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Sunday, February 17, 2008

3 Key Off-Page Search Engine Optimization Methods

On-page search engine optimization is definitely one of the key methods if a website owner would like to improve the results for his or her website's searchability. However, on-page SEO often entails technical skills. Why? Not a lot of people are HTML enthusiasts. This is often what needs to be tweaked to do an excellent job in optimizing web pages.

What if a geek friend already did the on-page optimization and now you want to know how you can contribute to the "search engine goodness" of your website? Off-page optimization is the next step. And the results you will have to pine for are one-way backlinks. Why? This is how many of the major search engines such Google, Yahoo! and MSN rank websites. The more backlinks from relevant sites with good page rank, the merrier.


So how exactly do you gather backlinks? It's not an easy task but it's definitely less nerve-wracking than HTML if you are not the techie type. Here are some off-page SEO tips:


1. Article Marketing


Quality content has been discovered to be real king. Everyone is hungry for fresh and quality info and providing it will make backlinks go pouring in. It helps a lot to be a keen writer to be successful on this endeavor. Also, practise the proper way of using a resource box. It should only include a website that contains information relevant to the article you submit to article directories.


2. Forum Participation


Look for forums that are relevant to your website's content and keep on sharing information that will be indispensable for the members of the forums. Your signature or that tag-along message at the last part of each of your posts is what will work for your off-page SEO campaign. Keep it simple and make sure that it conveys something about your website. Learn how to hyperlink to make it easy for the people who want to visit your site.


3. Blogging


Blogs or web logs are now the most popular weapons of SEO experts. Aside from being easy-to-update, they don't require a too formal tone, which is what many readers are into. Informal dialog which can be accomplished through readers leaving comments and the blog author replying to the comments is what also keeps blogs fresh and search engine friendly. Maintaining a blog that's again relevant to your website's content will keep the search engines in touch with your site. Don't forget to have a link on your main website from your blog.


The secret to be successful in carrying out these off-page SEO methods is to be consistent. Submitting quality articles to websites at least two to three times a week and regularly producing content for your personalized blog is a surefire way to make your website stand out. Forum participation should also be something done more frequently since it will not only help you up your website's popularity with the search engines but also make you learn new stuff from other forum members' participation. Also, if you discover that you don't enjoy these stuff, there's always a plan B - hire someone to do them for you!


Note: This article may be freely reproduced as long as the AUTHOR'S resource box at the bottom of this article is included and all links must be Active/Linkable with no syntax changes.


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Informal SEO is the way to go: Isulong SEOPH
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Search Engine Optimization for Blogs

Whether it's a corporate blog, a news-type blog, or even a personal blog, optimizing your blog for the search engines is a must. There are some simple changes that you can make to WordPress and Moveable Type that will make your blog more search engine friendly and make the search engines beg for more (more post and content, that is!).

Optimizing a blog is just like optimizing any other website. The content and pages (posts) must be unique, they must be search engine friendly, and it needs links from other websites. If it's a new blog, then you first need to make sure the blog software you're using is set up so that it takes advantage of all of the possible optimization features. Then, announce it to the world, work on getting some links to it, and start making posts.

WordPress Optimization
If you're using WordPress for your blog software, it's important to make sure that your site is search engine friendly, meaning that it can easily be spidered by the search engine spiders. Just like optimizing a website, it's important to have good title tags and meta tags. Keep in mind that blog software usually uses the title of your post as the title tag, so include keywords in your titles as much as possible.

It's important to set up your blog's software so that the URLs don't contain a lot of variables. Instead, use URLs that include the post title or post name in them. For example, if you're using WordPress you'll need to set the permalinks so that it uses %postname% in the URL. You can also set up a specific category for the post archives, and you might consider using a keyword that's related to your blog instead of the default, which is typically the word "archive".


Fintan Darragh of www.dech.co.uk has a great blog post called "Ultimate WordPress SEO Tips" (http://www.dech.co.uk/2005/11/ultimate-WordPress-seo-tips/). Mr. Darragh talks about permalink optimization and says, "The goal: stick more keywords up into the URL and remove the faff which nobody uses, to make the URL search engine and people attractive. Having keywords in your URL is an absolute must, especially when it's as easy as WordPress makes it." He also goes on to talk about getting rid of useless tags like the month, day, and year, as well as one important detail: whatever you do stick with the site structure you choose-otherwise you might end up with a lot of useless links to your site. Other tips that Mr. Darragh mentions are optimizing your page titles and your post titles--and installing a few plugins that are useful such as the "Related Posts Plugin" and the "Technorati Tag Generator".


There are several other places where you can get specific tips about setting up WordPress in a search engine friendly manner, including:
* SEO at Aleeya Dot Net - http://www.aleeya.net/category/WordPress/seo/
* The Best WordPress SEO Possible - http://WordPress.org/support/topic/49168
* Search Engine Optimization for WordPress - http://codex.WordPress.org/Search_Engine_Optimization_for_WordPress
* Search Engine Optimization for Blogs - http://www.blog-maniac.com/blog-seo.htm
* DYI Search Engine Optimization - http://lorelle.WordPress.com/2006/01/15/dyi-search-engine-optimization/


One of the best tutorials out there is one called "DYI Search Engine Optimization" by Lorelle VanFossen. Specifically, Lorelle (lorelle.WordPress.com) has some great tips, including how to optimize your code, develop strong intrasite links, write with strong keyword usage, use categories and tags, and how to use ping services. Lorelle says that "the goal is to help search engine crawlers move through your website collecting information to be stored in the search engine's database. The key to your blog's data making it successfully into a search engine's database is to:
1) Make sure there are no road blocks in the path of a search engine crawler.
2) Make sure the crawler can move through your blog, examining all your web pages.
3) Provide adequate keywords and key phrases which clearly help categorize your content.
4) Provide clearly labeled tags and categories recognized by tagging service crawlers and many search engines today.
5) Take advantage of pinging services."


There are several WordPress Plugins available that will help you take advantage of internal linking (like the Related Posts Plugin) which will link to other posts in your blog that are on the same topic. Other plugins that might be helpful are plugins that automatically generate a Google Sitemap file as well as plugins that help you categorize the site such as the WordPress Subdomain Plugin (http://www.webguerrilla.com/WordPress-subdomain-plugin/).


Movable Type Optimization
If you're using Movable Type for your blog software, then it's also important to make sure that your site is search engine friendly and can be spidered by the search engine spiders. Just like optimizing a website, it's important to have good title tags and meta tags. Keep in mind that blog software usually uses the title of your post as the title tag, so include keywords in your titles as much as possible.


