When you go to Craigslist job board now, the first thing you will notice is that they have posted a warning about scammers advertising fake jobs for affiliate money. I guess it’s gotten really bad over there. But I’m not surprised. All it takes is one fool making money doing something evil before a host of copycats follow in their footsteps hoping to do the same.

When I looked at the email she forwarded to me, I knew immediately it was a scam.

Thank you for your interest in the position at our firm.

A little more information about us:

As a recently founded and rapidly growing marketing firm, we hope to foster fun yet efficient environment for our new employees. Unlike other companies, we believe an easygoing and friendly atmosphere is facilitative to quality an actually increasing productivity.

To be considered, candidates must possess strong communication/interpersonal skills and ability to interact with people at all levels of the firm and excellent organizational skills.

Candidates must be self starters and be able to undertake responsibilities with limited supervision. They must also be able to multi-take and have working knowledge of MS Office. Familiarity with other types of software is a plus.

Our policy is to grow and maintain long lasting mutually beneficial business relationship with our employees. In keeping with that standard, our firm offers a comprehensive benefits package that is second to none. In addition, we pay our employees higher than any competitor in the industry.

Compensation will be further discussed during the interview process, after reviewing candidate applications.

Please take a few moments to fill our or online application here: http://www.resumebuckets.com/app/

Thank you,
Recruitment Advisor
H R Staffing Department

First of all, my friend did not apply for a position with a marketing firm. She applied for a job with a hotel or at least she thought she was. Secondly, the language is very generic. It is obviously a form letter sent by an autoresponder service to everyone who responded to the fake job ad. Third, she had already sent them her resume. Why is she being directed to fill out an application online especially since the ad specifically asked for a resume?

*Tip: Don’t send anyone your resume through Craigslist until you verify the job is real. You don’t have to be obvious about it. Just send a polite note introducing yourself and asking if the job is still available. If you get a form letter like the one above, move on.

So I click the link in the email which took me to the classic generic website.

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Red Flag #1 – The website looks like an 8 year old designed it. Now, there are a lot of reputable companies out there who have poorly designed websites so this in and of itself is not a clear indicator of a scam site. However, it only adds credibility to the rest of evidence.

Red Flag #2 – There is no job description. I’m submitting an application for a job but there is nothing that confirms I’m applying for the right job. Legitimate employers always post the job description because they want you to be clear about your responsibilities. Not having that here makes me think they are not serious about hiring any one.

Red Flag #3 – The domain name doesn’t match the name of the site. The site domain is ResumeBuckets.com but the name of the site is Market Circuit and the email address is attached to the marketcircuit.org domain. A research of both domain names shows that ResumeBuckets.com was registered in 09 November 2009 while MarketCircuit.org was registered on 25 December 2009. On top of that, both domains employ a privacy service that cloak their registration information.

*Tip: To find out who the registrant is for a domain go to Whois.net. Enter the web address in the domain lookup box. You will be presented with the information on record for that domain.

Red Flag #4 – There is no information about the owner of the site. There is no “About Us” page, no contact information (other than the email). There is just this overwhelming feeling of anonymity. A legitimate company offering a real job wouldn’t be so secretive.

Going to the front page of the site (ResumeBuckets.com), I found that the site is supposedly a resume hosting service where people can post their resumes in the hopes of being seen by big name employers. (Please note there is another site called ResumeBucket.com -without the S- that is not the same)

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I don’t recommend that you submit yours to them. I guarantee none of those employers even know this website exists let alone are spending any time sifting through resumes uploaded there. Secondly, all of those employers listed have websites with a career sections where you can apply for a job directly.

*Tip: When responding to ads on job sites, if the name of the company is not listed (red flag) ask for it in the introduction email you send. If they provide it, go directly to the employer’s website and apply for the job.

