Entries Tagged 'RSS Feed' ↓
November 19th, 2008 — RSS Feed, bloggers, blogosphere, comments, social bookmarking sites, web traffic
Whether you are just getting started in corporate blogging, or you haven’t been paying much attention to other bloggers, the so-called “blogosphere” can be a little confusing. There are literally thousands, if not millions of blogs out there, and if you’re trying to network through them, the task can be a bit overwhelming. There are a few tips however that can help you learn to navigate successfully through the blogosphere.
What is the blogosphere?
It is a term that was coined to describe the intertwining of blog sites, the general atmosphere of the community and the fact that bloggers are really in their own little world. You can become a member of the blogosphere just by becoming a coporate blogger, but you’ll need to know a few things before you get started. Otherwise, your best efforts may just be shooting yourself in the foot.
The first place to start is understanding RSS feeds, and social networking sites. If you don’t have the basics down for these two very important items, everything else may be more complicated than necessary. Take some time to go through places like Digg.com, Technorati, and Twitter to see what is going on. Chances are, you’ll be able to come up with some great ideas for your own blog during this process.
Next, you’ll want to start thinking about setting up some great relationships with other bloggers. This has many added benefits, such as being able to write a guest post for another blog (or having someone do the same for you) and you’ll be building up some strong contacts that will help you increase your traffic and your exposure. Take the time to hunt down other blogs in your niche and start by leaving thoughtful comments in their blog section, making sure to leave your URL.
This is quiet marketing, but it can be very successful. Once you have your own little network built up through your contacts, you should find that your traffic increases as a natural result. This is particularly true if you are utilizing social networking sites to promote your blog.
Remember, you don’t necessarily have to promote just your blog. You can develop a reputation as a valued contributor by sharing good links with your network and involving them in your blog. Try to keep your promotion efforts as quiet as possible, to avoid being labeled as a spammer. People in the blogosphere have a very low tolerance for behavior like this and you can quickly develop a reputation that is very hard to shake.
Taking the time to become a valued member of the blogosphere is time well spent. This is your opportunity to develop yourself as an authority on your subject of choice, and to build up real relationships with your readers and with other bloggers. By reaching out to them and becoming an active participant in social networks, comment sections and forums, you can start to grow your corporate blog very quickly and with little extra effort.
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November 10th, 2008 — RSS Feed, advertisment, content, keywords, links, ping, search engine, web traffic
In many people’s opinion, organic traffic is the best. It’s free, it’s targeted and nine times out of ten, you’ll get a much better response, whether it’s for a company promotion, getting readers to your blog and building up solid relationships. Let’s take a look at just a few easy ways that you can start taking advantage of organic traffic and visitors, right now.
The first step is to make sure that your blog is fully optimized. One of the best platforms for quick indexing is WordPress, but depending on your content, it may not work quite well enough for you. Once you have your SEO portion of your campaign completed, you will need to keep going, making small changes, testing conversion rates and seeing just how much traffic your efforts are bringing in.
This optimization should extend not only to your content, but also to your post titles, headers, image alt-links, and literally everything else on your site. If you want a lot of organic traffic and you are in a competitive niche, you’ll need to go all out to make sure that you are getting the results you want.
Now, once you have your corporate blog fully optimized, it’s time to think about what you are actually going to be writing and whether or not it will help you increase the amount of organic visitors to your site. While placing keywords in your post is important, it should never outweigh good content that people can actually use, learn from and connect with.
Good content gets around, and that means more organic visitors for you. Word of mouth is still one of the most popular and profitable forms of advertising and there is no reason that your corporate blog cannot benefit. Since you’re not paying for these visitors through PPC ads or other means, you’re getting a chance to actually develop a relationship with your visitors and that all important motivation to keep going.
Promote your RSS feed. One of the easiest ways to get backlinks to your site, and to increase awareness about your products is through an RSS feed. Whenever you post on your corporate blog, take the time to ping your feed using a service like Pingomatic, or Pingoat. These will submit your RSS feed to numerous places and you can easily start to see results right away. As a bonus, indexed RSS content can be picked up by search engine spiders very quickly.
So, now you have your corporate blog optimized, you’re starting to develop relationships with your readers and you are getting your feet wet with RSS promotion. It may take a few tries to get results, but if you can stick with it, chances are you’ll start to notice a big increase in the amount of your daily traffic.
