Yes, the reliable press release helps you write and communicate better, because you will get used to a writing style that millions of people have already seen. Even before the internet came into existence, your potential customers have already been exposed to newspapers and magazines so the style of these articles has been deeply ingrained in the minds of most readers.

If you've tried submitting a press release to a traditional newspaper company, however, you know that some cost is involved. Fortunately, there are places online where you can submit your press release for free.

I was going through the previous Twitter messages of Dana Willhoit (you can follow her on Twitter at @Dana_Willhoit) when I found her reference to her List of Free Press Release Sites.

If you're on a tight budget, you can check out those PR submission sites. Alternatively, if you're trying to save time, you can also have Dana do the submissions for you because she offers various Press Release services over at ThePressReleaseSite.com

What's so great about these PR sites anyway? Well, since they receive content on a fairly regular basis, the search engine robots crawl those sites often. And once your press release is published or featured on their homepage, then your site (assuming your write-up contains links that lead back to your blog or main website) will benefit from backlinks coming from those authority sites.

True, you get what you pay for, and if you want to make money for nothing you can't reasonably expect to remain profitable forever. For a long-term strategy, you will need to mix free PR submission sites along with premium press release publication sites such as PRWeb.

While the non-free services will cost you anywhere from $80 to $300, the increased exposure will bring in benefits that will certainly outweigh the initial investment. Just make sure, however, that your site contains enough content to compel your visitors to take action.

Examples of that involve signing up for your list or even buying your products online. Afterall, what's the point of getting more visitors to your site if they'll end up doing nothing once they get there, right? A lot of marketers excited about the power of the online press release fail to spend enough time prepping the content of their site.

In the end, let's recall Ken Evoy's CTPM model: Content, Traffic, Pre-sell, Monetize. Having a surge in traffic is great, but let's remember to do things in the ideal sequence.

What are you waiting for? Publish content that will make the PR traffic worth it, and you'll happily count yourself among the many success stories of people who make money on the internet in any kind of economic environment.

I read in Macuha.com that Marhgil got featured by John Chow.

(If you don't know who John Chow is, he's the guy who's attracting a lot of readers interested in learning how he is able to gain lots of visitors and make money online.)

John Chow blogged about the Tweet this post without the plugin, which allows bloggers to add a bit of code that makes it easy for your readers to tweet (or create a Twitter message) about your blog post.

The thinking here is that in yet another world on the web, the microblogging realm, getting the word out about your site can translate to a healthy level of traffic. If you've heard of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, you can call this some kind of Word-of-Tweet marketing. The bottomline is, if you want more visitors you'll need to know where people are online and make yourself visible there.

Why did John feature Marhgil's code, and what's so great about using code instead of installing a WordPress plugin? It helps make your blog run, or display its content, faster. When your site gets a flood of visitors, speed is a big deal.

Your Traffic Strategy. Quite simply, help others online by posting something useful. And if you want to attract hundreds or even thousands of people to your site, post something that a high profile blogger will find helpful.

Did you know that some people pay as much as $500 just to be featured or reviewed on JohnChow.com? Well, Marhgil did not pay a single cent, so it's like he got $500 worth of traffic for free.

Marhgil writes: "Yeah. Finally, after 2 years of blogging, one of my link baits caught a big fish. It’s not just a fish, it’s a whale shark!"

You might be wondering what a "link bait" is. It's basically a blog post or article that can be controversial, entertaining, or downright useful that other bloggers will want to link to it. Given the surprised tone of Marhgil, I'm guessing he wasn't actively angling for John Chow.

That's what happens when you simply focus on providing value. You'll never know when a big fish will share his blessings and channel more traffic to you online.

First of all, let's have a look at the bookmarking services that the new OnlyWire.com can help you with:

Ask, Bibsonomy, Blinklist, Bluedot, BookmarkSync, Connotea, del.icio.us, Diigo, Facebook, Furl, Google Bookmarks, Jumptags, Linkatopia, Multiply, My Web Yahoo, Newsvine, Simpy, Spurl, Technorati, Twitter.

In other words, assuming you have registered accounts in those social bookmarking services, OnlyWire can help you automatically log into each of those and post a link to whatever web site you would like to promote. The belief here is that when numerous bookmarking sites point to your blog post, that web page of yours will rise up the search engine results.

You know what they say about getting more web traffic: produce Content and Backlinks.

