------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine ------- Vol 1, Issue 15 Over the Labor Day weekend, Lisa and I went down to Atlanta, GA to attend a science fiction convention. We had a lot of fun, surrounded by fans and celebrities alike. I even met one of my childhood heroes, Buck Rogers, or at least the actor who played him, Gil Gerard. Being around such folks made me think a lot about the nature of fame and celebrity. Would you like to be famous? If not that, then would you at least like to be on the first page when someone "Googles" your name? This issue, we'll continue our survey of the various ways to improve and increase your web presence. Start following some of these techniques and you might get there sooner than you think! ---------------------------------------------------------------- In This Issue... ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article: Web Presence Techniques, Pros and Cons, Part 2 2. Blog Posts 3. Shameless Self-Promotion 4. The Fine Print ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article: Web Presence Techniques, Pros and Cons, Part 2 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Last issue, we talked about the various benefits and disadvantages of having a website, writing a blog, and publishing an e-zine (or at least those that I have found). This week, we'll continue with a few others that I've sampled. Oh, and just for reference, I've now made it to #8 (a Technorati page showing a variety of links about "greg peters") and #10 (my EzineArticles expert page -- more below) on the first page of search results for "Greg Peters". Yessiree, I'm moving up in the world! 4. Write Articles for EzineArticles.com. This site allows you to publish articles about anything you want to write (within certain limitations). After they have vetted the article, it is available for anyone to use in any way with proper attribution. Pros: You can write about anything you like. You can write whenever you have time. Other people publish your work and conceivably you become recognized as an expert on one or more topics. With basic membership, you are allowed to publish up to ten articles. After that you must be approved for Platinum membership. Once at that level you are unrestricted in the number of articles you can upload. Any articles you write can, of course, be used in other channels such as your website, blog, or e-zine. Cons: The articles must pass an editorial review. This means that there is a delay of six to eight days before your article becomes public. Supposedly this period becomes shorter at Platinum level. I've also had a few articles published by other people *without* attribution. 5. Write Articles for Helium.com. This is a site similar to EzineArticles.com with a few differences. The most noticeable are that most article submissions appear immediately on the site and that the articles are rated in relation to each other by other members of the Helium community. Pros: Articles appear immediately online. Writing articles in a particular subject area will make you into an expert in that area. The rating feature helps you see how you stack up against other authors. Article can be used in other areas. There also appears to be some sort of payment mechanism for writing articles, but I haven't looked into that as of yet. Cons: Limited editing facilities -- basically text only, no other styling (bold, italic, etc). They "encourage" you to write articles which fit within their existing topics (thousands of them). This allows the raters to compare articles within each topic. It costs money for someone to publish your article -- so it's less likely that you will have numerous publishers for your piece. 6. Comment on Other People's Blogs. Most blogs have some sort of commenting facility. If they don't have comments, they often have a facility called "trackbacks" which allow you to comment on someone else's blog using your own and that comment will show up on the original blog. Kind of complicated sounding, I know, but check out Seth Godin's blog (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/) and click on the "trackback" link at the bottom of the posting to understand what I'm talking about here. Pros: If you comment on blogs with specific topics, then by presenting intelligent commentary you will appear as an expert in that topic. Trackbacks bring traffic to your blog and may help to increase your regular readership. If you manage to befriend the blog author, he or she might be willing to give reciprocal links between your blog sites (you create a link to her blog in your sidebar and she does the same right back at you). Cons: Not many other than it takes time to read and formulate good commentary on someone else's blog -- time which you could be spending on writing your own posts and articles. I've still got a few more techniques that I've tried which I'll talk about next time. For now, give these a try and let me know how things go for you! Copyright 2007, Greg Peters, all rights reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Blog Posts ---------------------------------------------------------------- Links to posts on the "Clearing Up the Confusion" Blog from the last year: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 -- Helium - Another Writing Venue http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2007/08/helium-another-writing-venue.html Thursday, August 02, 2007 -- What You Do: Once More, With Feeling! http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-you-do-once-more-with-feeling.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Shameless Self-Promotion ---------------------------------------------------------------- The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg Peters, owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data Solutions. CDS has been helping website designers develop better web presence for their clients for more than a decade. Visit us on the Web at www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your webmaster. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 4. The Fine Print ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: You can subscribe to the "Clearing Up The Confusion" E-zine at: http://www.cyberdatasolns.com/ezine Questions: If you have any questions, concerns or comments regarding the Clearing Up the Confusion E-zine, please email Greg Peters at: gpeters@cyberdatasolns.com This content may be forwarded in full, with copyright and contact information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not for-profit format. 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