$150 amazing off in Black berry playbook. ~ IT news

$150 amazing off in Black berry playbook. ~ IT news

Blogger Developers Network: Clarifying recent changes to Blogger’s feed access

Blogger Developers Network: Clarifying recent changes to Blogger’s feed access

"Listing" and "let search engines find your blog" settings - Blogger Help

"Listing" and "let search engines find your blog" settings - Blogger Help:

'via Blog this'

SEO tips for dummies

Search engine optimization tips for beginners

Getting a website in top is a thing that every webmaster would love to achieve. Achieving top rankings for your favorable keywords is not a very difficult task but its hard to decide from where to start with and it may land you it totally different part of the globe if you doesn’t follow the webmaster guidelines set by major search engines for webmasters and search engines optimization experts or companies. In this article I am posting few search engine optimization tips for beginners but these tips are equally beneficial for any SEO professional.

1. Don’t purchase new domains: If you are trying to get your website ranked in engines and so far you don’t have any substantial success, then don’t try to go and try your luck in new domain. Reason here is that search engine give value to the age of the domain and hence it’s recommended to try figuring out things that may be hurting your website’s reputation over search engines. However there may be circumstances when you may need to start new domain under such situation using permanent redirect to your new domain is recommended to minimize the loss of traffic from search engines.

2. Do extensive keyword research: Spend good amount of time in keyword research and go in as much detail as you can while researching keywords. Don’t select keywords that can bring traffic but brainstorm keywords that can bring you sales. Over years of experience in search engine marketing I have seen that lots of keywords bring you traffic but there are couple of keywords that can bring business, revenue for you. Thus analyze your website traffic to shortlist the keywords that bring you business. Ranking at the top of search engines for these keywords make the actual difference.

3. Use different title and meta tags: Each page of your website needs to have unique title and meta description tags. Your title tag should contain important keywords included in the content of your web pages. One more important point to be taken care is that it’s the title tag of a webpage that will prompt any visitors to click your website at search engine result pages.

4. Don’t over optimize: Never optimize your website rather optimize for your targeted audience. This is one of the common instructions by all major search engines for webmasters.

5. Write Search engine friendly code: Make you website code search engine friendly by preventing excessive use of images, flash, java script menus or links. Use alt and title attributes and images and links. Validate your website HTML, XML and CSS.

6. Use webmaster tools: Evaluate your SEO campaign by using tools like google analytics, webmaster central, yahoo site explorer etc. These tools are very much helpful for webmasters in their SEO campaigns.

7. Get quality links: All of us know off-page optimization is very crucial part of any SEO campaign however only quality links count and contribute to your website’s PR and search engine rankings. Any off-page activity, be it link building, social media marketing, directory submission etc. take care of quality always.

Growing Your Small Business

Entrepreneurs often find themselves so caught up in the daily running of their businesses that expansion plans end up on the back burner for some other time. The problem though, is that growing your business is a must, otherwise you’ll be like the proverbial hamster running round and round in that wheel, chasing your own tail instead of achieving real progress.
There are many ways to approach small business growth but underlying each of them, there must be a strategy. Whatever your plans for growth are, they must cover two aspects in detail: short term growth and long term growth.
Short term growth addresses what you will do in the immediate future to make sure that you are moving upwards in the growth curve. This will include things like increasing your customer base, working at improving customer relations, so that you can create repeat business, your marketing strategy and even what you do in back office terms to ensure that operations become smoother and smoother over time. All these will affect profitability in the short term. If you have effective strategies for them, they will help your business grow on a day to day basis.
Your long term plan for business growth is usually planned for the next few years to come. Many businesses opt to look at long term growth as 2 to 3 year strategies. Others, especially small businesses that have been operational for more than 3 years, might look at long term growth strategy in 5 year bites. Long term growth is about business expansion on the larger scale. You have been using your short term strategy to get more customers, to get more repeat sales, and now you can plan to aim for a certain number of clients every year so that every few years you can open a new shop. You might also introduce new products in your long term strategy. You might plan to increase your product base every 3 to 5 years.
It’s important to know that each business is unique and individual circumstances will determine how you plan your expansion. It’s dangerous to plan along the lines of what you see another business doing. Look at your own business as an entity that has features of its own and then based on these features, go ahead and plan for both short and longer term growth.
Remember also that while strategies should be followed, you must allow yourself to be flexible. If you stick too rigidly to plans, you may miss the opportunities that show up from time to time that can benefit your business. Sometimes these opportunities have to be embraced, and it may mean that your strategy is left aside for a little while but being able to seize an unexpected opportunity while not losing sight of your growth strategy, is what growing a small business is all about.

