by: Keith Baxter
Copyright 2005 Keith BaxterFor the past two years, one of the best SEO inclusion tactics was the use of blogs. Blogs have become a base standard in SEO marketing, but as times change, so does the efficacy of any tactic.With that said what worked two years ago certainly isn’t the same thing that’s working now. The worst part is that uninformed marketers are still teaching the old methods of SEO marketing with blogs to the masses.In this article, you will be enlightened to the newest form of SEO marketing with blogs.Let’s begin by eliminating a huge fallacy.The blog and ping is a process by which you post a snippet of information from your site to a blog (mainly blogger.com) with a URL to your site included, and then notify Yahoo that a post exists on this blog. The idea is that your blog will be spidered quickly by both Google (due to blogger.com) and Yahoo.You only need to blog and ping a maximum of 10 pages from your site. The entire purpose for doing this is to attract search engines to your site and let them spider the rest of your site on their own. You can equate this process to renting links. You simply rent one link to your site in order to get the spiders to visit your site.Unfortunately money hungry marketers came along, didn’t understand the concept, and then took it upon themselves to teach people that every page on your site required blogging and pinging. To top it off, these same uninformed marketers began teaching their followers that three pages should be processed every 15 minutes. The blog and ping isn’t as effective as it was a year ago because of these numbskulls.With that said, it was time for the process to evolve. Its efficacy was diminished due to misuse and misguided education.So where has it evolved to?It’s evolved into an organic blog that grows of its own. This blogging system receives its data from remote sources and posts on a consistent, yet infrequent basis. It pulls usable and visitor friendly data from a variety of sources, while still hosting the links you want found by the search engines. This blog informs over 50 blog directories every time an automated post is made, making it extremely valuable to the search engine algorithms.How is this accomplished?First, you need Wordpress (http://wordpress.org) and RSS to Blog (http://www.stealthtrafficsecrets.com/rsstoblog.html). Once you’ve downloaded both of these, make sure you install them.Once installed, configure Wordpress per the instructions found here: http://www.stealthtrafficsecrets.com/wordpress-tricks/.Second, create a list of links from your site which will be used in this new hybrid blog and ping tactic. One of the bonuses for RSS to Blog is a tool that does this automatically for you.Third, add these harvested links to the RSS to Blog system and hit save. Set your cron to post out as often as you like and you’re done.That’s it in a nutshell.There are a couple of additional points I need to make,First, when using RSS to Blog you also have the ability to add additional data from other sources in order to make your Wordpress blog readable by the masses.Second, the Wordpress tricks book gives you the knowledge to make your blog more search engine friendly as well as providing a list of blog directories that are automatically notified every time you make an entry.With this tactic revealed, it’s my intention for you to enjoy the quick search engine inclusion that comes as a result of implementation.
Saturday, 9 August 2008
Making money with RSS Feeds
by: Sandra Stammberger
Copyright 2005 Sandra StammbergerFirst it was banner ads, then Google AdSense and now, the latest way to make money on your web site could very well be RSS feeds. Say what? I said: RSS is hot and you should be using it to drive eyeballs to your site. Here's how it works:Depending upon who you ask, RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary". Regardless of what you call it, RSS is a way to automatically publish (syndicate) someone else's content on your web site. Now don't worry, that's not the same as stealing someone else's content. There is nothing illegal about using RSS feeds. In fact, the publisher of the content wants you to have it show up on your site and that's why he or she makes it available as an RSS feed to begin with.So what's in it for all parties concerned?Using RSS is a win-win for both the publisher of the content, who gets their name out to potentially millions of sites and you, the web site owner who is pulling the content onto your site.Content, by the way, means anything that a publisher decides it means. Typical content includes news headlines, new product update notices, blog summaries and lots of other stuff. It's the "content" portion of the equation that's good news for you.Show me the moneyOne of the best features of hosting RSS feeds is that it gives your site an endless source of freshly updated and relevant content. This content acts as natural search engine spider bait which they will fill their little tummies on and come back for more every day. Their appetite for fresh content keep your rankings up.Sticky Loyalty isn't a new Ben & Jerry's flavor, but it should be the goal of any serious webmaster who wants to create a web site that visitors return to over and over again. The use of carefully selected RSS feeds can make that happen by offering unique content which can't be found anywhere else.Now please don't make the mistake of thinking "But they can get that same content at the publisher's site, why should they come to mine?". Just build it and they will come! Sorry, I couldn't resist saying that, but it's true. In addition to the RSS content, which they surely can get somewhere else, you are going to add your own sticky loyalty stuff that's all about whatever your site is all about to begin with. That combination of your own content and the RSS feed makes visiting you a purely unique experience that can't be found anywhere else.You don't have to be a member of the Geek Squad to start showing RSS feeds on your site. Just visit any of the links below and get busy using RSS to make mo' money.
Copyright 2005 Sandra StammbergerFirst it was banner ads, then Google AdSense and now, the latest way to make money on your web site could very well be RSS feeds. Say what? I said: RSS is hot and you should be using it to drive eyeballs to your site. Here's how it works:Depending upon who you ask, RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary". Regardless of what you call it, RSS is a way to automatically publish (syndicate) someone else's content on your web site. Now don't worry, that's not the same as stealing someone else's content. There is nothing illegal about using RSS feeds. In fact, the publisher of the content wants you to have it show up on your site and that's why he or she makes it available as an RSS feed to begin with.So what's in it for all parties concerned?Using RSS is a win-win for both the publisher of the content, who gets their name out to potentially millions of sites and you, the web site owner who is pulling the content onto your site.Content, by the way, means anything that a publisher decides it means. Typical content includes news headlines, new product update notices, blog summaries and lots of other stuff. It's the "content" portion of the equation that's good news for you.Show me the moneyOne of the best features of hosting RSS feeds is that it gives your site an endless source of freshly updated and relevant content. This content acts as natural search engine spider bait which they will fill their little tummies on and come back for more every day. Their appetite for fresh content keep your rankings up.Sticky Loyalty isn't a new Ben & Jerry's flavor, but it should be the goal of any serious webmaster who wants to create a web site that visitors return to over and over again. The use of carefully selected RSS feeds can make that happen by offering unique content which can't be found anywhere else.Now please don't make the mistake of thinking "But they can get that same content at the publisher's site, why should they come to mine?". Just build it and they will come! Sorry, I couldn't resist saying that, but it's true. In addition to the RSS content, which they surely can get somewhere else, you are going to add your own sticky loyalty stuff that's all about whatever your site is all about to begin with. That combination of your own content and the RSS feed makes visiting you a purely unique experience that can't be found anywhere else.You don't have to be a member of the Geek Squad to start showing RSS feeds on your site. Just visit any of the links below and get busy using RSS to make mo' money.
The Evolution of Google AdSense
by: Sharon Housley
Copyright 2005 Sharon HousleyThe web has evolved into a complex "organism" which, to some, appears to have a life of its own. As the Internet has evolved, so too have online marketers and publishers. The dot-com balloon is said to have burst but savvy publishers have grabbed the coat tails of the Google search monster and employ Google AdSense on content-rich websites. Google AdSense, a pioneer for providing content-sensitive advertisements, has been a boon to webmasters looking for alternatives to amortize their web trafffic. How Does Google AdSense Work?The concept is simple: The publisher or webmaster inserts a java script into a website. Each time the page is accessed, the java script pulls advertisements from Google's AdSense program. The ads are targeted and related to the content contained on the web page serving the ad. If a web surfer clicks on an advertisement served from Google, the webmaster serving the ad earns a portion of the money that the advertiser is paying Google for the click.Google handles all the tracking and payments, ultimately providing an easy way for webmasters to display content-sensitive, targeted ads, without the headache of having to solicit advertisers, collect funds, monitor clicks or track statistics, any of which could easily become a full-time job. While Google AdSense, like many pay-per-click programs, is plagued by claims of click-fraud, it is clearly an effective revenue source for many reputable web businesses. There seems to be no shortage of advertisers in the AdWords program from which Google pulls the AdSense ads. Webmasters seem less concerned by the lack of information provided by Google and more interested in cashing their monthly checks from Google.The Evolution of AdSenseWhile Google's initial system was fairly rudimentary, only providing publishers the option of displaying a handful of advertising formats, the technology behind even the first ads was anything but simplistic. The technology used to employ Google AdSense goes far beyond simple keyword or category matching. A complex algorithm is used to determine the content contained on the web page serving the ad. Once the content is assessed, and appropriate ads that contain related content are served.Early on, Google implemented a system that allows publishers to filter advertisements from competitors or sites which they deemed inappropriate. Google also allows vendors to specify an alternative advertisement, in the unlikely event that Google is unable to provide related content ads. The Progression of GoogleGoogle has come a long way in understanding the needs of publishers and webmasters. Google now offers a system that allows full ad customization. Webmasters can choose from twelve text ad formats and can customize Google advertisements to complement their website and fit into existing webpage layout. The options provided allow webmasters to select and create custom color palettes that match an existing website's color scheme, making the ads a much more natural fit. Many sites have been able to integrate ads into their site design using different ad formats. Sample sites with integrated ads:Investing Partners - http://www.investing-partners.com Podcasting Tools - http://www.podcasting-tools.com . RSS Network - http://www.rss-network.comOnline ReportsGoogle recently took a huge step forward, providing publishers the ability to track their earnings based on webmaster-defined channels. Recent improvements to the Google AdSense reporting have resulted in webmasters having the capability to monitor an ad's performance with customizable online reports that can detail page impressions, clicks and click-through rates. Webmasters now have the ability to track specific ad formats, colors and pages within a website. Webmasters can quickly spot and track trends. The new flexible reporting tools allows webmasters to group web pages by URL, domain, ad type or category, providing webmasters insight into what pages, ads and domains are performing the best.Reporting is real-time, allowing webmasters to quickly assess the effectiveness of any changes. The new reporting makes it significantly easier for webmasters to optimize and increase click-through rates. Optional reporting allows webmasters to monitor traffic, viewing both ad impressions and page impressions. Advertisers realize the benefits associated with having their ads served on targeted websites, increasing the likelihood that a prospective web surfer will have an interest in their product or service. Truth Still Not RevealedGoogle still does not reveal what percentage of the advertising revenue earned is paid to the webmaster serving the ads, but they have made strides related to disclosure, recently lifting the ban preventing webmasters from disclosing the amount they earn through serving Google ads.
Copyright 2005 Sharon HousleyThe web has evolved into a complex "organism" which, to some, appears to have a life of its own. As the Internet has evolved, so too have online marketers and publishers. The dot-com balloon is said to have burst but savvy publishers have grabbed the coat tails of the Google search monster and employ Google AdSense on content-rich websites. Google AdSense, a pioneer for providing content-sensitive advertisements, has been a boon to webmasters looking for alternatives to amortize their web trafffic. How Does Google AdSense Work?The concept is simple: The publisher or webmaster inserts a java script into a website. Each time the page is accessed, the java script pulls advertisements from Google's AdSense program. The ads are targeted and related to the content contained on the web page serving the ad. If a web surfer clicks on an advertisement served from Google, the webmaster serving the ad earns a portion of the money that the advertiser is paying Google for the click.Google handles all the tracking and payments, ultimately providing an easy way for webmasters to display content-sensitive, targeted ads, without the headache of having to solicit advertisers, collect funds, monitor clicks or track statistics, any of which could easily become a full-time job. While Google AdSense, like many pay-per-click programs, is plagued by claims of click-fraud, it is clearly an effective revenue source for many reputable web businesses. There seems to be no shortage of advertisers in the AdWords program from which Google pulls the AdSense ads. Webmasters seem less concerned by the lack of information provided by Google and more interested in cashing their monthly checks from Google.The Evolution of AdSenseWhile Google's initial system was fairly rudimentary, only providing publishers the option of displaying a handful of advertising formats, the technology behind even the first ads was anything but simplistic. The technology used to employ Google AdSense goes far beyond simple keyword or category matching. A complex algorithm is used to determine the content contained on the web page serving the ad. Once the content is assessed, and appropriate ads that contain related content are served.Early on, Google implemented a system that allows publishers to filter advertisements from competitors or sites which they deemed inappropriate. Google also allows vendors to specify an alternative advertisement, in the unlikely event that Google is unable to provide related content ads. The Progression of GoogleGoogle has come a long way in understanding the needs of publishers and webmasters. Google now offers a system that allows full ad customization. Webmasters can choose from twelve text ad formats and can customize Google advertisements to complement their website and fit into existing webpage layout. The options provided allow webmasters to select and create custom color palettes that match an existing website's color scheme, making the ads a much more natural fit. Many sites have been able to integrate ads into their site design using different ad formats. Sample sites with integrated ads:Investing Partners - http://www.investing-partners.com Podcasting Tools - http://www.podcasting-tools.com . RSS Network - http://www.rss-network.comOnline ReportsGoogle recently took a huge step forward, providing publishers the ability to track their earnings based on webmaster-defined channels. Recent improvements to the Google AdSense reporting have resulted in webmasters having the capability to monitor an ad's performance with customizable online reports that can detail page impressions, clicks and click-through rates. Webmasters now have the ability to track specific ad formats, colors and pages within a website. Webmasters can quickly spot and track trends. The new flexible reporting tools allows webmasters to group web pages by URL, domain, ad type or category, providing webmasters insight into what pages, ads and domains are performing the best.Reporting is real-time, allowing webmasters to quickly assess the effectiveness of any changes. The new reporting makes it significantly easier for webmasters to optimize and increase click-through rates. Optional reporting allows webmasters to monitor traffic, viewing both ad impressions and page impressions. Advertisers realize the benefits associated with having their ads served on targeted websites, increasing the likelihood that a prospective web surfer will have an interest in their product or service. Truth Still Not RevealedGoogle still does not reveal what percentage of the advertising revenue earned is paid to the webmaster serving the ads, but they have made strides related to disclosure, recently lifting the ban preventing webmasters from disclosing the amount they earn through serving Google ads.
Should Bloggers be Helping Google Fix Their PageRank System?
by: Linda Bruton
By now, most bloggers have heard the announcement that the Big 3 search engines - Google, Yahoo, and MSN - have united in support of a new tag that will supposedly combat comment spam. The new tag is a nofollow attribute that can be added to links. When added to links in comment tags, the search engines will ignore them.An excellent discussion of this new tag and how it works can be found at Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050118-204728 Google announced the new tag in a 1/18/2005 post to their own blog: http://www.google.com/googleblog/ And Microsoft added their support to the new tag in this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/01/18/nofollow_tags.aspxAt first blush, anything that can help cut down the comment spam that most bloggers are daily subjected to would seem to be a good thing. It can be pretty upsetting to access your blog in the morning and find 50 junk comments with links to casino, adult, and pharmacy sites. If your blog has any PageRank, you can expect to find more of this garbage polluting your site every day. Fighting the spread of comment spam has become a necessity.But after first cheering the proactiveness of the search engines, many bloggers have stepped back and taken a closer look and they don't like what they see. You can read a sampling of their thoughts at Search Engine Watch Forum:http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3797Brian Turner's incisive article "New Nofollow Tag Cheers Bloggers but Fails Blogs" discusses some of the potential abuses of the new nofollow tag:http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/archives/2005/01/new_nofollow_ta.htmlAnd Jim Pryke's article "Bloggers Cheer Google As Their Search Rankings Plummet" makes it very clear that not only will this NOT stop comment spam. But it will actually hurt bloggers as a community:http://netinstitute.com/archives/2005/01/20/bloggers-cheer-google-as-their-search-rankings-plummetFor an hilarious take on the new tag and how it will get abused, be sure to take a look at Link Condom: http://www.linkcondom.com I have to agree with these bloggers that the nofollow tag won't even put a dent in the problem of comment spam. You have to realize that the comment spammers who cause the most problems are the ones who use automated bots to spread their spam onto every blog they find. The fact that they find a blog using the nofollow tag won't stop the bot from posting. If you have a popular blog, you'll still wake up every morning to find 50 casino/pharmacy/adult ads on your blog. You'll still have to spend the time deleting those posts to clean up your blog.You see, the problem to bloggers isn't that those comment links pass PR. It's the fact that those spam posts make your blog look like garbage. Whether the links pass PR or not isn't the big issue for bloggers. It's the time it takes to get rid of unwanted comments and the detraction to their sites. The nofollow tag won't do a thing about that problem. You'll still have the problems, even if you use the tag. Think about this: how effective have email filters been in stopping email spam? As most of us know, they've hardly done any good at all. Email spam becomes a bigger problem every day. Spammers really don't care if some of their emails are blocked. They just send more of it to compensate. The same will be true of the automated comment spam bots.The fact of the matter is, there are already much better tools in most blogging software to fight comment spam AND save the time and effort of the blogger at the same time. There are already a number of plugins for WordPress, Moveable Type, and other blogs. There will undoubtedly be more in the future. These tools are already more effective at fighting comment spam than this nofollow tag will ever be. What is unfortunate is that the people the nofollow tag will really hurt is bloggers themselves. Traditionally, bloggers have read and commented in each other's blogs. And these comments have added value. When I write an article for my blog, I love it when other bloggers take the time to add their insights on the topic I'm discussing. These comments add content to my site and continue the discussion. This is one of the reasons blogs are so easy to grow into topic-specific information-rich sites that are popular with readers. Unlike static sites, they offer two-way communication between reader and blogger. They become communities. When someone adds this kind of value to my blog, I am more than happy to give them a link to their blog that passes PR. That will help them build the readership of their own blog, grow the community even larger, and add to the richness of the discussion. These are exactly the kinds of links that any webmaster should want on their site!Adding a nofollow tag to comments can only quash this discussion. It can only discourage commenters with the most to contribute from taking the time to add to the discussion. After all, if the time I spend on another blog doesn't contribute to the growth of the blogging community as a whole or aid in the visibility of my own blog, am I going to spend as much time and effort doing it? Anything that decreases the open flow of discussion currently enjoyed in the blogging community is a bad deal for bloggers. The question that should be asked is this: why is comment spam so profitable? After all, if it weren't profitable, so many people wouldn't be going to such ridiculous lengths to do it.The answer to this is obviously Google's link-heavy PageRank algorithm that forces webmasters to get every link they can to get their site's indexed and ranked. Most webmasters know that in order to get ranked in Google, they had better have a ton of links to their site. That's the problem with PageRank as an algorithm. It encourages artificial linking between sites that no longer has any relevance whatsoever to the goal of providing good resources to visitors. Do we really believe that most reciprocal link directories provide a resource to our visitors? Not likely! If websites are real estate, reciprocal link directories are the slums, the seedy bars and tattoo parlors on the edges of polite society. Whole businesses have sprung up as a reaction to PageRank. I'm talking about the link auction and link selling sites. Under the PageRank system, sites aren't being ranked by who provides the best content, but by who has the deepest pockets to buy the most links. Or, in the case of comment spammers, whoever wants to spread their bots all over the internet spamming blogs. This system has over time totally skewed the natural linking between sites that once dominated the internet - the very thing that Google's PageRank system is supposed to reward.Ironically, blogs are one of the few places left on the web where linking is actually about providing good content to visitors and rewarding value provided on other sites. Bloggers as a group are the most likely to link to sites because of the content value to their visitors. Their links are very likely to be very topic specific. You don't find that on other sites. These are the kinds of links that I would assume Google would want to encourage through their PageRank system, not those junky reciprocal link directories or purchased links.It would seem to me that the only effective way to cut down on comment spam and all the artificial linking techniques Google purportedly wants to thwart is not by making life harder for bloggers - the very people who link in the most relevant fashion. But at taking a second look at their own PageRank system and whether it is really serving the usefulness of their own search engine and the whole web in 2005.
