SEARCHING THROUGH BLOGS
When you click the More link on the Google home page and choose Blogs from the pop-up menu that appears, your browser displays the Google Blog Search page (blogsearch.google.com). The Blog search interface is quite intuitive, it resembles the main Google web search engine. If you simply enter Business Trends in the search box and click Search Blogs, you turn up plenty of blogs that have Business Trends as part of their titles, for instance, you’ll also find posts about business trends in the current year.
If you click Advanced Blog Search, you access a form that lets you filter results so that you get posts published within a certain date range or a specific URL, for instance.
MEASURING THE BUZZ BY TYPE OF SERVICE
To ensure that your own blog appears in a timely fashion in blog monitoring tools, submit your blog to each one and set up pinging.
BLOG AND FORUM MONITORING TOOLS
. (www.backtype.com) monitors conversations on Blogs and Twitter.
. Board Tracker (www.boardtracker.com) searches forums and message boards, fee and premium accounts.
. Blogdigger (www.blogdigger.com) delivers blog search content in an RSS feed.
. Bloglines (www.bloglines.com) delivers blog search content in an RSS feed.
. BlogPulse (www.blogpulse.com) automated keyword or URL search of blogosphere with RSS feed, profile, tracking, and trend tools available.
. coComment (www.cocomment.com) track comments on any web page, complies trends and top commentators.
. Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com) master search engine for all blogs with an RSS or Atom feed, not just Google’s own
blogger.com, can segment by topic, displays by popularity.
. Lijit (www.lijit.com) customizable search tool with statistics for your own blog to monitor what topics readers are searching for, can add sites you
have bookmarked, your blogroll, posts by your social networking contacts, and other feeds.
. Technorati (http://technorati.com) the first real-time blog search engine, ranks authority and influence of blogs and has more comprehensive
index of blog popularity.
. Trendpedia (http://www.trendpedia.com/) free blog search tool.
FINDING BLOGS
Technorati:
Technorati has long been considered the best blog search site.
Follow these steps to find blogs about specific topics using technorati.com:
1. Visit www.technorati.com/search.
2. Enter your search term in the Blog search text box provided. Be sure to use the text box with the Search button and the drop-down lists, not the
text box above that.
3. Select the A Lot of Authority option from the drop-down list on the left beneath the blog search text box.
Selecting A Lot of Authority means that more popular blogs should be returned in your search results. Technorati believes that blogs with more incoming links are publishing better content more often, so those blogs get higher authority rankings.
4. Select your language from the drop-down list on the right beneath the search term box. This step ensures that blogs written in languages other than
your own are left out of your search results.
5. Click the Search button. Your results are displayed. However, these results show blog posts that use your search term, not entire blogs about that term.
6. Click the drop-down list on the far left in the green bar directly above your results and select the Search Blogs option. Your search is now restricted to
entire blogs about your search term rather than individual posts.
7. Click the Go button. Your search results are displayed.
ICEROCKET
IceRocket is a popular blog search tool, but, unlike Technorati, you can use it to search only for blog posts, not entire blogs about specific topics. The advanced search tools are useful if you know specifically what you’re looking for.
IceRocket does offer an advantage in that you can narrow your search by date ranges.
To find content on IceRocket, follow these steps:
1. Visit www.icerocket.com and enter your search term into the search box in the center of the page. Notice the tabs above the search box. The Blogs
tab is the default setting, meaning IceRocket searches blog content for your search term unless you select a different tab.
2. Click the Search button. Your results are displayed.
3. In the left sidebar, click the Past Week link to narrow your search.
Narrowing your search to the past week ensures that only blogs that are actively talking about your search term are included in your list of results. You can try different date links (your options are Today, Past week, Past month, and Anytime) or enter your own date range to see how the results change. To enter your own date range, select the Choose Dates link in the left sidebar. Text boxes appear beneath the Choose Dates link where you can enter your desired start and end dates and then click the Proceed button beneath the text boxes to narrow your search. Note that when you narrow your search using the links and functions in the left sidebar, your search results are updated immediately to fit that criteria.
4. Select your language from the drop-down list in the left sidebar. Your search results are automatically updated.
GOOGLE BLOG SEARCH
Google’s blog search tool is becoming the go-to place for blog searches, but it still isn’t perfect. You can’t search for entire blogs related to a search term. Instead, only specific blog posts that use that search term are provided in the search results. However, at the top of the page for most search results, you can find a small list of blogs about the search term, and this neat feature makes Google a best of both worlds created by Technorati and IceRocket.
