Join A Community To Advertise Your Blog

Join A Community To Advertise Your Blog

Something that you will find, especially if you join
something like LiveJournal or GreatestJournal, is that
users just like you have created communities for
people with common interests.

There are communities for just about any subject, and
if you find that there isn’t a community for the
subject you can create one. This is a great place to
advertise your blog.

The nice thing about communities is that there isn’t
any limit as to how many communities that you can
join.

For example, say that you love blogging about books,
horseback riding, and skiing in Tahoe. All you have to
do is look through the communities for ones that have
those interests and join them.

As long as you post something related to the topic to
the chosen community, people will see you and perhaps
they will check out your personal blog.

Something to remember is that you don’t want to write
a post tht is one sentence long in order to get people
to go to your blog. They will want to know that what
you write is interesting and is something worth
reading.

Joining communities can be a great way to advertise
your blog and drive traffic to it. If you are
referring to something that you posted about on your
blog, you can use a link back to your entry in your
post.

As with posting comments on someone else’s blog, you d
on’t want people to think that you joined a community
simply to get traffic to your blog. Otherwise, people
won’t visit your blog and you may get banned from the
community as well.
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RSS Advertising for Your Blog? Why It’s Still Good for You

RSS Advertising for Your Blog? Why It’s Still Good for You

The problem with the Internet is that there is just so
much information floating around that it can be a
full-time job just to sift through the good ones and
ignore the so-so ones. It’s like TiVo on the Web - you
only get to access the stuff you really like and avoid
the ones that make you cringe, all without the
interruption of unwanted material. But what’s this?
RSS advertising for blogs and websites? Is this the
end of an era or just simply part of the Internet’s
evolution?

Why RSS matters Advertising on RSS is ruffling a few
feathers mainly because it’s a concept that seems to
go against the very nature of RSS. For the
uninitiated, RSS consists of different Web-feed
formats that are utilized for publishing or posting
content online. RSS works mainly for content that
frequently undergo updates, such as news, podcasts and
of course, blogs.

The purpose of the RSS is to allow regular visitors of
a site to access relevant updates by simply
subscribing to its RSS feed. It’s convenient,
particularly because it eliminates the necessity to
access a site and sort through the contents.

Will RSS advertising work on your blog? The fact that
people continue to subscribe to RSS feed is proof that
it does work nicely. In fact, you’ll probably notice
that more people subscribe to a site or blog that
offers RSS feeds than those who don’t. As proof, try
to compare CNN.com with the New York Times’ website.

But when it comes to the subject of advertising, all
isn’t exactly well. Some people believe that having
adverts on RSS sort of defeats its original purpose -
that of allowing subscribers access to pure content.
There is talk about using an RSS advertising block,
one that effectively allows users to get rid of ads
that are contained in an RSS feed. So what’s next? A
full-fledged war between advertisers and ad blockers?

To use RSS advertising with your blog effectively, the
trick is to write compelling summaries of content
found in your site and use that for the feed. A feed
containing full text, for example, might fail to
generate interest in the ads since the usual purpose
of the subscriber is mainly to read the content.

Using a feed as a full ad can backfire, since people
generally dislike being bombarded by ads. Some
bloggers who use RSS advertising, for example, use a
full feed as an ad every 10th to 12th post. Their
readers still get the meaty feeds that they like but
also get exposed to ads the blogger is promoting.

If this is the way you think RSS advertising can work
for your blog, try experimenting with different
strategies, such as combining good content with
related ads. That way your readers don’t have to think
that the post is nothing but a way to make them
perform an action or spend for something.

Blocking the hand that feeds Before anyone does
anything drastic, let us consider how important
advertising is to blogs, websites and yes, even RSS
feeds. Thanks to revenue generated from advertising,
sites (and everything else that supports them from
software makers to hosting services) continue to
exist. Advertising provides support for sites that
offer us content, including those found in RSS feeds.
Without advertising, many sites and providers might
find it difficult to defray cost related to producing
content.

So where will RSS advertising’s place be in your blog?
Continue to use it. You owe it not only to your
advertisers and sponsors who have been helping you
meet the cost of maintaining your site but also to
your readers who, without your ads, might not be able
to access your content.

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing

All bloggers know that a well-written, entertaining
and focused blog can generate huge volumes of traffic
from visitors. This is one of the basic learnings in
blogging: blogs should be focused and centered on a
topic and other related issues.

Search engine marketing is simply the process of
getting your blog and its content sufficiently high
ranking in several search engines for your keywords.
This would enable your content to generate more
visitors to your site from SERPs or Search Engine
Results Pages. Attention-grabbing content titles and
sites help users to feel compelled to click on your
link in the search engine results pages and eventually
visit you.

Additionally, search engine marketing needs a Web site
that is optimized for search engines. Normally, this
is a Web site that can display a configuration setting
that makes it look interesting to search engine
spiders. In turn, the spiders will visit the site and
look at your content. After doing this, the spiders
then pick up significant keywords, which determine the
characteristic of your page. Lastly, the content
returns to the search engines for the purpose of being
indexed.

Enhancing Search Engine Marketing

Nowadays, blogs are making tons of small news Web
sites or mini content centers that contain significant
information and links. Compared in the past, search
engines visit major news Web sites since they were the
ones who were the ultimate sources for the newest
content to be found online. Blogs have outpaced
several media outlets online due to their capability
to deliver and publish fresh information to the public
faster.

The key in getting noticed more by the search engines
is to publish faster. Since search engines looks for
the freshest, high value and relevant information, it
is important for you to publish frequently. This would
get your blog more visits from major search engines
and others.

Blogs have a natural relationship with search engines.
Since blogs are natural search engine magnets, the
search engine spiders will visit your blog often if
they detect an update from it. In addition, the
content of your blog does not have to wait for months
before getting into search engine result pages but
instead, your content will be displayed in a matter of
hours or days.

It is important to know how much the search engine can
do for your blog. Blogs should be frequently updated
to allow the search engine spider to visit you often,
since they are normally programmed to visit your blog
as often as you publish fresh contents.

Reasons Why Blogs Rank Well in Search Results

Firsly, blogs are designed to meet the demands for
search traffic and search engines. Blogs are also
highy significant in their niches and are considered
as the best sources of the most up-to-date information
online. More so, blogs can be keyword optimized.
Keyword optimization helps blogs achieve high rankings
in search engine results. Additionally, wisely
distributing the keywords evenly on the content can
also help your blog rank easily on search engine
results.

Compared to Web sites, blogs are also text-rich
publishing tools. This only means that the code used
by blogs is light weight. This makes your blog’s
content highly visible to search engines. Search
engine spiders can visit your blog frequently and
crawl over your content faster because of greater
clarity. This clarity provides a vivid interpretation
of what the content of your blog is all about

Selling Your Blog: How to Find Blog Advertisers

Selling Your Blog: How to Find Blog Advertisers

There are several ways to monetize a blog. One of the
most commonly used is by selling advertising space,
either through text-based advertising or banner ads.
But to do either of these, you will have to look for
advertisers who will pay to have their ads placed on
your web pages. If you’re unsure on what to do and how
to do it, here are tips to help you find blog
advertisers to help you generate revenue with your
website:

Promote. Instead of just leaving possible banner ad
locations blank, let advertisers know that they are up
for grabs. Use ‘Advertise Here’ or ‘Your Ad Here’
texts to indicate their availability.

When advertisers click on these areas, they will
arrive on a page where information about buying ad
space will be provided. Make sure that there is a
webpage that will be used for this purpose
specifically. This page may either contain information
about your terms or it could be a link that will allow
your advertiser to send you an e-mail.

