So you have this really great idea to start a blog on a particular niche. And perhaps, maybe you even want to make some revenue off of AdSense, Clicksor, or other contextual advertising. Super. You’ve wrote your heart out and posted some blog content. Great! No problems there. But what do you do to keep the content fresh and insightful? Are you feeling that the content you offer on your blog just “lacks”? Is your blog boring? Maybe you can’t even pinpoint what exactly is “lacking”, but you just feel it. Possibly, you just do not have the time to put forth to writing 1000 word articles every couple days. If this is you, it is time you look into using other people’s articles!
“WHAT?” you say. No, I am not suggesting you steal or copy others articles. However, I am suggesting that you utilize websites that offer free web content on your particular niche. There are many free web content sites or ‘article directories’ that offer free articles for you to use on your blog or website. You are able to use these articles totally free without a problem. The only thing you are required is to give credit to the author who wrote the article. Fair enough?
Now you ask, “Why would I want to use someone else’s articles? How lame is that?!” It’s actually not lame at all. Think about it. There are thousands of other people offering new, unique insight on exactly what you are writing about. You will find that people offer a different point of view or perspective on the particular subject. A different perspective or a new idea can be very refreshing for your blog. To even go further, find those articles that offer new thoughts and respond to the author’s thoughts.
Consider the benefits of using free content articles for your blog or website:
- When you use other quality articles, you are offering your visitor with useful content, and in effect, your visitor comes back for more.
- Using free web content will allow you to keep your blog fresh and updated on a daily basis with valuable information.
- Other people’s articles can inspire new thoughts and ideas for your blog.
How do you find quality free web content for your blog? When you find an article that you would like to put on your website, make sure you are permitted to actually use it. You can usually find that information right on the article page or the website’s terms of service. When you are positive that you can use the article, read it over to make sure it is even applicable to your website. Do run it through a spell check to make sure that level of quality is portrayed in the article. If there are a bunch of errors, do not change the errors because that would violate the terms for the article. Instead, move on to finding another article. So do some searching and reading. Find that interesting web content and post that interesting web content for your readers! Delight your readers with something interesting and exciting!
In this article I’m going to give you six ways that having a blog helps your website. There are a lot more reasons to start a blog, but this article has to do with the benefits to your website.
1. A blog on the same domain name, (as part of your website like yourdomainname.com/blog) can help you add fresh content to your website without having to know html. Fresh daily or even weekly content can keep the search spiders coming back more often. Writing your blog posts on the topics or search terms you want to be relevant for helps as well. Each blog post becomes another webpage targeted for your keywords.
2. A blog on the same domain name will also help you increase the number of pages that are included as part of your website. Content is king and having a ton of relative content will increase your chances of drawing visitors to your website.
3. A Blog on the same domain name or on a subdomain of your domain name or even one that is on another domain name can help you reach out to potential and existing customers with special offers, information, surveys, and more. You can add sales offers on the fly without having to call your web designer to add it for you.
4. A blog on a subdomain like blog.yourname.com is another way to go. Subdomains in most cases are treated as a separate domain name, yet can bring yourname.com more traffic as well. Here link popularity also kicks in a little. You of course link to yourname.com from blog.yourname.com but you can also trade links with other blogs but have them link to yourname.com instead of blog.yourname.com. Those links will be treated as one-way-inbound-links and that helps your page rank, but also brings you more traffic.
5. A blog on it’s own domain name can do that as well, but the link from it to yourname.com is going to carry more weight.
6. Getting the spiders to find all of your new websites. I find that because I have several blogs, if I want to get my or a client’s new website crawled by the search engines I can do it faster by adding a link to my blogs than I can by submitting to the search engines. Because I update my blogs daily, the spider crawls the blog a lot and follows the links there. I have seen this work for getting a website crawled within 3 days. This only works for a blog that has been regularly updated for awhile. (around 6 months or more).
As I said above, these are only the benefits you get from blogging as it applies to your website. What I haven’t mentioned is that by building up a steady readership on a blog, you will gain a lot of new customers. They get to know you and trust you by reading your blog every day.
I welcome all comments and suggestions. There are a lot of other advantages to your website, but the six I have just mentioned should be enough to get you started blogging right away!