Like IceRocket, Google Blog Search has a number of useful advanced search tools, but until you know specifically what you’re looking for, they won’t help you much. Also, Google Blog Search offers the same advantages as IceRocket in that you can narrow your search using date ranges, which is useful for finding current results.
To find blog content using Google Blog Search, here’s what you do:
1. Visit: http://blogsearch.google.com and enter your search term into the search box. Google searches its index for pages that mention your search term.
2. Click the Search Blogs button to the right of the search box. Your search results are displayed. A small list of blogs related to your search term is
presented at the top of the search results followed by a list of blog posts that mentioned your search term.
3. Click the Past Week link in the left sidebar to narrow your search results. Doing so ensures that only current blog posts that mention your search term
in the past week are returned in your search results rather than all results published anytime. When you click the link, your results are updated.
REVIEWING POPULAR BLOG TOPICS
. Technorati : one of the most popular blog search tools. You can find the list at: www.technorati.com/pop/blogs.
. Polls : Get your readers involved by creating a poll and asking them to vote. People love polls! Use a tool like PollDaddy (www.polldaddy.com) or
SurveyGizmo (www.surveygizmo.com) to create polls about anything you want.
. Look at Google Trends. Google Trends (www.google.com/trends) provides a list of the most-searched-for search terms.
If a term is being searched for, it’s safe to assume people are interested in it, and it could make a great blog post idea.
TWITTER SEARCHES
Follow these steps to search Twitter to find mentions of search terms related to your niche blog topic:
1. Visit Twitter at www.twitter.com. The Twitter home page opens.
2. Enter your search term in the search text box. This step tells Twitter the specific word(s) you want to find within current Twitter user’s posts.
3. Click the Search button. A new page opens showing a list of Twitter posts that include your search term.
PERFORMING KEYWORD SEARCHES
GOOGLE TRENDS
Google Trends (www.google.com/trends/hottrends) is a tool provided for free from Google that shows a list of the most popular search terms on Google at any given time.
USING THE GOOGLE ADWORDS TRAFFIC ESTIMATOR
Google AdWords is a tool that advertisers use to bid on keywords and place ads on web sites and blogs that publish content related to those keywords. This is a form of contextual advertising that many bloggers use because it’s easy to implement on a blog through programs such as Google AdSense (the publisher side of Google’s AdWords program). Using the Google AdWords Traffic Estimator tool, you can enter keywords related to the niches you’re considering starting a blog about to get a general idea of how popular they are based on the amounts advertisers are willing to pay for those keywords.
Follow these steps to research potential niche blog topic keyword phrases using the Google AdWords Traffic Estimator tool:
1. Visit the Google AdWords Traffic Estimator at: https://adwords.google.com/select/trafficestimatorsendbox. This step opens the Google
AdWords Traffic Estimator page.
2. Enter the keywords or keyword phrases you want to search for in the Enter Keywords text box. To search for multiple keyword phrases, so you
can compare results, enter each phrase on a new line in the Enter Keywords text box.
3. Skip to number 4, Select Targeting, and select the language you search to use from the list box.
You can customize your search, but to get an idea of the popularity of keywords that advertisers are bidding on, leave this search option as general as possible unless your niche blog topic is tied to a specific geographic area.
4. Select the area you want to search from the list in the Available Countries and Territories list box.
You can refine your search or keep it more general to get the best over view of the popularity of your chosen keywords.
5. Click the Continue button. A new page opens, showing your results.
6. Take a close look at the Search Volume and Estimated CPC columns.
The search volume column gives you a comparison of the popularity of a search term versus others in your search list, and the estimated CPC column (CPC stands for cost-per-click) tells you the amount advertisers are typically paying for clicks on ads served for those keywords.
RESEARCHING WITH THE GOOGLE ADWORDS KEYWORD TOOL
The Google AdWords program offers yet another tool you can use for free to get a basic idea of the kind of traffic niche blog topic keyword phrases receive. The Google AdWords Keyword Tool allows you to find the popularity of a keyword phrase in terms of monthly volume of ad clicks and the estimated cost-per-click that advertisers are paying for those keywords. Furthermore, the tool provides a list of related keyword phrases along with their volumes and estimated cost-per-click numbers. With a simple search, you end up with a wealth of great information to help you pick a profitable niche blog topic.
Take a look at these steps to use the Google AdWords keyword tool:
1. Visit the Google AdWords keyword tool at: http://adwords.google.com/select/keywordtoolexternal. This step opens the Google AdWords
Keyword Tool page.
2. Enter your keyword phrase in the Enter One Keyword Phrase Per Line text box. You can enter multiple keyword phrases for comparison, or you can
enter a sign phrase if your goal is to find a variety of alternative keyword phrases for ideas.
