Netizen

Friday, June 12, 2009

15 Ways To Boost Traffic To Your Blog

Put your blog's address down as your email signature.
Collect names and email addresses of everyone you know. These are people who can recognize your name and face. There are no other requirements. Reconnect with all of them. Send out one liner emails. More than one line and they might miss out on your punch line, the signature.
Become active and popular at Twitter: How To Increase Your Following On Twitter. Anyone can end up with 20,000 followers. Anyone.
Every time you put out a new blog post, promptly feed it to your Twitter stream.
Sometimes feed the same blog post to your Twitter stream twice, with a few hours' gap.
You must give your visitors the option to subscribe to your blog's RSS feed. You must give them the option to subscribe with their email addresses. You can do both for free with Feedburner. That mailing list is key. They say, in the long run, that is the best kind of readership.
Read other blogs. Leave meaningful comments in their comments sections. Link to blog posts by others from your blog posts. That works great if they have the trackback thing. Zemanta makes it easy to link to blog posts by others. I got quite some traffic from the Google Wave Developer Blog that way. I have a feeling this post will get me a lot of valuable trackback traffic: Mashable Did It.
Engage those who leave comments in your comments sections. I recommend Disqus.
Find your passion. Find your niche. You discover your passion as the topic you blog about the most. Your niche is what Google Analytics tells you it is. If you are lucky, there is an overlap.
Once you find your niche, you have to work very hard to occupy it. There should be at least one word, one phrase - not your name - that when you google up, your blog shows up on the very first page. Work at it. You can do it. In the short run most of your traffic will come from the referring sites. But in the long run, if you are meant to be a professional blogger, most of your traffic will come from the search engines. That is why it is very important you discover and occupy your niche. You can have several sub niches, but you need one or two very well defined niches that you occupy.
Find a group or two to belong to in your niche. Do a search on Google Groups. Find one with a large enough membership. You have to be an active member of a virtual community or two of people who share your passion. That will bring you traffic. Some groups I have signed up for: Google Wave API, Wave Protocol, Android Beginners, Android Developers.Of course every message by you is going to carry your signature.
Say hello to Arianna at the Huffington Post. When she puts out a blog post, read it, and say something mesmerizing in the comments section.
Remember, every page hit counts. Just like every cent counts. Google makes its billions in cents, not dollars. You are going to 100,000 visits a month one visit at a time. Every visit counts. Every click counts.
Writing top quality, regular content is the number one thing to do to boost your traffic.
But that alone will not cut it. You have to go out there and network feverishly in your part of the blogosphere. You have to read blog posts by others, engage them in their comments sections. Ending up on other bloggers' blogrolls boosts your blog's PageRank. High rank means more show up in search results means more traffic.

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Digg Button, Twitter Button For Your Blog Posts
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Blog Daily
Where Have You Placed Your Ads?
Sites That Pay You To Blog

Mashable Did It

Image via CrunchBase

Facebook And Mashable: Social Media And Social Media Blog
TechCrunch Now Number Two Tech Blog As Mashable Surges Business Insider

Mashable did it. They rose with the rise of social media. While TechCrunch wanted to cover everything tech, Mashable honed on its niche. It refused to cover everything tech and instead honed on primarily social media. Mashable has aspired to be the bridge between the average person and social media. And they have done the smart thing of selling their own

Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr

ads. When you do that, you can ask for much higher prices.

Congratulations to the team. Pete Cashmore has been ubiquitous on Twitter, more so than Guy Kawasaki. Kawasaki has been more of a lone shark. Pete has zoomed ahead by building a high profile team around him.

People talk of Dell using Twitter as a marketing tool. I think no other brand name has used Twitter to its benefit quite like Mashable. That just might have been their biggest secret weapon, or maybe not so secret.

Mashable rose by demystifying Twitter for the average person. Mashable rose by having a hyper active Twitter stream.

Nobody explains Twitter quite like Mashable.

