Tips to optimize a blog

As of January 2011 statistics showed that there were over 152 million blogs active around the world, so with such a large number of blogs available, we would like to offer tips to optimize a blog.   Well, you need to be precise in your efforts and aim to optimize your content in the best way possible. Think about when you visit a blog. You are looking for an attractive layout, with regularly updated information, relevant images and possibly, an area to offer your feedback and opinions. Incorporating what you believe a blog should be into your own creation is guaranteed to ensure that every piece of content is worthwhile. Factor in the following tips to advance your blog's optimization in every way possible:

Necessary areas of interest – There will be a few main sections of a blog that you need to really target. This includes the title, social sharing buttons, some links to appropriate landing pages and of course, calls to action. This could be in the form of questions, polls or areas where you can allow visitors to comment on what their opinions of your blog or subject matter may be. Ensure that your social sharing buttons are easy to see and that they link to the correct pages, to boost traffic and credibility. Your title should be eye-catching and links should be placed frequently, but not so that they overload the content. Use categories on your pages to split up sections, enabling visitors to click through to the content they have an interest in.

Use the best blogging platform – What blogging platform you choose depends on what you find the easiest. Some people prefer Blogger, while others favor Wordpress. Whatever your preference, ensure you have a thorough understanding of how it works beforehand. This way, you can take advantage of every feature available to optimize a blog, including your visual and HTML editor, as well as adding ‘tags’ and images. Remember to fill in every field for every post, so that the search engines like Google can locate your content and rank it. Aim to fill in meta descriptions with valuable content. Never forget to revise your work before you publish it though, because flaws may lose you valuable visitors. A great tip would be to use the appropriate text and heading size for titles and sub-headings, in addition to implementing correct outbound links and formatting, which Google loves.

Use SEO adequately – You can kiss goodbye to the top spot on the search engines if you fail to use search engine optimized keywords and phrases. Perform your research like a real journalist would, relating to the top-searched terms and what would rank you high, above the competition. Ensure your details are factually correct and always give credit to other bloggers or online writing sources where you took ideas from. To make things easier to read for your visitors, use bullet points or lists, to clear up any messy pieces of content. Furthermore, focus on how your SEO is working and what readers think about your blog with a performance indicator, such as a metrics system. To keep those visitors returning, include RSS feeds, subscription buttons, sharing buttons and anything else that may boost your blog’s awareness.

Promote valuable content – Do not start promoting and advertising your blog until you are sure that your content stands out from the crowd, and that it is updated frequently with brand new information each time. Readers will return without promotion so long as your blog is worth reading, so bear this in mind. You can get your blog noticed through social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Stay active on these sites and participate in commenting on other blogs in your niche too, to ensure your name is known. Prior to your blog being see though, make certain you have heaps of informative content to show new readers and other blog owners that you have the ability to produce quality content that is optimized perfectly. With each of these tips to optimize a blog executed on a daily basis, you can be sure that your zone for writing is the one stop place for blog readers to flock

Introducing Timeline -- a New Kind of Profile

11 Ways To Become The Worst Facebook Friend Ever.

Jilted by a lover?  Hate someone’s ugly face?
Here are eleven ways you can become their worst Facebook nightmare.
1. Add All Of Their Asian Friends.
Everyone hates the guy who adds everyone else’s friends.  But don’t be conventional.
Profile.
When they see that all of your mutual friends are from one ethnicity, they’ll wonder.
Dude, how are you friends with all of my Asian friends?
I don’t see race.  I see harmony.

You'll do.

2. ‘Like’ Any Horrible Status.
Justine: just broke my leg skiing  FML.
You: Like!
Walter: My Golden Retriever is on fire.
You: Like!
Peter: oh noes!  i have herpes.
You: Like!
3. Comment On Every Picture, Telling Her You Can See Her Nips.
Especially wedding ones.
4. Comment On Every Picture, Telling Him You Can See His Nips.
It works too!

Who turned the AC on in the tranquil garden?

5. Petition Them Every Time Facebook Changes Something.
If Facebook changes their layout, get mental.
Ask your friend how he plans on dealing with the issue.
Dude, they changed the top toolbar.
So?
Do you know what this means?
No.
It means we have to blow shit up.
6. Comment That Their Baby Pictures Look Sexy As Hell.
It’s wrong.
Hilariously wrong.
7. Thank Them For Getting You Into The Teachings Of Al Qaeda.
Leave a wall post thanking them for broadening your horizons.
Hey Tom, just wanted to say thank you for the material you sent me.  I was thinking of taking my girlfriend to Florida for vacation but now we’re going to Kandahar to you know.  Carry out your will.  Toodles!
8. Send Them Invitations To Events In Locations Unreachable By Conventional Travel.
Dude, did you RSVP to the party on the Gulfaks C Platform?
That sounds like an offshore oil rig.
Exactly where the craziest parties are, bitch!

