You are getting ready to start a new business or expanding your current one to include an online presence, what is your first step? These days you might want to check what domain name is available for your potential business before you purchase your business cards. According to Domain Tools, there are 125,067,779 ACTIVE domain names, of which 91,264,685 are .com names.

Before you go to purchase your domain name, I recommend brainstorming a bit and start with 5-10 potential names. Once you have this list, you need to go to Bustaname.com and let their system help you come up with potential names based on the keywords you want to highlight. Once you think you have a domain name, you need to register it. You can purchase your domain through a company like Networksolutions.com or my personal choice GoDaddy.com. Network Solutions has long been the standard, trusted source for purchasing domains, but GoDaddy has proven itself as a leader in the industry and has the best prices for domains.

Dot com is still king and if you can get a .com name, you really should. You may need to be a bit creative with your domain name – using a phrase or dashes between words, but there are plenty of names left and Bustaname or GoDaddy will actually suggest alternatives if your first choice is taken. It might take a two or three word combination to get the domain you want and I recommend focusing on the keywords you are going after rather than the “cute” or “cool” factor in a name.

Deals on domains:

• Cyber Monday Offer! 50% off Hosting, Websites, Ecommerce & Local Search Visibility at Network Solutions, Use Code: affcyber50. Save Now!
• Special Domain Sale! $7.49.com at GoDaddy.com

Liz and Terry approached me about designing the site for the second year in a row and I was so honored to be the one to give the site its’ look for another year. The theme of the conference this year is “where the virtual meets the concrete” so we went for a much more pared down look.

Liz wanted lots of white space, cool blues and grays, and the flexibility to feature different media types on the home page as well as use different layouts for the interior pages, too. Luckily for Liz, I had just finished designing a site using the new (and oh, so, super, amazing cool) Headway Theme. The Headway Theme has a built in visual editor which makes it ridiculously easy to place blocks of content where you want them and to use a different layout on every page (if you want).

Anyhow, go check out the site and take advantage of the early bird registration and the New Blogger Bootcamp deals while you are there!!

Disclosure is a good thing. It helps keep the social web honest.

Personally, I am not going to review, promote or endorse any product I don’t love, use or feel strongly about its benefit anyhow. And when I do receive an item for review, I let my readers know. However, like many bloggers, I have gone one step further by adding a blanket disclosure statement to my site to let my readers know that I do make money from my website and that it comes in many forms – affiliate marketing, product reviews, direct sponsorship and consulting. If I am providing you with good information then why should I not be compensated?

So, what do you put in your disclosure statement? The team at IZEA, one of the leaders in the sponsored conversation space, have put together a very useful tool – DisclosurePolicy.org. Use the tool to customize and build out your own disclosure policy. It’s quick, easy and relatively painless. (And no, I have not been compensated in any way for recommending this tool to you – I just happen to think it is a really good idea!)

Well, SOBCon09 is going to be even better than its predecesors. Guaranteed. The theme is Business School for Bloggers and getting that return on investment in your online (and offline) business relationships. Its being held May 1-3, 2009 in Chicago.

Want a sneak preview of the type of expertise you will have access to? Stop in at Liz’s site, Successful Blog, today between 11 am (Central) and 10 pm (also Central) for 12 hours of questions, answers, conversation, and fun with:

11:00 - Liz Strauss on How to Build a Personal Development Network
12:00 – Mark Carter on Saving The World With Social Media
1:00 – Lucretia Pruitt on Twittering the Way that Works Best for You
2:00 – Andy Sernovitz on Amazing Word of Mouth for Your Blog
3:00 – Mary-Lynn Foster on Podcast and Blog Interviewing Tips
4:00 – Easton Ellsworth on Visionary Blogging Improvements
5:00 – John Haydon on Social Media and Trust Online
6:00 – VickyHennegan on Writing for the Web
7:00 – Becky McCray on Successful Entrepreneurship
8:00 – Shannon Paul on Internet People and What They Do
9:00 -Angela Maiers on Literacy and Learning in the 21st Century
10:00 -Terry Starbucker on Pitching Social Media to Clients — 5 Key Questions for Potential Clients

Need more reasons why you should be going to the blogging conference of the year? Check out the post I wrote for last years conference – 10 Reasons you should go to SOBCon – and I’ll give you reason 11 now. This year I will be at the conference. (You know what they say, third time is a charm).

