When Two Become One: June 2009

Monday, June 22, 2009

24 Sites You Can Use to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Article by John Wood, AWAI Staff Writer
There are a lot of lonely blogs in this crazy online world.
Their owners had the best intentions when they started out … they prettied them up … they made them very user-friendly … and they gave them a lot of interesting things to say.
Yet hardly anyone was willing to commit to visiting their blog on a regular basis.
And because of the lack of attention their blog received, posting to it regularly was no longer a priority for their owners. Soon they stopped updating them altogether, and their blog lost any appeal it once had.
Don’t let this happen to your blog.
If you’re serious about making money from your blog, you can’t sit back and wait for people to find it … you have to pro-actively drive traffic to it.
The good news is there are plenty of sites you can “partner” with to help you drive a steady stream of visitors to your blog.
Now, how you “partner” with these sites may take various forms depending upon the nature, theme or features of the site. For instance, with a social networking site like MySpace, you can add friends and send out subtle marketing messages to them. Plus, MySpace has a blog feature that you can post articles to.
Some sites involve displaying a “widget” on your blog. Others (Squidoo) allow you to set up a webpage on a topic of your choosing … which you can add a link to your blog, website or the sales pages of affiliate products you’re promoting.
Others involve a one-time submission of your blog to their database, while some involve an ongoing, interactive commitment.
It’s important to choose the sites that are the best fit for you in terms of your personality and the commitment level each individual site requires.
No matter what you do though, the most important thing is to never make it obvious you’re trying to sell something. If people sense that what they’re reading is a sales pitch, they may react negatively toward it and you. Every time you post something, make it relevant, topical and interesting – then end off with a very mild call to action or just simply add a link to your blog under your name.
So without further ado, here are 24 sites you can use to promote your blog:
Note: To give you a rough idea of how popular these sites are, at the end of each description in brackets, I’ve listed the estimated monthly unique U.S. visitors as of October 24, 2008 (according to Quantcast.com).
MySpace.com – Still the number one social networking site. Create a profile, add some friends and gently promote your blog. (68.3 million)
Facebook.com – The second most popular social networking site on the Internet. (42.1 million)
Squidoo.com – Join Squidoo and set up a page related to your blogging topic with links to your blog. (5.4 million)
HubPages.com – HubPages is a site that has a similar business model to Squidoo. Users, or “hubbers,” create hub pages, where you can discuss any topic you’d like. (4.5 million)
Knol.com – Knol is a Google service that is also based on the same business concept as Squidoo. It hasn’t really caught on in a big way yet. (64,000)
Twitter.com is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets). (2.2 million)
Stumbleupon.com – StumbleUpon is a site that helps people discover new sites based on their interests. Users can rate websites, comment on them and share them with other users. It’s a free service, but you can also pay to have your site “stumbled upon.” It’s also a great way to get feedback from people who visit your blog. (1.1 million)
Digg.com is a social news site with a social networking aspect to it. It allows you to share your site’s content with other “diggers.” (11.2 million)
Mixx.com – Not as popular as Digg.com, but certainly one of its up-and-coming competitors. (1.8 million)
Craigslist.com – It’s free and it will only take a few minutes to register and post an ad for your blog. (569,000)
Technorati.com – Technorati is a search engine for blogs. Register with them, “claim” your blog and then use their tools to promote your blog. (3.6 million)
YouTube.com – Make a video about some aspect of your blog topic and include your blog link in the video description and the video itself. Post it on YouTube. Sign up for a YouTube account and create what YouTube calls a “channel.” You can customize your channel, add a link to your blog, and add as many videos as you’d like to it. (72.1 million)
EntreCard.com – They advertise their “Entre Card” as your online business card. The idea is that you place the EntreCard widget on your blog, and others can “drop” their card for you. Then you can drop a card by visiting them back. Each time you drop a card you acquire a credit that you can use to advertise on thousands of blogs. You can even sell the credits for money. (77,200)
Blogcatalog.com – They advertise themselves as a social network for bloggers. It’s a place for you to connect with other bloggers, participate in groups and discussions and so on. (577,700)
Delicio.us.com – De.licio.us is a social bookmarking site that was purchased by Yahoo in 2005. It’s a place where users can store, share and discover web bookmarks. (347,800)
Pownce.com – They advertise themselves as a great way to keep in touch with and share stuff (files, links, events, and messages) with your friends. They haven’t really gained a strong following yet. (16,000)
My.Yahoo.com – Set up a My.Yahoo page and add a link to your blog. (11.8 million)
Yahoo Answers – Answer questions related to your blog topic at Yahoo Answers, and at the end put a link to your blog. (22.5 million)
Blogsearch.Google.com – Submit your blog to Google’s blogging directory (542, 400) and other online blogging directories.
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a social networking site geared toward business professionals. As of October 2008, it has 30 million registered users. (5.5 million)
Online Directories – Submit your blog to “regular” online directories such as DMOZ (1.9 million), Yahoo (2.9 million) and Google directories (Quantcast total not available).
User Groups – Join or start a User Group about your blog topic. Membership is free. User Groups are a great way to rub elbows with like-minded people. Some of the more popular “group” communities are Google Groups (3.8 million), Yahoo Groups (6.7 million) and MSN Groups (1.7 million).
Participate in Forums – Join one or two (or more) message boards related to your topic. Add your blog address to your profile and signature.
Blog Pinging Sites – When you “ping” your blog, what you are doing is letting a number of sites (search engines, for example) know that your blog has been updated. They will then crawl and index your site so your new post is updated in their records.
Pingomatic.com (12,500) is one of the more popular “pinging” services. (Note: WordPress software automatically pings their blog.)
So if you feel “lonely blog syndrome” coming on, remember it’s a self-inflicted disease. Put together a marketing plan. Add as many of the above sites as you can to it, and you’ll never be short of blog traffic.
This article appears courtesy of The Golden Thread, an e-letter from AWAI that delivers original, no-nonsense advice on how to build your freelance copywriting business. For a free subscription, visit http://www.awaionline.com/thegoldenthread

