Why Blog Topics

Blogging is a very powerful tool to use for building any type of brand. Most people who are building a business think that they need to only blog about their business. Blogs are so unique that you can either blog about your business or blog about whatever interests you. Keep in mind, every post that you write may not always have readers. But whatever you write, usually you will have someone interested in it.

Do not select a topic simply because you think a lot of people will search for. You may not think that someone is interested in your topic, but that's ok. I will pretty much guarantee that someone is interested one way or another.

Four points to consider when choosing a topic.

* Keeping in mind that blogging requires a long term commitment. If you write about a topic you are interested in, then you will have long time commitment.

* Knowing your topic is very important. People will not hesitate to point out the subject matter mistakes.

* Always be passionate in your writing. This will assure more dedicated readers.

* Always write about a topic you are very familiar with. People will know if you are not very familiar with your topic by posting comments or loosing readers. This will also keep you from struggling with your topic.

People love to read and follow great content that interests them. So the topic is the key to attracting a huge audience.

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Read RSS Feeds

Earlier I talked about how to use RSS feeds and understanding what feeds are. Today I will talk about the importance of Grouping your feeds in folders or labeling them with tags.

How to Use RSS Feeds

For the past 2 weeks I have been talking about How to write for a blog. Today I will talk about how to understand the feeds and using a feed reader within a blog or website. After a post has been written and then published, it will then go into an RSS feed. Which is a standard way of delivering headlines and articles in a streamlined text.

If most people are like me, they use a feed reader to read all their favorite blogs and websites. It is an easy way to get all your information in one place. This will keep you from having to access all your favorite blogs or websites individually. Every time you access your feed reader, it goes and checks the RSS feed for updates. In return your feed reader will update you of the newest post. Feed readers will give you an opportunity to sort through all the news and organize it and ignore the rest.

My favorite reader is google reader. It is easy to use and has lots of powerful tools. Even though I use google reader, there are lots of different readers that are just as nice to use. All people who have a google account will already have a google reader. You can either go to www.google.com/reader or just sign into your google account and find it in the top tab.

Subscribing in google reader is quite easy.

* Sign into your google reader and click add subscription link.

* Type the web address of the blog to which you want to subscribe.

* Click Add and google reader will detect the blogs RSS feed and subscribe.


This was just a post to enlighten you, how life could be so much easier if you just had the right tools.

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The Writers Blog

Writing a blog post should represent you as the writer. Every time a reader reads your posts they should have an image of you. This way they can always identify you.

To reach that point with in your readers, you must structure your posts to eliminate road blocks to your readers. You must make sure your readers get your point each and every time. If you want to achieve this, you must make sure all your posts include the Three S's.

Three "S's" to remember to achieve when creating a post.

* Your writing should be clear with "Simplicity" and easy to read. Keep your writing simple.

* People do not read posts thoroughly. Make sure to write your posts with "Scannability." Use bold letters, bullets and pictures to break up the text.

* Your writing should get straight to the point. Make sure it is written with "Sharpness."

These three S's will help you with accomplishing your goals with in your posts.

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Writing Posts

Pshew, ok we are done with talking about blogging. Not so fast! For the past few weeks we have talked about different types of blog platforms and setting up your RSS feed. Now we need to cover writing your first post.

For you to get noticed in the bloggers world you need to make your first post perfect. You want to come into the blogging scene as a superstar.

Since we know this will not happen, you want to have fun and make your blogging adventure stress free. I will give you a couple of tips for a first post.

Four key points to keep in mind when starting a first post in a blog.

* Always write from the heart. DO NOT AIM FOR PERFECTION. Just talk about the aspirations of the blog.

* Do not write a post talking about how you do not know what to write. Everybody knows that people have writers block. So you do not need to remind your readers.

* Write a first post that you can later in time look back on. This will remind you why this blog was started in the first place. Always create a time capsule.

* After writing the post, do publish it right away. Do not spend days on editing it. This will just burn you out and may keep you from writing as many times as possible. Live life and just get in there and get dirty.

Writing your first post is not to aim for perfection. It is about just getting it out there. If it is not perfect, that is okay. Blogging is about practice and improvement.

