Blog To Great Feed

Tips from a DIGG Power User !

2009-01-04T09:00:00-05:00

BlogTips- Just finished reading an Interesting post on How to Become a DIGG power user. Note: the writer is currently banned from DIGG and BtG has never tried these techniques, so I can't comment on the effectivenessof their recomendations. But, there are some good tips on how to best use social networks for blog promotion. Remember though not to do anything unethical with the networks, they will catch up to you and you will be banned! For more, read the full aszx.net post at, Digg Power User Tips .

Good Digging !

Anchor Text for Internal Link Building a Blog

2009-01-03T09:00:00-05:00

Blog Tips - In your SEO drive, anchor text of links between pages of your blog is often overlooked. Our first tip is not to use links with the words “click here" you're completely wasting the opportunity. This seems obvious, but is often ignored by many bloggers. Beyond this basic advice, we'll review other ideas on how to improve your existing content quickly and with ease. You might wonder if internal anchor text actually matter to Google and other search engines? Yes, they do! Backlinks (links from other sites) are extremely important to your best case SEO, but, internal links also have an valid role in showing to search engines what is important on your blog and what is related. Keep this point in mind:

An excessive numbers of links is not better than the appropriate amount. You must always keep your posts and entire blog "reader friendly" and easy to read/understand. Don't stretch the logical read, simply to include better keywords! You'll lose your readers, and they won't return!

Link With What You Have Already-
Use the content you already have on your blog too. Here's an easy query that will help you to find where on your blog you’ve already used certain keywords:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:mydomain.com+”my+keyword+phrase”

So if I were writing about blog tips then I would first do this search :

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:blogtogreat.com+"blog+tips”

to see which page mentiones the phrase “link building”. I should see many pages that do, but the top result has the keyword in the title tag and in the URL, so that's the page I am targeting for that keyword.

Begin by reviewing your top 20 keywords and see how many more links you can create to them from the content on your other pages. In-content links have value because they have context (text around them) and are thought to be more “editorial” than site-wide or menu links. (Google is pretty sharp, they can tell which part of your page is the content and which is the menu).

Link While You Write
While writing a blog post, an article, or a new page for your blog, bear in mind your other pages that you've previously written (and you can use the same query above). If you're writing a new post and you refer to something related to a product, service, article, or blog post, consider using the keywords for that page in the sentence and make it a link.

Let us know if this helps and your link ideas. Blog to Great !!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR to All from BtG !!!

2009-01-02T14:12:38-05:00

To an even better 2009, thanks for a great 2008 !!!

Google Pageranks Updated This Week

2009-01-02T14:04:40-05:00

Blog News - Google was expected to update page ranks later this month, January 2009, but the Mountain View, CA team moved it up. Many Google Pageranks started changing this week, and by now you should already see some update values. An easy page rank checker can be found at PR Checker. Take a look to see how your blog did, and comment below on your changes (if any) . Keep in mind that a page rank is only one of many ways to measure a blog and does not make a blog more valuable or not. But many folks seem to live and die by page rank, so it's something you should be aware of.

To a great 2009 bloggers !!!!

Meebo Expands IM Support

2008-12-29T17:22:14-05:00

BLOG TIPS - Meebo, the provider of a Web-based messaging and chat service, announced recently that it's added support for the instant messaging (IM) platforms on MySpace and Facebook. The company's platform already supports interoperability between AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger and ICQ. Read all about the Meebo announcement. If you're using MySpace and/or Facebook to promote your blogging efforts, this is great news that will help you communicate with your readers allowing better interaction !!

MOG Ad Network Changes Terms, Slows Payments

2008-12-20T17:29:23-05:00

Blog News - Back in August, MOG step up shop as a premiere music blog ad network and discovery platform. Back then, CEO David Hyman called it a “Federated Media for music sites” Called MOG Music Network or MMN, it lets independent music bloggers syndicate content to Mog.com and customize ads that appear on their blogs, helping bloggers generate revenues greater than what they’d get from ad networks like Google AdSense. Now, we hear that MMN is behind in their payments to member bloggers and that they’re changed their payment terms significantly. This is the e-mail he/she received from MOG:

Greetings MMN affiliates,

MMN is now 275 strong. We’re really thrilled with the fantastic response we’re receiving from advertisers. Examples of advertisers MMN has featured in the last 60 days include SanDisk, Electronic Arts, and Sony Pictures. Our sales pipeline for 2009 is massive as a result of the enthusiastic reception to MMN among the biggest brand marketers in the world. They recognize MMN as more valuable, and with a cooler audience, than MySpace, Facebook, Imeem, and others. These marketers get that the tastemakers and influencers live on your sites.

