Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Simple ROI - Blogging

Simple ROI - Blogging

That's right as the ever expanding and always growing real estate of the web becomes one of the safest ways to invest and get a solid return on investment these days. As the never ending social networks, search engine optimization, paid reviews and advertising spikes the web and market as no other right now.

We continue to see shifts being made by almost all search engines and adding the contribue of the marketplace and communities. The test results continue to point towards this direction in the market and web.

Though will all this change happening in and around the marketplace and web. One thing that they continue to point towards this movement is blogging. The ever so powerful blog is still and continues to be the back bone of the web.

So why not start you blog and get your feet a little wet in trying to make your little niche in this ever expanding world wide web. If your interested we are her to offer you some simple web suggestions on a simple way to start a blog.

1. Set up a Blogger WordPress blog. Anyone and everyone has and does run a blog. It can be your personal name to a personal company, and now even colleges are paying some of there students to blog about the college life at there university. While places like wordpress and blogger will host everything for your for free. I believe as if you are you looking more for a professional look and would like to host it yourself I would highly suggest hostgator.com


2. Content is King. If your starting off your blog we would highly suggest that you start of by blogging at least 4 to 5 times the first few days and after that you can little the load by posting a blog at least once or twice a week. Though to really get a good solid fan base and attention it's best to blog at least once a day. When you add content, make sure you add the tags and category. Tags and directory structures help show the search engines what your post is about.

Always write unique creative content that will make readers want to come back to your blog. Some other great ways to provide this service is by having guest bloggers write for you. Or you could even go the routine as paying writers such as niche articles which is a very solid content and blog provider.


3. Manage RSS feeds. This is very important to try to really gett as many RSS feeds out there and getting people to sign up for your feeds. Rss is an easily tracked and managed XML-based file structure that allows compatible Web systems to read the data. Get an account with Technorati.com and update it with your site feeds -- also known as pinging. You can also use FeedBurner.com and OnlyWire.com to help distribute content and PingOMatic.com and Pingoat.com to alert systems that you've made a new post.

4. Promote your blog. Try to get links from other bloggers. Use a specific keyword that your trying to target. Here are 5 simple suggestions on how to promote your blog the cheap way.

Social bookmarking sites are as popular as ever such as Stumbleupon.com and Digg.com, as well as del.icio.us, reddit.com and MySpace.com. Content that can help or teach such as "how to" articles, are always very popular.

5. Leverage podcasts and videos. Podcasts are a simple way to provide more detail and personalization around your company or service. The MP3 format can easily be streamed for listening on the Web and from your blog. You can podcast your files and even manage them via iTunes. You also can stream video into your visitors' homes and let them watch it on their Apple TV, a recently announced product.


6. Optimize your blog. Professiona looking, clean, and optimized blog will seriously go a long way. For simple SEO, change your permalinks to this custom option:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

and enable the customizable permalinks. This is a search-engine friendly URL that's commonly used.

As I mentioned earlier, WordPress has a number of powerful plugins to consider. Here are some to start with:

*Google Analytics -- tracks everything on all pages

*Chicklets -- an array of social media tags for your users, including RSS reader icons

*AdSense Deluxe -- for publishing ads on your site

*Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress -- creates a sitemap for your site

*Akismet spam filtering -- filters link spam from blog comments; requires WordPress API key

*SEO Title Tag -- easy optimization of title tags across your WordPress blog

*Ultimate Tag Warrior -- incorporates the tag name into title pages on tagged pages

*Podpress -- everything you need for podcasting

More plugins are available at the WordPress plugin directory.

After you're set up, follow the basic rules for long-term success:

*Do not use Black Hat SEO -- unethical techniques -- to stuff keywords and duplicate content in your blogs.

*Provide value through quality content. If you're selling something, don't be pushy. Try to provide educational and constructive comments on products, services and competitors.

*Use the chicklets you see on many blogs, including a big button for your RSS feed, so visitors and search engines can easily get to your data.

*Place strategic AdSense components to generate money for yourself, while still providing value. Don't feel bad; big companies do it, including news outlets like CNN. Match the text and color with the layout of your site. Over time, you may get a check from Google.


P.S. Imagine 25%, 50%, or even 100% YTD return in this up-and-down market...Than your safest move is starting a blog today.

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