clients and prospects more easily. And all the marketing research you can find will tell you that keeping in regular touch with your customers is an important component in gaining new business. So get blogging!

About the Author: Chet Holcomb of http://www.internetpromotions.biz is a successful marketing expert providing advice for web marketers and webmasters on how to promote your website, or product using marketing tools that work.

Source: www.isnare.com
Blog Blog Bloggingto the bank Blogging

10 Tips for Bloggers

2006-06-18T23:07:00.000-07:00

Tips for creating a blog.
There are no hard and fast rules on how to blog. Having said that, bloggers will likely increase their exposure by following some simple blog guidelines.

1.) Stay on topic.
Opinions are generally accepted but the content of the items in the blog should all relate to a general theme. Unless you have an uncanny knack for wit, humor or cynicism, the majority of your readers will be interested in the content that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined area of interest. Most readers won't care that you eat Cheerios for breakfast. They may, however, be interested in the fact that vinegar takes out stains and that toilet paper rolls make great wreaths. Define a topic and stick to it. This will ensure that you create a loyal following of interested readers.

2.) Stay informative.
If you are attempting to create the impression that you are knowledgeable about a specific industry or sector, be sure that you stay current on news. If you are endorsing a product or voicing an opinion, be sure to check your facts; your reputation is at stake. If you are offering an opinion, be sure to qualify your post, making it clear that the content is intended as an editorial.

3.) Old news is not news.
While blogging every day can be a drain, it is important that the information presented is current and accurate, writing an article or blurb about something that happened 6 months ago, will not be of interest to many. Telling your audience that Martha Stewart was convicted and will be going to prison, after her sentence is completed will make people question the value of your columns.

4.) Adhere to a schedule.
Create a schedule and stick to it. Realizing that blogging requires time and effort, don't create unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver. An occasional lapse or holiday is generally understood but readers returning to find stale, out-dated content are going to find another blog with similar content. New blogs and RSS feeds are popping up on a daily basis. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and a community you don't want to lose them due to lack of communication.

5.) Clarity and simplicity.
Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy to understand. Remember, the web is global and expressions, idioms and acronyms don't always translate. Sometimes a little explanation goes a long way.

6.) Keyword-rich.
If the goal of your blog is to increase your visibility, include related keywords in the title of the blog. Use the title as a headline to attract interest. Each item post should have a title that will attract attention but still be relevant to the post. The title should be no longer than 10-12 words.

7.) Quantity matters.
In order to attract the attention of search engines, you will need to develop content and substance. A headline or simple sentence is not going to generate the interest of readers or help with search engine ranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop a large portal of similarly-themed content.

8.) Frequency.
If your blog content is updated frequently, search engines will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals.

9.) Spell checking and proof-reading.
It only takes a few extra moments and can save you from having to make embarrassing explanations. Remember that whatever you publish on the Internet can be found and archived. Think carefully about what you post before doing so.

10.) RSS.
RSS will increase your blog's reach. It is important that you include your blog's content in an RSS feed to increase readership and distribution.

Most weblog audiences are small, but with time and regular updates audiences grow. Bloggers may never have more than a few hundred readers, but the people who return to regularly are generally interested in what you have to say.

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing and publishing RSS feeds and NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software.

-
'Blogs' or 'Blogging' have existed for several years and there are still many people who don't know what one is and how important it is to making you money.

A blog is a web log. It's used to add contents of a diary or news by the owner (blogger). For example, I may want to blog about the latest affiliate programs there are and ones that have good commissions as soon as I know about them. People can visit my website and see new contents on my website regularly.

A blog should contain information about a similar topic. For example, cars, computers, stamps etc... The good thing about blogs is that you can write whatever you want on it. Your visitors can even comment on what they think about a particular blog. With a blog you do not need to have any programming experience. You can update a blog easily by just typing what you want just like with a word processor. What an easy way to update a website.

So now we know what a blog is, what's so good about a blog? Why are so many talking about it?

Owners have found that updating fresh content to their websites has been made easier by using blogging software. Before blogs were popular, people had to create the content, get it transferred into HTML by the programmer, and then uploaded to the website. All this hassle is gone with blogging.

