Blog To Great

Save the Newspapers, Ban Linking !!!

     Blog News- In one of the more highly charged and (crazy ideas) to save newspapers,the otherwise intelligent, Richard Posner, US Appeals Court judge, has been promoting the idea of banning links (and more!) under the guise of saving the newspaper industry!  But in America, we were under the impression that news is news, and though you can copyright a news story, but not the news.  To prevent bloggers from paraphrasing or commenting on news developments is outrageous.  At BtG we deplore the copying of other people's work and know the importance of giving credit, but the idea of prevent links should be a concern to all bloggers. And as crazy as his idea sounds, it should be watched and you should be prepared to content your elected officials. And btw, why does the newspaper industry require being saved. 

See more at ValleyWag and a great report on the state of the newspaper biz at BusinessInsider

What is FREE ? Chris Anderson's New Book Asks What Happens...

     Blog Tips- Much is being said about the new book by Chris Anderson (The Long Tail), FREE, including that he may have plagiarized significant portions and comments coming in from Mark Cuban and Seth Godin.  So, Chris is getting significant attention already and we look forward to reading the full work.  But, in the meantime, continue to examine what the future will hold for content.  Music, movies, blogs, newspapers; must they all be free?  Or, is this transition period the harbinger for changes to improve the distribution of knowledge, entertainment and all content.  Will the internet in the end ruin everything and all economic models, or bring renewed opportunity?  We've seen the demise of record companies, in great part due to the executives ignoring the digital age and their clinging on to old models.  The newspaper, magazine and home entertainment (dvd) companies were nearly as slow to react as their record company friends, only recently coming to terms with the reality of digital and internet opportunities.  We saw blogs take hold and impact print, we now see Twitter and it's free resource impacting blogs.

As Wired.com points out: "Once a marketing gimmick, free has emerged as a full-fledged economy. Offering free music proved successful for Radiohead, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and a swarm of other bands on MySpace that grasped the audience-building merits of zero. The fastest-growing parts of the gaming industry are ad-supported casual games online and free-to-try massively multiplayer online games. Virtually everything Google does is free to consumers, from Gmail to Picasa to GOOG-411."

What will all this mean for your blog?  Will free make it harder to monetize a blog?  It should mean more blog opportunities, more content to offer your readers and more chances for you to bring on changes to help your followers. The issue really is, how to deal with a world full of free.  Don't fight free, use FREE, and make it a model for success.

See the review of FREE in The New Yorker.

Link Baiting Tips for Your Blog's Success

     BLOG TIPS - Many bloggers, especially newer ones, misunderstand the concept of Link Baiting.  Somehow, the name gives it a bad rap for some.  But it really  means anything on your blog that's interesting enough to grab reader's attention. It's a good SEO technique to get natural links for your blog. Of course, remain focused always on creating quality content for your blog and to always write something which is fresh,informative, helpful, compelling and interesting for readers. But among your other promotional, marketing and advertising efforts, keep Link Baiting in mind! 

Read this link baiting tips (and let us know how they work for you and your blog) -

Offer Up Something Useful for FREE-  Give other bloggers a useful or interesting tool at no charge.  Such as; if your in the loan or mortgage biz, provide a free mortgage calculator or currency convertor etc. then if other webmasters will use that tool on ther website will automatically provide you a link back.

Create a Poll or Quiz-  Polls, quizzes, surveys, etc. are good ways to create talk about a topic (and your blog), and you'll learn something about your readers.

Run Contests: Organize a contest for your readers to enter.  Be sure to follow all laws and regulations, but it's a good way of link baiting, by promoting to other bloggers in your niche.

Write a Controversial post-  Thous usually generate strong reactions. I, personally, don't like to be offensive, so I advise not to go over the limit, but people post their perspective & publish the complete conversation on their on blog too. (Hey, you'll probably get some comments too, never a bad thing).

Be Contrarian. Look at a current, hot topic.  Don't side with the majority, make your case for the minority opinion and do it well.  (But don't sell your soul on big, important issues.  Always be true to yourself)

Research and Stats- Do your homework and research a topic which is currently popular or trending well, then post your opinion and expertise.  Make sure to add something of value to the topic, don't just give out facts.  Use the info you learned and offer an "expert" opinion, and prediction.

