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?

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Article Sources:
• 10 Benefits Of Being A Blogger
• 10 Benefits of Being a Blogger
• 10 Benefits of Being a Blogger - Blogging-Rss
• 10 Benefits of Being a Blogger
• Free Articles and Content Generator for Webmasters

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

Article Sources:
• The Right Blogging Platform For Your Needs
• The Right Blogging Platform For Your Needs
• Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool?
• OpenSourceCMS - Home
• Free Articles and Content Generator for Webmasters

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.

Article Sources:
• Free Blog Software / Hosting - Free Blog Providers & Services
• 5-Point Criteria for Best Blogging Software for Beginners
• Blog Software Breakdown
• Free Articles and Content Generator for Webmasters

Find A Reference From Youtube Video

YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. YouTube was created in mid-February 2005 by three former PayPal employees. The San Bruno-based service uses Adobe Flash technology to display a wide variety of video content, including movie clips, TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as videoblogging and short original videos. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google stock. The deal closed on November 13, 2006.

Unregistered users can watch most videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Some videos are available only to users of age 18 or older (e.g. videos containing potentially offensive content. The uploading of pornography or videos containing nudity is prohibited. Related videos, determined by title and tags, appear onscreen to the right of a given video. In YouTube's second year, functions were added to enhance user ability to post video 'responses' and subscribe to content feeds.

Few statistics are publicly available regarding the number of videos on YouTube. However, in July 2006, the company revealed that more than 100 million videos were being watched every day, and 2.5 billion videos were watched in June 2006. 50,000 videos were being added per day in May 2006, and this increased to 65,000 by July.

http://en.wikipedia.org

With all its fame, you tube has an important contribution to people with its knowledge consisted in every video which people upload. Including blogging knowledge which may be shared by professional or experienced blogger, we can get the advantage of this situation that we can use as a source of reference when building our blog post.

You can find such a source of reference for your blog post example here about blogging with these kind simple steps without registering as youtube member:

1. Go to youtube home page: http://youtube.com
2. In its search box, type such a keyword about blogging like: blog promotion, blog optimization, how to get blog traffic and etc. then click "Search" button.
   
   example:
3. Then you will have some thumbnails of video according with the keyword you've typed.
   
   
4. Choose or click one thumbnail, then you will be directed to main page of that video. Here you can play the video, read more about the video, subscribe to video publisher, copy url code or embed script code when you want to embed the video to your blog. More, you can write a comment about the video and when finished playing the video you can choose another related video which listed in the page.
   
   
   
5. Now, you can write a blog post regarding to the video content.

You can play the video directly from the page, but if you wish you can download the video to your pc/laptop as your personal reference collection. In order to download a video from youtube you can use youtube downloder software that you can find when you type a youtube downloader keyword in google search box or you can download from this location:
http://www.download3000.com/download_19063.html
This software is free and easy to use and It's absolutely work because I've proved it. :-)

Get Popular with "Spicypage"

Spicypage is a social online community where anyone including blogger shares, review and talks about what websites or blogs they discover on the net. Founded in September of 2006, It is a friendly community that allows everyone to find easier ways to spread the notable sites or blogs when stumbled upon them.

SpicyPage lets you post, comment on, vote on, and share your favorite's sites or blogs with your friends and others like you. You can post not only your blog but also an article or story about anything you are interested in. Even you can create or start a group to make your private or public community.

You will quickly build your network when you vote on other blog that listed in your spicypage account main page or you can choose by categories listed on the left of the page. Besides that, you can grow your network by inviting your friend by email. Just click "invite friends" and input your friend email accounts to the form up to six accounts. More blogs you vote on, more network and friends you will have. It means more traffic would come to your site. Usually, spicypage member will vote you back if you vote on their web/blog. If you wish, you can ask them to vote your web/blog by sending them a message while you ask him/her to be your friend. There are some another tools which can help you to be popular in spicypage community. It's easy and fun.

Recently, spicyage become a new way of web-ranking solution to determine the best sites or blogs, 100% powered by its members. Discover and bookmark the new and the best sites/blogs out there and connect with people of the same interest as you.

Join Spicypage Community, Click Here!

Why should we join TECHNORATI?

Technorati [ http://www.technorati.com ] was founded by Dave Sifry and its headquarters are in San Francisco, California, USA. Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs, competing with Google, Yahoo and IceRocket. As of August 2007, Technorati indexes over 94 million weblogs.

[from: wikipedia.org]

Now, Technorati currently tracking more than 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. Technorati is the recognized authority on what's happening on the World Live Web, right now. The Live Web is the dynamic and always-updating portion of the Web. They search, surface, and organize blogs and the other forms of independent, user-generated content (photos, videos, voting, etc.) increasingly referred to as “citizen media.”

[from: technorati.com/about]

Even there had been some explanation about technorati as mentioned above, but the author itself never explained exactly what Technorati is, as he's stated in his private blog in January 21, 2004:

What is Technorati?

If you're one of the tens of thousands of people who use Technorati every day, you'll notice that most of our changes (on the new beta site so far have been under the hood. Changes to the body have been minimal. As a result, we've been scratching our heads because we've never explained exactly what Technorati *is*. For that matter, we've never explained much about what a "cosmos" is, either -- even though that's what Technorati finds in its searches.

So I thought it would make sense to ask you what Technorati is. Is it a search engine for blogs? A conversation engine? Or something else again?

