Blog Content Provider .com

I still talk to people who are sold on Blogger.com being a great place to host a blog. Just because it’s free. I hate to be the party spoiler (actually, I quite like spiking the punch, thank you!), but the reason Blogger.com is not a good place to host your blog is precisely because it is free.

Human error has a way of killing good grass. Sure, you can pull out the weeds one by one, but the more “free” something is the more weeds you can expect to see. And pulling out all those weeds takes time. So to make it go easier and more quickly, you have to create something to automate the process - something like an algorithm, which is a fancy word for a mathematical equation that is supposed to search out and find the weeds in a big field of grass. In this case, it’s the free blog host Blogger.com and the weeds are spam blogs.

Big problem. Google’s algorithm actually flagged legitimate blogs as spam blogs. Thousands of them. And some of them were rather high profile blogs that had been hosted at Blogger.com for a long time. If it could happen them, do you think it could happen to you?

For every day that your blog is down that could potentially be thousands of dollars slipping through a hole in your pocket. It may be just a few pennies a day, but if you don’t sew up that hole then you could lose thousands over time. That thousand dollars over the course of one year represents hundreds of thousands over time. When you consider what you could have that $1,000 do for you, earning you more in an interest-bearing account, for instance, the problem is a lot bigger than it at first seems. You can’t afford to lose even a dime to someone else’s error.

It’s better, if you can, to own the property. And since you can purchase a web domain for as little as $10 per year, why not do so? Imagine opening up a storefront on the busiest street in your town for $10/year. Would you do that? Or would you opt for the empty warehouse across the railroad tracks that gets graffiti spray painted on its face once a month just because it’s free?

Sorry for the graphic image, but that’s how serious this is. Don’t use a free host. You’re much better off paying $25-$30 per month for a secure host and $10 per year than you are using a free host that could flake out on you at any time. It’s a business blog, man. Run it like one.

Too many people think that hosting is simple and easy. They believe that any old host will do, but I’ll tell you from experience that this isn’t true. There are popular hosts that I would never recommend for a company blog.

When it comes to choosing a host for your blog, you need to think about a long-term commitment. You don’t want to have to pull out and find a new host because of lousy service or technical issues. It’s worth it to pay a little extra for a host that can meet your blog’s needs. Specifically, you want a web host that can address the following issues:

• Speed - If you have a slow loading blog or website you will lose sales. You want a host that can increase the your load time speed and that means picking a host that doesn’t put your blog on a server that is bogged down by spammers and huge files.
• Functionality - For a blog, you need to stay away from Windows Servers. We recommend Linux or Apache. You also want a host that can support Fantastico, cpanel, php, and MySQL. Functionality is very important for a blog and modern blogging platforms - the best ones - are php and MySQL based. You want the best functionality available for the best performance.
• Tech Support - Cheap web posts provide cheap and lousy tech support. Remember, as in all things, you get what you pay for. When you have a problem, you want someone who can speak your language and takes your problem seriously.
• Customer Service - Finally, customer service. I separate this from technical support because sometimes you just need good, solid advice. Blog Content Provider gives advice based on more than 20 years combined experience in SEO, blogging, and Internet marketing. We recommend what works. Not only do you get valuable experience with us, but we also evaluate your business plan based on your goals. If it won’t work, we’ll let you know before you spend thousands of dollars. If it’s a good idea, we’ll praise you for it!

When it comes to these very important issues regarding web hosting, for your blog we recommend SEO Hosting Provider. Yes, it’s a part of our family, but that’s not why we recommend it. We recommend it because we’ve put the thought behind the processes necessary for your blog and have designed a blog host to meet those needs. If you can find a better host anywhere else we’ll still work with you to make your blog the best that it can be.

Here’s an excellent article for real estate professionals on the different types of blog that you can start for your local real estate market to help you market your business:

Real Blogging - 3 Creative Ways to Use a Real Estate Blog

By Brandon Cornett

Blogs are a simple and efficient way to publish information onto the Web. Blogging programs are flexible, versatile, easy to set up and even easier to use. Because of these benefits, people from many different industries are using blogs in creative ways to support their business.

Real estate agents have also found many effective uses for the blog. This is the industry I am most familiar with, so I would like to contribute a few ideas of my own. Here are five ways real estate agents can use blogging to support their business.

The author actually only introduces three types of real estate blog, but I’ll provide the other two. We have had many clients succeed with their real estate blogs and I know we can help you too.