Try a few methods today to help you get more organic visitors and see how well the techniques work for you. With a little hard work, and smart promotional tips, you can get noticed by your audience.
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November 7th, 2008 — RSS Feed, comments, customer feedback, engaging ideas
As readers become more involved with the blogs they frequent, a new form of communication is becoming prevalent – interactive blogging. There are a few ways to look at this and determine whether or not this form of interaction is right for your corporate blog and your readers. When used properly, interactive blogging can be a huge weapon in your arsenal towards building better relationships with your customers, but it can be a double edged sword.
First, let’s look at the most common form of interactive blogging, using your posts to answer reader questions. This commonly occurs when you have someone leave you a question in the comments section of your blog, frequently asking for more information on a certain topic. Now, if one person asks this question there is always a chance that there are more people that want to know the same thing.
You can use these comments to determine what your readers really want to know. If it’s a good question, consider writing a blog post that will answer it. If not, you can keep focusing your energies on your regular posts. However, it is a good idea to let your reader’s dictate what you will be writing about – at least to some extent – since this can help you develop a stronger reader following.
The second form of interactive blogging takes your comments section to a whole new level. This is where you encourage your readers to contribute on a regular basis and the comments section may even start to look a bit like a message board. This is another powerful tool that can benefit corporate blog owners.
First, you’ll be getting the benefit of having your readers return throughout the day to keep tabs on the ongoing conversation. You can also set up an RSS feed for your comments to make this easier. Second, you’ll be increasing the amount of page views you have as well as the opportunity to attract new readers through word of mouth advertising, and through search engine indexing.
Interactive blogging does have a catch though, as we mentioned above. If you can keep tabs on your readers and avoid having flame wars, or nasty comments, it can work quite well. However, if you let it get out of hand, you’re only asking for trouble. On one side, you’ll have readers that will wonder where you stand on the issue if you don’t take care of a problem, and on the other hand, if you take quick action and delete problem comments, you may be cast as against freedom of speech.
The easiest way to take advantage of interactive blogging is simply to set some ground rules, make them clear, and then stick to them. If your readers know right off the bat what they can and cannot do with your interactive blogging elements, there will be a lot less confusion and a lot more interacting going on. Try it for a week and see how your corporate blog changes.
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October 28th, 2008 — RSS Feed, content, customer trust, social bookmarking sites
If you are putting together an RSS feed for your corporate blog, you may be wondering what way is the best way to deliver that RSS Feed. Should you use full text so that your subscribers can read the entire post in their feed reader without having to click on any links, or should you use a post excerpt so that readers are forced to visit your corporate blog for the rest of the story?
If you subscribe to RSS feeds that relate to blogging or internet marketing subjects, then you will probably discover that the full text feed philosophy is the one that wins a lot of debates on the subject. On the other hand, you may have noticed that many popular news sites like ESPN, AP News and CNN are using the excerpt method instead. Some of these news sites only display the headlines in their RSS feed and do not show any of the story until you visit the actual website. So which method is the right method for your corporate blog?
The real answer to this question is that the best method is whatever best suits your business model.
For example:
Major news websites and sports websites have the same business model that they have always used. The more people they have reading their articles and content, the more they can end up charging for advertising. For this reason, their primary objective is simply to drive people into their websites so that they can retain the highest readership numbers possible to reach the highest possible advertising rates in the process. By offering only a short excerpt or only a headline forces the reader to either click to come in and read more, or to move on.
Is this how you want to regard your readers?
One of the number one goals for most internet marketers and bloggers is to gain the trust of the largest possible audience. Your readers are not only potential customers, but they are also your supporters. Because it is so difficult to obtain high readership numbers, doesn’t it make sense to try to retain your readers at any cost? Most people like to read all of their websites in a single place which is what RSS aggregators are really all about. If you make reading easier for your readers, they will appreciate it more than you realize.
Does the monetization strategy for your corporate blogging effort depend on attracting viewers to your website? The excerpt feed method may be best if you depend on people actually coming to your website, but it takes a lot of traffic to make a living in this manner so you should not necessarily depend on it.
