Writing by Brick Marketing on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Leave a comment
There are many different ways to get your blog to start to climb and grow in power. Getting guest bloggers will be a great way to get more traffic coming to your blog. This process is not always as easy as it sounds. Especially if you are in an industry that either doesn’t have enough experts in their field or has too many. Guest bloggers can really help boost your blog marketing efforts.
If you can track down a leader in your industry and get them to write a blog post and hopefully their following will catch wind of your blog and continue to read it once the blog gets archived. If it is someone that has a large following and generates a great deal of search for that person’s name than there is a good possibility that blog marketing post will get a great of traction and really generate some readers. Of course this all depends on how much traction your guest blogger also has your industry. Finding guest bloggers will also help if you start hitting writers block with your writing which happens to many writers and bloggers from time to time. Worst case scenario your guest blogger ads to your building content on your site.
When researching guest bloggers or responding to inquiries from others looking to gues write in your blog always do your research on that person. Do some searches for their name and see what comes up in the search results. The last thing you want is having someone write in your blog that might have performed some not so nice efforts and people are actively complaining. You can easily find yourself getting pulled into a reputation management nightmare. You don’t want to associate your new growing blog with any crooks in the industry.
Writing by Brick Marketing on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Leave a comment
Cell or mobile phones are not only extremely popular, they are becoming extremely sophisticated. There are now millions of phones being used around the world to surf the net. What are they surfing for? For many users, it is no different to being on their computer. They undertake searches, visit favorite sites and read favorite blogs. So, is your blog mobile enabled?
There is no reason why your blog is not mobile enabled. It can be done in a matter of minutes and if you look around, it can be done for free. Is it worth the effort?
My first response; what effort? My second response; can you afford to ignore another avenue of free traffic? If you’re a business then you need to utilize every possible avenue that may deliver traffic. Since the majority of sites haven’t as yet mobilized, the competition is much smaller.
For those that have a bricks and mortar business, having a mobile presence could be a real bonus. People are using their phone now to undertake searches. If they undertake a search and find your business blog with your bricks and mortar details, you may find it helps to generate more visitors and more sales.
Going mobile can be done cheaply - without looking cheap. Most mobile services operate by simply taking and publishing your RSS feed. Nothing could be easier. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain so are you going to go mobile?
Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, September 26, 2008 Leave a comment
There are hundreds of places where you can acquire free blog hosting. The question is, is it really free? Sure, you don’t need to open your wallet to pay for the hosting. The blogs can be quickly and easily established and posting content can quick and easy. Sounds like a real winner to me.
However, free blog hosting does come at a price. First, for a business, it doesn’t sit well to have blog with a URL that includes a hosting company. Where is your uniqueness? One minus for credibility. More importantly, what happens as your business grows and you realize that a blog closely attached to your web site is needed?
Transferring from a free blog host to a paid host with a unique URL can be done, but it does take time and any search rank earned will be lost. Is it still free?
If you are in business then you need to be a business and that means applying all the trappings of a professional business site. These do not include free blog hosting services.
If you are thinking of costs, don’t. If you have a website with a decent host then it should not cost you anymore to have a blog setup as directory of your site. The URL would look like “yoursite.com/blog/”. If you wanted a unique domain, then you will require a separate host. However, the above URL looks a lot better than one with a free host in it.
Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, September 12, 2008 Leave a comment
There is an increasing trend in business to install a blog and get a blog and website services provider to run if for them. It makes sense, at least up to a certain point.
If your running a business either offline or online, a blog can make a lot of sense. It is a great way to communicate with your customers, provide information in an easy bite size format, and to deliver new customers to your door (or website). Running a business takes time and focus. The last thing that many business owners need it to add additional tasks to their busy work load. For this reason, blog and website services are starting to grow.
Most blog and website service providers offer the complete package. Installation of the blog software and setting it up with an appropriate theme and the plugins required to run support your blog. The can also provide content on a regular basis, daily, twice daily, twice weekly; it depends on your needs. Generally speaking, the more content the better.
Once the blog is up and running and having content published on a regular basis, your blog and website service provider will arrange to have your content bookmarked and your site submitted to the appropriate directories. Over time, this will help to boost your rankings within the search engines resulting in a steady supply of visitors to your blog.
These services have proven to be highly successful for many businesses delivering targeted traffic to their blog, and onto their web page, or in to their bricks and mortar store. Find a good blog and website services provider and the whole business about blogging suddenly gets easier.
Writing by Brick Marketing on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 Comments (2)
There are many blog and website services around the net; however most only provide partial services. Reputable services are able to offer businesses, particularly those that have a web presence and want to extend that by adding a blog, a wide range of options. Here are some of the options available:
Blog installation, setup and ongoing maintenance.
