Many people feel that photo blogging is the most
exciting kind of blogging that exists. Building and
maintaining a photo blog is no more difficult than
creating and updating a text-based blog, and many
people feel that the internet’s high speed, full-color
technology reaches the pinnacle of its appeal with the
transmission of images. Posting photographs in a blog
format on a daily, weekly, or occasional basis is a great
way to express yourself while reaching viewers in an
emotionally charged and aesthetically engaging way,
and surfing photo blogs can help you to get a whole
new perspective on the world in which we live.

Many people who run image blogs are photographers by
trade, but photo blogging is also very popular among
hobbyists and amateur shutterbugs. To be certain, a lot
of the most popular photo blogs have gained attention
because the pictures on them are of the highest artistic
caliber, and a lot of the people who run these striking
blogs are graduates of prestigious art schools and have
impressive professional portfolios. However, some of
the most well known and most often visited photo blogs
are as notable for their concepts as for the pictures
themselves. Certain photo blogs, like the popular “Cute
Overload” which features picture after picture of
adorable animals, are more about the thematic content
of the pictures than they are about the style in which the
snapshots are taken.

The fact that photo blogs range from forums to display
the work of highly skilled artisans to playful collections
of curiosities shows that photo blogging is a truly
diverse form. The fact that photo blogs are so easy to
build and to update makes this kind of visual
communication very democratic, and enables people at
all skill levels to become a part of the global
conversation about the nature and value of photography
today.

Whether you are an artist or hobbyist who wants to
create a photo blog, or whether you are just somebody
who enjoys learning about new places and things,
spending some time looking at the most popular
photography blogs on the internet can be a very
rewarding endeavor. You can travel to another place or
another time by seeing pictures of faraway locations and
long-gone eras. You can see your own neighborhood
with fresh eyes by discover how local artists have
photographed the town or city in which you live. Photo
blogging allows people to communicate all of these
things and more, which makes it a very exciting part of
the modern blogosphere. If the best thing about web
technology is that it allows people to reach each other in
a very personal way from across great distances, then in
many ways photo blogs are the most successful kind of
web sites.

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Eek! The blank screen of death for your blog is when you see the dreaded Parse error where your blog once displayed.

For many bloggers this can be a daunting experience. What is a Parse Error? What did you do wrong? How do you fix your blog? Well relax as it’s not as bad as it seems. Fortune Fox was actually down recently due to a Parse error that was generated from the sidebar. As a seasoned web developer I understand PHP scripts but even I couldn’t see the cause of the problem - and my eyes were glazing over whilst trying to search for it!

What do you do when you have an error on your blog and have no idea how to fix it? Well, I turned to PHP Builder. They have a forum where people can post their issues or view other people’s PHP script problems. PHP Builder has a team of professional and polite moderators who can assist you.

The Parse error experienced by Fortune fox was due to an apostrophe - yes this small symbol ‘. No wonder I missed it! But the very kind and helpful moderators at PHP Builder picked it up and replied to my query in no time! Thanks to NogDog - a big thumbs up.

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The latest buzz on the internet about blogs is the task of making your blog available in different languages. Having a language translator on your blog has the obvious advantage of making it more accessible to worldwide internet users in non-english speaking countries. But does it have downfalls?

The advantage of installing a language translator on your blog means you gain a much wider audience as you can write your post in english and have it automatically translated into another language such as Chinese, Italian, Polish and many more. By translating your blog into another language will in turn increase your blog’s popularity. A project focusing on this is currently underway by the Worldwide Lexicon Project. The WWL is an open source project bringing bi lingual bloggers together and attempting to close the language barrier.

But what about the downside? The translations may not be 100% accurate and if you don’t speak the language you are translating your blog into you won’t know if there are any grammatical errors. The next issue may be overlooked by those who are selling eBooks on their blog. If your blog is translated into another language but your ebook is written in English, this will undoubtedly casue some issues to your readers.

