Back when blogs didn’t exist…or did they?

By Eric Pangburn Web Success Team Contributor

Looking back, it is hard to imagine that there was a time when things such as “blogs”, “blogging” and “bloggers” didn’t exist. Yes, some of us have been around long enough to remember when everyone didn’t have some sort of online presence. Things are a lot different today as blogs are routinely used by everyone in order to achieve web success, implement corporate branding and act as an effective tool in direct response marketing. In fact, direct response websites – of which blogs are only some of the more recognizable incarnations – can be some of the most effective tools to have at your disposal to grow your business online. The online world is a constantly changing environment and you neglect the blogging phenomenon at your own risk.

Communication in the pre-blog age

This is not to say that people didn’t have any means by which to share information, we have indeed advanced dramatically since the “two cups tied to a string” phase, thereby enabling peers to interact with each other before the advent of blogs and blogging. Back then, there were actually numerous thriving digital communities, among which the legendary USENET, GEnie, BiX and CompuServe reigned supreme. In addition, there were also e-mail lists. By the time the 1990s rolled around, certain enterprising individuals and companies banded together to create WebEx, which was the first online service to introduce the concept of “threaded” conversations. Tell that to the Facebook-happy online cowboys of today! This early online communications model – which can be paralleled to posting and replying to messages on a corkboard– served as the blueprint upon which virtually all online communications services that have come along since then have been built on.

While CD’s were busy outselling vinyl, blogs were busy putting outdated and old fashion norms of communication six-feet under… permanently. The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 indeed marked the end of an era that was defined by ancient forms of communication, and introduced an uprising of technological advancements in blogging and the online world.

Online diary and so much more

The next significant phase in the development of blogging occurred between the years of 1994 and 2001, where the concept of “the blog” as an online diary first took root. This essentially meant thousands of people kept an online record of everything that went on in their lives. The term “blogger” wasn’t used then obviously – in fact, it probably hadn’t even been conceptualized yet – and most people who engaged in such online activities referred to themselves as “diarists” or “journalists”. Many of these practitioners were members of the academe and the scientific communities, and these people are recognized today as the earliest “bloggers” in the modern sense of the word.

It is surprising to note that these early blogs actually had more in common with modern blogs than you would think. An early blog called the Wearable Wireless WebCam utilized text, graphics, and video in pretty much the same manner that modern blogs do today. Of course, the results were far from the smooth and slick displays that confront you with some of today’s more impressive blogs, but you can definitely see the roots of today’s current blogging scene at work in these early examples.

Blogging trickles down to the masses

As significant as all these previous events have been, these wouldn’t have been much different if it weren’t for the introduction of easier to use blogging tools that essentially served to democratize the entire blogging process. Back then, blogging remained a “black art” for many of the less technologically inclined Web residents, many of whom didn’t have the slightest idea about how to go about putting together a blog. Apparently, Borders didn’t carry “Blogging for Dummies.” This eventually led to the rise of a new stream of online publishing and made it easy for anyone anywhere to post his or her thoughts online without having to know very much about the underlying technologies. These days, you can simply download some sort of browser-based blogging software, of which services such as WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger and LiveJournal are some of the most widely used.

The origins of the word

All this still hasn’t explained where the term “blog” came from. As it turns out, the term “weblog” was introduced by Jorn Barger, with Peter Merholz later coming up with a shortened term “blog”, and the rest is history. It was shortly afterwards that “blog” came in the popular usage as both a noun and as a verb.

Blogging is a potent political tool

Beginning roughly around 2001, blogging became particularly prevalent among certain individuals in the American political scene. Blogs such as Politics1.com, Political Wire, Instapundit, and Little Green Footballs all greatly contributed to the wider spread exchange of information among political analyzers and the public. One blog called The Daily Dish achieved considerable popularity in the days after the September 11 tragedy involving the WTC twin Towers.

More recently, blogging has been used to marvelous effect during some of the more newsworthy political campaigns, such as the drive to instill now-President Barack Obama into the White House. If that doesn’t drive home the influencing power of the blog, then we don’t know what does!

Blogging made easier

By the end of the year, blogging was sufficiently popular to inspire the release of several blogging how-to guides, all of which aimed to instruct the general public on the finer points of blogging. At the same time, blogging’s role in the community outside of the Internet increased exponentially as well. In fact, even many of the more established journalism schools all over the world were looking into the implications of blogging as it related to traditional journalism.

Blogging today and in the future

Today, blogging has undeniably penetrated the mainstream, with everyone from high-powered corporate executives (and those involved in scientific and academic pursuits), to housewives (and even younger children) blogging on a regular basis.

It remains uncertain as to what the different forms of blogging would take on in the coming years. Even now, many bloggers have moved on from the Web into various other media such as radio and television. The migration process has gone the other way as well, with many personalities associated with “traditional” media having gone on to become influential bloggers in their own rights. One thing is for sure, with the many benefits that blogging continues to offer, anyone who is looking to achieve web success, grow your business online, launch a direct response marketing campaign, or simply get their thoughts out for the world to read, blogging will remain an important facet of the online experience for many years to come.

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By Janette Speyer and Eric Pangburn, Web Success Team

Many people that have online businesses have climbed aboard the Facebook bandwagon as a means to web success. Plus, you probably have several friends and family members on the network that you share messages and photos with on a regular basis. Facebook makes it remarkably easy for you to share a wide range of content from the these photos to videos, and even use specially written applications to communicate in unique and interesting ways. As you can imagine, this can be a tremendous business aid in your online marketing and social media marketing efforts.

