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Get them to write a blog about you, what other people will write a blog post about your product? Exchanging blog posts with others is a simple yet effective way to get powerful recommendations. But, will they write about you? Yes, they will!

Did you not see me write a few posts on Digg.com, Technorati, Stumbleupon, or about other people’s websites?

You may have more value than you might give your self credit. Yes, you too deserve to have people write about you. Until there is no official blog exchange network, we will have to do this manually, the old fashioned way. How will you get people to write about you?Follow these simple steps, remember keep it simple:

1. Ask them to write about you, and you will write about them, easy!

2. Make your distinction very clear, why are you different, better, etc.

3. Give them something to write about, headlines, content, know how, get it:-)

4. Why is your secret sauce valuable to their readers, make your case.

For example, by coming to MyTypes.com you get insights in to Blogging, eSuccess, Search Engine Marketing, all for free and in language that non-techies can understand.

5. Provide current news in your blog with your insights and opinions.

Google revenues are up 53.7%, with $2.04B just for international revenues? Wow, all this and they are a Multi-Billion dollar company. Ok, how are they doing it? They made money recently on YouTube.com, they own 5 of the top 10+ websites, how? Because they bought them and enhanced their value, not just left them drift. Did you know that Blogger.com- yes our competitor is moved up to 27million users? Wow, they are doing great!

6. Give them visuals, will make your blogs and content well read.  Recently, I have had a number of people comment on how much they like our blog photos, this makes me proud.  Choosing the right photo requires time, it might take you some time to find the right mix of photos and videos, but isn’t your best worth it?

Give them a blog tip of the day, and call it a Tip #192. Providing tips, no not the cash kind, but a tip of knowledge, an insight, something that helps people, that is the kind of Tip, we are talking about. Providing people a “Tip on a regular basis” gives them something to look forward to and keeps them coming back.

It’s a good idea to number the tip or make a list, it organizes your blogs and it gives people something to look forward to. As you know, I write too much, you should avoid that as well. Be clear, concise, and specific.

For example:

SEO Tip #192: Give them a Tip

Make sure the tip is uniquely helpful, and it’s an insight that you truly do know from experience that works. You the tip in a story, or make your point vividly. Tell a story of how the tip worked for you in your past, in helping you win something or achieve something. For example, making a list of 5-9 items always helped me to keep our projects on task, etc. etc.

Tomorrow, we start to cover the basics of SEO and end with a last three articles from our SEO Blog Templates technical manual.

First of all what is a Technorat, it’s a person who goes to Technorati.com, Yes? Well, yes and kind of sort of No, that’s not what I meant. Attracting people to your blog or website or writing an article or doing something viral to attract links is the way of the best SEO Company. So the more highly popular your blog or website is linked the better. But, I take that further, the more you get bloggers to write and link to you, the better you will SEO your way to the top. So a Technorat in my opinion is a blogger, yes a blogging buddy, a subject matter expert, who writes a blog. Ok, well anyone who writes a blog, and gets it listed on Technorati.com is good enough. Yes, any blog writing to you is pretty good, so blogging is the #1 SEO tool for you. Especially the links you get from them.

Attracting links from news paper websites is very powerful, as Google, MSN, Yahoo and other major search engines value them highly. So being news worthy is a good thing. Hey look we at MyTypes.com is in 350+ news papers every day, woW, due to SEO?

Yes, there we are, to the very right border of the Cartoon, Blog: MyTypes.com/brian A world famous cartoonist, yes Brian Basset. He is more famous for his cartoon Red and Rover, and we are in all of his comics. I just wish all 350 news papers would Link to us, but no worries our LinkMint SEO strategies work. We have already gotten 20,000 plus good links to get ranked #1 for our keyword “Create a blog” in Google. We are #5 for “blogging” and top 1-20 in most blogging and blog related keywords.

So how do YOU get Organic top rankings and SEO your way to the top of major Search Engines? Get more powerful links THAN YOUR COMPETITORS from news/blog websites, it’s that easy. But how to get MORE BLOGGERS to write about you? Focus on creating something of value for them, and they will give you links back to your site/blog. A top provider of SEO advice, well now days SEO tools too, and SEO expert Rand Fiskin talks about getting links from Linkerati ( the technorats as we call them), an active group of blogsphere viral types. Yes these are the Technorats, and they do hang out at Technorati.com.

