By using a sitemap, you can make it very easy to get all of your pages indexed by Google. This can help you raise your rankings in Google, as well as help searchers find you.

The beauty of sitemaps is that once you’ve set up your sitemap, you can basically forget about it until you make updates to your site. Then you will need to add the new entries to your sitemap. Google will take care of the rest.

However, if you’re a non-techie, or the idea of setting up scripts, or learning new software doesn’t appeal to you, there are other ways to get the job done without stressing yourself.

There are plenty of online tools that you can use that are absolutely free. Although these sites won’t help you if you have a really large site, usually over 1,000 pages, for the average site owner, these tools will get the job done, and at most, all you’ll need to know how to do is cut and paste, save, and then upload your sitemap to your site.

Below are some tools you can use to help you get started. Try the various tools out first to see which ones you like best. These are the easiest solutions I’ve found for creating sitemaps, and it will only take you a few minutes to get your sitemap created and submitted.

1. Sitemap Doc – http://www.sitemapdoc.com/ – This site will create a sitemap for sites up to 750 pages. All you have to do is enter your URL for the main page for your site, click the create map button, and this site will extract your urls and create your sitemap. It also allows you to customize your map by adding additional urls, as well as changing time, date, and priority settings.

2. Audit My PC – http://www.auditmypc.com/free-sitemap-generator.asp – This sitemap creator actually gives you two options: you can create a sitemap for Google, and you can create a sitemap for your visitors. The sitemap you create for your visitors can help you in getting spidered by the newer spiders offered by MSN and Yahoo.

3. ROR – http://www.rorweb.com/ – ROR is very similar to XML, which is the formatting used in sitemaps, and you can use it to create your sitemaps. Unlike most sitemap utilities, this tool does more. It will help you more fully describe the content on your website. You can also use it to create feeds for your products and services, as well as feeds for your site.

I used the ROR generator to create sitemaps for my sites, and I found it to be much easier. I submitted the ROR sitemap feeds to Google, and it has eliminated any errors I had in my previous sitemaps.

What’s I liked about this site is that it gives you plenty of options in both the types of feeds you create, as well as a choice between an online tool or software to create sitemaps and feeds.

4. WordPress Sitemap Generator – http://www.arnebrachhold.de/2005/06/05/google-sitemaps-generator-v2-final – For those of you who use Wordpress for your blog, this is the only tool you need to create your sitemaps.

This sitemap generator is actually a plugin you can install on your Wordpress Blog and use it to automatically generate a new sitemap for your blog each time you post.

This keeps your sitemap constantly updated, and it allows Google to more fully spider your blog. Once installed and updated, you can forget about it. The plugin takes care of the rest.

5. Google Sitemap Generators List – http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html – If none of the solutions above work for you, or you need something more comprehensive, Google offers a large list of scripts and software you can use to generate your sitemaps. This will be the solution for any site that has a large number of pages and needs a sitemap that can’t be created with the tools listed above.

Once you’ve created and uploaded your sitemap, then it’s time to submit it. You will need a Gmail account so that you can sign into Google Sitemaps. You can sign into sitemaps here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login.

You can also find out more about the various types of content that Google accepts: http://www.google.com/submit_content.html

Follow the instructions for submitting your site. It should take you about two minutes to add your sitemap. Once you’ve added your sitemap, Google will take over. Now, not only will you be able to get your site more fully spidered by Google, you’ll also get plenty of helpful statistics on your site. You can use what you learn from your stastics to improve your search engine coverage and raise your rankings.

These articles began because of a thread at Absolute Write called “What Is Your Technorati Rank?” On perusing that thread I realized that many writers were placing their hopes in something that just was not going to happen. More so, they were actually misreading the importance of certain “rankings” and thus ignoring the more important factors.

If you read the previous articles in this series you now hopefully understand “keyword basics”. So we are going to use Technorati for our example.

So along comes techie #1 and says:

“Hey, you know what. Blogs are becoming mainstay business. They are great for people with no knowledge of HTML and you can literally put up a web-site Weblog in minutes. So now they are multiplying over the net faster than rabbits, and the Search Engines are ignoring them for the most part as most of them contain personal musings and ramblings. So why not create a sophisticated search engine for blogs?”

“Great idea,” says techie #2, “a search engine from blogs. And that means anyone who has a blog will want to register with us. But how are we going to build it. Obviously, normative search engine technology is not what we want.”

“You know what?” says techie #1 “we are going to take keywords, call them by a different name and create a closed system!”

And thus Technorati was born.

What essentially goes on in Technorati, is you define what you write with “tags”, Technorati tags. These are keywords, (with a special HTML parameter). Keywords just like you will learn to use in your meta tags. Technorati then in a CLOSED SYSTEM connects all the blogs with the same keywords. Technorati does not look at content to a great extent (to my knowledge), they pay attention to the tags re: keywords that you input. If you do not input keywords they use your keywords in your Blog setup.

Okay this is great for all those people looking for blogs say about hairdressing. So they come to Mr. and Mrs. Hair&s blog because the Hair couple input keywords as Technorati tags. Simple.

Technorati now goes one step further. Technorati rates your blog based upon a few parameters. One of those “important” parameters is how many other people in the Technorati Network (Only those IN the network, or those using Technorati tags) have linked to your blog or a post on it. So by gaining links (there is no concept on Technorati as “bleeding links” as far as I know), you move up in the ladder. But even Technorati also keeps track of how popular your blog is. You can have 200 links into your blog, but if no one visits then your standing will not go up to the top 100.

Okay, that is Technorati. Important for bloggers? Well it is a popular site, and growing. So the answer would be yes. Important for Google, MSN and Yahoo — not on its own…yet there is one critical Caveat.

