Biz Tips Blog: Internet Marketing Tips

Traffic to Your Blog: Number 1 Challenge

Getting traffic is apparently the number one challenge for business bloggers.

We've been running an informal poll on our Build a Better Blog site, on which blogging tasks are the most challenging for business bloggers. Here are the results after a week:

1. Getting subscribers & traffic:                                 42.1%
2. Getting people to comment:                                  30.5%
3. Getting mentioned or linked to on other blogs:          28.4%
4. Finding time to blog:                                            22.1%
5. Finding interesting content to blog:                        21.1%
6. Getting people to register, vote, buy or take action: 16.8%
7. Adding appropriate widgets:                                   7.4%
8. Adding video & audio:                                           4.2%

While this isn't a scientifically valid study, I'll bet it's true for most of you, for your blogs and your websites. Want to learn how to optimize your blog for traffic and results?

Join The Blog Squad in a group coaching class in August. You can read information here.

You can still take the poll and weigh in on your challenges here.

Blog Relief Weekend Update #7

I just got an email from Coffee Cup Software about their collection of "comfort items" for evacuees in Texas.  It's amazing what people are doing to contribute. Check out what they're doing below.

Get Free Software for Donating Now!
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If you order more than $50 worth of hurricane relief items from our Amazon Wishlist you will get CoffeeCup News Flash 3.5 for free. After your order just send your Amazon receipt to aid@coffeecup.com and we will email you a link to download the full version.

Order from our Comfort Goods Wishlist Here:

  http://www.coffeecup.com/hurricane/wishlist/

A Special Thank You
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We want to give a really BIG THANK YOU to Jean S. of San Jose, CA for donating a 2003 Cadillac CTS. We worked with several local aid groups to find someone deserving of this generous gift.

Wadell Edwards stood out for his heroic efforts in single handedly evacuating 23 children from the rising waters in New Orleans. He got all the children of his family and friends to safety and has been looking after them for over a week. We hope that the car will help him reunite with his family and start his life over.

Learn more about our effort here: http://www.coffeecup.com/hurricane/

Blog Relief Weekend Update #6 - Help the Animals

I received this request for help from BestFriends.org for the animal victims of Katrina via my dear friend and animal lover, Hali.  This is yet another way to help.

Best Friends Hurricane Relief
c/o Leigh Breland
1635 Misty Lane
Terry, MS 39170

Hurricane-related inquiries, including offers to donate supplies or funds or to volunteer, may be directed to: 435.644.2001 x398 or hurricane@bestfriends.org.

We’ve reprinted the list of most needed supplies below.
People needs:
Toilet paper
Paper towels
Vegetarian people food that won’t spoil or need refrigeration
Portable toilets and sanitizer
Insect repellent
Sun showers
Sunscreen
First aid kits for relief workers
Hand sanitizer

Blog Relief Weekend Update #5

Here are the latest results from Blog Relief Weekend at the time of this posting:

Hurricane Katrina: Blog for Relief Weekend
Thursday, September 1 - Monday, September 5
A weekend of blogging focused on raising awareness of and funds for relief efforts to aid those affected by Hurricane Katrina. See here for more information.

Update 9/4: See here for information about new mailing lists created to facilitate communication and coordination between web-based Katrina Relief projects.

$ 723,870
contributions detail
contributions by country
log your contribution

1,680
list of blogs
blog leader board
blogs by country
add your blog

226
list of charities
charity leader board
add a charity charities recommended blogs participating in contributions so far

You can get real-time updates at TruthLaidBear blog.  You may have contributed already, and there is sooo much suffering that I urge you to dig deeper and give again if possible.  Every $1 helps those who are so much more unfortuante than those of us able to log on to the Internet and read these posts.

Blog Relief Update #4

Just received an email from San Fernando Valley Grassroots for Democracy with more ways to contribute to the hurricane and flood relief efforts.

Contribute online:
McCormick Tribune Foundation (Los Angeles Times/KTLA)  http://www.mccormicktribune.org/mtf/hurricanerelief.htm  The foundation will match the first $2,000,000 contributed to the campaign at 50 cents on the dollar.
American Friends Service Committee  http://www.afsc.org/
Direct Relief International  http://www.directrelief.org/
Houston Food Bank  http://houstonfoodbank.org/
Houston SPCA  http://www.spcahouston.org/

Notice you can make your contribute go much futher if you donate through the McCormick Tribune Foundation as they will match 50 cents on the dollar.

You can see the foodbanks and the animal shelters are in just as great a need as the large relief organizations.

Hurricane Relief - Another way Bloggers can Help

Just because Blog Relief Day is over, doesn't mean that we can stop our efforts to help the hundreds of thousands in need.  One way to help is to post a banner and link on your blog for your readers to directly link to relief organization. 

Typepad makes this very easy for you.  They have a banner, the html code and the precise instructions for how to add the banner to your blog.  You can see the banner on this blog. Use this link to get the info.

You can see the ongoing results of the blogging for relief efforts and log your contribution as well.  And I see that the Blog Relief Day is now Blog Relief Weekend, so please, make a contribution and use your blog to keep the awareness and efforts going.

Thank you very much for the generous response.

Denise

Blog Relief Day Update #3

Have you contributed to a relief organization yet?  Any amount helps those who are so devastated by the hurricane and flooding in the South.

Here's another way to help.  Coffee Cup Software, located in Corpus Christi, Texas, is collecting "comfort items" to thousands of refugees being bussed to various cities in Texas.  They're not looking for money, but actual stuff that people need when they don't have anything.

Here are the details about how you can help.

By the way, this is a legitimate company.  I use some of their software products.

Blog Relief Day Update #2

Contributions now total $250.  Thanks.  Please keep the word going and encourage all you know to dig deep and help our fellow human beings who are in such desperate situations.

Here's another way you can help.  I received this email from Moveon.org. They're looking for people within a 300 mile radius of the affected areas to help put people up.

Dear MoveOn member,

Hurricane Katrina's toll on communities, homes and lives has devastated the nation. Now victims must face the daunting question of where to go next—and we can help.

Tens of thousands of newly homeless families are being bused to a stadium in Houston, where they may wait for weeks or months. At least 80,000 are competing for area shelters, and countless more are in motels, cars, or wherever they can stay out of the elements. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross are scrambling to find shelter for the displaced.

This morning, we've launched an emergency national housing drive to connect your empty beds with hurricane victims who desperately need a place to wait out the storm. You can post your offer of housing (a spare room, extra bed, even a decent couch) and search for available housing online at:

http://www.hurricanehousing.org

Housing is most urgently needed within reasonable driving distance (about 300 miles) of the affected areas in the Southeast, especially New Orleans.

Please forward this message to anyone you know in the region who might be able to help.

Blog for Relief Day

I've just learned that tomorrow, September 1, has been deemed Blog for Relief Day in support of the victims of Hurricane Katarina.  I have to thank my friend Paul Chaney for bringing this to my attention and for making me stop and put things in perspective.  I've been so busy with work that I wasn't really thinking about what I could do in addition to donating money.

And money is what the disaster relief organizations need. Now.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that last December I challenged readers to make contributions to the tsunami relief efforts and then I matched their donations up to $500.

I make that challenge again.  If you make a donation to any disaster relief organization between today and 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on September 1, please post a comment here with the amount of your donation, to whom you made it and email me a copy of your receipt.  I will post the total donated on Sept. 2 and then match the contributions up to $500.  I will make my donation to the American Red Cross.

If you're a blogger, then please post and urge your readers to contribute tomorrow.

Thank you.

Denise

P.S.  Here's a link to a round up of posts about the relief efforts.