Perhaps, the most important thing about having a blog is that the search engines love them. Yes, search engines love new content. It means a website is not static, therefore search engines will visit that website often and get them indexed. If you have a blog, search engines will have your website in their listings quickly.

Blogging should be done regularly by your business. The customers should have the feeling that your blog will be updated regularly so that they will feel the need to visit often. If your blog is stagnant, then people will not go back. This is not how blogs are used.

What a lot of people don't know about blogging is that it can also help make you money. Yes - blogs can be profitable too.

One of the ways you can profit from blogs is to provide valuable content to them, and keep them regularly informed. Once you have created that relationship with them, you can place affiliate links within your blogs. These have to be products or services that you recommend to your readers to use. Good commission comes with using this idea.

You can even ask your readers to donate money to maintain your blog. Stress that your blog is a free service and you hope that they will support you etc...

Once you have a lot of visitors to your blogging website, you can use Google's Adsense which shows Google's ads on your blogs. When your visitors click on those ads, you'll get a percentage of the payment for each click. With a lot of visitors, this will add up to a nice check every month.

You can even have an advertising space at the top of your blog. Advertise this space. You can charge people weekly to advertise what they want. You may even have more than one space for advertisements. The more popular and more visitors your blog gets, the more you can charge for these advertising spaces.

The blog http://www.home-business-setup.com shows the ways in which money can be made which I've discussed throughout this article. Notice the AdSense at the top of the page and also the text link which other people will pay for once they know the blog gets traffic.

Just shows that there are so many ways to profit from blogging that it would be crazy if we don't start now.

About the Author

Alan Cheng, is the owner of Online Money Machine, the system to help start a profitable internet business. Sign up for the Exclusive Report "10 Critical Factors to Making Money Online" at http://www.onlinemoneymachine.com

Marketing With Blogs - Part 3

2006-06-18T01:29:00.000-07:00

Copyright 2005 Priya Shah

In part 1 and part 2 of this article series on marketing with blogs, I discussed the reasons why blogs are excellent tools for marketing, and provided some tips on using your blog to sell your products and services online.

This article continues with more tips on using your blog to brand yourself and boost your reputation online.

Tip #4: Use Your Blog To Inform, Share and Entertain

The reasons why they read your blog is because they want three things.

1. They want information
2. They want to be entertained
3. They want to get to know you better

The reason why blogs are so popular with internet users is because they allow us to combine all these possibilities in a single medium.

Use your personality, opinions, expressions as a way of drawing readers to your content, and create good information to keep them coming back.

Multimedia blogs are especially good for this purpose because they entertain and that adds a viral component to your marketing.

Remember to always be yourself. Don t put on a fake persona. If you hire someone to blog for you be upfront about it.

#5: Become A Source Of News In Your Industry

Blogging culture thrives on linking to others blogs or news sources.

If you want to be part of that culture, benefit from it and grow with it, you need to listen to what others are saying, form your own opinions and comment on that.

Your readers will start looking to you as a resource of news and opinions about the industry you represent and that builds your brand equity.

But always remember to give proper attribution to your sources and be clear when you are quoting from someone or you could get into trouble.

#7: Use Your Blog To Network

Networking helps you build up a list of people who know and trust you enough to refer business to you.

By linking with others, whether A-list bloggers or your own peers, you can build your own influence and reputation in your blogosphere.

In part 4 of this article series, I provide tips on using your blog help you boost your marketing ROI and visibility online.
http://www.blog-maniac.com/marketing-with-blogs4.htm

About the Author

Priya Shah is the CEO of eBrand360 http://www.ebrand360.com She writes the Marketing Slave blog http://marketingslave.com and publishes an internet marketing newsletter http://www.ebizwhiz.biz. Subscribe to her free Business Blogging eCourse. http://www.blog-maniac.com

This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked. -
Copyright 2005 Stephen Wright

The methods by which we use to contact each other, especially in internet marketing activities continue to undergo dramatic transformation. In the not to distant past (only a couple of years ago!) we kept in touch with customers - existing or potential new ones, using the telephone, fax machines, direct mail marketing and even in-person meetings. Today, people expect more frequent updates, new information, and the latest of everything. So much so that it is literally impossible to keep up with this dizzying pace and certainly not on a continuing or ongoing basis with any consistency. Thankfully, blogging has come to the rescue. Setting up a blog on your web site - and having an associated RSS feed - means you can keep in constant touch with your clients and potential customers. Plus you don't have to email them and they can get your latest news without having to visit your web site.

