Australian Blogs Blog

P.S.

In an upcoming post, I am going to highlight why and how you must consider having multiple blogs to MULTIPLY your results and enhance your communications.

Don’t miss out - register for the automatic e-mail service or subscribe to the RSS feed to this blog so you don’t miss that post or any others that could really help you get your blog rockin’ n’ rollin’…

About The Author:

Dr Marc Dussault is Australia's #1 Exponential Growth Strategist. As the founder of his own start-up company, Marc used Exponential Marketing strategies, with no money down, to build one of his service companies 3 times faster, with double the industry average sales per employee, with a fraction of the industry’s employee attrition rate while consistently producing twice the profitability of his competitors.

Insert ads in your videos

Published

Insert ads into any video

on November 26, 2008

in Blogging Ideas, General and Internet Strategies

. 0 Comments

The geniuses at Stanford University have just developed technology allowing you to insert ads (or any images) into any flat surfaces within your videos. The potential for advertisers is really exciting.

The creators liken it to adding Google Adsense to your blog - if you create a lot of videos, why not make money from it while you’re at it?

You can create an account and start making videos here, or have a look at the gallery where others have inserted logos into popular movies and TV shows.

About The Author:

Cheryl Gledhill is co-founder of Sydney based web agency Molt:n Digital, specialising in website design and development, online marketing, search engine optimisation, usability and accessibility.

What does it take to become an “internet celebrity”?

Published

on November 25, 2008

in Blogging Ideas, Fun, General and News

. 0 Comments

The SMH/Age Good Weekend this weekend had a covergirl of Julia Allison and a patronising, yet slightly sycophanic article about the “new breed of internet celebrity”, the Julia Allisons and Samantha Bretts of the world.

To give a quick run-down, these are girls famous for being bloggers - exposing their private lives, relationships and other minutae of their lives to an audience of thousands or millions. I admit I do love reading traditional media’s take on the internet world. My favourite line in the article was “[Julia Allison] appears to know her stuff… She has a Facebook account, MySpace page, a Flickr, a Twitter, a Friendfeed, four Tumblrs, three MovableType blogs, two Vimeos and a Youtube”. Wow, a real force to be reckoned with. I don’t know anybody with a twitter and flickr account AND a blog.

It’s a shame that the Good Weekend didn’t include any of the intelligent, thought-provoking and inspiring “internet celebrities” in their article, they seemed pretty determined to focus on the bimbos and the overexposed to prove their point that being an internet celebrity should be derided and that bloggers are a bunch of fame-whores. They did have one line about Marieke Hardy, author of the now sadly defunct Reasons You Will Hate Me, but didn’t differentiate between her intelligent and well-informed blog about literature, politics and Bob Ellis, and the “Fameballs” such as Samantha Brett (example blog posts -”why men perve”, “do french women make better lovers”, etc etc ad nauseum).

So an open question to everyone. Can you be an “internet celebrity” without being an online Paris Hilton? Do you need to go to parties dressed in condom dresses to truly have made it in the online world?

For my money’s worth, I think women like George and Heather from Flickr are inspiring without needing to be sleazy, danah boyd is thought-provoking and intelligent, and closer to home, Cybele Malinowski truly understands the internet medium and is smart and funny without resorting to the cheap tricks of the “fameballs”. It’s a shame the Good Weekend couldn’t profile some of the more savvy intelligent women of our industry rather than going for the obvious jugular of the “celebritard”.

About The Author:

Cheryl Gledhill is co-founder of Sydney based web agency Molt:n Digital, specialising in website design and development, online marketing, search engine optimisation, usability and accessibility.

Blogging As A Traffic Generation Tool For “Real” Businesses

Published

Will Swayne

on November 25, 2008

in Blogging Ideas and Internet Strategies

. 0 Comments

Blogging is well established in the online/virtual space, but in my observation comparatively few Aussie businesses are successfully harnessing blogs as a traffic generation and customer engagement tool.

Some of our business clients have been blogging for over 2 years now and I have to say that I’m pleasantly surprised by the quantity of search engine traffic (particularly “long tail” traffic) that is now being generated (typically 25 - 40% of search engine traffic will come via a blog within 3-6 months.)

