How to Create Your First Blog

I've been blogging now for about 2 years, and I'm amazed at
the amount of traffic that I get from my blog and the
number of people who tell me that they first heard about me
from my blog instead of my website. The word blog is
derived from the term "web log", or an online diary or
journal. If the HBO series "Sex and the City" were being
filmed today, Carrie Bradshaw would be a blogger as well as
a columnist, I think. Why? As she experiences her
revelations about life, love, and relationships, she could
post them to her blog for the world to see and comment upon.

Blogging has opened website creation to almost everyone, as
it takes very little know-how to get a blog up and running.
In fact, many service business owners are using a blog
platform as their primary website, with some of them
creating static pages as you would find on a traditional
website, while others are using the platform as a blog and
are posting updates regularly.

There are several advantages to using blogs instead of
ezines or traditional websites:

1. Search engines love blogs. The strategy that seems to
be attractive to search engines today is regularly updated
content. I can log-in to my blog at the beginning of a day
and submit a post. Within 24 hours I'll get a notification
from my Google alerts account that Google has indexed that
post.

2. Content can be distributed quickly. If you instruct
your visitors to subscribe to your blog via updating
services like Bloglines or Feedblitz, they'll be notified
within hours of any new posts on your blog.

3. Little web programming knowledge is required. Once
your blog is set up, it's simply a matter of logging into
your account, typing the info for your post, adding graphics
or photos as needed, and publishing your post to your blog.

4. Reader feedback. Your readers can give you comments
and feedback about your posts almost immediately after you
log an entry. Blogs are a great way to engage your
audience.

Are ezines and traditional websites dead? No, because
people consume information differently. Some are auditory
learners and prefer to hear the info (great audience for
podcasting, an audio form of blogging), some prefer to
receive updates as they are published (blog readers), while
others like a stable, stationary medium to which they can
refer when they're ready (readers who archive ezines or
bookmark web pages).

How do you begin to blog? Here are 10 simple steps you can
follow:

1. Blogging platform. The easiest way to get started is to
use the free service found at Blogger.com or Wordpress.com.
The ability to customize your blog is limited with the
free services, so I urge my clients to subscribe to
Typepad.com, which will host your blog for you on their
servers, or purchase a hosting account where WordPress can
be installed. The downloadable version of WordPress is
located at Wordpress.org and is free of charge if you need
to install Wordpress yourself on your hosting account. I
use Typepad for my blog, so many of my examples will relate
exclusively to blogs hosted on that platform.

2. Name. What do you want to call your blog? Blog names
tend to be attention-getting and off-beat. However, for
service businesses, I encourage my clients to use keywords
important to their business when naming their blog. You
will also want to acquire the .com version of your blog's
name or your blog's name with the word "blog" attached as
your blog URL. After you have set up your blog, your blog
provider can give you more info about how to map your
domain to your blog. (Note: You don't want to simply
forward your blog to your domain name, as that impacts the
URLs of your individual blog pages).

3. Look and Layout. How many columns do you want to
display? Do you want links to static pages? What colors
do you want to use? How about a signup box for a free
giveaway? Should you use one of the templates provided or
have something custom designed? Do you want your blog
archives displayed? Do you want to be the only author or
do you want to permit others to make posts, as well? There
are many questions you'll be asked in the startup phase
about the look of your blog. A Typepad blog permits you to
change your mind about your layout at a later date. The
best way to determine the look of your blog is to look at
the layout of other blogs and determine what appeals to you.

4. Widgets. There are a number of widgets, or add-on
programs, that you can incorporate into your blog. Check
your blog software's site for more info about what features
you'd like add to your blog. At a minimum you'll want to
give visitors a couple of ways in which they can receive
blog updates through various updaters, or feeder services,
as mentioned earlier.

5. Comments. The newest sp*am making its rounds online is
comment sp*am. Don't these guys have anything better to
do? Set your comments to moderated, which means that you
have to approve any comments to your blog before the post
goes live. You'll save yourself a great many headaches and
time by choosing to moderate the comments.

Once you've gotten this far, you should have a basic blog
established and are ready to begin to blog.

