Blog Dictionary

About PageThe page that tells readers what a particular blog is about, in a nutshell. It may include the author(s) bio and background, additional sites they contribute to, and any other important or interesting details.

Aggregators Also known as a feed reader, an aggregator combines syndicated web content into one location for easy viewing and reduced web-surfing time.

Ajax A web development technique used for creating interactive web applications,
Ajax is fundamental to the rise of social media and Web 2.0.

Algorithm The list of well-defined instructions that a search engine uses to accomplish a search and answer a query.

Archives On a blog the listing of past posts organized chronologically (usually by month), possibly divided into categories.

Blog/Weblog - A website where entries are posted in reverse chronological order (e.g. the most recent ones at the top) that provides commentary on a given topic or niche, along with personal details about the blogger(s). Blogging has combined the concept of a personal web page with tools like blogrolls, permalinks, and trackbacks that make blogging an incredibly interactive, community-driven form of media. Blog is also used as a verb - the act of writing a blog.

Blog Carnival A collection, or round-up of links to blog posts written on a particular topic. Bloggers host them and participate in them as a method of drawing traffic to their own blogs and to discover new blogs in their niche.

Blogger - Either an individual who blogs or Google’s free blogging platform, www.blogger.com.

Blogosphere - The entire online community of blogs and bloggers can be referred to as the blogosphere.

Blogroll - A list of other blogs that a blogger enjoys, reads regularly, and wants to recommend to their readers. Usually the blogroll include blogs in the same niche, and can be divided into categories in order to properly classify the different links.

Bookmarks Web page locations that are easily stored, organized, and retrieved. You can bookmark a site with your web browser (the Favorites list in Internet Explorer, for instance), or you can use a social bookmarking site to share your favorites with other users.

Broken Link When the URL of a hyperlink hasnt been entered correctly or when a site, page, or other content has been moved the link will not connect the reader and thus has literally been broken.

Categories The titles, or tags, that a blogger has chosen to organize their content with. A well-chosen and defined system of categories can help with SEO and with the overall user experience of a site.

Comments - Where readers can respond to your individual posts and interact amongst themselves - the ability for readers to comment is an important part of any blog. Comments are often valuable source of content ideas for your blog and as a promotional tool (comment on other blogs in your niche to get your name out there).

Contact Page A very simple but essential page that allows readers of your blog to email you directly and privately, without leaving a comment.

CSS CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, and it is used by the creators and readers of web pages to define the color, font, layout, and other presentation aspects of web pages. The theme of a blog is typically CSS based, so users can make changes to the theme without changing, moving, or losing their entire blog.

Deep Linking - Linking to specific posts and content as opposed to the main page of a site; when you deep link on your own blog, it encourages readers to stick around check out more of your content, as well works as a kind of blogging shorthand - if you’ve already covered a topic, you can just link to your previous post.

Del.icio.us. A social bookmarking service that allows users to tag favorite sites and articles with descriptive keywords, discover new content, and share their favorites with other users. del.icio.us

Digg A community based popularity website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication. Users submit content and stories find their way to the front page (or not) through a democratic user-based ranking system. www.digg.com

Directories A site that specializes in linking to other sites and organizing those links into categories according to niche and subject matter. Directory owners usually allow bloggers and webmasters to submit their site for inclusion and have human editors review the site for relevancy.

Facebook One of the many social networking websites, Facebook was originally confined to users with college or university email addresses, it is now open to anyone and is currently one of the fastest growing social networking sites. www.facebook.com

Feeds A feed is a data format that allows readers access to constantly updated content; a blogs feed is syndicated through RSS (Really Simple Syndication), allowing users to subscribe to it and view it through aggregators like Google Reader and Bloglines.

Flash Flash is the term generally used to reference the Adobe Flash Player, which allows bloggers and website owners to create sites with interactive and animated aspects, such as banners, games, and video clips.

Flickr A searchable social image sharing site that allows users to tag pictures with specific keywords and descriptive terms. www.flickr.com

Folksonomy A user generated taxonomy (a classification system) designed to categorize and tag web content. Sites like Del.icio.us and Flickr fall into the folksonomy category, because their users have developed a shared, familiar vocabulary to use when classifying articles, images, and other web-based information.

Forums - A web application for holding discussions (typically organized into threads) and posting user generated content. Also referring to as message boards, discussion boards, bulletin boards, or discussion groups.

Hits The amount of traffic a site generates can be referred to as the number of hits; unique hits refer to new visitors.

HTML HTML stands for “hypertext mark-up language, and it is the predominant language used for the creation of web pages. It defines the appearance of a website and denotes the placement of titles, text, images, and other objects. Thanks to the ease of use of the current blogging platforms, it’s not necessary to know HTML in order to create a blog.

Hyperlinks - Generally described simply as a “link”, a hyperlink is a navigation element of a website that takes the reader to another site (or section of the original site) with the click of their mouse. Typically, bloggers will use

Hypertext - This term refers to text on a website that leads the viewer to other related information when the reader clicks on it or hovers over it with their mouse. Hypertext makes the dynamic organization of information possible through a system of links and connections. Bloggers tend to use hypertext in the form of links or bubbles, such as Wordpress’s Snap Preview.

Incoming Links Links that generate traffic towards your blog, these can either link viewers to the main, or they can be deep links to specific posts.

Images Basically anything used to illustrate a website, ranging from photos, logos, and graphics.

Javascript A website scripting language that is designed to be executed client-side, or to change dynamically based on user input, time of day, or other variables.

Keywords The key search terms and phrases that define a website or blog. From an SEO point of view, these are the terms that bloggers and webmasters want to use liberally in titles, headings, tags, and text.

Keyword Density The amount of keywords placed on any given page the higher the better in terms of SEO, but one must also consider the human readers as well.

Landing Page The specific page that a visitor reaches after clicking on a link, for a blogger, it typically your blog main page.

Link Popularity A measure of both quantity and quality of other websites that link to a specific site.

Link Baiting Any content or feature within a website that somehow entices other bloggers and webmasters to link to it. Attempts to catch people’s attention through link baiting is considered an important SEO technique, and it can be an extremely powerful form of marketing due to its viral nature.

Link Building The process of gathering lots of incoming links and traffic through SEO, link baiting, and simply creating compelling content. It tends to be a slow and steady process versus a viral one.

Long Tail - A term coined by Chris Anderson (The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, 2006) used to describe certain business models, like Amazon or Netflix, that offer tons of different of obscure, niche items because the total units sold of those low popularity items exceeds that of high popularity items. Thanks to the growth of the web, the long tail, or catering to niche markets, has become a viable business strategy. The actual phrase “long tail” is a reference to the tail end of a demand curve.

Main Page The home or front page of your blog, where the most recent posts are typically located, along with other important data like blogrolls and links to the About and Contact Pages.

Mashup A website or application hybrid that combines content from more than one source, such as Google Maps and Flickr.

Meme - In regard to blogging, a meme is a bit of viral internet phenomena (like the macrocats and Chuck Norris facts) that becomes extremely popular (sometimes for a short time, but stickier memes can last for a while) due to the ease of self-publishing and information dissemination on the web.

Microblog - Using services like Twitter to post short but constant updates on a blog.

MoBlog A mobile blog, or a blog written on the go primarily from a mobile device such as a cell phone or Blackberry.

