Michigan Blog - Featuring Michigan Shopping, Travel, Business & People

While everyone is having fun traveling and spending sometime with friends and families, I would like to share with you a few of our favorite blogs:

Rabbit Mart Blog for Pet Rabbit Owners -
www.RabbitMart.com/blog - A great blog if you care for rabbits.

GregRobert Pet Blog -
www.GRpet.com/blog A hodge podge of articles on different pet products and information on caring for all types of pets.

ShanesTack Horse Care Blog -
www.ShanesTack.com/blog - Straight up information on caring for horses. Specializing in equine medical and health information.

Petazon - The Pet Blog -
www.Petazon.com/blog - Written by some of the same authors that write this blog, Petazon is a keeper if you have pets.

The Perfect Pet Blog -
http://www.perfectpetblog.com/ - If you think that you have the only perfect pet in the world, this blog is just right for you!

RachelsRobin - Wild Bird Blog -
www.RachelsRobin.com/blog - A great blog about wild birds, bird watching and attracting birds to your backyard.

BackyardStyle blog for Lawn and Garden information.
http://www.backyardstyle.com/ - A great blog for all home owners that enjoy gardening, maintain a pond or have a lawn. (that's pretty much all home owners)

Appliance Life Blog -
www.ApplianceLife.com/blog - Another great blog for owners - focuses on extending the life of household appliances through maintenance and part replacement rather than buying new ones.

Happy Blogging and thanks for stopping in to visit our friends in the Blogosphere! -

Oops - forgot the http://www.msublog.com/ (Green and White were victorious this afternoon - Go Sparty!)

Labels: Bloggers Unite, Blogging

I started working on search engine marketing in 1999. Back then, a good optimized website with keywords, a description and a good title tag would get ranked well on search engines including Google. Noone had heard of the terms "Page Rank" and once a month, Google would dance.

Yes, Virginia, there really was a google dance each month. (It isn't just us old folks' imagination gone wild). Times have changed, actually they have mutated into a wild rush for websites to look "popular" to the search engine spiders so that they rank well. The methods of gaining popularity are exploding and new "bookmarking" and social networking sites are popping up everywhere.


It is so confusing .. but here are a few SIMPLE guidelines for newbie online marketers that are trying to promote websites.

1. Blogs will help. Yes, they will, but you have to take time to create information that people want to read. Not just spiders. Search engine algorithms are getting smarter and they really can tell if your post is just a bunch of spam. Write for people, double check your spelling and grammer .. for people. Write consistently and you will be rewarded.


2. As a guideline, use TWO tags for the post. In a nutshell, the way that Blogger and other Blog software handles tags is that it creates a single page for every tag. Therefore, unless you have a 10,000 entry Blog, you will have alot of duplicate and useless pages that Google DOES NOT like.


3. Be consistent about your linking strategies. If you are promoting an eCommerce site, don't link to a product 15 different ways (with and without the www etc..). Use a consistent linking method so that search engines don't think you have duplicate content on the website. Unless you are lucky enough to have a super popular website, Google is only going to index a limited amount of pages. Make those pages worthwhile.

On the flip side, the above guidelines don't work well for social bookmarketing and social shopping websites. On those websites, it behooves you to use as many tags on the product or page that you are promoting as possible. Confusing and conflicting information, right?

The tags on public websites are used for searching and normally, they DO have millions of products submitted, so making a page for "Dog Bone" and "Dog Chew" makes sense because it would not generate duplicate content.

Don't spam with your tags, anywhere. Only use applicable terms - this corresponds to Web 2.0 social responsibility. (a term that I coined myself)

Happy promoting! - Next article will be on making money with affiliate marketing!

Labels: Blogging, social networking

The full effect that online social networks and "web 2.0" will have on the 2008 election may never be known entirely. It will be difficult to quantify, to say the least. The effects have proven substantial enough to confidently state that not a single candidate in the next election will be without a social networking advisor / blogger on the campaign staff.

As with all online marketing campaigns, political campaigns which emphasize social networking and web 2.0 can be broken into two major parts:

1. Article writing, blogging, monitoring and responding to positive and negative blogs, articles and comments about the candidate.


2. Developing circles of influence in popular networking websites like Facebook.com and LinkedIn, as well as Twitter and others.

