Website Marketing Resource

Many of my small business clients ask me: “What is a blog and do I need one?” As a marketing consultant and business coach, I too had to address those questions in my own business.

A blog is a form of online journal that business owners use to develop customer relationships and establish credibility. Blog authors write and post relevant content frequently ? daily, every couple of days or weekly.

After publishing an ezine for some time, I decided to give up my monthly ezine for a blog. Of course I could do both — for the more points of contact with my target the better. But for now, I’ll share my top seven reasons why I choose to blog over a monthly ezine:

Interactivity: Blogging puts the humanity in technology. Readers can leave comments and respond to each other. Adding video and audio to a blog also significantly enrich the learning experience, allowing for various learning styles. Ezines on the other hand, are fairly static.

Convenience & Ease: I can communicate with my audience quickly and efficiently without the elaborate set-up and content requirements of an HTML ezine.

RSS feeds seem to be the breakout technology for the year. With more users turning to them for driving traffic to their site, it’s no wonder that a trail of RSS feed spam is following in the wake. A careful editing of your RSS feed could make the difference between being classified as genuine content or RSS spam.

RSS search engines are just beginning to pick up steam. As more RSS feeds become searchable, the number of visitors will increase and spam is sure to follow. It is an unfortunate side effect of free communication. While RSS users can typically unsubscribe to feeds they deem as spam, browsing with keywords in an RSS search engine is where the problem arises.

RSS spam largely consists of three main types most often found in the RSS search engines. The first type is keyword stuffing.

Keyword stuffing involves filling each RSS feed article with high-value keywords for a specific topic. The articles are not intended for human visitors, but instead for search engine robots to direct traffic to a target web site. This RSS spam technique is nothing more than an adaptation of the typical keyword-stuffed web page, often banned by major search engines.

When you work online all the time, immersed in bits and bytes, hands automatically resting on the keyboard, where the lingua franca is a mish-mash of acronyms and abbreviations - it is easy to forget that the average person has no clue what we talk about. It can be very daunting for the Internet neophyte with all these terms, technology and hardware. That’s why I wrote this. Because I don’t want people to be afraid to either ask (via comments on this thread) or to click/use buttons they don’t know or use.

Way back when I started blogging (6-7 months ago!), I was a complete n00b in these blogging terms too. Now while I’m not exactly the lead programmer at RSS central I do know a thing or two, but when I really think about it I’m only just paddling at the moment so maybe I can help others get into the paddling pool too!

RSS

Really Simple Syndication, let’s break it down into the real basics. It is essentially a broken down look at the web page/site, stripping all the presentation and layout, and removing all the neat graphics and cool toys that generally clutter webpages. What’s left is an RSS file (in XML format).

There is no doubt that the Google Adsense program for publishers and site owners is one of the most successful affiliate programs anywhere. There is increasing evidence that many bloggers have managed to find the right formula to make thousands of dollars every month from little more than a handful of blogs with carefully created and compiled content.

Unfortunately this has also led some unscrupulous bloggers to try and steal other writers work and post them at their blogs like it was their own. Alas there will always be some bad apples in most baskets.

So what are these successful Adsense bloggers really doing to rake in a couple of thousand dollars on a monthly basis? What’s their secret?

Cashing In On The Blog Advantage for The Adsense Affiliate Program

When it comes to attracting traffic, blogs have a definite advantage over web sites. It is amazing how quickly a decent blog can attract quality links to itself. These links usually bring in lots of traffic very quickly. Bloggers carrying Adsense ads in their blogs are taking full advantage of this fact.

Recently, there have been many developments in the RSS arena. Changes that will make RSS a major force on the web and a dominant contributing factor to your computing experience. Online marketers should pay special attention to the RSS wildcard in any future marketing ventures.

If you’re like the average surfer or computer user (you’re probably scratching your head) what the heck is RSS? Never heard of it?

‘RSS’ stand for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ and its original acronym stood for ‘Rich Site Summary’. RSS is basically just a simple code like xml or html. Truth be told, many surfers who use the web every day probably never heard of html either.

However, there is one very important distinction you should realize about RSS — one fundamental difference that makes it such a revolutionary element. It changes how information is transmitted on the web, it sends out or syndicates a site’s contents. Don’t come to us, we will deliver.

Surfers can view the contents of your site without actually having to go to your site! RSS is usually associated with Blogs and Blogging because Blogs use RSS Feeds to syndicate its contents.

Why all the fuss? Why is RSS so revolutionary?

