Blogs

Syndicating Your Content

Syndicating Your Content
Show Notes: February 8, 2010

 Blogging Tips [14:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (43)

Today’s show shares how RSS and Blogs start the content syndication process.

Sites or services discussed:

HootSuite – check out the Hootlet
Google’s Reader – subscribe to blog rss feeds with Reader

Internet markets today understand the immense benefits of hosting their blogs on their own domain.

If you are serious about wanting to earn money on the internet, then you will need to set up a blog and host it on your domain. Outlined below are some of the main benefits which you can enjoy from hosting your own blog on your domain.

• If you have a blog hosted on your domain, you have control over everything about your blog. You can have your own layout and design for your blog, which means you can have a blog that matches your website logo. You can make your blog as unique as you want. This gives you an edge against other competing blogs in the same niche which may have similar layouts. You also have complete freedom to do anything you want with your blog. By hosting your blog on your domain, you can control your blog in many ways you want and you can add any features you want.

• By hosting your blog on your domain name, you make it easier for people to remember your blog.

• Hosting your blog on your domain means that you can develop and promote your own brand using your blog. You can make your blog headings similar to your website. In terms of search engine optimization (SEO) and advertising, this is very important because you will be advertising and optimizing your own domain and your own brand. SEO is also effective to do with your own domain name that includes your keywords. This will increase your blog’s visibility on search engines.

• By hosting your blog on your website, you have added security. This means that you don’t have to worry about losing your information or getting locked out of your account.

• You present a professional image by having your online business logo on your blog. This gives you ad edge against other competing website or blogs.

• Hosting your own blog gives you much more flexibility and extendability, meaning you can more easily monetize your blog, creating passive income.

Based on the advantages outlined above, if you are serious about your online business, you must consider hosting your blog on your own domain.

Join the conversation and let me know what you think by commenting!

Ok, another new word, scraping.  I was notified that I had comments awaiting moderation. These comments showed a small portion of my original post, including a link back to my blog.  Usually I check the website address for the comment to see if it’s legit and found that these types of comments were on a useless blog.  I couldn’t figure it out….until today.

I have made it a practice not to approve comments that don’t really add to the blog, that are blatantly bogus. I subscribe to a ton of blogs and I found this post, "One Sure Way To Stop Scrapers From Earning Off Your Blog", from Blog Content Provider.com to explain it well.

Let me know what you think by commenting below.

Small Business Webinar Series on Blogs and Blogging

 Monday, March 24th 3pm PT – 6pm ET

• Want to know where to submit your blog?
• Want to learn how to share your blog content?
• Would you like to be recognized as an expert in your industry?

If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, blogging is for you. Magic In Blogging will host a small business webinar on blogs and blog marketing. Whether you go the full route of having a blog site as your main site, like Magic In Blogging, or if you add a blog to your existing site, there’s no doubt that blogging will drive more traffic to your site.

Don’t miss this webinar! Participate from the comfort of your office with only an internet connection and speakers. What are you waiting for? Sign up now, learn about blogging and bring more traffic to your site.

Small Business Webinar Series on Blogs and Blogging

 Monday, March 10th 6pm PT – 9pm ET

• Do you want more traffic to your website?
• Do you want to improve your search engine rankings?
• Would you like to be recognized as an expert in your industry?

If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, blogging is for you. Magic In Blogging will host a small business webinar on blogs and blog marketing. Whether you go the full route of having a blog site as your main site, like Magic In Blogging, or if you add a blog to your existing site, there’s no doubt that blogging will drive more traffic to your site.

I know, you’re asking, “how’s blogging going to help me?” Those are the questions this webinar will answer for you.

• What is blogging?
• How will it help my business?
• What do I have to do?
• Do I need any special programming skills?

Don’t miss this webinar! Participate from the comfort of your office with only an internet connection and speakers. What are you waiting for? Sign up now, learn about blogging and bring more traffic to your site.

This is a tutorial on adding a custom header image to your Blogger blog. You’ll want to make your blog look as much like your branded business as possible.

Let me know, by posting a comment, if this has been helpful.

We all want to make a little money, or maybe a lot of money, on our blogging efforts. In a continuing desire to assist you in developing monetization strategies for your blog.

I’ve also talked about using Google News Alerts to help you discover content for your blog posts. I’ve really been put to the test by participating in the 24 Days ‘Til Christmas Blogging.

I found a great post on developing an advertising strategy for your blog and wanted to share it with you.

I’ll be sharing more opportunities for you to create a passive income from your blogs and blogging efforts. If you have any to share, please feel free to leave a comment.

Many bloggers start out on the free blogging platform. I recommend WordPress.com because, if you decide to host your blog, it’s easily transferable to your own domain, is highly extendable and robust, especially for the non-programmer.

I find sometimes it’s hard to remember how to execute various tasks, and I’m helping my Leads Club Chapter Members learn how to blog.

This video tutorial is on creating a post at WordPress.com. Let me know if it helps by commenting below!

I found a great blog post on Copyright Laws for Bloggers that I wanted to share.

I also thought I’d share some of the sites I find the images I use, so I don’t violate any copyright laws (no, you can’t just google images and use them)! Two of the sites I use are:

iClipArt is holding a sale right now, $29.95 for a year. You can search for clipart, photos, sounds, video and web graphics. It’s easy to search across the categories and has a great variety of images.

Check this out if you want to add some "eye candy" to your posts.

iStockPhoto offers low cost photos for your commercial use. You need to purchase credits and a normal image costs 2 – 3 credits.

iStockPhoto also has videos and illustrations, which are really nice. If you are a photographer or graphic artist you can earn credits by offering up your work. It’s a great site, check it out.

What resources do you use for images and photos?

When you visit any of my sites, you’ll notice that I have a feature that, when you roll over the icon, a preview of the linked page will appear. It’s Snap Shots, and now you can use it on your site too!

Snap Shots is the world’s most popular way to give your users a more fun and interactive experience on your site or blog. Now with Snap Shares, you can monetize inventory you didn’t know you had. It’s a complete system designed to help you get more from your site.

• Snap Shots uses your links to bring the most appropriate information about the sites you’re pointing to. Your audience doesn’t even have to leave your site to get the best of other sites.
• Snap Shares gives you a portion of the ads that appear in Snap Shots and lets you do what you wish — serve ads through your regular provider, market yourself or share them with charity.
• Snap Shots Engage looks for certain key phrases within your site and connects them with the best content in the world. And you don’t even have to write a link.

There is also a WordPress Plugin for Snaps which makes it easy to add to your WordPress blog. Here’s the Snap Shot Guide for your use.