Sep

5

How to Get More Topics for Business Blogs Now

September 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment

When writing business blogs, it’s easy to become frustrated. Depending on the industry, it’s common for blog authors to think they’re running out of good ideas to write about. Unfortunately, if you aren’t keeping your blog interesting enough you’ll lose readers and you won’t attract new ones. Luckily, the Internet is chalk full of fresh ideas for business blogs, you just need to know where to look. Here are 10 steps for finding new and interesting content for your business blogs according to Kipp Bodnar’s blog post “10 Simple Strategies for Business Blog Content.”

Compile industry information. There’s plenty of great information online. Make your blog all about collecting popular industry stats, photos, videos and articles. Put the information into your own words that will be easy for your followers to read quickly. Your readers will love being able to find all the up-to-date important industry information in one place. Since many people will be relying on your for breaking industry news, your readership will skyrocket and you’ll gain more credibility online (a tough thing to accomplish). Make sure to always give credit to the source of the information when you’re aggregating content.

Find Guest Authors. Seek out other experts and industry leaders and ask them to contribute an article for your blog. Many people will take you up on your offer (without expecting payment) in order to gain more exposure and links back to their own Websites or blogs. Getting a fresh perspective in your blog will give keep your readers on their toes and interested.

Answer Questions. Check your email and with your sales and support teams to figure out what customers really want to know about your product or service. After you generate a list of questions, write a blog post for each that answers them in simple language (without any industry jargon) that your customers can understand.

Write an opinion article. Every industry has controversial topics. Pick a couple of these topics and write an opinion article about the issue. Opinion blog posts usually attract more visitors and comments than neutral posts because people will have a positive or negative reaction to what you wrote and want to respond. A few opinion posts here and there will breathe some fresh air into your content and also allow your readers to connect with you more on a personal level, which will inspire more trust and loyalty.

Don’t just rely on text. Publish videos and utilize photos, charts and graphs within your blog. If there is an industry event taking place, go and take photos. The next day, publish them with captions as your only blog post. It’s okay to take a break from text once in a while. Think about what other information would be interesting and useful to your readers that doesn’t involve text and try it today.

Make a list. Lists are quick and easy to read, which is why people love them. Summarize industry information in your own words using numbers or bullet points. Lists can be a how-to, best-of, truths and myths, do’s and dont’s, etc. They also are good for coming up with a new angle on a well-known topic.

Check out Website analytics. Analytics will show you who is reading your blog. You can see where they live, what kind of computer they’re using, how they’re finding you and other useful information that can help you cater to them more directly. It will also show you where you need to promote your blog more because you’ll know how people are finding and reading it.

Review Industry Books. After reading some industry books (preferably new), make a video review or write a review for your readers. Make sure to point out both the good and bad aspect of the book and point out parts that you think your readers will especially love.

Use charts and graphs. Use interesting data about the industry to compile a chart that your readers might find interesting and/or valuable.

Be a reporter. Always stay up on the most recent and breaking news in your industry and try to post it as soon as possible. That way, your blog readers will begin to see you as a trusted expert in the field and rely on you for the industry news. Your blog will begin to show up on the search engine results pages more too because search engines value sites that are the first to discuss a subject above the rest.

Using these 10 tips to help generate content for your business blog will surely help increase your readership and build your credibility and reputation as a valued industry expert. Sign up for Google alerts with a keyword that pertains to your industry so each time a breaking news story is uploaded, you’ll receive an email. Now that you know how to use the seemingly endless amount of information on the Web to your advantage, you’ll never get the feeling of writer’s block again.

Wendy Suto, President and CEO of Search Circus, specializes in search engine optimization and search engine marketing including writing business blogs for over 10 years. Certified in SEO, Wendy Suto only follows natural and organic search engine optimization guidelines with proven results.

Article Source: How to Get More Topics for Business Blogs Now

Jul

31

3 Things You Should Avoid Blogging About

July 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment

In the world of blogging, there never seems to be any shortage of content. In fact, blogs are one of the best sources of information for many search engine users out there. This is why a blogger assumes a very important responsibility of providing correct and accurate information for those who are searching for it.
There is definitely no lack of topics for any blogger in any niche to write about. However, there are also a few things that a blogger should be careful not to write about.
Here are three important things that you should avoid blogging about:

1. Negatively Talking about Competitors

It is very unhealthy professionally whenever you talk negatively about your competitors. This does not mean that you should not be frank, it is important to be diplomatic in the way you talk about your competitors. Moreover, it is difficult to maintain a good impression to your own readers when you are so negative about others. If you really think there is something negative or wrong with your competitors, it is much more professional to shoot them a personal email through their contact form.

2. Personal posts

Yes, it is true that all pro-bloggers have asked you to connect to your readers at a personal level. Unfortunately, most bloggers confuse this advice with the thinking that it is okay to mix personal posts with their professional niche blog. Never include your personal posts in a niche blogs. Your reader’s time is too valuable to squander by telling them what you had for breakfast or the fight you had with the neighbors.

3. Avoid “I Think”

When you write a post for your readers it is meant to provide them information or knowledge in their subject of interest. All readers (including you as one) want hard, stone-written facts, so if you add “I think” or “maybe” to the information that you blog about then you are putting off your readers. Write what you are confident and absolutely sure about; otherwise don’t write about it all.

Scopeformoney.com blog covers lots of interesting topics related to internet marketing like blog tips, blogging tips and blog tools.

Article Source: 3 Things You Should Avoid Blogging About

Jul

31

What is the correct way for a blogger to approach an advertiser?

July 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment

We all know that for most bloggers, selling direct advertising is the most popular for making money online. But most advertisers will only approach you once they feel that your blog is suitable for their marketing campaign. At the same time, it is always possible that you feel your blog is popular enough to promote sponsors and you need to bring it in their notice. In cases where the blogger has to approach the advertiser, what is the correct way to go about it? This post provides a reply to the question.

