Internet Marketing Blog

Twitter In Plain English

Another of Lee Lefever's wonderful CommonCraft In Plain English series videos came out in March last month, this one about Twitter:

Social Bookmark Marketing Presentation

I am a del.icio.us addict. I save tons of things to my del.icio.us account and republish that content using their wonderful RSS feeds. It's just insanely useful. But as much as I love del.icio.us, there are a few things I'd change:

• In the Links For You section, why can't I accept all the tags from the person who sent me the link with just one click?
• Why can't I archive an entire page like you can with Yahoo! MyWeb?
• Why can't I use a minus sign when creating a tag search so that I can exclude links with a specific tag? e.g. http://del.icio.us/tag/football+news-soccer, so I can get everything tagged with "football" and "news" but not "soccer".

Aside from those admittedly minor complaints, I heart del.icio.us. I've been using it for quite some time now, so I know the ins and outs. I have, therefore, a pretty good idea of how to use del.icio.us in particular and social bookmarking in general as a marketing tool, as well. (And, no, I'm not talking about spam. I'm never talking about spam because spamming doesn't work.)

This is a presentation on social bookmark marketing I recently put together for a seminar on the topic:

| View | Upload your own

You might also be interested in my post on social bookmarking demographics for a breakdown of the demographics of the users of various social bookmarking services.

The Ultimate Email Marketing Tool

Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough but I'm extremely frustrated that I cannot seem to find an email marketing tool or service that has all the features I want at a reasonable price.

I don't ask for much.

I've used Constant Contact quite a bit and I am generally pleased with it. It is perfectly suitable for most email marketing needs and when you consider all the features you get for the price, Constant Contact is certainly a bargain.

So, starting with all the features of Constant Contact, I'd like pre-set templates for various uses that are customizable. I'd like the ability to create separate mailing lists out of my master list. I'd like the ability to schedule emails. I want unsubscribe and bounce handling and spam checking, of course. And I want the analytics that show opens, aggregate click-throughs, individual click-throughs, and opt-outs.

Constant Contact also recently added integrated surveys as an additional service, so that'd also be a nice feature for my Ultimate Email Marketing Tool.

Constant Contact's features covers the bases for most people's email marketing needs.

But I'm not most people. I need more.

As a blogger, I want an email service that will read my RSS feed and send out a branded email newsletter based on my template with hyperlinked headlines and a text teaser for each post. I'd like to be able to schedule said email newsletters to be sent daily, weekly, and/or monthly.  The trick is for it to be smart enough to read the RSS feed, compile the posts and package them in email newsletters as today's posts , this week's posts, and/or this month's posts.

Zookoda was supposed to be that service but it just isn't ready for prime time. It doesn't quite format the individual blog posts properly and sometimes it just breaks down and forgets to send pre-scheduled emails.

Google's RSS service FeedBurner actually is positioned quite perfectly to be just the RSS/email marketing tool I want. For every RSS feed you burn, you can also offer an email update service for blog posts. The emails can be branded by uploading a logo that will appear at the top of each email, but aside from that, there is no customization. The emails themselves are very clean looking.

The problem is that you cannot schedule emails at all. You can set the time of day you want the email to go out--and even that function isn't ready for prime time--but you can specify if you want a daily, weekly, or monthly email.

The people at FeedBurner know there's a demand for just such a feature, but it doesn't seem to be a priority. If Google wanted, they could enter the email marketing market by putting some resources behind FeedBurner. Throw in Google's amazing analytics, and you'd have a hell of a good service.

iContact wants to be the Constant Contact/Zookoda/FeedBurner solution, but fails on the RSS side because it doesn't compile individual blog posts from an RSS feed.

Lastly, I want integrated A/B testing like MailChimp has. And I want all that for the Constant Contact/iContact/MailChimp price range.

Are You Ready For Internet-Ready TV?

Is RSS TV Coming To A Home Theater Near You?

Joining Microsoft Media Center, Apple TV, and the Wii Browser are an increasing number of products designed to get Internet content to your television. Sony's Bravia HDTV Internet Link TV came out this year:

And HP has their Media Smart TV. The problem with both Sony and HP's approach is that they appear to be taking a "walled garden" approach by using only select content partners or maybe simply burying direct Internet subscription options.

