Archive for August, 2009
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, August 21st, 2009
Like any website, it is important to position your site and optimize it accordingly so that your target audience are more likely to find you. Here are some rudimentary tips that will help you do this.
- When registering or submitting your details always double check the spelling, make sure your name and company details are right and that there are no typos- especially with the URL.
- Dont try to register with every single search engine out there. Cherry pick the most popular or the most applicable to the message you are trying to spread. Ask yourself what search engines your audience is most likely to use and focus on those.
- Remember to let the engines know when your blog is updated. Ping regularly so that the search engine picks up any changes. Many of the engines let you set this up automatically by simply entering a couple of lines of code into your blog set up.
- Be aware of your blog content – you will likely get a knock back if you use explicit language or images.
- Some of the blog search engines only track established blogs so you should get a few articles under your belt prior to submitting.
- Remember to link back to other pertinent blogs and articles and encourage comments from your audience – the more links and traffic your site has, the better its standing will be.
- Dont pay for inclusion – there are enough good blog search engines out there that do this for free.
- Remember to tag your blogs – assign each a category so that interested parties can easily find your stuff.
- Spam – if the blog engines get wind that your blog is simply spam then you may not get listed.
- Dont forget to register your blog with the traditional search engines too.
This list is by no means conclusive but should get you off to a good start with optimising your blog. If you have suggestions, please share them.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, August 11th, 2009
When you subscribe to a blog or podcast or populate a portal like iGoogle the technology that brings the information to you is called RSS. Its a way of publishing information easily so as to make it available to subscribers in a central on-line repository.
Why take advantage of RSS? There are many reasons:
- Pull rather than push – articles come to users rather than them having to hunt them down;
- Subscribers get the latest and greatest information as its posted;
- An RSS link encourages traffic to your site;
- Users can have a bunch of sources of info in one place – much like a newspaper;
- RSS can be used internally to disseminate info too.
How to set up an RSS feed?
- First get your site set up to support RSS by adding a few short lines of code.
- Place code on your site that the RSS feed readers can find your info.
- Publicise your feed by telling the world and everyone you know in it at every opportunity.
- Add the RSS feed button to your site so visitors know you the can easily subscribe. Feedburner has widgets to support this on their site.
- Submit your feed to syndicators and search engines to make it easier for your audience to find you.
Once thats done, your good to start publishing your own data feed over the web.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, August 07th, 2009
Another Being Five Friday Funny. Bored? – upload some Facebook pics why don’t you!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, August 06th, 2009
It looks like Twitter has been the victim of a hacker this morning as the service is well and truly down – as are most third party add on tools that integrate to Twitter.
Here’s what you can do to fill the time until you get your Tweets back:
1. Work – no excuses no distractions, get on with your work and you will be amazed at what you can achieve without Twitter to distract you.
2. Use an alternative – Facebook and Friendfeed are both working for now so try them out.
3. Update your security – if it can happen to Twitter it can happen to anyone.
4. Look up “Denial of Service” on Wikipedia
5. Call someone up and have a real world chat or even better go and talk to a real person (one you can touch!).
6. Check out Twitter’s blog which is still up and running for up to the hour updates.
7. Try something new instead – like Identi.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, August 05th, 2009
Here are some guidelines to bear in mind when you are writing your corporate blog:
1. Keep entries to one page or less – a blog entry should be short and to the point.
2. Blogs are intended as on-line logs or journals and are more informal than other marketing mediums so write accordingly.
3. Use simple terms – dont include jargon or abbreviations unless you are sure your audience will understand otherwise it will simply put them off.
4. Dont use your blog as a forum to attempt to promote or sell – its not appropriate.
5. It is generally accepted in the blogosphere that you can quote from another blog as long as you state your source and link back to it.
6. Remember to add value. Think about who your intended audience is and write posts that are informative – share useful links to cool sites and on-line services.
7. Emoticons may be okay for a personal blog but in a corporate one they look unprofessional. Unless your target audience is the under 20 consumer crowd then its best to avoid using emoticons at all.
8. Its good to include video clips, images and podcasts.
9. Dont use fonts that are too large or hard to read and be sparing with capitals (no need to yell!).
10. When you include links to other web pages, always remember to check that your links work before publishing your blog article (theres nothing worse than clicking on a link in anticipation only to find that it doesnt link take you where its supposed to).