By now, most bloggers have heard the announcement that the Big 3 search engines - Google, Yahoo, and MSN - have united in support of a new tag that will supposedly combat comment spam. The new tag is a nofollow attribute that can be added to links. When added to links in comment tags, the search engines will ignore them.An excellent discussion of this new tag and how it works can be found at Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050118-204728 Google announced the new tag in a 1/18/2005 post to their own blog: http://www.google.com/googleblog/ And Microsoft added their support to the new tag in this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/01/18/nofollow_tags.aspxAt first blush, anything that can help cut down the comment spam that most bloggers are daily subjected to would seem to be a good thing. It can be pretty upsetting to access your blog in the morning and find 50 junk comments with links to casino, adult, and pharmacy sites. If your blog has any PageRank, you can expect to find more of this garbage polluting your site every day. Fighting the spread of comment spam has become a necessity.But after first cheering the proactiveness of the search engines, many bloggers have stepped back and taken a closer look and they don't like what they see. You can read a sampling of their thoughts at Search Engine Watch Forum:http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3797Brian Turner's incisive article "New Nofollow Tag Cheers Bloggers but Fails Blogs" discusses some of the potential abuses of the new nofollow tag:http://www.platinax.co.uk/news/archives/2005/01/new_nofollow_ta.htmlAnd Jim Pryke's article "Bloggers Cheer Google As Their Search Rankings Plummet" makes it very clear that not only will this NOT stop comment spam. But it will actually hurt bloggers as a community:http://netinstitute.com/archives/2005/01/20/bloggers-cheer-google-as-their-search-rankings-plummetFor an hilarious take on the new tag and how it will get abused, be sure to take a look at Link Condom: http://www.linkcondom.com I have to agree with these bloggers that the nofollow tag won't even put a dent in the problem of comment spam. You have to realize that the comment spammers who cause the most problems are the ones who use automated bots to spread their spam onto every blog they find. The fact that they find a blog using the nofollow tag won't stop the bot from posting. If you have a popular blog, you'll still wake up every morning to find 50 casino/pharmacy/adult ads on your blog. You'll still have to spend the time deleting those posts to clean up your blog.You see, the problem to bloggers isn't that those comment links pass PR. It's the fact that those spam posts make your blog look like garbage. Whether the links pass PR or not isn't the big issue for bloggers. It's the time it takes to get rid of unwanted comments and the detraction to their sites. The nofollow tag won't do a thing about that problem. You'll still have the problems, even if you use the tag. Think about this: how effective have email filters been in stopping email spam? As most of us know, they've hardly done any good at all. Email spam becomes a bigger problem every day. Spammers really don't care if some of their emails are blocked. They just send more of it to compensate. The same will be true of the automated comment spam bots.The fact of the matter is, there are already much better tools in most blogging software to fight comment spam AND save the time and effort of the blogger at the same time. There are already a number of plugins for WordPress, Moveable Type, and other blogs. There will undoubtedly be more in the future. These tools are already more effective at fighting comment spam than this nofollow tag will ever be. What is unfortunate is that the people the nofollow tag will really hurt is bloggers themselves. Traditionally, bloggers have read and commented in each other's blogs. And these comments have added value. When I write an article for my blog, I love it when other bloggers take the time to add their insights on the topic I'm discussing. These comments add content to my site and continue the discussion. This is one of the reasons blogs are so easy to grow into topic-specific information-rich sites that are popular with readers. Unlike static sites, they offer two-way communication between reader and blogger. They become communities. When someone adds this kind of value to my blog, I am more than happy to give them a link to their blog that passes PR. That will help them build the readership of their own blog, grow the community even larger, and add to the richness of the discussion. These are exactly the kinds of links that any webmaster should want on their site!Adding a nofollow tag to comments can only quash this discussion. It can only discourage commenters with the most to contribute from taking the time to add to the discussion. After all, if the time I spend on another blog doesn't contribute to the growth of the blogging community as a whole or aid in the visibility of my own blog, am I going to spend as much time and effort doing it? Anything that decreases the open flow of discussion currently enjoyed in the blogging community is a bad deal for bloggers. The question that should be asked is this: why is comment spam so profitable? After all, if it weren't profitable, so many people wouldn't be going to such ridiculous lengths to do it.The answer to this is obviously Google's link-heavy PageRank algorithm that forces webmasters to get every link they can to get their site's indexed and ranked. Most webmasters know that in order to get ranked in Google, they had better have a ton of links to their site. That's the problem with PageRank as an algorithm. It encourages artificial linking between sites that no longer has any relevance whatsoever to the goal of providing good resources to visitors. Do we really believe that most reciprocal link directories provide a resource to our visitors? Not likely! If websites are real estate, reciprocal link directories are the slums, the seedy bars and tattoo parlors on the edges of polite society. Whole businesses have sprung up as a reaction to PageRank. I'm talking about the link auction and link selling sites. Under the PageRank system, sites aren't being ranked by who provides the best content, but by who has the deepest pockets to buy the most links. Or, in the case of comment spammers, whoever wants to spread their bots all over the internet spamming blogs. This system has over time totally skewed the natural linking between sites that once dominated the internet - the very thing that Google's PageRank system is supposed to reward.Ironically, blogs are one of the few places left on the web where linking is actually about providing good content to visitors and rewarding value provided on other sites. Bloggers as a group are the most likely to link to sites because of the content value to their visitors. Their links are very likely to be very topic specific. You don't find that on other sites. These are the kinds of links that I would assume Google would want to encourage through their PageRank system, not those junky reciprocal link directories or purchased links.It would seem to me that the only effective way to cut down on comment spam and all the artificial linking techniques Google purportedly wants to thwart is not by making life harder for bloggers - the very people who link in the most relevant fashion. But at taking a second look at their own PageRank system and whether it is really serving the usefulness of their own search engine and the whole web in 2005.
"If an RSS feed is the Yahoo backdoor, is a Blog Google’s?"
by: Tinu AbayomiPaul
Copyright 2004 Tinu AbayomiPaulThough the answer is in a book I wrote this July, the question is still asked of me repeatedly. Why does it work for some sites and not others? And how come some blogs get indexed in a day and then are dropped, and others stay in Google indefinitely?Well, let’s take one question at a time. The answer to whether you can blog your way into Google search results is yes, sometimes in six weeks, often in 24 hours. Yes, you read right, in less than 24 hours. Under certain conditions, the search engines actually want you to succeed at this.I’m aware that these statements may cause some controversy, but that won’t make them any less factual. Since September, Google has been set up to show you proof of this, which we’ll go over in part two. My new blog has been spidered and indexed daily since it was created.Not only is this possible with your blog, the way that blogs are set up make them one of the most conducive web site mediums to attract more traffic from multiple sources quickly. The trick to getting this to work for you, is in understanding which conditions have to be met first. And we’ll come back to that shortly. First let’s talk about what’s typically wrong with the process most people take to get their sites listed.Most people submit their sites to Google and wait six to eight weeks to see if they were included. Other people know that the fastest way to be spidered is to leave your link at a site that is already getting spidered. But even among those people, when they don’t see their site in Google exactly the way they’d like, they give up, and say it didn’t work. So what went wrong? The place that the majority of people go wrong is in trying to trick the Googlebot into thinking their site matches its standards for inclusion for their desired high traffic keyword, instead of aligning themselves with the purpose that the search engine fills. You may think that if you study all the search engine tricks, you’ll have the traffic from the search engines and it will then follow that yours will be the site people come to for the keyword they want, which in turn, will get 1% of those people to buy what’s at your site. If you think that, I’m not here to tell you that you’re wrong - sometimes that works. I’m just saying that there are other easier, faster, less expensive ways. Some of them only have subtle differences from the way you know. The truth is, even if we could somehow reverse engineer the secret Google algorithm, it periodically changes. So mastering that system would be temporary, even if you could do it. Did you know that you don’t even need the traffic for your most desired keyword to be successful? You just need some targeted traffic that converts well. Some of the most financially successful sites generate amazing profits in the tens or hundreds of thousands with a few hundred or thousand visitors every month. The method I most suggest to get the kind of search engine results that can power those kinds of sales, is aligning your site with the purpose the search engine seeks to fill. It is faster, more effective and involves far less effort. You should still make sure your blog meets all the basic search engine optimization guidelines. However, the very nature of a blog makes it easier to meet more of these requirements with less continual struggle. Let’s look at the facts, and see how blogs align themselves more closely with one of Google’s purposes as a search engine. Here's what you need to keep in mind:1- if you get your site’s link in the path of the search engine spider or robot of your choice, in this case Googlebot, if may follow it. 2- the way to get it to follow the link is to make sure it can “see” your link 3- if your content fills a need that the search engine’s database of links has, it will include your link, and,4- if your link fills a deficit better than any other site, in accordance with Google’s secret formula or algorithm, it will rank your page well. So now, the only missing component necessary to our success is now finding out how to be the best site Google finds for a category that has a deficit.One of the strengths of Google, as perceived by people who like it, is the vast amount of fresh content it contains that is relevant to almost any topic, or keyword, typed into it, no matter how narrow or broad. It follows then, that one purpose of this database of links is to provide fresh, relevant content on topics its users desire. The freshest, most relevant, most topical information found on the web today are in blogs, as well as their corresponding RSS or Atom feeds. A blog’s very function is to contain constantly updated focused content, on one topic or field. When blogs first started, the topic was often a person’s life. Business blogs, instead, are updated records of a certain kind of information relevant to an industry, a company or a topic, aligned with the interests of their visitors. So you need to know the following things in order to get your blog included on Google’s search engine results pages. • Where to leave your link so that it will get spidered• How to make sure Googlebot sees your link• How to set up your blog so its content fills a deficit• The best way to make sure your blog does this better than other sites.There’s a specific formula of success for this, one of many that will work not just one time, but repeatedly.We’ve run out of space for the moment, but part two picks up with the specifics of how your blog needs to be set up and how to determine exactly where Googlebot can find your link.
Copyright 2004 Tinu AbayomiPaulThough the answer is in a book I wrote this July, the question is still asked of me repeatedly. Why does it work for some sites and not others? And how come some blogs get indexed in a day and then are dropped, and others stay in Google indefinitely?Well, let’s take one question at a time. The answer to whether you can blog your way into Google search results is yes, sometimes in six weeks, often in 24 hours. Yes, you read right, in less than 24 hours. Under certain conditions, the search engines actually want you to succeed at this.I’m aware that these statements may cause some controversy, but that won’t make them any less factual. Since September, Google has been set up to show you proof of this, which we’ll go over in part two. My new blog has been spidered and indexed daily since it was created.Not only is this possible with your blog, the way that blogs are set up make them one of the most conducive web site mediums to attract more traffic from multiple sources quickly. The trick to getting this to work for you, is in understanding which conditions have to be met first. And we’ll come back to that shortly. First let’s talk about what’s typically wrong with the process most people take to get their sites listed.Most people submit their sites to Google and wait six to eight weeks to see if they were included. Other people know that the fastest way to be spidered is to leave your link at a site that is already getting spidered. But even among those people, when they don’t see their site in Google exactly the way they’d like, they give up, and say it didn’t work. So what went wrong? The place that the majority of people go wrong is in trying to trick the Googlebot into thinking their site matches its standards for inclusion for their desired high traffic keyword, instead of aligning themselves with the purpose that the search engine fills. You may think that if you study all the search engine tricks, you’ll have the traffic from the search engines and it will then follow that yours will be the site people come to for the keyword they want, which in turn, will get 1% of those people to buy what’s at your site. If you think that, I’m not here to tell you that you’re wrong - sometimes that works. I’m just saying that there are other easier, faster, less expensive ways. Some of them only have subtle differences from the way you know. The truth is, even if we could somehow reverse engineer the secret Google algorithm, it periodically changes. So mastering that system would be temporary, even if you could do it. Did you know that you don’t even need the traffic for your most desired keyword to be successful? You just need some targeted traffic that converts well. Some of the most financially successful sites generate amazing profits in the tens or hundreds of thousands with a few hundred or thousand visitors every month. The method I most suggest to get the kind of search engine results that can power those kinds of sales, is aligning your site with the purpose the search engine seeks to fill. It is faster, more effective and involves far less effort. You should still make sure your blog meets all the basic search engine optimization guidelines. However, the very nature of a blog makes it easier to meet more of these requirements with less continual struggle. Let’s look at the facts, and see how blogs align themselves more closely with one of Google’s purposes as a search engine. Here's what you need to keep in mind:1- if you get your site’s link in the path of the search engine spider or robot of your choice, in this case Googlebot, if may follow it. 2- the way to get it to follow the link is to make sure it can “see” your link 3- if your content fills a need that the search engine’s database of links has, it will include your link, and,4- if your link fills a deficit better than any other site, in accordance with Google’s secret formula or algorithm, it will rank your page well. So now, the only missing component necessary to our success is now finding out how to be the best site Google finds for a category that has a deficit.One of the strengths of Google, as perceived by people who like it, is the vast amount of fresh content it contains that is relevant to almost any topic, or keyword, typed into it, no matter how narrow or broad. It follows then, that one purpose of this database of links is to provide fresh, relevant content on topics its users desire. The freshest, most relevant, most topical information found on the web today are in blogs, as well as their corresponding RSS or Atom feeds. A blog’s very function is to contain constantly updated focused content, on one topic or field. When blogs first started, the topic was often a person’s life. Business blogs, instead, are updated records of a certain kind of information relevant to an industry, a company or a topic, aligned with the interests of their visitors. So you need to know the following things in order to get your blog included on Google’s search engine results pages. • Where to leave your link so that it will get spidered• How to make sure Googlebot sees your link• How to set up your blog so its content fills a deficit• The best way to make sure your blog does this better than other sites.There’s a specific formula of success for this, one of many that will work not just one time, but repeatedly.We’ve run out of space for the moment, but part two picks up with the specifics of how your blog needs to be set up and how to determine exactly where Googlebot can find your link.