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RSS Feed Advertising

RSS feed gives a visitor an option to subscribe to your posts using a feed reader. Such as google reader, microsoft outlook or one of many other readers. RSS stands for "Real Simple Syndication." Within the reader, it posts the headings and a summary of your post. This gives a person an opportunity to read many blogs in one location.

Most blogs have a build in RSS generation to provide the RSS feed. I prefer to use a feedburner service provided by google. Using this feedburner is an excellent marketing tool for your business.

Five advantages of using googles feedburner.

* You can add any sort of advertising to your RSS feed.

* Delivers your feed in multiple formats for the best compatibility.

* Gives you the opportunity to track the number of subscriptions.

* Has the option to add social networks to share within the feed. Also, you can email a friend directly from the feed.

* Add email subscriptions straight from the feed.

Simple steps to set up your feed burner.

* Visit www.feedburner.com

* Create an account.

* Go to your blog and locate your blogs feed.

* Paste the blogs feed address right in "Burn a Feed Right This Instant field and click next.

* Log into your blog and replace the old feed address with the new feed burner address.

Most people think that there is only one way for people to get information from your blog. Tons of people will receive your content without ever physically going to your blog just by using the RSS feed.

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Home Business Blog

Choosing a blog platform can be quite tough. For starters, I would recommend using Blogger.com which is owned by google or wordpress.com. Blogger and wordpress is a basic blogging service that can be set up within minutes and start publishing. With these services they are already set up so you don't have to install anything. For the advance bloggers you can use wordpress.org which is customizable. But until you are familiar with the basics of blogs, I would stick to blogger or wordpress.com.

Five Strengths of blogger and wordpress.com.

* They are easy to use because of there pre-made templates.

* No software has to be installed.

* They are absolutely free. Which in today's economy makes this very exciting.

* Many prebuilt designs are available.

* You are not responsible for maintaining the codes that powers the blog. These updates are done automatically.

Four drawbacks of using Blogger or wordpress.

* No customization to any of these blogs. It's like having a car with the hood shut at all times.

* Do to the fact that these blogs are not part of your website, will cause the blog to be pretty week in SEO.

* Since somebody else is responsible for the coding, this can have a draw back when something goes wrong. It could take hours and even days before your blog is up and running.

Blogger and wordpress.com are great blogs to start out on. But if later down the road you decide to use blogs as your main marketing strategy. You may want to change to a more customizable platform.

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Websites For Blogging

First thing you need to do in blogging is choose the best blog platform. Most blogs have the same characteristics in common. Even though all blogs have the same characteristics, there is a wide difference in the platform.

Four characteristics that all blogs have in common.

* All blogs work in the web browser. So this is not something to be concerned with. But then on the other hand, the platform can change the appearance. Depending on the browser.

* Whenever you publish your written material, it will then publish to your blogs web site. Blogs are an excellent tool to use when starting your own business.

* Anytime a visitor visits your blog, they will then have the opportunity to comment on your post. Commenting is what makes a blog different from a standard website.

* Blogs give a visitor a way to subscribe to your posts via RSS. A lot of people do not always visit your site to get information. So if they have an RSS feeder, the information you post will be fed to there reader. There are plenty of RSS feeders out there. If you haven't chosen one yet, I would recommend google reader.

These are just a few characteristics that all blogs have in common. In my next post I will talk about the different types of blogs. So sit tight and wait for my next post.

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Blog Search Engine

For the past week I have been talking about choosing the right blog topic. Choosing the right topic is very important when it comes to search engines finding your content. I personally like using blogs because they are so powerful. After you have created your topic in your blog. Go to your favorite search engine and use the blog search engine option. But you can only use it if your favorite search engines has one. Today I will use Google Blog Search. Type in http://www.google.com/blogsearch and then search for your chosen topic.

4 key points to look for when searching your topic in the blog search options.

* Check and see how many other bloggers write about your topic. If you see there are millions of searches, then you may or may not have a problem sticking out.

* See what other bloggers are saying about your topic. You may have some value to add in your post topic.

