Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

Blog Directory and RSS Submission Sites Explained

After responding to an email from a client about blog directories vs. search engines, I realize confusion is prevalent among many bloggers about whether or not they should submit their blog feed to directories. Confusion extends to what exactly a directory is and how it differs from a search engine.

First a definition of web directory from Wikipedia:

A web directory or link directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. A web directory is not a search engine and does not display lists of web pages based on keywords; instead, it lists web sites by category and subcategory. The categorization is usually based on the whole web site rather than one page or a set of keywords, and sites are often limited to inclusion in only a few categories. Web directories often allow site owners to directly submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions for fitness.

Think of a blog (web) directory like a yellow pages for blogs. Here's the definition of search engine:

Blog Post Life Cycle: What Happens When You Post

By way of a colleague I got a link to an article in Wired Magazine called The Life Cycle of a Blog Post, From Servers to Spiders to Suits — to You.

There is a very cool graphic that shows you exactly what happens when you publish a post on your blog. You can trace the path from a thought to the post, to the servers to the spam bots to the search engines to the feed readers to the sites that analyze what's going on on the web, finally all the way to the reader.

To see the graphic you have to hold the left click button on your mouse and then you can scroll through the image and follow the trail of a blog post.

Blogging Statistics

I was on the BlogWorld Expo site this morning and found a list of blogging statistics you may be interested in (links to the relevant support documentation is on the BWE site):

    * Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
    * More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
    * Over 57 million Americans read blogs.
    * 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
    * 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
    * 9% of Internet users say they have created blogs .
    * 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog .
    * Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs .
    * over 120 thousand blogs are created every day .
    * There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day .
    * 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs .
    * 120,000 new blogs are created every day .
    * 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 .
    * 51% of blog readers shop online .
    * Blog readers average 23 hours online each week .

Blog Q&A: Blog Alliances

Q:  How can you effectively build blog alliances and partnerships?

A:  One basic way was addressed in the FAQs about trackbacking and commenting.

Another way is something both Patsi and I have done on our blogs...you can invite guest bloggers.

Invite other people in a complementary niche to blog on a specific topic, to provide their information for your readers. More than likely, they'll be telling their readers they are blogging on your blog. That starts to build some traffic back and forth.

Patsi, for example, has a blog about business books, called Biz Book Nuggets and readership is not in the high numbers on that blog so she found a book club in Texas and they didn't have a blog. She invited their book reviewers to write a monthly article on her blog. So again, that's going to bring all of their members over to the blog as readers.

If you have a TypePad blog, you can get their highest level plan so you can have guest authors, otherwise what you could do is have them send you things and you could post it for them.

I have a personal blog on weight loss and fitness, and I invited one of our previous clients who writes about single women and dating and so she wrote a week's worth of posts about healthy tips for dating and how that relates to weight and self esteem. We traded a lot of traffic that way. I set Annie up as a guest author on my blog. Guest authors can't change anything on your blog, all they can do is publish their own posts.

Getting to know other bloggers can lead to many opportunities beyond driving traffic back and forth between blogs.  Have a blog alliance story to share?  Leave a comment below and let us know.  Thanks!

Blog Q&A: TrackBacks

Q:  How do you use TrackBacks and leverage them for growing blog visibility?

A:  Let's say you are on somebody's blog and you've read something that really strikes you as important, valid, something that your blog readers need to know about. So you want to write about it on your own blog.

Now on their blog post, most blogging software has a link that says TrackBack, underneath  in the footer area. If there is a link that says TrackBack, you click on that link on the person's post that you are reading and you want to refer to.

Blog Q&A: Commenting

Recently Patsi and I held a blogging Q&A session for our customers and clients.  Over the next week or so we'll post some of the questions our clients asked along with our responses.  The first question, and one we get a lot is about commenting.

Q: How do you encourage people to comment?

A: here are a number of ways to handle comments and to get people to comment. The most direct way to get people to comment is to be a little bit provocative or passionate in your blog post and what you are writing and the other is to be very specific. Add at the end of your post: "Let me know what you think, click on the comment link and leave your comment."

Sometimes you really have to spell it out, a lot of people may not be that familiar with blogs or maybe they don't know that they can comment, maybe they don't understand what that comment link is for.

So it does not hurt at all to say: "Click on the comment link and let me know your opinion, etc."

Ezines, Blogs & RSS Feeds: How You Can Use All 3

We received this email from a colleague and fellow blogger, Tom Heitz. I thought it would help others to answer his questions here.

Denise and Patsi:

I have working through my, "Build a Better Blog" ebook and I have a question.  I have figured out how to use Feedblitz and put the code on  a sidebar.  I also have an ezine mailing service aweber.com which I can put on the blog as well for signups to my ezine.

Feedblitz will send them an ermail to let readers know there is a new post(s).  Aweber is a service that will send out my ezine and autoresponders.  Since my goal is to build my mailing list, and I'm  sure it is one of your goals as well, how do I use both?  Or maybe a  better question would be, "how do you use both?"  I know I am on one or several of your lists but not on a Feedburner list from you.  Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks,
Tom

All good questions, Tom. Aweber is a good service for emailing out your newsletter, and the newsletter and blog should work together, linking to each other.

You might want add your blog post updates into your newsletter. For example, Here's What's New on the Blog... and list your article titles (you can even link to them.)

I do this on my weekly Newsletter Nuggets ezine. (To see a sample, of how I update readers on all the articles posted on my blogs, subscribe to this newsletter on the home page of www.customizednewsletters.com; you can always unsubscribe later.)

Splog?

Do you know what a splog is?  Kind of like it sounds:  a spam blog (read wikipedia definition here).  Our article, 16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog, was recently discovered on a splog. You can read about it on Patsi's CoachEzines blog.

It's important to note that in fact we did post the article on lots of article directories and that it can legitimately be used by publishers in their ezines and on their blogs.  The point here is that the blog in question appears to be a spam blog which has as its only intention to "increase the PageRank of the affiliated sites and/or get ad impressions from visitors."  However, even that is not clear.  There is no information about the author, there is no way to comment, and there are no ads on the site, so what is the purpose of the blog?  It's a mystery to me.

40 Questions (and Answers) about Blogs

Andy Wibbels of Easy Bake Weblogs has just published a post on 40 questions and answers about blogs.  Many of his Q&A are addressed in the Build A Better Blog System ebook and the Build a Better Blog blog, and you may want to check out Andy's post (he has a great sense of humor!).

FAQ: What is a Business Blog?

What is a business blog?

Because a blog is a cheap, fast way to build an online presence, it is an ideal way for entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and other professionals to establish their credibility and expertise.  Since your readers can post comments, you establish a dialogue with your audience and build rapport and trust.

The very nature of a blog is perfect for the busy professional.  They are quick and easy to update.  You are creating fresh content frequently (daily is best) that is useful to your prospects and customers and loved by search engines.  In contrast to the more formal website, a blog is an informal venue that enables your visitors to get to know you.

A business blog can, and should complement your website, ezine and brand.

When you create a conversation with your prospects (visitors, readers), you are establishing your credibility.  You build your network and increase the awareness of your products and services in a casual way.

A blog is an essential tool in the professional's marketing toolbox.  Combined with a website, an ezine, database management and ecommerce system, you will have everything you need to develop and run your business globally and online.

If you want to get started quickly creating a business blog, we've created a comprephensive manual for setting up a professional blog on TypePad...Build a Better Blog: The Ultimate Guide to Boosting Your Business with a Blog.