Chumby Hero
Originally uploaded
by drumsnwhistles

On the PSP, for example, you can subscribe directly to RSS feeds and Sony's new Internet-ready TV uses the same Cross Bar interface, but I couldn't determine if the RSS reader is available on their TV. Nevertheless, it's clear that Sony sees the technology as an additional channel for Sony content. That, of course, is only natural but I think consumer's are going to demand the choice to subscribe to their own content channels.

All of this, though, points to what I've been talking about for some time: The Internet will come to television, one way or another.  And it will come through the magic of RSS. There is even a specialized RSS language being developed for Internet TV, called RSS TV.

Ideally, this would allow you to subscribe to any RSS feed you like, so for example, I could subscribe to a video blog like MNStories on my TV or to any YouTube search.

One intriguing device that may point to the future of Internet television is the Chumby. The Chumby is a $200 open source wifi gadget that basically lets you subscribe any Internet content you like. Content providers can create widgets to which Chumby users can subscribe. The Chumby is small, appliance-like device that could easily be at home in the kitchen or living room alongside the coffee machine or on the coffee table.

Chumby Demonstrations

Chumby's Stephen Tomlin talks about the device:

Chumby introduction video:

Chumby playing YouTube videos:

So you can see where this is going. As the Talking Heads might say, same as it ever was; if you provide compelling content, you should be fine. It's a matter of finding out what your target audiences want and giving it to them.   

• New York Times Tech Talk podcast on Internet TV

Hillary Clinton's Rapid Response Microsite

Maid-Rite Sandwich
Originally uploaded by oanais

On my way home from work yesterday, I was delighted to hear the NPR report about Hillary Clinton's campaign stop in Iowa at a Maid-Rite because back in the day, when I went to school in Iowa, a Maid-Rite hamburger basket (which comes with thinly-sliced onion rings) with a strawberry shake was a regular meal for my girlfriend and I. Nummm.

But then I heard the down-on-her-luck waitress from the Maid-Rite that Clinton visited say that the Senator did not leave a tip.  I winced. That is fundamental politics, folks. How do you not leave a tip for the working woman? I expected this story to overtake Clinton's debate-flub story in the news cycle.

The only problem was that the campaign did pay a tip, a $100 tip on a $157 bill, to be exact. NPR had gotten it wrong.

In response, the Clinton campaign launched The Fact Hub, a rapid response microsite to combat inaccurate coverage. NPR quickly appended an editorial note to the original story on the web site.

The rapid response site is a great, if not obvious, idea.

The site includes blog-like posts rebutting various news stories and campaign issues, and YouTube video clips rebutting a given topic or story. The site includes an RSS feed to which you can subscribe.

That's great as far as it goes but I think the campaign is missing a huge opportunity, here.

If I were them, I'd add to the site the ability for visitors to subscribe to a rapid response email update, a rapid response text message update, and a rapid response instant message update. This would allow them to respond in near real time.

Hillary Clinton
Originally uploaded by
Will Merydith

I didn't know the NPR story was inaccurate until I read the headlines this morning. That left from about 5 p.m. yesterday till 6 a.m. this morning for me to discuss or even blog about the story with a lot of people, spreading the falsehood in the process. Getting a text message shortly after the story aired would have obviated that problem.

I would also add MP3 audio clips from the candidate and/or campaign staff commenting on the story, as well as embedabble code for photos and video about the story in question for the blogosphere to use. Bloggers would love it because, hey, it's additional free content that they don't have to spend time creating and it makes their blog posts all the more richer. That would also encourage friendly bloggers to seed the blogosphere with the rebuttal.

Still, rapid response microsites are a great reputation management tool for the online politics of presidential campaigns.

Introduction To Flickr Video

This is a video introduction and demonstration conducted by my friend Ann Treacy of Yahoo!'s photo sharing site, Flickr:

Google Buys Jaiku - Is Jaiku Now A Twitter Killer?

Mashable reported yesterday that Google had acquired the microblog service Jaiku and asked the obvious: Why not Twitter? (Robert Scoble says Google's going to couple Jaiku with their social networking service, Orkut).

