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I keep coming across people who are not familiar with RSS and how it can simplify your life if you’d like to keep current with a range of blogs.

When you open a morning newspaper you read stories from around the world assembled by editors from hundreds of sources (wire services, reporters). The paper prints the same news for every reader - you choose which stories to read. Instead of relying on a editor to choose the news, how would you like to have a ‘morning newspaper’ delivered each and every day with stories on topics *you* choose? With a free “Blog Reader” or news aggregator you can create a personal page on your web browser loaded with the freshest news about the things you love.

The way you set up your ‘personal newspaper’ involves a few steps and can seem a little tricky. Follow my step-by-guide below and you’ll be reading information about your topic from all over the Internet on one web page. A little investment of your time will pay off.

You’ll need about 30 minutes to follow the steps below. Ready? Let’s go!

Introduction - What is a Blog?

Basically, a blog (WeB LOG) is an online diary. There are millions and millions out there! The trick is finding the ones that have information you need and flagging them when they post updates. Advantage: you get the ‘inside scoop’ before most people in your industry. The good news about blogs is that are probably dozens you will find interesting, the bad news is that means there are dozens of bookmarks you must keep, and since bloggers don’t post on a regular schedule you never know when you need to check back to read updates. That’s why you need a “blog reader”. Technically it’s known as an “RSS Reader”.

So Why Read Blogs?

There are as many reasons to read blogs as there are people. Each person’s reasons are different. Here are a few reasons I read blogs:

1. I get a direct line into the thinking of important people in the field. In technology this could be Jonathan Schwartz (Sun) or Irving Wladawsky-Berger (IBM). In the media it might be Dan Gillmor (San Jose Mercury News). Or perhaps it’s people with their finger on the culture like Craig Newmark (craigslist). It’s unfiltered and in their own words.

2. Reading from a news aggregator is a much quicker way of reading news. For example, when I log in in the morning and hop over to Bloglines, in one interface I can see what many people are commenting on, along with news outlets like the NY Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe. This beats visiting the websites individually to see if they might have some updated content to read.

3. You get a much better picture of the individuals involved; what they’re working on, what their concerns are, sometimes even what their favorite restaurant is. Most bloggers like to read Comments you can leave. This is a great way to build relationships. It’s not a replacement for personal interaction, of course, but one that has its place and has a lot more scale to it.

4. Announcements are often made first in blogs.

What is an RSS Reader?

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. Just like your morning paper relies on syndicated news from AP, Reuters etc, so your blog reader will rely on the fact that most blogs ’syndicate’ their news - they can ‘feed’ it to your blog reader for you to review.

A news reader or aggregator checks a list of feeds on your behalf and displays any updated articles that it finds. It is common to find web feeds on nearly all blogs as well as many websites such CNN.com. RSS programs are available for various operating systems.

How do I find an RSS Reader?

Simple - Google ‘RSS Reader’. The most popular are Newsgator, Google Reader, Rocket. I use Bloglines. The rest of this guide is customized for Bloglines, but the same principals will work for all of them.

Step-by-step Guide:

[1] You’ll need to open two browser windows.

[2] In the first browser window, link to my blog: .exec-comms.com/blog - I’ll use this as an example blog to add to your feeder - hey! it’s a great blog!

[3] In the second browser window, go to .bloglines.com and choose Subscribe - it’s free.

The next bit is tricky, but stay with me:

[4] In browser where you have Bloglines, Under ‘My Feeds’ choose ‘Add’ find where it says ‘Blog or feed URL’

[5] Go back to my blog in the other window, look down the right column until you see where it says ‘Subscribe me’ and underneath you’ll see a line that says ‘RSS XHTML CSS 508′. Now, RIGHT CLICK on RSS and choose ‘Copy Shortcut’ and then go to the bloglines window and Paste this into the space where it says ‘Blog feed or URL’. If you’ve done it right, this should go into the window:

.exec-comms.com/blog/?feed=rss2

[6] Hit ‘Subscribe’ and then again ‘Subscribe’ on the bottom of the next screen (which allows various options such as folders for multiple blogs - don’t worry about it for now.)

