Blogging

Blogs are becoming more and more popular. In many quarters it now seems that having a blog is more normal than not having a blog. Blogs are a place where you can rant and rave about things that have effects on your daily life, keep a diary, or talk about your favorite hobby. Now many Web businesses are starting blogs to keep in contact with customers and give customers the heads up on new products and services being considered.

The blog has become a marketing tool. Internet promotion is no longer simply a matter of having a website and advertising its existence on every popular website and in every popular newsletter. Now you can promote your business products and services with blogs.

People who spend a lot of time using the Web have likely read many blog posts whether they realize it or not. Most of the younger generation either has blogs or spends a great deal of time reading friends’ blogs. The young adults of today spend a great deal of time reading blogs such as those put out by their favorite authors or blogs that have product reviews.

One of the most interesting recent developments is that people of all ages have started using blogs as a source for the latest news. Blogs provide up to the minute eye-witness accounts of major events within minutes of their occurrence. On the other hand, blogs don’t have to be approved by any fact-checkers or editors before they are posted. So the reliability of blogs as a news source is questionable.

The main idea is that blog reading is becoming a more and more normal activity, undertaken by average people. For a Web marketer, the prospect of having a blog means more Web traffic if the blog has many readers.

There are a lot of things you can do to improve your blog’s traffic. You can advertise it as a pay-per-click search listing in search engines. You can also swap links with other blogs and websites. But, it is even more important that you provide interesting content in your blog that will keep your blog’s readership levels high.

The Importance of Blog Template Design - Most people know the information I’ve already given you. What most people don’t realize is how much the blog template design plays a roll in the success of a blog. Even whether or not people find your content amusing can be heavily impacted by the surrounding environment your blog provides to your content. Most blog software and blog hosts offer a basic set of templates that you can use to make sure your blog is organized. If you don’t do your own blog template design, you should at least customize one of these blog templates.

Blog Template Customization - Advertisements It may not seem like advertisements are a feature that enhances a blog, but the truth is that pertinent advertisements serve a purpose to those who are interested in your topic. Google AdSense is one of the top advertisement services currently being integrated into blog templates. However, it is also an excellent source of revenue for your blog.

Audio Content While not directly a piece of the template, seamlessly embedding audio into your blogs can make them much more interesting for site visitors. You can also include quick links to audio in your blog template navigation bar.

Banner Customization You should create your own banner for your blog, not use the placeholder banners provided with the basic blot templates. Make it relevant to your blog topic and suitable for your business image.

Favicon for Personalization Use a favicon to further brand your blog. This will give people a personalized feel for your site in their bookmarks and next to the blog address. It should be consistent with your blog and business image.

Page Features Take the time to customize your blog template skins. Make sure the layouts and backgrounds are consistent with the rest of your Web business site. You don’t want a generic blog design to hamper your branding.

Photos for Personalization You ought to not just include photos in your blog entries, but also place them wherever they will supplement your company image in the template. Use borders around your photos to give them a framed look.

RSS Feeds Make sure you enable the RSS feeds option on your blog template setup. Those with newsreaders or using Web RSS feed services will see the headlines and content of your blogs. They can click on headline links to read more from your blog site. This is one of the best ways to get exposure and a constant stream of dedicated readers to your blog.

About the Author
Everybody can blog but not every blogger makes money! If you are serious about wanting to make money blogging , then make sure you pick up the essential guide at http://www.blogforprofits.info and find out how you can get set up your blog correctly and start blogging for profits from the very first day.

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During the past few months I’ve been discussing some of the most fundamental features of the Web 2.0 ready site (see resources for details). I said your site had to have regularly updated content. I mentioned the substance of having a niche, being well defined within that niche, staying fresh and having lots of relevant content.

Secondly we talked about the decentralized web and making sure your content gets the visibility it deserves through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) which lets you tap into a wealth of opportunity by offering your readers the ability to subscribe to your feed and receive regularly updated content automatically.

In addition I said your site had to be search engine and users friendly. Search engine and users friendly is as much a step back as a step forward; it means returning to the earliest ethics of the web while adhering to a few basic principles.

For example, the navigation should be easily decipherable establishing an easy to follow hierarchical layout. Meaning that there has to be a specific order of precedence among each individual element. Consequently that same order must be constant following that same pattern through every page.

Also we talked about what in my opinion, is the most important aspects of Web 2.0 and that is interactivity and collaboration. Why? Because nobody likes to be on the receiving end of a one-way conversation, good communication is a two way street. Similarly whether you are an internet entrepreneur selling a product, a small business owner providing a service or just a publisher of information you want to be sure to get your point across.

The best way to get your point across is by getting to know your audience. How? By providing some interaction or means of communication in other words, open a dialog. Consequently this type of feedback is invaluable in determining not so much what you want to say but rather, what your audience wants to hear. And hence enabling you to better market your brand and make the right decisions concerning your business.