Microblogging services such as Jaiku, Twitter, and Pownce combine the publishing technology of blogs  with the ability to update your microblog via a standard web interface, through your Instant Messaging client, or from your phone using text messaging. Each post is limited to 140 characters--the size limit of text messages; thus the term microblogging.

Mashable said: "This is somewhat surprising news considering the perceived dominance of Twitter in the so-called “lifestreaming” space. Additionally, Twitter is co-founded by Evan Williams, who was the creator of Blogger, which was previously acquired by Google. In a world where price is no object for Google, it’s interesting that they would opt for Jaiku and not Twitter."

One reason may simply be feature sets: Pownce allows you to share files and events through your Pownce blog while Jaiku lets your plug in your own RSS feeds so you can automatically update your Jaiku blog with other online content and the service allows you to create communities of interest. Twitter offers none of these features.

I wonder, though, if Google's preference for Jaiku over Twitter points to something fundamentally fatal about Twitter itself.

I love Twitter and I use it all the time but the service has had some well-documented scaling problems. Anyone who has used Twitter for a moderate amount of time has run into the cat or bird error notice when trying to perform some routine function.

I myself am a victim of Twitter's technical snafus. I haven't been able to post to my Twitter account for about three months and my pleas to Twitter about it have been either ignored or unheard.

You'd think that scaling issues wouldn't be obstacle to overcome, considering the resources Google could bring to bear to fix any technical problems. But then when you look back at how long Twitter has been having these problems, you gotta wonder if their technical problems are so deep that Google trying to fix them wasn't worth the effort.

Regardless, with the resources that Google will no doubt invest in Jaiku, Twitter has got to be worried.

Micromarketing Strategy - 3 Words

Fred Smoot Tackles Steve Smith
Originally uploaded by bpatton

A friend of mine told me yesterday that Washington Redskins' and former Minnesota Vikings' cornerback Fred Smoot had been cut.  I was skeptical. As a football nut, I follow NFL news quite closely, so had Smoot been cut it would have caught my eye and I surely would've known about it.

Turns out Smoot wasn't cut, at least not during this round of roster moves. But he had been cut previously and that is why my friend thought Smoot was out on the street. He'd read a headline from a blog aggregator that had not been updated in some time. The headline was an old one and the headline was all that my friend had read of the story; it read "Fred Smoot Cut."

Three words.

My friend got the message; it's just that it was wrong. His mistake is understandable. It happens to me all the time. I read only the headline of a vast amount of content because there's far too much for me to consume. Even if the headline is current and accurate, I've got absolutely no context or depth to the story that goes with it.

I constantly preach that you must be able to boil your message down to three words.

As information distribution channels proliferate through RSS and as more and more people consume information through an increasing array of mediums and devices such as RSS readers and smart phones, the importance of developing a micromarketing strategy only increases.

The reason your message must be boiled down to three words is that it has to fit in an email subject line if you're doing an email marketing campaign, it must be easily scannable when read on a smart phone if you're doing a mobile marketing campaign, and it must be easy to digest when read in a list such as a in a blog reader or when you're doing online PR when using an Internet wire service.

But it's not just the logistics of where your message will be displayed and how to make it fit that you have to think about. As the aforementioned Fred Smoot story illustrates, you have to think about what knowledge your three-word message will convey to the recipient now and in the future.

Internet Branding With Icons

Some time ago I was scrolling through my Twitter friends list on my smart phone and the importance of icons suddenly became obvious.

I was frustrated because I was trying to find a particular friend but his Twitter account had the default logo; he hadn't yet customized it. I couldn't find him at a glance. I had to click on each of the people in my friends list who had default icons until I found the friend for whom I was looking.

Time is the one thing everyone has the least of, so when yours is wasted, you tend to get annoyed. It's worse on mobile devices because they generally have slower Internet connections. Because the screen is so small, there is less information available to you at a glance and you therefore have to wade through more of it until you find what you are looking for.

Customized icons are a usability issue and a branding tool. A customized icon allows your audience to identify your content at a glance and with ease. I may love your content and want to consume it but scanning text for it takes much longer than recognizing your graphical icon.

