Feedweb Research

Everything that is Feedweb. Our blogs, our plugin, and everything else.

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Great Blog Post Title and Picture: Do I Have your ATTENTION?!

We all do it, we create our wonderful, well-thought out blog posts, and then upload them to the web. Of course each blogger has their own way of getting referrals, one of the more popular strategies is via social media. There is one problem that all bloggers face when posting to social media, and that’s the competition. So how does one engage people and cause them to go read their post rather than another’s? Two sure-fire ways to improve your conversion rate (those that see post versus those that click) are by creating an great blog post title and picture, hopefully one they have never seen before.

A grrreat blog post title and picture: Take 1

What’s in a Title?

A great blog post title, of course, is the attention grabber. The “problem” with a lot of blog post titles is that they are too common, or at least use very common key-words that don’t attract more readers. Secondly, there are those titles that just don’t use any key-terms, because the blogger wants to be truly “original”. When was the last time the title of a post really caught your eye, and you said, “got to be a great read”. Is the title of this post an attention grabber?

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Forget about the image, maybe it was great, average, or poor, but now it is not really that important. 1 picture can be worth a thousand words. Key word here is “can”. I am sure that when you go through your news-feed in Facebook once, twice, or how many ever times a day, you notice posts that friends or companies that you like have posted for you to read. Do you read all of them? Half of them? Probably not, and that has a lot to do with how busy we are and what our priorities are (going through pictures or reading). How can bloggers or any content publishers do what is necessary in order to increase the percentage of people that read their posts? One simple way is creating a unique image.

Yes I know that creating content takes time, and that there are hundreds of thousands of images available for each topic all over the web. So why not use those images that are already available? Well it is quite simple: they are not original.

In order for a picture to be worth a thousand words…..

Originality: How many SEO posts have a picture of a hummingbird or a SEO written in colorful letters? That won’t cut it…I am not alone when I skip these posts. Instead create an image that symbolizes a journey climbing to the top (of search engine results). Maybe a pyramid, or a food chain, or the levels of the sun….

Colors: The colors of the rainbow catch our eyes. It is that simple (but don’t go crazy with 1,001 different shades).

Text: Don’t write sentences on your images, but by adding a couple of words (your best off with descriptive ones, or key-words) you are giving more info to readers on what the post is about-in a creative way.

Splitting an image: Go ahead and utilize the different apps available to insert more than one image into one cut.

Colourbox-Collage of 4 pictures

That’s all folks…..Take one minute and give some feedback!

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Confirmed Advice For Productive E-mail Marketing Strategies

There are tons of way to expand the reach of a blog or any product that is being sold via the net. Reaching out is promoting is marketing. How can a marketer become an expert in the field? By using correct e-mail advertising strategies. Let’s learn from a true pro-Vukasin Ilic.

Confirmed Advice For Productive E-mail Marketing Strategies

When you find yourself attempting to make a track record on-line, frequent interaction with the clients is an important process. Email marketing can be a amazing way to achieve this. Here are several great tips which can be used to leap-begin your e-postal mail marketing and advertising effectively.

Do not tend to any time to advertising emails to unsuspecting buyers. Your email messages may be designated as junk when they are brought to buyers that didn’t desire to acquire them. This is extremely damaging to your business’s track record and might even obtain your Ip clogged by some ISPs.

Know who your audience and also be centered. After you have established a small reader base, come up with approaches to stimulate them to obtain their buddies as well. This permits your data source to increase an e-mail listing without chemicals/naturally.

Stay away from lots of images within your e-emails.

Permit subscribers to opt for the amount of communications they wish to get, exactly how much personal data they relinquish for your needs, and the way several e-mail they would like on your part in the presented time frame.

If you do not, there is a strong likelihood for losing your customers’ belief in you, which may lead to your business gaining a terrible status. Some ISPs and online hosts will likely refuse to do business with you, which may have an adverse effect on your company.

Having a noticeable weblink where the person can unsubscribe is a good idea. Don’t forget to produce an unsubscribe link and don’t bury it so serious from the text message that it is not easily obvious. You need to strive for your customers to sense they are in charge instead of dealing with them.

Use unaggressive and energetic opinions to improve your e-snail mail marketing and advertising far better. Request site visitors for ideas. Indirect comments might not even be detectable to the viewer. You should use whatever resources as well as other software program that you have to be able to figure out which back links are becoming clicked on the most.

Give your potential customers reasons to reply to the activity in your emails. They will only purchase from you should there be an edge to the product or its email campaign. As an example, advertise a price reduction, you might offer you them free delivery on purchases over $50 to start with.

Your email communications ought to have telephone calls to measures. Your clients’ need to be convinced to do anything with the articles of your respective e-mail. Make sure that any backlinks you possess are clear and easily noticed.

