Blog Me Happy I don't want to be a newbie any longer.

When I decided to start a blog last year, I didn’t really think that it would be much of a big deal. I knew a lot of casual bloggers out there, and none of them seemed to put much thought into it. They certainly didn’t get blogging advice anywhere. They just wrote down what they wanted to, whether it was relationship blogs, marketing and advertising reports, or just personal information about their day-to-day lives.

Some of them were professional bloggers while others were more casual in their occupation. All of them, however, seemed to take a pretty laid-back approach to putting their columns together.

In retrospect I wish that I had received some good blogging advice before I started off. Starting a blog is not as easy as I had thought.

First of all, you have to deal with layout issues. One of the hard facts about Internet blogging is that people are not going to read your blog unless you make it interesting looking. A webpage that looks completely dull and has bad layout is going to make eyes glaze over no matter what you have to say.

Don’t get me wrong  there are some blogs with very simple layouts and still get quite a few readers. But even with these weblogs, the people who made them took some time to think about the design of the site.

Another area I could have used blogging advice on was getting hits. My personal blog was also part of my business. I was sort of combining multiple features into it. On the one hand, I wanted a blog that I could use as a semi public journal. I could use it to inform my friends about what I was up to in my life.

On the other hand, however, I wanted to be able to inform people of developments in my business. I run a business out of my home, and there’s a lot of overlap between my professional and personal life. Good blogging advice would have helped me to create a webpage that was both informative for my clients and interesting for my friends, and one that would attract a good number of hits from Google searches.

Even without looking at a blogging guide, I did manage to figure it out eventually. It was slow going, and I think I wasted some time that would have been better spent on something else. Nonetheless, live and learn as they say. Next time, I will start with expert advice!

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogging advice, Internet, internet blogging

Posted under Blogs

There are literally millions of blogs on the net. Most people who start blogging do so for the sheer pleasure of the activity. You write about what you know. All of a sudden, you’re receiving responses from people all over the world. These responses naturally fuel your enthusiasm. You write more. More people jump in to have their say. Before you know it, you’ve got a sizeable amount of traffic.

However, you’re not making any money from your efforts and your passion for your subject is taking more and more of your time and more server space than you’d counted on when you began. In short, your blog is starting to cost you in both time and money. Isn’t there a way to generate some income? Indeed, there are many ways.

You need to acquaint yourself with the world of net marketing, if you want to make a profit. After all, people are interested in what you have to say. Maybe now’s the time to consider the leap to your own online business. With good management strategies, you could quit your ‘day job’ and do just fine!

Let’s say you’ve got a successful blog going, with a loyal and growing readership. Do you have any ads running? Do you provide leads to your readers which enrich their knowledge? Do you have streaming audio and video? Any RSS feeds? If not, it may be about time you got more sophisticated. How do you learn how to integrate all of these features and start realizing an income? This is where blogging guides become valuable.

Blogging guides do not generally teach you how to write. You’ve got that down. What blogging guides do teach you is how to market your blog. While you may have an indestructible rapport with your readers, that won’t make you any money. You need targeted ads for products and services your readers are looking for, to enhance their knowledge or skill sets.

For example, let’s say your blog concerns greenhouse gardening. Your readers are hungry for information on building and maintaining greenhouses, books of both a general nature and specific and more obscure facets of greenhouse gardening, such as orchid care, hydroponic gardening or grafting cactii in Minnesota in winter.

You know how to find what your readers want. You need to know how to form affiliate agreements, whereby your link to greenhouse garden products results in a commission for you, when your reader clicks through and buys that product.

If you’re not currently integrating relevant graphics, submitting to directories and social networking sites, you’re missing out on lots of traffic. If you’re not conversant in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you need to get on the ball!

There are free blogging tutorials to get you started. Once you’ve got a handle on how to make money, invest in a good blogging guide. You’ll make money!

