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How to Build Your First Copywriting Portfolio
November 21, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Last month I asked my readers to tell me what baffles them most about the business side of copywriting, and two readers said “getting started!” So that’s what I’ll show you how to do here. It’s the old “What comes first? The chicken or the egg?”, applied to a new career in copywriting. One of the major hurdles faced by new copywriters is the book, or portfolio. Or more specifically, the fact that there is none. How does a new copywriter get samples, and work, if he needs samples to get the work? I know how it feels to be in that position,and so does every freelance copywriter! No one is born with samples. But unlike the pre-Internet copywriters, who had to figure it out for themselves, YOU can ask your online colleagues! So here it is in a nutshell: three ways you can blast past the number one obstacle to getting started as a copywriter and get work when you do not yet have a portfolio, or even one lousy sample. Solution #1. This one is the easiest and may even have occurred to you. Do it for free! When I started out I quickly learned that small nonprofits were happy to accept free creative services. I also knew that I could bargain free for more control. A common complaint among copywriters is that a well-meaning but misguided client can muck things up, and the end result may be nothing like what you envisioned. So I told my non-profit client, a small women’s shelter, that I’d do a package for free, but I had to have complete creative control. This allowed me to show a piece in my portfolio that was really me. In fact, the photo on the front of the envelope WAS me! Not only did the experience give me a substantial sample, but it also allowed me to test my direct marketing skills. The package wasn’t a blockbuster. But it didn’t fail either. It did tell me how good I was, and I was slightly deflated with the results. But hey, back then NOT failing was kind of like winning! Solution #2. Look at friends and family. I’ve never used this idea but many of my coaching students have. They look at friends, family, colleagues, whomever they know in life or business, and offer to do free work. Actually, I advise my coaching students to offer to do free work and if the client likes it enough to use it, THEN they should get paid. It is a simple proposition: “I believe I can help you get more leads, or sales. Let me write a promotion. If you also think it will work, use it. If you use it, you benefit from my work. Only then will you pay me.” Important: Get this agreement into a contract! Solution #3. Hook up with a copywriter’s coach and ask to see samples. I do this all the time with my coaching students who have no samples. When the moment comes that the potential client asks for samples, send samples from your coach’s portfolio. Write in the email: “Here are some copywriting samples. I work closely with veteran copywriter (name of coach) to ensure maximum results for your promotion, and this is the level of quality you can expect from working with me. My site isn’t up right now but you can take a look at (name of coach)’s site.” It works like a charm. This approach works best when you are working with a coach who has worked in many, most, or all niche markets, like me. So this is my unplanned opportunity for a bit of self-promotion. Hey, I’m a direct marketer after all! So if you find yourself in a bind, guess what. You’re not! Just contact me. You can use an hour of my coaching to get past the #1 hurdle of all new copywriters, getting good samples that get you good work. We don’t lie; I never lie. All we do is “bridge” using my samples, your coach, mentor, colleague, and friend.
Professional Copywriting: 7 First Copywriting Pointers
November 21, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Professional copywriting depends upon you taking certain steps, copywriting does not happen on its own. You must follow these pointers if you are to be successful at professional copywriting.
1. You need to be disciplined. When it comes to professional copywriting, you need to schedule time each and every day in which you will write.
2. You need to be creative. If you are to ever enjoy copywriting success, what you write must be interesting, informative and even entertaining.
3. You need to be accurate. You need to understand that which you are writing must always be factually correct – in all circumstances.
4. You need to like what you’re doing. If you are to succeed in copywriting, if you are to achieve professional copywriting success, you need to enjoy what you are writing about.
5. Remember the value of editing. Do not underestimate the importance of editing when it comes to your professional copywriting efforts. Of course, it is easy to make mistakes. However, if you do employ an editing process, you’ll be able to limit the mistakes that are made in your copy.
6. Listen to other writers. Remember that you are not alone when it comes to your copywriting efforts. It can be helpful to you to begin developing associations with other individuals were involved in copywriting. Towards this end, you can join groups that are made up of writers. In the alternative, you can take part in forums on the Internet in which writing is discussed.
