How to Help New Link Builders

For anyone new to SEO who will be working on link building and content marketing projects, one of the trickiest and most important things to learn as you get started is how to evaluate a link prospect. Understanding the value of a link is a foundational element of not only link building, but also content strategy – many times when you’re creating a piece of content designed to target certain types of linkers, you’ll need to understand how to value a potential link to be able to determine if creating the content and actually getting the link will even be worth the effort.

Getting Started

The first thing I find helpful in explaining how to evaluate a link prospect is to get used to hearing the phrase “it depends” in your internal dialog. Does page rank matter? If site A has more links in Yahoo! Site Explorer but site B has a higher Moz Rank, which is better? How important is the cache date if I’m evaluating a resource link?

It Depends

It depends on your backlink profile, your competitors’ backlink profiles, the competitiveness of the keyword and keyword set you’re attempting to rank for, and a number of other factors. Consider that your blanket disclaimer: you’re evaluating the impact of a link on an algorithm you can’t ever have full knowledge of and you’re attempting to take into account a tremendous number of different factors. It always depends, and it’s probably impossible to know with 100% certainty all the time which links will be the most impactful.

Resources

All of that said, as SEOs we still need to prioritize our actions, so we need to be able to decide which sites to reach out to and which sites to design content for. And there are some great resources to get a wet-behind-the-ears link builder started, such as:

• Wiep Knol’s Link Value Factors
• Ross Hudgens’ Determining Lifetime Link Value
• 25 Ways to Qualify Great Links by Adam Melson of Seer Interactive
• Link Anatomy – Understanding the Value of a Link by Dan Deceuster on YouMoz
• The True Value of Links by Peter D on SEO Book
• The Five Minute Link Building Test by Todd Malicoat (the post is actually from 2006 but still pretty accurate)
• Link Building ROI – Measure with Caution by Eric Ward
• Good Metrics to Determine the Link Value – NOT Toolbar Page Rank by Julie Joyce
• 11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out by Sugar Rae
• How to Train a Link Builder by Peter Attia on YouMoz

An Example

If you set a new link builder loose on those resources they would, in all likelihood, come back with a pretty solid understanding of the value of a link. But a lot of people get more value out of a hard and fast, real world example, so I thought we’d work through one here.

Let’s imagine we’re promoting some content having to do with the environmental impact that results from the bottled water industry.

We start with a fairly standard search query operator to try to identify link prospects (we won’t get into link prospecting here, as that’s another post altogether, but obviously we’ll want to help them understand the process and introduce them to our favorite tools for prospecting – I like BuzzStream’s link prospecting tools, Ontolo’s toolset, and of course good old fashioned advanced query operators):

https://www.google.com/search?q=intitle:resources+bottled+water

Now, walk through the SERP with the newbie. This will give you a chance to not only help them understand “industry best practices”, but also to infuse them with a firm understanding of how you value links even amongst relatively like-minded SEOs not everyone will have exactly the same interpretation of which factors to focus on when, and why. (There’s a good discussion of the importance of this sort of dialog and how to execute this in this Whiteboard Friday video on SEO Moz between Ross Hudgeons and Tom Critchlow).

Anyway, we now want to take our link builder through this SERP and help them to understand how we see a list of potential prospects like this. Looking quickly we see a lot of authoritative sites with resource pages. Help them understand that while a lot of these actually won’t link to us, that’s OK because some of the results here may.

Recommendations

Since I want my link builders to be able to very quickly analyze quality of these potential link partners, I’ll recommend they use SEO for FireFox and the SEO Toolbar to get a quick look at some quick, high level metrics such as:

• The Subdomain’s Toolbar Page Rank – I know, gasp right? But I do find that in combination with other metrics and considerations, TBPR is still a useful, directionally indicative measure of the link popularity of a site or page. I want to focus on subdomain here because in many instances the page may be stranded on a section of the site that isn’t well linked within the main site.
• The Page’s Toolbar Page Rank – Same holds true here, but I’m interested in the number for the page itself.
• The Number of Links to the Domain, Subdomain & Page – This is where the SEO Book tools are really handy, as they give you a fantastic snapshot of what YSE, Majestic, and SEO Moz have in terms of links to this prospect. Each of the tools has strengths and weaknesses, so getting a quick snapshot of each link metric is invaluable.
• Cached Date of the Page/Site – How frequently is this page and this site crawled?
• Age of the Domain and the Document You Can Get a Link From – Obviously older, more trusted documents will typically be better here.
• Which Pages (if Any) Link Out? – Obviously the key question here is ultimately: can I get a link from this site? If so, where? (If you’re looking to grab the list of outbound links on a resource page or link list Citation Labs’ Outbound Link Scraper and BuzzStream’s extract URLs tool are both really handy).
• Content Quality – Is the content high quality (ie not written in broken English), are there links to high quality resources (but maybe not too high quality – we don’t want a government document that only links out to other government resources), is there anything spammy or shady going on on the page?
• Promotion of the Page – Is the page being promoted by the linker themselves – ie does it have social signal (has it been retweeted, liked, plussed, commented on, etc.) and links pointing to the page itself beyond nepotistic and internal links?

Your methodology may include more or different ways of valuing the link, of course, but the key here is to share those with your link builder, and then actually apply them to the SERP.

Look at this Link

http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2006/update51

By many of our standards this looks like a great link: there’s high page rank for the page itself, the domain is old, trusted, and has lots of links pointed at it – the page itself even has a few external links. The problem with this one, though, is that it doesn’t actually link out to any external sites. This is an important catch, because link prospecting is the first step in the outreach process, and just as a bad, unqualified lead can be worse to a sales rep than no lead at all, we don’t want to include resources that won’t link to us. Link outreach has a hard cost (the money you pay the link builder) and I don’t want to have anyone off on a fruitless time sink.

Now, what I might do in this instance is consider the authority of the site and fit with my subject matter – if both are extremely high, even if I might not get a link from this page, it may be worth my time as a link builder to find another avenue here. For instance, they have a press page. Maybe I (or my client) can interview the appropriate person on their team on our blog. After all, they actually do link out to interviews.

Now I can talk through with the link builder the types of projects and clients where this additional layer of investigation and even content creation will be a good fit, and the types of projects and clients where it won’t. This is a great, multi-layer dialog where I’ve helped the link builder understand:

• Why some links that look great might not be a fit
• A little more about how our business works, and why it’s important to qualify link prospects aggressively and only allow higher potential prospects onto the “to reach out to” list
• When it makes sense to dig deeper on a prospect and really work to find a way to get a link from that site, even if the initial page isn’t a good fit, and when she would be better off punting and moving on to the next opportunity

Now I can walk through the rest of this list reviewing the other links in a similar fashion. I find a few of these types of sessions, as well as review of a list of qualified link prospects, will help the folks who are likely to get up to speed get up to speed, but obviously you’d want to tailor it to what you find works best for you/your team, since as with all things link evaluation: it depends.

Posted on 9:16 PM / 0 Comment / Read More

PPC Changes Recap - October 2011

We have had a busy month with Google announcing several products and making a few changes that could impact the search engine advertising world.

From adding the +1 button in all Display Network Ads, to a new system that will help advertisers get more verified calls to their website. I’ll walk you through and give you the basics on everything!

Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic Search Ads is Googles new system to take advantage of all the traffic that isn’t being used while helping businesses to gain more customers. Google indexes your site frequently for changes, next it looks at all the keywords from your website and generates a highly dynamic search ad. This dynamic search ad is based on different search queries that take place on Google. The ads will be served to people that search for terms and keywords that are found on your landing pages and website.

You can open Dynamic Search Ads up to your whole site or specific pages within your site. This will help people to not have to manage every little part and find keywords and manage your campaign. I would however make sure that Google is bidding on keywords that you should be bidding on. Giving any system full control over your account without checking it could mean that you are losing a lot of money every month. Make sure that you are only promoting the pages that you want to get traffic to and feel comfortable spending money on.

