Blogging becomes personal
There are so many blogs out on the internet at the moment, and its growing rapidly every day. some create a blog, post a few things and forget about it, others write something every day but never tracks the visitors or gets in contact with its readers.
The more I blog and learn about the internet the more I become aware that Blogging is much more than a hobby. For the long time bloggers, it becomes personal.
How, Personal?
I use my real identity online, I don’t have any cryptic names, or anything that will make me unknown. By doing that I promote my blog and my online presense. I also start making friends and meeting people that either blog, or do the same kind of work I do. Sometimes when I blog its part of a previous conversation I’ve had with one of the people I know online.
Either someone wanting to know about networking, emails, or whatever else.
Through Facebook I meet the people who read my blog, Amatomu, twitter. All of those mediums I use to personally connect to the people who read my blog.
telling people about blog posts, before you write it
The more I blog and the more I surf other peoples blogs, the more I think about the bloggers or website owners telling the public whats coming.
I quite like it. I like knowing what to expect. If a competition is coming up, I would like to know about it before its too late. Often I get emails from companies telling me whats coming up. I think its quite important, because it creates interest, and excitement.
If your company is launching a new website, let people know about it.
Send emails, make flyers, adds ect. telling the public “2 more days to go” and “1 more day to go.” If you do it right, you will have a very big launch day. Everyone will come crawling to your website wanting to see whats happening and what all the excitement is about.
What do you think about knowing about something before it gets there? Does it take away the suprise? or does it create excitement?
Domain naming, Expired domains
I’ve written before about what hositng is right for your.
Today I’m focusing more on how you should go about registering a domain.
Picking a domain name.
Google hardly ever indexes a new domain. Alot of people that create spam (yes, there are people that actually make it) register new domains for their spam site, and emails. Because of this, google “sandboxes” your new domain. Crawls it every now and then until they feel there is propper content on that site/domain.
One way of avoiding it is to register a domain that has been around for more than 6 months. Google might still sanbox it again, but it will be indexed quicker than a new domain would be. There are many sites dedicated to giving you details on expired domains. I use DNXpert. They give out a free list of expired domain names every couple of days.
I browse through them and look at witch domain name i need/want. If you are lucky, the domain that you pick allready has a pagerank. That is great because google trusts that domain.
So if you are interested in getting a domain, go have a look and see which domain suits you.
Web Hosting thats right for you
You’ve decided that you want a website, you learn that you will need to get some kind of hosting package. But what do you choose? 50 mb of space with 2 gigs of bandwidth or do you need 2 gig’s of harddrive space and 25 gigs bandwidth?
Do you get your own domain name or do you get one somewhere else? How many email addresses do yo need?
If you are starting a new company
You will need to have a hosting package that gives you storage space online and email addresses for as many people as youo have in your company. You will have to have a domain registered to you.
With a domain name, you will have to think about what you want your domain name to be. Preferably the name of your company. If you can, get a domain name that is relevant to your country. eg. If you are in South Africa, get a .co.za domain. If you are in Australia, get an .au domain. Keep that in mind when you register a domain name.
If you are looking for a blog or free website.
wordpress an blogger are both great free services that allows you to create and manage your very own blog. It is still accesable by everyone and Search engines pick it up and indexes it.
If you just need an email address.
There are many services that gives you a free email address. Gmail, yahoo, msn, hotmail, webmail ect. You just sign up with them, and setup your favourite email client to download that mail.
When you decide on what hosting solution you will need, keep these things in mind.
Robert
What kind of visitor are you?
I visit alot of blogs during the day. Some of them I hang around for a while, others I look at and leave quickly. Today I started thinking, “What kind of visitor am I.”
You get kind of visitors:
1. The Fly by visitor.
This is a kind of visitor that comes to your site, takes one look at it, and moves on. They generally are not all that interested in what you have to say and what you have on your Site/blog.
When I come across a blog about Growing vegetables, I leave quite quickly. I have no Interest in Growing stuff.
2. The Click Happy visitor
These visitor generally don’t stay very long, they click more than the minutes they stay. This is Ok, They are interested in what you have to say, but not really into reading what you wrote.
3. The comment Friendly visitor
These visitors love leaving comments. They like to tell you what is on their mind. Their comments might not always be what you want it to be, but they will comment on it. Some of them might leave comments like “nice post” or something simmilair to that. Its not really worth much, but it still counts.
4. The interested visitor
These Visitors are great! They are actually really interested in what you have to say. They might be visitors that came from search engines or are subscribed to your RSS feeds. This means they are looking for what you have written. These people also like leaving comments. Their comments are more constuctive and worth something. They might be questions, and they love for you to answer those Questions.
So tell me, what kind of visitor are you? What are you interested in?