At this level of traffic, the strategy starts to become financially viable within a short timeframe. The biggest roadblock for most business owners is that they don’t have the time (or the writing skills) to keep up regular posting.

The solution is to either outsource the whole blog creation and marketing process, or to outsource just the content creation and manage the posting process yourself.

The strategy is pretty simple:

Set up a blog on your own domain (WordPress or Movable Type are recommended).
Get a bunch of relevant articles written (contractors can be sourced cheaply on Elance or Guru)
Load the articles into your blog and schedule them to be published at a pre-set date. This means you can set it up once and the articles “publish themselves”.
Make sure your blog is accessible from your site and to search engines.
Organic traffic will start to trickle in and grow the longer you run the strategy.

Yes, there are much more “high-concept” blogging strategies that normally require the business owner to “drive” the content creation. My experience is that most business owners don’t have the time (or don’t prioritise this activity) for long enough to see results. For this reason, a “set and forget” strategy can be more practical.

Here are a few examples of sites using this strategy. The articles may not always be great writing, but they do get the job done of attracting long tail traffic and converting it into site visits and enquiries.

About The Author:

Will Swayne is an internet lead generation expert by day and occasional blogger by night. He is the author of the Marketing Results blog and the Acting Co-ordinator Of Bloggers @ AustralianBlogs.com.au.

Post your Blog on Your Linked In Profile

Published

on November 23, 2008

in Blogging Ideas, Lead Generation and SEO

. 1 Comment

If you aren’t on www.LinkedIn.com by now, you’re already behind the 8-ball.

You can link in to my network by clicking here >>> Marc Dussault <<<

It takes less than 2 minutes and you’ll have more than 1 MILLION CONNECTIONS INSTANTLY.

Once you’re on Linked In, you’ll want to make sure you fill in your profile as much as possible, focusing on keyword rich descriptions so that your name, product and/or service comes up in natural search engine results.

That means FREE traffic to you, especially Long Tail Niche Traffic!

It gets better - go to the Linked In home page, at the bottom of the left-hand side column, you’ll see a gear with the tag ‘applications’ click it and you’ll see the Blog Link Application.

“With Blog Link, you can get the most of your LinkedIn relationships by connecting your blog to your LinkedIn profile. Blog Link helps you, and your professional network, stay connected.”

How Blog Link Works:

Blog Link Powered by TypePad is simple. Here’s how to get started:

Make sure your blog is listed on your “Websites” on your Profile.
Add the Blog Link application to your LinkedIn Profile.
That’s it - Blog Link will now add your sites to your profile.
To find news and ideas from trusted people in your network, go to the “Your
Network” tab. Blog Link will automatically find all of the blogs in your network and update them in the
“Your Network” tab. If you do not see the blog of one of your connections, just ask them to add it to their “Websites” list on their LinkedIn profile and Blog Link will find it for you.

The best part is that it’s free - people who view your profile, will see your most recent blog posts.

In my case, at the time I published this post, I was getting an average of 7 views/day which is +/-2,500 people per year who are viewing my profile and/or finding ‘me’ in natural searches automatically.

As you know from my 1 percent improvement video, it all adds up and makes a difference - OFTEN a BIG difference.

The best part about this add-on with Linked In is that it promotes your completed profile to 110% completion, which means it gets a higher search engine (Google) ranking.

So now that you know, “please Dussault!”

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

P.S.

If you would like to share tips and techniques like this with others, please post a comment on this blog and I will create a blog post around it giving you the exposure and backlink that as a blogger you know is ‘priceless’ especially with a high ranking blog like this one!

About The Author:

Standardzilla - web standards and industry news

Published

on November 21, 2008

in General, Internet Strategies and SEO

. 0 Comments

Standardzilla focuses on the Australian web industry with topics such as web standards development, accessibility, usability issues and search engine optimisation. Popular articles include Corporate Web Standards, Is SEO Evil and Developing Websites with Meaning.

Standardzilla - http://www.standardzilla.com/

About The Author:

Cheryl Gledhill is co-founder of Sydney based web agency Molt:n Digital, specialising in website design and development, online marketing, search engine optimisation, usability and accessibility.

Not Another Food Blog

Published

on November 21, 2008

in Fun

. 0 Comments

Hailed as one of the best new food blogs, Not Another Food Blog takes us on a journey through recipes, food, cooking and good times. Blog author Irena Macri is passionate about food and photography and her interest in food is contagious. If you’re in need of cooking inspiration, Not Another Food Blog should be your first stop.

