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A personal blog with technology advice and marketing information for small business owners.
Posts Tagged ‘blogging’
26
Nov
2009
Nov
2009
07
Aug
2009
Aug
2009
5 Steps to Building an Autoblog
Autoblogging is the process of automating blog’s for your business, while some in the industry make be critical of the process there are actually a number of cases where autoblogging makes perfect sense such as a news relay services, real estate agents or even recipe or automotive websites. At it’s most basic level, autoblogging is about taking common repetitive tasks and making them easier for website owners.
For example, a real estate website could automatically pull postings from their local MLS listing service and create effective web posts on a realtors blog about each properly by listing information and pictures for visitors, this type of auto blogging is fairly common in the industry and saves agents countless hours of copy and pasting listing details from other websites.
Let’s take a look at how to run an effective auto blogging package, it takes a little experience and technical knowledge but these may be easily overcome by hiring web professionals such as myself for the more complicated parts of the process.
Install WordPress
Step one of course is to install WordPress, a great and flexible blogging package which happens to be free. You can download WordPress directly and install it on your web host of if you’re less technical you can setup your hosting with BlueHost and use their automated process to easily install WordPress with a quick click of your mouse.
Install Appropriate Plugins
Plugins are add ons to WordPress, they’re like super powered steroids that make WordPress do extra stuff. In this case, you’ll need to download and install FeedWordPress to make WordPress import RSS feeds from around the Internet.
What’s an RSS feed? Well simply put, it’s geek speak. RSS feeds are used to let one computer or software program talk to another, basically it’s a specially formated file that tells one website about the content of another website. You’ll need to use it to automatically pull content from one website to display on other.
Now, to make sure you’re really cutting down on your workload, there are a few more plugins that you’ll need. See, FeedWordPress will fetch thousands of posts … some are duplicates and many need proper keywords etc. so lets add a couple awesome plugins to make your life a little easier.
WP Auto Tagger will add keywords to each post automatically, this helps cut down the work you’ll have to do to each post.
Delete Duplicate Posts is a quick way to make sure you don’t have duplicate posts in your database.
Setup Your Feeds
Now that you have your blog setup and running, you’ll need to add feeds from popular sources to automatically populate your blog. For example, you may wish to add a feed from Google for blog posts featuring my name. To do this, let’s search Google Blog for Christopher Ross and take a look at the results. On the left hand column, we see a link for RSS. This link offers us the ability to copy and paste the link http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&client=safari&oe=UTF-8&um=1&q=%22Christopher+Ross%22&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss into FeedWordPress. Once this is done, your website will scan the blogshere on a schedule, looking for all new posts about Christopher Ross. You can do the same with Google News, to ensure you always know what’s happening.
Manage Posts
When you setup FeedWordPress it asks if you’d like posts to be held for moderation or posted, it’s best to always hold posts for moderation while you’re getting used to the system and make notes of things you need to delete or edit before they go live.
Advance WordPress users will also be able to build special functions into their websites to automate complex parts of the process. For example, I use the CRON services on BlueHost to automatically run a series of scripts on many websites, which scans newly added posts for content, URL’s and items to skip or delete. If you don’t have access to CRON services, the WordPress plugin U-Cron will do a similar service for you.
Common Corrections
My scripts for example, run a simple WordPress function every 15 minutes:
[source lang="php"]$wpdb->query("UPDATE `www_greatchefs_com`.`wp_posts` SET `post_date` = ‘".date(‘Y-m-d H:i:s’)."’,
`post_date_gmt` = ‘".date(‘Y-m-d H:i:s’)."’,
`post_modified` = ‘".date(‘Y-m-d H:i:s’)."’,
`post_modified_gmt` = ‘".date(‘Y-m-d H:i:s’)."’ WHERE `post_date` < ‘2000-01-01 00:00:00′;
");
[/source]
This simple script scans the WordPress database for any post with a date prior to January 1st, 2000 and automatically changes it to the current date. This saves me hours of manually updating posts and makes posting to client websites dramatically faster.
After my scripts have tested for and corrected the majority of minor, common issues I automatically move the post from Pending to Draft which indicates the post is ready for me to review and if I want, post it live.
Approval
The final step of auto blogging and one that I believe is often overlooked is the final approval of an article. Personally, I believe it is critical that people (not machines) do a final scan of each article being posted and ensure it is accurate, maybe this isn’t true auto blogging but it’s impossible for robots to ensure everything is right so a quick scan of the article will ensure that you’re sharing the right information with your target audience.
Who is Auto Blogging Right For?
There are a lot of industries that autoblogging simply wouldn’t work for. For example, I would never want to automate my website here to scan for WordPress articles but I do believe that scanning trusted data sources and automatically processing listings for car dealerships, financial reports, real estate, news services, syndicated news etc. is a wonderful use of RSS and auto blogging technology.