3. Enter the Security Characters in the text box provided. The letters you enter in this text box are not case sensitive.
4. Click the Get Keyword Ideas button. Your results are provided on a new page.
5. Using the Choose Columns to Display drop-down list, make sure the Estimated Avg. CPC column, Local Search Volume column, and Global Monthly
Search Volume column are visible within your results.
These are the three primary columns you should look at when you’re researching niche blog topics. You can also play around with the other columns and get a feel for the information they provide.
FINDING BUSINESS BLOGS TO BENCHMARK
Following are several tips for finding business blogs to benchmark:
. Visit your competitor’s web sites.
. Conduct a Technorati blog search.
. Do a Google blog search.
. Follow post links. As you find blogs related to your business through Technorati and Google searches, take a look at the links included in the blog’s
posts. Many of them just might lead you to more blogs related to your business.
. Follow blogroll links : Visit blogs related to your business subject matter and look for a section included in many blog’s sidebars called Blogroll, Useful
links, or something similar. Bloggers include links to other blogs they like and recommend in their blogrolls, which may lead you to more content for
research and benchmarking.
USING SERM TECHNIQUES
To keep track of what’s being said online about you, your business, and your brand, you need to stay on top of the conversations taking place on the web and the content being published. You can keep track of your online reputation in a number of ways. Following are some of the free techniques you can use:
. Google Alerts : Set up Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts) for your business and brand names as well as keywords people are likely to use to search
for your products and services.
. Google Search : Conduct a daily Google Search using the Advanced Search feature (www.google.com/advanced_search?h1=en), so you can look
for specific search strings found within a specific time period, such as within the past 24 hours.
. Blog Searches : Conduct blog searches using your business name and relevant keywords via blog search tools such as Google Blog search
(www.blogsearch.google.com), IceRocket (www.icerocket.com), and Technorati (http://technorati.com/search?advanced).
Be sure to try the tag search function available through Technorati’s search tool. Many bloggers identify keyword tags that go along with their posts from within their blogging application, such as WordPress, which Technorati indexes, making them a unique and often relevant way to search for blog content about your business.
. Incoming links to your blog : Using your web analytics tool, follow incoming links to your blog and read what those publishers are saying about you.
You can also find incoming links to your blog by using Google as follows:
1. Visit www.google.com, and enter link: www.yourdomainhere.com into the text box, substitution your domain name where it says yourdomainhere.
Change the URL extension if necessary (eg: .com, .net, .org, and so on).
2. Click the Search button. A list of pages that link to your blog is returned to you.
The key to managing your search engine reputation is persistence and consistency. The more amazing content you publish that’s optimized for your target keyword search phrases and your business or brand name, the more control you’ll have over your online reputation.
USING TWITTER TO FIND HOT TOPICS TO BLOG ABOUT
Twitter offers another easy way to find buzz worthy topics to blog about in an attempt to boost short term traffic. Just visit www.twitter.com and take a look at the three rows of hot topics displayed beneath the search bar. They are:
. Popular topics right now : These are popular topics Twitter users are actively tweeting about at any given moment.
. Popular topics today : These are popular topics Twitter users were tweeting about during the past 24 hours.
. Popular topics this week : These are popular topics Twitter users were tweeting about during the past seven days.
Click through links that interest you and relate to your blog topic to get a better understanding of what is being said. If it’s a good fit for your blog, you can write a blog post using related keywords to try to capture some of that active traffic.
SEARCHING THROUGH BLOGS
You can search through blogs using Google’s tool. Go to blogsearch.google.com and search as you would through any vertical. Your results contain links to blog sites, and you can even isolate posts that were only published in the last hour, last 12 hours , last day, or within a range of dates.
You may also find other blog searches helpful : Yahoo’s is www.ysearchblog.com, Microsoft has one at blogs.msdn.com/livesearch, and there are plenty of others (to find them, do a search for [blog search]).
WEB SITE STATS
You can find an amazing amount of information about how effective your site is using the program that tracks your web site statistics (Webalizer is one such program).
You can peruse the stats to find these types of information:
. The number of visitors who land on the home page of your log : Tells you if visitors found your site through a search engine.
. The number of visitors seeking specific blog posts : Tells you that visitors found the post through an external link, or perhaps a very specific set of
keywords in a search engine.
. The locations where visitors are coming from : Someone might have begun a search engine, eg: or followed a direct link from another blog or web site.
. How long visitors remain on a specific post page : If the duration of a visit is shorter than the potential length of time spent reading the post and
pondering its contents, the post wasn’t effective.