Learn this and be a Pro at e-mail marketing.

A significant key in terms of email marketing is always to have email addresses that are correct. It might be a complete waste of time seeking current email address and achieving to resend emails as soon as they didn’t experience. It’s a total waste of time!

Marketing and advertising your business efficiently can help you develop your company and boost your income. Marketing and advertising with electronic mail techniques should always take part in these programs. Use what you’ve learned in this post to put into action your advertising with email strategy, and see the success that practices.

About the Author: Vukasin Ilic is a freelance web designer with over 10 years work experience. He enjoys blogging and is the owner of FireProved Marketing. A lover of socializing with others and always open for a nice talk!

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Promote Content on Social Media

Social Media is a genius platform for interaction of entrepreneurs and the public. Small and medium businesses which often take birth in one’s house garage, can gain immense popularity, free of cost, by creating a page on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter,and etc. If you think you are alone on this rat race, think twice. There are millions of ideas which float all over the world and are hungry for recognition. Then, what must you do to, in order to stand out from all those visionaries in or above your league? Only by being creative can a blogger really try to attract maximum viewership.

Through the eyes of social media….

Check out the latest version of the Feedweb Content Aggregator at feedweb.net

Social Media Keeps Growing -mergesocialmedia.com

How to Create Content Popular among Audience?

Rare content: Most fans are looking for unseen or behind the scene content. They wish to know more about their favorite artist, page or product, than what meets the eye. For example, if you produce a sitcom, then you must supply your page with exclusive bloopers of the show. If you supply customized products, you must post pictures of your successful projects. This gives your page an edge over other projects and shows, who give their audience, what is available elsewhere i.e. on all other platforms and search engines.

Sharing Fan’s Content: Once you have built a fan base, you must acknowledge their presence. This could be done by sharing content or posts created by fans on your page. This gives them a feeling of belonging and extends their loyalty to you, in the long run.

Content Worth Sharing: Most content shared by people on their feeds, must be informative, impressive and again informative. Moreover, some people are very discrete about what follows their name on a public platform, therefore, they prefer content which is worth sharing and meets their personality. You must always create creative content for your page. Rare pictures, exclusive bites from stars or association with high profile celebrities, always make your content worth sharing and bring back immense returns. Don’t have something exclusive? Be creative and think outside of the box to bring a smile to your followers.

Content which Invites Participation: Your page can get a million hits if you offer lucrative prizes for contests relating to your product. For example, if you produce a music show, you could invite music tunes from fans all over the world, offering them a chance to sing with their favorite band. This increases your popularity. The information spreads rapidly across the social network. All you need to do, is come up with a good contest to boost up your sales.

C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E (aca.cloverpad.org)

Exceptions: Oreo Cookies are known to have launched an ad campaign during a 34 minute blackout, during a Super Bowl XLVII. Oreo tweeted a picture of an isolated Oreo cookie in the dark, with the caption, which said, “Power out? No Problem! You can still dunk in the dark.” This tweet got the Oreo page over 30,000 followers and thousands of retweets. It got about 20,000 Likes on Facebook. Tumblr promoted this campaign, saying, “Oreo won the Super Bowl Blackout!” This was a major break through in the advertising industry. If you strike at the right opportunity, you are bound to be successful. Oreo could grab on to this opportunity, because it had a ready team of reporters who gave a minute to minute report about Super Bowl. They also had a copywriter and strategist to draft the ad within minutes of the eve.

About the author: Grace is an expert associated with Godot Media. She works with businesses on content marketing. She has years of experience in writing articles,blog posts, ebooks,copywriting, etc. She is also an enthusiastic blogger, and she also writes about fashion,food, and health.

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Audience Engagement: What is it?

Audience engagement sounds like a pretty simple term-leading readers to be interested in what they are reading and hence causing some sort of interaction between the two sides. Now, would I say that is the only way to define “audience engagement”? Certainly not, but that is a pretty close definition to what the dictionary would say. Now that is out of the way, the better question is, “how to engage said audience?”. Well, let’s be honest-that is one very important and open-ended question. Does anyone really know the answer-each and everyone one of us will say that we know what and how to engage our audience, but until you prove that 100% of readers are interacting with the content in some form, none of us can honestly say “I know what it is”.

To Each his Own-How to Engage your Audience

First of all, let’s get the obvious out of the way-content is king. Bill Gates said, “Those who succeed will propel the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products-a marketplace of content“. That is exactly what the web is today-a jungle of content, with the top of the food-chain being those that produce the best content (money does not hurt).

What is content? Anything on your website is part of your content. It’s the “about us” it is the logo on your site, and it’s in some manner even the way the webpage is laid out. How do create the content that exists at the top of the food-chain? Brainstorming……

Creativity: Don’t just write-add videos, slideshares, screenshots from social media pages, interviews, polls, and of course make the “content” fun to look at by creating memes-who doesn’t like a good laugh?

