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 What started out as just a way
for you to write an online journal has quickly
turned into a very viable internet marketing tool.
The weblog, or blog for short, has become a great
way to draw attention to your website. Below I will
discuss the steps you need to take to make the most
of this new tool.
1.Content: Probably the most important
feature of your new blog is the content - what you
post. As an example, you can see what my own
company, JV Media Design, has put up here: http://www.jvmediadesign.com/blog.
You will notice that we post a lot of articles
related to the business of design and the internet.
Content that is relative to your business or
industry is the most effective. Articles, news,
tips, tutorials, and links or other resources are
all great examples of what would be considered good
content for your blog.
2.Updates: Optimally, your blog should always
be up to date with fresh content. Of course, this
can't always be the case, so it would be
advantageous to update your blog as much as you can.
If you can manage the content, a few times a week
would be enough to keep your information fresh.
There are plenty of free resources online that could
help you with content. Simply do a search in your
favorite engine for "free site content" or
"free articles" and you should fine
multiple links that could make it even easier for
you to keep your blog up to date.
3.Links: Once you have some content posted
into your blog, you will want to tell the internet
world about it. The best way to do this is to submit
your RSS feed link to sites that accept those feeds.
What's an RSS feed you ask? RSS is another acronym
for "RDF Site Summary", "Rich Site
Summary", or "Really Simple
Syndication". Basically, it's just a format for
sending out your content to others. The best
resource for where to submit this link is: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/.
It might take you a couple hours to go through this
list, but I highly recommend submitting to all the
links you can. Simply click on a submission link on
the list and then follow the directions. Most sites
will ask for your "RSS 0.91" or "RSS
2.0" feed link.
If you are using sBlog, your links would be:
http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/blog/rss/?mode=0.91
http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/blog/rss/?mode=2.0
Some sites only ask for the URL to your blog, which
would be: http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/blog
Usually, the site will also ask for a description of
your blog feed. Try to be as descriptive as possible
while using keywords from your industry (ie.
"JV Media Design - Web, graphic, and multimedia
design tips, tutorials, and helpful information).
Some will ask you to choose the best category for
your blog feed as well.
 4.Pings: Yet another web acronym, ping is
short for "Packet Internet Groper" and is
basically just a utility program that tests a
network connection. In the blog world, pings are
used to tell other sites that you are there. There
is debate on how often you should ping others but
the general consensus is that you should do it every
time you update your blog with new content. The best
utility to ping blog directory sites (where you
should have been submitting your RSS feed links in
point
#3) is: http://pingomatic.com/
- Simply go to this site once you update your
content, enter your URL (http://www.YOURSITE.com/blog)
and description, check off all the boxes, then click
"submit pings".
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