Another consideration to make is this:
Does your website have enough authority to draw people in just based on headlines or small excerpts alone? Even if you are an authority in the field, it is unlikely that your blog has gained enough experience, credibility and exposure to rival the attraction websites like CNN can generate. You should not hold anything back from your readers, so give them everything that you can in your RSS feed. If you give your readers exactly what they subscribed to, you will benefit from an increase in RSS subscribers, more posts getting bookmarks on sites like Digg, Delicio.us, Technorati and StumbleUpon, more viewer comments, and more viewers talking about your blog in theirs.
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October 17th, 2008 — RSS Feed, keywords, search engine, social bookmarking sites, statistics, web traffic
The sad reality is that every year thousands of corporate blog die a quiet death and the only one that notices is their owner. Whether it is through a lack of attention, or simply an inability to find the right audience, keeping a blog alive can be a difficult task. If you are struggling to figure out whether or not it’s time to let your blog die a natural death, there are a few things to think about first. Quitting may be your best option, at least when you consider how much time and money you spend, but it should also be your last option.
Before you decide to throw in the towel, it’s a good idea to give it one last ditch effort. Take a month and set aside some extra time to really promote your blog. Remember, the people who succeed are the ones that held on for just a little bit longer. You could be missing out on thousands of readers if you quit too early. Here are some quick tips to help you form your last ditch effort.
1. Optimize Your Keywords.
Take the time to go through your posts and optimize them completely. Don’t forget the post titles either since this is very important. Post new content as well that is optimized and let the search engines re-index your site. This may help bump you up a few spots in the results page.
2. Start Submitting Your Feed to RSS Directories.
This strategy can work in many different ways. First, you are getting your feed out there in front of more people, and second, you are building quality backlinks, which in turn help your search engine placement. Aim to submit your feed to at least 50 directories to give yourself a good chance.
3. Write Posts That Get Attention and Promote Them.
Many times, the only reason a blog fails to find a readership is simply due to the fact that it is boring. Read through the front page of Digg and other social bookmarking sites and see what people are interested in. Write content that is applicable to your own site, but still follows this format and then submit it to these sites.
4. Use StumbleUpon.
While the advertising service here is hit or miss, the regular aspect of the site can bring in huge results, depending on your topic. Set up an account and stumble your site. You should be able to pick up at least a few new readers right away and over time, this will keep occurring.
Still not working? Or you were spending too much time blogging and not enough on your core business.
5. Get Professional Help.
Buildify exists to help. Contact us and we will be glad to help.
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September 24th, 2008 — RSS Feed, content, ping
If you’re confounded by that little orange graphic you see on blogs, it’s time to learn all about RSS and how it can benefit your own blog. Most software packages and content management systems offer RSS capablility, but it’s up to you to implement it. When used properly, RSS feeds are an important part of corporate blog promotion. Let’s take a look first at what RSS is and what it does before we move to the next step.
First, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. This means that it collects the new content that you produce, and makes it available to readers through syndication. The old method involved emailing people to let them know when you published something new, but RSS completely automates this process.
When you have an RSS feed, this means that all of your new content will be available through it. Your readers will copy that RSS link and then put the link into their RSS software. Whenever you publish something new, they will get either the entire article, or a snippet, depending on how you have configured your feed. There’s nothing else that you have to do, since the RSS feed takes care of everything for you.
We mentioned RSS software briefly above, so let’s go a little more in depth on how this works. There are thousands of different software packages out there, and they are called RSS readers. What they do is collect the RSS feeds that a user puts in, and then post content whenever it is updated. Everything is automated and new content can be made available within seconds of publication.
But how does the software know when there is new content? Basically, it requests the feed every so often, and if something has been added since the last request, it will display. This is the manual method and it may take awhile for your content to be delivered, depending on your reader’s settings.
A way to get around this issue is by using a ping service. When you send out a ping, you are basically letting all of these RSS readers know that you have new content. Think of a ping like a doorbell. You wouldn’t stand on someone’s porch for hours hoping they would open the door. You ring that doorbell to let them know you are there. Pinging works much the same way.
While there are some technical aspects of RSS, we’ll focus on the generalities. If you’re using blogging software like Wordpress, or a CMS, you’ll never really have to worry about much. When you first install that software, you’ll be asked to apply some settings, such as whether or not you want to send out an excerpt, which is recommended, or the full article to your readers. Remember, if you only send an excerpt, they’ll have to go to your site to get the rest of the article.
