Anytime you start something from scratch, it takes awhile before you begin to see any progress. But I must say, the http://successblog.biz bloggers are doing a great job of organizing their content and getting their blogs put together. We are in the process of adding all new blogs to the http://answerblogs.com site and it's starting to look like a real network!
Focusing on a Niche.....
The bloggers who make real money ( $5,000+ per month ) will be the ones who choose a niche and totally exploit it with great content. A niche, by definition, is a small detailed topic. For example, if you have an interest in Crafts and would like to do a blog in that area you would not choose to name your blog "CraftsBlog" and do it on crafts in general. Why not? Because there would be intense competition and you would never stand a chance of obtaining a decent ranking in the search engines ( which is the key ). Crafts is an industry ( an entire category ), not a niche.
Instead, you would find a niche such as "wedding crafts" which had 5907 searches last month. By focusing all your content on wedding crafts you would have a much better chance of exploiting that category and making good money! Granted, it probably wouldn't be an out-of-the-park home run, but it's much better to go for singles and doubles because the rate of success if much higher. I'm reminded of a commentator who once said "many of the batters ( in professional baseball) who go for the home runs also have the highest strike out percentages".
Now before you went ahead and did your blog on "wedding crafts" you would want to make sure that there is actually advertising demand for that category. I show you how to do that in Lesson #5.
Summary: Find your niche and exploit it! Focus on creating as much content as possible that is targeted directly around that niche.
Saturday
Register Your Blog With GlobeOfBlogs
Once you have some content in your blog, make sure you register it with GlobeOfBlogs. They have a very detailed listing of categories so you should be able to find the one that matches your blog (although it might take some time to find it).
Globe Of Blogs Registration
Globe Of Blogs Registration
Blogging: An insider's view
"I put off starting a blog for several months because I was convinced a) the technology would be beyond my handling and b) I wouldn't have anything of interest to say.
Now that I've started, I realise how silly I was.
Even with a slow Net connection, this is ridiculously easy. And yesterday, just as I'd posted a few scattered thoughts on a movie I'd seen, I got an appreciative comment from this amateur filmmaker based in Los Angeles -- his name's even listed on the Internet Movie Database!
Welcome to the global village, Jabberwock.
Sites like the Google-owned blogspot.com (also known as blogger.com) or Rediff have the simplest, most user-friendly interfaces.
All you have to do is choose a username and password, enter a few basic things about yourself, choose from the template options (this defines the look of your site) and start posting."
Blogging: An insider's view
Now that I've started, I realise how silly I was.
Even with a slow Net connection, this is ridiculously easy. And yesterday, just as I'd posted a few scattered thoughts on a movie I'd seen, I got an appreciative comment from this amateur filmmaker based in Los Angeles -- his name's even listed on the Internet Movie Database!
Welcome to the global village, Jabberwock.
Sites like the Google-owned blogspot.com (also known as blogger.com) or Rediff have the simplest, most user-friendly interfaces.
All you have to do is choose a username and password, enter a few basic things about yourself, choose from the template options (this defines the look of your site) and start posting."
Blogging: An insider's view
Thursday
TrackBack Explanation from the creators
In an effort to learn more about TrackBack, I went to the creators (Movable Type) to search their website. Here is a brief explanation of the feature and the link below contains more information than anyone would ever have to know!
"In a nutshell, TrackBack was designed to provide a method of notification between websites: it is a method of person A saying to person B, 'This is something you may be interested in.' To do that, person A sends a TrackBack ping to person B.
TrackBack ping: a ping in this context means a small message sent from one webserver to another.
And why would person B be interested in what person A has to say?
Person A has written a post on his own weblog that comments on a post in Person B's weblog. This is a form of remote comments--rather than posting the comment directly on Person B's weblog, Person A posts it on his own weblog, then sends a TrackBack ping to notify Person B.
Person A has written a post on a topic that a group of people are interested in. This is a form of content aggregation--by sending a TrackBack ping to a central server, visitors can read all posts about that topic. For example, imagine a site which collects weblog posts about Justin Timberlake. Anyone interested in reading about JT could look at this site to keep updated on what other webloggers were saying about his new album, a photo shoot in a magazine, etc. "
movabletype.org : TrackBack Explanation:
"In a nutshell, TrackBack was designed to provide a method of notification between websites: it is a method of person A saying to person B, 'This is something you may be interested in.' To do that, person A sends a TrackBack ping to person B.
TrackBack ping: a ping in this context means a small message sent from one webserver to another.
And why would person B be interested in what person A has to say?