* Start reading the top 10 blogs and see if there are any gaps you can fill in with your topic. Most people do not know that you can search for blogs this way. This trick can add value to your blog.

* Read the comments people are posting. This will give you an idea on whether their questions are being answered or not.

The key is to find what you can offer to your readers that nobody else is offering.

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Smart Goal Planning

I will continue talking about the right ways to start a blog. If you missed my last posts regarding blogging, do not feel lost, just click back to view the posts. Like I said earlier, blogging is a very powerful tool to either brand you, your business or just anything you like to talk about. If you are blogging for your business that should be your main priority. Setting achievable goals is a must in blogging. This way you will attract the audience you are seeking.

Setting your goals with a deadline will help you in achieving your goals. A good time frame I see that works quite well is a 6 month cycle. This will give you enough time to work towards this goal.

4 ideas for a starting point in your blog.

* Customers have many questions. Just take the top 20 questions and blog about the answers.

* Start out by writing 45-50 posts to alert the search engines.

* Ask people who may be a potential client to please read your posts and comment, share.

* At least find 2 potential clients on the web or more within the 6 month period.

* Try to obtain 300 subscribers. The key to a successful blog is to attract readers while coming back for more.

* Get at least half or most of your traffic from search engines.

All these goals are definitely achievable. Setting goals within a time frame will provide a substantial boost to your business.

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Syndicating Content

I will make this short and sweet. I have been involved in the passed several months taking a different route to gain back links and to help others gain back links . This technique is called "Content Syndication." On my right bar you will see a few of the Facebook groups I am involved in. In these groups, we post and share great content that can be beneficial to others in many ways.

Over the passed few months, google and other search engines have started indexing and back linking pages and posts that are very popular between the social networks. Social media is an excellent way for these search engines to find out what is popular, by people sharing all types of content. Sharing content shows the search engines the importance of your content. This gives your web site a huge advantage over other web sites that do not syndicate.

Syndicating other people's content can takes sometime, if the right tools aren't used. I personally like to use Ping.fm. Using this tool will give you the opportunity to update all your social networks in just one click. There are many different types of tools to use like onlywire, etc. But this one is just my preference. These tools will save you lots of time, giving you more time to share more content.

I hope this post helps you to understand why you see more and more people sharing other people's content. And feel free to add comments to this post. I and most everybody else like comments. This helps people to learn and have the opportunity to voice their opinion, while adding more information.

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Methods Used in Goal Funneling

I will continue on the subject "creating your goals." Many goals can include multiple steps in reaching your goals. This type of process is called a "funnel." Some funnels will include multiple pages but with only a single endpoint and goal. These types of funnels can be tracked in Google Analytics.

Three main funnels you will see on the internet.

* Checking out in the shopping cart by:

1. Adding your product to the cart.
2. Clicking check out.
3. Entering your billing information.
4. Entering your shipping information.
5. Selecting how you want your product shipped.
6. Entering your credit card information.
7. Reviewing your order.
8. Lastly, placing your order.

* Multiple pages used to create leads.

1. Enter your email address.
2. Click the submit button.
3. Select whitepaper meaning a downloadable document.
4. Click download.
5. Provide additional contact information.
6. Submit your information.

Trying to find a goal funneling process can be quite hard. Finding the right funnel and tracking it can be very complicated. Many funnels may have a one start process and end up with multiple endpoints. This last example can be quite tricky in tracking the progress.

* Multiple steps with multiple goals.

1. Select whitepaper, again a downloadable document

A. Whitepaper 1
B. Provide additional contact information
c. Submit your information

2. Select whitepaper

A. Whitepaper 2
B. Select bonus download.
C. View video.

3. Select whitepaper

A. Whitepaper 3
B. Instant message you.
C. Purchase

A funnel is designed to get to your goal point. They always start with an entry point and exit with a single or multiple ending points. The ending point is called the "point of conversion."

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Setting up Goals in Google Analytics

Now that we have been talking about the importance of goals for the past week. I will show you step by step on how to set up your goals. Again as an example I will use Google Analytics.

Eights step process to complete a goal set up in Google Analytics.

