Blog Resources

What is a blog?

On a site called Blog Resources, it would be wrong to not start at the beginning. The word blog is such a common term these days, that many people just assume that everyone knows what that is. And those that don’t feel stupid asking.

But not here. Ask any question you like. And let’s start at square one.

The term blog is short for weblog. It is basically an online journal. And it can be about anything.

Common types of blogs are as follows:

• personal blogs
• family blogs
• business blogs
• company blogs
• niche blogs
• team blogs
• club/group blogs

Think of a blog like a diary. In a diary, everyday, or so people write an entry. They start at the beginning of the book and continue writing until they reach the end. On a blog it is the other way around. Everytime an entry is added (these entries are called posts) the newest one is displayed first and the oldest last.

A blog can have one author or many authors.

A blog can be public or private.

It can be updated as often as the author chooses - anywhere from several times a day to once in a blue moon.

The blog type of website is popular for many reasons. The number one reason being that it is easy to set up. Anybody can start a blog for free from any one of a ton of free hosting sites. This takes a matter of minutes.

And it is kind of exciting to have an instantaneous presence on the web.

But days pass and the steam runs out. That is the inherent problem with blogging - they need to updated to keep readers coming back. Or do they?

Now that we know the answer to “What is a Blog?” (this site is one!), we can look into the different types of blogs and the reasons that people begin their online journey.

What have you been up to lately? I haven’t been posting here in a long while. Do you know why?

Call it Blog Confusion. Maybe I should upgrade this to a syndrome.

You see, I have spent the last few months reading, absorbing, and following information about niche blogging. A site should be about one niche and should not stray too far from that keyword and that topic, etc, etc, etc.

The total effect of all this advice on me was paralysis. A lack of focus on what to write about. If I write about this then the search engines will think my site is about such and such. How should I structure my titles, my keywords, and everything in between.

By the time I finished absorbing, I was too tired to write about it.

So here I am back at square one. With lots of information to share.

Hopefully this time I will be able to keep writing!

Regular readers will recall that at the beginning of the summer I signed up for SBI when they ran the summer Site Build It sale.

I even began detailing my progress through the days of the action guide.

Then a funny thing happened - summer vacation began. And with four kids home for few months, all of my web endeavors were shelved until the fall. That is why things have been silent here for awhile.

Ironically, the folks at SBI seem to understand my predicament because they are now running the Back to Work SBI Sale, just about the time that I am ready to go back to work.

From now until August 28, 2008 (yes - that is only three days away), the deal is that you can buy one SBI site package for $299 and get another for only $100.

For those not familiar with SBI, this is complete website building package that includes web hosting, domain name registration, and the key part is the awesome web tools.

After all, a successful site relies on traffic. And traffic comes from search engines. To harness this traffic, the right blend of keywords and content is absolutely necessary. If not done correctly, the traffic just won’t come.

SBI holds your hand through the entire process of building your site. Their Brainstorm It tool helps you choose a profitable yet interesting topic. Their block by block page builder helps the novice as well as the experienced webmaster develop a site that gets the click.

Personally, although I have experience building sites, I have found the block by block builder to be a breath of fresh air. It is so easy to use. And the Analyze It tool is a comfort since it reviews my final page for all SEO elements before it goes live.

My SBI site still has a far way to go. After the initial push in the beginning of July, it has sat dormant for the remainder of the summer. But surprisingly it is already indexed by the major search engines and is getting search traffic. Not too shabby. Imagine the results that I will get with a little more effort!

Anyhow, the Site Build It Back to Work Sale ends soon. Click over to SBI to check it out.

If you are an SBI owner already, I would love to hear your opinions and advice on the program.

SBI day 3 took more than one calendar day for me. On SBI! day 2, I brainstormed - used the awesome Brainstorm It! tool and chose my topic.

Day 3 is all about creating a site blueprint. On this day I did what is referred to as lateral brainstorming. I used the Brainstorm It! tool again but this time set it to lateral brainstorm. On day 2 I did a vertical brainstorm that returned keyword results that contained my main keyword term. A lateral brainstorm examines the top 20 Google sites for your site concept and returns keyword results that are related to your site concept but do not contain your keyword term.

At the end of all this brainstorming I had a lot of material. Again I had to weed out the unrelated stuff. But it was harder this time because Site Build It does not provide a concrete outline of how many keywords should remain. At the end of Day 2 I had 300 keywords in my database. There can be a maximum of 1000. At the end of Day 3 I am close that number which seems like too many. Is my site concept too broad? That is a question that I am still grappling with.

I completed a site blueprint. This is a flow chart of your main keyword broken down into seven to 15 sections which will constitute my Tier 2 pages or what is better known as the table of contents for my site. Each of these tier 2 pages are then broken down into 7 to 15 tier 3 pages which is the meat of the site. Taking the time to outline the site in such detail before even starting to build the site is eye opening. The best part - I will never have a day where I won’t know what to write about (a common problem for bloggers). At least for a long time.

Again, my site concept is rather broad - so I have a lot of material. While SBI! does a good job of giving you guidelines to make sure that your idea is not too narrow (not enough material to build a site) there is not much guidance to help you decide if your idea is too wide.

At this point I am at Day 5 and am still revisiting Day 3, which SBI encourages you to do if you are unsure. I plan to plow forward and not wallow in “analysis paralysis” but I will take the rest of the day and into tomorrow to think about the site logically. How would a visitor to this site perceive it?

SBI does put monetization last - and it is examined in more depth on Day 4. But at this point I think it is useful to think a bit like the adsense bot - which I do plan to use on my new site eventually. I want to make sure that the adsense bot will deliver highly targeted ads to my readers. So, if my concept is too wide and covers too many topics then the bot will be confused and adsense won’t do well for me. This line of thinking may help me narrow down my topic.

If you would like to follow along with me as I make my way through the SBI Action Guide here are some links to the SBI! Video Action Guide and the SBI! Action Guide in pdf format. These resources are free.

I will be back tomorrow with SBI! Day 4. Read about SBI! Days 1 and 2 here:
Site Build It Review Day 1
Site Build It Review Day 2

I recently took my first foray into the world of email lists. I signed up for AWeber with the intention of creating and sending out a periodic email newsletter.

I didn’t get very far.

Apparently a requirement of the CANN Spam Act is that you must display a mailing address on each email that goes out to those that sign up on your list.

To me this was a deal breaker. No - I am not a spammer. Just an honest person who works from home and  values privacy. I spoke with an AWeber rep about this rule and he said that many people get a P.O. box - something that my fledgling business cannot support and does not need at this point. And no, my honest Abe side cannot enter a bogus address with a clear conscience.

The end result - I pulled the plug on an awesome blog resource because of a ridiculous rule that is designed to protect… I really am not sure what. Obviously, if you are a spammer, you will not put a real address in this field anyway. So, those of us who are not spammers must complete this section honestly and give up our privacy. Thousands of strangers could potentially have our home address. Do you see my point.