About The Author:

Cheryl Gledhill is co-founder of Sydney based web agency Molt:n Digital, specialising in website design and development, online marketing, search engine optimisation, usability and accessibility.

YouTube Strategy to create INSTANT traffic to your blog

Published

on November 20, 2008

in Blogging Ideas

. 0 Comments

You might know about this strategy, but just in case you don’t it’s worth making sure.

Whenever I came across a YouTube video I liked or even launched my own YouTube video, I used to send people the YouTube URL.

Not anymore.

Now I create a blog post dedicated to the the YouTube video and I send the BLOG POST URL instead.

That creates INSTANT traffic to my blog.

For example, I teach people to develop and Exponential Mindset™, it’s a hard concept to explain, but this YouTube video says it all…

Go on, give it a go and see what happens —

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

P.S.

Often, it’s the little things that make a BIG difference, the 1% Improvement that adds up at the end of the year.

About The Author:

Is the tail wagging your blog?

Published

on November 15, 2008

in Blogging Ideas and SEO

. 0 Comments

If you’ve never heard of Chris Anderson’s book “The Long Tail”, you need to get your hand on it ASAP. The concept is quickly summarised in this funny YouTube video…

So what does this have to do with your blog?

Great question!

You need to determine if you are blogging to the long tail or short head that I call the fat belly of the normal probability distribution curve.

I’ve already written about making sure you include KEYWORD RICH CONTENT in your blog, but the question is WHICH KEYWORDS?

Long Tail or Short Head Keywords?

Obscure long tail keywords or popular ‘generic/generalist’ keywords? The decision is yours – make it strategically.

You must decide where you want to POSITION yourself with your blog. If you have several blogs, you can POSITION each one individually.

If you only have one blog, you need to decide.

Trying to be all things to all people doesn’t work.

Exponential Marketing enthusiasts know that you don’t want to please all the people all the time, you don’t want to please some of the people some of the time…

You want to please MOST of the people MOST of the time.

That means when someone comes to your blog, they know what they’re getting and you give it to them.

Have a read of Chris Anderson’s book and see how your perspective on blogging improves.

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault
Australia’s #1 Exponential Growth Strategist

P.S.
Have you figured out yet if you’re blog is wagging the tail or the tail is wagging your blog?

When you come across LONG TAIL NICHE AUSTRALIAN BLOGS that are really good, please let me know I would really like to highlight them. Of course let me know WHY you think they’re awesome.

Let me know by posting a comment on this blog.

About The Author:

KEYwords are Key to blogging success

Published

on November 13, 2008

in General

. 0 Comments

I am sure you’re heard of the Pareto Principle, the 80-20 Rule… For blogging it’s 20% of your keywords accounts for 80% of your affiliate sales.

What makes these keywords different and why they are important is how you will increase the Return On Investment (ROI) of your blog.

While everyone is running around trying to build massive keyword lists, it’s just not needed - IF you have an Exponential Mindset™.

I can hear you all the way over here…”But Marc, what about the long tail?” The long tail keywords are great, but only if they convert into sales or opt-ins which then convert into sales right? Otherwise, they’re just a big
waste of time and money decreasing your ROI.

The first thing to do is find keywords that are more likely to be BUYER keywords, relevant keywords actively being searched when a BUYER is looking for something specific.

By using an easy keyword level tracking tool, and a few good research tools this becomes relatively easy.* Next is getting rid of all the non-money-making keywords that do nothing for you other than increasing your ad spend on the winning keywords.

Once you start having some known converting keywords in your arsenal you then want to push these keywords to the MAX by targeting the organic rankings for these keywords by using
placement targeting and by using the content network to get much cheaper clicks.

That means you need to optimise the use of those KEYWORDS IN YOUR BLOG…

In an upcoming post I’ll review the three KEYS of keyword blog optimisation strategies.

Until then, keep blogging and pushing…

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

P.S.

* We reveal these tools in our Internet Mastery Platinum Program. Consider these tools like having the answers to a final exam 2 to 3 weeks before you have to write it… It’s the unfair advantage the top 5% of Internet Marketers keep to themselves so they keep making more than the other 95% COMBINED.