Now that we’ve talked about some of the fundamental features of Web 2.0 let’s talk a little bit about how you can create or implement your very own web 2.0 ready site. One way to add all of the Web 2.0 elements I just mentioned instantly is to use a blogging platform to run your site.

Generally speaking, a blog is just a website usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or whatever the case may be. Moreover if you have been surfing the Internet for any length of time, then chances are you’ve read many blog posts whether you realize it or not. Even if you don’t think of your site as a blog, or maybe you just don’t feel your brand constitutes the bases for a blog or doesn’t fall under that heading; think of it as a Content Management System.

My personal favorite blogging platform or blogging software is WordPress. WordPress is both free and priceless all at the same time and you can download the latest version of WordPress (Version 2.5.1) right here http://wordpress.org/download/

Basically WordPress is what my site is run off of, likewise it is what I recommend my customers to use whenever they want a website that is search engine friendly, easy to use, interactive and relatively simple to customize.

The reason why is WordPress has a very easy to use administrative back-end that allows you update your site regularly; you just login and its almost like sending an email or using Microsoft Word you just hit publish and whoomp there it is! As apposed to having to learn some programming language or worse having to hire a web master again, and again even for the smallest modification.

Typically, WordPress is organized in reverse chronological order - that is, the newest, freshest content is presented first. Similarly all the content is linked and fitly joined together with a unique web address so that people can bookmark or link to any page and so the search engine can easily index each individual page.

In addition WordPress is instantly interactive because at the bottom of every post there is a comment box where people can talk to you and you can reply back to them and that opens up that line of communication or medium that as I’ve already mentioned it’s so important for getting that feedback.

Besides that, every time you add a post WordPress automatically notifies all of major directories (see Technorati, Bloglines, or any other feed-based aggregator) or at least most of them, likewise WordPress also automatically notifies anybody that is coming to you via their preferred feed aggregator.

So there you have it, all of the characteristics of Web 2.0 I just talked about and many more are made available by using WordPress and best of all its totally free. The last thing I want to mention also is to do with customizing your WordPress template commonly know as themes.

A huge factor weighing heavily on whether or not people who visits your site will remain there for any reasonable amount of time, or whether or not they may decide to make other return visits to your site depends upon the esthetic characteristics of your design or over all look and feel of the site.

To clarify this concept further, think of this comparison. Generally speaking, a person who wears clothes that fit properly, are clean and wrinkle free is said to be a well-dressed individual. Moreover their appearance may make us feel or act more comfortable or amicable towards then some might even see this as a clear indication of someone who is apt to be more fun to hang around with. Similarly, a website that has a neat and friendly surrounding environment will be more likely to retain its visitor.

WordPress templates
A WordPress template theme is a skin (theme or template) for this popular blogging platform – if you are not already a professional web designer I suggest you invest a little money on one of these. The cool thing about WordPress templates is that a professional web designer using the latest technology designs them.

In other words, as you can see here, people who have a real passion for and really understand typography, white space, layout things like that do all of the labor; skills you could only wish to achieve after years of practice as a graphic designer and or developer.

Be that as it may, don’t be misled – Yes WordPress templates are great for your site, nonetheless also for your competitors’ sites that bought the same template you did! On that note, I entreat you to consider the benefits of having professional template customization.

Our template customization are only $380 a pop, and they’ll allow you change the templates color scheme, font style, add your own logo and if need be, we will even installing WordPress on the server for you. What is more, we will customize any theme to fit your individual business needs.

The result is a unique interactive website that works intuitively to help your customers find everything they need (read more about our template customization process).

In the upcoming months I will introduce you to WordPress plugins and show you how to install then on your blog, we’ll definitely talk about the sites new redesign, give you more tips on customizing your template and I’ll also show you ways to start monetizing your blog.

Resources:
How to Analyze, Optimize, Publicize, Monetize and Troubleshotize the Ideal Web 2.0 Site in a Nutshell.
Is Your Site Search Engine and Users Friendly?
How Can Interactivity Increase Conversions & Make You Money?
Essential Web2.0 Skills

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Wordpress blogging just took the next step forward with widget ready wordpress themes! Most wordpress users had become pretty much used to customizing the design and layout of their wordpress blogs, by changing the themes every so often. With so many free themes available on the internet today, it gave the users plenty of options to select from. But widgets have been something different. They have opened the possibilities of customizing the side-bar functionalities to a completely new horizon! Widgets have made it easier than ever before, for the end users, to customize their wordpress themes, without having to learn any kind of programming.

What Are Wordpress Widgets?

Wordpress widgets are nothing but blocks of codes that make it very easy for you to convert the sidebar of your wordpress blog or site, from a simple “drag and drop” menu to a totally hi-fi, sophisticated, multi-functionality equipped “task bar”! With widget ready wordpress themes, you can very quickly modify the design and general layout of the site, without having to know HTML, CSS or PHP. Whether you want to “tweak” some simple visual elements, like the color scheme, fonts, your “banner picture”, or install extra plug-ins to give more functionality to your readers, widget ready themes let you do all that, much faster than before!