Use Jokes & Humor - One of the best linkbaiting techniques around. Most folks react to funny content and usually share it with others on their blog/forums/etc.  The jokes are especially effective in link baiting when they refer to a noted figure or expert in a niche.  For Blog to Great, maybe we should call out top "how to blog / blogging gurus" and pro bloggers, like Maki, Darren Rowse, John Chow, Darren Scocco !!!

More ideas needed?, see a great list at Jim Westergreen's  blog.  And, let us know your tips and suggestions on Link Baiting. 

Get a Great Domain Name for Blog Success

     Blog Tips- Finding the best domain name (web address) can make it easier for you and your blog get a higher search engine ranking, though it takes a little more work and research nowadays.   When the internet was new and young, bloggers and web site operators rushed for the shortest possible web addresses.  A great idea if your name is “MGM” but not so great if your blog or business name is “New York Business and Marketing Strategy Association”.  Abbreviations work as well if they make sense, but for the purpose of search engine success, “NYBMSA.net” is not going to help you since it doesn’t have any words that people would search for such as business, new york, association, business groups, etc. 

Keywords included in your web address will have significant weight with most search engines.  Search engines decide that if the word “business”, for example,  is part of a web address, then that blog would most likely be of interest to a someone doing a search that includes the word “business”.  This way, if the name of your organization is “Acme company” and you sell cds and blu ray discs, then for SEO purposes, instead of ABC.com you’d be better off with AcmeCDs.com or AcmeCDsandBluRay.com.  We don't advise adding dashes (-) to break up the words, as this does not really help, and it may confuse people. 

While it is always proper to use your company name as your domain, if your blog has a local or geographic focus, including it can give a big increase in ranking.  When you use your location as part of the URL, it helps you show up when visitors key in the city or state they are interested in.  “AcmeCDsNewYork.com” tells all your company name, what you sell and where you're located.

Many bloggers buy several domain names, to prevent competition or squatters from using similar urls to attempt to confuse readers into visiting the wrong website.  At a small price (approx $10 per year for every domain name, purchasing a few extras might be considered cheap insurance.  Acme might use AcmcCDs.com, Acme-CDs.com, AcmeShoesandBluRay.com, AcmeCDs.net and have each of the extra domains forward to the official web address / blog so that visitors end up at the same destination regardless of which of the above they typed in.  Sure makes it easier for you, and allows you to concentrate on other blogging matters.

Google PageRank Updates Seem to Be More Frequent

    Blog Tips - It seems Google has been busy with a PageRank update this week.  I've had reports of bloggers seeing minor changes on some of their blogs.   Once again, there's little to comment on, and at Blog to Great we've decided not to post with a report everytime an update occurs.  But with this update, it seems the PageRank updates are coming more frequently.  The last PageRank update we noted was about six weeks ago and noticed that update from talk on blog forums and blog comments. 

Did you notice the update six weeks ago, or this weeks?  And, does it matter to you and your blog?

Google's WONDER WHEEL, A Cool Tool for Bloggers ?

     BLOG TIPS- Google has a new search features that looks promising.  Check it out, it you haven't seen yet.  Google “Make Money Blogging” without the quotes then click on the Show Options link at the top. At the bottom of the sidebar you’ll see a link that's labeled “Wonder Wheel.” Click on it on the wheel appears.

It's a Flash-based interactive visualization that places the main keyword in the center, with related terms around it in a circle. Clicking on a related term creates a new, connected circle with more related terms to graphinally allow you to be more specific about your search without having to enter another search query.  You can find terms through the wonder wheel that you might not have thought of on your own. Note that you'll get different results each time you click on one of those wonder wheel links based on whether you are logged into personalized search or not. It's interesting that Google analyzes your search query to determine what links should appear at the spoke of each wheel.  This tool should help you discover, as it can take you off on tangents from what you were interested in finding.

I'm that about ways the Google wonder wheel can be used to better optimize your blog. Your thoughts and suggestions?

Reasons Blogs Fail, and How to Avoid Them

     BLOG TIPS- New bloggers read up as much "How To Blog" information that they can, and there are numerous experts who are happy to offer advice.  You have your domain name, and are set to blog.  But what about reasons blogs, and bloggers fail in their blogging efforts?  Let's address several that Blog to Great has heard of so that you can avoid them!

