I have been blogging for just over two months now. Many of my mentoring students have been asking my advice on blogging. I have so far hesitated to teach much about blogging, because it’s not something I feel I “know” yet. I feel much more comfortable teaching about things I know.
Well… I took a look at Alexa today and noticed that this blog almost hit the top 10,000 most visited sites on the Internet today. I have been seeing success with many of the methods that are unique to blog promotion. I felt it was time to write a post about blog promotion… BUT… WAIT! I haven’t even explained why I have this blog thing. I can’t really jump into getting traffic to your blog without explaining why I have a blog and why you should have one too; now can I?
Let’s go back to my history. I “made it” online without many of the tools you see me offering today. I had no products. I had no copywriting ability. My search engine ranking data was my key to my original success on the Internet. I would simply create high ranking web-sites for some market and sell the traffic from those sites directly to those who did have copywriiting ability and products. Obviously I no longer recommend that. Having your own product and copywriting ability are both multipliers to knowing how to get traffic. Now-a-days I focus on all three aspects of your Internet business and recommend that you do the same.
With that said… don’t underestimate the traffic business. Consider this. Who is the richest man in the world? Right. Bill Gates. He sells software. Software is a good business! Consider this though. Who are the 3 leading sites on the Internet? Go check Alexa if you don’t know. OK; don’t check. I’ll just tell you:
1. Yahoo
2. Google
3. MSN (Microsoft)
Now take a look at that third one. That’s the company that Bill Gates (the richest man in the world; remember?) started. Now he’s messing around on the Internet in the #3 spot.
Now; let’s take a jump here. What do those three sites sell? Ok; take a minute on this one. There will be a test.
That’s right. They sell traffic (or they mostly sell traffic… Yahoo and MSN are a tiny bit more diverse than that). Now isn’t that interesting… The richest man in the world… who go that way by selling software… now wants to sell traffic.
OK; that was a diversion. We’ll come back to that later. What I wanted to tell you about was my experience selling traffic (which is still the largest part of my business). I made a mistake. I sold traffic anonymously under corporate names. None of my traffic customers know who I am. They just buy traffic from XYZ Corporation because it converts to sales for them. XYZ Corporation has no personality. In fact, it’s fully automated and most of my customers seem to like it that way.
I tried to change that a couple of years ago. I started sending them emails teaching how they could get the most out of my traffic service. I was too late. They didn’t know me and they didn’t want to hear from me.
Then I tried one last attempt (I’m glad I did) by offering them a special on traffic that month. I think I did a two for one deal or something like that. Over 25% of my customers bought a new campaign that day. I made over $60,000 in one day with that one email. I thought that was cool! I still do. I can write a single email and make thousands of dollars in a single day. I think a lot of marketers like that.
The power of your customer list is incredible! If you can convert 2% of strangers into customers with a sales page, you can convert 25% of your existing customers into customers of another product with that same sales page. That’s powerful!
I tried it with another product. It was a good product. It was mine. It was the search engine research itself that lead to the traffic those customers were buying. In effect, I was offering to teach them how to generate the same traffic that I was selling to them. It flopped miserably. No-one bought. I tried several other products. Nothing. Why?
Some of the responses told me right away. Even though I was writing under the company name, they didn’t know me. I’ll repeat that. They didn’t know me. They knew my company. They knew that my company delivered great converting traffic, but they simply didn’t know me. An endorsement of one company by another isn’t very powerful. It isn’t nearly as powerful as an endorsement by an individual.
So, I went on to do the Freedom Events. You know how they went. Based on the endorsement of a few well-known Internet marketers, they sold out. Lesson learned. To get that 25% number, you need one of the following:
1. To be marketing to your customers as a company and selling a special offer on the product of your company that your customers already know about.
2. To be marketing to your customers as a person and selling a special offer on any product that you personally endorse… and have never given a bad endorsement on a product to your customers before.
I wanted to do the latter with my own customers… not those of another Internet marketer.
What is the best way to do that? As I look around, a blog is the absolute perfect vehicle for that. As I sell products (and cross-promote them on the owner’s pages), I also promote this blog. I do it very early in the process. It is mentioned on the owner’s page and is also mentioned in the very first email most people get after purchasing one of my products.
They buy the product from a stranger, but I introduce myself as the creator of that product very early by pointing them (you) at this blog.
Then, I don’t hide the blog behind some corporate image. You do buy my products from a corporation, but do you even know the name of that corporation? Who cares what it is called? I want you to get to know me. That’s the purpose of this blog.
Now some folks are finding this blog before they purchase one of my products. That’s OK too. Some people buy a product based on the sales page. Some buy because they know the author never produces junk. Some have a combination of those reasons.
OK; so… yes… you should have a blog. I suggest that you create your blog between your 3rd and 4th product in your primary market. That’s when I created this blog. That is also when you want to start cross-promoting your 3 or 4 products on their owner’s pages.
Here are some other things that I think are important:
1. Register your name for the domain for your blog.
2. Put your name at the top, not some cutesy blog name.
3. Share of yourself. Do not post to your blog like you are a customer service rep answering the phone for a large company… never revealing anything of yourself… only the corporate script. Chat with your customers like they are dear friends. Don’t give out your home address or phone number, but within the context of the blog… what are you afraid of? Let your blog readers get to know you.
4. Post often. People can get into the habit of doing something daily or hourly very easily. It is much more difficult to get into a weekly or monthly habit. Post at least daily so your blog readers can get into a daily habit of reading what you have to say.
5. Don’t worry about giving away secrets of your products. That’s one reason I only sell software, video and mentoring products right now. It’s simply not possible to accidently give away too much in text on your blog. Software and video are both more robust mediums than text. I can explain in words all day long how to do something… it will still be useful to buy the software to automate that task and/or buy the video to actually see how it all works.
6. Get a subcribe link up on your blog (and all of your content sites). Some people will want to follow your blog, but won’t remember. You need to give them a way to allow you to send them reminders when you post. This will dramatically increase your number of repeat visitors over time.
OK; I think that answers the question about why I have a blog and why you should too… and how you should set it up. Now, I can jump into the specific ways to get traffic to a blog that only exist for blogs… not other types of sites. I’ll do that in a future post.
For now, go register your name and get Wordpress installed on that domain. Get your subscribe link up. Write an article and submit it to your blog… and then submit it via Artemis Pro with your blog mentioned in the resource box of your article. That’s how I started just a little over two months ago and as of today… I’m almost in the top 10,000 most visited sites on the Internet. See if you can beat me in the next couple of months.
Jumat, 11 Februari 2011
Kamis, 10 Februari 2011
Blogging: What You Need To Know About Defamation
Currently there are over 30 million blogs on the internet and thousands more being created each week. Assuming ownership of one blog per person, that’s a minimum of 30 million people slinging around their personal opinions on all that exists under the sun. This is a good thing. The free exchange of thoughts and ideas is what prevents the world from becoming a stagnant pool of dictatorship with the appropriate green scum floating on top.
However, to steal a line from the movie Spiderman, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. Blogging has become a way for the voice of the people to be heard. We must be careful, though, not to abuse our power through thoughtless acts that hurt the credibility of bloggers and blogging. One place that continues to be our Achilles heel is when good posts go bad.
In the United States, libel and slander are the two categories of defamation. In many states, courts have begun treating them the same as the only difference between the two is that libel is a false written statement about a person, place or thing that harms his/her/its reputation while slander is the verbal act of the same offense. Whether blogged on the internet or whispered offline to your mother, the common denominator is that what is said is false.
Since I’m psychic, I already know what you are thinking. ‘The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects me. As long as it is the truth, I can say whatever I want.’ Well, sort of. As crazy as it sounds, truth is not the silver bullet defense for every case of libel or slander. A judge may require that besides being true the information relayed is in the public interest to know.
