blogging 102

Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes As we all know, social media has become the latest challenge any successful business has to face, but with experience, you’ll find that it does have its benefits. For example, I truly believe that microblogging has made me a better writer and a better listener. As a small copywriting agency, we have made our mark. We have a brand, from our excellent service to our creative thinking, which ultimately is passed on to the client. It is a constant process, though; we have to move, change and adapt to our clients needs. Without the wonderful team I have, I am confident I would not have come to this realization. With that said, here is my opinion on how and what is needed for any business to succeed. You obviously need a brand. That in itself breaks down to several components: a vision, motivation, then the strategy. In order to come to this realization, you will need to use your vision. Once you have the vision, it can motivate you and your company, becoming... 

Reading time: 13 – 22 minutes Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Search Engines: A Brief History III. Web 2.0: The New Internet IV. Web 2.0: The Technical Landscape V. SEO Linking Strategy in Web 2.0 VI. Social Media Optimization: A Piece of the SEO Puzzle VII. Usability vs. Searchability: The RIA Search Challenge VIII. Googles Personalized Search: The End of Traditional SEO? IX. Search Behavior R&D: Customized Engines and Long Tail Keywords X. Conclusion References I. Introduction To those of us whose passion for the growth of the World Wide Web is exceeded only by the marketing possibilities that emerge from that growth, the Internet has become a playground for the imagination. There is a large number of marketers, however, who are fascinated by the Web but approach its marketing capabilities more out of necessity than lifestyle. The Internets capacity has advanced in so many areas in the past few years that marketers playing catch-up are at a significant disadvantage. Marketing... 

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes There comes a time in every bloggers career they have to make a choice about monetizing their blogs. Monetizing isn’t the right thing for every blogger, surprisingly enough. There are plenty of vanity bloggers or those who blog to support a separate business venture. You can rest assured that when I finally get my novel in print there will be absolutely no ads other than products on the corresponding site/blog. Just as not every blog is meant for monetizing, not every blog should be monetized in the same way.  Most people recommend starting off with adsense, which for sure is (was) the easiest program to get into.  As I understand it from a great many noobs plenty of sites are getting rejected these days and many more are getting their accounts cut within the first couple of days of going active with Google’s normal no explanation given email.  If this has happened to you, don’t get worried over it since it happens to a lot of bloggers... 

Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes I was asked recently how to get a 1000 visitors a day to your blog network.  If you have a network it is quite easy.  The more blogs you have the more content you have, and more content you have the better chance you will get hits from search results.  Here is my quick list of do’s and don’ts. Content isn’t enough.  You need content with good keywords and for that material to be indexed.  If you run a wordpress blog the Google XML Sitemap Plugin is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal for getting indexed.  If you want to be properly indexed it is highly important that you use good content specific keywords and tags.  I generate specific keywords with Wordsfinder and use the Calais Tagaroo Plugin to generate Semantic tags, both of which appear as meta keywords to search engines thanks to my theme. Write about popular things.  If you follow the first rule of good tagging and and getting regularly indexed, writing about... 

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes Practicing these tips will help make your blog popular on Digg Know Your Digg Goals If your goal is to make the front page, good luck. More than 50% of the front page is controlled by less 100 people. You need to think smaller from the start and work towards the homepage. Start by thinking about how to get X number of Diggs. Set realistic goals and analyze the results. Write Digg Descriptions. Everyone says content is king and that is mostly true. Writing Digg worthy descriptions is very different from just writing good content. People other than your Digg friends have to want to vote for your entry. Make those 350 character work for you. Make Digg Friends Without some popular friends on Digg, you simply won’t make it very far. It isn’t simply good enough to shout out a Digg entry because a lot of those get ignored, especially during the busy part of the day. If you have popular Digg friends you can IM asking them to digg you goes...