What makes a blog great?

Blogging has become a worldwide phenomenon.  It is estimated that the blog search engine Technorati tracks more than 100 million blogs.  From “cat antics” to “how to make money”, blogs can cover almost every topic imaginable and vary widely in style, content and ideas.  But what makes a blog truly great? There are many determining factors, but 3 main characteristics are: a definite niche, good content and profitability. First, all great blogs have one thing in common:  they define a niche through its readers.  Unless you can identify your audience and pinpoint what matters to...

Making The Most Of Website Traffic

If you are wondering how to effectively generate website traffic, there are several options to consider. While some are cost driven, some are not. One of the better methods that can be used to divert traffic into your website is to have top-notch articles with quality contents. People searching for articles of their interest do get easily attracted by such articles. It is as simple as ants getting attracted to sugar, when they are on the prowl for food to eat! Therefore, article marketing is an effective method of attracting website traffic. Article marketing is considered to be one of the...

How are spammers getting my email address?

If I were to list one of my top five pet peeves in this universe, spammers would be close to the top of the list.  Not only are they aggressive, dishonest, and annoying, but they stay in business because enough people are dumb enough to click on one of their viagra ads.  One of the questions I get asked often is:  How are spammers getting my email address?  Obviously, if you are signing up for various newsletters, subscriptions, discussion groups and bulletin boards, more than likely, your email address will eventually end up on someone’s spam list.  But there are other ways spammers...

Brand your website with a Favicon

Have you ever visited a website and noticed a small custom image next to the URL?  Favicons have become a popular way to provide visual cues so that visitors can identify your website.  Not only does it make your site look even more professional, but its a great additional way to brand your website and your business. A favicon is simply an image that the website designer tells the browser to display and can also be made available to users when bookmarking your site.  To create a favicon, a great online tool is: http://www.html-kit.com/favicon/ Upload the icon to the root directory of...

Who is visiting your website?

Do you know if anyone is visiting your website? If they are, do you know where your visitors are coming from, who referred them, or what browser they were using? Do you know what the top pages of your site are? Understanding website traffic and behavior is crucial to any goal-oriented business so that you know how to best meet the needs of your visitors and potential customers. There are many different traffic analyzers out there-some free and some not, but one of my favorites is StatCounter. Not only is it free, but its invisible, highly configurable and gives real-time detailed web stats....