lola f asked:


My friends and I sent our picture to Perez Hilton to be posted on his blog with the caption We love Perez! much like many people do on his ADorations section. He never posted it and it has been a couple of months. I was wondering if you have to donate money or if there is a special way to get it posted? Thanks!!!

Al

Penny Sansevieri asked:


So what is this “blog factor”? Well, what a few thought was a novel idea some years ago has now morphed into something no one expected. There are currently nine million blogs out there with 40,000 new ones being added everyday. Some are informative and some are just downright a waste of your time. And while we hear a lot about blogging these days, what is blogging *really*?

Blogging in its simplest term is like an online journal but much, much more powerful. Blogs (short for Web log) is a place where surfers can get up to the minute information on a topic or voyeur into someone’s life. Some blogs are nothing more than a daily glimpse into someone’s life, while others are so sophisticated, it’s hard to tell them apart from an online news service.

Why Blogs Matter Google, the #1 search engine on the net, loves blogs. So much so that if you do it right Google will spider the heck out of your site. What does it mean to “spider”? Well spidering is when Google, or the like, searches your sites content to establish ranking, the more content you have (i.e. fresh content) the more Google will do its magic and push your site up the search engine. Another reason blogs matter is that they are interactive and, if you blog on your books topic, it will help to further your expert status on a particular issue.

When we plan “Virtual Tours” for our authors, we include as many blogs as we can into a tour. Why? Because if you can get into a good blog that’s seeing a lot of traffic, you can really start to gain some exposure for your book.

What Would You Talk About? This is the question we get asked most often. “If I start a blog, what on earth would I talk about?” Well if your book is non-fiction it’s pretty easy to figure out what your topic would be, but if your book is fiction it could get a bit tricky – but not impossible.

An author I work with has a series of books starring one character – a private detective. I recommended that he “blog” this character, meaning that the character (not the author) would have the blog. It could be the character’s diary or adventures and stories – a glimpse into the life of a private detective. This would give the reader (and fans of this character) a reason to return to the blog for an update on this ongoing adventure or story.

In another instance, I work with an author who wrote a fiction book about right and wrong with a new age/spirituality spin. I advised him to blog on issues related to that – right and wrong in our society and his own personal “spin” on these issues. Some of his blogs might be controversial but that’s okay, you want to create your own “voice,” your own take on a certain issue and if that opinion is controversial, all the better for exposure and for getting people to interact on your blog. Getting readers to respond to your posts is a great way to gain interest and momentum for your blog and (more importantly) getting people to talk about it will grow your blog like nothing else!

How to Start a Blog Starting a blog is super easy. All you have to do is register at a blog site (like www.blogger.com) and get started. It’s that easy. The blog service will link to your site; you’ll need to ask your Webmaster to add a button to your home page so people can find your blog.

How to Blog Effectively The best bloggers know that the more you add to your blog, the more traffic you’ll drive there. Some bloggers I know post daily, sometimes even multiple times a day while others post weekly. How much you post will probably depend on how much time you have to dedicate to this, the challenge will be that if you want to keep driving people to your blog, you’ll want fresh content.

This doesn’t mean you have to create this all yourself, in fact you can invite people onto your blog and interview them, or you can just post a one paragraph “thought” on your topic. It doesn’t have to be complicated or long, it just has to be fresh. Also be innovative, as we discussed earlier, be different with your blog, have fun with it. It might seem complicated at first but once you get the hang of it, you’ll quickly become a blog expert!



Abrahan

Okay!MAC asked:


I’m always hanging out to get my Ask Mike fix. It’s just so freaking excellent to read the insightful comments. I can just feel my awareness of new and important issues reach disturbingly high levels. Thanks Mike.
I was only joking. Mike’s a lame dickhead.
I’m sorry Mike. Take me back.

