Web Site and Blog Start Up: Basic Info

To: Bleu at The Farm Guide

I just know that your site is going to be a huge success! Until it starts making some revenue, don't worry about keeping everyone, me included, on a "pro-bono" status. Sometimes, for people like us, the few hundred dollars for the time and work invested amounts to nothing compared to the value of...Bylines and backlinks!

The byline on a newspaper or magazine article gives the name, and often the position, of the writer of the article. Bylines are traditionally placed between the headline and the text of the article, although some magazines (notably Reader's Digest) place bylines at the bottom of the page, to leave more room for graphical elements around the headline.

Backlinks (or back-links (UK)) are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (though other measures, such as PageRank, are likely to be more important). Outside of SEO, the backlinks of a web page may be of significant personal, cultural or semantic interest: they indicate who is paying attention to that page.
In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node (Björneborn and Ingwersen, 2004). Backlinks are also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links.

Because I'm trying to make a new career as a writer, my name on my articles can get people who read them interested in hiring me to write for them. The knack to writing for blogs, and the Internet in general, is that you have to:

a) Use common language, and make content short and sweet; 500-700 words. This is good for my style of writing, because I'm not an English major or a novelist. Including pictures is crucial, and also including some video - again, less is more, of a 2-10 minute duration is important. A strange paradox is that literacy is at an all time high...yet hardly anyone reads that much anymore!

b) Utilize Key words. These are words that search engines pick out of the articles, to determine the relevancy of your content to the searcher, and by Google algorithmic magic, returns your content on it's list -preferably on the first page as close to the top as possible. It's important to have the right keywords, especially in the title. It's also important to have them in the right concentration throughout-not too many or too few. How do you know what those best keywords are? There is a look up you can do online that will tell you how many times "cranberries" for instance, is searched on Google.

c) Tell a story. When people search for information, they can find it on Wikipedia, Wiki how, etc. This info is complete, and ultra informative, and usually comes up first in the search results. So, why would a person go to your website instead? That's where content writers and producers, affiliates, Ad Sense, and the interactive process of discussion groups and comment posting play an important part.

Content writers and producers- (that's me) offer information with a style that is more of a first person account, or story. Wouldn't most people read a story before an encyclopedia? These "stories" can link to places where the searcher can find the "thing" they are looking for, instead of just the information about it or definition of it. For example, my article about the Heyden's mushroom farm not only includes information about cultivating Shiitake mushrooms, but also links up to the Oyster Creek Mushroom Company web site where the searcher can do what they can't do on Wiki -buy 'em and try 'em. Another link I included is to a site where someone can purchase the spores to grow their own. Here is where everyone cooperates for a mutual benefit. We link to OCMC, and they link back to The Farm Guide. I link to both of you, and both of you back to me. Hence, backlinks...We keep traffic flowing through our sites, and some convert into sales of all kinds: I sell some writing services, OCMC sells some mushrooms, TFG sells some advertising, for example, by becoming an affiliate, or by publishing AdSense ads.

Affiliates- On my blog, you will notice advertisements for Amazon.com. I am an affiliate, which means I am signed up with them, so that if someone comes to their site, by clicking the link on my blog, and subsequently makes a purchase, I receive a small commish, about 75 cents on a book for example. Every company out there, big and small, offer some kind of affilliate program, with a cut of the potential sale.

Adsense- This is a type of affiliate deal, but differs in this way: If a person clicks on this link, and goes to the site that link draws them to, you get a "per click" payment, around 30 cents, even if they don't purchase anything at the site. There is also a type of adsense ad that just displays while the person is on your page, and again, you get a little money for that. Just DON'T click on your own ads! Google catches on to this, as well as other scams in nano seconds, and will drop you post haste.

Like television and radio, a web site is supported and driven by advertising during your show (of content), on your network (web site or blog). What is revolutionary, and so much better about this type of advertising, is that unlike TV, where everyone has to sit through ads about everything from hemorrhoid cream to tampons, on the Internet the ads are targeted right at the individual whom by the content he is looking at, it can be determined with great specificity that the ad applies to him. For example, I have suffered from hemorrhoids only a few times, but in 41 years have not once gotten a period. It is almost scary how the Google robot can read what is on the page, and quickly post an adsense ad that applies. One time I was in the dog house, and from there was e-mailing my wife. The robot read our e-mails and returned results that showed it knew what we were saying. One advertised a book titled "Ring or Fling Decide Which Finger to Give Him!"

The confidence I have in "The Farm Guide" being a success is founded in the fact that this type of site is what is referred to as a "niche" site. Let me explain by example. If you were going to develop a web site that was going to take orders and deliver books and dvd's, I would laugh at you, and say good luck with that! I would be thinking that you wouldn't stand a snowballs chance in Hell of competing with Amazon.com. But a site that sells mushroom spores, hydroponic equipment, fish emulsion fertilizer, and so on...I'm on board for that. Why? Because there is no such thing as "The Fish Shit Depot". Niche means less competition with huge conglomerates and therefore more payoff.

I hope this was informative. Thanks again for including me in this venture of yours. I'm sure that none of us will be disappointed.