Other Popular blogs

The first thing that you need to do is to search for the type of advertise who would want to sponsor on your niche.

You can do this easily. All you need to do is to go to other popular blogs in your niche. If they have a list of sponsors on their blog, then surely it could be the first place from where you can begin to prepare a list of advertisers who you will approach. This has been one of the oldest methods that has been employed by most bloggers who required sponsors. Sometimes it becomes important to go out and present your blog to potential advertisers rather than expecting them to approach you.

Shoot them a well-written Email

The email which you send to your potential advertiser is a very crucial part. There is a high possibility that there are many other bloggers like you are sending them emails as well. This is why your email should be professional, crisp and written to the point. If you wander from the point – your email can even be treated as spam. There are some important things that you must include in your email. Start with stating your name and your website. Then proceed to state that you are looking for sponsors. And then below have an enclosed document or simply type your crucial site statistics such as Unique Visits, Alexa Rank, Demographic traffic break-up, Google Page Rank tc. Essentially include all the important data you come across in your Google Analytics dashboard – that is interesting for your advertiser.

By finding advertisers directly and not through third-party ad brokers like BuySellAds, AdvertiseSpace etc. you are basically spending a lot of your time. All advertisers have a marketing plan to generate exposure or hits from the audience of a particular niche and your task is to run a niche-specific, well-visited blog and advertisers will eventually come.

Scopeformoney.com blog covers lots of interesting topics related to internet marketing like blog tips, blogging tips and blog tools.

Article Source: What is the correct way for a blogger to approach an advertiser?

Jun

26

Making Your Twitter Stand Out

June 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment

When you are using a social networking platform, it is ideal that you make yourself stand out from the crowd. Literally thousands of people all across the globe use twitter as their social networking media. How will you make your twitter page stand out? The key is to make your own personalized twitter background. A background will separate you from the rest and can be a great form of advertising.

You will be able to use the social networking media as your ultimate marketing tool to promote your business, products or services to your followers. It offers a lot of advantages that includes personalization of the profile page, content and overall theme. Twitter functions as instant messenger, email and micro-blogging where users will be able to express their opinions for up to 140 characters.

Your follower will be able to see the updates that you have posted by tweeting. With this platform, you will be able to upload your own background image that will reflect your interests or promote your business and services. By designing a background that will be able to fill in your followers with your business information or the kinds of services you render, you are actually starting to recognize the importance of uniqueness.

Uniqueness in a social networking media platform is very important because it is the only thing that makes you stand out from the crowd. A lot of people who join twitter would prefer to use one of the 12 predesigned templates for their profile page but perhaps their goal in tweeting is not the same as yours. If you define your goals on what you wanted to achieve by joining twitter, it would be easy for you to define what background you should utilize. It could be cute twitter backgrounds to show your personality to the ones who are following you.

Aside from cute twitter backgrounds, there are literally hundreds of background images that you can use for your twitter page. However, nothing really beats customizing your own twitter background into the image that you wanted your followers to see and understand. There are a lot of reasons why you should use customized twitter backgrounds.

The reasons depend on the goals you have defined before you decided to join twitter. Whether you opt for cute twitter backgrounds to properly express yourself, it provides significant impact to your followers.

For More Information, please visit our website at http://www.twitcane.com .

Article Source: Making Your Twitter Stand Out

Jun

22

Ensuring Your Wordpress Blog is Secure

June 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Wordpress is one of the most popular blogging software applications that is currently being used for blogs and also as a content management system for websites. Just like any other software, with popularity comes troublesome security issues as people try to hack the program and cause problems for the users. In addition to doing frequent updates, backing up your installation is one of the best ways of making sure that you are secure in case your blog is taken down by a hacker.

There are two things that need to be backed up to have a complete backup of your Wordpress installation. The first one is the database. You can manually use a tool to download your database and remember to do this week after week. There is also a tool that will do this for you automatically.

Get the plugin WP-DB-Backup. Install this into your Wordpress blog under the plugin folder and activate it. Under ‘Tools’ there will be a Backup button that you can press. This is the area where you can set up an option to have this database emailed to you on a daily basis or at least once each week. Make sure you use an email that is not connected to your current hosting account in case the whole host gets attacked. Now you have your database automatically backed up.

The second piece you need is anything that you upload to your account like your plugins, themes, images, videos, and other things. To do this, simply use a FTP client software application to access the hosting account and copy all the contents of the public_html folder. This will get everything that you need. If you don’t upload items too often, this might only have to be done maybe once a month.

It is important to get into the habit of performing these two backups on a regular basis. By backing up on a regular schedule, if the blog or the host has some sort of security issue, you have the option of installing the blog again on that host or a new one without having to worry about losing any information, posts, pages, comments, or any changes that you have made to the account.

Wordpress makes maintaining a blog or website simple and convenient. By taking steps to ensure your site’s security takes the simplicity and convenience to the next level and allows you to have peace of mind as well.

Cecil likes spending time in the garden and spending time around the house. Cecil is a dedicated journalist who likes writing about subjects he knows well such as retirement and insurance. You can read all about different types of small safes on his site: www.smallsafe.org.

Article Source: Ensuring Your Wordpress Blog is Secure

Jun

22

Wordpress – Tips to Securely Back Up Your Wordpress Blog

June 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Cecil enjoys tinkering in the yard and tinkering around the house. He realizes the importance of home security so he keeps a small safe in his home and office to protect his valuables. Cecil likes learning more about his favorite subjects like maintaining a family blog.

Article Source: Wordpress – Tips to Securely Back Up Your Wordpress Blog