Beginners Guide to Blogging - Part One

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As we’ve mentioned before, a weblog / blog is an online journal you can digitally record and broadcast your thoughts, opinions etc for everyone to read. Blogs come in various styles, and formats. Many blogging scripts, offer built in features such as hyperlink, straight texts, pictures etc. Some blogging scripts, even allow you to post streaming video or mp3’s on the blog pages. Audio blogging is when some bloggers choose to make their blogs more audio friendly, by using spoken word mp3 streams. This is referred to as audio blogging. In short blogs contains these basic features:

1.) The Title
- Allows you to label your post
2.) The Body
- Main content for your post, the meat
3.) Trackback
- For other sites to link back to your blog
4.) Permanent link
- Unique URL for every article you post
5.) Comments
- Readers can leave feedbak regarding your blog post

One advantage of blogging, is how it’s made of only a couple templates, while other websites are comprised of numerous pages creating more complications particularly when editing and updating content. This makes it easier for blog owners to publish new pages updating their sites content regularly, with easy forms for you to type in the title, body of the post, category, tags etc. Once you are setup you can get started right away, great for first time users and people who are not familiar with making websites at all. It’s as easy as one two three, especially if you get a good company to set you up with your blog who will provide free telephone support to talk you through getting started. Blogging is not just limited to personal usage. There are a lot of blogs that follow a theme such as: sports, politics, news, business philosophy, social commentary, etc. These blogs espouse on their specific themes. This way blogging becomes a medium in which people can share their knowledge and opinions about a variety of ideas and topics. Stay tuned for more about blogs, in UrbanWeb’s next installment of the Beginners guide to blogging!

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Recently, Technorati, the largest Internet search engine for searching blogs has reported that they are tracking over one hundred and thirty three MILLION blogs on the Internet. That’s a big increase since June, when there was only about 112 million. That’s still a lot, but 21 million new blogs in 4 months is a big increase. More and more, people are starting to realize the power and potential blogs have, and fast too! Why wouldn’t you want to put a blog on your website when it’s proving to be the most effective method in increasing your conversion rates, while also driving more traffic to your site and increasing search engine results?

With so many blogs out there on the Internet today, just like websites, it’s important that you do something to stand out to your audience. Branding is much more popular and realized with offline businesses, and been a normal business practice in the marketing department for decades, but it’s something that has been less realized online. It’s always a good idea to ask for comments from your existing readers to find out what they like about your blog in particular, this will help you ensure that you continue to offer your readers what they are looking for.

A great custom designed logo, and graphics are one of the best ways to brand your site. It’s the one thing you can have on your blog that NOBODY else has. No matter what your blog is about, somewhere out there will be somebody writing something similar at least once in a while, but you won’t find people designing the same logos and graphics.  A professional designer will help you stand out from the rest!

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Blogs have many uses, and these days with their growing popularity, more and more development ensues. New widgets pop up all the time, new features, better themes, new ideas for designs and much more. These days, you can even use most blogging scripts as complete CMS (Content Management System) for your entire website. They even have ecommerce widgets to setup online stores all managed within Wordpress. More and more every day Wordpress (I’m sure as well as other blog, Wordpress just happens to be my favorite for blogging) is becoming a complete all in one website solution. Of course, there will always be things you cannot do within the bounds of another script, that’s what professional custom built websites are for. That need, will of course never die, however blogs are becoming more powerful, more robust and more user friendly. Blogs are one of the best search engine tools out there. They are designed with search engine algorithms in mind and definitely help increase your SERPS. If you do not already have a blog, it’s about time you get one! It’s easy!

Blogs provide a robust method of creating a community-type environment with your website that keeps the visitors coming back regularly, without the burdens of other community sites where you need to setup an account, deal with a profile and a bunch of options and typing… With a blog, it’s easy for people to just type in their email address and post a comment or questions they may have about your blog or blog post. This creates a quick and easy connection with every visitor to your site, not just the ones that take the time to fill out lengthy registration forms.

Get your own professional blog today!

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Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is an integral part of every website. Whether your website is a business website, or a personal website, you want visitors to be able to find it. How do people find websites on the Internet? Well I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the number one place anyone goes when they want to find something on the Internet is a search engine.

The most popular search engine online today, is of course, Google. Google was founded in 1998, and eventually climbed to the top of the ladder, knocking it’s largest competitor of the past, AltaVista, a few steps down the ladder. Altavista was one of the first search engines where the creators got smart and started using complicated algorithms that looked at more than just meta tags and the text in the website.

Back in the old days, SEO was easy, one could cheat the search engines by placing loads of useless text matching their target keywords to trick search engines into placing their site on the top, among many other black hat style SEO tricks. Now, thanks to Google and their analysts, search engines have become smarter, and much more useful to the user, bringing truly relevant results based on many factors about the site. What this means for website owners, is that you have to put a lot more care an attention into your SEO methods. In order to run a successful website, it’s important to know a thing or two about search engine optimization, however, if you are serious about marketing your website it’s always best to consult professionals.
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Urban Web Design

In the rapidly changing world online, it’s important to take great care in the design of your website, especially that on your main page. Keep in mind, your website is your voice and your face to the world, your website creates a venue through which you can reach potential customers you would have otherwise never crossed paths with. People and businesses from all over the world can reach your website in record time, no long distance charges, no expensive travel.

Effective web design captivates the eye of the visitor and creates a burning desire to see more. These days, there are so many flashy website designs out there with animated graphics, videos, pictures, slide shows, interactive buttons and much more. While all of these bells and whistles are nice, and attract the eye of the visitor, it’s extremely important to create a balance between your website’s size or loading time and the visual quality of the site. It doesn’t matter how good your site looks to it’s new visitors, if it takes too long to load, they aren’t going to stay interested watching the site load, twiddling their thumbs. It’s been proven that most people surfing the Internet have a very low level of patience when it comes to loading times.

In this section of our blog, we will help you discover the power of effective web design, and teach you how to work with your web designer to get not only what you are looking for in your website’s look and feel, but a design that is effective in today’s market. Of course, there is never one set in stone answer to your web design situation, that is why it is important to educate yourself about creative and effective web design, so that you are able to get the most from your web designer, and we’re here to help.

Urban Web Design

Urban Web Design

Weblogs, commonly known these days as ‘Blogs’ have been around since the early days, believe it or not, they were around in the 1980’s. While most people never heard of them, never used them or just thought they were too complicated, over time it has been realized by most that they are a very effective and powerful tool on the Internet. Blogs are like an online journal, where you can post your thoughts, opinions, recommendations, current news or whatever you like for your visitors to read. They share similarities with social networking or community sites, as they provide a means for you to broadcast your thoughts or messages to your viewers (or readers) while also providing a means to gather feedback if you so desire. They are also similar to ezines, or electronic newsletters, in the way that they are a means to broadcast your articles to your subscribers, without limiting the exposure to your subscriber list. Did you know that a blog can be setup as a community blog where every member of your site can post to it? Many do not, and think a Blog is strictly for you to log your thoughts, like a journal. The truth is, blogs are very powerful, and can be used in many ways. For many years now, blogs have been used by successful entrepreneurs on the Internet, it’s only recently that this information has spread to the general population of the Internet to be utilized properly. The most common software for managing a blog is Wordpress. The interface is quite simple and easy to learn. In our next installment, we will give you a brief overview of how to use Wordpress.

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