10e20 Blog

Yesterday, I installed the MyBlogLog widget on this blog. The response on this blog itself has been overwhelming and after looking into it further on other blogs and how it’s currently being used across the board, I’m quite impressed by the potential of the service offerings. Even though the service is pretty much in its infancy, it is doing quite well right now, and I expect the popularity to increase into 2007.

So what exactly does the MyBlogLog widget do, and why use it?

MyBlogLog is service whose core resides in little graphical widget that you can customize and put on your site to show you who reads your blog(s). Your blog may already have that personal touch from an author’s perspective, but that graphical designation from a reader’s perspective lets you get to know the kinds of visitors your blog (or another blog) gets. Essentially, it creates a community, and that’s exactly what it is.

Well, after the joint tag on Chris and myself by Kim, here are 5 things you may not have known about me.

1) I grew up in Hollywood, Florida, where you don’t need to learn how to parallel park in order to get your driver’s license. I’ve been in New York since 1999, but I still don’t (really) know how to parallel park.

2) Like Aaron Shear, I began working in the IT industry. With a major in computer science (from Barnard College / Columbia University) mixed with jobs in computer networking, I tried to immerse myself in anything related to computers that I was able to tolerate. I began working at 10e20 as a system/network administrator, and found SEO, which was previously foreign to me, to be a new creative outlet. Right now, I’m doing a mix of just about everything relating to web sites; I still have lots to learn in SEO, but I hope I’ll get there!

This is part four in the Blogging for Business Series. The previous three posts can be seen here:

• Blogging for Business Part 1: Why should I start a blog?
• Blogging for Business Part 2: How do I start blogging?
• Blogging for Business Part 3: What should I blog about, and how do I get ideas?

Today’s article (the last in this series, though definitely not the last in blog tips) covers Part 4: How do I drive traffic to my blog?

Once your blog is set up and you have a good foundation of what you want to blog about, you’re faced with generating traffic, which is generally the toughest issue when dealing with a new blog. Your new blog is like an infant and it takes time to grow and get a name for itself (though not over the span of a human lifetime!)

Yesterday, two very well-known search engine optimization industry leaders, Aaron Wall and Andy Hagans, announced the launch of ReviewMe, a service that enables blog writers to write reviews about products. ReviewMe intends to address fundamental problems in Internet marketing, including the difficulty driving people to a new product (especially from a new company), the concern that website ads are often ignored, the fact that product development can be time consuming and costly, the “unwanted” exposure to ads, and the inherent problem that you might have to seek out unwilling reviewers to give you feedback on your product or service.

In a nutshell, ReviewMe allows bloggers with well-known communities to write about what they want, offering feedback early on in the game (thereby reducing costs), and bloggers who want to review products are easy to find. Once you sign up as an advertiser, you can pitch your business idea to them, offer your desired payout amount, and let the reviews come in. For bloggers, especially casual bloggers, this is a good way to monetize your blog.

This is part three in the Blogging for Business Series. If you have not seen the previous posts, please check them out:

• Blogging for Business Part 1: Why should I blog?
• Blogging for Business Part 2: How do I start blogging?

Today’s blog post covers Part 3: What should I blog about, and how do I get ideas?

When you create a company blog, you can write about different things that may fall beyond the scope of your company’s main website. That’s the beauty of the blog — to go above and beyond what may be defined by strict company website boundaries. A blog essentially gives you the ability to expand upon ideas related to your company without sacrificing your company image. It’s a second more casual voice in online media.

This post is second in a four-part series on “Blogging for Business: Everybody Benefits.” Today’s blog post covers “Part 2: How do I start?”

Yesterday, we covered the pros of business blogging. This lesson will guide you through the various blog options available to you. Some of these options are easier than others, and I will walk through them and will rate them in terms of cost (on a scale of $ to $$$$, where the bigger dollar signs mean increased costs) and ease of use (on a scale from 1-5, where 1 is the easiest and 5 is the most difficult).

The interesting thing about blogs is that you can either host them on your own domain (e.g. www.domain.com/blog), or you can have them hosted at the blogging company’s website (e.g. yourdomain.blogspot.com). Each of these options has its pros and cons. I will walk through these options with you as well.

This post is first in a four-part series on “Blogging for Business: Everybody Benefits.” Today’s blog post covers “Part 1: Why Blog?”

If you haven’t started a blog for your business yet, you should definitely consider it. The popularity of blogs is soaring throughout the Internet, and for good reason.

• Blogs allow you to communicate with your target audience in a more “personable” and friendly way. Sure, your website may be of a corporate nature, but the person behind the business is often a determining factor for those looking to put a face on that company. Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy PR has put this very eloquently in his guest blog post on Strumpette.com about Corporate Personality:

With the rising influence of blogs and personal media, all of a sudden previously “faceless corporations” are finding an outlet to build trust and show customers what they really stand for…Many internet startups would not even consider launching without having a company blog. The power of the individual voice within enterprises is finding its place.