Keyword Targetting

One of the things you can do so that search engines will index your web pages properly is through keyword density.

This means you try to use the words you are targeting enough times so that the web crawler will get an idea on what your web page is all about.

To see if you are doing this properly you can submit your web page to this tool: http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html

Blogging Success Stories

We all like to read success stories for two reasons. One so that we will be inspired with our own effort. Our thinking goes something like - If they can do it, so can I.

Second, to steal ideas or get a glimpse of how the successful ones do it.

He is a slide show of the current top bloggers on the internet.

Adobe versus Microsoft - Round 2

I was browsing through Cflex.net today trying to sharpen my Adobe Flex skills. And then I came across an interesting link so I followed it.

And guess who I find. The same guys I blogged about at my I Love the Blogosphere post.

They are still at it and this time they have continued their fight on another guy's blog.

Wow. The blogosphere is simply amazing. I wouldn't trade it for a tv. :)

Blogs as Personal Marketing Tool

Aside from trying to earn money from online advertisements you can also use your blog to aid you in getting the job you want.

Normally a prospective employer would ask for your resume. The reason for this is so that they can gauge your qualifications.

But aside from your qualifications they would also want to have an idea of the type of person that you are.

If you have a blog that talks about your profession you could also inform your prospect
about it.

Through your writings they would get a better idea regarding your competency and your personality.

Taking Advantage of Popular Search Trends

One of the techniques of driving traffic to your website or blog is to write about keywords that a lot of people are currently searching.

There are a lot of tools on the internet which could help us determine these keywords like Google’s very own Zeitgeist or through keyword tools and wordtracker tools.

I read somewhere that a blogger was able to increase his traffic because he happened to post about a popular TV show at the time.

Of course a site or blog trying to maintain a theme or niche could not simply write about any popular keyword that would come along. But there is still a way to take advantage of this technique like simply blogging about a popular keyword that falls within your theme.

Anyway here is a guy from a Business 2.0 article who was very successful doing this.

A Tribute to a Kind Soul

Last April 8 Miss Julia Campbell decided to visit Batad in Banaue, one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in the Philippines.

Ironically, it is also here in what is considered one of the most peaceful and crime free places in the country that she met her demise. She was a victim of a crime.

Normally, she would just be another statistics but I have been to that place and I could swear by its reputation. This was actually a first time that something bad happened there.

At first, I also doubted the news and dismissed that she might just have fallen off a ravine. It was reported that she was still talking a walk at five o’clock in the afternoon before she disappeared. And I knew that it could get pitch dark in that place at six in the evening.

But next day the army found her body in a shallow grave. It was confirmed that she was a victim of a crime.

I was very much intrigued and followed the news on television and in the internet.

Intrigued quickly turned to sadness.

You see Miss Julia is not your typical person. She left the comforts of New York to be a US Peace Corp Volunteer and spend time among the least fortunate in the Philippines.

In an interview her mother, Linda Campbell was quoted saying, “It was after 9/11 that she decided that it was time to make a difference, a real difference to her, and she decided to go into the Peace Corps.”

Reflecting about it now, I get an eerie feeling: a beautiful place, a crime-free place, a crime, and a soul with only good intentions. It feels too perfect.

As if this thing happened to magnify all the good deeds she has done until that time.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it produces much grain.” The great teacher, Jesus Christ once said.

Before the news she was very much unheard of. But now complete strangers are talking about her and pouring into her blog to know her and the good things she has done.

I write this piece for personal reasons. I have never met nor ever knew her personally but I wouldn’t want to forget a person like her.

To Miss Julia Campbell, Fellow Blogger, Humanitarian, and Hero.

This is for you and thank you for caring.

-Anthony

Is Blogspot Bad for Bloggers?

If you have been reading alot of blogs you have probably come across people who are evangelizing that being on Blogspot is bad.

The common arguments to support this claim are that
1. Most blogs hosted in Blogspot are spam.
2. It is hard to configure.
3. Your blog will not take off with Blogspot.
4. It gives bad representation.

