Blogs are a potential goldmine of insights for readers, provided by business leaders, market leaders, innovators, philosophers, marketers, political commentators, and many other opinion makers who haven’t ever before enjoyed such easy access to a simple and unmoderated public forum in which to share their opinions, ideas and insights.

These leaders have taken to using the Internet to publish their thoughts for the same reason they make public speaking appearances; to build credibility for themselves and for their company, and to become recognized as a resource, usually with the expectation that it will lead to sales. Blogging presents them with an easy, non-time consuming, and inexpensive way to quickly reach thousands of interested parties all around the world.

The effect that these leaders have had in posting their thoughts and musings online has helped evolve blogs into powerful viral marketing tools. Blogs allow you to quickly and easily reach people who are not in your direct network, and greatly expand the number of people you and your company reach.

Are you an expert in your field? Do you know things about your favorite subject that you would like to share with others? Do you write articles for newsletters, like this one, and want to help the publisher expand their reach? Then blogging may be right for you. Have you ever looked at a blog? Are you sure? A lot of articles and content on web sites is currently blogged. But if you are looking to see what a blog is, below are some interesting ones to look at.

• Blogs.Sun.com
• SemanticBlogging.org
• BlogHerald.com

If you want to start your own, and your company doesn’t offer one, try these tools, and link to them from your site:

• Blogger.com
• Blogware.com

While sometimes you can find blogs that are interesting, some of them simply are not. This happens when the author / contributor either has nothing of interest to say, or has nothing to add to the facts they are recording.

However, blogs that are maintained for extended periods are usually filled with interesting and often humorous commentaries. That’s to be expected; the person blogging is enjoying seeing the world, and allowing you to share in their vision; it reflects a joy for living. So how are blogs a diamond in the rough, ready to be polished and turned into a gem, capping a marketing goldmine? You might be surprised, but many people have found ways to make money off their blogs, just by making sure it’s up to date, interesting and relevant.

Just like any other web site, blogs allow for traditional Internet revenue streams such as affiliate programs and banner advertising, etc… I don’t know that you can add a Google adsense banner or any other banner for that matter to your blog if it’s third party, but if you are hosting your own, the possibilities are enormous. But that’s just one way to earn money from a blog. The best way, is to have it lead to new sales for you and your business. But for any of these monetary systems to work, you need people to find your blog first.

How Visitors Find Your Blog i.e. How You Can Make Mon�y Off a Blog
As you are building your blog, you need to be conscious of other web sites, and blogs. Remember, yours is not alone. If you read something interesting somewhere then “blog it.” In more traditional terms, just link to it. Link to a lot of other blogs and news sites. The people who run blogs, also tend to read their own web site traffic reports, and will notice the traffic your blogs are sending. They will read your blog, and if they find it interesting, they will blog it. If you see a news story in another blog, link to it as your link to the article.

Some people maintain a list of their favourite blogs within their own blog. It helps paint a picture of what the author finds interesting, and also helps your blog gain goodwill from other blogs. When I first created my blog, one thing I did was submit it to a bunch of blog search engines. I used:

• Blog Search Engine
• Daypop
• Blog Catalog
• Feedster
• Ice Rocket
• Bloogz
• Blogstreet
• Blogwise

Some of these tools crawl the blogs hourly - so your content will get out there quickly. Others take longer; just like the mainstream search engines! Many independent blog tools, automatically offer RSS/XML feeds of your blog. You just need to ensure that they are turned on. They make it easy for you to get syndicated.

I saw a note recently that there are currently over 4 million blogs around the world with a new blog being added every 10 seconds or so. By comparison, there are 10 million new web pages being added to the Internet daily - or 116 a second. This means that blogspace is less crowded than the rest of the Internet. So, what are the disadvantages to building and maintaining a blog? Well, they vary from individual to individual, and company to company. But below are my thoughts:

1) You need to contribute regularly. I notice some people make updates many times a day. That’s wonderful, but it’s also a time commitment.

2) You better have something relevant to say. If you don’t keep it interesting, people will not keep coming back for more!

3) Does the person writing your company blogs have good writing skills? Are you happy with the quality of grammar and vocabulary?

4) Are you, or is the person writing the blog for your company, representative of the company’s perspectives? Do they enunciate a coherent vision of, and for, your company? That’s a risk you take when you assign a blog to someone else. If it’s your own blog, are you the right person for the job?

5) Does the blog offer a valuable perspective, or just some rambling?