So how does this all work? A blog is really a fancy name for a web page that gets updated regularly. It's nothing special. There are several methods of writing 'blogs', but they are nothing more than computer programs which allow you to easily update a web page. Far and away the easiest way to start a blog is with a popular blog website. One example is called blogger.com.

However, for keeping in touch with your customers, RSS is the key. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. What this means is that your blog can be automatically delivered to people who want to read it - you don't have to send it to them and neither do they have to come and collect it. All they need is the address of your RSS Feed and their RSS Newsreader can do the job for them. There are several RSS readers available and new web browsers incorporate the ability to read RSS feeds and keep them updated.

Whenever you add new content to your blog, the RSS Feed automatically gets updated in everyone's Reader program or web browser. That means you are guaranteed to be able to keep in touch with clients and prospects. You don't have to do anything other than produce the content. Equally, you don't face the problems of email filters and anti-spam programs blocking your email. Furthermore, people tend to read RSS Feeds because they have subscribed to them whereas they tend to ignore non urgent emails.

After a small amount of basic research and reading, you will quickly see, there are numerous advantages to Blogs and RSS Feeds. One of the biggest reasons is that search engines love them. This is because blogs provide fresh and new content - precisely the thing that searchers are looking for. Hence the search engines are actively pushing blogs higher up the search engine ranking. What this means to internet marketers is that if you don't have a blog for your business, you are potentially reducing your chances of a high search engine ranking. You need a blog nowadays to get noticed by the search engines.

For all the reasons mentioned above (and many, many more), blogging is essential. Not only does it improve your web presence, it also means you can keep in touch with clients and prospects more easily. All the marketing research you can find will tell you that regular contact with your customers is a vital component in retaining existing clients, as well as gaining new business. Don't put it off any longer; it is time to get your blog going---today!

About the author:

Stephen Wright is President & CEO of InternetMarketing.com Get everything you need to make money online in "Dotcomology: The Science of Making Money Online". Includes Over 30 Time-Saving, Profit-Producing, Influence-Expanding Tools And Software Programs Absolutely Free at: http://www.InternetMarketingUSA.com/dotcomology.html

How to Get Featured in the Media

2006-06-16T04:27:00.000-07:00

There are several ways to get yourself or your business featured in the media, each requiring different skills, efforts, and/or costs. If you'd like to experience the benefits of publicity, here are your ways in.

1) Do Nothing.

That is, do nothing specifically for publicity. If you're running a professional business that's got some visibility already, the media may stumble across you while writing a feature story, and they may want your input for the story.

I actually found my way onto NPR this way once when they were doing a story on love letters. As a writer for hire, I was briefly interviewed about being hired to write love letters for other people and I was quoted within their show.

More recently, a newswire writer quoted me in a story on wedding speeches since I write these for people (http://www.speechcrafter.com), and this appeared in a number of newspapers. And most recently, a writer for a high-traffic blog was interested to know more about ghostwriting, so I got an exclusive feature story (in the form of an interview) about my site, http://www.writerforyou.com.

Relying on the media to find you, though, means missing out on a lot of potential publicity. What follows are more active approaches.

2) Become an Expert Source.

As you can see in #1 above, media look for experts to feature in their stories. Get yourself into an expert source database and the media can more easily find you. Databases include:

http://www.profnet.com

http://www.prleads.com

http://www.prvade.com

The first two offer more traffic and cost more. The latter costs less and has less traffic, but also offers other benefits.

3) Send Out Press Releases.

If you can write a solid press release, you have some solid news or a great story angle, and you send the release out through the right channels at the right time, you can indeed get publicity with this approach.