1. Relocation Advice and Support

A savvy agent could create a blog catering to people who plan to relocate to the agent’s city. This would be a great way to keep these folks informed on local real estate issues. It’s also a good way for the agent to connect with future clients who are moving to the area. Blogging programs are easy to set up, so an agent could create one specifically for this purpose.

This strategy is perfect for areas with a high rate of buyer influx and population growth. For example, here in the Austin area where I live, there are a lot of folks relocating from California. If I were a local real estate professional, I would launch a blog that catered to these people. It would be a great way to generate new business, so it would be a worthwhile venture.

Relocation advice is one of the most popular types of real estate blog. Not only can you share information about relocating to your particular area, but you can also provide general relocation tips like this moving company does. In fact, why not partner with a moving company in your area to write a combined blog dealing with relocation advice? You can market both of your companies and share the expense.

2. Local Real Estate News Source

An enterprising and web-savvy agent could also manage a blog like a real estate news website. It could be hosted under its own domain with its own web address, separate from the agent’s main website. That way the blog could be named something appropriate, like the “Raleigh Realty Weekly” (or whatever is applicable to the agent’s locality and specialty).

This publishing strategy would benefit the publisher in several ways. First of all, the agent gains another source of Internet traffic, which can be valuable in terms of business growth. Theoretically, two websites could mean twice the traffic … and twice the leads.

This is also a great way to network with professionals in related industries, such as home inspectors, mortgage brokers, home stagers and more. These folks could even be invited to contribute information to the site.

A news blog would also help the agent establish a level of authority. For example, few agents would be able to say something like: “Jane is also the publisher of the Dallas Real Estate Review…”

Excellent advice. One well-written mortgage and real estate news blog is the Mortgage and Real Estate Blog. This is a blog that covers the mortgage, banking, and real estate industries. It also sometimes promotes real estate and mortgage blogs that use the Blog Content Provider services or that choose to sponsor the blog (contact BCP).

When it comes to blogging, the real estate industry probably has the most natural creative outlets for meeting the needs of its customer base. Why not use them?

3. Timely Market Updates

Blogging is easy, even for people with little or no web-publishing experience. As a result, blogs are ideally suited for updating an audience about timely topics. This is why a lot of realty professionals use blogging programs in the first place. They realize that their audience (home buyers and sellers) wants current information about the local housing market. So these Internet-savvy agents use their blogs to share information about local sales trends, housing prices, new homes for sale, new neighborhoods being developed, etc.

Blogging seems easy, but it really isn’t. You have to understand how to get attention for your blog and many self bloggers stumble through it without ever achieving any level of success with it. But blogging about your local real estate market is probably the easiest way for real estate self bloggers to get in on the action. Doing it this way will demonstrate your level of knowledge on your market, but it will also mean you are just like everyone else. You have to do something to set yourself apart from other real estate bloggers like Adrienne Francis has done.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the ways you can use a real estate professional can use a blog to grow his or her business. There are plenty of other creative strategies as well. The point of this article is merely to open your eyes to the possibilities of blogging. Not all of these ideas will be right for you, but one of them could be. So do some experimentation and see what you can come up with. Use the ideas I’ve listed above to get your creative juices flowing. Good luck.

Brandon Cornett publishes a number of websites related to real estate marketing, mortgage web site strategies and more. For more marketing tips, visit the author online at http://www.smartmortgagemarketing.com.

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

This is a great article by Brandon Corbett, but as he said at the end, there are other ways you can make a real estate blog work for you. One other type of real estate blog that you can write is a community blog. Instead of focusing entirely on real estate, you can make your blog’s focus the entire community that you serve. You can lead people to the parks and rec department of your city, discuss neighborhood improvement, community service projects, or anything of service to your community. This type of blog will make you a pillar of the community and not just a real estate agent.

Another type of blog that you can write is a local listing blog. Why not make each blog post highlight a listing in your portfolio? This is relatively simple and can be done through RSS feeds or simply by copying and pasting the descriptions of homes in your portfolio listings to your blog. There will be a high degree of duplicate content with this type of blog, which may cause it to not do so well in the search engines, but because it is a blog and not a static website, you can reach your market through ping lists that are off limits to static web pages where real estate listings usually appear. You can essentially use this type of blog to target a market demographic that you can’t reach through normal organic search marketing.

There are other types of real estate blogs that you can put to good use as well:

• Hybrid - Combine one or more of these types of blogs into one.
• Specialty - Write a green real estate blog or target another specialized market segment.
• Use your imagination - There is no limit to what you can achieve through a real estate blog. Have an idea? Let us know. Blog Content Provider is ready when you are to do what they say can’t be done.