When someone links to your site in a blog or web site, the href HTML links are in the code. The Search Engines when they read the code with their bots (see how much web lingo you know already!) sees these links. Those get added to the amount of sites linking to you. They are “hot links” or “back links” into your blog or posts in your blog. So linking not only works in the closed world of Technorati tags, but also works in the Wide World of Search Engine placement. Those links are important. Now if you get linked in a very popular blog, that counts for a lot in the world of Search Engine placement. (As we discussed in the previous articles.)

So while it is nice to know your Technorati ranking is going up, what is IMPORTANT is to remember to use their tools of tagging and linking to get others to discover and link to your blog. That gets noticed by the Search Engines. Not immediately to be sure but if you are being hit a great deal and have links to you, sooner rather than later the Search Engines will pick up your blog and your keywords. They will NOT look at the Technorati tags though, they will look at your meta tag keywords and your content. (Oy Vey! so many things to remember)

Del.icio.us and others work on the same concept, though del.icio.us is more centralized and called a “social book-marking service”. Just remember the rule of thumb:

The more sites that link to you and your post, no matter for what reason, the better it is for you and your position in the Search Engines.

Okay now what are Categories? Categories really belong in Wiki format, and this is not the scope or place to discuss Wiki and the technology behind it. I own a new Wiki site, and you are welcome to peruse JewishPedia because on a Wiki site you can view all the code to each article.

Categories in blogs (Wordpress implements them automatically) are a way to search for something. I have Categories in my blog, but this is a code implemented Category Listing in Google&s blogger system, where when you click, the blog does a Google Blog search in my blog for all articles related to that word. And thus it depends on Google&s specific Blog Search Engine (not their regular search engine).

Remember, Google and others have specific Blog search engines. It is important to be on the top in those as well, BUT for mainstream, if you are using a Blog for whatever reason, your goal is to be in the normative search engines as well, and in a good placement there.

So there you have it. Tags = Keywords. Technorati uses them in the closed world of Technorati. The employ linking counts as well. These keywords and links, if done correctly, are also very useful for Search Engine rankings if your blog is popular. deli.ci.ous uses them for “social” blogging.

So don’t give up on Technorati. Just don’t believe it is the golden answer to be good rankings in the Search Engines. It is but one of the myriad of possibilities.

“The more sites that link to you and your post, no matter for what reason, the better it is for you and your position in the Search Engines.”

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.

Perhaps the easiest way to get fresh content for your site is through RSS feeds. These feeds can be found by searching for RSS feeds in the search engines. Some of the most popular feeds directories are Syndic8 and Feedster. All you need is a RSS parser that can convert these feeds to real time content for your site and you will have daily content instantly! A common RSS parser used by many webmasters is the Magpie Parser; this powerful open source PHP parser allows the coder to transform any feeds to relevant content pages. RSS feeds are a great way to create fresh content when one has no time to write.

Reprinting articles on your site is another great way to have fresh content. There are a lot of article directories that allows the webmasters to reprint their articles. Reprinting articles involve very little effort and often allow the search engines to have new content to index for your site. However, many article directories limit the amount of times the articles can be reprinted on your site. Nevertheless, this is one of the easier methods to have fresh content.

The above methods are great in creating fresh content but it is also important to note that creating unique content for your site is another issue worth considering. The only way to create unique content is to write them yourself or get someone else to write for you. Weblogs are extremely useful when it comes to adding of new unique content. WordPress is one of the most popular tools for content management. It allows the owner to enable multiple people in a company to post new content so that a group of people can manage the content more efficiently.

Another method to acquire for unique content is to create a forum for your members. This is a very low cost operation if you have many supporting members who are active and willing to commit.

In the eyes of Search Engine Optimization, fresh and unique content is of paramount importance. In order to show the latest information on your site to the visitors through search engines, your page must be updated regularly so that the spiders will visit and index more often.

Thank you.

But blogs are a special breed of web-site. There are additional methods of getting new visitors to your blog that are very effective. The first one I played with was linking to others. For your blog marketing efforts to work, you must understand that bloggers are part of a community. Those of us old-timers on the ‘net remember when the entire ‘net was a small, close-knit community… when it was OK to send an email telling others in your topic area that you just set up a site and would like a link on their site.

That isn’t what I’m suggesting with the blog community. The days of sending even a personal email to someone you haven’t met are nearly over. The spam problem has made that more and more difficult. However, it is still OK and still rather expected that you introduce yourself when you come into a community. It is also a good idea to let your new community know that you are a friendly guy and are willing to help out in the community.

This post will tell about one way to do that when you enter the blogosphere. First, you should find your neighbors. The Alexa toolbar is going to help you find out who the leaders are in your new community. Start by searching for “______ blog” on Google, Yahoo or your favorite search engine. Fill in the blank with the topic of your blog. Take a look at the blogs you see.

Do you like them? Good; these are leaders in your new community. Link to them in your blog roll. Read them daily to find out what is going on in your community. Do you not like them? No problem. Don’t link to them then. Don’t read them. Don’t introduce your visitors to them. It isn’t required that you like everyone in your new community, but you do want to be a part of the community you now live in…

Now as you read those blogs daily, notice their blog rolls (links they have to other blogs in your community). Go visit them. This is where the Alexa toolbar comes in. You will find some new leaders (those with blogs showing less than 100,000 on your Alexa toolbar). Check out their blog and if you like it… add it to your own blog roll.

I recently moved to a town of about 300 way up in the top of the Utah mountains. It was a new community. I had never lived in a rural area before, so it was critical for me to go through this exact same exercise as I became a part of my new community up here in the mountains. Sure; it didn’t involve Alexa or linking to others… but the concept is the same. When you enter a community and want to be a part of that community, get out there and get to know people. This is one way to do that in the blogging community.

I now have a hundred or so links from those in the blogging community after just a couple of months. From those links, I have over 600 daily visits and over 100 loyal readers who come to read my blog almost every day.