If you're using a tabbed browser, look up at the open tab and you'll see my icon: a gold letter e on a white background with a thin gold border. Look at your browser's address bar and you'll see that very same icon to the left of the http:// part of this blog's URL.

The following is a screenshot of my personal twitter page with my friends list on the right. See how long it takes you to find the e-strategy.com "e" icon among my friends:

Blog Branding With Favicons

For all intents and purposes, favicons are no different from the icons I've been talking about.  (Wikipedia provides a full explanation of favicons.)

It is particularly important to use favicons with your blog because it helps brand your content offsite through RSS distribution.  In Minnesota, we have a local blog aggregator hosted by the MNSpeaks site. The MNSpeak aggregator recognizes when you update your blog and then includes a summary of and a link to your blog post among it's recently updated blogs list. The following graphic shows a portion of that aggregator with a listing from this blog. The orange icons are the default icon for Google's Blogger platform.

Many people subscribe to their favorite blogs through custom start pages such as MyYahoo. This is an example of how a subscription to e-strategy.com's Internet Marketing Blog looks on MyYahoo.

Popular feed readers like Bloglines use icons to identify source blogs:

Finally, the icon can help identify your content on the primary tool people use every time they go online, the browser. If someone bookmarks your site, the icon will display next to your listing in their bookmarks:

Tabbed browsing is now a standard feature of all browsers. The icon will display on tabs, as well, so it is a great tool for helping your visitor quickly identify your content amongst the pages she has open. The following screenshot shows a browser with many tabs open. The orange icons are blogs that use the default Blogger favicon; the blue and white icons are the default favicon for TypePad blogs; this blog is located on the tab furthest to the left:

So How Do I Do It?

I've convinced you of the importance of using icons, you probably want to know how to do it.  thesitewizard.com provides an excellent tutorial about how to create and implement a favicon.

The favicon works for your blog or web site, but you'll need to create a .jpg or .gif graphic to use with services such as Twitter and other web services like MySpace and Flickr and Technorati. The graphic's dimensions vary with each service and they will usually tell you at the upload step the dimensions they require. If not, check their documentation. A stretched out graphic can look pretty bad, so you'll want to comply with their size requirements.

Finally, if you use the Feedburner RSS service, be sure to optimize your feed with your graphic because that's where services like MyYahoo and Bloglines find your icon.

Marketing With Web 2.0 - A Communications 2.0 Presentation

This is the full presentation Ann Treacy and I gave on marketing with Web 2.0 technologies, called Communications 2.0. We presented to a nonprofit communications class at Hamline University.

This lecture is divided into twelve segments that cover the theories and technologies behind Web 2.0; marketing with photo sharing sites such as Flickr; podcasting and podcast marketing through such services and search engines as Odeo; viral video and video sharing sites like YouTube; social bookmarking marketing with services like del.icio.us; feed readers and RSS marketing through services like Bloglines and Technorati; microblogging and mobile marketing through text messaging and instant messaging with services like Twitter; marketing with document sharing services like Google Docs; event marketing with online calandar services like Google Calendar and Upcoming.org; expertise positioning with answer services like Yahoo! Answers and Answers.com; and the lecture is capped off with a question and answer session.

• Links and PowerPoint presentation for this lecture

See also:

• Communications 2.0 - The Theory Of Web 2.0 - Part 1
• Communications 2.0 - Flickr Photo Sharing Marketing - Part 2
• Communications 2.o - Podcasting & Podcast Marketing - Part 3
• Communications 2.0 - Viral Video Marketing - Part 4
• Communications 2.0 - Social Bookmarks Marketing - Part 5
• Communications 2.0 - RSS Marketing - Part 6
• Communications 2.0 - Blog Search Engine Marketing With Technorati - Part 7
• Communications 2.0 - Microblogging & Text & Instant Message Marketing With Twitter - Part 8
• Communications 2.0 - Marketing With Google Docs - Part 9
• Communications 2.0 - Event Marketing With Google Calendar & Upcoming.org - Part 10
• Communications 2.0 - Establishing Expertise With Yahoo! Answers - Part 11
• Communications 2.0 - Questions & Answers - Part 12

Communications 2.0 - Marketing With Google Docs

This is the ninth part of a presentation Ann Treacy and I gave on Web 2.0 technologies, called Communications 2.0. We presented to a nonprofit communications class at Hamline University.