About the guest author: Dane has worked with small business planning for many years in his role as a business finance advisor. He started SmallBusinessWizardry.com as a free resource for those looking for advice onstarting a small business.

4 Ways To Increase Your Blog Traffic

Everyday new blogs are created under different niches to provide information about products and product reviews, online services, marketing and so on, to their valuable readers.
However, no matter how good your blog content is, no one will find you if you don’t send tons of people to your site.
In this article, I will show you 4 ways to increase your blog traffic without you spending a dime.
1. Submit your articles to Social bookmarking sites.
Once you have written and uploaded your article to your blog, you can submit the article URL to social bookmarking sites.
Those sites help the search engines to find your site quickly and index your blog and pages faster.
To make the process simple and easy, you can use social monkey, socialadr orHootsuite to submit to 50 social bookmarking sites in less than five minute.
2. Network with other blogs.
Look for authority blogs under your niche and network with them in terms of making blog comments and submitting guest posts.
Making blog comments
When it comes to making comments in blogs, make sure you have something important to say, not just for the sake of the back link.
Before making comments read the blog post and after that you can add your own comment. Start your comments by commenting on the writer of the post, then continue your comment by either criticizing about a point you do not agree in the post or make an addition to the post.
Make it a duty to make at least 5 blog comments daily.
Guest posts
Look for high traffic blogs in your niche that accept guest posts, read the rules for submitting a guest post. When you’re convinced and are sure you can abide by the rules then start submitting your guest posts.
Normally, when you submit a guest post, you will get a link back to your site and people will follow your link back to your site.
When submitting a guest you must submit your best post, because you’re submitting it to an authority site and you might be recommended by the site owner.
3. Submit articles to article directories.
It’s still amazing when I do a search on Google, I mostly find articles written 6 years ago making the top ten search, some from article directories.
That is to tell you that one article you write and post today can still send you traffic over and over again as long as it is online.
When you start distributing articles you stand the chance to not only appear in the article directory alone, but to also appear in the search engines. Good articles are highly informative, not over crowded with keywords and most importantly, have a powerful article title.
Each article directory has a resource box where you can write a summary and link to your site. When writing your resource box, you should write something that will make the prospect click the link back to your site.
4. Forum marketing
This is where people think it is slow, but in reality it’s not. Forum marketing not only send traffic to your site, it is also a means to build credibility.
Just look for forums under your niche and build your signature file (which is a link to your blog). If you don’t know any forum under your niche, type “your Niche market + forum” and hit search. Whenever you post a thread, your signature file appears under your thread.
When you make forum posts on a daily basis, you’ll have at least 300 back links to your blog.
Sending traffic to your site is not a one term phenomenon: you should continue repeating the process to have success.

