本文转载自：wordpress啦

贪得无厌的欲望与写博客终究不能同在一艘船上。

立如果你纯粹是为了赚钱而开设博客的话，你的注意力就无法完全集中在博客的话题上，也很难写出博客的内容，因为这不是你真正想写的东西而只是你认为会获得更高回报而已。写博客的时候有两种态度：1.认为所有的其他博客都是你的竞争对手。2. 别人的博客里都有一个机会。

虽然他人的博客，特别是那些话题与你类似的博客会成为你的竞争对手，却也是让你成功的一个筹码，请听我的解释。

潜藏博客圈中的机会

你想想看，要是全球就你一个人开设博客，可是却没有人踏进你这个非凡的世界，那么相信你的博客将会很快消亡，因为根本就没有博客、博客撰写、博客写 手这些需求。正是有了博客圈这个概念，人们互相欣赏对方的博客，这才意味着你可以在自己的领域创造领先地位，才有了博客发展的空间。但是要是有成百上千的 人跟你写相同的话题呢？那么，请你好好利用这种优势。以我多年来在博客圈中的经验，博客圈里大多数人都是相当不错的(虽然也有一两个例外的) ，他们不介意与你分享知识、友情以及他们对写博客的那份热爱。这些竞争中仍有你的机会，因为如果你是一个善良的人并且不是贪婪到想把所有的流量都吸引到自 己的博客上，那么都会有你发展的空间。如何给自己的“好运”加分呢？如何吸引更多的人参与到你的博客中呢？下面我就与大家分享:

• 在其他博客上发表有用评论:这样做我不仅仅是更多的人点击我的链接获得了更多流量，我同时还收到了文章作者的邮件，问我是否可以把我的评论扩写为一篇文章作为guest post。当然也不是每条评论都会碰上这样的事情，但是总有这样的机会，有很多人希望你能与大家分享你的知识。
• 在你的文章中链接其它博客: 在文章中链接其它博客看起来会让你的读者丢失了，读者可能转到竞争对手的博客去了。但其实这个想法是错误的， 通过给读者提供一些相关的链接，他们会觉得你不但学识丰富并且也愿意给读者提供最具有参考价值的链接而感激你。
• 友情链接: 我个人的博客里没有友情链接，不过有个版块是每天都会阅读的我最喜欢的博客，不过最近在博客圈真的结交了不少朋友，我决定创建一个完整的友情链接，我不要求友情链接给我任何回报，因为我相信“己做不失，未做不得”。
• 吸引读者为你写Guest-post: Guest post会给你带来新的流量，如果你允许其他bloggers为你写guest post你吸引了bloggers甚至还可能从他们的博客上获得链接和一个更好的卡马点数。如果别人在你的博客上发 guest post他会立马觉得和你是一种伙伴关系，并且这种关系会持续长久。通过允许和吸引别人来发布guest post，你给自己一个结交新朋友的机会，或许哪一天就跟这些朋友参加活动，圈子也比现在更广了。
• 获得专业人士的意见: 如果对某方面的东西不太确定，那么请向更专业的人士请教。人们都很喜欢被别人请教并受称赞，最好的办法是问他，在某种情况下，他们会怎么做。例如，我的博 客是关于约会的建议，如果我被读者的约会问题难倒了，我就会询问专业人士的意见并且加上自己的一些想法，以使建议尽可能完美，然后提供给我的读者。这样才 显示出我关心读者的问题，尽自己最大的努力来帮助他们。
• 采访并帮组推广别人:采访别人给读者注入新鲜的内容，并且也给被采访的人一个展示产品或网站的机会。对你来说 又有什么好处呢? 它给你成长的机会。就拿我来说，在采访完我这个领域的一名专家后，我不但可以给读者带来新的内容，我还从别人那获得了广告。采访可以帮助你建立信誉，权 威，并拓展你的朋友圈。
• 填充广告空间：碰上没有广告商的时候，别让你的广告空间空着，联系一些可能感兴趣的人，让他们免费用几个月。这不仅是一个善意的行为，给你的广告服务更多展示的机会，还指不定将来哪一天那位获得免费广告的用户愿意在你的博客上付费广告了。

以上是一些帮助其它blogger并且能给你带来“好运”的一些途径。你的这些行为，通常会以这样或那样的方式给你以回报和好运。只要找到与大家分享的方式，让大家感受你的爱，摒除一些贪欲，相信好运会跟随着你的。

附原文：Don’t Be a Greedy Blogger

’ve only recently realized the benefits of good Karma. Greed and blogging doesn’t go well together at all. Right off the bat I wanted to say that if you’re thinking of starting a blog strictly for money and your heart isn’t in the blog topic, you will not only fail but you will lose all that time you’ll spend creating the blog and writing content that will be extremely difficult to produce just because it’s not something you believe in but just something you think has a high monetary rate of return. There are two ways to looking at blogging: 1. Every other blogger is your competition, or 2. Every other blog out there is an opportunity.Though other blogs, particularly that write about a topic similar to yours, are your competition, they are also your ticket to success. Now allow me to explain.

Opportunity in the Blogosphere

Think about this, if you were the only person on earth with a blog and no one would have caught on to this wonderful innovation then your blog would quickly die because there wouldn’t be enough demand for blogs, blogging, or bloggers. Since there is a blogosphere and people are enjoying each others’ blogs, that means that there is room for you to grow and create a leading blog in your niche. But what if there are already tens or hundreds of blogs writing about the same topic as you are? Well, use that in your advantage. I’ve noticed over the years that mostbloggers are quite good people (nevertheless I have run into one or two a**holes) and they don’t mind to share their knowledge, their friendship, and most importantly their love for blogging. There is opportunity in your competition because if you are a good-hearted individual and aren’t greedy about attracting all the traffic to yourself, there is room for you to grow. Now what are the ways to attract Brownie Points with Karma? There is a list of ways that you may think do not help your blog, but in fact they eventually attract much more people to come to your blog overtime than you would have if you did not take part in them. Here’s the list:

• Provide useful comments on other blogs: By doing this I did not only get lots of traffic from people clicking on my link, but I also received emails from the authors of the posts asking me if I could broaden my comment into a full post and submit it to them as a guest article. This doesn’t happen for every comment, but there’s that chance people will really want you to share your knowledge as a guest post without you even asking for it.
• Link to other blogs in your posts:Linking to other blogs may seem like a sure way to lose readers because they will simply jump ship and start reading your competitor’s posts. But that’s a mistake many bloggers have in mind. By providing readers with relevant links, they see that you know what you’re talking about and you want to help your readers with the most informative links.
• Blogroll: I personally do not have a blogroll on my blog, but what I do have is a post with my favourite blogs that I follow daily. Since only recently I have been getting out there and making lots of friends in the blogging community, I have decided to create a full-blown blogroll linking to the blogs of my friends, which is in the works. I do not ask anything in return from the blogs I link to, because I leave it all to Karma, and more often than not the people I link to end up linking back to me.
• Attract guest posts: Guest posting attracts you links and new traffic, but when you allow other bloggers to guest post, you attract bloggers, sometimes a link from their blog, and again a wave of good Karma. When someone guest posts on your blog they right away feel a certain companionship with you and that can last for a very long time. From simply allowing and attracting guest posts, you open yourself to an opportunity of new friends and new openings for yourself to maybe one day create a certain campaign with that friend that will attract a much wider audience than your current one. If you think you have ideas for a guest post relevant to my blog topic, feel free to contact me.
• Get expert opinions: If you’re not too sure about something, go ahead and ask an expert. People love to be praised and a great way to do that is to ask an expert what they would do in a certain situation. For example, my blog is based on giving dating advice, so if I was to be stumped on a reader’s dating question, I would ask a fellow expert on their opinion and I would throw in some of my ideas to complete the most perfect advice I could possibly provide for my reader. This way I am showing my reader that I care about their issue and want to provide them with the most help I can, and it also allows me to get in touch with interesting people who may eventually want to conduct some sort of business later on, seeing that I cared enough to reach out to them for their expert advice.
• Interview and help promote others:Interviewing others gives your readers fresh new content. It also gives the person being interviewed exposure of their product or website. And what about you, the blogger? Well, it gives you the opportunity to grow. After interviewing an expert in my field, I did not only get to give my readers new content, but I also received an advertising offer from the person. It builds your credentials, authority, and broadens your circle of friends.
• Fill your ad-space. Once in a while when you don’t have advertisers waiting to fill up the empty space-ad you have on your blog, contact someone that may be interested and give it out for free for a month or so. This is an act of goodness, plus it gives more exposure to your advertising services, and maybe some day that person you gave away an ad-space for free to will help you out some way or even pay for some ad-space in the future.

These are just some of the ways you can use to help other bloggers and get good Karma. It all usually comes back to help you out somehow or someway. As long as you find ways to share the love and don’t feel the need to be greedy, good things will always come your way.

Do you have any ideas for ways to share the love and still reap the benefits? Leave your thoughts in the comment section. Cheers!

本文转载自wordpress啦

商业博客的价值不可低估，成功地运行一个商业博客可以给你的商业带来更多的关注度，吸引新的顾客，还可 以把你当前的顾客转化成真正信赖你的产品和服务的忠实粉丝，就如Apple、Netflix、Ben 、Jerry公司的忠实客户一般，他们不仅会购买你的产品或服务，重要的是还会向他们的同伴宣传。当然，跟其他任何事情一样，有人运行商业博客路子找正确 了，却也有人找错了路子。

给小企业创建一个博客并非易事，它不仅需要努力工作还要能够对你的工作创造性的思维。如果你能避免走入下面列出的五个最大误区，那么你的企业博客成功的几率就会大多了。

误区一:把博客当成出版中心

商业博客最常犯的一个错误就是把他们的博客作为一个出版中心来对待。我重复一遍:你的博客不是让你发布新闻的地方。Blogging是一个交互式的 交流中心，它能够给你的顾客提供一种全新的方式来与你的业务建立关联。出版中心，却与此相反。如果你把博客当成与别人无关的完全自我宣传的地方，大多数的 读者是不会信赖它的。你的顾客也没有理由再继续阅读你的博客，也不会相信你的内容。
如何避免: 首先，不要在你的博客上发布任何新闻稿。你可以用你的博客来发布产品或其他任何商业公告，但一定要注意使用一种更为随和的语气。第二，用你的博客写写其它 东西不要仅停留于你的核心业务。 与读者分享下你对行业的看法，分享下你日常工作生活的心得体会，公司的运营，并提供你从实际商业中学习到的技巧和窍门。

误区二:博客的撰写不定期，没规律

想想比较好的博客，有几个是偶尔想写才写的？大多数成功的博客，一周至少会几次更新，并且也都一直坚持这样有规律的撰写。始终坚持发布一些高质量的内容才会使读者坚守你的博客，有助于你建立一个良好的博客社区将顾客转化为忠实的粉丝。

如何避免:经常性写博客并不容易。为了避免脑中思想枯竭，提前做下“头脑风暴运动”。如果你计划每周二和周五发 布文章，不要等到周二早上了才来想这篇文章。让你公司的其他人参与进来，这样不会把博客撰写的担子都压在你一个人身上，你还可以从顾客那边获取内容来源。 记住，很多东西都可以是创作好文章的素材来源，留心你在其他博客、新闻报纸、杂志或者电视看到的内容。

误区三: 无法达到交流

就如我之前说过的，博客是一个交互式的平台，如果无法让博客成为大家交流的工具，这就犯了一个大忌。虽然评论也可以让你接受大家的批评，不过博客本 来是一个与顾客保持联系的一个不可错过的机会。如果你能够让或者鼓励你的客户对你所写的东西做出回应，那么你的博客撰写算是成功了。