Installing a blog can be straightforward however the setup and particularly the ongoing maintenance can be time consuming. If you don’t have any experience with blogs then selecting and using the appropriate plugins can be confusing.
Blog SEO
Setting up a blog is just the start. Using the right plugins to help with your blog SEO is a must. Setting up appropriate categories and tags is also a part of your blogs SEO.
Blog Theme
If you have a website then your blog should either match the websites design or complement it. A blog and website service provider will help to get a theme that does complement both your website and your business.
Blogging Service
If you find it difficult to provide well written regular content for your blog then a blog and website services provider can help by writing regular posts and publishing them on your blog. You are assured of good keyword optimized content.
Social Optimization
With a good blog design and quality content that is informative to visitors and assists your blog SEO all that is left is to optimize for the various social media sites. This helps to generate visitors and back links to your blog.
Integration
The final step in the puzzle, and the least optimized for most businesses, is the integration that is required between a web site and its blog. Where to place appropriate links and the correct anchor text can make a big difference. Blog and website services providers have experience with integration and how to achieve maximum results from that integration.
Blog and website services can help with the creation and ongoing development of your business blog. The long term benefits include extra traffic - and sales and increases in search engine rankings.
Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, July 25, 2008 Comments (1)
The old saying, ‘look before you leap’ is very true when it comes to selecting your blog and website services provider. There are many unethical providers offering services, services which border on fraudulent acts.
This issue was brought home to me recently when I was asked to help a client change from one host to another. The transfer of the web site went fairly smoothly, however, as the domain was due for renewal I thought it wise to check that all information relating to the domain was correct. A simple ‘whois’ check is all that is required and it displayed some interesting results.
Their problem was one that many new website owners face. Starting off with cheap hosting that is unreliable and lacking any sort of support. What really concerned me where the ownership details of the domain. The domains details told me that the domain did not belong to my client. They were the contact, but not the owner. The registered owner was actually the host.
If that isn’t fraudulent then tell me what is! After many emails and finally resorting to threats of further action, the host agreed to transfer the domain over to the rightful owner. The moral of this story is twofold - first - if the blog and website service is cheap, then cheap is what you are going to get.
When deciding on a blog and website service provider, do a little checking first. Entering the services name into a search engine (inside quotation marks) can provide a lot of valuable information. If there are any forum threads, read them through to see what other users have had to say. Look before you leap and you may save a lot of hassles down the track.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 Comments (1)
So you knew that you had to launch a blog and you have been planning it for some time now. You know that it is a must have as a part of your marketing strategy. Why would you not worry about the foundation your blog or website sits on?
Your hosting company of choice is just as important as the blog or website itself. You need someone reliable if something should happen and it goes down. You want to know you have someone that will do everything it takes and stands by their name. Host Gator will make sure that your website up time is nothing less than 99.9%. The hosting of your blog is the circulatory system of your website. It is the spine to your e-commerce platform and it is important that your hosting company keeps you standing straight up and ready for all your visitors. All it takes is to have a few visitors to come to your site and see it down for them to start losing trust in your company all together. Do not short change the hosting for your website otherwise you could find yourself struggling to transfer hosting providers down the road. This could very well eat up valuable time your business could be spending keeping your clients happy.
For more information please visit Host Gator’s website and learn how they can safely keep your website up and running.
Writing by Brick Marketing on Monday, June 23, 2008 Comments (1)
Maintaining a blog can be time consuming so for many business managers, the implementation of a blog is the last thing they want to consider. However, your blog posts can be outsourced in a variety of ways and through numerous blog and website service providers. The question then is should you outsource you blog content?
There are thousands of bloggers who have a passion for sharing their experiences, stories and ideas and these same bloggers are often looking for ways to earn from their passion. There are, potentially, thousands of businesses that would benefit from having a blog attached to their website but don’t have the time, resources or know-how to maintain a blog.
Enter a blog and website service provider that matches bloggers and website owners to successfully maintain a blog on a daily basis. Believe it not there are many blogs that are maintained by ‘ghost’ writers - and very successfully maintained too. These writers generally provide content on a daily basis with the webmaster or business owner adding their own content when required.
The issue is not whether you should outsource your blog content, rather it a question of economics. Can you afford to run your business without a blog? Most businesses would say yes, however the many benefits a blog brings, whilst difficult to put a dollar value on, can be substantial.
It becomes a matter of balancing the cost of maintaining a blog with the benefits that can be obtained. I am often surprised at how many business managers will happily cough up $100,000 per annum on search engine optimization and PPC campaigns but will baulk at spending $5000 per annum to maintain a blog, particularly when a blog can deliver so much ‘free’ or organic traffic to their website.