Did I ask for any of those links? Nope. Just like they didn’t ask me for the links I gave them. Do I have 100 outbound links? Nope. A lot of those links came in without me linking to them. As I get the chance, I go and check out their blog and if I like it… I give them a link. If I don’t like that blog for whatever reason; I don’t include it in my blog roll. It’s not always a tit for tat link exchange.

Some of you may be confused at this point about how my outbound links became inbound links without any other action. You may be confused about why I called this article “Getting Blog Visitors” when I have only talked about how to send my visitors to others by linking to them. OK; let me go into why this uniquely works very well on blogs, but not on other web-sites.

First, of all… I use Wordpress. It is the fastest growing blogging software out there. I’m not sure of the features of other blogging software, but I know the follow applies to Wordpress. When I log in to my control panel to write a blog post, I am given a page that shows a number of blog stats. One of the most prominent parts of those stats is the number of inbound links… AND a list of those who recently linked to me.

When you see that a blog called “Mattress Cleaners” just linked to you… can you ignore that? I can’t. I’m immediately distracted… and what do I do? I click on it. I go and check out that Mattress Cleaner blog. They just got another reader (at least for that day). If they were a quality blog that was actually relevant to the blog community of my own blog (and they aren’t)… they would get a link in my blog roll so that I could check them out periodically.

The same thing is possible with non-blog web-sites. When you link to a site and send them traffic, that shows up in their referrer logs. However, a lot of webmasters don’t look at their logs or stats. Those who do may use stat software that doesn’t even show referrers. They may only focus on traffic and not where it comes from.

However, most bloggers DO see when someone links to them. It is right in their face when they login to make a new post. All you need to do to let someone know that you have moved into their blog community is to link to them. BTW, it not only introduces you… it lets them know that you are friendly and you like their part of the blog community you just entered. Don’t be surprised when they link back or even write a post about your blog.

It’s that simple.

What does getting indexed mean?

The search engines keep a cache of every web page in their index.

In English, this means: The search engines make a copy of every web page they visit and put in their records… ummm, I think that’s what I mean.

When you use a search engine the results list relevant pages to your search, usually ten results per page.

Each result includes a live “link” to the page, and a “cache” or “snap-shot” of the page, recorded the last time the spider visited that page, at some time in the past.

If you wish to get a website indexed, first you must have a website… preferably a real one that you own, not a “free” website a’ la Geocities etc.

It only costs about $8 to register a domain name, and about $5 a month for cheap hosting, while $10 a month will get you very good quality hosting.

To get indexed fast, I recommend you start a blog on your site. This can be with any blog software, but I think that WordPress is the best…

If you get good quality hosting, it will include cPanel and Fantastico scripts. In fantastico scripts are about 50 scripts you can automatically install on your server with one click… and WordPress is one of them. The alternative is to manually install wordpress yourself.

Once you have built the basic barebones website (Main page, ½ a dozen content pages, and a sitemap linking them together, it’s time to get indexed in the search engines.

You can “submit” your site to the search engines if you wish, but that is too slow.

Here’s where the blog comes into play… post articles or messages to your blog on a daily basis, and don’t miss a day for the first few weeks at least. The posts must be interesting, and relevant to your site.

Configure your blog to automaticlly “ping” the blog directories every time you publish a new post.

Here’s what happens… Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other search engines are always looking for fresh content to serve up to their search visitors or clients, and one place they look for fresh content is in blogs. Search engines absolutely love blogs, because they are dynamic — updated on a regular basis by their owners – as apposed to normal website pages which largely remain static – unchanged for months on end.

If you update your blog every day by adding fresh articles or other content, the search engines will notice, and they will soon be visiting your blog every day like clockwork.

I include a link to my regular website pages by adding a link to either my homepage or sitemap, in the sidebar (menu) of my blog.

The second best thing Search Engines love after fresh content is “links”… they will literally die for links, and if they find a link anywhere that they’ve not seen before, they make a record of it, then follow to to where ever it may lead… and if the link they find is on your blog, youbetter make sure it leads to the sitemap of your website. Double check that it does, by clicking on it after you make
it.

Yahoo and MSN will list your website pages as soon as they visit them, and will usually index them within a few days. As soon as they are indexed, people can find them in search results.

And that’s how easy it is to get indexed fast.

I do not know why MSN indexes blogs(Blogger especially)during such a short time; I guess its because they are hungry for new pages…

I found this secret whilst trying to get my websites indexed into search engines for Free, and that was a while ago.

This is what you have to do, step-by-step:

1. Go to MSN.com and search your blog address. It will be BLOGNAME.blogspot.com for Blogger blogs.

2. MSN will say “We couldn&t find any results containing BLOGNAME.blogspot.com”

and 4 lines below there is a link with the text “Send the address to Us” Click that link to index your blog.

3. You now have access to MSNBot. You&ll see a code verification system; type the correct code and the URL of your blogger or wordpress blog.

Remember to include the http://…

Within 3 days your blog will be indexed! When your blog gets indexed, try this system with your websites too.

Getting indexed in Yahoo is a bit harder, and takes longer.

1) Go to Altavista.com

2) Click on “Submit a Site”

3) You&ll see 3 options… Click “Basic Submit”. You&ll need a Yahoo! account for this.

4) Once logged in, you’ll be taken to Yahoo!&s free URL submitter.

There you have it – the simple secret of getting your blog indexed in search engines.

Tommy Lee knows 33 Profitable Ideas ANYONE can Use to Start Making Money Sucking Blogs Starting Today. Fast and Easy.

Boynton Beach, FL – May 6, 2008

I’m sure most of you have heard the words blog, blogger, or blogging.
If you are anything like me you have probably thought to yourself “I don’t have a clue what they are talking about!” Have you had that experience before?

If so, not to worry because we, at Developmental Performance Consultants along with Derrick Harper’s Wealth Funnel System of online marketing education, want to share with you some information and insight into the wonderful world of BLOGS and how you can utilize this web 2.0 technology platform to get your products/services and business more exposure on the world wide web.