4 Top Ways To Increase Your Google Adsense Earnings

When it comes to making money online, pay per click (PPC) advertising is one of the easiest ways to monetize on the internet. Classified ads are placed in part(s) of your website or blog so that you make money when any one click on the ads. That has been one of the most popular forms online advertising.
There are several online companies that serve you such pay per click advertising ads, but the most popular and in my opinion the best, is that of Google Adsense.
Even though many internet marketers say making money with Google Adsense or pay per click advertising is slow, there are many of them making a living with Google Adsense. In this article, I will explore four incredible ways to increase your google adsense earnings.
1. Insert your adsense code in your RSS feed.
When it comes to using RSS feeds for your website or blog, I found FeedBurner to have another benefit to make money. Once you are using FeedBurner as your RSS feed provided, you can log into your Adsense account and add the Sdsense code to your RSS feed.
Your chances of making money with are higher because one way your subscribers know when your site is updated is via your RSS feed.
2. Adsense sharing sites
Adsense sharing sites are mostly sites that allow you to publish articles and enjoy the benefit of back linking to your site and sharing the Adsense revenue with the article site.
Most of this Adsense sharing sites set up is simple and the revenue you make is directly lodge into your Adsense account. Some of such sites are HubPages and xomba.
Other sites send the payment via your PayPal account. Such sites includeSquidoo and ehow.
In places like HubPages, there are people already making 1000 dollars a month and with just about 200 articles. Whatever the situation is at the end of the day, it’s still a win win situation.
3. Google custom search
Install an internal Google search engine on your site. Installation is easy, just copy and paste some code and you’re good to go. You make money when the user click on the contextual ads that appears next to the search result.
You can choose to show the results on your site and be sure people will love your domain.
4. Using YouTube videos
You can make money with YouTube by allowing Google Adsense ads appear on your video page.
From your YouTube video channel settings, you can click on the Adsense sharing link and authorize your site.
Making money with Google Adsense is possible and real. Implementing those four ways will definitely increase your earnings. Either way, it is a win win situation.

About the guest author: Bako is a blogger and has been blogging for the pass three years. Visit my blog to learn the various internet marketing strategies
This is a unique article published on SEO Desk with exclusivity.

100 BLOG TOPICS I HOPE YOU WRITE

People often ask me how I come up with things to blog about, and I find the question strange, because my problem is the opposite. I have too much to blog about. Why? Because there’s a whole fast revolution rolling through, and right now – today – is our time to make it all work for us. If we’re going to show people how to use social media to drive meaningful conversations instead of being yet another marketing tool, we have to run out and educate at a break-neck pace, so we can bring more and more thought leaders into alignment with these big and not-so-big organizations who could use our help.

So, on my plane ride home from San Francisco, I decided to write you up 100 blog post titles that I want YOU to write. Take one of these and run with it. Make the coolest ideas from whatever these spark in you, and keep coming back to these as often as you want. Bookmark the page. Copy/paste it into a notepad file. Whatever works for you. Or just use them as a way to bounce into better posts of your own devise. Make podcasts. Whatever works for you.

One favor? Would you throw a link somewhere back to http://chrisbrogan.com ? Pretty please? Thanks.

Here’s 100 Blog/Podcast Topics I Hope YOU Write:

1 How I Use Facebook
2 Ways I Embrace My Audience
3 Should My Town Use Social Media?
4 A Community I Love
5 Technology That Empowers Me
6 How Flickr Did it Right
7 How Best to Comment on a Corporate Blog
8 Ways to Save a Bad Time at a Conference
9 How I Find Blogging Ideas
10 Somebody Has to Say It
11 My Children Will Do it Differently
12 How Schools Could Use Social Media
13 The Best Parts of Marketing
14 Presentation Skills for a New Conversation
15 How I Find Time to Make Media
16 Empower Your Best Customers
17 After the Event- Carrying the Conversation Forward
18 Just Jump Into Podcasting- Heres How
19 My Community and How You Can Engage It
20 Twitter Jaiku Pownce Facebook- And Then What
21 Making a Miniseries
22 If I Were an Advertiser Today
23 My Mother is On Facebook
24 Does a Big Brand Need You
25 Books I Want to Write
26 Serving the Deep Niches- How I Do It
27 How Women Use Social Media
28 A Hard Look at My Media Habits
29 If I Were a Television Producer
30 Social Media Marketing vs Traditional Marketing
31 Elements of a Marketing Campaign
32 Social Media Campaigns are NOT Traditional Campaigns
33 Idea Making and How I Make Something
34 What I Spend Money On
35 Do Rock Stars Need Social Media Strategies
36 How I Use My Website
37 Book Shopping- Buy These Books
38 MTV Changed the World in the 80s- Here is What Comes Next
39 How I Process Blogs and What I Do With All That Info
40 Ten Guilty Pleasures
41 The Internet Application I Havent Seen
42 If I Worked for a Venture Capital Firm
43 My Day Job Versus My Passion
44 The Difference Between Fark and Truemors
45 Fixing Conferences
46 Making Marketplaces for Media Makers
47 When I Feel Frustrated
48 Branding Strategies I Use
49 Your Ideas And My Ideas- How We Play Together
50 Friends I Cant Wait to Meet