Miles Evans (http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060310Movable TypeSEO.html) says that "Movable Type is optimized quite well out of the box, but there are a few quick tricks to easily providing the spiders with some dynamic content." He goes on to say that you need to optimize your template. "For my main home page and category index pages I hardcode most of my meta data. Your meta tags will be at the top of the template within the tag. You can get fancy on your index pages but I cannot really see why. Optimize these two templates by hand for whatever keywords you are targeting site wide." Mr. Evans also has another article titled, "Best Movable Type Plugins" (http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060310BestMovable TypePlugins.html) that talks about his favorite plugins that help him get great search engine rankings. His favorite Movable Type Plugins for SEO are Dashify, MTPaginate, MT Blogroll, MT InlineEditor, MT-Textile, BigPAPI, as well as Ajaxify (a set of plugins that adds several ajax/javascript widgets into the Movable Type interface), CheckLinks, FormatList v1.0, and Better File Uploader for uploading files.


Nicholas Carvan (http://www.nicholascaravan.com) has a great article about Movable Type optimization called "Optimizing your Movable Type blog for Google" (http://www.nicholascarvan.com/blog/optimizing_your_Movable Type_blog_for_google.html). In it he talks about PageRank (and how it relates to your internal linking on your blog), having keywords in your URL (which is important for all blog optimization) and blogrolling. He defines the term blogrolling very well, saying, "Blogrolling: Inbound links are gold, but in Google's eyes, not all links are equal. In particular, Google isn't wild about links contained within JavaScript - apparently they can index them, but that doesn't mean they always want to."


Once you've set up and configured your blog's software, it's important to make sure that you leave it alone-if you change your page URLs then any links that you've received from other bloggers may not be valid anymore. If you need to change your site's structure (perhaps you've been blogging already and wish to use the tips from this article to optimize your blog), then you might want to take a look at the Objection Redirection WordPress Plugin(http://WordPress-plugins.biggnuts.com/objection-redirection-WordPress-plugin/) if you're using WordPress. The Objection Redirection Plugin gives you a simple interface to redirect users (and search engine bots) to the proper page, especially if you've changed your site's structure.


Start Blogging

The best thing you can do is to start blogging. Go ahead and post to your heart's content and write, write, write about your topic. The more content you can provide the better-and it seems as if adding content on a regular basis really helps, as well. Feel free to link out to other blog posts that are related to the topic you're writing about. For example, before you publish a post, go on over to your favorite blog search engine and find another recent post on the same subject-and link to the post. Linking out to other bloggers will get their attention, and hopefully they'll end up linking to you as well. If other bloggers have trackbacks turned on then their blog will link back to your post. Some trackbacks are moderated, so it might take some time before your link shows up on the other blog. And some bloggers have trackbacks turned off, so a link back to your site might take some manual intervention.


Categorize your posts as much as possible, and feel free to add categories as you blog-it will help the internal linking structure of your site, and help the search engines and users find on-topic posts.


Promoting Your Blog

Whenever you make a post in your blog, your blog software will attempt to ping certain sites to let them know that you just updated your blog. There are many blog ping services out there, including Ping-O-Matic and Pingoat. Your blog software can be configured to ping sites automatically, and I've posted a list for WordPress of ping services on by blog (http://www.corporatewebsitemarketing.info/cwm/WordPress-ping-list).


If your blog is new or you would like to get some more links, you can submit your blog to blog directories as well as other sites that will list your blog (don't forget to submit to DMOZ.org, Yahoo! Directory, and the Best of the Web Blog Directory). About.com has a great article about promoting a blog (http://weblogs.about.com/cs/blogpromotions/a/promoteblog.htm) and even Biz Stone has great tutorial about promoting your blog (http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1060). Lastly, don't forget to turn on your blog's RSS feed. And if you're looking to promote your RSS feed, try searching your favorite search engine for "promote rss" to find a lot of good tutorials.


Promoting your blog is just like promoting a website-you need good spiderable content, links to your content, and you need to set up your blog software to take advantage of all the great features. There are also plugins that will help make blogging easier for all of us.


Bill Hartzer manages the Search Engine Marketing division of MarketNet, Inc., a leading full-service interactive design and development firm in Dallas, Texas. Hartzer recently joined MarketNet, where his vast experience significantly bolsters MarketNet's already robust search engine marketing offerings.


Hartzer is a successful writer and search engine marketing expert. During the past fifteen years, some of his many accomplishments include:

* Search Engine Optimization Strategist, Intec Telecom Systems PLC
* Webmaster, Intec Telecom Systems PLC
* Founder, Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association
* Owner/Author, Corporate Web Site Marketing
* Administrator, Search Engine Forums
* Frequent Speaker, Search Engine Strategies Conferences
* Frequent Speaker, WebmasterWorld's PubCon Search Engine and Internet Marketing Conference


Hartzer has infused MarketNet with his enthusiasm and vision for search marketing. Together with the company's leaders, Hartzer is focused on developing results-oriented paid and organic search marketing programs to help clients increase visibility, broaden reach and maximize their return on investment.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Important Things to Know When You Submit Your Articles to an Article Directory

Article writers are submitting their articles to hundreds of article directories to offer publishers with free content and to provide themselves with a marketing tool for their website. As an administrator for one of the fastest growing article directories on the web, I review hundreds of articles submitted a day. I have the joy of reading and approving quality articles. I also must decline those that do not meet site standards. I have noticed many mistakes by writers that wind themselves up with an 'article denied'. It can be unfortunate because the articles can have rich content, but minor problems will result in a rejection. Let's take a look at some of the very basic ways you can guarantee that your article gets approved and submitted to the article directory.

1. Unique Article Content - One of the most important things is to make sure your article is unique to the article directory. Article directories are looking for unique article content. Do not submit duplicate articles. That is a sure way to get your article declined, but an even surer way to get your account deactivated. Run a search before submitting your article to see what kind of content is being offered.


2. Choose a Descriptive Title - Along with writing a unique article, choose a title that describes your content well and targets your article keywords. Some articles I receive will include only one or two words. It is not a good idea to be vague. Be as specific and detailed as possible. Select a title that will draw your reader in! Another important thing to note is that a title marked in all capital letters is usually frowned upon by article directories.


3. Format Your Article Properly - Many article directories prefer that you do not use hard breaks. In other words, as you write your article lets your text automatically wrap to the next line instead of pressing 'Enter' after every line. Also, pay attention to what the article directory requires as far as coding goes. The key is to make it easy on your reader to read the article. A formatted article also portrays professionalism and quality. Part of professionalism and quality is to use the spell check. A poorly spelled article will result in a rejection.


4. Length - It is vital before you even think of submitting your article to an article directory to make sure your article is the appropriate length. It is a safe assumption that the article needs to be at least 500 words. In the process of making sure your article is a good length, do not spam the article with nonsense.


5. Keywords - Do make sure you choose appropriate keywords that relate to your article. Keywords are vital for your article. Keywords allow for your article to be found by users searching for those words in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search. Keywords are very important for gaining maximum exposure for your article.


Along with these five principles, take the time to read the submission guidelines for the article directory. This may seem like a very obvious principle, but I do not have the feeling many follow it. Usually the submission guidelines are not lengthy. The four principles above are pretty much standard for gaining an inclusion into an article directory, but it is always wise to read the site rules so you are sure to meet the article directory's standards.