Can You Really Make Money From Blogging
by: Willie Crawford
Copyright 2005 Willie CrawfordOne of the questions I see frequently asked on online discussion forums is, "Can You Really Make Money From Blogging?" People want to know if there's some way to profit from the time they spend maintaining their weblogs or personal online journals.My answer is an emphatic "YES," because I do it... everyday!Today I'll share with you how I do it.Let me begin by saying that I don't make thousands per month from MOST of my blogs. However, I do have many making hundreds. Since I don't put in a lot of time maintaining them, and I enjoy blogging, I consider the money a bonus. I blog while sitting in my yard with my laptop (on a wireless connection)... watching the clouds roll by. Another bonus I get from blogging is that it helps my regular websites that are set up as my "money machines."The search engines visit my blogs more often than they visit my regular sites, and they follow the links from my blogs pointing to other sites. Some of these links point to my sites, and some point to sites of partners. This does help the search engine rankings of these sites MASSIVELY.How Do I Monetize My Blogs?I monetize my blogs by creating blogs on topics people are searching for... and that they are spending money on. I know which niches are hot to an extent based upon what my research proves pay-per-click advertisers are willing to spend their advertising dollars on. I run Google AdSense ads on my blogs. I simply insert these ads in my menu bar and other strategic places on the webpage. I also experiment with other paid advertising on my blogs.I sell affiliate products from my blogs. I simply find affiliate products at places like PayDotCom.com and Commission Junction. I incorporate these into my blogs. I do things like product reviews, how-to articles, etc. You can also locate suitable affiliate products by typing your target keywords + "affiliate program" at any major search engine. This should point out numerous websites with suitable affiliate programs to you.How Do I Setup/Host My Blogs?I have blog hosted on some of my own domains using Moveable Type. This is just one of many great pieces of blogging software. You have other choices... my programmer recommended this one to me.I also have blogs hosted for free on Blogger.com. I have them on Blogger.com because they are incredibly easy to set up and maintain. A secondary reason I have them on Blogger.com is that Google OWNS Blogger.com and they index webpages hosted on their servers OFTEN and FAST!The secret to getting Google and Yahoo! to visit your blogs often is a technique called "blogging and pinging." It's a method of notifying all of the major search engines, and blog directories, each time that you update your blog. The search engines come to take a look and they follow links from your blog to spider other blogs/sites. It's very powerful. I won't go into too much details on blogging and pinging here. If you want more information on that topic I invite you to drop by my free, Internet marketing discussion board and ask any and all questions! It's at:http://WillieCrawford.com/cgi-bin/index.cgiExamples Of Profitable Blogs?I know, you want to see examples of profitable blogs :-)To show you how simple it can be I'll show you just ONE. It’s less than 2 months old :-) The problem is that as soon as I show a site to anyone as an example, it's instantly ripped off. So, I'm going to "sacrifice" one making me about $60 per day from affiliate product sales and about $20 per day in AdSense revenue. That site is at: http://cure-nail-fungus.blogspot.comThe above site currently ranks Number 6 on Yahoo for the term "cure nail fungus." It's a small niche but one that makes me $2400 per month... just from that one blog.If you searched on the same term at Google, this site is not very highly ranked. However, THIS page is Num ber4:http://www.chitterlings.com/no-more-nail-fungus.htmlThat happens to be one of my pages too :-) I won't tell you what ALL I'm up to on that page... that's another article. The technique involves using your own domains to promote affiliate products rather than advertising someone else's domain... so it improves your link popularity.I'm not going to show more of my blogs because that just invites competition. Instead, I'm going to answer another question you have to be wondering..."How do I find time to maintain all of these blogs, even if they are profitable?" Well, first of all, I don't really need a lot like the "sacrificial lamb" that I showed you above to keep me satisfied.I do have a number of secret weapons though. One is called AutoBlogger. You can check it out at:http://WillieCrawford.com/auto-blogger.htmlWhat AutoBlogger does is allow me to queue up a number of posts for my various blogs in advance. It lets you queue up "articles" which can really be anything you want. Then you tell the software at what frequency to make a post.My AutoBlogger account allows me to automatically post to an UNLIMITED number of blogs.WARNING: A program like AutoBlogger can get you in trouble if you misuse it! If you use it to spam or abuse the search engines, it's just going to get you banned. If you use it to abuse the blog hosts, they're just going to delete your blogs. Here's how I use AutoBlogger:I have sites where I discuss Internet marketing... as just one example. On these sites I share many of my articles and tidbits. I simply queue up these articles/tidbits to post at a given frequency. This frequency can be a set number of hours, days, weeks, or months. So theoretically, I can set up a blog, pre-schedule 50 posts, and not touch it in months, while it is automatically posted to for the next 50 intervals.AutoBlogger even lets you set it to start rotating through the posts again when they run out, if you want to. I personally wouldn't do this since you'd just be posting duplicate content.AutoBlogger allows you to insert RSS feeds right into your blog posts. So in addition to posting articles you can also auto-update by adding new RSS feeds at a set interval. Since I HATE sending my traffic to other sites (without reciprocation), these RSS feeds generally pull from MY sites. That way, my traffic is only sent to my other sites. If you don't even feel like queuing up a lot of posts, you can go to a site like Elance.com and hire someone else to do it for you... or just hired your kids to do it for you. It can be as easy as you want to make it.OK, I've just proven to you that you can make money off of blogs. In-fact, you can make more money than many people make off of their REGULAR websites. It just takes a little thinking outside the box!It also takes not being too greedy. What I just showed you works for me because I'm not doing anything that's likely to get me banned from the search engines, Google AdSense, Blogger.com, or any affiliate program. It's only when you get carried away, and do things that harm the search engines that you "shoot yourself in the foot."Set up blogs providing useful content. Make regular posts to these blogs but not in a manner that seems unnatural. By that, I mean don't auto-post twenty times in an hour, or post every hour for a month! No human can possible post to a blog at these rates for long, so the search engines detect something is "wrong." They don't generally prohibit you from using tools to make your job easier... just don't get carried away!There are actually, thousands of people earning a living doing things similar to what I just shared... but with little twists. I'm meeting up with many of them in New Orleans in September. You're invited to join us. We'll basically be sharing how we make a fortune off of niche websites and programs such as Google AdSense. You can register today at:http://WillieCrawford.com/meet-in-new-orleans.html
Copyright 2005 Willie CrawfordOne of the questions I see frequently asked on online discussion forums is, "Can You Really Make Money From Blogging?" People want to know if there's some way to profit from the time they spend maintaining their weblogs or personal online journals.My answer is an emphatic "YES," because I do it... everyday!Today I'll share with you how I do it.Let me begin by saying that I don't make thousands per month from MOST of my blogs. However, I do have many making hundreds. Since I don't put in a lot of time maintaining them, and I enjoy blogging, I consider the money a bonus. I blog while sitting in my yard with my laptop (on a wireless connection)... watching the clouds roll by. Another bonus I get from blogging is that it helps my regular websites that are set up as my "money machines."The search engines visit my blogs more often than they visit my regular sites, and they follow the links from my blogs pointing to other sites. Some of these links point to my sites, and some point to sites of partners. This does help the search engine rankings of these sites MASSIVELY.How Do I Monetize My Blogs?I monetize my blogs by creating blogs on topics people are searching for... and that they are spending money on. I know which niches are hot to an extent based upon what my research proves pay-per-click advertisers are willing to spend their advertising dollars on. I run Google AdSense ads on my blogs. I simply insert these ads in my menu bar and other strategic places on the webpage. I also experiment with other paid advertising on my blogs.I sell affiliate products from my blogs. I simply find affiliate products at places like PayDotCom.com and Commission Junction. I incorporate these into my blogs. I do things like product reviews, how-to articles, etc. You can also locate suitable affiliate products by typing your target keywords + "affiliate program" at any major search engine. This should point out numerous websites with suitable affiliate programs to you.How Do I Setup/Host My Blogs?I have blog hosted on some of my own domains using Moveable Type. This is just one of many great pieces of blogging software. You have other choices... my programmer recommended this one to me.I also have blogs hosted for free on Blogger.com. I have them on Blogger.com because they are incredibly easy to set up and maintain. A secondary reason I have them on Blogger.com is that Google OWNS Blogger.com and they index webpages hosted on their servers OFTEN and FAST!The secret to getting Google and Yahoo! to visit your blogs often is a technique called "blogging and pinging." It's a method of notifying all of the major search engines, and blog directories, each time that you update your blog. The search engines come to take a look and they follow links from your blog to spider other blogs/sites. It's very powerful. I won't go into too much details on blogging and pinging here. If you want more information on that topic I invite you to drop by my free, Internet marketing discussion board and ask any and all questions! It's at:http://WillieCrawford.com/cgi-bin/index.cgiExamples Of Profitable Blogs?I know, you want to see examples of profitable blogs :-)To show you how simple it can be I'll show you just ONE. It’s less than 2 months old :-) The problem is that as soon as I show a site to anyone as an example, it's instantly ripped off. So, I'm going to "sacrifice" one making me about $60 per day from affiliate product sales and about $20 per day in AdSense revenue. That site is at: http://cure-nail-fungus.blogspot.comThe above site currently ranks Number 6 on Yahoo for the term "cure nail fungus." It's a small niche but one that makes me $2400 per month... just from that one blog.If you searched on the same term at Google, this site is not very highly ranked. However, THIS page is Num ber4:http://www.chitterlings.com/no-more-nail-fungus.htmlThat happens to be one of my pages too :-) I won't tell you what ALL I'm up to on that page... that's another article. The technique involves using your own domains to promote affiliate products rather than advertising someone else's domain... so it improves your link popularity.I'm not going to show more of my blogs because that just invites competition. Instead, I'm going to answer another question you have to be wondering..."How do I find time to maintain all of these blogs, even if they are profitable?" Well, first of all, I don't really need a lot like the "sacrificial lamb" that I showed you above to keep me satisfied.I do have a number of secret weapons though. One is called AutoBlogger. You can check it out at:http://WillieCrawford.com/auto-blogger.htmlWhat AutoBlogger does is allow me to queue up a number of posts for my various blogs in advance. It lets you queue up "articles" which can really be anything you want. Then you tell the software at what frequency to make a post.My AutoBlogger account allows me to automatically post to an UNLIMITED number of blogs.WARNING: A program like AutoBlogger can get you in trouble if you misuse it! If you use it to spam or abuse the search engines, it's just going to get you banned. If you use it to abuse the blog hosts, they're just going to delete your blogs. Here's how I use AutoBlogger:I have sites where I discuss Internet marketing... as just one example. On these sites I share many of my articles and tidbits. I simply queue up these articles/tidbits to post at a given frequency. This frequency can be a set number of hours, days, weeks, or months. So theoretically, I can set up a blog, pre-schedule 50 posts, and not touch it in months, while it is automatically posted to for the next 50 intervals.AutoBlogger even lets you set it to start rotating through the posts again when they run out, if you want to. I personally wouldn't do this since you'd just be posting duplicate content.AutoBlogger allows you to insert RSS feeds right into your blog posts. So in addition to posting articles you can also auto-update by adding new RSS feeds at a set interval. Since I HATE sending my traffic to other sites (without reciprocation), these RSS feeds generally pull from MY sites. That way, my traffic is only sent to my other sites. If you don't even feel like queuing up a lot of posts, you can go to a site like Elance.com and hire someone else to do it for you... or just hired your kids to do it for you. It can be as easy as you want to make it.OK, I've just proven to you that you can make money off of blogs. In-fact, you can make more money than many people make off of their REGULAR websites. It just takes a little thinking outside the box!It also takes not being too greedy. What I just showed you works for me because I'm not doing anything that's likely to get me banned from the search engines, Google AdSense, Blogger.com, or any affiliate program. It's only when you get carried away, and do things that harm the search engines that you "shoot yourself in the foot."Set up blogs providing useful content. Make regular posts to these blogs but not in a manner that seems unnatural. By that, I mean don't auto-post twenty times in an hour, or post every hour for a month! No human can possible post to a blog at these rates for long, so the search engines detect something is "wrong." They don't generally prohibit you from using tools to make your job easier... just don't get carried away!There are actually, thousands of people earning a living doing things similar to what I just shared... but with little twists. I'm meeting up with many of them in New Orleans in September. You're invited to join us. We'll basically be sharing how we make a fortune off of niche websites and programs such as Google AdSense. You can register today at:http://WillieCrawford.com/meet-in-new-orleans.html
How Podcasting Works
by: Sharon Housley
Copyright 2005 Sharon HousleyIt has been said that in October of 2004 a Google search returned less than 6,000 results for the term "podcasting". Today, a similar search yields more than 857,000 results. Like the blogging phenomenon, podcasting has come out of nowhere and attracted an enthusiastic following.While some traditional radio talk shows have begun providing podcasts of their regularly-scheduled broadcasts, the bulk of the podcasts that have cropped up tend to be independent broadcasters who have a fascination with technology. As a result, some podcasts are a little rough around the edges. Nonetheless, it is clear that the technology provides a significant opportunity and potential. Even nay-sayers believe that podcasting is more than a passing fad.Podcasting is RSS that is used to syndicate and distribute audio files. Podcasting contains an audio file in the RSS feed's enclosure tag. An enclosure tag is used in RSS feeds to include certain types of files. The file contained in an enclosure tag can be: an image, a data file, a video file, or an audio file. Podcasting specifically refers to RSS feeds that contain audio files in their enclosure tag. The RSS version that currently supports enclosure tags is RSS version 2.0. All podcasts are currently created using this specification.The benefit to podcasting is the fact that users can sync content with their media player and listen at a time and a place of their choosing: radio on demand. And while this technology is not limited to music, it seems to be the area that has received the most attention.Podcasting is generally inexpensive to implement. Investment in a good quality microphone will ensure that the recording is audible. Depending on knowledge and experience, some podcasters invest in audio conversion, compression and audio editing software applications. Also, web space bandwith and software to create the feed for the podcast is needed. All in all, the initial expense is relatively small.Publishing PodcastsIn three simple steps, independent broadcasters can have their voice heard:1. Publishers create audio content, posting it on a website for listeners. 2. Create or edit an existing RSS feed including a link to the audio file in the "enclosure" field of an RSS 2.0 feed, uploading it to a website. 3. Tell the world that a podcast is available.Listen to Podcasts: In three simple steps web surfers can listen to podcasts: 1. Download a news aggregator or RSS reader that supports podcasting or sync a wireless device like an iPod with your computer. 2. Enter the URL of the podcast feed into the news aggregator or podcast management software. 3. As new items appear in the aggregator, review the podcast's description and listen to those that are of interest. As popularity increases it is likely many voices will be drowned out, but for now, an independent broadcaster with a microphone and unlimited bandwith can make a name, create an image and change the world.Useful Tools for Podcasting:Create podcast feed - http://www.feedforall.comNews aggregator supporting podcasts - http://www.feeddemon.com or http://www.primetimepodcast.comSee also Podcasting Tools - http://www.small-business-software.net/podcasting-tools.htm
Copyright 2005 Sharon HousleyIt has been said that in October of 2004 a Google search returned less than 6,000 results for the term "podcasting". Today, a similar search yields more than 857,000 results. Like the blogging phenomenon, podcasting has come out of nowhere and attracted an enthusiastic following.While some traditional radio talk shows have begun providing podcasts of their regularly-scheduled broadcasts, the bulk of the podcasts that have cropped up tend to be independent broadcasters who have a fascination with technology. As a result, some podcasts are a little rough around the edges. Nonetheless, it is clear that the technology provides a significant opportunity and potential. Even nay-sayers believe that podcasting is more than a passing fad.Podcasting is RSS that is used to syndicate and distribute audio files. Podcasting contains an audio file in the RSS feed's enclosure tag. An enclosure tag is used in RSS feeds to include certain types of files. The file contained in an enclosure tag can be: an image, a data file, a video file, or an audio file. Podcasting specifically refers to RSS feeds that contain audio files in their enclosure tag. The RSS version that currently supports enclosure tags is RSS version 2.0. All podcasts are currently created using this specification.The benefit to podcasting is the fact that users can sync content with their media player and listen at a time and a place of their choosing: radio on demand. And while this technology is not limited to music, it seems to be the area that has received the most attention.Podcasting is generally inexpensive to implement. Investment in a good quality microphone will ensure that the recording is audible. Depending on knowledge and experience, some podcasters invest in audio conversion, compression and audio editing software applications. Also, web space bandwith and software to create the feed for the podcast is needed. All in all, the initial expense is relatively small.Publishing PodcastsIn three simple steps, independent broadcasters can have their voice heard:1. Publishers create audio content, posting it on a website for listeners. 2. Create or edit an existing RSS feed including a link to the audio file in the "enclosure" field of an RSS 2.0 feed, uploading it to a website. 3. Tell the world that a podcast is available.Listen to Podcasts: In three simple steps web surfers can listen to podcasts: 1. Download a news aggregator or RSS reader that supports podcasting or sync a wireless device like an iPod with your computer. 2. Enter the URL of the podcast feed into the news aggregator or podcast management software. 3. As new items appear in the aggregator, review the podcast's description and listen to those that are of interest. As popularity increases it is likely many voices will be drowned out, but for now, an independent broadcaster with a microphone and unlimited bandwith can make a name, create an image and change the world.Useful Tools for Podcasting:Create podcast feed - http://www.feedforall.comNews aggregator supporting podcasts - http://www.feeddemon.com or http://www.primetimepodcast.comSee also Podcasting Tools - http://www.small-business-software.net/podcasting-tools.htm
6 more free steps to making money online
by: Darren Power
Copyright 2004 Darren PowerIf you read my previous article you will know that the goal of these articles is to teach you ways to get started making money online without having to spend any money.This is the second in the series and this time we deal with having your own blog. There are endless ways of making money once you have traffic, and your blog will get you traffic. The income we will be looking at today will come from Google Adsense.There are multiple benefits to having a blog including the low cost (or no cost), the resources that will help you get traffic to your blog and the fact that you can provide your blog as an RSS feed. An RSS feed will allow readers to automatically receive your updates into their RSS reader.Let's get started with our 6 steps.1. Set up your blog. You will need to decide what you are going to blog about. You should decide on a theme and name your blog appropriately.There are a number of free ways to set up a blog & to have it hosted for free. We will go with Blogger.com for our first blog. Blogger will allow you to set up a blog for free they will host it for free and they will ping search engines every time you update, meaning you will get spidered & found. Visit blogger.com & click the button on the front page labelled 'create your blog now' then follow the step by step instructions that Blogger provide.Some key settings you will want to get right are:I) 'Host your blog at Blogger' = YesII) 'Add your blog to our listings' = Yes III) 'Ping Weblogs.com' = YesIV) 'Publish Site Feed' = Yes2. Write some content. Before we move any further there has to be some information on the site & that means that you have to make some entries. You can write some of these entries yourself & some can be quotes from sites of interest to your reader that you can post using the Google Toolbar.You can download the Google toolbar for free at toolbar.google.com. The toolbar includes a Blogger button. When you visit a site that has something of interest to your readers you can highlight the appropriate text & click the Blogger button. The content will then be added to your blog along with a link back to the site.3. Once you have some content eg a weeks worth of blogging with 1 or 2 entries for everyday, you can apply for an adsense account. When you sign in to Blogger you will see an invitation to join Adsense. Use this link and apply for an account.You can find out all about Adsense on the Adsense page but basically you get Google ads on your site & get paid if your visitor clicks them. Google will decide what adverts show on your site based on the content it finds within.You need to be aware that Google will decline your application if your site is not considered to have content. Nobody outside of Google knows the precise rules on this.Once you have been accepted you can get some javascript from Google to add to you site. Copy this & then log in to Blogger. Once you have logged into your blog you will see that one of the tabs across the top of the screen is labelled 'Template'. Click this. You will need to know a little bit of HTML to help find the right location to paste your Google code. But with a little experimentation you will find the right place for you. See the resource box at the end of this article for more help.I would suggest that the ads need to be seen when the site loads but should not be too obvious or dominate your site.4. Write some more content. Try and keep your content coming at regular intervals as a number of directories will check on your site at regular intervals & the smarter ones will visit on a schedule based on your update schedule. They will probably determine this in the hours after you first submit to them. Which is what we will do next.5. Submit your site to Blog & RSS directories. Because you are hosting at Blogger, Weblogs.com will already be notified when you update your blog. (That means that every time you make a new entry they are automatically notified) You will need to manually submit to the various other directories some of which will require a link on your site to theirs.You can add these links to your template below your Blogger logo. For a list of directories to get you started visit www.themoneyseed.com/rss6. Keep writing interesting content. Ideally you want people to come back again and again. As with customers its harder to get a new visitor than to keep existing visitors. So make it interesting, in fact make it so interesting that they can't help but tell all their friends about it also.As with most free ways to make money this will take time to get going, but if you can build a following you will make money.
Copyright 2004 Darren PowerIf you read my previous article you will know that the goal of these articles is to teach you ways to get started making money online without having to spend any money.This is the second in the series and this time we deal with having your own blog. There are endless ways of making money once you have traffic, and your blog will get you traffic. The income we will be looking at today will come from Google Adsense.There are multiple benefits to having a blog including the low cost (or no cost), the resources that will help you get traffic to your blog and the fact that you can provide your blog as an RSS feed. An RSS feed will allow readers to automatically receive your updates into their RSS reader.Let's get started with our 6 steps.1. Set up your blog. You will need to decide what you are going to blog about. You should decide on a theme and name your blog appropriately.There are a number of free ways to set up a blog & to have it hosted for free. We will go with Blogger.com for our first blog. Blogger will allow you to set up a blog for free they will host it for free and they will ping search engines every time you update, meaning you will get spidered & found. Visit blogger.com & click the button on the front page labelled 'create your blog now' then follow the step by step instructions that Blogger provide.Some key settings you will want to get right are:I) 'Host your blog at Blogger' = YesII) 'Add your blog to our listings' = Yes III) 'Ping Weblogs.com' = YesIV) 'Publish Site Feed' = Yes2. Write some content. Before we move any further there has to be some information on the site & that means that you have to make some entries. You can write some of these entries yourself & some can be quotes from sites of interest to your reader that you can post using the Google Toolbar.You can download the Google toolbar for free at toolbar.google.com. The toolbar includes a Blogger button. When you visit a site that has something of interest to your readers you can highlight the appropriate text & click the Blogger button. The content will then be added to your blog along with a link back to the site.3. Once you have some content eg a weeks worth of blogging with 1 or 2 entries for everyday, you can apply for an adsense account. When you sign in to Blogger you will see an invitation to join Adsense. Use this link and apply for an account.You can find out all about Adsense on the Adsense page but basically you get Google ads on your site & get paid if your visitor clicks them. Google will decide what adverts show on your site based on the content it finds within.You need to be aware that Google will decline your application if your site is not considered to have content. Nobody outside of Google knows the precise rules on this.Once you have been accepted you can get some javascript from Google to add to you site. Copy this & then log in to Blogger. Once you have logged into your blog you will see that one of the tabs across the top of the screen is labelled 'Template'. Click this. You will need to know a little bit of HTML to help find the right location to paste your Google code. But with a little experimentation you will find the right place for you. See the resource box at the end of this article for more help.I would suggest that the ads need to be seen when the site loads but should not be too obvious or dominate your site.4. Write some more content. Try and keep your content coming at regular intervals as a number of directories will check on your site at regular intervals & the smarter ones will visit on a schedule based on your update schedule. They will probably determine this in the hours after you first submit to them. Which is what we will do next.5. Submit your site to Blog & RSS directories. Because you are hosting at Blogger, Weblogs.com will already be notified when you update your blog. (That means that every time you make a new entry they are automatically notified) You will need to manually submit to the various other directories some of which will require a link on your site to theirs.You can add these links to your template below your Blogger logo. For a list of directories to get you started visit www.themoneyseed.com/rss6. Keep writing interesting content. Ideally you want people to come back again and again. As with customers its harder to get a new visitor than to keep existing visitors. So make it interesting, in fact make it so interesting that they can't help but tell all their friends about it also.As with most free ways to make money this will take time to get going, but if you can build a following you will make money.