7. Ask for help. Finally, when it comes to your professional copywriting efforts, if you have questions or concerns, talk to someone about these issues. Once again, if you develop relationships with other writers, these individuals can serve as great resources to you. Moreover, in the end, you will be a great resource for them as well.
By following these seven professional copywriting pointers, you’ll be able to lay a foundation upon which can join other individuals who have achieved professional copywriting on their own, success that will last well into the future.
About the author: John Tulley is an article writer for the Internet Marketing Business resource web site. Please visit our web site for more information and advice about professional copywriting.
Writing and Publishing Your First Blog Entry
November 19, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
The content of your blog is an important factor in gaining traffic and acquiring a target audience. Publishing your first Article or item is a great milestone in your blogging career. Fortunately, there are several basic guidelines, which can make your content more effective to your audience, adored by the search engines and respected by the world of blogging.
Publishing an Effective Content
First of all, keep in mind that communication is the key. More so, your communication must be authentic. The time when you publish your content is also the time when you let your true self surface. Blogs are personal in nature and communication is the key to being personal. The fact that each blog is unique because each writer is unique is enough for you to not to worry about future similarities with other blog entries. Keep in mind that whatever topic you are
blogging about you must incorporate your personality with your writing.
In order to create a loyal target audience, it is important for the visitors to trust you and relate to you. It does not necessarily entail that they know about your personal details but you must connect with your audience in an authentic manner.
After establishing your communication with your audience, the content must also be credible. The blog must have authenticity even though credibility takes a lot of time to build.
The moment you begin publishing your content, which is of high value and useful to the readers, you also start establishing your authority. There will come a time when your readers ask you for advice or seek for your opinion; this is the time when you have achieved some kind of credibility and you must use this to build your reputation as a blogger.
The Blogger’s Block
Blogging is writing but uses a different medium. There are several methods to fight blogger’s block. Always remember that your blog software exists to serve you and not to frighten you. You do not have to try blogging carrying the idea that you have prolific writing skills, or a journalism degree. The fact is that you have something to say and you want others to hear it. However, if you are feeling stuck on an idea, there are several suggestions that you can apply when creating the content for your blog.
Firstly, you can try visiting other blogs. Visit those blogs that interest you and pick ideas and topics from those blogs that might be worth blogging about but keep in mind the relevance of the topic and your readership. You can also syndicate your news updates. You can do this by subscribing to news services online because they allow you to save time on searching using keywords. This is most useful for bloggers.
There’s no reason you should be embarrassed about Writing and Publishing Your First Blog Entry. Click here to get the information you need to effectively Write and Publish Your First Blog Entry. If you’re ready to read more about how http://www.DownloadResaleRights.com can help you with Writing and Publishing Your First Blog Entry, visit our Private Label Rights page and download our free ebook. Join the thousands we have already helped and visit us now.
The First Steps Before Beginning Your Business Blog
November 19, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Before beginning a blog for your business, I recommend you take a couple of steps first to ensure you will have a successful business blog. Even though a blog can be put together a lot quicker than a website, it’s important to have a plan for your blog. A blog with a clear plan, goals, and expectations it’s on the way to quick success. One of the first steps I suggest my clients take before beginning their blog is to get involved in the blogging community.
Getting involved with other blogs allows you to get a feel for blogging and an opportunity to see what works and doesn’t work on other blogs. Start off by finding a few blogs in your industry or niche by searching Technorati. You can then comment on these blogs and start building a relationship with the blog owner. When you develop your own blog hopefully they will link to your blog and help you drive traffic to your new blog.
Make sure to determine the goal of your blog and decide what type of material your blog will cover. For business blogs, I suggest you keep the goal to a business nature and create a separate personal blog for personal topics.
Decide who will write for your blog and come up with a preliminary list of topics. If you’re struggling for topic ideas you can check out one of my recent blog posts at www.bestbiz.typepad.com to get you started. The more planning you can do before launching the blog the better off you will be in the long run. Will you have a ghostwriter write posts? Will you have guest authors? Will you have one author or multiple authors?
