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Few weeks ago I helped Shari transfer her Wordpress.com blog to a self hosted Wordpress blog. This task might sound daunting but its really not and Shari is my witness. What is the difference? To avoid confusion I would like to mention here that there are two types of Wordpress blogs, one is when you go to Wordpress.com and sign up to get a blog address something like yourblog.wordpress.com and self hosted is when you go to Wordpress.org, download the software and upload it on to your own server.

Main Difference
Wordpress.com is hosted blog service. You do not have to download software, pay for hosting or manage a web server.

Wordpress.org is a website where you download the Wordpress Blogging Software. You need a domain and a web server to make it functional.

There are number of other blogs that have talked about Advantages and Disadvantages of both the platforms and I am not going to talk about it again*

I will tell you step by step how to convert your Wordpress.com blog into self hosted Wordpress blog:

Step 1 – Go to your wordpress.com blog’s admin panel.

Step 2 – On the left sidebar, look for Tools and under Tools you will find Export. Click on it!

Step 3 – Download the export file and save it on to your computer.

Step 4 – Go to your new blog’s admin panel, look for Tools in the sidebar and this time click Import.

Step 5 – Look for wordpress at the bottom, browse for the file you just downloaded from your old blog and import.

Step 6 – You are done !

Let me point out one more thing, it’s better to leave the images on your old blog because it might give you an error if you try to import everything. Don’t worry, images on your new blog will still work.

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That’s right: you don’t find your audience. They find you. Your job, as a blogger, is to make it easy for them to find you when they decide to look for information. It’s a simple formula, but it’s so easy to get off-track.

1. Identify your audience, or “Tribe” if you prefer. You’d be surprised how few bloggers even think about this. If you’re writing for one-legged ex-sailors with an unhealthy obsession with white whales, you will need to write differently than if your audience is primarily librarians who recommend books about sailors with an unhealthy obsession with white whales (also, these two groups will face different problems, I would guess).
2. Understand your audience’s needs, desires, and frustrations. Do NOT assume they are just like you: they aren’t, although you may have some things in common. Do some research. Find bloggers who are already engaging your audience and read their posts and, just as important, read the comments.
3. Once you understand who they are and what they need, share information that helps them solve a problem. Pick one problem per post. Another day, another problem, another blog post.

Worried you will run out of problems to help your audience solve? Don’t. Your audience will never run out of problems. Collectively, they have more problems, with more variations than you can possibly imagine. If you keep researching your audience (oh, did I forget to mention that’s an ongoing task?), and interact with them, you will discover new things you can help them with.

Their problems (it doesn’t have to be a big problem; it could be a small problem like “where can I find pipe tobacco locally?”) are what send them to Google in search of solutions. If you have created a focused, frequently updated resource of information and search engine magnet by writing blog posts that address their questions and issues, they will find you.

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It goes without saying that search engine optimization is just as important for blogs as it is for websites. However, fortunately, blogs integrate software that pings search engines to inform them of new content, and consequently, blogs are usually crawled a lot more often than a static site.

When you are considering SEO for blogs, you’ll need to think of employing numerous on-site techniques so that search engines can discover your content. The critical piece is keyword-rich content. Beyond that, make some considerations for:

1. Usability and ease of navigation: Make it easy for your readers to access the various parts of your page without

difficulty. Be sure to add important information in visible areas. One mistake often seen with blogs and blog designs is the lack of a “Previous Posts” or “Next Posts” link on the bottom of the page. It makes sense to flesh out all these details as soon as possible.

2. Regular content updates: Search engines crawl websites more often if they are frequently updated. Content updates are user-friendly as well – readers have a reason to keep returning to the site.

3. Creation of XML sitemaps for search engines (and HTML sitemaps for user navigation): An XML sitemap is a file that contains a list of URLs that informs search engines when new content becomes available. You can also put numeric values to indicate weight/priority on specific content. When content gets updated, your XML file is updated. As long as you register your sitemap with the various search engines, the search engine spiders will discover new content by looking at your sitemap file. Adding an XML sitemap is usually easy with numerous plugins available for blog platforms.