Why Google Blog Search Matters to Your Business
by: Tinu AbayomiPaul
Copyright 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaulAccording to Google, Google's Blog Search is "Google search technology focused on blogs". It includes search engine results specific to blogs not just in the Blogger.com community, but across the blogosphere at large. You can access it at http://www.blogsearch.google.com/What the Big Deal IsA lot of people have probably heard about this extra version of search Google has added and are greeting it with a big yawn, particularly since it's still in Beta. So what is the big deal, anyway?The big deal is that the top search engine in the world, which was already paying particular attention to blogs in regular search results, seems to make a subtle statement with the introduction of blog-specific searches. Blogs are important enough to warrant their own special level of search, and not just as an advanced search option, but in their own search engine.If search engines are paying attention to blogging that closely, you should be too -- if you want better search engine results.Current fans of blogs will be able to search the freshest results so that they can see what is being discussed right now - information that is often as fresh as the news, and draws upon sources that the media-at-large either doesn't have ready access to, or interest in.So to those with even the most obscure interests or hobbies, a blog search powered by a top search engine gives ready access to fresh information on any subject that someone can blog about.And if a blog doesn't yet exist on these narrow themes? You can be the one to start the discussion.Why It Matters to Your BusinessSpeaking of the media, this is likely to become one of the many tools that a journalist in the know would use in order to research a story, or to find out more information about a company, directly from the people who use its products or services.Technorati, is at present, arguably a better tool, but it's just not as well known as the Google brand. If you're a power searcher, you already know what Technorati is. But the key thing to understand is that most consumers - even B2B consumers - aren't as deeply involved in the internet. But even those folks know what Google is.There's an even more obvious advantage to this specialized search.Google Blog search has the unprecedented potential to bring the mainstream surfer into blogging, even more than Yahoo's RSS Headlines pioneered the start of making RSS mainstream about a year ago. Why? While many of your clients will fall instantly in love with RSS, it's more fair to them to present its possibilities in a format that's easier for them to digest. It's not as hard to explain a blog - and if you can't you can simply tell them it's a more frequently updated part of your existing site.When Google's Blog Search is brought more to the front in coming months, if your site gets into position to be visible when more of the internet population becomes blog-happy, then the traffic potential for your site may prove to be enormous.The proper use of one RSS feed in one of my content management systems doubled my traffic, with most of the new users coming from Yahoo, this time last year. Another feed increased my daily traffic another 75%, and brought me additional return traffic as well.At the time the margin between Yahoo and Google was wider than it is today -- so the potential increase from being in Google boggles the mind.How to Get ListedAccording to the Blog Search Help Page:"If your blog publishes a site feed in any format and automatically pings an updating service (such as Weblogs.com), we should be able to find and list it. Also, we will soon be providing a form that you can use to manually add your blog to our index, in case we haven't picked it up automatically. Stay tuned for more information on this."This means that if you're already blogging - and responsibly pinging, you're probably already listed.If you haven't been blogging, you're in luck. This special brand of Google search is still in Beta, so if you get moving now, you still have enough time to start getting into position. And since the search currently seems to be focused on freshness and relevance, if you keep up the blogging once you start, and you keep your theme narrow, you could still dominate your niche.Do It TodayThe mantra for blogging before was that, proper blogging is a sure fire way to increase traffic, as well as build stronger ties to your end users or clients, not to mention that it is the simplest of the many implementations of RSS.Now, with all three major search engines paying more attention to both RSS and Blogging, you can get spidered more frequently, get more of your pages indexed more deeply, and be included in more searches.You have absolutely no time to waste - if you're not blogging already, you need to get started quickly. Many webmasters are hesitating because they haven't been able to find a blog system that fits well with their site, or find the most popular tools too sophisticated for their needs. There are literally dozens of free resources to help you decide between the standard systems that were originally built for the personal blogger, and the more robust solutions that are aimed at the medium-sized or corporate company - but that's another article.Whatever you chose, the important thing is to get started blogging today. You'll be missing out on targeted traffic from the most dominant search engine, from the most sophisticated surfers today, and sooner than you know it, the mainstream web.
Copyright 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaulAccording to Google, Google's Blog Search is "Google search technology focused on blogs". It includes search engine results specific to blogs not just in the Blogger.com community, but across the blogosphere at large. You can access it at http://www.blogsearch.google.com/What the Big Deal IsA lot of people have probably heard about this extra version of search Google has added and are greeting it with a big yawn, particularly since it's still in Beta. So what is the big deal, anyway?The big deal is that the top search engine in the world, which was already paying particular attention to blogs in regular search results, seems to make a subtle statement with the introduction of blog-specific searches. Blogs are important enough to warrant their own special level of search, and not just as an advanced search option, but in their own search engine.If search engines are paying attention to blogging that closely, you should be too -- if you want better search engine results.Current fans of blogs will be able to search the freshest results so that they can see what is being discussed right now - information that is often as fresh as the news, and draws upon sources that the media-at-large either doesn't have ready access to, or interest in.So to those with even the most obscure interests or hobbies, a blog search powered by a top search engine gives ready access to fresh information on any subject that someone can blog about.And if a blog doesn't yet exist on these narrow themes? You can be the one to start the discussion.Why It Matters to Your BusinessSpeaking of the media, this is likely to become one of the many tools that a journalist in the know would use in order to research a story, or to find out more information about a company, directly from the people who use its products or services.Technorati, is at present, arguably a better tool, but it's just not as well known as the Google brand. If you're a power searcher, you already know what Technorati is. But the key thing to understand is that most consumers - even B2B consumers - aren't as deeply involved in the internet. But even those folks know what Google is.There's an even more obvious advantage to this specialized search.Google Blog search has the unprecedented potential to bring the mainstream surfer into blogging, even more than Yahoo's RSS Headlines pioneered the start of making RSS mainstream about a year ago. Why? While many of your clients will fall instantly in love with RSS, it's more fair to them to present its possibilities in a format that's easier for them to digest. It's not as hard to explain a blog - and if you can't you can simply tell them it's a more frequently updated part of your existing site.When Google's Blog Search is brought more to the front in coming months, if your site gets into position to be visible when more of the internet population becomes blog-happy, then the traffic potential for your site may prove to be enormous.The proper use of one RSS feed in one of my content management systems doubled my traffic, with most of the new users coming from Yahoo, this time last year. Another feed increased my daily traffic another 75%, and brought me additional return traffic as well.At the time the margin between Yahoo and Google was wider than it is today -- so the potential increase from being in Google boggles the mind.How to Get ListedAccording to the Blog Search Help Page:"If your blog publishes a site feed in any format and automatically pings an updating service (such as Weblogs.com), we should be able to find and list it. Also, we will soon be providing a form that you can use to manually add your blog to our index, in case we haven't picked it up automatically. Stay tuned for more information on this."This means that if you're already blogging - and responsibly pinging, you're probably already listed.If you haven't been blogging, you're in luck. This special brand of Google search is still in Beta, so if you get moving now, you still have enough time to start getting into position. And since the search currently seems to be focused on freshness and relevance, if you keep up the blogging once you start, and you keep your theme narrow, you could still dominate your niche.Do It TodayThe mantra for blogging before was that, proper blogging is a sure fire way to increase traffic, as well as build stronger ties to your end users or clients, not to mention that it is the simplest of the many implementations of RSS.Now, with all three major search engines paying more attention to both RSS and Blogging, you can get spidered more frequently, get more of your pages indexed more deeply, and be included in more searches.You have absolutely no time to waste - if you're not blogging already, you need to get started quickly. Many webmasters are hesitating because they haven't been able to find a blog system that fits well with their site, or find the most popular tools too sophisticated for their needs. There are literally dozens of free resources to help you decide between the standard systems that were originally built for the personal blogger, and the more robust solutions that are aimed at the medium-sized or corporate company - but that's another article.Whatever you chose, the important thing is to get started blogging today. You'll be missing out on targeted traffic from the most dominant search engine, from the most sophisticated surfers today, and sooner than you know it, the mainstream web.
Marketing Optimization 101 for Blogs
by: Rok Hrastnik
Copyright 2005 Rok HrastnikTruth be told, most blogs aren't really optimized for marketing effectiveness. Even more so, some blogs are absolute marketing machines, but they at the same time fail to fully capitalize on that fact by not being really optimized marketing-wise.Blogs may be Web 2.0, but bloggers should not ignore some of the good old internet direct marketing tactics that have been working for marketers online almost for a decade or more.Here are the absolute 101 basics you really shouldn't ignore ...1. DON'T FORGET E-MAIL DELIVERYBloggers are often abandoning or completely ignoring e-mail as a tool to deliver their content to their readers. As an RSS evangelist I certainly believe in using RSS to get your content to the world, but only as a supplement to e-mail delivery.While RSS provides us with many unique benefits, it is yet to reach mainstream adoption. Until it does, marketers and publishers should not even consider abandoning e-mail delivery, or risk ignoring most of their potential readership.If you're still wondering why you need e-mail, consider the potential you might be wasting without it. Someone visits your blog, likes the content and would like to be notified as new content of interest becomes available, and he does not know what RSS is or even care. If you fail to capture his e-mail address and consent at that exact moment, he might never again return to your site, either because he forgets about it or because dozens of other sites capture his interest even before the next day.2. E-ZINE PUBLISHING IS STILL A MUSTPublishing a blog is not a replacement for an e-zine. If nothing else, publish a weekly or monthly e-zine of your top blog posts, available in a single easy-to-consume format.Some simply do not have the time to watch your blog regularly and others will only want to receive a quick summary to get only your best and most crucial content. Publishing an e-mail e-zine will do that for you, giving you the opportunity to communicate with the widest possible long-term audience for your blog.3. E-MAIL AND RSS SUBSCRIPTIONSProviding e-mail (e-zine) and RSS subscriptions is important to the success of any blog. But neither of these will do you much good if your visitors don't actually see them and if you don't give them enough incentive to subscribe.Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will see them.And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer, calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal information.4. EXPLAIN RSSMost internet users still do not know what RSS is or how to use it, and consequently the RSS buttons on your blog mean absolutely nothing to them. To overcome this problem, create a special RSS presentation page and link to it next to the RSS subscribe button. On that page explain:- What RSS is- How the visitor will benefit from using RSS- Where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!)- How they can install it (provide step-by-step instructions)- How they can subscribe to your RSS feeds- Why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds- Then, on this same page, include the links to all of your RSS feeds. 5. TOP CONTENTIf you update your blog frequently, your less recent top content keeps being pushed down and down, where most of your blog readers will never bother to look for it.Overcome this frequent blog problem by creating a list of your top posts, clearly displayed and available from each of your pages. Depending on the topic you cover, you might want to place these headlines as close to the top of your blog as possible, in order to quickly entice your new visitors to start reading the best of what you have to offer and then use this content to convert them to loyal readers and subscribers.6. THE HEADLINEThe site or blog headline will tell your visitors what to expect from reading your blog and will answer their key question: "What's in it for me?" Make sure that your blog headlines gives this reason and the story inviting enough for your readers to keep reading.7. LEAD YOUR VISITORS TO YOUR MDAMDA is the Most Desired Action you want your visitors to take on your site, ranging from a subscription to your e-zine to requesting more information about your services or ordering your product / getting more information about it.Your blog will be of great help in this area, but only if you actually lead your visitors to this action. Putting this information in your menu simply is not enough. Experiment putting some copy for your MDA directly below each blog post (on your permanent blog post archives pages) and also prominently in your left- or right-hand columns.If you're providing multiple services or products, promote each of them next to the appropriate posts, based on post topics.And yes, this is more important than having dozens of Google AdSense ads on your blog ... if you want to use your blog as part of your marketing mix.8. LOOK DIFFERENTBlogs are usually not heavily designed and most of them look exactly the same. While light design is one of the positive sides of blogs, you should invest some effort in making your blog stand-out visually. Don't cram it with design, but still make sure it's different than every other blog in the market.9. USE YOUR OWN DOMAINHaving a subdomain.typepad.com type sub-domain might be the easiest choice, but don't forget that your domain name is your permanent online address and part of your online brand.Consequently, invest a couple of dollars to get your own domain name, to enforce your brand, as well as making it easier for your readers to access your blog.10. DON'T FORGET YOUR KEYWORDSWhat keywords do you want your content and blog to be found under in the search engines? Don't forget to implement these keywords in the titles and body content of your blog posts. I'm not saying you should write your posts to please the search engines, but at least keep them in mind and use them when possible, without taking anything away from the actual content.11. INTERACT WITH YOUR READERSIf you're blogging for business, don't forget about business oriented reader interaction. Mainly, solicit questions from your readers, pertaining to your field of expertise, and then respond to them via your blog. Post interesting client case studies. When you get a review, post it or link to it. And so on ...12. BLOG SPECIFIC PROMOTIONAL TACTICS 101a] Intensively market your RSS feedsb] Ping the search engines and directories after you update your blog, using a free service such as http://www.pingomatic.com13. DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CONTENTAnd of course, none of the above won't make any difference at all if you don't provide high-quality, interesting and frequent content.These 13 points are of course only the most basic stuff, but enough to help you get on the marketing optimization train.
Copyright 2005 Rok HrastnikTruth be told, most blogs aren't really optimized for marketing effectiveness. Even more so, some blogs are absolute marketing machines, but they at the same time fail to fully capitalize on that fact by not being really optimized marketing-wise.Blogs may be Web 2.0, but bloggers should not ignore some of the good old internet direct marketing tactics that have been working for marketers online almost for a decade or more.Here are the absolute 101 basics you really shouldn't ignore ...1. DON'T FORGET E-MAIL DELIVERYBloggers are often abandoning or completely ignoring e-mail as a tool to deliver their content to their readers. As an RSS evangelist I certainly believe in using RSS to get your content to the world, but only as a supplement to e-mail delivery.While RSS provides us with many unique benefits, it is yet to reach mainstream adoption. Until it does, marketers and publishers should not even consider abandoning e-mail delivery, or risk ignoring most of their potential readership.If you're still wondering why you need e-mail, consider the potential you might be wasting without it. Someone visits your blog, likes the content and would like to be notified as new content of interest becomes available, and he does not know what RSS is or even care. If you fail to capture his e-mail address and consent at that exact moment, he might never again return to your site, either because he forgets about it or because dozens of other sites capture his interest even before the next day.2. E-ZINE PUBLISHING IS STILL A MUSTPublishing a blog is not a replacement for an e-zine. If nothing else, publish a weekly or monthly e-zine of your top blog posts, available in a single easy-to-consume format.Some simply do not have the time to watch your blog regularly and others will only want to receive a quick summary to get only your best and most crucial content. Publishing an e-mail e-zine will do that for you, giving you the opportunity to communicate with the widest possible long-term audience for your blog.3. E-MAIL AND RSS SUBSCRIPTIONSProviding e-mail (e-zine) and RSS subscriptions is important to the success of any blog. But neither of these will do you much good if your visitors don't actually see them and if you don't give them enough incentive to subscribe.Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will see them.And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer, calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal information.4. EXPLAIN RSSMost internet users still do not know what RSS is or how to use it, and consequently the RSS buttons on your blog mean absolutely nothing to them. To overcome this problem, create a special RSS presentation page and link to it next to the RSS subscribe button. On that page explain:- What RSS is- How the visitor will benefit from using RSS- Where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!)- How they can install it (provide step-by-step instructions)- How they can subscribe to your RSS feeds- Why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds- Then, on this same page, include the links to all of your RSS feeds. 5. TOP CONTENTIf you update your blog frequently, your less recent top content keeps being pushed down and down, where most of your blog readers will never bother to look for it.Overcome this frequent blog problem by creating a list of your top posts, clearly displayed and available from each of your pages. Depending on the topic you cover, you might want to place these headlines as close to the top of your blog as possible, in order to quickly entice your new visitors to start reading the best of what you have to offer and then use this content to convert them to loyal readers and subscribers.6. THE HEADLINEThe site or blog headline will tell your visitors what to expect from reading your blog and will answer their key question: "What's in it for me?" Make sure that your blog headlines gives this reason and the story inviting enough for your readers to keep reading.7. LEAD YOUR VISITORS TO YOUR MDAMDA is the Most Desired Action you want your visitors to take on your site, ranging from a subscription to your e-zine to requesting more information about your services or ordering your product / getting more information about it.Your blog will be of great help in this area, but only if you actually lead your visitors to this action. Putting this information in your menu simply is not enough. Experiment putting some copy for your MDA directly below each blog post (on your permanent blog post archives pages) and also prominently in your left- or right-hand columns.If you're providing multiple services or products, promote each of them next to the appropriate posts, based on post topics.And yes, this is more important than having dozens of Google AdSense ads on your blog ... if you want to use your blog as part of your marketing mix.8. LOOK DIFFERENTBlogs are usually not heavily designed and most of them look exactly the same. While light design is one of the positive sides of blogs, you should invest some effort in making your blog stand-out visually. Don't cram it with design, but still make sure it's different than every other blog in the market.9. USE YOUR OWN DOMAINHaving a subdomain.typepad.com type sub-domain might be the easiest choice, but don't forget that your domain name is your permanent online address and part of your online brand.Consequently, invest a couple of dollars to get your own domain name, to enforce your brand, as well as making it easier for your readers to access your blog.10. DON'T FORGET YOUR KEYWORDSWhat keywords do you want your content and blog to be found under in the search engines? Don't forget to implement these keywords in the titles and body content of your blog posts. I'm not saying you should write your posts to please the search engines, but at least keep them in mind and use them when possible, without taking anything away from the actual content.11. INTERACT WITH YOUR READERSIf you're blogging for business, don't forget about business oriented reader interaction. Mainly, solicit questions from your readers, pertaining to your field of expertise, and then respond to them via your blog. Post interesting client case studies. When you get a review, post it or link to it. And so on ...12. BLOG SPECIFIC PROMOTIONAL TACTICS 101a] Intensively market your RSS feedsb] Ping the search engines and directories after you update your blog, using a free service such as http://www.pingomatic.com13. DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CONTENTAnd of course, none of the above won't make any difference at all if you don't provide high-quality, interesting and frequent content.These 13 points are of course only the most basic stuff, but enough to help you get on the marketing optimization train.