What is a BLOG? Take the words “Web” + “log” = “Blog”.
A blog is, in the case for this article, textual in content and is an online interactive journal used to build relationships between you and your potential/existing clients.

There are a couple of Blog Platforms to get familiar with; “Hosted Blog Platforms” and “Stand Alone Blog Platforms”.

A few of the Hosted Blog Platforms DPC and WFS use are: Blogger, MySpace, and WordPress. They are Free, easy to use, simple to implement, and are indexed to the Search Engines rather quickly.

The other type of Blog Platform is the Stand Alone Platform and they include: WordPress (which is currently #1 out of the top 50 Blog Spots), and ProBlogger. These are both Free to post to however, there is a domain name fee, and a hosting fee you are responsible for.

One of the advantages of the Stand Alone Blog Platform is you can post the blogs directly on your company’s website. You can also be a little more creative in the design of the Blog as opposed to the standard templates found with the Hosted Blog Platforms.

Derrick Harper and The Wealth Funnel System teach you to be the “Expert” on the products/services you offer by using blog platforms to get your personal branding online marketing campaign out to your clients. Remember, people are looking to you for the leadership skills along with your knowledge and education so you need as many avenues as possible to reach them.

We hope this education has given you an insight into the world of blogs and will be beneficial to you as continue to build your business and online personal branding marketing campaign.

For some individuals, blogs are their projects of every day living, as they talk about their daily episodes as well as make tribute to friends and family. Furthermore, blogs assume a profound meaning written to compose and assemble political statements, endorse a product, supply information on research, and even offer tutorials. Any subject that are of your interests, you can be sure that someone has written a blog about it.

Blogs are now being written by musicians, politicians, sports figures, novelists, newscasters as well as other known figures. It is this blog fever that has raised controversy. The fact that anyone can compose and regarding any subject matter under the sun, complaints about certain write-ups are an issue. In a lot of blogs, names are being mentioned; do bear in mind that although you are entitled to write anything that interests you in a blog, you have to be very careful and take in a lot of responsibility. Do not make any statements which can become controversial; or else, be very prepared.

Why a Blog?

1.For personal acquaintances, relationships and hobby. A person can write a blog about his daily activities, what’s going on with his life as his way of telling his family and friends the things that goes on in his life. Likewise, one may also write a blog just so he can express what he feels about himself, or about a certain subject matter that is of interest to him.

2.Topical. Some blogs are committed to a precise topic, like computer hardware or politics. These are frequently read like magazines.

3.For marketing. Corporations are too, into blogging; when well written and implemented, this kind of blog can be a powerful instrument for business communications, forming eagerness and anticipation regarding their products and services offered, or used as tool within the company, keeping employees well informed about company issues and news.

Why someone else&s software?

A lot of Web designer and creators will laugh at the belief and idea of utilizing the software of someone else. This is can be correct especially when each software greatly differs from the particular requirements that a client may have. Yet on the other hand, when it refers to a Weblog software, there is no reason for apprehension in the use of a package that is pre-written, as most packages were developed through years of study; not just knocked together over a couple of days.

In addition, one may study its feature set. For a developer, it would take a lot of time and effort to write and compose from “nothing at all” every single feature in the Weblog software packages of today. For most people, a blog is there for the main reason that chooses to publish or make known your literature and texts on the Web, so you want to spend your time more on writing than coding.

Hosted Services

If one wishes to start broadcasting on the Web, yet does not have web hosting, one can consider looking into a hosted service, which includes Blogger, TypePad, Live Journal, and more.

These services are operated or handled for an individual, so there is no need to concern one about technical upkeep of one’s Weblog; instead, one can concentrate on his blog&s appearance and content. In just minutes, after signing for an account, one can readily start his own blog. Many such services are offered free, such as blogger. TypePad charges a minimal amount for monthly service fee.

Self-Hosted

When one has Web hosting on hand, or is eager to buy hosting, in which one feesl that the advantage will prevail over the problems of keeping up your own blog connection and installation, then you may want to take into account a package that is self-hosted, which includes Movable Type, Textpattern and WordPress.

Other hosting companies did construct the process of installation easier, permitting installation with just a click from a control panel that is browser-based. It is important that you check with a hosting company so you can view if this function is offered. Similar to hosted services, some self hosted packages are made available either for free or for a certain fee which is dependent on the type of package that you choose as well as the basis why you are using it.

Many teenagers have resorted to blogging as an outlet for their emotions, a little online nook where they can sound off about whatever bugs them or makes them happy.

Now savvy marketers have discovered that blogging is one of the best Internet marketing methods that doesn’t cost a cent.

So, what exactly is a blog? Blog is the shortened form of “web log”. Basically, a blog is an online journal. A blog can be set up for no cost at all, and can be used just for the fun of it or for business purposes.

Blogging for your Internet business is a great way to boost the visibility of your products and services. Here are a few ways that your internet advertising will benefit from using a blog:

1. Keep your clients or customers abreast of changes to your website. You can announce new products and affiliate websites through your blog.

2. Publish your opinions, advice or reviews on specific products or services that are related to your business. Publishing is an easy process with blogging.

3. Include articles that will fetch back-links, and links to your website that will subsequently improve your ranking on search engines. This can be helped by putting well written articles in both your blog and your website.

4. You should also include affiliate links in your blog to earn extra income. In fact some people earn good incomes just from niche blogs with relevant affiliate links.

5. Collect responses through the ability of blogs to accept comments from your blog readers. Not only does this build your content without any effort on your part, but you can learn and improve your products and services through the feedback from your readers.

6. Connect with other bloggers. When other bloggers notice that you have something good to say in your blog, they might put you in their favorites lists – that will automatically link you to their blogs and further help your rankings and traffic.