R&R: Don’t just wake up, brush your teeth, and start writing, unless you are Einstein. Read, read, and read->then write. Remember in school you used to read before writing? In some cases you could have called it research. Well, guess what? You need to go back to the basics and get reacquainted with what you did in school-cause that is what help writers get to the heart of the topic.

Style: Yes style. No, not fashion, rather writing style. Write so people remember you. You can write with the same style or mix-and-match. Do as you wish. Some of the more prevalent writing styles are: expository, descriptive, persuasive, narrative, and rhetorical.

What do I do now, sir?

So how do I know if I am engaging my readers? First of all, one sign is getting comments from readers-and not just those that say “great” or “I agree”, rather those that actually have something to say, and whose comments can lead to more comments. You always want to create a discussion, so asking readers and commentors a question is always a great step. So get comments-and then reply with a question-don’t do that too much!

Get people to share your post/article. Give people as many options as possible to share the content on as many various social networks. Remember there are those that keep FB personal, and those that don’t have Twitter, and those that post only very serious content to LinkedIn, so be sure to have an outlet where all readers can show-and-tell.

Another great way to make sure you are engaging readers is through polls and surveys-but forger about pop-ups-they don’t make us happy-go-lucky-campers. Using Feedweb as an exit poll is a great idea. Someone just took time to delve into your content-why not give them now the opportunity to give feedback in a quick yet precise manner? Do you really agree with all I’ve said-maybe and maybe not. How can I find out? By asking you. Will you answer-that is your choice, but I certainly hope that you do.

So check out how many visitors you have, and see how many of them are “engaged”-took an active part-by your content. That’s how you get to the top of the food-chain.

Were you engaged?

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What to do With Feedback?

So you used Feedweb, and got feedback. That should not be something new, you were getting feedback from comments, no? Oh, those that were commenting were merely giving complements in order to “market” themselves?! You were used to getting a comment from like 1 out of 20 readers? My oh my, what to do? Well, I do hope you got on board with Feedweb (for you and your readers’ sake).

So after your first post, you get a bunch of statistics saying 60% think this, and 40% think that…???. So now you have three options (at least that’s the way I see it): A) Use the feedback B) Just Continue blogging and forget about it C) Come back to it later.

Option A: Using Feedback from the Feedweb Widget

So this is pretty straight forward. Listen to what readers think. If people are interested in the topic, then don’t go and write your next post on something that is totally irrelevant. Do a follow up story and see if the numbers stay the same. Do readers agree with your stance? If there is the option to take another stance then you can try doing a follow up piece by presenting the other side of the story-even if readers might no like it. If you are using a “premium” version of Feedweb then take the opportunity to ask readers what they would like in the future-> prepare yourself for future posts! Do readers prefer a video post? If so try that out and then compare the amount of feedback that you are getting via Feedweb and comments to what you were getting in a regular post. Do readers share your content (not necessarily via social media)? It is a great question that you need answered in order to take the site to the next level.

Option B: Ignoring Feedweb Feedback

This option is understandable if the amount of people voting does not represent your readers, because the sample size is too small, otherwise there is no reason to not take into account what your readers think. Even if you are a controversial blog, readers opinions can still help in creating better (more controversial) content.

Option C: Coming Back to Feedback Later

This is great if you are conducting a series of posts on the same topic. It does not matter if you are using the same questions or not throughout the series, as long as you come back to it later (of course possible by either exporting data or checking out the monitor). Why not examine results after every post? If you are writing something that is going to be covered in a number of posts you can definitely come back to the data at the end to determine the success of the series. This option works best by combing options A and B.

You are not ignoring the data, simply not letting it affect the next post(s). You can ask questions that relate to the topic for the next post, and on the other hand you can totally ignore it in order to get a good comparison on how the each post in the series has a different affect on readers.

How else can Feedweb be used?

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Feedweb is Now Premium Too

Did you catch that? The “Feedweb” plugin for WordPress CMS based site is now available in three different versions: Basic (free) and Plus and Pro! For those of you not familiar with our plugin lets give you a short run down:

Imagine that at the end or beginning of any post you could collect specific feedback from your readers, without them having to comment? With Feedweb you can insert the widget and by defualt get a rating from 1-5, but then go ahead and ask your readers a couple binary questions to get the feedback that you always wanted. You get feedback-and readers that ordinarily would not comment, now can give you some info back-in less time!

So what can you do with “Feedweb”?

Create and publish interactive widgets to collect readers’ feedback in a secure, simple, precise, and quick manner

Use our monitor (in the dashboard) to track audience engagement and content quality by post or author.

