Internet Business 4 All

The term Blogging Tory refers to any one of the many authors affiliated with the conservative Canadian community known as The

Blogging Tories. Today, there are over a hundred and fifty text-based blogs associated with the group, and there are new

Blogging Tories every day. The Tories stand as an inspiring example of a successful online community where the

ever-increasing numbers of affiliated members enjoy a fertile environment for discussion and debate about the ideas that

shape the face of Canada.

The majority of Tory bloggers do make political events and topics the focus of their blogs, but not all of the content that a

Blogging Tory creates and publishes is overtly related to the movements of the Canadian parliament or the prime minister.

Although the community members were brought together by a shared conservative viewpoint, the fact that not all of the

postings on all of the member\’s blogs focus on political topics is one of the most exciting things about the Blogging Tories.

On any given day, the main website\’s blogroll may feature postings about Olympic medalists, a James Bond film festival in

Quebec, or a comical personal experience with a telemarketer. The idea that having a political affiliation in common makes it

possible to have a fruitful discussion about other kinds of topics has interesting implications for how online communities

are established and how they grow.

Hi,

I just received a request to do a link exchange on a blog roll? How exactly do you do that? Do I just send in the link of my website? I use wordpress.org.

Thanks.

You give the person you’re exchanging with the following information

Website Title:
URL (Website Address):

He will do the same to you, go into your admin panel and add the information he gives you to your blog roll.

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WordPress is a free, well-structured blog publishing software. One of its sophisticated features is the Kubrick template. It is an easy to install and customizable open source template. Open source is a programming code that can be read, viewed, modified and distributed by anyone who wants to. Open source allows the user to make whatever changes he sees fit and releases the results as long as it is under the same terms as he received it. Kubrick comes bundled with WordPress as the default style.

WordPress Theme Kubrick K2 is an advanced template, a WordPress modification. It is developed by Michael Heilemann, Chris J. Davis, Zeo, Steve Lam and Ben Sheratt. It is sort of an improved version of Kubrick. WordPress handles logistics such as verifying users, receiving and sending data to and from the database and provides the user with the backend administration interface. K2, on the other hand, is the front end of WordPress. Its main job is to display data fetched through WordPress in the exact way at the exact time. K2 is what reaches the readers of a blog. K2 is a notch higher than the basic Kubrick because it serves not only the readers but the administration of the blog as well.

Upon installation of WordPress, the default theme is Kubrick. Say, after you have posted a couple of entries, you soon realized that you need to keep better track of the comments left by readers. To solve the problem, you download Brian’s Latest Comments plug-in. A plug-in is a programming script that adds functionality to your blog. This feature enhances already available feature or add them to your blog. WordPress offers an easy way to allow plug-ins to your blog. From the Administration Panel, there is a Plug-in Page. Just upload the plug-in to WordPress Plug-in Directory. Simply activate it from the Plug-ins Management SubPanel and the plug-in is ready. If you want to change your default style to K2, it takes care of everything. It can support a range of widely used plug-ins. All you have to do is upload and activate the plug-in, sit back and watch it work.

For a unique and beautiful looking blog, K2 has sub-themes called CSS styles. CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is a programming language that specifies how a blog page is presented. It allows web designers to create formatting and layout for a blog independently of content. CSS files are placed in a “styles” directory. Any CSS file in the directory can be selected from a drop down menu in the K2 “Options Panel” and can then be used to overwrite the default CSS in K2’s styles.css. You can also distribute your own CSS styles for other K2 users. K2 will automatically show the information about your style in the footer of the blog using it.

In K2’s “Options Panel” which is under “Presentation” you can also upload and manage custom headlines aside from selecting CSS styles. You can write a blurb or a short publicity notice about yourself for the front page and turn the AJAX features on and off. AJAX is a programming language that allows your Web browser to communicate with the server without having to reload the blog page you are currently viewing. Through AJAX, it becomes easier and faster to work with Web applications.

K2 has several major AJAX-powered features. Live commenting enables readers to leave comments without having to reload the page. LiveSearch does not require set up or code editing. You can type your search query and immediately have the result. LiveSearch integrates directly with Rolling Archives, a navigation method which allows you to navigate through archives and search results without having to reload the page. K2’s JavaScript code is less likely to break across browsers and hides complicated mechanics behind readable code. LiveSearch and Rolling Archives are highly customizable and can even be brought to your own template if you want to. All these can be done in the Options Page.