Some of the proof is already in the pudding. MMN has averaged over $5.50 CPM in the last 60 days with 50%+ sell through rates, outpacing many other ad networks.

While demand for advertising on MMN continues to be strong, we are seeing a distinct slowdown in advertiser-issued payments. Regrettably, MOG doesn’t have the luxury of paying out affiliates before advertiser payments are collected. This means that we have to push back our payment terms to 120 days, starting with October 2008 earnings onward.

I ask that you be patient with us as we work to collect your earnings. We’re dealing with cream of the crop advertisers who, I assure you, will pay out.

Thanks for your understanding,

Andrei Marinescu
Director, Business Development | MOG

We've seen these types of messages before, typical corporate method to announce bad news. First, go with the good stuff: brag your member numbers and the ‘massive sales pipeline’, say how special the network is, and brag about your impressive CPM rates, say how much better than competitors you are. Then move to the bad, get it over quickly and then reassure the reader, and don't forget to thank the recipient for their understanding and patience. This is way it's always important to keep track of your ad network and to talk to other bloggers about their experiences ! Maybe there is nothing to worry about here, the problems will be solved and affiliates will be paid in full promptly, especially as the economy and advertising markets improve. But we wouldn’t be shocked if there’s more to the story here, and would love to hear from MOG. We hope that MOG is not feeling the decline in ads like so many other ad networks and publishers are.

But, MOG is venture-backed and they should have a cash cushion: after an initial $3.2 million in angel funding, they raised $2.8M in Series A Funding from Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and The Angels’ Forum with a total funding of $6M. The company also has music producer and co-head of Columbia Records Rick Rubin on its board of directors. Though Mr Rubin seems to be having his own problems with Sony, rumors swirl that he may be on his way out.

Bebo Looks to Grow its Social Network With a USA Push

2008-12-10T19:19:44-05:00

BLOG TIPS - Seven months after being purchased up by Time Warner, UK's Bebo, the online social network, "officially" kicked off on Wednesday its push in the USA with the release of it's "Social Inbox". It combines email, social networking and media recommendations in a single interface. The new Bebo tool aggregates feeds and updates from services such as Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, YouTube and AIM, among others and allows users to check their email from Gmail, Yahoo Mail and AOL Mail. Plus, more than 100 million users of AOL and its AIM instant messenge service (IM) can now log directly into Bebo with their current screen names. This release is said to be the first in a series of Bebo announcements, which currently is the No. 3 social network trailing behind Facebook and MySpace. As we always have said, with the ebb and flow of the social network world, explore all appropriate networks for your blog. You never know which one may shrink, grow, be sold or close !!!

Google SearchWiki; the End of PageRanks ??

2008-12-09T12:17:17-05:00

BLOG TIPS - As you're likely aware, Google's SearchWiki was activated a few weeks back. It permits anyone to edit & comment on search results at Google. Before it launched, there was much discussion of the dangers of bloggers voting up their blogs and removing their competitors listings. But, know that voting up your blogs in the early period is red flag to Google that says “I’m a SEO and these are my blogs I’m promoting”. Go take a look at the SearchWiki notes for some competitive keywords to see what some have done. Google is getting a lot of data from this and they'll be using it in the future. If you doubt Googles' ability to use data like this, you haven’t noticed how effective Google Local has been in ranking restaurants, clubs, etc based on how good they are rather than how many links they have. So, what will happen when Google allows readers to give star ratings to ecommerce sites and blogs in the search results? The bigger brands with the best customer service and reach will to win, blogs with high quality information and loyal readers will win too. We may see this as a more accurate list of quality blogs and sites!

PageRank was to be the ultimate fair method of rankings blogs and sites. And it was until operators began buying links. This defeated the true intent of PageRanks. It was a great model to let Google determine which sites people were voting for. Google can now ask users to vote on blogs and sites instead of relying on links (that are sometimes questionable). The major downside with PageRank is that only a small % of people actually have websites and are therefore able to influence search results for their own purposes. We'll see where this takes us and how soon Google will make ranking changes with a new system. In the meantime, we don't recommend doing anything improper to influence your blog or to harm other bloggers.