Just remember, however, that this approach to building backlinks is artificial, which makes this tactic rather short-term. If someone asks you: "Why did you bookmark that site?" what would you say? Didn't you bookmark your own site simply because you wanted to promote it?

Here is the key point behind Social Bookmarking sites: People surf around and find webpages that they really like. After they've found such sites, they will bookmark it so that they can return to that site in the future. In other words, they truly like those sites.

If you're going to use SB sites to bookmark your own sites, then the purpose isn't really so that you can revisit those webpages. The main objective is to promote your own sites, right? And since that does not match the true spirit of social bookmarking, well... You can almost predict how long that fun ride will last.

OnlyWire does provide a very convenient service. Imagine, you no longer have to log into 20 different sites. Anything you post via OnlyWire gets automatically published in those 20 sites. Convenient, right?

Just ask yourself this: Why do you have accounts in 20 different social bookmarking sites? Isn't one enough for you?

On the other hand, you might prefer to create niches. For example, you can use del.icio.us to bookmark sites about topic #1, and Simpy to handle sites or web pages about topic #2. That is completely fine. If you do segment your bookmarks this way, then what is the point of having a service that logs automatically into your 20 different SB sites?

Such a service works well if you will submit the same blog or web site to each of those SB sites. Clearly, the point is online promotion aimed at improving your search engine ranking. And if that is the inescapable intent, how can we then resolve this with Linkatopia's: "We still caution against using multi-bookmarking services to manipulate search engine rankings. We feel this is unethical and that search engines should remain a level playing field."

If you want to use automated social bookmarking services, then go ahead. Just make sure you are aware of what your true intent is, and if it involves simply driving more traffic to your web site or blog, then don't be surprised if this tactic doesn't last too long.

The relationship between how often you blog and your site's level of traffic depends on the kind of information you publish.

If you write about late-breaking news events, or information that changes or is updated on a regular basis, then yes, blogging often will bring in more traffic. And yes, blogging less often will result in drops in site traffic.

If your topics are more or less steady in the sense that the information does not really change that quickly, then writing once or twice a week will bring you steady traffic. There are exceptions, though, particularly when your topic happens to be a hot item of interest, and your new or old webpage appears on page 1 of the Google search engine results, for example.

Now if your articles focus on "evergreen" topics, or subjects that practically take forever to change (i.e., a blog about algebra), then blogging even once every three months will bring you steady traffic, particularly if your content is useful (i.e., your visitors spend more than 20 seconds on your web page or website).

Come to think of it, you might be better off with a non-blog, which is perfectly fine if you're willing to learn HTML or if you can get help from techies. Otherwise, get a WordPress blog installed, even if you will add content only 4 times a year.

Do you feel like you're forever running inside an endlessly spinning hamster wheel? Do you feel "forced" to blog each and every single day, just to maintain your 100+ visitors daily? Are you starting to feel trapped?

Let's face it... You're not a superhero who can write just like that. Sometimes, inspiration eludes you. Other times, you just want to relax and take a breather. So how can you maintain your traffic without having to blog on a regular basis?

TIP: Build a combination blog + static web site.

The static portion can be in the form of WordPress pages (not posts). These pages can contain "evergreen" content, which brings in visitors even when your regular or returning traffic eases. When you try this approach, your site's traffic levels will make you feel more at ease and at peace.

When you're tranquil, you'll be able to write better blog posts. Yes, you will write when you're truly inspired, or when you have something to say. You won't end up blogging just because you "have to write a blog post today."

And what if you truly enjoy blogging, but cannot commit to producing 7 articles a week? Then aim for 2 articles a week. You can do that, right? Before you know it, you'll have enough content, and your site will have reached a critical mass of sorts. Soon, even if you sometimes do things other than blogging and end up writing just once a week, or even twice a month, your website traffic will remain at respectable levels.

I've seen bloggers who are now posting less often than when they started blogging, but are earning 8x more. Amazing, isn't it? Their online business model focused on getting visitors from the search engines. Such visitors didn't really care how often those bloggers added a post. Also, those "lazy" bloggers are not selling ad impressions, so their income is not largely dependent on repeat-visitor traffic.

Of course, you might be in a different situation. Please ask yourself why you want more traffic. Study your statistics and evaluate if the increase in traffic has brought in more sales (or helped you achieve your other website objectives), or if decreases in traffic have affected your online sales (sometimes, traffic dips do not necessarily lead to lower online income).