So reporting that the CEO of a major corporation had been caught pilfering money from the employees’ retirement fund would probably get dismissed from civil court whereas telling the world that your neighbor has smelly feet could get you into more trouble than you want. Even if it were true, why would it be in the public interest to know that your neighbor’s feet could clear out Yankee Stadium?
Now, the First Amendment does protect your right to an opinion. If you think that the Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap, you are certainly free to tell anyone within earshot as long as you make it clear that it is your opinion on the subject. Likewise, if a person puts forth a negative sentiment with regards to their experience with you and it is clear to any reasonable person that it is their opinion, your legal recourse against them is severely limited.
Parody and satire are also protected. If they weren’t, Saturday Night Live and South Park would have never made it past the first episode. And criticism of a public performance such as a symphony, a play and even a book is protected under the Fair Criticism and Comment clause.
Now the internet contributes some interesting layers of complication to the whole blogging shebang. Instead of being contained in a localized area, libel has the potential to cross international borders and not every country handles these cases the same. One of the major problems courts around the world are having to deal with is the one of jurisdiction. If I live in the US and I libel someone who lives in the UK where exactly does the case take place and who’s laws do we go by? Several cases have set a scary precedent that leans towards being able to sue anywhere around the world for libel published on the internet.
Then there is the issue of third party liability. Say you are a responsible blogger who is careful about her posts to avoid a troublesome libel accusation. One of your readers posts a libelous statement on your blog. Can you be held responsible for that person’s actions? Well, so far the law has only made provisions for internet service providers stating that they cannot be held responsible for how their customers use their services (as it pertains to defamation). Likewise, blog service providers such as Google and Six Apart would likely be immune to any lawsuits arising out of a person’s use of the service.
Whether or not you would be held responsible may come down to if you moderate your comments. If you allow comments to be posted automatically, you may be protected under Section 230 of the US Code (for US Citizens). It may be a different story, however, if you approve comments before posting them. It could be argued that your posting of the comments equates your agreement to them. To date, no one has shown up in court to argue this, hence the fact that we are kind of forced to make it up as we go along.
Defamation is a tricky issue and one that needs to be tread carefully if one is to avoid landing in court. Here are a few tips to help keep you out of trouble. Note: I am not an attorney. I don’t even get to play one on television. If you and your blog deal with some highly controversial issues or you’re just not sure how much trouble you would get into if you published that post about your best friend’s boyfriend, I recommend getting in touch with a lawyer to get the best advice.
1. Change the names. By far the easiest thing you can do is to change or to avoid using the name of the person you are talking about and to strip away as much identifying information as possible. If a reasonable person can visit your hometown and quickly identify the “mealy-mouth cow” you blogged about online, you might want to do some editing.
2. Make use of a disclaimer. Kevin S Brady has an excellent one on his website. Even something as basic as “By making use of this blog site, you agree that the opinions expressed are the property and responsibility of their respective owners” may provide some defense in the event of a lawsuit. (Check with a real attorney please).
3. Consider writing your rant as a parody or satire. Extreme exaggerations that no reasonable person would believe are not considered defamation because, quite frankly, they are unbelievable. Be careful though, this type of writing takes a certain je sais quoi, and could easily backfire on you. Have a reasonable person proofread your entry to make sure it passes the believability test.
4. Watch your language. Be sure to use wording that makes it clear that this is your opinion about the subject. Statements like, “That Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap” makes it sound as though you are stating a fact when in all actuality you are making a personal judgment about the toy. Something like “I think that Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap” or “That Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy fell apart after the first use” are safe bets. At least as far as the law is concerned.
5. And last but definitely not least, don’t tell false tales. Now this may seem like common sense but how common is common sense these days? Really. If you feel the need to resort to lying about a person, you may want to seek professional help in examining why you want to do that. ‘Cause chances are, it’s not to protect the public.
Blogging is a great way to meet people and stay current in the world and doing so responsibly will only make the experience better. Stay safe, stay sane and most of have fun.
However, to steal a line from the movie Spiderman, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. Blogging has become a way for the voice of the people to be heard. We must be careful, though, not to abuse our power through thoughtless acts that hurt the credibility of bloggers and blogging. One place that continues to be our Achilles heel is when good posts go bad.
In the United States, libel and slander are the two categories of defamation. In many states, courts have begun treating them the same as the only difference between the two is that libel is a false written statement about a person, place or thing that harms his/her/its reputation while slander is the verbal act of the same offense. Whether blogged on the internet or whispered offline to your mother, the common denominator is that what is said is false.
Since I’m psychic, I already know what you are thinking. ‘The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects me. As long as it is the truth, I can say whatever I want.’ Well, sort of. As crazy as it sounds, truth is not the silver bullet defense for every case of libel or slander. A judge may require that besides being true the information relayed is in the public interest to know.
So reporting that the CEO of a major corporation had been caught pilfering money from the employees’ retirement fund would probably get dismissed from civil court whereas telling the world that your neighbor has smelly feet could get you into more trouble than you want. Even if it were true, why would it be in the public interest to know that your neighbor’s feet could clear out Yankee Stadium?
Now, the First Amendment does protect your right to an opinion. If you think that the Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap, you are certainly free to tell anyone within earshot as long as you make it clear that it is your opinion on the subject. Likewise, if a person puts forth a negative sentiment with regards to their experience with you and it is clear to any reasonable person that it is their opinion, your legal recourse against them is severely limited.
Parody and satire are also protected. If they weren’t, Saturday Night Live and South Park would have never made it past the first episode. And criticism of a public performance such as a symphony, a play and even a book is protected under the Fair Criticism and Comment clause.
Now the internet contributes some interesting layers of complication to the whole blogging shebang. Instead of being contained in a localized area, libel has the potential to cross international borders and not every country handles these cases the same. One of the major problems courts around the world are having to deal with is the one of jurisdiction. If I live in the US and I libel someone who lives in the UK where exactly does the case take place and who’s laws do we go by? Several cases have set a scary precedent that leans towards being able to sue anywhere around the world for libel published on the internet.
Then there is the issue of third party liability. Say you are a responsible blogger who is careful about her posts to avoid a troublesome libel accusation. One of your readers posts a libelous statement on your blog. Can you be held responsible for that person’s actions? Well, so far the law has only made provisions for internet service providers stating that they cannot be held responsible for how their customers use their services (as it pertains to defamation). Likewise, blog service providers such as Google and Six Apart would likely be immune to any lawsuits arising out of a person’s use of the service.
Whether or not you would be held responsible may come down to if you moderate your comments. If you allow comments to be posted automatically, you may be protected under Section 230 of the US Code (for US Citizens). It may be a different story, however, if you approve comments before posting them. It could be argued that your posting of the comments equates your agreement to them. To date, no one has shown up in court to argue this, hence the fact that we are kind of forced to make it up as we go along.
Defamation is a tricky issue and one that needs to be tread carefully if one is to avoid landing in court. Here are a few tips to help keep you out of trouble. Note: I am not an attorney. I don’t even get to play one on television. If you and your blog deal with some highly controversial issues or you’re just not sure how much trouble you would get into if you published that post about your best friend’s boyfriend, I recommend getting in touch with a lawyer to get the best advice.
1. Change the names. By far the easiest thing you can do is to change or to avoid using the name of the person you are talking about and to strip away as much identifying information as possible. If a reasonable person can visit your hometown and quickly identify the “mealy-mouth cow” you blogged about online, you might want to do some editing.
2. Make use of a disclaimer. Kevin S Brady has an excellent one on his website. Even something as basic as “By making use of this blog site, you agree that the opinions expressed are the property and responsibility of their respective owners” may provide some defense in the event of a lawsuit. (Check with a real attorney please).
3. Consider writing your rant as a parody or satire. Extreme exaggerations that no reasonable person would believe are not considered defamation because, quite frankly, they are unbelievable. Be careful though, this type of writing takes a certain je sais quoi, and could easily backfire on you. Have a reasonable person proofread your entry to make sure it passes the believability test.