如何避免: 当然，首先你需要让你的博客评论对大家开放。但是除此之外，你还要记得，对话交流是双向的。 你还需要及时读者的评论做出回复，这样你才更可能创建一个社区，使你的客户转化为拥护你的粉丝，进而能为你宣传产品和服务，并对你做出真正有意义的反馈。 你也应该多参与同行业其它博客的交流，发表评论之类的。这样有助于你树立一个好的名声，给你的博客带来更多新的读者。

误区四:读者不易于发现新发布的内容

如果读者无法轻松地找到你的新内容，那么你的博客对读者也没有太大的价值。你需要确保你的博客易于读者查找，一旦你发布了新的内容，你的定期读者能找到。

如何避免: 有几种方法可以确保你的博客内容易于读者发现：

• 通过你公司的网站链接，或者是电子邮件的签名、名片、宣传单或营销资料上写上你的博客地址。
• 使用完整的RSS feed (因为大多数的企业博客的目的是为了让更多的人阅读到文章而不单单为了提高页面浏览量。) 便于读者查找和订阅内容。
• 充分利用社交网站如;Twitter和Facebookas来通知你的博客读者，博客有更新。通过社交媒体和电子邮件等渠道，让你的读者之间共享内容也更容易。
• 通过在文章标题和URL上内置相关的关键字来优化搜索引擎。写你的顾客最可能搜索的内容，但要避免故意地堆积关键字。

误区五:期望太高，过于急切

写博客不是百米冲刺，它是一场马拉松。博客不可能一夜之间就能获得成功。最初的几个月可能会觉得没有多少读者。想要与读者建立一个良好的关系，进而建立一个固定的博客社区，需要一定的时间。不要期望你的博客瞬间就能获得回报，要做好付出更多努力的准备。

如何避免: 设定一个比较切实可行的目标，并且做好长久努力的准备。不要三个月之后就放弃努力— 至少要保证一年内有规划地发布高质量的原创内容。并确保你的博客易于读者发现，读者也很容易参与评论和与别人分享你的文章。

附原文：

Top 5 Business Blogging Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Business blogging can be exceptionally rewarding. When done correctly, a successful blog can bring attention to your business, can attract new customers, and can turn your current customer base into the type of fans that companies like Apple, Netflix, and Ben and Jerry’s have: people who will not only buy your product or service, but evangelize it to their peers. Of course, like anything, there is a right way to go about starting a business blog and a wrong way.

Creating a blog for your small business isn’t easy; it requires hard work and the ability to think creatively about your work. But if you avoid the five big mistakes laid out in this post, your chances of building a successful business blog will be much better.

Mistake #1: Treating Your Blog Like a Press Center

How to Avoid: First, don’t ever put out a press release on your blog. You can use your blog to make product or other business announcements, but do so with original writing and in a more casual voice. Second, do use your blog to write about things other than your core business. Share your thoughts on your industry, share insights into the day-to-day work life and processes at your company, and provide tips and tricks you have learned during your time in business.

Mistake #2: Not Blogging Regularly

How to Avoid: Blogging regularly isn’t easy, so to avoid burning out, brainstorm editorial ideas ahead of time. If you plan to put out new posts every Tuesday and Friday, for example, try not to start writing Tuesday’s post on Tuesday morning. Get other people at your company involved so that one person isn’t shouldering the entire blogging load, and even consider sourcing content from your customers. Remember that anything can provide fodder for a good blog post, so pay attention to the things you read or see on other blogs, newspapers, magazines, or television.

Mistake #3: Not Enabling Conversation

How to Avoid: Obviously the first thing you need to do is enable commenting on your business blog. But beyond that, you need to remember that the conversation is two-way. Get in there and respond to the comments readers leave on your blog and you’ll be more likely to develop a community around your writing that can help turn your customers into fans who will evangelize your products and services and provide you with quality feedback. You should also participate in the conversation on other blogs in your industry by leaving comments on posts elsewhere around the blogosphere. That will help you to establish your “blogging brand” and bring new readers your way.

Mistake #4: Making New Content Hard to Discover

How to Avoid: There are a few ways to make sure your blog content is more easily discovered.

- Make your blog easy to find by linking to it prominently from your company’s web site and including your blog’s URL in your email signature, on your business cards, and in sales and marketing collateral.

- Use a full RSS feed (because the goal with most business blogs should be to get read, not boost page views) and make it easy for your readers to find and subscribe to.

- Embrace social media technologies like TwitterTwitter and FacebookFacebook as a way to notify your fans and followers of new blog content, and make it easy for your readers to share content with each other through social media channels and via email.

- Optimize for search engines by putting relevant keywords in post titles and URL slugs and write about the things that your customers are most likely to be searching for — but avoid sounding artificial simply so you can stuff some more keywords into a post.

Mistake #5: Expecting Too Much, Too Soon

How to Avoid: Set attainable goals and realize that you’re in it for the long haul. Don’t cancel your blogging efforts after three months — give it at least a year of regularly putting out quality, original content. And make sure that your blog is easy to find, and that your readers are able to easily comment and share posts with others. ]]> http://xwxy.zzspy.com/2009/09/27/%e5%95%86%e4%b8%9a%e5%8d%9a%e5%ae%a2%e7%9a%84%e4%ba%94%e4%b8%aa%e8%af%af%e5%8c%ba%e5%8f%8a%e5%a6%82%e4%bd%95%e9%81%bf%e5%85%8d/feed/ 0 http://xwxy.zzspy.com/2009/09/27/%e5%a6%82%e4%bd%95%e8%ae%a9google%e5%9c%a824%e5%b0%8f%e6%97%b6%e5%86%85%e6%94%b6%e5%bd%95%e4%bd%a0%e7%9a%84%e6%96%b0%e5%8d%9a%e5%ae%a2/ http://xwxy.zzspy.com/2009/09/27/%e5%a6%82%e4%bd%95%e8%ae%a9google%e5%9c%a824%e5%b0%8f%e6%97%b6%e5%86%85%e6%94%b6%e5%bd%95%e4%bd%a0%e7%9a%84%e6%96%b0%e5%8d%9a%e5%ae%a2/#comments Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:56:10 +0000 jacobxx http://xwxy.zzspy.com/?p=465

我们都知道写好博客写出好的内容才是王道。如果你是真正的热爱写博客，用心写出好的文章，流量、钱也是随之而来。虽然话是这么说，不过想要通过博客赚钱，你还得在下面几个方面下些功夫：

• 尽快让各大搜索引擎收录你的博客。
• 增加博客流量。
• 提高你的搜索引擎结果排名。

别等了，内容可以说是霸王，但是文章写好了就等着流量自动提升却不太现实，写博客之外，你还有一些活得干。开始吧！

被收录

假如你今天创建了一个博客，希望明天在谷歌的搜索结果上就能显示，可能吗？答案是肯定的。

被各主要搜索引擎收录的最简单办法就是被别人既存的博客提及你的网站。这样，通常二十四小时之内你的博客也会被搜索引擎收录。但是由于自己的博客是 刚创建的，因此很少有哪些blogger愿意提及。那么你得乞求别人来关注你新创建的博客，还不如找找看有没有其他方法能让你的博客快速被谷歌收录。有什 么办法吗？当然有！(你只要做出一点努力就可以了)。

1.博客社区

有很多博客相关的社区网站在谷歌和其他主要搜索引擎上都有一个很好的排名，如果你的博客在这些博客社区网站上出现，谷歌就不得不收录你的博客。赶快注册下这些社区的账户并在上面列出你的博客。

注意事项: 博客说明要恰到好处,使用合适的关键字和标签以便其它会员能找到你的博客；品牌宣传(保持各个地方使用的图标、头像等一致) ；最后在正确的分类目录上列出你的博客。

2. 网站估值和网站数据统计

“你的网站值多少钱”很多类似这样的网站在搜索引擎上都有一个很好的排名。你需要做的就是登录这些网站，然后提交你的网站查询下你的网站值多少钱。这样就会为你的博客创建一个特殊的页面 同样地它也会被谷歌收录。下面推荐几个比较好的估价网站: WebsiteOutlook, StatBrain, CubeStat, WebTrafficAgents, BuiltWith, WhoIs, QuarkBase, URLfan以及AboutTheDomain。

3. Feed 大聚合

在一些feed聚合器如：Feed-Squirrel, OctoFinder, FeedAdage上提交你的博客feed.一旦你向这些站点提交了feed，他们就会跟踪你的博客动态，有什么新内容发布也会在他们的网站上收录你的内容。当有人点击你的文章标题时，会自动转到你的原文，提高了你的流量并且你最新发布的文章也会被谷歌收录。

4.社交网站

在社交网站上注册一个与你的博客URL地址相同的账户。这可以有效地让你的博客呗搜索引擎收录。特别是主要的关键字相关。

例如：如果你的博客名叫做WhiteElephant,那么在Twitter上也注册一个相同的用户名@WhiteElephant,就是一个不错的选择，在Facebook上创建www.facebook.com/WhiteElephant这样的页面。在主要的社交网站上拥有一个一致的用户名有利于加快你的博客被收录的速度，说更大点的话，还可以有助于你创建一个“品牌” 。

好了，赶快在主要社交网站给你的博客创建一个账户吧！Twitter、Facebook Digg、StumbleUpon、 Delicious 等等。顺便说一下，也可以给你不同的项目创建不同的账户。这样你才可以更专注与你项目相关的信息。长久点有助于你建立一个与项目相关的社区关系。

注意事项: 很多社交网站(如Twitter)没有使用后续的标签，不利于搜索引擎优化。尽管如此，给你的关键词、品牌创建几个页面，因为这些页面可以帮助你控制关键词的搜索结果。

5.其它网站

Squidoo用户可以就各种话题自定义创建页面叫做“lenses”。创建一个与你博客相关的话题，然后把你的feed包含到该页面有利于你的博客被搜索引擎收录。Squidoo 过去在谷歌搜索的结果排名相当不错，不过最近没这么好但是它仍然不容忽视。

ChangeDetection 是一个监视网站变化的网站。当你通过它来监视一个特定的网站时，它会问你是否通过公开发布更新通知还是私下通知更新。如果你选择公开的话，就会在新闻栏显 示。例如：AdesBlog.com 今日有更新，更新类型: 添加文本等等。这同样会被搜索引擎收录同时搜索引擎还会收录你的博客。

Technorati是一个用于搜索博客的搜索引擎。根据维基百科，截止2008年6月， Technorati收录了1.128亿的博客和超过 2.5亿的社交媒体区。你切记得去注册一个账户并在上面提交下你的博客。

就这些了。一旦你按上面的步骤来做，在上面提到的网站上注册个账户然后提交你的博客，二十四小时之内就会看到你的博客被谷歌收录。大多数情况下，只要几个小时之后就会有结果。

最后再强调下，获得收录是一回事，但是要保持流量是另一回事。这就是为什么又要重新强调内容才是王道的道理所在。因为，没有了好的内容，所有的努力都将白费。

附原文：

5 Ways to Get Your Blog Indexed by Google in 24 Hours

We all know that content is king and that if you keep blogging… if you keep doing what you love… the traffic and the money will follow suit. While that’s partially true, there is also things that you can do to:

• Index your newly launched blog fast by major Search Engines
• Increase traffic to your blog
• Improve your SERPs (Search Engine Result Positions)

Why wait right? Content can be king but waiting around for traffic to come by itself is not a good way to start blogging. So let’s start…

Getting Indexed

Let’s say you launched a blog today and want it on Google’s results tomorrow. Can this be done? Yes.

