Growing or Downsizing Your Blog
Posted by Blogger Templateson
July 25, 2009
Considering that a wide world of opportunity is open to bloggers and
Blogger users, you may want to prepare yourself for future success by
finding out how to grow or downsize your blog.
As you spend time blogging and become more familiar with Blogger and the
overall blogosphere, you might find yourself in a position to add blogs to
your Blogger account — or even to delete a blog. The day might also come
when you want to cancel your entire Blogger account. This chapter shows
you how to accomplish these tasks.
As your blogging experience and know-how increases, you may decide to
start a team blog. Setting up multiuser blogs is easy in Blogger, and this chapter
shows you how to do it. You can even find out how to join and leave other
people’s team blogs.
Checking Your Page Rank and Links
Posted by Blogger Templateson
July 25, 2009
An important part of search engine optimization success is tracking the
results of your efforts. Two simple ways to track your ongoing success
include checking your page rank and checking the number of incoming links
to your blog. A variety of Web sites offer free page rank and link checker
tools. The following list describes some of the most common ways to check
both your blog’s page rank and incoming links:
? Incoming links according to Google Web search: Visit www.google.
com and enter the text link:www.yourblogname.com in the search box.
The returned results show you the pages that link to your blog.
? Incoming links according to Google Blog Search: Visit www.blog
search.google.com and enter link:www.yourblogname.com in the
search box. The returned results show you a list of blogs that link to
yours.
? Comprehensive information from Google Webmaster Tools: Visit
www.google.com/webmasters/tools and set up an account to get
comprehensive information about your blog.
? Incoming links according to Yahoo!: Visit www.yahoo.com and enter
linkdomain:www.yourblogname.com in the search box. The returned
results show you pages that link to your blog according to the comprehensive
Yahoo! Site Explorer tools.
? Incoming links according to Technorati: Visit www.technorati.com/
blogs/yourblogname.com?reactions? (replace the italics with your
blog name). The returned results show you blogs that link to yours.
? Incoming links according to Marketleap: Visit www.marketleap.com/
services/freetools/default.htm and click the link for the free
Link Popularity Check tool. Complete the online form to find a wealth of
information about incoming links to your blog. Marketleap also offers a
free keyword verification tool and a free search engine saturation tool.
Take some time to experiment with these tools to see how they can help
you analyze your blog’s performance.
? Incoming links according to PRChecker.info: Many Web sites offer free
tools for checking your page rank. Simply enter page rank checker into
the Google search box, and a variety of results is returned. PRChecker.
info is a commonly used tool: Visit www.prchecker.info/check_
page_rank.php and enter your blog’s URL in the text box. Click the
Check PR button, and your Google page rank is automatically returned.
You can also add Google Page Rank buttons to your blog’s sidebar by
using PRChecker.info.
Alternatively, you can set up a Google Alert so that each time another blog or
Web site links to yours, you receive an e-mail notification message. To do so,
follow these steps:
1. Visit Google Alerts at www.google.com/alerts.
This step opens the Google Alerts page, shown in Figure 13-7.
2. Enter link:www.yourblogname.com in the Search Terms text box.
This step tells Google Alerts that you want to be notified anytime a blog
or Web site links to your blog.
3. From the Type drop-down menu, choose the Comprehensive option.
This step configures your alert to notify you of all results from multiple
sources (news, Web, and blogs, for example) rather than just specific
types of results.
4. From the How Often drop-down menu, specify how often you want to
receive updates.
You can choose to receive updates as they happen, once per day, or
once per week.
5. Enter your e-mail address in the Your Email field.
The e-mail address entered in this box is where your Google alerts are
sent.
Although each of these tools provides results that you can use for analysis,
keep in mind that none of them is 100 percent accurate. If you use more than
one tool, you’re likely to notice that your results differ from one tool to the
next. A variety of reasons lurk behind the scenes, but the important thing to
remember is that these tools can give you a basic idea of your blog’s popularity
and position within the blogosphere.
Using SEO to Increase Your Search Engine Ranking
Posted by Blogger Templateson
July 25, 2009
You can use a variety of activities and tactics both on and off your blog to
boost your search engine rankings. Similarly, you can do things that hurt
your search engine rankings. Google, the most popular search engine, might
even drop your blog from its search results entirely for certain actions you
might take. The following sections provide some tips for things you can
do, and can avoid doing, if you want to generate more traffic from search
engines.
Using SEO tips and tricks
Search engine optimization can seem daunting, but you can take a number of
simple actions to boost your rankings. Try the suggestions described in the
following list on your own blog and start driving search traffic to your posts:
? Use your keyword or keyword phrase in your blog post titles. Search
engines weigh titles more heavily than other text, so do your best to
include your keywords in your post titles.
? Use your keyword or keyword phrase within the first paragraph of
your blog post. Search engines value the text within the first few hundred
characters of your post more heavily than other text, so be sure to
repeat your keywords in this part of your post.
? Use your keyword or keyword phrase as hyperlinks within your blog
posts. Make sure that the hyperlinks within your blog posts include your
keywords when it’s appropriate. For example, rather than write “Read
more here,” with the word here as the hyperlink, write “Follow the link
to read more about parenting tips,” with parenting tips as the hyperlink.
Search engines value linked text higher than normal text, so use that
concept to your advantage by using keywords in your links.
? Use heading tags and include your keywords within them. Rather than
simply make headings and subheads boldface, apply the HTML H1, H2,
and H3 tags to that text. These tags are valued higher by search engines
than normal or bolded text is.