4. Watch your language. Be sure to use wording that makes it clear that this is your opinion about the subject. Statements like, “That Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap” makes it sound as though you are stating a fact when in all actuality you are making a personal judgment about the toy. Something like “I think that Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap” or “That Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy fell apart after the first use” are safe bets. At least as far as the law is concerned.
5. And last but definitely not least, don’t tell false tales. Now this may seem like common sense but how common is common sense these days? Really. If you feel the need to resort to lying about a person, you may want to seek professional help in examining why you want to do that. ‘Cause chances are, it’s not to protect the public.
Blogging is a great way to meet people and stay current in the world and doing so responsibly will only make the experience better. Stay safe, stay sane and most of have fun.
Rabu, 09 Februari 2011
Blog Farm Pro Review
Before we begin I will warn you that Blog Farm Pro is not for the feint of heart. You will need to be a fairly experienced web user to realise the full potential of this set of tools. In particular you will need to be familiar with the Web Host Manager/Cpanel software. Having said that, there are very useful screen capture videos detailing every major process so if you can learn, you can use BFP.
On to the review ... rarely does a piece of software come along which gets my juices flowing like this fantastic offering from a couple of guys who've managed to create what is possibly the most powerful set of tools you could find online to help you profit from blogging.
In case you haven't heard, blogging is all the rage. There are even recognized blog awards putting this modern age phenomenon firmly on the map as something which allows almost anyone the chance to express their opinion and strike up a dialogue with those of a like mind. Very simply, a blog is an online diary with the option of allowing the readers to comment on the entries posted by the blog owner. A blog is a great 'community builder'.
Partly because of the social aspects involved, search engines absolutely love blogs and using them as a way to make money with programs like Google Adsense can be very profitable. Using the free blog software known as WordPress it is very easy to set yourself up with a blog, begin posting content and hopefully begin profiting from clicks on your Adsense.
Once you begin down this route you soon begin to realize that three or four blogs are simply not enough if you want to make good money with contextual advertising programs such as Adsense. This is where it comes down to numbers pure and simple. To make real money using this method you need to dramatically scale up the number of blogs you own.
An initial target would be seven hundred to one thousand WordPress blogs. With this in mind, once you see how long it takes to setup one blog (even though the install process is very simple) you will realize that it could take you a very long time to set up enough blogs to begin making good money. When we are talking these kinds of numbers the system is referred to as a blog farm. Using blog farms there are some very tidy incomes being earned online but it does take work.
For this reason, I was very excited when my friend introduced me to Blog Farm Pro. For a minimal investment you gain access to an exclusive membership site providing you with a comprehensive set of tools which enables you to build anywhere from ten to as many as three hundred blogs or more in one day. I haven't tried to calculate the amount of time this site has saved me but I know we are talking days not hours.
Here's a quick rundown of the main tools available to the Blog Farm Pro user.
Blog farm tools
* Blog Farm Creator
* Blog Farm Subdomain Creator
* Spider/Poster 1&2
* Pinger
Site building tools
* Domain Hosting Creator
* Subdomain Creator
* Content Manipulator
* Web Site Builder
Control tools
* Simple Cron Editor
* Advanced Cron Editor
Misc tools
* Article Regenerator - Single
* Quick Blog Creator
* Quick Database Creator
* Quick Cron Creator
* Quick Pinger
* List Shuffler
Everything has been specifically designed to run on Cpanel servers. If you are using any other kind of server software then Blog Farm Pro will be no good to you.
The blog farm tools are the core of the system. Here you can create multiple pre configured WordPress installations using randomly selected themes with custom plugins all of your choosing. Blogs can be created on top level domains or sub domains.
Blog Farm Pro sequentially works through your list of blogs to be created. It actually logs into your web host manager, creates the domain (or sub domain), database and WordPress installation all in one go ... awesome! Once your blogs are created you can give the spider a list of web sites whereupon it will go off and spider those sites posting the content (with a link back) to your specified selection of blogs at a schedule determined by you. Doesn't get much better than that.
The site building tools are also very useful. Here you can create multiple Cpanel domain hosting accounts and any number of sub domains. These tools dramatically increase the speed at which you can create your hosting accounts. If you have ever tried to sit down and create a thousand sub domains you will appreciate how useful these tools actually are.
With the content manipulator, site builder and FTP upload facility, Blog Farm Pro brings weblog/site-building on a massive scale easily within the reach of every web marketer.
The control tools allow you to set your schedules for spider posting and here you can also select the ping schedule. The pinger allows you to specify any number of blogs and ping them from a regularly updated rotating proxy IP list at a schedule you determine (phew!). Again, the seasoned Adsense blogger will absolutely love this feature.
The miscellaneous tools provide you with an article regenerator, single blog, database and cron creators a quick pinger and a list shuffler which are all very handy items to have in your toolbox. The owners of Blog Farm Pro are very responsive and you will always get an answer to any questions you may have on the forums.
I have used Blog Farm Pro enough to know that this is something I really cannot do without. If you want to build massive blog farms in a very short space of time then Blog Farm Pro is definitely worthy of further investigation. The amount of time this package saves you is enough to give you that competitive edge which you need to succeed in the Adsense blogging game.
Just imagine ... you could easily build a thousand blogs in a week - hell you could build three thousand! Now if each one of those blogs only earns you one dollar per month then you would be making one thousand to three thousand dollars a month. Now we're talking!
The idea behind Blog Farm Pro was actually not to create monetised blogs but to use your blog farms as a means of getting your money sites indexed in the engines. The theory goes: build your blog farms, build your sites, post your sites to your blog farms and watch the indexing happen. This works too and whichever way you decide to use BFP I'm sure you'll quickly come to realise that here's a set of tools you really need ... like, yesterday!
On to the review ... rarely does a piece of software come along which gets my juices flowing like this fantastic offering from a couple of guys who've managed to create what is possibly the most powerful set of tools you could find online to help you profit from blogging.
In case you haven't heard, blogging is all the rage. There are even recognized blog awards putting this modern age phenomenon firmly on the map as something which allows almost anyone the chance to express their opinion and strike up a dialogue with those of a like mind. Very simply, a blog is an online diary with the option of allowing the readers to comment on the entries posted by the blog owner. A blog is a great 'community builder'.
Partly because of the social aspects involved, search engines absolutely love blogs and using them as a way to make money with programs like Google Adsense can be very profitable. Using the free blog software known as WordPress it is very easy to set yourself up with a blog, begin posting content and hopefully begin profiting from clicks on your Adsense.
Once you begin down this route you soon begin to realize that three or four blogs are simply not enough if you want to make good money with contextual advertising programs such as Adsense. This is where it comes down to numbers pure and simple. To make real money using this method you need to dramatically scale up the number of blogs you own.
An initial target would be seven hundred to one thousand WordPress blogs. With this in mind, once you see how long it takes to setup one blog (even though the install process is very simple) you will realize that it could take you a very long time to set up enough blogs to begin making good money. When we are talking these kinds of numbers the system is referred to as a blog farm. Using blog farms there are some very tidy incomes being earned online but it does take work.
For this reason, I was very excited when my friend introduced me to Blog Farm Pro. For a minimal investment you gain access to an exclusive membership site providing you with a comprehensive set of tools which enables you to build anywhere from ten to as many as three hundred blogs or more in one day. I haven't tried to calculate the amount of time this site has saved me but I know we are talking days not hours.
Here's a quick rundown of the main tools available to the Blog Farm Pro user.
Blog farm tools
* Blog Farm Creator
* Blog Farm Subdomain Creator
* Spider/Poster 1&2
* Pinger
Site building tools
* Domain Hosting Creator
* Subdomain Creator
* Content Manipulator
* Web Site Builder
Control tools
* Simple Cron Editor
* Advanced Cron Editor
Misc tools
* Article Regenerator - Single
* Quick Blog Creator
* Quick Database Creator
* Quick Cron Creator
* Quick Pinger
* List Shuffler
Everything has been specifically designed to run on Cpanel servers. If you are using any other kind of server software then Blog Farm Pro will be no good to you.