Outsourced blog writing can be one of the least expensive components for a successful online business. Blog and website services work with webmasters to ensure the content is appropriate, targeted when required, and delivers in respect of SEO benefits, traffic and a positive online reputation. If you don’t have a blog then perhaps it is time to consider one.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 Comments (1)
Think of your hosting company as your circulatory system to power your blog. If it fails your blog will be in trouble. Same rule applies to hosting providers. If your blog goes down than it really doesn’t matter if you saved money at that point by going with a cheaper less efficient hosting provider. Website visitors do not like to come to a site and see it down. This tends to scare customers and make them run for the hills. In today’s day in age red flags are everywhere and web traffic will weave in out of those red flags. ImHosted is a hosting company that can give you the peace of mind that your website will be up and running at all times. Their team will monitor your site 24/7 to ensure its up time is nothing less than their guaranteed 99.998%.
ImHosted is a one stop shop for all blog hosting needs. Everything from ecommerce website hosting to spam protection features. Their dedicated team of customer service representatives will help you with any of your hosting questions and concerns. Currently ImHosted holds clients in 78 countries and a crew of happy customers. Come over to the site and take a look at the testimonials page and you will see that many others have tried and have been extremely satisfied.
For more information please visit ImHosted and see how this staple in the hosting industry can help you.
Writing by NameCritic on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Leave a comment
When launching a blog it is just as important to know that your blog sits on a solid foundation than the content of the blog itself. Improper hosting could be the make or break factor for the survival of your blog. Jump Launch is a hosting company dedicated towards the survival and up time of your blog. All it takes is for your site to go offline for a few days and you could quickly loose visitor confidence which could quickly result in a downward spiral for your blog.
Jump Launch is so confident in their product and service that they guarantee their product 100%. With the popularity of blogs these days and hundreds springing up every day it is important to stay visible and not have any possibility of downtime for your blog. As aggressive as online marketing is your blog cannot show any signs of weakness because in a visitors eyes that tends to raise red flags. Hosting is a vital component of your overall marketing strategy. Hosting is the circulatory system of your blog or website so make it 100% visible to your audience or they might just end up on one of your competitors.
For more information please visit Jump Launch and take a look at how their products and services can and will help the longevity of your blog.
Writing by Brick Marketing on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 Comments (1)
There are many blog and website services that offer reviews of your site; some for free and some charge a good amount for their service. There are some top named bloggers that earn a reasonable living just from the review side of their business. However, are they of any value?
To answer this question you need assess why it is you would get a review in the first place. Is it to get more traffic; gain a back-link; or simply as a part of a marketing exercise? The second question then needs to look at who is going to do the review. Blog and website services offer reviews as either published critiques or as simple assessment type reviews. The later is frequently offered attached to a marketing campaign to recruit to new clients for SEO and web design companies.
Traffic: If you are looking to gain more traffic then your review must be published and be on a site that has a good traffic flow. No matter how good the review is, if there is no traffic then that is what you will get your share of: remember, 50% of nothing is still nothing.
Links: Having a review done to obtain links can be a good idea. You do however need to be aware of search engines like Google who don’t like reviews and links - classifying them as paid links. You may however find that the site doing the review has good traffic which flows on to you. If you can gain links from these visitors then a ‘nofollow’ link on the review may be of great benefit.
Promotion: If you are having a review done as part of your marketing strategy then don’t be afraid to have the link as ‘nofollow’; Even better if the ‘nofollow’ is in the robots file. If the review is syndicated at all then your will get link benefit from the syndication.
Assessment: A review that is undertaken for assessment may not be a published review. These are undertaken to assess your SEO, design and general user friendliness of your site. They can be quite valuable if done without future financial motive in mind.
Reviews can be valuable if undertaken for the right reason by the right people. A review for the sake of a review from a site that is really looking to use you as content may not be in your best interests in the long run. Blog and website services can offer good reviews of your sites if you are thinking of upgrading or getting into some serious search engine optimization programs.
Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, May 9, 2008 Leave a comment
…..And Nasty. I forgot to add the tag to the end of the title! Being serious for just one moment, if you were hoping to find out how to get your blog and website services really cheap, don’t bother. The two do not belong together.
In today’s online world, you really do get what you pay for. If you pay $5 per month for hosting then you are going to get $5 worth of blog and website service and that is it. Possibly limited bandwidth and SQL databases and when it comes to person to person service, forget it.
I have known some of these cheap providers to take 30 minutes to answer a phone call and the person on the other end of the phone not having an answer to your question - even hanging up on you.
If you are serious about running a website or blog then you need to start by being serious about your blog and website service provider. It is not just about bandwidth. What support do they have? What is included with your service? What software, particularly eCommerce do you have access to?
