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Blogging, RSS & Feeds
Blogs And Your Work From Home Internet Business
As a work from home internet business entrepreneur you have several really good tools on the internet you can take advantage of in order to build your work from home business. A blog is just one of those tools that you can use and should be taking advantage of.
How to Build a Niche Site With a Blog
Building niche sites is all the rage these days.
3 Overlooked Ways to Get Hundreds of Links and Prospects to Your Blog
Did you know that there are free ways that you can get links back to your blog overnight? That after a few days they can number in the hundreds? No matter what you market on the internet at some point you'll face the issue of increasing the number of visitors to your site. What most people don't know is that there are literally hundreds of ways to get free traffic. Here we'll focus on three overlooked ways to get additional traffic to your site using a blog.The third most overlooked way to bring traffic to your site with a blog is to read and comment on other blogs. Now, maybe you've done this before but stopped, because you'rebecoming concerned about being considered a link-spammer. Inthat case, leave a link to your site after your comments, instead of in the comment form that hot links it. In the near future, blogmasters will be able to use special code to prevent spam in their comments section, so this will become less of a concern.Besides, getting clicks from people who read comments, or visits from search engine spiders through your comments, isn't necessarily your direct objective, though it?s definitely a plus.What you want to do via commenting is to enter the blog community that corresponds to your target market. Get to know who the players are and make agreements with them to cycle traffic between you. Or lurk to find out where your target market typically hangs out when they're online ? you?d be surprised at how many inexpensive and targeted advertising sources you can find through this method. (If you're looking to get linked, there's another way that we'll go over next.)This tip alone has earned me a few dozen links from prominent blogs in the past four days alone. These links are worth ten times a reciprocal link because they send targeted traffic from established sources, and come from experts with records of proven results. You can be sure these kinds of people will check you out before they linked to you, since they may be judged by the quality of the information they share. The second method to more blog traffic is the most confusing for newer people, and this is probably the reason its benefits remain overlooked.In the simplest of terms, Trackback is kind of a remote commenting system that incorporates linking. It allows the reader to follow a topic around the web to see other bloggers remark on the same subject. It enables the publisher to remotely cite references to the issue on which they've written.Once you've made yourself familiar with the blogging community you have entered, you can often pick up the pulse of conversations within your site's theme. Then, when you see issues that you want to expound on, you can send the other site a notification to let them know you cited them on your blog. That link will appear on their site, and often draws visitors to you.Bloggers who use Trackback often enjoy greater control overthis function in their blogs than they do over linking, as they have the option to reject your reference - so there is a lesser incidence of fraudulent linking. That also gives your link a greater chance of being displayed. So why don't more people use Trackback? One reason is that what is arguably the most popular free blog system, Blogger, doesn?t have Trackback. However, Haloscan.com can remedy this with their free service ? it?s a cut and paste away. Many new bloggers don't get what it is and how it differs from commenting. And of course, the dynamics of it are a little more complex than I've stated. But learn to use Trackback properly, and you won't need to beg for links to your site ever again.It's harder to estimate an exact number of visitors that come as a result of trackback links. But if you posted five days out of seven, and was able to get a trackback link to your site three times a week, by the end of the year you'd have almost 150 topical links back to your site, which are more valued by search engines than a typical link trade with an unrelated site.The most overlooked source of traffic for a blog is through article submission. To start with, turn your longer posts into articles and submitting them to ezines or directories. Look especially for directories that ask for the direct link to the article on your own site, and input the permanent link to the post on your blog. Make sure that your Auto-Discovery tag is in place and it can mean hundreds more prospects, links and subscribers.It's a shame this is the one of the least used traffic methods for most sites, let alone for blogs. In four days, this method generated just over 1000 visitors. 157 newsletter leads, 98 new feed subscribers, and 206 links to my site. You may not get these same results right away, but using these simple strategies can still get you more exposure than you have now.These aren't normally the highest quality links, as they rarely make sure of anchor text. However, bloggers are citing me using Trackback, sometimes in lieu of linking to the site where they originally found the article.To see this in action, do a search on "Can A Ping Really Help Your Blog Get Top Search Engine Rankings", the title of an article I submitted earlier this week.That article was published within a week of this one- the results speak for themselves. Many of these sites aren't the ones where my articles are normally published. There are, of course, plenty of other ways you can leverage the content in your blog or RSS feed to increase the traffic to your site. The methods outlined here may be a bit outside the norm, but, as you?ll soon find, that?s part of the reason they are so effective.
7 Questions To Ask Yourself BEFORE Staring A Business Blog
Blogging is the latest buzzword in online marketing and PR.
Just Tag It!
Tags - Revolutionary or Just Folly?
How RSS Advertising Can Help Business Gain A Higher ROI
I recently read the case study conducted by Pheedo, an advertising company on the use of RSS Feeds advertising versus email advertising.
Should Bloggers be Helping Google Fix Their PageRank System?
By now, most bloggers have heard the announcement that the Big 3 search engines - Google, Yahoo, and MSN - have united in support of a new tag that will supposedly combat comment spam. The new tag is a nofollow attribute that can be added to links. When added to links in comment tags, the search engines will ignore them.
