Amy Gahran publishes a very good article on blogging stereotypes designed to help you initiate intelligent and informative discussions about blogging while avoiding the spread of misinformation. In other words, she presents a discussion on how not to discuss "blogging".

Amy starts out with a definition of what a blog is and follows her definition with a list unique characteristics and features that are common among blogs and serve to differentiate blogs from other online publishing tools. There is some overlap and blurring of capabilities or uses between blog publishing and other means of online publishing so Amy defines other types of online publishing that aren't considered to be weblog publishing. This is a great post that closes with blog myths and stereotypes to avoid when discussing blogs.

Again, great post. Read more...   more »

You'll want to print these off for reference...

Blogging: A Primer - a guide to the blogosphere jargon.

Six Tips for Corporate Bloggers "You can't afford to miss this wave -- and even more important, you can't afford to do it wrong."

These great finds via Build A Better Blog   more »

Hello everyone, I want to alert you to the next Conversations with Experts that I first alerted you to here in my review of Build A Better Blog System. Conversations with Experts is hosted by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff of the newly released Build A Better Blog System manual on how to create blog success.

They are conducting a series of interviews with several of the blog experts included in the Build A Better Blog System series. This Wednesday, April 20th, 2005 at 8:30pm EDT I will be their next guest expert and we will talk about blogs as powerful social marketing tools. Blogging provides a distinct advantage to solo entrepreneurs, professionals, and small businesses by allowing you to rapidly drive the value of your expertise deep into your market space. I invite you to join this FREE ...   more »

I for one never tire of information on blogging and how to do it the right way. Improvement is the name of the game. Never stop learning. We live in an abundant world and there is room for anyone to carve a niche of their interest with their expertise. With the latest but the not least of the entries into the world of books about blogging, Denise Wakeman of Next Level Partnership blog and Patsi Krakoff of Coachzines Blog have put their collective expertise together and just recently released Build A Better Blog System.

Do you have all the clients you want? Are you getting the results you want from your marketing strategy? Build A Better Blog System will provide you with the tips, tools and techniques to building and professional blog the reflects your business, your knowledge and ...   more »

There are several ways to create a blog that encourages longer reading time on your blog content and repeat visits. We all want to get those clicks to stick. The Blog Herald has published a two-part series on how to create blog success by "getting casual viewers to stick around as a way of getting increased page views and building long term traffic." Check it out.

via Easy Bake Weblogs



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The blogosphere is a big place to the uninitiated but quickly grows small with great new discoveries that make blogging a dynamic place to participate and thrive in. There is always new brilliance to discover and link to and seasoned veteran know-how to highlight.

On that note I'd like to highlight Andy Wibbles of Easy Bake Weblogs. I don't know Andy personally but I do know his content and expertise since I've been following his blog for several months now and I've attended a teleseminar or two hosted by Andy.

Andy is a blogging evangelist, coach and trainer to entrepreneurs. Andy is a quality guy and offers a lot in the way of coaching and teaching others about what it takes to create blog success and get a blog up and running effectively for their business.

I wanted to alert you to Andy and his blog because of the value I believe he provides to his readers and clients. Andy has also published his own series of blogging manuals and videos and conducts blogging seminars on a regular basis.

I encourage to check out Andy's free Easy Bake Weblogs preview CD to get the heads up on the work that Andy does. You get to sample a full length recording of one of his seminars, 2 flash demo videos to get you started with blogging (I've seen his videos, they are quality and easy to follow), and a book excerpt from his Easy Bake Weblogs manual. Pick up your free CD by clicking here

He's a great resource. Highly recommended.

This is a book about how to wake up!. It is a call to heightened awareness of blogs and blogging and bloggers. It is about how not to be left behind in the "reformation of the information reformation" as Hugh says. Here is a must have book on blogs that every business should read and every consultant must have.

Hugh gets it and he really gets it when it comes to bloggers and the power of new media publishing. In his latest book Blog:Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World Hugh lays out with powerful clarity the imperatives for businesses to start blogging and to start NOW.

Hugh Hewitt is an established and best-selling author, radio host and influential blogger. He started blogging in 2002 and has since had over 10 million visits to his blog. He knows blogging well. In this book Hugh gives a detailed and very compelling case for "why" you cannot ignore blogs and the perils for ignoring the new media publishers.   more »

Last month I did a video series with Jim Edwards of the I Gotta Tell You blog.

Jim is an accomplished marketer, comedian and syndicated columnist. He asked if we could do a tutorial about Trackbacks to help his readers and so using the magic of Internet technology we recorded this trackback video and audio session across state lines early one morning in February.

Trackbacks are often misunderstood and so seldom used by new bloggers. Trackback is a powerful way to get content recognition from search bots crawling the rich blog link structures, it is a great way to alert others to your content as well as receive notice when other bloggers are referencing you. Trackbacks are a good way to get inbound links and generate FREE traffic. Trackbacks are definitely a powerful content promotion and distribution strategy. When used properly, Trackbacks can get you noticed and get you traffic.