Easiest way to get indexed by major Search Engines is to get mentioned by established blogs. This usually will get your blog indexed within 24 hours. But since we are new (i.e the newly launched blog of ours) I don’t think any blogger want to mention it. So instead of begging other bloggers to notice your newly launched blog, you just have to figure out other ways of getting indexed by Google fast. Can it be done? Absolutely! (All it takes a little effort on your side).

1. Blog Communities

There are few blog related community portals that have a very good rankings in Google and other Major Search Engines Results, they are: MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Blogged and NetworkedBlogs, particularly MyBlogLog. This means that if you get your blog on these blog communities, Google will have no other choice but to index your blog. So, go ahead and register for an account on these communities and list your blog on it. Once you are done you will have a page like this, this and this.

What to pay attention: Your blog’s description (have a proper write-up), keywords & tags (add related keywords and tags to your listing, this will be used by other members to find your blog), branding (put your logo, avatars, screenshots etc. have a consistent branding everywhere), and list your blog in the correct category.

2. Site Valuation & Stats Sites

Some of those How Much Your Site Worth? sites have a good ranking in Search Engines. All you need to do is to go there and check how much your site worth. This would create a special page for your blog (like this) and consecutively it would be indexed by Google. Here is a list of worthy sites: WebsiteOutlook, StatBrain, CubeStat, WebTrafficAgents, BuiltWith, WhoIs, QuarkBase, URLfan and AboutTheDomain.

3. Feed Aggregators

List your blog’s feed in these feed aggregators Feed-Squirrel, OctoFinder, FeedAdage. Once you have submitted your feed to these sites, they will keep track of your newly published posts and index them in their site. Whenever someone clicks on the blog post title, he/she will be redirected to your original blog post sending you free traffic and getting your latest posts indexed by Google.

4. Social Sites

Registering account on Social Sites with the same username as your blog’s URL is very effective in getting your blog indexed by Search Engines. Especially for those targeted keywords.

For example, if your blog’s name is WhiteElephant, it’s a good practice to register the same username at twitter as @WhiteElephant, and to create a page in Facebook at www.facebook.com/WhiteElephant. Having a consistent keyword-username on all major Social Sites will help get your blog indexed faster, and at a later stage it will also help build a “brand” for your blog.

So, get account on major Social Sites for your newly launched blog, namely: Twitter, Facebook (create a page for your blog), Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious etc. By the way, it’s a good pratice to create a separate Social Sites account for each of your projects. This way you can stay focused and post messages that are related to your project. In the long run, this will help build a community that are like-minded around your project.

Note from Darren: it’s worth nothing that many social media sites (like Twitter) use no follow tags on links which means the links don’t really help with SEO. Having said this – it’s still worth getting pages for your keywords/brand as these pages can rank in and of themselves in Google and can help you to have control over numerous search results for the same keyword.

5. Misc Sites

Squidoo is a community website that allows people to create pages (called “lenses”) on various topics. Creating a topic that is related to your blog and then including your feed in that page would help your blog get indexed by Search Engines. Squidoo used to have a really good ranking in Google results, but not so much today. But it’s still ranks well and it shouldn’t be neglected.

ChangeDetection is a website that monitors sites for changes. When you monitor a particular site using ChangeDetection, it will ask you whether you want the notices to be public or private. If you say public, it will be published in their news section. For example; AdesBlog.com got an update today, type of update: text additions etc. This of course will get picked up by Search Engines and Search Engines in return will index your blog.

Technorati is a search engine for searching blogs. According to Wikipedia, as of June 2008, Technorati was indexing 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. It’s a dying breed, but not just dead yet. You have to definitely register for an account and get your blog listed on Technorati.

That’s it. Once you are done with creating accounts and submitting your newly launched blog in the above mentioned sites, you should see your blog in Google’s Search Results within 24 hours. Most of the time it will appear within the next few hours only.

Lastly, getting indexed is one thing but sustaining that traffic is another. And this is where the Content is King phrase should truly be emphasized. Because, without a good and valuable content, all your effort will be just wasted.

I hope you have found this post useful.

本文转载自wordpress啦

如果你也像大多数公司一样对社会媒介有足够的敏感度，那么你们的公司一定也有自己的企业博客。这是跟顾客保持联系、发布新的产品公告、展示公司的形象的一种很好方式。

虽然说企业博客中写出有洞察力和信息性博客文章非常重要，博客的布局设计却也非常关键。使用恰当的插件有助于被谷歌搜索到，而杂乱的设计可能会赶走很多潜在的顾客。

就此，下面提出企业博客自定义的一些贴士与大家分享，让你的企业博客更加专业化、更加高效，更易于被发现。

1. 安装一些顶级博客插件

如果你使用诸如WordPress这样的博客程序，你可以添加一些插件来自定义你的博客布局和功能。虽然博客插件有数万种，企业博客应该侧重于搜索 引擎优化 (SEO)的插件，加快博客加载速度的插件，以及方便他人通过邮件、Twitter以及其他社交网站分享博文的插件。看看WordPress 插件列表看网络上热门的插件。

2. 充分利用社交网站

企业博客不要害怕使用Facebook和 Twitter等社交网站来宣传自己的网站。这是标准的做法，这有助于给你的博客带来新的访问者。利用这些社交网站，你的顾客就可以更方便地对你的工作发 表看法，给公司的Twitter和YouTube账户添加更多的链接，将有助于提高在搜索引擎的排名。

3. 专注于简单设计，不要花俏

博客的重心应该放在内容上，而不是旁边的 widgets或侧栏那些华而不实的设计。如果你希望你的读者能够转成你的顾客，那么最好选择简单的设计模板不要过于复杂的设计。

4. 在设计上却要花功夫

企业博客也是企业展示该公司形象和创造力的一个重要手段。纯粹使用他人的模板通常是懒惰者的行为，而且读者也很容易看出来。不要害怕尝试，请使用自定义化的模板。

5. 把博客建立在自己公司的域名下

很多公司的博客都是blog.companyurl.com。一个公司的博客如果托管在WordPress.com 或者Typepad.com下，通常会觉得不够专业，所以企业博客最好还是建立在自己公司的域名下。

6.不要隐藏“关于”信息

[图片]

假设你的读者从来就没有听说过你们公司，考虑到这个因素，你要确保他们能够迅速地了解你的公司。可以在博客的上方或侧方写一段介绍公司的文字，或者突出“关于”页面。

附原文：

6 Tips for Customizing Your Small Business Blog

f you’re like most socially-savvy companies, your business probably has a blog. It’s a great way to connect with your customers, announce new products, and provide a human face to your company’s image.While writing insightful and informative blog posts is the most important thing to do with a company blog, the design and implementation of your blog is key as well. The right plugins can help you get discovered on GoogleGoogle, while a cluttered design can turn off potential customers.

With that said, here are some of my top tips for customizing a small business blog so that it is professional, productive, and easy to discover.

1. Install some top blog plugins

WordPressWordPress

TwitterTwitter

2. Integrate social media links and buttons

FacebookFacebook

YouTubeYouTube

3. Focus on simple designs, not bells and whistles

4. Do show effort in the design, though

5. Have your blog on your own web domain

TypepadTypePad

6. Don’t hide your “about” information

本文转载自wordpress啦

时间永远都不够用，最理想的情况当然是你可以很频繁地更新你的博客文章，写出优秀的访客文章与其他博主 建立良好的关系，对每一个评论都认真回复等等，但是要做完这所有的一切并不是每个人都可以做到的。或许你曾考虑过制作一本电子书作为博客的补充，但是却苦 于没有时间精力来做这件事。

既然你已经明确了制作电子书的理由，你也从其他免费博客上下载过免费的电子书，应该可以知道电子书的优势所在:

• 免费电子书可以被用做“诱惑内容”以吸引用户的注册。
• 免费电子书会带来很大的流量: 它们可让更多的人可以念念碎碎，并还会带来链接。
• 在你的网站上提供电子书会改变读者对网站的看法:他们会把你当成是blogging世界中一个非常“重量级人物”。

不过，当然电子书的制作比单纯的发表文章要难得多。一本25页的电子书，其字数就可能有四千或者更多，然后你还要认真编辑仔细校对(一旦人么开始发 电子邮件订购的时候，你就不太可能再去修改哪些令人尴尬的排版错误或是一些无效的链接)，如果你想让你的电子书看起来更专业点，有必要安装PDF软件以及 电子书封面的软件，之后，随着你就可以开始电子书制作了…

撰写电子书并不是件很容易的事情，很多blogger都没有尝试过。这也是为什么这里提倡大家制作的原因：如果你能写出高质量的电子书，那么你就能比别人高出一筹了。

这里我跟大家分享下我只会十三个小时的时间完成电子书的撰写、发表并最终推出我的免费电子书，大家也可以做到的。我的时间是这样分配的:

• 列出提纲: 30 分钟
• 内容第一稿: 4小时
• 添加一些图片: 一个小时三十分钟(主要都是我男朋友在做！)
• 编辑和修改文章内容，插入所有链接: 3小时
• 附录资源: 1小时
• 设置封面: 小时三十分钟
• 转换为pdf: 几乎瞬间完成！
• 最后定稿审阅和检查链接: 15 分钟
• 推出电子书并推广: 1小时15分钟

我是分成四天来完成所有的任务: 我是一个自由职业者，因此我的时间安排是相当灵活的，虽然偶尔也会接一些付费的活儿来干。

下面是我制作电子书的十三步骤，与大家分享:

步骤一: 想法

你要对电子书有明确的概念。电子书不同于博客上随便发表的一篇文章，也不是单纯的博客，你的内容范围不能太泛泛而谈。从你的博客上挑选一个类别的文章，或者能组成一个系列的某个话题相关的文章。

我想制作电子书也有一段时间了，但是也经常因为自己的老借口“等我有更多时间的时候再说吧，”而推迟。后来，两篇相关的博文激起了我的灵感 ，我很自然就想到写电子书(辞去你的工作)。我下决心要推出这本电子书，很快在我完成这个系列的第一篇文章之后的一周，我的电子书就与大家见面了…

步骤二: 告诉你的读者

告诉你的读者在未来的一周或者两周，你将会发布一本电子书。这样以来，一方面这个时间期限会时时鞭策你，另一方面大家的关心也会激励你。

你可以通过在博客文章、Twitter或者时事新闻栏发表通告。要传达出一种兴奋的感觉:告诉读者将会有电子书“馈赠”或者“倾情奉献”。这是获得 大家支持的一个序幕。我个人觉得“赠送” 这个词的含义不够好，目前赠送的东西也太多了，总让人觉得有种“便宜”、“垃圾”之类的含义，不过或许每个人的感觉不一样。

步骤三: 列出提纲

如果你经常写比较长的文章，你可能已经养成了比较好的习惯，就是在动手写之前先列出提纲。特别是写电子书，这一点显得特别重要: 你也不希望写了好几个小时之后，发现自己跑题了。你也不希望，面对着电脑屏幕在那边苦思冥想，却不知道接下来该写什么。

打开一个空白文档，或者坐下来拿起一张纸和一支笔，写下电子书的大纲。每个人列提纲的方式或许会不同，我通常是这么做的:

• 花上五分钟在心里构思: 在纸张的中心写下你的电子书名或者主题，然后记下脑袋冒出的所有想法。
• 删除那些超过电子书范围的观点。对剩下的观点，按照一定的逻辑有序地排列。(我通常都是标出这个观点接下来的那一个。)
• 按顺序写出提纲列表。这些就将成文电子书的部分或者说是电子书的章节。
• 在每个部分下面列出至少两个要点或者一两句话: 这些将成为你要叙述的要点。有时候，在每个部分内，你还需要小标题。
• 如果看到一些图片或者资料（书，博客等），你有所启迪的话，也在这里记录下来。