1. Go to Google Analytics and log in.

2. At this point, you should see all the web sites you have been tracking. Next to the web site you want to set a goal for, click the edit option.

3. Under the goals heading to the right click add goal.

4. Open a new browser window and go to your web site.

5. Go back to Google Analytics and complete the required information in the form

6. Copy the URL from your web site in the final page of the goal process.

7. Paste the URL address you just copied into the Goal URL field.

8. Name your goal leaving all other options blank except the goal type.

Now that we have completed the goal setting, Google Analytics will report all completed goals.

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Locating Hidden Goals

Today, I will continue talking about Goal Setting. Having goals set up for your business is very important. Some of the goals are the obvious goals, and some are just hidden. I will talk about the hidden goals that you may not have been familiar with.

Three tracking goals you may want to consider in your website.

* E-commerce-The ability to buy and sell products and services over an electronic system such as the internet.

* Making sure to have an option for somebody to become a subscriber to your news letters.

* Lead collection is a very important system to have set up in your web site.

For example: You may have a box set up on your web site asking for their Name, phone number and email for more additional information. This is an excellent lead collection goal.

Five hidden goals you will want to track that you may not be familiar with.

* Any downloadable documents such as a PDF file. Most likely if someone is downloading a document from your website, their interest is a lot greater than the average Joe.

* It's always great to have a high number of page views. But just because you have a high number doesn't mean they will contact you. To track these people, you need to have a contact me page set up. This will give you the opportunity to track how many people are actually interested in your content or web site.

* People love to watch videos. So have a page set up on just videos about your business opportunity.

I am not sure how to set up a tracking method for people who watch the entire video. But I know it can be done. HMMM! That is something I will have to learn.

* Have a link in your site so somebody can forward your page or content to their friend.

This is a great tracking method to see how many people are forwarding your content. This would be a little more different from using the social network options. It's pretty hard to track how many people actually received your message in social networks.

Keeping these few goals in mind when creating your site, can help you in converting a prospect to a sale or a even business partner.

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Conversion Goals

Now that we have learned how to use Google Analytics, we will now apply Google Analytics to goals. Today we will talk about goal setting. To have a successful business you have to have business goals. Having business goals is more than just visits and traffic to your website. At this point we want to convert these visits and traffic to leads and sales. In the business world this is called "Conversion."

We know that tracking page views and time on site is very important. We also need to find out what is helping us to achieve these goals. This is where Google Analytics will help us to reach our goals. Again I am using Google Analytics as an example. We will learn how to set up the goals in Google Analytics at a later time.

Differences between Key Performance Indicators and Conversion goals.

Goals are set up to help you drive your business and website. This will help you to determine your "Key Performance Indicators." A key performance indicator is defined as, helping you measure the performance of success in reaching your goal.

A conversion goal is different from a key performance indicator. Conversion Goals only measure success. An example would be if you were to acquire a sale online or in a store. Then you were to have converted your goal into a sale.

I am very excited about this topic. Goal setting is a key to success.

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Page Bounce Rate

For the last few weeks I have been talking about how to measure your website traffic using "Google Analytics". Today I will talk about the bounce rate in "Google Analytics." Bounce rate is an important part of the measuring system you want to pay close attention to.

Bounce rate - The amount of times a different person will click on one of your pages and leave without clicking another page. Again, this can be accessed in the main dashboard of "Google Analytics" under visitors then visitor trending.

Three key factors "Bounce rate" will show in the quality of your visitors.

* Pages that just drive people away from your site.

* Pages that keep the reader digging more and more into your site.

* The one you really want to pay most attention to is the "Landing pages."

Having a high bounce rate for a blog is quite okay. People may be attaining your information through an RSS feed or a link from another site. They may just read something and then leave.

The more article focused your page is the less of a bounce rate.

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Applying Your Page Targets

Today I will talk about how to apply your targets after you have located your benchmarks in Google Analytics. If you missed my post on how to locate your target, do not worry I will repost it. Setting page view measurements. Again we will be using "Google Analytics." as the example.