Overall translating your blog into another language is an interesting concept and I’m certain we will see many more technological advancements as we move toward the future. Will the World Wide Web finally close the global language barriers?

Wordpress Language Translator Plugin

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So you have a blog and want to market it and make it a successful blog. How do you do this? How do you go about getting your blog out there to be seen and known by others? How do you draw visitors to your blog and keep them coming back for more? There are many ways to promote your blog and with each new day more blog traffic opportunities are arising. Getting traffic to your blog can be challenging for some and quite easy for others. You are not going to get anywhere by just setting up a blog and hoping that people will find it and read it. There’s a lot of blog competition on the internet! You are not going to gain any links, nor a higher search engine ranking simply by just having a blog. A part of blog marketing is just that, marketing and promoting your blog. Anyone can do it, even you.

Successful blog marketing tip number 1. When you first create a blog, of course it is unheard of. No one knows anything about the blog unless you give them the link and show it to them. The first thing that you can do is to allow RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to be taken from your blog. Allow other websites and blogs to publish posts about your blog. When you do this, they are giving you a link back to your blog, and also telling their readers all about your blog. You will get more traffic to your blog than ever with this tool.

Successful blog marketing tip number 2. Update your blog frequently. We cannot stress this enough. If you tell your readers that you are going to update your blog daily, then do it. If you tell them that you will be writing in your blog weekly, don’t let them down. Your readers are what makes your blog successful. Updating your content on a regular basis entices your visitors to come back to your blog regularly. By having RSS feeders on your site means that when fresh content is added, your visitors are automatically made aware that you’ve added fresh content and they will return to your blog.

Successful blog marketing tip number 3. While you are working on your readership base, and trying to gain more visitors to your blog you are going to find that commenting on blogs that are relevant to yours will surely help. Find a blog that is based on the same topic as yours, or close to it, and leave comments. You can also make a track back (including a link to your blog in your comment) with your blog postings to comment on your own blog. Doing so will promote your blog and invite readers of other blogs to then visit yours. Choose blogs that get many comments as these blogs obvioulsy have more traffic and popularity. You can then leverage off that. You will gain traffic and readers that way. It is easy and it is free.

Successful blog marketing tip number 4. Learn and apply SEO to your blogs. SEO is search engine optimization. You are going to find that if you want your blog to go anywhere, you need SEO, and you need to know how to use it to the advantage of your blog. Just like a website, a blog will be better off optimized. The key is fresh content on a regular basis and making sure your content is relevant. Your content should express your main keywords throughout. So if your blog is about dog collars make sure the keywords “dog collars” is used throughout your relevant content. Wordpress has an SEO plugin tool that enables you insert your keywords with each post and there is also a Google sitemap plugin which assists in SEO.

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Concentrating on the benefits of a Wordpress blog can provide you with some great optimism for the future. The reason Wordpress is such powerful software is the combination of value, quality, and ease of use that is unparalleled in the blog software world. While some people prefer to use more basic blog software, they too can truly benefit from the power of Wordpress, and once they read about all the perks they too will be downloading the software for profit as well.

What might be the most notable benefit of Wordpress is the ability to work on a post offline, in a standalone interface. Most blog software applications require one to be logged onto the internet, and geared up ready to go to post to the blog, whereas Wordpress allows you to edit, build, and post a blog at anytime, without being connected to the internet.

Another benefit of Wordpress is the ease of use, and advanced functionality of the software compared to some blog software applications. Wordpress functions code free if one needs to post in such a fashion with easy to use icons similar to what one would see in a word processing program. Having the ability to utilize a program like this allows people to create blogs that are as high tech, and complete as full blown websites.

Yet another benefit of Wordpress is its remarkable plugin library that allows for users to instantly add features, and functions to Wordpress’s already impressive abilities. The plugin library for Wordpress is robust because of the popularity of the software, many programmers and designers have created plugins based on their particular needs.