This is where the craziest parties are.

9. Tag Them In Videos Of Your Ass.
No, that’s it.
That’s really just it.
10. Like And Unlike One Of Their Statuses For 17 Days Straight.
Rack up thousands of notifications.  When they message you to inquire, play dumb.
11.  Poke Them And Then Message Every 38 Seconds Asking If They Got Your Poke.
Did you get my poke?  I poked you.  Did you see I poked you?
I’m naked right now.
–
There you have it.  Use these tips to annoy the hell out of everyone.
Just not me.
(That’s where I give you a link to my Facebook page and hope you click on it, even though I’m pretending I don’t care)

And remember.

I can see your nips.
–

Build a Twitter Strategy for Your Business

You know your business can’t just wing it on Twitter, you need a strategy. But how do you get there? A lot of social media advice revolves around confusing, high-concept buzzwords: There are only so many times you can be told to “listen” and “engage.” Concrete advice can be hard to come by, and while this guide won’t tell you what you need to tweet, it will provide you with the real questions you need to ask in order to craft a Twitter strategy for your business.

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1. Choose Your Audience

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Who do you want to reach on Twitter? Be specific and limit your scope to the demographic you really need; trying to reach everyone isn’t a great strategy. If you’re a B2B company, for example, you’ll probably want to reach other businesses and the people that represent them.

Here is a quick example: Look up at least 10 of your customers on Twitter (a quick name search on Google can turned up their Twitter profiles). Once you’ve found some, look at who they’re following and who they talk to. These people could also become part of your audience. Look at how they describe themselves and what terms they talk about. Use those keywords and terms to find like-minded people.

The goal here is not to find everyone you’d like to interact with (that would probably be next to impossible), but to find people who might fit into your audience. Try to pay attention to who has influence in your audience. For example: who are people talking to, about or retweeting? Who do they seem to ask for advice? Once you have a decent group, move on to step two.

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2. Understand How They Speak

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It might sound like I’m giving you clichéd advice to “listen,” but clichés exist for a reason. You need to understand how your audience talks, what they like, and what they share. Below are some solid steps to get you started.

• Look up what people are saying about your company. Are they saying good things or bad things? Are they asking for advice about what product or company to choose? Are they giving feedback about their experiences after the fact?
• Do the same for your competitors. Note if your competitors are jumping in or influencing any of these conversations.
• Notice the way your audience talks. Are they generally formal or informal? This will be very different depending on the companies you are tracking and the people you attract. It’s always good to match the tone of your audience.
• Look at what your audience shares and retweets. What kinds of links and articles do they like? What kinds of terms and ideas get them excited or annoyed?
• Note any hashtags or other ways your audience connects. Look up those hashtags to see if they have any real traction (if they’re all spam or if people are really using them to connect).

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3. How Much is a Twitter Lead Worth?

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This is a bit more theoretical but it’s an important step that many companies forget. The reason you’re involved with Twitter isn’t just to say you’re there, it’s because you’re looking for a good return on investment. So what is it that you’re after? It might be as concrete as sign-ups and sales or as ephemeral as buzz and brand awareness.

Depending on your goal, try to figure out how much each person is “worth.” This almost certainly won’t be an exact number, but you should get a general idea. For example, if you’re doing B2B sales and a sale is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, you’re going to have a very different strategy than a company with millions of users that makes its money from advertising.

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4. Set A Goal and Track It

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Setting a goal is just the start of your strategy, you also need to track it with metrics. Choosing metrics does not just mean tracking your follower count because the count isn’t always a totally accurate measure of how many people are paying attention to your account.

There are obviously different approaches depending on the size of your fan base. If you have a large audience, you might not be able to put a lot of time into each lead. Your overall goal will likely be about brand awareness and creating buzz for your company. You should consider metrics that capture overall influence such as retweets, blog posts and clicks.

If you have a targeted audience, each lead probably carries more value. You overall goal will likely be to generate new leads. You should consider metrics like sales, email sign-ups, @messages, direct messages and clicks.

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5. Define Your Approach

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The language you use to tweet and what you choose to share should be targeted towards your audience. This means you should be thoughtful and accurate, not false and calculating. For example, if you’re trying to reach knitting mothers, you’re going to using a very different style of language than if you’re trying to reach hip hop aficionados. Below are a few main questions to consider:

• How formal or informal do you want to be?
• Should you include buzzwords or hashtags?
• How much effort should you put into reaching out to specific followers or finding new ones?
• What kind of links and content should you share?
• Can you do any special offers or campaigns on your account?
• What’s the style of your company? You have know your company’s message and define its personality. Your followers will appreciate the authenticity.