Join us for the mini-conference today and then register for SOBCon09 by Feb. 14, 2009 and get the special early bird rate.

If you can’t afford to hire someone to look after your marketing and PR, you’ll have to promote your venture yourself. A great way to get the word out about your new business and add value to your well-crafted brand is to start a blog. Here are 11 reasons why you might like to try it.

1. Blogs are unofficial – A blog is basically an online journal, where you can write about whatever you like and other people who read it can leave comments. The beauty of blogging is that it’s really informal. There are very few rules (beyond basic etiquette and being polite). You don’t have to stick to your official brand line if you don’t want. By writing about your business in a laid back and off-the-record style, you’ll be able to create a friendly and approachable feel for your online venture. Writing in the first person also helps to create an atmosphere of openness and honesty, both great values for a business brand.

2. A blog gives you freedom of expression – You don’t have to toe the company line on a blog if you don’t want. Of course you’ll be blogging about your business, so you’ll always be ‘on brand’ but if you want to create a more relaxed tone and to present your business to some of your customers in a new light, then a blog could really help you. For example, you should use a different writing style to describe what your business does on a blog than in, say, a funding proposal to your bank.

3. Let the business come to you – One of the great benefits of creating online content is that it’s searchable by the many search engines out there. It’s amazing to think that people all over the globe sitting at their computers can simply tap a few words into a search engine and find you instantly. By blogging regularly you’ll be creating loads of lovely content for search engines to pick up and to let potential customers have access to your information.

4. Blogging can be done for free – If you want, you can create an entire blog free of charge (apart from your time) using online software from some of the major providers. WordPress and Blogspot are two you might want to investigate, and you can keep your business card in your wallet. They have loads of different styles to choose from, allowing you to create individual and personalized pages relevant to your business and your customers.

If you want to take your blog in-house and have it designed there will be costs in terms of design and hosting. These vary hugely, but need not be expensive. You might also want to buy your own URL, but the costs associated with that need not be high.

5. Blogging is fast – If you can write an email, you can write a blog. If you want to get a message out there to your customers quickly, a blog post can be written up and issued to the world in a matter of minutes. Want to tell your customers about a new product, service or development in your business today? Blog about it.

It’s also important to note that a blog needs new content if it’s going to succeed. If you don’t keep adding fresh material to your blog on a regular basis search engines will not rate it as highly as other, more regularly updated blogs.

6. Plugins can do a lot of the work for you – Once you’ve set up your blog (and as long as you keep on adding fresh content) there’s a lot of technology which will work behind-the-scenes to keep your material organised and to keep people coming to read your content and learn about your business. Spam-blockers like can help reduce the number of bogus comments you might receive. And if regular visitors want to subscribe to your blog, they can have your fresh content delivered automatically to their inbox for free via an RSS feed or a regular email.

7. A blog post is more than one hit – If you pay for an advert in a magazine or on television, you’re relying on people to read that particular issue or watch that specific program. If your target audience misses that one chance to learn about you, you’ve lost them. But because most blogs archive all their content, everything you write remains online for as long as you want it to be available. That means it’s available for search engines to find and provides more opportunities for new customers to find you online.

8. Connect with the rest of the world – The worldwide web isn’t simply a place where people stick information for other people. It’s an incredibly complex, well, web really. It’s a whole series of computers connecting to each other, communicating with each other in new and exciting ways. A great way to tap into this mass communication tool is to create links to other places in that web. Search engines and the public love blogs which relate to other conversations and websites in other places. Again, showing that you are part of networks and relationships makes you look popular and well-connected and that’s a good thing for a business brand.