4. Duplicate content: Your category pages may have the same exact content as your monthly archives. If this is the case, be sure to employ rules (such as in robots.txt) to filter out the duplicate content. For example, in the case of WordPress, you may want to add rules to disallow crawling of category page. This ensures that search engines find the proper page (typically the main page) and crawls that (and indexes it) instead.

5. Linking (both internally and externally): Link to your important pages internally, and use appropriate anchor text to direct your readers (and search engines) to content that you feel is important. Link externally to diversify your content and link to other recommended sources for information. For example, if you are talking about search engine optimization and have a page dedicated to SEO on your site, you may want to link to your SEO page (internal linking). But if you want to talk about social media marketing and don’t have a relevant page on your site, you might want to point your readers to a better authority source on another website (external linking). Also, when employing linking techniques, use appropriate and descriptive anchor text, not “click here” to pass the best link value to these pages.

6. Choosing a name that is easy to remember: Like any website or brand name, your blog should not be difficult to remember (see #3). Keep it simple.

Four Elements blog is your daily source of news, tips and trends for web 2.0, search engine optimization and our future web. We help entrepreneurs and business owners correctly integrate emerging technology. Four Elements helps clients succeed, in all economic climates, through personalized integration of social networks, social media, blogs, widgets, wikis, cloud computing, search engine optimization, social bookmarks, web tools and mobile technology.

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Twitter is now more popular than ever. Anita Hamilton at TIME magazine said “While some people call it microblogging or moblogging, I like to think of Twitter simply as blogging for regular people.” She said that in 2007 when Twitter was a baby… it is now microblogging powerhouse.

Bloggers shouldn’t be disappointed because even though you might like to write more detailed posts and not be limited to 140 characters, you can still use Twitter to promote your blogs and keep in touch with your readers.

Here are 5 Ways To Use Twitter To Promote Your Personal Blog

1) Choose a reasonable twitter username that reflects your personality or your blog. If your blog doesn’t have a set topic, which is the case with most personal blogs, go with any name of your liking. It is recommended you use your real name if you are comfortable or a nickname. Avoid numbers, make it simple and easy to remember.

2) Create a background image for your twitter profile page and have the name of your blog in a prominent place or tiled through out the page. Make sure you have a nice left column that has your picture and a small introduction about you or your blog.

3) Every time you publish a post on your blog, send a tweet to all your followers. Use a URL shortner to make long ugly links smaller and less scary to click.

4) Use Twitter search function to find other bloggers and tweeters who have similar interests as you and start following them. This is also useful if you want to generate topic for your next blog post.

5) Instead of just talking about yourself and your blog, try to make conversation with other people. It is as easy as replying to a Tweet that you consider useful or have something to say about. That’s how you will make friends and get more followers.

The more followers you have, the more exposure your blog will get. Time for some shameless promotion. Follow me on Twitter

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According to Seth Godin, there are two reasons people don’t buy (or do) things:

1. They don’t know about it.

2. They’re afraid of it.

If you don’t know about blogging and the substantial benefits it can bring to your business, that’s at least partly my fault. My business, and my mission, is to help businesses understand how and why to use blogging and blog platforms to grow their business. I’ll work harder at that: I promise.

The Psychology of Fear

I can detail all the advantages, show you examples of other businesses that have made blogging pay off, explain how much less money you will spend for the same or better results than you’re getting with your newspaper and radio ads, even plead with you (if I suddenly misplace my dignity); everything short of promising success. But at some point, you have to find the courage to do something different from what you’ve been doing, and different from what most people have been doing.

As the economy changed from orange alert (mild fear and wariness) to red alert (duck-and-cover NOW!), I had imagined that small and medium-sized business owners would be actively looking for something that would give them an edge. But I read an article (now long-misplaced) that suggested that the psychology of an economic downturn for most people is to hunker down and either do whatever they were already doing (but harder, with desperation), or to stop doing even what they were doing, while waiting for economic winds to blow more favorably. I can testify from the difficulty I’ve had convincing some businesses that blogging is at least part of the answer to their marketing dilemma in a down economy that this is the case.

