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It’s true, many people online do not know about or understand RSS (Really Simple Syndication). They wonder if it’s called RSS then why isn’t it really simple? Well, it really is, but you have to put your mind around it. It can be a challenge at first if you aren’t real sure about it.

Really Simple Syndication started as a way to help content readers get the content they want on a regular basis without having to visit every single website that produces content. If you are a content producer or content publisher then you can expand your readership by offering RSS feeds. But what does that mean?

RSS feeds deliver content to people so that they can read that content in the format in which it was produced without visiting the original source. Content that can be delivered through RSS includes website content, blogs, articles, podcasts, videos, and any other digital content that can be produced in this millennium. So how do you do it?

Well, there are a number of ways, but I’m going to recommend one simple way to do it that doesn’t require a lot of technical knowledge. Open up a Feedburner account and they’ll provide you with code that you can include on your content sources in order to be delivered through RSS. Your subscribers will need a feed reader in order to read the content that is delivered by RSS. But that’s free and easy too!

Of course, they can also subscribe to your content by e-mail - if you offer that (and I recommend that you do). Wouldn’t you know it? Feedburner offers code for e-mail subscriptions as well.

If you really want people to read, listen to, or watch the content that you produce then open up a free Feedburner account and offer your content by subscription.

Many good bloggers focus too heavily on keywords. While keywords are important, you can emphasize them too much. What is more important is quality content. Here are some rebuttals to the arguments made in this article.

Getting Your Blog to Rank Highly In Search Engines

There is little point in writing a blog if no one comes to read it. Blogs are automatically search engine friendly because of their fresh content and clean formatting, but there are a few easy techniques you can use to improve your rankings.

A few words about keywords:

1. Choose your Keywords wisely.

You can choose to write on a topic, or for a key word or phrase, that is immensely popular and has a ton of competition, and never stand a chance of getting in the top page or two of rankings. Or you can choose similar but more targeted keyword or phrase with less competition be in the top 10 listings.

Actually, you should choose popular keywords or phrases. Don’t waste a lot of time looking for all the “long tail” keywords so you can rank for them. Keep a list of important keywords for your business and run through all of them - long tail and broad search. You don’t have to rank on page 1 of Google for every single keyword or phrase. Some of your best traffic will come from your pings.

2. Key Word or Phrase? That is the next question.

Most people do not use a single word for a search engine query. The often search a phrase or even type an entire question. This is not necessarily the most efficient way to search, but it is the most natural. So do not think you need to limit yourself to single key word. A key phrase of three - five words is entirely appropriate.

It is difficult to optimize a blog post for keyword phrases longer than three words. When you optimize a blog post, your three keywords or phrase do not even have to be contiguous - one right after another. You can split up the phrase several times in your blog post and still rank for the phrase because most search engines these days are using semantic language algorithms. Your phrase does not have to remain in tact for every usage.

3. Choose your URL wisely.

Once you have chosen your keyword, it is time to choose your URL wisely. Whether your blog is hosted by your blogging software, on your own domain or subdomain. You want your primary keyword to be in your domain name (URL).

If you use WordPress, which I highly recommend, all you have to do is include your specific keyword or phrase in the title of your post and WordPress will automatically include that in your URL. It’s called a permalink. Of course, you have to change the default settings in WordPress to format your permalink properly. That isn’t hard to do if you know how. A one-hour tutorial can help you get your permalink set right, or a professional WordPress expert can do it for you.

4. Keyword Placement

Besides having your primary key word in your URL, you also want it to appear the header tags and titles of your posts.

Yes, I recommend adding a title and description tag at the very least to your header.php file. Again, a one-hour tutorial can help you do that, or a WordPress expert can do it for you.

5. Keyword usage in the body of your post

When writing each post you of course want to use your primary keyword(s) in the text, but don’t over do it or you’ll sound like spam. Always write in a natural, reader friendly manner. This is also the place put a few secondary keywords as well.

This is where a lot of bloggers go wrong. Don’t overdo it. Blog spam is easily detected by the search engines and if you litter your blog posts with your keyword over and over again then it won’t rank the way you want it to. The search engines will discount it as spam. Use your keyword phrase, but use it sparingly.

6. Keywords in Links

Keywords that appear in links are more important than those in plain text. So where appropriate, when linking to another blog or website, use your keywords in the text of links.

Do it once or twice. I’ve seen bloggers use six or eight links in a 300-word blog post. That’s spam. It doesn’t help you. Search engines will only count the first instance of your anchor text. After that, strategically place your links for driving traffic where you want it to go. Otherwise, you’ll be guilty of overkill, aka “spam”.