? Use your keyword or keyword phrase around links in your posts.
Search engines value the text surrounding links within your posts higher
than normal text, so if you can’t use your keywords within a link, try to
use them in the text surrounding the links.
? Use your keyword or keyword phrase to name images used in your posts.
Take a moment to rename images used in your blog posts to include your
keywords when those keywords are relevant to the image. Enter a descriptor
using your keywords in the alt tag (the alternative text if the image
doesn’t appear in the person’s Web browser) of your post’s HTML.
? Include your keyword phrase in your blog’s URL. If you can get a
domain name that includes your keywords, you hit the jackpot. When
possible, try to include keywords in some part of each blog post’s URL.
? Ask for incoming links from similar sites. Leverage your online relationships,
as described earlier in this chapter, to boost incoming links
to your blogs. Links from topically similar blogs and Web sites are
weighted more heavily than those from irrelevant sites. Similarly, links
from popular blogs and Web sites are weighted more heavily than links
from blogs and Web sites that have little traffic and lower page ranks.
? Use variations of your keyword or keyword phrase. Don’t feel tied
down to a specific keyword or keyword phrase. Search engine algorithms
are intelligent, and they accordingly understand and rank variations
of a word or phrase used within your blog posts.
? Intralink your blog posts. Although links within your own blog aren’t
valued as highly as external links by search engines are, they’re still
important. Internal links are given some weight in search engine rankings,
but more importantly, they lead visitors to more content, which
can provide more opportunities for visitors to find content of interest
that they want to link to from their own blogs or Web sites.
? Post frequently. Your posting frequency has an indirect effect on your
search engine traffic. With each new keyword-optimized blog post, you
increase the chances that someone will find your blog, enjoy the content
and link to it, and generate more incoming links, which search engines
value highly.
? Comment on other blogs and in online forums and groups.
Commenting is useful in terms of indirect search engine optimization
because it can lead new visitors to your blog who might enjoy what they
read there and link to it from their own blogs and Web sites — thereby
boosting your search rankings.
? Build relationships. With each new relationship you build online, you
develop another portal for sharing information and potential incoming
links.
? Write useful content. The bottom line is that you should write posts
that people want to link to.
Hurting your ranking by
making simple mistakes
As you begin driving traffic from search engines to your blog, you can easily
fall into traps that can have the opposite effect on your blog. Search engines
such as Google don’t typically give Web sites or blogs a second chance after
they’re caught doing something that the search engine doesn’t like. Often,
you have no recourse. The difficult part of search engine optimization is that
sites such as Google don’t tell people what they did wrong to end up being
blacklisted. With that in mind, heed some of the following warnings to stay on
Google’s good side.
? Don’t keyword stuff. Use a keyword or keyword phrase, but don’t plaster
it all over your blog. Keyword stuffing is a big no-no as far as search
engines are concerned. If you’re found keyword stuffing, your blog
is flagged as spam and is likely to be removed from Google searches
entirely.
? Don’t hide keywords. Don’t try to hide keyword stuffing by including
your keywords at the bottom of your pages in an extremely small font
or in a color that matches your blog’s background. Search engines find
them and punish you for it.
? Don’t buy links or publish links that are paid for. Search engines don’t
like text link ads that don’t use the NoFollow tag because they give the
purchaser an unnaturally inflated number of incoming links. Both the
purchaser and the publisher are then penalized harshly.
? Don’t publish sponsored posts without using the NoFollow tag. Just
as search engines don’t tolerate link buying in the form of text link
ads, they also don’t like it in the form of sponsored posts. If you’re
caught writing posts for payment that include specific keyword links
without the NoFollow tag, your blog can be removed from search engine
rankings.
? Don’t go link-trading-crazy. You may be tempted to try to trade links
with as many other blogs and Web sites as possible, but this strategy
doesn’t boost your search engine rankings. Instead, invest your time in
building relationships with key bloggers and Web site authors who publish
content similar to yours. These links are far more valuable to your
search engine optimization efforts.
Think quality, not quantity.
? Don’t include a high quantity of irrelevant links to external pages
within your blog posts. Again, quality wins over quantity. Linking to
sites related to yours that offer high-quality content groups your blog
with those other sites as far as search engines are concerned and gives
your blog better rankings.
? Avoid companies that offer pie-in-the-sky search engine optimization
claims. Always research a search engine optimization company before
you pay for any services. Many companies that claim immediate, drastic
results simply operate link farms that have exactly the opposite effect
on your blog’s search engine results than you want.
? Never copy content from another page or Web site. Search engines
don’t tolerate copying content from another page within your own blog
(an entire page of content), but they tolerate it even less if they catch
you copying someone else’s content. Copying content from another site
(scraping) is not only a spam technique but also a violation of copyright
laws. Instead, create original, compelling content.
? Don’t limit your search engine optimization efforts to Google. Sure,
Google is the world’s largest search engine, but it can also be the most
competitive for boosting your rankings and traffic. Take some time to
invest your search engine optimization efforts in search engines such
as Yahoo! and MSN. Spend time tracking your success on those sites as
well as on Google.
? Don’t give up. Keep search engine optimization in mind every time you
write a blog post. You never know which post might be the one that will
drive lots of traffic to your blog!
The do’s and don’ts listed in this chapter refer primarily to blog posts, but
don’t forget to apply these techniques to other parts of your blog, including
your sidebar elements.
No one knows the criteria used by search engines to deliver keyword search
results. If you’re serious about implementing search engine optimization techniques
on your blog, research SEO online and stay current with the changes
and opinions of the experts.