There are about a hundred different widgets that can be used with wordpress themes, and they exist under several different classifications, such as photography, sports, music, cookery, pets, income, discussion and so many others. So it becomes very easy to customize your site/blog according to whatever you care about. However, these widgets are compatible with only the newer widget ready wordpress themes. In case you want to use one of the older themes with widgets, some modifications will have to be done to make the theme widget-friendly first.

Customizing Wordpress Themes

Customization of widget ready wordpress themes holds a lot of promise. It isn’t exactly rocket-science to code up a widget, but, never-the-less, it is beyond the PHP skills of most theme designers to allow their widgets to be customized by end users! So if you think you’ve got what it takes to “cook up” these “chunks of code” called widgets, the wordpress community would welcome you with open arms! You can modify basic features, like whether the blog posts show complete entries or just excerpts, or you can change the number of posts listed on your blog index. Even though wordpress is already adding to its vast collection of widgets, for users with all kinds of whims and fancies, there are still hundreds of themes available that can be customized to give completely different widget functionalities to the end users.

However, there are certain things you need to take care of when you are designing your own widget ready wordpress themes. You must make sure that theme can be easily installed on any existing blog or site without much “disturbance” to the content of the site. The theme should also be easily customizable for any blog. Hence it is advisable to first test your theme on a test blog and site, before releasing it to the public, to see if it can support all the miscellaneous widgets and plug-ins that people might want to use on their real blogs and sites.

About the Author

Richard Bulla share his views about Wordpress Theme and its features. For more information on Free Wordpress Theme, please visit www.wordpressthemes.weblogs.us

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Recently I have been talking a lot about Web 2.0 and the far reaching effects it is had through the whole social media phenomenon. Hugely popular sites and services like (Digg, Blogger and YouTube) attract enormous amounts of audiences by delivering the once impossible, now inevitable opportunity to rant to anyone clear across the world or, discuss your special expertise in a particular niche with those who share a similar interests.

In this series of articles (See Resources for links) I will explain how to apply these new trends and new technologies using very inexpensive techniques and services that do not involve tinkering with the HTML code of your pages themselves so you too can be well informed and able to make every effort to take full advantage of the social media era.

First and foremost, stay fresh! Having just a simple digital brochure (e.g. an online bulletin board of your services, contact page etc) simply doesn’t work anymore. Your site has to have regularly updated content. Nobody likes stale news; similarly, your sites content needs to stay fresh in order to continually hook and delight your primary audience. Moreover as a publisher of information people will want to do business with you if they trust you and one of the best ways to build that trust is to provide the users with relevant clear authoritative content.

This involves coming up with a strategy to keep people coming back for the latest and greatest. For example, you could plan to keep up with the latest trends in the home load industry, such as mortgage rate trends, refinancing etcetera. Or you could feature relevant news articles, special promos, tips or tutorials that draw attention to your particular niche. In addition, your plan should provide a checklist with specifics “to do” items essentially saying that you are going to do this many blogs this week, this many podcasts this month, this many videos and keep a regular publishing schedule (remember we’re talking long-term strategy here) so your subscribers will become used to hearing from you and, you’ll be able to gain their trust. So again, your site has to have regularly updated content.

Secondly your content should be made available through RSS (formally “RDF Site Summary”, commonly known as “Really Simple Syndication”) or RSS feed. You don’t need to understand the ins and outs of the RSS protocol (I promised you no tinkering, didn’t I? Though if you want to know more, here is a good place to start), all you need to know is why RSS is becoming so popular and how important it is to make your content available through RSS. Basically, what’s so attractive about RSS (versus bookmarks or even email) is it allows the subscriber to control the delivery of information. In other words, unlike with email, subscribers can limit what they receive to exactly what they want.

If you’ve ever opened your inbox and seen something that looked like spam, walked like spam or quacked like spam I think you can certainly appreciate this. Since users can be counted on to be a little lazy (or would most likely prefer avoiding going all over the place for new information), they’ll just use sites and services like myYahoo or Google Reader that can constantly checks their favorite news sites and blogs for new content. Consequently, as the web becomes more and more decentralized placing media control in users’ hands and allowing them to experience what they want, when they want, your site needs to adjust to this decentralize nature and be present wherever your target market is looking. So, whether you are posting up article regularly, video blogging or podcasting, whatever the case maybe, you need to be positioned to allow syndication on your site and that means making your content available through an RSS feed.

In the upcoming weeks I will be talking more about these new Web 2.0 trends and also show you the easiest way to launch your own ready-built web 2.0 site. Likewise, please feel free to share your thoughts and comments and make sure to check back for more updates.

Resources:
Is Your Site Search Engine & User Friendly?
How Can Interactivity Increase Conversions & Make You Money?

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