Seek out advertisers actively. Other than openly
promoting your blog for ads, you could also find blog
advertisers by targeting them. That way, you get to
choose who will place their ads on your blog. A
standard letter of approach to advertisers should
contain:

- a brief introduction about yourself

- a short explanation of the purpose of your e-mail

- a short explanation why you’re soliciting their
sponsorship or ads

- a concise explanation of the benefits of placing ads
on your blog

- details regarding your advertising terms (type of ad
placements, industry to which your advertisers belong,
maximum number of ads in one webpage, cost, method of
payment, etc.)

- important details about your site, such as your
subject matter, audience, number of traffic, etc.

Offer sponsorship. Blog sponsorships are fast becoming
a trend online, as the number of businesses utilizing
blogs as an extension of their marketing efforts
increases. Through sponsorship, you will be working
closely with a company (your advertiser) and promote
their products and services through your blogs. Your
web pages will also carry that company’s name, brands
and logo.

You could also come up with a sponsorship deal wherein
specific parts of your blog’s content will be
sponsored by the advertiser. This type of blog
advertising works well if your site is quite popular
already and has a considerable number of visitors.

Do a keyword search. There are many companies and
individuals using Google Adwords who might be
interested in an arrangement with you. Do a simple
keyword or key phrase search regarding major topics on
your blog. Then seek out sponsored links and find out
about the companies that pay for them. Get in touch
with these people and offer your blog for their ads.

Take advantage of links. Blogs and other sites that
link with your blog are potential advertisers. If they
find your blog interesting enough to link with, they
might be open for negotiations regarding advertising.
You might want to send them an e-mail to let them know
your blog is available for advertising.

Tap people who use your forums or leave messages.
Another way to find blog advertisers is to offer your
ad spots to people who leave comments or messages on
your blogs. Seek out people affiliated with a company,
group or association. They might be interested to buy
ads on your blog.

SEO Importance In Blog Advertising

SEO Importance In Blog Advertising

Having a blog on the Internet that gives people some
good informaton doens’t do a lot of good if people
don’t know that it’s there.

If you want people to be able to find your blog,
something that is important is that you have good
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.

Whenever you put one or more words into a search bar
to look for something, the SEO of a website is what
helps bring up those websites.

For example, if your blog is about Harry Potter, you
are going to want to be sure that your blog includes
popular terms such as Harry Pottter, JK Rowling, and
other things that are related to Harry Potter.

Think about the things that people look for when they
are interested in Harry Potter, and the kinds of
things that come up when you search.

It’s always a good idea to use your own experience
when you are optimizing your blog for searching.

Think about what has worked, what hasn’t worked, and
use them for your own blog SEO. This way, when someone
puts one of the terms that you put in your blog into a
search engine it will be one of the sites that comes
up.

Of course, there are other factors that come into play
that determine where your blog will come up in the
list, but everyone starts somewhere.

The more keywords that your blog uses, the more people
will come to your blog. It just takes time and
patience.

Setting Your Own Blog Advertising Rates

Setting Your Own Blog Advertising Rates

Sooner or later, you will be faced with the decision
of whether to use advertising on your blog or not.
Advertising isn’t mandatory for keeping your blog
interesting; in fact, it’s merely an optional tool you
can use in case you want to take advantage of your
blog’s popularity. But once you’ve decided on placing
ads on your site, there’s one more issue you need to
consider: setting your blog’s advertising rates. So
how much can you expect to charge or be charged?

With blog advertising, there are no set rates. It is
up to the blogger to design the correct ad payment
scheme that attracts advertisers and allow him to
generate a reasonable income at the same time.

To help you determine the right advertising rates for
your blog, it’s important to consider doing some
research first, particularly about similar blogs and
to consider your traffic and perform some simple
experimentation using your site.

Playing with figures If you think that setting your ad
rates at low prices will attract more advertisers, you
couldn’t be more mistaken. Your $300 a month rate may
not stand against another blogger’s $600 a month rate
if you only have 50,000 page views monthly and he
enjoys 600,000 page views.

An advertiser will look at the ratio between the cost
of advertising on your blog against the amount of
traffic that your site generates, the same traffic
that will potentially click on the ads.

A good ‘constant’ to consider when determining ad
rates is the CPM or Cost-Per-Mille - mille being
equivalent to 1,000. Let’s say a blog receives 150,000
page views monthly. For a 125×125 sidebar ad (usually
the most common), the blog charges $250 monthly.
Divide $250 by 150 (that’s 150,000 divided by 1,000 to
come up with the CPM) and you’ll get $1.66 CPM.

The same arithmetic is used by some of the most
popular blogs, including JohnChow and Copyblogger. For
your blog, you might want to consider how much traffic
you generate and the number of genuine page views you
get. These figures will help you evaluate your blog
and come up with the appropriate ad rate.

Since these blogs are well established, you could
start at far lower rates if you’re still building
traffic. Consider a starting figure of about $0.5 CPM,
which is friendly enough to your advertisers and good
enough for you. Raise this rate gradually as your blog
becomes more popular and as more advertisers and
sponsors buy ad space from you.

Size and location Advertising rates also vary
depending on the size of the ad and where it will
appear. Larger ads and those that will be placed in
prime locations or ‘hotspots’ will cost more. Ads will
also be more expensive if they will appear along with
content or on your blog’s header. Cheaper locations
will be those found on the page’s footer and the area
located after the fold.

Factors that influence ad rates Not every blog can
enjoy strong advertising support. That’s mainly
because not every blog has the right amount of site
traffic, the right visitors, market demographics or
niche. These are just some of the factors that affect
your eligibility for ad placement and the rate you can
charge on your blog.

Blogs, by the way, do not pass through the same
channels as traditional print media. The cost of
providing information in blogs is low enough that
bloggers can offer low advertising rates and still
earn a profit.

Social Bookmarking for Blog Advertising

Social Bookmarking for Blog Advertising

Social bookmarking sites are a growing trend and are
becoming more popular each and every day. They are a
great place to share your bookmarks with everyone and
to be able to access them from any computer. They are
also a great place that you can post a link to your
blog.

There are over fifty social bookmarking sites that you
use to submit your link to your blog. Digg, Digo, Blue
Dot, and del.ico.us are just a few of them that are
the most popular. Each site has its own guidelines and
rules for posting links, so it’s important that you
want to read the rules that they have before you post
any links.

Because social bookmarking isn’t as targeted as other
forms of advertising for your blog, you may find hta
tit will take longer for it to be effective. But it’s
also a good way for you to get your blog noticed and
it may bring in people who may not have found your
blog another way.

Since social bookmarking doesn’t always give you the
opportunity to know who it is that has seen your site,
or get to know other people, it’s always a good idea
to keep track of the visitors who say they were linked
to your site through a bookmarking site. If the site
allows you to put a comment, ask people to let you
know on your blog that they found it through a social
bookmarking site and which one. That will help you
know how effective it is.

The Basics of Blogging

The Basics of Blogging

With the advent of internet marketing, Web publishing
is continually gaining ground and popularity.
Nowadays, technologically savvy corporate businessmen,
or even business employees, use blogs to build and
manage relationships with their consumers. They share
their company’s expertise, culture and other
information, which can help develop the customer’s
interest in their products and services.

On the other hand, not only do businessmen venture in
the world of blogging but regular computer users too.
Not only can they voice out their opinions and
thoughts to others but also earn money in more ways
than one; from selling ad space to offering expert
services, which in turn builds their reputation as a
professional.

If you are thinking of entering the blogsphere, you
must be ready of the problems you might encounter in
several areas of blogging, such as: choosing,
installing and configuring your blog software tools.
Although the collection and assortment of
configurations vary widely, a neophyte blogger can
still get confused. The tools are not the only
obstacles you must overcome but also the terminologies
used for blogging.

Tools for Blogging

Basically, the software tools for your blog greatly
depend on your provider. For instance, the RSS
functionality can be absent from one provider but
present in another. Additionally, some blog software
tool providers can cost as low as $4 each month
depending on the extent of service you choose, while
others can be used for free but with limited services.