The blog farm tools are the core of the system. Here you can create multiple pre configured WordPress installations using randomly selected themes with custom plugins all of your choosing. Blogs can be created on top level domains or sub domains.
Blog Farm Pro sequentially works through your list of blogs to be created. It actually logs into your web host manager, creates the domain (or sub domain), database and WordPress installation all in one go ... awesome! Once your blogs are created you can give the spider a list of web sites whereupon it will go off and spider those sites posting the content (with a link back) to your specified selection of blogs at a schedule determined by you. Doesn't get much better than that.
The site building tools are also very useful. Here you can create multiple Cpanel domain hosting accounts and any number of sub domains. These tools dramatically increase the speed at which you can create your hosting accounts. If you have ever tried to sit down and create a thousand sub domains you will appreciate how useful these tools actually are.
With the content manipulator, site builder and FTP upload facility, Blog Farm Pro brings weblog/site-building on a massive scale easily within the reach of every web marketer.
The control tools allow you to set your schedules for spider posting and here you can also select the ping schedule. The pinger allows you to specify any number of blogs and ping them from a regularly updated rotating proxy IP list at a schedule you determine (phew!). Again, the seasoned Adsense blogger will absolutely love this feature.
The miscellaneous tools provide you with an article regenerator, single blog, database and cron creators a quick pinger and a list shuffler which are all very handy items to have in your toolbox. The owners of Blog Farm Pro are very responsive and you will always get an answer to any questions you may have on the forums.
I have used Blog Farm Pro enough to know that this is something I really cannot do without. If you want to build massive blog farms in a very short space of time then Blog Farm Pro is definitely worthy of further investigation. The amount of time this package saves you is enough to give you that competitive edge which you need to succeed in the Adsense blogging game.
Just imagine ... you could easily build a thousand blogs in a week - hell you could build three thousand! Now if each one of those blogs only earns you one dollar per month then you would be making one thousand to three thousand dollars a month. Now we're talking!
The idea behind Blog Farm Pro was actually not to create monetised blogs but to use your blog farms as a means of getting your money sites indexed in the engines. The theory goes: build your blog farms, build your sites, post your sites to your blog farms and watch the indexing happen. This works too and whichever way you decide to use BFP I'm sure you'll quickly come to realise that here's a set of tools you really need ... like, yesterday!
Selasa, 08 Februari 2011
Kick Start Your Internet Online Home Based Business With Blogging
Short description
Blogging has been used for some years as a platform for individuals to record chronological publication of comments and thoughts on the web. They usually include philosophical reflections, opinions on the Internet and social or political issues. This article explains how one could go beyond this to capitalise the strength of blogging to enhance one’s Internet business.
A weblog, or more popularly known as “blog”, is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.
The popularity of blog is gaining momentum globally with each passing month. A recent survey conducted by Comscore.com shows the following findings:
1) 50 million of the population in the USA visited blog sites in the first quarter of 2005
2) This indicates an increase of about 45% compared to First Quarter of 2004.
3) An average blog visitor spends 23 hours per week online while an average Internet user spends only 13 hours online.
4) Blog visitors are 11% more likely than the average Internet users to have incomes of $75,000 or more.
5) Blog visitors are 30% more likely to buy products or services online.
Anybody thinking of starting an online venture, would be silly not to recognise the importance of blogging being one of the best tools of Internet marketing.
Blogging is a perfect way for the average person to make money online without going through all the troubles and frustration of learning how to set up a website and be an efficient internet marketer.
Let's now talk about nich products. Why do you need a nich product? And what has this to do with “blogging”? You may ask. It is because your online business has little hope of succeeding if you're going head to head with the big boys. As a small Internet entrepreneur, you can never hope to compete with the big boys in terms of the power of pricing strategy and advertising. But you can be successful by finding niche markets or niche products that you seldom find at your local mall in oder to stay away from the empowering presence of the big guys.
Niche market basically is a market with a significant amount of interest online that does not encounter the same competition as in other regular products. You can easily create a niche market based on any topics including even your own hobbies, e.g. gardening, guitar, tropical fish, D.I.Y etc. As long as the topic is being searched for online, you would have a great opportunity of making some profit through adding ads to your blog and making some effort in promoting your targeted affiliate programs and products.
Many internet marketing newbies opt for blogs to set up their niche markets because as beginners, they can very easily add pages, images, banners, downloads, ebooks etc to their blogs. Unlike the regular websites, they do not need to worry about having to understand HTML (the website design language)!
Savvy marketers have discovered that blogging is one of the best Internet marketing methods that is free because you could create your blog almost immediately at no cost compared to the setting up of a conventional website.
Putting information in your blog to help establishing your presence in the Web is now a growing phenomenon. Blogging for your Internet business is one surefire way to enhance the visibility of your products and services.
With the continuing improvement in software technology, publishing, introducing plug-ins, banners, pictures etc to create a fun and interesting “website” has become a breeze even to those retirees with old and rusty brains.
The more content you add to your blog, the more traffic you get. And you can add these materials almost on a daily basis.
You could get high ranking search engine placement for many internet marketing terms just by designing your posts around certain targeted keywords. This phenomenon is more prominent when handling niche markets due to the lack of competition. Free articles could be easily obtained from many article directories in the web and posted to your blogs for the benefits of your visitors.
There’s almost no limit to what you could and want to do with your blog. You can include your ideas, opinions, expertise in your field of work, resumes, home recipes, pictures, audio or video clips, e-books, poetry, products, services, consultations etc., etc.
What are the main differences between a blog and a website then? You may ask.
Most websites are relatively permanent with only occasional updating. With blogs, you could post any new content almost on daily basis. Also, websites are usually less personal as far as their relationship with the visitors is concerned.
How do you start your first step to set up a blog? There are many host services providers you could join. Among the most popular are Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com. You could start with Blogger.com which many newbies find serving their needs just perfectly.
With Blogger.com, posting your web content is like a breezy walk in the park. Photographs of your produces etc, along with any text, could be uploaded to your blog right away with just a few clicks of your mouse.
Another facility you could use is Audioblogger that enables audio posting to your current blog site with any phone at any time from any place. It is not only effective but also easy and fun. You call a given number, record a post, then your blog is updated with an audioblogger icon and a link to your recorded audio. Your message in your own voice is instantly posted! The beautiful part of it all is the fact that this is totally free of charge!
Blogging has been used for some years as a platform for individuals to record chronological publication of comments and thoughts on the web. Now we know how one could go beyond this to capitalise the strength of blogging to enhance one’s Internet business.
This article is permitted for reprinting on condition that the content of the resource box below “About The Author” is left intact.
Blogging has been used for some years as a platform for individuals to record chronological publication of comments and thoughts on the web. They usually include philosophical reflections, opinions on the Internet and social or political issues. This article explains how one could go beyond this to capitalise the strength of blogging to enhance one’s Internet business.
A weblog, or more popularly known as “blog”, is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.
The popularity of blog is gaining momentum globally with each passing month. A recent survey conducted by Comscore.com shows the following findings:
1) 50 million of the population in the USA visited blog sites in the first quarter of 2005
2) This indicates an increase of about 45% compared to First Quarter of 2004.
3) An average blog visitor spends 23 hours per week online while an average Internet user spends only 13 hours online.
4) Blog visitors are 11% more likely than the average Internet users to have incomes of $75,000 or more.
5) Blog visitors are 30% more likely to buy products or services online.
Anybody thinking of starting an online venture, would be silly not to recognise the importance of blogging being one of the best tools of Internet marketing.