这听起来有点复杂，不过如果你能够认真坐下来安静地写上一个小时，相信你会列出一个非常完整的提纲。 一旦你列出了书的章节之后，粗略地想想每个章节要多长比较合适。如果你的目标是四千字左右: 就差不多是25页的电子书了。

步骤四: 内容初稿

这一步骤应该是大多数blogger最为畏惧的，要写这么多的文字的确是件很恐怖的事情。如果你真得感到如此恐惧，不妨把电子书想象成一系列相关联的博客文章(每个小标题就像是新的一篇博文)。这里，提纲就起作用了，有了提纲，你才可以把电子书分块来写。

这里有四个秘诀应该也会对大家有帮助:

第一: 拒绝分心

写作的时候，一定要注意避免分心，这一点很重要。这意味着在未完成写作之前，不要接收邮件，不要上Twitter和Facebook。你不必要一次性完成写作，不过至少要求自己一次能花上两个小时，或者给自己设定目标完成一定章节的书写。

如果你的家人或者室友会打扰到你，试试花上几个小时的时间到一家安静的咖啡厅或者图书馆，一个人静静地完成。 如果你觉得很难集中注意力，你就全屏来撰写，关闭所有的网络连接。

第二: 不要边写边修改

这是初稿，先别过分注意文章的质量。不要不断地修改以求完美，只管写就行。 写完之后你可以回来重新修改: 你目前的任务很简单，就是单纯完成初稿。

第三: 不要停下来查找资料

不要停下来去查找你想插入的链接、引言或者数据。只要在正文部分注明就好了。我倾向于用中括号[像这样]注明。写了一段或者一个句子然后又停下来，会打断你的思路… 你很可能因为找引言而分心。

第四: 初稿的时候不要在意格式

电子书最终完成后会有漂亮的封面，章标题，节标题，粗体正文，斜体正文列表等等…

但是初稿就不用在意这些东西，只要其中的一些甚至都不用也可以。 太注意格式也会让你分心，而且正文还没有完全写完，这些格式也不一定最终用得上，你最后会发现变化还是非常大的。

写初稿的时候，尽量最少用这些格式。注意标题的小标题的格式 (可以使用word中的式样，不要每个标题单独弄)，其它都可以等文章最后完成了再来处理。

步骤五: 添加图片

初稿完成之后，给你的电子书添加必要的图片。使用什么类型的图片就要取决你的电子书的主题了，你可以参考下面的:

• 图表可以很直观地显示数据。
• 图示可以用来解释一些复杂的概念。
• 插图或者照片作为文字的补充。
• 小图形来突出提示、警告或引言。

在插入图片的时候要注意别犯破坏文本完整性这样的错误。如果很巧妙地处理好字体与设计元素的关系，你就没必要用图片来补充你的电子书。如果图片不能给读者带来很好的体验的话，没必要浪费这么多时间来找这些图片。

找图片的时候还要注意版权问题。如果你使用来自Flickr 上有注明版权的图片，请在先获得许可并在你的电子书上加上作者的链接。如果要节省开支，你可以考虑从istockphoto或者fotolia上购买图片。

在这个阶段，你需要把图片放置在一个合适的位置，因为你可能需要改变图片周围的注释文字或者是与其他图片联系起来。

步骤六: 修改和编辑文章内容

完成了你的初稿，也是最难的部分。现在可以开始修改编辑润化你的文章了。跟写初稿一样，你得找一个不受别人打扰的时间和地点:比较容易犯的错误就是忘记删除那些“[提醒]” 。 跟最初写文章一样，你进来修改了。它还可以一步步教你如何改写和编辑整个文件，而不是告诉你一页页如何做到最完美。

我修改文章的步骤是这样的:

• 修改结构
• 编辑添加的引言、例子和链接
• 修改使其通顺流畅以及语气问题

第一: 修改结构

初次修改主要是“大框架”:确保你的章节顺序正确并涵盖了所有你要叙述的要点。从第一页开始快速地通读整本书。注意:

• 换一换不同节的顺序是不是更好？
• 注意不同章节中重复的部分
• 太短的章节(是否需要再扩展下，更详尽一点？)
• 太长的章节(剔除多余的内容！)

第二: 编辑添加的引言、例子和链接

一旦，大结构定下来以后，你就可以决定在哪里输入引言和例子更合适。这将会跟电子书的格式相关，但也有要注意的地方:

• 如果一个章节中文字内容过多的话，可以使用一个例子、引言、提示框、个案研究等来调节调节。
• 创建一个模式：例如， 每章都以一个引言或个案研究作为开头或结尾。
• 在每章后面附上所有的链接，以方便参考。(虽然你在正文里已经做好链接了。)

很可能为了使加入的引言、例子或者个案研究取得更好的效果，你在一些句子或者段落中来来回回修改。

第三: 修改使其通顺流畅以及语气问题

修改所有听起来拗口或者模棱两可的句子。可以尝试大声阅读你的电子书：这样你就会知道哪些句子太长或者句式过于复杂。
同时，也可以检查你整本电子书中的语气是否一致。是否有一开始的时候像闲聊而后面却正儿八经的感觉呢？如果你不是一个天生的幽默家，请确保你所添加的笑话或者双关的话语是滑稽的。

步骤七: 给电子书添加格式

文本内容结束之后，你可以给所有的内容添加格式了。设置好你所有的标题和小标题，确保使用了word的“样式和格式”功能。不要手动一个个设置字体大小和格式。这样不仅效率不高，而且这样你还无法自动生成目录，这一点更为关键。

给你的文本和标题选择一个比较现代的并且容易阅读的字体。文本和标题的字体都应该尽量大一些，比你在工作或是学习中的字体大些。

除了章节标题的格式之外，你还在其他博客中见到过其他一些格式选项，包括:

• 使用粗体来强调关键要点斜体来强调一些字词。
• 把引言设置成区别于主体文本的形式(如，锯齿状的或在一个方框中)。
• 使用杂志风格的“pull box”来提示。
• 把一些段落分点列出，以引起读者的注意。

你还可以给每个页面添加一个页眉或页脚，至少可以添加下页码。如果考虑在每个页面添加电子书的标题作为页眉页脚，你还可以加上你的名字，版权或者是你的博客地址。

注意，如果你的电子书需要一个封面的话(我推荐使用)，你可以在首页显示不同的页眉、页脚。

步骤八:添加目录和附录表

想要让你的电子书脱颖而出，一个比较简单的办法是添加下目录和附录表。专业的电子书(和纸书)都有这些东西，为何不给你的电子书也添加呢？

目录

如果在设置标题的时候，你使用了word中的样式和格式功能，那么添加目录是毫不费力的事情。你只需在你的图书的开头插入一个新的页面，(Word 2007),插入中“引用”选项，然后点击“目录和索引”。

Word会自动生成标题、小标题以及页码。以后如果修改内容的话，只要点击目录可自动“更新”。下面是我的电子书的目录：

附录表

在我的电子书中，我想在书的后面添加一些内容供有兴趣的读者进一步阅读。放在书的正文部分又不太合适，所以我创建了附录表。
根据书的主题，你的附录表可以是:

• 关于一些东西的快速教程，可能有些读者知道，有些读者不知道 (你不想把这些教程放在书中，因为那些不懂的人可能直接跳过)。
• 推荐资源列表，如网站、博客、书、产品、服务等等
• “备忘录”以供读者打印，特别在技术领域比较流行
• 每一章后的注意和参考指南，通常是在更加科学性的书中出现。

创建附录表也很简单，只要重新建一个新的页面，写上标题“附录表” (或者，你想要多个附录表，就写“附录一”, “附录二” 等等。)

步骤九: 创建封面和图片

所有的艰难部分，写文章和格式已经搞定了: 剩下一个比较有意思的部分就是给你的电子书创建封面。

我建议你花点钱去建一个比较好的封面。从istockphoto或者fotolia 选择一些抢眼的图片。最好是不要使用太复杂的图片(因为，你将要在你的博客中使用电子书的封面缩略图来宣传你的电子书。)。

我不是设计师，我花了不少时间才使我的封面看起来不那么业余。你可以邀请一些比较有设计眼光的朋友帮你，下面仍有几点供你参考:

• 电子书的题目务必使用大并且清晰的字体
• 小标题使用稍微小一点的字体。
• 坚持只使用一两种颜色。
• 多看看一些设计和布局方案，选出你最喜欢的。

一旦你完成了封面的制作后，封面成为电子书的第一页，你可以截屏下来保存为.jpg格式。它会让你的图片看起来像书的模样，就如我的封面：

该软件的使用也非常简单和直观，这也向读者发送了很强大的信号：你是一个非常专业的写手。

步骤十: 把电子书转换为PDF格式

最初写电子书的时候，我使用了很多把文件转换为PDF格式的免费软件，有个问题，它们无法完整地保存链接除非我完完整整地写好链接。比如 www.aliventures.com 这样写的话这个链接是有效的，但是写成Aliventures 链接却无效了。也就是说他们不能保持原来的链接，读者无法进入点击的内容页面。

几个月前，我买了Adobe公司的crobat第八版，花费100美元。我觉得每次都要手动花时间去整这个链接的话，从长远来讲还更不划算。作为一 个写手，这是相当的的一笔开始，因此，我建议你跟我一样，在易趣上找下以前更老的版本(我写这篇文章时，最新的版本应该是第九版，因此你可以找找第七或第 八版)。这能满足你的需求，与最新的版本相比花费也可以省不少。

你也可以看看你公司或者学校有没有Adobe Acrobat。或者在Twitter 上看看有没有朋友愿意帮你转换格式。

我使用过最好的免费转换软件是pdf995，如果上述办法都行不通的话，你可以试试这个。

注意: 如果你安装了 Word 2007你可以使用“保存为PDF格式”的功能。我自己不使用这个 (因为我有Adobe Acrobat) 我不能担保使用word2007的效果如何，是否能够保持所有的链接完整。知道的朋友，可以回复留言。

步骤十一: 最后校对和检查链接

转换成PDF格式后，最后检查下错别字之类的。在这个阶段就尽量不要去做大的修改，要不然你会做不完的工作要做。只要检查比较明显的错误就可以了。
这是二次检查链接的机会，以防链接转向出错之类的。

步骤十二: 发表和宣传

与撰写和制作电子书整个过程相比，在你的博客上发布电子书显得比较容易。你可以选择博客程序中的“上传” (在WordPress中选择媒体->添加新的媒体)功能上传你的电子书，也可以用FTP程序来上传。

写一篇新的文章告诉你的读者你发表了电子书。使用之前创建的图书封面 (不管是通过eCover Software Pro程序弄的立体图片还是单纯的平面图)。

接着就是宣传了。在Twitter上念叨，发送邮件通知博客朋友，以确保你的电子书在他们的博客上也能成为人们谈论话题。你还可以考虑给当地的新闻出版社 投稿说明。

步骤十三:休息放松!

最好，给自己好好放松一番。电子书出来了，你博客也获得了很多新的访问者。给自己来一杯葡萄酒、啤酒、或者咖啡……接着开始想你的下一本电子书了。

附原文：

Thirteen Steps to Write and Publish a Free Ebook In Thirteen Hours

Have you ever considered producing an ebook for your blog readers? In this comprehensive post Ali Hale breaks down the process of how to do it.

There’s never enough time. In an ideal world, you’d be posting to your blog frequently, writing great guest posts, building relationships with other bloggers, and responding to every single comment … and all that’s more than you can manage. You might have considered writing an ebook as a companion to your blog, but you just can’t find the time or the energy for it.