Myspace A social networking website that allows users to post images, personal profiles, blogs, music, and videos, as well as form networks with each other that span the globe. www.myspace.com

MyTypes The key to you eSuccess, a free blogging platform with built in SEO Tools

Netiquette A catchall term for the conventions of politeness and the unwritten code of conduct that good “netizens” follow, e.g. no trolling or spamming other blogs and always linking back to sites that you quote from.

No Follow Links Links that do not influence a site (the link targets ranking in a search engine”s index. No follow is an HTML attribute that does not block content (readers can still access the targeted site by clicking on the link), but it prevents spamming and spamdexing.

Organic Links Also called natural links, these links occur indirectly when a blog has good, compelling content that catches the attention of and proves beneficial to a variety of readers. Outgoing Links Links that send readers to other blogs or websites. It’s important to have some outgoing links to other resources on your blog. Pages - Like a blog post, but pages live outside the rest of the blog’s chronology and can be hierarchal; they are usually listed in the header or sidebar of a blog.

PageRank Google’s link analysis algorithm that assigns a weight to each indexed site on the web.

Permalinks A URL that points to a specific blog entry even after that entry has moved from the front page to the blog’s archives.

Photoblog A blog with content that is primarily photographs and other images.

Ping A alert on a blog’s track back system that notifies the original blogger when someone has linked to a particular post.

Platform The framework of software that blogs, websites and other web applications are built upon and run from, examples include Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, and of course, Mytypes.

Plug-ins An extension or add-on to a program that interacts with the host to perform (typically very specific) function on demand. Many new plug-ins, add-ons, or extensions are developed for blogging platforms.

Podcast A digital media file, or series of files, residing at a unique web feed address and distributed over the internet for playback on portable media players or computers. The term is a combination of “broadcast and “pod” referring to a container of some sort or the ubiquitous Apple Ipod.

Posts - An entry in a blog, usually listed in chronological order. The content and the basis of your blog.

Profile Similar to the About Page but less customizable, your profile on a blog or social networking site includes basic information and statistics about the user, along with some personal details and usually, a picture or two.

Reciprocal Linking When you agree to link to another blog or website as long as they link back to yours. It can be a good way to build traffic, but repeatedly spamming another blogger for a link is considered poor netiquette.

RedditAnother social bookmarking site that allows users to post links to web content, and other users can vote the content up or down in the rankings. The site also has discussion areas where users can share comments. www.reddit.com

RSS RSS is used to refer to “really simple syndication, and that is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, breaking news headlines, or podcasts.

Search Engines An information retrieval system designed to locate information on a computer system such as the World Wide Web; search engines operate algorithmically or by a combination of algorithmic and human input. Google is currently the most popular search engine, with Yahoo and MSN also possessing significant market shares.

Search Engine Optimization/SEO The process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to websites via natural (organic or algorithmic) search results. Generally, the more highly a site ranks in a search engine’s results, the more searchers will visit that site.

SERPs - Search engine result pages, or the response you get when you type a query into google, yahoo, and other search engines.

Sidebars The columns on the sides of a blog (apart from the main text, which is typically centered) that normally contain a blogroll, links to the archives, a list of categories, and any widgets that the blogger has chosen to add.

Site Map A basic outline of a website or blog that allows readers to find their desired information quickly.

Social Media Sites and services that allow users to share, bookmark, and tag web content, such as Digg, Stumble Upon, and Del.icio.us.

Social Bookmarking A way for users to classify and share links to sites that they find helpful, entertaining, or otherwise compelling on social media sites such as Reddit, Digg, and others.

Social Networking On the web, a community of people who post profiles, and share interests and activities, connect with each other, and otherwise generate content and form network.

Spam Broadly defined as the use of electronic messaging systems to indiscrimately send bulk messages, bloggers can be affected by spam in their comments section. Spamming is considered annoying and widely reviled in the blogosphere.

Spam Filter A system designed to block out comment spam; email services tend to have spam as well as blogging platforms.

Spamdexing The attempt to manipulate a site’s rank in search engine indexes in manner inconsistent with the purpose of the indexing system, e.g. using hidden links and keyword stuffing (placing tons of keywords on a site with little to no actual content).

Stumble Upon A web browser plug-in that allows users to discover and rate web content, videos, and images, and to “stumble upon new ones based on previous rankings and ratings by friends and users with similar interests. www.stumbleupon.com

Tags Also known as a metadata tags, these are the relevant keywords or terms assigned to a piece of information (examples include articles, blog posts, images, and video clips), describing the item and allowing for keyword based classification.

Tag Cloud A weighted visual depiction of the content tags used on a given website or blog; more frequently used tags are displayed in a larger font or bold text. Social media sites such as Flickr, Technorati, and Del.icio.us all employ tag clouds.

Technorati - A search engine dedicated solely to indexing blogs, Technorati tracks the state of the blogosphere, ranks blogs according to popularity, and lets bloggers see who is linking to them.

Themes In the blogging community, your theme is the skin, or appearance of your blog (a theme is CSS based and easy to change without altering or losing your content).

Time Stamps The stamp at the top or bottom of the post that shows the date and/or time of day that entry was posted.

Titles - The title or headline of each post, these are important because search engines index according to title and so readers know what they are getting when they click on an incoming link.

Trackbacks An acknowledgement of a linkback, which is a notification method for bloggers and webmasters that lets them know when someone links to one of their articles. Some blogging platforms, including Wordpress and Mytypes, automatically allow for and support trackbacks.

Trolling An internet troll is someone who purposely posts derogatory or inflammatory comments or messages in order to invoke a response; trolling is clearly not considered polite behavior.

Twitter - A social networking and microblogging service that allows users to post short updates (text-based posts up to 140 characters long) through SMS text messaging, email, or the twitter website (www.twitter.com).

URL Technically, this term means “Uniform Resource Locator, but for a blogger’s purposes, the URL is whatever shows up in your browser’s address bar. For example, the URL of Create Compelling Content is http://www.mytypes.com/jacqueline/. I is important to enter the correct URL when you’re linking to another site or section of your blog, or the reader will encounter a broken link.

User Generated Content Any kind of web content created by the end user, from blog posts to video clips; also known as consumer generated media. User generated content is a central component and key aspect of Web 2.0.

Viral Content/Marketing Technically, viral marketing refers to using pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand or product awareness; web content can go viral due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to links on popular blogs or as a result of a positive reception on social media sites.

Web 2.0 This term is typically used to describe the “next generation of the world wide web, characterized by the social media networks, user generated content, and the rise of the internet as an interactive platform and community.

Web Browser A software application that enables the user to surf the web, e.g. Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox.

Widget A portable chunk of code that can be embedded, installed, and executed in an HTML based web page by an end user through the placement of the small snippet of code within a blog or web page’s template.

Wiki - a web application designed to allow multiple authors to add, remove, and edit content, allowing for collaborative authorship, sometimes on a grand scale. Wikipedia, the massive online encyclopedia, is probably the most famous example of a wiki.

Wordpress Another popular blog publishing platform. www.wordpress.com

YouTube A popular video sharing website where users can upload, view, rate, comment on, and share video clips. www.youtube.com

BooBox - Affiliate Commissions for Bloggers

Boo-Box is a new affiliate e-commerce program which allows bloggers to earn commissions by featuring a widget with products that are related to their specific post. How does this work?

Say you were writing about a pair of Nike track shoes that you really like or want to buy. After writing the post, insert an image of the shoe and tag it with specific keywords such as ‘Nike’ or ‘track shoes’.