So, how do you set up a blog? There are a few options you can use to take advantage of this fun and fairly easy way to advertise your Internet business.

You can either load blogging software, such as “wordPress”, on your own domain or use a blog hosting service. Host services such as LiveJournal and Blogger.com are the most popular in this field. Those hosts provide you with easy instructions on how to put up your blog.

Once you’ve got your blog up and running, you can promote it through the usual methods. Some examples are blog directories, participating in relevant forums or writing and submitting articles.

Remember also that most blog software or providers have an inbuilt function to provide an RSS feed of your blog contents. So you can also submit that feed to RSS directories, and to feed servers such as FeedBurner.com

But whatever else you do, remember to add the RSS feed as content to your personalized home pages at Google, my.yahoo.com and my.msn.com It&ll help get your blog spidered and listed faster by those search engines.

So now you know a bit more about the free advertising benefits of blogging, the next step is to take action – now. Happy blogging.

Blog postings are appearing in search engine results faster than other website content. Post submitted through blogging tools like Blogger and WordPress are being fast tracked to search engine results. This means more backlinks for your business website and quicker, more up to date search engine placement for your business& marketing message.

Blogs support and even encourage word of mouth viral marketing. According to a recent survey, there are currently 90 million blogs with 80,000 more being added each day and 30 percent of internet users are blog readers. The very nature of the blogging space with sites such as Technorati and Digg, quickly spread blog posts to the widest audience. Posts that become popular can quickly spread across hundreds or thousands of other blogs and social interaction sites.

Customer awareness and loyalty are enhanced. Having a open dialogue with your customers creates trust and loyalty among them. The ability to respond, almost in real time, to customer questions and comments makes them all the more willing to try your products and services.

Feedback can be instantaneous. Businesses can use blogs and their related comments for product research and to solicit reviews. This rapid feedback mechanism could allow a business to make product decisions based on almost real time observations of their customers’ thinking and behavioral patterns.

Businesses can gain a halo-effect because the &blogosphere& has the reputation of being a place for reasonable, friendly, helpful and most importantly, personal interactions. Businesses that can embrace the culture of the environment can help assign the same characteristics to their products and services.

Notwithstanding the benefits, like any other business website, it is important that the content be well planned and thought out. Even with the informal nature of many blogs, it is important to remember that they still reflect on the business& image, positively or negatively. The blog should reflect the values and objectives of the business as well as be reflective of the overall marketing efforts of the business.

Blogging is relatively straightforward, but to be done correctly does take effort and learning. There are several blogs dedicated to teaching people the do’s and don’ts of blogging. Be aware that blogs may have themes or be community based so make sure you aware of these before putting your business name out there. The easiest way, of course, to become familiar with the tone of the blog or social community is to spend time reading posts.

Like any website there are a number of things to keep in mind. Testing, testing and testing are important to make sure the blog meets business objectives. The tone of blogs may be more subtle to detect than standard websites, requiring frequent tweaks to get it right.

Be prepared in advance for a much higher level of content posting than normal with a more static website. Blogs, to be effective, need regular, even daily, infusions of fresh content to stay relevant and keep visitors& attention.

As with a standard website, be aware of legal issues, disclaimers, notifications, copyright issues or other issues relevant to the business. The informal nature of blogs, as well as the higher volume of updates can create compliance issues if not carefully monitored.

Finally, once a business decides to invest in blogging, there are great ways to spread the word about the new blog. To get the best marketing results, it is essential to actively promote your business blogs through blog search sites and directories. Promotion and submissions should be consistent with your products, services or the theme of the blog to be most effective. Adding exclusive or member’s only information can also increase the likelihood that casual browsers will invest the time to follow the business& postings.

Promotion of the blog can be almost automatic be creating and promoting Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds in conjunction with the blogs. Individuals and other, related, websites can view and display blog postings directly from their own websites or personal news readers. This allows the blog poster to essentially push posts to reader&s desktops instead of relying on them to visit the originating blog site.

Since search engine placement is essential for traffic volume the blog should make effective use of keyword phrases. Blogs are by definition very content heavy website, which afford amble opportunity to generate keyword rich copy. Keywords should be selected to ensure that relevant traffic is directed to the business blog.

In summary, a blog is a great way to promote a business. A number of advantages can be gained as long as the business plans well and takes the steps to properly promote its new blog.

Aubrey Jones is President and founder of Riverbank Consulting, Inc. Through Webs 4 Small Business he is able to bring SEO and other internet services to Small Business owners. He has been in the technology and internet industry for over 10 years building and managing large commercial internet services.

I use a 10 step guide to setting up and starting all of my blogs.

I will give you a list of the top 10 resources later that I use and recommend to everyone who is serious about making lots of money online. One of the vital aspects people seem to miss out when they first get into blogging is the fact that their blog must contain information that people want to read.

Many bloggers are looking through closed eyes in this regard and if you browse through 50 blogs you will notice that most will tell you they know How to Make Money with Blogs when really all they tell you is where they went on their vacation or how many cars they have.

Are you ready to learn How to Make Money Blogging?

If the answer is YES then read on and start to make money with your blog. I am not here to tell you how to write your blog, that&s up to you, but what I am about to tell you is the 10 things I use to make money on the internet. You can choose to use these techniques or not, that&s your prerogative.

Step 1 – Finding a Topic

Turn off your computer, grab a pen and some paper and sit somewhere you can relax but also stay focused (if you are just starting out this step can be a pain because we all want to know How to Make Money Online and we want to know how to make it NOW). Think of a topic you are interested in and write it down (this helps because you will be more committed to trying instead of giving up in a day or two) and also make sure it is something other people are interested in too. A couple of ways I use to think of a topic is by using MetaSpy to find out what people are searching for, Ask IQ to find what&s popular and VRE Toolbar to find out how many people search for the topic (this is also useful later on to get traffic). Write down your top five keywords, you will want to use them later in your blog.

