New Media Filters Include the Human Touch, Not Just Web Crawlers

With most search results delivered by algorithms these days, perhaps it isn't too surprising that more web surfers crave a human touch. They've started to turn to friends on social networking sites to help them filter through the information available online and find what they really need. Keep reading to learn more about this trend.

TechCrunch’s Real Time CrunchUp seminar was recently held in San Francisco. One of the most interesting discussions to come out of the event was one that resulted from a roundtable that was entitled “Filtering The Stream: Getting Rid of the Noise” with panelists including FaceBook’s Chris Cox and Bret Taylor, Google’s Amit Singhal, Microsoft’s Lili Cheng, and MySpace’s Bret Taylor, among others.

The consensus of the roundtable: people are increasingly looking for more personalized ways to filter their media. No longer are they interested in using services that can supposedly filter results based on their interests. Now, consumers are beginning to rely on other people to assist them in sifting through the massive amounts of videos, news, music, and other types of online media.

How do they do this? A majority of this assistance comes from social networking sites, recommendations from friends, and simple, straightforward editorial filtering. According to the speakers at the Real Time CrunchUp, this type of assistance in navigating the web offers more personalized results and more trusted referrals to information. This element of human touch is quite different than what people have grown accustomed to, which is results based on web crawlers and algorithms.

Promoting Your Site: How to Pre Launch - Social Networking Tools

Making pages on sites like Facebook and Myspace can be a great way to keep things interesting for your viewers. It gives them a chance to interact in a more in-depth way. It also allows you to get a better idea of who your readers are and what it is they want. At this stage, your job on social networking sites is as follows:

Set up a profile and page with the custom information that it needs to get by.

Do any customizing to your site that your page needs. On Myspace that will be a much more time consuming task than on Facebook. You can add custom backgrounds and fields.

Begin to identify members of your key demographic, such as the owners and users of that blog you have been making comments on and their users.

Once you have identified these users and built a relationship with them you can send friend requests to these users.

Grow your users/friends base with other methods, such as the search field.

Once you have done that, you need to look at creating some of your content. As things move on, this may be excerpts from posts with links, but for now you need to be original. Offer news, an opinion, a joke or something unique.

At first this may be slow going, but your goal is to raise awareness of your site, and develop a core of early adopters. Do not stress if you do not have a large group. That comes later on, when you have content on the site. The idea is that they will help you to grow.

Are there any other tools out there for a pre launch? Yes, of course there are, but they can be complex or expensive.

A note on making promises

If you want to make promises in your promotions, do so, as long as you can keep them. Disappointing new readers is a good way to ensure that they never return. You don’t want to stunt your site with disappointment or bad publicity.

Promoting Your Site: How to Pre Launch - Paid Advertising

Paid ads on places like AdWords may be relatively cost effective once a site is up and running, but they have an extremely limited role to play in a pre-launch campaign. Unless you happen to have a significant marketing budget, that is.

If you have the money for a multi-stage pre-launch campaign, then you may want to consider the following idea. Just be aware that it will not be cheap, and you will need to have a pre-designed splash style page on your URL. That way, when people click on the ad, they will not end up at a dead end.

If you are ready to get going, consider this three-stage pre-launch plan:

1. First (about 1 month out) release a set of ads with nothing but your name and URL.  These will give you some exposure and begin to make people wonder what is going on.

2. Two weeks later release a second ad with a catchy tag line for your site. Something like “food-fashion-fun” or “We’ll teach you how to make your corvette purr.” Use whatever suits your site and its mood.

3. Three to five days before the launch, you can post a final ad, one with specifics and some teasers.

Please bear in mind that this strategy is a tricky one to navigate, and you may want to enlist the help of a professional in order to pull it off. If you feel that you can go it on your own, be careful to choose the right places to buy ad space. You want to pick a site with a demographic that is similar to your new site.

If your budget does not allow for those kind of expenses, have no fear. There are a few other things that you can do that will not cost you an arm and a leg. As a matter of fact, some of them may not cost you any money at all.

Promoting Your Site: How to Pre Launch

There is a common mistake that many people make when they start a new site. That mistake is to wait until they have launched their site to begin thinking about promoting it. This article will explain why you shouldn't wait so long, and how to get your promotion started on the right foot, before your site goes live.

You may wonder why so many people make this mistake. Well, there are a few common reasons:

They want to have specific links and content to show readers on the site.

Launching a site the proper way is very time and energy consuming.Adding pre-launch promotions to that “to-do” list is no small task.

Many vehicles are not specifically made to work with a pre launch strategy, which means you need to be creative with the tools that you are using.

Many site owners, especially for smaller sites, do not have the funds to hire a professional web marketer, and those who can, do not understand how to properly pre-launch a site.

Many site owners do not understand the value of working on a site's promotions before the site is launched.