Choosing the right software tool depends on you. If
you have enough cash to spare for a blog or if you
want to really get serious with a blog and hope to
earn cash in the future, which is always a
possibility, you have the option of choosing priced
blog software tools. However, if you are a newbie
blogger, it might be advisable to start with free blog
software tool providers.

Fortunately, some providers that charge for their
services also offer free trial periods, which range
from 10 to 30 days. This is an excellent opportunity
to try and test out the services they offer without
paying any fee. Luckily, if you find a provider that
you are comfortable with and offer the services you
need, you can always use their free trial periods to
the full extent before subscribing.

Blogging Terminologies

Blogging is like a secret society and like most secret
societies; it has its own language that you must
learn. Although, technologically savvy individuals an
easily familiarize themselves with these terms, it
might be hard for those who have limited or no
background with Web publishing whatsoever.

Firstly, the most important term in blogging is Post.
A post happens every time you place or publish an
update to your blog; you also create a post this way.
Secondly, since blogs are a means of communication,
comments are also possible. If your audience leaves a
message regarding your published content, this message
is referred to as a comment. Normally, the comments
are labeled and time-stamped to allow you and other
readers to see who posted the comment and when it was
posted.

Comment spams, is also a term that happen when a
single reader continuously repeats the same comment
over and over again. This can be a headache for the
blogger as the blog can be used by the reader to
promote other blogs or Web site.

These are just some of the few terms that you can
encounter in blogging. Only exploration and experience
can help you understand the other terminologies
involved in blogging.

The Benefits of the Blog Types

The Benefits of the Blog Types

In blogging, you are not limited into one type of
blogging type. In fact, there are several types of
blogs. No matter what type bloggers use, they publish
content around topics and issues that they feel
passionate about. For instance, several bloggers write
about politics, others for pet care and some for
personal computers. However, blogs that are business
oriented are often focused into a single topic for the
fact that they need to emphasize their services or
products.

Blogs can cover a wide range of topics. Because of
this versatility, several people are starting to blog.
Not only can they express what they feel or advertise
their products or services, they can also earn cash.
Blogs are new methods of earning income at the comfort
of your own home. However, that is just the icing on
the cake since blogging can bring lots of joy to
several bloggers for that fact that they can share
their opinions and thoughts to others and receive
advise from them or vice versa.

Blogging for Business

Several businesses are exploring the world of
blogging. This is an excellent opportunity for them
since blogging is a great medium of communication.
Additionally, business oriented blogs can benefit from
the search engine optimization advantage, which is the
biggest leverage of blogging.

If the business has a Web site that promotes a product
or service, any type of content that the business use
as the vehicle to drive the business or commerce to
another level require a blog. Blogs are very useful
because they are text-based and light weight, with
regards to the code used, compared to traditional Web
site content. This only means that blogs minimize the
crawl time of search engine spiders and allow them to
retrieve more information about the page to the search
directories a lot faster.

More so, blogs are dynamic because they can be updated
frequently. By frequently publishing contents for the
blog, the search engine spiders visit more often. The
result is that the blog can have more pages being sent
over the search engines compared to the business’s
opponents. This is very good indeed if the competitor
is the one who has a static Web site. This also
provides the blogging business an opportunity to reach
out to more potential customers, thus possibly
increasing their revenue.

Blogging for Personal Use

Normally, personal blogs have the characteristics of
being exciting, interesting and enjoyable. Bloggers
blogging for personal reasons have the purpose of
keeping their friends and family updated about their
lives and activities. Many bloggers find comfort in
blogging personal contents. Additionally, if you
create a personal blog, you are open to the idea of
sharing your interest with other people who might
visit your blog.

Like any other blogs, personal blogs can be
incorporated with photos, videos and other multimedia
elements. You can create a personal blog about
anything that you feel passionate about. There are
even personal blogs with contents regarding products
that the blogger is really interested in. This
provides the businesses ideas about the preferences of
their customers. This only proves that blogs also work
in synergy.

Blogs are very easy to use content management systems,
which allow you to publish articles right away and in
real-time. These platforms for communication unravel
new opportunities to connect with others both in a
personal or professional manner.

Using Blogs As Sources In Articles

Using Blogs As Sources In Articles

Depending on what type of blog that you have, it might
be a good idea to advertise your blog using articles.

For example, say you know about jewelry and gemstones,
and your blog is a place where you post information
for people to read about jewelry.

Submitting an article to a website such as Associated
Content can be very instrumental in bringing people to
your blog.

An good example would be is if you wanted to talk
about the common misconceptions about the colors of
gemstones.

You could write about the fact that people assume that
gemstones such as emeralds, sapphires and rubies are
one different color, but the truth is that those
stones come in a variety of colors and hues.

Then you can use your blog as a source for your
information, as long as you have blogged about those
gemstones.

The great thing is that some places, like Associated
Content, will pay you for the articles that you write.

So if you sell jewelry on your blog, it’s like being
paid twice for your knowledge. Of course, this is just
an example of the way you can use articles to
advertise your blog.

When you are writing an article, be creative. You
don’t have to be an expert at what you do. If you
enjoy writing stories, you can say that posting
stories on blogs is a new and different way to share
your stories with others.

Then, post your blog link as your source and you have
people checking out your blog and your stories.

Writing and Publishing Your First Blog Entry

Writing and Publishing Your First Blog Entry

The content of your blog is an important factor in
gaining traffic and acquiring a target audience.
Publishing your first article or item is a great
milestone in your blogging career. Fortunately, there
are several basic guidelines, which can make your
content more effective to your audience, adored by the
search engines and respected by the world of blogging.

Publishing an Effective Content

Before you begin to write anything on your blog, you
should know who your target audience is and what they
want. If you see these factors as irrelevant for your
blog because your blog is not business oriented in any
way, you must remember that if you want readers then
these factors are really relevant.

Always remember that where there are readers there is
something interesting to read. The only reason why
people read is because they want something. If you
really want to achieve some kind of massive
readership, you must strive to make your content
interesting and actually what readers want.

First of all, keep in mind that communication is the
key. More so, your communication must be authentic.
The time when you publish your content is also the
time when you let your true self surface. Blogs are
personal in nature and communication is the key to
being personal. The fact that each blog is unique
because each writer is unique is enough for you to not
to worry about future similarities with other blog
entries. Keep in mind that whatever topic you are
blogging about you must incorporate your personality
with your writing.

In order to create a loyal target audience, it is
important for the visitors to trust you and relate to
you. It does not necessarily entail that they know
about your personal details but you must connect with
your audience in an authentic manner.

After establishing your communication with your
audience, the content must also be credible. The blog
must have authenticity even though credibility takes a
lot of time to build.

The moment you begin publishing your content, which is
of high value and useful to the readers, you also
start establishing your authority. There will come a
time when your readers ask you for advice or seek for
your opinion; this is the time when you have achieved
some kind of credibility and you must use this to
build your reputation as a blogger.

The Blogger’s Block

Blogging is writing but uses a different medium. There
are several methods to fight blogger’s block. Always
remember that your blog software exists to serve you
and not to frighten you. You do not have to try
blogging carrying the idea that you have prolific
writing skills, or a journalism degree. The fact is
that you have something to say and you want others to
hear it. However, if you are feeling stuck on an idea,
there are several suggestions that you can apply when
creating the content for your blog.

Firstly, you can try visiting other blogs. Visit those
blogs that interest you and pick ideas and topics from
those blogs that might be worth blogging about but
keep in mind the relevance of the topic and your
readership. You can also syndicate your news updates.
You can do this by subscribing to news services online
because they allow you to save time on searching using
keywords. This is most useful for bloggers.

