CT Biz Blogs

If you’re looking for more information on why your business should have a blog, if you want to understand how to do it better, or if you just want to learn how other companies are blogging, this online study is for you.

The Blogging Success Study was conducted by Northwestern University and Backbone Media, and it has a ton of good information and food for thought.

If nothing else, read the executive summary:

After careful review, the research team identified five factors for success. The majority of the twenty participant bloggers pointed to these factors as important to the success of their blog. We focus in on these factors in Section Three.

The five factors identified by the participants were:

1. Culture
2. Transparency
3. Time
4. Dialogue
5. Entertaining Writing Style and Personalization

A company should carefully consider all of these factors before making a decision to blog…

Heck, even reading the table of contents will give you some ideas! And there’s a glossary, explaining terms such as trackback and RSS feed, two of the trickiest concepts in the blogosphere.

An informal term for describing the whole community of bloggers on the web, the term is also used to define a particular community such as the PR community of bloggers or PR Blogosphere.

If you don’t like to read online, download and print out the PDF.

Do you think I’m crazy for mentioning a study co-written by a company also in the blog consulting business? Hey, if it helps you learn about blogging, then it’s a good thing.

That’s just the kind of gal I am.

It finally happened — the attempted spam comments to this blog outnumbered my actual readers yesterday. But instead of getting me depressed, it made me even more grateful to Dr. Dave and Spam Karma. Not much gets through with Spam Karma’s vigilance.

Of course, I upgraded my settings a while ago — now I feel like Zena, warrior princess:

My top two tips for keeping spam under control are:

1. Get help.
   Even Zena had a sidekick. If you’ve got WordPress, you have the option of adding some tough spam busters, such as Spam Karma, Bad Behavior and Akismet. There’s great information on the WordPress Codex site about combating comment spam. And here are links to a list of anti-spam plugins for Typepad users, and a comprehensive Six Apart article on comment spam.
2. Close off comments for older posts.
   I finally realized that 90% of the attempted spam was targeting one post from April on Judy’s Book. I have no idea why that one. So I’ve finally closed it off. None of the comment spam for that post has ever made it past Spam Karma, because one factor SK considers in determining if a comment is spam is the age of the post. But maybe now they’ll stop trying on that post, at least.
3. Bonus suggestion: tweak your settings.
   If spam is getting through your spam filters, check out what the default settings are, and experiment. Make them tougher, and see if that helps. Remember to closely monitor your caught spam for a while, to make sure you’re not being too tough and missing legitimate comments. It’s worth being a “total beeeatch” sometimes.

Liz Strauss, over at Successful Blog, is a super-connector. If you’re unfamiliar with the book Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, the connector is the person who knows everyone and loves to connect people to other people. That’s Liz. She’s also become a good friend over the past year, even surviving being my roommate at BlogHer.

She started writing on Successful Blog a year ago today, and she’s got open comments day going on her blog today. Check it out, bring a link, and see how a master creates buzz and a community.

Congratulations, Liz!

Technorati : Successful Blog

One great thing about most blogging software is that they automate the process of “pinging” — notifying search engines such as Google, IceRocket, and Technorati, that you’ve written a new post. This theoretically helps the search engines update you in their listings sooner, rather than days later. Here’s what Google says about their pinging service:

The Google Blog Search Pinging Service is a way to inform Google Blog Search of weblog updates. These updates are then published and shared with other search engines to allow them to discover the changes to your weblogs. In addition, Google Blog Search will add submitted weblogs to the list of blogs it needs to crawl and index.

For blog applications which allow you to set your pings, you simply add the code to your list of Update Services. In WordPress, that’s found in Options/Writing, at the bottom of the page, like so:

Way at the bottom of the page, you’ll see the Update Services listing. Just click in the box to create a new line, copy in the ping URL, and hit “Update Services.”

That’s the whole deal! Here’s the list of Services you should be pinging (these aren’t links, just copy and paste into your blogging application):

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

If your blogging application doesn’t have automatic pinging, you can still do it manually, at each service.

Technorati Ping
IceRocket Ping
Google Ping

Or you can get an offline blog writing application, such as Zoundry, which will ping services when you publish. It even works for Blogger blogs.

Technorati : ping Google Technorati IceRocket

We have one lucky winner of Arianna Huffington’s book, On Becoming Fearless: Phil Newton.

He writes about the fear of showing your personality on your blog and why letting go of that fear has helped him.

You can read his comment here, and check out his blogs, to see how he does it:

• Phil Newton.net
• Sodaware.net

Thanks, Phil!

I still have three more books to give away, so don’t be shy! I’m going to extend the contest for the rest of the week, and open it up to non-bloggers as well. If you’re a non-blogger, I’d love to know what some of your concerns about blogging are.

Here’s what to do:

1. Read the post on winning a copy of the book.

2. Click the comments link on that post.

3. Leave your comment about your blogging fear — you can leave an anonymous post, too.

If you don’t want to leave a comment, email me: ctbizblogs (at) gmail.com, with the subject header: On Becoming Fearless.

You’ve got until Friday, September 1, midnight Eastern Daylight Time, but this contest is open to anyone, anywhere in the world. (But if you win, expect your book to arrive by the cheapest possible way I can find!)
One small comment could reap big rewards!

At BlogHer’06, the blogging conference held in San Jose last week, GM was there, outside the conference center, with Saturn cars to test drive (and free goodies). So I took a spin around the block in the Saturn Vue hybrid. This is an SUV (but not a huge one like the Lincoln Navigator) with hybrid power.

These folks from GM were pretty smart — first, they went where their audience was. Never mind that we were at a blogging conference, this was also a conference about women and these cars were pretty appealing.

Next they used the power of informal, viral marketing to record people’s feedback after the drives, with a digital camera.

They quickly made small movies and a week later, started putting them up on GM blogs and on YouTube.

Then they made sure that the bloggers who were filmed — what the heck do you call it now? No film was used and no videotape, either — got notice of the video via trackbacks.

That’s how I found out that I’m now a speck of DNA in a viral marketing campaign for the Saturn Vue Hybrid.

And you don’t need to be GM to do it, folks.

All you need is a decent digital camera, a blog, and YouTube, Google Video, or other video hosting sites.

And if you have a WordPress.org blog, you can make use of an excellent WordPress plugin, WP-FLV, to put a flash video up on your own blog. This is good for folks who want more control over how the video is displayed.

Read Michael Pollock’s how to set up video in a WordPress blog for details.

Ok, I lied.

Blogging IS new to a lot of people, but the thing it’s for — communication — that’s not new.

And if you’re hesitating trying out blogging because you’re nervous about this new thing, don’t be. Many of the same rules apply for blogging as do for any form of communication. They’re just ramped up a notch by the “enabling” blogging software.

Today I offer you two examples of communication, one bad and one good.

The bad example is actually a non-blogging one, but the mistakes here can also be made via blogging, so take heed.

(more…)

If you have a small business and you’re thinking about blogging, one big thing you need to think about is how you want your blog to look. All the blogging applications have a way of customizing the look and feel of your blog via templates or themes.

Templates and themes (which is what WordPress calls a template) are types of “skins,” or looks that you can use to customize your blog. One of the great things about modern websites is that the functionality has been separated from the look of the sites. It’s kind of like how my Toyota RAV 4 is really a Corolla. Or is it a Camry? I can never remember.

While that may or may not be ideal for cars, it’s definitely the way to go with web sites, which is what a blog is. You separate out the things you want to have on your blog — such as search, comments, trackbacks, and so on, from the way they’re displayed.

How your blog looks is one way you can make it distinctive and “branded.” As PR and Marketing folks will tell you, this is a good idea.

(more…)

Well, I made it to Stamford, CT, for the Business Smart Tools conference. It’s about to start. I made the rounds of the exhibitors, before the rush. There’s some cool technology out there. I talked to folks at:

• Vivapop (interactive web and voice accessible calendar)
• Conversagent (automated customer service agents)
• MarketWire (search engine optimization through press releases)
• Dial-a-Note powered by CiviCom (hands-free notepad)
• 24/7Real Media USA

I’m sure I’ll find out more as the conference progresses. I’m looking forward to the speaking part of the program, which will start at 2 PM.

I saw part of David Parmet’s presentation on blogging as he tested the projector, and it looks great.

He’s also started a Business Smart Tools Flickr photo set.

Well, it was a lot of fun writing a post for and getting included in the Blogging Goals group writing project that ProBlogger Darren Rowse initiated.