Two ways to check, what pages visitors are paying more attention to, and what sites are referring the most traffic.

* Checking your "top content" next to your target pages.

Your average should be either higher or slightly lower. This will give you some type of idea on where you may or may not need to pay more attention to. The top content tab is located under the content tab in the left bar of "Google Analytics."

Taking the averages of each page under the "time on page" compared to the over all site average of "time on page" is your target. If the average is higher, than the page is doing what it is supposed to do. If it's lower, than you may want to figure out why. Maybe compare it to the pages that are doing great while using the same tactics towards the weaker pages.

* Putting everything together based on a variety of targets.

Using "Google Analytics" click the Traffic Sources tab in the left side bar. Next, click the "All Traffic Sources" You will see what sites are driving traffic to your page. Looking at the same three averages we talked about earlier. If one site shows all percentages are above, than you know this page is doing great. If you see a mixer of numbers than it's pretty hard to come up with a conclusion.

These two techniques should help you in your page ranking.

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Calculate Repeating Visitors Verses New

My last post talked about setting page view measurements. Now that we talked about that, we are going to talk about the loyalty of repeating traffic verses new visitors. Even though new visitors are always something we are striving for, keep repeating visitors is just as important or even more.

Two procedures in using Google Analytics to distinguish the number of visitors.

Again, we will use Google Analytics for example. You can use any tool you would like to complete these procedures. Just make sure all the procedures I have demonstrated do show up in the tool of your choice.

* A good place to begin in Google Analytics is in the New Vs. Returning tab in the left side bar. This tab is located under the visitors tab. If you missed the procedure in gaining access to the visitors tab, just refer to my last few posts.

Use at least an one month duration to get an accurate reading. Some tools may use "Returning Visitors" like Google Analytics, and others may use "Visitor Loyalty." Which ever you may prefer they all mean the same thing.

* Take a good look at the New Vs. Repeating visitors. The percentage that is in the returning visitors are your loyal visitors. From here you can see what area you may need to concentrate more on.

Using these procedure a few times a week can help you in determining your strengths and weaknesses.

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Setting Page View Measurements

In my last post I talked about "tracking keyword search" using Google Analytics. Today, I will talk about setting measurements for your page views per visit and the amount of time on your site. This is all done in Google Analytics.

Four steps needed in order to measure your page views and time on site in Google Analytics.

* Sign into your Google Analytics and click view reports in the upper left hand corner. Then click visitors in the left hand corner of the side bar.

Here you will see the key points that Google Analytics tracks.

* Next, you will want to click the "visitor trending option." This button is also located in the left side bar.

This opens the page views per visit report.

* You really want to concentrate on the averages for the past 2 or 3 months.

To set the date range, just click the option in the upper right hand corner of this page. You will now see the average page views, time on site etc.

* Navigate to the amount of time on your site, find the average and this is your target.

At this point you should be getting pretty familiar with Google Analytics. Standby for more tracking methods using Google Analytics.

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Tracking Repeated Keyword Search

Tracking keywords is very important. You definitely want to track keywords that are repeating continuously. I have talked about how to set up Google Analytics a while back. If you either missed the post or you would like to refer back to it, I will repost it, Setting up Google Analytics Today I will talk about how to use Google Analytics to track your keywords. Again, this is very important when creating your content.

If your website is creating traffic, you would want to know what is causing this traffic flow. People who are using the search engines and searching the internet, are providing these search engines with keywords they have typed. People are searching the internet looking for answers.

Four analysis to do using Google Analytics in keyword search.

* Login into your Google Analytics account by going to www.google.com/analytics.

After you have logged in then proceed to your profile to see the report.

* In the upper left hand corner click the tab "view reports."

The report you see will basically look like a graph.

* To the left of the page you will see "traffic sources". Click it. Window will drop down and you will see "keywords". Click it.

You will see in the bottom of the page your keywords, and how many visits to those keywords.

* To find out which sites are referring to your "keywords," just click on the referring sites.

This is very important to see where most of your traffic is coming from. This will give you some type of idea on how your marketing strategies are working.

These are just a few techniques you can use to see the power of your keywords.

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