Expose blog posts to a brand new audience via Feedweb Readers Community

The opinions of your readers are important and an integral part of any successful blog. I am not going to define a successful blog, but I will admit that getting feedback has to be a component that is taken into consideration when looking into what is a “successful” blog…it could depend on the content as well-not all content needs feedback.

So now that you have heard about Feedweb, all that is left to do is use it. With almost 2000 sites actively using the plugin and with now more than 50,000 downloads, its hard to find a reason not to use it. One Plugin that’ll bring so many results..Get Feedweb:

Traffic

Ratings (rating widget)

Feedback

Got Questions? Shoot ‘em our way! See how Feedweb is being used->http://feedweb.net/RCP/

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Blogger Routine

Every blogger has his/her routine. You write a post upload it to social media, and then start networking and reaching out and working non-stop to get more people to visit your site. Not every blogger works like that every day or on any day, but most likely each and every person that ever started a blog had to go about thing “blogger routine”.

Today, if a blogger is able to create good content (what is good content?), finding readers should not be that difficult if that blogger is willing to work at it-at getting people onto the site through various strategies. Yes today there are more websites than ever, but with quantity comes both quality and its opposite-junk. So, yes you are going to have more competition later today than you do now, but content is what will win the race.

What if a blogger could create an easier routine that focuses more on content, content, and content? If content is that important, than shouldn’t there be an easy and fast way to get it out to the public (which has no idea of the content’s existence)? Feedweb is rapidly working non-stop to make that the case-

Readers Community and the Monitor (which content engages?)

Months ago, one of the bloggers using Feedweb-MoneyMakerSpy-wrote that on a “good” day he was able to attract almost 60 readers to his site. What is a good day? What he did not realize (at least not at the time of writing the post) was that the “good” thing was his content.

The Blogger Routine: With Feedweb

Publish a post using Feedweb. Create a great title/subtitle (like creating an advert-something catchy!). Your “name” should not be admin-that is boring!

Now you have posted your new post on the site and of course to social media (Facebook, Twitter, and so on). What is next? Well, now that you are using “Feedweb” (assuming you agreed to “terms&conditions”) your post is in the aggregator.

You are attracting readers from your site, social media, and Feedweb Readers Community-Call this a cheat-sheet. Any and all advantages for bloggers (especially free ones) are welcomed!

Now you can take a break and let your content speak for itself. Go get some coffee, and a breath of fresh air.

Go comment on other blogs to create relationships, upload to reddit and others, and if you want “try” to do some SEO (is it worth the time).

***Instead of starting out at point 0 now you can start at point 1.5. Make sense?

Now that you are using Feedweb, you don’t have to spend as much time online trafficking your site to every person. I would assume that we all want to work hard and encourage people to visit our site-but what if they don’t come back? With Feedweb, if you have good content, you will always have readers coming back.

It will start slowly, but once you get a hang of it, you will have the head-start on other bloggers that will push you over the top.

You don’t need to change your routine with Feedweb-and we don’t recommend that. Feedweb offers you, the blogger, an opportunity to get ahead of the pack, even if it’s just a few feet in front of them. DO YOU KNOW THAT A NEW BLOG IS BEING STARTED RIGHT NOW? Why not give yourself an edge?

The Smart Bloggers:

http://www.crazytechsolutions.org/

http://techbin.org/

http://abundance-365.com/

http://conservativelyspeaking.us/

http://www.bloggerdoc.com/

http://www.thexboxhub.com/

http://legalize50.org/

And more than 1900 others….

Just Be Positive

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Blog Aggregator: Feedweb Portal

Bloggers are always looking to build relationships in hopes of branching out and finding a new group of people to add to his/her audience. I am no professional on that, even though I have created my own share of relationships. What is one of the ways that a blogger can accomplish this? Blogging networks, including a blog aggregator. There are thousands if not millions of bloggers that are looking to grow and reach new readers-so every head-start that you can gain on the competition is helpful.

One of the easiest and most popular ways to grow is through using an aggregator service. Usually using this service is free (if you are paying just to be in the aggregator-that’s weird). The Feedweb portal allows bloggers to connect with one another and gives all of us a chance to read refreshing news and updates from new parties.

There is too much on the web to be discovered. Give yourself a chance to discover and learn something new everyday through Feedweb’s aggregator service.

Lets make sure we are all on the same page:

Feedweb Plugin-A feedback collector and rating widget that allows for monitoring engagements by posts and authors. http://wordpress.org/plugins/feedweb/

Aggegator-A website/software that displays a certain type of media from different sources (in one location).

The Feedweb aggregator’s “pages” tab displays the newest, “recommended” blog posts. Only those posts that include an image will be displayed as recommended as well as  a “normal” publisher/author name.–> http://feedweb.net/RCP/

Do you want to read something specific? In a certain language? We’ve got it. There are the following options to filter through the various posts and find exactly what your looking for or just stroll through and find some informative and/or entertaining content.