This system is in beta and you can apply for yourself or your clients here.

AdWords Express Available in UK and Germany

Adwords Express was released in late July as a way for local businesses to promote their business with a Google AdWords type system that’s easy to use. The whole setup process from start to finish takes around 10 minutes. You can tell Google how much you want to spend and you’re set to go. Google will take care of the rest for you. Potential customers will see your ads in the section right above the organic listings but below Google Adwords. Your ads will also show up on maps with a blue pin instead of a red pin like all the rest. This will help your local business stand out but will cost you money in order to do it.

One very nice thing about AdWords Express is that your business will shown in two different places for each search that a person performs if you are optimizing your Google Places account. When people see your business in two different places on the same page, they will naturally give your business more trust. This will help your business get more customers. Google is trying to help local business with an easy to use system that takes 10 minutes to setup and you don’t have to do much after that.

Google +1 Button Now Displaying in Google Display Network Ads

Google has now started displaying the Google +1 button in the Display Ads Network ads. Anyone that has +1′d your website or any of your ads will now show on both your ads and your website. This is turning social recommendations and injecting them with steroids. Now everyone can see what you’re doing and liking across the internet.

Now you can +1 a website and it will display in the ads for the website that you have recommended to people. If a million people +1 your website, it will show up that a million people have +1 your banner ad. At the same time, if a million people +1 on your banner ads, every single one of those will show up on your site as someone +1 your website.

Bid-Per-Call

Have you ever wanted to get more phone calls to your business? Now you can with Google’s bid-per-call system. With bid-per-call you bid for phone calls and determine how much money you’re going to pay per phone call. Google will give you a personalized number that will track everything. When you put up your ads, people will be able to call the phone number listed and it will all be tracked through your Adwords tracking account.

The more you bid, the better your ad is written, and the higher your quality score, the higher your ads will be placed. When your ads are placed towards the top, it will get you more calls and more customers. This is a very good system for businesses that are very phone oriented and good at selling their products over the phone. It’s important to note that you will only have to pay for the call to the phone number that Google gives you. Your ad will also be available to click. Whichever the person does you will have to pay Google for.

At this time Google bid-per-call system is only available in the US and UK as long as you meet certain click call requirements.

Posted on 8:49 PM / 0 Comment / Read More

Google's War Against Scraper Sites Continues

Google appears to be getting ready to launch another offensive against website scrapers.

Scraper sites are usually operated by spammers. They copy almost all the content of the scraper site from other websites. By doing so, they hope to exploit the popularity of the material from original content makers to steer search engine traffic to their sites to make money through advertising.

"Scrapers getting you down? Tell us about blog scrapers you see... We need datapoints for testing," Google's web spam leader Matt Cutts said in a recent tweet.

Cutts' war cry illustrates Google feels more effort is needed to combat scrapers.

Along with his tweet, Cutts included a link to a form that allows web surfers to report scraper pages to Google. Some of that information may be used to test and improve Google's algorithm, the company said.

The form asks for the text of the search query that produced the scraping problem -- such as a scraper site outranking an original content site -- as well as the URL for the original content site and scraper site. There's also a form field for top-of-head comments.

Some scrapers are so successful in what they do that their sites achieve higher search engine rankings than the sites of the content makers from whom they pinch their material. Google attempted to correct that situation in January, when it changed its top-secret search algorithm aimed, among other things, to address the scraping problem.

Scraping, along with search results poisoning, have long been a problem with search engine results, although Google has steadfastly defended the quality of its results, saying the results are better than they have ever been in terms of relevance, freshness and comprehensiveness.

Earlier this year, Google announced changes, including filter changes, in its algorithm. The filter changes, referred to as "Panda," didn't quell the problem. Quite the contrary, it may have made it worse. "We've experienced a significant drop in our traffic (almost 35 percent) as a result of this change (with an equivalent drop in revenue)," wrote one webmaster after the change took effect. "We believe that our only crime is that we host user-generated content."