In the end, the value proposition in a blog is the same as in any other content you or your company publishes. Is the content valuable? Is the information worthwhile? If not, if you have nothing to say, or add to a conversation, don’t speak. Do you enjoy the company of people who just speak to hear themselves? Probably not. If a blog leaves you with that same feeling, then it’s probably not going to be successful.

But, if you consistently maintain an interesting blog, people will recognize it, and you. That’s where the real value proposition, and the opportunity to make money off a blog lies. The real value in blogs is in getting your word out. If you have something meaningful to say, and the better you do it, the more likely someone is to reference your blog, and eventually your corporation’s web site. This will lead to increased sales. Just don’t expect it to happen overnight. I would highly recommend that you have some sort of publishing strategy for your business. Whether it ends up being a blog, or writing newsletter articles as I have done here, sharing good, coherent information with interested parties will help you and your business build credibility. Publishing will go a long way towards building your professional reputation, one word at a time.

By Richard Zwicky

One World Telecommunications
Mailing lists and message boards — the online water coolers of the web development and marketing industries — are filled with stories of businesses whose web sites have “fallen off the map” of search engine success or never made it on the map in the first place. In many cases, the resulting “Why?” discussions lead to one of two conclusions: the web site was poorly optimized for search engine success or it wasn’t optimized at all.

Maybe you’re a business owner who identifies with those stories. And maybe you know the importance of having your web site rank highly in search engines for the search words and phrases that are appropriate to your business. But you probably don’t know how to make that happen yourself.

Thanks to the growth of search engine marketers (SEM) and search engine optimizers (SEO), you don’t need to. A professional SEO/SEM company can help put your web site back on the map of search engine success or get it on the map for the very first time.

(A note before we go any further: “SEO” and “SEM” are often used interchangeably even though they’re not the same thing. For the purposes of this article, we’ll use “search engine marketing” by default or whichever acronym is most appropriate for the content in which it appears.)

Choosing a search engine marketing company is our focus here and the choice you make is an important one. The right choice can lead to tremendous initial growth in your company’s online business and create the foundation for a satisfying business relationship that keeps growth alive over the long-term.

Trust
When selecting a search engine marketing company, you are first and foremost establishing a business relationship and successful relationships are built on trust. You will be placing your online success in the SEO/SEM Company�s hands. Most of us can tell pretty quickly if someone deserves our trust. Follow your gut instincts, but also consider these questions:

Does the search engine marketing company answer your questions honestly and completely or did it avoid certain topics and give fuzzy answers to others? The SEO/SEM Company should have nothing to hide when it comes to describing how they optimize sites, their track record, etc.

Does your a search engine marketing company have experience in the industry? Have someone experienced with creating web sites look underneath the hood of a couple sites the company has optimized, looking for any unusual coding that may be hidden from public view.

Do they have a list of references you can contact? Hearing the first-hand experiences of past clients is a great way to learn about the company. (Note that some of the company’s past clients may have asked not to be included in a reference list and the company should honour those wishes.)

Does the a search engine marketing company pressure you with sales tactics designed to force a decision before you’re ready to make one? Building a relationship isn’t about closing the deal; it’s about doing what’s best for you, the client. You should be able to speak with the individuals who will be doing the actual work on your site, not just with a salesperson.

SEO? SEM? Both?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one form of search engine marketing (SEM). SEO is the process of making a web site search engine friendly. SEM, on the other hand, can be done without concern for a web site’s search engine friendliness. (For further information, see the SEMPO Glossary.)

SEM often involves pure advertising via the cost-per-click (CPC) and pay-per-click (PPC) programs offered by several search engines. In these programs, you bid on certain words or phrases and your advertisement appears when a search is made for those words or phrases — usually near, but not as part of the traditional search results.

Some issues to consider:
Do you need SEO, SEM, or both? Ask the companies you’re considering for their recommendation. Ask them to separate the time and costs of SEO and SEM when they give you a cost proposal for your project so you can make a more informed decision about the value of doing both or just one.

If you need SEM, will the company you’re hiring do that part of the project themselves? CPC and PPC advertising is a specialty that not all SEO companies practice. The ones that don’t, can often recommend companies to handle that aspect of your project.

If CPC/PPC advertising is part of your project, how long will the campaign last? How much will it cost? Which search engines will you use? What types of tools does the company use for managing your bids? Is the company skilled at writing targeted ad copy?

