Feed icon library

Now for something completely different...

Looking at my blog, I said to myself "how can I increase my subscriptions?". Besides the obvious "provide posts that are actually good", I thought I would fix up the right side of my blog and make it easier to subscribe. I then found myself looking at a number of feed icons which have become the new standard to identify syndicated content.

In order to help you spice up your blog, I've searched long and far for some of the different feed icons out there and created a library for everyone to use. Feel free to let me know of an icon that should be added to this list. Enjoy!

Large Feed Icons

Small Feed Icons

Hope you had fun!

Chad H.




Technorati tags: feed icons, blog icons, blog feeds, anything goes marketing

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CNN - User generated content at its best?

At the heart of blogging is what some people may call "user generated content" (UGC). That is providing the ability for every day people to have their say. You could say that Blogger is a massive user generated content platform that provides Google with a tremendous amount of marketshare in the blog space. CNN has jumped on the UGC train as well with its new CNN Exchange.

CNN Exchange is a simple concept - it allows you to have your say or "vision" by allowing you to post your own pictures. We'll see if this works or not but for a "news hungry" world, this is something that should really take off. UGC has three main goals:

• Encourages continued web traffic by providing an interactive medium for consumers.
  I beleive that consumers want to be both empowered and celebrity like and UGC provides this opportunity
• Provides images and views that could not have been optained previously. Going back to the days when only the prviledged could read, information was only distributed to the elite. UGC procides a way for everyone to have their say and be heard. CNN benefits by getting these never seen/heard stories and images.
• Makes CNN more human. CNN has this machine like persona rather then a human face. People like Anderson Cooper and his 360 blog provide that human voice for CNN but this is not a regular voice - it's a CNN reporter. user generated content typcailly comes straight from the heart and is from their readers/viewers - not CNN itself (let's hope).
  

The one thing to caution everyone is that it requires a lot of work to administer. This concept is not new - bulletin boards and forums have been around for years. However, this is a new format and approach by one of the largest news agency. I hope that it takes off becuase it will not only be good for CNN and its blogging/UGC community but should also reflect well on how this concept can survive and prosper for the rest of the wired world.

My only issue is that I found CNN's Exchange extremely difficult to use. It's easy to post content (which is probably what they want) but I found very difficult to search and browse by categories. I would click on a title link and instead of showing me other pictures, it would be a landing page to submit a picture. In addition, hey CNN, have you heard of Flicker??? Why wouldn't you use the same type of taxonomy (user generated tags) that they do so people could actually find something once they submit it!! Hopefully you'll iron this out becuase I really like the concept. You;ve got the user generated content down, you need to work on the user organized content.

Thoughts? opinions?

Chad H.

Technorati tags: CNN, CNN exchange, User generated content

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Social Networking - New tool called Bookmark It

I found this new tool over at Bookmark it! that allows you to more easily submit articls and posts to all of the major social network repositories.

Bookmark It! claims:

Instead of having a seperate 'submit this!' button for del.icio.us, Digg, Tailrank, and every other bookmarking site on the planet... you only need one link to bookmarkit.org.

This site will redirect you to your preferred bookmarking site based on settings stored in cookies. One link: no fuss, no muss for web masters.

It seems to work (I tested it out). This may really simplifythings. However, Socilaizer (which I use) still seems to have more sites to submit too. Have you used this tool?

Chad H.

PS - Today's tip: If a blogging idea comes into your head, create a draft post with a title and some notes, save it as a draft and come back to it later in the week rather than starying up into the middle of the night. :)
PPS - Does anyone know how to post-date a blog post in Blogger so I can publish it but not have it appear live until it reaches the specific date I gave it? I'm going to put this in the the things I hate about Blogger.

Technorati tags: social networking, social networks, social bookmarks, digg, del.icio.us, bookmarkit, backlinks, blog tools

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Business Blogs - Should they be part of your main domain or separate?

As I'm about to embark on creating a more professional blog, I'm facing a big question - do I add the blog as a subdomain to my website or do I create a new domain all together for my blog.

I guess it all depends on the goals of your blog. The team over at HitTail believes that your blog should be part of your main domain (eg: www.mysite.com/blog) as your blog will drive traffic and increase the weight you pull in the search engines. This works if you plan to fully integrate your blog with your website and are mainly concerned with driving any type of traffic to your website.

However, do you want your blog to be directly associated with your corporate website? Many companies use blogs to blog about their industry rather then their company. For example, there is Eloqua's sponsored blog, The Innovative Marketer. This blog focuses on demand generation rather then on the companty itself. In this way, the blog is indirectly driving traffic to the corporate website using a different domain. Yes, it may be harder at first to get the web traffic but remember it all comes back to your goals. If your objective is to get quality web traffic and not just Joe Schmo off of Google, this may be the better way to go.

What are your thoughts? What are you currently doing and what do you recommend?

Chad H.

Technorati tags: Hittail, domain, SEO, business blogs

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Looking for some helpful business blogs?

It's the end of the month so here is my monthly blog roll or blogtipping as Easton calls it.

These blogs will:

• Help you improve your search ranking
• Improve your blog copy (content)
  
• Provide eternal life. Ok - no one has written a blog about that yet (at least that I know of).
  

Here they are:

• 3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic
  Written by Nick Wilson at Performancing, this post was simple and easy to follow. Check it out
• How to Write a Killer “How To” Post That Gets Attention
  This great blog called Copyblogger that has some great tips on writing blog posts. Awesome job!
  
• Business Blog Consulting - This contains auuthors from some of the biggest and best out there. I've read Jeremy Wright's book, Blog Marketing, which I highly recommend. I will write a thorough review soon.
  

Hope you like them!

Chad H.

PS: I did find an interesting blog post on eternal life on a blog called A for Blog :)

If you want eternal life
don’t be a human
or an intranet.

Be
a sea
anenome.

Things that make you go hmmm....

Technorati tags: SEO, search, networking

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