BLOG DESIGN JOURNAL

Building and using business blogs has become a standard for many online marketers in terms of marketing on the internet. However with the growth in popularity of online social sites many have begun using these communities as their primary marketing platforms.

In particular Twitter is being touted as a site that can supply all your business needs concerning marketing and traffic generation.

Does this mean blogging sites are now endangered in terms of their ‘leading’ role in web 2.0 online marketing? Actually this would hardly seem the case and here are 5 very strong reasons why. Read the rest of this entry →

When I first got interested in blog design, Blogging to the Bank was one of my first purchases. It was great advice on making a lot of money from blogging. My only complaint is that there was not quite enough information on building blogs for a complete beginner.

Blogging to the Bank has gone through several valuable upgrades over the years. The author keeps adding and updating information to keep up with changes in the business climate and the internet.

I still like the package, and I recommend taking a look if you want to make money with blogging:

http://www.blogdesignjournal.com/likes/Blog2Bank3/

Text messaging on a mobile phone

Want to drive more traffic to your blog? Here is an effective way to get blog visitors that you may not have thought of: a text messaging service.

A hot topic in the Internet marketing world right now is the generation gap between young users. More and more Internet users avoid email as much as possible. They prefer text messaging, Twitter and Facebook, unlike the “older” generation who prefer email.

Text messaging is huge, and you can use it to drive traffic to your blog.

A new mobile marketing site called 84444.com allows you to set up interactive text message marketing campaigns from your computer that can send traffic back to your site from the huge market of mobile texters. Think about how you can use that for SEO/SEM!

Using the self-service system at 84444.com and an existing list, you can direct customers to a particular website in real time. This is instant traffic!

Want to see how it works? Text the keyword LENS to 84444 (the short code) to get a discount on eye glasses.

Want to try it out—for free? You can get a free trial account (no contract, no setup fees) and set up a free trial campaign that allows you to send 25 free text messages.

With mobile marketing, you can set up sweepstakes, polls, and other interactive activities and send mobile coupons that can be used on line or in person.

As always with blog promotion, the only limit is your own imagination (as long as you stay with in the terms of use of the participating service providers and the applicable laws).

Clearly you also need to be sensitive to text user needs and preferences. Do not spam. Tightly target users with offers they will be glad to receive.

I’m excited about text marketing for traffic. I have not only set up a trial account; I have also signed up to be an affiliate.

For more information on the interactive text marketing industry and more ideas on how you might use text marketing to get traffic for your blog, you should read the Text Message Blog, which reports on mobile marketing.

A blog, believe it or not, when properly prepared creates content, and quite often is put very fast in the top ten of Google. Why it is so, try reading the following contribution to enlighten yourself:

A blog of domestic implements from a few features, allow search engines to crawl the content very quickly. The result was the fastest I have ever witnessed, added a new post within 20 seconds (including the top 10 ranking) for relevant phrases. How can this come about?

BlogPing

BlogPing is a protocol that implements any popular blog system. It serves primarily two things:

1. Blogs to notify each other (They were linked)

2. Notify search engines (Google Hello, I have published a new page)

Especially with the integration of Google Sitemaps that go on WordPress with a click of the hand, you need a search engine’s new content page to look once more. Sitemap opens directly to crawl a new page. Read the rest of this entry →

Blog marketing is truly only as difficult as you make it out to be. However, if you have never had a blog before, and never marketed anything in your life before now, it may be a little more difficult to understand.

If that is the case, you should start of with a blog and just journaling in it to see what it is like. Keep it updated so that you can see what is required to get readers, and try some of these techniques listed below.

While you are learning all about the aspects of blog marketing, you are going to find that comments on a blog are also a very important aspect of blog marketing. You will want to be sure that you always answer and acknowledge the comments that are made to your blog as well as others.

When you show that you are an actual person that can hold a conversation, you are showing others that you are real and that you really and truly have the best intentions for your blog. Make sure that no comment goes unanswered.

When you do this and do it consistently, it will show your readers that you will acknowledge them and answer their questions. That will in return make them come back to see what your answer was if they asked a question. Read the rest of this entry →

When you planned to create your website, you knew that it could reach millions of potential visitors. But now that your website is live, visitors are few and far in between. So, where are the visitors? And why aren’t they coming?

To understand what’s going on, we will need to debunk the oldest myth of the web: Built it and they will come. In reality, quite a bit more work is involved.To get people to visit your website, you also need to (1) make sure that your website can be found and (2) give visitors something worthwhile when they arrive. Read the rest of this entry →

1. Perpetually tag your content. Tagging can be a extensive way to classify your posts and will give you an edge over at Technorati.

2. Command a niche market. Choose a niche in which you have some experience or that which you are willing to learn. Can you continue writing for over 2 or 3 years on the topic? If so you found the sweet spot.

3. Submit (Bookmark) your posts to Digg, Technorati, Flickr (Flickr is a service offered by yahoo for uploading and sharing cartoon. Don’t get confused with flicker.com which surprisingly yahoo has not yet bought), Del.icio.us, Stumble Upon and other such sites to increase traffic to your blogging blog.

Submitting your articles to these and other such social networking sites will increase the number of individuals who shall view your content leading to an enlargement in traffic to your site. Enable your readers to bookmark your posts to such sites as well. There is a neat trick to bookmarking which you will find here. Read the rest of this entry →