By language-top left corner

Recommended/Most Voted/Best Voted/Latest

By Time: Last year, month, week, or anytime

Categories

Keyword search

If you write high quality content there is no reason your blog should not have its posts recognized in the Feedweb aggregator. Name one blog that does not want feedback? If there is one, I’d like to see it, and if there is no time to ask questions, then just get a rating-it’s better than nothing.

If you want to create new relationships with bloggers on the same topic as you or with someone that is not exactly in your niche, you can use the search bar, or any other criteria to find those new friends.

My question for you is, why not use it? I can’t think of a good answer not to get your post into the Feedweb Readers Community.

Good luck bloggers, and let the force (of Feedweb) be with you!

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The Popular Blog

So a while back I looked into a few factors that I decided should be part of what makes up a “good” blog. As Adrienne pointed out, is this something that can clearly be defined? One could say that a blog is like beauty.

Beauty (and a blog) is in the eye of the beholder.

A blog is one’s thoughts..so who are we to define what thoughts and in what way those thoughts should be expressed?

A popular blog is something else though, no?

So, in short it is quite possible that all the blogs on the net are “good” ones. If someone reads it or not, does not necessarily define a blog as good/bad. What can be focused on is what makes a blog popular-and we are not going to talk about SEO.

A popular blog is not necessarily a good or high quality blog. It might be that there is a blog available that would get us to come back a few times a day, but we don’t know about it-it has only 5 readers-that does not make it poor-just unpopular.

Popularity

Think back to high school or even college. There was always a gang of students that were more “accepted” than others. You could say that these were the popular people. Popular people=popular blogs. How so?

What are some of the reasons for popularity?

Good looks-well there are tons of sites and blogs that have average content, but these same sites are able to drive a larger audience to their posts and keep them there, because of the way that it is styled-like a “good looking” person.

Networking-there are people who start a blog and know that it will succeed, because they just happen to know so many people, and those people like him/her. This person is a net-worker and will use it to promote the site, so in sense the popular person is able to upload a blog, and make it “popular”, because he/she is as well.

Jocks-a jock is not just someone that plays a sport, rather it’s all those mainstream people that like and do all that is mainstream, and you have got tons of those blogs. How many pop/hip-hop music/sports/celeb/gaming/fashion/lifestyle blogs are there? Wow, I won’t count or ask you to either (no cruel punishment in this blog). Somehow, a large portion of them tend to succeed, even though there is almost no difference among them-even the same images.

Does success equate to popularity? Not always (at least not during the school year), but you can always count on a few of those “nerds” (don’t take offense just using jargon from back when I was in school-not that long ago) to be a hit. The same thing goes for sites.

Even though a site may not be popular (good looking, networked, or mainstream) it can still be a hit. Content is king, so if an admin is really able to work hard or even at 50% to churn out some awesome content that will leave others drooling then that will probably make the blog successful and in turn, hopefully popular as well.

It’s been a few years since high school, so you might have to remind me of some other characteristics of the “cool” dudes. Hit us with your best shot.

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Plugins are Important

Plugins are important. I know that may seem obvious, but to many sites and people that is just the opposite. Today site admins/webmasters/gurus/ninjas are so occupied with the site’s security that they forget to have a little fun and use their creative side to add plugins to the site. Don’t get me wrong. Plugins are still secondary to a site’s security, but that does not make sites untouchable. Agree? Agree to disagree.

What would a site be without plugins? A white piece of paper with writing. Is that attractive? I don’t find it very appealing. So, once you have secured your site with PLUGINS, it is time to add a few plugins that will spice up the life of your visitors.

I won’t be naming any specific plugins that need to be used, rather let’s go into the realm of web design and site maintenance to discover which types of plugins we need and what you don’t need, but it’s fun to add, and then what you don’t need and don’t add.

First of all you need to do something to connect your readers to your updates and all that you do. How can that be done? You have to add the following types of plugins to succeed with that.

Subscription plugin: with this plugin you can notify anyone of all of your new posts. There is no need for readers to drop by randomly (even though that is welcomed and a sign that you are succeeding). You are busy everyday. I am busy everyday. Make it easy to catch up with what is going on.

Social Media to Connect: I am assuming that you are using various avenues of social media. This doesn’t have to be just Facebook. If you are using Facebook and Twitter that is probably enough. Whatever you are using you need to be using it not to spam or sell stuff to followers (at least not as main priority). The main priority should be to give your customers/readers more knowledge and through that succeed in selling or anything else. So, you should at least notify readers of new posts on your social media pages. What else you do there is your business. So add buttons that allow your readers to follow you. Make it big! Also, make the upload process simple by using a plugin to automatically post to those pages. To review, make big icons on the home page-and if you want also on posts pages-to follow you on social media outlets. Next, use automatic upload plugins to get updates onto social media.