Of course there's plenty to learn about each of those elements, and a lot of so-called experts make some grave errors about their approaches to writing and distribution. If you're doing this yourself, take the time to read through several sources to get a balanced viewpoint in how to do this.

If you're hiring someone, make sure to ask some questions. Ask for definitions of hard news, soft news, and feature stories. Ask their opinions about what can be sent out as a press release. Ask if they can explain the difference between traditional newswires and modern "Direct PR" newswires (such as PR Web). Can they compare results between the two?

You may not know the answers to these questions ahead of time, but if you're asking a few professionals, you could get a good education and find out who seems the best bet for helping you.

4) Query the Media Directly.

If you have specific media you want to get into, there's no point in sending out general press releases. After all, a general release is up against a LOT of competition and costs hard cash.

Figure out who your target audience reads, watches, or listens to, then approach those media. Pitch an article in which you can educate the audience and get a byline (much like with this article), or ask if you can send in a press release (and how they'd like to receive it).

Getting in touch with editors directly gives you better odds for success and, since you don't face the cost of press release distribution in this case, you can save a lot of money and potentially get more exposure.

Hopefully this is a good introduction to your paths to publicity. You can learn more about various forms of publicity and how to use them through a free e-mail course at http://www.prvade.com/ecourse.html.

About the Author

Steve McCardell owns and writes for PRvade (http://www.prvade.com). PRvade provides an Expert Source database as well as writing and distribution of press releases, feature stories, and articles. They also provide exposure for clients through widely distributed online articles. -

WTNH.com - Myths are abundant when it comes to caring for the American lawn . In this article, I'll address just a few in hope of setting the record straight. Myth One: Chemical fertilizers and insecticides are necessary in order to get golf green grass. In

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Blog sense

2006-06-16T03:01:00.000-07:00

Come here to post up to the minute info regarding google adsense, blogging and website traffic through blogs

Your Business Story In Leading Blogs And Article Directories Will Yield High Traffic in Hundreds of Thousands of Visitors

2006-06-16T01:59:00.001-07:00

Your Business Story In Leading Blogs And Article Directories Will Yield High Traffic in Hundreds of Thousands of Visitors

The whole world loves a good story well told. That's the real secret behind that best seller novel and that box-office smash hit movie. This deep human hunger for a good story has remained unchanged despite unprecedented technological advances.

If anything recent technological advances like the World Wide Web have only served to greatly increase the world's appetite for a good story.

Now imagine for a moment the story of your online business being spun into a best-selling yarn? There is little doubt that such a story would change your life. Yet that rags to riches Cinderella story of your online business is extremely easy to get published and get told with the objective of breaking all high traffic records to your site or blog. Thanks mainly to the World Wide Web and the doors it has opened wide.

This article that you are reading is an amazing rags-to-riches Cinderella story of how people's lives have been changed and how yours too can be transformed when you grasp the simple truth or secret about the power behind telling the story of your business in an article.

In other words merging content with an advertising message in such a way that the article does not look like an advertisement or promotion in any way is the most powerful marketing weapon any online business can use.

Remember the offline days when a brief article in the newspaper about a small business had such an impact that the business would no longer handle the clients that came their way? Remember the impact that a very brief mention of a business in the prime time news bulletin can have? The response that a mention in the editorial columns of a newspaper or magazine yields, has always been much higher and much bigger than the impact or response from an advertisement in the very same publication. This is the power of merging content with a marketing message which is what PR professionals and spin doctors get paid thousands of dollars to do.

The net makes it very easy for anybody to creatively merge captivating content with their ad message and get their useful article published on a high traffic site somewhere.

Where To Tell Your Story For Huge Profit

What does a best-selling book or box-office smash hit movie have in common? Answer; a huge audience. Publishing anything online is the easiest thing in the world, but what you really need is a huge audience for your story. Getting this huge audience is actually much easier than you think. All you really need to do is use other people's high traffic sites and suddenly, you have your huge audience.

For the purposes of this article, we will show you how to use two high traffic types of sites that will guarantee your article or story a huge potential audience. Namely a couple of high-traffic blogs and 10 high traffic article directories.

