Bloghology Launched!

Bloghology is a product of the hard work of Mert Erkal. It is collection of information, profiles and interviews of different bloggers from all around the world. Bloghology introduces you to the real people behind the blogs. Initially, it contains 24 bloggers but the list will grow during the subsequent release every quarter this 2008. So watch for it!

Meanwhile show your support to fellow bloggers and download the 2007 issue.

Find out more about Bloghology at Search for Blogging.

An Online Business Card for Social Networking

I chanced upon EntreCard last week, however, I managed to register and install it in my blog just yesterday. In less than 8 hours, it managed to bring me 24 unique visitor traffic. For some that may not be a huge number but for a simple cut paste of a javascript code in my blog, I can say that was significant. I still need to log into entrecard's website for a deeper "read and understand" visit so I really have not taken any other serious activity with what entrecard has to offer still the initial surge of traffic have impressed me.

From my initial browse, here's a quick look of what EntreCard is all about: "Entrecard is a blossoming social network of bloggers centered around the concept of community, sharing, and helping each other out." It's actually a sort of digitial business card, for networking and promoting your blog (or website maybe) in the EntreCard Community. It even have its own forum where its community can easily interact.

Currently I find it a worthy try and will see how it turns up in a couple of weeks.

Audio Ads: The Next Big Thing!

Personally I think this would be the next best thing after ad sense. Pay Per Play is a non-intrusive marketing method since there are no banner ads cluttering your web space. What it does is it plays a 5 second advertisement every time your web page loads. Your reader does not see anything (i.e., banners, buttons, text-links, etc.). And the good thing is—you get paid every playing of the audio ad, no click through are necessary. This is a nice addition to your blog’s revenue stream. But you need to hurry Pay Per Play runs live February 2008. So if I were you I will waste no time and sign up as an affiliate right now!

Choco Linkies

Got this tag from my wife.

The rule: When you get tagged, you have to add your name below the person who tagged you and by doing so you are letting the list grow. Make sure to copy with the urls to the addresses so anyone can click and visit these sites.

Limadang.com
RamblingMoo.com
blogginginmypyjamas
Chinneeq
Dora-zooropazoo
Babyshern
HiPnCooLMoM
Rachel’s Soulful Thoughts
When Silence Speaks
Dancing in Midlife Tune
Underneath it All
I am Dzoi
Hobbies and Such
moms…..check nyo
Choc Mint Girl
Amel’s Realm
My Thoughts
Rusin Roundup
Juliana’s Site
Max
Rooms of My Heart
Mariuca
A Great Pleasure
MondayMorning
LadyJava’s Lounge
Colin aka Cotojo
NafaSG
Hanna
My Life My World
Mommy’s Gibble Gabbles
Author’s Sweet Life
La Place de Cherie
Chez Francine
Confessions of an Army Wife
Bless Sanctuary
So cute lovely pixels
Just Say These Words
A Book By Accident
Soulful Thoughts of Rachel
Hailey's Bits and Beats
the other side of the monitor

So I am passing this tag to mimi and ahyrheynne

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Bloghology

Recently I met a guy, Mert Erkal, in one blog networking directory, he authors an interesting blog entitled "Search For Blogging." It's quite a blog so I suggest you visit it. Anyways, SFB is launching Blogholgy.

What is Bloghology?

An anthology is a collection of poems, stories, songs, articles, or other literary passages chosen by a compiler. Similar to an anthology, a bloghology is a collection of bloggers, their profiles, photos, and links to their best posts. It is a PDF e-book which can be easily circulated throughout the blogosphere for personal branding and marketing of selected good quality bloggers.

What is the logic behind Bloghology?

Not all bloggers are good at personal branding and marketing. Especially the small bloggers face with a lot of challenges at the very beginning. Most of them stop blogging, because it seems almost impossible to overcome those obstacles, and succeed in the end.

Bloghology will help bloggers on marketing and personal branding by highlighting them and their blogs completely for free.

Know more about it at http://www.searchforblogging.com/

Ok, so why am I blaberring about it?

Well because I get to participate in its maiden release on January 2008.

Cool!

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Back to Basics: SEO Tip #1-- Begin with the End in Mind

I remember reading Stephen Covey's best selling book: "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" If you're also familiar with it, the 2nd habit is Begin with the End in Mind. This holds very true in Search Engine Optimization.

Most web developers or site owners think of SEO only after creating or finishing/launching a website. By then, they would have lost a lot of SEO time and may have to repeat a lot of efforts in the end.

So Tip #1 Begin SEO simultaneously with your website.

It starts with your choice of domain name. Striking a balance with keywords and branding in your domain name is key factor. Although some may say that domain names only have a small factor in search engines algorithm, when those small factors stack up they can be a big thing!

The next one is your web site navigation structure. Some search engines do not crawl two to three levels of a website. So unless you employ some SEO techniques some of your web pages may be left out. The best way to have all your site's pages indexed is to create a site map for your site.

I'll discuss more about site map in my next post.

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Tips to increase your site's pagerank

I am a web developer. I design, develop, code web sites.

My wife…she is a blogger.

Nope she is not a pro-blogger. Not even a techie. But for the past 6 months, she is seriously into blogging.

So when she kept on asking me about SEO, pagerank, driving traffic, etc, I just decided to make a post out of it.

Plain and simple, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is all about the techniques involve in having popular search engines display your site’s URL in the most coveted first pages of its search results page when a user search for a particular keyword.

There are a lot of myths and urban legend on how to effectively employ SEO, but for the beginner (read: my wife), I listed some tips or guidelines taken from the best possible source, Google (Note: for a full and detailed guideline visit Google Webmaster Guidelines):

1. Have other relevant sites link to yours.
2. Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites
3. Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
4. Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
5. Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
6. Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
7. Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
8. Make sure that your TITLE tags and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
9. Check for broken links and correct HTML.
10. If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
11. Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
12. Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."
13. Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
14. Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
15. Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc.
16. Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
17. Don't use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
18. Don't send automated queries to Google.
19. Don't load pages with irrelevant keywords.
20. Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
21. Don't create pages that install viruses, trojans, or other badware.
22. Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
23. If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.
    

Does my business really need a website?

When asked about such question I always answer: of course! Even if your business is not into selling products or services online, having a web site will not hurt. What most people don't realize is that the internet is always available, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 4 weeks a month, get the picture?...it never sleeps!

Taking away online shopping services, let me list down a few features why your business will need one:

1. Provides 24 hours marketing tool. It can act as an online brochure, a catalog, a promotional media for an event or activity. Published it and its always there (Ok..that depends on the reliability of your web host provider). Plan and created properly, your website can reduce cost on your marketing budget. And as they say in business: a penny saved is a penny earned.
   
2. Widen the reach of your market. The internet knows no boundaries. Once its published, your web site can be seen and accessed around the world. Now, who wouldn't like that?
   
3. Promotes modern image of your company or business. A properly designed site can boost your corporate identity. In addition, placing information regarding your business' achievements, awards, or a link to a press release in your site can enhance your image as an industry leader in your field.
   
4. Enhances customer support. Aside from providing contact information, your site can place support information regarding a product or service. This can be an online manual, user guides, etc. It can contain a service bulletin board or forum where other users can interact and provide tips, reviews, etc.
   
5. It can gather contacts and build leads. Your site can also collect information about your visitors. You can ask for their email address or let them subscribe to an online newsletter where you can further market information regarding your products or services.

As you can see, having a web presence can surely benefit your business. However, having one doesn't necessarily translate to business success. You still have to work hard on many aspects to get it done. That's the way it is.

So does YOUR BUSINESS NEED a website?