Google took another crack at the scraping problem in June, when it rolled out version 2.2 of the Panda filters. Reviews of that move appear to be mixed.

With this latest effort by Google to garner information on scraping sites, maybe the next version of Panda will finally put the issue to bed.

By John P. Mello Jr., PCWorld

Posted on 3:01 PM / 0 Comment / Read More

How Much Time Do You Spend Actually Doing SEO

How much time do you spend doing SEO per day? Or, specifically, how much time do you waste reading about SEO instead of doing it? Unless you are beginner who is still learning, if you’re spending more than an hour reading about SEO everyday, you’re probably wasting your time.

While the SEO space is filled with “news,” drama, and attention seeking behavior (also known as ASB), there simply isn’t a significant amount of important changes that go on in SEO on a daily basis. If you’re spending all day reading blogs, forums, and links on twitter, you’re acting a lot more like a social media manager than an SEO. Fortunately, there is a simple solution, but you’ve gotta go cold turkey. For one week, stop reading your rss feeds, forums, and twitter. When you come back, give yourself 2 hours to read what’s most important. If you stay within the 2 hour limit, you’ll be able to identify what you think are the most important things you need to read and forget the rest.

To get this done, you’re going to need to use one or two curators like SEO roundtable or sphinn (which has improved dramatically since dropping user voting–see friends and scorpions). You could also try subscribing to the SEO book forum. No, it’s not free, but IMHO it’s worth it (and yes that’s an aff link, but I’d recommend it anyway). If you’re looking for another source, try my new Facebook page. I’m experimenting and will put up one to two articles per day. It will be a mix of old and new articles but will always be high quality information, including things I think will help you learn and (more importantly) think about SEO.

With all that extra time, you should actually start doing more SEO. The number one thing you should do is more testing and less believing in what some guru writes or blogs and tells you is true. You will be a better SEO for it. Spend time creating great, link worthy content or doing a content audit or any other maintenance work that makes your website leaner and meaner and removes the dead wood.

The key to being an expert in any field is knowing what 5 percent of knowledge really matters and finding a balance between theory and hands on experience. So are you ready to stop reading and start doing? Or are you just going to stay where you are …?

Posted on 9:54 AM / 0 Comment / Read More

Which URL Shorteners Are Best for SEO? The Top 3 List

There’s been plenty of discussion around URL shorteners and their impact on SEO over the last few months.

Well Google has officially come out and confirmed that “link value” through URL shorteners is preserved as Google treats them similar to a 301 permanent redirect.

Good news for all those people who use URL shorteners and more importantly, it means that much of the link building being done through social media will have long term benefits for your SEO.


So with this in mind, which are the best URL shortening services for SEO:

Goo.gl

This one is direct from Google. Goo.gl’s short URLs are always 301(permanent) redirect making it fast, secure and perfect for SEO. It also provides a great range of stats about the clicker. Google automatically removes spam links from its database, so its building trust from users.

TinyURL

One of the most popular URL shorteners available. It is the default shortener for many social media tools such as Twitter. While Tiny URL doesn’t provide click stats, it does allow you to customize your URL e.g change http://tinyurl.com/47m6g to http://tinyurl.com/yourname.

Bit.ly

bit.ly, like tinyURL has been around for a while and is the trusted default for many tools. It offers a simple one click shortening service with a simple URL tracking feature. This means you can now track Bit.ly shortened URLs by just placing a ‘+’ after the URL. And it also provides URL customization.

So they’re my picks for the top 3. Google’s link shortener is obviously my favourite for SEO as they understand the importance of linking from a search indexing perspective.

There’s literally hundreds out there, and for those of you with a bit of tech savvy, you can even create your own. Now select wisely and ensure you pick the URL shortener that’s going to ensure your SEO efforts are not undone.

Posted on 9:30 AM / 0 Comment / Read More

3 Top ways to generate natural backlinks

Google is increasingly adopting more sophisticated techniques in spotting poor quality webpages and links. Thus, if you employ a ridiculously low price PR links services, or embark on complete automated linking system, Google would ultimately penalize you for attempting to play a fast game on them.