How To Add Fresh Content To Your Website
by: Jeff Schuman
Copyright 2004 Jeff SchumanI've read over and over that when it comes to building a website and getting a lot of traffic to it "Content Is King." If you do a search for any topic you will find the websites that come up in the Top 10 all have a lot of content on their websites. When somone does a search they are looking for information and the search engines job is to provide it to them. For your website to increase in popularity you have to constantly be adding fresh content. This will increase your ranking for the keywords on your site and ultimately increase your traffic and repeat traffic.Here are a few simple things you can do to add fresh content.1. Do you publish and ezine? If so add a file to your index for each issue and archive it online. This will bring all kinds of keyword rich content to your website on a constant basis.2. Start and article page. Add new articles to it. If you write put your articles on your website. Subscribe to a few ezines that are industry related. If you come across an article you like add it to your page.3. Add Free Syndicated Content Feeds to your article page. This is really easy to do. All you do is copy a few lines of code into the HTML of your web page and you have a constant stream of new articles for your readers. Here are 2 of my favorite sources:http://www.submityourarticle.com/syndicate/http://www.web-source.net/syndicator.htm4. Add Pay Per Click Advertising to your site. Most people think of PPC advertising as a way to promote their site. I have found it very easy to build new web pages around different keywords relating to the the theme of my site and actually get paid for the click. One of my favorite pay per click advertising sources is SearchFeed. This is very easy to work with and provides a nice income boost every month as well.http://www.team-schuman.com/searchfeedHere is an example of a page I built around the SearchFeed advertising model. Notice that I have made the look of their box compliment my own page. Also a key here is that as the advertisers with SearchFeed change so does the content on my site and I never have to do anything except add some easy code one time.http://www.team-schuman.com/make-money/homebasedbusinessI have an article on the page and I change that periodically as well.5. Start a Link Exchange Program. This is a little harder to set up and is time consuming, but I have found it to be worth the effort. In a future article I will go into detail on how to properly do link exchanges. For now just let me say that linking is a great way to constantly be adding new content to your site as you link with new websites that compliment yours.One company who does a great job if you don’t want to spend much time linking is LinksManager. They manage reciprocal links, and help increase your website traffic through linking with other like-minded quality sites. Check them out here:http://www.linksmanager.com/6. Think outside the box. It is worthwhile to continue to think of new and easy ways to keep adding fresh content to your website. Go to Google and do a search for “Fresh Content For My Website” without the Quotation marks. Currently there are Over 1.9 million results that come up. Everything from cut and paste charts, to RSS feeds and a whole lot more.In conclusion "Content Really Is King. I have found my position with the search engines improve dramatically when I really started building more web pages and adding more fresh content.It is time consuming at first, but the payoff in the long run is worth the effort when the search engines reward your effort and your traffic and income grow proportionally as well.
Copyright 2004 Jeff SchumanI've read over and over that when it comes to building a website and getting a lot of traffic to it "Content Is King." If you do a search for any topic you will find the websites that come up in the Top 10 all have a lot of content on their websites. When somone does a search they are looking for information and the search engines job is to provide it to them. For your website to increase in popularity you have to constantly be adding fresh content. This will increase your ranking for the keywords on your site and ultimately increase your traffic and repeat traffic.Here are a few simple things you can do to add fresh content.1. Do you publish and ezine? If so add a file to your index for each issue and archive it online. This will bring all kinds of keyword rich content to your website on a constant basis.2. Start and article page. Add new articles to it. If you write put your articles on your website. Subscribe to a few ezines that are industry related. If you come across an article you like add it to your page.3. Add Free Syndicated Content Feeds to your article page. This is really easy to do. All you do is copy a few lines of code into the HTML of your web page and you have a constant stream of new articles for your readers. Here are 2 of my favorite sources:http://www.submityourarticle.com/syndicate/http://www.web-source.net/syndicator.htm4. Add Pay Per Click Advertising to your site. Most people think of PPC advertising as a way to promote their site. I have found it very easy to build new web pages around different keywords relating to the the theme of my site and actually get paid for the click. One of my favorite pay per click advertising sources is SearchFeed. This is very easy to work with and provides a nice income boost every month as well.http://www.team-schuman.com/searchfeedHere is an example of a page I built around the SearchFeed advertising model. Notice that I have made the look of their box compliment my own page. Also a key here is that as the advertisers with SearchFeed change so does the content on my site and I never have to do anything except add some easy code one time.http://www.team-schuman.com/make-money/homebasedbusinessI have an article on the page and I change that periodically as well.5. Start a Link Exchange Program. This is a little harder to set up and is time consuming, but I have found it to be worth the effort. In a future article I will go into detail on how to properly do link exchanges. For now just let me say that linking is a great way to constantly be adding new content to your site as you link with new websites that compliment yours.One company who does a great job if you don’t want to spend much time linking is LinksManager. They manage reciprocal links, and help increase your website traffic through linking with other like-minded quality sites. Check them out here:http://www.linksmanager.com/6. Think outside the box. It is worthwhile to continue to think of new and easy ways to keep adding fresh content to your website. Go to Google and do a search for “Fresh Content For My Website” without the Quotation marks. Currently there are Over 1.9 million results that come up. Everything from cut and paste charts, to RSS feeds and a whole lot more.In conclusion "Content Really Is King. I have found my position with the search engines improve dramatically when I really started building more web pages and adding more fresh content.It is time consuming at first, but the payoff in the long run is worth the effort when the search engines reward your effort and your traffic and income grow proportionally as well.
Benefits to RSS
by: Sharon Housley
Copyright 2004 Sharon HousleyRSS streamlines communication between publishers and readers. Since RSS has had a popularity surge, webmasters have been experimenting and using RSS feeds to deliver content in new and innovative ways. Typically, RSS feeds contain news headlines and content summaries. The content summaries contain just enough information without overwhelming the reader with superfluous details. If the reader is interested and wants additional information they can click on the item in the feed, accessing the website which contains additional details. RSS readers aggregate multiple feeds, making it easy for individuals to quickly scan information contained within each feed. Feeds are generally themed, allowing users to opt-in to feeds that are of interest. The big benefit to RSS is that individuals opt-in to content of interest, totally controlling the flow of information that they receive. If the quality of the content in the feed declines, users simply remove the feed from their RSS reader and they will not receive any additional updates from that source. The RSS reader acts as an aggregator, allowing users to view and scan multiple content streams in a timely fashion.RSS is a great supplemental communication method that does not burden the publisher with maintaining lists or following strict privacy guidelines. RSS feeds are compiled according to the user's choices, removing any burden that is placed on publishers of email newsletters. Publishers no longer need to be concerned with spam, privacy policies, and age guidelines. Publishers using RSS as a communication vehicle are able to create keyword-rich, themed content, establishing trust, reputation, and ongoing communication with current and prospective customers. What Kind of Information Can be Delivered in RSS Feeds? Blogs Feed Many blogs are catalogued in an RSS feed, with each blog entry summarized as a feed item. This makes it easy for visitors to scan blog posts for items of interest.Article Feed Articles are often placed into feeds to alert readers when new articles and content are available. The feed entry is typically an article summary or introduction. Readers can then ascertain if the article is of interest and read further. Forum Feed Many forums now have add-ons that allow participants to receive forum posts via RSS. The RSS feeds often will show the latest discussion topics; if users are interested they simply click to enter the forum to participate in the discussion. As the topic is updated they will see new entries in the RSS feed. Schedule Feed Schools, clubs and organizations will often use feeds to communicate meeting times, places and events that might be occurring. The RSS feeds are often used to publicize events, notify the community of schedule changes or meeting agendas. Discounts / Specials Feed Retail and online stores have begun using RSS feeds to deliver their latest specials and discounted offers. Some online retailers have taken this a step further, allowing users to create their own feeds based on keywords or phrases. For example, this service will generate a URL than can be entered into a news reader. The feed is updated each time an item is added to Amazon that meets the specified criteria or keywords - Amazon Search Feed - http://www.oxus.net/amazon/Ego / News Monitoring Companies or individuals interested in receiving headline news based on a specific brand or keyword can use RSS feeds to monitor news sources. For example, users can use the following tool to create a feed that will allow them to receive filtered news from Google News. They will only receive items related to a specific keyword or phrase they setup - http://www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.phpIndustry-Specific RSS Feed Uses Include: Technical professionals in specific industries have also developed RSS feeds as way to market, promote or communicate within their specific industries. In many cases, this has expanded their reach and increased communication with current and prospective customers and clients. RSS feeds can be used by realtors to communicate the time and location for open houses, announce new property listings or promote decreased mortgage rates. Content feeds can also be used by universities to communicate sports scores or event schedules. Computer service professionals can create feeds to notify clients of potential security breaches, virus risks or outbreaks. Ultimately, RSS is molded to meet the communication needs of many sectors. Consider how RSS can benefit your business and supplement your communication needs.
Copyright 2004 Sharon HousleyRSS streamlines communication between publishers and readers. Since RSS has had a popularity surge, webmasters have been experimenting and using RSS feeds to deliver content in new and innovative ways. Typically, RSS feeds contain news headlines and content summaries. The content summaries contain just enough information without overwhelming the reader with superfluous details. If the reader is interested and wants additional information they can click on the item in the feed, accessing the website which contains additional details. RSS readers aggregate multiple feeds, making it easy for individuals to quickly scan information contained within each feed. Feeds are generally themed, allowing users to opt-in to feeds that are of interest. The big benefit to RSS is that individuals opt-in to content of interest, totally controlling the flow of information that they receive. If the quality of the content in the feed declines, users simply remove the feed from their RSS reader and they will not receive any additional updates from that source. The RSS reader acts as an aggregator, allowing users to view and scan multiple content streams in a timely fashion.RSS is a great supplemental communication method that does not burden the publisher with maintaining lists or following strict privacy guidelines. RSS feeds are compiled according to the user's choices, removing any burden that is placed on publishers of email newsletters. Publishers no longer need to be concerned with spam, privacy policies, and age guidelines. Publishers using RSS as a communication vehicle are able to create keyword-rich, themed content, establishing trust, reputation, and ongoing communication with current and prospective customers. What Kind of Information Can be Delivered in RSS Feeds? Blogs Feed Many blogs are catalogued in an RSS feed, with each blog entry summarized as a feed item. This makes it easy for visitors to scan blog posts for items of interest.Article Feed Articles are often placed into feeds to alert readers when new articles and content are available. The feed entry is typically an article summary or introduction. Readers can then ascertain if the article is of interest and read further. Forum Feed Many forums now have add-ons that allow participants to receive forum posts via RSS. The RSS feeds often will show the latest discussion topics; if users are interested they simply click to enter the forum to participate in the discussion. As the topic is updated they will see new entries in the RSS feed. Schedule Feed Schools, clubs and organizations will often use feeds to communicate meeting times, places and events that might be occurring. The RSS feeds are often used to publicize events, notify the community of schedule changes or meeting agendas. Discounts / Specials Feed Retail and online stores have begun using RSS feeds to deliver their latest specials and discounted offers. Some online retailers have taken this a step further, allowing users to create their own feeds based on keywords or phrases. For example, this service will generate a URL than can be entered into a news reader. The feed is updated each time an item is added to Amazon that meets the specified criteria or keywords - Amazon Search Feed - http://www.oxus.net/amazon/Ego / News Monitoring Companies or individuals interested in receiving headline news based on a specific brand or keyword can use RSS feeds to monitor news sources. For example, users can use the following tool to create a feed that will allow them to receive filtered news from Google News. They will only receive items related to a specific keyword or phrase they setup - http://www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.phpIndustry-Specific RSS Feed Uses Include: Technical professionals in specific industries have also developed RSS feeds as way to market, promote or communicate within their specific industries. In many cases, this has expanded their reach and increased communication with current and prospective customers and clients. RSS feeds can be used by realtors to communicate the time and location for open houses, announce new property listings or promote decreased mortgage rates. Content feeds can also be used by universities to communicate sports scores or event schedules. Computer service professionals can create feeds to notify clients of potential security breaches, virus risks or outbreaks. Ultimately, RSS is molded to meet the communication needs of many sectors. Consider how RSS can benefit your business and supplement your communication needs.
What is Blogging?
by: Anita DeFrank
Blogs have been around for many years but have recently become somewhat a new ‘craze’. A Blog is short for Web Log is basically an online journal. They can be set up at little to no cost at all, and can be used for a wide variety of things. Some bloggers just blog for the fun of it, while others tend to use their blogs for business reasons.The following are just a few ways blogs can be used:1) UpdatesKeep customers/clients up to date on changes to your website. Also new product announcement and new related websites.2) ReviewsYou can give opinions, advice and personal recommendations on specific products or services related to your field.3) Personal and Business uses Blogs are a great way to keep track of your goals and plans just by open writing. 4) Stress Reliever Jot down your vents, gripes, thoughts. Some also find general writing therapeutic. 5) Search Engine Optimization Search Engines love text and content. You can also include links to your website which equal backward links which in turn equals high ranking. 6) Money Makers Yes, you can make money with your blog by providing readers with quality copy writing and a few affiliate links. So how is a blog set up? There are several options you can choose from when starting your own blog, and a few are:1) Using a free service such as http://www.Blogger.com.2) Using Blogger.com (or other free blog provider) with your own domain name that you can purchase through places such as Mommy’s Helper Domain & Hosting Services http://www.mommyshelperonline.com/web-hosting.html .3) You can also choose a paid services such as http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Affil/?51483 for as little as $5.95 a month. So you have your blog set up, but how do you get visitors to it and get them comming back? Along with general advertising, here are a few more ideas: 1) DirectoriesThere are many directories that you can submit your blog to such as http://www.BlogWise.com To find more simply do a search for blog directories.2) Link ExchangePlace links on your website to your blog and visa versa.3) Syndicate Your Blog For example you can now give your visitors the option of having your blog headlines right on their MyYahoo! Page. (example - http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=http%3A//www.2wahms.blogspot.com ) This makes it much simpler for your readers to quickly skim the topic headlines and an added benefit to you the blogger to keep your visitors up to date.You also have the choice of letting your readers comments on your blog. Most services have these features and can be a great tool to keep your blog interactive between you and your readers.With all the spam filters and spam blockers available or sometimes even automatically installed in email programs, it’s getting harder every day to keep in constant contact with your visitors/customers and/or clients. Blogs have shed some new light in this aspect giving you a better way to communicate. Most blog services are very user friendly. If you can run simple programs such as MSWord or Word Perfect then you have the knowledge to maintain your own blog. There’s no need to even have html knowledge. In essence, anyone can have his or her own blog.Happy Blogging!
Blogs have been around for many years but have recently become somewhat a new ‘craze’. A Blog is short for Web Log is basically an online journal. They can be set up at little to no cost at all, and can be used for a wide variety of things. Some bloggers just blog for the fun of it, while others tend to use their blogs for business reasons.The following are just a few ways blogs can be used:1) UpdatesKeep customers/clients up to date on changes to your website. Also new product announcement and new related websites.2) ReviewsYou can give opinions, advice and personal recommendations on specific products or services related to your field.3) Personal and Business uses Blogs are a great way to keep track of your goals and plans just by open writing. 4) Stress Reliever Jot down your vents, gripes, thoughts. Some also find general writing therapeutic. 5) Search Engine Optimization Search Engines love text and content. You can also include links to your website which equal backward links which in turn equals high ranking. 6) Money Makers Yes, you can make money with your blog by providing readers with quality copy writing and a few affiliate links. So how is a blog set up? There are several options you can choose from when starting your own blog, and a few are:1) Using a free service such as http://www.Blogger.com.2) Using Blogger.com (or other free blog provider) with your own domain name that you can purchase through places such as Mommy’s Helper Domain & Hosting Services http://www.mommyshelperonline.com/web-hosting.html .3) You can also choose a paid services such as http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Affil/?51483 for as little as $5.95 a month. So you have your blog set up, but how do you get visitors to it and get them comming back? Along with general advertising, here are a few more ideas: 1) DirectoriesThere are many directories that you can submit your blog to such as http://www.BlogWise.com To find more simply do a search for blog directories.2) Link ExchangePlace links on your website to your blog and visa versa.3) Syndicate Your Blog For example you can now give your visitors the option of having your blog headlines right on their MyYahoo! Page. (example - http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=http%3A//www.2wahms.blogspot.com ) This makes it much simpler for your readers to quickly skim the topic headlines and an added benefit to you the blogger to keep your visitors up to date.You also have the choice of letting your readers comments on your blog. Most services have these features and can be a great tool to keep your blog interactive between you and your readers.With all the spam filters and spam blockers available or sometimes even automatically installed in email programs, it’s getting harder every day to keep in constant contact with your visitors/customers and/or clients. Blogs have shed some new light in this aspect giving you a better way to communicate. Most blog services are very user friendly. If you can run simple programs such as MSWord or Word Perfect then you have the knowledge to maintain your own blog. There’s no need to even have html knowledge. In essence, anyone can have his or her own blog.Happy Blogging!
How Yahoo's Recent Facelift Can Mean More Traffic To Your Site
by: Tinu AbayomiPaul
Copyright 2004 Tinu AbayomiPaulIt even surprised me. Yes, even though I have been pointing out the possibility since July, and was forced by demand to release my study findings before my book was even half finished, I was shocked when I heard the news as well. You see, I was sure we were at least a year off from this glorious day.The NewsYahoo has had a little facelift, which you've probably read about by now. The real news is more important for your site - the “My Yahoo!” page looks different too. On September 28, 2004, surfers who logged in to their personalized Yahoo area saw an announcement explaining the RSS and Atom files that show updated information to a website as content feeds, effectively pushing news feeds into the mainstream. The new look to this section of Yahoo was presented as a full page ad to every single account holder upon first log in that day, and even now, there remains a notice posted.When I logged into my page in the "My Yahoo!" section, I saw a big difference in the number of feeds left to choose from, as well as in the way they were presented. Currently, the RSS module boasts "150,000 sources". If your site isn't one of them, its crucial that you act now. If you have one and you’re not getting the results you’d like from your set-up, there are small changes you can implement that will make a huge difference in your listing.Best results aren’t as easy as submitting your feed now, but you’re still within the window of opportunity - if you do it properly.What the News Could Mean For Your Site If You Act NowOne of my clients recently called this "the back door into Yahoo". Whether that statement is accurate as far as getting included, or receiving an increase in rankings within Yahoo's search engine via your feed, depends on your site, and whether you create your feed correctly. If you could use a daily stream of traffic from even a small portion of Yahoo's estimated 20 million users, this could be your final wake-up call. You’ll want to learn how to create a feed that gets well listed immediately.Currently, the RSS module boasts "150,000 sources". Yahoo will still need hundreds, perhaps thousands more, even if it only intends to list the “creme de la creme” of the submissions it gets. Being in that group is as easy as submitting your feed.Being at the top of the list isn’t. However, you’re still within the window of opportunity if you take the time to learn how to do this properly. You can get free details on how to do that at helpmerss.com .“My Yahoo!” RSS Headline module Coming Out of Beta?If I had to guess, I'd say all signs point to yes. When that happens, Yahoo's RSS/Atom directory will likely contain only those who added their feeds early. New feeds seeking to be included will probably face stricter standards.If you don't have one yet don’t worry, because it’s never been easier to make one. If you can cut and paste, there are tools all over the Net that will show you how- some will even generate the file for you. However, there are still certain guidelines you need to follow with your feed to get a good result out of Yahoo - it's not as simple as adding your feed now that there are more competing listings.Yahoo is still accepting new sources for RSS feeds. Readers of my last book state that they are getting excellent results following my instructions, though initial inclusion no longer occurs at the same rate. Plenty of markets have few feeds available, or none at all. Your site could fill that void.That means you still have a chance at a first page ranking. The traffic I get on a daily basis from My Yahoo readers alone sounds like I just like to brag.And I do, but that's hardly the point.The point is, there's no place you can even go to buy the caliber of exposure to the quality of audience that reads feeds. The typical audience that accesses information by feed are also blog readers. A study this summer estimated that the 69.3% of blog readers are aged 29-50, and that 40% of this audience are people who have household incomes greater than $90,000. The type of surfer that would subscribe to your feed has pre-qualified themselves as a lead, with a certain level of understanding and interest in your topic, often on a professional level. And if you don't spend every post hitting them over the head with your sales pitch, they can be both loyal and interactive.(If you do, they'll unsubscribe from your feed faster than you can spell s-p-a-m.)And if you're in the business of providing information you can use, in a way that shows how you can solve their problem, it's like preaching to the converted. If your product solves their problem, and you show that you deserve the trust of this subscriber, you’ll also find the route to a sale an increasingly downward slope. The bottom line - this is the power surfer's favorite toy. And if your content appeals to them, you need to learn how to play.