Understanding Search Engine Optimization
Posted by Blogger Templateson
July 25, 2009
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of creating or modifying your
Web pages to increase their rankings in search engine queries. You might
think of it this way: If you write a blog about parenting, for example, would
people find your blog if they type the word parenting into their preferred
search engines? Unfortunately, the answer is probably not. Why? It’s simple,
really. Millions of Web sites and Web pages discuss parenting. A Google
search using the search term parenting returns nearly 92 million results, as
shown in Figure 13-1. With all that competition, how can you make your blog
posts rise to the top? One answer is search engine optimization.
Implementing SEO tactics on your blog is just one key to the search success
model — you also need to work on increasing your blog’s page rank by writing
useful content, networking, and generating lots of incoming links, particularly
from popular sites. Post frequently to provide numerous entry points to
your blog, and keep learning, tweaking, and testing to find what works best
for you, your blog, and your visitors. In other words, there’s no quick solution
and no simple answer to blogging success. It takes time, patience, and
effort to develop a popular blog. However, you can take steps to reach your
blogging goals, and SEO is one of those steps.
Driving traffic to your blog
The vast majority of search engine-related blog traffic comes from Google
and Yahoo! followed by MSN, AOL, and Ask. Google and Yahoo control more
than 50 percent of the online search market, so it’s safe to say that in the
beginning stages of your SEO efforts, focusing on those two search engines
is a less intimidating route to follow. Search engines use proprietary criteria
to crawl (or search through), rate, and index pages then match those pages
to keyword queries based on a variety of factors. No one truly knows the factors
used to rank search results, and just when someone thinks that he has
figured it out, the algorithms undoubtedly change. A few elements seem to
be standard. Results are typically delivered based on three primary factors:
links that help to define the site’s overall popularity, content that helps to
determine what the page is about, and frequency of updating which shows
the site is active.
So how can you optimize your blog posts for search if no one knows search
engine criteria used to rank pages? Of course, you can always hire a professional
SEO expert to help you, but that’s not usually in the beginner blogger’s
budget. Instead, the average blogger usually does some research and tries
to implement a handful of tactics to give her blog a boost in overall search
engine rankings for targeted keywords.
Using keyword analysis
To find information they’re interested in, people enter keywords and keyword
phrases into search engine query fields. The search engine returns
relevant results and ranks them for users to scroll through and select results
that appeal to them. Most people don’t look beyond the first few pages of
search results, which typically place ten results on a page. Unless your blog
appears within the first 30 or so results for a specific keyword search, therefore,
people are unlikely to find your blog by using engines.
Not all the news is bad, however. With each new blog post you write, you
create a new entry point for your blog. You can optimize each post for search
engines in order to exponentially boost your chances of people finding your
blog by way of search engines. In other words, each blog post gives you a
new opportunity to create content that focuses on keywords your audience
uses to find content. Your goal is to write useful content on your blog so that
when a person finds it by using a search engine, she’s compelled to click
through and visit additional posts. The ultimate goal is to convert that search
traffic into loyal readers.
Of course, keyword-targeted posts can drive traffic, but unless those keywords
are relevant to your overall blog content, don’t expect visitors who
find your blog by searching for those irrelevant keywords to stay for long,
and they certainly won’t become loyal readers. When people who want to
find the type of content you publish on your blog open their preferred search
engines and type their queries, they use certain keywords. Your goal is to
write posts that contain those keywords.
It pays to be specific. Using the example mentioned earlier in this chapter, if
your blog is about parenting, you need to determine your overall niche or the
niches of your individual blog posts. Rising to the top ten in a Google search
for the keyword parenting is nearly impossible because so much competition
exists, including competition from some of the top Web sites now online that
have deep pockets and phenomenal reputations.
Many bloggers use keyword analysis tools to determine which keywords to
focus on in their blog posts in order to boost search engine traffic to their
blogs. An easy and free way to determine the popularity of keywords is to
create a Google AdWords account and pretend that you’re an advertiser.
AdWords pay-per-click advertisers have to determine which keywords people
are searching for, so they can bid on them to maximize the success of their
ads. You can do the same thing and search for keywords related to your
blog’s content that are driving high bids. Then use those words within your
blog posts.
It isn’t necessary to bid on keywords to use AdWords for your keyword
analysis.
To create a Google AdWords account, visit http://adwords.google.com
and click the Start Now button shown in Figure 13-2.
If you prefer, you can use a version of the Google AdWords Keywords tool
without creating a Google AdWords account: Visit https://adwords.
google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal, as shown in Figure 13-3.
Simply enter a keyword and click the Get Keyword Ideas button, and a list of
keyword suggestions is displayed with average search volume statistics and
search volume statistics for previous months, as shown in Figure 13-4.
Use the Choose Columns to Display drop-down menu to see as many as seven
columns of data, as shown in Figure 13-5. You can also use the Match Type
drop-down menu to display broad, phrase, or negative results, and you can
scroll to the bottom of the list of related keywords to find links that let you
save the results as a text, Microsoft Excel, or CSV file.
If you’re serious about search engine optimization and prepared to invest
some money into keyword analysis, you can open an account with a keyword
research Web site like Wordtracker (www.Wordtracker.com). Simply go to
the Wordtracker home page and click the Buy Now link (see Figure 13-6).
Wordtracker offers a wide variety of tools and reports to help you narrow the
list of which keywords you should focus on in your blog posts to maximize
potential traffic. Other options similar to Wordtracker include the ones at
www.Wordze.com and www.KeywordDiscovery.com. Like Wordtracker,
each of these sites requires paying a fee, but free trials are available so you
can test drive-them before you pay anything out of your pocket.