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogging guides, Internet

Posted under Blogs

In the several times you have browsed the net you have probably come across a blog or two. Blogs are online journals where people express their thoughts and feelings through writing. They represent personal opinions of authors about certain topics. Blogs allows people to share their ideas and interest with other people around the globe.

Blogs have become popular nowadays for a number of reasons. First, they are search engine friendly. As long as you are making posts regularly, search engines spider them and index them often. Search engines love blogs because they are regularly updated, and because of their fresh content. Second, it’s the quickest way to build a website. People who want to build a website but do not know HTML and how to create a website can use blogs instead. You don’t need to create websites or any programming language. And third, blogging helps increase your marketing reach.

You can always try blogs even if you aren’t much of a writer. When your blogging becomes consistent you will soon see why it is important for internet marketers. Setting up a blog does not mean you’ll have a 100% boost in your income. A blog won’t give you any new ways to make money except with the following ways:

1. Sell advertising space. On your blog, you can sell text links or banners. If your blog has a high page rank then this strategy might work for you.

2. Offer some affiliate ads. Just like a website, you can also offer visitors links or banners to your affiliate products or services.

3. Having Adsense ads or any other ads on your blog is the easiest way to gain a profit through blogging. When other people click on these ads, you make money.

Remember that your competitors are probably using blogs, so you should use one as well. If your competitors are blogging then they are perhaps reaching customers easily and effectively. When you have a blog you can publish information about your business quickly while keeping pace with the growth in the market.

Simply put, blogs are useful social and communication tools. The market is getting smarter and more organized. People would want to talk to you and want to participate in the development of your products. Blogs can permit this because readers can submit their comments to the author’s post.

Blogs will be around for the years to come so it may be a smart decision to start blogging now.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Internet, marketing, web

Posted under Blogs

As an Internet consultant, strategist and developer for over 20 years, one of the greatest concerns I hear from my small business customers is that building traffic to their Web site is too great a task, particularly as more Web sites compete for online consumers and strategies have become more and more technical over the years. 

If you share these same concerns, my advice to you is to start where you’re comfortable, and grow from there.There are a number of activities you can start with to increase your Web site traffic that don’t require any Internet knowledge at all.  Here are three options:

Word-of-Mouth.  Tell everyone you know about your Web site.Strangely, people seem to overlook this easy yet powerful resource.Perhaps they think that their Web site is too simple compared to some of the more extensive sites they have seen. Others just disregard this valuable source of information for people interested in learning about your product or service. Take pride in your Web site and tell everyone why they should go visit it.

T-Shirts.  Have a black t-shirt made with your Web site address displayed in yellow, gold or silver.Before discovering this strategy, I would wear a suit at any speaking engagement or seminar I would attend. Now, instead, I wear a very nice long sleeve shirt with my HereNextYear logo embroidered on the front.  Along the back collar, www.HereNextYear.com displays. Whenever I attend a workshop, I make sure to sit in the front five rows toward the center. When I do, someone always comes up to me during the break to ask me about my business.   

Don’t skimp on quality here.It can be some of the most powerful and direct promotion you can invest in.. Get a stylish shirt and have an embroidery store reproduce a digital copy of your logo and Web site address.  It is one of the best investments you will make to spread the word about your Web site and build traffic. 

Give-a-Away Premiums.Give pencils, magnets, bumper stickers or other freebie gifts to anyone you see.The goal is to give something related to your Web site.  Dentists might give away toothbrushes, and financial advisors might hand out small calculators. Remember the whole point is to provide a reminder to your prospects and customers that your business exists. So be sure to display your Web site address on all those items.

Business Card.  Sure, you have probably been using business cards long before your Web site existed.  But the purpose of these business cards is to do nothing else but to get your prospective customers to visit you on the Web.  Consider offering a free report with information of value to your customers when they visit your site.Promote the report and the Web site address they should visit to receive it on your business card.Then, give a card to everyone you meet and tack it up on every public bulletin board you see.

