Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Thursday, October 1, 2009
What Is The Big Deal About Blogs?
Blogging can be a cool and enjoyable way to kill some time. Millions of people who have discovered the wonders of blogs and have utilized this platform as an enjoyable method to spend pleasurable time working in the computer. These people can share their thoughts, experiences and express their particular views on any particular news or events through their blog. Certainly there is a great deal of pleasure resulting from this favorite pastime of many. Then how do we turn this pleasurable activity profitable too? The video below will try to give you a broad overview on blogs. I will like to thank Lee & Sachi Lefever of the common craft show. Visit their website at http://www.commoncraft.com
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
9 tips to know before creating a blog
Creating your own blog is very exciting. There is so much help available online for anyone who wants to write a blog. That is wonderful news to anyone who plans to start their own blog, but feels technologically challenged. Even with all these resources, you will still face challenges getting your blog up and running. This article is designed to help reduce the difficulties you may encounter.
1. Get clear about what you want to say on your blog .If you are unclear, your readers will be even more confused and will not come back. Research your topic, write down one sentence to describe the message you want to give. The topics are unlimited and can be for fun, for a limited audience, to promote a million dollar business, to give a political message, to inform, and more. They say there is one book in every person. There is probably one blog in every person as well. Just make sure that if you are a five blog person you do not try and fit them all into one blog!
2. Decide how much time you have available to create, and manage your blog. Do you want to put in time learning the skills necessary to create a blog, or do you simply want to have a blog? Do you want to manage your blog, and put in your own articles, photos and videos, or do you want someone else to do that? Do you want to write your own articles, or do you want to get a ghost writer?
3. How do you want your blog to give out your message? Through written articles, through photos or pictures, or through videos? Do you want your blog to have a lot of links and/or advertising either as the main subject of your blog, or as a means of monetizing? In other words, are you going to write about your favorite travel destinations to encourage people to use your travel agency, or are you going to promote your business with each of your articles promoting the business, giving testimonials, offering freebies all encouraging people to buy your product.
4. Choose your blog platform, or find a web designer to create your blog. If you have properly answered the questions in points 1, 2, and 3 you will know whether you want to create your own blog or find someone else to do it for you.
5. If you are going to ask someone else to create your blog, tell them what you want. Ask them to give you some examples of their work. If you are going to create your own blog, do a search online for "create a blog" and find sites that assist you to create a blog. Go through their Site Tour and see what they have to offer, read the forum, look for examples of blogs created through the site and see what others have done. Have a look for blogs that you really like online and see what you like about the blog. Search online for "blog awards" and see what the best blogs are doing.
6. Whether you are creating your own blog, or having it done for you, get a bit technical. You will see that there are common layouts on many blogs with a main section, and one or two side panels, also headers which show all your articles, links and advertising. Do you want a very busy home page, or a simple one leading through to your other articles? How do you want to welcome people, what do you want them to see first? Do you want to be formal or bright and happy or calming? Look at the use of colors, shapes and font.
7. If you are creating your own blog, you could do a test run for ease of setup, support, forum help, and get a feel for the site. It is important to be clear about what you want to achieve, early in the process as it can take a lot of time to make changes, and move everything around later. It is also very frustrating and time consuming.
8. Make sure it is legal. If you add content that is not your own, add it legally. Why risk losing your wonderful blog because someone complains about your use of their copyrighted property.
9. Keep a copy of your blog on your computer (plus the backup copy we all have hmm hmm). If you do this, you will be able to start again easily if you decide to move to another blog site for any reason.
Having a blog can be very satisfying, but some of the fun can be taken out of it when you are struggling to get your blog set up and successfully online. Proper preparation before you start can make all the difference getting your blog successfully launched.
1. Get clear about what you want to say on your blog .If you are unclear, your readers will be even more confused and will not come back. Research your topic, write down one sentence to describe the message you want to give. The topics are unlimited and can be for fun, for a limited audience, to promote a million dollar business, to give a political message, to inform, and more. They say there is one book in every person. There is probably one blog in every person as well. Just make sure that if you are a five blog person you do not try and fit them all into one blog!