What Is The Orange XML or RSS Icon I See More and More On Web Sites?
This question does not have a one sentence answer! If I just said that one uses this icon to get a site's RSS feed, you still won't understand. So let's try and answer you in such a way that it all makes sense to you and, more importantly, that you learn how to benefit from it.
To Blog or Not to Blog: Are Blogs Becoming More Popular than Forums, Newsletters and E-zines?
Blogging is hot, and seems to be becoming hotter each month. Although blogging originally was dismissed, by many successful publishers and other online "gurus", the truth is that now, a few years after the "blogging trend" began, there are actually more blogs and more bloggers online than ever before. Blogging, obviously, is "here to stay"!
How to Get Started Blogging in 5 Minutes or Less
I put off starting a blog for a long time because I thought it would be hard. I thought it would be technical. I thought I'd have to install scripts and tear my hair out getting them to work. At that point, most of what I'd read about blogs and RSS was just so much geek-speak.
How To Profit From Your Home Business Blog
A blog is a simple tool which all affiliate marketers should be utilising to explode their affiliate sales.
Business Blogging: Where Do I Start?
The new hot commodity is a blog for your small business so you've decided you must have one.
Blogs and RSS - Why Do I Need This Stuff?
If you've been under a rock for the last year or so it'spossible you might not have heard about blogs and RSS feeds.If you're like most of us, you've heard the buzz but mightnot've known what to make of it or what to do with it.Here's some answers.
6 Ways That Blogging Can Save You Money
Even though I?ve had several personal blogs for years, I?ve only been officially business blogging since 2003. So in going back over expenses for the last quarter, you can imagine my shock when I realized that my overall business costs were down about 19%. What saved me so much money? Surprisingly, blogging. How can you save money with your blog? It's pretty simple, so I'll be brief. Attract search engine traffic without paying the big bucksIf you want Google, Yahoo and MSN to pay attention to you, blog. It doesn't have to be a whole new site, just add a directory to your existing site and start blogging. Most blog software solutions are either cheap or free. And you can find out most basic blog information online for free (really, sometimes just typing your question into Google will do it.) by people who've actually done it. For less than $100, you can build a small library of blog tips and secrets, written by successful business bloggers. Instead of buying links, get one-way links from blog search engines and directories, as well as getting your RSS feed content displayed at other sites. Linking is a great way to get search engine attention and click traffic. Some people get links by trading; others by including their links at the end of freely distributed articles. Others pay to be listed, or to get linked. In each of these scenarios, some type of trade takes place, money, free content, or a link back. When you blog, you'll find plenty of search engines and directories that are willing to list you free of charge. For the most part you won't need to link back - you'll get a one-way link from site favored by search engines, often using text that you select yourself. If 90 or more of these free, legitimate links back to your site is worth your time, then get you blog in motion. Not only that, if you update frequently, other sites may want to display your RSS feed content on their sites. To encourage them to do so, put a link on your page with instructions on how to do so. Ever since I put one on the front of my site, various feeds from my main site have turned up in the most unexpected places.Cheaper way to study your audience. As your blog gets more popular, you may start to find that on any given day, you have a representative cross-section of prospects and clients at your site. If you have a question for them, you can just... ask. True, you can post a link to a survey in your newsletter or on your site, but these are not as interactive as the ability for your audience to comment. They will comment, and you can reply to ask them to expand, or clarify. Conversation gets going and before you know it, a bond is formed, a much stronger bond than occurs in a one-way conversation.Cheaper (and faster) way to start a resource or authority site. Five years ago, if you wanted to start an authority site, your best bet was to build a portal with a specialized directory at its core. Three years ago, you were better off starting a forum with a resource section attached to it. Last year, your top bet was a feed-enabled content management system, especially as more parts of content management systems began to have content feeds related to them. (I have 12 feeds for each of my PHP-Nuke based sites, though they don't work as well with Google Tap.)Now, if you want to be the expert, you want to start a blog. If you're blogging consistently, you have a hub of information collected that will inspire return traffic. You have a collection of links to articles, sites, and tools. You can constantly write up your own opinion editorials on each of these items, as well as fact-based analysis of news and events that can help your audience make better choices. As blog software matures you can now categorize, and alphabetize your links, and with the ability to ping multiple sources as well as leave trackback links to other sites, you can send your readers through a ring of related, freshly updated information that ultimately leads back to you.Spend less money on advertising as your blog becomes more popularI can?t promise you that you?ll never spend another red cent on advertising costs. However, the amount of free advertising you get from having your blog link or RSS feed listed in dozens of search engines and directories, and popping up in feed readers is not to be underestimated. You?ll probably still want to do some ezine advertising when your new ebook or software release is debuted. But you may not need to buy as much advertising or purchase as often.Then there is the fact that many newsletters that are also published to RSS feeds have wider reach. I?ve found that it?s worth the extra money to appear in both versions ? ask your favorite publisher for details. For publications that allow this, it?s normally only 20% extraSave money by retaining visitorsYou?ve probably heard a thousand times that it is easier to sell repeatedly to an existing client than it is to find a new one. So how do you get that visitor to come back, and possibly buy again?A constant stream of new information on a particular topic work is enough to keep people buying a daily newspaper, subscribing to a magazine or viewing a television series.Frequent updates can work the same way for your site.With bloggers being named People of the Year by Time magazine last year, if you?re not blogging in 2005, you?re going to be left in the dust by other sites in your industry that do. It doesn?t have to take up a lot of extra time, and the time it does takes is made up for in the money you can save.