Alessandro

William Johnston asked:


Blogs are an unbelievable way to achieve success on the internet. Blogs can establish a web presence, express your opinions and generate serious profits. However, without visitors a blog is useless no matter how good the content. With thousands of blogs being created every day, you need to know exactly how to get people to your blog over everyone else’s. Here are 7 breakthrough ways to bring traffic to your blog:

1. Optimize your posts for the major search engines. Search engines love blogs because they are frequently updated with fresh content. All blogs have the opportunity to make it to a high position on search engines but here are a few tips to beat your competition for the top spots.

Make sure you use plenty of primary keywords in the titles of your blog posts.

Make sure you use secondary keywords in the body of your posts, however be careful not to use too many since this will make your post sound unnatural.

Use keywords in the anchor text of links in the body of your posts since links have a higher importance to the search engines than ordinary text.

If possible try to use your most appropriate keyword in the URL of your blog. Search engines love keywords in the URL and this will have a serious effect on your positioning.

2. Write posts that people will want to read. Put yourself in the position of someone following your blog. Always write relevant content which will be of interest to your blog followers. Good content will lead people to recommend your blog. As a rule, each post should contain a single topic. If you wish to discuss two topics then break it down into two posts. This makes life easier for readers and makes information easier to find. A great mistake that many bloggers make is writing large, infrequent posts. Get into the habit of writing short posts but making sure that you post regularly at least 3 times a week. This way, people will return to your blog because they are sure there will be something new to read.

3. Use your blog posts as articles. Writing and submitting articles is a sure-fire way to gain more visitors. Just turn your blog posts into articles by formatting them, and perhaps adding a bit more detail. This way you are building traffic and writing for your blog at the same time. Recommended sites for submitting your articles are http://www.ezinearticles.com and http://www.goarticles.com.

4. Build links to your blog. This will also have a great impact on your search engine ranking, especially Google. Build links to your blog by exchanging links with other blogs of the same topic as yours. This way you can guarantee targeted traffic. Come to an agreement with another blogger that you will each write a positive review on each other’s blog. This way you will get a good testimonial for your website and receive a link on another blog. If you have a main website, then make sure you link from every page to your blog. This way you gain lots of links and whichever page visitors enter your website, they will always have the opportunity to visit your blog.

5. Ping the blog services. There are many services which track and connect blogs all over the world. By sending a small ping to all of these services you will let them know that you exist. They will come and check you out and this could spell serious visitors if your blog is full of good content and is regularly updated. Sending this ping is not at all difficult. Just go to http://www.pingomatic.com where you can send a ping to a number of services very quickly for no cost.

6. Submit your blog to blog directories. Just like if you have a website or an ezine, it is essential to submit your blog to the top directories. A good listing in these directories could mean 100s of visitors every day. You can find a great list of blog directories at http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/. And don’t stop at blog directories. Don’t be afraid to submit your blog to the big directories such as Yahoo and Dmoz.

7. Capture your readers’ email addresses. This is vitally important because it is essential that you can keep in touch with your readers so that you can update them about your blog and make sure they are still reading. Just make sure you have a subscription box on every page of your blog and offer a free bonus such as an ebook as a reward for subscribing. With a good list of subscribers, you can conduct surveys to find out what topics your readers want your posts to consist of. Keeping in touch with your readers will lead them to trust you and they will continually come back to your blog and will recommend it to their friends.

Just be imaginative. Keep trying different techniques to getting people to your blog and see which methods work best. Remember, creativity is one of the keys to internet success.



Abramo

Gianfranco Focarelli asked:


There are many people that get online looking for the right work at home idea and opportunity for them. If you look hard enough you won’t have any problems finding something. The problem occurs when you try to promote your new home business but you are not sure what to start with.

One tool that is essential to the success of your business is a blog. No matter what work at home idea and opportunity you promote there are a couple of different reasons why you want to have a blog.

One: Search engines love blogs because if you do it right, your blog will have fresh content on a regular basis. Fresh content is what the search engines look for.