How Many Social Networks Should You Belong to?

With as many as 250,000 social media type sites up and running, and with social networking sites being such effective places to network and promote your business, I often wonder how many social networks I should belong to?
I currently belong to six social media type sites; LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Blog Catalog and Technorati; and I use each of them differently.
I use LinkedIn solely for my personal business contacts.
Facebook being more personal, I use to connect with friends, family, and more personal contacts I have made through networking.
I use Twitter solely for networking and website promotion.
Blog Catalog and Technorati I use to connect with other bloggers and for blog promotion; although I don’t actively keep up my Technorati profile.
And last I use Delicious to bookmark my pages and posts from my blog, hence creating back-links and greater visibility.
With this being said, I keep hearing all the hype about StumbleUpon, Digg, MySpace and YouTube.
Should I create accounts with these sites too?
I am a firm believer in quality over quantity, and right now if I were to add another social network into the mix I wouldn’t be able to sufficiently keep up with it, which in turn would decrease my online value.
Right now I am able personally answer emails and messages from these networks, which helps me to build stronger relationships and connections. And most importantly, I am able to write frequent blog posts.
For companies to create a solid online presence by utilizing ten to twenty different social media platforms they need someone to solely focus on the task at hand, such as a social media marketer or they need to delegate the various networks out to numerous employees.
Here are a few questions to consider when deciding how many and which social networks to belong to:
1. How much time do you have to invest in each network?
2. What are your goals for social networking?
3. How will you utilize each site and which niche social networks best fit your needs?
Once you have decided on your social networking strategy, you can save some time by creating a hub for your social networks using one of the services below:
Google Profiles
Zoho