Take a step back, and see whether you truly enjoy blogging, or if your strengths lie in the area of helping people online. And when you get to know yourself better, you'll find yourself blogging... when you feel like it.

Lesson 1: Nothing Automated Lasts Forever. There are natural ways of gaining traffic, and "forced" or contrived methods of sending visitors to your blog. The easy and automated systems will work, but it will not last that long. If we're looking for quick fixes, let's be prepared for the inevitable day when... Well, come to think of it, nothing really lasts forever, right?

Lesson 2: Focus Is Essential. When we try and put our widgets in any and every place we can find online, our efforts become diffused and wasted. Many BR widget users were able to rack up hundreds of thousands of Impression Credits, but these were not completely served, what with the shutdown of BlogRush. Those who tightly focused their BR marketing campaigns were able to get higher ROIs, though.

Lesson 3: Fairness Works. Numerous site owners placed the widget in rather inaccessible places on their web pages. These people ended up getting minimal traffic. Perhaps you can call it some kind of karmic SEO failure. Those who gave back more to the BR system ended up reaping more rewards. On the web, you need to give first before you can receive.

Here are some earlier posts about BR:

• BlogRush Traffic Ramps Up (March 21, 2008)
  Do you remember BlogRush? Well, after sticking with it for quite some time, my friends have been asking whether it has finally brought in a flood of traffic. With clickthrough rates still below 1 percent, the short answer is No, we haven't seen a gush of web traffic. With TrafficJam coming into the picture, however, the old clickthrough rates we experienced previously have increased by as much as 2.8 times. Here's why it happened...
• BlogRush 2008 Traffic (January 12, 2008)
  If you recall an earlier post, I hinted that you shouldn't give up on BlogRush. Here are some early January 2008 stats about the traffic that this site received via the BR widget.
• BlogRush Resurrected (November 20, 2007)
  You've probably read about John Reese's BlogRush widget, the promise of high traffic to your blogs, the disappointment, the disillusion, and the eventual removal of the BR widget. If you're thinking about doing the same, please don't be too hasty. Yes, BlogRush has resurrected!
• BlogRush Analysis (September 20, 2007)
  Several people have gotten disillusioned with BlogRush and have removed the widget box from their sites because of lack of traffic and other reasons. Here's my analysis on why BlogRush can still work and help bring in more traffic for your site.
• Secret BlogRush Strategy... Revealed! (September 18, 2007)
  After trying BlogRush for a few days, here are some observations and tips you can use in creating your third party web traffic strategy.
• A Blog Rush of Visitors (September 15, 2007)
  Would you like a rush of visitors to your sites? What about visitors who are not only readers, but are also bloggers themselves? And what if those other bloggers will end up helping you get even more traffic? Here are the details...

Well, it's been quite a ride.

So thank you again, BlogRush. With your help, our affiliate marketing campaigns are less automated and more humane, and are also more focused and fair. And no, John and the entire BlogRush team: Your efforts were not in vain.

To the hundreds of site owners who installed the BR widget, thank you for your help and support. There are still a lot of other opportunities in the future, and I look forward to hearing about your continued success. Just keep your eyes open, persevere, and never stop experimenting.

Here's wishing everyone more targeted traffic that converts!

Steve Lawson is a musician, speaker, writer and social media consultant who advises musicians to treat their audience as friends rather than as a "target market."

That's a pretty far cry from what we've been reading in internet marketing and MMO blogs, right? You know... the old build a large Twitter following, then broadcast your blog post link, gain a torrent of visitors, and laugh all the way to the bank.

(By the way, I found out about Steve because of QuiverAndQuill.com's Advice to a Brand using Twitter.)

Perhaps in the Web 2.0 social world, we'll just end up with a lot of laughing and not enough banking, unless we learn from natural marketers who have learned to market properly to people. Just to be clear, though, all these social media tactics are designed to grow an audience. In terms of your blog, that "audience" refers to people who will regularly return to your blog and read your latest posts.

If you are trying to make money online with the help of AdSense, however, don't expect your income to grow on the basis of repeat visitors. Your AdSense earnings will depend largely on the number of first-time visitors, particularly those coming to your site from the search engines.