9. Blogging is interactive – A blog is more than a stream of your thoughts posted online. Blogging is often a two-way process. If you want to know more about what your customers think of your product or service, you can offer them the opportunity to provide feedback to you via your blog. That’s a huge advantage in terms of business development – customers discussion what’s so great about your business in the public domain. And if you are seen to enter into dialogue with your customers, your business image grows to become even more open and approachable.

10. Bad news can be good news – But what if a customer posts something negative about your business? Blocking comments or refusing to post feedback is generally frowned upon amongst the online community. It instantly sends out a message that you are controlling and not open to criticism. Just as good news spreads fast on the Internet, so can bad news. Much better is to allow people to provide constructive criticism. Your blog gives you the opportunity to put your side forward, plus it also allows other customers to leave comments too. Sure enough, if someone posts something negative about you on your blog, someone else will come to your rescue.

And in most cases, if someone has a real gripe with you, they’ll contact you directly to bring it up, rather than posting something negative about you on your own blog.

11. Complete creativity – The world of blogging is a vibrant and creative one. You don’t just need to write text on your blog. Take photos of your products and post them on your blog. Get people to review your service. Ask your staff to write about what it’s like working for your company. Post short films or slideshows of your latest promotional event or new services. Link to reviews in the press. And with each new technological advancement come new opportunities. There are almost no limits to what you can do online.

Guest post by Mark Brown, a writer for The Credit Letter where he discusses making money last longer and managing personal finances.

My personal site went pink last year and will do the same this year, but as I roll out a new look for Essential Keystrokes over the next few weeks, it just may have some pink attitude as well.

On a related note, another big blogging meets a good cause event in October is Blog Action Day, which already has more than 4,000 blogs committed to help raise awareness about Poverty across the world. Last year’s event focused on going green for the environment was a huge success (read my 5 Rs for a Greener World entry) with more than 15,000 blogs participating.

As October gets closer, consider using your voice to help support both of these very worthwhile events.

Creating lists is a very well-practiced blog strategy, and it’s easy to see why: lists are extremely popular, bringing traffic and incoming links to your blog. When done well they’re easy to read and absorb quickly. If you draw up a list of your own tips, you’re positioning yourself as an authority for the subject matter you’re writing about. When a list contains links to articles or material on other sites, you’re likely to attract reciprocal links from those sites. All of this is good news for your site’s traffic and SEO.

When you start collating a list for a blog post, inspiration can sometimes take full flight and you find yourself with dozens of potential inclusions. Great – it will be more comprehensive, and will demonstrate to your readers just how much research you’ve done, right? Well, both of these might be true. But beware falling into the mindset that the best list is a long one: in most instances, the opposite is true.

Before you publish that post on 120 best CSS Galleries or 85 Fly-fishing newsletters you MUST subscribe to, ask yourself if that’s really the ideal length for your collection. Short lists are easy to scan; readers can quickly get fatigued if the list runs on and on. When you’ve published a collection of links to articles off-site, your readers will naturally want to visit those sites to read the resources for themselves. But if the collection is very large, there’s a good chance that readers won’t have the time to check out all of the links in one sitting. They can bookmark your list, but they may already be frustrated at being presented with such a huge volume of information, even when it is of high quality.

What’s the ideal size for a list?

Because information is easiest to digest in short bursts, the best size for a list is between 5 and 10 entries. Not only are the contents more reader-friendly at this smaller size, but a short list also comes across as a quality selection. You the author will give the impression that you’re capable of editing your own copy. These are important considerations when you’re striving to create the best content for your blog.

But if your latest blog list is absolutely brimming with must-have material, here are some suggestions on how to handle the blow-out.