How to Write Catchy Headlines for Your Blog

Whether you are using a blog as a marketing tool or you’re blogging for bucks, you will need to come up with catchy headlines to capture the reader’s attention. Because after all the greatest content is nothing without someone to read it, and catchy headlines are how you reel them in.
Always remember that there are two main people that you are writing for; your readers and the search engines. You will need to appeal to both, but to drive the traffic to your site you will need to use front-loaded keywords in combination with descriptive titles to speak to the search engines. I suggest using Google Keyword Analyzer to help you come up with new keyword ideas.
Now how do you write appealing blog titles that make the reader stop in their tracks? Here are four different techniques that will get your readers attention.
1. Lists. People love lists! Lists are easy to read, they look neat, they organize information in a logical format and best of all lists tend to go viral. If you look on Digg or Delicious you’ll see that the top headlines are often written in this format. Example: 10 Best Blogs on Social Networking.
2. Call to Action. People like to be guided, it gives them reassurance. Try writing a “How to” or a “Complete Guide” post; these types of posts tend to make for popular reading. Example: How to Write a Catchy Blog Title or Your Guide to Writing Catchy Blog Titles.
3. Curiosity or Secret. Make your readers want to know more by targeting their curiosity or letting them in on a secret. People like to feel like they are getting exclusive information. Example: Learn the Secret Marketing Power of Twitter instead of The Marketing Power of Twitter.
4. Gossip. Just take a look at all the gossip magazines in the grocery store aisle check-out or one of the many the celebrity gossip blogs; people love juicy, sensational, gossipy type news. Try incorporating this style of headline into your blog title to peak your reader’s interest. Example: Summer’s Hottest Blogging Topics.
For more tips on writing catchy headlines, check out: The Sexy Art of Writing Headlines that Kill

5 Things You Should Be Doing On Twitter

Here are five things I discovered you should be doing on Twitter if you want to keep up with the players:
1. Follow hard and Play often.
After you set up your Twitter account, including a meaningful profile that says something about your focus, get in there and Tweet away. The more you tweet, the more you’ll be followed. When you send out a provocative, inspirational, or meaningful tweet, your followers will re-tweet your tweet to their list. Those people in turn will follow you.
Use the Twitter search function to find the big players in your market. Follow them. They may or may not follow you back, but that doesn’t matter. There are programs you can buy that will automatically follow everyone who follows your favorite people, but I advise against using these. You want quality, not quantity.
2. Mix it up.
Ann Handley of @MarketingProfs has over 32,000 followers because she sends a variety of tweets throughout the day. A large number of her Twitter posts are replies to others and re-tweets. This creates good Twitter karma by acknowledging that she’s a part of a community.
When you reply to another person’s post, your reply will be seen by his or her followers. If you say something meaningful and add to the conversation, many of them will follow you. By Re-tweeting a post, you’re helping that person grow his or her list of followers. They will often give you a public Thank You for the re-tweet. They may also mention you on what’s called “#FollowFriday”, which has become a Friday tradition of suggesting other people to follow.
You should also add your own meaningful content, which is BEST done this way:
3. Add value through blog posts.
If you don’t already have a blog, create one (let me know in the comment area below if you’re interested in learning how to create a blog). You’re a writer, so use your skills to create good blog posts. If you install one of a half dozen Wordpress Plugins (I use Twitme) that integrates your Wordpress blog with Twitter, the plugin will automatically create a Twitter post that references your blog post.
Trust me … people WILL click on the link and read your post, and they’ll re-tweet it if they found it interesting. In fact, Michel Fortin has installed a plugin on his blog that sends a Tweet whenever he makes a comment on his own Blog! He knows that people are curious enough to click through.
4. Engage in conversations.
Use the search function in Twitter and type in keywords associated with your brand or business. Reach out to everyone talking about these items with a personally crafted Tweet. Do not resend the same thing over and over. People you interact with will read your Twitter stream and want to see what useful information you provide … and within seconds, you’ll have dozens of new followers.
5. Be a good community member.
You’ll see many of the top business Twitter users provide links to products, seminars, or even services provided by their colleagues and peers. Don’t ever promote an affiliate product. DO promote free stuff that you think is useful, even if you know that it’s a freebie used to get people onto the person’s marketing list.
If you’re helping the people you follow (or your followers), they’ll do the same for you. A simple “announcement” tweet about your new E-book or seminar will garner dozens of re-tweets. A recent social media webinar, for example, sold out almost entirely from Twitter posts. This stuff works.
Bonus Tip
Finally, please don’t let Twitter take over your life. Set aside specific times to search, review Tweets from your favorites, and send your own Tweets. I use the free program TweetDeck to track all the Twitter posts flying through at the rate of 10 per second. Talk to any Twitter user and he will have his favorite tool. Most let you categorize the people you follow so that you can scan your favorites first and ignore or un-follow those who waste your time.
Happy Tweeting.
P.S. You can follow me at @copysmith.
This article appears courtesy of American Writers & Artists Inc.’s (AWAI) Staff Writer’s Blog. For a complimentary subscription to AWAI’s free newsletter that delivers original, no-nonsense advice on the best wealth careers, lifestyle careers and work-at-home careers available, visit http://www.awaionline.com/signup/.