On the other hand, if you are targeting affiliate commissions or banner advertising where you are paid on the basis of number of impressions or pageviews, then a social media strategy will work better for you, because your business model relies on repeat traffic.

(Then again, you can always opt for a hybrid approach where your home based online business targets earning opportunities aimed towards first-time search engine visitors as well as loyal, repeat visitors.)

Anyway, let's get back to social media, music, and Twitter. In Steve's Social Media - first principles for musicians (Pt 2), he gives a number of tips when it comes to interacting with your audience:

Talk to your audience like friends
don’t patronise them
don’t shout at them
listen to them but don’t pretend they’re your producers
share things of value with them
invite them into your creative pathway
give away information and ideas that have currency
help them and they’ll help you.

I'm waiting for him to publish Part 3, where he will write about software and hardware tools.

Anyway, because of this sidetrip into the world of Steve Lawson, I found out about another musician: Ben Walker of IHateMornings.com (nice domain name, right?)

Ben wrote The Twitter Song (YouTube):

Okay, so what's the point? Growing your audience the "right" or "new" way will help drive traffic to your blog, your Twitter page, and even your YouTube page. Yes, there are people who prefer to focus on blogs and AdSense, and that is perfectly fine. If, on the other hand, you want to expand your experience, you can go beyond blogging and even try podcasting, videoblogging, or microblogging.

You will meet more people, and before you know it, you'll be a social media expert not just online, but in the physical world as well. In the meantime, try to get away from your computer every now and then, grab a guitar or any musical instrument (or even sit in front of a keyboard... the piano type) and make some music.

[I can almost see the headline now... "People laughed when I sat down at the piano to bring in a flood of website traffic. But when I started to play..."]

You're asked to write an 8-paragraph article, then you're encouraged to rewrite each paragraph two more times. Yes, that's each paragraph. In other words, you have the following versions: Paragraph 1a, 1b, 1c, Paragraph 2a, 2b, 2c... and so on.

The UAW system then takes each version and mixes and matches them with the rest of the remaining paragraphs. My math is a little rusty, but if you take an 8-paragraph article and make use of the different tri-version paragraphs, you should be able to create 3x3x3x3x3x3x3x3 or 6,561 articles.

Imagine that. Over 6500 web pages containing your article. That's at least 6500 backlinks pointing to your web site. Bloggers who need content will join some of the free article directories (which may or may not be related to the Unique Article Wizard service), and these spun or auto-generated articles are semi-automatically feed to content-starved blogs.

Anyway, that's just an educated guess, as I've never used UAW. Besides, is it really worth the $67 monthly subscription fee?

An internet marketer believes that unique articles are over-rated. So we put him to the test, gave him one, unspun article, and he posted that same article in a little over 100 blogs over a period of three weeks.

The result: Five out of ten listings in a popular search engine were blog entries of that one article for the targeted keyword or keyphrase. The search engine listed only 32 blog pages (out of the 102 blogs that carried that same article), perhaps because the remaining blogs have not yet been visited by the search engine robots.

Impressive? Well, let's just say that made Page 1 of the SERPs look rather boring, because half of the results were basically the same article. You can be certain that imbalance will not last long, because the search engines thrive on presenting different web pages to searchers.

Does this mean that articles re-written, processed, and mass-distributed by the Unique Article Wizard system outlast the one-version approach of more affordable article distribution companies? Perhaps. Given the NDAs, however, the actual results will have to remain hidden from those who are not yet subscribers of UAW.

This technique is called Rapid Twitter Marketing, because you will make it easy for your affiliates to promote your site (via their aff link, of course) via Twitter. The hope here is that some of their Twitter followers will see their "tweet" and will end up visiting your site.

And here's how this is done...

Step 1: Log into Twitter.com

The technique requires that you and your affiliates are logged into Twitter. This achieves two things: It allows you to check if your pre-made Twitter message is 140-characters or less, and it also allows your affiliates-who-use-Twitter to make use of your pre-made Tweet.

If your affiliates are not logged into Twitter before they click on the special link, this technique will not work. It helps a lot if your message to your affiliates clearly reminds them to log into Twitter.com first.

Step 2: Create the Pre-Made Twitter message URL.