The image will then become clickable, with a image overlay that allows readers to instantly purchase the product without leaving the page. You’ll of course earn a commission for any sales made through your boobox.

There doesn’t seem to be any country-specific restrictions because boobox operates by choosing an e-commerce store that is most geographically appropriate for your blog and audience. Best way to really understand how this works is to try a demo version at their website.

Screenshot. (From Go2Web2)

Affiliate Blogging and The Art of Slow Cooking

Blogs grow over time and their accumulated content is a gold-mine for search engines and the targeted traffic they bring. While contextual Ad networks like Adsense are effective, passive ways of earning money from a blog, I think affiliate programs are superior in many aspects, particularly in terms of long-term profit.

Here are some reasons why.

• Higher earning potential - doesn’t only depend on ad impressions and clicks
• Better integration with a blog’s niche/content- No matter how you blend contextual ads, they won’t fit in completely.
• Earnings do not entirely depend on a blog’s popularity, Page Rank or number of readers
• Variety - There are a large range of products to suit every website niche.

Organic Blogs and Affiliate Marketing

In a recent post, Shoemoney offers an answer to the question of how to choose a CPA affiliate:

My approach is to build organic traffic to a niche and test different affiliates. Then when I find something that works I will put a lot of PPC money behind it. This is not the popular way to do it though because a lot of people will not put in the time and effort that it takes to build a organic site that will stand the test of time (not spammed to crap) and they want overnight millions. it just is not so.

Some background information. CPA affiliates or Cost-Per-Action affiliates refer to ad networks, retailers or companies that will pay you commission for every visitor you refer to their website, who fulfills a specific action such as subscribing to a newsletter or opening a new account. The more popular CPA affiliates include loan consolidation services and cellphone providers but are not limited to these categories.

When we relate Shoemoney’s advice to the area of blogs, this does suggest that real blogs with search-engine friendly content can be a effective long-term way to promote specific affiliate programs. I think the emphasis on an organic site (one that receives most of its traffic from search engines) is accurate because such a site continues to receive highly targeted traffic over time and doesn’t solely depend on ad campaigns for traffic.

You can only milk so much out of a static squeeze page. Once a consumer has seen and dismissed it, there’s very little chance of them making a repeat visit. On the other hand, blogs can offer a variety of updated information and are a persuasive means that will eventually convert doubtful consumers into willing referrals.

Blogs are like slow-cookers. They work by gradually cajoling a visitor into action, while seeking to diffuse all misconceptions or hesitation surrounding a specific product. Blogs can also be persistent in a non-intrusive way. One page ads hammer the consumer with benefits and testimonials while the well developed blog makes friends with the consumer, saying “Here’s all I know about the product. Let me know if you need more help.”

Some thoughts on the Ideal Affiliate Blog

• The blog should use unique content as much as possible. Good for both search engines and readers.
• The blog must have a very strong niche that relates to the affiliate program in question.
• The blog must provide easy access to information that is perceived as authentic or even ‘objective’
• The blog should not run too many ads. Consumers tend to see over-monetization as profit > value.
• The blog must be up-to-date on the trends surrounding the niche. Outdated news doesn’t reflect well.
• The blog should practice invisibility. The consumer should not know that you are doing affiliate marketing, i.e. getting a cut of the product sold. Debatable.
• The blog should evolve seamlessly to include other product or market trends.
• The blog should have a personality and opinion. In the end, it’s a person-to-person recommendation that does the trick.

The Secret to Building a Popular Blog

Breaking into a niche and accumulating critical mass quickly for your blog is not an easy task. While popular blogs in your niche have established brands, it is possible to ’steal’ their mindshare and build a strong readership of your own.

The success of a blog often depends on its audience size. When many people read your blog regularly, your content will potentially be circulated widely, which grows your site faster.

So what’s the secret to building a large blog readership? Content dissemination and the development of a supportive core audience. And that’s really the key. It’s not just about the quality of your content. It’s about having broad distribution channels.

Once again, readership growth doesn’t only depend on the merit of your blog posts, but rather their circulation reach. It’s about how much attention your content receives.

The value of content is subjective and much of its eventual impact actually depends on distribution more than anything. Top quality link bait will be impotent if only three people get to see it. On the other hand, a mediocre article can become massively popular if 100 bloggers see and write about it.

The same scenario occurs even when you hold content quality to be equal. Here’s an example: An Associated Press news story on Yahoo News hits the Digg frontpage and receives many citation links from many bloggers.

The exact same AP story can be found on sites like Google News or the Huffington Post, but they didn’t get any exposure on Digg and hence, didn’t receive as much attention from the blogosphere.

Having people who see and distribute your content is vital for readership growth.

If you can expand your distribution channels, you can even develop perceived authority and brand strength, just purely from your ubiquitous presence. People will naturally talk about what they see regularly or the brands they are familiar with, instead of something unknown to them. This is known as mindshare.

With that in mind, let’s examine the benefits of a core audience and how you develop such a network to increase your distributive power.

The Importance of Having a Supportive Core Audience

Image Credit: Roman Graffiti..

If you want to build a large readership or be regarded as an authority on any topic, you need to develop a core group of supporters. This is important because these people allow your content to spiral outwards beyond your existing readership.

The core group of supporters should have some or all of the following characteristics:

1. They are bloggers, each with their own audience.
2. They are influential thought leaders in their niche.
3. They have the ability to send you links and traffic.
4. They are loyal readers who value your content and opinions.
5. They will follow your blog regularly and read most of what you write.
6. They may also be the target audience for your content

Whenever you publish an important article, these are the people who will talk about it and disseminate it by sharing it with others. This brings more targeted visitors into your site, some of whom may subscribe and follow your blog, before eventually becoming a member of your supportive audience as well.

The only way for a blog to grow fast is to put out valuable content (something worth talking about) and have it spread through a core audience with the ability to link or influence links (people who talk about it). This is an unparalleled strategy that will easily help you to establish a consistently growing blog readership.

The Value of Core Supporters: An Example of Content Dissemination

Image Credit: Street Art

News coverage on popular sites often reveal the power of having a supportive audience with the ability to link. Most of the breaking news on Techcrunch receives a great amount of trackbacks referencing their post and each of these smaller blogs are funneling traffic towards the source when they write about the same news story.

Andy Beard was the first blogger to break the news on the recent Google PageRank drop. His discovery was soon followed by an avalanche of links, some of them just hours after his post was published. He subsequently obtained 187+ links in total, with some of them coming from large blogs.

Andy had over 1500+ subscribers when he published the post and a loyal audience which respects his integrity and knowledge. I subscribe to his feed and I do believe there are at least a few influential bloggers who read his site on a regular basis.

Would the news spread as rapidly (or even at all) if a new blogger broke the news? While it might be a hot topic, large blogs can’t link to a story they don’t know about. And even if they knew, would they actually link to a source they are unfamiliar with?

Trust in the credibility of the info source is important to distributors of content.

Image Credit: Street Art

Certainly, a new blog could use social media channels like Digg to leapfrog over the obstacles of obscurity and a weak blog brand. Something on the Digg frontpage would make people sit up and pay attention. And it usually does.

But a larger blog with an established blog can easily monopolize link attribution by jumping on the news and writing up their opinion or version of it. Because such a site has a large number of readers with blogs, most of the citation links (and traffic) may bypass the original source and go directly to the larger blog.