1. A Lack of Dedication & Passion: Failed bloggers are not truly passionate about their blog and niche. Failed bloggers are caught up with the "idea" of blogging but don't grasp the nature of blogs, blogging and their niche.  Once they use up their limited post ideas, they wander off and the blog wastes away.  SOLUTION-  Be truly passionate about your topic, blog about something you love, enjoy and stay current with.

2. A Lack of Determination:  Failed blogs and their bloggers look at the top bloggers, are envious of them and decide they can do it too.  What they fail to realize, or accept, is that to be a TOP blogger, you'll have to stick with it for possibly years to develope a following and a quality reputation/standing in the blogosphere.  SOLUTION- Don't see blogging as a chance for overnight success or fame!  It has to be worked at and you have to accept short term failures (low traffic).

3. A Lack of Caring When Posting: Good blogs and bloggers rarely dash off filler posts.  Spend time with your work (your posts) and make sure you're proud of what you write and that it offers the reader real value. Proof read your posts at least twice. SOLUTION- Write wisely and carefully and determine what you want to say before you write a post.

4. Use of Black Hat Methods: Some bloggers are tempted to short cut in order to get quick results.  By using these methods, you need to realize that short term gains will not guarantee true, long term success.  Black Hat methods will deminish your, and your blog's, reputation.  SOLUTION- Work hard, and use White Hate methods only for true success.

4. A Desire for Quick Money: Again, failed blogs are blogs and bloggers that are looking for fast cash and a not to share knowledge, build a  good reputation and learn about a topic. Failed bloggers believe (falsely) that money is easily found with a few blogs, by stuffing their blog with ads or by joining click fraud groups. Good blog ads are helpful,  part of blogging and a good way to monetize a blog, just don't overdo it.   It's not worth the short term gain if you plan to stick around, and there's a good chance you'll get scammed and won't see the money anyway!  SOLUTION- Know why you're blogging, and if it's only for money, don't attempt it.

6. Failure to Interact with Readers: These bloggers, if they're fortunate enough to gain readers, fail to engage, challange, excite their audience.  When this happens, readers will lose interest and move along to other, better blos. SOLUTION- Offer new, fresh, valuable and sometimes controversial content.  Ask your readers to reply, comment and join in the discussion with you.

7.  Fail to Make a Call for Action: As in #6, comments are great for blogs, but if you don't encourage your readers or challenge them to think, they won't enter into the discussion.  SOLUTION- Be direct, ask your readers to join in !!!

8. Poor Grammar: Readers need to know the writer has some expertise in the niche.  If you grammar is poor, you will not be considered smart or a leader and expert.  SOLUTION- Re-visit basic grammar rules to brush up.  And, have someone with good skills (friend, family member, co-worker) review your work before posting.

9. Failure to Develope a Brand or Identity: Popular blogs and bloggers need to be known and stand for something.  Make sure your domain name says something about you.  Make sure you know what your stand for, and be consistant at it. SOLUTION- Stay on topic and be true to what your about.  Even something simple like current, well written, accurate About Page and Contact Information Page reflect who you are to your readers.

10. Failure to Network with Other Bloggers: As a blogger, you're part of a network already, but you need to be an active member.  Search out other bloggers in your niche, share information (a little at a time) and share success/failure information.  Be willing to learn, comment and link !

Comment below and share the "failure" stories you've heard (or experienced) so that we all can avoid them.  And, Blog to Great !!!

How To Choose a SEO Consultant for Your Blog

     BLOG TIPS - At some point in the blogging career you have been, or will be approached by SEO Consultants offering you their services.  Or, you may have considered hiring someone for SEO (Search Engine Optimization efforts).  First step for you should be to fully understand what a SEO consultant can do for you and your blog.  A truly qualified SEO consultant should be able to help bloggers in all facets of their search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Finding good SEO and blog marketing consultants is not necessarily hard, it's just there are some many to choose from.

A talented and honest SEO consultant should be a big boost to your blogging efforts. A qualified consultant will make you aware of all the details of the work, their costs and every feature of their program.   S/he will also help with keywords that are commonly searched for in the Internet business, modify your currently blogs for search engines, update title, meta and alt tags.  Your consultant should also help you review and clearly understand blog visitor behavior and web analytics. This knowledge helps you get the most out of your current blog traffic, while taking the right steps to increase traffic. Your consultant should also be adept at forming and managing pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. H/she should also assist you in structuring your blog to improve your search engine rankings.