Intrigued? You can attend a one-day Internet Millionaire Marketing Day in Melbourne on Saturday December 6…

About The Author:

1% Improvement the Key to Blogging Success

Published

on November 11, 2008

in Blogging Ideas

. 0 Comments

If you’re keen to get your blog’s readership up, it’s all about doing the 1% that makes a difference. If you watch this brief video, you’ll understand the concept and then I can explain how you can APPLY that to your blog and blogging.

I know how simplistic 1% sounds. But y’now what? That’s the beauty of it.

Everyone can improve 1%, but they don’t.

That’s why anyone who DOES, gets the FULL value of the 1% effort - cool isn’t it?!?!

Yeah I think so.

For your blog, you need to ASK people to post comments on your blog, otherwise people won’t naturally, instinctively do it. Invite them to do it with the promise of a dialogue with them.You’ll see the number of comments increase and the quality of the comments improve over time.

The additional 1% is that your READERS will tell you what they want, are interested in and how you can IMPROVE YOUR BLOG.

Of course you want another 1% improvement idea… POST COMMENTS TO BLOGS LIKE THIS ONE. It’ll create a backlink to you blog and with the high PR ranking of this site/blog, you’ll get the benefit.

It’s win-win. AND it’s only 1%.

But 1% compunded DAILY = 3,778% at the end of the year. That’s impressive.

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

P.S.

If you want more ideas to increase the readership of your blog, click on the hyperlink and opt-in to receive a FREE report called:

“44 FREE Tips, Tactics And Techniques To Market Your Blog To Double or Triple Your Profit When You Flip It!”

You don’t have to flip your blog to use these strategies… Each one is more than 1% - that more than a month of ideas you can deploy on your blog…

About The Author:

Make your blog newsworthy

Published

on November 4, 2008

in Blogging Ideas and Do Stuff

. 0 Comments

I recently competed at the 2008 World Masters Squash Championships in New Zealand. I took advantage of that to launch my PERSONAL MASTERY BLOG and chronicle my exploits with daily blog posts.

I had hundreds of friends, family and colleagues who wanted to participate in what was an unforgettable and memorable experience.

You can QUICKLY AND EASILY CREATE newsworthiness for your blog by:

Launching a new product
Sharing a personal experience like I did
Creating a theme around something else that is happening (e.g. Olympics, stock market meltdown, etc.)
Linking up with another blogger
Having a controversial or contrarian perspective on a subject
Telling a story that is related to something else that is newsworthy

The only point I really want to make today is that NEWSWORTHINESS is not hard to create and it will help get MORE people to your blog.

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

P.S.

Of course WHEN you do create a newsworthy item for your blog, let us know so we can leverage it even more to THOUSANDS of BLOGGERS!!!!

Post a comment or send an e-mail to info @ AustralianBlogs .com .au

About The Author:

Top 100 Australian Marketing Pioneer Blogs Named

Published

Will Swayne

on October 30, 2008

in News

. 0 Comments

Julian Cole from AdSpace Pioneers has just published his list of Top 100 109 Marketing Pioneer Blogs (reprinted below).

It is great to see Aussie marketers blogging enthusiastically, with a wealth of talent on display in the blogs below. Check them out…