It might seem tempting to go the free route when looking at setting up a company blog, but I wouldn’t recommend it. And I know many companies that do it. But I still wouldn’t recommend it.

Sure, there’s nothing wrong with setting up a Blogger account and using the blog to publish your articles on with backlinks back to your website or blog. That can be a good thing. But I wouldn’t recommend using Blogger as your primary company blog for several reasons:

• You don’t control the domain name. If Google ever decides to sell Blogger or discontinue it for some reason then you will lose all of your blog posts. No recompense. Gone. Can you afford for your business to just be up and gone that way?
• There are also reputation issues at stake. A Blogger blog is not as impressive as a blog that sits on real estate that you own.
• Blog customization. When you own the real estate on which your blog sits, it is a lot easier to customize your blog than it is with a free host. Free is not always less expensive.

There many reasons why you shouldn’t use a free blog host. But when it comes to your business, make the investment. Own the real estate. Protect your image. Find out more about managing a business or commercial blog.

This is a great article on what blogging really is like. It isn’t all cake and roses. But if you were to listen only to this message then you might be discouraged to give it a try. Nevertheless, you need to know what you’re getting into:

Starting a new blog might seem like a very simple idea. After all, anyone with a little determination and basic internet experience can establish and manage a blog. There are dozens of websites all dedicated to promoting free blogging platforms but when many of these businesses are trying to encourage new users to sign up they rarely tell you any of the downsides.

Establishing a blog is more than just answering a few questions on a sign up forms and starting write. Setting up a blog is establishing an extremely personalized web presence that requires some patience and knowledge of using FTP. If you are someone that is interested in trying out Wordpress this free blogging platform can be installed on your own domain. Wordpress boasts that all users can install the platform in five minutes but this is not always the case.

Yes, certain web hosts will allow you to set up and install WordPress in five minutes, but not all of them will. That’s why it helps to have a professional who is knowledgeable and experienced with WordPress help you with the installation and set up of your new blog. For a reasonable fee that won’t bankrupt you, you can have your new WordPress blog installed on your website quickly and easily by a professional who knows what he is doing.

While many new hosting companies offer “one-click” install options that really will install the blogging platform in five minutes not all users have web hosts that offer this perk. Many new users will have to manually install all of the php files needed to run Wordpress. This can be a challenge to anyone that is not used to installing programs. Before tackling a manual installation talk to someone from your web hosting company to double check that they do not offer a one-click install. You do not want to labor for hours only to discover the one click install option after you have done all of the grunt work.

Again, if you try this yourself and hit a snag, give us a call and we can take it over from where you get stuck.

Once you have installed Wordpress you must take the time to pick out a good theme. Your theme is going to give all users their very first impression of your new weblog. Having a very plain theme or overly busy theme can create the incorrect impression of your blog. Also, when you are choosing a theme you must think of more than just aesthetics. After you have gotten used to dealing with one sort of theme it might be very hard to switch over to a different theme style.

Understand that not all themes are created equal. Some themes are not SEOd very well at all. That can hurt your blog tremendously because a blog that is not SEOd well will not see its full traffic potential. Because each blog post is a separate web page, the search engines index each blog post separately. If they cannot crawl your blog because your blog theme isn’t SEOd well then that will mean fewer pages indexed at the search engines. A professional installer can find you a good theme that will get crawled.

When starting your blog keep in mind that not all search engine optimization tools can be used with blogging platforms. Many traffic analysis services will not work well with weblogs that are hosted on free sites or are on platforms like blogger. There are search engine optimization tools that have been made specifically for Wordpress and other blogging platforms but these tools usually only work with blogs that are hosted on their own domains with premium web hosts.

In order to get the most from your blogging experience, you’ll need to track traffic and user experience. There are tools you can use for that. Some are free and some are very expensive. But which ones you use depends a great deal on the goals you have for your blog. That’s another reason a professional can help you with your installation and SEO.

Do not let these things discourage you and keep you from becoming a successful blogger. It is extremely likely that you will be able to set up your own profitable blog but keep in mind that you will have to invest time and effort in order to properly promote your blog to the right audience. Developers are constantly creating more tools to help bloggers make their blogs search engine friendly so that your blog audience can be increased.

For more ideas on blogging check out Random Woman or the Random Woman Blog.