The set up

Before you can do a pre-launch promotion, you will need to have some basic things set up. Do not worry. These are mostly things that you will have to do to set up your site anyway.

First, settle on your name and URL. Before you can do any promotions you need to consider these things essential. This is not only because you need a name to attach to your site, but because you do not want to end up promoting a site that you can not have. Sure, your idea for "iblew-it-up.com" may be great, but if that domain name is taken, then you will need a new one. Any promotions that you do before you have a solid name concept that you own may end up promoting another person's site.

To check that a site is not already owned, first, open your web browser and type in your intended URL. If there is not a site there, take the next step, which is to visit Who is and do a check to see if your target domain name is already owned. If it is not, purchase the domain name following the usual channels.

Now you can start setting up the bare bones of your site. The first step is to make a solid introductory post on your site. If this is a blog, your job will be very easy; just make a first post.  If your site is static, this may require some basic HTML skills while your site is in development, but this is essential. That way, if a visitor makes their way to the site, they will not find a blank site.  Elements of a good, “coming soon” post include the following:

A description of what your site is about and what it will cover.

A listing of a specific date of launch when they can come back.

A subscription or notification sign up list, though this is optional. If you include this, people can come back to your site once it is up and running. While this is technically optional, it is a good idea, since many people will forget about the site without a reminder.

Now we can talk about pre-launch promotions.

Lucky for you, the tools of a pre-launch are relatively easy to use. They can also become a valuable part of your post-launch marketing strategy as well. If all goes well, you will be able to move from your pre-launch promotions to your regular set up without having to do much more than add on a few extra tools.  Let’s take a look at some of your possible tools and which ones will be right for your pre-launch strategy.

More Link Building Ideas

Last week I discussed a number of ideas you could use for building more incoming links to your website. If you're still looking for ideas, keep reading. You'll find more inventive link building ideas in this article.

As with the previous article, many of these ideas come from Nick Andrews, writing for Search Engine Journal. In my opinion, the ideas I'll be presenting in this article call for somewhat more creative thinking on your part than the ones I presented in the previous piece. But they can really pay off if you do them correctly.

Have you ever encountered a widget online? A widget is a small, useful application that bloggers can add to their websites. For example, Jaxtr is a widget that lets visitors to a blog call the blog writer's mobile phone, without divulging the writer's phone number. ClockLink is a cute widget that displays the time in various time zones. Daily Painters displays paintings form famous artists. You get the idea.

A widget can be a useful tool or a fun game; it might even provide an information feed. If you create a widget for bloggers to place on their websites, make sure to include a link on the tool that goes back to your site. This way, everyone who places the widget on their site is linking back to you. If you make the widget relevant to your industry, it will appeal most strongly to bloggers within your industry; this almost guarantees that links from those sites will be seen as relevant to yours.

Another interesting idea for attracting links is building an infographic. This is some kind of image that's beautiful, eye-catching, and informational. An infographic can be funny (be sure to click to expand that one), present a topic in context, reach people on an emotional level, and more. Since infographics are designed to be both attractive and informative, they tend to attract links. Use them on your own site, and get the word out about them. Andrews mentioned that there are a number of sites and directories to which you can submit your infographic that will link back to you. One is the Infographics Showcase, but there are others.

Videos are another big link attractor. Keep it short, entertaining, and informative, and visitors will link to it just to share it with their friends.

Everyone loves free stuff, so giving away freebies and coupons is a sure way to attract links. Running a competition with a prize for the winner is another way to get attention, build your brand, and even win links.

Continuing on the theme of giving away free stuff to build links and traffic to your site, if you're an expert in your field, you can make it known that you give out free advice. Solicit questions and answer them on your blog. One veterinarian who is a member of the forums of our sister site, SEO Chat, started a free online service called Ask a Vet. She asked for questions and posted her answers, and saw traffic to her website skyrocket.

Finally, sponsorships and giving to charities can lead to good links. Often, if you help to sponsor an event or contribute to a charity, you may get a link in return. Andrews noted that you may get a link in a “thank you” blog entry or on a specific page. “If not, you can always ask for the link,” he added. “All for a good cause!”

There are lots of other ways to build links, but once again I've run out of time and space. Hopefully, these will be enough to get your creative juices flowing, and you can start brainstorming some link building ideas of your own. Good luck!

Start Blogging with Blogger - Managing Your Blog

Your Dashboard gives you lots of management options if you want to re-label, delete, modify or create posts for your pages. Here, you’ll see a list of all your posts (listed by title). On the left-hand side, all your labels will help you see exactly how many posts you have with each topic you’ve created for your blog. It’s that easy to see the name of each post and to see which ones have been published live to your blog. When Draft appears next to the date, you’ll know these posts are currently unpublished.