When you add up all these elements you end up with a program that is fully capable of creating highly attractive blogs that encourage people to visit the sight and stay to read whatever is posted on it. If you ever wanted powerful blog software that was less template and more unique Wordpress is it.

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1. Drive targeted Traffic by leaving comments on high traffic
blogs in your niche.
In this case, don’t fall into the trap many people fall into –just leaving comments
like “Wonderful write-up”, “superb advice. Thank you”. This is lazy and won’t
hold you in high regard. People will hardly visit your website or blog if they feel
you do not have much to offer. Instead, make your comments contributory.
For instance, if you see a blog where the user pasted high quality information but
missed some other things, you could include it in your post. Posts like “the idea of
using articles to achieve high ranking is good. But can I chip something in? You
could also boost your search engine ranking if you just leave your comments on
about 100 high traffic blogs with PR 5+”.
That will surely get people to notice what you have to say. Since you included
your link either as the heading or at the end of the post, it will make it easier for
people to visit your website via clicking through the link you provided. People
will visit purely because they can see you have something to offer. People are
curious creatures! They want to see what else is available.

2. Submit your blog to as many high profile blog directories as possible.
This may take a while so grab a coffee, throw on some music & buckle down. In
the short term, it might look hectic, but this method pays off in the long term.
The mathematics of this are simple - if your blog is highly ranked on high traffic
blog directories, you’ll get traffic from the directories and an increased search
engine ranking for your websites because of the high quality one-way links
coming from your blogs.
To search for relevant blogs in your niche, simply go to your favourite search
engine and type in “xyz blog”, where “xyz” is your niche market.
Alternatively, you may wish to search for Blog directories themselves. I have
made a brief list below of some high ranking blog directories to get you started.
Some resources include:
www.blogcatalog.com/ Page Rank 7
www.eblogzilla.com/ Page Rank 4
www.bloggernity.com/ Page Rank 6
www.bloguniverse.com/ Page Rank 6
blogs.botw.org/ Page Rank 6

3. Add bookmarklets to your site.
If you want more visitors, simply ask your visitors to bookmark your website. If
you don’t know how to do this, visit a website and press CTRL+D on your keyboard. The site
becomes bookmarked. Alternatively, invite your visitors to make your website their homepage.

Use this script (changing the URL ofcourse)

<a href=”#” onClick=”this.style.behavior=’url(#default#homepage)’;this.setHomePage(’http://fortunefox.com’);”>Click here to make Fortune Fox your default homepage</a>
The beauty of telling people to bookmark your site is sometimes, people forget to bookmark a
website even when they feel it is very relevant. So, teaching or reminding them to
bookmark a website results in repeat visiting and sending to their friends.

OK, so you’ve taken care of your current visitor but what about promoting to the rest of the web?

Well, you need to use social bookmarking. Part of the Web 2.0 platform is social bookmarking and it can be
extremely beneficial to you - especially if your site is favored by the public. Make sure you have great
content! There are quite a few sites now that allow you to add a button to your site allowing visitors

to easily bookmark or recommend your site.
Some of the more popular social bookmarking sites include:

Plugim, Reddit, Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Ma.gnolia, Scuttle, Simpy and Spurl

If you have a wordpress blog, visit this site to download the social bookmarking plugin Notable

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Tagging and pinging is nothing new – at least not Internet new. If something has been around on the Internet for a matter of months, it’s no longer new. Now, while you certainly have heard about “tagging and pinging,” there’s a good chance you’ve never tried it yourself. But before you dive in headlong, purchase a $70 guide with all of the “explosive secrets” that “none of the ‘gurus’ want you know,” you should first consider a commonsense, no-frills approach to tagging and pinging. I’ll provide you with that exact approach in this article.

So what is tagging and pinging? In short, it’s a way to drive traffic to your blog. Rather than (or in addition to) using normal search engine optimization techniques, you can drive traffic to your blog by creating a post on a specific subject, “tagging” it with a related keyword (by placing it in a category with that keyword as the header), and then pinging it to social bookmarking sites, such as Technorati. As soon as those sites receive your ping, your blog post will appear at the top of the search results for that particular tag – at least until someone else makes a post on the same tag.

