Bloggingtricks

This is part four of our series of blogging myth busters. This series will run over the next two weeks and is co-written by Scott & Jana Bourne.

Myth #4 - My company wants to maintain a consistent look and feel with our brand identity. We can't do that with our blog.

All blogging platforms include templates that can be customized to fit your brand. Your communications and design team can also build blog templates from scratch using your colors, logos and other familiar branding tools. If you can do it on a website, you can do it on a blog.

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This is part three of our series of blogging myth busters. This series will run over the next two weeks and is co-written by Scott & Jana Bourne.

Myth #3 - Employees will spend too much time blogging and not enough time working.

Companies voiced this same concern when the telephone was invented and again when e-mail was introduced in the workplace. This same concern could be expressed about employees spending too much time on the Web. And of course, for the purpose of this discussion, blogs are simply websites. The bottom line is that it should be obvious to any manager if an employee isn't delivering. And due to the nature of blogs, internally or externally, you can see how often a person is posting, and what they are talking about.

If you allow employees to blog about work issues, you will be creating a new and important communication channel to share knowledge throughout the company. You'll also be creating an archive of knowledge capital that is more efficient and easier to access than if it was sent via a group e-mail.

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This is part two of our series of blogging myth busters. This series will run over the next two weeks and is co-written by Scott & Jana Bourne.

Myth #2 - I want to set up an external blog, but I'm afraid someone will say something bad about my company. What should I do?

First, people are talking about your company whether you have a blog or not. At least if they make comments on your blog, you can respond. You can control the discussion. For that matter, if someone says something about you somewhere else, you still can still respond on your blog. That said, blogging applications allow you to turn off or moderate comments.

For example, General Motors uses moderated comments on its Fastlane blog. It posts comments – good and bad – and responds to them. This makes the company more credible. Moderating comments also allows GM to remove comments that are off topic or that should be sent to the customer service department for action. Some companies choose to invite feedback via e-mail. Then they respond to comments in blog posts.

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We're going to start a series of blogging myth busters. This series will run over the next two weeks and is co-written by Scott & Jana Bourne.

Myth #1 - There's no secure environment for my blog

Several different blogging platforms allow you to set up secure blogs, just like any other secure website. You can set permissions so that some blogs are available to all employees or readers and/or only a certain group of employees and readers. Companies can give publishing rights to editors who review, edit and approve content before publishing. Blogging functionality can be made available to employees through their regular user ids and passwords. The audience can be controlled by simply using passwords.

Anything that you can do now to make your basic website secure, you can do to secure your blog too.

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Want more traffic? Build a glossary. Jargon is often an issue in blogs because blogs tend to be very niche focused. If you have to use words that might exclude some of your readers, a glossary is a quick fix. You can link to it whenever you're using words that your audience might not be familiar with. Alternatively you might like to Wikipedia to explain certain words.

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I recently had a client tell me they won't use Blogger because Google (Blogger's owner) refuses to allow MSN search on any Blogger website. WRONG!

Google allows all sorts of non-Google services to run on Blogger pages.

While Blogger isn't perfect, it's a pretty robust solution with lots of options and it's still free.

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If you use Blogger (and some other blogging platforms for that matter) you have the option of turning Word Verification on. This is an automated spam catcher that stops spammers from using robots to fill your comment area full of spam. It's a feature sometimes called a CAPTCHA.

Captchas are puzzles that humans can read but computers cannot. However, not all humans have perfect vision. For the visually challenged, Blogger (and the folks at CAPTCHA.COM) have introduced audio verification. In the case of Blogger, there is a small wheelchair icon next to the text box under the word verification puzzle. Click that icon and you'll hear the letters spoken. Type in the letters you hear and the puzzle is solved.

If you have or expect readers with vision problems, you might want to explain this to them if you're interested in receiving their comments.

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I'm often asked how to make a hyperlink open in a new window. It does require some HTML unless your blogging platform automatically supports this feature (WordPress does.)