@ChristieIngram - Christie was a Mom’s Talk Network Blogging Intern this spring and has agreed to stick around WAHM Talk Radio for some blogging and occassional podcasting. She’s got a brand new baby and I love seeing her tweeting about how much in love she is.

Who do you love following on Twitter that want to recommend to us? Feel free to pipe up! Come & share with us.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

How to Improve Your Blog

Welcome to our free guide on how to improve your blog. No matter how experienced you are as a blogger, this simple step-by-step guide will help you make your blog even better.
If you haven’t started your blog yet or just want to refresh yourself on the process of starting a blog, please see our free guide on How to Start a Blog.
Here’s what we’ll cover in this guide.
Section 1: 5 compelling reasons to improve your blog
Section 2: How to improve your blog in 5 simple steps
Section 3: 9 areas of your blog that you can improve
Section 4: 50 questions to help you evaluate and improve your blog
Section 5: Recommended resources and further reading

Section 1: 5 Compelling Reasons to Improve Your Blog
There are many reasons to consider improving your blog. Here are five of the most common ones:
1. You want your blog’s visitors to enjoy your blog more.
2. You want to attract more readers to your blog.
3. You want to make money (or make more money) with your blog.
4. You want to feel more satisfied with your blog.
5. You want others to see your blog as more valuable.
In the end, all of the above reasons may actually just be means to an end.
For instance, maybe you want to attract more readers to your blog in order to get more people to join your organization and change the world somehow.
Or maybe you want others to see your blog as more valuable in order for you to be able to sell it to someone at a higher price.