As mentioned before they hang out at Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, delicious.com and many social networking type sites. They can make a lot of noise in a very short amount of time, and popularize your blog quickly. SEO blogger/guru/writer can give you all the tools for you to check your ranking, get your keywords, get you meta tags, site maps and SEO Tool this, and SEO Tool that. But can they get you high value links? Yes, that’s the ticket.

Keep it simple as we say, give away a free lunch, and people will thank you, ask them the Bloggers to thank you with a link. The best thing as always you can do is write good stuff about them, ask them to write similar stuff about you. If you want to take this to the next level, and really be #1, think of what you could give everyone in the whole world? Give them knowledge of some sort, something different, something they don’t have as easily as you. Blog it regulary, and ask them to link back to you. Voila, you have achieved eSuccess and as mentioned so many times, Blogging is the only SEO tool you need. Now, go do your regular blogging work and eat that free lunch, and thinking of Free lunches, humnh so good:-).

LIKE THIS BLOG POST? Please Digg it, click here.

Hey baby, you Digg my Business? Well, that’s a bit more casual for a business blog to be news at Digg.com. But, it sure makes a great tag line though, does it not? Great tag lines and great headlines make for good marketing and smart news stories. You need to get your blog posts on Digg.com every time, that is, if you want to promote your blog. Why, because of the Digg effect.

Have you heard of the Digg.com or heard of “The Digg Effect” yet? Well, if you have not heard of it or not been there yet, you should go there as soon as you finish reading this blog. Digg is not a house hold name yet, but in the tech community and among it’s rivals it stands out at at a huge success. It’s a ratings engine for news, videos, blogs, you name it people Digg it! Microsoft just did a deal with Digg.com to provide advertising on the Digg network. This was the largest advertisement distribution deal by Live.com the Search Engine Marketing arm of MS.

We actually had Digg features within our News section of blogs, so we think highly of end user rating systems and blog/news aggregators. So does Bill Gates as mentioned in his futurist conversation with Donny on “The Big Idea” recently. So How does Digg work, and why is it good for your search marketing business? The Digg effect is that people are getting plethora of traffic from Digg, at times enough to crash there servers. Is Digg good for your SEO and search marketing and search rankings? I dont’ really know for sure, but I do think it’s good for you to develop community around your blogs, posts, and it’s definitely a great way for you to promote your blog. It is limited in what it does, and don’t try to make it your the place to be online. Well maybe, if you are in to Digging things, news, blogs etc. What I am trying to say is, it’s not your all in one social networking site like MySpace or Facebook.

Go after your goals, as soon as you are done posting to your blog, go to Digg and post it as a story for people to read. It’s really simple, and let’s hope you get the Digg effect, tons of traffic folks, people at Digg are active.

You might have heard lately that Google doesn’t care how many links you have to your blog, but how many quality links you have. That is the main reason, most SEO and search marketing firms recommend blogs. Links from blogs and Wiki’s are considered high value links. But, most don’t know the simple and easiest way to get these links. I even get top news paper sites to link to me, and I do it all ethically, I comment on their blog pages.

A lot of people ask me “But what do I blog/write about?“, my answer is almost always just start writing, and you will think of something. My problem is I write too much, as one idea leads to another. Go ahead try this and start writing, this will happen to you, and you will have enough to blog about. This is why I focus each post on one particular topic, and as I am teaching you this, to keep it to one or two keyword concepts. For example, this post is all about getting links, and most importantly getting high quality links.

3 Easy ways to get links:

1. Comment on articles on major news sites and blogs> Most of us read our favorite news paper online, or go to our favorite news source on line, go ahead go there. Next time you are there, go their and look for the blogs of the columnist, and if you like their article make a comment with a link to your website. For example, I go to the Wall Street Journal business website. I read an article their about entrepreneurship, and I make a comment like this. “Great article, and I am not sure I agree. I have years of experience in the business marketing and I have been blogging about this subject for months now. You can visit my blog at http://mytypes.com. You may go on to write some thing else of importance such as, I would here. Blogs are great for business information. As we all know that business news and information is often outdated.” Make sure you write a few sentences of meaningful information that says you read the article.

2. Add your favorite blogs to your blogroll, or Links Pages, and ask them to link to you. Basically, add them first in your Blogroll pages. Do it on the main page, and give them a compliment with an address to your link page or Blog roll and say something simple such as: “Hi, I read your blog often love your recent post on “subject of post”, and I just added you to my blogroll. Keep up the good work, and I would love for you to add me to”. That’s it, write from your heart, and not more than 2 sentences.