Sidebar Modules also comes bundled with K2. This allows you to totally customize your sidebar whatever way you deem best. Because the code is modular, created with standardized units, you can either write your own modules or allow plug-in writers to supply their own. You can freely drag and drop modules onto and off the sidebar. The Sidebar Modules also support WordPress Widgets. K2 also includes an Asides feature. If you want to use Matt’s Asides, K2 can implement them for you plus allows you to choose whether you want them inline or on the sidebar. If you want to have comments on a steady blog page or draw up an archives page, K2’s page templates make these easy.

K2 also provides you with relevant edit links for posts and comments, welcomes back previous commenters and make sure the readers get all the information they need when they need them. K2 can detect multiple-user blogs and shows author only when multiple authors are available. K2 allows the comments of the author of an entry to be highlighted.

While K2 has great backend functionality, there are downsides or major stumbling points going against WordPress Theme Kubrick K2. For one, development is still in the alpha stage, thus there are some pretty serious bugs to fix. Refrain from using K2 unless you understand what an alpha version is. There are likely to be plenty of bugs and the feature set and design are still in complete. In the alpha stage of development, each minor point release (i.e. 1.0 to 1.1) would mean significant update to the structure of the style. A letter increment (increase), on the other hand, (i.e. 1.1a to 1.1b) would mean a minor bug has been fixed on the previous release. A major increment (i.e. Alpha One to Alpha Two) would mean some major new features added or big changes to the code.

When the style reaches beta stage, there are only some minor improvements and bug fixes before the release, candidates should be feature complete and few bugs left only. Therefore, expect serious bugs as K2 is still in the alpha stage. There are a couple of bug fixes along the way so it is advised for anyone planning to upgrade to wait awhile for more bugs to be found and fixed before upgrading.

If you attempt to install the upgrade, strange errors occur when you play around with the Options Page. When you click on the sub-tab below the Presentation tab, a plain text that says “cannot load http://functions.php” error occurs. The Links Option Page does not work too. Links cannot be deleted. Hours of configuring K2 still proved futile. There is no blogroll and even the sidebar cannot be found. It is also such a bother having to move away from the main screen just to select a previous post one is looking for.

I guess all these downsides are to be expected as K2 is still in the development stage. Hopefully, a final version, more user-friendly, is in the can.

It’s a fact. The search engines don’t really care about most websites. If the search engines could talk (perish the thought) they’d tell you that for most keywords, only the first page or two of results are really worthwhile. The relevancy drops off very quickly, and the remaining several million websites stored in their indexes are irrelevant, and invisible. If this sounds like the problem your website is facing, read on.

In order to rank well, you have to do certain basic things. You can’t expect to get to the top of the pile without any effort. To get your website near the top, you’re going to have to break a sweat. The ten rules that follow aren’t the only rules in the SEO game. But they are good ones. Use them all, diligently, and your site will start moving up the charts within a couple of months.

1. Stay organized. Develop good planning habits and record-keeping and stick to them.

2. Start with a good website. If you site is boring, uninformative, and unoriginal, why would the major search engines want to send visitors there? They wouldn’t. So build great content.

3. Directory submissions are nothing to get hung up on. Just do it and move on. Directories are a small piece of the puzzle, not a whole campaign. You can find suggestions for good directories at www.directorylist.org, www.isedb.com, and www.searchengineguide.com.

4. Write regularly and promote your articles online. This is the guts of your search engine optimization work. To get found on the internet, you have to get your name known in your niche. You also have to get links back to your site, so you can rise in the search engine rankings. By publishing good quality articles via some specialized article distribution sites, you can accomplish both. You can also use article-writing to help you acquire links to important inside pages on your site. (Known as “deep-linking.”) Some reliable article distribution sites to check out include www.goarticles.com, www.articlealley.com, www.isnare.com, www.ezinearticles.com, and www.authorconnection.com.

5. Become a trusted community member. Search marketing is all about community and neighborhoods. If you don’t join in, you won’t get recognized. You can start by posting to forums in your field. Real posts, not just link-dropping. Social networking also belongs under this heading. You can join MySpace, and start spreading the word about your business, your hobby, your work, whatever it might be.