6. Blog content. The time has arrived -- your blog is
ready to accept posts. What do you write about? You can
post content rich articles of interest to your target
market, comment on a current event, answer questions from
your visitors, present a before and after case study
outlining how your business helped someone, etc. Keep your
eyes and ears open for information relevant to your
audience. I use my blog to bring forth info that doesn't
fit well into my newsletter format or something that arises
between newsletter issues. I post my ezine content to my
blog, as well.

7. Posting frequency. Blogs are just like gardens -- they
need watering regularly and require some care and
attention. For maximum effectiveness, you need to post
several times a week to your blog. I try and post 4 times
per week in my blog -- 2 posts are items I run across or
comment upon as noteworthy in the moment, and the latter 2
are the contents of my ezine posted over 2 days. And,
respond to reader's comments when they arrive -- blogs
provide a great forum for ongoing discussions.

8. Blog traffic. In the same way that you publicize your
website URL on everything that you do, you can similarly
publicize your blog. Submitting your blogs to blog
directories is another way to get traffic. A very
comprehensive list of blog directories, RSS Top 55
(http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/) has been
compiled by Robin Good. Searching out blogs that appeal
to your target market and making comments to those posts
will also drive traffic to your blog. Another trick is
to post your blog on social bookmarking sites like Reddit,
Digg, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us.

9. Measure the results. Some blog programs, like Typepad,
have built-in statistics so you can view details of your
blog traffic. Some of the feed/updater programs have
built-in statistics as well, or you can install a metrics
program as an add-on to your blog. Review your statistics
regularly to determine how much traffic your blog generates.

10. Rinse and repeat. Don't let the novelty of blogging
wear off. Blogging is effective only if you continue your
blogging efforts regularly over a long period of time. I
know of several individuals who have gotten book deals from
their blog and radio and TV interviews as well. Just
think -- your blog might be your ticket to fame!

Every service business can benefit from blog technology.
Few other marketing strategies provide the quick immediacy
that blogging provides.
===========================================================
Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business
Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed service
professionals learn how to automate their businesses,
leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more
clients online. To sign up for more FREE tips like these
and claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing
Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.GetMoreClientsOnline.com
===========================================================

Copyright © 2007 Jayde Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.

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How to Reduce the Pain of Switching Domains

Transferring traffic and popularity to a new domain is a
painstaking process that no one on the web appears to be immune
to, or so Topix.net has realized. Topix.net is a leading news
aggregation resource that has been in the news lately because
they are planning to move their site from Topix.net to Topix.com
after purchasing the .com for a cool million from a Canadian
animation company.

The Wall Street Journal wrote this article
(http://online.wsj.com/public/article/
SB117375265591935029-IKQUyS_3o8u4cUtPCqiCO2oV5OE_20080311.html)
explaining how damaging a seemingly simple process of switching
from .net to .com could be for Topix LLC. The author goes on to
explain such a switch is usually fraught with ranking drops
while the major search engines notice and respond to the
changeover. The fact that switching addresses will cause
problems is not news in the SEO world; however, I thought
Topix.net's situation was a great opportunity to review what
one might expect when switching domains.

Switching Shingles

Switching a domain is tantamount to changing physical locations
and it should be treated just as seriously. The following are
the steps to take and consider when switching domains:

1. You must install a site wide 301 (permanent redirect) on
your old domain to forward all human traffic to the new
domain and inform search engine spiders that your website
has permanently moved to a new location. For information
on how to implement a 301 redirect here is a great tutorial
(http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles3/spiders-301-redirect.htm).

2. Google is the biggest player and likely the most
significant driver of traffic to your website. Keeping that
in mind you will want to notify Google of your switchover
as soon as possible by registering the new website within
Google Webmaster Central and then submitting a fresh XML
sitemap. Google representatives are very clear the only way
to minimize the impact of a domain changeover is to give
Google's automated system as much warning as possible to
limit downtime.

3. Find the most significant inbound links that point to
the old domain and selectively contact the site owners
requesting a link update to the new domain.
TIP: Discovering which sites to contact first can be done
using a combination of top referrer statistics, and search
engine backlink reports. I don't recommend taking this
step unless you find a few sites that stand out as massive
traffic drivers as this process can be frustrating due to
lack of response; after all, changing a backlink to your
site is likely low on a webmaster's priority list.