3. Submit your blog based website to search engine directors, website/blog directories, tagging engines, feed readers, etc. Sign up for an account and submit your feeds to them, you will get spammed as well as get readers. Most importantly, you will get links, some of the top ones are: blogCatalog.com, myblog.com, Digg.com , Technorati.com, stumbleupon.com, are all major ones. Some hot ones are Zimbio.com, trumblr.com. Most of them can be pinged via www.pingomatic.com.

I told my self today that I will not write more than three paragraphs on the topic of add contextual linking. I am going to get to the point very quickly, so here it is. Writing blogs and text or video or photo’s in your blog is great. Keeping your blog to a particular subject and focused to a couple of keywords is a Must. So this article is about Contextual linking. What is it, Why do it, and How do you do it?

Contextual Linking is The most important SEO tool for competitive keywords.  It shows the exact words the blog or website is about. So the more contextual, real contextual links, you have the more you define your blog or website about that subject.

Here is the simple step by step example:

1. Decide the right keywords to link to your website or blog: For example, we will use “SEO Tools” here.

2. Highlight the Keywords “SEO Tools” by clicking and dragging over the keywords.

3. After you have them highlighted as above “SEO TOOLS” click on the Link Icon. It’s a common icon, and it’s used in almost all blogging and text editors. It’s located 4th from the left, in the menu of the text editor, right next to the “ABC” strike through button.

4. It’s very important that you type in the specific URL of the website you are linking to. Be careful and make sure the link works after you are done.

5. Type in the Text of the Link Title: For example for the highlighted keyword “SEO Tools“. You may call this link title “Free SEO Tools and SEO” The title of the link is just as important as the highlighted keywords.

Voila! You are done, you have done your first contextual linking. You just told your readers and search engines that the keyword “SEO Tools” are linked to LinkMint.com and that is what the website is about.

A few tips to remember:

*make sure that the text around your keywords make sense and is about the subject of your keywords.

*Don’t do this more than once for every 14 words.

*Write about the subject and make sure you write for readers.

Next post and the last for this series, Part 6: How to get Links to your blog.

Many people have realized the value and potential benefits of blogging, but they struggle when it’s time to actually write their posts and create their content. After all, it’s tough to maintain a blog and post interesting things day in and day out. However, the web is full of ideas and ways to set your creative capabilities on fire.

One way to generate new ideas and give life to old ones is use the social bookmarking and tagging sites to find new perspectives in your niche.  Digg, del.icio.us, stumble upon, flickr, youtube, and other sites all have tons of user-submitted content, organized by tags.  This system is referred to as a “folksonomy” - the practice and method of collective collaboration using freely chosen keywords known as “tags”.  Users tag content with descriptive phrases and terms in order to share it more effectively with people who are interested in the same topics.

It’s important to see what others in your niche are talking about, and one way to find this out is to see what’s been tagged with your keywords on the various social media sites.  You may be wondering, however, does this translate into posts on your blog? Here are five things you can do with knowledge gleaned from the social media.

1.  Write a response to another blogger. Did you disagree with what they said?  Want to add to their thoughts and bring a new point of view into the conversation?  Use your blog to share your insights, and be sure to link to the inspiring post so the original blogger is aware of you (one caveat - keep your criticism constructive and respective - flame wars have no place on a business blog).

2.  Create a round-up of interesting links.  Did you discover all sorts of all cool sites and articles?  Chances are your readers might be interested in them too, so why not post them on your blog? Don’t forget to write a sentence or two about each link so they know what they are clicking on.

3.Compliment another blogger.  Come across another blogger or website that is simply amazing?  Write a post about why they are so incredible and if it applies, use them as an example of a blogging success.   Maybe even interview them and tell your readers their story.

4.Share what you’ve learned.  Find an informative article or how-to that you really learned something from?  Elaborate on that for your audience.  Bonus points if you can post pictures or your own experience of following the original article’s advice.

5.  Post a funny, creative, or intriguing video.  When you’re simply at a loss for blogging words, youtube, vimeo, and other video sites can be your saviors.   After all, if a picture’s worth a thousand words, a video has got to be worth at least a million.

What do you do when you suffer from blogger’s block?

Are you holding off from starting a blog simply because there are so many other bloggers out there? Worried about standing out from the pack and wondering how you’ll ever get traffic, lots of incoming links, and a high page rank? A little bit intimidated with blogs with tons of content and several years worth of posts in the archives?