6. Start a blog and host it on your website’s domain. Learn about tags at www.technorati.com, and add them to each post. Start a “blogroll” of blogs you like. Do something useful with your blog (annoucements, reviews, advice, so on) then ask for links from trusted sites to help you keep blogging.

7. Do organized link searching. Pick your targets, such as “trade asssociations in the antiques business,” and go to those sites. Ask for links. Look at links on those sites, and follow them. And so on, until you reach the end of a particular line. The trick here is to keep it organized and keep good records. (I use Excel).

8. If organized link hunts are good, disorganized link hunting is just as good. Huh? Disorganized link hunting occurs when you track the competition to see who is linking to them. Then you go after the same links. That’s why it’s disorganized - you are just hunting around wherever your nose leads you. For in-depth tracking, consider the tracking service from www.googlealert.com. They are not a part of Google, but they track Google, and they are Google-approved.

9. Study your web statistics. For successful SEO, you must track who is coming to your site, how they are finding you, and how they navigate your site. Good stats packages can be found at www.google.com/analytics, as well as www.websidestory.com, and www.webtrends.com, to name a few.

10. Stay on top of the news, and be alert for random opportunity. This is often overlooked. When things happen in your industry - a new product, a show, a controversy - be ready to write about it. If you don’t, someone else will, and they will get all the links. If news breaks, talk about it in forums, on your website, and in your blog.

Sound like a lot of hard work? It is! The rewards go to those who put in the effort, not to those who want to “get rich quick” with a few tricks. Use all these 10 rules, and your website will become one of the few sites that the search engines really care about.

As you can surmise, one of the principal reasons why businesses find blogs effective as business tools is they help generate or increase sales. While there is no quantitative amount with regards to the exact monetary significance of blogging on sales, there are evidences of some sort of return on investment. Increase in sales can be and often is one of the indirect effects of successful blogging.

Blogs - Good for Business

Imagine sitting in front of your computer with millions of people (shareholders, business partners, competitors, employees and the media) conversing about business and the like. Now imagine if you can use all the information you learned to establish what product or service your customers want, why they want it, how they want it and how much they are willing to pay for it. This is precisely what a blog is all about and much more. Definitely, blogs are good for businesses.

A blog or a weblog is an interactive website that maintains an ongoing chronicle of information. It is a regularly updated website featuring links to other articles or other websites. Generally, a blog tends to have a main content area with articles called posts or entries listed in reverse chronological order with the latest on top. Typically, these articles are organized in categories. There is also an archive of articles based on dates. A blogroll, a list of links to other related sites is another feature of a blog.

A blog may contain one or more feeds. Most blogs publish feeds (RSS, RDF, Atom). A feed is a machine-readable content that is updated periodically. A feed reader displays the new post and a link to it. Most blogs also have a feature that allows visitors to leave comments. With a blog, you publish fresh content and your readers can add their own comments with links to their own blogs. Easy to use blogging tools are available, often for free. A basic blogging tool provides an interface where you can work in an easy and intuitive manner while it takes care of the rest of the logistics involved in making your blog presentable and available for the public.

Blogging, authoring or maintaining a blog, is one of the rapidly increasing growth areas of the Internet. According to popular search engine Technorati, there are roughly more than 40 million blogs on the Internet today and more blogs are appearing at the rate of 75,000 a day. This is mainly due to the numerous benefits of blogging for business.

A blog has a powerful marketing capability to grow your business, be it small or big. You can now have a commanding presence on the Web, not one based on size, capital, or resources but one based on quality of content, targeted audience and useful products and services. With blogs as equalizers, the blogosphere has become a truly exciting playing field for all businesses.

A blog is a constant source of valuable and up-to-date information. Setting up a blog allows you to showcase your expertise and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. A blog can be your vehicle for product or service updates, company news and any other information you want to relay to your targeted audience. A blog must contain relevant information, not just sales pitches; otherwise readers are much less likely to return. As with any part of a business marketing plan, a blog must contain information that appeals to its targeted audience.

A blog is an effective method to communicate with clients and prospects. It allows you to openly and regularly converse with them increasing credibility, creating trust and forming relationships with them early on. A blog with its conversational style is ideal for developing good customer relationships. Readers will feel comfortable with you long before they call you to make a purchase or avail of your service.