Now I’d like to recommend reading them! OK, not all at once, since there are 130, but a few a day will give you a good idea of the width and depth of the blogging world.

One thing that continually surprises and delights me is how the blogosphere is evolving and growing. People like Darren are a big part of that — he’s great at coming up with new, exciting ideas and he’s very inclusive. He’s created a site people read regularly, comment on, and recommend to others. Can’t do better than that. Oh yeah — he makes a ton of money at it, too.

There’s a lot of good stuff in the posts listed in the blogging goals project; lively writing, frequently funny and full of insights — nothing especially lengthy or ponderous. These posts not only have some good ideas about goals, they also illustrate good blog writing.

If the idea of looking at a list of 130 links seems daunting, quite a few bloggers have written posts about their explorations and recommendations from the list. Check these out:

Liz at Successful Blog writes her thoughts on The Blogging Goals Project — the posts she liked and the reasons why projects like this are a good idea.

Pittsburgh Homes Daily lists My personal ‘best of’ Blogging Goals to date. I made #40, “Most surprising link.” I wonder which link it was?

Phil Newton shares his personal favorites from the group writing project. He’s right — I do have “…a lot of really useful information tucked away.” Thanks, Phil.

Jersey Girl, who is busy Surviving NJ, gives us Top 5 Chosen from ProBlogger.

Now I’ve written a post about posts about the Blogging Goals project. Maybe this is an example of the blog as echo chamber?

Darren Rowse, over at ProBlogger, has come up with a group writing project on blogging goals. I’m taking time out from my posts about blogging risks to write my own thoughts about blogging goals — it’s just too much fun to miss out on.

I’d like to address the small business owner who’s thinking about blogging as a way to connect with customers, share expertise, and build the business. So here are the goals for people thinking about blogging, or about to start blogging. If you’ve just started blogging, it’s not too late to retroactively think about how you did on these goals.

1. Do your research
2. Make your commitment
3. Make your plan
4. Go for it!

(more…)

Darren Rowse, of Problogger, is a genius at coming up with fresh ideas that expand and explore the world of blogging. Whatever your blogging goals, you should all be reading his blog.

I’ve just now started looking at his latest series, which started with his idea for a blog post on good blogging habits, and wound up a habits of highly effective bloggers group writing project.

Take some time this weekend (in Connecticut, it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, anyway) and explore the posts Darren has listed.

I believe the best habit for beginners is to explore and read other blogs. Just as you can’t write good books unless you’ve read and analyzed other books, you also can’t be a good blogger unless you read and analyze other blogs.

You don’t need a spreadsheet or anything, you just need to read and think — what do you like, what don’t you like, what’s your first impression of the blog as a reader, how does the blogger handle comments, links, blogrolls, ads. It’s all grist for the mill, as they say.

And Darren’s group writing project is an excellent way to start learning.

I was checking out cartoonist Mark Anderson’s blog this morning (that’s his stuff on the left sidebar), and I loved his entry on the type of email he gets. One person’s email consisted entirely of:

Do you have an affiliate program? How many orders do you fill each month? What is the most popular subject area? What trends or cycles present themselves through the year? How large is your in-house staff?

That’s right, no greeting, no introduction, nothing. Check out his blog for his answer and more email humor.

This type of email is so typical and so pathetic.

I’ve been paying attention to networking lately, on-line and off. I went to a function where several people apparently thought networking meant pushing their business cards on as many people as possible, saying as little as possible, and “hitting” as many people as possible.

On the other hand, the Greater Meriden Chamber of Commerce and the Central CT Women’s Forum have great networking events. The people there tend to be interested in meeting people and actually talking with them. They have actual conversations that aren’t all “me, me, me.”

Blog comments are a good way to network, too. But they have to be used correctly, in much the same way as offline networking events.

What I mean is, you need to contribute to the conversation. If you don’t, you’re only one step above spam.

I get a lot of comments that aren’t technically spam, but instead are links — just bare links to a site, or with some text indicating what the links are. But no conversation.

That’s not a comment, that’s an ad. I don’t have ads on this site. Comments like that don’t last too long.

I don’t mind links in comments at all; what I don’t want is just a link. If you’ve got a blog that might be of interest to my readers, explain why. Say something about the post that prompted your comment, to indicate that you read more than the title, if nothing else.

There’s a lot of information on the Internet, and a lot of good information. But if you want people to pay attention to your link, you need to show them why it’s worth their time.

Notice I said show them, not tell them. Telling them would be just a longer ad. Showing them means demonstrating, through your comments on topics, that you’re someone who has something to say that’s worth their attention.

It doesn’t mean every comment needs to be a dazzlingly brilliant display of deep insight. Amusing chit-chat is fine, as is just a sentence or two about your feelings on the subject of the post.

That’s OK; that’s conversation. And that’s what I’m talking about.

Darren Rowse, on ProBlogger Blog Tips, has started an excellent series of articles on Maintaining Momentum in Blogging.

One of the causes he mentions is busyness — when you start to have too much to do, it’s easy to let blogging drop to the bottom of the list.

That’s when having a plan comes in handy. A blog plan starts like any other plan, with your goals. It’s not good to say “blogging is popular today, so I need a blog.” You have to decide what you want from a blog, what a blog can do for you, and what you’re willing to do in order to achieve those goals.

If you want a blog, but you’re unable to work on it, then you’ll need to get someone to help you. If you get swamped with other tasks and you need to spend time away from your blog, you need to have a plan for that. If your plan is to not post, then you need to be OK with that.

And I actually think it is OK to not post — at least not post on a daily basis, if that fits your plan. However, if you don’t post for weeks at a time, that’s not good. Most people don’t use RSS and don’t subscribe to blogs via email. They just rely on their memory, links from other sites, or bookmarks, to visit a site. If nothing changes for weeks, chances are they won’t visit often, and will miss something when you do finally add a post.

Not all blogs are “pro” blogs, where the goal is to have an blog producing income from the ads. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those types of blogs — good pro bloggers know the way to success is to produce valuable content — Darren himself is an excellent example of that.) Some blogs are used more indirectly — to demonstrate expertise, to share knowledge, to connect with like-minded folks, to build relationships with clients or customers, or to make your business more “findable”. All those will help build business.

If you’re blogging to acquire readers who you hope will eventually convert to clients, or to people you wish to network with, then you need to keep up some momentum.

Check out Darren’s series for tips on that.

In my last post, I wrote about how to find the correct web address (URL) to use when you want to link to a post on another blog. I also wrote a bit about why linking out is important.

Jim Durbin, on the blog Recruiting.com, agrees with me and adds:

Linking is the bloggy equivalent of saying “Please” and “Thank You.” While there are no requirements to blog, learning to link properly is a good way to give, and get respect.

In this post I want touch upon how to link. I see many new bloggers who simply type in the URL of the blog. This does the job, it’s true, but there’s a much more elegant and helpful way to link. Instead of using just the web address, or worse, saying “click here,” it’s better to embed the link into the flow of the text, by making some of the words serve as the link. (For more on why using “click here” for a link is a bad idea, read my earlier post on building traffic by how you link.)

See, that last sentence was an example of using text to give your readers more context and information about a link. Not only does it help your readers, and cut down on useless words, it helps search engines also. Search engines assume that the words used in the link are what the linked to post is about. There’s only about 6 billion search results for “click here.” (Make that: six billion and one.) Much better for everyone if you add some meaning to the link.

But that’s only the first step. Besides adding context through the words you use to link (called the “anchor text”), you can also add even more information through the title tag. The text you see pop up when you hover your cursor over the link is what is called the “title” of the link.

On the blog Johntp.com, John has an excellent example in his article on common weblogging mistakes, in the section on not using link titles.

Once again, Successful Blog has details on how to code links and how to code accessible links, so I won’t repeat that info here, except to quote Cas:

An “accessible link” therefore, is simply a link that imparts as much information to as many users as possible. It enables the reader to preview the link, making an informed decision about whether to follow it or not, and helps to differentiate between links that may share link text but refer to different targets.

If you have Wordpress 2.0, links are a piece of cake. Here’s a short demo on how to create a link in Wordpress.

So don’t be afraid to spread the link love by creating useful, well-crafted links. It helps everyone and makes you look like a pro.

One of the things that differentiates a blog from a regular website is that blogs tend to have a lot of outbound links.

This is a good thing! Part of the whole purpose of blogs is to join in a “distributed” conversation; to share ideas and add thoughts to the ideas of others. The way that gets done is through linking.