Many SEO consultants will happily take your money, but be unable to deliver the results you're looking for.  So you need to take care in choosing and be clear in your expectations.  It's best to research SEO  practices to learn what is appropriate, ethical and possible.  This way, you can tell if a potential consultant is being accurate in their claims and promises.   Know what questions to ask a your potential SEO consultant in order to find the best individual or firm.  Ask, and verify, their qualifications and references.  Find out what trade associations they're members of, and determine if what they tell you is accurate. This information will tell you as much as their proposal, the word of mouth is extremely powerful and past clients will be a big help in your selection process.  But don't really only on the clients the consultant tells you about, network with other bloggers, visit blog forums and see who your fellow bloggers recommend.

A good SEO firm knows that it's impossible to guarantee a ranking.  Instead, they should be talking about the process to help improve your ranking and what work they've done successfully for others.  Be leary if someone makes guarantees too big to believe!  And, don't rush your decision to go with a firm.  Take your time, talk to several, narrow the selection process and talk again.  If you're not comfortable with a particular consultant, look elsewhere.  Make sure your personalities work well together, you need to work closely with your consultant, you'll want it to be an enjoyable experience! The choice is yours, and you're the customer. Remember that a SEO consultant works for you!!

For more help, visit SEMPRO.org, a non-profit SEO organization. 

Village Voice Media Starts Up Ad Network

      BLOG TIPS- Village Voice Media, publisher of 15 alternative weekly newspapers across the USA (including, of course,  the Village Voice in NYC), has annouced the launch a niche online ad network that will be made up of local blogs and content sites, each that will align with VVM's demographics and indie philosphy.   Under the Voice Local Network brand, VLN has already started selling advertising over the last few weeks on behalf of several NYC blogs, including the foodie-aimed Eater.com, the real estate–centric Curbed.com and the shopping-focused Racked.com.

Also, the network includes the vintage music hub Wolfgangsvault.com  and LikeMe.net, which helps users find music, restaurants and entertainment s based on recommendations of others. Voice Local Network can handle all ad sales for its blogs/websites, or they will look to work with their partners ad efforts. VLN feels it has a good opportunity here, by leveraging its storng regional presence by bringing more local advertisers to these sites, while it provides its own advertisers with greater reach. “With this network, we can align ourselves with good quality sites with similar demographics by plugging in and becoming their sales force,” said Village Voice Media president Scott Tobias. “This allows us to extend our coverage into certain verticals and maintain high CPMs.”

Read more at Adweek.  As the online ad market continues to be "challenged", all good ad opportunities should be investigated.  To learn more about VLN, or to submit your blog, contact VoiceLocalNetwork.com.  

Millions Sign Up for Facebook Usernames

      Blog Tips - The Facebook username grab appears to have gone off largely without serious problems. Facebook reports that over half a million usernames were registered in the first 15 minutes after the ability was offered at 12:01am on Saturday, and several million usernames have been registered so far today (3 million as of 1pm EDT Sunday afternoon).  Facebook now embraces the "real name" culture of social media, and to keep up with some of their competitors (Twitter and MySpace for example).  A minority of users reported having technical issues with the site, congratulations are in order to the team at Facebook on a very smooth launch! Read more at InsideFacebook.com

 Did you register your user name to promote your blog ??? 

Blog Domain Name Tips and Search Engine Impact

     BLOG TIPS - Finding a good, compelling domain name is one of the key factors in attaining higher page ranking for your blog. Usually, the method typically used by bloggers when choosing a domain name is the looking at the keyword placement in the URL.  You'll want a domain that best describes your blog, the problem is most good domains are already owned.  So, you'll need to be creative and up to date with current trends to find some names of interest.  Ideally, select a domain name with little competition,  but that has high demand.  It should give you a solid advantage in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Of course, you use many points in deciding what domain namename to use.  Ideally, a good, quality domain name should be short, concise and easy for users to spell.  Try to avoid using long domain names as long names make it harder for potential readers to find your blog or site,  and harder for them to remember your blog's name.  Keeping the blog keyword in your domain name helps readers to remember your blog.  Be careful note to include too many keywords in your domain name, this can result in your blog being penalized by search engines.  Two or more keywords can make the domain name lengthier and the chance of misspelling becomes greater.   Another drawback with lengthy domain names is that it will make your email address long and awkward.   So, most SEO experts recommended the use of shorter and catchy domain names.