It’s important to come up with a timeline of how often you are going to post to your blog. It’s easy to forget about your blog when life gets busy, but with a specified goal of the number of posts you are more likely to stick to it. There’s no set magic number of how many posts to make to your blog. When you’re first starting out it’s ok just to post once a month until you get used to posting. Of course the more you post the easier it is for the search engines to find your blog. Eventually it’s best to post 2-3 times per week. If you’re going out of town, you can write several posts in advance and then schedule your posts to your blog.
What’s the next step now… get involved in the blogging and social networking community and get your business out there in a big way!
Are you ready to start blogging, but don’t know how to set up your business blog in order to attract more clients? The answer is laid out step-by-step in my Blogging For Business System. You can get yours at www.BestBizBlogging.com.
Jennifer Haubein publishes “SiteNotes” a FREE bi-weekly ezine for small business owners who want a website that actually works. If you’re ready to get insider tips website developers don’t want you to know, and start making more money online, get your FREE tips now at http://www.BestBizWebsiteSolutions.com/newsletter.html.
Affordable Copywriting Services-when English is the Second Language But First Choice
November 18, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Cost-effective copywriting services
Writing the content for a company’s website is not a child’s play. It requires a lot of research and talent to deliver impressive and persuasive content that converts the website visitor into a customer soon after they read your content. Hence, the salaries demanded by copywriting professionals are too high that are often unaffordable for most website owners. Also, along with a handsome salary package are the benefits of life insurance and others that are expected from the companies. So, outsourcing copywriting services is the best way to go for a creative, positive and persuasive writing copy.
Outsource copywriting services – An affordable option
Copywriting is basically meant to lure the potential customers towards your services so you need to hire highly skilled professional copywriters. An, outsourcing is one of the viable means of hiring affordable copywriting services from third world countries where labor charges are yet too less in comparison to UK an US. You can anytime operate through any of the auction-based sites and offer your project to fulfill the requirement of copywriting services for your company. The bids are placed by outsourcing copywriting firms and freelance copywriters at highly competitive rates and you may select the copywriting firm that suits the budget and the requirements of your website in the best possible way.
English – not the primary language with copywriters of Asian countries
However, considering the difference in the currency rates, many companies from abroad outsource their services to Asian countries such as India and Pakistan for affordable copywriting services. Nonetheless, one problem that they often face in this outsourcing business to Asian countries is that as English is not the primary language of these professionals, at times grammatical errors, unclear messages, poor phrasing, spelling errors are the common problems that are often found in the work delivered by some of the incompetent professionals of Asian countries. Word-to-word conversion from their native language into English is also done by some copywriters of these countries and thereby leading to blunders.
Finding the best copywriters in Asian countries
Such work is highly unacceptable. But, undoubtedly even the best copywriters at minimal rates can also be found in these countries only. English is the widely accepted business language and impeccable writing copies are expected from copywriters, irrespective of the fact if English is their primary language or not. Finding the keywords for creating an impact on the readers, simple and easy to comprehend language, focusing on the target audience and deciding the aim for writing the content (whether brand awareness, product image or sales) are all necessary points that a good copywriter must know before he/she starts writing.
So, it all depends upon you, if you have the discretion to select the best copywriters or not. To make sure that you do not fell into the trap of some incompetent copywriting service providers, it would be a good idea to select the copywriters by reviewing their work thoroughly for pros and cons before you hire them for your company website’s project.
Therefore, while selecting an affordable copywriting firm or professional, emphasis on quality of work that is delivered by the service provider is equally important as the consideration of the budget. So, what are you waiting for? Start searching for a good copywriting service provider on the Internet who can create a powerful writing copy for your website.
Amber Smith is an expert author who writes SEO articles and strategies tips. She also works for copywriting company, Content Axis, one of the best copywriting agencies that offers premium copywriting services, article submission services, press release writing and eBook sales packages. To know more about the services, please visit Content Axis Inc.
Five Quick Tips For Getting Your Blog On The First Page Of Google
November 17, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
It is so easy to make money with a blog. Whether the purpose of your blog is to get traffic to your sales page or to sell affiliate products or to get Adsense clicks, getting your blog onto the first page of Google can be done quickly and easily.