Blogging is a perfect way for the average person to make money online without going through all the troubles and frustration of learning how to set up a website and be an efficient internet marketer.
Let's now talk about nich products. Why do you need a nich product? And what has this to do with “blogging”? You may ask. It is because your online business has little hope of succeeding if you're going head to head with the big boys. As a small Internet entrepreneur, you can never hope to compete with the big boys in terms of the power of pricing strategy and advertising. But you can be successful by finding niche markets or niche products that you seldom find at your local mall in oder to stay away from the empowering presence of the big guys.
Niche market basically is a market with a significant amount of interest online that does not encounter the same competition as in other regular products. You can easily create a niche market based on any topics including even your own hobbies, e.g. gardening, guitar, tropical fish, D.I.Y etc. As long as the topic is being searched for online, you would have a great opportunity of making some profit through adding ads to your blog and making some effort in promoting your targeted affiliate programs and products.
Many internet marketing newbies opt for blogs to set up their niche markets because as beginners, they can very easily add pages, images, banners, downloads, ebooks etc to their blogs. Unlike the regular websites, they do not need to worry about having to understand HTML (the website design language)!
Savvy marketers have discovered that blogging is one of the best Internet marketing methods that is free because you could create your blog almost immediately at no cost compared to the setting up of a conventional website.
Putting information in your blog to help establishing your presence in the Web is now a growing phenomenon. Blogging for your Internet business is one surefire way to enhance the visibility of your products and services.
With the continuing improvement in software technology, publishing, introducing plug-ins, banners, pictures etc to create a fun and interesting “website” has become a breeze even to those retirees with old and rusty brains.
The more content you add to your blog, the more traffic you get. And you can add these materials almost on a daily basis.
You could get high ranking search engine placement for many internet marketing terms just by designing your posts around certain targeted keywords. This phenomenon is more prominent when handling niche markets due to the lack of competition. Free articles could be easily obtained from many article directories in the web and posted to your blogs for the benefits of your visitors.
There’s almost no limit to what you could and want to do with your blog. You can include your ideas, opinions, expertise in your field of work, resumes, home recipes, pictures, audio or video clips, e-books, poetry, products, services, consultations etc., etc.
What are the main differences between a blog and a website then? You may ask.
Most websites are relatively permanent with only occasional updating. With blogs, you could post any new content almost on daily basis. Also, websites are usually less personal as far as their relationship with the visitors is concerned.
How do you start your first step to set up a blog? There are many host services providers you could join. Among the most popular are Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com. You could start with Blogger.com which many newbies find serving their needs just perfectly.
With Blogger.com, posting your web content is like a breezy walk in the park. Photographs of your produces etc, along with any text, could be uploaded to your blog right away with just a few clicks of your mouse.
Another facility you could use is Audioblogger that enables audio posting to your current blog site with any phone at any time from any place. It is not only effective but also easy and fun. You call a given number, record a post, then your blog is updated with an audioblogger icon and a link to your recorded audio. Your message in your own voice is instantly posted! The beautiful part of it all is the fact that this is totally free of charge!
Blogging has been used for some years as a platform for individuals to record chronological publication of comments and thoughts on the web. Now we know how one could go beyond this to capitalise the strength of blogging to enhance one’s Internet business.
This article is permitted for reprinting on condition that the content of the resource box below “About The Author” is left intact.
Senin, 07 Februari 2011
Part Three - Keywords, Tags, Categories - Oh Vey! I Am So Mixed Up!
Okay so now we know all there is to know about content and keywords. Hah! But you did get the basics. It may be a good point to stop and talk about Keywords, Tags, Categories and all that as well. Logically, in progression this should come much later, but because there seems such misunderstandings about Technorati, Del.icio.us and other tagging systems, it may be a good place to put this down.
These articles began because of a thread at Absolute Write called "What Is Your Technorati Rank?" On perusing that thread I realized that many writers were placing their hopes in something that just was not going to happen. More so, they were actually misreading the importance of certain "rankings" and thus ignoring the more important factors.
If you read the previous articles in this series you now hopefully understand "keyword basics". So we are going to use Technorati for our example.
So along comes techie #1 and says:
"Hey, you know what. Blogs are becoming mainstay business. They are great for people with no knowledge of HTML and you can literally put up a web-site Weblog in minutes. So now they are multiplying over the net faster than rabbits, and the Search Engines are ignoring them for the most part as most of them contain personal musings and ramblings. So why not create a sophisticated search engine for blogs?"
"Great idea," says techie #2, "a search engine from blogs. And that means anyone who has a blog will want to register with us. But how are we going to build it. Obviously, normative search engine technology is not what we want."
"You know what?" says techie #1 "we are going to take keywords, call them by a different name and create a closed system!"
And thus Technorati was born.
What essentially goes on in Technorati, is you define what you write with "tags", Technorati tags. These are keywords, (with a special HTML parameter). Keywords just like you will learn to use in your meta tags. Technorati then in a CLOSED SYSTEM connects all the blogs with the same keywords. Technorati does not look at content to a great extent (to my knowledge), they pay attention to the tags re: keywords that you input. If you do not input keywords they use your keywords in your Blog setup.
Okay this is great for all those people looking for blogs say about hairdressing. So they come to Mr. & Mrs. Hair's blog because the Hair couple input keywords as Technorati tags. Simple.
Technorati now goes one step further. Technorati rates your blog based upon a few parameters. One of those "important" parameters is how many other people in the Technorati Network (Only those IN the network, or those using Technorati tags) have linked to your blog or a post on it. So by gaining links (there is no concept on Technorati as "bleeding links" as far as I know), you move up in the ladder. But even Technorati also keeps track of how popular your blog is. You can have 200 links into your blog, but if no one visits then your standing will not go up to the top 100.
Okay, that is Technorati. Important for bloggers? Well it is a popular site, and growing. So the answer would be yes. Important for Google, MSN and Yahoo --- not on its own...yet there is one critical Caveat.
When someone links to your site in a blog or web site, the href HTML links are in the code. The Search Engines when they read the code with their bots (see how much web lingo you know already!) sees these links. Those get added to the amount of sites linking to you. They are "hot links" or "back links" into your blog or posts in your blog. So linking not only works in the closed world of Technorati tags, but also works in the Wide World of Search Engine placement. Those links are important. Now if you get linked in a very popular blog, that counts for a lot in the world of Search Engine placement. (As we discussed in the previous articles.)
So while it is nice to know your Technorati ranking is going up, what is IMPORTANT is to remember to use their tools of tagging and linking to get others to discover and link to your blog. That gets noticed by the Search Engines. Not immediately to be sure but if you are being hit a great deal and have links to you, sooner rather than later the Search Engines will pick up your blog and your keywords. They will NOT look at the Technorati tags though, they will look at your meta tag keywords and your content. (Oy Vey! so many things to remember)
Del.icio.us and others work on the same concept, though del.icio.us is more centralized and called a "social book-marking service". Just remember the rule of thumb:
The more sites that link to you and your post, no matter for what reason, the better it is for you and your position in the Search Engines.
Okay now what are Categories? Categories really belong in Wiki format, and this is not the scope or place to discuss Wiki and the technology behind it. I own a new Wiki site, and you are welcome to peruse JewishPedia because on a Wiki site you can view all the code to each article.
Categories in blogs (Wordpress implements them automatically) are a way to search for something. I have Categories in my blog, but this is a code implemented Category Listing in Google's blogger system, where when you click, the blog does a Google Blog search in my blog for all articles related to that word. And thus it depends on Google's specific Blog Search Engine (not their regular search engine).
Remember, Google and others have specific Blog search engines. It is important to be on the top in those as well, BUT for mainstream, if you are using a Blog for whatever reason, your goal is to be in the normative search engines as well, and in a good placement there.
So there you have it. Tags = Keywords. Technorati uses them in the closed world of Technorati. The employ linking counts as well. These keywords and links, if done correctly, are also very useful for Search Engine rankings if your blog is popular. deli.ci.ous uses them for "social" blogging.