If you've used SearchWiki, we'd like to hear your thoughts on it. Comment below...

Google Adsense Video Tips to Help Your Blog

2008-12-08T20:15:50-05:00

BLOG TIPS - The blogosphere is full of tips and tricks on how you can make money online with a blog. it seems that new programs are offered every day (and as many seem to shut down) Google Adsense continues to remain one of the simplest and the most popular blog monetizing programs available. To help you get the most benefit, take a look at the three-part video series below that shows Google’s top tips for increasing your AdSense earnings.

1. Bigger is better ! -

You heard it from the source, Google suggests the following ads units are the best for publishers

300×250 medium rectangle
728×90 leaderboard
160×600 skyscraper

2. Make it look the best it can-

When you create your AdSense ads, you should also keep these tips in mind:

Use colors that blend well with, or complement your blog’s colors. Design the ads to be a natural part of your site.
Use lighter colors for borders or, no border at all.
Rotate ad colors, designs and location occasionally on your blog
Save sets of frequently-used colors as a palette.

3. Position is key-

According to Google, the following positions should have the highest conversation rate-

Above the fold of a page (the section of the page a user can see without scrolling)
At the end of an article
Aligned with content

“So remember, position your ads above the fold and where users are more likely to see them,” says Google.

Don’t just take their words for it, give it a try. All the best Adsense tips in the world won't do you and your blog any good if you're unable to drive traffic to yourlog. So, always continue to work on building traffic before you start monetizing your blog. And don't worry, you want earn tons of money on your first attempt. Your monetizing strategy, as with all your blogging efforts, should be one of ‘trial and error’. With time and new techniques, the above tips should help to improve your Adsense earnings potential.

Overall, place your ads units as visible as possible without harming the experience of your readers. You've likely been on blogs or sites that have ads as the primary focus, NOT an good thing to encourage return readers. And, don't forget to use channels to keep track of the best performing unit.

Don't feel you're looking into one ad network. Feel free to test other networks and ad programs. A mix of several might be best for your blog.

BLOG BASICS - Know Your Blog's Traffic

2008-12-04T17:08:24-05:00

Blog Tips - You hear a variety of terms in a discussion and calculation of blog traffic. You'll often see statics in terms of daily and monthly unique visitors; some will provides you with more; Pageviews, Hits, etc. I'm sure you've heard of bloggers who say their blog has had XXX hits a month. What does that really mean; how big is XXX hits? Are they claiming they have XXX people visiting their blog in a month? To help, below is a quick explanation of the common terms, for new bloggers and for anyone unsure of what is meant.

Hits

Measuring blog traffic by hits also shows a higher number. A hit is as request and is the total number of files loaded when a single blog page is requested from the web server. How are hits calculated? Think of it this way, a single web page with 20 images is loaded, that’s 20 hits for your blog! The blog page has 10 photos, that’s another 10 hits. When you add up the CSS files, Javascript files and all the external files, each time a web page is loaded, it can easily build up more than 50 hits. If you clear cache, reload the page, another 50+ hits again. Therefore, hits are not used to to determine a blog’s traffic as the info is not really representative of actually activity.

Pageviews

Pageview is the number of how many times a page is viewed. When a visitor lands on your main page, that is one pageview. When that visitor clicks to your About Us page, that’s another pageview. By dividing total pageviews with the number of total unique visitors, you can get a better idea how many pageviews each visitor has generated. This number helps you determine how long readers are hanging around on your blog, and how "sticky" it is.

Impressions

Impression is basically a marketing term, and used in increments of of 1000. It shows you how many times a element (image, text, video) is on a web page. If an ad network pays you $3/CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions), it means you get paid $3 when the banner appears 1000 times to viewers on your blog page.

Visits / Unique Visitors

Visits are the number of unique visitors to your blog/site. It's the number of different people (different IPs) that visit your blog page in any given period. The number of visits, or unique visitors is the essential number that you are concerned with. That # reflects the true traffic of a blog or site. All your efforts to promote and market your blog are to increase this number.

How to be increase the traffic is an ongoing process, and with different techniques BtG will help you.