The ninth segment discusses communicating using such document sharing services as GoogleDocs:

See also:

• Communications 2.0 - The Theory Of Web 2.0 - Part 1
• Communications 2.0 - Flickr Photo Sharing Marketing - Part 2
• Communications 2.o - Podcasting & Podcast Marketing - Part 3
• Communications 2.0 - Viral Video Marketing - Part 4
• Communications 2.0 - Social Bookmarks Marketing - Part 5
• Communications 2.0 - RSS Marketing - Part 6
• Communications 2.0 - Blog Search Engine Marketing With Technorati - Part 7
• Communications 2.0 - Microblogging & Text & Instant Message Marketing With Twitter - Part 8

Communications 2.0 - Blog Search Engine Marketing With Technorati

This is the seventh part of a presentation Ann Treacy and I gave on Web 2.0 technologies, called Communications 2.0. We presented to a nonprofit communications class at Hamline University.

The seventh segment discusses web log marketing through blog search engines such as Technorati:

See also:

• Communications 2.0 - The Theory Of Web 2.0 - Part 1
• Communications 2.0 - Flickr Photo Sharing Marketing - Part 2
• Communications 2.o - Podcasting & Podcast Marketing - Part 3
• Communications 2.0 - Viral Video Marketing - Part 4
• Communications 2.0 - Social Bookmarks Marketing - Part 5
• Communications 2.0 - RSS Marketing - Part 6

Communications 2.0 - RSS Marketing

This is the sixth part of a presentation Ann Treacy and I gave on Web 2.0 technologies, called Communications 2.0. We presented to a nonprofit communications class at Hamline University.

The sixth segment discusses RSS  marketing through feed readers and blog search engines such as Bloglines:

See also:

• Communications 2.0 - The Theory Of Web 2.0 - Part 1
• Communications 2.0 - Flickr Photo Sharing Marketing - Part 2
• Communications 2.o - Podcasting & Podcast Marketing - Part 3
• Communications 2.0 - Viral Video Marketing - Part 4
• Communications 2.0 - Social Bookmarks Marketing - Part 5

What Is RSS?

I find myself often explaining Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and, so, in order to have something online that I can give to people, I'm posting this excellent video explanation of RSS by Lee LeFever of Common Craft called RSS in plain English:

This RSS explanation is from the Web 2.0 & Medicine blog and it gives a very good overview of RSS and provides historical context as well. It does, however, assume that all the world's information is online.

Replacing Outlook For A Failsafe Email Backup

Do as I say, not as I do.

Despite consistent warnings to friends, family, and clients alike, I failed to follow my own advice to regularly back up your data and paid the price when my hard drive failed recently. Recovering from a hard drive failure and data loss is a lengthy and painful process, but the good news is that I managed to recover with most of my data apparently in tact.

I now have two external hard drives to which I will regularly back up my data.

Replacing Microsoft Outlook

Disasters often present new opportunities. I have been thinking for some time that I'd like to find an alternative to Microsoft Outlook for my email and calendar software. I've always got my email program running and Outlook just seems to be slower and takes up too much of my computer's resources.

Perhaps more importantly, though, is that I want synchronized mobile access to my email and my calendar. This hard drive crash gave me the perfect opportunity to investigate my options.

Thunderbird Email Software

I seriously considered just configuring Gmail with my domain name because I figured it would be much less likely that Google would lose my data than another of my hard drives failing. The only problems with that is that, because I have multiple email addresses and Gmail accounts, I'd have to constantly remember to log in and check each account.

And I wasn't comfortable even with a one percent chance that Google would lose my emails. I wanted a failsafe solution where I could backup my Gmail.

A search provided me with blog post explaining how I could configure Gmail for my POP mail accounts and use Thunderbird to download from those Gmail accounts. The configuration would leave a copy of the emails in my Gmail accounts yet I could still use Thunderbird as my single email client. My emails could be downloaded to my computer but if my hard drive failed, I would have backups automatically in my Gmail accounts.

I've become a much bigger fan of open source software recently so I looked into the Mozilla Thunderbird email companion to the Firefox open source browser. Thunderbird looked as if had everything I needed in an email client but there was still one sticking point: A Calendar.