Advertising Your Blog- 4 Ways to Do It at Little Expense

Advertising Your Blog- 4 Ways to Do It at Little Expense

During your initial foray into web logging, you’ll
find that it will take some conscious effort on your
part to promote your blog. Of course, you could just
simply write feverishly and hope that your blog takes
on a life of its own.

But that’s putting your hopes on randomness which
might not work in your favor. If the thought of
advertising your blog has never crossed your mind,
it’s time that you gave it some consideration,
especially if you’ve only begun blogging.

Here are ways you can start advertising your blog at
little or no cost:

Share information for free. Don’t expect or demand to
be paid for information just yet. You’re still trying
to build your reputation and nobody knows you. Focus
on putting out excellent quality entries or posts in
your blog. Good content, coupled with enough
promotional activity, will put you in the blog
universe’s map.

The way to do it is to write articles about your
specific topic, articles that are related to your
chosen content. Include a short introduction about
yourself and your blog and place a link back to your
site. Writing articles helps establish your reputation
as a reliable source of information and makes you
recognizable.

Take article writing a bit further and send it out to
article databases or social bookmarking sites where it
can generate more buzz and get free promotion. Social
bookmarking sites allow visitors to vote for your
article, so the more it gains in popularity, the more
exposure your blog will receive.

Target online forums Online forums are today’s
bulletin boards, the equivalent of the office water
cooler. These are sites or pages on the internet that
people frequent to ask or answer questions, share
their opinions, tell a story, rant, rave or just
simply say something.

Seek out online forums where topics related to your
blog are found. Forums offer free advertising
opportunities for your blog and let you network at the
same time.

Link up with other blogs Never underestimate the power
of a good connection. Many bloggers form associations
with other bloggers and reap the rewards of a
symbiotic relationship in the process. They do this by
swapping links, allowing themselves to share their
audience with other bloggers like you.

Bloggers can also actively promote your blog by
mentioning it in their posts while at the same time
providing links back to your site.

Frequently, blog owners will often allow you to guest
write an article or post for a day or a week. This
helps expose you and your blog to that blog’s
visitors.

Give your two cents’ worth Don’t always treat other
blogs with content similar to yours as bitter
competitors. Sometimes, they could work as silent
partners to help you promote your blog. It may sound
sneaky or unacceptable to your idea of good ethics but
if you look closely, it’s not only practical, it’s
also legit.

Each time you visit another guy’s blog, consider the
niche market it targets. Simply take a look at the
prevailing topics and sentiment and you’ll have an
idea whether it’s a match to your needs or not. Leave
a short but meaty comment on a relevant article that
you truly found interesting. Then leave your name and
a link to the blog page where a related topic can be
found.

What this does is simply promoting your blog to a
market that already exists. You’re not exactly
stealing another blogger’s audience - you’re simply
providing them an alternative. And that’s not so bad
for advertising your blog.

http://www.stealthesearticles.com/members/articles/2008/05/page/01/

Advertising Your Blog In Your Email Signature

Advertising Your Blog In Your Email Signature

If you have a blog that you are particularly proud of,
and that you want to share with other people, there
are a lot of free ways that you can get your blog
noticed.

One of those ways is something that you do everyday,
and that you may not even consider as a way to share
your blog. Put the link to your blog in your email
signature.

Chances are that you send out emails more timese that
you can count during the day, Each time you send out
an email, you can advertise your blog by putting the
address of your blog in your email’s signature.

It’s always a good idea to write something catchy
like, See what I am up to now, or Read my latest
chapter of my fanfic here, depending on what type of
blog you have.

The thing to remember about putting an adveritsement
in your signature for your blog is to make it short,
but eyecatching.

You want people to be interested enough to want to
click on it, but you also don’t want to scare them
off.

Just like it is with any adveritsement, you want to
give them just enough to be interested and take a
closer look at what it is that you are advertising.

Think about what it is that your blog is about. What
is really going to interest people abuot it and want
to visit? That is what you should include in your
signature, and that is what is going to get people to
go to your blog.

Advertising Your Blog on Other Websites for Free: How You Can Take Advantage of a No-Cost Strategy

Advertising Your Blog on Other Websites for Free: How
You Can Take Advantage of a No-Cost Strategy

There are several ways you can advertise your blog on
other websites without paying a single cent. The trick
is to find these channels and determine which ones
will work for you. Here are just a few techniques you
can use:

Advertise on other blogs. You could build a reciprocal
relationship with other bloggers, particularly those
whose content are related (but not necessarily
similar) to yours. If your blog is about gadget and
industry news, for example, you could advertise it for
free on another blog that offers gadget reviews.

By becoming partners with a non-competitor, you take
advantage of his market for the right type of exposure
without alienating anyone. It’s fair, it works and
it’s for free.

Use social media. Social media revolutionized many
aspects of the Internet, particularly because it
presents a new way of communicating and sharing
information. It broke many barriers, allowing people
from across the globe to build and join networks, both
for personal and business purposes.

Social media are sites that can be used to advertise
your blogs for free. Nearly all types of businesses
that exist on the Internet use social media for
promotional activities. The demographics here are
clearly defined, people can communicate in a more
personal manner and since social media is an accepted
platform for marketing, people who read your ads
regarding your blog are more likely to be receptive to
it. Best of all, advertising your blog on these
websites is free.

Use a network. To build buzz and gain momentum in the
blog universe, you need support from likeminded
individuals. Bloggers don’t really advertise
themselves actively against other bloggers. Instead,
they compete with one another by ensuring they have
better content and easier to use sites.

Although simply maintaining a good blog will help
attract other blogs wishing to link up with you, you
might also want to actively pursue associations with
other popular blogs. Many of the best bloggers around
are generous enough to give you a bit of support and
will gladly mention your blog in one of their posts.
Best of all, a network helps you increase your reach
for the same amount of effort.

Use article databases. Article databases are
repositories of write-ups that bloggers and site
owners use. If you choose this route, know that this
is a rather indirect way of promoting your blog. It is
quite effective nonetheless, particularly if you want
to build buzz regarding your ability to provide useful
information.

Try to search out a specific topic online and chances
are, you will find an article written by blogger in an
article database. Read this article. At the end, you
will notice that the blogger had included his/her
name, a short description of himself, what he does,
the name of his company and a link back to his site.

Sometimes, a blogger might even include a few links to
some of his write-ups within the text of the article.
This is to entice the reader to click on the link and
find related information on the writer’s blog. Using
links in this manner allows you to advertise your blog
for free on a separate website.

There’s no cost involved here, particularly if you
wrote the article and performed the submission
yourself. If you prefer to spend a little bit, you
could also use copywriting and submission services for
a reasonable cost. While this isn’t free advertising
for your blog, you still get to expand your presence
using another website.

All About the Traffic

All About the Traffic

traffic only means that the content is not that good.
However, there are also instances wherein a great blog
does not have enough traffic. The key in getting
traffic is to come up with a strategy and make
everyone notice your blog. There are a few things that
you need to consider with regards to generating
traffic to your blog and these are not that different
from planning a regular Web site.

The only exception is that blogs can generate traffic
a lot faster. What you only need to consider first is
your target audience and where exactly you are
generating your blog’s traffic.

The Content

The content of your blog is very important. It is the
reason why people visit your blog. Try to make your
blog interesting and learn to master the ideas
included in your blog. The content should also be
relevant and of high value to the audience. Find out
what your audience wants and if what you are writing
satisfy them.

The content is especially important if you are
planning sales from your blog. Firstly, you must
become a trust-worthy and credible source of
information before people try the product. Blogs are
excellent medium for sales since they allow you to
connect and converse through the use of the content.
You must realize that without a great content, your
blog cannot fully achieve power and leverage against
others.

In order to gain audience for your content, remember
not to publish infrequently. Additionally, do not
criticize others if you do not have facts to support
your claim and references for those facts. If you
criticize, do it in an objective non-personal manner.
What you can do is to publish often and make sure that
the entry you are about to publish is meaningful and
of high-value. Lastly, be yourself to help your
audience relate to you but do not reveal any private
information.