Linking accomplishes two things. First, it points your reader to more information about your topic, or to the post that you’re writing about. Also, through pings and trackbacks it alerts linked-to bloggers to the fact that someone’s linking to them, so that they can check out what you’ve said.

Sometimes newer bloggers have trouble linking. This post is for them.

One thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes bloggers will talk about a blog post, but not link to the post specifically — instead they link to the blog address.

In order to link to a post, you have to find the address (URL) for that post. The web address in the address field of your web browser is usually for the blog — such as www.ctbizblogs.com. Because blogs change as new posts are added, linking to the blog’s main address won’t help readers in a few days — the post you want to point readers to will be pushed down the page. And most blogs are set to only display a certain number of the latest posts, so after a few days, the post will fall off the main page entirely.

To make sure that the post can be found by your readers, each post has a unique address of it’s own — a permanent address, called a permalink. The permalink address looks something like this: http://www.ctbizblogs.com/2006/05/09/local-events-for-may/. Or it might have an even more peculiar looking URL, ending with id=32 or something. It may look odd, but that’s the address you need.

One way to get the address of the post itself is to check the title. If you roll your cursor over the title and right click, you can usually copy that address.

Also, many blogs have the link at the top or bottom of the post, usually with the word “link” or “permalink.” The link called link isn’t to be clicked on, it’s there to show you the address of the post. I’ll admit this confused the heck out of me when I first started reading blogs. I’d see the link and click on it, only to go nowhere! Writing this post made me remember my initial confusion, and I’ve just altered my permalink link to say “link for this post,” instead of just “link.” I hope that’s clearer.

Getting the link address is only one part of smart linking, however. The other part is getting it into your post in a way that helps you and the linkee.

I’ll write about that on Tuesday.

In the meantime, read what Miz Liz has to say about why you should link.

Related posts on CT Biz Blogs: How does linking to other blogs help me Part 1 and Part 2

B.L. Ochman, a marketing and blogging consultant, has come up with an ingenious way of promoting a business through a blog. For the translation company, SRF Global Translations, she’s set up a blog called Ethics Crisis.com.

On this blog, she’ll be posting about ethical issues and inviting others to anonymously confess their business ethics lapses, so that readers can vote and comment on how they rate the lapse on a scale of 1 to 5, from always acceptable to never acceptable.

In the header, she explains the connection between a translation company and business ethics – EthicsCrisis.com is: “A blog about global business ethics, from SRF Global Translations, specialists in nuanced, localized, multilanguage compliance materials for multinational companies.” Ok, maybe it’s a bit of a stretch, but this is too smart an idea to let that matter.

There’s more to the site than just confessions and judgement, too. Using a blogging application, the company now has a nice site which includes more conventional web pages such as: “about us,” “contact us,” “clients,” “translation services,” and “get an estimate.”

It appears that this is the company’s only website, so it’s a good example of how a blog can easily serve in place of a conventional website, and be even better! It looks great, includes all the information you need about a company, and draws you in with the ongoing conversations.

On this site, B.L. has cleverly found an aspect of the business that will engage and intrigue readers, and which encourages audience participation. As it says on the blog:

Ethics Crisis demonstrates that blogs have evolved way beyond pontificating. The next generation of blogs are perfect vehicles for the combination of marketing, industry news, customer-created content and e-commerce.

It’s well worth a look.

In my continuing search for a good interface for writing blog posts, I have been testing Zoundry’s Blog Writer. It’s for folks with computers running Windows XP or 2000. There are things I love about this application, but up until now, there was always one drawback for me: no spell checker. Well, the Zoundry folks have been busy, and the latest release now has a spell checker. My dreams have come true; I think I found a blog writing app I can use and that has the features that are important to me.

As much as I love WordPress, the writing interface is not great, unless you know HTML or have time to learn a few things. I do and have, so that’s OK for me, but not for newer bloggers. And my version (still 1.5) has no spell checker. That’s essential, especially for techy-types. I’ve observed that when I’m in full-blown programming or tech-mode, my spelling becomes worse than usual. (more…)

If you have a business, you might want to keep your eye on Judy’s book

Judy’s Book is a site where people can post reviews and commentary about businesses, products, and services, all organized by geographical area.

You need to be aware of it because, even if you don’t blog or use the internet much, you can’t forget that there are plenty of people who do. And there are plenty more who will in the future. (more…)

My colleague Valorie Luther has been busy! She’s been arranging a 1/2 day conference on new media, to be held in Stamford, CT on June 13th, from 2 - 6 pm. The site for the conference is now up and it looks pretty sharp. I will be there, helping out at the conference. This is a shameless plug for it, because even if I weren’t part of it, I believe I’d be signing up. It’s got some interesting participants and demos, and the price is $300, which is pretty decent, I think.

You can read all about it and even register on the Business Smart Tools Conference website.

“Anybody know how we get an RSS feed for this blog?”

That was a comment left on a post just a few hours ago. Don’t look for it, though. It’s been nuked because it was spam.

How did I know it was spam? It sounds good, doesn’t it? And it was left on a post about RSS.

Well, here are a few things that tipped me off:

1. Lack of a real name
   While that alone isn’t enough to indicate a spammer, it’s one clue. Especially when the name is the name of a popular medication that lots of people would like to get without a prescription. D’oh! But sometimes, as in this case, it’s not quite that obvious, so I wouldn’t nuke a comment based just on not having a real person’s name.
2. Links to a dubious looking web site (more…)

Liz Strauss, over at Successful Blog has put together a New Blogger Page which lists some of her posts of particular usefulness to new bloggers. (But guess what? It’s really a resource for all but the most experienced blogger. And even they can use a refresher course now and then.)

Blogging is not something you can learn in a day, but this page is a good starting point for exploring the wonderful world of blogging.

She’s got articles on blog basics such as commenting, a link to her blog checklist (this is one of the ones that’s especially applicable to every blogger), and some of her “great finds” such as a link to the Tlog Blogging Tip Series. This is a step-by-step list of blogging basics. I’m going over it now to see what I’ve been missing.

New bloggers, you need to check these out!

And as a bonus, here’s the link to a compilation of my basic blogging tips: Blogs - what, why, & how.

After reading my entries on RSS (listed at the end of this post), a friend decided to try Google reader, to subscribe to this blog. Yay!

But she asked me a great question that made me realize I wasn’t clear enough on at least one point: She asked if subscribing via Google Reader meant that she needed a Gmail account, or if she’d get the posts in her regular email account.

I think there might be two confusing points here. One might be my comments about how, with RSS, the posts “come to you.” To a lot of folks, that means email.

And to add to that confusion, Google does have an email service, and when I log onto the Reader, it asks me to enter my email and password.

Ok, Google, that’s confusing as heck to people new to RSS! (more…)

If you’re writing a post where you quote someone else, one neat stylistic trick to use is the “block quote.” This will format the quote in a way that separates it from your normal text and makes it clearer that you’re quoting what someone else said.

In WordPress 2.0, that’s done by using the indent button on the text editor.

I’ve created a little flash demo to show how that’s done: How to use a block quote.

Even if you don’t use WordPress, many blogging applications have block quotes. Check out the demo and then explore your posting interface, and you’ll probably find the button.

From the Wikipedia entry on Strategy

A strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, as differentiated from tactics or immediate actions with resources at hand.

I’m writing this post not because I’m an expert at blogging strategy, but because that’s what I’m exploring, myself, these days. My focus has always been more on the technical aspects of blogging. That’s the fun part, for me.

However, it’s about time I did some thinking about my blogging strategy. And you can’t have a strategy without a goal.

We’re all blogging for a reason. For most business blogs, the purpose is marketing for our business or ourselves. This is a good reason for having a blog; there’s nothing wrong with marketing. But I think you need to go further than that — you need to ask yourself: “What is it I want people to do as a result of reading or visiting my blog?”

That’s the real goal of the blog, and the goal is what drives the strategy.

I’ve been re-reading Seth Godin’s free ebook “Knock Knock,” which he published a while back. Sometimes these things have to be read, allowed to percolate in the brain for a while, and then re-read. Knock Knock is actually not about blogs, but about web site strategy. But since blogs are a type of web site, it’s a good read for anyone using blogs to market their products, services, or ideas.