*Update 6/11/2010

There was information in this spot about the fact that I had clicked on the Privacy Policy of ResumeBucket(s).com and it stated that JBR Media Ventures were the owners of the site. However, a representative from the company contacted me on LinkedIn stating that his company had never been affiliated with ResumeBucket(s).com and that, in fact, they are affiliated with ResumeBucket.com (without the s). Since the scammers could have stolen the privacy policy from ResumeBucket.com (no s), I’ve agreed to remove what I had previously written here about a possible connection. Additionally ResumeBucket(s).com has been taken down but a million more just like them pop up every day so stay on your toes.

*Tip: To give themselves an air of legitimacy, scammers will frequently claim an association with well known companies. Ask yourself if these brand name businesses really would employ the services of a company who uses underhanded methods to collect customer information.

Anyway, to see just what was at the bottom of the rabbit hole, I started filling out the information. I was taken to a page that asked me about my work preferences. Many legit employers have the same types of questions on their internet job applications. This website posts them here as a way of making you feel like everything they are asking you on this form is part of the application process. But everything on the form is not legit.

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In the section marked Credibility, the company states that they require you to submit a copy of your credit report. If you click the checkbox, you will be taken to FreeCreditReport.com. Herein lies the scam. This scammer is an affiliate of FreeCreditReport.com and earns $18-20 per person who signs up and orders their credit report through the site. I know they are an affiliate because I noticed that I was being redirected through a third website to FreeCreditReport.com. After a few tries, I managed to stop the site from loading. Viewing the page source I found their affiliate link. Sweet!

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*Tip: If you can find the scammer’s affiliate link, you can report them to the affiliate manager and get them banned from the program for perpetuating fraud.

While some employers do require a credit check in order to be employed with them (mostly financial institutions like banks), they do it as a part of an all encompassing background check. An employer in the United States will NEVER ask you to send your credit report to them. EVER! There are laws that regulate background checks that must be adhered to or they risk getting sued for millions of dollars and slapped silly by the government. In addition to that, in an age where anything can be Photoshopped, do you really think an employer is going to trust any kind of report you send them?

With Photoshop anyone can have credit report of their dreams.

Funnily enough, when I try to go the next screen without checking the box, the application got flagged as incomplete. I wasn’t going anywhere unless that box and the box below stating I had gotten my credit report was checked.

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The next screen took me to a page that wanted to get my personality profile. I think I was laughing too hard because I didn’t get a screen cap of that page. But clicking the box that requested I go to their “partner” to have my personality tested took me to MindQuiz. I managed to get their affiliate id from there too. WhooHoo!

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The most annoying thing about MindQuiz, however, is when you try to exit out, you are assaulted with popups and redirected to another affiliate site. If you weren’t sure before, by the time you reach this point you would realize the job posting was fake.

Finally, I managed to make it to the last page where they claimed I could win a $10,000 scholarship but when I clicked on the options presented, I got a big fat error message.

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I edited it to display what they meant to say.

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And finally scam comes to an end with a goodbye message from Brianne Harris.

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Unfortunately, this is only one of many employment scams that have found their way onto Craigslist. There are legitimate jobs on there but you have shift through the scamilicious crap to find them. Here is what I recommend you do:

1. As I stated before, even if they request a resume don’t send one until you have verified that the job posting is real. Send a polite introductory email asking if the job is still available. If you get back a form letter like the one above, chances are good the job posting is fake.

2. If you get a real sounding reply, try to get more information about the job such as the company name and phone number. Your goal here is to verify that it is a real business. If they refuse to give you that information then move on because it’s a scam. While there are companies who want to maintain their confidentiality because they don’t want to deal with telephone calls and emails about their job posting, most do so by outsourcing their job placement activities to a recruiting firm. A legitimate recruiting firm would not be squeamish about supplying their contact information.

3. Which brings me to my next tip. If you are able to get the company name, apply for the job directly on their website or even in person at the business.

