Updates from August, 2009

  • Why You Need a Blog in a Social Networking World

    Rick 2:39 pm on August 2, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , social networking strategy

    When we look back on the development of blogging over the last 5 or 10 years we can see that blogs were an important step in the “socializing” of the web. Unlike traditional static websites that were more or less just online brochures, blogs were built as personal publishing platforms with a major dose of interactivity. In other words, they encourage one on one interaction. Bloggers express their opinions, as well as connect to other bloggers and web resources, and readers respond by expressing their opinions in the form of “comments”.

    This interaction is what “social networking” is all about – with the most glaring examples being platforms like Facebook and Twitter. They provide you the opportunity to interact with an ever-broadening network of people who share your interests, or are interested in what you have to say.

    Those of us interested in using these social networking sites as marketing tools can find it a bit overwhelming. Keeping up with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, ActiveRain, and many others is difficult and time-consuming. And if there is no comprehensive strategy for our social networking it will eventually become tiresome and of questionable value.

    As part of a sensible online social networking strategy, most “experts” agree it is important to have your blog at the centre of things. Your blog is where you can express yourself in greater depth, and without worrying that you are being too pushy or sales-oriented.

    Generally speaking, your friends and followers on sites like Facebook or Twitter do not like to be bombarded with a sales pitch whenever they read your entries. But using your tweets and Facebook entries to point them to interesting stories, articles, videos, or special offers is perfectly acceptable. The easiest place to point them is your own blog.

    This strategy is no mystery and it has been discussed many times by marketing experts: use your blog to build your online identity, publish your opinions, and present your special products and offers. Use the other social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to drive traffic to your blog.

    In other words, as I said above, your blog should be at the center of your marketing strategy. Looking at it this way may encourage you to reconfigure your whole online marketing strategy. But that is probably a good thing.

     

  • More Sources for Blog Content

    Rick 1:16 pm on July 21, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , ,

    Here are some more places you can find content for your blog…

    Youtube.com – This is one of the most widely used and easiest places to find blog content. Say you have a “golf swing tips” blog. Just go to Youtube, search for “golf swing tips” and pick the one you want to include in your blog. Find the embed code and copy it into the appropriate place in your blog. Make sure to accompany the video with a short commentary of your own. You can add links to your commentary, just like an ordinary blog post.

    EzineArticles.com – This is the best article site on the web. Search for articles using keywords. Pick the article you want to re-publish. Copy it into your blog, making sure to publish it just as you found it. That includes retaining the author’s “resource box”, links to his or her websites, and all links within the article.

    Google News/Yahoo News/Bing News – If you occasionally want to publish a current “news” story, then one of the high profile news sites will give you lots of ideas. For example I just did a search in Bing News (bing.com) for “electronic gadgets” and found:

    - Third of teens use cell to cheat
    - Sony CEO says restructuring steps on track
    - iPhone to hit stores as Apple awaits Jobs’ return

    …and many more.

    Most of these stories provide good fodder for blog posts. Remember, don’t just copy the news story, and be sure to add your own comments.

    Free Original Articles with reprint rights – About the only place you will find top quality free articles is in a membership site of which you are a member. For example, if you are an AgentMapIt member we provide free articles ideal for use in blogs and newsletters. These are high quality, original, “free” PLR articles (PLR stands for “Private Label Rights”). For example, see Free Green Tips.

    PLR Articles – You can buy groups of articles that have been written by someone else and bundled as a package of PLR articles. PLR stands for “private label rights”, which means that you can publish the articles as they are, modify them, just use parts of them, and put your own name on them as the author. Most PLR packages are poorly written – often by non-English speakers – and often 5 or more years old. They have probably been recycled several times, so if they are any good they have probably been published elsewhere a number of times. I don’t recommend using PLR articles.

    Outsource your blog post writing – There are all kinds of people out there prepared to write quality short articles for next to nothing. For example, if you are using the Categorize and Cycle approach (where you have 4 or 5 categories and try to write on article a week in each) you could have a ghost writer create 5 articles for each of 4 categories (20 short articles). Chances are you can find someone to do this for less than $150. Often they will do it for as low as $5 each. Stretch those articles out over two or three months (you can add your own stuff between outsourced articles) and you have a pretty inexpensive way to create a totally original blog.

    Of course different writers will have different areas of expertise, and the writing quality will vary from writer to writer. A good place to find writers is on forums such as The Warrior Forum.

    Outsource your entire blog – Finally I would be remiss not to mention our own blogging service. Our Blog and Mail service includes setting up and maintaining your blog, writing and posting unique articles at least once a week, helping you create a contact list, and sending an email to that list at least once a month. In other words, this is an entire marketing program built around having your own blog and regular email campaign. You really don’t have to do anything. We do the entire thing.