When you submit your blog articles to various social directories this serves as bait for search engines and leads them back to your blog.

Two: You can easily write a short article to post on your blog every week or find someone to write it for you. So keeping fresh content on your site doesn’t take long at all.

250 word articles are more than long enough to get your point across and add value. After you write a few of these you will find you can write short meaningful blog posts in 15 to 20 minutes.

Three: There are many different blog directories where you can submit the URL to your blog. This makes it easier to promote. Of course there are other ways you can promote it but this is the most popular and easiest way.

Four: On a blog your potential customers can interact by leaving their comment on your blog about what they think of an article or something else that you have on there. People love sites where they can interact with other people.

Five: You can put the RSS feed from your blog onto another site that you own so that you will be promoting the other site as well as your blog. Plus using the RSS feed from your blog will give your other site fresh content on a regular basis.

RSS feeds are a grat way to people informed about your business. Whereas email marketing can be tough to get your email past a spam filter you do have that problem with these.

This is several good reasons why you need a blog to promote your work at home idea and opportunity. They are easy to set up too so you may as well get one going today.



Brady

Jeff Flow asked:


Blogs are everywhere. You go to your favorite website and you see that they have one. TV shows have blogs. Teens have blogs.

What is a blog?

Blogs are basically journals, except that instead of being locked away or hidden under a bed, they are out in the open for all to see. Why are they so popular?

They can be used for many different purposes. When someone makes a post to a blog there is the option to make a comment to the post. This allows for lively discussion about a interest that both the visitor and the blogger have in common. They are used by everyone from individuals to major companies. Internet based companies love blogs because they can be a great source of targeted traffic. Search engines love blogs that update continually.

There are many different ways that companies can use blogs. A company could have several different blogs on their website. One blog could be dedicated to customer concerns; another could be dedicated to product updates; and another could be for company news.

More words into a website means more opportunities for visitors to find your webpages. More traffic to a website generally means more money.

How can you generate more traffic and more income to your blog? The search engines visit your page more each time you update your site. What this does is move your blog higher and higer on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). When your website moves into a higher position on the search engines, you will generate more revenue.

Google Adsense has given bloggers a great opportunity to monetize their blog traffic. When someone clicks on your Google Adsense ad, you will get paid for every click. There are sites that are making enormous amounts of money from their blogs.

How do you get started with a blog. First of all, you need to decide what you are going to write about. Choose something that people are interested in. You also want to find out what are the main keywords that relate to the subject of your blog. When you are creating your entries, use these terms in your text and titles. You don’t want to overuse the words, but place them appropriately in the blog.

You also want to make sure that you write content that will attract and maintain a solid readership. Remember people are actually reading your blog. If your writing style stinks people won’t come back.

It is easy to get into blogging. Look on the Internet for free blogs. You can start for free and have a blog up and running in a very short time! Think about all the possibilities that you have to develop your business with a blog. Keep plugging away. God bless you.



Alano

Andrew Shiveley asked:


If you have a website and market a product or service, or just want to get more traffic to your content site, then you have one thing in mind- traffic. One of the best ways to get traffic to your site is by using blogs to post articles related to your topic. This method is so effective because the big search engines out there love blogs because of their fresh and new content. The most important part about blogging to generate traffic is in optimizing the content of the blogs, a process that is easy to master and can prove very beneficial to your website.

The big search engines absolutely love blogs, especially WordPress. This particular service allows you to setup as many free blog sites as you want, and Google loves it. The search engines index blogs quickly and often and, if you choose to take the extra step in keyword optimizing the content on your blog, then you are going to attract a lot of attention. Make sure you always include a carefully crafted backlink to drive people to your actual sales or content page and you will begin receiving traffic in no time.