Enter the link code this way:



URL is the link you want to open and DESCRIPTION is the way you want to describe the link, such as "MYWEBSITE".

This keeps your original browser window and existing page open while launching another browser window with the new page.

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Your headline is a commercial for the rest of your blog post. You need to "sell" the reader on the notion that investing their time in reading the rest of the post is a worthwhile endeavor.

The headline is your chance to do that.

Over the next few months, I'll mention some tricks that will make your headlines more valuable.

Today's trick is simple. Quote a statistic.

Headlines like:

80% of All Podcasts Delivered Through iTunes

or

Six Out of Ten Podcasters Use Macs

are sure to do better than

People Use iTunes to Listen to Podcasts

or

People Use Both Macs & PCs to Make Podcasts

Think of a way to incorporate a statistic in your headline and you will increase your chances of drawing the reader deeper into your post.

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Just last month, I told you about AudioBlogger. Unfortunately, the comapny is no longer providing this service. Here's most of a letter that they sent out last week:

"As of November 1, 2006, Audioblogger will no longer accept phone calls. MP3s made with the service will continue to be hosted and served but you will no longer be able to use Audioblogger to post new audio.

Audioblogger is an independent product, run by Odeo, Inc., a small startup company in San Francisco, CA. We are not affiliated with Google or Blogger except that we operate and provide the Audioblogger service.

Given our limited resources, we have to make tough decisions about what projects to focus on. And we've come to the difficult decision that Audioblogger demands too many resources, time, and
money for us to continue its operation.

However, there are several other services that offer similar functionality. Odeo is not affiliated with any of these services, we only suggest them only in hopes that one or the other will be a good alternative for you.

Gabcast.com is a free service for recording by phone
Hipcast.com has a seven day free trial and lots of features
Gcast.com is another free service for phone recording

All of the phone posting services listed above are compatible with Odeo in that they produce podcast feeds, which can be imported to Odeo. Any audio file at Odeo can be posted on a blog by copying and pasting some embed code."

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Yes Holloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Chanukah are all right around the corner. It's a great time for bloggers to inform readers how their niche and the holidays go together.

For instance, if you write a bowling blog, you could create a "Top Ten Gifts For The Bowler In Your Family" post with links to Amazon (assuming you're an Amazon affiliate this could earn you some cash) or another similar buying service.

Or how about a blog at actors giving advice on the best type of Holloween costume?

Food blogs could offer up that favorite Thanksgiving turkey recipie.

Remember that some people get into planning their holiday activities far in advance. So don't wait until the last minute to offer your suggestions - unless of course you're doing a post on last minute suggestions for the holiday shopper.

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If you launch a new site, you'll have to wait for Google to "trust" it before they will index it. SEO wizards call this being stuck in the "sandbox."

One way to get out of the sandbox is to build trusted links. Business.com is one such trusted link. So I have just given you some good news. I have told you how to get out of the sandbox. All you need is a few trusted links. And Business.com is one such link. Here's the bad news. You have to pay for it. Business.com costs $199 per year. All the details are included on their Annual Directory Inclusion page.

Here are the primary features:

*Standard Listing describing your product or service

*Stringent editorial policies and 65,000 directory categories place your link in only the most relevant position

*Major search engines index leading directories as source of new web sites

*The $199 fee gets your site listed regardless of the size of your site<

*Up to 4 additional multi-links allow your listing to link to deep site content

*Listings run for an entire calendar year and are renewable for $149

*Listings are live within 5 business days

I have clients who use Business.com and swear by it. I am not an agent of Business.com nor do I receive any compensation for mentioning their service. I just know that it's a good way to get out of the sandbox.

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Those of you who are blogging for profit or business will want to know more about metrics. While the measurement tools available are still primitive on some level, you can learn quite a bit about your blog's performance if you do it right.

I came upon a well-documented and well written report called, Blogging E-Metrics that covers this ground quite nicely. Take a look.

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