“Knock, knock” is what people are doing when they come to your blog — knocking on your door. What you need to know is, how will you answer that door? On page 35, Godin says:

Here are the three questions you must answer about every single page you build:

1. Who’s here?
2. What do you want them to do?
3. How can you instantly tell a persuasive story to get them to do #2?

I think that determining a strategy starts with deciding on what your answers are to those three questions.

OK, I just created a quick little Flash demo showing how I added an RSS feed to Google reader. You’ll need the Flash plug in to view it. If you don’t have it, you can get it from Macromedia.

I used a great, free demo creator called Wink, from Debugmode. It doesn’t have audio, but hey, it’s free!

I couldn’t resist — one more post about RSS. This is for people who have yet to dip a toe into the RSS stream.

Here are two very easy RSS readers to try.

First, here is an excellent introduction to RSS and a free desktop reader to try, from Emerson Process Management. This walks you through the process of downloading and installing a reader for your computer. A desktop application is a good idea for people who don’t have a DSL connection or dial-up access with unlimited time (and no one waiting to use the phone line) and thus aren’t online constantly.

Next is a very easy online reader from Google. It’s still in “beta,” which means there might be some bugs, meaning that it doesn’t seem to pick up all RSS feeds. But it’s an excellent way of starting out with one or two feeds.

For Google Reader, you need an account. If you have Gmail, you have that. If not, it’s very easy to set up.

Here’s a screenshot thumbnail of my feed subscriptions in the Google Reader. Click on the image to see a full-screen version. You might have to click on the full-screen version to enlarge the image completely.

Later today or this evening, I’ll post a quick “how-to” for Google Reader.

Go Feed yourself!

I’m finished with RSS (for now). Here are the posts I’ve written over the last week:

• RSS and you
• How to find and use an RSS reader
• Ways to find RSS feeds, part 1
• Ways to find RSS feeds, part 2: search engines
• Ways to find RSS feeds, part 3
• Links: Articles on RSS to read

That RSS series of posts was going to be an off-the-cuff few words, instigated by Steve Rubel’s post about how even the Kremlin now has RSS feeds. Once started, however, I found I couldn’t stop typing. Frankly, it startled me a little when I got some attention from the Greater Blogosphere.

Now that I’ve poured all this information out of my brain, my next plan is to put this into a more organized form, probably as a PDF for people to download. So I’d appreciate any feedback — what didn’t make sense, what you’d like to see clarified or expanded upon, what was omitted.

Again, it’s not going to be the be-all, one-stop-shopping place for all things RSS. That’s a target that’s that’s moving too fast. But I’m hoping that if I start with more basic information in the intro, it’ll prompt more people to check out RSS and recognize it for the great tool that it is.

And I also want to thank all the folks who found these posts (mostly through Micro Persuasion) and linked back to them. Some I found through the trackbacks, some by following links, some by my referrer stats, and some by — wait for it — RSS. Yes, I have an RSS feed from Technorati for mentions of CT Biz Blogs. That’s the first thing I did when I found out about Technorati. If you have a blog, you need to do that, too.

So thanks to:

• Micro Persuasion
• LexBlog
• Blog Smart Resources Blog
• The Language Artist
• The Agonist
• My Own Public World (who’s using the Sage RSS reader based on reading my post)

Here’s the third and final part of my post about ways to find RSS feeds. (Part 1: Blogs; Part 2: Search Engines.)

Newspapers and other Online news services:

Many online newspapers, such as the New York Times or the Hartford Courant, have RSS subscriptions to different topics. Typically these won’t have the entire article in the feed, but instead will deliver to you the headlines, sometimes with an short excerpt. This is usually enough to determine if that article is something you want to read. If it is, click on the link in the feed to go right to that article. Piece of cake!

Some magazines, such as Business Week, are also putting articles online, with feeds.

Aside from getting feeds from newspapers and magazines, you can search across new sources with services such as Topix.net. I use it to send me mentions of my home town and companies I’m interested in.

For example, you can go to Topix.net, and type in the name of a company, such as General Motors. You’d get a page that looks something like this:
(more…)

Ok, finding blogs to read, and then adding them to your RSS reader is all well and good, but the next three reasons for using RSS will really make you a lean, mean, feed reading machine! You, the small business owner, can not afford not to keep up with industry news, trends, and the doings of competitors. And while you’re at it, you can streamline your life by using RSS to keep tabs on local and national news, sports, info about companies whose stock you own – the list gets longer every day.

All because of those little orange buttons and the magic of RSS.

I want to reiterate that this post is by no means a comprehensive look at all things RSS. I’m sharing the things I’ve used RSS for, in the hopes that it will encourage you to start using this tool.

Here are the main ways to keep on top of topics of interest via your RSS reader, besides reading other blogs:

• Search engines
• Newspapers and other online news services
• Other people’s bookmarks and tags

(more…)

I’m planning on having the latest installment up by the end of the day (5:30 PM or so, EST).

In the meantime, here are some additional articles on RSS that I should have mentioned in previous posts:

• 23 real simple steps to making your Internet life much better
• RSS: The Web at Your Fingertips
• Ten RSS Hacks
• Save time with syndication
• Using RSS 101 - Screencast

I recommend them — I learned from all of them.

Ok, so far I’ve talked about what RSS is, and how to find a way to read RSS feeds. Today is the part where you put it all together, and find RSS feeds that will help you:

• Keep up with blogs you should be reading
• Track marketing intel on competitors
• Get news on topics you care about

What a deal! With a little upfront work, you won’t have to go searching for what you need – it will come to you.

There’s a lot of info here, so I’m going to cut this into two. And, since I haven’t written bullet points #2 and 3 yet, that post will be available Monday.

Keep up with blogs

If you want to blog, you have to read other blogs. You need to do this for several reasons.

1. Stay current with other blogs which are about your industry or market.
2. Learn about blogging from blogs, such as this one, which address the subject.
3. Learn about business subjects you’re interested in, such as marketing, PR, accounting, and so on.

There are two main ways to find blogs: search, and other blogs.
(more…)

Ok, now that you’ve realized that RSS is something you need to know about, it’s time to pick an RSS reader (also called RSS aggregator, or feed reader).

There are pros and cons for every feed reader, so I’ll just give you my opinion about feed readers I’ve tried and point you to some readers to try out.

Web-based

My main issue is that I can be working on different computers throughout the day. I like to be able to read my feeds from any of those. That’s why I use Bloglines, which is a web-based reader.

I also like the fact that I don’t have to hunt through a blog site for the actual link to the RSS, which is sometimes hard to find. I only need to enter the URL of the site and voila! Bloglines also has a button you can add to your browser. When you find a blog you want to subscribe to, all you need to do is click on the button to add it.
(more…)

Ok, based on this blog post by Steve Rubel, about the Kremlin’s RSS feeds, I’m here to say that no one can ignore RSS (Really Simple Syndication, also called “feeds”) anymore.

I’ll admit, the name is a TLA (three-letter acronym), which is initially confusing. I’ll admit that even knowing the name doesn’t tell you what it’s good for. But once you try it, once you get an idea of what you can do with it, you’ll never look at the internet in the same way again.

That’s a good thing.

It’s time to put the internet to work for you, through RSS.

There are a lot of places you can read about RSS, including this blog. I’ve got a short list at the end of this post.

Here’s RSS in one sentence – “RSS organizes web-based information into a format which allows people to subscribe to automatic updates.” This information can be text, such as blog posts, it can be audio files (that’s what podcasting uses), it can be things we haven’t even thought of yet.

Right now, you need it in order to keep up with the things you need to know about.

As a reader, you don’t need to care how RSS works or even what the letters mean. You just have to know that it works well, and you can use it – it’s a tool, for you. Just waiting for you to pick it up and go!

Yes, you could bookmark all the sites that you read on a regular basis. But then you’d have to go to those sites to see if there’s new content. This gets tedious and time-consuming. Instead, use the RSS feeds in those sites to bring only the updated content to your RSS reader.

Feedburner (a service for bloggers and others who want to syndicate content with RSS) puts it this way in a blog post about the future of RSS:

Feeds provide three critical benefits to any digital media:
1. A notification mechanism for updates to a specific channel of content
2. The ability to subscribe to content, creating a persistent link between publisher and subscriber
3. A semi-structured version of the content

Ok, now you know what it’s for. Next you need to know how to use it.

For that you need two things.

1. An RSS reader, which, like an email application, will gather together all the RSS feeds to which you subscribe, so that you can peruse them in one handy place.
2. RSS feeds that you want to read.

Coming Thursday – ways to read RSS.
Friday – how to find good stuff to put into your reader.