2. Decide how much time you have available to create, and manage your blog. Do you want to put in time learning the skills necessary to create a blog, or do you simply want to have a blog? Do you want to manage your blog, and put in your own articles, photos and videos, or do you want someone else to do that? Do you want to write your own articles, or do you want to get a ghost writer?
3. How do you want your blog to give out your message? Through written articles, through photos or pictures, or through videos? Do you want your blog to have a lot of links and/or advertising either as the main subject of your blog, or as a means of monetizing? In other words, are you going to write about your favorite travel destinations to encourage people to use your travel agency, or are you going to promote your business with each of your articles promoting the business, giving testimonials, offering freebies all encouraging people to buy your product.
4. Choose your blog platform, or find a web designer to create your blog. If you have properly answered the questions in points 1, 2, and 3 you will know whether you want to create your own blog or find someone else to do it for you.
5. If you are going to ask someone else to create your blog, tell them what you want. Ask them to give you some examples of their work. If you are going to create your own blog, do a search online for "create a blog" and find sites that assist you to create a blog. Go through their Site Tour and see what they have to offer, read the forum, look for examples of blogs created through the site and see what others have done. Have a look for blogs that you really like online and see what you like about the blog. Search online for "blog awards" and see what the best blogs are doing.
6. Whether you are creating your own blog, or having it done for you, get a bit technical. You will see that there are common layouts on many blogs with a main section, and one or two side panels, also headers which show all your articles, links and advertising. Do you want a very busy home page, or a simple one leading through to your other articles? How do you want to welcome people, what do you want them to see first? Do you want to be formal or bright and happy or calming? Look at the use of colors, shapes and font.
7. If you are creating your own blog, you could do a test run for ease of setup, support, forum help, and get a feel for the site. It is important to be clear about what you want to achieve, early in the process as it can take a lot of time to make changes, and move everything around later. It is also very frustrating and time consuming.
8. Make sure it is legal. If you add content that is not your own, add it legally. Why risk losing your wonderful blog because someone complains about your use of their copyrighted property.
9. Keep a copy of your blog on your computer (plus the backup copy we all have hmm hmm). If you do this, you will be able to start again easily if you decide to move to another blog site for any reason.
Having a blog can be very satisfying, but some of the fun can be taken out of it when you are struggling to get your blog set up and successfully online. Proper preparation before you start can make all the difference getting your blog successfully launched.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Making Money With Your Blog.
Although you may currently have a stable job that pays quite well and keeps a roof over your head and pays for all household expenses. However, times are different and you can never tell when crisis would hit and it is always prudent to have a nest egg that you can count on when it happens. If you have writing skills and internet savvy, you can earn money through blog, an online tool that is used for personal as well as business purposes.
There are several ways to earn money through blog and one of the most popular is being a professional blogger for online businesses in need of advertising tools to help in selling their wares to potential buyers. It will give you a great edge if you are an expert in SEO and keywords since most paid blogging sites are looking for those who are proficient in these two things.
Another way to earn money through blog is to make your page available for online businesses to advertise their products in. You will have to keep your blog site as visible as possible so it can attract more businesses to advertise for a fee.
The relevance of the information in your blog is very important because people are always looking for useful information that they can use in their daily lives you will have to come up with topics that will catch the attention of as many people as possible. However, there should be a focus in your blogs, that is, a specific purpose for the information that you impart.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The difference between websites and blogs.
Actually a blog is a kind of website, as they have many similar attributes.
They both occupy a presence on the internet, use an URL or web address, need a host server to keep them online, contain information such as text content, pictures, links and keywords, both benefit from search engine optimisation and can be tracked through Google Analytics.
But why don't we call blogs websites? What is it that makes them different?
The difference is in their programming, and how they make use of Web2.0. The are pre-runners of social networking before Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. They thrive on interaction, new content, feeds and optimisation.
Blogs are designed to be self-editable. This means you don't to pay a web designer to make changes or add content. You can update them through very easy access (a username and password) from any computer in the world. The programming is self-contained, and if you can write in Word, you can update a blog.
They thrive on being updated frequently and regularly, their programming is designed to attract search engine spiders who are looking for new content all the time. This is very good for web optimisation which puts blogs higher up the search engines than websites. Another consideration is that blogs are visited by spiders hourly, whereas websites could wait for months.