When the news spreads even further, this dominance snowballs and deepens as social media users may choose to promote the content of the large blog instead.

This situation does occur frequently in news reportage but not so often when it comes to the production of unique/original content that isn’t time-sensitive. I’m using this as an example to show that your audience can become distribution channels which will influence the popularity of any published content.

They can determine if a content succeeds or fails to capture attention.

Three Strategies to Build a Supportive Core Audience

Let’s assume that you are already producing content of excellent quality. The next step is to focus on developing multiple distribution channels and a core audience.

The following strategies can be condensed to just one action: to build relationships for content distribution. Most of what is outlined below focuses on developing beneficial affiliations in order to establish a supportive circle of readers/peers.

1. Power Networking and Emotional Engagement

Image Credit: Street Art

The most effective way of networking is to offer something of real value for the intended party, without requesting something in return (at least not immediately). Let’s take comments as an example. Instead of just promoting yourself in your comment, write words which initiate a conversation between you and the blogger.

For instance, Caroline has developed an excellent blog commenting strategy which allows her to grab the attention of bloggers and gain new readers. To me, the traffic you get isn’t really a big issue. The most important thing to do, when it comes to networking, is to demonstrate your commitment to the other party.

Apart from giving, here are three important points for effective networking:

1. Your Visibility. The more conspicuous you are with your support of the other blogger, the better. Ideally, you want to make them think of you as often as possible. Stay on their radar by leaving relevant comments and engage in actual conversations away from the blog.

   Make them aware of you by linking, promoting, sharing and talking about them on your own blog or social websites.

2. Alternative Communication. It is important to move away from the commenter or email-pitcher role and get into a more casual relationship with the blogger. One way to do this is to talk via emails, phone or Internet messengers.

   The mode of communication is an important relationship catalyst. Frequent conference attendees can attest to the value of networking with industry peers whom you’ve only met online.

   Contact of this nature can generate affinity rapidly.

   Even talking on the phone or IM breaks the reader/blogger dialectic a little and forces it to adjust itself to a new friendship or peer dynamic. Staying on one communication channel is a poor networking strategy that should be avoided.

3. Community as Magnet. Encouraging interactions between readers and group discussions is an excellent way to draw people into your circle and turn them into hardcore supporters through emotional engagements.

   Liz Strauss and Darren are bloggers skilled in developing communities around their blogs. Liz does some really interesting things in this area; for instance she recently held a virtual party to celebrate her blog birthday.

   There are many other ways to build a community around your blog. Just an important point to note: It’s not about increasing the number of comments or the amount of visible activity. It’s about building relationships with a group of persuaders who will push your content because they favor you or your blog.

2. Content Syndication and Editorial Submissions

Image Credit: Street Art

Increasing your distribution channels will also require some active effort on your part. Allowing other websites to syndicate your content in full is an easy way to get some extra exposure and develop some additional defensible traffic sources

Translating your content into other languages also makes your content accessible to a larger market. For example, the Blog Herald recently hired a translation team and set up a Japanese and Chinese version of their blog on subdomains.

Another method of getting your content across to multiple audiences is to practice guest blogging. For me personally, the real value of guest blogging lies in the building of deeper relationships with the bloggers you write for.

Guest blogging is a doorway towards future recommendations and links. It is far easier to pitch a blogger who has previously published an entire article of yours on his or her site. If you have an exceptional article that just begs to be shared with others, you’ll easily get a mention because you’ve already acquired that trust.

There are many other benefits to guest blogging and many bloggers like Skellie, Chris Garrett, Leo Babauta and Steven Snell have built part of their audiences by guest blogging actively on various relevant sites with the audience they want.

In the context of our discussion, guest blogging is a good way to build a supportive network of peers, i.e. bloggers who will disseminate your content when needed. Pursue guest blogging strategically and above all, focus on relationship building.

3. Leverage Social Media Channels for Attention

Image Credit: Street Art

In terms of building a core audience, social media is a match-maker. She puts up links to your blog in all the right places and shows you off to people who might not have come across your blog before. Social media makes introductions; you’ll have to convince the visitor that you are the right blog for him or her.

The marketing strategy here is simple; Choose a content topic that is relevant to your blog’s focus, while potentially popular with the social channel you are targeting. Unless you own a blog that is much loved and followed by the social media community, never assume that everything you write is perfect for it.

Angle your content for the masses to accumulate the greatest amount of attention. Those interested in what your blog offers will subscribe to you while the others will move on. This natural retention model weeds out the most casual of visitors.

On top of the usual submission of content to social news sites like Digg or Reddit, remember to network with social media influencers because these people have the ability to affect the popularity of your content both inside and outside of the community (links from secondary websites).

Apart from push marketing, you can also use social media to build your core audience by publishing on community news sites like Newsvine and networking within specific social communities like Bumpzee, Blog Catalog or MyBloglog. These communities largely contain webmasters and bloggers who might choose to follow your blog.

Traditional webmaster forums or niche forums/message boards can also send a good deal of relevant traffic, especially when you participate actively in a crowded space to build your personal brand.

Blog Readership = Word of Mouth Marketing

Image Credit: Street Art

When people talk about you, you’ll get traffic and new readers one way or another. The quality of your content is incredibly important but equally so, is the presence of a core audience that will help to push your content and brand.

Actively develop a group of peers or readers that’ll support you and your efforts will pay off handsomely; The next time you create a fantastic article or break news, you’ll notice the powerful advantages that come with broad distribution channels.

Content Development Tips: Four Blog Posting Guidelines

Here are some posting principles which I follow when I develop content for my niche blogs:

• Alternate Posting. This simply refers to posting on alternate days for each blog and not on a daily basis. This should be initiated after your niche blogs are set up, indexed and already receiving search traffic. This spreads out the workload and keeps your productivity level high. You don’t want to abandon the niche blogs early on because writing for them has become a chore.
• Future Posting. This is a rather useful technique for those of you who prefer to work in concentrated spurts or have unpredictable timetables. This involves writing up several posts at one go and then editing the post time stamp so that they will be published at a future date. Note that this method is not good for time-sensitive material but rather general informational/opinion-based articles on the niche topic.
• Weekly Linkbait. It is important to write at least one detailed and extensive article every week. These type of articles attract the most incoming links and referral traffic. Write these types of articles little by little over several days or slowly over the weekend, because they can be too difficult to finish in just one sitting.

Seven Content Types for Niche Blogs: Post Options to Consider

Here are seven types of content you can create for all your niche blogs. I’ve included a brief introduction to their methodology and have also listed the approximate amount of time each content type will require, although this will vary from person to person.

Mixing up different content types will give you flexibility during the content creation process and allows you to prioritize effectively. For example, when you’re writing a linkbait article for a specific blog, use a simple video post for another blog to save time and energy.

1. Lazy News Blogging. This is quite an art form and involves timely posting about breaking news or developments in your niche topic while adding a brief personal opinion, which usually comes in the form of one or two paragraphs.

   Method: Use social news aggregators or meme trackers to source for the freshest news on any topic. Techmeme, Megite and PopURL.com are the three websites that I recommend and you can easily pull a story out from these sites for a blog post.

   Time needed: 10-15 minutes

   
   
   

2. Speedlinking or Link Posts. This is the one of the quickest ways to drum up a blog post. Depending on how you write them, they can be seen as a networking tool and a way to make your blog seem more relevant to the niche.