Shameless self promotion – If you’re thinking about automating your online presence, why not give me a call or drop me an email and I can help you make the best choices for your blog.
07
Feb
2009
Feb
2009
What SEO Web Sites do I read?
While most web designers are busy pushing pixels around a screen, I’m busy fixing my clients websites and making them more search engine friendly, I don’t really like the term SEO (search engine optimization) because what I do is try to make websites more friendly for organic marketing while also increasing their appeal to search engines. My theory is simply, search engines are only one source of traffic so building websites should be about optimizing organic marketing, not trying to trick search engines.
So what websites have I been reading lately to help me increase my clients chances of succeeding on the web? It might surprise you. There’s a great article over at Darren Jamieson’s blog called SEO benefits of the ‘follow up post’ and another fantastic post called Webmaster Utilities We Dig (which would have been a lot funnier if they’d called it Webmaster Utilities We Digg). Both articles are informative and amusing, well worth the read.
There’s a great video of Joost de Valk talking about SEO that I watched last night while drinking a glass of wine from Castello Romitorio, I’m not sure which I enjoyed more but we’ll talk about that another time. I generally try to read David Naylor’s blog at least once a month. He’s an SEO chap from Exeter which is near a little town called Crediton which happens to have a lovely pub and some amazing cider just outside the town which as you can imagine is more than enough reason to read his blog.
You’ll notice that all these blogs have a few things in common, they’re not hard core marketing websites and they’re not complex sales sites. Each provides great information, informative content and makes a personal connection with the reader. The other thing that you’ll notice? They all have great PageRanks … which proves that even if they’re not making a lot of money at blogging they really know what they’re doing.
05
Dec
2008
Dec
2008
How often should you publish a blog?
When it comes to updating your business or personal blog, there are a few schools of thought on this subject but my personal advice is to write content when you have something to say but to only publishing it when your readers are ready to read it. Using a tool such as WordPress to publish your site content gives you the ability to write articles and either schedule them or save them, to edit and publish later, for example this piece is scheduled to be released on December 5th but was actually written a few days earlier and saved.
Before you publish a piece, follow a few simple guidelines:
- Have something of quality to share with your readers, remember once posted it should not come down and therefore is going to reflect you for a very, very long time
- Take time to proof your work and ensure you’ve structured the article properly. Look for grammar and spelling mistakes before it’s published
- Optimize your piece for your self promotion. Once written, take a look to see if there are any phrases or keywords you should deep link to other articles on your own website then, rescan the article to see if there are any phrases you should like to valuable sources of information outside your site
Once you’ve written a piece that you feel deserves to be published (trust me, I throw out a lot of articles) then it’s time for you to determine when is the best time for you to publish your piece. Personally, I find that I tend to write in spurts. Some days I will write nothing at all but other days I’ll write four or five pieces and store them for later publishing. This allows me to ensure the work has time to ripen but also, it lets those people who are subscribed to my RSS and Email feeds receive updates over time rather than being bombarded with too much content all at once.
If possible, try to publish content regularly regardless of if it’s daily or weekly. If you’re capable of writing a quality piece a day, have it published daily but if you can only handle one a week take the time to choose the best day of the week for your audience. Remember, publishing a blog is a lot like being a stand up comedian, it isn’t a monologue and since you require the participation of others, it’s time to learn about them.
A Google Analytics report showing daily traffic.
Luckily for us web publishers, Google Analytics has come to our rescue and can provide us with all the data we need to learn about our visitors.
What day to publish.
The first piece of data we can look at with Google is what day of the week to publish new articles on. This is critical if you’re not capable of writing daily. From my own graph (to the right) I can see distinct ebbs and flows to my traffic, the full report on Google shows me that the low peeks are on Sundays with a rise in traffic the following day and gentle trailing off through the week. This has taught me a few things:
- If I am posting daily, more people are reading on Monday
- My readers tend to read over the week as opposed to weekends and;
- If I want to keep readers happy, I should post more in the latter half of the week
What time of day to publish
Hourly Breakdown
The second key piece of data we can retrieve from Google Analytics is to determine what time of day to post our content.
As you can see in my chart, the majority of my traffic enters into the site between 9AM and 7PM, which is based on the time of day I specified as my local time zone in Google. Odd fact for you … I’m in the same time zone as the Bahamas, one hour East of New York so what the graph is really telling me is that most people surf my website between 8AM and 6PM EST, during working hours. If I want to capitalize on that fact, I would ensure my scheduled posts are always posted at a time when people are likely to read them, for example mid morning for my audience.
Who is my audience?
A Geographical breakdown of my US audience
Now there’s an interesting question. So far, I’ve established what time of day I should publish and what days of the week I should publish on but not … who I’m publishing for. As I said earlier in this post, blogging isn’t a monologue, I write and people respond by email and comments which, directly influences what I write.