What Your Story/Article Must Do

Before we go into great detail about the specific sites where you should publish your story and the possible impact each of the top 10 sites will have on your business, we need to understand one very important truth in all this. Publishing your story at a high traffic site will not automatically give your story a huge audience. Just like publishing your novel is no guarantee that it will be a best seller.

So in order to get a huge audience for your published article, it must have the ingredients of a best seller. Then it must tell the story of your business so convincingly that most readers will be eager to visit your site or to get their hands on anything else that you have to say.

One recent article at a popular article directory had hits nearing 100,000 within a very short time. There is no doubt that that article was a best-seller. So what we need to seriously examine here, is what the ingredients of that article were or what makes a best-seller.

Once you know what makes a best-seller and are able to creatively merge useful content and your ad message into an article, the sky is the limit as to what sort of response or traffic that you can generate to your site.

What makes this best-seller game even more exciting online is that you can try to create a "best seller" every day or several times a day until you hit pay dirt. Most new writers or movie makers have only one chance.

About the Author

Christopher Kyalo is a successful online writer and entrepreneur who has mastered the art of merging valuable content and ad messages like he has done with this article. Read the second and final part of this story in his free ezine. You can get it by sending a blank email now to articlesrgold-subscribe@yahoogroups.com -

Bizjournals.com, NC - Jun 14, 2006The family of Philip Merrill has created a blog for people to respond with thoughts and memories of the missing publisher, whose sailboat was found adrift in ...
Source: www.bizjournals.com

AP Blog: 'Haboob' Scares Security Council
Washington Post, United States - Jun 14, 2006By The Associated Press. -- AP Correspondent Edith M. Lederer covers the United Nations and writes a weekly blog about what goes on behind the scenes. ...
Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Netscape reborn as blog-era news aggregator
Mumbai Mirror, India - 17 hours agoNew York: Netscape, which started life as a Web browser company and then evolved into a media destination site, is being reinvented once again to merge news ...
Source: www.mumbaimirror.com

eBay Live: New Tools and Guy on Evangelism
ECommerce-Guide, United States - 21 hours ago... of the attendees. "Talk about evangelistic people," he wrote on his blog, which also contains the audio to his speech. "I haven't ...
Source: www.ecommerce-guide.com

Zorak has a blog
TV Squad, CA - 17 hours agoWell, not really, but C. Martin Croker, who provided the voice of both Zorak and Moltar on Space Ghost: Coast to Coast has a blog, and it's quite interesting ...
Source: www.tvsquad.com

Mickey Plyler's Blog for June 15
TheTigerNet.com, SC - 17 hours ago... It is there patronage that keeps the blog free. If you are interested in great advertising opportunities on the blog contact me at mickeyplyler@hotmail.com. ...
Source: www.thetigernet.com

Guardian Unlimited: Organ Grinder
Guardian Unlimited, UK - 2 hours ago... oldest and largest advertising agency, JWT, is spending thousands of its clients' dollars in a high profile bid to bag the cachet of advertising on a blog. ...
Source: blogs.guardian.co.uk

Live Blog: England Vs. Trinidad & Tobago
Deadspin, NY - 21 hours agoHey, everybody, it s England! America, Sr.! This is the first weekday game for the Brits, but despite an opening victory over ...
Source: www.deadspin.com

Blog Affiliate Secrets

2006-06-16T01:59:00.000-07:00

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By simply placing the right affiliate links on their high traffic blog, many online entrepreneurs are making some very serious money.
Actually it is a lot simpler than you think because all a blog affiliate has to focus on to start generating a good income from their affiliate program is traffic. The more targeted that traffic arriving at their blog is, the more money they'll make from their affiliate programs. For instance targeted traffic will tend to click much more at the Adsense ads in search of more information and this will obviously put more money in the pockets of the blog affiliate.
The most effective way for a blog affiliate to generate targeted traffic is through articles marketing. By writing a couple of promotional articles, whose objective will be to direct traffic to the blog, a blog affiliate can end up with lots of highly targeted prospects at their blog. However it is important to note that articles marketing is a special skill that you will need to learn. The good news is that once you've acquired the relevant skills and knowledge, there will be no limit to the sort of income that you can earn from your blog.
It is also important that you realize that text affiliate links planted right in the middle of your content will work best to help you maximize on your blog affiliate income. Are you interested in learning all the secrets to build massive traffic to your site using ONLY FREE articles?
About the Author