Section 2: How to Improve Your Blog in 5 Simple Steps
The bad news: Improving your blog is not always easy.The good news: The blog improvement process is usually simple in nature.
Here is a basic five-step method to help you improve your blog. It’s a pattern you can follow no matter what kind of changes you want to make to your blog.
You’ll notice that you can apply these steps to improving your home, your car, your bowling average or just about anything in your life.
That’s because improving a blog, like improving most things in life, is a challenge of the mind more than anything else.
Step 1: Figure out where you are.
Step 2: Decide where you want to go.
Step 3: Decide how to go there.
Step 4: Go there.
Step 5: Repeat steps 1-4.
Next, we’ll explore each of these blog improvement steps in more detail.
2.1: Figure out where you are.
Take a close look at the current state of your blog. What do you know about it? What seems to be working well? What seems to be a point of weakness?
Remember that you can always ask other people to evaluate your blog too. BlogCatalog has an entire discussion area dedicated to blogging help if you’d like to start there.
Try to measure and quantify everything you can about your blog and keep track of it on a regular basis. This can really make figuring out the state of your blog a lot easier.
For example, if you want to increase your blog traffic, the first thing you should do is find out exactly how many people are really visiting your blog - and who they are. There are many free or cheap blog traffic analysis tools - Google Analytics, Performancing Metrics, Site Meter and Statcounter, to name a few - that you can use to help you determine where people are coming from when they find your blog, how long they stay on your blog, and where they go when they leave.
2.2: Decide where you want to go.
Once you know where you are, you can set a clear goal to get somewhere else.
For example, if you want to improve your blog design and you know from all the research you’ve done that most people who visit your blog love the color scheme but hate the layout, then maybe your goal can be to switch to a different layout in the next 14 days. Once you make the change, you can ask your blog visitors again how they like the layout.
When deciding what to do and where to go to make your blog better, you may sometimes find it hard to determine whether something is really worth the time, sweat and/or money to improve. Here are five simple questions you can ask yourself to help you make these decisions:
1. How important is it that I improve this aspect of my blog?
2. How urgent is it?
3. How easy will it be?
4. How quick will it be?
5. How inexpensive will it be?
For instance, let’s say you’re trying to decide which to improve first: your blog content or your blog design. After asking yourself the five questions above, you decide that you want to work on improving your content first because it will probably be easier and cheaper for you to do, but it will probably make the same difference (or perhaps a greater difference) than working on your design right now.
2.3: Decide how to go there.
This is sometimes the trickiest part of blog improvement. It may require a lot of thought to figure out how exactly to go about improving your blog. You may even decide that you need professional help to make your blog better. It’s not unusual to get frustrated at this point.
But don’t panic! You started your blog. You’re in charge of it. If something’s broken, you can fix it (or have someone else help you fix it). If you have a blog improvement goal, you can strive earnestly to accomplish it.
In Sections 3 and 4 below, we’ll share lots of tips to help you decide how to actually “go there” and improve your blog.
2.4: Go there.
Here’s where most bloggers fall off the wagon. They simply give up because this step can take a lot of work.
But go means go. Go means move. Go means work. There’s no other way to make your blog better than it was before, or to get better results with your blog.
So don’t let anything distract you. Don’t let anything stop you. Pause as needed to catch your breath and make sure you’re still on the right track, but don’t stop. Go go go.
Stuck? Exhausted? Don’t panic if you haven’t reached your blogging goals yet. The important thing is to try as hard as you can, day after day.
2.5: Repeat steps 1-4.
Never stop trying to improve your blog. This, coupled with sincere thought and hard work, is the real secret to achieving success in your blogging efforts.
You may find it helpful to perform a blog improvement routine on a regular basis. For example, every six months you could do a major overhaul, and once a month you could make a few minor tweaks. Find a rhythm that suits you.
Remember that each blog is unique, and so is each blogger. And the Web and people are always changing, so what may make blog improvement easy and worthwhile today may be pointless or impossible a year from now.
So, every time you decide to make another push to change something about your blog, you need to take into account the primary elements you encountered when you started your blog: its intended purpose, topic and audience. Everything you do to improve your blog should be in harmony with all of those primary elements.

Section 3: 9 Areas of Your Blog that You Can Improve
To help you simplify the process of improving your blog, we’ll break things down into nine blog-related areas. We’ll cover each area in more detail in Section 4.
1. Content: The words, images, sounds and/or videos that make up the substance of your blog.
2. Design: The way you organize and present your content to your audience.
3. Community: The people who like your blog and how they interact with it and each other.
4. Traffic: How many people see your blog’s content on a regular basis.
5. Subscriptions: How many people are subscribers to your blog posts and any newsletters or other regular publications you may have that are associated with it.
6. Search presence: How easy it is for people to find your blog using search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Live.
7. Social presence: How prominent and influential your blog is among social media users (like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, YouTube or Twitter users).
8. Conversion: How well your blog generates the results you want (like making money, making friends, or making a difference in the world).
9. Value: Whether your blog is actually worth the time/energy/money.
With these different areas of your blog in mind, you’re ready to tackle some serious questions about each one.