One of the best ways to move yourself forward to the top 10 results on Google search page is to ensure that the links that point to your website are relevant to your site’s topic and theme. Also, the linking should be acquired naturally.

Here are top ways to get natural backlinks:

1. Make your website link-worthy

Webmasters are not interested in a site that is merely a collection of affiliate links. A website with quality content is what appeals to webmasters. Here are some pattern of articles that webmasters love linking to; they include controversial content, as well as ‘how to’ articles.

2. Your website should be in the right framework

Links from internet directories do not have high quality effect as before. However, they are still very useful for structuring a website’s context the right way. First, ensure that you list your site under a relevant category. This way, you can easily rank higher for keywords or phrases related to the chosen category.

3. Become a Problem Solver

One of the best ways to be a problem solver in your niche is to provide valuable content that solves a specific problem. Then, it would be easier to convince related quality websites to link to your site – they would certainly be interested in content that provides solution to a problem. Also, contact bloggers who have such content featured on their sites, they are most likely to link to your website.

When the websites that link to you, employ the keywords that are related to your linked texts (the texts are usually the ones you want to achieve higher ranking), your chances of achieving quality ranking would be improved. Also, the texts that these webpages use in linking to your website should not be the same, otherwise it would appear unnatural.

Also, do not concentrate the back-links on your homepage, ensure that you circulate them to other pages of your website. If you employ the right techniques for generating natural backlinks, you will be on your way to occupying the first 10 positions on Google’s search result page.

Posted on 9:09 PM / 0 Comment / Read More

Know How To Be On Google For A Successful Income Generating Business

Many businesses are creating their own websites to make them known to their target consumers, to assist the needs of their clients and of course to increase their profits. It is of great advantage to get a priority place in a search engine such as in Google which is considered as the biggest in terms of share among others in the World Wide Web. Knowing how to be on Google's first page will allow fast and plenty of traffic which means that a certain website featuring a certain company or any kind of advertisement will easily become popular. Google is now the number one choice of search engine and web browser by many people all over the world which is why it is already a basic requirement for every site to appear in the first page of Google's search results. There are different ways to become a popular website which can be for free or can cost some money.

Search engine optimization is the way on how to get on Google. It can be done in a natural way or paying experts to make a certain website highly visible when being searched. Websites are important in every business or in individuals with varying purposes. Investing in money in it is the option of owners but there are also ways in order to optimize it without spending. It may take some time but the result can generate more income. If not yet familiar with the ways of the internet, it will be best to ask the help of experts but there are also other sites that specialize in helping those who wanted to develop their own. There are also those that provide all the necessary services in order to make a certain website be included in the top ranking sites in Google.

There are already plenty of success stories online like a company garnered too much success and money just because it had used the techniques on how to be on Google not just in any pages but in the top. There are different companies competing with each other just because they are offering the same kind of product or services. It is vital to provide web pages that contain all the necessary information that a consumer needs to capture his attention. People nowadays are more convenient doing their business and shopping online. Google is playing an important part so that different sites will have the chance to compete and offer all the possibilities to its clients.

Posted on 8:59 PM / 0 Comment / Read More

How to verify quality of your content to meet the new quality standards set by google

Recently, Google set a new standard or requirements that contents must meet in order to qualify passing through their search engine to get to online searchers.

Google now has the latest updated search engine algorithm with code name Panda. This algorithm is the cause of drop in ranking for a good number of websites. Google intends to decrease the rankings of substandard contents in their search result page.

Google has been magnanimous enough to make things easier for webmasters by putting up certain questions that would assist webmasters in determining the quality of their site contents, and thus ascertain whether or not such site's content is sufficiently good for Google's new quality filters.

Here are the questions that would help you determine whether your website contents qualify for Google's new quality filters.