Brett McQueen is freelance author, web designer and programmer, and the administrator for the Article Cat free article directory and catalog.


Brett McQueen is freelance web designer and programmer and the administrator for the Article Cat article directory at www.articlecat.com.

Important Things to Know When You Submit Your Articles to an Article Directory

Article writers are submitting their articles to hundreds of article directories to offer publishers with free content and to provide themselves with a marketing tool for their website. As an administrator for one of the fastest growing article directories on the web, I review hundreds of articles submitted a day. I have the joy of reading and approving quality articles. I also must decline those that do not meet site standards. I have noticed many mistakes by writers that wind themselves up with an 'article denied'. It can be unfortunate because the articles can have rich content, but minor problems will result in a rejection. Let's take a look at some of the very basic ways you can guarantee that your article gets approved and submitted to the article directory.

1. Unique Article Content - One of the most important things is to make sure your article is unique to the article directory. Article directories are looking for unique article content. Do not submit duplicate articles. That is a sure way to get your article declined, but an even surer way to get your account deactivated. Run a search before submitting your article to see what kind of content is being offered.


2. Choose a Descriptive Title - Along with writing a unique article, choose a title that describes your content well and targets your article keywords. Some articles I receive will include only one or two words. It is not a good idea to be vague. Be as specific and detailed as possible. Select a title that will draw your reader in! Another important thing to note is that a title marked in all capital letters is usually frowned upon by article directories.


3. Format Your Article Properly - Many article directories prefer that you do not use hard breaks. In other words, as you write your article lets your text automatically wrap to the next line instead of pressing 'Enter' after every line. Also, pay attention to what the article directory requires as far as coding goes. The key is to make it easy on your reader to read the article. A formatted article also portrays professionalism and quality. Part of professionalism and quality is to use the spell check. A poorly spelled article will result in a rejection.


4. Length - It is vital before you even think of submitting your article to an article directory to make sure your article is the appropriate length. It is a safe assumption that the article needs to be at least 500 words. In the process of making sure your article is a good length, do not spam the article with nonsense.


5. Keywords - Do make sure you choose appropriate keywords that relate to your article. Keywords are vital for your article. Keywords allow for your article to be found by users searching for those words in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search. Keywords are very important for gaining maximum exposure for your article.


Along with these five principles, take the time to read the submission guidelines for the article directory. This may seem like a very obvious principle, but I do not have the feeling many follow it. Usually the submission guidelines are not lengthy. The four principles above are pretty much standard for gaining an inclusion into an article directory, but it is always wise to read the site rules so you are sure to meet the article directory's standards.

Brett McQueen is freelance author, web designer and programmer, and the administrator for the Article Cat free article directory and catalog.

Brett McQueen is freelance web designer and programmer and the administrator for the Article Cat article directory at www.articlecat.com.

Directory Submission and Article Submission - Link Building Strategy

If you have a website then you are certainly concerned with its rankings in search engines because you want to increase traffic to your website to increase revenues. Fortunately, with article submission services and directory submission you can increase the visibility of your website as well as its ranking in the search engines because you will be gaining one way links and visibility. Consider the following benefits of article submission and directory submission so you, too, can enjoy a high ranking from the popular search engines.

Article Submission


The benefit form article submission is not as much from the information in the article, but from the links embedded in the article that increase your rankings with the search engine. Search engines work on a variety of levels, one of them including the amount of links on the Internet pointing back to your website. As a result, the more links you have the higher you are ranked. So, part of your search engine optimization strategy should be to use article submission services. You simply write or buy an article and have links to your site and different pages in your site embedded in the article. Then, the article is submitted to various article directories and spread across the Internet as well. The more links you have the higher your search rankings and a great way to get a lot of links is to use article submission services. Remember, once your article is submitted with the embedded links to your site it is more than likely to stay on the Internet forever and you will have one way permanent links to your site that are always helping you in the search engine rankings.


Directory Submission


If you are interested in your website truly performing the best in search engine rankings then you will concern yourself with directory submission. There are thousands of different directories out there, some that apply to your website, and others that do not. By focusing on directory submission in the directories that are related to your site you will certainly increase your rankings. Of course, each directory has categories as well so it does take some research and effort to get your website submitted to all the directories in the right categories that really benefit your site. But, once you do you have a permanent listing of your website in the directory that will direct your target audience to your site day in and day out. Remember, however, that just any directory submission is not going to get you the traffic you want. You need to focus on submitting to directories that relate to your website in order to have your website directory submission in the location where your target audience is.


Directory Submission and Article Submission - Permanent Links


When you rely solely on other websites to host your link in order for you to host their, you are risking that other webmasters simply chose to remove your link and with it your Search Engine rankings go down. However, when you use article submission and directory submission in order to build links to your site and make your website more visible to your target audience you are basically receiving permanent links and advertisement for your site. The benefit of this is that with a little effort you can get your articles submitted and your website listed with the directories and then just sit back and enjoy the permanent links and higher search engine rankings you receive.


Mansi gupta enjoys writing about directory submission .

Article Submissions - Pointing you in the Right Direction

All of you who have been thinking of publishing articles probably seem to be noticing a lot more ads showing up when you search Google for article submission sites. So what does this all mean for you?

Well it leaves you the choice of where you wish to submit your article to. Lately new software is out that can let people get an article directory up and running in just a couple of hours and it seems every little fish wants a piece of the action.


So how do you choose the correct article directory for your article submission?


Here are a few tips to get you in the right direction:


Design - You probably are asking yourself why the design of the article directory has anything to do with how good this directory is for you. Well it is, it shows how serious the owners of the site are taking it - the more professional and maintained it looks the longer the site will be online and the more popularity it will gain.


RSS Feeds - Make sure the article directory you are submitting your article to have RSS feeds, this is what is going to be driving the traffic to your website. Many small websites pull the RSS feeds from the bigger sites, usually from certain categories that there site deals in, with this you article will gain even more exposure.


SEO - Check on the directories indexed pages on Google, MSN & Yahoo - why not also check out there rankings for important keywords like "article submissions", "articles directory" or "free articles" - if they are ranking high you can be sure that these sites are getting good exposure and a high traffic volume.


Summary & Keywords - Make sure you can add these when you submit your articles, these are what the search engines will look for the most when caching your article page on the articles directory website.


Guidelines, TOS & Privacy - The website should professionally display all this information, again this is a tell tale sign for a serious article directory or not.


Contact Form - Make sure the website has an online contact form so it will be easy for you to contact them if you require any assistance.


I hope all of this information helps pointing you in the right direction for your article submission needs.


Simon Gelfand is the owner of the free articles directory, ArticlesBase.com, a great place for you to submit your article for free exposure.

Gain Free Publicity With Article Directory Services

A growing number of online entrepreneurs are finding success with article directory submission services. Website operators, business owners and internet traffic specialists have found article marketing to be a valuable tool in their success.