7. Keyword Categories

Another natural place to put your keywords in your Category names.

Yep. I agree. And be sure to include tags with each post. The latest edition of WordPress has a field for you to enter your tags.

Keywords are not the only thing search engines consider when ranking your blog. Here are few other areas to consider:

Links

Links that point to your blog and posts are very important to building pagerank.

1. Search Engines and Directories

Being listed in search engines and directories provide great single direction links. So make sure you submit your blog, first of all to dmoz.org. This is end all, be all to internet directories and is a place that most search engines pull from to find websites to spider. After than submit directly to the major search engines, that way they know you exist. Finally, submit to the blog search engines and various free directories.

This information is so outdated. First, DMOZ is not the end-all be-all of directories. It could take as long as a year to get listed there AFTER you submit your blog. By that time you could 365 blog posts, or more, and already have top 10 listings with single blog posts. Sure, submit to DMOZ, but even if you don’t, do other things right and you’ll have a blog that you can be proud of.

You don’t have to submit your blog to search engines any more. That’s why they have spiders. The most important thing to do to get your blog crawled by the search engines within 72 hours is to get at least one inbound link. Find a local directory and submit your blog to it. Open an account at Google Webmaster Central and verify your blog. Also, verify it with Yahoo! and MSN. Once you do that, you’ll be crawled.

Here is a well respected list of Blog Directories by Robin Good.
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55

2. Articles

Turn some of your blog posts into articles and submit them to the article directories. This will get you more linkbacks.

Yes, this is a good long-term strategy.

3. Comment

Leave appropriate comments on forums and other blogs with a link to your site in the comment.

This is a great way to get quick back links to your blog. Find two or three forums and blogs in your niche and leave a comment. Don’t spam them. Find an appropriate topic and join the conversation. Make it seem natural and people will love you.

Updates

1. Update your blog.

The more fresh content you have, the happier the spiders are. Some blogging software will even let you write posts in advance and schedule them to be posted on certain days.

You can timestamp your blog posts, but I don’t recommend it. We found out that WordPress pings your blog posts when you publish them, not when they go live. That means that if you timestamp a blog at 5 p.m. to go live the next morning at 10 a.m. then it will notify all the ping directories at 5 p.m. on the day that you publish, a full 17 hours before you want the post to go live. You’ll likely get visitors to that blog posts too soon and if it contains information that you don’t want to go public before 10 a.m. the next day, you’ve breached your own security.

Blog directories like Technorati index blog posts by listing the latest one at the top and the oldest ones below it. If you want your post to go live at 10 a.m. the next day then when 10 a.m. comes around, because you pinged when you published, that blog post will be at the bottom of the heap. The people you want to read it when you want them to read it will not get that chance. I don’t recommend timestamping. A better solution is to write the post ahead of time and save it as a draft. Then when it comes time to publish it, you can login and publish it in a few seconds.

2. Ping

After you update your blog, you’ll want to “ping” the search engines to let them know you have new content. That will get your site spidered more often. You can us the Ping-O-Matic Tool (http://pingomatic.com/) to ping a lot of search engines all at once. Alternately, if you use Feedburner, for your RSS distribution, they have a tool that will automatically ping the search engines when you update your blog.

Yes, Feedburner does have a ping tool. So does WordPress. I recommend getting a list of ping directories and insert that list into the ping field of WordPress. Alternatively, you can use Feedburner’s distribution model. One or the other is fine.

Other words on Feedburner, even if you use WordPress to ping the directories, I still recommend Feedburner for RSS distribution.

Follow these few easy guidelines and see your blog listed in the search engines in no time.

Cheryl Hartzman is a successful work at home mom who specializes in providing advice and opportunities to others who want to earn a living working at home. For more information about working at home, visit her blog at http://wahcenter.blogspot.com.

Copyright © 2008 Cheryl Hartzman. All Rights Reserved (Article may be reprinted if all text and links remain intact and unchanged.)

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cheryl_Hartzman

Cheryl Harzman has some good advice for you here, but some of it is outdated and incomplete, or inaccurate.

Find out more about professional blog management at BCP.

Blogging is virtually free advertising. For $10 per year for a domain name (or $0 if you put your blog on your already existing website) and the cost of a ghostwriter, you can have a great blog. Don’t want to hire a ghostwriter? Do it yourself for less. But a ghostwriter can make your blog special.