   Method: Grab a social bookmarking account from a website like del.icio.us and set up an online feed reader account with a list of the relevant blogs in your niche. Track your feeds daily and when you come across a link-worthy article, bookmark and tag it.

   Do the same for sites you come across while researching online. Whenever you need a speedlink post, pull up all the links under the specific tag and publish them. Remember to editorialize the links by adding your own thoughts to them.

   Time needed: 5-10 minutes.

   
   
   

3. Video and Image posts. Visit Flickr, StumbleUpon or YouTube and type in your keyword. Grab an image/video and then write one or two keyword-rich lines about it. Publish and you’re done.

   Time needed: 5 minutes or less.

   
   
   

4. Roundup Posts. A roundup post is simply a post that includes links to note-worthy articles on your blog within a specific time frame. This can be published on a weekly basis if you write two or more posts every day.

   If you only write one post a day or every alternate days, publish the roundup post either bi-weekly or on a monthly basis. Here’s an article on how to create your own roundup posts.

   Time needed: 10 minutes

   
   
   

5. Article Republishing. This involves using relevant articles from free article directories. Visit a website like Ezine Articles and do a keyword search. After which grab the entire article and publish it on your site. I recommend only using free articles if you are going the smaller and multiple niche blogs route.

   I don’t really use free articles because it’s rather easy to come up with a similar unique article in a few minutes. The high republish rates for some articles means that there are already several other websites already ranking for the same specific key phrase you are targeting.

   Time needed: 10 minutes

   
   
   

6. Linkbaits. Linkbaits are simply detailed and original articles that are likely to attract from links and traffic from other websites. Depending on your ability and the type of linkbait, they can take several hours to create.

   However, the overall structure of a successful linkbait is no mystery when you carefully examine some social websites. The Del.icio.us Popular pages can easily allow you to see what types of articles attract the most attention.

   Time needed: Indefinite

   
   
   

7. Opinion posts. These are usually the easiest to write because you don’t need to perform much research online. Drawing upon your personal experiences will let your audience feel that they know you better as well, which is important for visitor loyalty. Pick a specific topic and share your experiences or thoughts about it. These posts usually do not require too much energy to write.

Time needed: 10 minutes to 2 hours.

Web-based Content Development Tools/Resources for Niche Bloggers

In my previous post on creating your niche blogging plan, I’ve mentioned that you could either create multiple smaller blogs for search traffic or several medium-sized blogs, each with a strong audience base.

However both niche masterplans share a common ground in terms of content development and these web-based resources can be very helpful regardless of the type of niche blog you are creating.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a passive way of doing topic research as it only requires you to set up alerts for specific phrases or words that relate to your niche. Depending on your settings, you’ll get notifications on the topic sent to your email inbox either daily or weekly.

This is useful when combined with alternate posting or when you really don’t have the time to source for new information. To get more out of Google Alerts, I recommend setting up alerts for variations of relevant keyword phrases instead of just a single keyword.

Personalized Start Pages

I love using personalized start pages like Netvibes because you can aggregate a lot of informational content within a single page.

Here is what I normally do: Set up a Youtube and Flickr column according to specific keyword tags and include feeds from all the blogs in the niche I follow as well feeds from the usual news agencies. I will also include a customized search function for podcasts and blogs.

A To-do list for the specific niche blogs will also be helpful and I’ll then set the start page as my homepage or keep it open on a single tab in Firefox. Keeping everything you need within a single page can be a huge time-saver when you need to come up with a blog post for any topic.

News Aggregators & Blog Search Engines

Social news aggregators like TailRank, Megite and Techmeme are repositories of large amounts of news and are usually reliable indicators of buzz. Social voting platforms like Netscape, Digg and Reddit can also provide you with a broad spectrum of hot and interesting topics.

If you are looking to reference other blogs, blog search engines like Google Blog Search or Technorati can be useful. I do prefer using Google Blog Search because its very responsive and you can filter news according to the specific time frame.

For instance, if I’m writing an article on a specific celebrity I can choose to browse through the freshest blog posts, published in the last hour or more. This allows one to stay relevant and up to date on any topic as well.

Part II of Content Development Tactics for Niche Blogs

Hopefully, this article has offered some useful tips for some of you out there who are gradually becoming weary of creating content for your niche blogs. Perhaps these tactics and tools will make things easier for you.

In the next article I will examine the other side of the content creation process or more precisely, the various methods to get other people to create content for your blog.

This is a natural procession from developing content on your own and is a good way to sustain your niche blogs while moving on to other profitable online projects and interests.

How to Get Traffic and Links from Popular Blogs

How to Effectively Get Traffic and Links from Popular Blogs

The following tips stem from my personal experience as a blogger who has pitched articles and received pitches in return. They reflect what I feel is the best way to get some attention or links from popular blogs. Because of their time-intensive nature, they might not be necessary for blogs with a small audience.

In essence, you are using these tactics to target large blogs with a wide readership, in order to get the maximum traffic and exposure for your website or business. These methods are largely cost-free and do not require any or much money at all.

1. Find Your Angle. Every successful pitch needs an angle. If you are really interested in targeting a popular blog, take a look at what they publish regularly to get an idea of what they kind of content they will run.

   Create your content with this angle in mind and pitch it accordingly. Creating content of a specific slant is quite easy to do and the rewards are high if you succeed in getting a mention. You can always go back to your usual content type or format after that happens.

2. Create the Perfect Pitch. There are some general rules to follow. Make your email concise and compelling. Check your copy and punctuation. Introduce yourself briefly. Use the blogger’s first name. Don’t flatter too much. Refer to specific posts when making comments. Be polite. Focus on their interests and benefits. Offer alternative means of communication (e.g. phone, IM).
3. Establish Prior Email Contact. Asking someone to link to or check out your site in your very first email is poor strategy. Build up a regular email flow by sending an email to the blogger, without selling or promoting your website.

   One of the best ways to do this is to ask a question or simply thank them for their wonderful website and content, which you’ve found helpful. You can also give helpful feedback on the site in general. This instantly elevates you from the rest of the crowd when you eventually decide to pitch an article.

4. Use Comments to Network. Many people have written about how comments can get you traffic from blogs but their true value lies in their networking potential. Comments are one of the easiest ways to get the attention of any blogger. Make sure you comment regularly and contribute to the discussion.

   Refrain from pitching your own website or article within the comment section. Try to get at least 10 comments on separate blog posts before you even consider pitching your article.

5. Promote them with Social Media. Bloggers regularly check their sources of traffic and submitting their website to social media sites like StumbleUpon and Digg is a great way to get on their radar. StumbleUpon in particular, can send hundreds of visitors to any site and its a really easy way to get noticed.

   Just remember to tie the social media account you are using with your own website by inserting your URL or site name in the profile. Alternatively, forums are also a great way to share the blogger’s content.

6. Set up an Internal Connection. Very large blogs are businesses. Sometimes it is difficult to break through the attention barrier and get noticed because these sites receive a lot of email pitches everyday. The easiest way to jump ahead of others is to establish personal contact with an inside source.

   For example, some of the staff writers or editors have their own personal blogs. Go visit and comment on these blogs and befriend the specific individual. Another alternative is to find a friend who has direct contact with an internal staff and ask your friend to introduce you to the specific person.

7. Link to them and send them traffic. This works particularly well if you have a website or blog of your own. Link to the blogger you are targeting a couple of times and reference their articles. Put them on your blogroll if you have one. Remember, a link doesn’t cost you anything but it may get you traffic and exposure in return.