The benefit of article writing, blogging and monitoring the "blogosphere" can be described to a lay person in this manner:

• A blog or article is written about Joe Candidate. His staff immediately receives notification and takes action. The action might be a comment outlining that the post is inaccurate, it might be a comment response that substantiates the information or it might even be "just a link" from another site to the post because it was well written and was favorable to the candidate. (Increasing the link popularity of information that is favorable so that it recieves higher ranking on search engines)


• Staff members write blogs and articles, videos and images that are favorable to the candidate and submit these at websites like DIGG or Zimbio, YouTube or eZineArticles. This increases the odds that favorable information is displayed on search engines when someone searches for information relating to the candidate. These networks also reach millions of people everyday.
  
• Staff members maintain Wiki information that is accurate and fight inaccurate information or opinions that may have a negative impact on the candidate's campaign.

We did preliminary research on the number of Michigan political candidates that have Facebook accounts and the number of "friends" that each of these candidates currently have (research done a few days before the election).

Approx. 65% of all candidates have a facebook account and approx. 1/2 of those with an account are actively using those accounts to self-promote. The number of "friends" that a candidate has ranges from 40 to 50,000. It was slightly more likely for a Democratic candidate to have an active account compared to a Republican candidate.

Fully two-thirds of Americans age 18-29 say they use social networking sites like Facebook, and more than a quarter in this age group (27%) say that they have gotten information about candidates and the campaign from them – including 37% among those ages 18-24.

Nearly one-in-ten of people under age 30 (8%) say that they have signed up as a "friend" of one of the candidates on a site. And the numbers are even higher for each of these activities among young registered voters.

...and this is just the tip of the iceberg .. there are PPC campaigns and RSS feeds and Press websites .. more to come!

Labels: Blogging, Politics, Web 2.0

A Blog is a Journal or Diary that is available on the Web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger". Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allow people with little or no technical background to maintain or add to their blogs with just the push of a button. (no HTML experience is needed !)

Start with: Coffee Cup Software Flash Blogger and then use these links to promote your blog throughtout the Internet. It takes a while (I am still working on submitting this blog)

• Blog Listings
• http://blogannounce.info/
• http://www.blog-directory.org/index.php
• http://blog.hotornot.com/
• http://www.blogpoint.com/
• http://www.blogratingz.com/index.jsp
• http://www.blogtoplist.com/
• http://www.blogdir.co.uk/
• http://www.blogdust.com/blog-directory/
• http://www.blogroll.net/
• http://www.blogs-collection.com/
• http://www.blogsrating.com/
• http://directory.blogthat.net/
• http://browseblogs.com/
• http://www.delightfulblogs.com/
• http://www.kookkoo.com/
• http://www.quickblogdirectory.com/
• http://www.search4blog.com/
• http://www.thevital.net/
• http://blogs.tomstopsites.com/
• http://wutzle.com/
• http://www.technorati.com/
• http://www.bloglines.com/
• http://www.blogstreet.com/
• http://www.blogwise.com/
• http://boingboing.net/
• http://www.globeofblogs.com/
• http://www.truthlaidbear.com/
• http://memigo.com/
• http://www.bloghop.com/
• http://www.blogarama.com/
• http://www.blogsearchengine.com/
• http://portal.eatonweb.com/
• http://www.blogdigger.com/
• http://www.bloogz.com/
• http://www.sarthak.net/blogz/
• http://www.blogmatrix.com/
• http://www.headlinespot.com/
• http://www.esperanto.se/kiosk/engindex.html
• http://www.crayon.net/
• http://www.findory.com/blogs/
• http://bulkfeeds.net/
• http://www.blogpulse.com/
• http://www.blogcatalog.com/
• http://www.blogdir.com/
• http://www.blurtit.com/
• http://www.newstrove.com/
• http://www.getblogs.com/
• http://geekphilosopher.com/
• http://www.wilsdomain.com/blogs/
• http://www.yourwebloghere.com/
• http://www.blogrankings.com/
• http://www.bloghub.com/
• http://www.feedmap.net/BlogMap/
• http://www.icerocket.com/
• http://www.bloggernity.com/
• http://www.blogsforsmallbusiness.com/
• http://www.rateitall.com/
• http://www.blogscholar.com/
• http://blogoriffic.com/
• http://findingblog.com/
• http://www.blogtopsites.com/
• http://dir.blogflux.com/
• http://www.thevital.net/
• http://www.5starblogs.com/
• http://www.rssmad.com/
• http://blogexplosion.com/
• http://www.blogion.com/
• http://www.bloggeries.com/
• http://blogadvance.com/
• http://www.blogazoo.com/

Labels: Blogging, Search Engine Optimization