I personally have nothing against these people. And I am neither Blogspot biased because I both have blogs that are hosted in Blogspot and some that have their own domains.

I just find these claims funny because when I look at my own data I find a different picture.

Let's tackle these claims.

1. Most blogs hosted in Blogspot are spam - We'll this is not exclusive to Blogspot because there are also a lot of websites in the internet that have their own Domain and yet they are spam.

A blog spam is not as bad as an email spam. Blog spams are unobtrusive. You can always ignore them and never come back. With email spams you can block them all you want but they always come back. And they could bring your network down with their sheer traffic consumption.

2. It is hard to configure - We'll if you are in Blogspot, Wordpress, TypePad, your own Domain, etc. configuration and design is hard that is why you hire web designers and web developers to do it.

If you don't want to hire you can still use these platforms using the provided template designs or
you could learn HTML and XML tagging and hack these templates yourself.

3. Your blog will not take off when you are hosted in Blogspot - Again I would like to believe this but personal research reveals a different picture.

Take a look at this list.

There are three blogs in the top 100 that are hosted in Blogspot. One of them of course is Google's own blog.

But as you can see you can still make it to the top regardless of where you host your blog. What actually matters is that you're blog is either useful or interesting.

4. It gives your blog a bad rep - My answer is the same as number 3. What matters is usefulness and being interesting.

Lastly, let me share with you my personal blogging experience. As I have said earlier, I have blogs that are hosted here in Blogspot and some that are hosted in their own Domains. And I regularly compare their performances.

I have one Blogspot blog that outperforms my dotcom blogs. In terms of revenue, it has earned thrice of what my DotCom blogs have earned so far. In terms of traffic, it has gained 3000% percent more traffic than my DotCom blogs.

So what makes this blog different from my other blogs? As much as possible I only blog about useful subjects. This blog I am talking about covers a technology that have very sparse reference material available.

Mantaining Multiple Niche Sites is Hard

I read today a discussion in digitalpoint forum about a guy who is planning to make 10 niche sites. And then his goal is to earn 5 dollars a day from each site so he would be getting a total of 50 dollars. The advice he got from other forum members is that it is hard to maintain 10 sites especially when you are a beginner.

From personal experience I find this advice to be true. It is very difficult to maintain several sites.

If you have a job and you are doing pay per click sites parttime it is not advisable for you to maintain even just 3 sites. Maintaining a website or blog is hard work.

Providing Content – There are sources of free articles in the internet but you cannot rely on free articles alone. You still have to produce content that is totally unique. And proving content takes time and a lot of thinking.

Promotion – Promoting a site or blog is hard work. If you are going to promote your sites using signature links your visitors will click one of them and not the others. So it means as you promote one site you will indirectly be denying your other sites traffic and attention.

Secondly, building traffic is the hardest task off all.

If you have just one site you can alot some of your hours to it and you will still have time for your regular job.

But if you are maintaining several sites you will find that they will take most of your time.

Even if you do this fulltime it could take six months to more than a year before a website becomes consistently profitable. So you have to make sure you have a passive source of income because you might find that you will have to give up your regular work.

Of course there is a work around to this but it will cost you money. You could hire people to tend your sites. But then again this means you will be investing money with no return until your websites or blogs become profitable.

I Love the Blogosphere

Flicking through the cable channels, I came across this show that was talking about adultery. As I stayed on it for a while I was amazed that the featured guest was the wife and her husband’s other woman.

Naturally the wife and the other woman traded barbs until the conversation slowly turned into a violent fight.

What is more amazing is that the studio audience and the host seem to encourage this.

As the host called for break, the name of the show was flashed on the screen. It was the Jerry Springer show.

Recently as I was hopping from blog to blog. Guess what I come across. Similar fights as heated as in the Jerry Springer show.