Boosting popularity by using links
Another critical component to search engine optimization success is link
building — particularly, attracting incoming links from popular Web sites.
Search engines rank sites with many incoming links higher than those with
few incoming links. The reason is that search engines are programmed to
assume that sites with many incoming links contain useful content that
people want to link to. In other words, if the content on a site is terrible, no
one wants to link to it, but useful content attracts many links. Your goal in
search engine optimization is to attract incoming links, particularly incoming
links from popular, authoritative blogs and Web sites.
The best way to attract incoming links is to write excellent blog posts that
people want to share. Other bloggers are a likely source for incoming links,
but even online news and media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and
New York Times have been known to link to individual blog posts. Those links
are valuable to beginner bloggers!
You can increase your incoming links by making the most of your online relationships
in the following ways:
? Use social bookmarking, social networking, and microblogging to share
links to useful posts, as described in detail in Chapter 12.
? Write content for multiple Web sites and interlink them.
? Write articles for online publications related to your blog’s topic.
? E-mail top bloggers or news organizations who might be interested in
sharing your posts.
? Don’t be afraid to “toot your own horn” when you think you have something
interesting to share.
Outgoing links are also important to search engine optimization. Search
engines value linked text, and as far as Google is concerned, the links within
your blog posts as well as the text around the links within your blog posts are
rated as more important than the other text within your blog posts. Use relevant
keywords in your links whenever possible to make sure search engines
see them and weight them accordingly. Search engine optimization tips are
discussed in more detail later in this chapter.
A key component to SEO success is building relationships with other bloggers
and Web site authors who are likely to link to, share, and promote your
content.
Boosting Your Search Engine Ranking
Posted by Blogger Templateson
July 25, 2009
One statistic that you as a blogger are likely to be interested in during
the course of your blogging endeavors is how people find your site.
You’re likely to learn over time that the vast amount of traffic to your blog
comes from search engines. Popular search engines include Google, Yahoo!,
MSN, AOL, and Ask, but many others are also available to Web surfers. The
key to blogging success is to find ways to help those Web surfers find your
blog as a result of their search engine queries. That’s where search engine
optimization comes into play.
This chapter isn’t meant to provide a comprehensive look at search engine
optimization but rather, an overview of how you can begin thinking about
search engine optimization as you develop your blog. When you’re ready
to dive into search engine optimization, I recommend that you read Search
Engine Optimization For Dummies, Third Edition, by Peter Kent (Wiley), and
spend some time reading Web sites dedicated to the topic, such as www.
SeoMoz.com.
Microblogging for Blog Traffic
Posted by Blogger Templateson
July 25, 2009
Microblogging, a relatively new tool of the social Web, allows users to publish
short blog posts or messages, typically fewer than 140 characters, through
their computers and mobile phones It’s a helpful way to keep your name in
front of people and to announce and highlight new blog posts, upcoming
events (such as blog contests or carnivals), and more. The possibilities are
virtually limitless! Think of it as free publicity.
When you begin microblogging, you create an account and start publishing
content. You can even include some microblogging feeds in your social networking
profiles, such as in your Facebook account. Microbloggers sign up
to “follow” other microbloggers they like. That’s what makes microblogging
social. When users sign up to follow each other’s content, microblogging
becomes a tool for sharing, networking, and relationship building.
The best part about microblogging is the quick and easy way it allows users
to share news, information, and content. It’s this type of sharing that can
make a post go viral (spread across the Web). The potential exists, at the
least, for news and information to travel quickly online. Microblogging really
just began in 2007, but already millions of people have joined through Web
sites such as Twitter and Plurk.
Twitter
www.twitter.com
You can join Twitter by visiting its home page and clicking the Get Started —
Join button, shown in Figure 12-12. Complete the online form to create a free
Twitter account and then you can start “tweeting!”
Plurk
www.plurk.com
To join Plurk, simply visit the Plurk home page and click the Sign Up for Free
button, shown in Figure 12-13. Complete the online signup form, and you’re
ready to go!
Use microblogging to supplement your blogging efforts by writing short
updates and messages and sharing links, videos, and more. The choice is
yours!
Understanding Social Bookmarking
Posted by Blogger Templateson
July 24, 2009
Social bookmarking is basically having an online list of your favorite Web
links that you can share with others. Rather than save a Web page you like
by using your Web browser’s Favorites or Bookmarks function, you can save
those pages online using a social bookmarking site for access from any computer
at any time.
Have you ever been using a computer that doesn’t belong to you and tried
to find a page that you saved in your home computer’s Favorites menu? The
problem is solved when you use a social bookmarking site to save your favorite
Web pages because, rather than save them on your hard drive, they’re
saved online. You simply log in to your account at the social bookmarking
site and — voilà — all your saved Web pages are available to you. You can
easily find your saved pages by using a social bookmarking site because you
can save them using tags — keywords to help you categorize your saved links
that make it easy to find them later.
Social bookmarking becomes social when you share your bookmarks with
other users. Most social bookmarking sites are set up so that saved links are
automatically available for other users to find when they search for content
using specific tags. Furthermore, many social bookmarking sites use some
kind of voting mechanism that lets users drive links to the home page of the
site for the world to see by simply adding them to their own bookmarks,
which “votes them up.” Alternatively, some social bookmarking sites let
users bury links by “voting them down.”
Promoting your blog by
using social bookmarking
The social aspect of social bookmarking helps bloggers promote their blogs.