Mashable: Twitter

Image by nanpalmero via Flickr

10 Twitter Tools to Organize Your Tweeps
Local Tweets: 9 Ways to Find Twitter Users in Your Town
Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I Learned in J School
20 Developers to Follow on Twitter
Top 7 Twitter Tutorials on YouTube
10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter
85 Comedians to Follow on Twitter
Twitter to Facebook: 5 Ways to Post to Both
HOW TO: Create Custom Twitter Backgrounds
Top 5 Ways to Share Videos on Twitter
Nonfiction Tweets: 70+ Authors to Follow on Twitter
HOW TO: Create and Share a Twttrlist of Your Favorite Tweets
HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on Twitter
5 Ways to Share Images on Twitter
25 Twitter Apps to Manage Multiple Accounts
HOW TO: Put Twitter on Every Web Page [Video]

Image by tedmurphy via Flickr

Twitter Sign In Comes to Disqus: Try It NOW on Mashable!
The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter
Tweet Street: 7 Extraordinary Twitter Uses in the Home
5 Impressive Mashups of Twitter and Flickr
HOW TO: Use Twitter for Customer Service
Literary Tweets: 100+ of the Best Authors on Twitter
85+ of the Best Twitterers Designers Should Follow
5 Terrific Twitter Research Tools
29 Twitter Apps for the iPhone Compared
HOW TO: Build Your Thought Capital on Twitter
HOW TO: Find Out What Those Odd Twitter Trends Are About
Beyond #FollowFriday: 24 Daily Twitter Memes
6 Twitter Search Services Compared
Inside the Minds of Twitter Users
5 Ways to Get Your Questions Answered on Twitter
The 7 Ways to Approach Twitter

Image by tedmurphy via Flickr

HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter
13 “Twits” Who Will Change Your Perspective on Reality
Data Visualizations: 5 Beautiful Social Media Videos
10 Most Extraordinary Twitter Updates
HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Status Updates
Head-to-Head: TweetDeck vs Seesmic Desktop
20 Twitter Badges to Show Off Your Tweets
6 Twitter Games To Make Tweeting Fun
26 Charities and Non-Profits on Twitter
6 Unique Twitter Visualizations
HOW TO: Find a Job on Twitter
Pro Cycling on Twitter: 48 People Who Aren’t Lance Armstrong
HOW TO: Organize a Successful Tweetup
Tweetable Art: 10 Twitter Tips for Artists
Twitter Professors: 18 People to Follow for a Real Time Education
HOW TO: Create Groups for Twitter

Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr

5 Ways to Help Twestival Raise $1 Million
HOW TO: Live Inside Twitter and Still Stay Productive
Most Popular Twitter Clients Revealed
Find ‘Em On Twitter: 15 Twitter Directories Compared
20+ Great Twitter Tools for Firefox
40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them
Top FriendFeed Tips for Twitter Users
9 Ways Twitter Can Help in the Real World
HOW TO: Use Twitter on the Go
FOLLOW FAIL: The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter
10 Ways Twitter Will Change Blog Design in 2009
The 10 Users You’ll Meet on Twitter
The Year in Tweets: 10 Most Memorable Twitter Moments of 2008
HOW TO: Win Friends and Twinfluence People
20+ Great Greasemonkey Scripts for Improving Your Twitter Experience
HOW TO: Quiet the Twitter Noise

Image by andysternberg via Flickr

HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community
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Sixteen Great Twitter Moments
25+ Celebrity Twitter Users
Seven Ways to Get Your Mom on Twitter
5 Twitter Tactics for Building a Stellar Brand
7 Twitters Of The World
TWITTER TOOLBOX: 60+ Twitter Tools
Twits to Go: Top 12 Twitter Apps for Your Phone
Miniblogging:8 Pownce Rivals Compared
Jaiku Rocks! 19 Cool Jaiku Tools
8 Awesome Firefox Plugins for Twitter

Mashable Mega List

Mashable Most Popular

New York Times, Don't Die, Live

I find this "coverage" ironic because I am deep into Web 2.0, a big believer, and NYT is one of my favorite news destinations online. NYT need not, should not die. It just needs to go completely online. Put all your archives online. Cover news to be published immediately. 100% ad model. Encourage others to link to your articles. Dominate the search engine results. Go multi-media. Get the top, lone, super niche bloggers to contribute on a per post, for pay basis. Even more important, have thriving comments sections. Readers don't want to just read.