So don't give up on Technorati. Just don't believe it is the golden answer to be good rankings in the Search Engines. It is but one of the myriad of possibilities.
"The more sites that link to you and your post, no matter for what reason, the better it is for you and your position in the Search Engines."
These articles began because of a thread at Absolute Write called "What Is Your Technorati Rank?" On perusing that thread I realized that many writers were placing their hopes in something that just was not going to happen. More so, they were actually misreading the importance of certain "rankings" and thus ignoring the more important factors.
If you read the previous articles in this series you now hopefully understand "keyword basics". So we are going to use Technorati for our example.
So along comes techie #1 and says:
"Hey, you know what. Blogs are becoming mainstay business. They are great for people with no knowledge of HTML and you can literally put up a web-site Weblog in minutes. So now they are multiplying over the net faster than rabbits, and the Search Engines are ignoring them for the most part as most of them contain personal musings and ramblings. So why not create a sophisticated search engine for blogs?"
"Great idea," says techie #2, "a search engine from blogs. And that means anyone who has a blog will want to register with us. But how are we going to build it. Obviously, normative search engine technology is not what we want."
"You know what?" says techie #1 "we are going to take keywords, call them by a different name and create a closed system!"
And thus Technorati was born.
What essentially goes on in Technorati, is you define what you write with "tags", Technorati tags. These are keywords, (with a special HTML parameter). Keywords just like you will learn to use in your meta tags. Technorati then in a CLOSED SYSTEM connects all the blogs with the same keywords. Technorati does not look at content to a great extent (to my knowledge), they pay attention to the tags re: keywords that you input. If you do not input keywords they use your keywords in your Blog setup.
Okay this is great for all those people looking for blogs say about hairdressing. So they come to Mr. & Mrs. Hair's blog because the Hair couple input keywords as Technorati tags. Simple.
Technorati now goes one step further. Technorati rates your blog based upon a few parameters. One of those "important" parameters is how many other people in the Technorati Network (Only those IN the network, or those using Technorati tags) have linked to your blog or a post on it. So by gaining links (there is no concept on Technorati as "bleeding links" as far as I know), you move up in the ladder. But even Technorati also keeps track of how popular your blog is. You can have 200 links into your blog, but if no one visits then your standing will not go up to the top 100.
Okay, that is Technorati. Important for bloggers? Well it is a popular site, and growing. So the answer would be yes. Important for Google, MSN and Yahoo --- not on its own...yet there is one critical Caveat.
When someone links to your site in a blog or web site, the href HTML links are in the code. The Search Engines when they read the code with their bots (see how much web lingo you know already!) sees these links. Those get added to the amount of sites linking to you. They are "hot links" or "back links" into your blog or posts in your blog. So linking not only works in the closed world of Technorati tags, but also works in the Wide World of Search Engine placement. Those links are important. Now if you get linked in a very popular blog, that counts for a lot in the world of Search Engine placement. (As we discussed in the previous articles.)
So while it is nice to know your Technorati ranking is going up, what is IMPORTANT is to remember to use their tools of tagging and linking to get others to discover and link to your blog. That gets noticed by the Search Engines. Not immediately to be sure but if you are being hit a great deal and have links to you, sooner rather than later the Search Engines will pick up your blog and your keywords. They will NOT look at the Technorati tags though, they will look at your meta tag keywords and your content. (Oy Vey! so many things to remember)
Del.icio.us and others work on the same concept, though del.icio.us is more centralized and called a "social book-marking service". Just remember the rule of thumb:
The more sites that link to you and your post, no matter for what reason, the better it is for you and your position in the Search Engines.
Okay now what are Categories? Categories really belong in Wiki format, and this is not the scope or place to discuss Wiki and the technology behind it. I own a new Wiki site, and you are welcome to peruse JewishPedia because on a Wiki site you can view all the code to each article.
Categories in blogs (Wordpress implements them automatically) are a way to search for something. I have Categories in my blog, but this is a code implemented Category Listing in Google's blogger system, where when you click, the blog does a Google Blog search in my blog for all articles related to that word. And thus it depends on Google's specific Blog Search Engine (not their regular search engine).
Remember, Google and others have specific Blog search engines. It is important to be on the top in those as well, BUT for mainstream, if you are using a Blog for whatever reason, your goal is to be in the normative search engines as well, and in a good placement there.
So there you have it. Tags = Keywords. Technorati uses them in the closed world of Technorati. The employ linking counts as well. These keywords and links, if done correctly, are also very useful for Search Engine rankings if your blog is popular. deli.ci.ous uses them for "social" blogging.
So don't give up on Technorati. Just don't believe it is the golden answer to be good rankings in the Search Engines. It is but one of the myriad of possibilities.
"The more sites that link to you and your post, no matter for what reason, the better it is for you and your position in the Search Engines."
Minggu, 06 Februari 2011
Two Dads: One computer-maniac, the other computer-phobic.
I have two Dads. That sounds strange doesn’t it? One is my genetic father, and the other is my geneticist father. The genetic Dad I’ve only ever lived with for one year when I was an infant, while the geneticist Dad is what you would call a step-father, but I’ve lived in close proximity with him for more than 20 years. I feel close to them both. I connect differently with each of them but on a pretty much equal level. The reason I’m sharing my personal information with you is because I’ve just had a realisation about my fathers in relation to the area that I work in: computers and the Internet. It’s really quite interesting.
One father is a computer maniac. Whenever a new technology, software, gadget, or website emerges he is one of the first to grab it up and evaluate it. My other father has an old piece-of-crap box that looks something like a computer, with a tediously slow dial-up connection to the World Wide Web. Compared to the wireless, broadband Mac personal computer and mobile-connected Mac laptop of the enthusiast, they couldn’t be from further parts of the galaxy.
Then there’s me. I could be construed as being a walking paradox, an enigma, or just plainly twisted when it comes to my relationship with the computer and Internet sphere of life. Nature/nurture, genetic/environmental…For whatever strange reason, I have turned out to be a combination of the two papas. I work as a creative writer for an Internet web-hosting company. I love the ideas and valuable functions and tools that the Internet has brought to humanity (or was it humanity that brought it to the Internet?). However, I have issues and challenges when it comes to using these awe-inspiring machines.
Currently I am away from home in a different city visiting my girlfriend. At home (I am currently living with my parents-Mother and geneticist, as I’m going to live overseas soon) all I have to do to get on the Internet is open up my laptop and I’m on-line. If I’m at work, I go to my PC and all of my settings are stored and ready for me to use. While in a new place, things haven’t been running as smoothly as I would’ve liked. The answers are probably simple and easy to do, but this is one of the kinds of challenges that cause me to stumble. Although I am deeply interested and have a true faith in this new technology, I am a real novice when it comes to getting things done on someone else’s computer.
I brought my laptop with me. My girlfriend only has a dial-up connection which she uses with her laptop. I could use hers’ but she’s Chinese so a lot of what comes up on the screen is illegible to me. I don’t know how to change her language configuration. I’m used to doing it quite easily on my Mac, but her computer is a PC and I’m not as practiced in this other format. That’s one of my problems. I only have so much patience when it comes to working these technological issues out; it could be a trait passed on by my ice-age father (No judgement is being laid here. He just doesn’t feel that he can work new technologies out. He’s had a digital telephone answering machine for two years which he still hasn’t set up. He feels bad about it but his manual one does the job, so he sticks with it.). I’m also a little afraid to hook my laptop up to her dial-up line as I know from experience that I’ll have to change some settings of which I am not confident about doing.