Adobe blogger vs Microsoft blogger:

http://www.onflex.org/ted/2007/01/mashup-university-introducing-apollo.php

http://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2007/01/19/so-i-picked-a-fight-with-adobe-today-and-legal-was-called.aspx


And the latest, Jason Calanis versus SEO practitioners:

http://www.calacanis.com/2007/02/07/why-people-hate-seo-and-why-smo-is-bulls-t/

http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/open-challenge-to-jason-calacanis.html

http://searchengineland.com/070208-110711.php

http://valleywag.com/tech/web-2.0/gary-ruplinger-the-aleksey-vayner-of-social-media-235179.php

http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/why-socially-driven-sites-hate-seos.html


No wonder TV viewership is declining!!!

Maximize Revenue with High Paying Keywords

One of the technique you can do to maximize your revenue with Adsense is to use high paying keywords as much as possible.

But what are the high paying keywords.

You can check out http://article.partybacolod.com/ to get an idea.

You might also find interesting articles as you pay the site a visit.

Enjoy!

More on the Correlation of Traffic and Adsense Revenue

I made an earlier post about the correlation of traffic and Adsense revenue and I noticed that many visitors have found this blog because of that article.

Like everybody who has just signed up with Adsense, they are probably looking for information to gauge the importance of traffic to be able to monetize Adsense.

Here are further evidences that state that high traffic is very important (This data was taken from the July 2006 article of the Washington Post:

PodcastDirectory.com – Nearly One Million Hits a month - $30,000 to $40,000/Month

SeatGuru.com – 700,000 a month - $10,000 to $20,000/Month

How to Get Ideas from Forums to Write Your Next Blog Post

One way to find ideas for writing your next post is to visit forums.

As you visit forums look for fellow forum members that are raising questions.

If you are knowledgeable about the question he or she is raising, rather that answer them directly make an extensive post on your blog.

Then tell the forum member that you have a post that answers their question. Then provide the link of your blog entry to them.

This will also help drive traffic to your blog.

The Types of Blog that Gets the Most Comments

Comments can be a good measure for determining a blog’s activity. It can also be used to judge how engaging the author’s post are.

On my observation certain blogs tend to attract the most comments.

Personal Blogs – People tend to comment on personal blogs especially when they are relating something about themselves or something that happened to them.

I guess the reason for this is that on certain instances we could identify with the author and we want to share our own experience or thoughts.

Controversial Blogs – When a blogger writes about something controversial and it touches us deep, many of us are compelled to answer back.

High Traffic Blogs – Blogging gurus often suggest that one way to get traffic is to leave comment on other blogs. I guess this is the reason why high traffic blogs tend to have plenty of comments. Some of the readers are of course genuinely concerned about the author and their posts. But there would probably be still some who leaves comment in the hope that some of the traffic would go to their own blogs because of this.

MyBlogLog Widget = Lower Ad Click Thru Rate?

I've installed MyBlogLog widget on some of my blogs for quite some time now. I've noticed that some of my visitors are getting curious about the faces appearing on the widget and they would click them.

I wonder if anyone is experiencing a lower click thru rate on their ad campaign because of this.

How to Tell If a Blogger has just Learned SEO

Q: How can you tell if a blogger has just Learned SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

A: If you are reading his post and he is writing in plain english but you can't understand what he is trying to say. :)

Web Publisher's Goal

Search Engine's goal is to know what customers need and help them find it.

Our goal as web publisher is to find out what customers are looking for and give it to them.

The Fact about Google’s Sandbox

I’ve researching about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) thoroughly these past days. Eventually I stumbled upon an article published by seo-gold.com.

“In our experience what we are seeing here is a delay in ranking from links and a kind of trusted status when a domain reaches a certain stage, it’s like a PRX link to a non-trusted site isn’t resulting in a quick benefit like you would have seen a couple of years ago. Now it takes 6 or more months for a new link to transfer significant benefit and longer for full benefit. We’ve speculated this is to thwart the text link sellers, a webmaster purchases a bunch of links and sees their home page PR jump, but three months in no significant traffic increase to warrant the cost. Hold on 6 months and see some benefit from the links and the longer you keep the links better it gets. The problem is how many webmasters are going to hold on those 6+ months with no guarantied ROI!”