Using the following quick tips you could get listed on the first page of Google for some keywords within a month or two, depending on how competitive your niche is. A video game site that followed these tips got on the first page of Google, in the fifth spot, for a popular search term when the site was less than one month old.
Here are the five quick tips for getting to the first page of Google:
1. Put some original content on your blog. Post at least once a day but not more than every two to three hours. It doesn’t look good if you are posting every few minutes. Continue adding new content regularly. Some of the content can be duplicate content (from an article directory or private label rights articles) but the more original content the better.
2. When you have at least five posts with original content then submit your blog to Google’s sitemap. It’s not hard, and it only takes a few minutes. As long as you have a blog that looks authentic and is not filled with scraped content, this is a good start to getting noticed by Google.
3. Write some original articles and submit them to article directories such as EzineArticles, GoArticles, ArticleAlley, and SearchWarp. Do not submit more than one a day since it is better to not inundate the article directories or they might think you are spamming them. It is very important to have a good resource box with links back to your site.
4. Submit your RSS feed to at least fifty sites. This can be done in less than a couple of minutes using RSS Submit (RSSFeedsSubmit), a great piece of software that automatically submits your feed to more than fifty sites. The price is very reasonable (less than $50) but if you don’t want to spend any money and would rather do it by hand, Robin Good sells a list of 55 RSS submission sites for a very small fee.
5. Get your URL link listed in as many places as possible. Submit your site to directories like DMOZ. Answer questions at answers.yahoo and include your URL with your signature. Leave comments on blogs that are in a related niche to yours, again including your URL in the signature. Do a search with the phrase “keyword add url” and add your URL at sites that allow you to do it for free. “Keyword” would be replaced by one of your keywords for your niche. Submit your blog to Technorati. Submit your original posts to social bookmarking sites like Digg, Netscape, Redit, Plugim, and so on. Be sure to tell friends to vote for your submissions at the social bookmarking sites.
These five quick tips will give your blog a powerful boost and get your blog on the first page of Google in a very short time. Within days you should be getting traffic from Google as you rise in the search engines. And you did it with spending little or no money.
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.
Xbox 360 Repair Guide – First Sale Bonus! – Updated November!**
November 17, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
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Tips for Wannabe Bloggers to Post Their First All-important Blog Entry
November 17, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Have you been bitten by the blogging bug like millions of others in this world? Then, you must undertake treatment straightway by publishing your first blog entry. In order to make the treatment more responsive, you need to have certain supplements such as quality and interesting content with an eye-catching title and a blogging space to post your content. Wannabe bloggers with limited or no computer knowledge face difficulty in creating their first blog on the Internet, though they have their content ready. For their convenience, some easy-to-understand tips are mentioned below.
· Resort to major search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN to look for free blogging websites or services. Initially, a free service can serve your purpose well. WordPress, Blogger and Blogspot are some of the popular free blog sites. However, there are hundreds of other websites that offer you free blog space.
· Register the name of your blog that is quite unique and attention-grabbing. But, be careful about using exaggerated words. Philosophically correct words can do the trick.
· Make use of the built-in blog templates offered by the website or create your own, if you’re not interested in free-for-alls.
· Invest a good amount of time in designing your blog template from the scratch. Stay away from potential disturbing factors like children, neighbors, pets etc. Microsoft FrontPage is an effective tool to aid in your design.
· After getting your template ready, the next important task is to upload it to your new blog’s URL address. Make sure that it is loaded properly with all your necessary features.
· Now make an auspicious beginning by clicking on the ‘Create Post’ link on your blog. The window will reload to come up with a number of text boxes to fill in.
· Put your fingers into operation on the keyboard to insert your first blog post information like post title, summary, body etc. If your content is yet to be written, you can look around to find great post ideas. You can go down the memory lane to write about a particular incident or event that is worth-mentioning.
· Once you make your first blog entry, waste no time to let your friends and family members know about your blog URL. This act is quite helpful as it brings your initial readers.