How will the company identify the best keywords and phrases for your optimization project? Whether you need SEO, SEM, or both, identifying the most appropriate keywords and phrases to target will be a key factor in the overall success of your efforts. Make sure you have input into this process since you, ultimately, know your business and industry more than anyone. If you specialize in and want to promote your blue, graphite widgets, don’t allow the SEO/SEM company to emphasize widgets in general (not enough focus) or red, titanium widgets specifically (wrong focus). The SEO/SEM company should be able to provide general statistics indicating how often your preferred keywords and phrases are actually searched for on various search engines.

Know Your Risk Comfort Level
There are many ways to optimize a web site for search engine success. Some methods are more aggressive than others, and many search engines and SEMPO members (including this author) frown on these tactics as being too risky at best, and unethical at worst. Many search engines go so far as to warn the public about these methods, perhaps none so strongly as Google on a page it wrote for webmasters:

“Many SEOs provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. However, there are a few unethical SEOs who have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.”

As a business owner, you have to determine how much risk you’re willing to take on. If you’re willing to try risky methods such as cloaking, doorway pages, and keyword stuffing (among others), you should also be aware of the potential consequences (which include being blacklisted from search engines). Make sure you and your SEO company are in complete agreement over the methods to be used in your optimization project and have it clearly defined in the contract.

Executing the SEO Plan
The process of optimizing a web site involves more than just rewriting content or improving HTML tags; there are multiple facets to a complete SEO project. The SEO Company should develop a plan based on your needs and budget. As the client, you may not want to know — and may not understand — every little detail that the project entails. But there are a number of topics you should discuss with the SEO Company to gain a better understanding of the big picture:

Will the SEO Company execute the hands-on aspects of the optimization plan, or are they only providing directions for your webmaster? There may not be a correct answer to this. Some SEO firms are consultants only; others offer consulting and hands-on optimization. If you don’t have a webmaster, and expect the SEO firm to do the actual optimization work, ask about their experience as programmers and make sure they are as skilled at the hands-on work as they are at consulting.

What changes need to be made to your web site to make it more search engine friendly? In other words, what does the SEO Company consider the full scope of work to optimize your web site? The project may or may not include things such as:

• Changing the layout or design of your site
• Updating the site architecture — the menus, navigation, etc.
• Rewriting and editing content — the visible words on your web site
• Improving HTML tags — the hidden pieces of information in the code of your web site
• Link building — finding appropriate web sites and obtaining links from their site to yours
• Search engine submission — letting search engines know about your site (Note: the frequency and methodology of submissions is sometimes debated among SEO professionals. Ask about their submission schedule/methods, and discuss the pros and cons. Generally, submitting your site to “hundreds of search engines” isn’t all that helpful.)

• Directory submissions — letting web directories know about your site (Hint: this is often more difficult than it sounds.)

How soon will the SEO Company begin working on your project, and how long do they expect to take to complete it? It’s unrealistic to expect your web site to make the top 10 search results within a week after the project ends, so if you’re aiming to increase holiday sales make sure you start (and the SEO company can finish) far enough ahead of time to allow the project to succeed.

Which leads us right into…?

Measuring Success
It’s up to you to determine the goals and definition of success for your SEO/SEM project. Perhaps it’s nothing more than an increase in traffic to your site, an expansion of your mailing list subscriber base, or doubling last year’s online sales in the holiday season. During the initial meetings with the companies you’re considering, you’ll need to articulate your ultimate goals and whether they’re short-term, long-term, or both.

It will, however, be the SEO/SEM’s job to help you calculate success with information and statistics about the project.

Things to consider:
Does the company make promises to acquire you as a customer? Building trust involves setting realistic expectations. No SEO company can promise long-term top rankings in the search results of any search engine because search engines are constantly changing how they index and rank web sites. (In the short-term, however, CPC and PPC advertising might include a guarantee of visibility on the first page of search results if you’re bidding / paying enough to be seen there.)

What kind of reports will the SEO Company provide to indicate your web site’s ongoing ranking in various search engines? How often will you get those reports, and can the company help you understand them? Some companies may be able to provide sample reports to give you an idea of what to expect.

How will you measure your ROI (return on investment) and what role (if any) will the SEO/SEM Company provide in this process? A better question here might be, is your company able to accurately assess ROI? Are you generating the needed information internally to be able to measure the results of your SEO/SEM project? Many businesses are not at this stage yet. In a recent study by NetIQ, only 11% of respondents were conducting detailed ROI analysis on their search engine marketing efforts.

These are some of the issues and concerns any business should address when considering which SEO/SEM company to hire for marketing your business online. You might also spend time using the variety of resources available elsewhere on the SEMPO web site to learn more about the value of search engine marketing and the industry itself. (But try to stay away from the water cooler — hopefully now we won’t be reading about your company there, unless it’s the story of your SEO/SEM success!)

