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Weblogs Inc., a publisher of almost 100 targeted niche blogs is noted as being on its way to generating 1 million dollars in Adsense™ revenue! This had to be a compelling reason for AOL to recently buy Weblogs Inc., for a whopping 25 million.

Still another very successful Internet business person I spoke with (who doesn’t what to be identified) uses blogs as a form of buzz advertising resulting in $50,000 in indirect eCommerce sales when properly timed. This business person does close to 17 million dollars in online sales.

I also have been having good success saving time and money by publishing quickly with blogs. My blogs generated good income for me however I wanted to see if the distribution of my blog headline via RSS feeds would bring in any new revenues.

One of the promotional ways blogs and RSS are purported to increase your online traffic is the strategy of increasing your website’s traffic with what I call horizontal SEO. Horizontal SEO is called "winning the search engine lottery" by Internet sales star John Reese.

Most SEO firms and web marketers focus solely on high rankings for popular keywords (Vertical SEO) . In contrast a more comprehensive search engine driven Internet marketing campaign would scale more horizontally or deeper with more rich keyword informed content pages.

In other words a horizontal SEO campaign would be like playing the lottery. Your odds of winning the lottery are greater if you have more tickets.

According to Reese "search engines algorithms change from day to day. Therefore your ranking will go up or down. But if you have more and more tickets in the SEO lottery you have a better chance of winning."

Blogs and RSS feeds give you the ability to create and distribute a lot of web information (content) on the fly that’s distributed throughout the Internet at myriad media outlets. Blogs and RSS feeds drive more traffic to your site by helping you win the SEO lottery with horizontal SEO.

Blogs and RSS can be the easiest and most efficient way to win the SEO lottery. They do this by creating lots of targeted niche content on your and other partner sites that carry your feeds.

In the last 4 weeks I launched a website with a blog component without optimizing it in the traditional vertical SEO fashion. It doesn’t appear on top of any search engine results worth mentioning. I wanted to see if the blog powered by RSS feed would drive significant traffic to my site.

The results are amazing! I have been totally blown away by the research. Check out why I have become a big believer in blogging and RSS in part 2 of this article. Visit http://www.searchengineplan.com/blog.htm to stay informed on the latest blogging, RSS, and SEO developments.


Kamau Austin is publisher of www.eInfoNEWS.com and runs www.SearchEnginePlan.com. He is author of Always On Top "How to Get the Highest Search Engine ranking for your website. See more about his strategies at www.AlwaysOnToptheBook.com

Designing a Page That Compliments Your Content Pt.13, Hosting Images
Copyright 2007 by Kenneth Sword Jr. 

When a small-time blogger or diarist finds an image that looks like it might fit his post, he’s likely as not to simply link the picture where it exists, leaving it on someone else’s server, but displaying it on his page like it’s his own. For those who are not taking credit for the work, or whose blogs are not “professional,” it’s generally a non-issue. However, occasionally an image will appear on their site which is not the image they displayed, but which instead informs all their readers of what they are doing. It will say, in obnoxiously large letters that can’t be missed by the reader, “This person is stealing bandwidth.” It’s not a reputation you want your blog to have, and many sites are creating technological locks that that display such warnings or keep people from doing it altogether.

Stealing bandwidth is, in short, linking directly to another’s site in a way that causes the reader’s browser to download others’ content as part of your page. When a browser asks a server for a web page, the page points to the locations of other components of that page so that the browser can assemble it for viewing. If every word and image your page displays is stored on your server, then the bandwidth used for that page load is charged against your account. That’s fine; it’s your traffic and you should pay for it. However, if some of those components are hosted on the servers of others, your bandwidth is charged against their account. Once your traffic starts to grow, they will notice your theft and will be rightly upset with your practices. The solution is to take responsibility for your own bandwidth by hosting your own images.

In addition to being honest business, hosting your own images allows you to re-size or reformat those images to fit your page. While many blog programs allow you to do that when setting up the entry, unless you have physically re-sized the photo or image, the browser will be forced to download it in its original size and then fit it to the page. This can cause slow loading times, which are to be avoided at all costs.

The final advantage of hosting your own images is that you know they’ll always be there. As your blog grows in popularity and your archives spider their way into search engines, people will visit your prior entries as an entry point into your blog. Those entries will also be linked to and commented on by others (remember, what you’re saying is important). Ensuring that the images in your entries are under your control will eliminate the possibility that others will move or delete the images, rendering your entries less useful. Of course, be sure to respect all copyright laws when copying or modifying the work of others.

The easiest way to host your own images is to simply lease space from an internet service provider, uploading the images as you place them in entries. Check with your current provider first: you may receive a significant amount of server space assigned with your regular internet account. If you decide to lease space (and you’ll probably need to as your blog grows) be sure that the amount you have will fit the growth you plan for your business.

Kenneth R Sword Jr


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Designing a Page That Compliments Your Content Pt.14
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