Social Media to Share: All I can say is, “Word of Mouth”. By allowing your valued readers to share what they like, wherever they like, you are creating the best opportunity for growth. What is the best opportunity? Word of Mouth. You disagree? Tell me why. When someone shares, there is a guarantee that if he/she has any friends your work will reach others-and you did not pay.

Newsletter: Totally optional. Got time on your hands? Then try it out.

What plugins are needed to connect readers?

Another type of plugin that you should add is to make it easy to “search” your site. If you have been running the site for 3 or 4 years and then suddenly someone shows up for the first time. This persons want to find something (and that something you did years ago). How long will it take to find the post/quote/whatever? Again, one key to success with websites is making life on the site easy. Readers don’t want to struggle.

Search Plugins: Make your search as smooth and fast as Google.

Tags Plugins: Maybe make it a “cloud” or a list. It does not matter. To each his own. What matters is that it is on top (at least the “search” plugin) so that visitors see it.

Another type of plugin that you should definitely add are those for comments and feedback.

  Getting feedback from readers seems to be a lost entity these days. You have sites with tons of comments and then those with close to zero. Getting feedback is just as important as writing the article/post.

Anti-Spam: I doubt there is a need to expand. (securing your site)

Comment Form: What details should readers be giving you? Are readers going to comment via their social media or by filling out info on your form?

Notification of reply: If you are going to let someone comment, then let them know that someone responded.

Comment sharing: Let your readers share about themselves. You know what plugin should be used? There is only one that really does the job for anyone looking to get their site some PR.

Polls/Surveys: You don’t have to use them every time, but here and there getting some extra feedback is definitely a plus. Can you guess what plugin we use to get feedback?

I know this list is not complete. I want you to complete it. I am no pro or guru or ninja. I am not even a blue-belt. Give a holler and express yourself.

P.S. Take it easy on me

[feedweb-research]

New Post has been published on Feedweb Research: The Blog

New Post has been published on http://blog.feedweb.net/?p=241

A Good Blog

Blogger, WordPress, Drupal, and Jumla-use them to blog. What is a blog? A blog is a website containing the experiences, ideas, observations, and so much more of the author(s), and quite often link to another site (usually the site regarding the content of said post). What is a good blog? what is good?

One could contest that the majority (50.1%) of all the sites on the world wide web are blogs. So what is a good blog? Let’s not get into the upper echelon of blogs of what makes the “best” blogs great.

A good blog: Check these out: Abundance-365, legalize50.org, justbeingpositive, passionateaboutbaking

Pick a topic and angle: These two things should be done together as they have a direct effect on one another. If you are choosing to write about celebrity gossip, how will you go about writing the blog posts? Humorous or serious? The same thing can be said about all topics. There is no one angle. Will you take a liberal angle on topic x and a conservative angle on topic y? A blog is not meant to be formal-chill out! Speak you blog (you should be able to speak the exact same way you wright), although you can write any way you write. Target an audience-men, woman, Americans, teens, tourists, gamers, etc. What angle and what type of writing style will draw them to your blog?

Start posting! Make a schedule so that your readers can know when you are posting, even though today they can find out on Facebook or any other social media source. Still for the sake of starting out you should consider, for example, posting twice a week on Monday and Thursday. Continue this schedule for the first month or two at least and then blogger you may change your ways.

Posts: Picture and videos-A MUST. You have got to give readers eye candy. I want something funny, interesting, mind boggling to look at. I can read and see anything I want on the internet so make sure that at first glance you are able to suck readers in. In regards to the style and angle you take, these images or any type of media you select should fit that angle you have chosen to take.

Invite feedback from readers. The best feedback is direct-comment or email. How many readers actually take the time to do that? Maybe 2-3% of readers. Other forms include widgets that you can install on your site. The more you find out from readers the more you can improve. My opinion is that the more feedback you get-the better your content is. Only when content is good will we take the time to give feedback. If it is just plain bad-well then I will skip giving feedback.

If you follow these steps you’ll undoubtedly have a good blog-one that if people get on your page-will read. How do you take a good blog and move up on the scale? Let’s leave something for another day. Now you need to start advertising your blog! Go get on the social media train……->good blog.

Any other points that all bloggers have to follow? These are just a few points that came to my head, now I want to know what points came to your hear.

[feedweb-research]

New Post has been published on Feedweb Research: The Blog

New Post has been published on http://blog.feedweb.net/?p=236

Feedweb Updates

Feedweb: Just a bit here and there….

As usual we are busy at work trying to make sure that Feedweb is your most valuable plugin. We released version 2.2.3 yesterday and now we are looking forward to the next update-either next week, or maybe available in just a few days.