Blogging as we all know has become an outlet allowing most people to express, unwind and unleash the things that goes around in a persons mind for everyone to see. While not most people would appreciate it, this form of activity makes a person expand his knowledge and entertain new insights coming from current events, personal interaction and actual experiences. Most people of today will not waste their time reading what a person blogs or writes but for sure many would be surprised at how informative such composed blogs contain and how people can be able to express their grief or joy from everyday endeavors.
As I have said before, blogging is a therapeutic form of rehabilitation. It allows a sigh of relief in most cases, allowing people to get a load of their shoulders. Blogging has been limited to people who are Internet exposed people, most of which are the yuppies of tomorrow. Some professionals, particularly in the great areas of the United States and Europe have taken this up and most of them have two things on their mind: for personal distinction (fame) or as another source of income (fortune).
Many have claimed that people are earning millions by the day from blogging alone. Some are just in it to gain the exposure they are longing for, something that they fail to achieve in the competitive world of today, particularly in journalism and article writing tasks. It is not hard to distinguish which blogs or compositions are authentic and the purpose of which is to spread information and become sources for future people who blog. It is the content, hence why people say “Content is King”. If it is just money for the sake of placing keywords in a particular article, then writers and bloggers may as well be given a negative attention towards people who search the web for quality written content or blogs. This is a rarity today, the reason being, all they want is to attract people to visit their sites and raise their page ranks as analyzed by Google which will raise the stakes for possible pay per click advertisements. This gives article and content writing a bad name. It deprives the people who really pour out their heart and minds towards sharing towards people what their opinions really are. Blogging should not be treated solely for making money, it should be about a person’s viewpoint, something that is surely different from that of others.
For fame itself, people who love to read what a person writes is more than enough to give due recognition to the author. Quality should never be sacrificed for keyword density as they say. It is not easy to spot a poorly written article. Repetitiveness of words, and totally out of sync compositions are the immediate noticeable marks. So the next time you see such things, expect the blog or composition to be full of non-sense and just go back to the previous page and look for that quality written composition that is worth the time reading. Besides, everyone values their time, hence make good use of it and spot the low quality content right away.
I entered the blogosphere fairly late in the game. More than three years after starting and managing several busy forums and web sites, I dabbled with blogging through regular entries to one of my aviation web sites. Within weeks I got tired of the discipline &ndash not of writing &ndash but of ftp’ing everything to the web. I gave up as I decided blogging wasn’t for me.
Fortunately, I didn’t stay away as I saw a challenge, and an opportunity, in front of me. Having blogged on other people’s sites, I felt that if I could blog there, I could blog anywhere, including on my own blogs. Taking a look at my options, I decided to download WordPress and I now run two blogs from two separate web sites.
I am thrilled with each blog’s success and have no plans of giving up on what I am doing. In fact, I am mulling over starting a couple of more blogs as I see the value of this type of medium online.
So, how are my site’s doing? Very well according to my sites’ statistics. No, there isn’t much activity as far as comments go, but my information is getting read and the blogs are bringing additional traffic to both sites. Let’s just say that the traffic increases alone have been enough to keep me going, but other factors weigh in including:
Blurbs &ndash There are times when a full length article just doesn’t cut it, but a blurb [pithy paragraph] does. Blogs are great for showcasing tidbits of information and allowing bloggers to link to the full article if more information is desired.
Links &ndash On my Jet Movements blog, I added over 200 aviation related links recently. Within days, traffic to my site increased and the first page rankings came back from Google. Less than six weeks after starting, the traffic to this particular blog has been great.
Showcase &ndash My second blog, The Article Writer, has helped me communicate better to my customers. Now, my customers can read about my writing style, my comments on raising SEO, book reviews, and more. This blog has given a “human touch” to an otherwise good, but too-business-like web site.
Idea Farm &ndash Some of my blogs have turned into articles as I have taken a short, concise work and expanded on what I wrote through an article. Saves me time, too, as all I have to do is add a couple of extra paragraphs and my article is usually done.
Yes, blogging is a great way to communicate for business folks as well as teens. Some have thought that blogging was a fad, but I must say that it isn’t and it is certainly here to stay. Have you started your blog yet?