    This approach is even more effective when integrated with an aggressive Twitter campaign.

    As you can see, even if you have very few ideas and have limited writing skills it is not that difficult to create your own interesting and effective blog. However it is important to remember what I said at the beginning of this report: without traffic your blog might as well not exist. The very first thing
    you should do is think through how you intend to get traffic to your blog.

    In my estimation the traffic generation methods discussed by would-be blogging gurus usually come down to SEO and they do not work for local business blogs. The only method I have found that does actually generate traffic is the Blog and Mail method outlined elsewhere in this blog.

     

  • Blogging Myth #2 - The Search Engines Will Send Lots of Traffic

    Rick 9:17 am on July 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: blog formula, , blog success, , , , marketing blogs

    If you’ve done any research into blogging, you’ve probably been exposed to the standard formula for blogging success. This formula has been promoted by countless gurus and web marketers trying to sell blogging advice and “systems” and it goes like this:

    1. Pick an interesting topic for your blog
    2. Write interesting posts with catchy titles
    3. Optimize your blog posts for the Search Engines
    4. Promote your blog on blog directories and bookmarking sites

    If you do these things, the forumula says, you will get the attention of the Search Engines (especially Google), and they will send you a “stampede of targeted traffic”.

    In case you haven’t noticed, this formula relies almost exclusively on the Search Engines for traffic, and because of this it is seriously misleading. I can state with no hesitation at all that if you use this formula to get traffic to your blog you will almost certainly be disappointed by the results.

    Yes, there are bloggers who get tons of traffic, and much of that traffic is driven by the Search Engines. But what you’re not told is that these bloggers have built up their list of followers over quite a long period of time, usually using a strategy other than simply relying on the hit and miss results you get from the search engines.

    And if you are a local business – a real estate agent, accountant, lawyer, chiropractor, restaurant, landscaping company, etc., etc. – you are addressing a narrowly targeted local niche where the fact is only local followers matter to you. You will soon find that to rely on the search engines to deliver a lot of traffic from such a relatively small target market will be extremely disappointing.

    For more ideas on traffic strategies that do (and don’t) work, get this free report called Blogs That Work.

     

  • Blogging Myth #1 - Blog It And They Will Come

    Rick 7:55 am on July 20, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , getting traffic to your blog, how to get blog traffic

    If you’re tempted to start a blog because you think it will give you instant fame and exposure, you’re going to be disappointed. If you’ve been told that hundreds or thousands of viewers will flock to your blog each day just because Google loves what you have to say, don’t believe it.

    Getting traffic to your blog is the biggest and most important issue for bloggers. Not topic, not content, not design.

    Traffic. That is where your blogging strategy should start. If you don’t have a traffic strategy you’ll be spending a lot of time writing stuff that very few people will ever see.

    There’s no doubt that a blog can often be the best way to put a consistent face on your business. Rather than a static website that makes no attempt to invite visitor interaction, a blog can be a perfect way to engage your people and build a relationship with them.

    But there is a problem with blogs, and we might as well state it right at the beginning. Your blog will only be effective if it has two things: good content and quality, targeted traffic.

    And of these two things (content and traffic) traffic is by far the more difficult issue. Getting quality traffic is the problem for web marketers. In fact, if your website or blog has no traffic it might as well not exist.

    – Blogs That Work – Get The Free Report

    So, this may sound odd, but it is really the place to start in developing a blogging strategy.

    Ask yourself: “How can I generate traffic to my blog?” If you don’t have a good answer to this question you should probably stop before you go any further.

     

  • Going Green at Home

    Rick 3:35 pm on July 14, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: energy saving, , green tips

    One of the most obvious areas where a homeowner can go “green” is in the use of energy in the home. The biggest energy hogs are heating, air conditioning, electrical appliances, lighting, and water usage. For some practical tips for saving energy around the home see this free series of Green Tips for Homeowners. This is a series of articles that can be reprinted in your real estate or other local business blog, website or newsletter.

     

  • Developing a Blogging Strategy That Works

    Rick 3:45 pm on July 2, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , blogs that work, free report

    Blogs That WorkBlogs That Work is a free report looks at why most business-oriented blogs fail and gives practical suggestions for creating a blog that effectively promotes your business.

    The two critical ingredients that make a blog work are content and traffic. You need content that people want to read, and you need a way of driving traffic to it. Otherwise all the time and effort you spend creating, maintaining and promoting your blog are wasted.