If you find a blog post or article online that you think other people will enjoy,
add it to a social bookmarking site. Be sure to
? Include a helpful description: To encourage people to click through to
read your entire submission
? Use relevant keywords: To help people find your submission
The more outstanding content you submit, the better your reputation
becomes on that site. That means more users get to know you, which creates
more relationships that can turn into blog traffic.
Following the rules
Even social bookmarking sites have rules. Keep in mind that these rules are
most important to follow if you’re using social bookmarking sites as a way to
promote your blog and build relationships to that end. If you’re simply using
social bookmarking for your own, personal purposes, you might not have to
be as concerned with these rules. However, you never know how your blog
or online activities can grow and change. One day, you might want to use
social bookmarking sites for more than online storage of personal favorites.
Again, read the rules for each site you use and follow them to ensure your
long-term success.
Following are a couple of rules that are common among social bookmarking
sites:
? Do not submit your own content: Some social bookmarking sites don’t
like users to submit their own content and penalizes users who do so.
Be sure to read the policies and restrictions related to each social bookmarking
site you join so you don’t waste time submitting content that
might be buried immediately. On social bookmarking sites with restrictions
related to submitting your own content, ask your friends or colleagues
to submit your content for you, or post a message in your social
networking profiles to ask your friends and connections to submit your
content for you. That’s just one more way that social networking can
help you to promote your blog!
? Do not submit content from the same site repeatedly: Make sure that
you submit content from a variety of sites, and always submit the original
article source rather than a recap article that merely links to the
original source. In other words, give credit where credit is due. Unless a
post adds a significant contribution to the original article (for example,
a helpful analysis, additional information, or an opinionated review),
always submit the source.
Getting to know the popular
social bookmarking sites
No matter which social bookmarking sites you decide to use, the basic methodologies
behind how they work are similar. Some of the most popular social
bookmarking sites are discussed in this chapter. You can find out about
other commonly used social bookmarking sites in Chapter 17.
Digg
www.Digg.com
Digg is one of the most popular social bookmarking sites. In fact, it’s viewed
more as a social news site because its primary purpose is to share links to
content more so than to bookmark content for personal use. Users submit
content (or “digg” content) by entering the URL, description, and title for the
specific Web page they want to share. They must also select a category that
the content fits into from an automated list, so other users can find it easily.
Recent submissions appear on Digg on an Upcoming page. As other users
find the same content, they can either digg the content if they like it or bury
it if they don’t like it. Doing so can help the content either rise to the home
page of Digg, where millions of people can see it, or fall to a deep page, where
fewer people can find it.
Most bloggers want to see their content appear on the home page of Digg —
which means lots of traffic! However, it’s quite difficult for average users to
find their content rise to the home page of Digg. Much of a user’s success on
Digg comes from the social aspect of the site, where users do the following:
? Make friends with other users.
? Share content.
? Help promote each other’s content.
? Comment on each other’s content.
? Gain increased authority.
If you want to succeed with Digg, you need to be an active user and follow the
rules outlined in the Terms of Use document, found on the Digg Web site, as
well as the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, which provides the most
current information.
You can get started on Digg by clicking the Join Digg link in the top navigation
bar on the Digg home page. Just complete and submit the application to
create your account and then begin submitting content, by following these
steps:
1. Log in to your Digg account and click the Submit New button from the
top navigation bar.
This step opens the Submit a New Link page, as shown in Figure 12-8.
2. Enter the URL for the page you want to submit and then click the
News Article, Video, or Image radio button, depending on the type of
content you’re submitting.
Digg automatically digs through your submission as it processes before
an expanded Submit a New Link window opens, as shown in Figure 12-9.
3. In the Submit a New Link window, enter a title for your submission in
the Title text box.
Make sure that the title you enter is relevant and compelling and fewer
than 60 characters.
4. Enter a description for your submission in the Description text box.
Take a few minutes to write a good description that helps people understand
what the submitted content is about.
5. Click the radio button next to the thumbnail image that you want to
appear with your submission.
Choose the most appropriate thumbnail. If none of them is appropriate,
click the radio button next to the No Thumbnail image.
6. Select the best category that your submission falls into by clicking the
appropriate link in the Choose a Topic section of the form.
Take a moment to pick the most relevant category for your submission.
7. Look at the information in the Preview section of the form to ensure
that your submission looks correct.
Scroll up and make any changes, if necessary.
8. Type the spam-blocker text that’s displayed in the box under the Are
You Human heading.
This step is used to prevent spambots from automatically submitting
content.
9. Click the Submit Story button.
The Are You Sure It’s Not a Duplicate window opens.
10. Scroll through the submissions on the Are You Sure It’s Not a
Duplicate page, to ensure that the content you’re submitting hasn’t
already been submitted to Digg.
11. If your submission is on the list of links already submitted to Digg,
simply click the appropriate link to add your vote. If your submission
is new to Digg, click the Totally Original, I Swear! button at the
bottom of the page.
The Success! Your Story Has Been Submitted! window opens, and you’re
done!
StumbleUpon
www.StumbleUpon.com
StumbleUpon is another popular social bookmarking site where users submit
(or “stumble”) and share links to content they like. The site uses a voting
system that’s fairly similar to the one at Digg. Users stumble content, and
other users vote on the content, giving it a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.
Content that receives a lot of thumbs-ups can make it to the front page of
StumbleUpon and drive a lot of traffic to that site.