There is no question that blogging is one of the best ways to get keyword rich content on your site, get your message on the search engines and get traffic to your website. But how do you get started blogging?
When you consider starting a blog there are many options. A great way to get started blogging quickly (and for free) is to use an online ‘standalone’ service like WordPress or Google’s Blogger. These are free, highly customizable tools that support both new and more advanced bloggers. The negative is that you can’t use your website’s domain name. For instance, if using Blogger, you blog address would be something like ‘yourblog.blogspot.com.’ While you can link to this from your current website, search engines won’t know give you ‘credit’ for the extra content since it is a different domain. With creative cross linking however, you can still benefit from the increased exposure you can get from a blog.
These free services provide powerful software tool that balance value, quality, and ease of use. While some people prefer to use more basic blog services, they too can truly benefit from the ‘built-in’ benefits of WordPress or Blogger along with its existing large community of users.
One of the most notable benefits of these services is the ease of use, and advanced functionality of the service compared to some blog software applications. Neither Blogger nor WordPress require you to know any ‘coding’ and allow you to built and post to your blog with easy to use icons similar to what one would see in a word processing program. Having the ability to utilize a program like this allows people to create blogs that are as high tech, and complete as full blown websites.
If you are occasionally ‘offline’ you can benefit from WordPress’s ability to import posts. This means you can put your blog together while you are not connected to the internet and then import it later. If you already use another blogging service such you can also import your posts directly into Blogger or WordPress.
Another benefit of these services is their large widget or element and theme libraries that allow you to instantly add useful features, and professional looking styles to your blog. A very simple drag and drop interface allows you to add features such as an RSS feed with a few clicks.
Another option to consider would be blogging software that you can directly integrate into your website. Some hosting provides such as GoDaddy allow you to use your existing domain name for you blog. The benefit is that the content of your blog becomes part of what search engines see for your domain. In these cases you are more likely to pay a monthly add-on fee to your hosting provider. As an alternative, Google’s Blogger allows you to publish to a FTP site, which means you can blog from your own domain. You lose some of the flexibility of the ‘out of the box’ service, but with a little effort you can have a customized template and pretty easy posting capability that resides within your domain.
As your needs become more advanced or if you are a more technical blogger you may also consider blogging software that can be directly integrated into your website. One to consider is bBlog. bBlog is an open source, PHP/MySQL application. If you don’t know what the last sentence means, then this isn’t for you. If you do know, then you may benefit from the expanded flexibility an integrated application could provide.
In the end, you have a wide, wide range of very inexpensive (or free) options to get started.
MSN uses a search engine crawler known as MSNBot; You have to tell MSNBot to crawl your blog or website.
I do not know why MSN indexes blogs(Blogger especially)during such a short time; I guess its because they are hungry for new pages…
I found this secret whilst trying to get my websites indexed into search engines for Free, and that was a while ago.
This is what you have to do, step-by-step:
1. Go to MSN.com and search your blog address. It will be BLOGNAME.blogspot.com for Blogger blogs.
2. MSN will say “We couldn’t find any results containing BLOGNAME.blogspot.com”
and 4 lines below there is a link with the text “Send the address to Us” Click that link to index your blog.
3. You now have access to MSNBot. You’ll see a code verification system; type the correct code and the URL of your blogger or wordpress blog.
Remember to include the …
Within 3 days your blog will be indexed! When your blog gets indexed, try this system with your websites too.
Getting indexed in Yahoo is a bit harder, and takes longer.
1) Go to Altavista.com
2) Click on “Submit a Site”
3) You’ll see 3 options… Click “Basic Submit”. You’ll need a Yahoo! account for this.
4) Once logged in, you’ll be taken to Yahoo!’s free URL submitter.
There you have it - the simple secret of getting your blog indexed in search engines.
Tommy Lee knows 33 Profitable Ideas ANYONE can Use to Start Making Money Sucking Blogs Starting Today. Fast and Easy.
Do your friends and coworkers turn to you for fashion advice? Are you a bonafide guru when it comes to the hottest designers and trends? Or, maybe you’re a would-be political pundit&ndashthe next Walter Cronkite? You could simply have a riveting way of capturing the world around you. Whatever your talent, rant or position, you can share your inner most thoughts in a place called the “blogosphere”&ndashall you need is an Internet connection.