The Ping

Some bloggers take the extra mile just to ping and do
not solely rely on the blog software pings. The blog
software pings’ job is to update the servers for the
purpose of announcing your content updates. Search
engines and blog directories then checks these update
servers for the latest updates; this is the reason why
your blog’s content gets into search engines quickly.

Pings make blogs excellent search engine optimization
tools. There are even instances where it only takes a
day before your content gets into search engines.
However, your blog’s content will only take hours to a
few days to get into most search engines, on average.

When starting a blog, always check the instructions
included. There might be section wherein you can turn
on the blog software ping automatically, which
activates on the background. By doing so, whenever you
publish content in your blog, it will instantly
transmit ping updates.

RSS feeds are also important. Not only will you be
able to publish your content within a short duration
but also replicate your content through the use of
your RSS feed. Nowadays, the flow of your content is
real-time and the RSS allows you to show your content
to a wider audience.

There are several ways to promote your blog. However,
keep in mind that there is no strategy for quick money
when it comes to profitable blogging. It requires
dedication, time, a strategy for the content and
patience before the cash starts flowing in.

Blog Advertising: How Do You Know If You’ve Done Too Much and Gone Too Far?

Blog Advertising: How Do You Know If You’ve Done Too
Much and Gone Too Far?

Advertising is good. It offers information, gives you
access to a product or service you otherwise won’t
know about, it earns people money and fuels several
different industries. But you know how anything
excessive breeds discontent and greed and neither one
is pretty. The wrong use of advertising on your blog
could send your traffic south - not exactly the
direction you want it to take. So when is blog
advertising bad and when is it just right?

Is your blog succeeding? The key indicator that you’re
probably doing something right with your blog
advertising is when you’re actually succeeding. You
get the traffic you want, you earn for a few simple
efforts you made and keep your advertisers happy.

But don’t get carried away by your success. You might
think that placing many ads on your blog can help you
earn exponentially. What it will do is earn you a spot
on your advertiser’s black list. Advertisers have
guidelines about how many ads you can place on one web
page. Generally, this can range from 3 to 5, depending
on the sponsor.

If you don’t want to break the good will that exists
between you and your affiliate or advertising program,
learn what the policies are and respect them.

Is that a blog or a splog? One of the worst labels
your blog can be slapped with is ’splog’. That’s a
blog that contains spam. If your blog is nothing more
than just pages upon pages of advertising and little
content, you’d probably be better off publishing a
fashion magazine.

Too many ads on a blog can bury your content, distract
your visitors and even frustrate them. Some, such as
the very wary ones, will leave your blog in a hurry.
If your blog resembles an infomercial, forget it. It
will look annoying and take away from the good
reputation you’re trying to build.

Too many choices Another challenge you will be facing
when it comes to blog advertising is persuading your
visitors to pay attention to the ads long enough to
actually do something with them. Otherwise, these ads
will be useless.

The problem with a blog that has too many advertising
units is that it can confuse the visitor. When they’re
confused, they’re less likely to click on an ad, much
less subscribe or buy anything. That leaves your
advertisers - and you - empty-handed.

Managing your advertising A blog page can easily
handle an average of three ads, which is something
most advertising and affiliate programs will allow.
Placed strategically, these ads can easily catch the
attention of your visitors. Since there are only a few
ads to look at, your visitors can easily decide which
one to click on.

Now imagine if there were 10 to 15 ads running on the
same page at the same time. You’ve probably seen blogs
like these before, with ads splattered all over,
rivaling a NASCAR race car.

To use blog advertising correctly, first consider the
type of programs you will be running. If you will be
an affiliate to a brand or company, there are certain
restrictions you have to work with. Some companies,
for example, prefer not to have a competing brand’s ad
placed in the same blog.

Second, placement and aesthetics matter. Consider some
of the highest-rated blogs and study their ad
placements. Where are these ads placed on a page, what
are their sizes relative to one another and to the
content box and what do these ads contain? If you’ve
seen enough of these successful blogs, you’ll have
picked up enough lessons to know how to use blog
advertising to your advantage.

Blog Advertising: The Pros and Cons You Should Know

Blog Advertising: The Pros and Cons You Should Know

When it’s done right, blog advertising can be very
profitable. It will not only pay for the maintenance
of your blog but it will also a source of some nice
extra income. In fact, a good percentage of bloggers
take this route to monetize their blog. However, with
every good thing come a few disadvantages. If you’re
thinking of using advertising for your blog, here are
some pros and cons you need to know:

Pros of blog advertising There are several advantages
to using advertising for blogs, which make it an
attractive option for your website. These are:

Your blog earns. The revenue generated by advertising
allows you to perform improvements on your blog. You
can spend for maintenance, pay for better website
design, buy a bigger storage space, pay for faster
bandwidth, etc. This allows you to grow your blog and
attract better traffic.

Advertising gives your blog credibility. Visitors see
your blog as something reliable since you have
advertisers sponsoring you. Most professional bloggers
have advertisers, which means you will also be seen as
an authority in the field of your choice. The
partnership with a known company will indicate that
you offer quality content.

Advertising offers visitors access to relevant
products and services. Since ads will appear on the
same web pages as related content, your blog’s
visitors will be able to view any product, service or
information from your advertisers that they may
actually be interested in.

You’ll be inspired to maintain a quality blog. Only
strong blogs attract advertisers. As a result, you
will have all the reasons in the world to make sure
that your blog offers quality, useful content. You
will be more careful with your choice of topics and
subjects. As a result, your writing is much more
improved and your blog will become a reliable source
of information. The result: increased traffic, a more
targeted audience and more advertisers.

Cons of blog advertising Blog advertising can affect
certain aspects of your blog in a negative way. Some
of its disadvantages are:

It dictates the type of content you will publish. Once
you have advertising on your web pages, you’ll have to
work extra to make sure those ads are noticed and are
considered relevant by visitors. This forces you to
modify your content just to adapt it to what will
attract your readers and entice them to click on your
ads. Sometimes, you’ll find that you will have to
sacrifice meaty content just to write posts that will
promote your ads.

It takes up space on your web pages. You’ll notice
this after a while, when you have multiple sponsors
and running several ads in one web page. As sponsors
buy more ad space, that will take away from the
available space usually reserved for meaningful
content. As a result, you’ll have to control your
content more just to give more room to your ads.

Maintaining advertising on blogs is time consuming.
Having enough ads on your blog should allow your site
to pay for itself. However, it won’t run all on its
own. Now that you have advertisers and sponsors
depending on you, you will have to make sure that your
blog is worth it.

This means you will have to spend enough time in
optimizing your blog so the ads get the audience they
need. You will also have to constantly be on the
lookout for other advertisers and be ready to
negotiate. Other than that, you will have to manage
payments and monitor the necessary statistics to make
sure that your blog remains competitive. Blog
advertising may pay for your blog but it doesn’t take
the work away from you.

Blogger Forums - A Great Place To Advertise Your Blog

Blogger Forums - A Great Place To Advertise Your Blog

No matter what type of blog that you have, one of the
best places that you can advertise your blog is to
join a blogger forum. After all, everyone who posts
there has a blog and thats the main subject.

It’s a great place to meet other bloggers and to
advertise your blog.

There are quite a few blogger forums that you can sign
up for on the Internet. One is known as Bloggeries,
where you can show off your blog, get your blog
reviewed or review other blogs, and find lots of tools
that you can use for your own blog.

Another good place to go is to Blog Forum.

Blog Forum, like Bloggeries, has spots for you to
market and show off your blog,

Blogger forums are a great place to advertise because
everyone in them are of the same mind and want to make
certain that their blogs get noticed and read.

If you use your blog to advertise something that you
are selling, or you want to get a lot of traffic to
your blog in order to make money, you want to go
someplace where it can get exposure.