Check out what we did in a few short minutes on SlideShare. Do you like? Agree? Don’t be shy, because as you know, we love opinions.

Feedweb and Reviews

For those of you that have not checked out our artwork on Vimeo, please do so as well.

What the monitor can do for you….

Know how readers voted on each article and be able to analyze from which angle or what topic led to more votes.

If you have multiple authors, now you can compare how each one was able to engage his/her audience.

Content, content, and content. Know what content engages your audience. What do they share (ask them that question) and what don’t they share? What attracts them to the site, and keeps them coming back for more?

You want traffic? We’ve got it. Feedweb.net continues to increase the number of visits it’s bringing to your sites. Maybe you won’t need to do any SEO!

There will be at least one major update in the next version. Stay alert.

[feedweb-research]

New Post has been published on Feedweb Research: The Blog

New Post has been published on http://blog.feedweb.net/?p=226

Get Feedback: You Care About Opinions

Simple

You care about my opinion and want my feedback. You don’t know me, but if I have an opinion regarding any aspect of yourself or your life, the odds are that you care about my opinion. Why? As much as we are taught not to care what others think about us, we cannot live our life and not give attention to what people around us think. It is a part of life. Just as I need to eat and drink, I pay attention to what other think. Will I do something with those opinions? I don’t know. Each case is unique and judged at the time that it occurs.

The opinions that I want to focus on are those of our “customers”. Customer-a person that one gives service to. Websites, and more specifically, bloggers have customers that we refer to as readers. Why are our readers “customers”. One is a customer the second he/she begins using a service provided, with no regards to cost. A non-profit has customers. This blog has customers, and your site has customers. What is the correct term to define them? It may not be customers.

What can be said without a doubt is that anyone that runs a blog cares about the opinions of those that read. I want to see that people comment. Why? I don’t write to myself. I can only improve my content and site if I know what my readers think. What readers of another blog think is not on my mind. What professionals content managers think is not on my mind. They don’t read my writing-you do.

Most, I wont say all, of those that run blogs want people to know about it and read it. They want it to be utilized. How can that be done? We’ve gone over that already. Improvement=listening to your readers’ opinions. That is the only thing that we as bloggers can do to improve our site. Any website that has a blog (even the big ones…Mashable, Inc, Field, etc) wants to get better. We want everyone that reads about what we blog to read it from us, and not someone else. Competition is competition.

You know that readers don’t take the time to leave comments. Does that mean that we need to wave our hands in the air and give up. “I don’t know what they think”, “We will work with a pro to improve”-that is not the way you want to go. Being unique is important. Why did Apple prosper? They were very unique. Why are they stumbling now? They don’t really stand out as much as they used to. So back to the comments issue. First of all, create a buzz and make readers want to comment..leave them wanting more and asking for it. Make the comment form attractive and use commentluv.

Now I have got to mention Feedweb. Yea, I admit I am crazy about it. Is it because I am part of “Feedweb Research” that published the useful plugin? Maybe. No matter my connection, Feedweb can undoubtedly get you more opinions from your readers. What’s more, is that by asking specific questions bloggers can use the answers to help them write future posts (content or angle). It is a valuable plugin that can make getting feedback so quickly and so easy.

Now, assuming you have used the plugin correctly you can get back valuable feedback. Do you share this feed with friends? Do you find this helpful? Did you learn from this? Do you like the appearance of this site? Is social media marketing to stay? Do you believe in…? Is he/she the right person for the position? The questions go on and on. You can use the same questions each time and see how they differ from post to post or just ask questions when you have to get answers.

Either way, any way you do it, you have to get a better understanding for what your readers think. Are you gonna call them one by one? No. Send a newsletter..,how many are going to answer or even open it up? Keep it short. Keep it quick. Get to the point. GET FEEDBACK.

  Find out what each one thinks. It’s important for you.

[feedweb-research]

New Post has been published on Feedweb Research: The Blog

New Post has been published on http://blog.feedweb.net/?p=214

Opinions: Why They Matter

What you think matters

  The dictionary says that an “opinion” is any belief that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty. Innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, and fantasy are opinions  The simpler way of defining “opinion” would be-the way one feels regarding a certain topic that has no one truth. We all have a different opinion regarding religion, politics, our culture, and even entertainment. The only place you might not find opinions is in the mathematical field where all is backed up by facts. Are there opinions in science, computers, and history? I don’t know and don’t want to get into that. What do I want to get into? The importance of your opinion. NOT my opinion…your opinion.

Lets just say that there are plus/minus 1 billion blogs/sites all over the world that deal with opinions-sharing thoughts, feedback, feelings, and so on regarding various topics. Those sites that are based on only one persons opinions won’t get that far. Am I right or wrong? Wouldn’t a site that shares the opinions of its readers be more successful because it has more to offer. What do I have to offer? I offer my opinions, but they are not the same as those of my neighbors or business partners. Each and every one of us have all had different life changing moments, some less dramatic than others. Every moment teaches us something and shapes our different opinions.