Most of these blogging utilities will automatically ping for you, so all you have to do is sit back and publish your blog, letting it take care of the rest, and reap the benefits of RSS for you.
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September 9th, 2008 — RSS Feed, promotion, social bookmarking sites, web traffic
By now, the phrase social networking has been emblazoned on most of our minds. The problem is, not a lot of people understand how it really works or how to use it to promote their sites and their blogs. When used properly, social networking can be very beneficial and can help you pick up a lot of new readers. The key is learning how to use it effectively and learning the right techniques. Using the right social networking sites can mean the difference between a few hundred readers or a few hundred thousand.
Let’s start off with services like Twitter. Although your blog has a built in RSS feed, not everyone will subscribe to it. Twitter is a very popular new service that allows you to build your very own social network. You’ll get updates whenever someone in your Twitter circle does something, and as such, they will get updates whenever you do. Adding a Twitter module to your site allows you to reach out to your readers and adds a little more interest to your blog. This is also a very effective way of publicizing new events and building up word of mouth for your site.
Next, there are sites such as Digg.com and Technorati. Both are very popular, but they are not quite similar. Digg.com is more of a democracy, where Technorati uses a different means of indexing and promoting stories. You need to use both to cover both sides of the angle and attract the most readers. Digg.com can be pretty tough to break into and you’ll need to pay special attention to the type of content that does well on the service. For example, top ten lists are generally much more popular than simple posts on a news event. Find a way to incorporate a top ten list that is funny, interesting and related to your site and you’ll be able to do quite well on Digg.
Technorati works a bit differently. You’ll need to sign your site up for the service (it’s free) and then submit your RSS feed. Whenever you publish new content, you’ll need to use what are called “tags.” These are pretty much key words that describe your content. On the main page of technorati, you’ll see what is called a Tag Cloud. The biggest words are the words that are the most popular on the site. If you include these words in your posts, you’ll have a better chance of getting ranked better on the Technorati site. For the best results, set your blog software up to “ping” or notify Technorati whenever you publish new content.
Social networking is meant to be social and this means that you’ll need to reach out to your readers. It is all about building up relationships as well as readership. You can see great results with social networking and it can make a real difference in the popularity of your corporate blog as well as your regular site.
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September 4th, 2008 — RSS Feed, aggregator, networking, search engine, social bookmarking sites
If you are completely new to corporate blogging, it can be pretty confusing to get started with everything. Once you’ve got your blog set up and you’re posting regularly, it’s time to really start promoting it. Here are some easy ways that you can promote your blog and get great results.
1. Learn how to ping.
Pinging is a process where you notify popular blog aggregation services that you’ve updated your blog. Most blog systems today have this feature built in, but you will need to turn it on. Basically, when you post, it will send out a little notification that your content has been updated. This will only work if you’ve got an RSS feed however. Once these services have been notified that you’ve added new content, it will automatically refresh to include your latest post. If you’re utilizing blog directories, this will also post a small snippet of your blog on their main page, where it can be easily discovered.
2. Learn to Digg It.
Digg is one of the easiest ways to promote your new blog, but you will need to spend a little time doing research on the site. No matter what kind of content you publish, there is a way to fine tune it for the Digg audience. Spend a week going through the content in your main area of focus to see which ones are the most popular. Once you’ve got it down, submit your post and wait for other Diggers to start clicking that Digg button. The more people you can get interested in your posts, the higher your chances are of making the Digg homepage, where you can get a lot of traffic.
3. Utilize Search Engines.
Search engines are a great way to get new traffic to your blog and since you’ll be publishing content regularly, you’ll have a better chance of getting your site listed higher in the results. It’s a good idea to focus on popular keywords that will increase your chances of getting noticed. Try to mention these words a few times in your posts, but don’t overdo. Make sure your content is optimized and interesting and you’ll see automatic results from the search engines.
4. Start networking with other bloggers.
If you’ve got a few blogs that you read on a regular basis, start leaving comments with a link back to your site. This is a very easy way to get a lot of publicity for your own blog. Just make sure the comments are interesting and not thinly veiled spam for the best results. If you can start networking with other bloggers, you’ll be able to build up a great audience.
