Archives for July 2006

Great Post on Headline Formulas from CopyBlogger

July 31, 2006 by Leave a Comment

I'm a regular reader of CopyBlogger, and one day I'll definitely write a proper introduction of this resource there on my pages, but right now I just wanted to point you to a great post there: 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work.

 

As with many posts on this blog, the article is most useful and informational, giving you ready-to-use formulas for writing incredibly successful headlines and make sure your content gets the attention it deserves.

 

Some of the formulas I particularly liked are these:

  • Who Else Wants [blank]?
  • The Secret of [blank]
  • Little Known Ways to [blank]
  • What Everybody Ought to Know About [blank]

 

If you're not familiar with CopyBlogger just yet, please take some time to explore the blog, and while you're at it, make sure to download and read the fantastic Viral Copy: Trading Words for Traffic guide.

Filed Under: blog, promotion, traffic

Increase Your Search Engine Traffic

July 27, 2006 by Leave a Comment

Nick Wilson  has just posted a great article on the Performancing blog: 3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic. 

According to Nick, the most important things to concentrate are:

  1. Copywriting
  2. Links
  3. Networking

This is a great article which points to the most trusted authorities in various fields of SEO, so you will greatly benefit from reading it and also following all the external links it has.

 

Filed Under: blog, promotion, traffic

What Is A Blog?

July 27, 2006 by Leave a Comment

Being incredibly original, I still would like to start my blogging journey here from giving you a definition of a blog. After all, I hope this resource is going to be most useful for those of us who are just getting started with blogging, and usually have no idea what it really is.  Below are just a few of the best definitions I've seen around:

 

Blog is short for weblog

A weblog is a website which is designed to be updated regularly and present information in a form of a journal, with the most recent posts showing up at the very top of the first page. 

People who own and update such sites are called bloggers. A while ago, the first bloggers had to code and design their blogs on their own, and I believe it was a huge suppressing factor for the early blogging. Without being a real geek and knowing lots about how Internet worked and what HTML was, it was practically impossible to maintain an online presence. 

Lately, blogs became so popular, that you can easily find many services which would host your blog for you and do all the rest setup as well. All that's still required from you is to come up with ideas for new posts and to actually write them.

 

Blogs are chronological 

Because online journals are frequently updates, it is incresingly important to make sure all the information is easily accessible to your visitors. One of the very popular ways of providing such access is by ordering all the blog pages chronologically.

On a basic level, this will mean you will see the latest posts of yours at the top of your blog page, and the older ones – at the bottom.

But it doesn't stop here – usually you'll have a sidebar menu which would have links to blog archives – index pages for each months of your blogging.

 

Blog is a quick way to publish news

By default, blogs are set up in a way that they'll post your new content as soon as you click the "Publish" button. From that moment on, the fresh post is seen at the top of your blog's first page.

Blogs are incredibly popular ways of spreading news. There are numerous blogs specializing in news publishing, because blogging is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to let the world know about your thoughts on a particular subject.

Blog is an easy way to communicate

When you're blogging, your visitors are allowed to leave comments to every post you publish. Most often this will mean some useful and insightful comments shared by others in their attempts to help. 

Lately, though, it's become popular to spam blog comments – so some of the most popular blogs have disabled comments completely.

Blogging is simply great for communication. Just think about it: not only you get a chance to share your ideas and thoughts, but you also automatically find people who have the same interests, and get an opportunity to discuss with them anything you like.

I guess the most important thing here is to remember this: once posted, your blog entry or comment is quite possibly never lost. It will be cached by some search engine, downloaded by your readers, and there will be no way for you to hide it completely. Even if you delete your post immediately, there will be a slight chance that someone else will still have it.  So this should be a warning to you: behave when you're blogging! Just in case ;)

 

Blogging is a lifestyle 

One more definition of a blog is this: an online diary. Series of personal opinions and details which some individuals choose to put on their website.

Blogging is very easy, and because it's fun to blog, it is dangerously addictive. Many people get so hooked up on blogging that they  post 10-20 blog entries daily!

For others though, the rate is quite moderate, and it simply is about talking to your online friends – once people get to know you better, they will make up their minds and will possibly become your permanent readers. From that moment on, they will likely to comment on your musings and depending on your reaction to such comments, it could grow into quite serious relationships. 

 

Looking for more definitions of blogging?

Go to google.com and type: define: blog. This should give you enough definitions to last you a lifetime!

Also, I highly recomment you read the Weblogs: A History and Perspective essay by Rebecca Blood.

For even more information, please read the Wikipedia entry: Blog.

And last, but certainly not the least, is a post by Darren Rowse with even more blog definitions for you. 

Filed Under: blog

Getting Started with Google AdSense

July 25, 2006 by 4 Comments

Getting started

First of all, find the time to visit the AdSense mainpage, it is probably a good start.

Now, before you can do anything with AdSense, you should sign up. This means you have to submit a request to the AdSense Team, asking them to have a look at your website and to approve it for showing AdSense blocks. This where your first challenge arises – you really need to have a website with some useful information in order to qualify for AdSense. That means, the website has to be up and running. And it would be best if your website had been around for some time, this would mean it's been indexed by Google and it would make the whole validation process at least faster, if not easier.

 

How Google AdSense it works 

Usually the AdSense Team will send you an email with their decision regarding your AdSense application within just a few days. The reason your website should be index by Google crawlers is this:

Google AdSense is a system of placing targeted ads across various webpages of your site. Google does this by having you place a link to their JavaScript code which analyzes the content of your current page, finds the keywords on it, and then places relevant ads in a visual form you define. This JavaScript code doesn't analyze your actual page in a browser window, but instead analyzes the indexed copy Google has in its database. In case some of your pages are not indexed yet, the script will have to try and do some basic analysis of your page on the fly, but it will not necessarily provide the best results – most often such analysis will only allow AdSense select ads relevant to some keywords found in your content based on their frequency in the text.

If your page is very new and hasn't been indexed yet, it will probably not show any targeted ads – depending on the visual type of your ads, AdSense will either show you some text links which may not seem awfully relevant to your content, or it will show one of them standard placeholders – inviting people to advertise with AdSense.

 

Google AdSense is activated only once 

This means that once you get approved for AdSense by submitting a particular website link, you then get an AdSense account which you can use to place ads on ANY of your websites. You will not have to activate anything for them – just create some ads and put the JavaScript code on your pages, and AdSense will immediately start serving ads for these pages.

You will not have to wait until all the new pages get indexed before you can place your ads. There is an opinion among webmasters, that placing AdSense ads on brand new pages will actually trigger Google bots to come and index your website sooner than they would normally do.

 

I will make sure to tell you more about AdSense usage in the coming weeks, so stay tuned! And yes, if there is anything in particular you'd like to ask, please do – I'll be glad to help! 

 

Useful resources

I think you will benefit a lot by subscribing to the Inside AdSense blog feed, as it contains tips suggested and approved by the AdSense Team. 

Filed Under: adsense, blog, google

Welcome to Perfect Blogger!

July 25, 2006 by Leave a Comment

Hi everyone! Welcome to Perfect Blogger! This website will have all sorts of blogging tips and tricks to get you started with your own blog.

Filed Under: blog