4. Never, ever, ever, ever give your social security number over the internet. Never, ever, ever, ever send your credit report to someone who claims to need it as a part of the hiring process. Legitimate companies will always have you sign a waiver giving them permission to pull the information themselves through their own investigative service. And they only do that if they are seriously considering you as an applicant.

5. Remove your physical address from your resume. Only include a telephone number and an email address. I recommend signing up for a throwaway account created specifically for internet job hunting such as Yahoo or Gmail.

6. There really is no recourse, outside of reporting them to their affiliate manager, if you were tricked into giving information to a scammer. My first suggestion is to keep an eye on your credit report. TrueCredit.com (not an affiliate link) will pull your credit report from all three bureaus and has a monitoring service that will notify you of any changes that may occur such as the opening of new accounts. I’ve used them before and I like them.

If you get phone calls from scammers trying to sell you something, tell them to take you off their list. By law they have to comply or face penalties imposed by the FCC. If you get one that is particularly pervasive, report them to the FCC through their website http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm.

7. Go with your gut. If something just doesn’t feel right then don’t submit any information. Get a second opinion or move on to another job opening. As they say, it is better to be safe than sorry.

No one is reading your blog.

Don’t feel bad. About 90% of the blogs on the internet are standing shoulder to shoulder with you on this Dock of Shame. The good news is that with time, focused effort and a few of these suggestions, you can overcome your no-traffic nightmare and turn your blog into the rockin’ place to be.

1. Search Engine Optimization/Search Engine Marketing

The internet is like the United States national debt. It just keeps growing. With billions of web pages on the internet, the only way web surfers find the information they need is through the use of a search engine like Google and Yahoo. Therefore it is important that your website is organized in a way that makes it easy for these search engine giants to scan and properly index your web pages.

This involves a little voodoo magic. First you need to cut off a lock of Larry Page’s hair…Just kidding. Seriously, search engine optimization (or SEO) techniques range from simple to complex. There are many websites on the internet that give free SEO instruction or you can save yourself time and money by just buying Naomi Dunford’s SEO School.

2. Write Linkable Content

Don’t make the mistake that a lot of website owners do and forget that people visit blogs for the content. What that content is, is entirely up to you. However, if you want to increase traffic to your website at least some of that content should be linkable.

Linkable content encourages people to link to it, talk about it and recommend it to others. Unlike other types of blog postings, such as news posts or personal updates, linkable content is designed to always be relevant and strives to be comprehensive. An example of this type of content would be a how-to article or even a comprehensive list of resources.

For advice on how to write a great article, check out my blog post “How to Write a Great Article”.

3. Write and Submit Press Releases

A press release is an announcement that is written for and circulated to various news outlets. The goal of a press release is to get picked up and talked about by those news sources which nets you increased exposure and traffic.

The first step is to write the press release. Afterwards you can submit your press release directly to those news sources or use online PR Services such as PRWeb or Market Wire.

4. Engage in Article Marketing

Article marketing is the process of writing articles and submitting them to article directories. Webmasters, looking for free content, will download your articles and post them to their website. Article marketing provides you with backlinks and exposure for your website which can be substantial if your article is picked up by enough webmasters.

Writing for article directories is a little different from writing for blogs so check out this article for some great tips. Visit this website for a comprehensive list of article directories to submit to.

5. Submit to Internet Directories

An internet directory is a collection of links to other websites. Some directories are general in scope, meaning they have a wide range of categories encompassing a wide range of topics while others focus on a specific interest (called a niche) such as personal development or web development.

There is much debate as to whether or not internet directories really bring in traffic. I say it depends on the directory. Some directories, such as BlogCatalog, have an active community surrounding it that encourages members to visit each other’s blogs. Others…well, not so much.

When submitting to directories, look for ones that specialize in your blog’s topic. You stand a greater chance of getting traffic from a niche directory than a general one.