Creating Your Personal and Business Profiles

Unfortunately, this convenient access also makes it easy for certain parts of your account to be seen by people you don’t really want them to see. One of the common challenges regarding Facebook usage is keeping your personal life separate from your business, and it is a concern facing more and more people who use the service for business.

Interestingly enough, it really isn’t all that hard to keep the various aspects of your personal and business lives separated on Facebook, and there are included features such as friends lists and privacy settings that allow you to manage your different Facebook personas more effectively.

The first step is to segregate your “friends” contacts into different lists. As you can see in the example above, you could create a custom group under which you could set up more specific groups. Of course there are many ways by which you can use the Facebook friends list, but one of its best features is the ability to label your contacts for ease in setting privacy options.

The Importance of Privacy Management

You may have two or more different Facebook friends lists (for business or personal use) depending on how extensively you use Facebook. You may have a list for people you don’t know personally for instance, and another for friends that you know in real life. You may also assign contacts to lists for work relationships or business contacts. As you can see, you can get very detailed about the different categories that you place your contacts in.

The purpose of all these different friends lists is to be able to set access levels for each of these groups easily. While you may want to create smaller and more focused lists for contacts that you plan to message or tag regularly, you are pretty much able to make your lists as large as you want for privacy settings.

Friends lists can be created right from the Friends page, or you could select names while setting up your privacy options. You first choose the feature that you want to restrict access to and select the “customize” option from the menu. You could enter the name of the individual or the friends list that you want to block, or you could type in multiple names, upon which you will be asked to create a list. The Privacy settings for each list can then be changed by clicking on the appropriate link on the upper right of the Facebook page.

The beauty of this business solution is that no one on any of your lists will be able to tell that you have made changes to your access settings. You don’t have to worry about any of your business contacts finding out that you have blocked them from certain parts of your account, nor will you have to worry about your personal details being seen by anyone other than the friends you select.

A Powerful Marketing Tool for Your Business

Another way to keep your business separate from your personal is by creating a Facebook Fan Page. The Fan Page is a powerful marketing tool that enables you to help build your business online. You can share your business and products with your customers and your fans, as well as post relevant links, news, updates and specials for your company. Once you get a fan base they will interact with your page and their comments and posts will be shared by their connections, giving you a very broad audience and a quick and easy way to market your services and products.

You may want to start by creating a page for your business so you can use this to promote and share your products and services. The graphics below illustrate how easy it is:

You may then want to create a Page Badge or a Page Feed to place on your website or your blog to further promote your services and capture a fan base. Below are sample Facebook fan page badges and feeds.

Facebook can be an effective business solution for your online social marketing needs. It is always advisable to keep your business separate from your private life. That is not to say you can’t personalize or humanize your business face for a more well rounded profile.

The Web Success Team

SPECIAL: Solopreneur Package – Jump Start Your Business
The Web Success Team’s Solopreneur Package includes a 5-page custom direct response website fully branded and optimized for Search Engines with 6-months of online marketing, social networking, blogging, article marketing and much more. Lock in your special pricing now before the rate goes up! Contact the Web Success Team at 818-222-5643 or email bob@websuccessteam.com. To your web success!

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By Bob Speyer, President, Web Success Team

Duplicate content is pervasive on the web. It’s so easy to take someone’s article or text and place it on your website or blog. “Everybody does it, so why shouldn’t I?” There are a great many reasons why you shouldn’t and this article will address them and make a good case for putting in the extra effort and develop original content. I will also discuss how you can eliminate duplicate content and therefore improve your search engine rankings and visibility.

How Search Engine Spiders Find Duplicated Content?
Duplicate content is when the search engine spiders detect content that has the same correlation and scoring with two or more web pages. They detect “edit distance,” in which the spiders determine how many changes are made to make it look like another document. Another determinant is they first identify and then eliminate items such as Nav Bars, Footers and Headers before comparing the documents in question. On a larger scale, they sort documents in similar categories and compare those groups to detect the duplications.

Detecting and Eliminating Duplicate Content on Your Website
If sites are determined to run duplicate content, then those questionable pages are barred from the search engine results pages (SERPs) and they will not appear in a search. However, there are tools that can help you identify the offending content in a website and help you restore the page in the SERPs.

Fortunately, there are tools out there that can help to identify Duplicate Content within a Website and assist in restoring the Webpage in the SERPs. Select a tool that will identify the exact correlation between a multiple number of documents and between your website pages; and not ones that just compare two pages. Once you make the corrective changes, run the tool again to see the results.

Of course there are things you shouldn’t do, such as: not writing content that is placed in a common area and shared (like the Header, Navigation and Footer). Also avoid changing words to their synonyms, like car and automobile or switching word order. And make sure you have enough content on each page, the less content the greater possibility of duplication detection.

Be Original, It Pays Off
Play it straight. If you develop content that is original you will greatly benefit. For starters, you position yourself as an authority on your subject matter. You site will get better rankings and hence more visibility. You will attract more authority links or inbound links that also help with search engine ranking. If you don’t have the time to write content consider hiring a ghostwriter. You can do the research and give them the direction. And remember to add content to your website at least once a week. And anything your write should have your keywords embedded for search. Take the time, it will pay off and you won’t have to worry about not being searched. Remember the spiders aren’t human and do not hold grudges. They simply go tirelessly around the clock searching for ways to knock you down on the rankings. Don’t give them the satisfaction, be original!

The Web Success Team

SPECIAL: Solopreneur Package – Jump Start Your Business
The Web Success Team’s Solopreneur Package includes a 5-page custom direct response website fully branded and optimized for Search Engines with 6-months of online marketing, social networking, blogging, article marketing and much more. Lock in your special pricing now before the rate goes up! Contact the Web Success Team at 818-222-5643 or email bob@websuccessteam.com. To your web success!

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