Blogging has many aspects that make it an effective marketing tool. Because the popular blog suppliers are so highly ranked themselves in the search engine page rankings, everything they are associated with (linked to) gets spidered and indexed as well. Also, the search engines love all of the new and fresh content that is circulated on such sites, causing them to hang around and spider and index their (your) blogs more often. In addition to sustained traffic generation, if you select your tags and popular keywords carefully, you may also see sudden urges of traffic. All of this traffic can then be directed to your sales or content sites, delivering you the success you want.

Blogs are very popular and easy to maintain, as the website portion is already taken care of and all you have to do is add useful content. Products such as Microsoft Office 2007 also make it easy to update blogs, as you can choose new blog post, type it up and, by adding your login info, it can seamlessly integrate your new content into the blog. This is pretty powerful stuff, considering the value of such sites. With blogs you can add posts as often as you like. Obviously, the more you post, the better for the site, but you can find your own friendly medium and watch the site grow.

Another great way to get attention to your blog is to post comments on other, related blogs. By posting on other niche blogs, you can include a signature file that links to your blog or main site. Once you have that down, the best way to create traffic through blogs is to have multiple blogs on different niches. Each site can be optimized for a different keyword, all pertaining to your main site or product. You can use each blog to promote for that keyword only and then find a way to funnel all traffic to your main site and product pages. This is the power behind blog marketing and can be very effective in creating the success you desire.



Alf

help drum asked:


submit your best idea today.

Alexander

Ajaay Kumar asked:


If I were starting my business today and was evaluating my website options, I would pick a blogsite over a stand-alone blog or a traditional website. What’s a blogsite? I like to think of this as a blog/website hybrid. It has all the features of a blog, yet acts as a website to help you promote your business.

More and more I see new online service business owners choosing blogsites over traditional websites. Some who have started with a traditional website have switched over to a blogsite in the last year. Here are 7 reasons why a blogsite attracts more visitors and helps you get more clients online than a traditional website:

1. Easy to update and maintain. Once created, your blog is almost effortless to update and maintain on a regular basis. All you have to do is log into your administrator interface, create a post in a Word-like environment, publish the post, and it instantly appears on your blogsite. A well-maintained and updated site is one to which visitors return. No longer will your website be the site that you (and time) forgot.

If you are tech-savvy, you may be able to create and install your blogsite yourself using open source software like WordPress, or using a fee-based blogging service like Typepad. If you require technical and graphic assistance to get your blogsite up and running, you can expect to pay at least $300 to create a simple blogsite. The ability to update your site yourself frees you from the need to learn an HTML software program. However, if you choose to use open source software for your blog platform, be sure and have someone on call who? can help you troubleshoot when there is a technical problem. As with all technology, it’s not a matter of if a problem will happen, but when it will happen.

2. Create static web pages. The best feature of a blogsite is the ability to create static web pages, like About Us, Our Services, How We Work, etc., as found on a traditional website. Your static pages can be displayed in a navigation bar across the top or down one side of your blogsite, as in a traditional website. These pages can serve as your home page, or the blog part of your site can serve as your homepage instead. Now, anytime you add an additional program or service, you can simply go to your blogsite and instantly update your offerings.

3. Create relationship with visitors. Unlike a traditional website, a blogsite has the blogging feature built in, which permits your visitors to comment on your posts. You do need to post 2-3 times per week to the blog to begin to build the relationship, and then reply to the comments that come in from your visitors. And, your visitors are much more likely to return to your blogsite to see what else you have to say. That doesn’t happen often with a traditional website.

4. Attractive to search engines. Search engines, Google in particular, love blogs. I’ve posted a comment to a blog and had Google index that comment within 5 minutes. How did I know this? Because I have a Google Alert set for my name, and that alert about that post was emailed to me about 5 minutes after I made it. No more waiting for weeks for the search engines to find your site!



Abram

M T asked:


I just made a 360 Blog and I put its contents as public. Do I have to invite people to look at it? Or can they just type keywords/tags in the search engine so that it will come out?

Alanson