By Matt McGee

Forums have become a common feature in many websites. With good free scripts available, and paid scripts being relatively cheap, it seems that every new website has its own forum(s).

But is it wise to add forums to your website?

In this article I’d like to take a look at the pros and cons of adding forums to your website. The largest of my websites, TheCatSite.com boasts one of the largest online forums on pet related subjects. In fact I have yet to see a more sizable forum dealing with pets. As of the writing of this article (Summer 2004), we have over 7,000 members and nearly half a million posts. In the past four years I have struggled with the hardships of community management and learned what works and what doesn’t. Let me share a few insights that may help you decide if you want to take the forums path yourself.

The Pro Side of the Equation
Forums Generate Content
Large, active forums generate content for your website. Google currently has literally tens of thousands of pages indexed for TheCatSite.com’s forums, and people looking for some of the more esoteric subjects related to cat health and cat behaviour are very likely to meet one of our forum pages in their search results.

Forums Make People Return to Your Website
Forums are truly a “sticky” element. Most people come back, at least to monitor developments on their threads. With a good community, you get some real addicts who have to get their daily fix. TheCatSite.com�s forums run on Vbulletin Forums, which means members can opt to receive an email whenever someone replies to their thread. Most people use it and that little email sends them right back to the forums.

Forums Create a Sense of Community
Reaching from behind their computer screens, people from all over the world join together, get to know each other and create a community. This is actually happening! Members connect with each other, offering support in time of needs and some of them even meeting each other in real life. For you as the webmaster, this means loyal visitors that keep coming back to a place they consider to be home.

The Con Side of the Equation
Forums Can Take a Lot of Time to Take Off the Ground
I remember how I could feel my posts echoing in the empty board four years ago… It can take a long time before your forums pick up. An empty forum can actually drive new visitors away. It’s a vicious circle � when they see that no one else is posting, they don’t post themselves, and move on to the next website. It can take weeks and even months of hard work to get your forums off the ground.

Forums Need a Lot of Ongoing Management
You need to constantly monitor your forums to make sure that they are clean of sp@m, troll posts, and just keep everything where it belongs. Once your forums are large enough, you have to have a team of quality moderators to help you run the place - the task being too time-consuming for one person. This is the place in this article to say “hi!” to any TCS team members reading this � thank you guys � you’re the ones that make it all happen!

For the webmasters reading this article, I will say that managing a team is a task in its own right. Finding the good moderators can mean the difference between success and failure. And it doesn’t end there. You have to put your heart and mind to it � all the time.

Forums Take Up a Lot of Resources
Forums are database-type applications that generate web pages on the fly. Every time a user views a page, it’s being created from scratch. As the forums become more active, this can take a heavy load on the web server’s resources. When our forums reached 2,000 members, we had to switch over to a dedicated server. When they reached 7,000 members, we had to upgrade to a new dedicated server… With several other websites stored on our server, the forums are the biggest resource hoggers, taking up bandwidth, disk space and, most importantly, CPU resources. This brings us to the next point…

Forums Do Not Make Lucrative Advertising Stock
You think that with successful forums, generating millions of targeted page views each month, you would do well financially? Think again. Forums not only cost you a lot to run, they also don’t bring in a whole lot of revenue, compared to regular web pages. Advertisers don’t like to run ads on forum pages. So much so, that most CPM based ad networks won’t even let you place their ads there.

Our experience with CPC ads shows that they may have a good point. Click-through rates on forum pages are significantly lower then on other types of web pages. There are ways to make your forums generate revenues, but trust me, it’s not that easy. I will be writing a separate article on how we got our forums to pay for their keeping.

The Bottom Line
Forums are not for every website. Don’t just put it up there and hope for the best. If you can’t or don’t want to put a lot of time and effort into creating a viable community, just leave it. Having no forums is better than having dead forums. Having dead forums on your website may actually drive people away.

Research your field. How easy will it be to create a community geared towards the subject of your website? Is it something that people want to talk about with each other? Are there other forums on this subject? How are they doing?

Get your feet wet. Join several forums and become an active participant. If possible, become a team member or a moderator in a large forum. Big forums often have secret team forums, where you can learn a lot about community management.

Think ahead. Where do you see your website in a year or two? Is this your main project and passion? Will you have the time and energy it takes to maintain a forum? Above all: Will you enjoy it?

By Anne Moss