Learn more about the best home business opportunity from a blogger who rakes in thousands of dollars... and growing from their home business. Also get the bloggers' amazing free report How I used only free articles marketing to get thousands of hi -

Jackson Sun - More than 11,000 messengers gathered in Greensboro, N.C., this week for the 2006 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. In a startling upset, Frank Page, of Greenville, S.C., was elected president of the SBC with 50.4 percent of the votes
Source: www.jacksonsun.com

Social networking site creates forum for kids
Willits News - Make room, MySpace. There's a new player in town for the younger siblings of the teenage devotees who swarm to your site. Emeryville-based Industrious Kid Inc. plans to launch today a social networking site for 10- to 13-year-olds called Imbee.com
Source: www.willitsnews.com

Blogs, podcasts: Are they friends or foes?
Stamford Advocate - Westport resident David Pogue is a victim of mean-spirited bloggers spewing forth untruths in the wild, wild world of the blogosphere, he said. Pogue, personal technology columnist for The New York Times, told his story to an audience Tuesday at the
Source: www.stamfordadvocate.com

Mail2World Expands Web Offerings
WHIR - June 15, 2006 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Hosted email and collaboration services provider Mail2World ( mail2world.com ) announced on Tuesday it has expanded its services by launching five new applications and several Web 2.0 performance and
Source: www.thewhir.com

Netscape Web portal morphs into 'social news' site
IT World - With this move, AOL is following a model similar to the one popularized by the technology news-oriented Digg.com and by the politics-focused Memeorandum.com, but with some twists and with a broader and more mainstream audience in mind. The new
Source: www.itworld.com

Netscape Back With Hybrid Journalism Site
WebProNews - CNET reports America Online, lead by the team behind its recent Weblogs Inc. acquisition, has launched a brand new version of the venerable Netscape.com . The site is a hybrid. It pulls together a mix of citizen-powered news - where users recommend
Source: www.webpronews.com

AOL Revamps Netscape As Collaborative News Portal
MediaPost - AOL TODAY WILL RELAUNCH NETSCAPE.COM as a collaborative news portal along the lines of the popular Digg.com. Weblogs co-founder Jason Calacanis, who joined AOL last year, will head the project. Similar to Digg, the new Netscape site invites users to
Source: publications.mediapost.com

MIDDLE EAST: Gulf bloggers -- a new breed of Arab activists
Asia Media - Dubai --- Internet blogs are giving rise to a new breed of Arab activist as ordinary residents increasingly use them to press for more political rights and civil liberties in conservative Gulf states. Typical was a recent posting by a 33-year-old
Source: www.asiamedia.ucla.edu

Read the Manual, Use the Tools
Nation - The media landscape is changing dramatically, seemingly on a daily basis, and what we once considered serious dangers to our democracy--things like media consolidation and the absence of balance and fairness--will become increasingly less important
Source: www.thenation.com