Step 2 – Create Your Blog

Find and create your blog online. I like to use Blogger but other popular Blog platforms are Wordpress and Movable Type. You can find all the help in the program you use to get information when setting up the blog. Create your content, make it original, and make it informative. This is one of the main keys to learn How to Make Money with Blogs. You need to include the keywords you wrote down in Step 1 in the content of your blog. Try not to overuse these as it sends out bad signals to the search engines, and this is 100% not what you want.

Step 3 – Go Google

Sign up for Google Adsense and insert the code in the margin of your blog. You can customize your ads in many ways, such as including text links or image links. I prefer the text links only, as they are easier to blend in with your blog and don’t take the focus away from the information. Google Adsense will probably not make you a millionaire but it is an instant way of generating a small amount of money.

If you want to track where your visitors are coming from with regards to direct hits or from search engine results then I would suggest you use Google Analytics and again you can get all the help you need setting that up from within the program.

You will also want to add your URL to Google&s index.

Step 4 – Find Something to Sell

If you don’t want to sell anything and are happy with the income Google Adsense is bringing in then you can skip this step. If you want to maximize your income and truly learn How to Make Money with Blogs you will want to find an affiliate program to join. A couple of affiliate programs I would suggest are ClickBank and Commission Junction. You can sell anything from office furniture, pet supplies, movies and clothing to PC games, Dieting tips and Audio software.

Whatever program you join will give you help inserting the code you will need to insert into your blog, but be sure you do this correctly or you WILL NOT earn money from your visitors. If you do not know how to edit HTML, W3Schools HTML tutorial is a great place to start.

Step 5 – Social Bookmarking

There is no better advertising than word of mouth, but the next best thing is social bookmarking. You will want to make things easier for people to do this. Social bookmarking sites I use and recommend are OnlyWire and SocialMarker and they are used for people to share their bookmarks or websites that they have liked with other people in their online community.

I would not suggest you add your own links to these services, but provide visitors to your website the ability to do so.

Step 6 – Write an Article

Whether your blog is about a specific product, for example a certain MP3 Player you are promoting, or just about giving people information, I would suggest you to write an article or a review of it. Most article directories require articles of 500 words and over so I would use this as a rule when writing to ensure your article is published.

Submit your article to any of the 100&s which are out there. I personally use a few of the Top Article directories such as EzineArticles, Article Dashboard, Amazines.com, isnare and SearchWarp. I also use a nifty piece of software called Article Submitter which will submit your articles to over 600 article directories, which saves you lots of time and leaves you to focus on writing your blogs.

Step 7 – Ping The Hell Out Of It

Every time you add new information to your blog, you want to let the blog directories know about it, this is known as pinging. Some Blog providers automatically send out pings when you update, but to be on the safe side you will want to do this manually too. ONLY PING WHEN YOU UPDATE.

There are a couple of Ping sites I use which will send a ping to multiple blog directories at the same time. PingMyBlog would be my first port of call and then if for some reason that site is down I would use Ping-o-matic. Remember, to only ping when you update or you could get blacklisted, and that is bad.

Step 8 – Yahoo! Answers and Forums

One of the easiest ways to get targeted visitors to your blog is to make use of the people you want to target. I would suggest you sign up to at LEAST one forum in the topic you are writing about, and don’t just go straight in there and start posting comments for people to look at your blog, they won’t.

The secret is to add the link to your blog in your signature and actively become a member of the forum, posting relevant topics and starting debates within them. The more you post, the more your link will show, and if you provide someone with good info the chances are higher they will click your link.

Yahoo! Answers is along the same lines as forums but the beauty of this is it’s viewed by thousands of visitors each day. If you don’t already have a Yahoo! account get one and then login and search for questions relating to the topic of your blog and answer them well. You can then insert the link to your blog and as with the forums, if you answer well you may have not only earned yourself a point or two on Yahoo!, but also earned a visitor to your blog.

Step 9 – Update Your Blog

This can be by several means, one is to add new reviews or content to your blog, and if you are going to do this I suggest updating every couple of days. This helps to keep the search engines happy as they love to see new and original content.

Another way of updating your blog and keeping the content fresh is to add RSS feeds to it. Make sure the feeds are relevant to your blog and provide visitors with helpful information. Visitors to a World of Warcraft blog don’t want to read feeds about knitting, or do they?

Step 10 – More, More, More

Repeat steps 1 – 10, this is the only way How to Make Money Blogging.

Step 11 – A Bonus Step

If you have your own product or newsletter, give your visitors an easy way to sign up to receive updates or information. This helps you to contact the visitor again with more great info or products you wish to sell.

How to Make Money Online is easy if you follow the above steps.

Some important things to remember so you don’t get disheartened with your blog is the fact that you will not become a millionaire overnight, it takes hard work and a lot of effort. If you are really serious about learning How to Make Money with Blogs then stick with it and eventually you will have an Ah-Ha moment. This is when things start to work and you think to yourself Ah-Ha, that&s how they do it. Your moment could be sooner than you think.

My Top 10 resources I use and recommend are:

1. Rob Benwell&s Blogging to The Bank 2.0
2. Wordpress Goldmine
3. Rob Atherton&s Building A Blog Empire For Profit
4. The Blog Challenge
5. Hinge Marketing Magic
6. Blogging For Riches – Complete Video Tutorial
7. Social Bookmarking Demon
8. Adsense Inbox
9. Wordpress SEO Sniper
10. RSS, Blogs and Syndication…

It has become pretty obvious that blogs have been become an important part of marketing for almost any type of online business. They are unmatched resources when it comes to connecting with customers and potential customers.

But, there is an additional benefit that shouldn&t be over-looked: there impact on your Search Engine Optimization efforts. Blogging can greatly enhance any websites natural search results through regular postings, and natural keyword placement. There in fact is no stronger way to market ones website for free than by blogging with natural keywords.