51 The Art of Chaos
52 Telling My Boss About Social Media
53 Could I Quit My Day Job
54 When to Cut Back on Web Habits
55 Breaking Down My Favorite Blog
56 Explaining Social Media to Your Chamber of Commerce
57 Non-Internet Equivalents to Internet Tools I Use
58 Considering Media for the Rest of the Globe
59 Twitter is Too Simple- Twitter is Just Right
60 The Future of Podcasting
61 Video Made Simple
62 Facebook Applications I Love
63 You Are Here
64 Blogging Tactics- How to Keep it Fresh
65 I Want to Brag A Minute
66 Who Says What About Your Brand
67 Tools for Blogging
68 Wordpress Plugins I Use And Why
69 Media Topics That Need More Coverage
70 Comments versus Blog Posts
71 How I Drive Traffic to My Site
72 News- Is it Useful and How I Might Fix It
73 Which TV Network Gets Videoblogging and PodCasting
74 Franchising My Media
75 Handling Critics
76 My Audio Tricks
77 Ning Sites I Like and Why
78 Controlling My Brand
79 Sharing and Contributing
80 How Twitter Improved My Blog
81 Email After Twitter
82 Facebook Video Improved My Social Network
83 Letting Go
84 Downtime- What I Do Offline to Recharge
85 How I Went From Very Shy to Less Shy
86 The RIGHT Number to Track for Podcasting
87 PodCamp Has to Change
88 Shaking Things Up
89 Joining A Network- Things to Consider
90 Newspapers and How I Would Change Them
91 Interview With a Veteran
92 The Countries of My Social Media World
93 Giving it Away
94 Consulting Strategies for Social Media Experts
95 Turning Media into a Business Card
96 Podcasting on a Budget
97 For Every Excuse a New Strategy
98 Just When I Think I Am Done
99 Buying Gear- My Shopping Tips for Podcasters
100 When is Free Better- When Not

Why to blog

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Mark Suster (@msuster), a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners. Read more about Suster at Bothsidesofthetable

Blogs. We all read them to get a sense of what is going on in the world, peeling back layers of the old world in which media was too scripted.

By definition, if you are reading this you read blogs. But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? Absolutely.

This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about.

1. Why
If you care about accessing customers, reaching an audience, communicating your vision, influencing people in your industry, marketing your services or just plain engaging in a dialog with others in your industry a blog is a great way to achieve this.

People often ask me why I started blogging. It really started simply enough. I was meeting regularly with entrepreneurs and offering (for better or for worse) advice on how to run a startup and how to raise venture capital from my experience in doing so at two companies. I was having the same conversations over-and-over again (JFDI, Don’t Roll Out the Red Carpet when Employees are on the Way Out the Door, Don’t Drink Your Own Kool Aid, etc) and I figured I might as well just write them up and make them available for future people who might be interested. I never really expected a big audience or ever thought about it.

I had been reading Brad Feld’s blog & Fred Wilson’s blog for a couple of years and found them very helpful to my thinking so I honestly just thought I was giving back to the community.

The results have been both unexpected and astounding. Within 2 years I was getting 400,000 views / month and had been voted the 2nd most respected VC in the country by an independent survey of entrepreneurs, The Funded and sentiment analysis. I know that I have not yet earned these kudos based on investment returns (although my partners have. GRP Partners last fund is the single best performing VC fund in the US (prequin data) for its vintage year). But it speaks volumes to what people want from our industry:

• transparency
• accessibility
• authenticity
• thought leadership
• advice

I’ll bet your customers, business partners or suppliers would love similar.

