In this article, I will provide some recommended blogging tools & resources you can use to stay ahead in terms of both innovation and optimization techniques.

The first item on this list of recommended blogging tools & resources is SEO Radio. While this tool isn’t specifically for blogs, it is an excellent resource from search engine optimization expert Brad Fallon that will help you understand how to optimize your blog for search engines. You can find out more at http://www.seoradio.com/.

The second item on this list of recommended blogging tools & resources is CARP (http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/), which is not specifically for blogs, but can be used in conjunction with blogs to provide RSS feeds, which will increase your search engine rankings and provide visitors with useful links.

Another item from this list of recommended blogging tools & resources you can use to keep abreast with your competitors is Google’s blog search (http://blogsearch.google.com/), which will allow you to find all of your competitors, so you can analyze their traffic generation methods. You will also want to see what new ideas they have implemented for retaining visitors.

Another resource you will want to consider from this list of recommended blogging tools & resources is http://www.vilesilencer.com which offers a list of blogging directories and RSS directories to which you can submit your blog. You will also want to check out searchengineworld.com and warriorforum.com/forum for marketing and optimization tips.

The last items you will want to consider on this list of recommended blogging tools & resources lists are actually blogging programs themselves. If you already own a site and want to integrate a blog, you should consider using a more complex, fully-functional program, such as Word Press (which you can use for free), rather than something like Blogger, which is easy to use, but will not offer a lot of frills. You can download Word Press here: http://wordpress.org/.

What is RSS in the context of really simple syndication? It is a tool that allows sites to give a quick summary of important links and descriptions in XML format. This essentially allows them to syndicate their content by allowing other blog owners and webmasters to use this summary as part of a list of summaries on a specific topic.

Blogmasters and webmasters collect these various summaries with something called a feed aggregator or a feed reader. Rather than asking “what is RSS?” this tool will ask “where is RSS” — and then find it. An aggregator finds RSS feeds to aggregate from selected large sites – such as Yahoo and MSN – and selected smaller sites, such as hand-picked personal blogs and news sites.

The blogmasters and webmasters then take the script generated from the aggregator and insert it into their blogs. This then creates an RSS feed that automatically pulls news items and blog posts whenever they appear. Whenever the blog or site page is refreshed, it will display the latest items.

This is good for two reasons. If you use your own RSS feed, you can get your content syndicated across the Internet without actually paying to submit dozens of press releases and contact dozens of blog owners and webmasters.

Additionally, using RSS feeds is good if you own a blog and want to add fresh content. This will allow you to constantly put new content links and summaries on your blog without spending the time to hunt around for related information. All you will have to do is select a feed aggregator and select a potential feeds from a list of news sites and authority blogs. Additionally, you will be able to input your own selections, allowing you to create custom feeds.

So what is RSS? RSS is a simple way in which to drive traffic to your blog and to display summaries of other blogs.

So how do you go about creating your own blog account? You should start by selecting the type of blog you wish to create. For instance, are you using blogs to promote your business or for to chronicle your daily life? This will affect how you go about creating your own blog account.

If you’re using a blog to chronicle your daily life, you may want to create an account with a network such as Myspace. Myspace will give you a simple means to design your blog, to update it, and to communicate with other network users. Creating your own blog account with Myspace is actually completely free; and you wont actually have to host the blog yourself. Instead, Myspace will host it on their own network and will also provide you with all the tools you need to update it.

If you’re creating your own blog account simply to promote your business, you may want to open an account with Google Blogger—especially if you do not own a website. Upon creating your own blog account, Blogger will allow you to customize the template and the subdomain you use to display your blog. If you’re trying to target a specific keyphrase with your blog, you may want to use that exact keyphrase as the subdomain.

Once you have completed this process, you will want to spend some time searching through Blogger’s various options. For instance, to optimize your blog completely, you will want to consider how many posts you display on each page and whether or not you will allow comments.

If you’re planning to market your own products, you may want to start by finding a need, rather than looking at data. For instance, do you know of a pressing need that many people have? Could you provide some sort of substantive solution to that need? If so, would a blog be the appropriate means though which to provide that solution? Something might come to mind immediately, but if it doesn’t, you can proceed with data-analysis as a means of choosing a popular and profitable theme for your blog.

You can start by using a program like WordTracker to begin choosing a popular and profitable theme. WordTracker will allow you to view a list of the 100 or 1000 most searched topics on the Internet.

You can then break this list down into smaller pieces. For instance, if number 10 on the list is “cars” and you have some sort of an interest in cars, you can then take the keyphrase “cars” and search for it on Wordtracker using overture pay-per-click results and demand/supply analysis called “KEI.”

This will tell you two things: it will tell you approximately how hard it is to penetrate your niche; and it will tell you roughly how much money people are making in your niche. For instance, if pay-per-click amounts are high and have a lot of bid competition, that means that people are making a lot of money in your niche, which is why they are purchasing advertising for large sums of money per click. It also means that you can potentially make a lot of money for serving ads for these advertisers via Adsense and YPN.