Posted on 8:19 PM / 0 Comment / Read More

How to Get Everything You Can From Your Blog's RSS Subscribers

RSS has become a useful tool when it comes to getting your posts to your subscribers, but those people will quickly leave if you aren't giving them what they ask for. The three tips below are the ones the experts use when they want their subscribers to remain just as they are. In the event you want to construct a real on-line asset and create lump sum profits then you ought to take a take a look at what Ryan Moran has produced with Etycoon

The first thing to keep in mind when you want people to see your blog as something valuable is to refrain from creating paid reviews. Even if you are writing them, always ensure that you are keeping them to a minimum. The reason you'll want to stay away from paid reviews is because there is a stigma attached to them, and people's motivation is typically money-motivated instead of providing an honest review. The whole reason you're doing reviews is so that you can weigh the pros and cons of the products. Paid reviews aren't going to seem very genuine. If people sense that you're doing this, you are going to have people unsubscribing from your RSS feed left and right.

Secondly, the best way to get people to remain subscribers is to provide true value without distracting them. For example, when you include too many hyperlinks, you will see people divert in other directions. You want their whole focus on whatever content you provide, so that it benefits them the most. That's why you don't want to leave too many ways for them to escape. Whenever you post, you need to focus on providing true value, so that your readers always feel satisfied that they got what they came for. Readers are always searching for those webpages that offer the entire bulk of the information they seek, as it's annoying to have to go searching for more. Links are ok to use after your posts, as they'll be done reading and ready to go somewhere else. The bottom line is that your subscribers should always get just what they came for when it comes to your page.

Lastly, your readers should always feel as though you care about their needs or else they won't be subscribers for long. That's why you will always want to respond to their communications and also to whatever feedback they offer. This will reveal to them that you actually do value them that you took time out of your day to answer their communications. Not only that, but it gives you the opportunity to find out how to talk to your readers and also how they feel about your product. This goes beyond the typical customer service because here you're genuinely trying to help your readers, which gives them a reason to stay connected to you.

You should now see that keeping your RSS subscribers is actually quite easy. Just always remember that your RSS subscribers are on your list because of the value you provide, so never ignore that.

Posted on 4:14 PM / 0 Comment / Read More

I. Identifying Keyword Opportunities

Why Keywords Are Your Foundation

The way people shop has changed in the age of search engines. People are increasingly using search engines to help them find the products or services they are looking for. To do this, they type keywords into sites like Google, YouTube or Bing. The engines then rank sites related to these keywords based on relevance and authority.

Whether you know it or not, your website is already targeting certain keywords. Search engines extract these keywords from your on-page text, headers, page titles, inbound links and other factors. However, you might not have made a conscious decision to target those keywords. Even if you did, you might not be monitoring your rankings or have a sense of how good your chances are of ranking well for those keywords.

Choosing the right keywords is often the difference between getting found in search and not getting found. As a result, keyword research is the foundation of an effective online marketing strategy.

There are several variables that impact keyword selection. These variables can be divided into two groupings -primary selection variables and prioritization variables.

Primary Selection of Keywords

It is important to understand what aspects of keywords make them important to your business.  The different variables or characteristics of a keyword help determine whether the keywords are worth consideration in your SEO strategy. Only if keywords pass the primary selection tests can they be subjected to the prioritization variable tests. Considerations for primary keyword selection are:

• Ensuring keyword terms/phrases have sufficient search volumes
• Ensuring the chosen keyword terms are relevant
• Assessing levels of relative competition

If a search term does not satisfy the relevancy criterion, it should not be considered.

Prioritization of Keywords

Two things to consider when prioritizing keywords are:

• Competitive advantage for the product/services
• Profitability of the products/services associated with the keywords

Prior to entering the vetting process, a Keyword Opportunity List should be generated.

Posted on 1:19 PM / 0 Comment / Read More

LEARNING SEO: A STEP - BY - STEP GUIDE

Contents
I. Identifying Keyword Opportunities
II. Mastering On-Page SEO
III. Link Building Strategies
IV. Tips for Ongoing SEO Improvement
V. Additional Information and Resourcest

Posted on 12:53 PM / 0 Comment / Read More

Getting any traffic from twitter.