2. What

I often get the question from people, “I’d like to blog, but I don’t really know what to talk about?” Or “I’m a new entrepreneur, why would I offer advice on how to run a startup?”

You wouldn’t. You shouldn’t.

Not only would it be less authentic but if you’re a startup it’s not immediately clear that other startup CEOs are your target market. They’re mine because I’m a VC. I care about having a steady stream of talented startup people who want to raise money thinking that they should talk to me in addition to the top others whom they’re targeting.

Whom do you want to target? Who are your customers, partners or suppliers?

My suggestion is to blog about your industry. Think Mint.com. In their early days they had an enormously effective blog on the topic of personal financial management. They created a reason for their customers to aggregate on their site on a regular basis. They became both a thought leader in the space as well as a beautifully designed product. They created inbound link juice on topics that drove more traffic to their site. Type “personal financial management” into Google. Mint.com is the second result. Smart.

Think Magento. They are an open-source & SaaS provider of eCommerce solutions. They are the fastest growing player in the world in this space. They achieved all of this before they raised even a penny of venture capital. eCommerce is an enormously competitive search term. Yet type it into Google and the third result (behind the Wikipedia entry and ecommerce.com) is Magento. Magic. They did it by creating a blog, discussion board and hub for eCommerce advice and information.

So you developed a product for the mommy community? Blog on that topic. Do you have an application that helps mobile developers build HTML5 apps? You know your blog topic. Do you have sales productivity software? Obvious. Check out SalesCrunch posts. Blog to your community. Be a thought leader. Don’t blog to your friend (that might be a separate Tumblog or something) but blog to your community.

If you’re going to pump out regular content that is meaningful, you obviously need to blog about a topic in which you’re knowledgeable, thoughtful and passionate. If you’re not all three of these things in your industry then I guess you’ve got a broader problem. Honestly.

So my biggest recommendation of “what” to blog is a series of articles that will be helpful to your community. If you’re a lawyer, blog on a topic that would be helpful to potential customers. Show that you’re a thought leader. Scott Edward Walker does an excellent job at this. It’s the only reason I know who he is. I had seen his blog & his Tweets and then was interested to meet him IRL.

Do a brainstorming session and create a list of 40-50 topics that interest you. Write out the topic and maybe even the blog title. Keep the list electronically. .

Struggling to come up with enough topics? Take one topic and break it up into 10 bite-sized articles. It’s probably better that way anyways. I wanted to write about the top 10 attributes of an entrepreneur.I wrote it all in one sitting and then broke it up into 10 separate posts. It kept me busy for 3 weeks! Each one ended up taking on a life of its own as the comments flowed in for post 1 I had more thoughts to add to post 2 and so on.

3. Where

You need a blog. Duh. If you’re a company and if hanging it off of your company website makes sense for the link traffic – go for it. If you’re head of marketing at a company and keeping a more generalized blog (in addition to your company blog) so that you can influence brands & agencies – it can be separate.

I chose for my blog to be independent of my firm, GRP Partners. The reason is that I wanted to be free to say what I was thinking independently of my partners. My views don’t always represent theirs and vice-versa even though we’re pretty like-minded (we’ve worked together for 10+ years). I chose a title that represented a brand that I wanted to emphasize – Both Sides of the Table. I chose it because I thought it would represent who I am – mostly an entrepreneur but somebody with investment chops. I wanted to differentiate.

So. People keep asking me, “why would you write on TechCrunch?” I guess I would have thought it was obvious. Apparently not. People say, “aren’t you driving traffic away from your own blog?”

Facts:

• I don’t really care about total page views or uniques other than as a measure of whether I’m improving. I don’t sell ads.
• I DO care about “share of mind,” which means that I want fish in the pond where the people whom I want to speak with hang out. I know a certain number hit my blog. But I’m not so arrogant (or successful) as to think they come all the time. So I take my show on the road. If I can write about a topic for which I’m passionate about and double or triple the number of people who read it – that’s gold dust. That’s why I never stopped anybody from taking my feed and republishing.
• As it happens, since I began writing at TechCrunch my viewership has continued to go up, not down. I always publish on my own blog the day after it runs on TC. I want the historical post there. A large number of readers on my site get it from Feedburner or newsletter feed.
• I also get a lot of inbound links from writing here. I try to make any inbound links to my blog authentic to the story. But each story has driven 1,000′s of views.
• The majority of my traffic still comes from Twitter. TC posts = more Twitter followers = more conversion when I do write on my own blog = more Feedburner / newsletter subs = more traffic. It’s an ecosystem. Simple.