Person A has written a post on his own weblog that comments on a post in Person B's weblog. This is a form of remote comments--rather than posting the comment directly on Person B's weblog, Person A posts it on his own weblog, then sends a TrackBack ping to notify Person B.
Person A has written a post on a topic that a group of people are interested in. This is a form of content aggregation--by sending a TrackBack ping to a central server, visitors can read all posts about that topic. For example, imagine a site which collects weblog posts about Justin Timberlake. Anyone interested in reading about JT could look at this site to keep updated on what other webloggers were saying about his new album, a photo shoot in a magazine, etc. "
movabletype.org : TrackBack Explanation:
With TrackBack your blog can communicate with other blogs.
"TrackBack is an emerging protocol that allows Web sites to automatically store records of any links which occur between them. For example, for each article produced by CNET News.com, TrackBack automatically creates and posts records of any blogs that link to that article. As a result, readers can easily find the blogs that discuss the story, gaining multi-faceted insight on the issues that interest them. In turn, bloggers using TrackBack gain visibility before the audience of one of the most popular news sources on the Web when they link to a CNET News.com story, and the CNET News.com editorial team gains valuable feedback to their stories and insight on which topics are generating the most buzz, so they can expand their coverage of those topics. "
CNET News.com Introduces TrackBack, Linking Blog Commentary to CNET News.com Stories:
CNET News.com Introduces TrackBack, Linking Blog Commentary to CNET News.com Stories:
Wednesday
Internal Blog Links Increase Search Engine Rankings.
- Search Engine News Journal:
"When website owners and bloggers think of linking, they are usually referring to inbound links from external websites and blogs. While adding more incoming links from pages in external sites is very important, it's very easy to forget the internal linkage factors at work in your own blog.
The blog's incoming links provide Google PageRank to the receiving web page. The inbound links boost both the page itself, and help the blog overall, receive additional link popularity boost. The links received from external sources are only part of the overall linking program for a website or blog.
Some very important link popularity increases will arise directly from a website's internal linkage system. In fact, some improvements in the site linking and navigation can give a site a major boost in the search engines. This very important optimization technique is often ignored by link seeking website owners."
"When website owners and bloggers think of linking, they are usually referring to inbound links from external websites and blogs. While adding more incoming links from pages in external sites is very important, it's very easy to forget the internal linkage factors at work in your own blog.
The blog's incoming links provide Google PageRank to the receiving web page. The inbound links boost both the page itself, and help the blog overall, receive additional link popularity boost. The links received from external sources are only part of the overall linking program for a website or blog.
Some very important link popularity increases will arise directly from a website's internal linkage system. In fact, some improvements in the site linking and navigation can give a site a major boost in the search engines. This very important optimization technique is often ignored by link seeking website owners."
Getting Better Search Engine Ranking For Your Blog!
First of all, blogs have a natural tendency to rank higher in search engines because they
* Have well-structured site architecture
* Make use of anchor text linking
* Are well linked,
* Are frequently updated, and,
* Are focused tightly around a narrow theme, among other things.
Couple this with the ease of being able to get one-way links from several sites favored by the search engines, and you have two-thirds of the formula for a well-ranked blog.
However, just because these sites appear on publicly displayed ping notification lists and other sites that keep abreast of blog updates, this doesn’t mean that you can get away with pinging them without updating your site.
It also doesn’t mean that sites that have authentically updated and sent pings will appear in Google, Yahoo or MSN simply from being frequently updated.
The good news is, you don’t need to deluge the ping sites to get noticed. Doing so is often a waste of time, and may be a harmful one.
Your best bet for now is to continue to achieve your natural search engine position through blogging, basic search engine optimization, and a common sense approach to frequent updates.
And yes, by the way, there IS an ethical way to get into search engines and achieve high rankings with a blog, but it’s not a matter of volume. It’s more a matter of timing, supply and demand. But explaining that process takes a level of detail and an amount of space not available here.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=1243
* Have well-structured site architecture
* Make use of anchor text linking
* Are well linked,
* Are frequently updated, and,
* Are focused tightly around a narrow theme, among other things.
Couple this with the ease of being able to get one-way links from several sites favored by the search engines, and you have two-thirds of the formula for a well-ranked blog.
However, just because these sites appear on publicly displayed ping notification lists and other sites that keep abreast of blog updates, this doesn’t mean that you can get away with pinging them without updating your site.
It also doesn’t mean that sites that have authentically updated and sent pings will appear in Google, Yahoo or MSN simply from being frequently updated.
The good news is, you don’t need to deluge the ping sites to get noticed. Doing so is often a waste of time, and may be a harmful one.
Your best bet for now is to continue to achieve your natural search engine position through blogging, basic search engine optimization, and a common sense approach to frequent updates.