Almost every twitter marketer will tell you that you will need to have followers first before getting any traffic from twitter.

Well, that is very true to average twitter marketers. They follow other users in twitter and wish to follow them back, and then send offers. That is a very time consuming process and gives very small result.

I want to introduce you a new twitter tool that rapidly gaining popularity all over the internet not just because it can do everything you need to succeed in twitter but because of its capability to drive traffic from twitter to your website even if you have 0 followers.

It's called TweetAttacks, its still new and everyone seems going crazy about it.

twitter auto follow

Are you still doing the old way of twitter marketing that been doing by 99% of twitter marketers?

You've got to try this little wonder and say goodbye to being average twitter marketer.

twitter auto follow

Happy tweeting

Posted on 6:11 PM / 0 Comment / Read More

Advantages of Business Blogging

Simply put, blogging is another way of getting the message across to an intended target audience. It is all about optimizing sales by maximizing relationships with your target audience. Blogging is cheap compared to almost any other marketing method.

Boosts Online Branding

As the owner of a small business, you can effectively boost your online presence by blogging about the products and services offered, the industry and related interests, which can help generate interest and can enhance sales too.

Just like nobody knows how tall you are on the radio, nobody knows the size of your business on the Web. Talk like you own the market and before long you probably will.

Posted on 1:01 AM / 0 Comment / Read More

What is business blogging?

When the world of blogging got buzzing with activity, the interest it generated did not go unnoticed by profiteers.

Business Blogging, sometimes called B-Blogging, is a recent development, but it’s growing fast and you’ll see why.

Today blogging emphasizes being informational rather than promotional. Unlike mass marketing, blogging gives the organization a human face. In other words, marketing your business with blogs is as close as it gets to face-to-face marketing. And this is something that is seen as the biggest advantage of blogging…it’s a personal thing. Not some scary company talking, but a real guy or gal.

Posted on 12:33 AM / 0 Comment / Read More

Why Blog?

As described earlier, blogging does not need any sophisticated programming skills, and even does away with complex coding. With almost no barrier to entry, it is estimated that there are more than 10 million blogs on the Internet today and growing.

Since bloggers enjoy the freedom and power of posting their thoughts and views instantly, blogging empowers visitors with a sense of instant gratification.

We all might want to blog – just ramble on and often complain! – for personal reasons or for fun. We perhaps want to stay connected to the big wide world out there, get something off our chests, or try to entertain far-away friends.

Blogging, much like a website, gives you a worldwide reach. Besides creating and maintaining a blog is far easier, quicker and cheaper compared to managing a website.

Are you starting to see the business potential here?

Posted on 12:28 AM / 0 Comment / Read More

Bloggers' Guide to Profit

INTRODUCTION

What are blogs?

As you might have experienced, surfing the web was a fairly passive activity in the past. Like reading or watching TV or a bit of a combination of the two. The website as such, was all designed to be a rather one-way informative medium. Then came the advent of the ‘blog…

So what on earth, er, the World Wide Web, is blogging? Abbreviated from “web log” a blog is simply a stream-of-consciousness kind of writing. Whether you are a major celebrity or a high school kid, you can blog. It requires no technical skill at all and costs almost nothing. They have become amazingly popular and are continually in the news. Recently, some people have been fired by major corporations for blogging about the goings-on at work! So you know there are plenty of readers out there.

What’s the buzz and what’s in a blog anyway?

What can be included in a Blog?

What could you include in a blog? Practically anything that comes to your mind. In many instances, the discussion depends upon the theme of the website or a web page itself that is associated with a blog. Blogs are an excellent way of expressing personal opinion. These range from discussions about news, current events, sports, hobbies, careers, and various other topics. If you can think it, and you can type, you can blog it, more or less.

Blogs are being used effectively now by businesses as well. As stated earlier, Blogs are fast gaining popularity as an efficient marketing & advertising tool that helps businesses promote their products and services. Much more on this in a moment…

Posted on 12:20 AM / 0 Comment / Read More