Image via CrunchBase

Stop calling them readers. That is so yesterday. Call them consumers cum contributors. Become a megasite that is megainteractive. Appoint a CTO. Don't die. Reinvent yourself. News is more important than ever in this new age. But the old medium has become indefensible. Face the reality and live, thrive. Go for the global, real time audience. Visitors, they are visitors. They are not readers. The paper version has to die for the brand to live and thrive. Life for the NYT will be so much simpler if there was no paper involved whatsoever. Do all business online. 100% online, 100% global, 100% real time.

All Books Need To Go Digital

How To Become A Professional Blogger

Create A Blog

Get a blog for free at Blogger. Some people also use WordPress and quite like it. Think of Disqus and Zemanta as part of the blog creation process. You don't get extra points for those, and both are free. The same applies to Google Analytics. There is no excuse not to have it.

Blog Daily

Unless you can create good, original, regular content, you are not a blogger. Go do something else. Or blog as a hobby. Do not try to pass for a professional blogger. Maybe you have a day job.

Traffic Is Key

All revenue you generate from your blog is in direct proportion to your blog's traffic. It is almost certain you will not start with a huge traffic for your blog unless you are Oprah, and that is okay. It is not where you start, it is where you end up.

Content Creation

There is the stuff you write.
There are photos you post.
There are images - say from Zemanta - and videos - say from YouTube - that you integrate into your blog posts.
There are websites and news articles you link to.

A blogger is a writer, but also an editor. Links are not sly, they are integral to your blog posts. The stuff you write has to be the center of what you do, but stuff you write can't be the only thing you present.

Boosting Traffic

Referring Sites
Direct Traffic
Search Engines

Mark Penn, Hillary 2008 campaign manager, says in his famous Wall Street Journal article that at 100,000 unique visits per month, a blogger hits 75K in income. There is a suggestion that there is a direct correlation between how much traffic you get and how much you make as a blogger.

That comes to about 3,300 uniques per day. You might start out at 50 a day. You have to set goals. How about 200 per day? How about 300? 500? How about 1,000 uniques per day? It is very hard to move from 50 to 300. It is like a rocket taking off. A lot of fuel gets burnt during phase one. You can't give up along the way. Trying to get to 500 uniques per day is also where a lot of the learning takes place. So think of that early stage as the education part, not the income part. The money comes later, when you go up in page hits.

Seek Out Revenue Sources

You can get all the traffic in the world and still not have monetized your blog. In that case, you don't make any money. Monetization is key, it is conscious effort. And this talk should have been part of the first paragraph. Here are a few sources, there are several other good ones.

There is a reason why several of them require that you have been blogging for a while. If your blog has been up less than three months, stick to the dollars and cents from Google AdSense, mostly cents.

By the way, just yesterday I made about $13 each from each of these blog post ads, I worked about five minutes on each.

How To Blog Daily

What is your primary passion in life? That should be the primary passion at your blog. If you are lucky, that will also end up being your blog's niche in the market. What is your niche? Google Analytics will help you determine that. What keywords do people use at the search engines to end up at your blog? Which of your blog posts have received the most traffic? Which referring sites have generated the most traffic for you?

50% of your blog posts should be about your passion/niche. 25% can be about anything and everything that you might fancy. That is how you end up with tech bloggers waxing eloquent about politics, in the same breath. 25% can be about you and can read like journal entries. Does it have to be 50-25-25? Not really. 53-26-21 would be fine too. I am just suggesting. 60-20-20 might be better, 70-15-15 might be better still.

Every time you get a blog post idea, write it down. Better still, start a blog post, write down the idea in the subject line like you are about to write a full blog post, and save it as a draft for later.

Do You Have To Blog Daily

Not really. You could put out two great blog posts per week and still do fine. There are some successful bloggers who do that. But guess what they do for many other hours? They visit other great blogs, read their posts, participate in their comments sections, make friends, network in their part of the blogosphere.

But if your goal is to become a full time professional blogger, blogging daily is not the goal, that is the minimum. Eventually you are going to have to blog several times a day. So how often you blog depends on what you want out of the blogging experience.

More On Boosting Traffic

Creating great content, boosting traffic, and seeking out revenue sources are topics you will keep learning about for as long as you keep blogging. Those are the fundamentals. At each new traffic level, your perspective changes slightly.

Starting out you have to try out anything and everything. You have to experiment a lot to find out what is right for you, what works for you.