And there you have it: through data-analysis and need-analysis, you can begin the process of choosing a popular and profitable theme for your blog. If the topic you select is popular, has a good KEI rating, and has a high PPC rating, you know you have a winner.

TechWeb, the global leader in business technology media, is pleased to announce its partnership with the Online Marketing Summit (OMS) in bringing an online marketing education “Whistle Stop Tour” to 18 cities nationwide. The Whistle Stop Tour features social media, email marketing, web analytics, integrated strategy, website usability, as well as search engine marketing/optimization (SEO). OMS will also be offering marketers who attend the event the opportunity to participate in the Online Marketing Institute’s new “Essentials of Online Marketing” Certification Workshop.

Scott Vaughan, VP of Marketing, and Michael Rasmussen, Director of Performance Marketing at TechWeb will be joining the national tour that includes featured speakers such as: Loren McDonald, Chief Advocate, Silverpop; Jeanniey Mullen, CMO of Zinio & Founder of the Email Experience Council; Bryan Eisenberg, Co-Founder of FutureNow; Leslie Reisler, Program Director, IBM.com Interactive Mktg; Derek Reisfield, Founder & Chairman of BBN Networks; Pat LaPointe, Managing Partner of MarketingNPV; Dennis R. Mortensen, Director of Data Insights, Yahoo!; Don Steele, MTV Networks; and Rebecca Lieb, VP North America of eConsultancy.

Vaughan leads a marketing systems integration team that develops, manages and delivers go-to-market, performance-based programs for technology marketers. He is also responsible for TechWeb brand management, sales enablement, product packaging, research and outbound marketing communications.

Rasmussen heads up TechWeb’s fully-integrated Performance Marketing Business Unit. His dedicated team drives performance-driven marketing initiatives. Working with web analysts, marketing operations staff, content professionals and program managers, Performance Marketing monitors and optimizes online program promotional tactics, performance metrics, lead generation strategies and campaign trends.

Information about TechWeb speaking locations and presentation subjects will be available at http://createyournextcustomer.com/.

The 2009 OMS Summit includes sessions on:

• Social Media Strategies
• Search Engine Optimization
• Paid Search
• Website Usability
• Web Analytics and Tracking
• Email Marketing
• Content Management
• Site Search
• Website/Online Budgeting and Planning
• eCommerce
• Integrated Marketing
• Behavioral Targeting & Testing

Aaron Kahlow, founder of Online Marketing Summit, said, “Sessions and content are new. There will be absolutely no repeat sessions from past OMS events even if a few speakers are the same.”

The 2009 OMS Regional Whistle Stop Tour combines OMS, the only purely educational event of its kind built around content that drives action and delivers insight that online marketers can immediately build into their marketing plans, and ClickZ.com, the world’s largest online resource of interactive marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion, research, and reference.

With daily posts, tweets and video at each stop, “The Whistle Stop Tour” can be followed at http://blog.onlinemarketingconnect.com/ and http://www.clickz.com/. At each stop, leading educators in online marketing will facilitate a world-class forum of best practices in interactive marketing through hands-on classes, thought leadership panels, and credit-worthy workshops.

Passes are still available and include access to the 2009 Education Library Center, where participants can download the slides, videos and other materials from the internet marketing seminars, SEO workshops and presentations. To register, visit http://www.onlinemarketingsummit.com/default.php?coupon=techweb20. For more details on the Online Marketing Summit event and other ClickZ events including free online marketing webinars visit http://events.clickz.com/.

The Online Marketing Summit (OMS)

The Online Marketing Summit is truly unique from any other conference. There are no vendors, no salesmen, no exhibitors/booths and no pitching allowed. This educational environment facilitates incredible learning, networking and collaboration opportunities amongst like-minded marketing peers. OMS is singularly committed to its mission to educate marketers on the emerging best practices of online marketing.

TechWeb

TechWeb (http://techweb.com/aboutus), the global leader in business technology media, is an innovative business focused on serving the needs of technology decision-makers and marketers worldwide. TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed media brands in the business technology market. Today, more than 13.3 million* business technology professionals actively engage in our communities created around our global face-to-face events such as Interop, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Black Hat and VoiceCon; online resources such as Informationweek.com, Light Reading, Intelligent Enterprise, bMighty.com, and the Financial Technology Network; and the market leading, award-winning InformationWeek, TechNet Magazine, MSDN Magazine, and Wall Street & Technology magazines. TechWeb also provides end-to-end services ranging from next-generation performance marketing, integrated media, market research, and analyst services. TechWeb is a division of United Business Media, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

*13.3 million business decision-makers: based on number of monthly connections

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I think every site should have at least all of the following criteria:

• credible sounding memorable domain name
• credible trustworthy site design
• credible content that people pay attention to
• link equity & marketing strategy
• profit strategy

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