To the uninitiated, a blog is a personal website that is updated frequently by the author and typically consists of commentary and favorite links, as well as photos, or anything else really. There are essentially two rules to blogging: 1.) update your site at least every 48 hours and 2.) make the content somewhat compelling. It seems like everyone has a blog nowadays; even William Shatner and Mariah Carey have one. I mean, everyone’s story is unique, right? And since you don’t need to know HTML, FTP or graphic design to create and maintain a weblog, it’s pretty much fair game for all. Blog hosting sites, such as Radio Userland ( radio.userland.com ), Blogstream ( .blogstream.com ), squarespace ( .squarespace.com ) and Blogger.com, provide software for easy updating of your blog&ndashjust download and you’re ready to start blogging.
Since there are literally hundreds of thousands of blogs, with millions of words blasted into cyberspace every minute, inevitably there are bad blogs. But not all blogs are filled with relentless rants and whining that was meant to be witty. Blogs are a great way to connect with like-minded&ndashor not so like-minded&ndashpeople, exchange tips and ideas, and promote services, products, projects and events. If you’re an artist or budding fashion designer, you can gain exposure for your work through an artist blog or fashion blog. Some bloggers even have “fans” and sell merchandise like t-shirts and bumper stickers imprinted with their blog site. Many companies also have jumped on the blog bandwagon to promote themselves and offer useful information to their customers. Some of the best blogs are from regular people living ordinary lives.
If you don’t have the time or the motivation to start your own, you don’t have to miss out on blog-o-mania. Many people enjoy reading other people’s blogs to engage in political discourse or learn about subjects they are interested in and to keep informed about what’s going on in a particular city. Food blogs are very popular. Find out&ndashor share&ndashcooking tips and recipes. Get in a good laugh or catch up on celebrity gossip with humor blogs and celebrity gossip blogs, or blogs hosted by celebrities themselves.
So, if you have an idea for a blog, don’t be shy. There’s bound to be an existing category for your blog&ndashand if there’s not, you can create your own. That’s the beauty of blogging; there are infinite possibilities and millions of people who can access your site
1) Quality Content &ndash Interesting content will keep your readership returning. Update your blog regularly. Googlebot, which is Google’s web-crawling robot loves content. The more you update your blog, the more frequent the search engine spiders will return to it.
2) Take part in blog exchange communities, like BlogExplosion and BlogClicker. Ask other bloggers for their opinion on your blog and take their suggestions to heart.
3) Publish an RSS/Atom/XML feed. If you’re using Blogger, you can turn on RSS feed by clicking on settings in your dashboard and then clicking on site feed and make sure that your settings are set to yes.
4) Carefully choose your subject titles, taking into consideration what other internet users may be searching for. Use keywords in your title. I suggest subscribing to Word Tracker. Their report of the most popular searches is published each Tuesday and distributed to over 30,000 subscribers. Technorati.com , is a blog search engine that also lists the top search words. The more targeted your keywords are, the greater your return in search engines will be.
5) Involve yourself in commenting on other blogs. You can gain a loyal readership just by offering feedback to your fellow bloggers. The comment feature allows you to add a link back to your blog as well.
6) Be sure to include your blog address in forum signatures and in your email signature.
7) Submit your blog to directories. Submit your blog’s url to Technorati, Daypop, Blogdex and Popdex.
Write articles. Include a resource box in your article and submit it to article directories such as iSnare.com
9) If you’re using blogging software such as Blogger, there is an option to notify the central blog update services (such as weblogs.com) whenever you’ve made a new entry to your blog. Make sure that this option is turned on! In blogger, click on publish in your dashboard and make sure that your settings are set to yes under notify weblogs. Alternatively, you can go to ping-o-matic.com and send out a ping each time you update your blog. This lets everyone know that you’ve just updated your blog.
10) Link to other blogs. Use services like blogrolling, which is similar to linking. Blogrolling allows you to maintain an updated list of your favorite blogs. But, don’t build a long blog roll of sites that you have no intention of returning to. There is nothing more annoying then visiting a blog that has a humongous blogroll.