When you advertise on a blog forum, you know that you
are placing your advertisement in a place where
blogging is something that people enjoy.

Just remember when you are posting to a forum to read
the rules and abide by them. That way you’ll get your
blog noticed and you will know that you are doing the
right thing.

Blogging Directories - Great Advertising Venues

If you want to have more people visit your blog, there
are plenty of blog directories on the Internet that
you can submit your blog to so that people will come
and visit it. Most blog directories are listed by the
topics that the blogs that are submited cover.

Blog Catalog is a free blog directory that offers
categories such as career and jobs, writing, Iraq, and
many others. It has features such as featured blogs
and other things to offer those who submit their blogs
there.

Another great place to add your blog is
blog-drectory.org. Not only do they have an an
extensive list of categories with sub categories, you
can get your blog reviewed. For the most popular
blogs, it shows the amount of hits that blogs have and
if they have any reviews. As well as listing by
category, the blogs are also listed by location.

There are other blog directories on the Internet -
these are only a ouple of them. But blog directories
are a great place to advertise your blog and to make
new friends. You never know what you will find when
you browsing through the directory, and you may just
find out information that you never knew. Some of the
blog directories offer chat features as well, so that
you can meet other people easily.

As you can see, blog directories are a great place to
get your blog noticed and bring people to read your
blog and look at your pictures.

Blogging Traffic - Give And Take

Blogging traffic is a give and take relationship.
Sometimes one of the best ways to get traffic to your
blog is by visiting someone else ’s blog.

Go to their blog and read one of their entries, or
read a few of them. Chances are that you are going to
find something that you have in common.

When you find something that you find truly
interesting on a blog, leave a comment so that they
know that you were there.

One of the best known blogs available is LiveJournal.
A great feature of LiveJournal is that you can search
for interests on their site and it will come up with
results of those who have that interest.

Are you interested in horseback riding? You can see
what other bloggers are interested in horseback riding
as well.

When you are commenting on someone’s post, you want to
make sure that you don’t leave generic comment. If you
like the post, say something about what you read in
the post.

After you have commented on the person’s post, then
you can say something like, ‘I really like horseback
riding too. I had a similar experience to yours.’ and
then use it to link back to your journal.

But be sure that you sound sincere when you are
commenting, and don’t make them feel like you’re just
fishing for traffic.

If someone thinks that you are using their blog to get
more traffic to yours, they won’t visit your site and
your efforts will be wasted.

Choosing The Right Tools

In blogging, using the correct blog software tools can
help you manage the goings-on of your blog. When it
comes to publishing your blog content, there are two
kinds of blog software tools that you can use, such
as: the server-based tools and the client-based tools.
Both of them have their own advantages and
disadvantages and it is up to you to choose the one
that is right for your blog.

The Client-based Tools

One of the two blog software tools that you can choose
from is the client-based tools. These tools’ purpose
is to aid you with publishing your blog and they are
normally installed on your computer and also run from
there. Additionally, client-based tools are also
categorized as small blogs that are able to run from
your hard drive.

Client-based tools also have text editors that allow
you to perform word processing applications from your
own computer. Thus, a text blog editor enables you to
create and publish your own content at the comfort of
your own desktop.

Obviously, the first advantage of using client-based
tools, like the text editor, is convenience. Most
bloggers choose to publish their work with a desktop
tool rather than a Web browser, which entails logging
into the blog software’s control panel and accessing
the Web-based text editor.

Additionally, client-based tools can be managed either
locally or remotely. Such tools can allow you to
manage and edit your posts remotely. More so, the
content of your blog can also be managed locally by
saving drafts to a local computer. These can be very
beneficial to those with limited Internet connection
since accessing and managing the content of your blog
remotely and locally can be done without the need of
being connected to the Internet.

Lastly, you can manage multiple blogs through the use
of client-based tools. If by any chance you are
publishing more than one blog, it might be easier if
you consider using a blog editor. The blog editor can
be easily configured to manage all your blogs. You
only have to enter the same information that you use
to log in into your server tool combined with the
particular kind of server software you are using and
the blog editor can save that information in its
configuration.

The Server-based Tools

Another kind of blog software tool that you can choose
from is the server-based tools. There are two
varieties of such tools: blog hosting service provider
tools and server-based publishing tools.

The first variety is automatically provided by your
blog hosting service provider. Hosted blog software
tools are very easy to use and you do not have to
install any software or manage any configuration too
difficult to comprehend. These kinds of tools can help
you focus on publishing your content.

With the use of hosted software tools, you are also
provided with an assortment of design templates. These
can help you in choosing the desired layout that suits
your blog. More so, the layouts can be easily
customized, including the fonts, columns, colors, etc.

On the other hand, publishing tools you install on the
server has the advantage of giving you the level of
customization and control you need over the
configuration settings. Through the use of these kinds
of server-based tools, you can decide how much storage
space you allocate, extend the features of your blog
through plug-ins or add-ins and make custom layouts
and pages.

How Much Would It Cost You to Advertise on Blogs?

Advertising costs money, even online where the cost of
promoting a brand can set you back by a few hundred
dollars to a few thousand. John Chow’s blog, for
example, one of the most popular blogs currently
active, sells 125 x 125 sidebar ad spots at $500 a
month. The same ad placement will cost around $1,500
with Copyblogger. If you’re wondering how much it
would cost you to advertise on blogs, consider the
following:

Traffic and popularity Blogs thrive on the number of
traffic that visits their sites and on the subsequent
popularity this generates. This is also a major
consideration for advertisers. More traffic simply
means better exposure. Targeted traffic means you’ll
be selling to more people who are likely to buy.

Between a blog that has only 50,000 page views and
another that has 100,000, who would you choose? The
latter obviously offers a wider market and more
potential buyers.

The mille matters. Traffic or the number of page views
a blog page receives also determines the cost of
advertising on a particular blog. If a blog generates
about 100,000 page views monthly, for example and it’s
fairly new, you might have to pay as little as $50 a
month for a 125 x 125 sidebar ad.

To understand how the price of ad spots is computed,
consider the mille. Bloggers will generally use the
unit cost-per-mille or CPM. One mille is equivalent to
1,000, a unit you will be able to use later to compute
for the cost of placing an ad based on the number of
page views it generates.

Bloggers will consider the number of page views their
blogs receive and use that as a basis for coming up
with the cost of advertising. As a result, a blog with
a higher amount of traffic will charge you a higher
price than a blog with a lower number. That means
placing your ad on blogs with sufficient traffic can
range in cost from about $50 to a whopping $10,000 a
month. The bigger number, of course, means your ad
will receive millions of page views.

In conclusion, remember that to determine whether a
particular ad space is worth paying for, consider the
cost of the space versus the traffic it will receive.

Size of the ad The bigger the ad spot you require, the
higher the cost of advertising on a blog. A 125 x 125
ad spot, for example, will be cheaper than a larger
300 x 250 ad. Placement will also affect the ad price.
Header ads, for example, will cost more than sidebar
ads or footer ads. Below the fold ads will cost
considerably less than those that will appear above
the fold or integrated with the blog’s content.

Test periods You might want to consider saving a few
bucks by asking the blog owner if he/she is offering a
test period of ad runs. If your ad will be placed on
test period, that means the blog will display it for a
limited time but won’t charge you for it.

After a specific period, you can then decide whether
to continue with the placement (at which point you’ll
have to start paying) or to pull your ad, depending on
how well it performed in the blog. This usually works
on blogs that are relatively new and are still
building momentum.

Look for blogs that offer renewable ad placements you
can pay for on a month-to-month basis. This will help
you manage the cost of advertising on blogs and help
your bottomline in the process.

Hidden Treasure Troves For Advertising A Blog

Something that has become increasingly popular since
the Internet has grown are the email groups that are
available through Yahoo, MSN, and other venues.