To join StumbleUpon, simply click the Join StumbleUpon button on the site’s
home page and complete the online form. After you join, you can add the
StumbleUpon toolbar to your Web browser, which makes it easy to stumble
content with the click of a mouse.
Also similar to the Digg system, StumbleUpon users can add friends to their
networks and use their networks to promote and share specific content. One
of the keys to StumbleUpon success is making many friends and submitting a
lot of excellent content to build your reputation. Although it isn’t against the
rules to submit your own content to StumbleUpon, there’s an unwritten rule
to submit more content that is not yours than content that is yours.
This strategy is easy to follow by using the StumbleUpon toolbar, which
works in popular Web browsers. When you stumble upon a Web page that
you want to share, simply select the thumbs-up icon on your StumbleUpon
toolbar. If the content is new to StumbleUpon, a window automatically opens,
where you can enter details about the submission. If the content has already
been submitted to StumbleUpon, one click of the thumbs-up button (or
thumbs-down button, as the case may be) is all it takes to share the content
you like.
Follow these steps to submit new content to StumbleUpon:
1. When you find a page you want to stumble, simply click the thumbsup
icon from the StumbleUpon toolbar in your browser window.
This step opens the StumbleUpon content submission window, shown in
Figure 12-10.
2. If text automatically populates the Title text box, check to ensure that
it’s accurate.
Be sure to check punctuation marks as well as the text in this box.
3. In the Review text box, enter a description of the content on the page
you’re submitting.
Make sure that the description you enter is relevant and useful.
4. In the Topic section, click the link for the category that’s most appropriate
for your submission.
If you don’t see an appropriate category in the list, use the drop-down
menu to find more categories to choose from.
5. Click the appropriate radio button on the Adult line to identify
whether the submission contains content that’s appropriate only for
adults.
You can’t submit your content unless you click the Yes or No radio
button in the Adult section of the submission form.
6. Use the drop-down menu to select the language that the content is
written in.
The default is English, but a wide variety of language options are available
to choose from.
7. Click the Submit This Site button.
A Rating Submitted message appears, and the window closes automatically.
That’s it. You’re done!
Delicious
www.delicious.com
Delicious is a popular social bookmarking site that works slightly differently
from Digg and StumbleUpon. Rather than submissions being based on topics
and categories, they’re based on keyword tags. The power of Delicious, therefore,
in terms of driving traffic to your blog, comes from the quality of the
keywords chosen to tag your content.
Similar to the social aspect of Digg and StumbleUpon, users submit content
and share it with their networks of friends in order to promote it and
drive traffic to it. The chances of your content making it to the front page of
Delicious, where it can be discovered by the highest number of people, often
depends on the size of your network of Delicious user connections that promote
your submissions.
To sign up for an account with Delicious, click the Join Now link in the upperright
corner of the Delicious home page and complete the online registration
form. After your account is created, you can download Delicious toolbar buttons
so that you can submit content with the click of a mouse. Follow these
steps:
1. When you find a page that you want to bookmark with Delicious, click
the Delicious Tag button from your browser toolbar.
This step opens the Save Bookmark window with the URL field already
populated for the page you want to bookmark, as shown in Figure 12-11.
2. In the Title text box, ensure that the title reads correctly.
If the title field automatically populates with a title for the page you’re
submitting, make sure that it’s accurate. If necessary, correct the title or
enter a new one that’s appropriate.
3. In the Notes text box, enter a description of the content you’re
submitting.
Take the time to write a relevant, useful description.
4. In the Tags field, enter a series of relevant keywords that describe
your submission.
Separate each tag with a space, and take the time to enter keywords that
people would use to search for the type of content you’re submitting.
5. If you’re submitting a piece of content that you don’t want to share
with other people, select the Do Not Share check box.
This feature is useful if you use Delicious to save content for personal
use as well as public use.
6. Click the Save button.
The Save Bookmark window closes and your content is saved to your
Delicious account.
Social bookmarking is unlikely to bring floods of traffic to your blog immediately.
It takes time, practice, networking, and commitment to grow your blog
through social bookmarking, but social bookmarking is one more tool in your
promotional toolbox that you can use to slowly create a well-trafficked blog.
Introducing Social Networking
Posted by Blogger Templateson
July 24, 2009
Social networking is just like traditional face-to-face networking, but rather
than meet and talk to people in person, you do it by using the social Web. A
variety of Web sites allow people to register for memberships, interact with
other members, share content, and develop relationships. Some of those
Web sites are discussed later in this chapter, but you also have ways to network
online without using a specific membership Web site. In other words,
don’t think that social networking occurs on specific sites created solely for
that purpose. Use any opportunity to network online to promote your blog
just as you would if you were networking and promoting a business or yourself
for a new career in face-to-face situations.
Promoting your blog by
using social networking
As discussed earlier in this chapter, responding to comments left on your
blog, leaving comments on other blogs, and linking to other blogs in your
own posts are a few simple ways to meet other bloggers and develop relationships
with them as well as potential new readers to your blog. All these
activities can be considered forms of social networking.
Additionally, you can join one of the many online forums available on just
about any topic you can think of and become an active participant. This strategy
works best when the forums you’re involved with are directly related
to your blog’s topic. You can also include a link to your blog in your e-mail
signature, which gives every person who receives an e-mail from you the
opportunity to discover your blog and possibly become a new networking
connection related to your blog’s topic.
Checking out popular
social networking sites
Social networking can take a variety of forms and purposes, and a wide variety
of social networking Web sites are available. Names such as MySpace,
Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster, and Orkut are just a few of the big players in
the online social networking realm. Where should you start to build a profile,
connect with people, and promote your blog? To get you going, the following
sections provide an overview of three of the most popular social networking
Web sites.