Fear, apparently, is exaggerated in economic difficulties, and most people are even less likely to try something new, even if it holds the potential to overcome or mitigate the problem that’s the cause of their fear.

Now for the Opportunity

Here’s the good news for you if you’re even a little bit courageous: while your competitors are hunkered down waiting for the sun to warm their backsides again, you can get a jump on them. I’ve never talked to a business blogger who didn’t tell me they wished they’d started sooner. While you can’t start sooner than you start, you can start sooner than your competitors. Like most people, your competitors will wait until almost everyone is already on the bandwagon. By the time they’re figuring out “Step 1,” you can be doing business with their ex-customers. Yup, it’s the law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest.

If I can help you with the issues you will face as you boldly go where few have gone before, please let me know. I can almost guarantee, those issues all have reasonably simple, easy-to-implement solutions.

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The rules governing how marketers disclose reimbursement for their online content are about to change.  Beginning on December 1, 2009, the new FTC rules on endorsements and testimonials in marketing will become effective, and all of us online content writers who review products and services are going to have to disclose the receipt of free merchandise or payment for the items we write about.  You can be fined up to $11,000 for not disclosing that you were compensated for an endorsement.

For legal  marketers,  it’s more important than ever to be connected to the online world, stay connected to the latest news and trends around your clients and the legislations that govern this platform.

For example, in a conversation I had with Rex Gradeless, he mentioned that law school students are blogging for the institutions they attend, under the guise of the institution’s marketing/communications departments.    If students are doing so due to “added incentives”, then the schools may be on shaky ground come 12/1.

The guidelines are an update of the F.T.C.’s 1980 guide concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising.  They will particularly affect many in the beauty and fashion blogging community, where freebies are rampant.

As leaders in the legal community, it’s more important now than ever before to be aware of  rules that reflect the commission’s concern about how advertisers are using bloggers and social networking sites to pitch their products.

The daily process I work with with legal marketers to engage,  enables them to keep track of news from multiple platforms that affect them.   Writing, tweeting, and newsletter distribution are all important elements of an effective social media campaign, and equally important is being cognizant of the regulations we’re beholden to .

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Remember the saying, “You never get a second chance to make a good impression?” These words have never been more important, especially in Social Media. In my last post, I closed with a final thought about stretching our mind to create an unforgettable presence. Today I share with you one way to make that happen.

After many years of running a personal development school, a human capital recruitment and consulting firm, and working in television and radio broadcasting, I observed many areas that created success for individuals. I found that those who were most successful had specific ingredients that when put to use, could purposefully create an impact on an audience. In my next three posts, including this one here, I will reveal three areas (of many) that help create an unforgettable presence.

How to create an unforgettable presence: #1 …

Take Action – Participate: Creating an unforgettable presence in social media is really not any different than doing it in person. It’s really about showing up authentically manifesting all of your unique potential and using your best social behavior and communications skills. When trying to create an unforgettable social presence online, first register. Half that battle is deciding to participate by signing up for a social media forum, and later understanding the potential opportunities involved for you or your company. Remember, out of sight can be out of mind. In social media, if we do not participate, we may be missing some powerful information about our company and ways to reach our market, promote our events and connect with others.

Next, decide to become a student of learning. Get rid of any expectations you may have and make some time to observe and listen to others. A good exercise to do is to get a few Facebook friends, Twitter followers, or Linked-incontacts that interest you. Look for those who are at the top of your field and see if they are involved with social media by using the search boxes to find them. Determine what interests you about your followers, friends, or contacts – and observe how they write, what they write, how often they write, and how they go about touting their business, etc.

Perhaps you are looking to expand your product or service and want some feedback, maybe you are looking for a job, or at the very least want to increase you inner circle of business contacts. Social media platforms like Linked-in can help. For example, Linked-in offers the opportunity meet many business professionals that you may not meet at an event or trade show. Linked-in offers niche groups for participation, job listings, and even introduction requests if you have a connection who knows someone you want to meet. This information alone can be of tremendous value for any company or professional looking to expand globally.