You already know all the reasons to do it: you’ve downloaded your share of free ebooks from other blogs, and you’ve seen that:

• Free ebooks can be used as what Sonia Simone calls “cookie content”, to entice newsletter sign-ups
• Free ebooks can be a great traffic draw: they get twittered about and linked to
• Just having a free ebook available on your site will subtly shift readers’ perceptions: they’ll see you as one of the “big guys” of the blogging world

But, of course, an ebook is harder to create than a blog post. A 25-page ebook is 4,000 words or more; you have to edit and proof-read carefully (once people are emailing that ebook to one another, you can’t fix that embarrassing typo or broken link); you’ll need PDF and ebook cover software if you want it to look professional; you have to launch it with a bang…

Writing an ebook isn’t an easy undertaking, and it’s something a lot of bloggers never do. That’s why, if you do write a high-quality free ebook, you’re going to stand out.

Here’s how I wrote, published and launched my free ebook in just thirteen hours and how you could do the same. My time broke down like this:

• Writing an outline: 30 minutes
• First draft of content: 4 hours
• Adding some graphics: 1 hour 30 mins (mostly my boyfriend’s work!)
• Redrafting and editing, inserting all links: 3 hours
• Appendix of resources: 1 hour
• Creating a cover: 1 hour 30 mins
• Converting to pdf: almost instant!
• Final proof-read and link-checking: 15 minutes
• Launching and spreading the word: 1 hour 15 minutes

I spread the tasks above across four days: I’m a freelancer so my schedule’s quite flexible, but I do have to do a bit of paying work once in a while!

And here’s your 13-step guide to doing the same:

Step 1: Get an Idea

You need a clear concept for your ebook. An ebook isn’t a blog post – but it’s not a blog either: don’t make it a general overview of your niche (especially if it’s quite broad). Pick one category from your blog, or a topic which would make a series of blog posts.

I’d wanted to create a free ebook for a while, but it was one of those things I thought I’d get around to “when I have a bit more time”. Then I came up with an idea for a mini-series of two linked posts (Reframing Work #1: Ditching Drudgery and the Conventional View of “Work” and Reframing Work #2: Min Hours, Max Cash – or Do What You Love?) which would lead very naturally to the ebook (Quit Your Day Job). I decided I was going to go ahead and launch it, a week after the first post in the series. This led to…

Step 2: Tell Your Readers

Tell your readers that you’ll be bringing out a free ebook in a week or two weeks’ time. It’s amazing how a deadline – and public accountability – can motivate you!

You might want to make the announcement in a post, on Twitter, or to your newsletter list. Communicate a sense of excitement: tell readers you have a “treat” or “goodies” coming up. This is part of the pre-launch process of getting a buzz going. I personally find the word “freebie” can have a bit of a connotation of something cheap and rubbishy – but you might think differently!

Step 3: Write the Outline

If you write long blog posts, you might already be in the habit of outlining before you begin. With an ebook, this is crucial: you don’t want to write for hours only to find you’ve wandered far off-topic. Neither do you want to sit staring at a blank screen, wondering what you’re going to say next.

Open up a blank document or sit down with a piece of paper and write an outline before you go any further with your ebook. Everyone has different ways of doing this, but one which works well for me is:

• Spend five minutes mind-mapping: write down your ebook’s title or theme in the centre of a piece of paper, then jot down all the points that come to mind
• Eliminate any points which are too broad for the ebook’s scope. Order the rest in a logical sequence (I just jot a number next to each)
• Type or write out the list in order. These are your subsections or chapters in the ebook.
• Jot down at least two bullet points for each section, or a couple of sentences: these are the main points you’re going to make. Sometimes, you’ll want subheadings within each section.
• If you think of a great idea for a graphic, or a resource (book, blog, etc) to recommend, write that down here too.

It might sound complicated, but if you sit down for an uninterrupted half-hour, you can easily get a complete outline written.

Once you’ve got a list of sections and subsections, think about roughly how long each will need to be. Aim for a total of around 4,000 words: this is about right for a 25-page ebook set in a large font: I like 14 pt Calibri (Word 2007) or 11 pt Verdana.

Step 4: Draft the Content

This step is the one which many bloggers find daunting – writing enough words to fill an ebook. If it seems overwhelming, try thinking about your ebook as a series of linked blog posts (with each subheading starting off a new post). Your outline really helps here, because it breaks writing your ebook into manageable chunks.

And these four tips should help too:

First: Get Rid of Distractions

It’s crucial that you avoid distractions while you’re writing. That means keeping away from emails, Twitter and Facebook till you’re done. You don’t need to write the whole ebook in one go – but try to give yourself a block of at least two hours to work on it, or set yourself the goal of drafting a certain number of sections.

If your family or housemates are likely to interrupt you, try heading off to a coffee shop or library for a few hours.

If you find it hard to concentrate, try using a full screen text program (I like Dark Room), or switch off your internet connection!

Second: Don’t Edit As You Write

This is your first draft, so forget any worries about the quality of your writing. Don’t keep editing sentences to try to make them perfect – just move on. You can come back and rewrite later: your current task is simply to get a complete draft down.

Third: Don’t Stop to Look Things Up

Don’t stop to look up links, quotes or statistics that you want to include. Just make a note to yourself in the body of the text. I tend to enclose these in square brackets [like this]. Stopping part-way through a paragraph or sentence breaks your flow … and it’s very easy to start looking up one quote and get distracted!

Fourth: Don’t Format While Drafting

Your finished ebook is going to be a visual masterpiece, with a cover page, section headings, subsection headings, bold text, italic text, lists, maybe tables and specially-formatted blockquotes…

Your first draft, however, should have few or none of these. It’s easy to get distracted with formatting, and it’s also inefficient to format before all the text’s written – you’ll find yourself changing a lot of things around.

Keep your formatting to a bare minimum while you’re drafting. You might find it useful to format headers and subheaders (make sure you know how to use styles in Word – don’t edit each header separately) – but the rest can wait.

Step 5: Add Any Graphics

Once the draft is complete, add any graphics that you want to include in your ebook. The type of graphics you use will depend on the topic of your ebook, but you might want to consider:

• Charts to show statistics in a visual, instant way
• Diagrams to explain complex concepts
• Illustrations or photographs to complement the text
• Small graphics to highlight tips, warnings or quotes

Don’t make the mistake of just using pictures to break up the text. If you use a large font size and use design elements well (just as you would in a blog post), then you don’t need to stuff your ebook with pictures. Graphics used for the sake of it don’t add much to the reading experience, and finding or creating suitable images can use up a lot of your time.

When you’re looking for graphics, be mindful of copyright laws. If you’re using images from Flickr licensed under Creative Commons, make sure you credit and link to the owner in the ebook. If you have a small budget for the ebook, you might consider buying stock photos from istockphoto or fotolia.

You should get your graphics in place at this stage because you may want to change around some of the text to explain or to tie in with the images you’ve chosen.

Step 6: Redraft and Edit Your Text

You’ve got your first draft done – the hardest part’s over. Now it’s time to revise, edit and polish your ebook until it shines!

As with the first draft, you need to find some uninterrupted time and space for this: it’s all too easy to make mistakes or forget to remove those “[notes to self]” when you’re getting interrupted.

It also helps if you follow a step-by-step method, working on one aspect of the redrafting and editing throughout the whole document, rather than trying to perfect each page as you go along.

My process for redrafting and editing is as follows:

• Edit for Structure
• Edit to Add Quotes, Examples and Links
• Edit for Flow and Tone

First: Edit for Structure

Your first round of edits deal with the “big picture”: making sure that your chapters or sections are in the right order and cover all the points you wanted to make. Start at page one and read, fairly quickly, through the whole ebook. Look out for:

• Sections which would work better in a different order
• Places where you’ve repeated yourself in two different sections
• Sections which are too short (you may need to expand and give more detail)
• Sections which are too long (cut any waffle!)

Second: Edit to Add Quotes, Examples and Links

Once you’ve got the broad structure right, you can decide where best to enter quotes and examples. This will depend on the format of your ebook, but some things you may want to consider are:

• Using an example, quote, tips box or case study to break up a long section of text
• Creating a pattern: eg. opening or ending each section with a quote or case study
• Putting all the links at the end of each sections for easy reference (even if you also link in the body of the text)

You may find that you need to move around a few sentences or paragraphs in order to make the quote, example or case study work well.

Third: Edit for Flow and Tone

Rewrite any sentences which sound clumsy or which are ambiguous. You might like to try reading your ebook aloud: this often highlights any over-long or complicated sentences!

This is also a good point to check that you’ve used a consistent tone of voice throughout your ebook. Did you start off chatty but then drop into a more formal style? If you’re not a naturally humorous writer, make sure that any jokes or puns you’ve included really are funny.

Step 7: Format Your Ebook

Now that the text is complete, go through and get everything into the right format. Set all your headers and subheaders, making sure that you use the “Styles and Formatting” feature of Word (or your chosen word processing program). Don’t set the font size and style each heading manually. It’s not only inefficient, it stops you making an automatic table of contents – more on that in a moment!

(You might want to read up on Styles and Formatting, if you’re not sure how to use this feature.)

Choose a modern, easy-to-read font for your text and for your headings. Make both text and headings quite large – bigger than you’d use in a document for work or school. As I mentioned in Step 3, I like 14 pt Calibri (Word 2007) or 11 pt Verdana.

As well as formatting your section headings, you’ll also want to use some of the formatting options that you’re familiar with from blogging. This might include:

• Using bold to emphasise key points, and italics for emphasised words
• Setting out quotes in a different style (eg. indented, or in a box) from the main text
• Using a magazine-style “pull box” for quick tips
• Breaking some paragraphs into lists, to help keep the reader’s attention

You’ll also want to put a header or footer on each page with, at the very least, the page number. Consider including the title of the ebook in the header/footer on each page (in case readers print it out). You could also put your name, your copyright notice, or the URL of your blog.

Note that if you’re including a cover (and I recommend that you do), you can tell Word to use a different header and footer on the first page.

Step 8: Add a Table of Contents and Appendix

An easy way to make your ebook instantly stand out from the crowd is to add a table of contents and/or an appendix. Professional ebooks (and paper books!) have these – so why shouldn’t yours?

Table of Contents

If you’ve used Word’s Styles and Formatting feature to set up your headers, it’s really easy to add a table of contents. Just insert a new page at the start of your ebook, and (in Word 2007), go to the “References” tab, then click “Table of Contents” on the far left.

Word will automatically lay out the table with the headings, subheadings and page numbers. If you change the ebook after creating the table of contents, simply right-click on it and “update”. This is the table of contents from my ebook:

Appendix

In my ebook, I wanted to supply some ideas for further reading at the end. These didn’t fit with the body of the text, so I created an appendix.

Depending on your ebook’s subject, your appendix could be:

• A quick tutorial on something which some of your readers will understand but others won’t (you don’t want to put this in the middle of your ebook as those who “get it” will start skipping)
• A list of recommended resources, like websites, blogs, books, products, services…
• A “cheat sheet” for readers to print out – popular in technical fields
• A list of notes and references for each section – often in more scientific books

Creating an appendix is simply a matter of starting a new page and putting the header “Appendix” (or, if you want multiple appendices, “Appendix 1”, “Appendix 2” etc.)

Step 9: Create Your Front Cover – And a Graphic

All the hard work of writing and formatting the text is done: here’s the fun part – creating your ebook cover!

I’d recommend spending a couple of dollars when creating your cover. Look through istockphoto or fotolia for a great, eye-catching image. Ideally, you want something without too much detail (as you’ll be using a thumbnail of the cover pic on your blog, to advertise the ebook).