If you've ever read an article on a website and noticed a brief paragraph, located at the bottom of the article, detailing the author's name and website, then you have already experienced the success of an article directory. An entrepreneur prepares an article, which is centered around their niche and submits it to an article directory. Other webmasters are constantly in search of new material for their website, so they often visit an article directory for information. They may see this article and decide to add it to their site with the condition that the author is given full credit at the bottom of the feature. The credit will likely include the author's name, brief bio and link to their website.


For each individual who reads an article directory, there is added potential for new customers. If they weren't interested in your specialty, they wouldn't be reading the article. So, you've already reached someone who has a direct interest in your product or niche. Once they are finished reading the article, they are likely to visit your website if they found the information to be valuable.


Article directory submission services are free to writers, as well as webmasters. Consider that you are opening an internet jewelry store and need to gain interest, spread the word and find customers for your new business. Well, you are obviously a jewelry expert since that's your chosen business, so write about it. Select a topic, write a brief feature, offer advice and submit the final copy to an article directory. At the bottom, always be sure to include a brief paragraph with your name, some information about your new company and a link to your website. When other webmasters stop by the article directory in search of news for their site, they may be inclined to use your work on their website. If they do, they will also include a link back to your site.


Article directory services provide the potential for a large amount of increased traffic and exposure for a new, or existing, website. There is no better way to gain respect in your profession than by being knowledgeable about what you do. If you are, it will show through in your work and people will be drawn into your site in search of even more information. Article directory services are one of the most powerful new tools available to online entrepreneurs and, best of all - they are free!


Vincent Abrugar is the webmaster of www.topicnow.com an article directory website where you can submit articles and get free content


Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Google Announces Collection of New Google Search Technologies

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 10, 2006 - Today, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced new technologies to enhance and improve the search experience. Three new products Google Co-op, Google Desktop 4, and Google Notebook advance the state of the art in search by helping users worldwide find and share more relevant information. The products all incorporate new capabilities that leverage user communities, enabling users to either share more information with others or benefit from other users' expertise to improve the accuracy of search results.
The company also introduced Google Trends, a new tool that enables users to examine billions of searches conducted on Google to gain insight into broad search patterns over time.


"Google Co-op and the other new services announced today combine the power of Google's technology with the context, knowledge, and unique expertise of individuals," said Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president, Product Management, Google Inc. "As a result, users can find the information they are looking for no matter how specialized or specific faster than ever."


Google Co-op Beta
Google Co-op beta is a community where users can contribute their knowledge and expertise to improve Google search for everyone. Organizations, businesses, or individuals can label web pages relevant to their areas of expertise or create specialized links to which users can subscribe.


Once a user has subscribed to a provider's content, all of that provider's labels and subscribed links are added to the user's search results for relevant queries. These contributions serve as meta information that helps Google's search algorithms connect users to the most relevant information for their specific query. Users interested in contributing can get started at http://www.google.com/coop.


For example, a doctor can label web pages related to arthritis, and users who subscribe to that doctor's information will receive options at the top of the results for more specific information such as "treatment," "symptoms," or "for health professionals" when they enter a relevant query.


As a first step, Google has worked with partners to annotate web pages related to health and city guides and to offer dozens of subscribed links to specialized content such as restaurant and movie information. Going forward, the broader online community will begin building out new topic areas and subscribed links to help improve the way people find and discover information online.


Users can subscribe to content and providers at www.google.com/coop/directory. Google Co-op is available today on all English language Google domains including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.


Google Desktop 4 Beta
Also announced today, Google Desktop 4 beta available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, and Brazilian Portuguese offers another way for users to improve their search experience, by personalizing their desktops with the introduction of Google Gadgets. These gadgets are mini-applications that reside on users' desktops and deliver a variety of personalized information such as games, media players, weather and news. Google Desktop can also recommend new gadgets and can automatically create a personalized homepage for users based on the subjects they frequently search and access.


Google currently has hundreds of gadgets users can add to their desktops and with the new Google Desktop Gadgets API, developers can easily create and share their own gadgets with other users.


Google Desktop 4 also enables users to:

* Access their Google Gadget content and settings from other computers and protect it from computer crashes by saving it online.
* Add favorite gadgets from their personalized Google homepage right onto their desktops.
* Easily access other Google services from their desktop. For example, users can view upcoming birthdays with the orkut.com gadget, see what's popular on Google Video, or access their Google Calendar directly on the desktop.
* Manually re-index their computers or remove deleted files from search results.


Additionally, Google Desktop 4 now offers an option for network administrators to disable Search Across Computers on both the consumer and enterprise versions of the product at the network level by simply blocking access to a specific URL.


Google Desktop 4 will be available in additional languages and include more localized features for users around the world as the product evolves. Additional information on the newest version of Google Desktop is available at http://desktop.google.com.


Google Trends from Google Labs
Available today from Google Labs at http://www.google.com/trends, Google Trends builds on the Google Zeitgeist to help users find facts and trends related to Google usage around the world. Google Trends enables users to learn how popular a particular search term has been on Google over time and see the relevant news articles that ran on that subject.


"For the first time ever, Google is making it possible to sift through billions of search queries from around the world to see what people are thinking about," said Marissa Mayer, vice president, Search Products and User Experience, Google Inc.


With Google Trends, users will be able to observe the collective interests of all Google users to gain general insight into topics such as people's preferences on ice cream flavors, American Idol contestants, or the relative popularity of brands and politicians in specific countries.


Google Notebook from Google Labs
Google Notebook is a simple way for users to save and organize their thoughts when conducting research online. This personal browser tool permits users to clip text, images, and links from the pages they're browsing, save them to an online "notebook" that is accessible from any computer, and share them with others.


Google Notebook is an interactive scratch pad for every website a user visits, offering a single online location to collect web findings without having to leave the browser window. For example, if a user were planning a vacation, she could clip the most relevant materials on the pages she visits and add personal notes to help organize all of her research.


Users can make their Google Notebook public and share the notes they've taken with others. As a result, the time and effort put into their research can be harnessed by the online community as a whole.


Google Notebook will be available next week from Google Labs at http://www.google.com/notebook.


About Google Inc.
Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Source: Google

Monday, February 11, 2008

10 Reasons to Put RSS on Your Site

RSS and Blogs are the topics of the moment. Seems like
everyone is talking about it. Granted, there is too much
hype about RSS and Blogs.

But where there's hype - there's interest!


And with good reason - RSS is posed to be the break out
technology of 2005. Those who don't take full advantage
of it will be left behind.


If you need convincing - here are 10 reasons why you
should put RSS on your site:


1. It's easy and fast! Not to mention Free! You can use
a free service like eBlogger and publish your Blog and RSS
feed within minutes. You can even place or publish your
Blog/RSS Feed on your own site without knowing 'html' or
'xml'. It's all done for you!


Repeat - it's simple to use and very convenient. Publishing
your blog is only a few clicks away. (If you need help - just
use the link at the end of this article.)


2. Syndicate Your Content. RSS stands for 'really simple
syndication' and it's just another way of passing along your
information. With the popularity of 'MyYahoo' and the 'Firefox'
browser (which has a built-in RSS feed reader) -
syndicating your content has gotten even simpler.