[7] Result - You now have a ‘feed’ to my blog and whenever I post an update it’ll show up in Bloglines and you’ll see it. OK?

[8] Now you can look at some other blogs you might like to add in Bloglines. This is how you keep your eyes on multiple sources of blog info without having to go fetch it from each website in turn. You just have to find the RSS or XML (same thing) button on each blog. Usually you’ll find this button on the left or right column. It might have a graphic that says ‘XML’ or ‘RSS’. You just bookmark Bloglines.com. It’s your one stop shop on the internet for dozens of sources of information on your topic. How cool is that!

How to find Blogs that interest you:

[9] Start by searching in Bloglines where it says ‘Search all Blogs’ at the top of the page. Once the blog shows in Bloglines click on the title to go to the actual blog and find the RSS button. Then repeat steps [4] - [7] above to add it to Bloglines. If you have different topic areas then I suggest you use the option [Create Folders] to organize the blogs under different headings. You don’t need to just read blogs on your speaking topic, there’s blogs on every topic out there.

[10] Other places to find blogs:

- Google -> More -> Blog Search

- .technorati.com -> Search

[11] The single best place to find quality blogs is to check out the sidebar on any blog that interests you for blogs that author recommends. It’s usually listed as a ‘Blogroll’. Look down the right side of my blog and you’ll see a half-dozen on speechwriting and PR. Cilick and check out any that interest.

[12] Final tip. You can search Google News on your Topic. Guess what? You can grab this as a feed as well! Look to the right side and do the right-click thing where it says ‘RSS’ and add it as a feed to Bloglines. Hint: If you are searching for all the news on the topic “National Speakers Association” be sure to put it in quotes before you Google, or you’ll get separate news on each word, not the phrase. This also works if you search on Blogs using Google.

That’s all folks! Happy blog reading.

It’s been years since blogging has been practiced. But it’s just recently that it has been considered as one of the addicting fads. Many teenagers have resorted to blogging as an outlet for their emotions, a little online nook where they can blurt out whatever just bugs them or whatever makes them feel elated. Savvy marketers have discovered that blogging is one of the best Internet marketing methods that won’t cost you a cent.

What exactly is blogging? Blog is the widely used term that refers to web log. Basically, a blog is an online journal. A blog could be set up to no cost at all, and can be used for just for the fun of it or for business reasons.

Blogging for your Internet business is one surefire way to boost the visibility of your products and services. Here are a few ways to boost your internet advertising with the help of a blog:

1. Make your clients or customers abreast on your website’s alterations. Your new products and affiliate websites could also be announced through your blog.

2. Keep track of your business objectives and plans through open writing. Your blog content can be easily stored through archives. What could be better than searchable information that could be easily accessed by anyone browsing the web, right?

3. Air your opinions, advice or reviews on specific services or products that are related to your business. Publishing is a very easy process with blogging.

4. Include links that will fetch back links and subsequently improve your ranking on search engines. This could be better executed through putting well-written articles in your website. Affiliate links could also be included in your blog to earn more extra income.

5. Collect response through the ability of blogs to fetch comments from your blog readers. You can learn and improve your products and services through with the feedback from your readers.

6. Connect easily with other bloggers. When other bloggers notice that you have something good in your blog, they will put you in their favorite lists that will automatically link you to their blogs.

So, how do you set up a blog? Here are some of the options you can make use of to take advantage of this fun way to advertise your Internet business.

Either you load a blogging software or let a blogging hosting service do it for you. Host services such as LiveJournal and Blogger.com are the most popular in this field. Those hosts will provide you with easy instructions on how to put up your blog.

The third part of this article will concentrate on the meta tags area of the optimization for Google. I will mention them in the order they should normally appear in the source code. I will review 5 essential meta areas.

The DTD statement.

This should be the first tag of the head section of your code. The Document Type Definition Statement allows faster and deeper indexing with Google, shortening the time your site will be in the “trustbox” as well. HTML 4.0 or 4.01 should be the standard, and for most cases, the Transitional type should be used.

The title, the most important.

Why? Because there are 3 elements in SEO: the listing (were title is the main element) the click-through (were title is the main reason) and conversion (which is the object of all optimization work) Also, if that is not reason enough (it should) it is the single element that gests indexed and used to list the link text in the Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). An average of 7 to 8 words length is optimal.