There are 3 short videos in this series that provide you with a quick review of Trackback links. You can visit and view the series here: Trackback Video Tutorial

This post is for my new blogger friends and associates. I get asked from time to time about blog commenting protocol or manners. This is old stuff for the veterans out there.

Here are my thoughts.

If someone comes to your blog and comments and also leaves a url to their blog or web site in a signature under that post - that is acceptable - maybe. It is one way to use blogs help boost your blog or web site and build back links legitimately...BUT BUT BUT...it depends on the publisher.

Some publishers don't allow links like that and some do. More often than not, people just post comments and the comment system sign in captures the e-mail address or url. I recommend that if people want to leave a url back to their site as they comment that they first check the blog they ...   more »

Let's talk about how to create blog traffic success. This is a questions I'm ask about all the time and with good reason. Your success rises and falls on traffic to your blog. No online business survives without traffic that buys.

Back in January I published an article entitled Social Marketing Optimization. That article gives some background for what I'm writing here and I believe it is a very important aspect of blogging to keep in mind if you are to create blog success.

Blogs have been referred to as next-generation marketing tools because of their powerful influence. The Church of Customer published and excellent article on citizen marketers who generate media on behalf of products and services.

These citations refer to aspects of market conversations that mark the new online marketing landscape.

It is important to note that ...   more »

Blog design is a very important part of branding your customers and prospects for repeat visits and repeat business. Since blogs are relationship tools as well your blog can be even more effective at deliver your message as a brand simultaneously. Blogs can do excel by simply provide great content to interested audience but most bloggers who publish with regularly do give considerable thought to layout and design as element for building site popularity and stickiness.

Most blog software or subscription-based blog hosting sites like BlogHarbor offer default templates. Host services will offer a range of templates from basic to more advanced. On the other than standalone blog software like WordPress and Movable Type offer just a default template with many fan and support sites providing templates that you can easily load up by using modified Cascading Style Sheets.

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Robin Good reports on how to submit your RSS feed to MSN Search. Very good article and must read for all blog and RSS publishers alike.

Microsoft went live with the New MSN Search this past week.

Google provides the lions share of search engine traffic to this blog but my Daily Success Motivation and Positive Thinking blog has seen an explosion of traffic from MSN for top keywords since the new MSN Search went officially live last week. Google was the primary source of search traffic for that blog but now it's almost 50/50 between MSN and Google. The good thing is that my results in MSN are much, much better than what they were before.

Check out this article by Robin Good. He discusses the relationship the New MSN Search has with Moreover for getting your content and ...   more »

On January 18th, 2004 Rok Hrastnik released what I consider to be the best book on RSS to hit the planet.

I'm know I'm bit late on publishing my buzz but I wanted to seek my teeth into all the good stuff first. :) Man, I was not disappointed one bit. This is great stuff!

Rok has done a fantastic job of capturing the state of RSS and how RSS is trending up in use and application. What is so phenomenal is the sheer volume of information that is both easy to follow, easy to understand and practical to apply. This piece of work doesn't just tell you what RSS feeds are it completely explores the whole paradigm-shift to distributed Internet content publishing and the changes that are influencing the increased usage of RSS feed for marketing.

Rok Hrastnik has ...   more »

Yes! The Professional Bloggers Association (PBA) has been in the works for some months now as first introduced by Paul Chaney of Radiant Market Group. The Professional Bloggers Association has 20 founding members of which I have been privilege to be named among them.

The PBA has made great progress in short time. It established it's founding members just weeks ago and now I'm pleased to announce that the officers and board members have been elected.

They are as follows:

President: Paul Chaney - Radiant Marketing
Vice President: Anita Campbell - Small Business Trends
Secretary: Tris Hussey - Larix Consulting
Treasurer: Toby Bloomberg - Diva Marketing

Board members are:

Amy Gahran - Contentious
Dana VanDen Heuvel - Internet Marketing and Sales Technology
Jeremy Wright - Ensight
Steve Rubel - Micro Persuasion
Yvonne DiVita - Lip-Sticking

The formation of ...   more »

What is Search Engine Marketing?
A well written and tightly focused blog will create a traffic bonanza of high quality visitors. Blogs are generally tight center and focused on a topic and several related topics.

Search engine marketing is simply getting your blog and your blog content a high enough ranking in the search engines for your keywords so that your content will generate visitors to your site from search results pages (SERPs). Compelling site and content titles and descriptions help compel users to click on your links in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and visit you.

Search engine marketing requires a search engine optimized web site. This is a web site that displays a configuration that makes it very attractive to search engine spiders. The spiders will visit your site and crawl your content. When they do this ...   more »