And yes, by the way, there IS an ethical way to get into search engines and achieve high rankings with a blog, but it’s not a matter of volume. It’s more a matter of timing, supply and demand. But explaining that process takes a level of detail and an amount of space not available here.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=1243
Friday
Weblogging Software Leader Six Apart Acquires LiveJournal
Six Apart: Weblogging Software Leader Six Apart Acquires LiveJournal:
"Weblogging Software Leader Six Apart Acquires LiveJournal
LiveJournal Acquisition Solidifies Six Apart's Leadership in Blogging Software, Now Powering Over 6.5 Million Weblogs for Individuals, Corporations and Institutions
San Francisco, CA -- January 6, 2005 -- Six Apart, makers of the highly acclaimed Movable Type publishing platform and TypePad personal weblogging service, today announced that it has acquired Danga Interactive, Inc., the operators of the popular service LiveJournal, for an undisclosed amount of stock and cash. With the acquisition, Six Apart solidifies its position as the industry's recognized leader in weblogging software across all markets, and LiveJournal can continue its rapid growth trajectory under Six Apart's umbrella. As of today, the combined user base of both companies exceeds 6.5 million users, with thousands more added daily.
LiveJournal, an online community organized around personal journals, is run by Danga, a Portland, Oregon-based company founded by Brad Fitzpatrick in 1999. LiveJournal has helped fuel the rapid growth of weblogging by offering consumers both free and paid subscriptions to its easy to use personal publishing blogging tool, built on open source software. Every week, over 860,000 users update their blogs. LiveJournal's users are predominately in their teens and twenties, younger than users of Six Apart's other products.
As part of Six Apart, LiveJournal will continue to operate as a separate division and will continue to foster an active community around the globe. Brad Fitzpatrick, Danga's founder, president and lead developer, will join Six Apart as the company's chief architect, extending his proven skills in scaling large services to the rest of Six Apart's products. The Danga staff will remain dedicated to LiveJournal and Six Apart expects the staff to grow as it invests in the service. LiveJournal will continue to distribute a large portion of its software under various open source licenses. Six Apart intends to invest in the LiveJournal software, which will remain separate from Six Apart's Movable Type and TypePad products, with dedicated engineering and support teams for each product.
"Six Apart's business -- and only business -- is weblogging software and services," said Barak Berkowitz, Six Apart's chief executive officer. "We are driven to provide the best quality weblogging tools on the planet, to the broadest number of users, and our acquisition of LiveJournal reflects this passion.
"We are now the only company to offer the full range of weblogging tools to the market," he said. "We have a service intended for individuals to interact with family and friends through LiveJournal; a hosted service for avid webloggers who want more flexibility and power with TypePad; and the leading server-based solution for power users, corporations and institutions through Movable Type. We welcome LiveJournal users to the Six Apart family, and promise to keep the LiveJournal culture and quality which has earned their devotion."
Berkowitz said the acquisition of LiveJournal makes Six Apart the industry's largest independent provider of weblogging tools and that the company is committed to continued innovation on each of its product lines to meet the needs of a growing number of webloggers. According to a survey released this week by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, over 8 million U.S adults now have weblogs and blog readership jumped by 58% in 2004.
"We're extremely pleased to have Brad and his team join Six Apart," said Mena Trott, Six Apart's co-founder and president. "Not only does LiveJournal have roots similar to Six Apart's -- both companies founded by young hobbyists with a passion for weblogging -- but Danga also understood the importance of community and communication before anyone else. LiveJournal has been one of the most innovative services for many years and we're proud to be able to join forces."
"It's a natural fit for LiveJournal to become part of Six Apart," said Brad Fitzpatrick. "Both companies are fanatics about weblogging, both have great relationships with their users and both have cultures driven to create the very best products. I'm excited that the acquisition will let us keep growing at an incredible speed -- backed by an experienced management team and the international reach of Six Apart."
About Six Apart Ltd.
Six Apart Ltd., based in San Francisco, CA, is the company behind the Movable Type publishing platform and the TypePad personal weblogging service. Founded by husband and wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott in 2002 and funded by Neoteny Co., Ltd. and August Capital, Six Apart's sole focus is to create tools that enable millions of individuals, organizations and corporations to participate in the Web's full potential by publishing their ideas on the Internet with simple, yet powerful software and services. For more information about Six Apart, TypePad, Movable Type and LiveJournal visit the Six Apart corporate weblog at www.sixapart.com.