Any Twitter strategy is a perpetual work in progress. Just deciding that you need a strategy is an important first step that will have you thinking about what and why you tweet. The key is to keep experimenting: Twitter is ever-changing and to succeed on it you need to be flexible, but you also need to know where you’re headed.

New MySpace Profiles

We’ve confirmed with MySpace that the company is demoing a completely redesigned version of its profile pages.

“We’re testing a new look and feel of our site among users and the response so far has been positive,” a MySpace rep said in a statement sent to Mashable. “As always, we’re interested in hearing feedback from our community as we roll out enhancements to the user experience and look forward to sharing more details with you in the coming weeks.”

Users began noticing the new MySpace profiles today. Sean Percival, MySpace’s vice president of online marketing, tweeted about his updated MySpace profile earlier today.

Here are some of the differences we’ve noticed:

• A new left-hand navigation: Profile navigation has been condensed into the left hand navigation menu under the profile picture.
• Focus on the stream: MySpace Stream — the site’s version of the Facebook newsfeed — is the focus of the the new profiles. You can view a user’s recent activity, comment on items and share content with friends.
• Follow on other social networks: There’s a new module giving you the option to follow a user not only on MySpace, but also on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. Whether this is a standard module remains to be seen.
• A vastly improved UI: Without a doubt, the new profiles feature better design than their predecessors, which have been the scourge of social web app designers for a few years now.

At this time, it looks like MySpace is rolling the new profiles out to a limited number of users in order to gather feedback before a larger, site-wide launch. As our friends at The Next Web pointed out, user reaction so far has been mixed.

Whether the new profiles can help turn things around at MySpace remains to be seen, but it’s a strong first step. We can’t wait to see what changes come next.

What do you think of the new MySpace profiles? Could it be the start of a turnaround? Let us know in the comments.

Facebook Will Celebrate 500 Million Users Next Week

Facebook will finally reach the impressive 500 million user milestone sometime this coming week. To celebrate, it’ll launch “Facebook Stories,” a visual memorial to all the ways the social network has changed people’s lives.

All Things Digital’s BoomTown blog uncovered the details in an interview with FacebookFacebookmarketing guru Randi Zuckerberg last week. She said that while previous announcements of this nature have been about the numbers, this time the company wants it to be all about the users.

 That’d be empty PR-speak on its own, but she’s talking about a real initiative: Facebook Stories will be a website within Facebook that’ll sort actual, submitted user stories by location and theme. Theme examples given included “finding love” and “natural disasters.” Each story will be limited to the same number of characters a Facebook status caps out at: 420.

Facebook has already posted a form through which you can submit your own story. If your story becomes popular — that is, if it gets more “Likes” than most — it could be featured among other popular stories.

Facebook reached 400 million users five months ago. This time last year, it had just reached 200 million, and eight months before that it was at just 100 million. The site launched in February of 2004, and has since become the most popular social site on the web.

Source: Mashable

Never Gonna Drink Coco Cola Again (FaceBook Scam)

If one of your friends said they were never going to drink Coca Cola again after watching a horrific video, would you be tempted to watch the video?

Judging by the number of Facebook users who have posted status updates claiming they are never going to drink Coca Cola again, it seems plenty found it an invitation impossible to resist.

A typical message reads:

I am part of the 98.0% of people that are NEVER gonna drink Coca Cola again after this HORRIFIC video --> http://www.[removed]
Find out the TRUTH about Coke!!!

If you do click on the link you will find yourself on a website saying that "9/10 People said they WOULDNT drink Coca Cola After seeing this video!!!" above a thumnail of a video which says that "Coca Cola can't hide its crimes".

Perhaps surprisingly, this webpage isn't exploiting the now familiar clickjacking technique to falsely claim that the Facebook user "Like"s the page without the user's permission. Instead, they say you can't watch the "horrific video" until you've shared the link on Facebook by hand seven times.

The page claims to poll whether you have shared the link enough (in order to allow the video to be viewed). But when you realise you're not making any progress - despite your valiant attempts to recommend the link to all and sundry - you might hit the link which says:

>>>Cant Be Botherd To Wait? --> Click Here To Skip This<<<

And this link takes you to a survey which asks you for all sorts of personal information.

So, let's recap.

You're on Facebook. One of your friends posts that they are part of the 98.0% of people that are never going to drink Coca Cola again after watching a horrific video. You visit the link to see what all the fuss is about, click on "Like" or "Share" umpteen times to distribute the link to your friends, and end up answering all kinds of questions and giving away personal information.

Meanwhile, all your friends are also clicking "Like", posting links to their friends, answering questions and giving their personal data away, and never actually seeing what they started out wanting to see. Meanwhile their friends..

and so on..