The description.

Used by Google to create a text summary in describing the page if available, so make sure the content of this tag is friendly to the searcher, not the search engine. If you are in a competitive market, this tag is not taken into account, but you should have it for your visitor. An average length of 150 characters is good.

The keywords.

Google actually uses this tag against you, by that meaning it is used as a spam check point for the page content. Also, do not include your niche keywords here, as you will be given your competition tips about your optimization. Put your main keywords across the content instead. Here use an average of 200 characters.

Make sure you are using different sets of keywords per page, in other words, that they are unique to each particular page.

The charset type.

Another element of the head section, this one tells the browser what to do when it encounters certain characters in your pages. Google indexes pages easier with the 8859-1 tag, since it will not do any data encoding, which can take a lot of extra time. The UTF-8 tag involves encoding and it should be used for forms that accept non standard characters, like foreign users from other countries.

Is it possible to make a part time or full time living on the Internet? Can you make enough money to make your time worthwhile?

According to all the “gurus” you can easily make a LOT of money by buying their program and doing EXACTLY what they tell you to do.

Is all of this hype really true? The answer is yes and no. It really is true that a stay at home Mom or a student in need of extra income or a full time worker needing a part-time income can make money on the Internet. It is also true that a lot of people are making a full-time living and even becoming rich on the Internet.

The question is, “Can you do it too”? Again the answer is maybe yes and maybe no. It depends on how much time you are willing to invest in studying the techniques and learn the methods you need for Internet Marketing (IM) success.

The fastest way to earn extra money online is to sell on Ebay. You can start right now, today, and in 3 days be paid online for items you sell. There are a lot of “get rich quick” tutorials for sale on how to make it on Ebay, but you don’t need one. You can simply register at the Ebay site, read their tutorial and get started selling items you have around the house.

A lot of people make a few extra dollars to a few hundred extra dollars a month on Ebay. Others make a lot more. Ebay or any business you get into online or in a physical business location has the potential to make money. Lots of people succeed in business and a lot fail. Your success or failure will depend on how well you prepare, how much you study and how much energy you put into the project.

The great thing about online businesses compared to brick and mortar stores is it usually costs a lot less to get started. For instance, getting stared selling on Ebay doesn’t cost anything. You only pay fees when you run an Ebay auction ad.

Once you have some money rolling in on Ebay, you can invest in one of the guru courses that you can find in any search engine by doing a search for, “Internet marketing”.

Do you have to buy a course? No, you can find free information online to help you get started. The advantage of a course is that it is all in one place.

Every course you find will offer you good advice. It is hard to say which is best. Just like some people love Fords and hate Chevy’s, it is the same with IM guru courses. The secret is to do a little online research, pick one and then follow it.

Internet Marketing can be as easy as creating a simple website and putting other company’s ads on the site. You get paid when someone buys a product or even when someone clicks on an ad. You don’t even need a product to sell; you only have other’s ads on your web pages.

Ebay is a make money today proposition. For most people, Internet Marketing is a get rich slow process. Yes, some people make money within days or weeks of starting on online business.

There are no hard and fast rules on how long it will take you to make money online or how much you can make. It all depends on how hard you are willing to work and how much time you are willing to devote to creating a new business.

It amazes me, people still believe that all they have to do is “build it and they will come“. I promise that is the only movie quote that I will use. Having personally developed well over 100 websites since 1997 I am always stunned by people complaining that there website is a failure and blaming the person who built it. Having a website is only half the battle! You must promote, promote, and then promote some more. No matter how great your product is no one can buy it unless they know about it.

First let me say that having someone develop a custom website for you is very important. Go cheap and buy a prefab website is usually a prelude to failure. Yes they are affordable and I know you are on a tight budget but never forget “You Get What You Pay For”.

Now to the point. There is a simple formula for success. Spend money = make money. Sounds easy right?

First figure out what you can afford to pay a developer for your website, if you have a product to sell you should be thinking in the $1000 range. Also find a developer who believes in web standards, trust me this is important.