How to Get Featured in the Media

2006-06-16T01:40:00.000-07:00

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There are several ways to get yourself or your business featured in the media, each requiring different skills, efforts, and/or costs. If you'd like to experience the benefits of publicity, here are your ways in.
1) Do Nothing.
That is, do nothing specifically for publicity. If you're running a professional business that's got some visibility already, the media may stumble across you while writing a feature story, and they may want your input for the story.
I actually found my way onto NPR this way once when they were doing a story on love letters. As a writer for hire, I was briefly interviewed about being hired to write love letters for other people and I was quoted within their show.
More recently, a newswire writer quoted me in a story on wedding speeches since I write these for people (http://www.speechcrafter.com), and this appeared in a number of newspapers. And most recently, a writer for a high-traffic blog was interested to know more about ghostwriting, so I got an exclusive feature story (in the form of an interview) about my site, http://www.writerforyou.com.
Relying on the media to find you, though, means missing out on a lot of potential publicity. What follows are more active approaches.
2) Become an Expert Source.
As you can see in #1 above, media look for experts to feature in their stories. Get yourself into an expert source database and the media can more easily find you. Databases include:
http://www.profnet.com
http://www.prleads.com
http://www.prvade.com
The first two offer more traffic and cost more. The latter costs less and has less traffic, but also offers other benefits.
3) Send Out Press Releases.
If you can write a solid press release, you have some solid news or a great story angle, and you send the release out through the right channels at the right time, you can indeed get publicity with this approach.
Of course there's plenty to learn about each of those elements, and a lot of so-called experts make some grave errors about their approaches to writing and distribution. If you're doing this yourself, take the time to read through several sources to get a balanced viewpoint in how to do this.
If you're hiring someone, make sure to ask some questions. Ask for definitions of hard news, soft news, and feature stories. Ask their opinions about what can be sent out as a press release. Ask if they can explain the difference between traditional newswires and modern "Direct PR" newswires (such as PR Web). Can they compare results between the two?
You may not know the answers to these questions ahead of time, but if you're asking a few professionals, you could get a good education and find out who seems the best bet for helping you.
4) Query the Media Directly.
If you have specific media you want to get into, there's no point in sending out general press releases. After all, a general release is up against a LOT of competition and costs hard cash.
Figure out who your target audience reads, watches, or listens to, then approach those media. Pitch an article in which you can educate the audience and get a byline (much like with this article), or ask if you can send in a press release (and how they'd like to receive it).
Getting in touch with editors directly gives you better odds for success and, since you don't face the cost of press release distribution in this case, you can save a lot of money and potentially get more exposure.
Hopefully this is a good introduction to your paths to publicity. You can learn more about various forms of publicity and how to use them through a free e-mail course at http://www.prvade.com/ecourse.html.
About the Author

Steve McCardell owns and writes for PRvade (http://www.prvade.com). PRvade provides an Expert Source database as well as writing and distribution of press releases, feature stories, and articles. They also provide exposure for clients through widely distributed online articles. -

Hiphop.de, Germany - Jun 13, 2006... Aber dennoch: jeder der bock hat darf selbstverst ndlich meinen Namen benutzen um seinem Blog ein paar Klicks ... Like engineer in the sense of the word engineer. ...
Source: blog.hiphop.de

It's a gimmick, but Webby winners pack plenty into five words
Chicago Tribune, United States - 3 hours ago... This year, Arianna Huffington, accepting the best political blog award for her year-old Huffington Post site, said, "Darlings ... But it also makes a kind of sense. ...
Source: www.chicagotribune.com

Best Work At Home Business Opportunity

2006-06-16T01:37:00.000-07:00

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Todays' best work at home business opportunity quite often will involve the extensive use of a high traffic blog or two covering hobbies and subjects of great interest to the blogger personally.
Search engines love blogs because of the fresh and constantly updated content. And most bloggers also love their blogs because they give them "a voice" and a unique chance to publish their views and comments on a subject that they love. This powerful combination has ensured that blogs have grown in leaps and bounds. The result has been the emergence of a powerful and effective medium that is by far the best for promoting any work at home business opportunity. What happens is that the blogger uses the blog to work their best work at home business opportunity by directing some of the huge traffic to appropriate affiliate programs they have already signed up. They mostly do this by making good use of affiliate links pasted at prominent and very visible positions all over the site.
The best work at home business opportunity can be a lot of fun to the person who launches it when they choose to follow this path and use a blog. This more than anything else enables them as far as possible to handle a subject that is close to their hearts. This dramatically increases the chances of whatever best work at home business opportunity you select being a wild success.
About the Author

Learn more about the best home business opportunity from a blogger who rakes in thousands of dollars... and growing from their home business. -

Note: the contents of this blog are my personal comments and do not reflect the official views of my employer. I invite you to send me your questions (stangarfield AT yahoo DOT com) and I will try to answer them.