· While posting your first blog entry, you might have come across a text box called ‘Tags’ where you can put in a number of keywords related to your post. Visitors can get to know about your post if they use these keywords while searching for information over the Internet. This brings more traffic to your blog.
· If you own a website that deals in a specific product or service, you can promote it through your blog. Write relevant posts highlighting your product or service. Don’t forget to link keywords to your website in the post body. Put only an appropriate number of links in the body.
· Links can be easily put by selecting a particular word and then clicking on the ‘link’ button above the ‘body’ text box. A small dialog box will appear with the selected word. Simply put your website URL e.g. http://www.xyz.com/ in the appropriate box and you’re done.
These are the simple steps you can take to create your first blog and first blog entry. The successful posting of one entry can definitely allure you to add more posts to your blog. Blogs are now a powerful medium to express your views, ideas and opinions. They can also promote your business in a big way. So, HAPPY POSTING!!!
To enrich your knowledge on blogging as well as other intriguing topics such as CSS, Web Design, AJAX and Web Applications, you can visit the popular informative website – http://www.css-faq.com/ that contains plenty of articles, news and videos.
Biswajeet Shroff is a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree holder from ICFAI University, Hyderabad, India. He is currently working as Senior Content Developer in an Indian SEO company. He also does freelancing during pastime and writes on wide array of topics ranging
from blogging, finance and fashion to dating and other human
relationship aspects.
Starting Your First Blog And Getting Revenue For It.
November 16, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Do you want to start a new online business? Do you know about blogs? Blogs are one of the best – cheap ways to get publicity for your business just in days. Its very easy and really cheap. You only need a niche, some content, and webhosting (or just can use some free blog hosting like blogger.com)
Ok, blogs.. blogs.. do you know that you can start it today? And that you can get huge traffic for this blog?
You can start your online business in just minutes by creating blogs. A blog is an instant advertise solution for your own – online business. You can create it today and start adding new content to it (called “entries” or “posts”). When you create a new post for your blog, most “blog scripts” ping major “ping services” for you at the same time that you post the entry. Ping Is a free service to “send your blog entry notice” to search engines and lot of websites that use this service to know when a new blog is online, or just when a blog is updated. WordPress or Blogger (and more providers) ping your blog after you post a new entry.
Every day, thousands of new “webmasters” create new blogs, and use this blogs to get real income, using for example Google Adsense. Do you know that lot of “bloggers” earn thousands of dollars every month with blogs? Just search Google, you will find lot of articles and comments about bloggers` incomes!
You can start your blog / online business today:
1) You need to create the blog, you can use www.blogger.com as free blog hosting, or just get a new hosting in some good Hosting Provider and install your own Blog, using WodPress for example, get latest version (2.0.4) here: www.wordpress.org . If you selected last option, you will need a domain name, you can get one for low price, go to Godaddy (www.godaddy.com) domain names starting from $5.95. If you don’t want to spend money, just select blogger.com, its free, and you will get a new “subdomain blog” like (yourblognam.blogspot.com) Remember, blogger.com is owned by Google, so you will get indexed faster 
2) Select the name for your blog, and most important, select your Niche. Don’t create a new “general blog” where you will post info about internet business, webhosting, domain names, and more, if you select a niche, your blog will get “visitors” that only want to read this niche, and also, you will get more targeted and relevant Google Adsense ads in your blog.
3) Get content to post, just go to some Article Directory, and find the best articles, take it and post to your blog. Remember, don’t delete any info, or copyright of this article, you can take it only if you don’t modify it. I prefer write own content, to avoid that people read always the same info, and also the “Duplicate Content Penalty” that Google and other may apply if find that your site Is 100% similar to others.
4) After you created your blog, posted some fresh content and designed it (or just use some template, its most common) you need to “monetize it”. Its very easy, you only need to go to Google Adsense (www.google.com/adsense/) and join for a free account. Be sure of enter your correct info, because if you are new “adsenser”, Google will check your blog and after it will decide: Approve / Reject (only one day) After Google approved it, you just need to go to Google Adsense Home Page, login and copy & paste your Adsense Code where you want that Ads be displayed.