So once you have a blog, a voice and a small following – don’t be shy about writing some guest posts for target blogs. Remember – for you that’s likely not TC – it’s the place your community hangs out.

4. How

Be authentic. Don’t try to sound too smart or too funny. Just be yourself. People will see who you are in your words. If you try to make everything too perfect you’ll never hit publish. If you try to sound too intelligent you’ll likely be boring as shit. Most blogs are. I hate reading blow hards who try to sound like they’re smarter than the rest of us. Be open and transparent. Get inside your reader’s minds. Try to think about what they would want to know from you. In fact, ask them!

Don’t be offensive – it’s never worth it to offend great masses of people. But that doesn’t mean sitting on the fence. I have a point of view and I’m sure sometimes it rankles. But I try to be respectful about it. Sitting on the fence on all issues is also pretty boring. And don’t blog drunk. Or at least don’t hit publish Mostly, have fun. If you can’t do that you won’t last very long.

How do I get started? First, you’ll need a platform. I use WordPress. Some people swear bySquareSpace. There are the new tools like Tumblr and Posterous. I’ve played with both and they’re pretty cool. They’re more light weight and easier to use. Importantly, they’re more social. It’s much easier to build an audience in social blogging platforms the way you do in Twitter or Facebook. T

hen you need to decide whether to use the “hosted” version or the “installed” version. At least that’s true in WordPress. The advantage of the hosted version is that it’s easier to get started. The disadvantage is that you can’t install a lot of additional tools that use Javascript. I started with the hosted version and then migrated to an installed version so I could use Google Analytics and some other products.

You then need a URL. It’s true you can be something like msuster.typepad.com but that’s kind of lame so I wouldn’t recommend it. Just get a real URL. I think it’s important to think about what image you want to portray when you pick your URL name. It doesn’t need to be short. You’re not trying to build a consumer website. My website is a pretty long URL but people manage to find it. Much of my traffic is through referring websites and/or social media. Some search. What are YOU trying to convey? What will be your unique positioning? Don’t just write a carbon copy of what somebody else is doing. That’s boring.

So I wrote a post, now what? Don’t blow your load on your first post. Slice it up enough to do many posts. I think most blogs are between 600-1000 words / post. Once you’re written a few posts don’t try to make the flood gates open at once. Slowly build your audience. Make it organic. If you write good content and consistently you’ll build an audience over time.

The number one thing that kills 95% of blogs is that they do 5 or 6 posts in rapid succession and then peter out. It’s lame to go to a blog where this happens. And then 8 months later they do the obligatory post saying, “OK, I’m going to be more committed to blogging now!” and then another 4 months go by. If you’re really not going to write that often at least don’t put dates on your posts.

But if you write good stuff, but in an effort and keep going – it’s a marathon – you will see results over time.

How do I build an audience? If you build it, will they come? No. A blog post is just like a product. First it needs to be good. And then you need to market it. It doesn’t just happen. You should be subtle about how you market it, but market it nonetheless. If you’re too squeamish to ask for help in promoting it or to do so yourself then you’ll never build an audience (you’ll also likely not make it as an entrepreneur. Sorry. But that’s true.)

The obvious starting point is to email a few friends and let them know you have a new blog. Don’t be overbearing – just an email saying, “wanted to let you know about my new blog.” I also recommend you put a link to it under your email signature (in a color other than black). You also should have it be what your Twitter bio links to.

Every time I write a post I send it out on Twitter. I try to send out the Twitter link when more people are online. Over time I’ve found out that I get better clicks at 8.30-9.30am Mon-Fri so that’s when I Tweet a lot of my stuff. I’ll frequently send two Tweets – East Coast & West Coast. If you want to know why I’ve outlined it here. Not everybody sees the first one. Social media is ephemeral.