The next version of Windows is reportly scheduled to have an
RSS feature. If this happens - RSS will explode.


3. Get Your Content Indexed. Using blogs to publish your
content is a neat way of side stepping the regular indexing
procedure. It gets your content indexed very quickly in most
of the search engines.


Search Engines are constantly on the lookout for 'fresh
content' - these 'link rich' blogs are a good source of
this content. Because blogs are on specific topics - they
have a concentrated source of good quality informational
material to serve up!


4. Instant Contact. Blogs give you instant contact with
your readers or viewers. We live in an 'instant' society -
we want everything five minutes ago. Blogs provide this
instant gratification. Readers or viewers using MyYahoo
have an instant link to your information or postings.


RSS Feeds will instantly spread your information to all
interested parties - bringing in targeted traffic.


5. Building Your List. People who pick up your RSS feed
or add you to their MyYahoo site - become your subscribers.
You are really building your contact list. Have a popular
blog or RSS Feed and you can build a large targeted
contact list very quickly.


It might not replace your old opt-in email list - but it can
be a lucrative addition to it! Take advantage of all
those targeted contacts.


6. Link Building. Blogs are link heavens! Build your links
thru blogs. All these links will boost your link popularity
and increase your search engine rankings.


Plus, by giving viewers/readers a way of adding your RSS
Feed creates targeted links to your site. This reason alone
is why your site should have RSS!


7. Viewer/Subscriber Feedback. Instant feedback from your
subscribers or viewers is easy with blogs. Creating trust
and credibility is so much easier when there is immediate
communication between the two parties.


8. Keyword Content Building. Blogs are especially good
for building 'keyword targeted content' for your site. All
these links will boost your keyword rankings in the search
engines. Google places a high value on 'anchor text' and blogs
are a good place to put all those links.


You can also start different blogs targeted at specific
related keywords covering the major topics of your site.
Again, search engines love related keyword linking so you
can boost your site's rankings by using blogs.


9. Monetize Your Content. Blogs are an excellent way of
monetizing your content. Blog sites like Eblogger
(owned by Google) even encourages you to use the
'adsense code' in your blogs. If you have a popular
blog - this may bring in extra income.


Plus, publishing your ezine or newsletter in a blog
can bring in revenue for months if not years to come.
All those affiliate links and product promotions get
indexed by the search engines and become accessible
to a wider audience, i.e. market.


10. Because Everyone Else is Doing It! Might sound a
bit 'Jonesish' but you do have to keep up with what
other web sites are doing. To remain competitive -
you must put RSS on your site.


Sites without the 'AddtoMyYahoo' link or the 'xml'
button will be the exception rather than the rule in
just a few years - if not months. It's simply another
way of getting your information 'out there'. It's an
opportunity and advantage that you cannot afford to miss.


Proceed without RSS at your own risk!



Titus Hoskins

---------------
This author's articles on RSS have appeared on such sites as:
Sitepronews, Bonafidereviews, Addme, and Ezinearticles.
To add RSS to your Site within minutes, download this simple RSS and Blogging Guide.
Copyright © 2005 Titus Hoskins www.bizwaremagic.com
This article may be freely distributed if this resource
box stays attached.
---------------

If You Don't Have Fresh Content?

By Victor George

It is said that content is king, but today 'fresh, relevant
content' is the master - or is it?


Every owner of a commercial web site knows that frequent fresh
content is needed on their pages in order to achieve and
maintain a high listing on search engines which actively seek
fresh content. Google sends out its 'freshbot' spider to gather
and index new material from all the sites which offer it. MSN
Search seeks it too. I've noticed that MSN Search's spider pays
a daily visit to a site of mine which has proper fresh content
every day.


By incorporating fresh content, commercial web sites will remain
competitive, for without it they will certainly fall down the
search engine listings and lose business. Besides, having
something new keeps visitors coming back and attracts potential
customers.


But creating and then manually uploading fresh content onto our
web sites each day is hard, time consuming work, isn't it? What
we want is a way of putting daily fresh content onto our web
sites easily and efficiently. Let's look at the current
techniques available to us to achieve this goal and see which
one offers a global solution to the fresh content problem:


1) Server Side Includes (SSI'): These are HTML statements
written by the webmaster and uploaded onto the server. SSI's
inform the server to include a specific block of text when a
specific page is served to a browser or a search engine spider.


Because these scripts are compiled 'before' they are served,
they remain 'visible' to search engine spiders and therefore
will be seen as fresh content. Unfortunately, not all web hosts
support SSI's; this is because the server must 'read every page'
on the web site as it looks for include statements, a process
which clearly reduces server performance.


How many web site owners have the time to manually upload fresh
HTML content onto their servers every day? Probably very few,
which is why the use of SSI's is not a global solution to the
fresh content problem.


2) Blogging: Google's Freshbot spider is so voracious for fresh
content that it eagerly devours the contents of common weblogs.
But can a daily blog be used to influence the listing of a web
page under specific keywords or phrases?


It can, but for the vast majority of web site owners, blogging is
out of the question. Putting up a daily keyword-rich business
blog onto a web site is hard, time-consuming work, and it
requires the blogger to be a competent writer, too. Few business
owners have time available or the competence to write something
new about their products or services every day.


Blogging is therefore not a global solution to the fresh content
problem.


3) RSS Newsfeeds: Having newsfeeds placed on a web site is
certainly an easy way of getting fresh material to appear each
day. 'Really Simple Syndication' or RSS, is a fast growing
method of content distribution. Newsfeed creation is an
uncomplicated procedure and therefore appears to be an easy
solution to the fresh content problem.


Many owners of commercial web sites believe that by
incorporating newsfeeds on their sites they will improve their
search engine rankings by using the links appearing within those
feeds, which are given relevance by Google. This belief is wrong
because newsfeeds are basically JavaScript or VBScript.


These scripts must be executed by search engine spiders for the
fresh content to be noted, and since the spiders take a
simplistic approach when reading web pages, these scripts will
not be executed at all. These scripts are compiled 'after' they
have been served, and not before.


There are also a couple of growing menaces associated with RSS
newsfeeds:


o Since the popularity of RSS use is growing exponentially, the
idea to monetize syndication with ads is gaining ground. Indeed,
Yahoo has announced that it will begin displaying ads from
Overture's service within RSS feeds. Now who wants other
people's ads on their web site? I don't.


o There are rumors of newsfeeds being used to deliver spam. If
this gets out of control then newsfeeds will quickly become
history. Who wants spam messages appearing on their web site? I
don't. RSS is therefore not a global solution to the fresh
content problem.


4) Newsfeed Scripting Solutions: A software solution can be
rigged up to 'extract' the HTML from newsfeeds. The HTML is then
placed onto web pages so that the fresh content will be seen by
search engine spiders. This however involves the use of PHP and
MySQL, which tends to put many business owners owners off. And if
there's spam or ads in the feed, they will get extracted, too!