   This is a great way to let the blogger know that you support their website. Even if the specific blog gets many links everyday, you will eventually be noticed somehow, particularly if you can send them some traffic.

8. Get Friends to Email Pitch your Article. Get a friend or another blogger to promote your website by sending an email tip. Some bloggers are not in favor of excessive self-promotion so this might give your specific site or article some extra validity. If you want to, get a few other friends to email pitch the same article. Bear in mind that you shouldn’t use this technique often because it is easy to tell if you’re artificially promoting your website via email.
9. Use Alternative Contact Channels. Another way to get instant attention is to contact the bloggers on alternative communication channels. This include microblogging platforms, social networks and Instant Messengers. Not every blogger will have their details listed publicly but for those that do, consider using these alternative channels. Not many people will use these methods of communication and you’ll tend to stand out immediately.
10. Donations and Tips. Tipping bloggers and offering donations is a great way to show your appreciation for their work. This can be easily done if they have a Paypal donation button somewhere but even if they don’t, you can also email them to request for a paypal address. This is low cost and simple but it can definitely increase your potential for getting a mention in the future.

Seven Strategies to Network within your Blog Niche

A new blog often suffers from a small to non-existent audience base and has a rather weak link profile. Instead of heading to forums and requesting for link exchanges, I think it would be far more beneficial to do some effective niche networking.

1. Comment voraciously. Make a list of the high traffic blogs in your niche and be sure to comment on them everyday, preferably as soon as they publish any new articles. These blogs should be kept in your bookmarks and made very easily accessible from your browser. Don’t leave signature links in the comments and try to actually contribute to the discussion.
2. Follow the news. To interact within the niche, you’ll need to know what’s buzzing and what’s going on. Subscribe to the feed of every notable blog within your blog niche and keep track of them.
3. Link generously. The best way to make friends with another blogger is to link to them very often and reference their blog posts. Bloggers love links and this is a surefire way of getting yourself noticed. Try to send out three to five links to different blogs within each article. This adds value to your readers while inserting your blog into the overall discussion on any specific topic. To avoid possible bitterness, practice unconditional linking, or linking without the desire to get a link in return.
4. Focus on the Small. Do not focus too much on getting links and attention from A-List bloggers because the chance of receiving a reciprocal mention will be quite minimal. Focus instead at the other spectrum: blogs of a similar or even smaller size. These are people who need exposure as much as you do and referencing them is a great way to get some exposure in return. Remember that small blogs can grow to become big blogs. Ignoring their potential is short term thinking.
5. Socialize within communities. Almost every possible niche has a forum or social network which is relevant to it. Find these communities, join them and start participating in discussions. Communities allow you to gain new readers quickly and also allows you get some backlinks from forum signatures and other community pages.
6. Send out Email Tips. Getting into direct contact with fellow bloggers via email is a good idea but you don’t want to pester them with link requests or excessive questions. Sending them tips on topics related to their niches is good for several reasons: You contribute to material on their blog, get into a regular email flow and will most likely get credit via a link if they decide to use the suggested tip. You can then proceed from this stage to deeper email conversations.
7. Offer assistance. Do you have any specific skills like programming, web design or copywriting? Volunteer your assistance to other bloggers for their online projects. You’ll find that doing favors for others is a remarkably easy way to establish long-term relationships. Remember that its always important to check your personal/professional schedule in order to avoid over-commitment.

The blogosphere and online universe is interdependent. Networking with other bloggers benefits not just yourself but the other blogger in question as well.

No successful blog exists in a vacuum: they are all sustained through editorial links and recommendations from others.

Understanding this from the onset will greatly improve your chances of gaining monetary profit from whatever online niche projects you pursue.

How to Write the Perfect ‘About’ Page

New visitors to your site want to know straight away what your site has to offer them. A prominent link to an ‘About’ page says: “Want to know what this site is about? The answer is right here.”

Usability should be conversational. A new visitor asks, internally: “What is this site about?” Your About page provides a quick and obvious answer. It’s one of the most powerful tools you can use to turn first-time visitors into loyal readers.

Once you have an ‘About’ page, though, the question becomes: what on earth do I put here?

The current model is a hang-over from the days when blogs were nothing more than personal journals. ‘About’ inevitably meant a short bio of the author written in uneasy 3^rd person. This was probably carried over from its nearest offline equivalent: the kind of short author bio you see on the glossy sleeves of book-covers.

There’s nothing wrong with using books as a model, but most ‘About’ pages miss the most important half of the equation. Every good book has a ‘blurb’ on the back or inside sleeve, hinting at the value inside. This is the thing readers are most interested in. The same applies for blogs and websites.

Think of your ‘About’ page like the selling text in a book. The selling text (blurb and author bio) is designed to persuade the reader of the book’s value and the author’s credentials. Your ‘About’ page should be no different.

Writing a good About page isn’t as hard as it sounds. Here’s a simple formula for you. There’s no need to include the questions: the sequence of answers should form the building blocks of a really solid ‘About’ page.

A note: personal bloggers don’t get out of this one. You still need a blurb, you can still explain what your site has to offer, who it’s written for and what the benefits are. You’re writing for an audience, just like anyone else.

The blurb should always come first

1. What does your site have to offer?

Do you keep readers up to date with the latest news in your niche? Do you publish tips and guides? How often? In other words: what kind of content do you produce?

2. Who is it written for?

If you can, describe what kinds of people your site should appeal to. Keep it broad enough that anyone interested in your topics would be included in at least one of the types of people you’ve listed.

3. What are the benefits?

This is where you describe the benefits of reading your content. You don’t just write about getting out of debt – you give readers helpful tips to overcome their own debt. You don’t just write about current events – you keep readers informed about what’s important.

Below it, the bio

Now potential readers have an idea of what you have to offer them, they might just be interested enough to find out whether you’re worth listening to or not.

Pick out a book from your bookshelf and find the author’s biography. A good bio will be written in order of interest to the reader. For example:

How many other books the author has written.

How many awards they’ve won (if any).

The titles of other books you may have heard of by that author.

How old the author is.

Their interests and hobbies.

Where they live, and with whom.

As someone trying to decide whether you should listen to what this author has to say, the above few lines are very useful. If they’ve written other books before, or won awards, you can deduce that they’re a writer worth taking seriously.

On the web, however, most author bios are written upside down. If they were a bio on the inside sleeve of a book, they’d probably look something like this:

Where they live, and with whom.

Their interests and hobbies.

How old the author is.

The titles of other books you may have heard of by that author.

How many awards they’ve won (if any).

How many other books the author has written.

Biographical information won’t be of interest to your readers until they’ve developed an attachment to the author. In the beginning, you simply want to know whether they know their stuff. I suspect the reason many bloggers and webmasters trip up on this point is that they feel uneasy selling themselves, or feel as if they’re boasting. Not so. You’re doing something very important: helping the reader to trust you.

The perfect bio

1. What qualifies you to write on the topics you cover?

If you have formal credentials, list them. If you’ve participated in your niche informally (as a hobby, for example) explain how you’ve engaged with it and for how long. If you have no qualifications other than your passion, explain that. If you’re a complete beginner then make it clear. Nothing qualifies you better to write for other beginners.

2. Do you have any other claims to fame?

If you’ve written for other blogs or websites, list them. Have you been published? Quoted? Received an award or a prize? Anything else that might persuade readers that you’re worth listening to goes here.