    Can blogging be an effective strategy for finding new leads and developing new customers. Yes it can.

    Download Blogs That Work.

     

  • Wordpress 2.7 Update Worth Doing

    Rick 12:44 pm on January 5, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Wordpress 2.7

    One of the nice things about Wordpress is that it is constantly being updated. This is also one of the most aggravating things about it. It seems like no sooner do you install the most recent update than there’s another one sitting there waiting to be installed.

    In many cases the improvements from upgrade to upgrade are minor, and sometimes do not seem to justify the hassle involved in doing the upgraded.

    But version 2.7 – the newest upgrade released near the middle of Dec. 08 – has some important improvements that make it worth doing. Most of these improvements are to the user interface. They’ve made it easier to get around inside of WP, easier to install plugins, and added some things that give it greater functionality.

    For a somewhat comprehensive discussion of these improvements see this article called “16 Must-Know Features in Wordpress 2.7″.

    What I consider to be the most important improvements are:

    1. The user interface is nicer. It is easier to get around in WP and faster.
    2. Plugins can be added right within the admin area of WP. No need to upload via FTP and then activate.
    3. The StickPost plugin has been built right into WP. This allows you to put a post in a specific spot (usually the 1st) where it stays while other posts fall in below as they are added.
    4. Updating Wordpress has been made easier with the built-in Wordpress Upgrader – The WordPress Upgrader will give you the option of downloading, installing, and upgrading to the latest WordPress version right from your Administration Panel.

     

  • An Easy Way To Find Blogging Ideas

    Rick 1:31 am on December 31, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: blog skimming, , ,

    One of the biggest problems that beginning bloggers have is knowing what to blog about. Either they think they can’t write very well, or they just don’t have very many ideas.
    Well if you’re in that boat, here’s a tip you may find helpful. Try writing about what other people are saying about your topic or niche. Find two or three other blogs in your niche…read what they have to say…and if you find an interesting post, write about it. I call this blog skimming.

    Say your blog is about real estate in your local community. A typical blog skimming post will read something like this:

    I found this great post over in The Real Estate Blog called “When Will Real Estate Values Begin to Appreciate Again?” by Aubrey Clark. Aubrey claims that the current slump is forcing us to return to values held by our parents’ generation. In his opinion the cheap credit of the last decade actually devalued our homes by making it much too easy to get into home ownership.

    As he says, “I cannot predict when the real estate market will bounce back, but I can tell you what needs to happen before it does. America needs to reinvest in herself by getting back to solid buying and selling principles.”

    In other words, we need to start caring about the value we ourselves have invested in our homes, and less about how much we can make by flipping them.

    This sounds like very sound advice to me.

    See how easy it is to come up with great content for your blog? Your readers will appreciate this kind of post. The blogger who you are quoting will appreciate the reference because you will be sending traffic his way. And you will have learned something in the process too.

    Just make sure to give credit where credit is due. Give a direct link to the posts you are skimming. The other bloggers will very likely return the favor some day. And don’t just lift the content. Include a short summary, a quotation, a link to the original, and then add a comment or two of your own.

    There’s no easier way to create really interesting and useful content for your blog.

     

  • Blogging Code of Ethics

    Rick 6:30 pm on December 22, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , code of ethics,

    The other day I followed a link in one of the many internet marketing pitches I receive on a daily basis. It offered me yet another reason why I should join a “fantastic new membership site” that would show me how I could get tons of traffic to my blog.

    The pitch was in the form of a blog post and the claim was that if I received less than 1000 visitors a day and 300 subscribers then I obviously needed help. One of the topics was “How to write posts that get comments.”

    I had a closer look at the blog and I noticed that the very post that I was reading had only two comments.

    So how can this be? If this person is using her own strategy and getting at least 1000 visits to her blog every day; and if she is applying her own strategies for generating comments how could a post have only two comments? Shouldn’t this post have hundreds of comments? It doesn’t make sense, does it?

    (More …)

     

  • Blogs and SEO

    Rick 10:18 am on December 17, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , search engine optimization,

    What SEO Advantages Does a Blog Have?

    Search Engine Optimization is all about building a website or web resource (page, video, article, etc.) that gives the search engines what they are looking for. The better you do this, the better your chances of getting high search ranking for your pages.

    The first thing you should understand is that “content is king” with the search engines. Not just any old content, but the content that is focused on the specific topics that people are looking for. A blog allows you to create hundreds of pages that each have a very specific focus.

    These pages are self-reinforcing – which means that they all reinforce the main general theme of your blog. So as you are creating many individual pages you are also creating an “authoritative” body of material that the search engines view as a valuable resource. This results in better search engine rankings for the site as a whole.