5) Promoting Your Blog: After all above points, you need to promote your blog, just submit it to all niche-related or general blog directories. They will send you a lot of real traffic. You also can submit your RSS feeds to all RSS directory found. Submit your blog to Google, Yahoo and MSN. Contact more bloggers about your niche and offer link exchange, post in other blogs and forums related and use your link in your signature and much more. Just use your mind, you can get lot of visitors free day after day to your blog, and with more visits, more Adsense income
Remember: you will need to post every two / three days a new post to get more fresh content, be original, write it, don’t just copy & paste. After two weeks you will see that your blog was approved in most “Blog directories” where you submitted it, that people is visiting your blog and sometimes they post comments or send feedback, and most important you will see like your Google Adsense Stats get impressions, clicks and $$$
Blogs are only one way to get online revenue, there are many other ways. If you want to see latest articles and resources for online business, just go to my own blog http://www.waysofmakemoney.com and you will find lot of fresh content about Online Business and also updated list of directories, rss directories, and more great tools for your business. You also can join to my Free Newsletter to get latest info directly to your email every week.
Good Luck!!!
Join to Newsletter and receive weekly emails with latest tips and resources on the niche, or just go to Ways Of Make Money Blog
The First Ever Tots100 Index of British Parenting Blogs and Bloggers
November 15, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Here at Talking Tots, we’re pretty keen on new technologies. We have our own website, we write our own blog, and we’re even learning to love things like Twitter and Spotify (Madonna’s back catalogue at the click of a button – what’s not to love?)
We also love to read other blogs – particularly those written by fellow parents, mumpreneurs and Mummy-related ventures. But when we looked for a list of influential parenting blogs from the UK, we realised that a list doesn’t really exist – although Susanna at British Mummy Blogs has made a great start here.
Although Mummy blogs are a newer phenomenon in the UK than in the US, we knew there were hundreds of British Mummy bloggers just waiting to be discovered. We pulled together a list of around 250 UK blogs, but we had no idea which blogs were being read by parents, and which were most influential. So, with lots of help and advice from social media guru Brendan Cooper, we’ve put together our own list.
The Tots100 Index is the first index of the top 100 British parenting blogs and bloggers. How did we find our top 100? We took the 250 blogs we found and created a scoring system that rewards blogs for three things: currency (ie the blog has been updated regularly and recently), influence (other people link to the blog) and popularity (lots of people read it). We’ll be updating the Tots100 Index regularly, and including details of movements up and down the index in future editions.
(For a more detailed explanation of how the rankings work, and how to submit a blog to the Index, read down to the bottom of the post.)
We hope those of you looking for great British parenting blogs will find the list useful, and perhaps you’ll find a few new favourites in our directory – there are some brilliantly useful, funny, inspiring and moving bloggers in our index and we’ve loved discovering all of them.