3. Who are you?

This is where you put the stuff that usually comes first: where you live, your interests, your story, etc. Most prospective readers won’t go through this. Instead, it’s mainly for the benefit of loyal readers who want to get to know you a little better.

At Skelliewag.org, my About page mentions that I’m a woman towards the bottom of the author bio section. First-time visitors often refer to me as ‘he’ – assuming that, in the absence of a distinctly feminine name, I’m male (most if not all popular bloggers in my niche are).

Loyal readers on the other hand almost always know I’m a woman and a few other things about me from my author bio. I suspect prospective readers take in only enough to work out what the site is about and how I’m qualified, while repeat visitors re-visit the About page to learn more about me, now that they have a reason to care.

The kind of ‘About’ page outlined above gives new visitors the information they want while also allowing established readers to get to know you better. That’s why I think it’s the perfect ‘About’ page.

Creating a Content Development Strategy for Blogs

1. Decide the most important goal for your blog. For example, you might use blogging as a branding tool or a means to generate direct or indirect revenue.
2. Make a list of content types that will achieve your goals. Create a weekly schedule which includes these content types.
3. Observe the type of content that other blogs in your niche produce. Find an informational need that is poorly fulfilled by others and create content to plug the gap. Experiment with different content types to attract attention.
4. Differentiate your blog by altering the content focus, type and format. Effective differentiation tactics involve creating a authorial persona, writing from experience, sharing your opinions and revealing your personality.

And that’s all there is to it. Pay attention to the content you are currently creating and think of ways they could be interconnected. Examine your content to see if they are fulfilling your overall goals. Create a content development strategy that works.

Consciously and strategically thinking about the content creation process is a good way to position your website against other content providers in the same field. Your site will gradually develop a distinctive value-driven identity, which will eventually lead to greater profitability and popularity.

Customize Your Own WordPress Theme

An increasing number of businesses and website owners are using blogs as a means of communication with their customers and website visitors. If your business already has a website it is possible to have a blog that matches the look and feel of your existing website without doing a complete re-design and without paying thousands of dollars to have the blog developed. Using WordPress you can tailor an already existing blog theme to seamlessly flow with the rest of your website.

Why is it important to have a blog that matches the rest of your website?

1 - Maintaining the same design throughout your website will help to give your visitors a consistent experience and message while on your site.

2 - A more professional look can be accomplished by creating a customized theme that matches the rest of the site.

3 - By maintaining a consistent design throughout the site you will allow visitors to focus on the content of your blog rather than focusing on the design and layout changes.

4 - Many WordPress themes are used by hundreds or thousands of websites, whereas your custom them will be unique to your business.

5 - Using a blog layout that does not flow with the rest of your site may confuse visitors into thinking that they have left your site.

Understanding WordPress Themes

Editing and customizing WordPress themes can be very intimidating if you are not familiar with how they work. Essentially, when you are viewing a post on a WordPress blog you are seeing a combination of several different files within the theme. WordPress uses what they call The Loop, a php function that determines what the visitor is looking for and what should be displayed on the screen.

Although the WordPress system is very dependent on php, editing a theme does not require php knowledge. The php portion of coding is contained in easily recognizable portions of code. The html around the php can be changed to customize your theme to your website without changing the php coding. I will not be getting into the details of The Loop in this post, so please see the WordPress Codex if you need information and documentation on The Loop.

As mentioned above, WordPress uses separate files for different sections of the blog page. The header (portion of the page located above the blog post) comes from the header.php file. The blog post (or posts, if you are looking at a homepage or a category page) comes from the MySQL database. Most themes contain a sidebar.php file that appears next to the blog post, either to the left or the right. And the footer.php file contains the information that appears below the post and the sidebar.

Together the header, sidebar and footer files form a template that is applied to every page (although some themes are set to not show the sidebar in certain situations). Because of the template-like structure, any changes that you make to header.php, sidebar.php and footer.php will be reflected on all of your pages. This makes the customization easier as you really only have to customize the template.

Throughout this article we will be looking at a sample blog that I customized for a client from the Kubrick theme. The customization was done to match their existing website. This picture shows which parts of the page are in each of the WordPress files.

Once you understand how these files come together to display in the browser, all you will need to do is adapt the design to match your existing website.

Installing WordPress

If you haven’t already installed WordPress you can do so at http://wordpress.org/download. For this website we use Host Gator (affiliate link), which provides an easier WordPress installation.

WordPress comes with two themes, Default (also known as Kubrick) and Classic. The Kubrick theme is a good starting block if you are creating or customizing your own theme. It is a fairly simple theme with clean and valid coding that has been used by thousands of bloggers. Almost any problem that could possibly occur with Kubrick has already been found and corrected.

However, if your existing website has a more unique design you may want to look for a theme that more closely resembles your layout, which can make the customization easier. You can find a gallery of free themes at http://themes.wordpress.net.

Breaking Down Your Existing Design

Since we know that WordPress sees the layout as a combination of a header, a body (blog posts), a sidebar and a footer, visualizing your existing website in the same sections will make the customization possible.

To start, take a page on your site that you want your blog to match and remove the content of the page. Leave the structure of the design and any images and navigation menus that you want to use on your blog. The blank space where you removed the content is where your blog posts will go. Anything above that will need to be included in the header.php file. For example, the header.php file of our blog theme includes the navigation menus and everything above. The picture below shows the portion of the design that is contained in header.php.

Note: This is an older post and the design has since changed. The concept, however, remains the same.

If you’re working with Kubrick, the header.php file also contains the CSS code for the page’s background image. Most likely you will want to replace Kubrick’s background image with your own.

Chances are your existing website already has some type of sidebar. The sidebar may contain your primary navigation, text links to various pages, an email sign up form, or just about anything. Some of these things in your existing sidebar you will want to include in your blog sidebar. The blog sidebar by default includes a search box, links to pages that categorize your blog posts, a blogroll (links to other blogs), and some metadata that includes your login link.

To add content to your sidebar, open sidebar.php. If you are working with the default Kubrick theme your sidebar consists primarily of html code for an unordered list and php code. The php coding is used to generate links to your categories and archive pages. Any html that you want to add can be added in the sidebar, but it should not be placed inside php code.

For example, in our blog theme we added a form that allows visitors to sign up to receive our blog feed by email (a service that is provided by FeedBurner). In this case we simply inserted the code for the form, which was provided by FeedBurner, at the bottom of the sidebar. Editing your sidebar is pretty straightforward as long as you make sure that the html coding you add is valid and does not interfere with what is already there.

You can also remove any of the items in the sidebar that you do not want. If you don’t want to have a search box, remove the small piece of php coding that includes searchform.php. For our theme we chose to remove the blogroll.

The footer is edited in much the same way. The footer.php file for the Kubrick theme contains very little coding. The php coding that is in footer.php is only there to gather the name of your blog and to provide a link to your RSS feed. This coding can be removed if you like and any html that you wish to use for your footer can be entered here.

Editing the Style Sheet

Every WordPress theme includes a CSS file, style.css. This file controls the look of the entire theme. Most of the changes you will be making to customize your theme will be done to style.css.

The style sheet for Kubrick is very user-friendly when you’re trying to customize the theme. It is broken down into the following categories:

- Typography and colors
- Structure
- Headers
- Images
- Lists
- Form elements
- Comments
- Sidebar
- Calendar
- Various tags and classes

With this type of organization it is easy to find what you are looking for in order to make changes.