    Second, your chances of scoring well with the search engines are magnified even further because now each of your posts can be optimized for different search terms, and each of them has a chance of coming up high in search engine rankings for its own keywords. For example, your blog’s general theme may be “Memphis real estate”, but the focus of a specific post or series of posts might be “mortgages in Memphis”. Now you have a chance of scoring well for those search terms too.

    (More …)

     

  • Blogging Strategy - Staying On Message

    Rick 4:21 am on December 12, 2008 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,

    Here’s the second part of creating an effective blogging strategy. In the first part called “Your Blog Will Fail Without a Strategy” we said you should focus on creating a consistent and distinctive “brand”. Your blog should be viewed as a “Channel” which you use to send information to your readers and visitors. And that information – that “content” – should reflect a unique and consistent character, point of view and style.

    But I find it is very easy to lose track of what I’m doing if I don’t have a clear plan. There’s a great temptation to start going off on tangents in response to the hot topic of the moment. Or, just as bad, I can get in a rut and just talk about the same things over and over again.

    If you’re blog is about real estate investment, for example, you’ll find yourself tempted to spout the same “Five Rules for Smart Investing” over an over again in different words.

    One effective technique for channeling your thoughts and encouraging yourself to cover a range of interesting and relevant material is to use what I call the C & C method – Categorize and Cycle. Here’s what I mean:

    First, you choose a series of categories which you will try to write something about on a regular basis. And then you cycle through the categories.

    Wordpress and other blogging platforms lend themselves very nicely to the idea of “categories”. In fact they almost force you into that approach. Choosing interesting categories gives you a way of organizing your blog, and organizing your thoughts too.

    Let’s say you are a real estate agent. Your categories might be

    - Buying Real Estate
    - Selling Real Estate
    - Real Estate Investing
    - Local or Regional Information
    - National Real Estate News or Trends

    Or say you’re creating a blog about Golf. Your categories might be

    - Golf swing tips
    - Golf travel destinations
    - Golf course reviews
    - Golf equipment reviews

    This might be too broad. You might want to focus on just one of these areas, say, “Golf Swing Tips”:

    - Putting tips
    - Driving tips
    - Bunker tips
    - Short game tips

    You may be temtped to go too narrow or too broad. Try to settle on a range of categories that cover what you think your target market will be interested in, and which will reinforce the “brand” identification you have selected.

    For example, if you want to be known as the “golf swing tips guy”, then don’t get sidetracked talking about golf travel. Or on the other hand, if you want to become a resource for “golf travel”, then focus on that. And stay focused.

    And don’t choose too many categories because you want to use them to help you decide what to write about. You want to write something about each of them on a regular basis. So four or five is probably good for starters.

    Once you’ve chosen your categories it’s just a matter of “cycling” through them on a regular basis. Not only does this give you a much clearer idea of what to write about, but it also suggests a practical posting schedule.

    For example, if you have five categories then you may want to write something about each of them every week. That would be five posts a week – not an unreasonable schedule if you want your blog to be taken seriously by your readers.

    If you think coming up with interesting material to write about every day is way too difficult, then back it off to every other day. But before you draw that conclusion, read the suggestions I make in the next post where I disuss: “What to put in your posts and where to get the ideas.”

    It’s not as difficult as you might think.

     

  • Your Blog Will Fail Without A Strategy

    Rick 8:04 pm on December 11, 2008 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , branding, corporate, image, ,

    There’s no doubt that a blog can often be the best way to put a consistent face on your business. Rather than a static website that makes no attempt to invite visitor interaction, a blog can be a perfect way to engage your people and build a relationship with them.

    But it takes commitment to keep a blog going. Unlike a static website that you put up once and then only update from time to time, a blog requires constant attention in order to be effective.

    And that requires a strategy. Sorry, but without an explicit strategy your blog will very likely fail. It will not accomplish what you set out to accomplish with it, and you personally will probably lose interest within a month or two.

    1. Creating a ‘Brand’ With Your Blog

    You need an objective for your blog, and I think the best one is to…
    (More …)

     

  • SEO Advantages of Blogs

    Rick 9:32 am on November 15, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , business blogs, SEO and blogs

    Clients of mine often ask me what’s the big deal with blogs. I normally trot out the standard pitch about blogs being both search engine friendly and reader friendly. In other words, using a blog effectively gives you a good way to enhance your search engine exposure and rankings at the same time as giving your visitors current information and a more personal connection to your activities, projects, ideas, opinions, etc.
    (More …)

     

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