Keep in mind the use of hyphens in domain names. If you use two or more keywords, without any separators, your domain name might be interesting, but search engines may see the as a single keyword. Instead, you may want to use a hyphen (-).   But the risk there, is that your readers may type in your blog name without the hyphen and not find you.   So make sure that you register both domain names, with and without the hyphen and direct readers to your active domain.  If you can, opt for a domain name that doesn't need hyphens, it makes things a lot easier.  You should also to avoid using numerals  domain name (1,2,3,4, etc) to help cut down on confusion (is that blog's name 2 or two, for example).

You should always consider  registering variations of your blogs name (many companies have deals for this).  Selecting a good business, blog and domain name can draw increased traffic, and makes the entire process of optimization much easier.   Keep it simple, concise and accurate.  Go register your blog name today, and, Blog to Great !

BlogHer COO Talks Blogging !

     BLOG TIPS- The COO of BlogHer, Elisa Camahort Page, recently talked with eMarketer about blogs, blogging and monetizing blogs. She discussed current revenue generating models; advertising, sponsorship and affiliates as means with which you can generate income.  She comments that "It's a numbers game, " meaning great blog content, blog marketing, blog promotion will get you a bigger audience.  And with a larger audience comes more readers to support your blog thru click thrus or purchases.  BlogHer is well known internet community as a network and guide to blogs by women. BlogHer states their mission "is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment".  Ms Page comments on the current economic climate, it's impact on blogging and how BlogHer continues to see new blogs being created.  Blogging is a great tool for self-expression that so easy to implement she says and notes that money is NOT the biggest motivator for new bloggers.  That's likely a good thing, because the passion to blog needs to be there first.  With that you can continue to grow your blog and monetize as it builds.  Grab that great domain name, and start a blog!

See story at eMarketer and continue to  Blog to Great !

Google Adwords Network to Get Updates

     Blog Tips - One of the easiest blog ad systems is changing ! Google has just announced improvements for Adwords advertisers that use the Google Adwords Starter Edition.  They've developed a new interface that makes it easier for you to manage your campaigns, with changes to the new interface occuring over the next few months. 

The basics of AdWords won't change; quick access to your keywords, ads, and settings, plus graphs to help you measure performance, and it won't cost you any more. When Google's finished updating, the look and feel of your account may be a little differnet, so they've published more info so you can familarize yourself.

Key differences after the Google Adwords update-

Just one edition
The new AdWords interface can be used by all advertisers -- there will be no more separate Standard and Starter editions. You'll no longer need to graduate to Standard Edition to expand your account. You'll still have a clear view of your performance, but you'll have access to advanced AdWords features if and when you want to use them.

Many products
Advertise a single product or business with one set of keywords and one or more ads. Or, create different campaigns with separate budgets to advertise additional products or businesses. You can even divide campaigns into sub-sections (called ad groups) each with many sets of keywords and ads. Learn more.

Many ad formats
Use text ads, image ads, and other formats as you wish.

TOP Twitter Tip Tutorials to Watch

   BLOG TIPS- Twitter is an exciting tool for communication, sharing info, and promotion but for many, it's so easy to type Tweet (140 characters or less) that they don't realize that there are more features and benefits to help your Twittering experience.  Maybe that's why a large precent of new Twitterers give up after 60 days on Twitter. So, Ben Parr has compiled a list of the Top TWITTER Tutorials to improve your Twitter experience, and they could help your blog too.  Tips so you can get started on Twitter or want the latest on some of Twitter’s best desktop apps. Check it out, and watch the YouTube videos at TweetMe.

DIGG Removes "SHOUT" Feature, Makes Changes

     BLOG TIPS - You may have noticed that the 'shouts' feature / option on DIGG, used to share news stories with other DIGG users has disappeared.  No, it's not a problem with your account, it was done by the social bookmarking site.  Explained in recent a blog post, Jen Burton of Digg said that the site decided to remove the feature, and their 'blog this' option, in preparation for more popular methods of sharing social media content. "As always, we want to encourage sharing and communication within our community and will continue to look into features that address these needs," Ms Burton stated.

We're not sure what the overall Digg plans are, but they have already added options to allow Digg-ers to share stories via email, Twitter and Facebook.  You'll find Icons for these three on both the homepage and each individual story page.  We look forward to future Digg updates.

Do you DIGG, and how do you use it to help your blog?  Do the recent changes matter to you?  Comment below...