Archive for March, 2006

Monetizing Content

Friday, March 31st, 2006

Monetizing your business is paramount.  But, if your business IS content, then you must monetize your content.  You can do this by charging for your work, but subscriptions are rarely successful as the ONLY monetization of a content site.  Micropayments may make sense, but they won’t cover all your costs.
Try these ways to monetize your [...]

Global RSS

Friday, March 31st, 2006

You need to do business in a global economy.  Whether you are a Pepsi, McDonalds, Nike, or a small business with a global presence, you must be able to communicate across the linguistic borders.
RSS is a great way to facilitate this problem. 

Consider offering feed subscription chicklets in multiple languages. 
Choose a blogging [...]

Podcast Promotion

Friday, March 31st, 2006

Promoting your podcast is important.  Your podcast should help you LURE people to your site.
Look for niche directories, like the women’s podcast directory, to promote your business podcast:
If your business is women-owned or women-run (and which one isn’t?)… 
No, just kidding.  But, if you do have a  woman at your helm or at the
very least, a [...]

RSS Scraping

Friday, March 31st, 2006

I have a client who only produces an html page.  She is not interested in having a blog, and though I frequently tell her a blog would do wonders for her, she doesn’t like trying new things.
Her site is one of the largest public policy organizations out there, so she has chapters in all the [...]

Know Your Target Market

Friday, March 31st, 2006

What’s Your Target Market?
Look at your demographic target. Who are you trying to reach?  How would you describe them and their habits?

age
sex
income level
education level
hobbies

Now, where to they go online? 
Look for an interactive section of those websites.  Do they have forums?  Chatrooms?  People willing to post and chat are ‘leaders’ and they will promote your [...]

Google Finance

Friday, March 31st, 2006

Google finance, one of the latest Google initiatives, is not doing as well as planned.  Hitwise took a look at their market share, as compared to MSN Money and Yahoo! Finance.
Their share is not good, but then they ARE the newest member in the financial arena.  As much as MSN is lacking in search, it’s [...]

Blogging Platforms

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Business bloggers  often have a difficult time choosing a blog platform.  That is, until they find Blogsites.
Take a look at what comes with a Blogsite:

Amazing Online Visibility
Dynamic Syndicated Real Time News
Dynamic Syndicated Guest Weblogs
Dynamic Syndicated Topical Briefings
Real Training and Technical Support
Expert SEO and Content Advice
Site Branding
SEO
Topical Keyword Organization
Multiple Weblog Choices
Mulitiple Authors and Author Roles
Scaleable
Enterprise Level [...]

Spam and Corporate Email

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Are you tired of spam?  Of course you are.  Just today I got one of those ‘email test’ spams that used the Bible as their text.
Because of this type of ‘gaming the system’, spam filters often try too hard and block out the good email too.
Why are you still using email to communicate with your [...]

Web 2.0 News

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

As a big user of Writely, Basecamp, LinkedIN, Digg, Flickr, Performancing and dozens of other applications on this list, I was excited to see all the great companies profiled.
But, more than a review of great sites I already use, I was again reminded of sites I want to check into.  Some interesting sites that [...]

Custom RSS

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Some businesses need a custom RSS solution.  They may need special applications or server-side solutions that only a custom application can offer.
Some ways to know if you need custom RSS:

You don’t need a blog, but need an RSS feed
You need behind-the-firewall security
You have a static page but need to have it scraped and have [...]