Blog Smart Resources

As you know I am a big proponent of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 services such as social networking sites, blogging, video sharing sites, and social bookmarking and tagging sites.

I believe that one of the best ways to get traffic to your blog is to submit individual posts to sites such as StumbleUpon, Technorati and others. Recently I have come across a website called Social Marker that allows you to submit to over 46 of these types of social bookmarking and tagging sites at one time.

They also offer a plug-in for WordPress Blogs and a drag and drop icon for your bookmarks toolbar. I haven’t installed the plug-in yet but plan to do so soon.

Here are four reasons why you should use Socialmarker.com

• It helps you get a lot of backlinks.
• It helps you increase your traffic.
• Your link gets indexed by Google in a matter of minutes.
• Best of all, it’s free!

Technorati Tags: social bookmarking, tagging, social media, socialmarker

From time to time I discover a software package that may prove helpful to bloggers. Bleezer, I believe is among those software package.

Most blogs come with an editor that can be applied in a web page, but this isn’t always the most convenient method to edit text. Bleezer is a program for writing blog posts that can be saved on the computer.

Although Bleezaer is based on Java this is a version specifically for Windows. Versions also exist for Mac and Linux. I am writing this blog post for people who have more than one operating system. The reason for this is that  Windows users will probably find Microsoft Live Writer to be a better editor for their uses.

Installing is easy but you’ll require to information about the blog. Username and password are obvious but it also needs the location of a few files on the blog, such as the xmlrpc.php file on Wordpress blogs.

It can work with tags from Technorati and Delicious and can automatically ping blog tracking sites to let them know about new posts. Bleezer also has a spellchecker built in, but unfortunately does not work in real time.

To download Bleezer go to http://www.computeractive.co.uk/articles/download/2223607

Technorati Tags: blog editors, blogging software, webmaster tools

The original intent of this blog was to deal with how to increase your business influence through blogging as well as provide resources for blogging. Over the time that Blog Smart Resources has been around we’ve also discussed such things as social networking, Web 2.0 and 3.0, RSS and many other off-shoots of the blogging phenomenon.

This article takes us back to talking about blogging for business. According to an article titled Dealing With the Bad Side of Business Blogging ‘blogs take a while to mature, and along the way, every business blogger will deal with languishing in obscurity, cutting criticism, and a lack of motivation.” This has been certainly true in my case as sometimes I have thought about throwing in the towel when it comes to blogging. Sometimes it seems as if my time is limited and I never get time to write a decent post.

Dealing With the Bad Side of Business Blogging gives three helpful tips with explanations in detail on how to handle these growing pains so that a blog can attract new readers, weather growing pains and improve search engine rankings in order to generate new business.

The first tip is that bloggers should get used to speaking to an empty room. Blogs take a while to get indexed by a search engine and to develop a following. It is suggested that you write about content that is relevant at any time.

Secondly the author of this article suggests that you must develop a thick skin as ultimately you will get “flamed” by people. It is also important to separate careless attacks from thoughtful criticism.

The other thing mentioned in the article and something that I have been very guilty of is not posting for long periods of time. Since you’ve worked hard to develop readership it is important to provide fresh content and generate new ideas for features. If you stop posting too long your new content will stop getting indexed and your rankings will fall. You should post at least three times a week or you will struggle to keep your readers.

Taking notice of these points is important and I will try to take these facts into consideration with dealing with this blog as well as any others that I have.

To read the original article make sure to visit Dealing With the Bad Side of Business Blogging.

Technorati Tags: blogging, business blogging, seo, getting readers

John Merrick & Soren Jordansen have created an amazing new system in my opinion. It is called TweetMyBlog, a new Wordpress Plugin that I have just installed.

Since a great many of us forget to post on Twitter at least on a regular basis there system automatically posts a tweet every single time you update your Wordpress blog and of course those tweets link back to your blog.

There system gets you more people following you at Twitter and those people are only those who would be generally interested in reading your tweets and blog posts.

Another component of their plugin TweetMyBlog is that it ensures that you can get paid for using Twitter both directly and from the massive amounts of extra traffic that you can generate.

Merrick and Jordansen’s plugin is more than just a flashy Twitter plugin for Wordpress. According to them it is a fully fleshed out marketing plan that will put the power of Twitter at your finger tips.

Check out TweetMyBlog today.

Technorati Tags: twitter, tweet my blog, wordpress plugins, web 2.0, make money blogging

Numerous people complain about Twitter’s deficiencies. In fact some people, including M.G. Siegler, may think that microblogging platform Twitter is doomed. Canadian Wikitravel and Certifi.ca founder Evan Prodromou has built an open-source microblogging tool that will allow users an option to instead than Twitter. Siegler, has said, “That’s why I’ve said in the past that the only thing that can kill Twitter is Twitter itself. If the service keeps failing to work, people will leave not out of choice, but out of necessity. I don’t think that’s going to happen because I think Twitter will right its ship before we get to that point.”