Be patient, traffic doesn’t happen overnight. The best way that I’ve found to increase traffic is by getting to know people. Spend what free time that you have, reading blogs, leaving feedback and building friendships. Try to leave comments on the blogs that you visit as often as you can. While you are waiting for the traffic to come, just enjoy blogging. You’ll be improving your writing in the process. Eventually you’ll build a network of not just readers, but friends and loyal supporters. Blogging is not just about marketing; it’s about creating lasting relationships.
Ever wondered what people think when they visit your blog? If you’re like most bloggers, you get a few comments but not enough to know whether most people like your blog or not. Maybe they read it, love it, and you never know about it. Or maybe they see something they don’t like and are off browsing before you have time to shout “hey, there’s good stuff here!”
To make matters a little worse, what turns people away is often a small thing. It might be a bad color scheme or the lack of a clear title so people know what they’re reading about. It might be too much text and not enough pictures. Whatever it is, you can lose readers fast.
How do you solve this problem? Simple &ndash just test your blog. And there’s an easy way and a free way to do it. Just visit the BlogExplosion site (.blogexplosion), sign up for a free account, and add your blog. Then visit a feature of the site called “Battle of the Blogs.” It’s a free game where your blog competes against someone else’s. Just choose a challenger and click on “Accept Challenge.” Now, the fun part starts.
Members will visit your blog and the blog of the challenger. Then they’ll vote on their favorite blog. The battle normally only takes 15 minutes or so to be completed. As soon as it’s over, you have a clear idea of how many people like your blog. If 15 out of 15 vote for yours, don’t change a thing. If 10 out of 15 vote for yours, make some improvements. If 0 out of 15 vote for yours, make some big changes.
Then go back and enter a few battles after you’ve made changes. That’s a good way to constantly improve. And there’s nothing better than improving your blog and being able to see the results in less than 15 minutes. That’s got to be better than waiting days to see a difference in your visitor statistics.
And while you’re waiting the 15 minutes to see the results, review the other blogs battling and vote for your favorite. As you do, think about what makes you like a blog instantly or dislike a blog instantly. What catches your attention? What is it that makes one blog likeable and another one boring? Take note and you’ll figure out even more ways to improve your own blog.
Blogs may have originated as a means of online journal writing and community building, but the use of this model won’t accomplish much for the online entrepreneur. Unless your cats are far cuter than every other bloggers’ or unless you are an amazingly interesting person with some tremendous writing talents, your personal blog will get lost in the chorus of voices that crowd the world of blogs. In order to making blogging profitable, one must select a good topic upon which to focus.
Topic selection is at the very root of blogging success. The idea is to choose a topic area in which you can be competitive. Optimally, you can find a blogging niche that is underserved yet has a high level of interest. This will allow you to attract a great deal of visitors more easily which, of course, translates into higher profit levels.
There are a few factors to consider when choosing the subject area for a “money blog.” First, one may want to attempt to find a subject area in which they have a personal interest, especially if they plan on writing their own content. This is because successful blogs require regular updates and it can become difficult to regularly produce quality information if one has no real interest in a topic. If someone opts to hire a writer to produce their blog posts, however, this is a far less important factor.
Second, one should strive to find a topic area in which interest is at least relatively high. You may be able to rule the search engines on the topic of “17th century wooden paperweights,” but there are so few, if any, people with an interest in the subject. Thus, that number one ranking in Google will not produce the kind of traffic stream you will need to turn a healthy profit. It may be more difficult to enter a more competitive marketplace, but the potential rewards are far greater, too. The key to this element of topic selection, however, is not just writing a blog on a hot topic. It is finding a field from which a healthy number of visitors can be culled.
Third, one will want to find a market that is underserved. Basically, you are looking for a strong disparity in the number of interested parties and the amount of readily available information. If you can find a topic in which many people are interested but that is not well-covered online, you will be sitting upon a potential blogging gold mine. It is perfectly acceptable to build a wonderful blog and to expend the effort to compete in a more crowded area, but this does require much more work. Finding an underserved niche and filling a hole in the marketplace is a much easier way to produce blogging revenue.
Choosing a topic for your moneymaking blog can be a challenging process. This first step, however, is probably one of the most important. The choice of a topic not only establishes the nature of the blog, it also (in large measure) determines its potential for success.