Here's what it looks like (please make sure you're logged into Twitter if you want to see what should happen when you visit the link, which will open in a new browser window):

http://twitter.com/home?status=Reading+%40ManuelViloria%27s+Rapid+Twitter+Marketing!+-++at+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.manuelviloria.com/archives/rapid-twitter-marketing

Okay... let's break it down:

The + symbol represents a space. Normally, you will broadcast an email to your mailing list instructing them to first log into Twitter, and then visit the link that represents your pre-made Twitter message. If you simply use spaces, the link will break and will no longer be clickable in your affiliates' Inbox. By using the plus symbol, you help ensure that the long URL remains clickable.

The %40 symbol represents the @ symbol. In Twitter, placing an @ in front of a Twitter username makes that username clickable. This will help drive traffic to your Twitter homepage.

The %27 symbol represents the apostrophe ('), %3A stands for the colon (:), and %2F is the url escape code for the forward slash (/).

Yes, you can do away with all those url escape codes and simply use this (with + symbols, but no url escape codes):

or even this (no + symbols, no url escape codes):

Those URLs (without the + symbol or the url escape codes) will work in a blog or static web page, but some email systems will not be able to interpret the URL correctly. So if you want to reach as wide an audience as possible and have the links clickable right within their email, please use the version which makes use of url escape codes.

Here's the recommended version (works in both web pages and email messages):

Assuming your affiliates are logged into Twitter before they click on the specially crafted link, your message will appear in their "What Are You Doing?" Twitter box. All they'll have to do to complete the process is to click on the "Update" button.

Step 3: Remind your affiliates to click on the UPDATE button.

In your email message (or in your blog post if you choose to communicate with your affiliates via your blog), remind them to click on the Twitter update button. Otherwise, that tweet will not appear in their Twitter timeline.

And what will the tweet look like? Using the above example, it will look something like this in Twitter (although the long url of your blog post might be shortened with a TinyURL-converted link):

If you create a Twitter message yourself, some of your followers will end up visiting your site. Now imagine what would happen if other people will tweet about your site? Yes, some of their followers will visit your site.

Web site traffic is a numbers game, and this Rapid Twitter Marketing tactic provides a win-win situation for both you and your affiliates, because it allows you to appear in places where people get together online (i.e., Twitter), and spread your message easily.

What if you don't have affiliates? No problem! Simply twist this tactic and communicate with your Twitter friends. If you don't have a product to sell, but are promoting someone else's product (because you are the affiliate), you can get your Twitter friends to sign-up as an affiliate under you.

When your Twitter friends send traffic to your blog post, their own affiliate link can appear in your blog post (with a bit of PHP magic called JV Plus). And even if the full affiliate commission goes to them (which is only fair since it was their tweet that brought in the traffic), you will still earn a commission if the affiliate program you've both enrolled in is a 2-tier type of program.

What are you waiting for? Act today and see your web site traffic rise, with the help of Twitter marketing!

Let's see what Google has to say...

In Demystifying the "duplicate content penalty", Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa writes that there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty.

In other words, if your web site has a screen version and a print version of the same web page, you will not get slapped with a dupe penalty.

However, the following activities (which look like duplication) will get you in hot water:

• Republishing other content... without adding additional value.
• Scraping content from other sites.
• Creating other web sites which contain info that's similar to info found in your other sites.

What happens if you want to spin off part of your site into a separate domain? You will need to use 301 redirects so that the search engines will not see your sites as pages to penalize.

Photo by iChaz

So, who are truly worried about duplicate content? These are usually legitimate online publishers whose web site structure produces a lot of duplicate content. For example, if you have a WordPress blog that has a 1-post category, both the blog post url and the Category url will contain practically duplicate content.

It is to this group of people that Google says: there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty.

Unfortunately, some internet marketers will tell people: "Hey, there's no dupe content issue, so go ahead and start a blog using content found in other web pages." Clearly, the search engines will impose some kind of penalty, because the intent of the blog or site owner was to simply put up a site using only or mostly content which is already being used in other sites.

The intent, in other words, is to get something for nothing (by publishing pages with little or no content).

So, if someone is selling you a system of automatically populating your blog purely with online content you don't own (or content already found in your other sites), and then they add that "there is no duplicate content penalty", and you still insist on not adding new or unique content, then don't be surprised if your web site does not last long in page 1 of the search engine results.

For hardworking online publishers, the duplicate content penalty is just a myth. But for shortcut publishers who don't even want to contribute original articles online, the dupe content penalty is as real as the truth behind their intent in simply re-publishing articles in their web sites.