Start each entry with a short phrase or outline, in a bold or highlighted format. This makes your lengthy list much easier for readers to scan quickly

Divide the list into categories. Your post will be easier to digest and readers can skim over sections they’re less interested in if they choose. If your categories are strong enough on their own, then the next suggestion is worth considering:

Turn it into a series of posts. Instead of one long list, break it up into a handful of shorter, more reader-friendly articles. This enhances the impression that you have really researched your topic, and you are likely to attract readers and new subscribers who want to catch the next installment, and the next.

Publish only half (or one third) of the list now, then another half or one-third in a few weeks’ or months’ time. If you’re certain that your list will be very well received, why give all of your information away now? Holding back some of the material for a follow-up list “due to overwhelming popularity the first time” is a great blogging strategy and also highlights how good your initial post was (so long as the first installment was genuinely popular).

Depending on the material you are collating, a longer list can be easier to read in some instances. A list of brief tips (where each entry is no longer than a phrase or a short sentence) can run to, say, 50 and still be readable: here is an example. If the list is especially funny or entertaining, it might even get away with being quite a bit longer again.

If you still feel you should post your list of 95 AJAX tips to improve your e-commerce site, make sure it’s really good. Sites like Smashing Magazine have created a niche for themselves by publishing definitive resources for their audience. It’s possible to do the same, so long as your material is up to scratch.

What are your thoughts? When is a blog list too long? Not long enough?

Growing readership is one of the most common questions I get asked as a business blog consultant and coach. Anyone who has struggled to grow their audience will tell you that quality of writing is not all that it takes. I wish it was!

First of all, let me stress that quantity is not the only factor you need to be aiming for. A smaller, more engaged audience, often trumps a larger and less involved one. I have done several things on my own blog that have served to *constrain* my audience. Why? Because I want an audience who really wants to interact with me, who want to know what I have to say. Consider a company that sells nuclear power stations, going for a large, mainstream audience is probably not the right tactic!

So that all said, what are the secrets to growing a blog audience?

Well, truthfully, there are no secrets, but while these tips might seem common sense, as I like to say, common sense is seldom common practice. Any one of these tips is guaranteed to help you boost your audience and keep it growing:

1) Make a deep and lasting impact

People look to sites like TechCrunch and think they have to write ten articles a day. Nonsense. Churning out article after article will only serve to wear you down. Instead put your effort into creating what I call Flagship Content, content that provides real value, lasts a long time, and takes your message out into the world and brings back subscribers. Instead sticking to an arbitrary schedule, consider each article and make it the best it can be. This is not a quantity game, unless you want to run a blogging sweat shop.

2) Be a leader

Again, bloggers often look to the top sites in their niche and think if they don’t write on the hot topics their audience will think them irrelevant. No! Instead of following the herd you need to stand out, be your own voice, show creativity, add real value and most of all, lead.

3) Leave your sand-pit

Instead of just trying to create a powerful gravitational pull, work hard to find out where your audience hangs out and meet them half-way. Find the forums, discussion lists, social media sites, chat channels and face to face events where your readers gather and take part.

4) Plug your leaks

Growing your audience is as much about keeping people involved as it is attracting new blood. As people unsubscribe you need to work out why. Which content or activity drives people away? What can you do about it? For example, on my own blog I found people were unsubscribing from my emails because daily was too frequent, so I created a separate weekly list for people to join.

Finally, the most important factor of all …

5) Understand your audience

Too many bloggers only focus on their own needs, what they want to say, the words that they use, without considering who it is they want to attract, what their readers want, and how best to serve their needs. Your audience should be the first and last thing on your mind.

Look around at the top bloggers in your niche, do you think they meet the requirements I set out above? Think I have it all wrong? Do you have any other tips that I have missed? Please share your thoughts in the comments …

PerformancingAds opened today for all web publishers. Now publishers with sites of any size can join and tap into yet another stream of revenue for their sites.

PerformancingAds is not like all the others – there are definitely aspects of the program that make them unique and worth checking out!

