To many business owners blogging is a task they either cannot be bothered with or do not know how to work into their schedules. As an entrepreneur myself I completely understand most concerns about maintaining a blog because I have, at one time, been in the same position. After all, we are already so busy with keeping our clients happy and running our businesses that another task seems impossible to comprehend; never mind a task which many business owners are not convinced will help the bottom line.

All of that said, blogging has a good track record for increasing the bottom line when it is done for the right reasons and with dedication. In the following clip, Gil Namur, President of the popular ezine LifeasaHuman.com explains the motivation you require to be a great blogger:

How to be a Great Blogger from StepForth on Vimeo.

Some Basic Blogging Tips

1. If possible (and it is not always) pick a topic to write about for which you are passionate so your enthusiasm comes across in your writing.
2. Offer something of value and remember the chief goal of your content is to help others – NOT to market to them.
3. Proof read your content and if possible I highly recommend having someone else with a fresh pair of eyes proof read it as well.

How to Find Blog Post Ideas

I find the best story ideas come from seeing popular or trending questions or discussions in my industry. With those angles in mind, here are a few resources and tips for hunting down questions and the latest trending news/topics: Read more…

Blogging is like an online cocktail party where you meet people, ask and answer questions, chat and discuss what is important to you and your site.

Some of our clients query whether Blogging is a valuable source of advertising and the answer is, absolutely. What does it do? It provides valuable inbound links and gets your site branded. Read more…

It is no real secret that a well written topical blog can significantly help out your website – so why aren’t you doing it?

The most common reasons I hear for not starting a blog involve a lack of time to write posts, and limited ideas to write about, but taking that extra time to get some useful content out there can do wonders for your search rankings among other things. Read more…

We are proud to announce that StepForth is once again rated one of the best blogs on the net by the BIGLIST of Search Marketing Blogs. Created and managed by respected web marketer Lee Odden of TopRank the BIGLIST is a comprehensive list of the best marketing blogs online – at least it is now that we are on it

All joking aside the StepForth team is proud to be recognized for their writing efforts in the search marketing space and plan to continue delivering the best work we can – or not at all. And of course I would be remiss if I didn’t stress that the StepForth SEO News Blog is comprised of articles from more than just myself – our team rocks!

Here is the entry as it is shown on the BIGLIST:

StepForth SEO News Blog – (Welcome back!) Since 2003 the StepForth blog has covered a range of search marketing industry news and sets a great standard for SEM blog writing. Kudos to Ross Dunn for a great job.

If you haven’t subscribed to our blog feed yet or our weekly SEO newsletter then just check out the links below to see what all the hoopla is about!

As posted at Yodel Anecdotal, Yahoo has developed and launched a new website targeted at women. Unveiled on Monday, Yahoo! Shine “features the best writers and bloggers in women’s publishing”. It helps “connect like-minded women, share stories, and more”.

Shines editorial team features editors from Lucky, Jane, and the Wall Street Journal. They created Shine to appeal to a large demographic of women and give them a “smart, dynamic place for women to gather, get info, and connect with each other”. Read more…

The evolution of the internet is anything but dull. It is a precarious world that is subject to the influence of both devious and altruistic actions. Just like any human society, there is chaos and there is order. Yet, what makes the cyberworld so unique is the opportunity for people to come together that may never have done so by traditional networks. Through communication on different websites and blogs, individuals can discover new ways to make mischief or find assistance in solving crimes. Read more…

Ad-Butterfly, an online ad services, allows more control over ad placement, providing marketers with the ability to choose which blogs to post there ads to, and allowing bloggers to choose which ads get posted to their site, according to a BusinessWeek article published Wednesday morning.

The world of online advertising continues to grow at phenomenal rates, but certainly, in the big scheme of things, it is still in its infant stages. The control given to AdWords advertisers and AdSense publishers has grown over the years, but Ad-Butterfly offers almost total control.

Ad-Butterfly works similar to the first tier PPC platforms of Google and Yahoo, using algorithms to automatically pair up ads and websites, but it offers a more advanced means of controlling which ads are displayed, for those who want total control.

Bloggers are given total control on which ads they will display on their site and also offers the ability for comments to be placed along side of the ads. Registered bloggers will also soon have the ability to request ads from other site.

The service is available in Japan and so far only 2,000 bloggers have signed up, but this form of paid ad placement is certain to grow over the very near future. Perhaps Google will even by them out it its quest for total control over online advertising. If you are fluent in Japanese feel free to visit the Ad-Butterfly website.

My friend Jennifer Laycock suggested an article today that I am glad I checked out called “Twitter Guide Part #1” written by a blogging newcomer by the name of Caroline Middlebrook. It is a useful guide for an increasingly popular social property located at www.twitter.com. Read more…

It is now a widely known fact that duplicate content is bad (with some exceptions such as BLOGS where it is expected). Yesterday on the Google Webmaster Central Blog, Maile Ohye posted some important notes on duplicate content directed at those who use multiple URL parameters on their site.

Essentially, variables placed in a URL for the purposes of tracking will result in duplicate content. This tracking can be in the form of affiliate ID’s, session ID’s, or any other form of tracking you may be implementing.

While the article does not address if there are possible penalties due to these duplicate URL’s it does point out that these longer URL’s can offset branding efforts and decrease the chance of your listing being selected by the searcher.

So how can you help search engines to understand your site? By removing any unnecessary URL parameters and submitting an XML sitemap with the clean version of each of URL will help, but your best bet is to permanently clean it up through the use of cookies. By 301 redirecting any inbound affiliate ID or tracking encoded links to the short clean URL and storing those affiliate and tracking variables in a cookie you can ensure that only one version of each URL is accessible on your site.

Duplicate content can come in many forms. Ross Dunn has published some articles which cover other aspects of duplicate content:

Most Common Reason for Dropped Rankings
What Determines Duplicate Content SPAM?
Does Article Syndication Amount to a Duplicate Content Penalty

I caught an interesting seminar today called “SEO Through Blogs and Feeds” with Stephen Spencer, Rick Klau, Doug Hay and Greg Jarboe on the panel. The following are my point by point notes that stood out as noteworthy. Some of these tips are mirrored in my 3 part tutorial on blogging called Blogs 101 but as always some great new tips popped up. Read more…