Similar to article marketing, posting daily blogs with the keywords of your business included can have remarkable effects on the ranking of your site in any given search engine, and thus net you more traffic. One key to gaining more traffic from keywords is to use ‘niche’ keywords. These are keywords or keyword phrases that may be searched for less often, but that have less competition. This means you may be able to rank much higher for these keyword. An example: The keyword term “baseball” is certainly searched for often, but there are millions of websites optimized around this keyword. However a keyword phrase like “Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz news” would have fewer competitors. The longer keyword also increases the likelihood that your blog contains exactly what the visitor is looking for.

Getting picked up in search engines can lead to increase volumes of traffic heading to your site every day. There are top keyword placers that use blogs to retain huge amounts of daily traffic to their sites just by integrating a variety of niche keywords into their posts. The amazing thing about blogs is they are often picked up by the search engines almost as quickly as one posts to it, which makes it an even more powerful tool for SEO purposes. Our experience has been that blogs that take advantage of Google&s Blogger or Wordpress are quickly indexed.

Another way blogging can help your site’s search engine ranking is by the quality score. Most search engines, including Google rank sites with a quality score, the more unique, user provided content, the higher it appears the quality score becomes. If a website is just a sales page, and a few pictures, the quality score will most likely be low. But if a site has a blog on it, with fresh, daily posts, the quality score becomes much better, and thus the site gets ranked much higher when people are searching for your niche, or keyword terms.

If you haven&t considered a blog for the pure marketing aspect of it, it’s probably time you considered it from the SEO perspective. You&ve got nothing to loss but website visitors.

Getting started is easy. Just head over to www.blogger.com and setup your blog. Alternatively if you want a more feature rich platform, consider getting your own domain and web hosting so you can take advantage of freeware like Wordpress. Many people start with Blogger then move to Wordpress once they grow in confidence,

Pick a topic you are really interested in and which has good keyword traffic (these are the words people use to search for things in search engines). DigitalPoint has a free keyword tool that is very easy to use. You can also check your keyword (or tag) out at Technorati to see how popular it is. In general, the most popular keywords are the most profitable.

Now, all you need to do, is ensure you post something every day, then when the post is done tell the world that you have updated your blog. You do this by issuing a ‘ping’. Platforms like Wordpress do this automatically. If you use Blogger then you must use a service like Pingomatic to do it for you.

As the number of your posts increase, search engines will regularly stop by to pick up new content. Your visitors will begin to grow. Your objective is to get as many visitors as possible to visit your blog. The more people who visit your blog the more money you will make.

Make no mistake, the opportunity is there. The top blogs make in excess of $10,000 per month. But be warned, there are no shortcuts. Lots of hard work, unique fresh content and a dash of inspiration and you too can achieve these returns.

By now you will have put in the hard work to develop your weblog. It’s become a labor of love. Now its time for all that hard work to pay off. Here are some suggestions for making money with your blog:

(1) One of the most popular methods of making money with blogs is to host ads. Google Adsense is a good example. You let Google put their ads on your site and get paid when people click on the ads. Other advertising works in a similar way. Blogads, Adbrite, Chikita and Double click are other examples of paid advertising.

(2) For a fee you can allow people to place links to their blog or website on your blog. These advertising positions can be sold on Ebay, via somewhere like TextLink Brokers or directly from your site.

(3) Affiliate programs work on blogs as well as they work on websites. Affiliate with companies that sell products related to your site. When people click on the link in your blog and purchase a product, you profit. This is another way of making money online with blogs that doesn’t cost you anything. If you are passionate about a product and write about it, this can work very well.

(4) If you have a website, blog about some aspect of it and provide a link. Your weblog can effectively sell the product, and all the customer has to do is click to your site and order it.

There are many ways to make money with your blog. I hope this simple guide helps you on the way to earning a good return.

As a parting piece of advice, don’t believe the hype you read. There are no short cuts. You are unlikely to make instant, riches, but with some hard work and great content, you can generate a good additional income from your blog.

Factors Affecting Page Rank

Search engine optimization (SEO) is simply the method of increasing a web site’s ranking in search engine results listing. According to an article by SEO experts, the top ten ranking factors that can influence a web document’s rank at the major search engines like Yahoo!, MSN, Google and AskJeeves for a particular term or phrase are the following: Title Tag, Anchor Text of Links, Keyword Use in Document Text, Accessibility of Document, Links to Document from within the Site (Internal Pages), Primary Subject Matter of Site, External Links to Linking Pages, Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community, Global Link Popularity of Site, and Keyword Spamming. Note, however, that although keyword density does affect page rank it is often frowned on as is considered to be a questionable technique when it is over 10 to 20% the actual content since it appears to be spamming then.

The Effect of Fresh Content in SEO

It is not enough for your website to apply the other SEO techniques like meta tag optimization and link analysis. Fresh content, meaning relevant content delivered on a regular basis is imperative to a successful SEO. Although not mentioned as one of the top ten ranking factor, one of the recurring factors affecting page rank mentioned in SEO articles is content. Not just any content but the freshness and consistency of content. Since it is a factor mentioned in many existing articles I’ve come across, common sense dictates that the freshness of content is indeed an important factor in page ranking. Major search engines like Google are known to rank pages not only according to the relevancy of the content but also according to how fresh the content is. Dated content can lower the page rank of an otherwise well designed website and ruin SEO efforts. A fresh content on the other hand will contribute to the success of search engine optimization.

Ways to Deliver Fresh Content on a Regular Basis

However for SEO to be successful the fresh content delivered by the website should be in a form that is readable to search engine. Ordinary content writers, of course wouldn’t know how to make their content readable by search engines. The good news is that there is no special effort needed on the part of content writer to make their content readable by search engines. All that is needed is a good dynamic, database driven content management system (CMS).