Because I’ve built my Twitter following slowly but steadily and authentically over time I get very high click-through rates (and thus a high Klout score – currently 74). I get about 4% CTR (click-through rate) on every Tweet in the AM) and it’s actually higher because if I assume only 33% of my followers on online the CTR is closer to 12%. Interestingly if I had sent one Tweet at 5.30am (to get East Coast time) and another at 8.30am I get 4% CTR both times. So it’s hard to argue you shouldn’t Tweet twice if you have a geographically distributed following.

How do I know my stats? I use awe.sm (disclosure, I’m an investor) which is the best tool I know of for tracking: each individual share behavior (it creates unique URLs for each Tweet) plus it also separates out Tweets from Facebook shares, from “Retweets” that come from somebody clicking on my blog, etc. It also tracks who Tweeted the link so you will know who your most influential social followers are.

Make sure your blog has Tweetmeme or similar to make it easier for readers to Retweet. Also, make sure to sign up with Feedburner. That way people who want to get your blog by RSS and/or email can do so. Make sure your blog also has a Follow Me on Twitter button so people who find you can easily follow you.

5. When

People often ask how I blog so much and don’t think they can do it themselves. If you write about something for which you’re both knowledgeable and passionate I’ll bet you can pump out more than you think.

I usually blog at 10pm or on airplane flights. I never blog at work. Like you, I don’t have the time. I have board meetings, company pitches, internal partner meetings, etc. Hell, I often can’t even get to email during the day. So it comes out of TV time, which means I’m not missing anything. Occasionally if I really want to blog and I have a date or too much work I just set my alarm for 5.30am. Yup. It’s not that hard if you make a commitment to it.

What would it mean to you and your business if you could: increase your inbound traffic, enhance your company & personal brand, meet new influential people who suddenly know who you are. If you want these things they are available to you for the cost of some time & effort.

If you plan out what you want to write about in advance (create topics then to headings to structure your article. You’ll notice on this one I started with mine … Why, What, Where, How and then I later added When & What Next) then it’s really about writing. Structure helps enormously. If you need some help with the creative process read this.

I write for about 45 minutes to an hour in the first pass. I usually then re-read, edit, spell check and add links. This usually takes another 20-30 minutes. I then always add an image. I think this is a nice touch. Just staring at text is a bit boring and I find that the image can add humor and/or drive people in.

6. What Next?

Then there’s comments. You HAVE TO respond to comments. Do yourself a favor and installDisqus. It makes a huge difference in driving a comment community. If you want the details on why I covered it here.

First, it’s the most fun part of blogging. It’s addicting like Twitter. It’s where you exchange ideas with other people. It’s where your community gets to know you. It’s where you build loyalty and relationships. I have met many people in person who were first commenters on my blog. I find it frustrating if I leave comments on somebody’s blog and they never respond. If somebody found your blog and took the time to comment then they’re like a customer who should be cherished. Responses to them are like customer retention. It’s also where you’ll learn. People will tell you when you’re full of shit.

Appendix: Traffic Hacks:

• Commenting on other blogs – you need to comment on other people’s blogs. First, it is a place where your comment will often link back to your blog where it can drive traffic. Occasionally, and not overtly, and only if relevant you can provide a comment with a link back to an article in your blog. Don’t do this often, don’t be blatant and make sure it’s relevant.
• Linking to other blogs – For example, many people know that I love VentureHacks because it’s a great resource for entrepreneurs and I think that Babak Nivi is a star. Notice I’ve linked to his website. If he tracks his blog (which I’m sure he does) he’ll see this link. If he has a Google Alert on his name (everyone does) then he’ll also get that. Don’t be over the top gushing and creepy. Be subtle. Don’t overtly tell everyone you link to, “I linked to you, check out my article!” Assume that over time if you write compelling content they’ll eventually check you out.
• Covering relevant people in your blog in an authentic way – If your blog covers topics in your industry it’s likely that you’ll be able to write about some people and companies that you want to be aware of your blog. Don’t Tweet @ them telling them you covered them. Don’t email them saying you covered them. Just talk about their company. If you write good articles over time and do this often enough people will notice.
• Tweet support - What I did in the early days was to enlist Tweet support. I would occasionally ask people that I was close with to retweet my posts. I tried to mix it up in order to not ask the same people often. I would send out emails with the Tweet text already written so that they just had to cut-and-paste. As my blog started getting authentic traffic I stopped asking for this help very often.
• Guest authoring – Once you have a bit of credibility as a writer a great strategy to drive traffic is to write guest posts for relevant bloggers in your sphere of influence. If you runBakeSpace and blog about food why not contact some of the local food blogs and see whether you could submit guest articles. Most people are delighted to have the free content. In return all you ask for are links back to your blog and to your Twitter account. Slowly and surely these will add users, of which some will come back on a regular basis.

