As you probably already know Technorati has recently experienced some challenges with their system. If you are experiencing a challenge with your blog not getting updated when you’ve pinged them be sure to send a support ticket from your Technorati profile page. Otherwise you will miss getting your blog posts updated.
Archive for March, 2007
Are you addicted to blogging? Totally obsessed? You’re not alone! Along with millions of others, most of us quickly become addicted to blogging, and just can’t seem to overcome the power that the grip of blogging has over us!
Although this video is not about blogging, it is about obsession. It quickly became one of my favorite videos from last year and when I think about blogging I think it’s a good example of how obsessed one can become with something that evolves into a daily undertaking. If you think you are addicted and obsessed with blogging, and have a blogging addiction, you will relate to what this woman has gone through.
This post was inspired by a group Link & Blog Challenge!
An interesting topic for bloggers is discussion over what your niche or target market should be if you plan to monetize your blogs. You may have caught my post from earlier this month in regards to identifying what you should blog about. In that post I shared the importance of blogging about something you are passionate about. Even if you plan to use a blog for monetizing I still hold to my foundation of basing it on something that you have a passion for. Otherwise, burn out for the topic could occur quickly unless you have the time to do significant research to acquire fresh inspiration of your own to continue with that topic.
What does your Technorati rank link meter read today? What is your blog pulse? Is it up or is it down? Is it stagnant, and causing you to lack inspiration to post to your blog? If your rank isn’t satisfactory to you then you need to create not just more posts, but a larger amount of healthy incoming links! We all need link popularity, which will only occur through link exchange, and the more one-way links you can chalk up the better.
Developing link popularity still seems to be a mystery to many bloggers, yet it really isn’t that difficult to understand when one realizes that links exchanged within sidebars carry very little weight, and add very little value to a blog.
Many bloggers are still running around on the Internet in hopes to exchange links within their sidebar, and they are overlooking the fact that since they have a blog they have a more superior way to gain links. I’m sure this is due to the fact that many are simply still unaware that linking within relevant content is far more valuable to a blogger. Time goes by quickly, and most of us need to spend it where we gain the most value in return, and that is true with the time we spend developing our link popularity.
One way to express the difference would be to ask a blogger this question, “If there were two bills laying on the ground at your feet, one is a twenty and the other is a one dollar bill, and it is a windy day, which bill are you going to grab first?” It’s no different with developing our link popularity!
Time is flying by so we should be investing our time into developing our link popularity as quickly as we can, but in the manner that will provide the most value to our blogs. That’s the foundation in which Link & Blog Challenge is built upon and it also provides a blogger with fresh inspiration at the same time.
The basis for understanding the foundation in which blogs have the advantage over other websites with building their link popularity within relevant content is revealed to us right off Google’s site in their webmaster center! Google states,
Keep in mind that our algorithms can distinguish natural links from unnatural links. Natural links to your site develop as part of the dynamic nature of the web when other sites find your content valuable, and think it would be helpful for their visitors. Unnatural links to your site are placed there specifically to make your site look more popular to search engines.
Did you catch that? Google is looking to reward sites whose content provides value to a visitor, which also means Google themselves will pay close attention to your links within content! It does NOT say “when other sites find your sidebar links valuable”, but instead it says, “when other sites find your CONTENT valuable”! Blogs are content rich, and your primary focus for building links should be within your content.
I think this next statement about sums it up when thinking in terms of developing your links, “Nowadays search engines reward sweat-of-the-brow work on content that bait natural links given by choice.” which is stated on Google’s official webmaster blog!If you would like an easy way to establish link popularity from links pointing to your site within relevant content daily, in other words through the natural way, that is my goal to help bloggers establish and the reason I began Link and Blog Challenge!
Have you made the decision to migrate your blog from a free domain and onto your own? If so, you have most likely made the decision based on the fact that you are well aware of the primary benefits of having your own domain. If you need more convincing to migrate your blog off a free domain, be sure to read Part One of this two part article.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your blog migration engines and let’s go!
Assuming you are chomping at the bit to get started, here are some basic steps and a solid strategy to help you relocate your blog onto your own domain.
- Determine which blogging platform you prefer to use.
Let’s just say you choose to go with WordPress, which is the platform I use here. WordPress is only an example, but it’s important that you select which platform you want to use first.
- Select the host you wish to use, and make sure they are compatible
You will want to be sure to choose a host that will be compatible with the software platform you are using. Most hosts will be compatible for any blogging platform, but if you want to have access to the one-click installation script of the blogging platform you wish to go with, make sure the host you choose offers it.
The one-click installation of a blogging platform such as WordPress is easy to accomplish even if you did not have prior website experience. However, if you don’t have access to a one-click install script for the blogging platform such as WordPress, and you don’t have prior website experience you may need to have some extra pain killer at hand.
- Order Your Domain
This is actually the first step some people choose, but it really is best to determine who your host will be first. Some hosts offer your first year of your first domain free, as part of their hosting service package. So again, you may want to hold off on ordering your domain until you’ve made the decision about your host.
- Select the ftp (file transfer protocol) service you wish to use
You will need an ftp program to upload templates and other scripts you will choose to use. Most hosts will provide you with some recommendation of ftp programs to choose. Some are free while others are not.
- As per your hosts instructions, install the blogging platform
Once you login to your control panel with your host you will need to set up a database for the blogging platform, which is fairly easy to do in most control panels. Once that step is accomplished, you are ready to install the blogging platform such as WordPress. If you choose a host who offers the one click installation that is a quick and easy process.