Section 4: 50 Questions to Help You Evaluate and Improve Your Blog
We’ve talked about 9 areas of your blog, and we have 5 questions for each area, so that’s 45 questions. At the end of this section we have 5 key questions to ask yourself about your blog to help you with your overall blog improvement plans. So in all, that’s 50 questions to help you take your blog from here to there!
Each of these questions will help you figure out where you are, where you want to go and how to get there - which, if you remember, are steps 1-3 of the blog improvement method described above.
You may wish to have your blog visitors or friends answer these questions as well, just to give you a better idea of what to do.
4.1: Content
1. How targeted is your content?
2. How unique is your content?
3. How remarkable is your content?
4. How appropriate is your choice of media (text, audio, images, videos, etc.)?
5. How regularly do you publish new content?
4.2: Design
1. How useful is your design?
2. How pleasant is your design?
3. How unique is your design?
4. How simple is your design?
5. How remarkable is your design?
4.3: Community
1. How vibrant is your community?
2. How influential is your community?
3. How easy is it to get to know you through your blog?
4. How easy is it for people to get to know each other through your blog?
5. How effectively does your community promote your blog?
4.4: Traffic
1. How many people visit your blog each month?
2. How much time do people spend at your blog each month?
3. How much attention does your blog receive compared to other websites in your niche?
4. How quickly is your traffic increasing over time?
5. How quickly is your traffic increasing compared to other websites in your niche?
4.5: Subscriptions
1. How many people subscribe to your blog via RSS or email?
2. How many people subscribe to any newsletters or autoresponders associated with your blog?
3. How many subscribers does your blog have compared to other websites in your niche?
4. How quickly is your subscriber count increasing over time?
5. How quickly is your subscriber count increasing compared to other websites in your niche?
4.6: Search Presence
1. How much traffic does your regularly receive from search engines?
2. How many high-quality backlinks to your blog are currently indexed by search engines?
3. How compelling are the search listings for your blog and its articles?
4. How quickly is your search presence increasing over time?
5. How quickly is your search presence increasing compared to other websites in your niche?
4.7: Social Presence
1. How much traffic does your regularly receive from social media websites?
2. How compelling is your blog’s presence on social media websites?
3. How likely are social media users to become regular subscribers to your content?
4. How quickly is your social presence increasing over time?
5. How quickly is your social presence increasing compared to other websites in your niche?
4.8: Conversion
1. How much what people see on your blog is intended to get people to do things? (e.g. advertising that you want people to click on, material that you want them read and act upon, etc.)
2. How compelling is the converting material on your blog?
3. How unique is the converting material on your blog?
4. How successful is the converting material on your blog at achieving its goals?
5. How does your blog compare to others in its niche in these respects?
4.9: Value
1. How satisfying is your blog to its target audience?
2. How addictive is your blog to its target audience?
3. How indispensable is your blog to its target audience?
4. How valuable is your blog to its target audience?
5. How does your blog compare to others in its niche in these respects?
4.10: Overall
1. Why do you really want to improve your blog?
2. How much energy/time/money are you prepared to spend to improve your blog?
3. Who will do the actual work - you, a friend for free, a paid contractor, etc.?
4. What are the potential risks and rewards of your efforts?
5. What do you hope will happen as a result of your blog improvement efforts?
Refer to some or all of the 50 questions above every time you do blog improvement work. Eventually, they will become a natural part of your thought process.