These are just a few ways that you can start promoting your blog without a lot of effort. Remember, the results won’t happen overnight, but with time, you’ll be able to build up a regular audience that will keep returning to your site or subscribing to your feed every day.
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August 25th, 2008 — RSS Feed, aggregator, audience, blog design, platform, post design, statistics
If you are publishing a corporate blog that has an RSS feed, and you should be, it is important to use a service that will allow you to enhance that feed and learn from it. One of the best services out there for this is Feedburner, and it can make a big difference in the way that you publish your content, and what you learn from it. Let’s take a look at just a few of the benefits that using this service can bring your corporate blog.
1. True estimate of readership.
Although your blog may have the ability to track page views, this really is not an accurate estimate of your readership. With Feedburner, you will be able to see how many people are clicking on feed links, which stories they are reading and how many subscribers you have. Tracking data is supplied on a daily basis and there are options to enhance the kind of information that is provided. When you first start your corporate blog, this is a very nice feature to have since it allows you to see if the time you are spending is worth it in terms of how quickly you gain readership.
2. One permanent feed address.
Perhaps the best benefit of using a service like Feedburner is that you get an RSS URL that will never change. Once you pick your Feedburner URL, you can redirect any of your own URL’s to it, so that your readers only have to subscribe to your feed once. If you change blogging platforms, or if you change the RSS feed, this will never actually affect your readers. This is very vital for companies since it is possible to lose hundreds of readers with one feed address change.
3. Gauging what posts work and which ones don’t.
With Feedburner, you will be able to see which particular posts are garnering the most interest. This is data that you can really use. By paying attention to these statistics, you can start publishing information that your readers want to read – and that is how blogs become successful. Sure, you may adore writing about a certain topic, but if your readers aren’t feeling it, you’re wasting your time. Use these stats to help you figure out which direction your blog needs to go in terms of the type of content you are publishing.
4. The software your readers are using.
Most blog readers use an aggregator to deliver their news, and there are many choices out there. Feedburner lets you see which ones your readers are using, and this can be beneficial when it comes to formatting and making sure that your blog is displaying properly. It can also let you know how many readers are actually just going to your website to get the blog and how many are actively using a feed to get there. This is useful information that you can use to shape the way that you publish your blog and the way your blog is designed.
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August 12th, 2008 — RSS Feed, blog design, comments, social bookmarking sites
If you’re ready to get into corporate blogging, you need to make sure that you are going in with the right attitude. There is a big difference between starting an okay blog and starting a stellar blog. You are in this to succeed, so you need to make sure that you are using the right techniques and mindset to accomplish this. Mediocrity is never a good thing, and in blogging, this is particularly true.
In order to make sure that your blog stands out from the competition, attracts readers and gets noticed, there are a few techniques that you can use.
1. Design is very important –a blog that is hard to read will not be read.
It is just that simple. While you need to match your blog’s design to that of your site, you also need to make sure that it can be easily read. This usually means a white overlay for the blog text using a black font. It may be visually boring to the design oriented, but it is easy to read. Less is more when it comes to designing a corporate blog. Make sure your logo is visible and that there is a strong visual link between your site and blog, but always make sure that the text is easy to read.
2. Use the right technology – there are many new tools out there that make blogging even easier.
These include social networking links as well as RSS feeds and management tools. The best blogs use a mix of these tools to help increase readership and get a better idea of how their blogs are doing. Corporate blogs can use these tools as well. You want to make it easy for your readers to enjoy your blog. This means going the extra mile to make sure that you do have an RSS feed, that it is easy for readers to share your posts and that they can easily find everything on your blog.
3. Comments should be encouraged – the whole point of a corporate blog is to shed that stiff corporate image and become personable.
Most blogging applications allow readers to leave comments. You should not turn this feature off. There are a few risks in allowing the general public to leave any sort of comment on your site, but you can head these off at the pass by instituting simple rules and sticking to them. For example, do not allow swearing or defamation in comments and remove any that break the rules. Use a moderation feature that will let you approve comments before they go live to avoid flame wars and embarrassing situations for your company.
These are just three simple ways that you can make your blog truly stellar. For extra help, it is a good idea to work with a company that specializes in managing corporate blogs. They can assist you in the creation of a blog that will be professional, fun and noticeable.
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