Editing the styles to create your custom theme will take some experimentation, so it is best to create a test area where you can make mistakes and not affect anything. If you already have an existing blog do not attempt to make changes to a theme while it is currently selected as your blog theme. My recommendation is to install a WordPress blog in a folder on your site that is strictly for testing purposes. This way you can make changes to the style sheet and php files, update them to see how you theme looks, and not have to worry about causing any problems with your existing blog.

The CSS file for a WordPress theme works the same way as any other CSS file. Where you could run in to problems is in the naming of the divs and classes. Most likely when you are customizing a theme you will be leaving some of the structure in place, and you will be adding some of your own. For example, the header.php file for Kubrick contains a header div and a header image div. When you are customizing the header to add what you want you can either use the existing structure, or you can create your own. If you use the existing structure, anything in the header div will still be styled under the existing CSS file until you change the CSS to meet your needs.

In our example site everything we added to the header file, picture, navigation and search box, are all contained within the header div. To customize the header.php file we then changed the height and width of the header div to meet our needs, as well as changing the background image and color. If you’re used to working with CSS this process is not too difficult. Everything you see in the picture below is in the header.php file.

The key to customizing the theme is breaking it down into pieces - header, sidebar, post area, and footer. Work on one piece at a time with the appropriate file and the CSS file. Once each piece is completed you will have you own customized WordPress theme.

How to Choose the Right Blog Niche

Characteristics of the Ideal Blog Niche

Here’s a list of the factors which I personally think, constitute the ideal blog niche:

• Personal interest in topics within the niche. You enjoy reading, learning and writing about these blog topics.
• Networking foundation. You are already active in several networking groups or forums within the niche.
• Moderate to high search volume. The blog niche has a moderate to high search volume, meaning that people actually do search for more information on the topic.
• Potential for Monetization. Ideally, you’ll want a blog niche that actually serves up relevant contextual ads or has a range of affiliate programs which are at least partially relevant to your audience’s needs.

Step #1: Narrow your Interests

This is the logical place to start because blogging about something you have a natural interest for is personally enriching. What I usually do is to pick a few general topics I’m interested in and put them through a couple of websites and tools.

Recommended Tool: Wikipedia.

You can use search engines to perform niche research but I particularly like using Wikipedia to narrow down my focus in a specific field because articles in Wikipedia are very well interlinked and are generally informative.

For example, see this Wikipedia page on surfing. In the first paragraph itself, there are links to several topics related to surfing, such as surf boards, wind surfing and big wave surfing.

Scroll down to the end of the page and you’ll see even more subsections like surf culture, surf music and surfing competitions.

Wikipedia can also be used as an informational tool which gives you more background on any topic. thereby allowing you to eventually decide if it is something you want to pursue.

You should end up with a short list of niches you want to target, which leads you to the next step.

Step #2: Assess the Traffic Potential for the Niche

To assess the size and potential of a niche involves discovering the number of people who actually search for information on the given topic.

This is important because you don’t want to be pursuing a niche that is inherently limited by its weak organic search traffic.

Now is not the time to target your actual keywords so you don’t need to always go for the high volume search terms. As long as the overall search volume is moderate, that should be fine.

Recommended Tool: SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool

I like using this tool because of several reasons: It provides suggested monthly regional search volumes by market for Google, Yahoo!, and MSN and churns out direct links to Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery and Google trends, all of which are other tools you can use.

After typing your keyword (e.g. surfing) into the search box, you should focus on the vertical length of the results instead of the actual search volume for the keyword.

The length of the list determines how deep you can go with this specific topic and also how many keywords you can effectively target for traffic. This is an important point: Never focus exclusively on the main niche keyword but the overall search depth for the niche topic.

Once you have found a suitable niche with a moderate search volume, you’ll need to run a quick check on its monetization and profit potential.

Step #3: Determine the Monetization and Profit potential for your Niche

This step is fairly simple. There are two ways to monetize any new blog: One is advertising networks (e.g. Google Adsense, Auction Ads) and the other method is the use of relevant affiliate programs from websites. Let’s split this section up into two.

Recommended Tools for ad networks:

Google Adwords Traffic Estimator and Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool.

These are currently two tools which can provide a rough estimate for the profitability of a niche. While the results are limited to Google Adwords/Adsense, I think they are reliable indicators of the niche’s general potential.

Here’s what you’ll see from Google Adwords Traffic Estimator after I did some basic keyword searches:

While other information such as the estimated cost and clicks per day are included, you’ll only need to focus on the figures in the estimated average CPC column.

Generally, the higher the Cost per Click amount, the more the advertiser has to pay and hence its possible that you’ll earn more by creating content which reflects that specific keyword.

On the other hand, the Google Adwords Keyword Tool gives you a lot of keyword suggestions, each with their search volume or average CPC. You’ll just have to type in one main keyword and the tool will generate a list of results.

For example, here is an example of some results when I type in ‘web hosting‘.

This basically gives you an estimate of the monetary value of all the longtail keywords you will be naturally targeting when you are writing in depth on a topic.

A word of caution: Don’t just go for the keywords with the top CPC averages because these are usually targeted by many other webmasters as well. Generally, if your niche has a Adwords CPC average of $2-3, it should be profitable while allowing a low barrier of entry for new websites.

Recommended Tool for affiliate programs: Search engines + Affiliate networks

The easiest way to find affiliate programs for your niche is to do a google search for your niche keyword + “affiliate program“. You’ll usually be able to tell at once if there are adequate programs available.

In any case, there are also a large number of affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, Shareasale and Click Bank so there shouldn’t be any difficulties in finding affiliate programs for most niches.

Seven Day Niche Blog Challenge: Update #2

So far everything is going well. I enjoy setting up new blogs, even though the process can be repetitive. I’ve largely followed the three steps that I’ve mentioned above while picking my niches, although I did perform some alternative research to develop a more rounded social media outlook on the niche.

Here are two additional tips, both of which I personally use in addition to the three steps I’ve listed above.

Additional Tip #1: Use Community Specific Searches for Buzz Value

The method emphasizes on performing site-specific searches on various social websites and forums to assess the overall popularity of the term.

I’m going to focus on quite a bit of social media marketing alongside the usual search optimization so its very helpful for me to know the popularity and traffic value of a specific term within the social community in question.

For example Fan Forum is the largest online celebrity forum on the internet. If I wanted to promote my content on the forum, I need to know if the sub-niche or topic is widely mentioned and hence attractive to the forum users.

Here’s an example of what I would do if I were performing research on the topic of Lindsay Lohan.

Open a new browser window and go to google.com. After which, type in the following command:

site:fanforum.com lindsay lohan

Which would bring me to this search results page with a list of the number of times Lindsay Lohan, or the niche topic is mentioned. According to Google, there are 1,410 results for this term on fanforum.com alone.

On the other hand if you were to do a similar search for Chuck Norris, you’ll only come up with 3 search result terms. This just means that Lindsay is hot in Fan Forum and unfortunately, Chuck is not.

To get the same information on other websites, you’ll just have to replace fanforum.com with the url of the site you want to explore in detail.

Additional Tip #2: Use SearchSpy tools for Out-of-Box Research

If you absolutely can’t think of any interests or are far too lazy to do any research at all, fear not for there is still a solution. Some search engines often have a spy page which allows you to see what people are searching for in real time.