Top 100 Australian Marketing Pioneers Blogs		Total
1	Bannerblog (Digital Advertising)	35
2	Servant of Chaos(Social Media)	33
3	Young PR(PR)	33
4	Laurel Papworth(Social Media )	31
5	Get Shouty (Digital Advertising)	29
6	Copywrite(Copywriting/Digital Marketing)	28
7	London Calling(Mobile Marketing)	28
8	Corporate Engagement(Social Media/Public Relations)	27
9	Better Communication Results(Communications)	27
10	Ettf(Advertising/Campaigns )	27
11	Online Marketing Banter (Digital Marketing)	27
12	Gold Coast Web Designers(Digital Marketing)	27
13	Brand DNA(Advertising/Campaigns )	26
14	Personalize Media (Social Media/Virtual Worlds )	26
15	Media Hunter(Media/Social Media)	26
16	The Marketer (Social Media)	26
17	Marketing Magazine(Marketing )	26
18	Adspace-Pioneers(Social Media )	24
19	Business of Marketing and Branding(Marketing Strategy)	24
20	Australian SEO blog(SEO)	24
21	Angus Whines(Advertising/Campaigns )	23
22	PR Disasters(PR)	23
23	Campaign Brief(Advertising/Campaigns )	23
24	Preneur Marketing(Entrepreneur/Marketing)	22
25	Sitemost(SEO)	22
26	Word of Mouth Marketing for Small Business(WOM)	22
27	Marketing Easy (Digital Marketing)	21
28	Three Billion (Advertising/GEN Y)	20
29	In My Atomosphere(Advertising/Campaigns )	20
30	Amnesia Blog(Digital Advertising)	20
31	Publicis Digital (Digital Advertising)	19
32	Innovation Feeder(Digital Advertising)	19
33	Pigs Don’t Fly (Social Media)	19
34	EcioLab(Digital Marketing)	18
35	Mark Neely’s Blog (Marketing Strategy)	18
36	Sticky Ads(Advertising )	18
37	The Flasher (Communications)	18
38	The Digestif(Digital Marketing)	18
39	Tim Longhurst (Futurist Marketing/Social Media)	17
40	Creative Is Not A Department(Digital Marketing)	17
41	Peter Sheanan (Entrepreneur/Marketing)	17
42	FRANKthoughts (Communications)	17
43	Taming the beast(Digital Marketing)	17
44	Filtered Media (Digital Marketing)(Digital Marketing)	16
45	Josh Anstey (Digital Marketing)	16
46	Inspiration Room Daily(Advertising/Campaigns )	16
47	Publicity Queen(PR)	16
48	online marketing sydney(Digital Marketing)	16
49	Lexy Klain (PR)	16
50	Diffusion (Marketing Strategy/Branding)	16
51	Australian Small Business(Small Business/Entrepreneur/Marketing)	16
52	Uneven Distribution(Advertising )	16
53	Zakazukhazoo(Digital Marketing)	16
54	A perspective(Social Media/Digital Marketign)	16
55	A Blog about Digital Media (Marketing News)	16
56	Frontiering Talking(Social Media )	16
57	Hothouse (Digital Marketing)	15
58	Fresh Chat (PR/Digital PR)	15
59	Send Up a larger room(Advertising)	15
60	doingwords.com(Small Business/Entrepreneur/Marketing)	15
61	David Wesson Digital Entertainment (Social Media)	15
62	Ryan’s view (PR)	15
63	Free Beer(Marketing News)	15
64	Idea Garden(Marketing Strategy)	15
65	Pixel Paddock (Digital Marketing)	14
66	The Jason Recliner(Advertising)	14
67	The Wayfarer(Advertising)	14
68	Semfire Search Enging Marketing Blog(SEM/SEO)	14
69	Marketing Results (Digital Marketing)	14
70	Will Scully Power(Data Analytics, Marketing Research)	14
71	I hate ads (Marketing )	13
72	BMF Sticky(Advertising)	13
73	PR Warrior(PR)	13
74	Marketing is a dirty word(Digital Marketing)	13
75	Latin Ocean(Digital Marketing/Recruitment)	12
76	Mobilista (Mobile Marketing)	12
77	Adnotes(Advertising)	12
78	B&T(Advertising News)	12
79	The White Agency ffffff(Digital Advertising)	12
80	Dominique Hind Collective(Digital Marketing)	12
81	Arrow Internet SEO (SEO)	11
82	Slice Media(Data Analytics, Marketing Research)	11
83	Beyond Digital Media (Digital Marketing)	11
84	Ben Hamin(Social Media)	11
85	The Gloo (Digital Advertising)	10
86	Simons Says (Digital Marketing)	10
87	CIIMS(Marketing )	10
88	The Zeitgeists(Marketing Strategy)	10
89	To the WordUp(Marketing News)	10
90	Simon Reynolds(SEM/SEO)	9
91	Via Media - The Way(Marketing News)	9
92	Ponderings of The Orange Cow(Communications)	9
93	Work.netx(Digital Advertising)	9
94	Tick Yes(Digital Marketing)	8
95	Write across media (Marketing News)	8
96	Zebra Bites(Marketing Research)	8
97	Quintessentially Digital (Digital Marketing)	8
98	How good you want to be (Marketing News)	8
99	The Odd one out(SEM/SEO)	8
100	Tony from the Population(Social Media)	8
101	Kate at Stickywood(Branded Entertainment)	8
102	Death by Digital (Digital Marketing)	7
103	Classy Marketing (Marketing Strategy)	7
104	Influencing the Influencers(PR)	7
105	Behind Digital PR(PR)	7
106	Layman’s Term(Marketing Strategy)	6
107	Gruen Transfer(Marketing News)	6
108	RMD’s Marcom(Advertising)	6
109	Chalkboard Websites(Communications)	6