Prodromou crafted an open source platform named Laconi.ca and a hub site, Identi.ca, to fight the “walled garden” situation of the Web 2.0 world. One example is: Robert Scoble being kicked off Facebook for running code to port out his numerous contacts.)

According to Prodromou. People can use the Laconi.ca platform to brand their own microblogging for their own site, or as a sub-site. This is where the income will come in eventually; running on a “freemium” model, those who do extensive rebranding of the platform for their own presence or company, or boast hundreds of users, will pay a fee.

Marshall Kirkpatrick of the blog Read Write Web also rants about the neophyte technical specification OpenMicroblogging, which “allows users of one supporting subscription to send and receive messages securely across different microblogging services,” thus guaranteeing improved interoperability.

Prodromou claims that this application has many uses in enterprise, where workers can use — and already are utilizing — microblogging to communicate with each other and update coworkers on project progress or whereabouts.

My thoughts are similar to Seigler’s in that Twitter is the only thing that can destroy Twitter. Personally I have never had a lot of trouble with it and I still believe it is a great tool.

Technorati Tags: twitter, tweet, open microblogging, Robert Scoble, M.G. Siegler, Evan Prodromou, Marshall Kirkpatrick

Grammar has become a serious matter with social networking site Facebook. You should no longer see such statements as “Suzie changed their profile picture.”

If you are a Facebook user who hasn’t specified your gender in your Facebook profile you will be asked to in the coming weeks. That way Facebook doesn’t have to default to “their” or the made up word “themself” as it did in the past.

Not knowing someone’s gender does pose problems with English grammar but even more so as Facebook expands to other languages it creates more problems. This is due to the fact that in other languages there isn’t a gender neutral option available in plural form. People who haven’t indicated their sex have been defaulted to the wrong sex entirely. According to management at Facebook transgendered people and other users who find the male-female distinction limiting will still have the option of removing gender entirely from their profiles.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has dealt with grammar related issues. At first members were limited to what they could say in their “status updates” for their friends, as in “Tom is wasting time on Facebook.” Facebook late last year decided to drop the “is” and allow users to supply their own verb and write updates such as “Tom just wasted time on Facebook.”

These improvements definitely make Facebook more pleasant to work with.

Technorati Tags: grammar, facebook, social networking, status updates

Not only as publishers of blogs or other websites do we want traffic to our sites we also want to get repeat traffic to those sites. Getting repeat traffic will allow you to build your brand, build a relationship with your visitors, increase their trust in you & have them buy your products.

Mark Flavin in his blog published an article back on June 14th, titled 7 ways to make sure you get repeat traffic to your blog or website. Here are two of the seven ways:

1. Update the pages on your blog or website frequently, and

2. Make sure to include a subscribe button for your RSS feed.

To get the remaining five and to find out more about what Mark Flavin has to say about this go to his article 7 Ways To Get Repeat Traffic To Your Blog or Website.

Technorati Tags: traffic, repeat traffic, blog promotion, blog traffic, branding your site, rss, blogging

Every now and then I like to find a new way to promote blogs so that I can reveal it hear. The latest that I will reveal is BlogShowOff.

BlogShowOff is a dynamic blog directory and blog promotion site where you will find new blogs every hour. Whether you’re looking to promote your own blog or find blogs on various topics, this site is for you.

To find out how to add your blog to the directory visit BlogShowOff.

Technorati Tags: blog promomtion, advertise your blog, blog promoting

Do you have at least a minimal understanding of code? If so you may be able to create your own Wordpress plug-in or plug-ins. I am a firm believer in learning as many skills as you can by the process of self-education. If you want to learn how to create your own Wordpress plug-ins there is a valuable resource page available from the creators of Wordpress.

Just visit Writing a Plugin.

It has links to many plug-in resources, and a link to a page on how to submit and promote your plug-in for other people to use.

Technorati Tags: plugins, plugin, wordpress, wordpress plugins, codes, codex, developers

This is from an email dated May 31, 2008 so it’s a few days old. Are you familiar with such websites as MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog. These are two great sites loosely in my opinion categorized as social networking sites for getting website traffic to your blogs.

Well the news that I received is that BlogCatalog just got a facelift. The owners who took over BlogCatalog a year and a half ago focused on adding features. They have finally finished these updates.

The new features include:
* A new homepage
*New navigation
*New tabs in groups, account settings, dashboard, and user profiles
*Updated blog listing pages and much, much more.

If you are not a member of BlogCatalog simply go to http://www.blogcatalog.com and create an account and then join me as a contact at http://www.blogcatalog.com/user/kstien1959.

Technorati Tags: blogcatalog, blog catalog, blog traffic, social networks, blog promotion