MySpace
www.MySpace.com
In terms of organized social networking, MySpace can be considered a viable
option. If the truth is told, however, MySpace is more than a social networking
tool because it provides far more options than social networking functionality,
such as the ability to create individual blogs. It also allows anyone
to create a MySpace page for any purpose. That means MySpace may not be
useful for all blog topics.
MySpace has a reputation of being the place to be for teenagers and bands
looking to make a break into show business. Although it’s possible for anyone
to set up a MySpace profile and build an online presence from it, some bloggers
(think of a business blog or a highly technical blog) don’t want their
profile to be mixed with their 12-year-old daughter’s page dedicated to the
teen idol of the moment. It’s up to you to determine whether MySpace is the
right place for you to spend your time networking and building relationships.
Invest your time in networking at sites visited by people who might be interested
in your blog topic. Look for like-minded people and begin developing
relationships with them by sharing content, ideas, and links they might be
interested in.
To join MySpace, follow these steps:
1. Visit the MySpace home page.
2. Click the Sign Up link on the right side of the top navigation bar,
shown in Figure 12-5.
3. Complete and submit the online application.
4. Set up your profile.
The key to successfully using your MySpace page to drive traffic to your blog
is to make friends with other MySpace users and get to know them by leaving
comments on their profiles and starting conversations. You can learn all the
details about using MySpace in MySpace For Dummies, 2nd Edition, by Ryan
Hupfer, Mitch Maxson, and Ryan Williams (Wiley).
Facebook
www.Facebook.com
When you’re looking at sites specifically designed for social networking,
remember that Facebook is one of the most popular options. Facebook is
different from MySpace in that you can view complete profiles of only the
people who are in your network, which means that Facebook is better for
targeted networking and protected from spam. Although Facebook was originally
created for college students, it has grown to become a popular social
networking tool for people from around the world and from all walks of life,
regardless of age or organization.
Here are some ways you can use Facebook to drive readers to your blog:
? Add your blog’s feed to your Facebook profile.
? Post personal notes and updates to keep people within your network
apprised of what you’re working on and news you want to share. For
example, if you just wrote an excellent blog post that you think is
worthy of other bloggers linking to, you can send a message or publish
an update about it on your Facebook profile to spread the word.
? Use the Facebook Groups function to create a group for just about anything
you want and invite people to join it. Then you can send messages,
share information, and converse with the members of that group.
To join Facebook, simply complete the signup form on the right side of the
Facebook home page and click the Sign Up button, shown in Figure 12-6.
Make sure that you take the time to create a comprehensive profile and start
making friends!
Bloggers can use Facebook in many ways to promote and grow their blogs,
businesses, or themselves. For more ideas and tips, read Facebook For
Dummies, by Carolyn Abram and Leah Pearlman (Wiley).
LinkedIn
www.LinkedIn.com
LinkedIn has a reputation of being the go-to place for business and careerrelated
social networking. It has a stripped-down interface that’s intended to
be free of spam and irrelevant content. Rather than add “friends,” LinkedIn
users make connections. Similar to Facebook, you cannot view another member’s
profile unless you have been introduced to that person and are connected
to him. Finding another person on LinkedIn can be difficult, which is a
common complaint.
Your LinkedIn profile acts similarly to an online résumé. In it, you upload
your business and career accomplishments. Then you can add your blog
information. If your blog is related to your career or business in any way,
your LinkedIn profile can be another tool to help you drive traffic to it. The
more connections you make, questions you answer, and relationships you
build, the more potential you have for blog traffic.
You can join LinkedIn by visiting the LinkedIn home page and completing the
Join LinkedIn Today form on the right side of the page, shown in Figure 12-7.
When your account is activated, be sure to take the time to create a comprehensive
profile and then start making connections.
Navigating the Social Web
Posted by Blogger Templateson
July 24, 2009
With the start of the 21st century came a new generation of the Internet: Web
2.0, or the social Web. At this time, Web content moved away from being
one-sided, where Web sites typically provided information and transaction
processing but little more. Web 2.0 ushered in a new type of Internet: Rather
than have content pushed to users, they jumped on-board and began creating
content of their own. The Internet went from being a passive medium to
an active one and user participation began to control the online world.
More and more people now join the social Web by starting blogs, participating
in online forums and chat groups, listening to online radio, watching and
sharing videos, joining social networking sites, and participating in social
bookmarking activities. The opportunities to join the conversation and share
information are seemingly endless, and people and businesses are still just in
the beginning stages of discovering how best to use the social Web.
Web 2.0 is still in its infancy, despite long strides having been made in a relatively
short length of time. Throughout the brief evolution of the social Web,
however, blogging has become an icon of what it’s all about — sharing and
actively discussing and participating.
Blogs become most successful when the bloggers behind them understand
and maximize the opportunities that the social Web provides. It isn’t a place
to simply post information and walk away. Rather, it’s a place to publish
information and then encourage other people to comment, react, share, and
discuss. The tools of the social Web can help bloggers promote their blogs
and gain awareness and recognition for them, but it’s the bloggers’ efforts at
building a community around the blog that can make or break their blogs’
success.
Building a blog community
Most successful bloggers give the same answer when asked to identify the
most important thing that helped them become successful — their communities
of readers. The people who visit your blog enjoy what you have to say
and return to read more. They can become your most loyal readers if you
engage them and make them feel welcome and valued. These people get to
know each other and develop online relationships with each other over time,
and all have a few things in common: They share an interest in your blog’s
topic, they like what you have to say, and they feel comfortable visiting and
discussing the topic at hand. That comfort level comes from the atmosphere
you create on your blog.