When we participate, engage and relate on a social media platform, I found the most important thing to keep in mind is patience. Social media is a gradual, progressive, connection-building and branding process. It’s by no means a silver bullet or replacement of traditional media, it actually enhances it in an inexpensive, authentic way. If we want to understand our target market better, social media can offer valuable information by sheer participation. In Twitter, we can plug in our key word in TweetScan and receive an email if our company name is mentioned. How valuable is that to you and your brand? Zappos, a shoe and lifestyle company, does a good job in social media by using Twitter as their customer relationship management (CRM) tool. You can read more here: http://bit.ly/11HngK. They exemplify complete transparency and create trust with their customers, especially in a time where many of have lost trust in companies and leaders. One of Zappos Twitter policies states: “Be real and use your best judgment.” This is may be great advice for new participants diving into social media and a reminder for those who have been working the social media runways for quite some time.

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Let’s face it, we aren’t all blessed with the looks of Megan Fox. I’d imagine that by simply posting her picture with this post I am guaranteed another 100 or more visits (we’ll see!). For everyone else, here are a few tips for making your blog “hot” in the eyes of your readers.

I’ve already told you how you can create a professional looking blog through email by utilizing Posterous, but what if you have the resources and interest in building a more customized, permanent outpost on the web? Easy, look to WordPress.

1. WordPress

WordPress is hands-down the most capable, extendable platform for blogging today. The price isn’t bad either – free. You can either host a WordPress site on your own domain (recommended) or utilize WordPress.com’s own hosting solution. You’ll have more flexibility to add the fun plugin’s and widgets to your site if you host it yourself, but in a pinchWordPress.com will work well.

2. Custom Themes

For the sake of this article, we’ll assume you are interested in downloading and installing WordPresson your own site. While WordPress comes with some basic themes, you will probably want to customize the overall look and feel of your site. Thats where custom themes come in. WordPress has a browser which lets you select and download new styles for your blog, or you can visit WordPress theme sites which either have free themes for download or professionally designed themes for purchase. Most themes cost under $100 and can really help to make your blog stand out from the rest.

3. Blog Smarter with Zemanta

So now you have your own WordPress site with shiny new theme. What you don’t have is content. Where do you start? How about using a tool like Zemanta to help you spice up your content with interesting links and imagery? Zemanta is a Firefox plugin which watches as you pen your blog posts, scanning the text and suggesting media you may want to include to make your posts better. It makes blogging a snap, and can help to build readership to your blog as well.

4. Involve Your Readers

Sometimes inspiration just doesn’t come to you when you want, and finding new topics to blog about can be difficult. During these times, query your readership through social media or even on your blog using a widget like the one Skribit offers. On my own site I have started to ask my readers for suggestions on what types of posts they like to read. Those readers can now participate with the site by submitting ideas and voting on the ones they like best. In my opinion there aren’t enough site doing this. WordPress sites also have the option of adding a custom greeting to each of their visitors through the use of the WP-Greet Box plugin which can detect where a visitor comes to your site from and provides a custom welcome accordingly.

5. Spread the Love

Want to know the key to making your blog really take off? Easy! Spend a lot of time commenting on other people’s blog posts. You will be amazed at the number of new links and readers that come you way if you give more than you take. Don’t just leave a comment with a link to your own site – people can see through that kind of self-serving promotion. Instead, comments on blogs and posts which truly interest you, and where you can offer some type of value.

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Originally posted on Marketing Journalist Blog

Wired magazine once argued “that fresh, genuine voices have been drowned out by a ‘tsunami of paid bilge’, that blogs attract too many comments from net lowlife, and that the action has moved elsewhere.” Is there any truth in the notion that blogs are dead? I disagree. While it may seem like a “me too” approach nowadays when it comes to blogs (let’s face it just about everyone – your mom, grandmother, sister, priest, etc., has a blog), they’re alive and well. A blog can be very effective for companies in achieving ROI (return of influence, not investment) for your brand and thought leadership as well as building stronger relationships with your customers, garnering coverage, and connecting with the online communities at large. I’ll give it to you from an insider’s perspective – a real world success story on how we’re winning with this strategy.