Here are some of the benefits of blogging that other forms of advertising don’t offer:

• More personal medium than print advertising because you can infuse your personality into a blog and your readers will appreciate that.
• You can write every day and gain loyal readers.
• Because of the way search engines rank and categorize information, you have multiple chances of reaching your target market.
• Your readers can help you market your services through social media like Facebook, BlogCatalog, and Digg.
• Due to the fleeting nature of information today, you can quickly respond to breaking changes in your industry through your blog.
• A blog is relatively simple and inexpensive to set up.

For more information on blogging and blog ghostwriting, consult with a blogging expert.

If you use social bookmarking and social networking sites for very long then you’ll eventually run into a situation where you are banned or threatened with banishment for not following the website’s guidelines. It behooves you to learn the guidelines of the sites that you use before that situation arises. I myself have been banned from one site and I have a friend who was banned at the same site just a few weeks later. Neither of knows what offense we committed to be banned.

Propeller is one site in particular that will ban you for offenses and not give you any indication as to what the offense was that got you banned. If you inadvertently break a guideline or someone reports you for behavior that you thought was acceptable then you have no recurse for appeal. They make it difficult for you to contact site administrators to inquire about your dismissal. Your account is simply closed and the next time you go in to log in you find that you can’t. All you can do is go back and read the site guidelines to try to figure out what you did wrong. And in many cases it is simply an innocent mistake that could have been avoided by being more familiar with site guidelines.

Every social site has its own guidelines and they vary from one site to the next. What may be acceptable at one social site may not be acceptable at the next one. If you are going to be active at the social sites then you need to familiarize yourself with the guidelines at each site and make sure that you behavior on the site conforms with their policies, guidelines, and terms of use. Otherwise, you could find yourself on the outside looking in.

Much has been said about using a blog as a marketing tool but most people writing about this subject don’t really get into specifics. I think it’s necessary to define the purpose for your blog before you begin. Is it going to be a traffic tool where you send traffic to your website then close the sale? Is it going to be a way that you draw people to subscribe to your e-zine? Are you trying to sell through the blog? It’s important to define what you want it to do before you begin.

One of the legitimate purposes for a blog is to use it as a lead generation tool. There are several ways to do that, but they all involve writing compelling content that draws people to read. Then, every blog post you write needs to focus on helping you obtain that overall goal.

Two aspects of blogging that you will use to draw traffic to your blog are SEO and social media marketing. The SEO part is the use of keywords and links to get your blog posts to rank in the search engines for words that you think people will use to find you. If you do that part successfully then you’ll draw more traffic to your blog from organic search rankings. But just because you appear in the SERPs doesn’t mean they’ll click on your link.

Your blog post title will go a long way to getting people to click the link. You want it to be compelling. It must contain your primary keyword and it must get people to click your link in the SERPs to read your blog post. Then your blog post must contain some great content that gets people to take the next course of action: Opt in to your e-zine, visit your website, etc. Make sure that you pick one thing for each blog post that is the goal for that blog post. What do you want people to do? Define the action you want readers of that blog post to take then write the blog post toward that end. This is lead generation. You are leading your readers to a specific course of action.

The online world, particularly the eCommerce world, can be a cold hard place to do business in. Your customers arrive on your website, select the product and add it to the shopping cart, go through checkout and you send it off to them. This suits a good many people. It is quick, it is hassle free and it is soooo impersonal. There are just as many customers who would rather see, hear, feel and connect with another human. They are often uncomfortable doing business online. A blog can be one way to break down those barriers and allow you to connect with those customers.

There is a lot of information already available on how you should write blog posts. One of the great things about blogs that isn’t often mentioned is writing style. If you are trying to personalize your business, you can write in an almost conversational style. Blog writing lends itself to conversations. Readers can leave comments that you can respond to. This starts the process of personalizing the web.

We have seen how successful social media sites have become. The reason for their success is that people can actually communicate - it has enabled two (or more) way communication that many web sites in the past could not provide. Humans are social creatures. We like to gather where others do. Whilst your blog may never achieve such heady heights, it can be used to communicate and socialize.

The ability to communicate and connect with customers through a blog has now been recognized by many large international corporations. If they can see the value of a blogging to connect with their consumers, perhaps its time we all followed suit. Blogs can be a great way to deliver extra customers to your web site. Blogging really is a great way to connect with your customers so if you don’t already have a blog, now is a great time to start a business blog.