How to Start a Blog in 6 Easy Steps

Welcome to our free guide on how to start a blog.
If you have never blogged before or if you just want to refresh yourself on how to get a blog started, this guide is for you! We hope it helps you get involved in the awesome community here at BlogCatalog!
There are many ways to start a blog. This brief guide offers one simple pattern for starting a blog.
Step 1: Pick a Purpose
Here are some reasons that you may want to start a blog:
-to share your ideas and opinions
-to make money
-to teach, entertain or inform people
-to make friends
-to make a difference in the world
For each blog you create it is good to have a strong sense of that blog’s purpose and what you hope to accomplish with it. If your sense of purpose is strong then everything else tends to fall into place naturally.
Step 2: Pick a Topic
Once you have decided on a purpose for your blog, choose a theme that will help you fulfill that purpose. For example:
-If your purpose is to relieve stress then pick a topic that you find really stress free.
-If your purpose is to make money then pick a topic that will lead to people buying things from you or responding to marketing/advertising on your blog.
-If your purpose is to make friends then pick a topic that is inviting and you enjoy conversing about with friends.
In general it is good for a blog to have one central topic. That way you can focus on satisfying one particular audience.
Step 3: Pick an Audience
With a purpose and topic in mind for your blog, you should be able to decide who your blog is for. Try to imagine the perfect visitor to your blog. What is she like? What does she want that your blog can give her? What problems does she have that you can solve through your blog?
For example, if your blog’s purpose is to help you sell ear plugs and your topic is going to be how awesome your custom made ear plugs are, then perhaps your ideal audience is a person who works at a busy airport or in a loud machine shop or at a shooting range. Maybe that person suffers from hearing loss or headaches because of their loud environment and they want to know where they can find good ear plugs that fit their ears just right and keep all the noise out.
Now all you have to do is satisfy your audience over and over.
Step 4: Make Content
The way to please your blog’s audience is to create content that solves their problems. Try to create a few articles made up of some combination of text, images, sounds and/or videos that solve different problems that your audience may have.
For example if your blog topic is the latest news about Barack Obama’s dog, you could:
-share a YouTube video of the dog playing fetch
show some photos of the dog and President Obama
-share an audio recording of the dog barking at Hillary Clinton
Write some tips on how to care for a dog of the same breed
The blog post ideas above would solve the problem of not knowing much about the president’s dog. And your audience will keep coming back as long as you keep giving them what they want.
Step 5: Pick a Place for Your Content
Now that you have written or made some blog posts for your new blog, it’s time to put them somewhere on the Web.
First you need to come up with a name for your blog. For instance, the Obama Dog Blog.
Next you need to decide on the URL for your blog. Here you have two basic options:
host your blog at your own domain, like obamadog.com
use a blog host like Blogger (obamadog.blogspot.com) or WordPress (obamadog.wordpress.com)
If you host your blog yourself, you will probably have to pay a small amount of money each month for hosting, but you will have total control over what your blog looks like and your blog URL will be easier to remember and look more professional/important.
If you use a blog host, you usually don’t have to pay any money, but you don’t have total control over your blog design and your blog URL will be harder for people to remember.
Consider your blog’s purpose, topic and audience. If your purpose in blogging is to make money or to establish your blog as a expert source of information then it may be better to self host your blog on your own domain. But if all you want to do is share your life’s journey with friends and family then you may want to just host your blog at a free website.
Step 6: Tell People About Your Content
Now that you have created some content for a specific audience and placed it on the Web, all you need to do is find some people who you think match your audience’s description and invite them to visit your blog.
After you have invited your target audience to your blog, just keep telling everyone you can. You never know who will fall in love with your blog.
If you go to blogcatalog.com/discuss you can tell BlogCatalog users about your blog or ask for help. People at BlogCatalog are friendly and love helping other bloggers!
After you have started your blog, there are many things you can do to improve it and get even more out of it. See our other guides to blogging for more information about that.
Thanks for reading this simple guide to starting a blog. We welcome you to BlogCatalog and wish you the very best in your blogging!
Want to help us make this guide even better? Let us know!

Written for BlogCatalog by Easton Ellsworth
http://www.visionaryblogging.com/
twitter: @easton

不倒翁

1.把宝宝抱坐在腹部，双手抱住宝宝。

2.大人做仰卧起坐，宝宝随着大人如不倒翁般前后摆动。

玩此游戏时，你可随口念唱不倒翁的儿歌
“说你呆，你不呆，胡子一把，样子像小孩。说你呆，你不呆，推你倒下，你又站起来”

当宝宝随着你前后摆动时，动作不要太大，以免吓着宝宝或弄上宝宝的腰部。

When Two Become One

Monday, June 22, 2009

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不倒翁

Mummy

Baby Yong 28 Mar 2008

Baby Khang 15 May 2010

Grandparents & their Grandsons

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