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

You don’t have to be discouraged at all if you are just starting out. A professional blog ghostwriter can help you write good content for your blog as well. Whether you are selling a product or service, driving traffic to your AdSense blog, or promoting a service company, your blog deserves the best and highest quality content that you can give it. You can spend months meandering your way through the content maze and try to learn SEO on your own or you can hand it over to a professional who can get your website crawled and fill it with SEOd content from Day 1. Blog Content Provider can manage every aspect of your blog from start to finish. Give us a try.

Some bloggers are married to Blogger.com and others swear by WordPress. Which is better?

There are good reasons for going with either one. To be sure, pros and cons abound on both sides, but I’m partial to WordPress for business blogs and there are several reasons why. But before I tell you what they are, let me just tout the virtues of Blogger.com:

• It’s owned by Google

There. That should do it.

Now, I’m not being sarcastic. Google has a lot of pull in terms of who is ranked in the search engines - particularly its own. And if you own the system then you can give it a little extra credit. And that’s the primary benefit of Blogger.com. You get extra credit for SEO with Google.

Now, the downside is it’s a free web-based blogging platform. And you might ask, “Well, why is that a downside?” It’s a downside because if it’s free then everyone can use it, and everyone will - including spammers. Spammers love Blogger.com because it’s free and easy to use. They don’t have to buy a domain name or install any software and there is no commitment to maintain anything. And because of this, Blogger.com is the biggest spam neighborhood on the Internet. That alone is reason not to use it for your business blog.

This blog post from a Blogger.com advocate confirms what I’m saying:

Yes, WordPress is a “must have” for a serious blogger, especially if their topic is “making money” or “blogging” but, in many circumstances, Blogger is a superior platform and here are 3 reasons why.

And what does this blogger say are the three reasons that Blogger.com is superior?

• It’s free
• The user interface is simple to use
• No SEO needed

OK. Fabulous. WordPress is free and the user interface is simple to use. But you do need to optimize it and think about SEO when you write your posts. It doesn’t have the advantage of being owned by Google. Blogger.com does, and I’ve seen non-SEOd Blogger blogs rank highly simply because they use a Blogger.com interface. It’s the only advantage that you have with Blogger.com. Still, I reiterate it’s huge negative: Big-time spam neighborhood!

WordPress, O WordPress, Wherefore Art
Thou WordPress?
There are some technical challenges to overcome with WordPress. If you aren’t familiar with FTP, you’ll be lost. If you’ve never installed software on a website, CMS, or other blogger software then there is a learning curve. But that’s no reason not to do it. You can hire someone to do that for you or learn to do it yourself - it really isn’t hard once you get past the learning curve.

After the technical challenges, you can build a great blog with WordPress. You have more flexibility in terms of design with free access to unlimited plug-ins and widgets, your pick of free templates, or you can hire a designer to design your own unique template, you can have your own domain name, and with excellent writing and SEO abilities you can have a darn good blog within your niche.

There is no advantage to being with a platform where no SEO is necessary to rank. It’s like having a job because you are the business owner’s son. The other employees know you have no skills to offer. You’re just there to take up space because you can’t go out on your own. WordPress allows you to prove your independence.

It almost always better to own the real estate than to rent it. With Blogger.com, you are a renter, which means you can be evicted any time. With WordPress, you are an owner. the only thing that will get you evicted is not maintaining your financial obligations. For $10/year you can have your very own domain name. Pay your bill, it’s yours forever, and if you can’t afford $10/year then you shouldn’t have a blog any way. WordPress is free, easy to install, and with the proper SEO will help you brand your business long term. There really is no reason not to use WordPress as your blog platform.

When you set up your company blog, should you set up a blog on your website or at a separate domain name?

Good question. It depends.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both blogs. Many companies could benefit from both types. An onsite blog will get you original content on your website every day and give you more web pages indexed at the search engines on your domain name. That’s a big benefit, especially if you have a small, static website that doesn’t get much attention otherwise. On the other hand, if you have a large website that needs some inbound link juice then an offsite website can help you with that. The offsite website will add pages to the search engines’ indexes as well, but since it is on a separate domain name it won’t help your website any. But the links that you build from your offsite blog can boost your PageRank with relevant links and if you have a high enough PR then that will help build quality links as well. Plus, you can use the offsite blog to drive traffic to your website.

In many cases, a combination onsite company blog and an offsite blog can give you maximum benefits as you build quality links and keyword-rich web pages through your blog. For a consultation on which type of blog is best for you, visit Blog Content Provider and fill out our contact form.