Newsfeed scripting solutions are therefore not a global solution
to the fresh content problem.


5) Creating Original Content: As mentioned above under SSI's and
Weblogs, creating and manually uploading your own fresh content
every day is a time-consuming chore. And what if you have a
number of web sites, each of which requires frequent fresh
content in order to remain competitive? Yet we all know that
there is nothing better than our own proper keyword-rich fresh
content.


In summary, getting frequent proper fresh content onto our web
sites is not straightforward at all. HTML extracted from RSS
feeds appears to offer a partial solution, but it is too
complicated for most businesses and is potentially menacing.


The e-commerce industry is clearly in need of a genuine solution
to the fresh content problem. The way to do it is to
automatically have our web pages updated every day with 'our
own' content, not anyone else's. Only then will we be able to
say that fresh content is truly the master!



About the author: Victor George is a "fresh content" crusader
whose web site can be found at: http://www.autopageupdate.com


Marketing Director at Islweb Limited, a UK based software development company.

10 Benefits of Being a Blogger

I have been a blogger since September 2004 but only began to take it seriously this year. My blogging journey began when I stumbled upon a company owned by Google named Blogger.com that offered free tools to build a website.

In fact Blogger provides you with free several templates which you can customize in addition to a domain name hosted on their server. You can host your blog on your domain if you like to. Here are some benefits I found while blogging:


1) Easy to manage. A blog can be set up by even a novice in no time. All you have to do is post and publish. Blogging can get as simple as that or even more complex.


2) Easy to update. Blogs can be updated weekly or daily instead of sometimes monthly for a static website. Even adding a few paragraphs a day can be done in no time and can be beneficial to your search rankings.


3) Get spidered quickly. Search engine spiders crawl blogs with greater frequency than static webpages. I have had webpages that took over eight months to be indexed in Google where as Yahoo sometimes index my blogs in weeks sometimes days.


4) If you write articles then you can post all of them on your blog in addition to free reprint content that is widely available everwhere. The more content you have the better.


5) You can get your website indexed quicker. An article or a piece of news about your website with an optimize anchor link will send the spiders your way in no time.


6) Sell advertising space. If you have a popular blog then you can create a revenue stream by selling ad space. Blogads is one of several places where you can sell your ad space to major companies.


7) Similar to offering ad space, you can add Adsense to your blog to monetize your content. What I love about Blogger is that once you plug in the Adsense code into your main template, a new page is created and Adsense is automatically displayed when you make a post.


8) Review your affiliate products. If you have a blog that is in a niche then you can find affiliate programs for that niche and do reviews of them for a commission. Every time someone purchases the product or service through your link you make money.


9) It is still early to catch on. Blogs and RSS feeds are used by the minority of internet users which makes it excellent for you to start blogging right now. Less than 10% of the Americans which is the biggest online market use this emerging trend.


10) Can be syndicated. An easy way for your readers to stay in touch with updates is to add your blog to their My Yahoo and My MSN. They can see the latest information and how long ago it was added.


11) Yes a bonus! Savvy marketers know that if you add your blogs to My Yahoo you can have it indexed in no time by Yahoo. You can use these two websites to inform blog directories that
you have updated your content.


a) http://WWW.Ping-o-matic.com

b) http://WWW.Rssfeedpromoter.com


So with all those benefits in mind there is no reason you should not start your own blog. So when do you decide to go blogging?


© Oceanroc Web Publishing


Nicholas Dixon has successfully used free articles as his primary
source of marketing. Subscribe to his Free Four Day Email Course
on how to use free articles to generate business and traffic at
SubmitYourArticles@Getresponse.com or visit
http://WWW.Oceanroc.Blogspot.com


*****************************************************
Nicholas Dixon is a Jamaican webmaster, writer and affiliate
marketer. Find out how you too can create an online income with our
list of highly recommended programs by visiting
our Affiliate Directory
*****************************************************

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Why Blogs are Money Makers

There is a great deal of hype and talk about blogs, but when you strip them down and look at them clearly, you discover that a blog is nothing more than a web site.

In essence, a blog is a website featuring an easy to use content management system that allows for quick updating in chronological order. The roots of blogging trace back to online journaling and community-building efforts, but approached from a business perspective, blogs are uniquely positioned to make you money. Their structure, treatment from search engines, and ease of use make them a wonderful moneymaking tool.


The structure of blogs is perfect for revenue-producing efforts.


This is because the sites are, invariably, heavy on content and are naturally organized in an intuitive fashion. Regardless of what platform one uses for blogging, they will be able to produce a content-based site featuring a series of potentially well-targeted pages.


Search engines love content.


Textual content keeps search engine spiders well-fed and persuades them to visit again and again. Google, Yahoo and MSN reward informative sites chock-full of information with better positioning in search results, and index these sites quickly. Because blogs are content-driven, they serve as a model for how to build a "cooperative relationship" with a search engine. In the end, effective blog-use produces high search engine rankings and, thus, great traffic levels.


Traffic, of course, is a key to profitability. It is hard for a site to profit if no one sees it! The traffic advantages vis-à-vis search engines is one of the chief selling points of blog use.


If you are familiar with running a traditional website, you have undoubtedly learned two things. First, success will hinge, in large measure, on your ability to provide fresh content to your visitors. Second, adding new content to a static site can be a definite hassle.


You must write the content (or pay to have it written), convert it to HTML, insert it into the static page and then upload the page to the server again. The inefficiency of doing this makes it all too tempting to "overlook" making updates as frequently as you should.


Blogging solves this problem.


All major blog platforms allow users to create new "posts" (which are nothing more than blocks of content) via an easy interface and to add them to the blog with a few simple mouse clicks. The result is empowering. Instead of dreading content updates, webmasters can actually look forward to adding new material in moments. Whether a blog user writes their own content or outsources the job to a pro, adding the new text is a simple and convenient proposition.


This makes it easy to build the content-rich sites that soar to the top of the search engine rankings. It also creates a heightened level of stickiness for the blog, making return visitors far more likely. That traffic, when coupled with the right moneymaking strategy produces impressive results.


If you are relying exclusively on traditional static websites for your online ventures, you may want to reconsider your perspective.


Using a blog affords some unique advantages and can be a great way to create profitable, highly-visited sites that require minimal effort.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

How to Change Your Career With a Blog!

Copyright 2006 Margaret Stead

1) Career Change - Blogs FEEL the future!


There is a MAGIC that happens when individuals FOCUS on what they want to do with their lives, how THEY want to make a difference. Suddenly they have a confidence and poise that makes them a very attractive human to be near. Blogs are MAGIC. Three years ago, I started introducing my career change clients to publishing their own blog(s) and their careers literally TOOK OFF! Virtually overnight these people would get 'legendary' job offers the moment their site went 'LIVE!' Blogs don't just know or imagine the future, they FEEL it, and therefore MAKE it happen.


2) Career Change - Telling the UNIVERSE You Are Available!


They act as an 'ICEBREAKER' between strangers and CUT ACROSS our society's normal conventions, allowing people to discuss YOUR work and availability without let or hindrance.