So the next answer was to go to her university where she said people use their laptops wirelessly in the library. That sounded cool so I went in and tried it out. I even tried changing the settings to get it to work (It took courage.) but I couldn’t get it to work. I was weary about asking for help because I wasn’t really a student at that particular learning establishment. Instead, I’ve been using the library’s computers. This is OK, but since I can’t walk away with the files I create (I borrowed my girlfriend’s thumb-drive but an experience from the past of not being able to transfer information from PC to Mac deters me from using it-again, an irrational fear. I know it, and I will give it a try this week. I’ve resorted to saving my files in my email account as attachments. It’s not conventional, but it works.
Another issue I’ve had is getting onto my messenger service. The university computers don’t have it on their desktop, and when I tried to download an on-line version I was told that I didn’t have the authority to do so. I went to an Internet café, and I could do work there (I’m working on the road) but I feel kind of silly paying to get paid. It was cool there though as they had messenger with voice and video and I was able to have a conversation with my brother who is travelling around India. He could see my sister and me, but we couldn’t see him as he said the Indian computer devices (webcams, headsets) in that town were looking a little bit crappy in design and also looked worse for wear. It was heaps of fun making funny faces knowing that he would be seeing us. I think he’s getting lonely as he’s only 19 years old and has been away from home for over 7 months.
As you can see I’ve inherited beliefs about computer from both of my Dads. I find things more difficult than most, I believe, but I’m not going to give up doing my best to get the things done that I feel are necessary. Over time I hope to get over these little obstacles and hurdles and become proficient in all of the cool aspects of this new realm of human endeavour. I also have faith that the technicians and engineers are probably working hard to make things simple for the rest of us.
Whatever happens, I’m going to stick with it, and when I go to see my genetic father next I’m going to do my best to inspire him to buy a new computer with a Broadband connection. Then all I have to do is show him a few of the amazing things that this human created Internet tool can do. One of the aspects of the Web that affects me most profoundly is the simple fact that if you think of anything at all in the known Universe, you can then look it up on your search engine like Google and in the time it takes to blink your eye, immediately start to learn. It sure beats catching the train to the library, looking up a book in the card catalogue, searching for it, then finding out that someone else has borrowed it and is late bringing it back.
One father is a computer maniac. Whenever a new technology, software, gadget, or website emerges he is one of the first to grab it up and evaluate it. My other father has an old piece-of-crap box that looks something like a computer, with a tediously slow dial-up connection to the World Wide Web. Compared to the wireless, broadband Mac personal computer and mobile-connected Mac laptop of the enthusiast, they couldn’t be from further parts of the galaxy.
Then there’s me. I could be construed as being a walking paradox, an enigma, or just plainly twisted when it comes to my relationship with the computer and Internet sphere of life. Nature/nurture, genetic/environmental…For whatever strange reason, I have turned out to be a combination of the two papas. I work as a creative writer for an Internet web-hosting company. I love the ideas and valuable functions and tools that the Internet has brought to humanity (or was it humanity that brought it to the Internet?). However, I have issues and challenges when it comes to using these awe-inspiring machines.
Currently I am away from home in a different city visiting my girlfriend. At home (I am currently living with my parents-Mother and geneticist, as I’m going to live overseas soon) all I have to do to get on the Internet is open up my laptop and I’m on-line. If I’m at work, I go to my PC and all of my settings are stored and ready for me to use. While in a new place, things haven’t been running as smoothly as I would’ve liked. The answers are probably simple and easy to do, but this is one of the kinds of challenges that cause me to stumble. Although I am deeply interested and have a true faith in this new technology, I am a real novice when it comes to getting things done on someone else’s computer.
I brought my laptop with me. My girlfriend only has a dial-up connection which she uses with her laptop. I could use hers’ but she’s Chinese so a lot of what comes up on the screen is illegible to me. I don’t know how to change her language configuration. I’m used to doing it quite easily on my Mac, but her computer is a PC and I’m not as practiced in this other format. That’s one of my problems. I only have so much patience when it comes to working these technological issues out; it could be a trait passed on by my ice-age father (No judgement is being laid here. He just doesn’t feel that he can work new technologies out. He’s had a digital telephone answering machine for two years which he still hasn’t set up. He feels bad about it but his manual one does the job, so he sticks with it.). I’m also a little afraid to hook my laptop up to her dial-up line as I know from experience that I’ll have to change some settings of which I am not confident about doing.
So the next answer was to go to her university where she said people use their laptops wirelessly in the library. That sounded cool so I went in and tried it out. I even tried changing the settings to get it to work (It took courage.) but I couldn’t get it to work. I was weary about asking for help because I wasn’t really a student at that particular learning establishment. Instead, I’ve been using the library’s computers. This is OK, but since I can’t walk away with the files I create (I borrowed my girlfriend’s thumb-drive but an experience from the past of not being able to transfer information from PC to Mac deters me from using it-again, an irrational fear. I know it, and I will give it a try this week. I’ve resorted to saving my files in my email account as attachments. It’s not conventional, but it works.
Another issue I’ve had is getting onto my messenger service. The university computers don’t have it on their desktop, and when I tried to download an on-line version I was told that I didn’t have the authority to do so. I went to an Internet café, and I could do work there (I’m working on the road) but I feel kind of silly paying to get paid. It was cool there though as they had messenger with voice and video and I was able to have a conversation with my brother who is travelling around India. He could see my sister and me, but we couldn’t see him as he said the Indian computer devices (webcams, headsets) in that town were looking a little bit crappy in design and also looked worse for wear. It was heaps of fun making funny faces knowing that he would be seeing us. I think he’s getting lonely as he’s only 19 years old and has been away from home for over 7 months.
As you can see I’ve inherited beliefs about computer from both of my Dads. I find things more difficult than most, I believe, but I’m not going to give up doing my best to get the things done that I feel are necessary. Over time I hope to get over these little obstacles and hurdles and become proficient in all of the cool aspects of this new realm of human endeavour. I also have faith that the technicians and engineers are probably working hard to make things simple for the rest of us.
Whatever happens, I’m going to stick with it, and when I go to see my genetic father next I’m going to do my best to inspire him to buy a new computer with a Broadband connection. Then all I have to do is show him a few of the amazing things that this human created Internet tool can do. One of the aspects of the Web that affects me most profoundly is the simple fact that if you think of anything at all in the known Universe, you can then look it up on your search engine like Google and in the time it takes to blink your eye, immediately start to learn. It sure beats catching the train to the library, looking up a book in the card catalogue, searching for it, then finding out that someone else has borrowed it and is late bringing it back.
Sabtu, 05 Februari 2011
Blogs vs. Content-Sites
Now, I build content-sites, and in my free time, I still build more and more. To my definition, a content-site is more or less like what James Martell does. I would research for keywords, define my topics, list the content that I want to have in my site, and then start writing (or get somebody else to write for me).
Done with that, then it’s about building the site, putting web pages together and getting a domain name and web hosting.
After that, you go around looking for link partners.
I suppose most people understand what a blog is. But just in case for some newbie readers, I’ll try to explain what it is. A blog is a site that contains articles after articles written one after the other. The content is not being written all in one go upfront. But it is rather being updated along the way.
A blog lists the articles in a chronology manner, being the latest, the first. MoneyClicking.net is a blog. A blog is normally supported by a system or a script. You can use Blogger.com (remote hosted), Wordpress (PHP script), Movable Type (Perl script), etc.
Anyway, back to the topic. I was on the phone with my friend, we concluded it’s better to have a blog because it’s easier to get traffic with it.
Why? Well, there are some mechanics of a blog and also the culture of blogging that makes it much easier.
For one thing — it’s easier to get incoming links. Let me tell you how.
Reason #1: Blog Ping
First of all, there’s this thing called - PING. With a blog ping, when ever you write a new article in your blog, you can set addresses to a few ping sites to tell them that you just updated your blog. When you do that, you’ll get a link back to your site. Ping sites are like Technorati.com and BlogRolling.com. News sites like MSN News, Yahoo News and MoreOver, also have ping addresses.