We’ve grown increasingly frustrated with GoDaddy here at BCP. We tried to work with them, but their service just isn’t real conducive to blogging. I think it might have something to do with the fact that GoDaddy has been around long enough that they didn’t consider blogging platforms and the needs of bloggers before building their service offerings. How could they have known we’d need certain features?

The problem with GoDaddy as a web host is that their system is not friendly toward WordPress, our preferred blogging platform. WordPress is open source. You would think that it would be compatible with any host. Not true.

When it comes to web hosting, there are a ton of features that vary from host to host. Some offer dedicated servers and some only use shared servers. Some have rotating IP blocks, which is an irritating nuisance if you are trying to write a blog because you never know where you’re going to be in cyberspace from one day to the next. Some support MySQL and others don’t. I could go on and on about the variations you’ll find, but I don’t want to bore you.

Suffice it to say that GoDaddy is not a good web host for setting up a WordPress blog. You need a host that offers dedicated servers. Ideally, you would have your own dedicated server for your blog. But if you can’t have a dedicated server then you at least want to share a server with other blogs of a similar type. By similar type, I mean business blogs. That’s an important distinction because you could just as well go to Blogspot and most of your neighbors will be personal blogs, or poetry blogs. Most likely, they’ll be spam blogs. Blogspot is, after all, the biggest neighborhood for spam on the Internet.

That’s why we always steer our customers away from Blogspot. From here on out, we’ll attempt to steer them away from GoDaddy as well. You might pay more for a dedicated server, but it’s worth it. You want a host that will protect your blog’s IP address and keep the riff raff out. You also want the added security that comes with certain types of hosts. Finally, if your web host makes it difficult for us to SEO your blog properly, and GoDaddy does, then the performance of your blog will be diminished. We’d hate for that to happen. We do, after all, pride ourselves in producing the best results online for commercial and small business blogs.

Blogs are one of the best SEO Tools there are. A blog inside your website adds fresh original daily content bring the search engines back top crawl your website more often.

A blog on a separate domain name can help you with link popularity. Either way, every time a new post is made, that is another doorway for your potential customers to find you. If you have any questions about Blogging Services, call us at 786-317-8774.

1.) Blog Installation and Setup: Whether you choose to have a blog inside your website or one on a different domain name, the same price applies.

The Basic setup fee is a $150 one-time-fee and includes installation, configuration, link structure that will benefit your website, and the installation of a theme to give it a professional and appealing look.

Premium Installation is a $250 one-time fee. We add features to your blog to increase the likelihood that people will bookmark your blog posts at social bookmarking sites.

We install AddThis, Feedburner, Google Analytics, Adsense Deluxe if you choose to monetize your blog with adsense ads, and set up your blog at BlogCatalog.com which gets millions of hits per day with people searching for blogs.

2.) Interior Blog: A blog installed in your website that we post to every day. Blogs have an advantage over static websites. Your website can get listed in all the search engines, but a blog can do that plus be listed in Technorati, blogsearch, bloglines, and other search directories that only list blogs. This is a whole new source of traffic to your website.

Blog Posting Fee, $200 per month for 1 post per day, $350 per month for 2 posts per day, and $500 per month for 3 posts per day.

With any of the options you choose we can also add Social Bookmarking each blog post at the popular social bookmarking websites like Delicious, Digg, Netscape, etc. That runs an additional $100 per month.

3.) Exterior Blog: We help you choose another domain name for this blog and we host it on a completely separate IP block for you so that the links from the blog are valuable for the search engines.

We post to this blog every day just like with the interior blog. The blog search engines only list blogs high in their ranks for the most recent posts. Anything less than posting every day has you missing the full benefit of blogging.

Blog Posting Fee, $200 per month for 1 post per day, $350 per month for 2 posts per day, and $500 per month for 3 posts per day. Social Bookmarking each blog post at the popular social bookmarking websites like Delicious, Digg, Netscape, etc. is an additional $100 per month.

Hosting your blog on our optimized servers that are configured to maximize your blog’s capabilities is an additional $20 per month.

4.) Wordpress Optimization: We go over all of the code in the blog line by line to optimize it for you.

Some themes you choose are not search engine friendly. If you are having trouble getting your blog crawled, getting good page rank, or getting a high search engine saturation, then it could mean your blog has some code in it that is hurtling you.

We can optimize your blog for you for just $300. (Included for all clients that have us managing their blog for them with at least a 3-month contract.)

5.) Social Bookmarking: We have our writers write reviews and bookmark your blogposts on places like Digg, Technorati, and other social websites. The cost for this service is just $100/mo.

Professional Management for Business Blogs