- Select your blog template
When you install the blogging platform, some come with templates preloaded to simply select and click to activate the choice. If you don’t see a template you like you can search for a different template and install it onto your site.
- Migration of your blog posts
Although some platforms such as WordPress offers the ability to import blog posts from other services, I plan to do mine differently. In other words, I’m not planning to do a bulk transfer of my posts, but you could do it differently if you choose.
- What to do about your old blog posts & prior free domain
This part of my article is a very important part, so please read carefully. When bloggers relocate a blog I have to wonder how many of them simply transfer over all their posts and then delete their free domain blogs. Why would you want to do that? Don’t delete your old blog posts from your free domain!
You may have months, or even years of work into your blog even though it was on a free domain. In fact, you may also have a fair amount of traffic, and possibly page rank too, so you don’t want to throw that away by deleting your old blogs! You have all your posts cached on the Internet, and leading people to your blog from organic searches, so don’t throw that away!
Capitalize on what you already have established. If it’s page rank, make use of it for your new blog. If it’s traffic, harvest as much of that as you can from your old blog into your new blog on your own domain.
- Old blog post revision
This is the final step and the most important. In order to capitalize on what you already worked so hard for, the final step of this strategy is that you will revise your old posts on your old blog, rather than deleting them. You may have some posts you simply don’t care about and won’t be relocating to your new blog domain. That’s okay, but again leave them on your old blog.
For the posts you do want to salvage and place on your new domain, here’s what you want to consider. Starting with your older posts first: Copy the entire post onto your new blog and rework and improve upon your content of that post as needed. Make use of keywords and key phrases for your blog post titles. Publish it on your new blog.
Go back to your old blog post containing that same article. Delete nearly all your blog post except for the first paragraph. Utilizing a link with words such as, “read more” link it to your new blog post on your new domain. Do this for each blog post you wish to relocate. By doing so you have left only a snippet of it up for traffic to land on, but then the “read more” or other similar link will bring the reader to your new blog.
Rinse and repeat that step for each blog post at the rate you wish to publish the new ones. This way you will still gain the traffic from your old blog while you also gradually harvest it’s page rank toward boosting your new domains rank.
Finally, for your old blogs location post one last post announcing the fact that your blog has been relocated to your own domain. This will serve as a form of free advertising to your new blog location, and will drive any remaining traffic to your new site.
Eventually you may wish to delete your old blog completely, but at least you will have harvested as much traffic and page rank from it possible before you do so.
Every blogger has to begin somewhere. For many of us bloggers, to get our feet wet means we start with a blog on a free domain such as Blogger. Then the unthinkable happens! We suddenly find ourselves hooked on blogging, and then we wish we had established our blog on our own domain. If that’s where you are at, and you would like to migrate away from the free domain, to a fabulous blog on your own domain, then this post is the one for you to read!
I currently have two blogs on Blogger, which is how I got my feet wet. As time has gone on I’ve grown tired of the downsides of not having the blogs on my own domain, but I learned a great deal from the experience. My plan this year is to relocate those two blogs to two domains of my own, and hopefully very soon. For some time now I’ve already had my strategy planned for doing so, and I’ll share that strategy with you.
Before I get into the details for migrating your blogs and posts, lets first go over some of the pros and cons of using a free domain for your blogging platform, vs owning your domain. Well, let’s quickly clarify that technically you “lease” a domain since you must renew it each year. This will make up part one of this article, and then you will want to return for part two for the strategy on the actual relocation of your blogs.
- Ownership
If your blogs are currently located on a service where your domain is provided free, you don’t have true ownership or full control over your blog! Owning the domain also gives you the ability to resell the domain in the future if you wish, which could prove to be quite fruitful in the long run.
- Publishing & Advertising Rights
Are you serious about monetizing your blogs? If your plans are to use a free domain for monetization, you have already implemented an income limitation on your blogs! Some free domain blogging platforms either prohibit any type of commercial advertising entirely, or if they do allow it they may consider your blog advertisements to be spam. Under most tos for free domains, you could even have the plug pulled on your blog entirely.
Another challenge is working as a publisher for programs such as PayPerPost, and others like their service. Many of those services are either no longer accepting blogs on free domains, or limiting the opportunities to those on free domains. You won’t be faced with that challenge on your own domain.
- SEO aka Search Engine Optimization
Getting traffic to any new web site is a task, no matter where the domain is located, free or not. However, in the long run the search engines tend to favor domain ownership rather than the sites on free domains. This was one of the key reasons I quickly became disappointed with the use of a free domain. Just one example is to take a look at how your domain appears on Alexa! As an example, if you are on a Blogger domain all the fame and glory in Alexa goes to their site, not yours! On a free domain you are really contributing to their success far more than yours. Of course that is the trade off for not having the blog on your own domain to begin with.
I think the time in which a free domain really makes sense is if the blog will only be serving as ones personal journal or family blog. Otherwise, if you plan to capitalize on the possible monetization of your blogs you really need the benefits of developing good seo for your own domain.
- Greater Enthusiasm to Prosper Your Blogs
If you are enthusiastic about your blogs on a free domain, you will be amazed at how your enthusiasm will become even greater when your blog is on your own domain! You will have much more desire to take on the necessary tasks to prosper your blogs!
There are of course many other benefits of publishing a blog on your own domain, but those should be enough for now to provide you with new enthusiasm for the future of your blogs once they are moved.
Be sure to stop back in for Part Two in the next several days! At that time I’ll share my strategy for how you can migrate your blogs to your own domain, and not lose the traffic you have built on your current blogs. 