6. Network with Other Bloggers

The notion; “If you build it, they will come”, only works in the movies. You wouldn’t go to a party, stand in a corner and wait for people to talk to you. Likewise you can’t start a blog and just expect people to visit it. You must take it upon yourself to get out there and introduce yourself. Read and comment on other blogs. Participate in forums and social networking sites. Submit to blog carnivals.

7. Guest Blog

Guest blogging is sort of like article marketing except it’s much more effective. Instead of posting your article to an article directory, you write specifically for another person’s blog. The blogger gains quality content for their website and, in return, you get to share your expertise, as well as your website, with their audience.

To learn how to be a great guest blogger read, “How to Guest Blog without Disaster.”

8. Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is an effective means of getting the word out about your website. Often it is the only way to get your blog into places that will offer you a nice stream of steady traffic. The cost of advertising will range but a general rule is that the more traffic a website has, the higher the price to advertise on it.

Before opening your wallet, be sure to evaluate whether the website caters to your desired audience and whether you will receive your desired outcome. If you are really strapped for cash, offer to guest blog or exchange advertising.

9. Get Your Blog Reviewed

You can purchase a paid review through a service like Review Me. This is where you pay a blogger to tell others what they think of your website. The upside is that if the blogger really likes your website, then you’ll get a glowing review. The downside is that the blogger is not restricted to just saying good things about you or your website. So if they have any issues with those will be discussed.

The second way you can get a blog review is to network with other bloggers and agree to write a review of each other’s blog. This is a win-win situation for both of you as you each will earn a free review as well as make connections in the blogosphere.

10. Offer Something for Free

People. Love. Free. Stuff. Especially if it’s high quality free stuff. The best freebies are things people will actually use. On the internet this would be a web template, graphics or a plugin that makes their internet life easier.

The nice thing is you can always find places on the internet to advertise your freebie for free. Some will even host your download although I highly recommend you place the download on your website as well. If your freebie is cool enough people will tell their friends about it thus earning you free advertisement and traffic.

11. Hold a Contest

Next to getting free stuff, people also love winning stuff. The trick with contests, however, is getting people to enter. This is usually overcome by offering prizes people actually want to win so ixnay on the Weird Al Yankovic records.

Depending on where you live there might be laws that govern how a contest is run so be sure to check this out prior to advertising your contest.

12. Interview Other Bloggers

Just as you are looking for ways to advertise your blog, there are other bloggers out there doing the same thing. What better way to help each other than to interview them. You gain because you have fresh content to post on your blog and your interviewee will tell their readership all about their interview with you.

Conversely, jump on any opportunity that arises for you to be interviewed and don’t forget to reward your interviewer with a mention on your blog.

13. Viral Market with a Game or Video

People are always looking to be entertained. That’s why putting up a fun flash game that people can play on your site or uploading a funny and memorable video to YouTube is a great way to attract visitors.

Don’t worry if you don’t know the first thing about coding a game or shooting a video. Experts in these two subjects are just a Google search away.

14. Write Testimonials

When looking for products or services to purchase, one of the things I look for are testimonials from current or previous clients. If there is a website, I visit it if only to make sure that the reviewer is real. Think of all the online products you use and then contact their sales department about putting up a testimonial from you that includes a link to your website. You gain traffic as well as support your favorite products and services.

This list is by no means exhaustive but should get you off to a great start. I’d love to hear about some things you have done to increase traffic to your website.

Traffic Counters

Traffic counters keep track who visits your blog. These counters range in complexity and usefulness. The simple ones only count the number of people who visit your blog while the more comprehensive ones will tell you how they found your site, how long they hung around and even what pages they looked at. This information allows you to see what content on your blog is drawing in the traffic and tailor your blog accordingly.

Most bloggers use Sitemeter, Statcounter or Google Analytics. All three are free, easy to use and offer detailed information about your website’s traffic.

Spam Fighters

Spam is the bane of internet society. Fortunately there are several products on the market that will help keep your blog spam free. Most website/blogging software will either come with spam fighters built in or offer additional software (called plugins) that you can install.