Blogging is not for everybody, but it is for many people. I happen to think it can be a wonderful secondary career. I think of it this way. Blogging is a fundamental skill for the knowledge worker. So if you think of it as a secondary career, you are more likely to keep polishing your blogging skills, which would be a great thing for your primary career. And if you are the entrepreneur type, you better believe it that every cent counts. Google makes its billions in cents not dollars.

Netizen Is No Spam Blog
Best Way To Increase Traffic To Your Blog
Google: Tweet Me Baby One More Time
Taking The Number 2 Spot On Google Search For Donut Android
Hitting Number 4 For Google Search Results on Cupcake Android
The Big Money Is Not In Blogging
Google Analytics Says I Am Paul Krugman Friend, Cupcake Android Expert
What Does Your Resume Look Like Today?
Content Is Queen, Marketing Is Princess
Content Is Queen
Blogging: Monkey Business?
Blogging = Learning + Teaching + Churning + Entertaining
Spamming Om Malik

Digg Button, Twitter Button For Your Blog Posts
Blogging Several Times A Day
Blogging Tips
A Blogger Is Also An Editor
Blog Daily
Where Have You Placed Your Ads?
Sites That Pay You To Blog

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Google Wave: Organizations Will Go Topsy Turvy

Preamble

The Google Wave team, or at least those who look after the official Google Wave Developer Blog and The Official Google Blog have been nice to me, they have been nice to my blog. They have given my blog posts on Google Wave special status. I am honored. But more than honored, I am excited. I am so excited I feel like I could be putting out blog posts on Google Wave daily. Right before that Google got me excited with Android, with the donut talk. And now I am thinking, between Google Wave and Android, Google might just have taken over this blog for the rest of this year, because I can't imagine bigger topics in tech for the rest of this year than Google Wave and Android. Bring it on.

Taking The Number 2 Spot On Google Search For Donut Android
Hitting Number 4 For Google Search Results on Cupcake Android

Now I just need one of the Googlers on either the Wave or the Android teams to walk over to the Google Ventures people and put in word for me that they need to go ahead and buy 2% of my company for 100K: Google's Newest Venture: Google Ventures.

Reader Response

One reader wrote in one of my comments sections saying I came to your blog thinking you will throw some light on Google Wave's architecture, but I did not find anything. I guess so far I have been more interested in the implications of the Google Wave architecture rather than the architecture itself. But soon enough I will get around to the actual architecture, the technology of it. But for now let me have one more go at the implications. What will it mean to have Google Wave?

Organizations Will Go Topsy Turvy

You will not be able to prevent your workers, your team members from using Google Wave, it is not like you will be able to say, sorry, it's not in the budget, maybe next year. There will be bigger lines - virtually speaking - forming for Google Wave than ever did for the iPhone or the iPod. Just wait until we get nearer to the release date.

The product will be free. The product will be mind-blowing. Organizations that resist will be blown out of the water.

But email did not kill organizations. Wave will not kill organizations, quite the opposite. Wave will breathe new life into organizations. Collaboration will take a whole new meaning, a meaning that collaboration never had before. And that is a good thing.

All I am saying is this: resistance is futile.

Google Wave: Enormous Buzz
Possible Google Wave Applications And Innovations
Google Wave Architecture: Designed For Mass, Massive, Global Innovation
The Google Wave Architecture
Google Wave Ripples
Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter?
Of Waves And Tsunamis
Google Wave: Wave Of The Future?
Google Wave: If Email Were Invented Today

From The Google Blogs

The Making of the Sudoku Gadget
Google Wave API Office Hours
Google Wave team heads to Google Developer Days in Asia
Introducing the Google Wave APIs: what can you build?
Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.

Get creative with the Google Chrome icon
Join the Google Chrome icon project
Google Mobile App for BlackBerry goes Indian
Back from Google I/O
Zemanta helps you "blog smarter"
Google Fusion Tables
Labeling in Gmail for Android, iPhone browsers
Introducing Google Quick Search Box
Books Are Full of Visual Gems: Outer Space edition!
Use Microsoft Outlook with Google Apps for email, contacts, and calendar
Sojourning at SouthEast LinuxFest

HDA’s Home Plan Magazine, DesignAmerica Redesigned

DesignAmerica is your home design magazine, your home improvement magazine. And it has been redesigned. Now you can have fresher perspectives on home plans, luxury home plans, cottage home plans, and more.