Now, maybe you won’t be listed very long on that page, because many other blogs are also pinging to those sites. But more or less, it’ll help. I’ve gone through my web statistics and traffic do come from the sites that I pinged.
Reason #2: Trackback
Secondly, there’s also TRACKBACK. Now, I was with a friend explaining how trackbacks work last week. Now I’ll tell you. With blogs, for every article that you write, there will be a unique URL for it. And for each article, there’s also a unique trackback URL. Whenever you are at another person’s blog, look for trackback URL, and you may want to copy it.
Now here’s how you use a trackback URL. Let say you are at somebody else’s blog. And he just wrote about something about cat grooming. And somehow, you feel that you have something to say about what he wrote — and you know, what you want to say will be very long which may not be suitable for a comment. So you write your own message at your blog, and lower down the interface, you enter the other guy’s trackback URL, and then you hit the Submit button.
Now, that new article will appear on your blog. And because you put in a trackback URL, a part of your article will also appear in the other guy’s article as a comment. And that comment links directly back to your article. So that’s how trackbacks work.
Reason #3: Blog Comments
Now, my third point on why blog is better than content-site — Blog Comments. This is where you able to go around at other blog sites and write some comments on articles. And you even leave a link back to your site. But here’s the thing, just make sure that your comments are genuine, because now days, there are too many people spamming blog comments just to get a link back.
Reason #4: Bloggers’ Linking Habit
OK, here’s some more. This is more a blogging culture thing — bloggers like to link to each other. If your blog is interesting, it’s easy to get other bloggers to link back to you. Whether you ask for it on your website, or sometimes they just simply give you a link back. I’ve got this many times, and most of the times, they link back write to a specific message. And sometimes, they just list blog sites that they like on their website.
Reason #5: Faster SE Indexing
This is getting quite long already. But I am not done. When it comes to getting traffic, you may not realize this, but it’s easier to get indexed in the search engines with a blog. I don’t know why — perhaps it’s because incoming links are more natural and you don’t really go around asking for them. And when the incoming links are more natural, I think search engine will prefer it a lot more.
I myself have experienced where new content on my blog was indexed in under seven days.
Reason #6: Repeat Visitors
Now, after you get traffic from search engines, ping sites, and other blogs, later you’ll start to realize that 80-90% of your visitors are repeat visitors. It’s common with a blog. So the point is with this one — it’s easier to retain visitors with a blog.
You get huge traffic from multiple sources — and the ones you already have you get to keep. This is different from content-sites, where you really so much on search engine traffic.
Blogging Seems Much More Fun ...
In my experience, starting from scratch, in six month, a content-site may or may not reach to mark of 1000 visitors per day. And it takes serious hours writing content and building incoming links. I have multiple sites consistently doing 100-200 visitors per day, after six month. But with a blog, it’s not unusual if a blog reaches 3000 visitors per day, provided you give good content.
But I suppose, it all boils down to which you are comfortable with.
Realizing this, I may be planning differently in the future — but I am not certain on that yet. From the looks of it, blogging seems much more fun. You write about what you like, and you network with other bloggers. And the writing part becomes much, much easier with scripts like WordPress and Movable Type. Not much designing, no uploading files, less link building, etc ...
With building content-sites, you still have to build the website again, upload them up to your web hosting, build incoming links, etc ...
This is my opinion. And you may not think the same way I do, based on your personal experience and knowledge. I respect that.
Done with that, then it’s about building the site, putting web pages together and getting a domain name and web hosting.
After that, you go around looking for link partners.
I suppose most people understand what a blog is. But just in case for some newbie readers, I’ll try to explain what it is. A blog is a site that contains articles after articles written one after the other. The content is not being written all in one go upfront. But it is rather being updated along the way.
A blog lists the articles in a chronology manner, being the latest, the first. MoneyClicking.net is a blog. A blog is normally supported by a system or a script. You can use Blogger.com (remote hosted), Wordpress (PHP script), Movable Type (Perl script), etc.
Anyway, back to the topic. I was on the phone with my friend, we concluded it’s better to have a blog because it’s easier to get traffic with it.
Why? Well, there are some mechanics of a blog and also the culture of blogging that makes it much easier.
For one thing — it’s easier to get incoming links. Let me tell you how.
Reason #1: Blog Ping
First of all, there’s this thing called - PING. With a blog ping, when ever you write a new article in your blog, you can set addresses to a few ping sites to tell them that you just updated your blog. When you do that, you’ll get a link back to your site. Ping sites are like Technorati.com and BlogRolling.com. News sites like MSN News, Yahoo News and MoreOver, also have ping addresses.
Now, maybe you won’t be listed very long on that page, because many other blogs are also pinging to those sites. But more or less, it’ll help. I’ve gone through my web statistics and traffic do come from the sites that I pinged.
Reason #2: Trackback
Secondly, there’s also TRACKBACK. Now, I was with a friend explaining how trackbacks work last week. Now I’ll tell you. With blogs, for every article that you write, there will be a unique URL for it. And for each article, there’s also a unique trackback URL. Whenever you are at another person’s blog, look for trackback URL, and you may want to copy it.
Now here’s how you use a trackback URL. Let say you are at somebody else’s blog. And he just wrote about something about cat grooming. And somehow, you feel that you have something to say about what he wrote — and you know, what you want to say will be very long which may not be suitable for a comment. So you write your own message at your blog, and lower down the interface, you enter the other guy’s trackback URL, and then you hit the Submit button.
Now, that new article will appear on your blog. And because you put in a trackback URL, a part of your article will also appear in the other guy’s article as a comment. And that comment links directly back to your article. So that’s how trackbacks work.
Reason #3: Blog Comments
Now, my third point on why blog is better than content-site — Blog Comments. This is where you able to go around at other blog sites and write some comments on articles. And you even leave a link back to your site. But here’s the thing, just make sure that your comments are genuine, because now days, there are too many people spamming blog comments just to get a link back.
Reason #4: Bloggers’ Linking Habit
OK, here’s some more. This is more a blogging culture thing — bloggers like to link to each other. If your blog is interesting, it’s easy to get other bloggers to link back to you. Whether you ask for it on your website, or sometimes they just simply give you a link back. I’ve got this many times, and most of the times, they link back write to a specific message. And sometimes, they just list blog sites that they like on their website.
Reason #5: Faster SE Indexing
This is getting quite long already. But I am not done. When it comes to getting traffic, you may not realize this, but it’s easier to get indexed in the search engines with a blog. I don’t know why — perhaps it’s because incoming links are more natural and you don’t really go around asking for them. And when the incoming links are more natural, I think search engine will prefer it a lot more.
I myself have experienced where new content on my blog was indexed in under seven days.
Reason #6: Repeat Visitors
Now, after you get traffic from search engines, ping sites, and other blogs, later you’ll start to realize that 80-90% of your visitors are repeat visitors. It’s common with a blog. So the point is with this one — it’s easier to retain visitors with a blog.
You get huge traffic from multiple sources — and the ones you already have you get to keep. This is different from content-sites, where you really so much on search engine traffic.
Blogging Seems Much More Fun ...
In my experience, starting from scratch, in six month, a content-site may or may not reach to mark of 1000 visitors per day. And it takes serious hours writing content and building incoming links. I have multiple sites consistently doing 100-200 visitors per day, after six month. But with a blog, it’s not unusual if a blog reaches 3000 visitors per day, provided you give good content.
But I suppose, it all boils down to which you are comfortable with.
Realizing this, I may be planning differently in the future — but I am not certain on that yet. From the looks of it, blogging seems much more fun. You write about what you like, and you network with other bloggers. And the writing part becomes much, much easier with scripts like WordPress and Movable Type. Not much designing, no uploading files, less link building, etc ...
With building content-sites, you still have to build the website again, upload them up to your web hosting, build incoming links, etc ...
This is my opinion. And you may not think the same way I do, based on your personal experience and knowledge. I respect that.
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