Some stand-alone products that will work with any system are Bad Behavior, Spam Poison and Captcha.

Templates

If you want your blog to look nice and reflect your personality, the the internet is your playground when it comes to finding templates for your blog. The only drawback with using a template is that the chances are high that someone else is using the same exact one. However there are so many things you can do to personalize your template that this really shouldn’t be a concern.

Systems, such as WordPress and B2Evolution have a directory of templates you can download and use for free. Check the website where you downloaded your blog system or do a search on the internet to find free templates for your website.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is the act of flagging your content for sharing with others. The most popular social sharing/bookmarking services are Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit and Del.icio.us. There are many, many, many others but these are the pillars of the social networking community so to speak.

It is helpful to have buttons from these sites on your website as both a convenience and a gentle request to your readers to help promote your website. Check around to see if the software you are using provides a plugin for these services. If not, there are third party options available such as Add To Any or Share This.

RSS Feed

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and it is the one thing you must have. A good portion of your visitors will use a service like Newsgator or Bloglines to stay up to date on the many blogs they read. Instead of going from site to site to site to check for updates, they simply plug in the site’s RSS Feed and are automagicly notified of updates. This is so common that your website/blog software is seriously lacking if it does not have this functionality built in to the software.

If you want to track how many people are subscribed to your RSS feed, sign up for a Feedburner account.

Photos

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I’m not so sure about that but pictures do make web content more interesting and can emphasize the point of a piece of writing better than any amount of flowery prose.

There are places where you can purchase stock photography on the cheap as well as places where you can get it for free. Stock photography tends to higher in quality than the freebies but sometimes you get lucky and when you are working on a budget of zero dollars you can’t really be all that choosy.

Shoutboxes

A shoutbox is a service that allows your visitors to leave you message on your blog. It falls in between visitors leaving a comment on a specific blog post and actually having a full-fledged forum installed on your website. A shoutbox can serve as a place for you and your visitors to just shoot the breeze with each other or it can be a place where visitors can ask questions.

Comment manager

Most content management systems and third party hosting solutions offer decent comment capabilities with their software. However, sometimes the system is inefficient or a third party comment management solution such as Haloscan, Intense Debate or Sez Who offer a better solution for building a community and dealing with disruptive people.

WordPress plugins

If you are a WordPress user, here are a few plugins that will help make your life easier.

Akismet & Bad Behavior

These two plugins are spam killers and when used together will eliminate spam from your blog. Akismet comes preinstalled with WordPress, however you will need to download and install Bad Behavior.

Subscribe to comments

The Subscribe to Comments plugin makes it easier for your visitors to keep track of the comments left on a particular entry. If your visitors are anything like me, then they will need a little help keeping track of where they left comments as well as staying involved in the conversation. This plugin does a good job of that. It allows them to be notified of any follow up comments via email and offers them the ability to manage their subscriptions.

Social networking links

The Share This plugin puts all of the social networks at your visitor’s fingertips. Let’s face it there are literally hundreds of social networking services with one popping up almost every week. Who wants to clutter up their blog with all that drama? This plugin keeps your blog nice and clean and yet allows your visitor to bookmark your blog at the social network of their choice.

Contact Form

The Secure and Accessible Contact Form creates an easy to use contact form that prevents spam bots from spamming you.

All in one SEO

The All in One SEO plugin in an invaluable tool for helping your website rank well in the search engines.

In the next installment of this article series How to Blog- Marketing, we are going to look at things you can do to get the word out about your blog.

Related Articles

• For Newsb: How to Blog-Overview
• For Newbs: How to Blog-Getting Started
• For Newbs: How to Blog-Types and Topics

Previously I had written about my car breaking down. Well that incident really set me back. Because I wasn’t able to continue to commute back and forth, I had to quit my job. Since then, I’ve working hard at finding an office job in my area which has not been easy. The town I live in is not that big. In fact, most of the people that live here commute to D.C. So the limited job availability coupled with the fact that whatever job I get must be accessible by the bus system has made the job hunt a bit of challenge.