Here are some ideas for how you can create a sense of community on your
blog:
? Encourage visitors to leave comments. Ask questions in your blog posts,
and encourage readers to leave comments with their opinions.
? Conduct a poll or host a contest to move lurkers to action.
? Request guest posts or content submission suggestions from your
readers.
? Start an ongoing question-and-answer post series where you ask readers
to submit questions and then you publish posts with the answers.
? When readers leave comments on your blog, take the time to respond
to them. Leave comments in return to show readers that you value their
contributions and to show other readers that each comment and reader
is important to you.
Over time, your loyal readers will even step up to the plate and begin
responding to comments before you have a chance to do so! Your job as
the blogger is to spark the conversations on your blog, encourage them to
continue and flourish, and reign in side conversations or inappropriate
comments.
Publish a blog comment policy to protect your readers and your blog’s reputation
from the inevitable inappropriate comments that someone will leave on
your blog someday.
Commenting on other blogs
Just as you want people to leave comments on your blog and start a conversation,
other bloggers want the same thing on their blogs. An important part
of being a member of the social Web is actively participating in it by venturing
outside your blog and forming relationships with other bloggers. An easy
way to start is to visit other blogs, particularly other blogs within your topic
niche, and leave comments on posts you enjoy.
Leaving comments on other blogs not only makes those blog authors aware
of who you are but also — when you include your URL with your comment —
makes it more likely that the blog’s author or readers will click your URL to
find out more about you and read more of what you have to say. This statement
is especially true if you leave relevant, thought-provoking comments.
Don’t leave useless comments on other blogs, such as “Nice post.” Instead,
take the time to truly add to the conversation.
Tracking back
Although the Blogger software doesn’t accept or send traditional trackbacks,
you can use the backlinks function within Blogger to see who else links to
your blog posts. Alternatively, you can link to other blog posts within your
own posts, and those links are seen in the other bloggers’ traffic statistics
reports as referrals. Here are a couple of tips for using backlinks:
? When you link to another blog post, always click that link in your live
post to ensure that it’s working.
? Make sure that the backlinks function is set to allow backlinks on your
blog posts. When Google Blog Search identifies blogs that link to yours,
a backlink is published beneath the comments section in your blog
posts. The backlink includes a snippet from the post that linked to yours
and a live link to that post.
Bloggers like trackbacks and backlinks because those elements give them
an opportunity to leave a link to their own blogs on another blog, which can
drive traffic. Trackbacks and backlinks also notify other bloggers that you’re
interested in their content and you’re sharing it, which gives them more
exposure and more opportunities for increased traffic and incoming links.
When you find a blog post idea in another blogger’s post, always link to the
original source in your own post, to give that blogger credit for writing about
it first. Doing so not only keeps you in line with the unwritten rules of the
blogosphere but can also help you build a relationship with another blogger
and drive traffic to your blog over time as your name and blog become more
recognizable.
Submitting Your Blog to Search Engines
Posted by Blogger Templateson
July 24, 2009
Although many search engines find your blog eventually, you should make
sure that eventually happens sooner rather than later by submitting your
blog to popular search engines. Doing so ensures that your blog is on each
search engine’s radar screen and that your blog posts begin appearing in
user searches. If you optimize your posts for search, as discussed in detail
in Chapter 13, and acquire more and more incoming links, your rankings in
search engine keyword queries should rise.
The higher your content appears in search engine rankings, the greater the
possibility that someone clicks your link and finds your blog. If you write
outstanding content and post consistently and frequently, your traffic should
increase over time. The following sections describe how to submit your blog
to some of the most popular search engines.
Don’t waste time submitting every page of your blog. Just submit your blog’s
main page to each search engine, and they find the rest automatically.
Google
www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
To submit your blog to Google, simply go to the online submission form,
shown in Figure 12-1, and enter your blog’s main URL. It’s usually your blog’s
home page, and you should include the http:// part of your blog’s URL (for
example, http://www.myblogdomain.com). You can enter any additional
information or keywords that you want to provide, but they don’t affect your
submission or appear with it after your page is indexed. Then type, in the
text box, the spam-blocker text that appears on your screen and click the
Add URL button. It’s that easy!
Yahoo!
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
You can submit your blog to Yahoo by visiting the online submission form.
Enter your blog’s URL in the first text box and click the Submit URL button,
shown in Figure 12-2. You can also enter your blog’s feed URL in the second
text box. Instructions for creating your blog’s feed by using FeedBurner are in
Chapter 11.
MSN Live Search
http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
Visit the MSN Live Search submission page, shown in Figure 12-3. Simply
type into the appropriate box the spam-blocker text that’s displayed, and
enter your blog’s URL in the text box. Click the Submit URL button and you’re
done.
Technorati
http://technorati.com/account/signup
Submitting your blog to Technorati, a blog search engine, is a multistep process.
First, complete the online form to become a Technorati member, as
shown in Figure 12-4, and select the I Have a Blog and Would Like to Claim It
Now check box. You can then enter your blog’s URL to claim it as yours. Note
that Technorati membership is free.
Submitting your blog to search engines isn’t critical, but it can speed up the
process of having your blog included in search engine results. To find out
whether your blog is already included in search engine results, visit each
search engine and type your blog’s URL in the Search box. If your blog is
included in the returned results, it has already been indexed by that search
engine.