Copyright 2004 Tinu AbayomiPaulIt even surprised me. Yes, even though I have been pointing out the possibility since July, and was forced by demand to release my study findings before my book was even half finished, I was shocked when I heard the news as well. You see, I was sure we were at least a year off from this glorious day.The NewsYahoo has had a little facelift, which you've probably read about by now. The real news is more important for your site - the “My Yahoo!” page looks different too. On September 28, 2004, surfers who logged in to their personalized Yahoo area saw an announcement explaining the RSS and Atom files that show updated information to a website as content feeds, effectively pushing news feeds into the mainstream. The new look to this section of Yahoo was presented as a full page ad to every single account holder upon first log in that day, and even now, there remains a notice posted.When I logged into my page in the "My Yahoo!" section, I saw a big difference in the number of feeds left to choose from, as well as in the way they were presented. Currently, the RSS module boasts "150,000 sources". If your site isn't one of them, its crucial that you act now. If you have one and you’re not getting the results you’d like from your set-up, there are small changes you can implement that will make a huge difference in your listing.Best results aren’t as easy as submitting your feed now, but you’re still within the window of opportunity - if you do it properly.What the News Could Mean For Your Site If You Act NowOne of my clients recently called this "the back door into Yahoo". Whether that statement is accurate as far as getting included, or receiving an increase in rankings within Yahoo's search engine via your feed, depends on your site, and whether you create your feed correctly. If you could use a daily stream of traffic from even a small portion of Yahoo's estimated 20 million users, this could be your final wake-up call. You’ll want to learn how to create a feed that gets well listed immediately.Currently, the RSS module boasts "150,000 sources". Yahoo will still need hundreds, perhaps thousands more, even if it only intends to list the “creme de la creme” of the submissions it gets. Being in that group is as easy as submitting your feed.Being at the top of the list isn’t. However, you’re still within the window of opportunity if you take the time to learn how to do this properly. You can get free details on how to do that at helpmerss.com .“My Yahoo!” RSS Headline module Coming Out of Beta?If I had to guess, I'd say all signs point to yes. When that happens, Yahoo's RSS/Atom directory will likely contain only those who added their feeds early. New feeds seeking to be included will probably face stricter standards.If you don't have one yet don’t worry, because it’s never been easier to make one. If you can cut and paste, there are tools all over the Net that will show you how- some will even generate the file for you. However, there are still certain guidelines you need to follow with your feed to get a good result out of Yahoo - it's not as simple as adding your feed now that there are more competing listings.Yahoo is still accepting new sources for RSS feeds. Readers of my last book state that they are getting excellent results following my instructions, though initial inclusion no longer occurs at the same rate. Plenty of markets have few feeds available, or none at all. Your site could fill that void.That means you still have a chance at a first page ranking. The traffic I get on a daily basis from My Yahoo readers alone sounds like I just like to brag.And I do, but that's hardly the point.The point is, there's no place you can even go to buy the caliber of exposure to the quality of audience that reads feeds. The typical audience that accesses information by feed are also blog readers. A study this summer estimated that the 69.3% of blog readers are aged 29-50, and that 40% of this audience are people who have household incomes greater than $90,000. The type of surfer that would subscribe to your feed has pre-qualified themselves as a lead, with a certain level of understanding and interest in your topic, often on a professional level. And if you don't spend every post hitting them over the head with your sales pitch, they can be both loyal and interactive.(If you do, they'll unsubscribe from your feed faster than you can spell s-p-a-m.)And if you're in the business of providing information you can use, in a way that shows how you can solve their problem, it's like preaching to the converted. If your product solves their problem, and you show that you deserve the trust of this subscriber, you’ll also find the route to a sale an increasingly downward slope. The bottom line - this is the power surfer's favorite toy. And if your content appeals to them, you need to learn how to play.
Website Globalization
by: Sharon Housley
Copyright 2004 Sharon HousleyGlobalize Your WebsiteThe Internet has unlocked a wide array of markets and knocked down barriers that previously prevented merchants from marketing their products on a global scale. There are a number of ways to 'globalize' a website and broaden a businesses general appeal to an international audience.1.) Payment Options - vary from country to country, therefore offering flexible payment options are important. While PayPal might be a good option for consumer-oriented products, this service is not widely used by businesses and is only available to customers in specific countries. In order to attract global customers, businesses must provide a variety of payment options that customers, in different countries, are familiar and comfortable with.2.) Currency Distinction - provides added convenience to a potential customer, and shows an understanding and respect for global audiences. A currency converter is a good option, especially for large companies who may be dealing with many countries. When listing prices clearly indicate the country currency, such as between US dollars and Canadian dollars. This distinction will prevent misconceptions and prevent customer dissatisfaction. 3.) Contact Information - should be given for a country code, along with the area code, when listing phone numbers. It should not be assumed that customers know the numbers to dial foreign calls. Since the standards of address formats can differ from country to country, ensure that the mailing address listed on the website is properly formatted. In this time of rapidly expanding use of numbers, if your area code changes, don't forget to change the information on your website.4.) Delivery Options - should make sense for all customers. Ensure that they have full knowledge of shipping information to avoid delay and error. If a shipping option is not available for a specific region be sure that is clearly stated on the website. Provide estimates as to when the product will arrive to various regions, so that customers have appropriate expectations about delivery time frames.5.) Order Forms - when creating order forms use terminology that is universal; if possible, where relevant, refer to postal codes rather than zip codes. The terminology on the order form should support the fact that the company sells to an international audience.6.) Payment Policy - clearly state payment policies on any order pages, if purchase orders or wire transfers are not accepted from specific countries be sure that the policy is clearly stated. Prepare an explanation as to why the policies are in place. Customers understand that foreign purchase orders are not legally binding and will not feel alienated if an explanation is offered and clearly stated. 7.) Spelling - can vary, so avoid using terminology on the website that would cause confusion or look like careless spelling mistakes. Be clear and concise as many customers may be viewing your website in their second language. A website that can be viewed in different languages is all the better for communicating with foreign customers. Ultimately the goal is to make purchasing the product or service easy for a customer. A website that respects cultural differences, as well as the nuances of language and terminology, will go a long way in attracting an international audience.
Copyright 2004 Sharon HousleyGlobalize Your WebsiteThe Internet has unlocked a wide array of markets and knocked down barriers that previously prevented merchants from marketing their products on a global scale. There are a number of ways to 'globalize' a website and broaden a businesses general appeal to an international audience.1.) Payment Options - vary from country to country, therefore offering flexible payment options are important. While PayPal might be a good option for consumer-oriented products, this service is not widely used by businesses and is only available to customers in specific countries. In order to attract global customers, businesses must provide a variety of payment options that customers, in different countries, are familiar and comfortable with.2.) Currency Distinction - provides added convenience to a potential customer, and shows an understanding and respect for global audiences. A currency converter is a good option, especially for large companies who may be dealing with many countries. When listing prices clearly indicate the country currency, such as between US dollars and Canadian dollars. This distinction will prevent misconceptions and prevent customer dissatisfaction. 3.) Contact Information - should be given for a country code, along with the area code, when listing phone numbers. It should not be assumed that customers know the numbers to dial foreign calls. Since the standards of address formats can differ from country to country, ensure that the mailing address listed on the website is properly formatted. In this time of rapidly expanding use of numbers, if your area code changes, don't forget to change the information on your website.4.) Delivery Options - should make sense for all customers. Ensure that they have full knowledge of shipping information to avoid delay and error. If a shipping option is not available for a specific region be sure that is clearly stated on the website. Provide estimates as to when the product will arrive to various regions, so that customers have appropriate expectations about delivery time frames.5.) Order Forms - when creating order forms use terminology that is universal; if possible, where relevant, refer to postal codes rather than zip codes. The terminology on the order form should support the fact that the company sells to an international audience.6.) Payment Policy - clearly state payment policies on any order pages, if purchase orders or wire transfers are not accepted from specific countries be sure that the policy is clearly stated. Prepare an explanation as to why the policies are in place. Customers understand that foreign purchase orders are not legally binding and will not feel alienated if an explanation is offered and clearly stated. 7.) Spelling - can vary, so avoid using terminology on the website that would cause confusion or look like careless spelling mistakes. Be clear and concise as many customers may be viewing your website in their second language. A website that can be viewed in different languages is all the better for communicating with foreign customers. Ultimately the goal is to make purchasing the product or service easy for a customer. A website that respects cultural differences, as well as the nuances of language and terminology, will go a long way in attracting an international audience.
Fun Free Feed Tools for Both the Publisher and the Reader
by: Tinu AbayomiPaul
Copyright 2004 Tinu AbayomiPaulAs you’ve probably been reading, there are basically three problems many webmasters have with web feeds (that is, among those who are already familiar with them on a basic level). The three concerns I hear the most are:“How do I deal with the bandwidth hit?”“Is there a way to include information that isn’t in the automated resource I use to populate my feed without touching any code?”and“Where can I find a cost-effective, simple way to display feeds on my site?” Say Goodbye to Bandwidth Overages with FeedBurnerhttp://feedburner.comIf you’re a publisher, chances are, you’re familiar with the bandwidth increase that occurs every time your audience reads the latest update to your feed that for some webmasters lead to the possibility of exceeding monthly bandwidth limitations. There’s an easy solution.Burn your feed with FeedBurner. They’re happy to take the burden off your server. (And yes, they say, FeedBurner is one word.) Whether you’ve just created your news feed or you have been RSS-ing for years, you can create a free account at their site. Their service will also:* translate your feed from Atom to RSS or vice versa, * make a browser-friendly page that explains what web feeds are to the new user, * allow you to splice any link into your feed using some of the more popular social bookmarking services.FeedBurner also allows you to study your demographic by giving you statistics on how many request have been made for your feed contents, down to the item if you like. Though I offer both the burned version of my feed and the original to my audience, they love the extra information my FeedBurned link provides them.Social Bookmarking -Share More Info with Less Hassle http://furl.nethttp://bloglines.comhttp://del.icio.us Social bookmarking allows you to create a bookmark online, and share those bookmarks via RSS. Some services even allow you to share your collection of links, as you can do with the service from del.icio.us . Furl.net, newly acquired by LookSmart, also adds the capability of saving an old version of a page you have visited with the bookmark feature. And at Bloglines, you can get ezine subscriptions via feed by subscribing through a special address they give you. All three of these services can be coupled with FeedBurner to splice external links - or other internal links from your own site - into the “burned” version of your feed. Display links on your site for free with RSS Digest http://www.bigbold.com/rssdigest/ You've heard about the value of displaying feeds from other sites (with permission of the publisher, of course) on your site. The theory is that the frequently updated headlines add freshness to your site, which results in more frequent visits from search engine spiders. This can lead to better rankings for the site carrying the headlines, and more backlinks for the feed publisher. Everybody wins.For the most part, I’ve found this to be true, with a feed that frequently updates, at sites that have suitable content for both the visitor and the spiders to enjoy. The trouble for many smaller web property owners is finding a cost-effective manner in which to employ this technique. Most free tools that do this with javascript are fine for site publishers who are using the headlines for content, but if you also want the search engine benefits, it doesn’t help as many spiders don’t register content that appears in this format. RSS Digest will do this for you in HTML, as recently reported in Search Engine Journal. It’s not as sophisticated a tool as CARP or RSS Equalizer, but if you want to offer your feed to an audience and they don't mind using an IFRAME or pasting PHP code into their pages, this will do the job just fine. If you’re good at supplying tips, finding resources, or locating fresh information, after viewing some news feeds for yourself, you might find that you’re ready to take the next step and publish one. If you’re already a publisher, utilizing some of these free tools may help you build a better feed. Either way, good luck!
Copyright 2004 Tinu AbayomiPaulAs you’ve probably been reading, there are basically three problems many webmasters have with web feeds (that is, among those who are already familiar with them on a basic level). The three concerns I hear the most are:“How do I deal with the bandwidth hit?”“Is there a way to include information that isn’t in the automated resource I use to populate my feed without touching any code?”and“Where can I find a cost-effective, simple way to display feeds on my site?” Say Goodbye to Bandwidth Overages with FeedBurnerhttp://feedburner.comIf you’re a publisher, chances are, you’re familiar with the bandwidth increase that occurs every time your audience reads the latest update to your feed that for some webmasters lead to the possibility of exceeding monthly bandwidth limitations. There’s an easy solution.Burn your feed with FeedBurner. They’re happy to take the burden off your server. (And yes, they say, FeedBurner is one word.) Whether you’ve just created your news feed or you have been RSS-ing for years, you can create a free account at their site. Their service will also:* translate your feed from Atom to RSS or vice versa, * make a browser-friendly page that explains what web feeds are to the new user, * allow you to splice any link into your feed using some of the more popular social bookmarking services.FeedBurner also allows you to study your demographic by giving you statistics on how many request have been made for your feed contents, down to the item if you like. Though I offer both the burned version of my feed and the original to my audience, they love the extra information my FeedBurned link provides them.Social Bookmarking -Share More Info with Less Hassle http://furl.nethttp://bloglines.comhttp://del.icio.us Social bookmarking allows you to create a bookmark online, and share those bookmarks via RSS. Some services even allow you to share your collection of links, as you can do with the service from del.icio.us . Furl.net, newly acquired by LookSmart, also adds the capability of saving an old version of a page you have visited with the bookmark feature. And at Bloglines, you can get ezine subscriptions via feed by subscribing through a special address they give you. All three of these services can be coupled with FeedBurner to splice external links - or other internal links from your own site - into the “burned” version of your feed. Display links on your site for free with RSS Digest http://www.bigbold.com/rssdigest/ You've heard about the value of displaying feeds from other sites (with permission of the publisher, of course) on your site. The theory is that the frequently updated headlines add freshness to your site, which results in more frequent visits from search engine spiders. This can lead to better rankings for the site carrying the headlines, and more backlinks for the feed publisher. Everybody wins.For the most part, I’ve found this to be true, with a feed that frequently updates, at sites that have suitable content for both the visitor and the spiders to enjoy. The trouble for many smaller web property owners is finding a cost-effective manner in which to employ this technique. Most free tools that do this with javascript are fine for site publishers who are using the headlines for content, but if you also want the search engine benefits, it doesn’t help as many spiders don’t register content that appears in this format. RSS Digest will do this for you in HTML, as recently reported in Search Engine Journal. It’s not as sophisticated a tool as CARP or RSS Equalizer, but if you want to offer your feed to an audience and they don't mind using an IFRAME or pasting PHP code into their pages, this will do the job just fine. If you’re good at supplying tips, finding resources, or locating fresh information, after viewing some news feeds for yourself, you might find that you’re ready to take the next step and publish one. If you’re already a publisher, utilizing some of these free tools may help you build a better feed. Either way, good luck!
You Don't Have TIME to Sit and Wonder When The Traffic Will Come!
by: Jack Humphrey
Copyright 2004 Jack HumphreyThere is so incredibly MUCH you can do to successfully promote your website starting in just a few minutes. In fact, the steps I will give you below can be repeated DAILY for 30 days, an hour a day, for 30 hours of hard-core, tested, proven, traffic-nabbing, sales-producing, profit-driving, marketers' bliss.It's work, but by now I am hoping you know that the successful people, including me, have worked VERY hard to get where we are today. Online doesn't mean automatic and there is no software that will promote your business hands-off. Lots of tools that help, but there's no way around having to work to succeed in any online business.That said, let's get to work.Links Man!You could spend all 30 hours and much more this next month just getting reciprocal and, more importantly, NON-reciprocal links to your site.I see so many people just spinning their wheels wondering where to start with their promotion. You don't have TIME to sit and wonder! I am telling you right now that the only promotion tactic that will never EVER change on the internet, no matter what, is getting traffic through links.There are tens of thousands of places on the web to get good, traffic-driving links.Go to forums in your niche and get involved. In a year's time you are going to have so many links from just being moderately involved with people in your industry through forums that you will wonder why you didn't sign up as a member of several forums sooner!You will find so many free resources around the net just by surfing around the sites that your BEST customers are most likely to visit. You don't have TIME to sit and wonder! Get surfing and find out where your customers are and GET YOUR LINK THERE!I have said a thousand times by now in forums, books, teleseminars, and conferences: If you are going to outlast and outwit your competition and really SUCCEED online, you must show up everywhere your best customers surf. You HAVE to, and that's it.Given that fact, you have a LOT you can do, really, to get in front of your audience.ArticlesI don't care if you hate writing and have a hard time spelling your name. You have to write informative articles (like this one) to get yourself in front of tens of thousands of people every week or every month, depending on your niche.If you absolutely refuse to write, hire a ghost writer. You can get an article "ten pack" here: http://webfoxmedia.comJust don't let this treasure trove of traffic go to someone else when you simply have NOTHING holding you back in this promotion technique. It is one of the most important tools in the small online business owner's arsenal - USE IT!Get free writing tools and article syndication tools and software here: http://equipmint.comBloggingProfessional blog software, like Expression Engine, comes with the ability to "ping" the blog search engines. (Getting into those engines is a whole new way to brand your site and products/services and most people are totally clueless to this fact.)After the presidential race got started, bloggers became very famous. If you don't know what a blog is or how to set one up, or even why it is beneficial to HAVE a weblog, check out this resource: http://expressionengine.comSee my blog here as example (and for way more traffic tools and resources than I can outline here):http://www.webmastertraffictools.com/weblog/index.phpRSSWant to learn how to get Yahoo to run your website content via RSS? (RSS is a relatively new trend picking up a huge amount of steam among lay-marketers as a killer tool to increase traffic through syndication of their content.)Check out this report on how to turn content into RSS and having Yahoo run it for free!http://webmastertraffictools.com/rssreport/yahoorss.pdfForumsFind your forum. Every interest online has one by now, unless you are really into something no one has ever heard about. Sign up today and start participating. Make sure you set up your signature file with your site link.So many people skip the easy stuff because they think since it's easy it can't be effective. Don't be one of those fools. Take the time to do this right now, today.There are 10,000 other reasons to get involved in your market arena than just getting a link back to your site by participating, but that set of reasons you will have to discover yourself. Like today! I mean it!Participate in Blog DiscussionsMost blogs have comment areas with lively debates and discussions going on. Another source of branding and "getting to know" people who could turn out to be joint venture partners.Joint Venture PartnersGetting joint ventures with key people in related industries who have a large reach to YOUR perfect audience is about the easiest traffic in the world to get. If you know how. Here is a free guide to joint ventures you should sign up for:http://www.jvAlert.com/jvcourse.aspx?id=13Key-In On What Top Marketers Are Doing NOWOne of the best series of teleseminars which runs weekly is the Perpetual Learning Series by JVAlert. The people they attract to speak to members are nothing less than the best of the best in internet marketing. Learning from them is easy with recorded calls or live events they have for you to choose from with nothing but marketing tactics!You can even find me there for one of the teleseminars on linking!http://www.jvAlert.com/LearningSeries.aspx?id=13Finally...Get yourself pumped up and STAY pumped up for 30 days. In one month you could be seeing a huge turnaround in your marketing and the results of your efforts. I am pointing you in the right direction. YOU have to take this advice and either do something with it or not. That I cannot help you with.