Need to make changes, add or remove labels or write a new post? This is where you’ll do it all. Select the Posting tab at the top to view your posts. You’ll also have access to your comments through the Posting section, which helps you allow or disallow commenting or even edit and delete comments which have already been created by your visitors.

The Settings tab allows you to change the title and description of your blog at any time. This not only helps readers learn more about your blog, but the description also serves as your META information for the search engines. You can also choose “yes” or “no” from drop-down menus that make your site viewable to others and visible to the search engines. The Layout option helps you organize the look of your blog and add new gadgets that add a lot more depth and options for your readers.

Through the Monetize tab, you can choose options that help you take advantage of Google AdSense. Since Google owns Blogger, once you have a Blogger account you also have an account with Google. This makes it incredibly easy to take advantage of Google options and extras, like AdSense, which can create revenue for you and add more depth to your blog.

Blogger is popular because it’s user-friendly and extremely easy to use. If you use any of Google’s services, and have an account with Google, there’s no reason you shouldn’t start using your free Blogger blog right away.

Start Blogging with Blogger - Organize Your Blogger Posts With Feeds

Blogger uses labels to categorize your posts, so all your readers have to do is click on one of these words to find every post on a single topic. You can also use these labels to organize the look of the main page of your blog. Place feeds that will help users subscribe to your blog even as they help improve the look of your blog pages.

For instance, say your blog is about search engine optimization -- a popular topic on the Web. Your labels include the words Keywords, Links and Headlines. The labels section will show which words you use to categorize posts, but adding feeds will actually show the posts which are related to every single label.

Now…how do you do it?

To start adding feeds to your blog, select Layout from your Dashboard. Click the Add a Gadget link. A new pop-up will appear, offering a long list of possibilities for your blog. Select Feed. You’ll be taken to a screen with a blank text box. Simply enter the URL of each feed you’d like to add. To do this, go to your blog and click one of your labels -- in this case, Keywords. Copy the URL directly from your browser and place it in the box. Voila! Your feed has been created.

Want to beef up your blog? Blogger offers a lot more than just feeds. It’s time to explore many other gadgets.

Adding Blogger Gadgets

From the same Layout menu, you can add many more interesting elements to your blog. Again, select Gadgets and start exploring the possibilities. The menu will display options including a search button, polls, link lists, even AdSense ads that can help you earn income with your written words.

Use the search bar at the top of the Gadgets menu, or select options from the navigational menu on the left of pop-up, and start exploring your blog options. With gadgets, you can offer a little bit more to your readers.

Start Blogging with Blogger - Creating Your Blogger Blog

Blogger is, by far, one of the easiest free blogging sites out there. You’ll set up your blog exactly as you please, picking from among a selection of on-site templates or carefully designing each element of your blog on your own. Once you’ve established the look of your blog -- title, background, arrangement -- the Internet is your canvas. You’ve got the Web space. You’ve got the tools. You’ve even got a very user-friendly forum with which to share your thoughts. It’s time to start blogging.

Creating Blog Posts

Blogger’s editor is very simple and straightforward. A toolbar at the top of the editor helps you apply stylistic elements and options to your text. With these tools, you can add links, images and video to your blog post, as well as written content.

Inside the text box, you’ll create a single post. The post options at the bottom allow you to publish the blog (making it live on your page, and therefore viewable to others) or save it as a draft for the time being, meaning it won’t yet be available to readers.

A blank text bar near the bottom allows you to add labels. These are the words and phrases which will help you organize your blog posts, so choose carefully. These labels will serve as topic headings for specific groups of posts.

Start Blogger

Start Blogging with Blogger 

Blogger began its life on the Internet way back in 1999, which by Internet standards makes this site one of the grandfathers of the Web. By the time it was purchased by Google four years later, Blogger was one of the leading self-publishing blog sites in the world. Offering free Web space and easy publishing tools for all, Blogger can be used by anyone with an Internet connection. But do you know all the ins and outs of blogging with Blogger? Find out how to use this site to make your free blog the best it can be.

Joining Blogger

It’s incredibly easy to start using Blogger. All you need, in fact, is an email address. With this alone, you’re in the blogging business. 

If you have an existing Google account, then you’ve already got a Blogger account you might not even know about. Google offers a bevy of services, including free email, money-making advertising and many other offers. If you currently use any of these provided by Google, simply use this sign-in information to join Blogger.

Not using Google? Simply click the big orange button that invites you to Create A Blog. You’ll go to a simple online form where you’ll provide your email address, password and the name you’d like to use as your Blogger identification. With just this, you’re ready to start creating your blog.

Blogger

Definition

A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.

Information

A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.

People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems, most notably Blogger at blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process.

Blogs are alternatively called web logs or weblogs. However, "blog" seems less likely to cause confusion, as "web log" can also mean a server's log files.