Unlike websites, blogs only update new material each time it is posted. Every time a website is updated the new stuff supersedes the old content, whereas blogs store previous entries like a news-roll, each post dated accordingly and assigned it's own URL for access at a later date.
Blogs are designed to encourage interactive communication between author and readers. Those who comment can link back to their own sites, and this content is also considered as new material by internet spiders. This concept is not available in ordinary websites, except through sign up forms, and then contributors cannot view afterwards what they have written.
And another consideration to note: blogs are much cheaper to create and maintain!
OK, so what else makes blogs better?
Blogs are created to help businesses to spread their expertise, explain what their business does in different ways, maintain a relationship with their visitors and customers, offer subscription services for regular contact, channel traffic back to relevant websites, and can be fed to other websites like social networking for a higher readership.
Most websites, especially 'brochure style' ones, are static and once created are rarely updated, and can't provide an opportunity to explain everything as space is often limited. In fact, over cluttering your pages with too much information can be counter-productive. Visitors will not return for new content, websites are unlikely to get bookmarked, and only through a sign up form to a newsletter can the business maintain a relationship with potential customers.
Alice Designs's sibling company Design Your Marketing aims to increase the attractiveness of your business. We not only work with how your business looks, but how it is viewed and understood by the outside world; the next motive is to attract your audience across your threshold to convert them into paying customers.
Maximising your business's visibility is key to success. How you combine design and marketing within your promotional material contributes to customer awareness and contribution. This includes analysing the customer's problems, finding solutions, exploring the publication's purpose, aiming for high visual impact that initiates a response, and combining off and on-line methods for immediate response or improved relationships eventually culminating in sales.
They both occupy a presence on the internet, use an URL or web address, need a host server to keep them online, contain information such as text content, pictures, links and keywords, both benefit from search engine optimisation and can be tracked through Google Analytics.
But why don't we call blogs websites? What is it that makes them different?
The difference is in their programming, and how they make use of Web2.0. The are pre-runners of social networking before Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. They thrive on interaction, new content, feeds and optimisation.
Blogs are designed to be self-editable. This means you don't to pay a web designer to make changes or add content. You can update them through very easy access (a username and password) from any computer in the world. The programming is self-contained, and if you can write in Word, you can update a blog.
They thrive on being updated frequently and regularly, their programming is designed to attract search engine spiders who are looking for new content all the time. This is very good for web optimisation which puts blogs higher up the search engines than websites. Another consideration is that blogs are visited by spiders hourly, whereas websites could wait for months.
Unlike websites, blogs only update new material each time it is posted. Every time a website is updated the new stuff supersedes the old content, whereas blogs store previous entries like a news-roll, each post dated accordingly and assigned it's own URL for access at a later date.
Blogs are designed to encourage interactive communication between author and readers. Those who comment can link back to their own sites, and this content is also considered as new material by internet spiders. This concept is not available in ordinary websites, except through sign up forms, and then contributors cannot view afterwards what they have written.
And another consideration to note: blogs are much cheaper to create and maintain!
OK, so what else makes blogs better?
Blogs are created to help businesses to spread their expertise, explain what their business does in different ways, maintain a relationship with their visitors and customers, offer subscription services for regular contact, channel traffic back to relevant websites, and can be fed to other websites like social networking for a higher readership.
Most websites, especially 'brochure style' ones, are static and once created are rarely updated, and can't provide an opportunity to explain everything as space is often limited. In fact, over cluttering your pages with too much information can be counter-productive. Visitors will not return for new content, websites are unlikely to get bookmarked, and only through a sign up form to a newsletter can the business maintain a relationship with potential customers.
Alice Designs's sibling company Design Your Marketing aims to increase the attractiveness of your business. We not only work with how your business looks, but how it is viewed and understood by the outside world; the next motive is to attract your audience across your threshold to convert them into paying customers.
Maximising your business's visibility is key to success. How you combine design and marketing within your promotional material contributes to customer awareness and contribution. This includes analysing the customer's problems, finding solutions, exploring the publication's purpose, aiming for high visual impact that initiates a response, and combining off and on-line methods for immediate response or improved relationships eventually culminating in sales.
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