Digg is NOT for Sale (for Now at Least)

2008-12-03T11:16:56-05:00

Blog Tips- The chief executive at Digg, Jay Adelson recently told Business Week that the company is NOT for sale. Digg's now focusing on increasing revenue with new features that will come out over the next several months in an effort to keep people on the site (and hopefully be profitable within a year). But we know, everything has a price, so time will tell. See interview here. We're looking forward to the new stuff. In the meantime, this doesn't impact bloggers and the importance of social networking for you and your blog. StumbleUpon and Digg are good tools, but don't rely on them (and other networks) solely for blog traffic. Yes, build a good, reliable network, but continue to build your own steady readerships with good content and other efforts.

Tips on Increasing Blog Page Rank

2008-12-02T12:24:22-05:00

Blog Tips- The biggest search engine, Google ranks websites & blogs by relevance via Pagerank. Knowing your Pagerank is very important because it allows you keep track of your search engine optimization work and it helps you rank higher in the google index. Pagerank measures how many websites link to your site. More important than the quantity of the websites is the qualityof the blogs/websites that link to your site/blog. So, the higher their pagerank, the better your rank will be. Keep this in mind as you network with other bloggers.

Submitting to quality search engine directories (google, yahoo, msn, aol, etc) and directories(dmoz.org) is a necessity, but also submit your blog to portals specific to your blog's niche and to regional websites (specific to your country, state and city). Some websites will try to sell you higher placement in their directory, but I don't believe it's necessary. Also, remember that links to your website without reciprocal links from your site are measured higher than if you link back. Called organic links.

A good way to get more inbound links without needing to reciprocate is thru participation in message boards, classified ads and forums. Some forums will permit you to create a footer to include your site info on all your posts. Don't try raise your pagerank by spamming and other similar ways, your blog will likely get penalized, it's not worth it. Make sure your posts are relevant to the topic. Another factor used to improve your PageRank is by use of how relevant your blog is to specific keywords. Have a lot of appropriate, quality keyword text on your blog with quality content. Don't force it, and if you're sincere and writing about your topic/niche, this is no problem. Just make sure your keywords are used frequently and your blog is updated frequently with good info.

First, determine your current rank, check out prchecker.com for info on your page rank ! Once you know where your blog is ranked you can write your plan to increase it. Let's us know what page rank increase work you've done, and how successful you were. We like comments !!!

Pownce Acquired by Six Apart

2008-12-02T09:31:05-05:00

Blog News- Pownce, a microblogging and file-sharing service that was created by Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, announced on Monday (12/1/08) that it was acquired by Six Apart, the developer of blogging tools including Vox, Movable Type and Typepad, for an undisclosed sum. Pownce also announced that it will end its services for good on December 15. "We're bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we'll come back with something much better in 2009," the Pownce team wrote in a blog post. Six Apart has said that Pownce's employees will be joining Six Apart, while Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka will act as advisers. Six Apart's Vox service is very similar to what Pownce offers; both compete with Twitter in the microblogging arena.

Reflect and Be Thankful, Importance of Blogging

2008-11-26T16:08:41-05:00

BLOG TIPS - Tomorrow, in America, we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s a time when family and friends get together to share in what hasy been a bountiful harvest. The majority of us are far removed from the farming and harvest cycles, but we still know the importance of pausing to recognize how much we have to be thankful for. Please reflect, wherever you are in the world, during these difficult times and recognize what we have. Let's also strive to help others more, while blogging and in every part of your life. Not only with your money, but with your actions, both personally and on your blog. For one, post off-topic periodically to include important social issues/causes that use help and assistance. Sign on to Blog Action Day too. Blogs are a great way to have impact and to help others. Remain thankful and hopeful this Thanksgiving. Share with all, What are you thankful for?

Blog BANNER ADs, Are they Useful???

2008-11-24T15:50:30-05:00

Blog Tips- If you missed it, note that the AdWeek put up a good post onweb and blog banner ads. Due to the current world economic turmoil, most all advertisers are reviewing their ad spends, and that includes internet buys to determine their effectiveness. Some are starting to notice that most readers ignore banner ads. “Internet ads are small and out of the way,” said Greg March, digital group director at Wieden+Kennedy. “Advertisers want to deliver impact, and I don’t think the impact for these ads is always that strong.” At Time Inc, Vivek Shah, group digital president, he says that when budgets are tight,advertisers prefer spending their money on direct response ads over harder to measure brand ads. Shah says display advertising is "under assault." Read full post, here. Will this impact all blogs, too soon to tell. But, as always, know who your readers are and make every effort to offer new ways to improve your blog and make your readers pay attention. Try new marketing campaigns, try one advertiser per page! Keep your blog easy to navigate and clean, without ad clutter.