Copyright 2004 Jack HumphreyThere is so incredibly MUCH you can do to successfully promote your website starting in just a few minutes. In fact, the steps I will give you below can be repeated DAILY for 30 days, an hour a day, for 30 hours of hard-core, tested, proven, traffic-nabbing, sales-producing, profit-driving, marketers' bliss.It's work, but by now I am hoping you know that the successful people, including me, have worked VERY hard to get where we are today. Online doesn't mean automatic and there is no software that will promote your business hands-off. Lots of tools that help, but there's no way around having to work to succeed in any online business.That said, let's get to work.Links Man!You could spend all 30 hours and much more this next month just getting reciprocal and, more importantly, NON-reciprocal links to your site.I see so many people just spinning their wheels wondering where to start with their promotion. You don't have TIME to sit and wonder! I am telling you right now that the only promotion tactic that will never EVER change on the internet, no matter what, is getting traffic through links.There are tens of thousands of places on the web to get good, traffic-driving links.Go to forums in your niche and get involved. In a year's time you are going to have so many links from just being moderately involved with people in your industry through forums that you will wonder why you didn't sign up as a member of several forums sooner!You will find so many free resources around the net just by surfing around the sites that your BEST customers are most likely to visit. You don't have TIME to sit and wonder! Get surfing and find out where your customers are and GET YOUR LINK THERE!I have said a thousand times by now in forums, books, teleseminars, and conferences: If you are going to outlast and outwit your competition and really SUCCEED online, you must show up everywhere your best customers surf. You HAVE to, and that's it.Given that fact, you have a LOT you can do, really, to get in front of your audience.ArticlesI don't care if you hate writing and have a hard time spelling your name. You have to write informative articles (like this one) to get yourself in front of tens of thousands of people every week or every month, depending on your niche.If you absolutely refuse to write, hire a ghost writer. You can get an article "ten pack" here: http://webfoxmedia.comJust don't let this treasure trove of traffic go to someone else when you simply have NOTHING holding you back in this promotion technique. It is one of the most important tools in the small online business owner's arsenal - USE IT!Get free writing tools and article syndication tools and software here: http://equipmint.comBloggingProfessional blog software, like Expression Engine, comes with the ability to "ping" the blog search engines. (Getting into those engines is a whole new way to brand your site and products/services and most people are totally clueless to this fact.)After the presidential race got started, bloggers became very famous. If you don't know what a blog is or how to set one up, or even why it is beneficial to HAVE a weblog, check out this resource: http://expressionengine.comSee my blog here as example (and for way more traffic tools and resources than I can outline here):http://www.webmastertraffictools.com/weblog/index.phpRSSWant to learn how to get Yahoo to run your website content via RSS? (RSS is a relatively new trend picking up a huge amount of steam among lay-marketers as a killer tool to increase traffic through syndication of their content.)Check out this report on how to turn content into RSS and having Yahoo run it for free!http://webmastertraffictools.com/rssreport/yahoorss.pdfForumsFind your forum. Every interest online has one by now, unless you are really into something no one has ever heard about. Sign up today and start participating. Make sure you set up your signature file with your site link.So many people skip the easy stuff because they think since it's easy it can't be effective. Don't be one of those fools. Take the time to do this right now, today.There are 10,000 other reasons to get involved in your market arena than just getting a link back to your site by participating, but that set of reasons you will have to discover yourself. Like today! I mean it!Participate in Blog DiscussionsMost blogs have comment areas with lively debates and discussions going on. Another source of branding and "getting to know" people who could turn out to be joint venture partners.Joint Venture PartnersGetting joint ventures with key people in related industries who have a large reach to YOUR perfect audience is about the easiest traffic in the world to get. If you know how. Here is a free guide to joint ventures you should sign up for:http://www.jvAlert.com/jvcourse.aspx?id=13Key-In On What Top Marketers Are Doing NOWOne of the best series of teleseminars which runs weekly is the Perpetual Learning Series by JVAlert. The people they attract to speak to members are nothing less than the best of the best in internet marketing. Learning from them is easy with recorded calls or live events they have for you to choose from with nothing but marketing tactics!You can even find me there for one of the teleseminars on linking!http://www.jvAlert.com/LearningSeries.aspx?id=13Finally...Get yourself pumped up and STAY pumped up for 30 days. In one month you could be seeing a huge turnaround in your marketing and the results of your efforts. I am pointing you in the right direction. YOU have to take this advice and either do something with it or not. That I cannot help you with.
RSS Tools
by: Sharon Housley
Copyright 2005 Sharon HousleyConsidering the ever-increasing support for RSS in online communities, we have compiled a list of resources and products that will benefit webmasters, web surfers and publishers in their quest to understand the power of RSS. RSS has rapidly become an alternative communication venue. In order to understand the full benefits, consider utilizing some of the following tools and resources. 1.) RSS Tools - RSS feeds bring automatically updated information straight to your desktop. You can monitor or promote news, job listings, personals, and classifieds using RSS. The following tools assist webmasters in using RSS to maximize their time.RSS Readers - RSS readers are designed as tools to view RSS feeds, making it easier for users to view and manage the content of a feed. Feed readers make it easy to mark feeds as read or flag items that are important. The following are some of our favorite RSS readers:FeedDemon - FeedDemon is a client that can retrieve and organize RSS feeds from the Internet. It comes pre-configured with several news feeds, and you can easily add your own by adding the URL for an RSS feed of your choice. FeedDemon offers an attractive and easy-to-use interface with integrated web browsing. http://www.feeddemon.com FeedScout - Feed Scout is a RSS/ATOM/RDF reader that can be used directly from Internet Explorer. Feed Scout enables you to view RSS/ATOM feeds from different sites directly in Internet Explorer. You can even set your Home Page to show your favorite feeds. http://www.feedscout.com 2.) RSS Creation Tools - As RSS feeds have increased in popularity and breadth publishers and webmasters have struggled to find a solution to create RSS feeds. The following tools will assist webmasters in creating RSS feeds:FeedForAll - Desktop software used to create, edit, manage and publish RSS feeds. New RSS feeds can be quickly and easily created with FeedForAll. Advanced features enable you to create professional-looking RSS feeds quickly. Existing RSS feeds can be repaired and enhanced with FeedForAll. RSS feeds generated by other means can be automatically repaired, so that they conform to the RSS 2.0 specification. Existing feeds can be enhanced to contain advanced feed properties, and give them a more professional look. http://www.feedforall.com3.) RSS Articles and Tutorials - Articles and tutorials based on RSS and designed to demystify Really Simple Syndication for users and publishers. RSS Specifications - RSS Specifications contains a collection of articles related to RSS and news feeds that assist both publishers and users in deciphering Really Simple Syndication.RSS Specifications - RSS Specifications contains a collection of articles related to RSS and news feeds that assist both publishers and users in deciphering really simple syndication. http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-articles.htm or the articles can be read in an RSS feed. http://www.rss-specifications.com/article-feed.xmlMake RSS Feeds - Step by step instructional tutorial detailing how to manually create an RSS feed.http://www.make-rss-feeds.com4.) Ebay Monitoring Using RSS - Monitor online auctions for specific items of interest. As eBay has grown it has become difficult to discern and locate specific auction items. By using RSS tools users can easily recieve instant notification when a specific item is being auctioned.Free Bidding Tools - FMonitor online auctions for specific items of interest. As eBay has grown it has become difficult to discern and locate specific auction items. By using RSS tools users can easily receive instant notification when a specific item is being auctioned.http://www.freebiddingtools.com/5.) Web Monitoring - Monitor the Internet for specific news items or blog topics of interest. A number of free online RSS tools make web monitoring very easy. PubSub - Monitor the Internet for specific news items or blog topics of interest. A number of free online RSS tools make web monitoring very easy. PubSub - Every day, PubSub's matching engine performs billions of matches of new items against user subscriptions. The instant a match is made, PubSub alerts the user via RSS. PubSub monitors more than 6.5 million blogs, as well as 50,000 USENET newsgroups, all SEC/EDGAR filings, press releases from major wire services, and FAA airport delay alerts.http://www.pubsub.com Google News Monitoring Using RSS - This free online tool turns a Google news search into an RSS feed.http://www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.php6.) Other RSS Tools - Alternative tools for creative webmasters.RSS2Wap - The RSS2Wap site is meant for online conversions of RSS feeds into WML for access on WAP devices (RSS2WML, RSS WAP or RSS-to-WAP). It's free and you can make a link on your web site.http://www.rss2wap.com7.) RSS Graphic Tool - Websites that have RSS feeds available use colorful graphics as flags to indicate to web surfers that RSS feeds are available for specific content. RSS Graphic Tool - Websites that have RSS feeds available use colorful graphics as flags to indicate to web surfers that RSS feeds are available for specific content. RSS Graphic Tool - Customize RSS buttons. If you have limited time and lack artistic abilities, use this free online RSS graphic tool to create an RSS button. The button's color and text can be customized to suit the look and feel of your website. http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm8.) Displaying RSS - Many webmasters display the contents of RSS feeds on their web pages as a fresh source of content and information that changes on a regular basis. Java Options - Using Java to display RSS feeds is a very easy way to provide dynamic content with very little effort. Unfortunately, when you use Java to display RSS feeds, search engines do not see the feed's content, so the content is not spidered and ultimately will not help with search engine optimization. Quick RSS Feeds - Free online tool that allows you to simply enter the URL of the RSS feed, define the number of items you would like displayed, and the Java script will be automatically generated. http://www.quickrssfeeds.com FeedRoll -A free service for syndicating popular RSS and ATOM news feeds on your website or blog. Select a feed, customize the design, then copy and paste the code provided onto your page. http://www.feedroll.com/rssviewer/RSS to Javascript - RSS-to-JavaScript.com was designed to easily convert any valid RSS, RDF or ATOM feed into easy-to-implement Javascript. No XML or programming experience is necessary. http://www.rss-to-javascript.comPHP Options - The benefit to using a PHP script to display RSS on a website is that the content dynamically updates but search engines see the content as static. FeedForAll's rss2html.php - If you are technically savvy and wish to host the script yourself, check out FeedForAll, as they have a free PHP script available that will display RSS feeds on a website. http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm FeedRoll Pro - A fee-based professional service that tracks statistical information for publishers displaying feeds. FeedRoll Pro incorporates a number of display options for publishers wishing to syndicate their content, giving users the choice of PHP or Javascript. http://www.feedrollpro.com RSS2HTML - Display RSS feeds by selecting layouts and color schemes on this free resource.http://www.rss2html.com9.) RSS BlogsStay informed about the latest RSS industry news by monitoring RSS blogs. Daily posts bring readers current news, industry announcements and general RSS information. RSS Specifications - Everything you need to know about RSS. The RSS Specifications blog contains daily posts and RSS tidbits. http://www.rss-specifications.com/blog.htmKbCafe - Daily posts and editorials related to RSS and new RSS products that have emerged.http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/10.) Publishing List / RSS NewsgroupsNew RSS-Publishing List for publishers. The list is focused on marketing/publishing/operational issues rather than hardcore technical details of RSS, meaning that coding issues and disputes over the merits of RSS vs. Atom are not the focus. If you wish to participate in the list and receive e-mails of posts, simply subscribe by sending and e-mail to: rsspublishing-subscribe@topica.com RSS Syndication - Collection of RSS related news feeds displayed in an easy-to-read format.http://www.rss-syndication.com/rss-news.htm 11.) RSS Related Forums - Forums can be a useful for anyone doing business online, both in terms of reading the content and actively participating in the discussions. If you want to learn more about RSS consider participating in the following online RSS communities:2RSS - RSS forum for feed and related RSS discussions. http://forum.2rss.com/FeedForAll Forum - RSS forum for RSS and feed creation-related discussions. http://www.feedforall.com/forumGerman RSS Forum - German RSS forum for feed discussions. http://www.rss-forum.de/ 12.) Locate RSS Feeds - Syndic8 - RSS and Atom news feeds on a wide variety of topics. Designed with a directory structure and search functionality. Syndic8 also tracks statistical information related to RSS feeds.http://www.syndic8.com Feedster's FeedFinder - Use Feedfinder to search by keyword or by URL or a combination of the two in order to find feeds on that topic or by that organization. .http://feedfinder.feedster.com/ RSS Discovery - The websites you already read may have an RSS feed. Use the BlogStreet's RSS Discovery tool and enter in a website. If there is a feed available BlogStreet will provide the URL. http://www.blogstreet.com/rssdiscovery.html RSS Locator - Directory and search engine for RSS content including weblogs, newsfeeds, forum feeds and related content feeds. Locate topic-specific RSS feeds for syndication. RSS Locator displays feed content in an HTML format so users can preview the feed's content.http://www.rss-locator.com12.) Submit RSS Feeds - As more and more people get involved with the Internet and as more Web sites, blogs, news services and other online resources continue to grow in number and variety, it becomes increasingly important to maintain high visibility and exposure for the content being generated by closely following the major distribution media. As a rapidly increasing number of content sources, new and old, migrate or add RSS as a key distribution channel, and as more people utilize RSS newsreaders and aggregators to keep themselves informed, the ability to maintain high exposure and visibility is gradually shifted from complete attention to major search engines and content optimization techniques to an increasing awareness of RSS feed directories and search tools. RSS Submit - Save time and automate RSS submissions with RSS Submit from K-Soft. http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.htmlRSS Specifications - Submit RSS files to the large list of RSS directories and expedite your RSS content syndication.http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm RSS Submission Service - A fee-based blog submission service that will submit your blog or RSS feed to more than 70 blog directories. Submissions are done manually, and this service is primarily designed for blog feeds.http://rss-submission-service.notrivia.com/ RSS Top 55 - Top websites for RSS submissions. Premium service is available for a nominal fee that will prioritize the RSS site submissions in the order of importance. http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/ Using RSS tools, publishers and webmasters can increase productivity and efficiency. RSS monitoring can often automate many of the procedures that are time-consuming and monotonous, freeing up time.