Which home plan is right for you? Join the conversation. Estimate the costs. Act smart. Make a selection.

But get the magazine first: DesignAmerica. For the best selling home plans.

Jumpstart On Summer At Breezes Curaçao

Breezes will take you to the Caribbean this summer: all inclusive vacations, all inclusive resorts, Caribbean vacation.

Has it been a rough year for you? Is it time to take a break? How about some change in scenery?

Are you ready for some summer fun? Think Breezes. Think all inclusive vacations, all inclusive resorts.

Think of a Caribbean vacation.This summer. Take a break.

Online Savings Calculator

Phase2 is about subscribing to the latest in business software and Phase2 thinks it is time for the summer savings. Don't pay all the money on day one, instead pay per employee per month. That might be more manageable. Phase2 brings you up to 80% in savings with Phase2 SaaS, Software as a Service.

Think of software not as a product you buy but a service that you pay for as you use it. Take a look: visual studio team foundation server, project server hosting, team foundation server workgroup.

Cut through the vendor spin. Get to the point. Get going. Cut costs. Increase efficiency. There is a reason SaaS - Software as a Service - is one of the fastest growing segments in the Information Technology industry. It works. It makes sense.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Scrubs & Beyond Offers Latest Styles In Their Print Scrub Tops

Scrubs & Beyond has been making waves in the medical scrubs industry.

Take your pick: print scrub jackets, print scrub tops, landau medical scrubs.

To your left see the U shaped neckline, and the inset pocket.

Some of the top brands offered: Koi Nursing, Cherokee, Landau, Urbane.

The customer service is great. There is free shipping on orders of $125 and more. You can call, or you can interact via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.

Shopping at Scrubs & Beyond is a social experience.

Modify365

Modify365 is a Loan Modifications site.

Do you find yourself in an impossible situation? In the current topsy turvy real estate market, many people do. You do not have to lose sleep over your impossible adjustable rate mortgage. Help is on the way.

A lender would rather renegotiate than face foreclosure after foreclosure after foreclosure. But you have to get into the conversation the right way. That is where Modify365 comes into the picture.Don't feel lonely. Seek help.

Song Tagging, HD Radio

Song tagging is considered the next big thing in radio. How would you like to purchase that great song you just heard on the radio? That is what song tagging is all about.

Songs you hear on the radio you can now have for your ipod! Tune into your local radio stations and get tagging. HDRadio.com has the most comprehensive search engine for digital radio stations in America. It is time for static-free, crystal-clear music. It is your time.

Jensen JiMS 525i is a deal: get it. Some of the features as listed at the site:

Compact Desk System with iPod dock with iTunes Tagging
Clock with dual alarms
IR Remote
Inputs: AUX
Outputs: S-Video
2 speakers
Multi-line monochrome back-lit LCD Display
30 Presets (20 FM / 10 AM)

Radio is now sizzling. It is your turn to tune in. Are you up for the experience? HD Radio: iTunes Tagging. Is that you?

AMS Fulfillment

AMS Fulfillment does warehousing, inventory management, and fulfillment services: product fulfillment, order fulfillment.

Advantage Media Services (AMS) takes care of it for you. It stands out by offering OnGuard Inventory Protection™. AMS takes care of your inventory, and you track it all from your desktop. That easy. AMS does B2B as well as B2C.

You can depend on its reputation. Let AMS take care of your inventory so you can focus on your core business processes.

Many Benefits of Hughes Net Internet

HughesNet Internet is the leading satellite internet service provider. It delivers high speed broadband across America.

The importance of broadband in this day and age can not be exaggerated. Broadband is as basic as electricity today, for work, for pleasure, for life activities. With the satellite option, the rural urban divide goes out the window. Hughes Net Internet is available anywhere in the continental US. The price is affordable.

Dial up just does not cut it these days. If you don't have broadband speed, you are missing out. On productivity, on pleasure. You need Hughes Internet. Satellite Internet fills in where cable internet is not an option.

HughesNet gives you broadband, and it comes with all the basic services like virus and spam protection, your own email address, a customized homepage.

Pages

Friday, June 12, 2009

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Wednesday, June 10, 2009