Rejaw allows you to input up to 1000 characters per message or "shout" as people in Rejaw call it. You can also sent private messages or "whispers" to other people. The format is similar to Twitter (vertical scrolling), and the threaded comments plus ability to share images and videos reminds me of Plurk.

Check out this example: http://rejaw.com/manuelviloria/

Here's the key to getting more traffic to your site: Remember that Rejaw attracts a crowd.

Some people hang around Plurk; others, around Twitter. And yet others prefer to watch videos at YouTube. In other words, there are different watering holes on the web, and if you want to attract more visitors, you'll need to find those gathering places online and contribute.

If you're worried that a free service such as Rejaw might be here today, gone when the funding dries up, then don't spend too much time posting material that you spent too much time creating. Try posting things you have already created. For example, share a YouTube video that you uploaded several months ago.

Chances are, the people in Rejaw have not yet seen that video of yours. And now that they'll get to see your vid in Rejaw, they might find it interesting enough for them to go and check out your blog (the one you featured in your Profile). And that's how you attract more traffic to your site.

Another nice thing about Rejaw is that people (even those who haven't signed up) can post a reply to your "shout." In Twitter and Plurk, for example, other commenters need to sign-in first. In addition, since Rejaw allows you to post images, MP3s, and even FLV videos, other people can now post multimedia comments in reaction to what you write.

Just don't expect to embed your own FLV video player, though. Even with the generous 1000 characters per shout, you will be unable to type in your desired anchor text link. All web URLs posted will be shown starting with the familiar http:// (in order words, no clickable keyword phrases, my SEO friends).

Go ahead, try leaving a Rejaw comment at http://rejaw.com/manuelviloria/shout/bNRkugQNfhS

Is this something worth trying out? Or is it just an utter waste of time?

If you're willing to write around 15 articles, and if posting articles to your usual web properties (i.e. your blogs, forums you visit, article directories) hasn't been bringing in new traffic lately, then go ahead and try Qassia.

Here's an example of what your page will look like: http://manuelviloria.qassia.com

Here's how to succeed with Qassia

1. Think of a which of your sites you want to promote via Qassia backlinks.

2. Group those sites into certain themes.

3. Write new articles (for Qassia) that tie-up with the theme of your sites.

4. Post those article in Qassia.

5. Monitor your incoming traffic and see how many visits you get from Qassia.

At the start, expect to get 1 visitor per Qassia article (or intel, as they call it) per month. As your collection of articles there grows, you will be able to experience exponential growth. There's more to just Qassia traffic and backlinks, though.

Should we enable AdSense in Qassia?

Yes, submit your Google Adsense Publisher ID, but do not include Qassia.com in your list of "allowed sites" (you can set this when you log into your AdSense account). It will also help if you create a Qassia.com URL channel in AdSense, so that you can easily monitor the traffic that your intel pages get.

The whole point of this exercise is to see if Qassia will indeed help you and your blog (or network of web sites). If you see some hope of growth, then continue producing intel articles. For better results, though, invest time in producing around 30 original articles.

For this experiment, just focus on Qassia for about 7 days. Then see what results you get.

What does focus mean? That means you'll need to resist the urge to spend too much time on new product launches, the latest internet marketing fads, or too much micro videoblogging.

I haven't gone full blast with the Qassia experiment because I'm focused on a different internet marketing test. If you have the time, though, then it will be an interesting learning experience for you as you search for what works... for you.

And once you discover what works for you, even if the success is quite small (i.e., $1 a day), then focus on that technique even more until you grow your earnings 10 times. The key lies in trying something for around 7 days. Perhaps Qassia will help you achieve your internet home business goals.

If more people like your blog post and then they click on the Buzz Up! button, then your page will gain higher visibility in the Yahoo! Buzz community. The higher the visibility, the more chances you get to attract even more web visitors.

So here's the Yahoo! Buzz Web Traffic Strategy:

1. Put Yahoo! Buzz buttons at the top and bottom of your WordPress blog posts. Be sure to use the special javascript code to make it easier for first-time buzzers to post your story.

