Defog the Blog! BRC Course on making Blogs, marketing & making money in the BlogosphereHope Windle

Defog the Blog course schedule

1: Research the field

• Intros• History• Research• Make a blog

2: Review• Review• Survey sez• Track & find• Where’s the $• Adsense• SEO Search engine

optimization

3: Go!• Show & tell• What do we do

now?

• Biz Plan moving forward

• Next steps

11/1, tonight 11/8, next Monday 11/15, next next Monday

Tonight’s schedule:

Stop, Research, Prioritize

• Why here? 6-6:30

• What is it? The Blogsphere 6:30-6:45 • Let’s dissect a few good blogs 6:45-7:15

• Lets look 7:15-7:45 & break

• Briefly how the money happens 7:45-8

• Blog Makers, word tracker & you 8-8:45

• Homework: what sort of blog is it ?8:45-9

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What do you want out of this class?

Why are you here? 04/10/23

What social media sites should I use?

Tip 1

Tip 2

Tip 3

Participation

Publishing

Entertainment

Rating / Tagging Content Dissemination/Distribution

Tip 4Tip 5

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What is it?

• A blog (short for web-log) is a website in the form of a journal, with dated entries regularly posted with thoughts of any kind... In French, the equivalent term invented for the occasion is "joueb" for "journal-web"!

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History of Blogs• History• Main article: History of blogging timeline• Main article: Online diary• The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger[48] on 17

December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May of 1999.[49][50][51] Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms.[52]

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On 6 December 2002, Josh Marshall's talkingpointsmemo.com blog called attention to U.S. Senator Lott's comments regarding Senator Thurmond. Senator Lott was eventually to resign over the matter.

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Time to go hunting

1. Sites you LOVE, HATE, why?

2. Hard sell versus no sell?

http://defogtheblog.blogspot.com/

1. Go to Defog the Blog site2. Click on Blog Awards Sites

Bloggies http://2010.bloggi.es/

Weblog Awards http://weblogawards.org/

Blogger’s Choice Awards http://bloggerschoiceawards.com/

Best of the Blogs http://www.thebobs.com/04/10/23

Blog search engines & portals• Technorati

www.technorati.comThe gold standard of blog search engines

• Feedsterwww.feedster.comOne of the first RSS search engines on the web

• Blog Pulse http://www.blogpulse.comTrend search tool

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Willie Crawford was an Air Force officer flying C130 cargo planes. Knowing how to do that was pretty valuable, but Willie wanted to do something else. He didn't know much else but one thing he did know was how to cook chitterlings.

He set up Chitterlings.com, started producing a newsletter and then a recipe book that is still doing six figures.

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• You are connecting /selling only to people who are interested in what you're offering.

• Only the Internet can let you select and refine your leads to this extent.

• Think about what words describe your content for a title

1stweek: Stop & Research

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Other ways the money works• The ways in which it's monetized are:• affiliate programs

(e.g., Commission Junction, Linkshare) -- if I recommend a sweater at Saks (for example) and people click on the specific link I give them, any purchases made at Saks during that visit (directly from my link) earn me a small commission (generally 3% to 15%) of the entire purchase

• it's part of the advertising network BlogHer, also -- the company gives me ads to run on the site (lederboard and sidebar) and my site makes a few cents every time a unique visitor views the page.(This is a BLOG RING)

• to a much lesser extent, Google Ads also -- the blog makes a few pennies if people click on specific links (but no purchase is required and no money is made based on traffic alone).

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Naming your BLOG is the same as naming your baby

• Ideal name needs to be memorable• Stand out from the crowd• Means something• Original & engaging to attract an

audience• Buttress your online persona• “A Blog about Books” or “Bookslut”• Superhero identity..

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Superhero identity..

• Do we even remember Cat Woman’s name?

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And then there are taglines

• Alien …In space no one can hear you scream

• Jaws 2 …just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water

• The X-Files …The Truth is Out There.

• it’s enough to make you URL04/10/23

1stweek: Stop & Research Hands on

• Research: How to Build an Effective Keyword List on Google Adwords

Read more: How to Build an Effective Keyword List on Google Adwords | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5680400_build-keyword-list-google-adwords.html#ixzz1455A0b7X

• http://www.ehow.com/how_5680400_build-keyword-list-google-adwords.html

• Think about what words describe your content for the name of your blog

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Blog Makers out there & you

• Basic Blog makers • Wordpress & Blogger

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Basic starter book.

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Homework: What are you passionate about?

1. Research more Blogs..sites you LOVE, HATE, why?

2. Hard sell versus no sell?3. Investigate blog names and word

tracker4. Post your findings: Defog the Blog5. Buy Blogging for Dummies

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