They are saying that it make take atleast six months before we see actual benefit from the efforts we put into our blogs.

Yaiks! And I have been flickering from one blog to another like there was no tomorrow.

So what do we do while our new blog is in the sandbox.

“So what can a webmaster do about a sandboxed web site? Quite a bit, they can treat the site as though it’s not sandboxed working on link campaigns, optimizing content, adding new content etc… since eventually if you add enough stable links and are patient your site will leave the sandbox.”

It means we have to give a blog atleast six months before we can judge whether it is successful or not. Or we could aim for Yahoo or MSN for the meantime since their search engines seem to have a looser aging requirement.

You can check SEO Golds SEO Tutorial for more information.

How to Write Long Posts

We all have friends who If you ask them one question you will get a very long answers. These friends of ours never seem to run out of things to say. I myself enjoy being with these type of people because even if I just stay quiet, the conversation would go on. I don’t even have to provide my input. All I need to do is just show them that I’m listening attentively and everything will be okay.

I believe these people would make wonderful bloggers. They would have no problem writing long posts. After all, writing is just another form of talking.

But what if you are the quiet type who is used to answering everything in one sentence? How do you write long posts?

Fortunately, there is one technique we can steal from journalists.

Just remember one H and four Ws.

What – Tell your readers what your post is all about.

Where – If you are writing about an event or an incident you can write its location or the venue.

When – Write when it happened or when it would be happening.

Why – Explain the reason for your subject. Why are they conducting seminar? Why they think about starting this business? Why did they take this course of action?

How – Write how your chosen subject is done or how the action was done. How did they go about the crime? How do you cook beef stew? How do you make candles? How do you define an array?

Using this technique we would be able to expand our posts.

Ideas for Bloggers: How to Maintain Fresh Content

One of the cardinal rules of blogging is to always have fresh content. But if you think you have already written everything there is to know about your chosen niche what topic can you still write about to ensure that your blog is always fresh.

Events – Write about events related to your chosen niche. If your blog is about photography, there are always photography events happening somewhere. You can write about photo exhibits, seminars, contest, trade shows, and photography field trips.

If you are maintaining a travel blog, you can write about travel seminars, exhibits, trade shows, and promos.

Reviews – You can write reviews. Again for photography blog you can write reviews about cameras, camera gears, and books. With a travel blog you can write reviews about travel destinations, gears, and books.

News – You can break news about your niche. You can write about certain laws that have been passed like the no visa requirement among Southeast Asian countries or certain issue that have recently cropped up.

Comment / Opinion – You can comment about what other bloggers are saying regarding your chosen niche.

Referrals – You can refer your readers to other blogs or websites which you think they may find useful or informative.

What Keeps Readers Returning to Blogs

I read a certain comment on one of the Philippine’s top blog. The person said that he could not figure out why that certain blog was considered the top blog when all the author do was brag about his gadgets, hist trips, and his blogs.

It made me question my own motives why do I keep coming back to certain blogs.

Big Brother is a popular show because it allows viewers to peek into a group of peoples lives. I guess it is the same with blogs. We keep coming back because we just want to find out what the authors are doing. Pretty much like the Big Brother show.

Secondly, certain authors are fond of posting very short entries. Sometimes I too question if they truly provide real value to their readers because the entries are so short that I barely got a hint on what the post was all about.

But, although the authors only provide very little information, and sometimes we would even see certain post as useless information, looking at it deeply we would discover that this style of blogging do offer us certain value.

Short posts taken collectively could give us an idea where our community/society is at.
It can reveal to us what’s in, what’s out, the general aspirations of people, our current issues, and our present concerns.

Just like with news programs, we keep returning to these blogs because we feel a need to know.

How to Prevent Blogger from Interpreting HTML Tags

If you qoute HTML tags in blogger it will get interpreted to its HTML counterpart.
One way to prevent it is to use escape characters.

Here is a good reference for escape characters: http://www.html-reference.com/Escape.htm