Capitalized on effective posts by creating similar posts. When you analyze your web statistics, you’ll know which posts are effective.
The number of unique visitors to your blog or podcast compared to the number to your web site. Blog posts can consist of unique information about your products or services. If you have more unique visitors to specific blog posts, or to your blog in general, it’s a sign that the information is well received. If your blog attracts more unique visitors that your site does, consider creating links in your blog posts to related information on your web site. If your site receives more hits than your blog, add some links from the specific products or services you offer to blog posts about these specific items.
. The geographical location of your blog visitors : If the majority of visitors are from a country other than your target market, change your message.
. The number of people viewing your podcast : Tells you how effective your marketing efforts are. When you have lots of visitors, you’re created
informative media that is in demand.
. The number of unique page views in your podcast or blog : You can figure out which episodes or posts are being received well. Use this information
for planning future episodes of your podcast.
. Whether blog posts with embedded videos get lots of hits : If the blog posts with video are getting lots of hits and the video is also getting lots of
views on the video hosting service, you’ve created an effective video. If you’re seeing lots of positive comments on these posts, as well as lots of
comments on the video hosting service, you’ve hit a home run.
. Number of incoming links in your WordPress Dashboard : Getting lots of incoming links means that you’re getting noticed, and that’s a good thing.
. The direction of traffic : If you have an established blog or podcast, your traffic rate and number of incoming links should be increasing. If they
aren’t, consider shaking thinks up a bit by offering different content. Look at which posts or episodes have been popular in the past. Expand on these
topics or put a new spin on them, and carefully monitor the results.
If you host your blog on your own domain, you can find out a little bit more about your visitors:
. How much time visitors are spending at your site and on individual posts : You have to decipher this information. Your web server lists the actual page which
is not that same as the title of the blog post.
. Which pages are most frequently used to enter or leave the site : If visitors are entering and exiting the home page and spending only a short length
of time on your site, they’re skimming only one or two posts before leaving. If you’re in this situation, it’s time to rethink your message. Visitors entering your
site on a specific page, however, have honed in on a specific post from either a search engine result of an incoming link. If you have lots of these and
visitors are spending a fair amount of time on your site and exiting from a different page, you have an effective blog.
COMMENTS
An important way to measure your site’s effectiveness is by looking for the following information in the Comments section:
. Number of comments on each blog post : This information is important if your goal is to stimulate interaction. If certain blog posts are drawing more
comments than others, this information is more relevant to your subscribers.
. Comment length : If you’ve written a lengthy post and you receive lengthy comments, you’ve struck a chord with subscribers and presented useful
information. If comments are sparse, however, indicating that you haven’t given your user base food for thought, consider changing the nature of
your posts or the type of information you post.
. The tone of comments on your posts : If comments on the majority of your posts sound positive and you have lots of comments, you’re sending
the right message. You can be somewhat controversial at times and stir up the conversation. If, on the other hand, the comments aren’t flattering,
you know what you need to do.
. An increasing number of comments with each post : If you’re seeing more comments on posts, it means that you’re putting the right message out there.
. The number of visitors to your blog is increasing. If the number of comments for new posts is decreasing, you’re losing your audience – and you must
change your message.
Interesting or controversial videos gather lots of comments. If comments are positive, your message is being received well. If the majority of comments are negative, change the tone of your videos or create videos about different topics.
If you’re receiving comments on individual podcast episodes, people are downloading the podcast from your web site rather than using a subscription. Analyze which episodes reward you with the most comments – and then include that type of information in future podcasts. If a particular episode draws lots of positive comments, see whether you can create a follow-up episode or create a series based on the topic.
. Number of visitors versus the number of comments : If you have a fairly high ratio of comments to visitors, you’re creating interesting material that
gets visitors thinking.
VIEWING GENERAL STATISTICS WITH WEBALIZER
A way to keep tabs on the amount of traffic your blog receives is to view statistics from your web server. To do so, you have to visit the URL associated with your site’s control panel. Your web hosting service tech-support team can lead you in the right direction.
The number of statistics you can access depends on your web hosting company. Many of them use Webalizer, its graph shows you how many visitors stopped by your site on a specific day. The application also tallies stats by month.
To see more detailed information such as the number of hits or visits per day and the referring URLs. You can also view the keywords visitors use to find you and the web browser they use to view your site. The latter information is important if you make any major design changes, you can optimize the changes for the web browser that’s most often used to view your site.
If you’re interested in seeing which countries’ residents are accessing your blog, check at the bottom of Webalizer stats page in the pie chart.