True, there are many options for building traffic to your Web site, and many of them require some real time and skill.But keep in mind that many of the tried and true promotional strategies that people have been using for years are equally effective to build traffic to your Web site.Personal publicity can still be one of the best ways to build traffic, and it is simple to start using this plan of action immediately. 

To find out even more Web site traffic builders that you can start using today, get your free report:  “101 Ways to Get More Web Site Traffic”. 

Technorati Tags: Increase Web Site Traffic, Internet, internet marketing, more web site traffic, online marketing, sea, search engine optimization, SEO, site promotion, traffic generation, web traffic, website design and development, website promotion, website traffic, website visitors

Posted under Linking.

So you want to start up a website?  One of the best things you can help yourself with in your domain name choice is to develop a strategy and plan of attack.  One of the best things you can do for your fledgling website is to bestow it with an appropriate, catchy, easy to remember domain name. Ultimately you are seeking to attract customers- the Holy Grail, and good marketing (which will help with Search Engine placement also) begins with your choice of domain name.

What if someone else already owns the domain name you wanted?  Would it still be possible to buy the domain name?  The answer is a qualified YES.  It’s possible, but with conditions to consider.  With some research and hard work you can still possibly register that coveted domain name even if someone has beaten you to the punch.  There are other ways to get the domain name you want:

Hyphenated Names One strategy to consider if the domain name you want is already taken would be to hyphenate it, as in turning ricksantiqueshop.com into ricks-antique-shop.com.  Is it always the best strategy?  Possibly, but maybe not.  If you want a domain name that is already taken by someone else and is already a well known, well traveled website, this might be a bad move, because users already familiar with the original domain name will just type the original, non-hyphenated version into their web browser, and end up not at your site but at your competitor’s site.  Not the desired result!  Also, if you do decide to take a hyphenated domain name, remember to keep it short!  The longer the domain name and the more dashes you put between words the harder it will be for the end user to remember, and therefore makes it more error prone, which could cost you customers who never make it to your website.  Definitely shorter is better.  Another school of thought: IF the web domain you want is already taken, IF the owner of the domain name won’t give it up, and IF the website associated with it is non-existent or poorly designed with low traffic, hyphenating the name might make sense after all.

Longer or Shorter?  If you want to, you can purchase up to a 67 character long domain name.  At 63 characters, thelongestdomainnameintheworldandthensome
andthensomemoreandmore.com claims to be the longest domain name in the world, and it may very well be.  Who would want to type it into a browser?  My website is www.StartMyWebsiteToday.com    When choosing my domain name I wanted something that in a few words would tell the web surfer what to expect from my website.  Good name selection can be helpful also with search engine ranking.  You will want to definitely keep the name as short and sweet as possible, but at the same time let the visitor know what to expect when he surfs to your website.  Remember, keep it short!

Brand Name or Generic  Whether or not to call your website by a brand name or to make the name a more generic description of your business online is the question.  Definitely if your business is known by a fairly well known brand name, then you would want to try and secure that as your domain name.  For instance, Nike.com is a well known brand name site, although there is nothing in the domain name to suggest that it is a site about shoes.  Still, Nike is such a well known brand name to the public that people automatically know what they will be shopping for when they get there.  If your brand name is well known, definitely try to obtain your brand name as a domain name.  But if your company is Nike or Coca Cola or Budweiser don’t discount the idea of buying the domain name shoes.com or soda.com or beer.com if they are available as well.  People often search the web using generic terms, more so even than brand names.  A person is more likely to search the internet with generic terms like shoes or footwear or sneakers than to search by a single brand name, even one as big as Nike.  Think it through and hedge your bets.  You can have as many domain names as you want pointing to a single website, so the more generic terms you can acquire that directly describe your business, the better.   A generic name if your business is new or not yet well known can get great results, if you can find a good one.  To start your search for your own unique domain name, here is a link to a domain name search engine.

Technorati Tags: browser, customers, domain, domain name, email, engine, help, hosting, Internet, money, my, name, online, publish, register, site, start, start my website, start up a website, started, surf, today, up, web, website

Posted under Emails