First of all, remember that no one makes the A-list overnight. You may get spikes of traffic from a great post or by being popular on the social bookmarking sites, but building an amazing blog takes time. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Focus on the little things, and think of each incoming link, unique impression, and new subscriber as a building block for your blog. These all occur one at a time, but they definitely add up.  Building up content is the same way - make the effort to post several times a week (or even every day if you’re ambitious), and before you know it, you’ll have created quite an impressive archive of knowledgeable content.

Search engines love sites with tons of content on related topics, so the simple act of writing a post helps with SEO (of course, it’s even better if it is a keyword-rich post, but you knew that, right?).  Of course, search engines also love sites that are constantly updated, so posting as often as possible is another simple SEO boost.

It’s also important to remember that you don’t need to write a book every day.  Some of the best, most informative articles out there are only a few paragraphs long, and it’s difficult to read tons of text on a computer screen anyways (so be sure to break up blocks of text somehow, whether you use bold headings, bullet points, or similar techniques).

So get started on your blog, take it one day at a time, and you may end up being amazed at what you’ve built.

Blogging is essentially a social, conversational medium, so it only goes to follow that you can’t successfully blog in a vacuum.  You have to read and respond to other bloggers, link to outside websites, and be aware of what others in niche are talking about by participating in the popular social media networks.

Basically, you have to read at least as much as you write.  First of all, reading and absorbing the work of talented writers is one of the most important things you can do when it comes to developing your own writing voice.  It only goes to follow that, if you want to get the most out of your blog, you have to read other blogs as well.  Besides, being aware of the current popular topics in in the blogosphere is valuable, and you’ll never know where you’ll pick up a great tip or two.

You don’t even necessarily have to read tons of blogs about blogging (although as your Blogging Coach, I would say that you should definitely keep an eye on a few meta-blogs); useful, well-written advice and positive examples can be found on blogs in any niche.  It’s also important to check out blogs that discuss similar topics to yours, so you can pick up on market trends and see if anyone has written, linked to, or created anything interesting.

One of the key differences between blogging and more traditional forms of media, marketing, and public relations is that it’s a two way street.  Yes, your readers can and will respond to your posts in the comments, but other bloggers can write responses on their blogs too.  Reacting and sharing opinions are a key part of participating in the blogosphere, so it’s not only useful, it’s imperative that you read at least a few other blogs.

Don’t think that you have the time to read?  Try subscribing to your favorites and scanning them in a reader (I personally prefer Google Reader, but there are tons of options out there), or tagging posts that intrigue you with a “toread” tag in del.icio.us and coming back them when you have time to spare.

What other blogs do you read? Do you read them for news, education, inspiration, or entertainment (or a mix of all the above?)

In honor of Daily Blog Tips’s “Blog Project: Three” Contest, here are the three things that all bloggers should before they hit the publish button on a new post.

1.  Read over and spell check the content.  I know that blogging is an informal medium, but spelling and grammar errors can make you appear less intelligent that you actually are, and a quick proofread only takes a few minutes.  Besides, once you’ve invested the time in setting up your blog, writing posts, and participating in the blogging community, what’s a few more minutes to ensure that you put your best face forward?  Spelling errors on a blog are the equivalent of going into a job interview in track pants and a t-shirt - in a perfect world, appearances wouldn’t matter, but in the real world, they definitely do.

2.  Make sure that your post is tagged properly and assigned to the correct categories.  You want to make it as simple as possible for others to find your blog and use your content, so careful tagging and categorizing are essential and easy things to do.

3.  Link to any other blogs or outside sources you mention.  It helps your readers find out more on a particular topic if they are so inclined, and giving some link love to fellow bloggers is generally a good thing.  Besides, citing your sources lends your blog credibility (well, this may depend on what the sources are, but in general citing can’t hurt).

3.5.  The one thing bloggers should do after they hit publish is to check how their post looks in the context of the rest of the site - is the layout okay?  If there are images, are they are sized and placed properly?  Are any of the links broken?  Did you forget to mention anything really important?  Go back and edit anything that’s not right - one of the many, many excellent aspects of blogging is how easy it is to edit and fix errors. 

*An aside: blogging round-ups, contests, and carnivals are excellent way to get the word out about your blog to other bloggers and new readers, so keep an eye out for similar goings-on in your niche.  The Daily Blog Tips Project 3 contest is very open-ended (as long as you post about something involving the number 3, you can participate).