Here's an example of the javascript code:

<script type="text/javascript">
yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = "<?php wp_title(); ?>";
yahooBuzzArticleSummary = "<?php the_excerpt(); ?>";
yahooBuzzArticleCategory = "business";
yahooBuzzArticleType = "text";
yahooBuzzArticleId = window.location.href;
</script>
<div style="float: left; margin-right: 5px;">
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://d.yimg.com/ds/badge2.js" badgetype="square"></script>
</div>

By making use of the special javascript code, along with WordPress template tags for the post title and excerpt, people will find it easy to submit your blog post to Yahoo! Buzz. They won't have to manually type in the blog post title or summary anymore, because the code will do that for them.

2. Adjust the way WordPress handles your excerpts, because the usual way inserts certain html codes that interfere with the javascript code. To get around this, you will need the following WordPress plugins:

• No Excerpt P Plugin -- removes those <p> tags that appear in the default WordPress blog excerpts. Based on our tests, those P tags result in blank Yahoo! Buzz submit pages. It will be a hassle for those who want to submit your stories to Yahoo! Go ahead and try the buzz buttons on this page and see how it works.
• Advanced Excerpt Plugin -- allows you to control the length of your excerpt, because extremely long excerpts will affect the javascript code. Go for a length of 150 characters (uncheck the "words" option), and uncheck all the tags. In other words, do not require Advanced Excerpt to retain the html mark-ups, because all you're interested in is the plain text version of your excerpts.

3. Consider typing something in the Optional Excerpt of each blog post. This will give you a lot of flexibility, because you can write a single paragraph containing 300 characters (the maximum allowed by Yahoo! Buzz) without using those code-breaking HTML tags.

Will this bring in a flood of traffic?

A lot of my friends have tried the Digg button which has brought in a trickle of traffic. Since Yahoo! Buzz is quite new, the novelty factor will help bring in more traffic. Just be sure to make the most of the new traffic that comes in, by offering useful or entertaining content, and by getting people to subscribe to your mailing list.

What are you waiting for? Try this tactic today and watch you WordPress blog visitors increase.

Did you enjoy reading this post?
Click on the Buzz up! button below. Thanks!

But what about micro videoblogging? And what is the impact of this form of "publishing" in the increasingly connected world of social media?

Micro Videoblogging refers to quickly recording short video clips, and rapidly uploading these clips to the web. This is done usually via webcam capture, where you don't have to edit the clip anymore.

Sometimes, you find that you have something to say, but it's too short for a full blown blog entry. Also, it might be too long for a 140-character message in Twitter.

And so, you face your webcam and record a less-than-3-minute video message. That's micro videoblogging.

You can do it anywhere you have an internet connection. Malls with wifi access help you to record conveniently, particularly when you have a tiny webcam that you can clip on to your laptop's monitor.

Since these clips are quite short, there's not enough time to do a pitch or to promote a product. It works best if you use the opportunity to share a story or even a useful quick tip with your visitors. Somehow this approach helps you attract even more visitors to your site, specially those who would rather watch or listen.

Understandably, most of the web visitors are people who prefer to read. They prefer text to audio or video. You can do some test, though, with videos that run for less than two minutes.

The nice thing about micro videoblogging is that your visitors will somehow catch a better glimpse of your world. They'll sometimes even get to hear the sounds in your environment, say from the barking of the dogs, the explosion of fireworks, or the rackatack-a-tack of the MRT coaches as they hurtle past your location.

And when you're able to invite and draw your visitors into your world, something magical happens. It's as if something clicks, and they become compelled to explore the rest of your site, and eventually read the printed things published in your blog.

This turns into a habit (due to your regular micro vlog entries), which leads to higher traffic to your web site. It's an easy and inexpensive experiment to try, because all you need is an affordable webcam and a free service such as uStream.

One nice feature of uStream is that you can pre-record your vid clips, and then insert come kind of embed code in your blog post that displays your live video or show, or your latest video, or even rotate through the different clips in your video library.

You can also try LiveVideo.com, although we still haven't figured out how to embed code that automatically rotates through a playlist of your various videos. In addition, the video quality makes it look like you're someone reporting via microwave satellite from some far-flung location, as you can see in this example.

Please note, however, that at the end of your LiveVideo clip, your viewers might be treated to ads of other LiveVideo shows, which may be of a more "exciting" nature. That's why the embedded vid on this page uses a much smaller than usual video window.

Another thing to remember about LiveVideo is that when your video ends, if your viewers will click on the vid box, they will be brought out of your site (through a new browser window) and into a web page in the LiveVideo.com site. I prefer YouTube's style of allowing your viewers to replay the vid without having to leave your blog.