Copyright 2005 Sharon HousleyConsidering the ever-increasing support for RSS in online communities, we have compiled a list of resources and products that will benefit webmasters, web surfers and publishers in their quest to understand the power of RSS. RSS has rapidly become an alternative communication venue. In order to understand the full benefits, consider utilizing some of the following tools and resources. 1.) RSS Tools - RSS feeds bring automatically updated information straight to your desktop. You can monitor or promote news, job listings, personals, and classifieds using RSS. The following tools assist webmasters in using RSS to maximize their time.RSS Readers - RSS readers are designed as tools to view RSS feeds, making it easier for users to view and manage the content of a feed. Feed readers make it easy to mark feeds as read or flag items that are important. The following are some of our favorite RSS readers:FeedDemon - FeedDemon is a client that can retrieve and organize RSS feeds from the Internet. It comes pre-configured with several news feeds, and you can easily add your own by adding the URL for an RSS feed of your choice. FeedDemon offers an attractive and easy-to-use interface with integrated web browsing. http://www.feeddemon.com FeedScout - Feed Scout is a RSS/ATOM/RDF reader that can be used directly from Internet Explorer. Feed Scout enables you to view RSS/ATOM feeds from different sites directly in Internet Explorer. You can even set your Home Page to show your favorite feeds. http://www.feedscout.com 2.) RSS Creation Tools - As RSS feeds have increased in popularity and breadth publishers and webmasters have struggled to find a solution to create RSS feeds. The following tools will assist webmasters in creating RSS feeds:FeedForAll - Desktop software used to create, edit, manage and publish RSS feeds. New RSS feeds can be quickly and easily created with FeedForAll. Advanced features enable you to create professional-looking RSS feeds quickly. Existing RSS feeds can be repaired and enhanced with FeedForAll. RSS feeds generated by other means can be automatically repaired, so that they conform to the RSS 2.0 specification. Existing feeds can be enhanced to contain advanced feed properties, and give them a more professional look. http://www.feedforall.com3.) RSS Articles and Tutorials - Articles and tutorials based on RSS and designed to demystify Really Simple Syndication for users and publishers. RSS Specifications - RSS Specifications contains a collection of articles related to RSS and news feeds that assist both publishers and users in deciphering Really Simple Syndication.RSS Specifications - RSS Specifications contains a collection of articles related to RSS and news feeds that assist both publishers and users in deciphering really simple syndication. http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-articles.htm or the articles can be read in an RSS feed. http://www.rss-specifications.com/article-feed.xmlMake RSS Feeds - Step by step instructional tutorial detailing how to manually create an RSS feed.http://www.make-rss-feeds.com4.) Ebay Monitoring Using RSS - Monitor online auctions for specific items of interest. As eBay has grown it has become difficult to discern and locate specific auction items. By using RSS tools users can easily recieve instant notification when a specific item is being auctioned.Free Bidding Tools - FMonitor online auctions for specific items of interest. As eBay has grown it has become difficult to discern and locate specific auction items. By using RSS tools users can easily receive instant notification when a specific item is being auctioned.http://www.freebiddingtools.com/5.) Web Monitoring - Monitor the Internet for specific news items or blog topics of interest. A number of free online RSS tools make web monitoring very easy. PubSub - Monitor the Internet for specific news items or blog topics of interest. A number of free online RSS tools make web monitoring very easy. PubSub - Every day, PubSub's matching engine performs billions of matches of new items against user subscriptions. The instant a match is made, PubSub alerts the user via RSS. PubSub monitors more than 6.5 million blogs, as well as 50,000 USENET newsgroups, all SEC/EDGAR filings, press releases from major wire services, and FAA airport delay alerts.http://www.pubsub.com Google News Monitoring Using RSS - This free online tool turns a Google news search into an RSS feed.http://www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.php6.) Other RSS Tools - Alternative tools for creative webmasters.RSS2Wap - The RSS2Wap site is meant for online conversions of RSS feeds into WML for access on WAP devices (RSS2WML, RSS WAP or RSS-to-WAP). It's free and you can make a link on your web site.http://www.rss2wap.com7.) RSS Graphic Tool - Websites that have RSS feeds available use colorful graphics as flags to indicate to web surfers that RSS feeds are available for specific content. RSS Graphic Tool - Websites that have RSS feeds available use colorful graphics as flags to indicate to web surfers that RSS feeds are available for specific content. RSS Graphic Tool - Customize RSS buttons. If you have limited time and lack artistic abilities, use this free online RSS graphic tool to create an RSS button. The button's color and text can be customized to suit the look and feel of your website. http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm8.) Displaying RSS - Many webmasters display the contents of RSS feeds on their web pages as a fresh source of content and information that changes on a regular basis. Java Options - Using Java to display RSS feeds is a very easy way to provide dynamic content with very little effort. Unfortunately, when you use Java to display RSS feeds, search engines do not see the feed's content, so the content is not spidered and ultimately will not help with search engine optimization. Quick RSS Feeds - Free online tool that allows you to simply enter the URL of the RSS feed, define the number of items you would like displayed, and the Java script will be automatically generated. http://www.quickrssfeeds.com FeedRoll -A free service for syndicating popular RSS and ATOM news feeds on your website or blog. Select a feed, customize the design, then copy and paste the code provided onto your page. http://www.feedroll.com/rssviewer/RSS to Javascript - RSS-to-JavaScript.com was designed to easily convert any valid RSS, RDF or ATOM feed into easy-to-implement Javascript. No XML or programming experience is necessary. http://www.rss-to-javascript.comPHP Options - The benefit to using a PHP script to display RSS on a website is that the content dynamically updates but search engines see the content as static. FeedForAll's rss2html.php - If you are technically savvy and wish to host the script yourself, check out FeedForAll, as they have a free PHP script available that will display RSS feeds on a website. http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm FeedRoll Pro - A fee-based professional service that tracks statistical information for publishers displaying feeds. FeedRoll Pro incorporates a number of display options for publishers wishing to syndicate their content, giving users the choice of PHP or Javascript. http://www.feedrollpro.com RSS2HTML - Display RSS feeds by selecting layouts and color schemes on this free resource.http://www.rss2html.com9.) RSS BlogsStay informed about the latest RSS industry news by monitoring RSS blogs. Daily posts bring readers current news, industry announcements and general RSS information. RSS Specifications - Everything you need to know about RSS. The RSS Specifications blog contains daily posts and RSS tidbits. http://www.rss-specifications.com/blog.htmKbCafe - Daily posts and editorials related to RSS and new RSS products that have emerged.http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/10.) Publishing List / RSS NewsgroupsNew RSS-Publishing List for publishers. The list is focused on marketing/publishing/operational issues rather than hardcore technical details of RSS, meaning that coding issues and disputes over the merits of RSS vs. Atom are not the focus. If you wish to participate in the list and receive e-mails of posts, simply subscribe by sending and e-mail to: rsspublishing-subscribe@topica.com RSS Syndication - Collection of RSS related news feeds displayed in an easy-to-read format.http://www.rss-syndication.com/rss-news.htm 11.) RSS Related Forums - Forums can be a useful for anyone doing business online, both in terms of reading the content and actively participating in the discussions. If you want to learn more about RSS consider participating in the following online RSS communities:2RSS - RSS forum for feed and related RSS discussions. http://forum.2rss.com/FeedForAll Forum - RSS forum for RSS and feed creation-related discussions. http://www.feedforall.com/forumGerman RSS Forum - German RSS forum for feed discussions. http://www.rss-forum.de/ 12.) Locate RSS Feeds - Syndic8 - RSS and Atom news feeds on a wide variety of topics. Designed with a directory structure and search functionality. Syndic8 also tracks statistical information related to RSS feeds.http://www.syndic8.com Feedster's FeedFinder - Use Feedfinder to search by keyword or by URL or a combination of the two in order to find feeds on that topic or by that organization. .http://feedfinder.feedster.com/ RSS Discovery - The websites you already read may have an RSS feed. Use the BlogStreet's RSS Discovery tool and enter in a website. If there is a feed available BlogStreet will provide the URL. http://www.blogstreet.com/rssdiscovery.html RSS Locator - Directory and search engine for RSS content including weblogs, newsfeeds, forum feeds and related content feeds. Locate topic-specific RSS feeds for syndication. RSS Locator displays feed content in an HTML format so users can preview the feed's content.http://www.rss-locator.com12.) Submit RSS Feeds - As more and more people get involved with the Internet and as more Web sites, blogs, news services and other online resources continue to grow in number and variety, it becomes increasingly important to maintain high visibility and exposure for the content being generated by closely following the major distribution media. As a rapidly increasing number of content sources, new and old, migrate or add RSS as a key distribution channel, and as more people utilize RSS newsreaders and aggregators to keep themselves informed, the ability to maintain high exposure and visibility is gradually shifted from complete attention to major search engines and content optimization techniques to an increasing awareness of RSS feed directories and search tools. RSS Submit - Save time and automate RSS submissions with RSS Submit from K-Soft. http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.htmlRSS Specifications - Submit RSS files to the large list of RSS directories and expedite your RSS content syndication.http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm RSS Submission Service - A fee-based blog submission service that will submit your blog or RSS feed to more than 70 blog directories. Submissions are done manually, and this service is primarily designed for blog feeds.http://rss-submission-service.notrivia.com/ RSS Top 55 - Top websites for RSS submissions. Premium service is available for a nominal fee that will prioritize the RSS site submissions in the order of importance. http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/ Using RSS tools, publishers and webmasters can increase productivity and efficiency. RSS monitoring can often automate many of the procedures that are time-consuming and monotonous, freeing up time.
Website Imperatives and Solutions
by: Richard Keir
Copyright 2005 Richard KeirWhen you take a look at the most visited sites on the internet, what hits you in the face? Change, growth, new content. In a sense, a search engine is the perfect web site. By it's very nature, it grows and changes continuously and moment by moment adds new content. But, most of us are never going to build a Yahoo or a Google. The competition at that level is horrific.But the lesson is there to be read. You could build a great site with terrific content never seen before and do very well - for a while. But the imperatives that control our success or failure revolve around growth, change and new content. An obvious solution is to continually provide new content for your sites. Basically this means writing or constructing new pages, preferably with unique content.There are, certainly, several easy ways to get content for your site. The first is to use other people's articles. Nearly all of us who do write and publish articles want people to pick them up and use them - with live links to our sites, naturally. Despite a lot of mindless babble about a duplicate content penalty, article syndication is alive and working as well as ever. Just don't scrape a site and replicate it.Another source is RSS. Most feeds are meant to be syndicated (but not all so you do need to check Terms of Use) and they provide updated content. Other sources include content in the in the public domain.Like all easy solutions, there are a couple of drawbacks. Other people's articles may not be focused as well as you'd like to your site content and goals. And they don't help your site's link popularity. Along with growth, change and content, incoming links are a critical success factor.Using RSS feeds or other search-based content can raise copyright issues, irritate some feed or site owners, and may be even more poorly focused to your site's content than articles. If you use RSS feeds, almost inevitably you'll see content on your site that is absolutely irrelevant.Public domain materials are extremely useful as content sources - if you can find matches to your site content. Assuming that you can, then you will need to convert the material into pages or into a form useable on your web pages. This can be time-consuming, but it may be easier than writing your own content.Ghost writers are yet another alternative. Here you trade time for money. But this can be a tricky process. Some are not really fluent in English and you may need to do some rewriting. Also, you may need to double-check and make sure that the articles provided are actually original and not nearly identical to existing copyrighted material. Some ghost writers seem to work by finding a site with a related theme and then pretty much copy material from that site with minimal changes. Not a good idea for you to post that as your own.Another source would be sites offering private label products. Many of those products can be mined for excellent targeted site content. Some products sold with Master resale rights also allow you to use the materials as site content. In this last case, you need to be certain exactly what you can and can't do under the specific rights package. Sometimes you can alter the materials, sometimes you can't.Private label products with you having full rights, including the right to alter them and put your own name on them as author can be one of the easiest ways to meet all of the imperatives. With rights to an informative, new and interesting book on a niche topic, you can rework it a little, maybe add some nice graphics, generate a PDF and sell it.Or you could generate that PDF and also generate pages for your site from the book. Give the PDF away in exchange for signing up to your list. Extract tips and ideas from the book and put together 2 or 5 or more articles based on the book. Publish and distribute the articles to generate links to your site and help brand yourself as an expert.From one private label product you can generate a lot of new real estate for your site, add a viral product that you can use to build your lists, and through articles generate incoming links and do some useful branding.It really doesn't get any easier than that. It takes some time and effort, but nothing like the effort of writing 5 or 10 articles from scratch, building 30 or 50 or 150 web pages, and writing your own viral book for list-building.What about the other people who belong to the same private label site? Isn't everybody going to have duplicate content? In the real world, 90 percent of the people with access to a product will do nothing at all or the absolute minimum. Very few will mine the product, produce articles, produce web pages, or produce a nicely modified PDF. And of those that do, each will follow their own unique path. The chance of near identical content is pretty low. The PDFs produced may be more similar, but consider how many people make serious money with resale rights selling identical material.There's a lot of room out there. Even within the most competitive niches, a thoughtful, patient marketer who pays attention to the imperatives and works smart, can make a living few would complain about. But there are also less competitive niches where the same marketer could become the dominant force. The materials are out there to get you going. Use them and work smart.None of this is rocket science. The first, and ultimate, imperative is take action. Too many will fail, because they never even really began. Start today.
Copyright 2005 Richard KeirWhen you take a look at the most visited sites on the internet, what hits you in the face? Change, growth, new content. In a sense, a search engine is the perfect web site. By it's very nature, it grows and changes continuously and moment by moment adds new content. But, most of us are never going to build a Yahoo or a Google. The competition at that level is horrific.But the lesson is there to be read. You could build a great site with terrific content never seen before and do very well - for a while. But the imperatives that control our success or failure revolve around growth, change and new content. An obvious solution is to continually provide new content for your sites. Basically this means writing or constructing new pages, preferably with unique content.There are, certainly, several easy ways to get content for your site. The first is to use other people's articles. Nearly all of us who do write and publish articles want people to pick them up and use them - with live links to our sites, naturally. Despite a lot of mindless babble about a duplicate content penalty, article syndication is alive and working as well as ever. Just don't scrape a site and replicate it.Another source is RSS. Most feeds are meant to be syndicated (but not all so you do need to check Terms of Use) and they provide updated content. Other sources include content in the in the public domain.Like all easy solutions, there are a couple of drawbacks. Other people's articles may not be focused as well as you'd like to your site content and goals. And they don't help your site's link popularity. Along with growth, change and content, incoming links are a critical success factor.Using RSS feeds or other search-based content can raise copyright issues, irritate some feed or site owners, and may be even more poorly focused to your site's content than articles. If you use RSS feeds, almost inevitably you'll see content on your site that is absolutely irrelevant.Public domain materials are extremely useful as content sources - if you can find matches to your site content. Assuming that you can, then you will need to convert the material into pages or into a form useable on your web pages. This can be time-consuming, but it may be easier than writing your own content.Ghost writers are yet another alternative. Here you trade time for money. But this can be a tricky process. Some are not really fluent in English and you may need to do some rewriting. Also, you may need to double-check and make sure that the articles provided are actually original and not nearly identical to existing copyrighted material. Some ghost writers seem to work by finding a site with a related theme and then pretty much copy material from that site with minimal changes. Not a good idea for you to post that as your own.Another source would be sites offering private label products. Many of those products can be mined for excellent targeted site content. Some products sold with Master resale rights also allow you to use the materials as site content. In this last case, you need to be certain exactly what you can and can't do under the specific rights package. Sometimes you can alter the materials, sometimes you can't.Private label products with you having full rights, including the right to alter them and put your own name on them as author can be one of the easiest ways to meet all of the imperatives. With rights to an informative, new and interesting book on a niche topic, you can rework it a little, maybe add some nice graphics, generate a PDF and sell it.Or you could generate that PDF and also generate pages for your site from the book. Give the PDF away in exchange for signing up to your list. Extract tips and ideas from the book and put together 2 or 5 or more articles based on the book. Publish and distribute the articles to generate links to your site and help brand yourself as an expert.From one private label product you can generate a lot of new real estate for your site, add a viral product that you can use to build your lists, and through articles generate incoming links and do some useful branding.It really doesn't get any easier than that. It takes some time and effort, but nothing like the effort of writing 5 or 10 articles from scratch, building 30 or 50 or 150 web pages, and writing your own viral book for list-building.What about the other people who belong to the same private label site? Isn't everybody going to have duplicate content? In the real world, 90 percent of the people with access to a product will do nothing at all or the absolute minimum. Very few will mine the product, produce articles, produce web pages, or produce a nicely modified PDF. And of those that do, each will follow their own unique path. The chance of near identical content is pretty low. The PDFs produced may be more similar, but consider how many people make serious money with resale rights selling identical material.There's a lot of room out there. Even within the most competitive niches, a thoughtful, patient marketer who pays attention to the imperatives and works smart, can make a living few would complain about. But there are also less competitive niches where the same marketer could become the dominant force. The materials are out there to get you going. Use them and work smart.None of this is rocket science. The first, and ultimate, imperative is take action. Too many will fail, because they never even really began. Start today.
Avoid a Summer Sales Slump
by: Marty Dickinson
By Marty DickinsonHereNextYear.comDid you ever see the movie "Terminator 3" by Arnold Schwarzenegger? Remember when the machines took over the controls and began to terminate society as we know it?This is exactly how it feels every Summer for many business owners.As if your computer somehow sneaks in during the middle of the night and takes over by putting a "Closed for the Summer"sign on your business.You wake up on July 1 wondering where all the customers are.My business is no different.I've just learned to expect it every year and I do something about it before I can be sabotaged.So, when the beginning of June comes around, I start ramping up for the Summer months to keep business steady and even on the increase.And, here's what I do:1) Find something in your industry that's timely and write an article about it. I'm doing just that with this article as an example. The fact that sales slump for more small business owners in the Summer than any other 2-month time of the year is timely since July is right around the corner.The article doesn't need to be extensive, maybe 600-800 words, and write as if you're just talking to a friend sitting next to you.2) Create a signature line at the end of your article that invites readers to visit your web site. Use mine below as an example to write your own.3) Send your article to your clients or customers by e-mail or even regular USPS. They will appreciate hearing from youand they will be thankful for the timely courtesy. Plus, any time you can get your name in front of an existing customer, you stand a chance of getting additional businessjust by simply reminding them you're still around.4) Get your article posted on other peoples' web sites and in their on-line newsletters. This might sound like "old hat" if you've been doing business on-line for a while, but the fact is that people still turn to the Internet to find information.5) Submit your article to other peoples' BLOGs. BLOGs are easy to find because web site owners are always adding them to the front page of their sites so that you can't miss them.The challenge of owning a BLOG is contributing to it every day. It's easy to do for the first couple of weeks but then that dedication slips. So, approach a BLOGger with your article and suggest they include it to their BLOG if they ever get in a bind and can't make a posting of their own one day. Chances are, you'll see your article posted within the week!6) Submit your article to RSS feeds. RSS stands for "Real Simple Syndication," which essentially means you add your article to the list once and it will appear on potentially hundreds of other peoples' web sites. Search Google or "rss articles submission" to get you started.7) Have something ready on your web site to inspire any new visitors to get more involved with your business. I'm not saying put the hard sell on them. Just offer some way for them to discover more about how you can help them.Provide more articles for them to read. Maybe add a sound file or two. Have a newsletter subscription area. Offer a free tele-seminar or webinar. Be creative but captivating. Have a definite answer to the question, "How can my new web site visitors benefit from being on my web site for anothercouple of minutes?" Follow these seven steps and there's a good chance you will not only increase your web site visitors with targeted traffic, but that visitation could happen more quickly than you mightexpect. So, don't allow your potential sales for this year's Summer months to be "terminated" before they even have a chance to happen.Take action this week and July and August could turn out to be two of your best sales months yet.
By Marty DickinsonHereNextYear.comDid you ever see the movie "Terminator 3" by Arnold Schwarzenegger? Remember when the machines took over the controls and began to terminate society as we know it?This is exactly how it feels every Summer for many business owners.As if your computer somehow sneaks in during the middle of the night and takes over by putting a "Closed for the Summer"sign on your business.You wake up on July 1 wondering where all the customers are.My business is no different.I've just learned to expect it every year and I do something about it before I can be sabotaged.So, when the beginning of June comes around, I start ramping up for the Summer months to keep business steady and even on the increase.And, here's what I do:1) Find something in your industry that's timely and write an article about it. I'm doing just that with this article as an example. The fact that sales slump for more small business owners in the Summer than any other 2-month time of the year is timely since July is right around the corner.The article doesn't need to be extensive, maybe 600-800 words, and write as if you're just talking to a friend sitting next to you.2) Create a signature line at the end of your article that invites readers to visit your web site. Use mine below as an example to write your own.3) Send your article to your clients or customers by e-mail or even regular USPS. They will appreciate hearing from youand they will be thankful for the timely courtesy. Plus, any time you can get your name in front of an existing customer, you stand a chance of getting additional businessjust by simply reminding them you're still around.4) Get your article posted on other peoples' web sites and in their on-line newsletters. This might sound like "old hat" if you've been doing business on-line for a while, but the fact is that people still turn to the Internet to find information.5) Submit your article to other peoples' BLOGs. BLOGs are easy to find because web site owners are always adding them to the front page of their sites so that you can't miss them.The challenge of owning a BLOG is contributing to it every day. It's easy to do for the first couple of weeks but then that dedication slips. So, approach a BLOGger with your article and suggest they include it to their BLOG if they ever get in a bind and can't make a posting of their own one day. Chances are, you'll see your article posted within the week!6) Submit your article to RSS feeds. RSS stands for "Real Simple Syndication," which essentially means you add your article to the list once and it will appear on potentially hundreds of other peoples' web sites. Search Google or "rss articles submission" to get you started.7) Have something ready on your web site to inspire any new visitors to get more involved with your business. I'm not saying put the hard sell on them. Just offer some way for them to discover more about how you can help them.Provide more articles for them to read. Maybe add a sound file or two. Have a newsletter subscription area. Offer a free tele-seminar or webinar. Be creative but captivating. Have a definite answer to the question, "How can my new web site visitors benefit from being on my web site for anothercouple of minutes?" Follow these seven steps and there's a good chance you will not only increase your web site visitors with targeted traffic, but that visitation could happen more quickly than you mightexpect. So, don't allow your potential sales for this year's Summer months to be "terminated" before they even have a chance to happen.Take action this week and July and August could turn out to be two of your best sales months yet.
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