When running a website of any type or marketing any type of business your goal should not be to target a specific age group rather an “opinion group”. People who share like opinions on politics, for example. This post should not just be based on my opinion of what should be done. It should be based on the opinions of the readers of this site, and not the opinions of a group that read a post on a similar website, because they are not my readers, my customers.

The case of marketing? Content marketing and content writing->these so called “experts” of social media or ninjas or gurus are high on something. There is no such thing as a social media guru/expert/ninja. It is a scam. We are all experts on content becuase we all have opinions and know that others have them as well. We are all familiar with social media. So what is an “expert”? It is someone that knows how to use images/video with opinions on social media. Now, is that really so difficult? If you want to, you can take all of your content to the next level through social media through the use of content-gooood content. Content=?????…….OPINIONS.

So I want to get this straight, and I think you want to as well. Anything that has good content is content that is based on the feelings and thoughts of many people coming from different groups and backgrounds. So when you visit a very popular blog, you won’t see once stance (unless they are trying to take the extreme route), rather that there are many ways of doing/expressing different actions/hobbies/whatever.

Get feedback. That’s how you get opinions. How do you get feedback? First of all comments, but that is  what, 2% of readers? So getting feedback means that you are going to need to use Feedweb. Why? Get to know your readers’ opinions faster and easier than ever before. Get the opinions to the questions that need the answers and not just any random topic.

Why would I read or buy something that “commands” me to do so? Why would you? You are your own man/woman, and we don’t need anyone else controlling what we do. What we all want is collaboration. With it-everything gets easier.

[feedweb-research]

New Post has been published on Feedweb Research: The Blog

New Post has been published on http://blog.feedweb.net/?p=182

Increase Comments Means Interactions

How can you make it better? That easy!

Getting “likes” is not a problem today. Today the problem for anyone running any type of site or social media campaign is to try to increase comments. In fact, creating a larger following on any social media network is easy. You can buy new followers or just continually message others to get more people to ‘follow you”. What do you really want when you have a FB page? Twitter, blog, Pinterest, and so on? No one will tell you that having a large number of followers is bad, but what is just as important is creating meaningful interactions between everyone=increase comments. The hard part of running any type of social media is getting more comments from readers. Even if you are getting 10 comments, that is only ten, which is probably something like 1-5% (5 being very large) of readers. Increase comments…..create more interactions.

What is an interaction?  The dictionary would tell you that it is, “a mutual or reciprocal action or influence”. In simple words that we can all understand, an interaction is a collection of thoughts that are shared between 2 or more sides. It is sharing feelings, opinions, thoughts, and anything else. Take a news site or any social media page with great content and see what people are saying. A comment is your favorite form of interaction. To get more comments, you have got to take the initiative, because odds are that not very many people will take the time to interact with the other side.

Reach OUT!

For example, take a site like time.com. There you can see the most popular articles. After checking out the most “popular” article, you can see that it has only 295 comments. Why only? This article was probably read by approximately 10,000 people, and yet less than 1% of the readers left a comment. Today we are busy and we feel as if we don’t have time to share our thoughts and feelings. Just look at how people don’t go vote. Although “commenting” and voting are not the same things they both involve us having to share our thoughts. There are those that do and those that don’t. How to make “those that do” leave a comment?

Basic Concepts, but are you using them? It’s easy as A-B-C, as simple as 1-2-3: Increase Comments

1) Create a story that makes readers feel like they are part of it.-> We all want to be part of another network and that is why we use more than one social media site. Meet more people and learn about new and interesting communities. So when you introduce readers/clients to yourself, make sure that you are creating a story/background that uses key words with positive connotation. Uses words that allows the readers to see what you are talking about without having to see images.

2) Reward your readers for their comments-> It would be nice if comments would come from the heart without having to ask, but that is not the case. A great way to increase comments is to meet readers in the middle and reward them with small prizes or something meaningful.

3) Use readers’ comments in future posts-> You care what your readers have to say. You don’t just ignore the comments, rather you always come back to them. A sub-category for this would obviously be to comment on comments and create a window for more comments.

4) Make your point clear, crystal clear!-And at the end ask a question-> No matter what you may be writing about, one thing is for sure: take a stance. The stance can be neutral, but you are better off taking a liberal or conservative approach or a pro/con approach where you pick a side. Once you have done this and protected yourself by giving a few reasons as to why you leaned that way, follow it up with a question. You want to know what other think.

Are comments important or are they overrated? Would you prefer getting more answers in a survey-like poll (See: Feedweb) or get more comments? Follow the steps and not only get more comments, but also get more results in Feedweb to track in the monitor.