When you surf the Net you think you are looking for information, but there is a powerful hidden agenda - 'People LIKE people like themselves and WANT to associate with them. Therefore, if your blogs reflect the interests of key people in your marketplace, they are MORE than likely to check your background, qualifications and availability!


3) Career Change - SHOWCASE Your Potential Without Embarrassment


If you have always shied away from 'selling' - blogs are the ideal platform for you.


Now, YOU can 'SET OUT YOUR STALL' in a blog and readers can casually taste and sample YOUR wares from the safety of their desktop. Unworried by being actively SOLD to or 'hurried' in anyway - they now have NO hesitation in making that call.


4) Career Change - ROCKET to the Top With the POWER of Blogs


If you tried to DESIGN a web site that was easily linked to, effortlessly keyword saturated and stickily popular you could NOT INVENT a better alternative than a blog - that you can CHANGE yourself, WHEN YOU WANT!


5) Career Change - Blogs are the NATURAL HOME of Networkers!


Blogs are the NATURAL HOME of Networkers and will act as a 'vehicle' for your conversations and expertise exchange with recruiters, prospective colleagues and like-minded individuals. In 1991, I invented the word 'Networking' to describe the magical effect of individuals trading their expertise and using their interest, knowledge and enthusiasm to accelerate their career transitions. My mission then was 'To teach networking to a million people'.


I think you'll agree that a whole industry has since grown up around the word 'Networking' and that blogs are where they choose to live. If you want to lead, then you need to blog.


6) Career Change - Positions YOU as an AUTHORITY In Your Field!


Blogs have an 'Authority,' born of succinctness and an immediacy that is irresistible! You can do EVERYTHING with a blog that you can do with a web site and FAR MORE CHEAPLY and EASILY.


Blogging clients have consistently reported how people in their field have asked their advice, when in FACT they were SENIOR to them!


7) Career Change Blog - You CAN Have Your Very OWN Domain Name


Many of you will have noticed that the 'minute' you buy a domain name for your web site is the 'minute' you can think of a better name and wished you'd thought of it before!


(It probably explains why I have a 'bank' of forty or fifty unused domain names.)


With Blogs you can choose a name that includes the keywords for your sector, create and link clusters of blogs that create in effect a web 'site'.


Now, you can even find that domain name YOU bought ages ago and OVERLAY it onto your blog address. Nobody will ever guess that you have created such a beautiful and telling platform for your career from something with such an UGLY name!


------

HOW TO PUBLISH A BLOG THAT MAKES YOU MONEY, FAST!
My FREE Special Report will tell you how! Learn why publishing a simple blog will market your practice, position you as No 1 in your field and deliver the income you deserve - it's EASY and it's FREE: http://www.careersnet.co.uk/career-change-why-blog/


How To Find The Right Blogging Platform For Your Needs

Choosing which blogging platform to use is one of the most important decisions that you can make as a blogger. The right platform can make blogging a breeze, and the wrong platform can make blogging a chore. Because the program that you use to blog with is such a powerful part of your blogging experience, it is well worth putting in the time to find a platform that provides your ideal balance between a user-friendly interface and a flexible framework that allows you to make your blog look and feel unique. Finding the right platform isn't always easy, but with a little bit of contemplation and a little bit of research, you will be on your way to finding the perfect blogging platform.


Deciding what your priorities are in terms of ease of use versus customization. Most highly customizable blogging platforms, like moveable type, are a bit more difficult to use than very automated platforms like wordpress. If you are new to blogs and to internet technology, you might want to sacrifice the ability to create a custom background design or to integrate a unique font into your template in order to find a program that will be easy for you to use. On the other hand, if you are a veteran web designer with knowledge of html or javascript, you will probably find the limitations of a user-friendly platform to be frustrating.


There is no such thing as a blogging platform that is objectively the best platform, because every blogger has unique needs. The blogging movement is very much about individuality, so it makes plenty of sense that there would be many different platforms available that are designed to meet the needs of different kinds of individuals undertaking different kinds of projects. This diversity is a good thing, because it means that you will almost certainly be able to find a program that suits your level of technical aptitude.


However, the fact that no two bloggers need the same thing from a blogging platform can make your search for the right platform a bit tricky. When you are reading reviews of different platforms, try to keep your priorities in mind and do your best to take into account the position that the reviewer is coming from. For example, a negative review written by an accomplished software designer who complains that a popular platform is too limited may tell you that the platform in question is ideal for a beginning blogger. There is no such thing as the perfect platform for everybody, so instead of looking for the "best" platform, look for the best platform for your specific criteria.

Catalogue: Internet Business | Blogging
Title: How To Find The Right Blogging Platform For Your Needs By: Susan Wellington

Best Blogging Software

The blogging platform wars are getting really interesting and much of the discussion I find myself in lately revolves around what is happening with various CMS systems. The market can essentially be defined into 3 major camps: remotely hosted, self hosted, and community based systems. I have used pretty much every blogging platform available and each of them has its ups and downs. In this article I will cover the best options for each area taking into account price, usability, market share and of course SEO potential.

All of these products are either open source, completely free or have a functional free version.


Remotely Hosted Blogging Software
(Note: I cannot really recommend any of these from an SEO stand point as optimizing a domain you do not own or control is obviously not a good marketing plan.)


Blogger


Blogger is completely free and currently owns the majority of the remotely hosted user base, but not by a land slide . Bought out by Google in 1999, Blogger essentially fired up the blogging trend we see today. It is by far the easiest overall solution to use and if you are a novice user looking to throw up some recipes or poetry, this is for you. Blogger is completely free and includes some great features like comments, photo blogging, and a basic community feel with user profiles. Because it is so dumbed down there are some features you may not find with Blogger that are only available through 3rd party add-ons. As a side note Blogger weblogs do quite well in the search engines and this was recently exploited with it being the first choice for spam blogs or splogs. A splog is a weblog used for the sole purpose of gaining inbound links or generating thousands of keyword stuffed pages with Adsense and the like. The recent Google Jagger update cleared a large portion of this up. Free.


Typepad


Released in 2003 Typepad is a product of Sixapart, the makers of Movable Type. it is largely based on MT but there are some major enhancements and differences. Your blog can accomodate one or more photo albums with auto thumbnail generation. You can easily add music, books, and other media to Typelists, which grab a thumbnail from Amazon and other retailers for easily displaying in your sidebar. Typepad is also a great deal more technical than Blogger so a bit of HTML know how is recommended. On that note editing your blog to look the way you want it also quite easy and Typepad blogs are known for being very eye pleasing, intuitive and easy to navigate. In Sixapart's business model Typepad is aimed at regular home and small business users while Movable Type is targeted at larger businesses or for internal intranets. Price: Basic, $4.95 a month; premium, $8.95 to $14.95 a month.