Recently, I was sitting around thinking about all the things that go into a good blog post. I decided to make a list. Here are a few things that you need to think about when you write a blog post:

1. Choose one or two keywords and focus your blog post on those.
2. Write a blog post that is high quality; length doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you write a blog post that people will enjoy reading.
3. Take your primary keyword and write an attention-getting blog post title.
4. Will you be using a graphic? Be sure to choose a graphic that enhances your blog post, doesn’t distract the reader from your message, and doesn’t dominate the blog post.
5. Try to include a relevant link in your blog post to a landing page on your website and include anchor text.
6. If you do write a long blog post, break it up into sections so that you have h2 or h3 tags that also utilize your keywords. I’d say you should include no more than 2 or 3 paragraphs before adding another subhead to the blog post.
7. Will you be quoting other sources, other blogs? If so, be sure to give attribution either by mentioning the URL, linking to the source, naming the author or website of the source, or some combination of the above.
8. It’s usually a good idea to include bullet points if you have a lot of points to make.
9. Do you want to emphasize certain points in your blog post? If so, you might want to bold or italicize those points you want to make.

When you are writing a blog post, it is helpful to think of who you are writing to. What is your audience? Think of one person who can benefit from your blog post and write as if writing to person. For more information on blog writing, visit BCP at www.blogcontentprovider.com.

Is it possible to brand your blog in the same way that you brand a business or product? You bet there is. There are three things that go into branding a blog and you should pay attention to these three things:

• Domain Name
• Blog Design
• Blog “Voice” or Personality

First, let’s talk about your domain name. You should give it some thought. Do your keyword and competition research to find out where your niche is. Then come up with a suitable domain name that uses your keyword and that speaks to what your position within your niche will be. The right domain name is one that tells potential customers what you do and how you can benefit them before they ever visit your blog site.

Blog design is another element that speaks to your brand. Does your design make it easy for customers to know what you do? Is it compatible with your website’s design? If not, you should put a little more thought into blog design. The design of your blog can go a long way to make you successful in your branding efforts.

Finally, the personality behind your blog is important. Who do you have writing your blog? Is that person literate and well-versed in your company philosophy? Your blog writer must understand your place in the market. She should be able to communicate your company vision and values in a simple, non-threatening way. Your blog voice, or personality, should be consistent throughout. In other words, if you change writers on your blog often then you might present a disjointed or inconsistent voice and that will turn some consumers off.

When it comes to blog optimization some people’s first line of defense is to add a plugin, but that may not necessarily be the best solution. There are ways to optimize your blog without adding a plugin, which could increase your code for each page you publish. The more code you have in your pages the less optimized your posts will be. So you can see the dilemma in adding plugins. Too many can be as bad, or worse, than not enough.

Here are some ways to increase your blog’s optimization without adding a plugin:

• Add links to your sidebar that use your important keywords as anchor text
• Include title attributes in your hyperlinks
• Make sure all of your photos and images have alt tags
• Write your posts directly into your WordPress (or other software) rather than write in Word and copy/paste; word processors add code of their own
• As an alternative, you can write your posts in Notepad and cut/paste
• In your header file, move the title of your post to before the title of your blog - this will optimize each post
• Add a description tag to your header file
• Add categories that use your important keywords
• Upgrade to the latest edition of WordPress (or other blogging software)
• Use tags in addition to categories
• Make sure you put keywords in your post titles and body content

There are plenty of ways to optimize your blog posts without resorting to adding new plugins. That not to say that some plugins aren’t good or shouldn’t be added. But you don’t have to use every plugin that promises you the moon.

Our previous article post looked at 7 Reasons To Start A Blog and with this post I thought we could build on that list with these five uses to extend your online business.

1. Publish FAQ pages: A blog is a perfect place to publish FAQ pages. FAQ’s, or frequently asked questions can be a real waster. If you find yourself constantly answering the same group of questions then it is time to create a FAQ’s page that you can point customers to.
2. Publish Product How To pages: Internet users love how to pages. Whether it is how to use, how to maintain or how to upgrade, you will be surprised at how often these pages will be visited.
3. Publish Staff Profiles: If your business involves specialists then a staff profile page is an ideal way to introduce your customers to your staff. The profile page can be used to promote their skills by publishing their qualification, past work experience and career highlights.
4. Publish Branch Information: If you have more than one outlet then publishing branch information will save your customers time trying to find their nearest outlet.
5. Promote New Products: One of the most popular uses of blogs is to promote new products or services. You can include links to suppliers, branches and to staff members who may specialize in those products.

Why use a blog to publish this information when you could use your web pages to publish the same information? Web pages generally require knowledge of HTML or similar. Blogs require very little in the way of extra knowledge and have the added benefit of being quickly and easily updated.

Blogs are flexible, can be managed by any staff member and offer your customers the opportunity to provide feedback, even anonymously.