Best Wishes,
Tracey and Lisa
The Tots100 Top British Parent Blogs and Bloggers:
Rank Blog Score
1 Petite Anglaise 741
2 Wife in the North 718
3 Jo Beaufoix 701
4 Alpha Mummy 696
5 My Boyfriend is a Tw@t 687
6 Crystal Jigsaw 681
7 Babyccino 670
8 A Modern Mother 640
9 Single Parent Dad 629
10 Notes from Inside my Head 610
11 The Potty Diaries 608
12 Bambino Goodies 597
13 The Bedside Crow 591
14 Man About the House 568
15 Woman of Experience 562
16 Bringing up Charlie 559
17 Millennium Housewife 522
18 Sticky Fingers 520
19 Noble Savage 517
20 Dulwich Wife 508
21 Little Mummy 507
22 Flower Fairies and Fairy Cakes 507
23 A Midwife’s Muse 504
24 3 Kids, No Job 500
25 Mother at Large 499
26 Cotton Pickin’ Days 498
27 Family Affairs 483
28 Menopausal Old Bag 475
29 Diary of a Desperate Exmoor Woman 472
30 Musings of a Juggling Mother 467
31 Home Office Mum 465
32 Breastfeeding Mums’ Blog 461
33 Working Mum on Verge 449
34 Thames Valley Mums 446
35 Nappy Valley 445
36 More Than Just a Mother 442
37 Violet Posy 441
38 Nunhead Ramblings 432
39 You’ve Got Your Hands Full 428
40 Are We Nearly There Yet, Mummy? 405
41 Dulwich Divorcee 395
42 The Bush Babies 390
43 Family of Five 383
44 WAHM-BAM 382
45 Don’t Panic – RTFM 379
46 I Promise That I Will Do My Best 378
47 My Life Now 367
48 A Confused Take That Fan 366
49 Single and Surviving 363
50 The Brinkster 362
51 Mom or Mum Wars 359
52 Most/Least 355
53 Good Enough Mum 323
54 Not Supermum 318
55 Suffolk Writings 313
56 Posh Mum 311
56 The Smell of Little Pong 311
58 Family Friendly Working 300
59 Keir Royale 286
60 39 and Counting 283
61 Motherhood: the final frontier 279
62 Tales from the Naughty Step 277
63 Married with Four 260
64 Mrs Trefusis 259
65 Mothers on the Verge 258
66 The Baby Juggler 255
67 Being Lucy Diamond 254
68 Miss Meep’s Guide to Living 253
69 Teen Coach Blog 244
70 Lemon Drizzle 241
71 Arabella Miller 235
72 Family Relationships 229
73 Positive Parenting 222
74 Chunky Monkey 202
75 Is that me? How did that happen? 198
75 More to Life than Laundry 198
77 View from Nappy Mountain 189
78 Mothers Who Work 186
79 Little Sheep Learning 184
80 Totsy’s Place 183
81 Diary of a Surprise Mum 179
82 Rosie Scribble 177
83 Pink Fairy Cake 172
84 Don’t Tear Your Hair Out 171
85 Motherworld 166
85 Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em 166
87 Family Treehouse 149
88 Adventures of a Sleepless Toddler 133
89 Mummo Mia 128
90 Music Bugs 125
91 It’s a Mum’s Life 123
92 Milky Moo 119
93 Jessica’s Trust 118
94 Sleepy Tots Blog 91
95 Perfectly Happy Mum 74
96 Amanda’s Adventures in Chocolate 63
96 Pixie Minx 63
98 Mum’s the Business 61
99 Tots 2 Travel 54
100 Time Management Mum 43
What Do The Scores Mean?
120 blogs were originally included in the index. Each blog was assigned a score from 1 (bottom ranked) to 120 (top ranked) in seven categories:
1. Technorati Authority: number of blogs linking to this blog in the last six months
2. Technorati Inlinks: number of inbound links, excluding self-referring hits
3. Yahoo Inlinks: number of inbound links in last six months (excl self-referring hits)
4. Google Blog Hits: number of posts/links/weblinks in Google
5. Google Hits Recent: number of links from the last 30 days
6. Readers: number of subscribers based on Feedburner and Google Reader
7. HowSociable: the blogger’s visibility outside the blog, measuring activity on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
This meant a blog scoring the highest score in each of these categories would achieve a maximum score of 840 points. The lowest possible score was 7.
These aren’t perfect metrics but we believe that combining measurements from Google, Technorati and Yahoo ensures an accurate reflection of a blog’s influence, while the inclusion of HowSociable clearly showed how the top bloggers use social media to boost their blog’s profile.
There are a couple of blogs on the index that haven’t been updated in a few months, but still scored highly because of high numbers of residual links. We expect these links to reduce over time, and the blogs will fall down the index – but we’ll be removing any blogs that haven’t been updated in 6 months or more for the next index.
We welcome suggestions of how to improve the Index, as well as suggestions of new blogs to include in the next index. Our criteria for inclusion are simple: the blog must be by/about parents, be written by a British parent or a parent in the UK, and you need to score higher than someone already in the index.
Matthew Anderson is a franchise consultant and founder of The Franchise Shop, a UK business franchise directory featuring Talking Tots and childrens franchises
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