Blogger tips to get started

This is my first attempt to set a step in the new media world of blogging. Not sure what its going to bring, but we'll see were we end up.

here are first of all a couple of great sites that helped me build this new site and optimise it to a degree. Thanks to all the webmasters that know how daunting every new beginning can be.

http://www.searchenginewatch.com
newsletter, forum and help pages in regards to SEO

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Overview.html
html help and tips for rookies

10 things to increase traffic to your blog:

I know it's tough, you spend so much time putting all your hard work into finally publishing something online and then.... no one is there to read it, not to mention subscribe to it. Well every beginning is tough, but don't drop your head. There are a few simple ways to increase traffic, but beware nothing beats the no. 1 rule in search engine marketing: 'up to date unique content'!

Here are the other 10:

1. Set up an Rss feed to your MyYahoo account so Yahoo crawlers will register updates quickly. Here is how: Yahoo Publishers guide

2. Set up a Google analytics tracking code in your blog, or at least your linking website. Again this makes sure that update or the blog will get noticed by the search engine crawlers.

3. Contribute to the online community, by being actively enveloped commenting and posting on other forum or blogs within your field. It doesn't hurt to leave witty marks, as it reflects better our your style if you know what I mean.

4. Make sure you ping your posts as it won't be found otherwise. Word-press and some blogs will ping your posts automatically. Otherwise use www.pingomatic.

5. Register your blog with other search engines and meta crawlers. bing ; Google ; Yahoo

6. Submit your blog to blog directories such as Google's Blogsearch and blogarama.com

7. Create a link to your blog on every page of your website.

8. Have links to your blog on your facebook, myspace and twitter accounts. In fact put a link on all online profile you own and get your friends and family to promote it on theirs as well.

9. Include a link in you email signature, on as many email accounts as you have.

10. Make use of trackback links from other blogs and add lots of relevant feed from news-sites or blogs

But after all nothing will get both your rankings in the search engines and with it traffic than bloggin regularly fresh and original content. Remember you've got a hell of a lot of competition in the world and you've got to find something interesting and useful for others to read.

Bing, and what you think of it

Fair play Microsoft is out there now promoting their 'new' search engine bing. From a first look, not too bad and some neat new features like site overview and links summary. The name change does seem like a step in the right direction to dilute the fact that's its run by a big old corporate Goliath behind the scenes. I'm just not too sure how much raindrops on leaves will keep me as entertained as Google's ever-changing themed logo.

Their advertising model with Sponsored sites work pretty much the same way as Google's sponsored links (Adwords) and the highly praised 'related searches' box seem to have a bit too much spin on in terms of enhancing user experience. YouTube videos start previewing on mouse over and it does look a lot cleaner overall.

Most importantly however how is Microsoft is planning to get the traffic in a Google dominated market?

Well for one they have invested more than $60 million in a massive PR & marketing campaign that within the first few weeks of bing's launch have seen a top level shift in search volume from Google to bing. We are talking low single digit figures here, but so far so good.

What it boils down to then is how the user experience differs from Google and how Microsoft is going to compare on its other search engine based products and it's Adcentre. There is to date only little data about bings crawler technology and its left for us to find out whether it produces higher relevant search results for each query.

In the end bing finally here and we can be sure that Microsoft will through enough money at it to last for a good while. The question remains whether bing will actually be able to compete with Google, but Microsoft has got very little (traffic) to loose and enough cash to try it. Competition is healthy at the end of the day and as long as it's handled fairly should leave use users/consumers with added value.

for more reviews view:
TechRadar.com
Cnet.com
PC Mag