Content management systems might seem hard to manage but they are actually relatively easy once you get the hang of it and get past the learning stage. Learning to use them can, however, prove to be tricky. It is best to get the help of web developers when setting up a website’s content management system. CMSs are however very useful especially for websites with multiple users who can contribute to the site’s content. Mambo and PHPNuke are recommended for starters.

Another way to deliver fresh content at a regular basis is by using a weblog. Maintaining a weblog is an easy and cost effective way of updating your site. A good weblog should always be frequently updated, full of rich and informative articles, and should allow readers to post comments. According to an article by Matt Foster, aside from the ability to add fresh content regularly, a weblog integrated in your website will also achieve the following desirable results:

• It will increase the amount of inbound links to your website
• It will increase the frequency at which the web search engines will spider or crawl your website ( this is due to the frequent update in content )
• It will increase the interactivity for the web user; and
• It will ultimately improve your search engine ranking.

Two of examples of good easy to use blogging tools that can be integrated into websites are Blogger and Wordpress.

For those who are a bit more tech savvy and know how to use Macromedia Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver is a design software that can help you update your website with more control. With Dreamweaver you can add or change not only the written content but the whole look from color schemes to fonts and even the layout of your website. But if you do not have a need for such control over your website and feel a bit daunted by Dreamweaver, Macromedia Contribute would be a good option. There are, of course other design software out there, which you can use.

The Importance of Fresh Content Beyond SEO

After learning how to regularly deliver fresh content to optimize your website’s rank it is important to know that its importance and effect to your website goes way beyond that. Aside from the success it contributes to SEO efforts, fresh content will not only get the website noticed by search engines but is imperative in keeping the website audience. People usually go on the net not just for relevant information but for timely information as well. After the search engines show a website as a result of a search string and people get to visit the site it is up to the fresh content to convince the people to keep on coming back to the site. If the website content is outdated and is updated rather infrequently and erratically, the chances of the target audience going back to the site on a regular basis, if at all, will be rather slim. Even the best SEO efforts will be wasted if the target audience decides that the website is not worth visiting. Therefore fresh content really is one of the keys to a successful SEO and thus a successful website.

Okay, now what? Add the ten essential blogging tools listed below and you will also be well on your way to creating and promoting a blog that is a powerful marketing tool. I’ll explain the use of the tool and offer some suggestions, including the tools I use on my own blogs including the DuctTapeMarketing blog.

Feed reader

The best way to learn about blogs and blogging is to read, or at least scan, lots of blogs. One of the wonders of blogs is that you can have every new post from every blog you want to read delivered to your desktop or to online location via RSS, so you can easily read and scan the posts of many blogs in a very short time. Newsgator is a good online choice for feed reading and also has a version that integrates with Outlook. I use a free online service know as Bloglines. http://www.bloglines.com

Subscriber center

You need to make it easy for your blog visitors to subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed – so they can read your blog in their favorite feed reader. The best way to do this is to go to FeedBurner and burn your own RSS feed their and use the tools they provide to set up automatic subscriber links so people who want to use Bloglines, Google Reader, MyYahoo or Pluck, for instance, can click on one button to subscribe. Tech types can figure this out without the buttons but why not make it easy for anyone to figure out.

Side note – subscribe to each of these yourself and you will force some blog spiders to visit your site. http://www.feedburner.com

Email subscription option

A lot of people will never get the whole feed thing, but everyone gets email. Create an option for people to subscribe by giving you their email address – they will simply receive your blog posts like an email message. FeedBurner offers this service for free. FeedBlitz is another option or, if you already have an autoresponder email list service they may offer this service. AWeber offers this and helps me integrate these blog email subscribers into my other mailing lists.

Blog and RSS directories

There are hundreds of blog and RSS directories and getting listed in many can be a good thing. I use a piece of software called RSS Submit, but you can also visit Robin Goode’s frequently updated list and submit your blog and feed by hand.

Hint: subscribe to the RSS feed he offers and you will be notified when new directories are added.

Ping service

Pinging is a term used for letting the various blog and RSS directories know when you have posted new content. Again, FeedBurner offers this as an automatic option called PingShot and you should activate it. PingGoat and Ping O Matic are other options but they require that you visit and update your record each time you post new content.

Bookmark manager

As you surf around the web or hop from blog to blog you may find sites that you want to point out to your readers. Online bookmark managers allow you to bookmark and categorize web and blog pages as you collect them and are a great tool for managing all of the stuff you find on the web. I use del.icio.us but BlinkList does a fine job as well. http://del.icio.us

Blog stats

I like to track a few key stats in real time because it shows what other blogs might be linking to you or posting about your blog. A lot of people just like to track this kind of thing for fun and frequently visit sites like Technorati. I like to track it for networking opportunities. I use a tool called MyBlogLog because it allows me to see where traffic is coming from but also tracks what links on my blog visitors are clicking on. It’s amazing how this data can help you write more effectively. (MyBlogLog also ranks your links so visitors can see which links on your site are the most popular.)

Desktop posting

With most blog software you must go online and post using a set of tools provided by the blog software. Many bloggers like to use a desktop application to create and submit their posts as it gives them some extra tools and allows them to more easily integrate content and files on their computer. http://w.blogger.com

I use w.blogger but also like Performancing, Qumana and ecto (apple folks) (w.blogger also doubles as a really simple HTML editor.)

Tell a friend script

My blog software (pMachine) has a feature that allows a reader to click a link and send the post to a friend. This tactic brings me lots of readers. You might try looking here for some simple scripts that do that same
http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/tellafriend.shtml
http://www.stadtaus.com/en/php_scripts/tell_a_friend_script/

Republish your feed headlines

The ability to republish your blog posts on other web pages, sites you own or sites of strategic partners is a great way to expose folks to you blog content. One more time we turn to FeedBurner for a painless way to republish your blog post to any web page you choose with something they call BuzzBoost