So how does this benefit you? Think about it like this: what if you could get your blog posts to appear as the first search result on Google for any keyword you selected – but only for a brief period of time? Would you use this technique if all you had to do was simply put a tag on your blog and then ping it to Google? Of course you would. And the same idea applies here: as soon as you tag your post and then ping it, you will appear on the top of the search results at a number of social bookmarking sites that receive a considerable amount of traffic.

This creates two important questions, which you must ask and answer about your respective blog. The first question you have to ask is which popular tags are most relevant to your material. Remember, all you have to do is find the right keyword, apply it to your post, and ping; and you’ll receive traffic for that keyword, so you don’t have to worry about how hard it will be to get in that position. It is  guaranteed. So go to sites such as http://www.technorati.com and look at the various “word clouds” they display. Look for words that are bold, in large font, and are relevant to your topic. These are the ones you will want to target in your blogging and pinging activities.

The next question you will have to ask is how you can harness that traffic to make sales. Generating traffic is only half of the game. You must also create truly intelligent, high-quality, creative blog posts that have the potential to convert visitors into list members or buyers. Additionally, you want visitors to vote for your posts on social bookmarking sites, so that your posts remain high on the list; and continue to generate traffic into the future.

And there you have it: a basic, step-by-step system for generating traffic with the “tag and ping” method. Don’t buy into all of the hype. Instead, simply follow the points I have listed above; and use them to make your blog the next Internet hotspot.

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The word blog is short for “web log” — and it refers to any short collection of posts on a site that are made in reverse chronological order. That is, on a blog, all information is arranged according to the date it was posted. The stuff that is posted last is highest up on the blog. The stuff that was posted a long time ago is at the very bottom or is stashed away in the archives. Bloggers – people who own and post on blogs – tend to update them quite frequently in comparison to normal sites. In fact, it is common for bloggers to post more than once in a single day, often focusing on the latest news events or minor details about some upcoming event. On the whole, blogs are narrowly focused, frequently updated, and are arranged in a specific format.

You might want to own a blog for one of several reasons. Perhaps you want to pour out all of your thoughts onto an online diary, where people can read it and comment on it. Perhaps you want to keep track of news and political events, interact with other people who do the same; and use your might as a blogger to persuade people into taking one position or another. Or perhaps you want to use a blog to promote your business. For the purposes of this article, I will assume that is what you plan to do.

So how do you go about creating your own blog to promote your business? There are several easy ways to do this. First and ideally, if the hosting service you use for your business site offers “Fantastico,” you can host your blog on your own domain. All you have to do is click on the “Fantastico” button on your control panel; and then look for the WordPress plugin. From there, all you have to do is click a few buttons and follow the directions; and your blog will be ready to start making posts in a matter of minutes.

If your hosting service does not offer Fantastico, you can either host a “blogger” blog on your own domain; or you can allow Google to host it for you. This is quite easy. All you have to do is go to http://www.blogger.com, setup an account; and follow the directions for creating a blog, tuning the template, and updating new posts.

Once you have created your blog, you will want to figure out the best way to create engaging posts on a regular basis; and to take the traffic generated from those posts and direct them to your site, so that you can convert them into buyers and prospects. There are a number of models you can use to do this, but I suggest trying the following: rather than adding entire posts to your blog, post the entire entry or article on your site; and then post a summary on your blog. Use your blog to generate traffic through social bookmarking sites (i.e. by pinging places like http://www.pingoat), direct that traffic to those summaries – and then include a link to the full article.

To reiterate: blogs are highly flexible applications. You can use them for a number of reasons. But they are particularly good for making short posts frequently and for generating traffic in ways that websites cannot. Master this tool, add it to your traffic generation arsenal, and you will reap the benefits.

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