About The Author:

Get more people to read your blog - ADD STATISTICS!

Published

Australia’s #1 Exponential Growth Strategist

on October 23, 2008

in Blogging Ideas

. 1 Comment

People might hate taking statistics courses, but they love a great statistic!

I’ll prove it to you.

Did you know?

Many microbiologists say that you’re better off eating lunch in the bathroom than in your office? – One study found that the office desk has more bacteria on it than the average toilet – some 400 times more bacteria!
Some of the worst areas for bacteria are found to be first the phone (25,000 germs per square inch), then the desktop (20,000), then the keyboard (about 3,000), then the mouse (1,600), THEN the toilet seat (a mere 49).
One in two (45%) have seen coworkers leave the bathroom without washing their hands.
Nearly a third of office workers (31%) never personally clean their office space with disinfectant.

Now tell me those statistics aren’t captivating and alarming?

So there you have it - another quick way to make your blog posts more interesting and entertaining!

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

P.S.

The effective use of statistics is that they they must be relevant - the ones below are nowhere as powerful as the first list and are shown here for contrast.

Office workers are getting sick nearly on average of 1.4 times/year from co-workers.
Nearly 22% of women get three or more colds a year from colleagues at work.
Studies in schools have found that using hand sanitizers or washing hands can reduce absenteeism by 30 percent to 50 percent.
Three in four office workers (76%) say their company has a professional cleaner to take care of their work space, which still lives a quarter of offices which don’t.

Of course this is a value-judgment and RELATIVE to your blog’s audience. This last series are ABSOLUTELY RELEVANT to commercial cleaners. Especially the last one - if commercial cleaners aren’t cleaning the office, who is?

Now that would be an interesting blog post…!

About The Author:

Blogging becomes Mainstream

Published

on October 20, 2008

in General

. 3 Comments

If you think blogging has become increasingly popular, you’re absolutely right.

Blogging has become so pervasive and influential that the lines between blogging and the mainstream media have disappeared. That’s one of the main findings of a Technorati-sponsored survey of bloggers conducted in July and August 2008 by Decipher.

“Blogs are now mainstream media,” said Richard Jalichandra, CEO of Technorati, in an interview with eMarketer. “We’ve certainly seen that with the number of professional, semi-professional and passion/enthusiast bloggers who are creating real media experiences. At the same time, you’re also seeing mainstream media come the other direction to add blog content.”

But how do blogs compare to other electronic media?

ComScore Media Metrix found that blogs had 77 million unique visitors in the US in August 2008, compared with 75.1 million unique visitors to MySpace and 41 million to Facebook.

It gets better… In July 2008, comScore’s ranking of the top 10 entertainment Websites included four blogs. Two of those, OMG and TMZ, were rated Number1 and 2, respectively.

Among the Technorati survey’s own findings, one of the more eye-opening ones was a 2-to-1 male/female ratio among bloggers worldwide.

Are you as surprised as I was?

A closer look at the gender breakdown by geography shows that bloggers in Europe and Asia skewed even more heavily male (73% each), while US bloggers showed a less drastic gender split, with 57% males and 43% females.

Mr. Jalichandra acknowledged that the gender skew could be at least partially attributed to “the type of people that come to Technorati and register.” In other words, if Technorati’s user base leans male, then its survey data would naturally reflect that bias.

Another important caveat to the gender data is that the “State of the Blogosphere” report was limited to adults. Other surveys of blog use among US teenagers indicate that younger bloggers are predominantly female.

So there you have it – blogging has become mainstream which is great from an exposure point of view, but terrible when it comes to sticking out and above the masses… Something to discuss in a future post.

Onward and upward!

Dr Marc Dussault