A blog is a great tool to get feedback from readers. Your readers can leave comments or make inquiries. A blog is a great way to find out what readers are thinking and in the process provides you with ideas or how to better serve them thus improving your business. Forming business decisions based on reader feedbacks can be one of the smartest business moves you can ever make.

Nevertheless, to be effective, a blog has to be updated frequently. Readers do not visit blogs that do not feature fresh content regularly. Keeping readers in the know with periodic posts about your business creates buzz and publicity. There is work involved in creating a blog. It takes time and commitment to write interesting and informative blog posts. But it may prove to be well-spent especially if it helps generate sales.

Blogs and Sales - In Tandem

Sales require personal interaction. A blog is one such place where communication thru conversations thrives and relationships are fostered. When you give your readers significant information they can use through your blog consistently, they will be satisfied. They will then return for more fresh content on a regular basis. Overtime, you will be able to build a loyal following. Readers will see you as an expert in your particular niche. Your readers will come to trust you and a relationship is developed. Your readers will perceive that it is less of a risk to buy from you or avail of your service. If you can blog efficiently about your subject, they tend to believe that your product or service will be worth it.

By blogging, you are sending the message that there is someone listening, someone you can approach as can be gleamed from answered comments and fresh updates. This will make your readers feel more secure and will take this into consideration as they form a purchasing decision. Blogging is inherently an ongoing conversation that in the long run builds trust and loyalty and breeds familiarity. When they become satisfied customers, they will come to you for more information and if given the choice will want to buy from you. This strengthens the relationship between you and your customers and they may also send other sales lead your way. The cycle goes on. Moreover, a blog is a remarkably effective way to get high search engine ranking. In other words, blogs can bring in more readers - more prospective buyers.

A much publicized example that highlights the natural relationship between blogs and sales is the Stormhoek case. Blogging doubled South African wine producer Stormhoeks’s sales in less than twelve months. Aware of the vast numbers of people who blog and read posts, Stormhoek decided to capitalize on this by offering bloggers free bottles of the Stormhoek Shiraz 2004 and Sauvignon Blanc 2005 to try and comment on. Sales went up from 50,000 cases to 100,000 cases. The wine became popular and earned it listings in prestigious wine connoisseur clubs. What is more, Stormhoek gets feedbacks and suggestions ranging from bottle color to label design.

Blogging is marketing to people in a less obtrusive and offensive manner, more like a freewheeling conversation compared to an irritating sales pitch. It truly is a good way to increase sales, albeit indirectly.

RebelDad makes an impassioned argument for elevating the way we describe dads who stay at home to be with kids:

So yesterday I was given another reminder that one of these days I should really start a blogroll for MAWDAHs… moms who go to work and are married to at-home dads. Asha over at ParentHacks.com flagged this post by Mom 101 about her husband. It is a wonderful denunciation of the strange and irritating trend toward referring to male caregivers by female terms (”The Mommy,” “Mr. Mom,” etc.)

I was asked recently what the problem with Mr. Mom is, and Mom 101 nails a good chunk of it. Here’s my take on why it’s a problem:

* It is unfair to women to “mom”ify the job. Calling a guy “Mr. Mom,” implies mom *should* be the one behind the stroller. That ought to be pretty offensive nowadays.

* It emphasizes the novelty of at-home fatherhood. A dad at the playground shouldn’t be treated with any more surprise that a female surgeon in the operating room. Why should “Hey – that kid’s caretaker is a *man*!” be any less offensive than “Hey – that doctor/lawyer/exec is a *woman*!”?

* It glosses over the different skills that mothers and fathers bring to the table. Kyle Pruett at Yale has made a career of noting that men and women generally parent differently, and that kids are best served by both styles of play. Suggesting that a dad is “mothering” shortchanges dads by ignoring the unique advantages of what Pruett calls “Fatherneed.” (And it shortchanges moms by suggesting that dads can provide traits that are generally unique to moms.)

* It reminds everyone of Jack Butler, Michael Keaton’s character in Mr. Mom. I know that the movie comes to a sweet end, where Jack becomes a good dad, etc. etc. But it is remembered in the collective unconscious as a movie about a do-nothing father who can’t iron and who drinks beer in the morning. I could do without those images being attached to dads taking care of their kids.

For more information on stay at home dad, please refer to http://www.greatdad.com

Mi blogroll, el mejor del mundo

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