Lightning Calendar Plugin With Google Calendar

I thought about using Google Calendar or another online service but that, too, would require logging in every time I wanted to use it.

A little research unearthed a blog post explaining how to configure the Lightning calendar plugin for Thunderbird with Google Calendar to provide real-time syncing. The plugin is supposed to work with Microsoft Exchange calendar events, as well.
 

It looks beautifully and seamlessly all through the magic of XML. Create an event in Thunderbird, and it appears in your online Google Calendar and vice versa. Best of all, Google recently launched a mobile version of Calendar that works perfectly on tiny telephone screens.

Multiple Email Accounts & Mobile Access

A very nice aspect of Thunderbird is that you can configure it for use with multiple email accounts and each account can have it's own inbox.

Finally, everything is mobile. If I'm away from my desk and need to send an email, I can do it with someone else's computer or even my phone. If I need to look up an email I've already received, I can access it through Gmail's interface. And I've got access to my calendar wherever I go.

I've completely switched over now, so if there are any problems or glitches, I'll be sure to let you know.

Speedcasting

It is often the simplest ideas that are the most brilliant.

So it is with Minnesota Public Radio's "speedcasts." Speedcasts are, logically enough, simply podcasts speeded up just fast enough so that they are understandable yet cut down the amount of listening time significantly. To the tune of squashing a 53 minute program into 29 minutes.

Thank you! You've just saved me about a half an hour of my life.

Clearly, speedcasts will only really work with the talk show format. Unless you're just plain odd, you're probably not going to enjoy listening music or drama on steroids. But if you're listening purely for the information and you're as impatient as I am, you'll love speedcasts.

They are sort of funny to listen to at first but after a little while you get used to the fast pace and you tend not to even notice it before long.

Currenlty, MPR only speedcasts the Midmorning program with Kerri Miller. Subscribe to any of MPR's podcasts on their podcast page.

Subscribe to Midmorning speedcasts:

• Midmorning Speedcast Hour 1
• Midmorning Speedcast Hour 2

How To Blog

The first question you must ask yourself when considering how to blog is whether or not you should blog at all.

If you want to blog because you have a need or desire to communicate, then you're on the right track. If the sole reason you want to blog is to get good search engine rankings, then don't because you're probably about to engage in a time-wasting effort that will probably fail.

It's true that blogs can be a valuable tool in your search engine marketing arsenal but if you view the medium as marketing tool rather than the communication medium it is, you're taking the wrong approach because your motivation is probably not enough to sustain a successful blog in the long run.
Which brings us to my second point: Commitment. Producing content is hard work and since content is what blogs are all about, publishing a blog is by definition hard work. So that's the second question you must ask yourself before even considering how to blog: Do I have the commitment to blog?

So you've determined that you've got something you need to say and you're committed to publishing a blog over the long haul; you are now ready to plan your blog.

Find Your Niche

You know what topic your blog will address. Do some research online to try and find blogs covering the same topic. How many are there? How do they address the topic you will be blogging about? This research will give you an idea of what your audience is already reading and how you might create a niche for yourself among the competition.

Plan Your Publishing Schedule

In the publishing world it's called an editorial calendar. The primary reason blogs require so much hard work is because readers expect regular content: Generally once a day but at least once a week. You can see from this blog how tough I find it to keep to such a schedule; but, you know, do as I say...

Another benefit of creating an editorial calendar is it will help you identify appropriate seasonal content. If you review products on your blog, for instance, you'll want to identify the seasonally-appropriate products for which your audience will expect reviews.

Keep It Brief

There are exceptions to every rule but in general, it's best to keep your blog posts short. Write short, declarative sentences. Use paragraphs of two or three sentences. Break up blocks of copy with headlines and subheadlines. Use bullet points.

The reason you'll want to keep things brief is simply because  it's easier for your reader to read on a screen. It is also because tend to scan rather than deliberately read online.

Use First Person

Blogs are an inherently intimate and casual medium and the vast majority are written in first-person, so meet the expectations of your audience and write in the first-person. Don't be afraid to let your personality come through your blog posts.