4. Send out a press release far and wide explaining the move
to the new domain. Feature the domain prominently in the
release to begin the task of re-branding.

5. All email addresses will need to be forwarded to their
respective addresses on the new domain. Ensure that anyone
emailing the old address is forwarded to the new one BUT
they should also receive an automated notice to change
their contact records to reflect the new email. Leave these
email forwards active for a short time to catch the most
important emails and then turn them off and delete the old
address accounts to avoid encouraging spammers.

6. On the new domain don't forget to implement a 301 redirect
for the "non-www" traffic so they get forwarded to the
preferred "www" version of the domain. For more information
and background on this topic please visit the following
tutorial "301 Redirect of Non-WWW to WWW URLs
(http://www.stepforth.com/faq/non-www-redirect.htm)".

7. If you expect a severe drop in traffic you can expect a
drop in sales. In this regard you may want to ramp up or
start pay per click marketing to minimize the damage to
your bottom line.

How Long Does a Domain Transition Take?

Generally a popular website will experience the least amount of
downtime because Google will take notice faster due to the many
entry points (inbound links from news articles, etc.) this type
of site usually has. It is also more to Google's benefit to
ensure that a credible and well-trafficked website is kept high
in Google's results to ensure users receive the best results
possible. Using a popular website such as Topix.Net as an
example, I would expect a 2-week to 1-month turn around at which
time traffic would be back to approximately 85% of what it was.

Sites that are less popular will really need to do their
homework and ensure they have informed Google in every way
possible of the transition. The transition back to normal
traffic for sites that carefully transition their website should
be in the realm of 2 to 6 months.

"What If?" The Worst Case Scenario

What should you do if your traffic drops dramatically and after
a few weeks or months it still has not measurably restored
itself? Google actually recommends you post your issue on their
online user support forum (http://groups.google.com/group/
Google_Webmaster_Help). Apparently Google engineers
occasionally take pity and help out; maybe you will get lucky.
I also recommend visiting the more authoritative search engine
forums (such as Search Engine Watch
(http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/), iHelpYou
(http://www.ihelpyou.com/forums/), etc.) and requesting help.
There are a lot of incredibly talented SEOs on these forums that
are happy to provide assistance.

WARNING!

If you must conduct a domain transition be sure to plan it
during a historically slow time of year to minimize damages. For
example, it would be a mistake for a B2C to switch domains
before the Holiday Season rush.

In Conclusion

Do not switch your domain unless you have no other choice
because no matter how popular your website is domain switchovers
are far from enjoyable. After all, even losing a single week of
significant traffic for a popular site could cost many thousands
or even millions of dollars. On the flip side of the coin, less
trafficked websites (i.e. Mom and Pop sites, small B2C websites,
etc.) usually experience a longer wait time so they experience a
different type of pain. Fortunately, you now know there are ways
to mitigate the potential harm to your bottom line, just don't
forget to follow the rules and your switchover will be a lot
more effective and ultimately less painful.
================================================================
Ross Dunn is the founder and CEO of StepForth Search Engine
Placement Inc. (http://www.stepforth.com/) Based in Victoria,
BC, Canada, StepForth has provided professional search engine
placement and management services since 1997. Ross is a search
engine optimization and placement expert with over 9 years of
marketing experience and is a Certified Internet Marketing and
Business Strategist (CIMBS). Blending his experience in the art
of web design and search engine optimization, Ross offers a
unique and informed perspective on obtaining top search engine
placements. Ross can be reached at ross@stepforth.com
================================================================

Copyright © 2007 Jayde Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.

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2007 FIA Formula One World Championship

		Australia March 18 Malaysia April 08 Bahrain April 15 Spain May 13 Monaco May 27 Canada June 10 United States June 17 France July 01 United Kingdom July 08 Germany July 22 Hungary August 05 Turkey August 26 Italy September 09 Belgium September 16 China September 30 Japan October 07 Brazil October 21

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