I’m no designer, and it took me some time to make a cover that didn’t look hopelessly amateur! You might want to enlist a friend with a good eye for design, though some quick tips are:

• Use a big, clear font for the title of your ebook
• Consider having a subtitle or strapline in a smaller font
• Stick to just two or three colours
• Come up with a few designs or layouts and pick the one you like best

Once you’ve put your cover in as the first page as your ebook, take a screenshot and save it as a .jpg. If you can afford to spend a bit more (currently $27), I highly recommend a piece of software called eCover Software Pro, which I’ve reviewed here. It allows you to “drop” that image onto a book-shaped template, so that it looks something like this:

It’s very straightforward and intuitive to use, and it’s a powerful way to send readers the signal that you’re a serious problogger.

Step 10: Convert Your Ebook to a PDF

When I first started creating ebooks, I tried out a lot of different free options for turning Word documents into PDF files. The problem was, they didn’t keep links unless the links were written out as a full URL – so www.aliventures.com would remain as a link, but Aliventures wouldn’t! This also meant that they didn’t keep in the links that “jump” the reader from the contents page to the entry that they’ve clicked on.

A few months ago, I bought version 8 of Adobe’s Acrobat software – which cost over $100. I realised that spending hours trying to put the links back in manually each time would cost me a lot more, in the long term. It is a big outlay when you’re starting out as a ProBlogger, so I’d recommend doing what I did – look on ebay for a slightly older version of Adobe (as I write this, 9 is the current version, so look for 8 or 7). This will be just as good for your purposes, and will cost a bit less than the latest.

You could also see if your workplace or college has Adobe Acrobat. Or ask on Twitter to see if a willing friend can convert it for you! (You’re welcome to send me a Tweet if I can lend a hand.)

The best free option I’ve used was pdf995, so if all else fails, give that a try!

Note: If you have Word 2007, you can use the “Publish as PDF” feature. I’ve not used this myself (since I have Adobe Acrobat) so I can’t vouch for how good it is or whether it will include all links. If anyone knows, do tell us in the comments!

Step 11: Final Proof-Read and Link Check

Once you’ve got your PDF file, go through and do one last check for typos. Try not to get tempted to do much editing at this stage … you could carry on tweaking for ever. Just check for anything that’s obviously wrong.

This is a good point to double-check that all the links are working – just in case anything hasn’t converted properly, or in case you put a link in wrong.

Step 12: Publish and Publicise

Publishing the ebook on your blog is easy, compared with all the work of creating it! You can either upload it using your blog software’s “upload” function (go to Media->Add New in WordPress), or you can use an FTP program to do so.

Create a new post telling people about your ebook, using the cover image that you created (either with eCover Software Pro or as a “flat” looking image).

Then get the word out! Tweet about it, ask for retweets, send emails to blogger friends – though do make sure your ebook will be on-topic for their blog. You might even consider writing a press release to send to your local paper.

I decided to run a competition in connection with the free ebook launch, which helped to gather retweets and a bit of a “buzz”.

Step 13: Relax!

Finally, give yourself a well-earned break! Your ebook’s out there, and your blog’s getting a lot of new visitors. Get yourself a glass of wine, a beer or a mug of great coffee … and start thinking about your next ebook.

本文转载自：wordpress啦

开博客的时候大家都知道博客名域名非常重要。是否该使用自己的名字来命名博客还是选个更有意义能代表博客特征的域名呢？或者我们干脆把话题拓展到其他领域，你是否觉得一个作家、历史学家等建立博客的话是否该用他们的名字来命名以树立个人威望还是应该用一个特殊的域名呢？

这是个争论非常激烈的话题，相信两种观点都有不少支持者。 该如何取一个好博客的名字与你博客的目标定位有很大的关系。根据个人不同的情形而定。

第一种类型:你开博是为了谈论来自你内心的深处的感受，跟家人、朋友保持联系，谈论家长里短和自己的近况。

理想的域名: 不管是直接用你的名字还是取个你自己喜欢的博客名都可以。因为这是个人博客，不会有任何规则束缚你，自己随便挑个你喜欢的域名吧。

第二种类型: 你开博是为了推广宣传你的个人品牌或者服务。这类可以包括作家、咨询师、画家、律师等。

理想的域名: 名字.com. 请注意，这里谈论的不是专门利用博客来推广公司的人，对于这些人来说还是选个公司的域名更好。我说的是利用博客来树立个人品牌诸如Seth Godin以赚钱。

第三种类型: 针对某一特定行业开设博客并使其成为一个流行站点。你将来可能利用他来赚钱，不管是通过广告、affiliate营销或者通过销售你自己的产品和服务。

理想的域名: 博客名字应该具有描述性、品牌性、容易写、容易记。

附原文： Should I Use MyName.com as My Domain?

“Should one start a blog using his own name or should he seek a general, more describing domain name? In other words, do you think that DanielScocco.com could have had the same success as DailyBlogTips.com when writing about blogging? To extend this question to other fields, do you think a writer, a historian etc, should brand his name or set up a blog using a specific domain name?”

Quite a controversial topic, as there are people sitting on both sides of the fence here.

In my opinion the answer is connected to the goals that you have for your blog. Let me break down the different scenarios:

Scenario 1: You want to start a personal blog to talk about whatever comes to your mind, update friends and family about your endeavors and so on.

Ideal domain name: Either YourName.com or any other cool domain that you find and like. Since we are talking about a personal blog, there aren’t any rules here. Go with whatever you like best.

Scenario 2: You want to start a blog to promote your personal brand or your services. This could include writers, consultants, painters, lawyers and so on.

Ideal domain name: YourName.com. Keep in mind that in this scenario I am not talking about professionals who want to promote their companies. For those a domain with the name of the company is obviously preferred. I am talking about people who make money thanks to their personal brands, like Seth Godin.

Scenario 3: You want to start a blog on a specific niche and make it a popular site. You might want to monetize it in the future as well, either with advertising, affiliate marketing or by selling your own products and services.

Ideal domain name: Something descriptive, brandable, easy to spell, easy to remember and with a .com extension.

So to answer your initial question, I don’t think that DanielScocco.com would’ve been as successful as DailyBlogTips.com for this blog.

What you guys think though? Feel free to answer Vlad’s question with your own take on the issue.

本文转载自wordpress啦

带把“刀”写文章，这是什么概念呢？不太可能吧？实际上这是非常必要的。

好吧，确切地说没有叫你带上真刀，但是好作家写文章的时候却总会用它来使文章更加精简完美。 对于好的作家来说，写作包括两个独立却又紧密管理的组成部分：精心编制内容以及剔除非必要的信息。上一回我们介绍了写文章为什么需要精简。这里我将讲述如何精简文章。

为自己而写，为读者而改

真正好的作品是出自于自我心灵上表达的欲望。让你的大脑随心所欲，写出你真正想写的东西。此时，你仅是对自己想法的初次加工。 但是，一旦初稿的大轮廓出现之后，你得带上你的“刀” 砍去多余的部分。用你的“刀”给文章精心造型，直到要点清晰明确，不要舍不得割掉任何不相关或无意义的冗余信息。 当然，我承认作为一个作家要做到这一点并非易事，因为我们都是如此陶醉自己的文字中。因此，我在这里给大家介绍七个小帖士来精简你的文章。

1. 明确文章的中心内容，始终坚持这个中心

特别是像我们这种博客中的文章都是有其关注的焦点，应该只有一个中心，任何超过一个以上的观点 的文章都会显得非常无力。虽然，像诸如通过电子摄像机拍下远程同事的尴尬镜头这类的事情，听起来有点滑稽。但是如果你不能确保它跟你想要表达的中心百分百 相关，请不要使用这类素材。 跑题太严重了，你的读者看后也不会对发笑的。

2. 砍掉第一段

通常都是对小说家提这条建议的，人们都奉劝小说家稍作交待马上进入到完整的第一章节，进入正题。 原因何在呢？在真正进入到正题之前，我们通过还要写一段甚至两段的文章。而这么多的前言却只是为了后面的精华内容做准备而已。 请试着砍掉文章的前一段或前两段，看看效果如何。你可能会发觉这样开篇的效果更让人喜欢。

3. 不要过分雕饰你的文字

很多作者文章中的句子毫无限制地使用形容词、副词，过多的修饰成分，最后使得文章太过虚华。他们觉得这些词语能够使他们的作品增色、添加光彩，但 是，实际上这种五味俱全的东西最终麻木了读者的胃口，再也无心看下去了。 注意，写文章就像是烹饪一样，调味品应适可而止，过多的调味品不管如何精心准备的佳肴也会变得不好吃的。

4. 提防“蠕变的”单词

“蠕变的”单词，是指那些你无意识当中使用的一些不必要的单词。我最经常使用的两个单词是：“just” 和“actually” 。确实是这样的，当我重新读下这篇文章的第一稿时，我就删除了好几个。（ And yes, it’s actually true that when I read through my first draft of this post, I just went back in and removed several of each.） 呵呵，看看原作者又使用了这两个“蠕变”单词。

删除这些“蠕变”单词是给你的文章瘦身的一种痛苦方式，不过一旦完成瘦身后，我相信没有任何人会怀念这些多余的“脂肪”。 你自己又有什么“蠕变”单词呢？如果你还不清楚的话，你可以叫一个专业的编辑来看看你的文章，看看他们会找出哪些单词。

5. 砍掉夸张的部分

“生气的耳朵冒烟” 还有“让心跳停止的美丽?”

不，这并不真实。这很明显太夸张了吧，你的读者会看出来的。砍掉这些夸张的表达，用上更为精确的字。参考第六条。

6. 找更精确的字

有时候，我们使用了大量表达非常弱的词语，换些更恰当的词语或许效果会好很多。

如果你在对当地的食物发表点评的时候，你这样写到：“他们的玉米煎饼真的非常好”，你的词汇能再有深度一点吗？这些食物到底是怎样的呢？爽口？香甜？回味无穷？ 选择精准的词汇并不仅是让你的文章更短，它同时会使你的读者能够更深刻理解你想要的表达的意思。

7. 别浪费你的文字

有没有注意到好的厨师总是不会浪费任何东西。

好的作家也深喑此道。当他们编辑文字时，他们并不会永久放弃他们以前写过的文字，而是把它们放在一旁，或许对写作其他东西能有所启发。 在这里，我建议你还是赶紧专门建立一个文件用于存储你删除的文字。当你为文章灵感苦思冥想时，试着去里面逛逛，也许你的脑袋会蹦出火花来，给你写文章的灵 感。

你能做到！

我知道对你来说删除文字总是很困难的，我们总担心把一些有用的信息删除了。但是根据我的经验，这从来没有发生过。

相信我，好好写作，真的需要用的时候会有很多词汇可供你选择，但也请记住带上你的“刀”。

附原文：

How to Write With a Knife

Think it’s impossible to write with a knife?

Not at all. You might even say it’s essential.

Well, to be more precise, no one actually writes with a knife. But good writers do edit with one.

For them, writing involves two separate but closely intertwined mindsets: crafting their message and then cutting away everything that’s not their message.

Yesterday, Jon Morrow talked about why you need to tighten up your writing. Today we’re going to talk about how.

Write for yourself, edit for your readers

Really good writing always begins with the desire for self-expression. Let your mind and heart say what they want without restriction. You’re rough-hewing the shape of your thoughts.

But once the broad contours have emerged in your first draft, you take your knife and carve off all the extra bits. Sculpt your article until the important details are clear, not hidden by chunks of irrelevant or uninteresting verbiage.

It isn’t easy. As writers, we all have a tendency to fall in love with our words. So here are seven tips to help you cut to the chase.