Chose Your Blogging System

I'll reveal my bias from the outset: I use and love TypePad. TypePad  is a hosted blogging service owned by SixApart; the company also owns the  blogging service LiveJournal and the blogging software Movable Type.

My very first post on this blog, in fact, compared TypePad to blogging software Radio Userland.

I've used Google's Blogger service extensively and it has two primary things going for it: 1) It's free, and 2) It's simple to use. But perhaps because it is easy to use, I find it far less flexible. Lastly, it has no statistics program so you can't tell how many people are visiting your blog, where they're coming from, or what search phrases they used to find you in the search engines.

TypePad, on the other hand, is far more flexible but just as easy to use as Blogger and not that much more difficult to learn if you want to get your hands dirty. TypePad supports categories; blogger doesn't. On the sidebar to the right, below the Archives section, you'll see Categories with a bunch of links beneath it.

I can assign each post to one or multiple categories and those posts will then be archived in the appropriate category. That helps readers follow only the subjects that interest them and, happily, it also his helpful in search engine marketing efforts. TypePad supports podcasting but with Blogger you need to figure out a workaround.

Those are just a few of the things I like about TypePad. You pay a little more but then you get what you pay for.

Configure Before You Launch

This may seem obvious but I don't know how many times I've found a live blog that is still getting the kinks worked out. As a result, the posts tend to talk more about the technical aspects of the blog than about the topic the blog was created to address.

That's a great way to lose potential readers. Get your blog ready for prime time before you launch it live.

Be Two Weeks Ahead

If you can, try and write two weeks worth of content before you publish your first blog post. That will help to keep you ahead of schedule and make your life a lot easier.

Tell People

After you launch your new blog, tell people about it. Submit your blog to the search engines and blog directories. Ask other related blogs for links and give them in return.

Create Great Content

The best thing you can do over the long term to build a successful blog is to create great content. if your blog posts are useful, insightful, compelling, entertaining, or all of the above, you'll go a long way in developing a following.

Blog Search Engine Technorati Adds Features

Blog search engine Technorati rolled out some great improvements on Monday.

The best feature is a topic popularity chart that displays the number of posts that contain your search term per day for the past 30 days. When you search, for example, for posts about the movie King Kong, you'll see an accompanying chart on the left hand side of the page showing the relative interest in the topic within the blogosphere for the past month.

With the addition of a topic popularity chart, Technorati can be used to take the temperature of the blogosphere for your favorite topic.

Other blog search engines have such topic popularity charts, so It's nice that the 800 pound gorilla of blog search decided to provide such a feature. Now, if they could only expand on the idea.

Google Sitemaps

I finally got around to playing with Google's new Sitemaps service. Google unveiled the service last June as a way to create better communication between the search engine and the websites it crawls. The service requires that you create an XML file that lists all the individual web pages on your website, the frequency with which they're updated, and the priority you give the page relative to your entire website. After you've created your XML file, you upload it to your website, open a Sitemap account at Google, and submit the file. Google will then visit that file, tell you if it had andy trouble reading it, and, hopefully, include your pages in their database.

Don't worry if you don't know XML. There are plenty of tools out there that will create a sitemap for you. I used the very nice online Google Sitemap generator at XML-Sitemaps.com. You just plug in your website address, tell it how freqently your pages change, what priority you assign your pages, and the type of modification date you want to use and click, it sucks the individual pages from your site and puts it all in to self-generated XML code.

You don't really have to mess with the code, but you'll probably want to. The generator assigns the frequency and priority of pages uniformly throughout it's generated code. Since most sites have some pages that are frequently updated, some not much so, and some none at all, you'll probably want to alter the code accordingly.

Open up your generated sitemaps.xml file in a text editor and take a look at the code. It's pretty self explanatory, so you should be able to do it easily enough yourself. If you have any questions, Google's Sitemaps FAQ should have the answers.

If you have a small site that's well listed in Google, it's probably not worth the effort. But Google is the most descriminating of the search engines, so if you have a large site and are finding it difficult to get listed well in Google, this is supposed to help.

As I said, I just started playing with it but I'll let you know how it works out.

Update 10/05: If you're using TypePad for your blog, you can easily create a Google Sitemap by following Niall Kennedy's instructions.