The top quality blog and website service providers include features such as search engine submission when you launch your website. Many of the good providers also have webpage design, graphic design and search engine optimization service available.
Select a cheap host and you will, eventually, regret the decision. Saving a few dollars now may end up costing you a lot more down the track so think about your blog and website services right from the start and find a professional service that meets your needs, not just your wallet.
Writing by Brick Marketing on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 Leave a comment
Are you proactive, interactive, reactive or just totally inactive when it comes to working with your blog and website services provider? It takes all kinds to make the world go around, or so they say, but as a service provider it can be rather frustrating when it comes to dealing with clients.
The inactive client I can deal with. If I don’t hear from the I assume I am doing the job ok and keep going. However, you are the client. Do you check and see whether or not I am providing you with the service you want? If you are paying good money for a blog and website service provider, you should.
Each client type does have a positive and negative aspect to them. I don’t mind a reactive website owners. As a blog and website provider I provide a service and as it is their site, if I make a mistake like spelling or grammar they need to contact me to let me know so that I can correct the problem.
Interactive owners are great. Every step is discussed, they show an interest in what is happening and rather than being reactive, they work together with their blog and website services provider to fix any problems and look at ways to prevent them happening into the future.
The owner that does worry me at times is the proactive owner. Generally speaking, proactive is good. Working together and finding problems before they happen makes for a much smoother relationship. However, when an error is made, a proactive owner is quite likely to jump in and try and fix the problem themselves. This is fine if they know what they are doing, it is when they don’t know what they are doing that worries most blog and website services providers. Fixing the problems they have created can often be a nightmare.
Are you a blog or web site owner that uses a blog and websites services provider? What is your owner type - tell me its not proactive -please!
Writing by Brick Marketing on Thursday, April 10, 2008 Comments (1)
Big businesses are jumping on the blog bandwagon, what about small businesses, is it worth the effort or time to create a blog? Blogs are strange creatures. They are easy to start, easy to maintain and easy to create content. Perhaps too easy.
There are millions of great blogs throughout web. There are tens of millions of absolute garbage blogs as well. The problem is that creating a blog is easy. Grab a cheap dot com. Get some cheap or free hosting. Install WordPress and start publishing your life story. Or perhaps start creating the very best in solid content. Or perhaps take the lazy way out and scrape some RSS content. It can be very easily done.
If you are small business and wondering whether or not to start a blog, take a number of issues into account before you start.
The first of these is commitment. Once you start a blog and have your business associated with it, you need to maintain it. If you blog starts to look stale and dreary, it may adversly affect your business.
Do you have the ability to create content that will interest your readers. Content is one of the most important aspects to a creditable blog.
Dollars. Blogging can be a cheap form of advertising however you need to have the time and commitment to make a successful blog. Either that or spend money to have professionals do it for you.
Small businesses often don’t have the resources to pay for professional blogging services. However, often the money spent could result in a small business gaining a strong growth spurt that elevates them from the small to medium size business.
Blog and website services are growing at a steady pace with competition bringing down prices. Small businesses into the future will need to ask whether or not they can afford not to blog. Blogging can be effective in increasing your business online.
Writing by Brick Marketing on Monday, March 31, 2008 Leave a comment
At last count there were more than 100 pinging services available along several WordPress plugins.
Pinging, for the uninitiated, is the act of notifying a wide variety of web directories, search engines and RSS feed aggregators of a new or updated post on your blog. The more directories and search engines that are notified of your post, the more likely you are to attract visitors whilst receiving back links.
The question is, should you ping your blog? The previous paragraph makes it clear there are definite advantages to pinging, there are also definite disadvantages as well. Blog and website services that offer to ping your blog do so by linking as many directories and search engines as possible. Not all services are the same. Service A may have 40 directories, search engines and RSS aggregators on their books while service B has 50. Therein lies a problem.
Many bloggers look at ping services and compare their ping recipients. Ping service A has 40; ping service B has 50; the duplication may be only 10 so the blogger decides to use both services to ping their latest blog. What they have done is pinged 10 of those services twice. Thats ok occasionally, do it to often and you may get banned for spamming.
Using plugins can be a good idea. With plugins you can enter in the services that you wish to ping. This avoids the duplicate ping that may occur by using more than one blog and website service. When using a plugin there is one catch. Some plugins do not check for previous pings, so a simple act like publishing - with an automatic ping, followed by a quick edit for a spelling or layout change, may result in a second ping the moment you save again.
Use a good plugin and it will identify the previous ping and not ping a second time. My advice, where possible, use a plugin if it is available and only use a blog and website service to ping your blog after making a major change to the posts content - in those situations, you want the updated post out there.
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