Here are some articles about RSS:

• What are Webfeeds and why should you care? (highly recommended!)
• RSS: The Web at Your Fingertips
• Save time with syndication
• Order From Chaos Via RSS

If you have any questions, ask them here, and I’ll make sure I address them in the upcoming posts!

Added 3/37/06:
After reviewing my del.icio.us bookmarks, I rediscovered an excellent overview of RSS by Paul Stamatiou.

One technique bloggers have been using to help each other while helping themselves is through Carnivals.

Carnivals are open to blogs in a given subject area, such as cats, medicine, or business. They are run at some pre-determined time interval, usually weekly, or biweekly.

Bloggers send in a link to one of their best posts, and the designated host for the week will write up a post introducing and linking to the selected posts.

It’s a link type of post with a twist — instead of going out and finding good stuff to link to, the host is getting good posts and picks the ones he or she wants to highlight for that week.

These help readers by pointing them to posts and blogs they might be interested in reading. It helps the host because the bloggers in the carnival will most certainly be pointing readers to the hosting blog for that week. And it helps the bloggers by sending readers their way.

It’s win-win-win. And I won’t even mention the search engine boost (it’s technically not a mention if you mention that you’re not mentioning it).

At The Conservative Cat’s website, you’ll find a good intro, listing, and submit form for Carnivals. Be sure to scroll down to the very end and click on the link about viewing a table of the Carnivals. This will give you links and a short paragraph describing all the Carnivals listed.

There’s also a listing at the Blog Carnival index.

There are plenty of Carnivals around, some for the business world. The one I’ve heard of the most is Carnival of the Capitalists.

There’s also one focused on small businesses, called the Carnival of Entrepreneurship. The lastest edition of that (as I write this) is being hosted by Martin at ePublishing Daily.

My blogging pal and excellent writer, Liz Strauss, has been on a roll over at Successful Blog! She’s been pouring out so much great advice, tips, tools, and food for thought, that I’ve been tempted to bookmark every post.

She’s written some excellent posts on ideas for writing, which are must reading for beginning bloggers who have trouble putting words on the screen (as do we all, from time to time).

Check out this tool to help you organize your words.

She’s also got some great tips for making sure that your blog posts are search engine friendly. I didn’t see it until after I’d written a post about keywords, so I’m going back to add a link to that article there, too.

The important thing to realize is to not focus on search engine optimization (SEO) when you first write a post — you’re writing for people after all. They are the ones who you’ll be talking to, not Google, or Yahoo, or any of the other search engines.

That being said, once you’ve written a post, it makes sense to have it do as much work as possible for you — think of it as networking opportunities. Networking has gotten a bad rap, because a lot of people are networking spammers — their idea of networking is to shove business cards in your face, or shout “me, me, over here!” The good kind is the “connect-the-dots” kind, where you try to help others and show the ways you can contribute at the same time.

As Liz says:

Prorating the time that I spent gathering ideas, I’ve probably spent 60-90 minutes on this one post. Time is money, and I think of that time spent as an investment. Now is when I make sure that investment pays off. I’ve made a short Pre-Flight Publishing list that I run down, before I pass say, “Go.”

Blogging is work, but the work you do can pay off in many ways, over time. Don’t think of it as writing or marketing. Think of it as creating opportunities to help people get to know you, your ideas, and how you can help them.

Today I wanted to share a bit of what I do behind the scenes to keep friends’, clients’, and my own blog running.

One of the first things I do is make my rounds: I check every blog I’m responsible for, to see how it looks and see if there are any new posts. I read everyone’s posts with eager anticipation — these are folks new to blogging and it’s exciting to see how they’re doing and what they’re saying.

There’s been a bit of a pause for a few of our client bloggers, but we’re back on track. Kim Fawcett (Your Voice), Anthony Gordon (Integrated Health Management), and Valorie Luther (Creative Concepts) are getting the hang of it.

Well, Valorie already has the hang of it, and she really understands what blogging is about, as her last post on blogging and ethics, shows.

I’ve been especially impressed with Kim Fawcett’s blogging lately. She’s written some great, from-the-heart posts in the past few days, with her thoughts on the war, and on emergency contraception. These took courage to post, but I think if you’re going to be an honest politician in this day and age, that takes a lot of courage, too, to face down all the detractors and cynics. Blogging is surely one way to show people what you’re made of.

Sometimes there are formatting issues in some folks’ posts, usually when copying from MS Word is involved. I go in and fix those up immediately. I look at the posts in edit mode, and look at the actual HTML code, make sure it’s correct, and take out the extra bits Word puts in that mess up the look of the blog. (more…)

I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It’s a Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools).

“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.” — Albert Einstein

Canned text above courtesy of BlogJet. The rest is my own.

Attempts at viral marketing aside, it’s got some features that look good to me:

• spell checker (most important, but I want American spelling, please. “Organizing” is how we spell it.)
• post to draft — Sometimes I don’t want to publish something right away. I only want to get it online so that I can finish it later, from another computer.  Posting to draft does that. Writely, an online editor which I like a lot, only posts to publish immediately. 
• categories — Categories provide a non-chronological way of organizing posts, making it easy for someone to find a post based on the topic, rather than the date. Writely doesn’t support that, unfortunately. Since it doesn’t, I have to go to the post, enter edit mode, and check off the categories I want for the post.  This is an extra step that I don’t need to take using BlogJet.

So far, I like it a lot. It does cost $40, but that’s not a lot to pay for increased productivity. It’s especially nice for people new to blogging, who aren’t comfortable typing into an online window, and who need a bit more support than, say, WordPress.com offers. Their rich text editing is still pretty poor.

 However, it creeps me out that every time I type BlogJet, the word is immediately hyper-linked.  OK, I get it that you want everyone to know about Blogjet, people.

 But that’s a bit much. 

(Ha! Not using the capital J doesn’t trigger the auto-flog-the-product mode.)

Here’s one of the hard facts about blogging — you have to keep doing it.

A blog is not a turnkey operation, it’s not like a static website you can build and then walk away from.

A blog is a living thing that has to keep growing, or die. If it keeps growing, it will help your small business in many ways — it will increase its “findability” on search engines, it will serve as a portfolio, as a soap box, and as a way to talk to people who, if engaged by what you have to say, will talk back.

None of that happens automatically, and none of that happens overnight (usually). And it won’t happen at all if you don’t write.

New bloggers usually start in very enthusiastically, full of the novelty and excitement. But then the reality hits — blogging is a lot like work!

But if you’re passionate about your field, or subject, or endeavor, you’ll do the work.

It’s really that simple.

Here are a few tips on writing blog posts that might help:

• What if I don’t always have time to blog?
• Tips: More ideas for when you’re stuck.

Add a comment if you have any tips to add that have helped you keep writing and blogging, or if you have any questions.

It’s always sad when a blog hasn’t been updated in a while. I wrote a joke post about lost and abandoned blogs, back when I was steaming through my 20 blog posts in 20 days challenge, but it’s actually a serious and common occurrence in the blogosphere.

Sometimes a blog is revived after long silence. Sometimes it just dies on the vine.

But just because a blog has been quiet for a while doesn’t mean it isn’t worth reviving — if your enthusiasm for spreading the word about your business, dream, hobby, or hobby-horse is worth reviving.

Blogging is all about passion for your ideas and about wanting to share your excitement with the world. If you can’t keep that feeling alive in yourself, you’ll never be able to get anyone else interested in what you have to offer.

So if the only reason you’re blogging is for the page rank, then you won’t have that passion.

But if you do, you won’t have to write a white paper, official report, anything formal or fancy, or even get out of your pajamas.

You don’t have to worry about using keywords, Technorati tags, or shamelessly linking to Robert Scoble for the temporary traffic boost.

Write about something that you feel strongly about — something touching, something thrilling, or something that makes you angry. (You have to take the high road on that last one and not just curse, or fan the flames.)

Write from your heart; show your passion, convictions, knowledge or willingness to learn.

That’s all it takes.

Trust me.

photo by spcoon

Meta tags are part of the HTML code on a web page. They allow web developers to include “metadata,” or information about the data on a page, right into the page itself. Readers won’t see the metadata, search engine crawlers will.

One type of metadata you can have is keywords. This essentially creates a list of keywords about the page, supposedly for the convenience of search engines. However, it’s been abused for a long time by spammers, and so is useless today.

Abuse of keywords happens when spammers just put in long lists of words, often repeating the same word over and over, in an effort to game the system. Search engines have figured this out.