UPDATE: Sorry, had to remove the embedded vid because some of the displayed shows disturbingly clashed with the design of this site, if you know what I mean.

The ability to rapidly upload a quick video is so liberating. You don't have to obsess over intro/outro music or even compulsive video editing behaviour. You simply say your piece into the webcam, record the whole thing, and within a few minutes you mug is online speaking in what may sometimes be construed as a hilariously dubbed martial arts movie.

YouTube also has a webcam-to-web feature called Quick Capture, but I can't seem to get it to recognize my installed webcam. The dropdown list won't even allow me to choose from possible candidates. But that's all right, since there's always LiveVideo and uStream.

So, what are you waiting for? Try webcam streaming today, and watch your website traffic soar, thanks to micro videoblogging!

Well, it's quite easy for you to get misled. You might stare at impressive graphs which show dramatic spikes in those Alexa traffic charts, and end up automatically assuming that those high peaks correspond to a flood of web traffic.

The Alexa charts gather data from people who have installed the Alexa toolbar. When they visit this or that web site, Alexa keeps track of their visits and uses that data to update their charts. This means that if majority of your site visitors have an Alexa toolbar installed in their web browser, then you will most likely have an impressive-looking chart.

Conversely, if majority of your visitors do not use Alexa, then your traffic graph will not look that great. And if people are evaluating your blog based on such charts, then they will not be able to discern the true value of your site.

Let's have a look at a comparative line chart below, which is based on two actual, live sites:

Here are two sites. Let's call them Site Blue and Site Red. Based on the Alexa chart above, you might think that Site Blue gets more traffic than Site Red. The actual web stats reveal, however, that Site Red actually gets ten times more traffic than Site Blue.

So, are Alexa charts useless? It depends on what your expectations are. If you're interested in divining the daily traffic of sites, then the charts are pretty much as useful as a gas-guzzling Pajero in a country where fuel costs $100 per liter. But if you're after traffic movements, then you can still use those charts.

For example, you can test what happens if you blog everyday versus if you blog once a week. Will your Alexa toolbar-toting visitors keep away from your site, come in droves, or pretty much remain stable? You can also check if there's any relationship between your online sales and Alexa traffic spikes or dips.

In essence, Alexa chart analysis can still help you with your web traffic campaigns and experiments. You just need to manage your expectations about what you're trying to get from those graphs.

But does this really work? Or is WordPress Magnet just another scam aimed at selling you the dream of higher web traffic?

Consider the following...

1. WordPress Magnet is a plugin that rewards people for leaving a comment in your blog.

Some folks may call this an ethical bribe of sorts. If your visitor leaves one comment, the plugin will automatically let them know how they can get their gift (i.e., free download of a special report). If your visitor leaves another comment, they then get Gift #2, and so on until as many as 5 gifts.

While the WordPress Magnet plugin can handle this for you automatically, please ask yourself if you want your blog filled with comments made by people who were mainly just after the comment rewards, gifts or incentives.

(The last time I offered some kind of reward for people who leave comments, I ended up deleting a lot of "just for the sake of leaving a comment" comments. What a waste of time!)

2. Are you willing to pay $40 for a WordPress plugin?

That's the initial price. If you don't want to plunk down any dollars, then try the Comment Relish WordPress plugin (by Justin Shattuck), which is designed "to send an e-mail message to users who comment on your website who have never commented before."

That email can contain the link to the downloadable report or gift that you want to send to your blog's First-Time commenters.

That's right -- there's no 5-Gifts-for-5-Comments feature, but at least you can test this whole concept of Incentivized or Reward Commenting for free before you invest your money in a non-free plugin.

3. Is Steven Schwartzman using his own plugin?

I found cached copies of some pages of Steven's blog where the comment area has this line: "Post a comment and receive a special prize!"

When I read the current (not cached) copy, I no longer see that line. It makes me wonder, though, why it looks like his WordPress Magnet plugin is not seen on his blog.

Afterall, a blog that gets less than 5 comments per post, which later experiences 10+ comments per post after installing the plugin will make a compelling and convincing case study, right?

My recommendation: Try the Comment Relish plugin first for free. If you do experience a boost in your blog comments, and if that results in more web traffic that leads to sales (or the attainment of your site's objectives), then try the $40 WordPress Magnet plugin.