Xanga


These guys originated back in 1999 as a site for sharing book, music and movie reviews. Although it quickly morphed into a full blown blogging tool Xanga still maintains the ability to run a powerful review site. Xanga pulls data from several retailers like Amazon.com including thumbnails, pricing and a cover. The software also is very usable by novices with a powerful WYSIWYG editor allowing for easy HTML editing, adding smilies, links, and other symbols. By using Blog rings it is also easy to interface with Xanga's other 3 million users to share interests, ideas, and of course traffic. Xanga comes in a free and $25 flavor.


Mentions: Blogsome, Blogster, MindSay, Multiply,


Self Hosted Blogging Software


WordPress


WordPress originally began as a mod of an older open source package known as B2. WP is MT's biggest competition and is often the bain of endless Wordpress vs Movabletype style threads around the internet. Although launched just over a year or so ago WP has really taken the blogosphere by storm. And with good reason - Wordpress is completely free under GNU licensing and is packed with many featured you will not find anywhere else. It is also much easier to install and get blogging for novice users and has a very large and helpful community. WP runs on PHP/mySQL and is quite scalable judging from some of the very large and trafficked sites I see using it. It also sports utilities to import files from Movable Type, Textpattern, Greymatter, Blogger, and b2. Wordpress recently upped the ante when Yahoo recently included them on their hosting packages, in addition to MT. I have to admit I am finding myself more and more digging WP and will likely convert Profitpapers to WP as I get time (it can be a biznitch). Wordpress is free.


Movable Type


Aside from maybe Greymatter (the original open source blogging tool), Movabletype dominated the blogging market share in 2002-2004. Released in late 2001, Perl based Movable Type by Sixapart has maintained a large portion of the blogging market share, due mainly to the fact that there is a free version (supporting up to 3 weblogs) and that it is incredibly powerful, intuitive and easy to customize. Template driven Movable Type also sports one of the largest communities of developers and blogging enthusiasts around, meaning lots of support, idea sharing, and of course plugins. Movable Type can be configured to dynamically generate HTML, PHP or any other kind of pages you like, meaning it is incredibly scalable, fast, and loved by spiders. It is perhaps the most well known blogging software for SEO purposes and it what currently powers Profitpapers and several of my other projects. Moveabletype is either Free with 3 authors, 1 weblog, and no support or $69.95 with unlimited weblogs, authors and full support.


Textpattern


Textpattern is the brainchild of Dean Allen and was written to ease publishing of content for those not inclined to learn HTML. Like WP and MT Textpattern runs on PHP and mySQL for easy administration, backups, and power. What really sets textpattern apart from the others is the integration of Textile. Textile is a tool for easily formatting content for those who do not know HTML. WP & MT have modules for textile as well but it is native to the Textpattern system. Another bonus of the app is its superior handling of comment spam due to its smaller market share. On a blogs I maintain running WP and MT I often find myself clearing out spam every day, whereas on some very busy textpattern sites I receive only manual comment spam (not bot driven). TP is open source.


Mentions: Blosxom, LifeType, Serendipity.


Community based Blogging Software


Slash


Waaaaay back in 1997, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda launched a website known as Chips & Dips, supplied via his student account at Hope College in Michigan. In 1999 Andover.net acquired Slashdot. Shortly after, the underlying code was released as open source software called Slash. Like Movable Type and Greymatter, Slash runs on Perl, but it also has established hooks into MySQL and a very strong track record of scaling to enormous traffic levels. To give you an idea, the term 'slashdotted' originated from acquiring a link on this now infamous and very popular tech news website - and consequently watching your servers melt. If you have never messed around with Slash, you really should as it is quite a powerful platform. Slash is open source.


Scoop


Another well known Perl based community blogging software is Scoop. Scoop is the software that powers Kuro5shin, DailyKos and many other busy community weblogs. Scoop took the Slashdot idea and expanded on it, making the discussion rather than the news the focus of the application. Where Slashdot entries tend to have a link with added commentary pointing readers off the site, Scoop points to stories written by members of the community keeping the reader within your own weblog. Scoop is also well known for handling large volumes of traffic and a large very technical community. Scoop is free .


Drupal


Drupal is a well known open source community blogging platform with a very large community of users and developers. Not only is Drupal free but it is damn powerful. Instead of Perl, which is quite hard to decode at times, even if you are a fluent coder, Drupal uses a PHP/mySQL platform. Drupal is also a very community focused application with a built in forum, download area, and hundreds of other home brewed mods and hacks. If you are looking for a lot of functionality give Drupal a check - the project has become quite mature. It is also much easier to use and customize than either Scoop or Slash. Drupal is also another open source project.


Mentions: LiveJournal, PHP Nuke.


Miles Evans writes for ProfitPapers where he writes essays on organic SEO, SEM, development and other equally fascinating subjects.


Saturday, February 2, 2008

Is It Time For You To Get Paid For Your Blog?

By: Bruce A. Tucker

The online advertising, promotional and marketing website Indocquent.com today announced the release of its promotion campaign, Promos by IDQ. The campaign is geared toward businesses and individuals who have their own Blog and would like to earn extra income from Indocquent promotions.

“We think this is a great opportunity for those who maintain items like a Blog,” claims Indocquent Associate Managing Director, Bruce A. Tucker. “We know there are a lot of people out there who write daily Blogs. This is a good way to make extra spendable income with very little effort and without our promotions looking like they are intruding or over crowding their Blog space.”

Promos by IDQ works similar to other ad programs. The owner of the Blog, places a small piece of html code that will generate a series of advertisements or promotions to be displayed. Each time a visitor to that participant’s Blog clicks one of the promotions, the participant gets paid.

“We believe what sets our program apart from the others is that we reward participants of Promos by IDQ who obtain more clicks,” says Tucker. “With our unique leveling system, as the participant receives more clicks, their level increases and so does the amount we pay them for each click.”

A Blog, which was shortened from the term web log, is when someone has a website where they contribute written content in a chronological order. That content, when a visitor goes to it, is then displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Blogs, which became very popular and mainstream a couple of years ago, are a way for businesses and individuals to provide commentary or news on a specific subject. A lot of Blogs function more like personal online diaries, where Blog writers, or better known as “bloggers”, enter in their own personal accounts of a particular subject. Blogs are mostly text input, however many include pictures and links to other useful and related content.

Although blogging is nothing new, Tucker believes tapping the blogging market for advertising revenue is. “The last statistics we read showed that there are over 400,000 Blogs worldwide covering every topic you can possibly think of.” Tucker continues, “A lot of people do not realize they can use the extra space on their Blog to earn a nice income from advertising revenue.”

The fact remains that not only is blogging here to stay it is growing larger each day. This increase in growth creates a number of possibilities for the bloggers and advertisers alike.


Article Source: http://www.articlecat.com

Help! My Blog is Boring!

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 rip 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!


Brett McQueen is freelance author, web designer and programmer, and the administrator for the Article Cat Article Directory and Catalog. You can begin your search for quality free web content articles at ArticleCat.com.


Brett McQueen is freelance web designer and programmer and the administrator for the Article Cat article directory at www.articlecat.com.