Some web developers put keyword metadata in the code, anyway, on the principle that it can’t hurt, if done non-abusively. But from everything I’ve read, it’s not used by most search engines. However, if you are using a blog inside a company, there still may be a use for the keyword meta tag.

And, there is still some useful metadata, such as the meta tag “description.” From what I’ve seen, this isn’t abused, so it’s a good way of adding additional information about your site. for example, here’s a screen shot of the description I added to my site. You’ll need to know how to tweak the template, if you want to do this.

Search Engine Watch has an excellent article on meta tags, including examples.

There’s another article with an even more techy explanation of meta tags at Builder.com.

The short answer: Keywords are the most frequently used significant words on a web page. To a search engine, this is what the page is about.

The longer answer: When librarians come up with keywords, they are describing what the book, article, whatever, is about. That’s what keywords mean to them. Those actual words may or may not be in the text.

But on the web it’s slightly different. That’s because, while people can abstract from the text to come up with descriptive words, search engines can’t. They typically use automated programs (’bots) that crawl through your site to index the contents. Those bots can count very well, they just can’t think. (more…)

Darren Rowse, of Problogger, has started a series on beginning blogging. One of his latest articles is: 23 Questions for Prospective Bloggers - Is a Blog Right for You?

Keeping in mind that his perspective is that of the person who blogs for a living — someone who makes money directly from the ads on a blog — this article is well worth reading if you’re thinking about blogging about your small business. You can use it as a checklist, in order to decide for yourself if the question is relevant to your situation, or if you have a strategy for addressing the issue.

For example, if you answer no to “1. Do you enjoy writing?” it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t or can’t have a blog for your small business. Aside from the whole issue of “ghostbloggers,” you can instead:

• do an audio blog or podcast
• use some voice-recognition software such as Naturally Speaking,
• write down your ideas without worrying about punctuation and spelling, and ask or hire someone to copyedit for you
• ask an employee who does enjoy writing to be the blogger.

It’s only if you plan on making your money entirely by legitimate blogging (as opposed to stealing others posts) that you really should enjoy tapping words out on the keyboard.

Well, I don’t have the heart to subject anyone to a long screed on trackbacks (as I threatened to do in my last post about an introduction to trackbacks), especially on a Monday morning when I’m running late.

But here’s a few more tid-bits.

This is what a trackback will look like in WordPress, using as an example a trackback from a post from Liz of Successful Blog.

In my blog, trackbacks are mixed in with the regular comments. In others, such as Steve Rubel’s Micro Persuasion, they are separated. (more…)

The short answer: trackbacks are like automatic comments.

The slightly longer answer: Most blogging applications have a way to send notices (pings) to any website URLs you reference in a blog post. If you write about a specific blog post you read, for example, you can “ping” that post, and your blogging software will leave, in a similar format to a comment, an excerpt of your post and the URL back to your post.

This is good because it helps keep track of the conversations about topics as they swirl around the blogosphere, and it notifies the blogger that you’ve written about his or her post. That will prompt at least one visit to your site, so the blogger can check you out.

You might see trackbacks sprinkled among regular comments (usually preceded by ellipses (…)) or you might see them in a special section after the post.

There’s more to it than that, and there are, as always, pluses and minuses to trackbacks, although the pluses outweigh the minuses in my book. And there are always slight complications.

But this is just the short and the slightly longer (but not as long as I could be once I get wound up) answer, and that’s enough for a start.

I’ll post the long answer on Monday.

I didn’t make it clear in yesterday’s post that Kim Fawcett (Your Voice blog) is the latest blogger that Valorie Luther, of Creative Concepts, and I are working with. It’s been interesting showing Kim, Anthony Gordon (Integrated Health Management blog), and Matthew Cossolotto (StandingO blog) the workings of Wordpress 2.0.

The best way to learn what folks new to blogging need, is to work with a few people who are willing to try new things. I’ve realized once more how much I take for granted at times and how much learning I had to do at the beginning that is part of how I blog naturally now. That said, the best way to learn is to start blogging. As I’ve said before, when you first start blogging, unless you’re Guy Kawasaki, famed venture capitalist, or Tim Berners-Lee, father of the web, chances are no one will be watching, outside of your friends and family.

Luckily, Wordpress 2.0 is easier for beginners than 1.5, which is what my blog still uses. And Wordpress.com, the hosted version, is easier still. Of course, there are always tradeoffs. Ease of use vs. control, and control vs. time.

For new users, I recommend looking for ease of use, unless you’re willing to spend extra time learning the techy stuff as well. But if you’re a natural geek or geek-ette for whom the techy stuff is the fun part, I say “go for it!”

Or you could <ahem> hire a natural geek-ette.

The great thing about blogging is that the immediate reward of seeing a nice post up there, all neatly laid out, is a real kick.

For all you blogging newcomers, or people interested in seeing how darn easy it is to use a blog, here’s a quick demo on how to create a link in Wordpress 2.0. You’ll need to have the Flash player.

If the demo doesn’t work, you can get the Flash player on “Macrodobe’s” site (or “Adobomedia”).

Updated 8/14/06 for Lorelle’s WordPress Tips Challenge

Technorati: WordPress Tips

Today I want to revisit Liz’s Successful Blog post about the Blog Review Checklist. This is a great resource not only for reviewing an existing blog, but also for organizing your thoughts if you’re just starting to blog.

You can read the entire article (it’s not long) at the link above. Here are my thoughts about Liz’s first point:

• Audience: What words would your readers use to describe your blog? What do they like best about your site?

One of the first things a new blogger has to think about is: who is your audience? What market segment, profession, role, interest group, are the people who you hope will read your blog. And, how are you going to appeal to that targeted audience? If you want to attract readers, you’ll need to have posts that people will want to read.

For example, with CT Biz Blogs, my idea was that my blog would mostly appeal to newer bloggers and people thinking about blogging. That’s who I’ve set out to attract as readers. Therefore, I try to slant most of my articles towards people who are unfamiliar with blogs, or who haven’t thought much yet about the “how-to” part of blogging. Of course, there’s always something new to learn about blogging, so my hope is that I can bring enough new info to interest even more experienced bloggers.

The way to build traffic is by first, having a destination worth going to. So when you write, think about what your audience needs to know. When you’re a blogger, you’re a publisher, in a sense. Even if you’re blogging as a way of marketing your services, it’s a different sort of marketing than buying ad space in traditional “mainstream media” (MSM, as bloggers call them). It’s marketing by conversation and by reputation, not by yelling “my prices are insane!” or by having a sexy spokesmodel, or by shoving brochures at them.

This is a good thing.

So, if you’re new to blogging, or if you’ve been blogging for a while, take a few moments to jot down somewhere who you’re talking to, when you write.

And then don’t forget it.

As I wrote in an earlier post about not having time to blog, one idea is to “repurpose” other collateral you may have lying around, such as press releases, responses to RFPs, articles, or other informational pieces. It’s best not to use the whole piece, because blogs tend to have a more informal, conversational tone. But there’s usually some bits that you can either use verbatim, or as a spark for a new post.

If you’re going to copy a Word document into a blog, you’ll need to take a few extra steps, though. That’s because the commands that Word uses to format a document are not the same as the code web pages use to format a page or post. It may look good when you’re creating the post, but when you hit “publish” all heck can break loose. In some blogs, like Wordpress.com, Word can really mess up the template. Suddenly the pages look funny, with the sidebar at the bottom, or the calendar wrapping oddly because the text is wider than the template can accommodate. And even if you’re only pasting in a few words from the document, unless your font is the same as the blog font those few words will be in, say, Times New Roman, when the rest of the page is Verdana. Very untidy!

You can output a Word document to HTML, and then try to copy that, but the code is so encrusted with extra junk that you run the risk of really confusing your blog if you copy the Word HTML into the blog writing interface.

One work-around is to copy from Word into a text editor, such as Notepad, which comes with all Windows PCs. I’m sure Macs have something similar. And actually, I’ll bet there’s some cool way to avoid the problem altogether, on a Mac. Once you’ve pasted into Notepad, you can copy that and paste that right into the blog writing interface. The secret hidden formatting voodoo that Word uses, and which can scramble your posts, will be gone. Then you use the blog interface to re-format the post.

Another trick is to use a program such as PureText. This nifty, free application strips the code out for you so you don’t have to do the extra Notepad shuffle. Once you’ve installed it, just clicking on the PureText button will clean the text you’ve copied from Word while the text is still in limbo (otherwise known as the “clipboard”) between the copy and the paste.