1. Find the spine of your content and stick to it

A blog post is a focused piece of writing — it shouldn’t aim to address more than one tightly focused topic.

Yes, that story about your telecommuting co-worker and her embarrassing webcam moment is pretty darn funny. But if you can’t make it 100% relevant to the point you’re trying to make, don’t use it.

You can’t make your audience chuckle if they’ve clicked away.

2. Cut the first paragraph

This advice is often given to novelists, who are counseled to write a rough draft and then ditch their entire first chapter (ouch!).

The reason? We often need to crank out a paragraph or two before we truly get a grip on the piece and where it’s going. Those first words are really just preparation for the good stuff.

Try cutting the first paragraph or two from your post and see what happens. You may find a much more powerful opening.

3. Don’t over-spice your words

Many writers liberally pepper their sentences with adjectives and adverbs, and it ends up like over-spiced chili. They think this intensifies their writing, but really, it just numbs the reader’s palate.

(Side note: Take a look at the paragraph above this one. Did you catch where it was over-spiced? I didn’t need the word “liberally.” The verb “pepper” and the simile “like over-spiced chili” were more than enough to get the idea across.)

Remember that just like chili, a little seasoning will add yummy zing to your writing. Too much will make it unpalatable.

4. Watch out for “creep-in” words

These are the unnecessary words you use without even realizing it. Two of mine are “just” and “actually.” And yes, it’s actually true that when I read through my first draft of this post, I just went back in and removed several of each.

Getting rid of creep-ins is a painless way to cut the fat out of your copy, and no one will ever miss them.

What are your own personal creep-ins? If you don’t know, ask a professional editor to clean up one of your posts and pay attention to what they take out.

5. Cut exaggerations

Were you so angry that you “literally had smoke coming out of your ears?” Was the sunset “heart-stoppingly beautiful?”

No, not really. Your readers will see these phrases for what they truly are: lazy exaggerations. Cut them from your writing, and use more precise words (see #6) instead.

6. Find a more precise word

Sometimes, we use a lot of weak words when one or two of the right words will do much better.

If you’re publishing a review of your local taquería and you write that “their burritos are really very good,” reach a little deeper into your vocabulary. Are they authentic? Zesty? Flavorful?

Picking the right word won’t just make your writing shorter. It’ll give your readers deeper insight into what you mean.

7. Reuse the leftovers

Ever notice how the best cooks don’t seem to waste anything?

Professional writers work the same way. When they edit, they don’t delete their writing forever. They put it aside and often use it as inspiration for something else.

I’d recommend starting a “Leftovers” document where you paste in your cuts. Whenever you’re searching for an idea, you can poke through it, and something will probably grab you. Use it to start a new post.

You can do it!

I know it’s hard to cut words. We’re all afraid of running out of something to say. But in my experience, that never happens.

Trust me when I say that there will always be more words where those came from, and you will find them when you need them. Just remember to carry your knife with you.

You’ll need it.

虽然这么做也是很有道理的，通过在线的广告、链接推广起来确实非常简单。但是，我认为大家同时也应该利用好线下的推广。线下推广虽然无法像线上推广那样带来巨大的流量，但却是一个建立信誉的高效方式。

在这里就总结下我推广各种博客时几个非常有效的线下推广措施：
1. 名片

商业人士在各种比较正式的场合都会给对方发名片，Blogger们也不例外。你每天都会碰到很多人，发名片是向他们介绍你的博客非常有效的方式。而且名片也非常便宜，一张也就几分钱。
2. 参与行业性活动

参与行业性活动是在你的商业圈推广博客的很好途径，使得对此特定主题感兴趣的人们能分享你的博客内容。这也加强了你在商业圈的威望。参加这种活动时，请别忘记带上你的名片及一些宣传品（T恤衫，笔等等）来吸引潜在的读者和合作者。
3. 报纸及当地的刊物

虽然报纸可能已是一个夕阳产业，但仍很受敬重，在每天的新闻报纸上刊登你的博客，这是建立信誉的超级有效形式。当然没有叫你刊登在华尔街日报上，那样花费太多了，但你应该利用好地方的报纸，费用也非常划算。在你博客上建立一个单独的区域，发布的文章同时通过邮件的方式向记者发送并发表其新闻版。在报纸刊物上发表的文章让读者看到了也相当于给你的博客带来直接的链接。
4.读者聚会

如果你有大量的本地读者群或者生活在大都市，举办下比较正式的读者见面会，邀请读者和对你的行业感兴趣的人们参加。也不需要特意搞什么活动，大家随意性地聚集在一起并聊聊行业的情况就可以。这有利于加强大家对你的博客的凝聚力并还能获得新的读者。地点你可以选择在你家或者当地比较方便的酒店、咖啡厅或者甚至公园也行。
结论

你可以利用以上四种方法线下推广你的博客，此外，你还可以通过广告、印传单、赞助当地/行业活动等等。上面四种方法大部分都是免费或是非常便宜的推广方法，并且我觉得是建立信誉最有效的方法。

线下营销的关键因素是人脉关系。相对于在线推广，与实现中的人们见面聚会是一种更高层次的互动，能够实质性地帮助你发展读者关系。一定要充分做好线下推广发挥你的优势。

附原文：4 Ways To Promote Your Blog Offline
I invite you to all take a look at your marketing efforts. I am guessing that most of you are dedicating 100% of your marketing time and resources to promoting your blog online.

While this makes sense since it is easier for someone to access your blog from an online advertisement or link, I think that all of you should also try to promoting your blogs offline as well. Offline marketing tactics might not drive as much traffic as an online marketing campaign, but they will prove to be a very cost-effective way to build credibility.

Here are a few efficient offline marketing tactics I have used to promote my various blogs.

1. Business Cards

For anyone to take you seriously, you need to have a business card. Bloggers are not exempt. Having a business card is a great way to introduce people you meet in day-to-day life about your blogging activity. Business cards are also very inexpensive to purchase with most costing less than 1 cent per card.

2. Industry Events

One great way to promote your blog in your niche is to attend industry events. This allows you to share your blog with a number of individuals who are interested in its subject matter. It is also a great way to associate yourself with authorities in your niche. Make sure to bring business cards and other swag (T-Shirts, pens, etc.) to make an impression on potential readers and partners.

3. Newspapers and Local Publications

While newspapers may be a dying industry, they are still very well respected and having your blog covered in the daily news is a fantastic free way to build credibility online. It may be a bit difficult to get the Wall Street Journal to pick up the story, but you should fare better with more local papers. Create a unique story angle on your blog and e-mail it along with a press release to journalists. In addition, getting a story published in the press also means seeing that story online with a direct link to your blog,

4. Readers Meet-up

If you have a substantial local reader base or live in a large metropolis, hold an official gathering for readers and people interested in your niche. It doesn’t have to be anything more than a casual get together to simply talk about the industry. This is a great way to strengthen the bond of your community and find new local readers. You can choose to hold these meetings at your home or at a more local and convenient location such as a restaurant, coffee shop, or even park.

Conclusion

These four tactics are just a few of the different offline marketing strategies you can deploy. In addition, you can always purchase advertisements, pass out flyers and pamphlets, sponsor local/industry events and so on. However, the four tactics listed above are largely free or very inexpensive and I have found them to be the most effective way to build to credibility.

A key element of successful offline marketing is building personal relationships. Meeting people in the real world as opposed to online allows for a much greater level of interaction and gives you the ability to develop a substantial relationship with your readers. This is something you definitely want to use to your advantage.

Aditya Mahesh is the founder of AMBeat.com, a complete resource for entrepreneurs, complete with advice articles, start-up profiles, interviews, news analysis, and more.

为了避免同样的尴尬，你很可能尽量缩短你的文章，真的碰上观点内容比较长的，你把它分成了好几篇文章来发表。没必要一次性向大家塞过多的信息，对吧？
话虽然有道理，但是奇怪的是并不一定如此。

Copyblogger很多比较受欢迎的文章都超过一千字。但有时，很短的文章却特别受欢迎。似乎文章的长短跟文章最终是否受欢迎没有太大的影响。

这怎么回事呢？ 这讲起来还真有点抽象，或许我们来做个类比理解起来会轻松一些。
文章长度 —好莱坞电影风格

你是否看过很长的电影，虽然很长但却异常精彩，扣人心弦呢？

彼得杰克逊的《指环王》1-3长达十个小时以上。还有《泰坦尼克号》尽管长达三个小时多，却是票房最高的电影。实际上，如果都要举出来，我们可以列出很多超过三个小时或将近三个小时的获奖电影。

那短片怎么样呢？也会有很精彩的，对不对？

皮克斯最近有部电影，就96分钟。还有我个人非常喜欢的电影Bubba Ho-tep，也就92分钟。还有迪斯尼经典的影片:《小姐与流氓》(73 分钟), Bambi (70 分钟), Dumbo (64 分钟)。

电影的长短为何会显得如此不重要呢?

如果你也是一个影迷，答案就不难揭晓了：电影的长短取决于故事情节的需求。 有些故事如《指环王》需要花10个小时才能讲得完，而有些如《酷狗宝贝》却只需三十分钟或更短的时间就行了。关键在于把故事情节叙述清楚需要多长时间，然后精心编剧尽可能地压缩，使剧情更紧凑。

我想写博客也是如此吧。
文章长短的真谛

文章长并不是一件坏事，短文件也未必就不好。实际上，文章的长短跟文章质量的好坏没有什么关联。

重要的是:

1. 写出真正有意思的东西
2. 剔除一切无聊的内容

这就够了。

有时候需要3700字才能阐述一个观点，有时候，只需几句话就行。关键在于用尽可能少的字把观点表达清楚。 更专业一点来讲，就是写作要“紧凑、精炼”。无论长短，只要文章无法再压缩了，效果都是一样的。

著名的Blogger最近做为Copyblogger的投稿人Michelle Russell，称之为“writing with a knife（创作时带把刀）” — 也许这是对写作过程的最好比喻。明天将会邀请她来给大家解释下这句话的含义，同时给你们提些建议，如何来删除你文章多余的内容。

在那之前，我先来阐明最后一点：
为何文章是否紧凑能成为生存的关键呢？

很长的文章并不会把读者吓跑，但是冗长的文章却会。先前，读者还能容忍，因为博客对他们来说是个新鲜的事物，也只有几个专业的作家写文章，不过很快就变了，现在，博客被置于一个与杂志、报纸同等的位置，读者期待我们发表的内容尽可能精炼。

我们所有的博客撰写者都要做好准备来满足读者的期望，紧凑的写作已然不是你应该做的，而变成关乎你的博客能否生存这样一个高度了。

如果你想看到你的博客在将来的几年能够不断发展，受大家的欢迎，不光光是键盘、鼠标就可以在空白的文档上完成文章的书写，你还要带上一把“刀” 及使用“刀”的勇气。
附原文：
Do Long Blog Posts Scare Away Readers?

Some writers don’t seem to know when to shut up. They ramble and pontificate and theorize, seemingly oblivious to the agony it’s causing everyone else.

To avoid this awful fate, you probably try to keep your posts short, chopping up longer ideas into a series of posts. No need to scare away readers by dumping too much information on them all at once, right?

Makes sense, but what’s weird is it doesn’t work that way.

Many popular posts here at Copyblogger are over 1,000 words. But other times, short posts pack the most punch. It’s almost as if the length of a post has no impact whatsoever on how successful a post becomes.

How could that be?

We’ve already given you the copywriting theory behind why this is, but I’m the first one to admit that it’s a little . . . abstract. Maybe an analogy would help bridge the gap.