Contact:
Krause Taylor Associates for Six Apart
Jane Anderson
650.854.3883 direct
650.440.0450 cell
408.918.9080 main
jane@krause-taylor.com
"Weblogging Software Leader Six Apart Acquires LiveJournal
LiveJournal Acquisition Solidifies Six Apart's Leadership in Blogging Software, Now Powering Over 6.5 Million Weblogs for Individuals, Corporations and Institutions
San Francisco, CA -- January 6, 2005 -- Six Apart, makers of the highly acclaimed Movable Type publishing platform and TypePad personal weblogging service, today announced that it has acquired Danga Interactive, Inc., the operators of the popular service LiveJournal, for an undisclosed amount of stock and cash. With the acquisition, Six Apart solidifies its position as the industry's recognized leader in weblogging software across all markets, and LiveJournal can continue its rapid growth trajectory under Six Apart's umbrella. As of today, the combined user base of both companies exceeds 6.5 million users, with thousands more added daily.
LiveJournal, an online community organized around personal journals, is run by Danga, a Portland, Oregon-based company founded by Brad Fitzpatrick in 1999. LiveJournal has helped fuel the rapid growth of weblogging by offering consumers both free and paid subscriptions to its easy to use personal publishing blogging tool, built on open source software. Every week, over 860,000 users update their blogs. LiveJournal's users are predominately in their teens and twenties, younger than users of Six Apart's other products.
As part of Six Apart, LiveJournal will continue to operate as a separate division and will continue to foster an active community around the globe. Brad Fitzpatrick, Danga's founder, president and lead developer, will join Six Apart as the company's chief architect, extending his proven skills in scaling large services to the rest of Six Apart's products. The Danga staff will remain dedicated to LiveJournal and Six Apart expects the staff to grow as it invests in the service. LiveJournal will continue to distribute a large portion of its software under various open source licenses. Six Apart intends to invest in the LiveJournal software, which will remain separate from Six Apart's Movable Type and TypePad products, with dedicated engineering and support teams for each product.
"Six Apart's business -- and only business -- is weblogging software and services," said Barak Berkowitz, Six Apart's chief executive officer. "We are driven to provide the best quality weblogging tools on the planet, to the broadest number of users, and our acquisition of LiveJournal reflects this passion.
"We are now the only company to offer the full range of weblogging tools to the market," he said. "We have a service intended for individuals to interact with family and friends through LiveJournal; a hosted service for avid webloggers who want more flexibility and power with TypePad; and the leading server-based solution for power users, corporations and institutions through Movable Type. We welcome LiveJournal users to the Six Apart family, and promise to keep the LiveJournal culture and quality which has earned their devotion."
Berkowitz said the acquisition of LiveJournal makes Six Apart the industry's largest independent provider of weblogging tools and that the company is committed to continued innovation on each of its product lines to meet the needs of a growing number of webloggers. According to a survey released this week by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, over 8 million U.S adults now have weblogs and blog readership jumped by 58% in 2004.
"We're extremely pleased to have Brad and his team join Six Apart," said Mena Trott, Six Apart's co-founder and president. "Not only does LiveJournal have roots similar to Six Apart's -- both companies founded by young hobbyists with a passion for weblogging -- but Danga also understood the importance of community and communication before anyone else. LiveJournal has been one of the most innovative services for many years and we're proud to be able to join forces."
"It's a natural fit for LiveJournal to become part of Six Apart," said Brad Fitzpatrick. "Both companies are fanatics about weblogging, both have great relationships with their users and both have cultures driven to create the very best products. I'm excited that the acquisition will let us keep growing at an incredible speed -- backed by an experienced management team and the international reach of Six Apart."
About Six Apart Ltd.
Six Apart Ltd., based in San Francisco, CA, is the company behind the Movable Type publishing platform and the TypePad personal weblogging service. Founded by husband and wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott in 2002 and funded by Neoteny Co., Ltd. and August Capital, Six Apart's sole focus is to create tools that enable millions of individuals, organizations and corporations to participate in the Web's full potential by publishing their ideas on the Internet with simple, yet powerful software and services. For more information about Six Apart, TypePad, Movable Type and LiveJournal visit the Six Apart corporate weblog at www.sixapart.com.
Contact:
Krause Taylor Associates for Six Apart
Jane Anderson
650.854.3883 direct
650.440.0450 cell
408.918.9080 main
jane@krause-taylor.com
Sunday
Red Cross Tsunami Donations Via Amazon
The other day I gave $100 to the Red Cross through the Amazon site. At that time I saw they had collected about $1.6 Million for the Red Cross, today it's over $12 million which I think is fantastic! Many of the victims were living in poverty before the distaster and now they have lost what little they had. Please give what you can if you haven't already.
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