How Yahoos Recent Facelift Can Mean More Traffic To Your Site
It even surprised me. Yes, even though I have been pointing out the possibility since July, and was forced by demand to release my study findings before my book was even half finished, I was shocked when I heard the news as well. You see, I was sure we were at least a year off from this glorious day.The NewsYahoo has had a little facelift, which you've probably read about by now. The real news is more important for your site - the ?My Yahoo!? page looks different too. On September 28, 2004, surfers who logged in to their personalized Yahoo area saw an announcement explaining the RSS and Atom files that show updated information to a website as content feeds, effectively pushing news feeds into the mainstream. The new look to this section of Yahoo was presented as a full page ad to every single account holder upon first log in that day, and even now, there remains a notice posted.When I logged into my page in the "My Yahoo!" section, I saw a big difference in the number of feeds left to choose from, as well as in the way they were presented. Currently, the RSS module boasts "150,000 sources". If your site isn't one of them, its crucial that you act now. If you have one and you?re not getting the results you?d like from your set-up, there are small changes you can implement that will make a huge difference in your listing.Best results aren?t as easy as submitting your feed now, but you?re still within the window of opportunity - if you do it properly.What the News Could Mean For Your Site If You Act NowOne of my clients recently called this "the back door into Yahoo". Whether that statement is accurate as far as getting included, or receiving an increase in rankings within Yahoo's search engine via your feed, depends on your site, and whether you create your feed correctly. If you could use a daily stream of traffic from even a small portion of Yahoo's estimated 20 million users, this could be your final wake-up call. You?ll want to learn how to create a feed that gets well listed immediately.Currently, the RSS module boasts "150,000 sources". Yahoo will still need hundreds, perhaps thousands more, even if it only intends to list the ?creme de la creme? of the submissions it gets. Being in that group is as easy as submitting your feed.Being at the top of the list isn?t. However, you?re still within the window of opportunity if you take the time to learn how to do this properly. You can get free details on how to do that at helpmerss.com .?My Yahoo!? RSS Headline module Coming Out of Beta?If I had to guess, I'd say all signs point to yes. When that happens, Yahoo's RSS/Atom directory will likely contain only those who added their feeds early. New feeds seeking to be included will probably face stricter standards.If you don't have one yet don?t worry, because it?s never been easier to make one. If you can cut and paste, there are tools all over the Net that will show you how- some will even generate the file for you. However, there are still certain guidelines you need to follow with your feed to get a good result out of Yahoo - it's not as simple as adding your feed now that there are more competing listings.Yahoo is still accepting new sources for RSS feeds. Readers of my last book state that they are getting excellent results following my instructions, though initial inclusion no longer occurs at the same rate. Plenty of markets have few feeds available, or none at all. Your site could fill that void.That means you still have a chance at a first page ranking. The traffic I get on a daily basis from My Yahoo readers alone sounds like I just like to brag.And I do, but that's hardly the point.The point is, there's no place you can even go to buy the caliber of exposure to the quality of audience that reads feeds. The typical audience that accesses information by feed are also blog readers. A study this summer estimated that the 69.3% of blog readers are aged 29-50, and that 40% of this audience are people who have household incomes greater than $90,000. The type of surfer that would subscribe to your feed has pre-qualified themselves as a lead, with a certain level of understanding and interest in your topic, often on a professional level. And if you don't spend every post hitting them over the head with your sales pitch, they can be both loyal and interactive.(If you do, they'll unsubscribe from your feed faster than you can spell s-p-a-m.)And if you're in the business of providing information you can use, in a way that shows how you can solve their problem, it's like preaching to the converted. If your product solves their problem, and you show that you deserve the trust of this subscriber, you?ll also find the route to a sale an increasingly downward slope. The bottom line - this is the power surfer's favorite toy. And if your content appeals to them, you need to learn how to play.
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Bloggin for a Reason
For some it's just a fun thing to do, while some others feel they will soon be left out; they soon join the crowd. Everyone who uses the internet knows someone who has a blog. Now what do you find in a blog that you dont find anywhere else? Nothing? If you are a friend of the blogger you visit his blog probably because you want a sneak peek into whatz happenning in his life right? don't deny that? been there done that! oh, and if you are a blogger yourself you visit other blogs thinking that the other guy reciprocates.
You Are Losing Money If Youre Not Using RSS Feeds On Your Website!
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Make Money Blogging
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What Is The Orange XML or RSS Icon I See More and More On Web Sites?
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