In order to better understand my readers, I need to know where they’re coming from and according to Google, people are coming from:
- 3,500 people this month from the UK
- India sent 1,520 visitors
- Canada hovered around 4,500 and;
- the US accounted for 16,631 visits. Oddly San Francisco was my top city with 1,600 visits alone while the state of New York and Texas each sent 1,000 visitors.
What does this tell me? Maybe it tells me that my audience likes to eat Rice-A-Roni, ride horses and shovel snow but it might also tell me that I have a very good chance of winning a presidential election if I color the chart just a little differently although with only 450 visits from Ohio, I’ll have to work harder there.
Special thanks to How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo, Learning to Use Google Analytics – Managing Technology – Dennis D. McDonald and Wild Apricot Blog : How to use Google Analytics for some great tutorials on using Google Analytics when I needed them.
11
Nov
2008
Nov
2008
Eight Ways to Make Money Online
In August, there was a great article in Information Week called 8 Ways to Make Money Online, I have to admit that I stole the title from them but then again I think Forbes did the same when they published their piece called In Pictures: Eight Ways To Make Money Online.
Here’s the trick to making money online, you won’t get rich. That’s a bitter pill for most people to swallow but sometimes it’s not about getting rich, it’s about helping to make the bills and earning money while you’re doing other things, a little at a time.
A few years ago I read a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad in which the author discusses how to make money and the power of a hot dog cart. In essence, he explains that the way to get rich isn’t through great ideas but by generating money while you sleep, eat or even play with the kids. That’s the trick with the Internet and making money on it, I get paid a great salary consulting for businesses around the world but I also make money every day just by running my websites.
Think about that, it doesn’t matter if I’m sick or on vacation, if I’m playing in the backyard or taking out the trash. My websites, my online stores and my games are all making me money everyday.
Here’s how I do it:
1. Affiliate Programs – See that link for Rich Dad, Poor Dad? Click on over to Amazon and buy it, you’ll get a great deal and I’ll earn a couple of dollars for sending you to them. That’s how Affiliate programs work. I have a similar deal with BlueHost, one of the best hosting companies around, who also happen to pay me each time people sign up with them.
2. Pay Per Click Advertising – By far, the best known source for advertising revenue is Google’s AdSense. With Google, you can place a small piece of JavaScript code on your website and they’ll present your users with advertisements from related sites. Each time a visitor clicks on one of the ads (mine are located to the right on this page) you’ll receive a small amount of money from the advertiser.
3. Affiliate Advertising - Throughout my website you’ll see small ads measuring 125px x 125px, these ads are for products and services that I’ve selected for my website. Unlike Pay Per Click Ads which pay each time you click them, these advertisements work more like the Affiliate Program model, with money being paid for sales received from my referrals.
4. Write Quality Content – Regular readers here on my blog will know that I’m a huge believer in writing quality content, what they might not know is that I also sell my work to other websites and to other bloggers who need quality content for their own sites. Sites like elance.com and helium.com are great sources of professional writing projects.
5. Photographs – Web site such as istock.com will pay you between 25¢ and $3 each time somebody wants to download your photography. With the advent of digital cameras, it’s easy to upload hundreds of quality photographs to websites and earn royalty cheques each month.
6. Sell Stuff Online – Use websites like eBay, Kijiji and CraigsList to sell everything from old LEGO to quality services. Some are free, some cost a little. I wrote a piece called Making Money Online all about this.
7. Be an Expert – Using tools such as Adobe Acrobat Connect, it’s easy to run online web seminars. Running these virtual training sessions allow people who live in remote areas to attend virtual conferences, learn from experts and take part in discussions without having to travel.
8. Create Content – We’ve already touched on the fact that you can sell photographs and writing but if you’re an illustrator or an animator, why not use those skills like I do? My content sells to people all over the world on websites such as istock.com and even Second Life.
During the course of writing this article, I found the following websites great sources of information:
30
Oct
2008
Oct
2008
Book Review: Content Rich by Jon Wuebben
Recently I won a copy of Content Rich by Jon Wuebben from Andy Beal’s website the Marketing Pilgrim. First off, let me say a huge thank you to Andy for running the contest and that I received the book yesterday. In fact, I didn’t put it down and finished reading it this morning. Now my dog eared, sticky noted copy of this great book is going to sit on my book shelf for a few days while I absorb the contents and then I’ll reread it paying extra attention to my own comments I wrote the first time through.
In his book, Jon covers a lot of ground with an emphasis on ensuring content is unique, interesting and above all focuses on the reader. Think of it as user-centric writing for the new age. He also talks about how to use blogs to sell your product and reminds us that recommendations are a powerful sales generator:
“Blogs are really great for another big reason: consumers end up buying from your compnay not because of you so much, but because of what other consumers are saying about your product or service, in the blog. ”
Buy Online: Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
There are a couple other strong reviews for the book at the KISS Business and Business and Blogging that I recommend taking a look at.