They are a great way to meet other people who have a
common interest, and are very similar to the
communities that are available through blogging sites.

There is plenty of diverse subjects and there are
communities for just about any subject.

These groups can be a great place for people who have
a blog about the subject and want to share it with
other people.

Most of the time when you join a group, you are
encouraged to take a moment and to introduce yourself.
This is a great opportunity to tell people about your
blog, but make certain that you don’t overdo it.

Just like with any of the other places you will
advertise your blog, you want to make people want to
go to your blog. If you are too overbearing, you will
turn people off.

If your blog covers different subjects, you can
advertise it on the other groups that cover those
subjects as well.

Make certain that your post to the groups is
interesting and that you let people know what it is
that your blog is about. There’s nothing worse than
getting taken to a blog under false pretences.

When people visit your blog, make certain that you
thank them for visiting and respond to comments that
they leave.

If they know that you appreciate the time that they
took, they are more likely to come back again.

Getting The Message Across

If you are someone who uses chat programs such as AIM,
ICQ, Yahoo messenger, MSN, or Googletalk and have a
lot of online friends, it can be a great way to get
people to read your blog and to leave comments on it.

As it is with your signature on your email, you don’t
want to just send an instant message to people
everytime you update your blog. You also don’t want to
simply send a message to someone asking to read your
blog.

For someone who has been on your friends list for a
while, you can be less formal of course, but you want
to be polite when you talk to people who you may have
not talked to in a while or someone who is new.

Use your own judgement when you are chatting with
people about your blog. If it’s someone that you
haven’t talked to in a while, and someone asks you
what you have been up to, you can point them to your
blog so that they know what is going on with you.

Some blogs, like LiveJournal, have their own messaging
program, so that’s also another good way to advertise
your blog.

Be certain that you don’t send someone a message
though only to advertise your blog. It’s more polite
to say something about their blog first, and then tell
them about your blog.

If you have a common interest, it’s a good ice breaker
and it will give you something to talk about.

Helpful Tips For Corporate Blogging

Blogs are massive resources of information from both
inside and outside companies. Businessmen survive the
world of blogging because they know how and where to
dig information while protecting their own secrets.
Although blogging can be risky world for businesses,
there are several helpful tips that can help bring
success to corporate blogging.

The Important of Training

It is important to make sure the members of the
communications team. In the past, this team was
composed of a small group. However, with the advent of
blogging, everyone who blogs at the company is
spreading a specific message about the company. People
who handle the blogging for the company must be
trained to avoid any spill of unnecessary information.

If by accident, important information regarding the
company has been disclosed, this can put the company
under the watchful eyes of the regulators. More so,
inappropriate leaks can provide competitors with
leverage and may lead to embarrassing revelations
about the inner workings of the company and its staff.

Although the usual action to be taken is to restrict
employees from blogging, this can be a shortsighted
decision. Bloggers from within the company can easily
relate and make contact with potential clients and
even enhance the brand of the company.

The Fake Blogs

Several, if not all, companies are eager to establish
one-on-one links with their consumers, though they are
often hesitant to venture in the world of blogging. As
a result, they set up fake blogs. Fake blogs are those
that are created by marketing departments of the
company in order to promote a product, brand or
service using a fake name or character.

These kinds of blogs are risky since several bloggers
who are passionate about what they do view them as an
insult to the blogging community and no one can deny
the fact that these blogs are very visible to the
public.

Although there are no rules prohibiting a company from
making pseudo-blogs, the subject of creating one is
always welcome. Always keep in mind that you can
choose to create fake blogs but remember all the risks
involved.

Blog Tracking

Tracking blogs is one of the easiest and most
important tips to remember. Firstly, the company can
look around online and search for the most influential
blogger who writes about their products or services.
Remember to read the blogger’s updates everyday and
perform an automated tracking of discussions.

Tracking blogs is important because even those
postings from small-time bloggers can be selected by
search engines, strengthened by a well-known blogger
and ultimately hit the mainstream.

The Public Relations

Blogs have the ability to break down barriers between
the company and its customers. It is important for
businesses to take that into consideration and adjust.
There are several companies that start blog in order
to attain customer loyalty and address the customers’
concerns and comments. Relating to the customers is a
vital factor in the survival of a business. Knowing
what the customers think about the products or
services can help enhance the company’s services.

The Company’s Secrets

Take into consideration one secret or secrets that you
have kept at your company. Be it a list of projects
for the following year or information about scandalous
activities, there are several things that you must
learn no to leak to your competitors.

In blogging, there is a certainty that you must
rethink about something that you are trying to avoid,
for that fact that other companies are increasingly
sharing information to win new partners and generate
new ideas. Although this does not mean that they are
not keeping any secrets from you or that you must not
keep any from them, it is important to reevaluate
whether you can gain more out of sharing details than
keep them to yourself.

How Advertising Works On A Blog

Web logs or blogs, began as someone’s online journal,
a way to express opinions and thoughts and communicate
with others on a more personal level. It became such a
successful platform that it wasn’t long until
marketers, online business owners and professionals
took note of its potential. These days, blogs are used
for marketing, putting out news, sharing information,
building a business network, teaching, etc. It also
doesn’t hurt that once in a while, you get to use your
blog to make money as well through ad placements. So
how does advertising work on a blog?

Popularity means income It’s a sad fact and rather
prejudiced against blogs that are just starting out
but to make advertising work on a blog, that blog has
to have enough traffic. Without sufficient traffic,
the ads found on that blog will just not find an
audience and therefore will not earn.

Now to build traffic, your blog has to have a strong
niche and targeted content. Finding a niche for your
blog can be tricky, especially if the topic you’re
offering is obscure and not that easily relatable in
terms of advertising. Tricky, of course but not
entirely impossible. You’d be surprised at the number
of targeted ads some little known topics generate.

However, your best bet and the surest way to make
advertising work on your blog is to promote a topic
that is highly targeted or one that speaks to a niche
audience. By building a following, your blog will gain
enough popularity to be trusted by advertisers.

Advertising on your blog The way advertising works on
a blog is simple: advertisers want to promote their
products and services, your blog provides the platform
with which their ads can gain exposure, mainly by
being the site where their target market frequents. If
your blog is about shoes, the people who visit your
blog are those who want to know more about shoes. From
the shoe advertisers’ point of view, these people are
a gold mine, more likely to buy their shoes based on
the interest they have shown.

There are two ways you can make advertising work on
your blog: by providing ad space on your own or by
relying on an advertising server to do the work for
you. Selling ad space on a blog is fairly common,
particularly on blogs that target a niche market. You
simply set the rates, actively contact advertisers and
agree on the terms. Or, the advertisers can contact
you, after seeing the potential of your blog.

How you get paid is simple enough: once the ad has
been placed on your blog, your visitors will click on
it. Depending on your agreement with the advertiser,
you could earn either through the number of clicks the
ad receives or the type of action solicited by the ad,
such as a purchase or a subscription.

If you’re fairly new to the blog universe and would
rather build your reputation slowly by providing
quality content, you might find yourself too busy to
actively negotiate and communicate with advertisers.
If this is the case you can choose to work with an
advertising server. One such is Google’sAdsense,
although there are others that work just as well.

An ad server looks at your blog and determines the
best ads that relate to your content. You simply take
the code, put it on your blog and let it go to work.
You simply have to collect your earnings using your
account. This is a rather passive approach to letting
advertising work on your blog but it can earn you a
little. Of course, if you want higher earnings, you
need to actively put in more effort and seek out
higher paying ads with the right combination of
keywords that work best for your blog.

How to Choose the Best Web Blog Advertising

How to Choose the Best Web Blog Advertising

Why monetize your blog? Why not?

Earning an income from your blog is not just about the
extra cash - it’s also a practical means to reward
yourself. Plus, you could use your earnings to provide
better support for your site, whether technical or
administrative.