The 52 Top SEO Tips - Here Are 10 of Them Read more: http://www.seo-writer.com/reprint/top-seo-tips.html#ixzz1UqSQLK4V

By David Leonhardt
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From the obvious to the "Hey-I-never-thought-of-that-great-idea-before", here are 10 of the top 52 tips on how to optimize your website for its turbo-charge rocket ride up the search engine rankings.

Be bold.Use the tags around some of your keywords on each page. Do NOT use them everywhere the keyword appears. Once or twice is plenty.

Deep linking.Make sure you have links coming in to as many pages as possible. What does it tell a search engine when other web sites are linking to different pages on your site? That you obviously have lots of worthwhile content. What does it tell a search engine that all your links are coming in to the home page? That you have a shallow site of little value, or that your links were generated by automation rather than by the value of your site. Here is an example ofdeep linking, in this case to mypersonal happiness workbook.

Become a foreigner.Canada and the UK have many directories for websites of companies based in those countries. Can you get a business address in one of those countries?

Social bookmarking.Make it easy for your visitors to social bookmark your website, creating important links that the search engines value. There are plenty of free social bookmarking widgets available. We offerThe Bookmarketer

.

Newsletters.Offer articles to ezine publishers that archive their ezines. The links stay live often for many years in their archives.

First come, first served.If you must have image links in your navigation bar, include also text links. However, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots will follow the first link they find to any particular page. They won't follow additional links to the same page. You can see this in action at the link to the home page on thisweb site monitoring page

Multiple domains.If you have several topics that could each support their own website, it might be worth having multiple domains. Why? First, search engines usually list only one page per domain for any given search, and you might warrant two. Second, directories usually accept only home pages, so you can get more directory listings this way. Why not a site dedicated to gumbo pudding pops?

Article exchanges.You've heard of link exchanges, useless as they generally are. Article exchanges are like link exchanges, only much more useful. You publish someone else's article on the history of pudding pops with a link back to their site. They publish your article on the top ten pudding pop flavors in Viet Nam, with a link back to your site. You both have content. You both get high quality links. (More on high quality links in other tips.)

Titles for links.Links can get titles, too. Not only does this help visually impaired surfers know where you are sending them, but some search engines figure this into their relevancy for a page.

Not anchor text.Don't overdo the anchor text. You don't want all your inbound links looking the same, because that looks like automation - something Google frowns upon. Use your URL sometimes, your company name other times, "Gumbo Pudding Pop" occasionally, "Get gumbo pudding pops" as well, "Gumbo-flavored pudding pops" some other times, etc.

Site map.A big site needs a site map, which should be linked to from every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site needs a site map, too. It's called the navigation bar. See how the second navigation bar at the bottom ofLast Minute Florida Villasis like a mini-site map?

There you have it: 10 of the 52 Top SEO Tips, a free tip sheet that comes withDon't Get Banned By the Search Engines:

There is a lot more to search engine optimization, and there are always more details when looking at an individual site. But these tips should help any website significantly improve its rankings.

For more free seo-related articles for reprint, please seeour article directory.

Read more:http://www.seo-writer.com/reprint/top-seo-tips.html#ixzz1UqSLIxL3