• You determine where on your site the 125×125 ads will appear. Define as many regions as you’d like and you set the price you want to sell each ad for.
• The ad exchange program is very cool! You create your own ad and place it in the exchange pool. These ads are shown on other publishers’ sites in empty ad spots.
• You can book your own ads! Use PerformancingAds to promote affiliate content on your site or your own flagship content.
• You get paid on the 1st of the month immediately following the advertisers’ purchase. That is so much better than waiting for 30 to 60 days for payment.
• Advertisers purchase ads for 1 week at a time. By allowing advertisers this weekly option, you get a larger group of potential advertisers thanks to a lower threshold for advertiser entry.
• PerformancingAds is built by publishers for publishers – the team behind the network are some of the most successful in the business and are the same team that have brought us pMetrics, Hive and Performancing. And they have a sales team actively promoting the program and working for the publishers.
• The PerformancingAds affiliate program creates recurring income – now that is awesome!

Go check out PerformancingAds today! I have been part of the network since the pre-launch and have already sold ads and have been paid for them.

What does it take to be authority blogger?

In order to become an authority blogger, you have to create a community where people want to come to you for the information, not just because you have it, but because you give a little something extra. That extra is value that comes from building a relationship with your readers, offering personal insight and expertise along with information.

Becoming an authority blogger doesn’t happen overnight and you can’t do it on your own. It takes time. You have to listen to others, join conversations, freely offer up your own expertise and advice, and be willing to “pay your dues.”

SOBCon08 is the perfect place to get your start on becoming an authority blogger! SOBCon08 is a blogging conference like no other, hosted by Liz Strauss of Successful Blog. The conference will be held in Chicago on May 2-4, 2008 and features a unique combination of presentations and mastermind workshops. Basically the conference is Business School for Bloggers where you are both the student and the professor. Each attendee will leave with an actionable plan for becoming an authority blogger in their own niche.

For the past 12 years I have been working as a freelance web designer and consultant. About two years ago a client asked me to help her set up a blog. Knowing nothing about this new platform, I began to research. As soon as I started researching, I decided that the best way to really understand what she was trying to accomplish was to get involved myself. I launched this blog (first on Blogger, then to its own domain and WordPress where it is now) and was instantly hooked. Not only did the blog serve as research, it became an outlet for me to share what I knew and observed in my areas of expertise.

Within a matter of months I discovered the power of blogging, networking with others online, and the amazing community that has evolved in the blogosphere. In the past two years, I have learned MORE than I have in the past 12 about web development, web site monetization, social networking, and niche marketing. WHY? Because the wisdom of shared knowledge is so much stronger than anything one individual could ever come up with!

This year I plan to take my level of knowledge and community one step further by attending SOBCon08. I cannot wait to meet all 200+ attendees face to face. Many of us have met online via Liz’s Open Comment Night, Twitter, various forums (such as the now defunct MomGadget forum and my new – favorite Performancing’s Hive forum), and through participating in each other’s blog conversations. However, having the opportunity to be a part of such an amazing conversation is just huge!

While I know all of the presenters are going to be amazing, the part I am most looking forward to is the mastermind groups. The value in this conference is really the intense networking and sharing of ideas that will take place. I would like to be able to take away from the conference that I have helped create a plan for success for one of my colleagues. It is just too much fun to share these successes with others who “get it!”

And if I am lucky enough to get the opportunity to consult with Chris Garrett for an entire hour (pick me, pick me), I have a whole list of questions for him on managing multiple domains, hiring writers, focusing a niche and of course, becoming an authority blogger.

I’m ready to take my blogging authority to the next level – are you?

If you are not convinced you need to be at SOBCon08, check out my 10 Reasons You Need to be at SOBCon and the interview Liz did with Jason Falls about SOBCon08.

PS – This is my entry into Chris G.’s contest to win $2000 of SOBCon and Chrisg consulting.