But not every advertising opportunity available might
work for your blog. Certain factors do affect how well
an advertising type works depending on the nature and
content your blog has.

Learn to choose the best web blog advertising that
will promote your site and maximize your earning
potential.

Types of web blog advertising you can use:

Pay-per-click or PPC PPC advertising is easily the
most basic form of advertising a blog can use. It
works simply: place a PPC ad on your blog and the
advertiser will pay you for every click generated by
the ad. Every time a visitor points his cursor on this
ad and clicks, you earn money. The cost per click will
vary, depending on the type of ad that will run, the
value of the keyword/s or who your advertiser will be.

Pay-per-action or PPA The PPA is sometimes preferred
by advertisers because it translates to having your
blog visitors perform a desired action. This action
can be different things - a visitor could subscribe to
the advertiser’s newsletter, sign up for membership or
buy merchandise.

Pay-per-impression or PPI An advertiser using PPI with
your blog will pay you for every opportunity his ads
appear on your blog page. This will require some sort
of clever strategy on your part but if you know how to
use this type of blog advertising, it can work in your
favor.

Choosing web blog advertising The three types of web
blog advertising mentioned earlier can work with
different types of ads. These ads include:

Contextual ads The type of contextual ads you will be
carrying will depend on the content found on the page
where these ads will appear. The key here is to ensure
relevance. After all, if you’re talking about plasma
TVs on your blog, what sense would an ad about home
loans have on the same page?

Contextual ads work best for you if your blog’s
content deals with a specific topic on a regular
basis. This often means that you have traffic that is
highly targeted and will likely find your ads
interesting.

Text link ads Text link ads appear on a blog page
based on the texts that appear in that page’s posts.
It attempts to capture the visitors that read that
page for the specific content found there.

If content in your blog varies from page to page, text
link ads provide a good earning opportunity for you.

Affiliate ads If you want a slightly bigger take, a
good choice would be to place affiliate ads on your
blog. This means partnering with a company’s affiliate
program and providing links on your pages to products
or services offered by that company. This is how eBay
and Amazon affiliates earn.

Affiliate ads work best if your blog deals with topics
that are relevant to a product or service being
offered by partner companies. If your blog deals with
tips on coping with stress, for example, you could
place a link to an affiliate ad promoting a popular
book on stress management that your visitors can buy
from a partner company’s website.

Direct ads Direct ads are a form of web blog
advertising that lets you work independently and
directly with the advertiser. You simply sell ad
placements on your site and negotiate directly with
the company or individual who buys them. These buyers
will be called sponsors from then on. This is a good
choice for your blog if you have a good number of
traffic and a strong niche market. Pricing and the
method of payment will depend on your agreement with
your sponsor.

How to Plan Your Blog

The basics of blogging cover all the basic essentials,
including your writing style, blog category and the
content of your blog. Planning your blog can be
difficult if you do not know what you want to talk
about. It could be extra hard if you do not have the
necessary background in blogging. However, knowing
what you want to blog about can easily come to you
once you start browsing and poking around other blogs.
You can pick ideas from those blogs, expound and make
them the basis of your blog.

The Blogging Categories

Generally, there are several types of blogs.
Nevertheless, there are three popular categories of
blogs, such as: the organizational, business and
personal blogs.

The first category, the organization, uses the power
of blogs to communicate either externally with the
public or internally within their organizations. This
kind of blog has the purpose of facilitation internal
communications amongst employees, colleagues and other
organizational personnel. In addition, organizational
blogs normally publish information that is of interest
by the public. In a certain instance, there are
organizational blogs that publish seminar schedules,
meetings, and announcements for their clients,
customers or members.

The business blogs, on the other hand, are for
promoting services or products offered by businesses
in order to help increase profits, revenue and
interest of potential consumers. These kinds of blogs
can look for ways to increase their reputation and
authority with vendors, customers and partners. They
do this by publishing contents that express expertise
and knowledge within a specific market portion, niche
or industry.

The personal blogs are those that contain contents
that are more of a reflection of bloggers’ opinions
and thoughts. Normally, they are used to publish
articles that voice their points of view on several
kinds and varieties of events and topics. Bloggers who
publish personal contents usually find pleasure in
documenting their everyday lives, stream of
consciousness and even their hate to specific events
through articles that reflects their moods.

The Target Audience

Your target audience and blogging style comes hand in
hand. The moment you think of creating your own blog,
you must first realize what your target audience is;
you must know what they want, need and desire to read
about. The blog you create and the contents you
publish must provide quality and value to the readers
in order to be effective in establishing communication
and expanding readership.

More so, the kind of blog you want to create
essentially creates its own target audience. For
instance, an organizational blog is meant for those
who are members or clients of a certain organization.
Although the target audience may be limited, there is
a good chance for consistency with regards to the
dialogue you create with your readers and eventually
more people would be interested in your blog.

The mentioned personal blogs are not normally designed
for social dialogue with a certain target readership
of any category and is rather meant to serve as a
collection of your musings. These kinds of blogs are
best reserved to your close friends and they are your
target audience.

If you identify your target audience successfully,
your messages that you want everyone to know about
will be effectively targeted. Some of the greatest
joys of blogging come from the use of your enthusiasm
in publishing signification information for a
community where there is a free exchange of opinions
between the readers and you.

How to Profit From a Blog

Blogs can be for profit or non-profit but most
bloggers blog for the purpose of making money. There
may be some contents published to simply provide an
outlet for voicing out the bloggers’ opinions and
share their thoughts. However, the general population
of bloggers has the intention of profiting
financially. Fortunately, there are several methods of
profiting from a blog and applying these methods can
help you gain money.

The Advertisements

Selling space for advertisers is one of the most
common ways to profit from a blog. Since blogs that
have a considerable amount of traffic can make income
with ad sales, make sure that you have a target
audience. The reason why bloggers choose to sell
advertising is that it is a passive form of income
once the traffic has progressed. Although it takes
work to look for advertisers and maintain the ads on
the blog, those who can achieve it can gain reasonable
amount of money with the ads.

Compared to other forms of profiting from a blog,
selling advertisement space can be one of the most
consistent revenue streams. If you are able to
maintain your ad slots filled, you should have a very
good idea of just how much you can make every month.

On the negative side, selling ads requires you to have
some kind of established traffic. Traffic is important
because it draws interest from potential advertisers.
You might find it hard to sell an ad space without
traffic and it will most likely not produce much
revenue. Additionally, the blog must have a target
audience in order to achieve the maximum amount of
cash for advertisement space. Remember that
advertisers are more likely to pay if your target
audience is a match to theirs.

Affiliate programs are also a major resource of
profits for several bloggers. Affiliate programs are
excellent in a sense that they enable you to have the
opportunity to make money even if your blog has a
small audience. However, one bad side to affiliate
programs is that there can be instances where you
cannot make any money at all.

Newly created blogs feature affiliate ads most of the
time compared to selling space directly to
advertisers. Since selling ads is hard to do without
much traffic, affiliate programs are perfect for new
blogs. More so, they can be easily maintained and only
take very little time.

Promoting and Premium Content

Bloggers who are service providers at the same time
have an excellent opportunity to look for clients and
increase their rates. Maintaining a blog that focuses
on your area of expertise can help you easily become a
recognized authority in your field. Additionally, it
can aid potential clients to find you. You can also
benefit from the increase in demand of your services
and improved reputation that you build, which enable
you to charge more for your services.

Aside from promoting your services, selling premium
contents are also excellent ways to profit from a
blog. Blogs are a massive source of information and
remember that not everything has to be free. There are
bloggers and business that attained success by selling
some of their work. There are blogs that sell
memberships on their Web sites. Although selling
premium content is possible in any field, you must
have the capability to give something to the reader
that is worth paying for.