It’s a little extra work, but it makes a difference in how the blog looks.

Looking back at the archives in the blogosphere, I came across an article from Stephen Turcotte, the founder of Backbone Media, about why blogging is better for a small company vs. a large one. Hey, there’s an idea! This is one-half of a blogging debate, the other side being “Blogging is better for bigger companies.” I’m not sure what the measurement for “better” would be, and in a way, this is really a mock debate because the truth is that blogging is a great idea for any size company. The crux of the reasoning is that small companies can overcome a smaller marketing budget by blogging.

Due to lack of budget, many small companies cannot compete Paid Click for Paid Click in the paid search regime, but they can compete for organic search engine rankings. The act of blogging has been proven to help with organic rankings because focused blogs are search engine friendly publishing engines full of relevant organized content. The culture of blogging supports contextual back linking, which is a strong factor in how a search engine like Google decides on who gets the top search position. So, a small company can blog and get their ideas out into the public while also improving the natural search traffic and link popularity.

There’s still a cost –an investment in time. But with the right blogging strategy, it’s not as large an investment as you might fear.

As an added benefit, the article contains a link to Backbone Media’s Survey on Corporate Blogging. This is a great resource about the advantages of blogging and strategies for blogging to achieve those advantages.

Side note to Stephen Turcotte: Get rid of the spam comments in that article — it just plain looks bad.

If you’re a small business owner thinking of getting into blogging, we at CT Biz Blogs can help you with our blogging maintenance services. We will help you with set up and administration of your blog, and do the housecleaning, too — spam eradication, for example. Shoot us an email and we’ll talk.

I ran across an article at MarketingProfs.com. called Five Surefire Content Ideas (When Your Blog Is Drawing Blanks).

MarketingProfs.com is an excellent site for ideas on marketing. It’s actually open to everyone; you don’t need to be a marketing professional to read it (although not every article will appeal to you if you’re not). But I scan it, and I promise I’ll alert you to any good tidbits I find.

Writer Jonathan Kranz gives 5 quick ideas for things to write about on your business blog. They are:

1. Announce Something
2. Respond to an article or news item
3. Reflect on an event
4. Respond to a reader’s concerns
5. Share a personal anecdote

I particularly like the”blog bonus point” section of each tip. They show that he’s been around the blogging world and knows his stuff. For example, here’s the last bit of his bonus point for #1. Announce Something:

In your blog, instead of trumpeting the importance of your announcement, ask for feedback. Suggest that readers take a look at your product, article or whatever, and request their input. Rather than playing the role of Prometheus carrying fire from the gods, be one of the gang-and write as if your subject were something that would be improved by their contributions.

The man knows his stuff! That’s because he has a blog, of course! Check out Kranz on Copy for more marketing tips.

For my final post in the 20 blog types marathon, I’d like to talk about blog etiquette and call for blog civility.

I firmly believe that weblogs represent a new opportunity for everyone — blog software has lowered the barrier for publishing on the web. It’s now so much easier than ever to add your voice to the distributed conversation.

But I’d like to remind everyone that once you publish your blog, you can’t take back what you’ve said. Cruel words, written in haste or anger, will be available for everyone to see. Even if you take back a post, chances are good that Google has cached it, or someone has seen it in their RSS feed reader and saved it before you could take it back.

It’s ok to be goofy, to make a mistakes, even to be boring from time to time. You can recover from that, should you care to (I’m all in favor of more goofiness). But cruelty lives on, even after apologies are made.

This goes for comments as well. I’ve been lucky so far, and I haven’t been slammed yet. But I’ve certainly read plenty of rude and uncalled-for comments in other blogs. As a blogger, you’ll need to learn not to take it personally and not to respond (or to respond instead to the ideas, not to the manner in which they were expressed). And as a commenter, if you’re angry or upset, write your words in a text editor like Notepad first, walk away, and then read them before you copy and submit.

That way, you’ll have added something worthwhile to the conversation.

Upate: This just in– here’s another blogger who’s got the right idea.

If you’ve never had a blog, it might be hard to imagine what it would be like if you did. So here are a few hypothetical situations you might find yourself in, if you were blogging about your business.

• You would get an email from someone saying, “I just read your article about incorporating a business. You’ve raised some issues I hadn’t even considered. I’d like to come in and talk to you about it.”

• You would get a phone call from someone who found you on the web, saying “I dropped my watch into the ocean. What can I do?” But you wouldn’t just tell him over the phone, you’d use the question as the basis for a post. You’d include that post in your FAQs. And you might even offer that person a small discount on a new watch, as a thank you for inspiring the post.

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Scenario #1: Imagine that you are a PR and Marketing guy, and you’re really into blogging. You and your co-writer (who writes a popular blog for a large software company) have decided to write a book about why companies should embrace blogging.

You want to build some buzz for this proposed book, you want to share your ideas, and you hope you’ll get some feedback, info, and advice as you write the book. So you decide to blog the book. On the blog, you write about the initial premise and finding a publisher. As time goes on, you ask your readers for suggestions for the book’s title for names of people to interview. You post your complete notes from interviews, and full drafts of your chapters, asking for help with corrections. As the chapters approach final form, you post them as well. Finally, you ask for people who might be interested in reviewing the bound galleys of the book, for final proofing and error-checking.

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Maybe you’re thinking about getting into blogging, but you’re not sure. How can you tell if blogging your busuiness is for you?

Or maybe you think it’s a fad, and if you wait long enough, it’ll go away?

Well, even if it were a fad, it’s one that is very beneficial to small businesses. so what’s wrong with that? Done right, it can help you connect with customers, share your expertise, and build your business. It’s cheaper than a radio ad, and lasts longer.

So here, for my contrasting two options post (#9 of 20, if you’re counting), I give you: To blog, or not to blog.

To blog:

1. You can afford to spend some time each day or so (anywhere from 1/2 hour - 2 hours, depending on your ambition and energy) or you can get someone to help (employee, family member, client).
2. You are passionate about some aspect of your business and want to share the details of how you do what you do.
3. You are free to do what you want, in terms of a web presence.
4. You have a unique product and need some unique marketing.
5. You are willing to hear negative comments, to be proactive about problems.
6. You are comfortable with computers or willing to learn.

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This is a problem that all small businesses that have blogs will run up against from time to time — you are already busy, and now you’re adding another thing to your hectic schedule. How can you possibly keep up the pace?

There’s no simple answer to this, but there are tactics you can use to help you when you’re stuck and just don’t have time. Here are a few:

• Get help. If you have employees, perhaps one of them would like to blog. Or ask other people — clients, vendors, family.
• Take pictures. “A day in the life” is always popular, or post pictures of your employees, workbench, or coffee pot. See Signs Never Sleep for examples on that.
• Write a link post. If you have a list of online resources that you check regularly or can recommend, share them.
• Clean out the storage room. You should keep a backlog of post “inventory” for busy days. Drag them out, dust them off, and put them on display. And you can write ahead. Just because a post is time-stamped when it’s published doesn’t mean you have to write it on that date. You can keep a draft in your blog application and quickly post it when the time comes. And many blog applications allow you to pick a date in the future, and the post will automatically publish at that time (not Blogger, Google’s blogging platform, however).

If you’re just beginning, here are a few tips to get you on the right track so that you won’t reach that no-time panic point right away:

• Start small. When you take the plunge and begin blogging, don’t start with an aggressive schedule. That will give you time to learn how you work best with blogging, and what you’ll need for support.
• Have a plan. Create a list of ideas for you to use in a crisis. Have an emergency plan and have a backup plan.
• Have a schedule. Monday - Friday, only on weekends, whatever. If readers know what to expect, they’ll be fine with it.
• “Borrow” from other collateral. Don’t just reproduce your brochures, that’s boring. But you can quote and make a comment or two about what that section means. Here’s a chance to add more depth & the personal touch.

If all else fails and disaster strikes, and you really, really don’t have time — write about that (briefly, of course). Bloggers often say things like “this will be a quiet few days — need to take care of x” and things of that sort. Don’t do it too often, but as my mother would say, “If it happens, it’s not the end of the world!”

For today’s entry in the 20 types marathon, I’d like to profile bloggers. It turns out that bloggers are very easy to depict.

He/she/they are:

• short/tall/fat/thin…
• American/Iraqi/German/French/Chinese….