We launched our corporate blog The Optimal Security back in January, not as a “me too” but for a couple of reasons:

• To establish a voice for the company,
• To create a dialogue with our audience, customers and partners
• To humanize our brand and bring transparency,
• To build awareness around the industry we represent and are passionate about,
• And, to educate the market on key industry trends and challenges

To kick things off, we gathered our key stakeholders to strategize and started by asking ourselves why, how, and whether we had the right resources to start a blog. But first, we monitored and listened to industry blogs, analyzed competitors’ blogs, and started the initial framework. IBM was a good place to start in terms of understanding their use of its blog as a sounding platform and their social computing policies.

To get started, we did the following and this is what I would recommend:

• To Blog or Not to Blog – understand your objectives and why you want to start a blog. Make sure this is something that you are passionate about and will support on an ongoing basis because it’s a commitment.  You can’t just divorce your blog.
• Establish a blog team – recruit key experts and executives (including your CEO) to sit on the blogging team to provide expertise and insight in several different categories.  For us, we have our CEO blog called Pat’s Corner (where he blogs on emerging trends, topics, and thought leadership), Security Insight (for breaking news), and more solution specific areas (that focus on challenges and trends).
• Define a Blogging Process – outline an editorial process and educate the bloggers on how the process works.  Someone needs to own it and make sure the content is approved before each blog gets posted so it’s within your company standards and message.
• Educate Your Bloggers – once you have a process and strategy in place, hold a team meeting to go over the process and how it all works.
• Write Rich, Compelling Content – content is king and as my boss @cedwardbrice (http://marketinggimbal) says think like a publisher and create and publish good content.  This rule is the rule you should live and die by.  If you don’t have powerful content that people will want to read about, you’re doomed for failure.
• Establish a Blog Team Email Alias – by having this email alias, it simplifies the communication process and keeps them in the know of what’s going on.   Also, as part of the process, PR and marketing should be tightly integrated with this overall process.  PR/Corp Comm should be constantly alerting the blog team on breaking news, industry trends, and key topics that should be covered in your blog posts. This gets me to my next point.
• Blogs are Breaking News (as David Meerman Scott puts it) – integrate corporate blog with your Rapid Response outreach.   If you have outside agency, involve your PR team to educate them on the process , who your blog team members are and what they will be blogging about.  This is what we do with our team at Lois Paul and Partners.  When there is breaking news, a lot of times PR firms will push out a commentary. Take a two-pronged approach – blog about it, educate on the issue, define any mitigating steps, and push it out. You will be surprised at how the reporters respond. Some sample links of media coverage  as a result of blog outreach are below.  Trade pub reporters look to our blog as a go to resource.
• Integrate Across Social Media Channels – leverage all your social media channels and promote it via Twitter, have your PR teams retweet it, have your employees spread the word via their SM channels, etc.  Reach across as many channels as possible to get the word out.  Leverage LinkedIn, a very powerful tool, to start a discussion around your blog topic. Great way to get the word out but also gauge different perspectives from the community.
• Pimp Out Your Blog (again, David Meerman Scott’s terms) – keep the blog design simple and easy to navigate.  Include key things like About Your Company, Blogger Profiles, Categories, RSS feed, Tags, Other Favorite Blogs, and social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube Channel, etc. if your company has those channels available, promote it. Register with Technorati and link it from your blog.
• Add to the Discussion (as David Meerman Scott puts it) – engage and link it.  Consistently monitor other influential blogs and provide comments and link it back to your blog if it’s relevant. Also, monitor comments on your blog and address it immediately.
• Monitor and Analyze – constantly monitor share of voice on Bloglines, IceRocket, and Google Blog Search, etc. Monitor coverage and make sure you communicate this to your bloggers and your company to help build the momentum and educate your executives and employees on the power of your corporate blog.

Seth Godin said it best when he said: “Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don’t.” Don’t just push out your screaming marketing messages.  Make it interesting, compelling, educational, and thought provoking.  Engage with your audience and write about what they want to read about.

Now, do you think blogs are dead? You be the judge.  Tell me what you think?