Need to make money fast, but you don’t want to spend a single cent to establish an online business? Fret not, dear friend. You could actually start earning from the web with zero capital, zero obligations and zero risks! All these can be accomplished within 24 hours! Read on and I’ll show you how.

Hour 1

Try to find a profitable niche. Niches are highly specialized segments of a market where the demand is high and the supplies are low. There are few competitions in a niche, allowing you more opportunity to establish your online presence.

Think of a market that you could cater to. Then narrow it down by enumerating its subcategories. The more you are able to reduce the subject, the higher the profitability will be. For example, the general market you thought of is about dogs. A subcategory of this would be about Chihuahuas. A further subcategory would be about Chihuahua grooming.

Hour 2

Once you have found your niche, run a search at www.inventory.overture.com or www.nichebot.com . The results would show how many searches were made for that subject. The more searches there are, the higher the demand is for that topic.

If you have a blog, or are thinking about starting a blog, then you are definitely going to want to read this article. It’s all about how to line your pockets with money that’s just waiting to be made without working much harder than you already are.

No only are blogs the hottest thing on the ‘net right now, but they are custom-made for Google’s AdSense program. Why? It’s simple. Blogs represent constantly changing and fresh content to Google’s search engine spiders. Feeding fresh content to those little spiders is just like tossing raw meat to a tiger. They just gobble it up. The more pages of your blog that get indexed, the more traffic you get. And the more traffic you get, the more exposure your AdSense ads get. Are you beginning to see where I’m heading here?

It’s not just Google that loves new content, all of the major engines do. In fact, some web-savvy bloggers are testing Google ads on one page and Overture ads on the other. It doesn’t take too long to see which ads are doing the best when you have nearly side-by-side comparison statistics to look at. Just don’t make the mistake of putting Google and Overture ads on the same page together. While they won’t kill each other like a pair of Siamese fighting fish in the same bowel will, you will be violating both sites’ Terms of Service, and it isn’t worth killing the goose (geese) that laid the golden egg.

Writing a blog can be fun and exciting, but it can also be rewarding. If you do not know how to make money from your blog content then you need to consider implementing the following suggestions in your blog.

Make Money Tip #1 Adsense
Adsense is an incredible service offered by Google to help you make money and help others advertise as well. Basically, with Adsense you choose several ads that blend or complement the information talked about in your blog. Then, when individuals click on the ads that are present in your blog, you receive money! Best of all, Adsense is free to use on your site, so this is a great opportunity to make money without really having to do very much.

Make Money Tip #2 Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate programs are another great way to make money as well and work on the same premise of Adsense. The web surfer has to click on the affiliate website’s link and when they do so they are redirected from your blog to the link they clicked on. You will get paid affiliate income for the click, and if they make a purchase when they are on that website you will get paid affiliate income again.

Blogs are an unbelievable way to achieve success on the internet. Blogs can establish a web presence, express your opinions and generate serious profits. However, without visitors a blog is useless no matter how good the content. With thousands of blogs being created every day, you need to know exactly how to get people to your blog over everyone else’s. Here are 7 breakthrough ways to bring traffic to your blog:

1. Optimize your posts for the major search engines. Search engines love blogs because they are frequently updated with fresh content. All blogs have the opportunity to make it to a high position on search engines but here are a few tips to beat your competition for the top spots.

• Make sure you use plenty of primary keywords in the titles of your blog posts.
• Make sure you use secondary keywords in the body of your posts, however be careful not to use too many since this will make your post sound unnatural.
• Use keywords in the anchor text of links in the body of your posts since links have a higher importance to the search engines than ordinary text.

Blogging is all the rage. With these 10 Simple Steps even My 70 Something technological challenged Mom was able to Join the Growing number of Bloggers.

Step 1 Pick a Topic

Pick a Topic or Theme for your Blog. Your theme should be something you are good at or something you like. Things to Blog About

• your Hobby
• Your Passion
• Your Job
• Sports
• Politics
• N.Y. Yankees.
• Promote a Web Page

Step 2 Pick a Title

Pick a Title for your blog. If your Blogging about Model T Fords then Your Title should be something like

• Restore Your Model T.
• Henry Ford and the Model T
• Model T Pick Your Color as Long as It’s Black
• Model T They Don’t Make Them Like that Anymore

Step 3 Pick a Sub-Domain Name

When you sign up for your free Blogger Account you will need a Sub-Domain Name. Your Sub Domain should be related to Your Topic Your WebSite URL will be something like http://sub-domain.blogspot.com. Have 3 or 4 Sub-Domains in mind in case one is taken.

Step 4 Get Your Free Blog Account

Go to http://blogger.com and sign up for a free account

Step 5 Your Blog Description