Their blogs are always:

• personal/professional/political/polemical/pedagogical…
• entertaining/engaging/enraging/encouraging/enlightening…

Bloggers tend to post often/post frequently/post rarely/abandon their blogs, which have no ads/have a few ads/are ad-encrusted and booby-traps for the unwary…

Bloggers got into blogging eagerly/anxiously/after much pushing and prodding by friends/relatives/employees/bosses/other bloggers…

I think you get the idea. If you’re not a blogger, you should think about it. After all, you fit the profile!

The popular blogging application, WordPress, now has a free, hosted version. This is perfect for folks who don’t want to concern themselves with getting a web hosting provider and messing about with domains and such.

It’s been out about a month, and I finally took a look.

It’s very easy to get a blog; you simply go to www.wordpress.com (as opposed to the .org domain for the version you can host yourself). There, you enter a name for your blog, which becomes the first part of the URL – in my case, it’s (what else) http://ctbizblogs.wordpress.com. (Read my views on having your domain name.) (more…)

The comment feature on blogs is the main way that readers can communicate with the blogger (and each other). I’ve written before about the amazing community that’s sprung up in the comments on Joel Achenbach’s Achenblog.

A post a few days ago on Successful Blog, about comments on posts, prompted Shirley Frazier to make the comment that bloggers shouldn’t make the assumption that readers know about the comments, and know how to comment.  So, I wanted to make sure that my readers know that comments are most welcome!

Comments are useful for a number of reasons. For the blog, they add more information or ideas to the topic. If I hadn’t read the comments on the Successful blog post, I would never have found the comment that inspired this post.  For the commenter, they represent another way to network, and get your own site linked to.  If I hadn’t read the comments, I’d have never have found Shirley’s site, which I’ve subscribed to. It looks very helpful and I recommend you check it out.

Here’s my comment policy, and a quick “how to,” if you’ve never left a comment before. (more…)

Following on my review of Writely, here’s a brief tutorial on how to use it to create a post and publish it on your blog. This is written for new or still somewhat inexperienced bloggers who are interested in trying new tools to help with their blogging productivity. Experienced bloggers don’t need my help.

1. Create a new document.
   On the Start page, choose “New,” in the upper left-hand corner of the window.



2. Enter your text in the new document field.
3. Add links.
   Not all blogs have links in every post, so if you don’t have any, that’s fine. However, Google does look at links when determining page rank, so if that’s important to you, link often, but appropriately. See my post on “How does linking to other blogs help me?”

   To add a link: (more…)

In the last two posts I’ve been talking about how bloggers know if someone is linking to them. To recap: There are 4 main ways:

1. email
2. Trackbacks
3. Blog watches/search engines
4. Referrer logs from stats

Read part 1 and part 2 for full details on items 1-3; today I’m going to talk about referrer logs.

4. Referrer logs

Referrer logs are one type of statistic you can collect about the traffic that comes to your blog. There’s a lot of different types of info you can collect – new vs. returning users (if they’ve accepted a cookie), pages viewed, pages they entered on, pages they left, type of browser (called a user agent in stat-speak). (more…)

In Part 1, I talked about two ways of finding out who’s linking to you; via email, and with trackbacks. Here’s the next installment.

3. Blog watches/search engines.

There are a number of search engines which specialize in searching blogs. The first one was Technorati. Other popular blog searches are: Feedster, Blogpulse, and Icerocket.

With the blog search engines you can search for links to your site, and then (and this is the really cool part) subscribe via RSS to those searches. That way, you’ll see any new links whenever you crank up your blog feed reader. (more…)

If you have a blog, you’re created a presence on the web. If you have a presence on the web, you need to have a web-based way to contact you. You need to have an email address and you need to have it findable on the blog.

There are ways to avoid spam — you can have a graphical email link, such as in the upper right hand corner of this blog. I wrote earlier about how to create a graphic for your gmail account (and others), but you don’t need it — any graphics program, such as Paint, will allow you to create an image.

By the way, if you want a gmail account, contact me — I’ve got a bunch of invitations left. If you have a mobile phone, you can go right to Google and get one without an invitation from me.

Blog Flux just came out with a free email “scrambler” which makes it harder for spammers to harvest your email address. You simply type in your email address and click the “scramble email link” button, and you get some code which you copy, and then paste wherever you want your address to appear.

Make it easy for people to contact you; it could lead to great conversations, new business, new alliances, or even save you from a mistake. (If you find a mistake, typo, or whatever on CTBizBlogs, please let me know!)

Here’s a bad example. I recently went to the Business Week website, in search of podcasts. Here’s what I found on their page:

Embarassing. I might be interested in Greek wine; Greek wind conjures up images I won’t share.

I searched for a way to contact the webmaster. Nothing on the site. No page owner, just a link to customer service. There I was requested to fill out a long form. Forget it — this is way too much trouble.

Maybe they’ll read about it here.

The great thing about blogging is that it’s much easier to create a blog than it is to create a web site. You can start a blog for very little money; your biggest investment will be time. And, especially at first, you don’t have to spend more than a few hours a week on your blog.

This is an overview of the things you’ll need to start blogging.

1. A blog hosting platform. In order for your blog to be “on the internet,” you’ll need to find a blog hosting platform, or a web service provider, who will host the pages of your blog on their computers. These computers run special software called web servers which manage the delivery of web pages upon requests from web browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. I’ve written a bit about blog hosting platforms in What are some of the ways to create a blog and How to create a blog on Blogger. I’ll be writing more – this is a big subject.

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I run across plenty of writing advice on the web. This article from the Lifehacker blog contains a lot of tips, summed up nicely. For example, this about titles, a little-understood but important part of your blog:

Use explicit titles and subject lines.

Summarize your message clearly and succinctly in the title of your post or the subject line of your e-mail message. Avoid sarcasm, generalities, metaphors, and in-jokes. For example, a too-general post title might be “Save money.” A more specific post title would be “Save Money: Clip coupons at Coupons.com.”

This has already made an impact on my writing. I was going to combine the three blog articles I’m writing about today into one post with the title “Blog trends and articles of note.” Well, that tells you something, but maybe not enough. How would you find the info again, if you want to come back to this article in a few weeks? So I’m writing three shorter posts, not to make it look like I’m writing three times as much, but because that makes this blog more useful to you. (It also helps the search engines — I’ll write about how and why that’s important at a later date). Of course, that means I now need three meaningful and keyword-friendly titles.

But that leaves me with the opening line I came up with for the longer article I started with. There’s no good place for that, so I’m going to put it here.

I cover the blogosphere so you don’t have to!

Teen bloggers: A new Pew Internet & American Life Project study was released, which talks about the online activity of teens. In the summary, they state:

Teens are often much more enthusiastic authors and readers of blogs than their adult counterparts. Teen bloggers, led by older girls, are a major part of this tech-savvy cohort. Teen bloggers are more fervent internet users than non-bloggers and have more experience with almost every online activity in the survey.

Why would this be important to you? Well, if you have a business where this group is your clientele (clothes, shoes, or books, to name a few) or if you want to increase your appeal to this group — you should be blogging!

(Thanks to Jim Turner’s One By One blog for the “heads up.”)

As I mentioned in my last post, having multiple authors in a blog can help keep the posts coming. There are several advantages to multiple author blogs, and there are some issues — I wouldn’t go so far as to say these are disadvantages, but rather, things to keep in mind.

Advantages of multiple authors

• Shared workload. The biggest advantage, to my mind, is the shared workload. In order to build and keep regular readers, you need to keep your blog fresh, with new content on a regular basis. This isn’t always easy, and having another blogger on board can help – to share the work, bounce ideas off of, complain to, or laugh with.

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If you’re concerned about the amount of time you might need to spend writing and posting to a blog, you can share the burden– blogs can have more than one person posting. This is known as a multiple-author blog.

There are many blogs which use multiple authors. Two of the most common types of blogs with more than one blogger are:

• blook blogs, when the book is written by more than one author. Freakonomics blog is an example of this type of blog.
• topic or subject blogs which are working on gathering readership around a particular topic, such as Learning Circuits or Successful Blog

It’s usually not difficult to add authors to a blog — every blog has an administration section where you can give permission (via user name and password) to other folks. For example, in Blogger, you’d go to the Settings tab, and click on “members.” Then click on “Add Team Members” to bring up a form where you enter the email addresses of new authors. They will get an email with instructions on how to access the blog. Then they can post as well.

There are advantage and disadvantages to having multiple authors. I’ll delve into that tomorrow.