Next figure out a monthly advertising budget and spend it wisely. This is by far the most import advice I can give. Your website is not going to shoot to the top of the search engines or miraculously develop visitors all on its own. While we are on the topic of search engines, keep in mind that a person on the web only has a 4% chance of winding up on your website through a search engine. Most likely they will find your site while browsing on another website. Your best bet, if you can afford it, is to hire a reputable firm to promote your website. They will know what will work and what is a waste of money. If you can not afford to hire a firm, do your do diligence before spending your money. Only advertise on websites that are relevant to your product otherwise you are wasting your money.

This leads to our third point. Believe in the power of link exchange. I do not care what it will do for you in the search engines. The more links you have out their the greater the likely hood that someone will click that link and wind up on your website. If you are on a tight budget this is the best way to promote your website.

This article only covers the basics. Keep an eye out for part two which will have more detail about internet promotion.

If you are looking for a way to start your own business, you probably have a few reservations that are constantly holding you back. And if you are like the majority of people, the main problem that you are running into is probably financial. People that want to start a business usually want to do so with the least amount of money as possible. This is understandable; after all, if the business ends up flopping you will be out all of the money that you put up to get things started.

The good news is that there are options available to anybody that wants to start an affordable internet business. With the increased amount of people that want to own their own business, the market for finding a business that is not going to break the bank is growing every day.

When looking for an affordable internet business, you will first need to find out what you are good at. This will allow you to narrow your choices down to jobs that you would enjoy doing, as well as a company that you can make successful.

One of the most popular internet businesses today has to do with opening up a store front online. Even though this may sound expensive, it can actually be done on a relatively cheap budget. The first thing that you will need is a computer. This will be the tool that runs your business; which is pretty much the same as every company in today’s day and age. Also, in order to run an internet based store you are going to have to have a website where you can sell your products. You can hire a professional web designer to do this for you, and by shopping around you will surely be able to find somebody that will be able to work within your budget. And finally, what would a store be if you did not have anything to sell? This is where you will have to make a decision. You can buy products wholesale, and mark them up to make a profit, or you can manufacture your own goods. If you are looking for the most affordable internet business you will probably be best off getting set up with a wholesaler.

Another affordable internet business that people are taking up in masses are ones that sell information products. Again, you will need a website as well as products to sell. The most popular types of information products include books, ebooks, dvds, cds, tapes, and others. Getting set up with a wholesaler, or buying your products at discounts at other venues is your best bet.

Overall, anybody can find an affordable internet business. All you need to do is determine your budget, and find out what you would like to do.

The first and most important rule to remember when you are selecting the best Internet business idea is the one that works for you. Often times the best Internet business, idea you can come up with is one that you will have fun doing.

A founder who has enthusiasm will often help a business thrive and survive far beyond other companies in the same field. However, you cannot have enthusiasm to keep your business running if you don’t like your job.

In addition, modern technology and Internet has made it possible and easy for almost anybody to thrive with an Internet based business. As long as you love your idea and you understand it then you will have a thriving business.

The second rule you should remember when selecting the best home internet business is if there is a good marketing system in place. You need to have an advanced plan or idea that will help generate the best possible traffic to your business or subscribers to your email newsletter. While you run your business always, keep in mind that without traffic you don’t have a business no matter how good your idea is.

When selecting the best home internet business you should be on the look out for some advantages that only the best internet business opportunities would have. These advantages may not look very important at first but they will eventually make the difference between early some spending money from your business opportunity and regularly taking home a six-figure check every month from your business opportunity without ever having to leave the house.

The best of the Internet business opportunities usually have a long and detailed section on affiliate information. Go to this section and check out the details. These details should provide you all the information you need to know how best to sell the Internet business opportunity. Having a large affiliate section is important since you won’t make any money off your business without sales. The larger the affiliate section the easier it will be for you to make an income off your home internet business. Some of the best opportunities even have a list of key contacts.

It is also a good idea to go with Internet business opportunities that have a detailed and specific payment policy and preferably one that allows you to be paid for second and even third tier affiliate sales. This means you are paid for sub affiliates that you introduce to the business program. This way you can earn an income off both your direct sales and those of the ones who have joined the program. This can make a big difference in the size of the paycheck you receive.