Same with "cosmos." Is there a more self-explanatory word for what Technorati finds? Or a better way to say exactly what "cosmos" means?

Let us know. We'd like to hear from you. Thanks!
Posted by dsifry at January 21, 2004 2:56 AM

[origin of page: http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2004/01/what_is_technorati.html]

The Tehcnorati founder lets the technorati users to describe what technorati really is, because I think he still do not know what technorati will be in the future. What he did is to give the bloggers a place to communicate, share, organize and another activity which can help the bloggers each other to develop their blog better and more profitable I think.

Beside all of those things, technorati now become such an important thing that bloggers must have in order to popularize their blog. By join technorati, we can at least:

1. Submit and claim your blog in technorati directory.
2. Linking each other with other bloggers.
3. Track and record our blog activity.
   
4. Search and to be searched by other bloggers.
5. Many others benefit that you can find in technorati.

Thats all my opinion about technorati for now, I think It's good for bloggers especially new bloggers to join this community. We can learn each other to make our blog better. Salute to technorati.

Visit and Join Technorati.com, NOW !

About Dave Sifry, Technorati founder. Click here!

Blogger for Blogger

I was thrilled when I found this blog, he had wrote a lot of article about blogging and it's circumstances. I just feel how small I am in the blogging world when many people have done so much in blog development and give much lesson for new bloggers while me still trying to build a new blog. But I think its ok, I believe that everybody has their own unique skill more than the other.

It is good for new bloggers to have this blog as their references to develop their blog become a nice and attractive blog. It is "http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com", arranged by bizwhiz. All I wanna say here is a lot of thanks to bizwhiz for his magnificent blog that very helpful especially for new bloggers including me. I agree with you that "knowledge is good only if it is shared". It is what I say "Blogger for Blogger", every blogger have to have a lesson from and to another bloggers. Great work bizwhiz, keep on going! Have a nice day!

Go to http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com !

1000 EntreCard Points Give Away Contest From Toasteggme.Com

"Entrecard is an easy way to network with other blog owners, get to know your dedicated readers and favorite writers. Let entrecard introduce you."

[http://entrecard.com]

That is brief definition about entrecard. You can grow your traffic and get many other benefit by register to entrecard.

When you have registered to entrecard, you have to have entrecard points to start your campaign in order to grow your network. That's why Toasteggme.Com brings you a contest to get free entrecard points for the winners. Each winner will get 100 entrecard points.

Hurry up! This contest would end on 25th December 2007 and the winner will be announced on 28th December 2007. It is worth for you to try it.

Go to Toasteggme.Com to join the contest, click here!

Professional Blogging

Nowadays, many people are fascinated with the revenue which bloggers have had in the recent years start from only $10 to $1000 until $100,000 or more a month. It's incredible achievement for the bloggers that they never been imagined before, because many bloggers start from just doing their hobby to write anything in the web. Now, the new money making machine has been revealed in the net. Many people have a race to catch this chance just for one purpose, to make money from their activity in the net so they can work from home.

These situations have made a new chance for people to get income in order to have a good and quality in life. People are in throng to get started build and develop their blog day by day and have this kind activity to be their habit until it becomes their profession. Maybe this is called as "Professional Blogging".

In my opinion, "Professional Blogger" is persons who do blogging as their prominent activity to get some revenue to shore up their life. Out of that, maybe there are someone who do blogging just for fun or any other reason why they do blogging without expect to get revenue from it.

Here are some little steps where everyone can try to be a Professional Blogger written by Randy Charles Morin and edited by Sterling Chip Camden:

1. Determine what you want to blog about

2. Register a blog with Blogger

3. Create a FeedBurner account

4. Write 1+ blog entries every day

5. Read other blogs like yours

6. Register for a del.icio.us account

7. Leave 1+ comments every day

8. Register for an AdSense account

9. Don't give up

10. Check your stats and refine

[source & read more in: kbcafe.com]

even those step are not a rule, but it can be use as general guidance to people who want start to be a professional in blogging world.

WHY BLOG

As a part of net world, blog has being developed so fast and perform a fantastic result for the developer and the blogger (blog user) itself. Started from individual, group to corporate users, blog has proved that it has powerful use in order to introducing people to the net world. By blog people can make them feel free like they own their own web page and make them have endurance in the web page where they do blogging.

So, what does exactly blog mean?
Here are some definitions about blog from the web which most represent in my opinion.

"A blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom."
[from: problogger.net]

"A blog (short for weblog) is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs are defined by their format: a series of entries posted to a single page in reverse-chronological order.Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or reflect the purpose of the Web site that hosts the blog. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favors, especially those that support a point being made on a post."
[from: searchwindevelopment.techtarget.com]

"Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author."
[from: webopedia.com]

"Blog (the same as "weblog") - a personal or business online journal or diary shared over the web. Publishing of a blog is "blogging". Entries in blog are called posts. Blogs are frequently updated and entries in the blog are arranged in a chronological order."
[from: bytescout.com]

"A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.
Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules.
In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not.
Since Blogger was launched in 1999, blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others."
[from: blogger.com]

From all of those definitions, it is clear and no need to discuss that blog has been a part of our life. There are many other people saying the definition about blog that you can search in the net. The point is that people around the world can share anything with anyone in anytime as long as they have internet connection and blog.