SEO - Blog Marketing

Apple released an upgrade to iTunes today that brings built in Podcast functionality. Not only can you easily download and listen to Podcasts, but you can also sync them to the iPod and subscribe to Podcasts. Subscribing allows iTunes to automatically download the latest Podcast when it comes available. Apple also has a special area in iTunes dedicated to Podcasts.

Currently, Podcasts are starting to catch on. They haven’t quite hit mainstream yet, however iTunes could help push it along. I know that I will now pay more attention to Podcasts and have already subscribed to my first one.

For those who don’t know, Podcasts are audio blogs. Instead of reading, you listen.

If you are an active blogger, or new to blogging, there are some terms that you’ll come across and may not know what are. Below is a short list of terms to help you out.

ATOM: See Feed
Blog: See Blog Definition
Blogroll: A collection of links on your site that link to other blogs.
Categories: A way of organizing you posts with the same theme.
Feed: Commonly referred to as RSS or ATOM or XML. This is a file that is created by the blogging software that websites and news readers can pick up on and display easily. It is the easiest way of getting new information across the web in seconds.
News Reader: In order for people to subscribe to and read the feeds that your blog sends out they will need a news reader. News readers can be a stand alone program or built into a web browser.
Permalink: This is the permanent link (URL) that will be associated with the post. Different platforms may represent it in different ways.
Ping: Pinging is sending out an alert to other blogs, search engines or news readers that announces that your blog has been updated.
Podcasting: Instead of posts, you would post audio files for people to download and listen to when they want.
RSS: See Feed
Syndicate: See Ping
Trackback: Trackbacks are links from one blog post to another. They are used to keep similar post together. Each post you write should have a Trackback URL. This is a unique URL that is directly connected to an entry. If someone else were to post on their blog about an entry you made, they would enter your Trackback URL in their post to link each post. You should do the same. If you decide to post about a post you saw on someone else’s blog, you should enter their Trackback URL to connect the posts.
URI: The is the same as a URL
Webblog: Same as a Blog, just different name.

If you have any terms to add or have any that you want explained, post them below.

What blogging software or service do you use? Are you a Blogger person? Wordpress? TypePad? One of the many other choices?

What kind of things do you like or dislike about your current blog software?

Just curious to see what you use and why. I’ve used Blogger and WordPress for main blogging and then I’ve started small blogs with Yahoo 360, Wallop, SeoBlog and probably many more that I don’t remember. In the end, Wordpress always wins out. For features, price and I, personally, like hosing my own blog. Ok, well usually, this is an exception.

Lets start with the very basics. What is a blog anyways? I checked a few sites and here is what they had to say.

Answers.com - To write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog.

WikiPedia - A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally in reverse chronological order). Although most early weblogs were manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of web application software is now a typical aspect of “blogging”.

Technorati - A weblog, or blog, is a personal journal on the web. Weblogs express as many different subjects and opinions as there are people writing them. Some blogs are highly influential and have enormous readership while others are primarily intended for a close circle of family and friends.

Blo.gs - a weblog (or blog) is a type of web site (or page) that is organized much like a diary or journal — short nuggets of writing added regularly (or not) as a running commentary on almost any subject. other than this time-oriented structure, one weblog may not have all that much in common with the next. to get a better sense of what a weblog is, try clicking through to different weblogs from this site

Ask Jeeves - a shared on-line journal where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences and hobbies

What is all boils down to is a blog is just a website that is easy to create and and edit content. Entries, or posts, happen on a regular basis. That could mean more than one a day or just one every few days. It’s very similar to a diary or a journal only it’s online and shared with everyone on the internet.

Entries are usually short and organized by date with the newest entries showing up first.

Blogs can be whatever you want them to be, much like a website, and they were designed to make it easy for anyone to create content and share with the world.

Still have questions? Post them in the comments and I’ll get back to you. If you can wait, I’ll be posting on topics such as ‘what to blog about?’ and ‘what blog service is good for me?’ in the coming weeks.

Ok, so it’s a far fetched idea, however Kuro5hin has a good article about past companies that Google has bought and possible future companies. One choice is Technorati.

If Google is the average person’s homepage, Technorati is the homepage of the underground, tech-savvy web user. Technorati is a blog portal whose average visitor enjoys podcasts, Wikipedia, and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Providing more cutting edge results than a normal search engine, Technorati would integrate well with Google News and/or Blogger, and could perhaps feature blogs on the Google Personalized Homepage. Technorati is somewhat similar to Bloglines, which was purchased by Ask Jeeves recently.

It’s an interesting idea and I think that Technorati is doing wonders on their own. I’m not convinced that Google could step in and make things better. Unless they just supported Technorati financially.

Blo.gs has been sold to Yahoo! Blo.gs has been looking for a buyer for months and is very happy with their new owner.

yahoo! obviously has the resources to run and improve blo.gs in pace with the incredible growth of blogs (and syndication in general), and in talking with them it was also clear that we had some of the same vision for the future of the service and the ping/notification infrastructure.

It’s great to see a major search engine working with the blog movement and I’m eagerly awaiting any changes that Yahoo! brings. Hopefully they’ll be all good changes but only time will tell.

You can read more about the sale over at TrainedMonkey.

I’ve been using Blogsome for hours now and I though this might be a good time to give my first impressions. All-in-all: It’s great, but will it last?

This is Wordpress blogging at it’s best. You have complete access to the admin functions and nearly every Wordpress features is here. You even have access to the template to customize it for yourself. I’m very impressed at Blogsome as it’s the first free Wordpress full blog and hosting I’ve seen available.

They’ve even added a few features (or plug-ins) that make the experience even better. Things like ‘Instant Preview’ of a post, referrer stats and spam control.

The only real missing feature I’ve seen so far is the ability to upload plug-ins. They don’t allow any type of FTP abilities, however they have allowed the ability to upload files via Wordpress.

Unlike Blogger, I don’t know that there is a huge company behind Blogsome and so I don’t know where the money to keep this running comes from. I do know they add adsense ads to the admin area and on each blog. The ads under the sidebar are theirs, any others are mine.

This is an excellent service and I hope it’s in for the long haul.

Blogs are becoming increasingly popular in business’ and getting them optimized for search engines is a top priority. It’s just like a website, you want to make sure it’s easy to crawl and optimized for what you want to be found for. Keep an eye out for tips and techniques to getting the most from your blogging experience.