Examining Post Length — Hollywood Style

Ever watched a long movie that was totally awesome?

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which clocks in at over 10 hours, comes to mind. There is also Titanic — still the highest grossing movie of all time despite running over three hours. In fact, we could make a pretty long list of award-winning movies that approach or cross the three hour mark.

What about short movies? Those can be awesome too, right?

Pixar’s latest movie, Up, was only 96 minutes long. Then there is Bubba Ho-tep (a personal favorite), clocking in at 92 minutes. And let’s not forget some of the classic Disney movies: Lady and the Tramp (73 minutes), Bambi (70 minutes), Dumbo (64 minutes).

How could it be that the length of movies could be so unimportant?

If you’re much of a movie buff, the answer is obvious: it depends on the story. Some stories like Lord of the Rings take 10 hours to tell. Others, like a really cracking Wallace and Gromit episode, can be told in 30 minutes or less. The key is figuring out how long it’ll take to tell your story, and then editing it mercilessly so that the film is as tight as possible.

Hmm . . . maybe the same is true for blogging.

The Truth about Post Length

A long post isn’t wrong. A short post isn’t wrong. In fact, the length of a post has nothing to do with how good or bad it is.

Here’s what matters:

1. Writing something that’s interesting
2. Taking out everything that’s not interesting

That’s it.

Sometimes, it takes 3,700 words to make an idea stand out. Other times, all you need is a few sentences. What’s important is that you do your idea justice in as few words as possible.

Professionals call it writing “tight.” Long or short, the piece couldn’t possibly be any shorter and create the same effect.

Blogger and recent Copyblogger contributor Michelle Russell calls it “writing with a knife” — perhaps the best metaphor I’ve heard to describe the process. Tomorrow, she’s going to explain what she means, as well as give you some easy-to-implement tips for cutting away all the fat from your prose.

Until then, let me make this one final point:

Why Tight Writing Is a Matter of Survival

Long blog posts don’t scare away readers; sloppy writing does. Once upon a time, readers tolerated it because the blogosphere was a new and informal place with few professional writers, but that’s quickly changing. Now, blogs are being placed on the same pedestal as magazines and newspapers, and readers expect us to deliver content that’s just as polished.

All of us have to be ready to meet those expectations. Tight writing isn’t just another one of those things that you should do. It’s becoming a matter of survival.

If you want to see your blog grow and flourish over the coming years, you’ll need to come to the blank page not with a mouse and keyboard, but also with a knife . . . and the courage to use it.

More on how to do this tomorrow.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on twitter.

今天我被邀将要给商业人士发表个演讲，关于博客和社会媒介在商业经营中的作用。 我需要准备的其中一个问题就是该如何给博客寻找读者。

这个问题也是我最经常碰到的，但是也不是我在45分钟内就能回答得清楚的，发展读者关系这里头有无数的技巧。在此我想跟大家分享下一些要点。 当然下面的方法不一定都是很全面或者说适合所有的博客，不过这是我个人开始寻找读者时的途径：

从当前拥有的关系网着手

请注意我这里是针对企业博客，我认为寻找博客读者的最佳途径是从企业已建立的关系入手。 任何企业都已建立一定的关系网络，包括：

• 员工
• 先前和当下的顾客/客户
• 行业协会
• 供应商
• 邮件列表

如果我开始为企业建博客，我会从这里开始。让这些与你已经建立关系的人关注你的博客。这些人熟悉、喜欢、信任你- 通过他们的订阅、评论帮助你的博客实现滚雪球效应- 这将有助于你建立信任以粘住其它读者。

充分利用其他途径

大多数企业还可充分利用其他途径来突出博客，包括：

• 名片
• 电子邮件签名
• 签名
• 信头
• 广告
• 网站
• 社交媒体网页

这些归到其它类型中- 不过关键是要找到合适的地方来突出你的新博客，从那些可能不在你经常联系的关系网中却又稍微有点联系的用户中吸引流量。

内容为基石

内容是一个非常关键的因素，决定了偶然进入你的博客的人们能否再次光顾你的博客(并向其它人推广你的博客)。 你的文章要一定程度上满足读者的需求。企业博客读者的需求不尽相同，包括行业新闻、如何使用产品、公司发展/新闻的更新、了解别人如何使用你的产品等。

这个需求的清单，当然会依据不同的商业博客而不同。关键就是找出你的顾客（和潜在顾客）需要什么，然后尽量写这样的内容来帮助他们解决问题，一定程度上提高他们的生活效率。 文章内容还需要表达良好、清晰准确、富有吸引力。

攻向潜在读者

“文章发布了，读者就会到来”这种思想在博客上是行不通的。实际情况是，如果你不积极主动点，你的潜在读者是不可能找到你的博客的。

寻找读者一个关键要点就是，明确你要吸引哪一种类型的读者，然后寻思这些类型的人都经常聚集在哪里（线上或线下）。

对你想要吸引的人们做下分析- 某种兴趣爱好、某种特定类型的职业等等。这样你就可以在脑袋里想想他们主要在什么地方出现。可能逛在另一个博客或论坛上，可能是在一个社交网站，也有可能根本没上网在阅读一些诸如杂志之类的刊物，或者还有可能参加现实中的某个关系组织。

当你开始想这些潜在读者的聚集地时，你就得考虑如何使自己在这些地方露相。如果是在线博客、论坛、社交网站，只要加入这些社区并成为对大家有帮助一 员就可以了，当然还可包括你给这些网站创建一些有用的内容。如果是一些线下的协会组织，你可以加入他们中，参加活动、介绍自己等。如果你的潜在读者都在阅 读一些纸质刊物，你可尝试提供赞助或在上面发布广告等。

在你的缝隙市场中与别人建立好关系

在你的缝隙市场中，其他的博客或网站可能某种程度上是你的“竞争对手”，但也可能是你的合作者。博客的基础是需要blogger们互动、互相链接合作，不要把其他blogger们当作敌人-认真考虑看是否有双方携手合作的机会。

实验、追踪、改进

博客建立初期，尝试些新东西，这一点很重要。尝试新的文章类型，试验下各种声音和媒介(视频、播客、图像) 等。随着时间的推移，你将会发现某种类型的帖子会给你的博客带来更多的互动和注意力。可能是跟话题相关也有可能是跟文章的形式相关。

追踪查看哪种形式的效果好，哪些表现欠佳。效果好的方法可以反复用之，表现欠佳的也可学习借鉴。如此反复，你会发现你的博客更具特色，写博客的动力也有了。

创建社区

很多人上网并不单单为了获得内容 – 他们渴望归属、贡献、参与、互动。

我发现，越是专注于给读者互动提供创造性空间，给他们主动权限越多，我的博客流量生意也越增长。不管你的博客现在属于怎样一个层次，你都可以这么做，但是在最初你可以只是问问读者问题，他们通过回复与你互动。

不要仅仅成为内容的创建者 –要成为一个社区的建设者!

How to find Readers for a Business Blog

Later today I’m speaking to a couple of groups of business people about the power of blogging and social media to help market a business.

One of the question I’ve already been told to prepare a question for is – How do you find Readers for a blog?

The question is of course one of the most common ones that I get and the answer is far more complex than I could possibly answer while on a 45 minute panel – there are a myriad of techniques for growing a blog’s readership (I’ll link to some posts I’ve written on that topic below). But I did today want to share the main points I plan to make in my answer today.

By no means is the following comprehensive or applicable to every single blog – but it’s where I’d start in tackling the challenge of finding readers:

How do you find Readers for a Business Blog?

Start With Your Current Network

Keeping in mind that I’m talking to businesses about blogging here – I think the best place to start with finding readers for a blog is to start with those that your business is already in contact with.

Any business will already have some kind of network which will include:

• Employees
• Previous and Current Customers/Clients
• Industry Groups
• Suppliers
• Mailing Lists

This is where I’d start if I were a business starting a blog. Get those you’re already in relationship aware of your blog. These are the people who know you (and hopefully like and trust you) – they can help get the ball rolling in terms of generating some subscribers, comments – this will hopefully help create some social proof to help hook others.

Leverage Other Places Where you Have a Presence

Most businesses will also have other points that they can highlight their blog including

• business cards
• email signatures
• signage
• letterhead
• advertising
• websites
• social media pages

There will of course be others – but the key is to find appropriate places to highlight your new blog and drive traffic from those who might be outside of your network but who you come into some kind of contact with.

Content as a Foundation

The content appearing on your blog will be one of the most important factors in getting those who stumble upon your blog to come back again (and spread the word of it to others).

Your blog posts need to meet a need of readers in some way. Readers of business blogs needs will vary but could include a need for news about your industry, a need to learn how to use your products, a need to get updates on developments/news about your company that relates to them, a need to see how others are using your products.

Once again – this list of needs could go on and on and will vary greatly from business blog to business blog. The key is to work out what your customers (and potential customers) needs are and to develop content that will help those people solve their problems and enhance their lives in some way.

Content also needs to be well written, clearly communicated, of a good standard and compelling.

Go to Potential Readers

A ‘Build it and they will come’ mentality does not apply to blogging. The reality is that your potential readers are unlikely to find your blog unless you get a little (or a lot) proactive.

One of the keys to finding readers is to identify what type of reader you’re looking to attract and then to identify where those types of people are gathering (online or offline).

Do some thinking about the type of person who you want to connect with – this might be a certain demographic, a person with a certain hobby or interest, someone in a certain type of job etc. Once you’ve got them pictured begin to brainstorm where they gather. It might be online on another blog or forum, it could be on a social media site, it could be reading an offline publication like a magazine or it could be in some kind of real life networking group.

Once you’ve started to identify your potential reader’s gathering points you need to begin to find ways to build a presence in those places. If it’s an online blog, forum, social networking site it might be as simple as joining the community and being a useful and social member. It could also include creating content for these sites. If it’s an offline networking group it could mean becoming a member, attending, presenting etc. If it’s an offline publication there may be opportunities to contribute or advertise.

Build Relationships with Others in Your Niche

Other bloggers and website owners in your niche may well be ‘competition’ in some ways – but they also could be collaborators. Blogging is a medium that has been built on bloggers within a niche having conversations, linking to each other and collaboration – don’t treat other bloggers as the enemy – reach out and see what opportunities for working together there may be.

Experiment, Track and Evolve

In the early days of a blog (and beyond the early days) it’s important to try new things on your blog. Try new types of posts, experiment with different voices and mediums (think video, podcasts, images etc) etc. In time you’ll begin to find that some types of posts get more reaction and attention from readers than others. It could be topic related or perhaps the style of posts.

Track what works and what falls flat on its face. Build upon the positives, repeat what works and learn from your mistakes. If you keep doing the types of things that have worked in the past you’ll often find you become known for a certain type of blogging and momentum will grow.

Build Community

Many people online don’t just want to consume content – they want to belong, contribute, participate and interact.

I’ve found that the more I concentrate on creative spaces for interaction with and between readers and the more permission I give readers to be active – the more my blogs and business grows. This can happen on many levels but at the most basic level it can start by simply asking readers questions and interacting with their replies.

Don’t just be a content creator – be a community builder!

Add Your Tips for Building Traffic to Business Blogs

As I’ve mentioned above – there are many many ways to build traffic to a blog. I’ve got some further reading listed below – but I’m also keen to hear your suggestions – particularly from those who have ‘business blogs’ (ie blogs attached to an existing business). What would you add?

Further Reading on Finding Readers for Blogs

• How I’d promote my blog if I were starting out again
• 19 Strategies for Finding Readers For Your Blog
• Finding Readers for your Blog – What We Wish We Knew
• How to Find Readers for Your Blog (a collection of lots of articles on the topic)