There is certainly nothing new about the concept of blogging, and yet many business owners and Internet entrepreneurs don’t seem to grasp the power of this simple strategy. This is evidenced by the fact that many business websites do not include a blog.

If you run a business site, but do not currently have a blog, there is a great chance that you are leaving money on the table. Regardless of what kind of business you are in, a dynamic and interactive web log will improve customer response and add profits to your bottom line.

Consider this:

When you use a web log as the platform for your newsletter or ezine, you can post each of your promotions to the web, and then invite your subscribers to your blog to view your most recent update. When readers follow the link from your email to your latest blog post, they will not only have the opportunity to respond to the current promotion, they will be able to browse your blog and take action on offers you made last week, last month, even last year.

Quite often when I mail my list about my latest blog post, I end up making new sales on a promotion I did some time ago. And since my blog is linked to all of my other web sites, it’s easy for me to generate traffic for multiple products and services with just one mailing.

And blogging is a great way to generate new web traffic for your domain. By setting your blog software to ‘ping’ search and directory portals each time you make a post, you can alert a large number of people about your new content with the single click of a button.

Also, search engines are more likely to spider your site on a regular basis if you update your content frequently. With blog software, making changes to the text on your web pages is as simple as sending an email; you just fill in a subject line and post body, and then click ‘submit’.

You can even configure your blog so readers are able to leave comments and questions about your articles. They don’t have to take the time to send you an email, they can just click on the comments link and post their feedback right there on the spot. This is one of the easiest ways possible to encourage productive interaction among your prospects and customers.

Blogging requires no special technical knowledge. Sure there is an advanced side to this marketing strategy, but just adding a web log to your domain and making posts on a regular basis can improve your traffic flow and customer response tremendously.

Are you tired of working a nine to five job? Sick of flipping burgers all day with no time to spare at the end of the day? Just plain disgusted with not making as much money as you always hoped? Well maybe the answer to all your problems is right in front of you. That’s right, I’m talking about making money online.

With the advent of the Internet came a new type of business, the E-Business. People around the world are taking their business online for one reason, Connectivity.

A woman in Paris can sell her candles to a man in Beijing in a second and have it shipped to him in a matter of weeks. It’s easy for someone who already owns their business to incorporate the Internet in order to make more money. With a few simple clicks your products are connected to the entire world and you are making money online.

You can even start making money online by simply keeping an online journal or “Blog”. These sites simply work by advertising products on your blog that may interest your readers. It’s basically a referral program that works if you keep your Blog updated. This keeps people coming back and intermittently see the adds frequently. However, don’t think the money will come easy. You will want to keep it interesting enough so that they will keep coming back. This is a great way to earn money if you like to write.

These are not the only ways of making money online, there are many more. The key is finding one that works right for you. If the site looks too good to be true, it probably is. You may end up making more money than you ever thought possible with a tool that’s right in front of you.

Those who blog partly because they want to earn some extra money often ask the question:”Why is my revenue so low?” There are people who think that blogs simply can not generate much money. They are wrong! Blog can generate you the same amount of money if not more compared to any other website. Now im talking about PPC (Pay per click) sorces of revenue such as google adsense here.

The main problem I have noticed is that people tend to concentrate on wider markets. If you are running a personal diary kind of blog, the chances are that there are thousands of similar blogs around. The more competition you have, the harder it will be for you to make some cash. Instead try concentrating on smaller markets also known as niche markets. Not only it will be easier for you to develop the traffic, the CPC (Cost per click) should also be higher due to advertisers demand exceeding publishers supply.

Secondly you need to have a unique selling point. You need to give your readers something that nobody else does. This should really help you get returning visitors.

Finally it’s the ads themselves. You should channel your ads. This way you will be able to measure your ad block’s performance. One of the most important things is to experiment. Try different ad formats, colours and positioning. Run your setup for a few weeks, note the performance and try something different. Even if you think you have found the optimum ad setup keep on trying to improve it. In most cases you can always tweak something to make your ad performance better.

If you need help finding traffic for your blog, you can always submit your blog stories to the new personal blog news publishing system designed especially for the blogging community at the blog reporter