So when I saw the following advertisement on Craigslist for my area, I thought I had lucked into something good.

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However when I emailed the person for more information, I received the following form letter in reply:

Thank you for your interest in the Office Administrative Assistant
position. In order to get the most accurate information and to
expedite the hiring process, I have created my own online application.
Please complete, at the link below:

http://blueribbonjobsearch.com/joboffer/register.cfm?jobpositionid=27058

Upon review, you will be contacted within a few days.

We are a strong supporter of education. Hence, if you are currently in
school or are interested in furthering your education, please indicate
so on your application.

Thanks,

–
Shon Johnson

My first reaction was one of annoyance. If there was a special application they wanted me to fill out then why not post that information in the ad? It didn’t make any sense and I should have listened to my instincts. But of course I really need a job and despite this peculiar quirk, this seemed like a pretty good lead.

So I went to the site and was presented with this form:

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I filled out the information and immediately regretted it when I clicked “Continue”. I was lead through a thinly veiled attempt to collect information for marketing purposes. I immediately cancelled out but realized that it was really too late for that. They already had my name, address, phone number and email address.

I tried not to worry about it but my worry increased when I went back to Craigslist and answered two different employment ads and was sent the same exact email. The only thing different was the email address I wrote to and the name of the person I had contacted. One email had a different web address in which to fill out the “Application”. This time instead of blueribbonjobsearch.com it was thecareerwizard.com.

I decided, then, to do a little detective work so see what I was up against. This led me to the Internet Solutions Corp Watch Website. The blog is filled with posts of all the domain names owned by the Internet Solution Corporation and there are links to information about the company such as this video on Youtube:

The video and other information I found on the internet has led me to believe that I had been lured into a phishing scam perpetuated by two men named Alec Defrawy and Alex Finch, the owners of Internet Solution Corporation. Phishing is what scammers do to collect personal information such as your name, address, email, passwords and even financial information. It is my opinion that Internet Solutions Corporation is using their numerous websites to collect information from applicants to resell to third parties. Based on information I have found on the internet, I do not believe that the jobs that they post exist. More worrisome, according to the video, some people have even been called in for interviews where even more personal information was collected and resold.

The situation is both frightening and disheartening. Especially as today I received the following automated response:

Our records indicate that you applied for the Office Administrative Assistant position at Blue Ribbon Job Search . We have received your application and feel you meet the initial requirements for the position. I would like to recommend you as a qualified candidate.

If you still have an interest in this position you may visit our website at: http://blue-ribbonjobsearch.com/careers2.aspx?email= &id=blueribbonjobsearch2nds06262008&jb=371006

When you open the application page you will be asked for a login id. Please use the following login to access the site:

Username: myemailaddress
Password: password

When you login you will be asked to verify some information and some additional information from you to help in the final hiring decision. Once you complete this process your application will be forwarded for final review and you will be contacted directly.

Regards,
Sue Ann Merritt
Human Resources

Career Network, Inc.
P.O. Box 618305
Orlando, Florida 32861-8305

When I went to the address, it was an obvious attempt to confirm the information I had already provided to them as well as to harvest information about the people in my network in the form of personal references.

Based on information that I have read on the internet as well as my own experience and a one on one interaction with a “company representative” by the name of Alex Simon, I do not recommend that anyone do business with Internet Solutions Corporation, VeriResume or any of their “affiliate” websites such as thecareerwizard.com. I consider myself to be a pretty intelligent woman and I am embarrassed and angry at having been taken in by them.

The only advice that I can offer is to do your homework when applying for jobs advertised on the internet. One of the things that tipped me off is that each one of the advertisements for these jobs used Gmail addresses. That’s not to say that every business that uses Gmail is not trustworthy, only that you should be a little more cautious when replying to their ads.

Get as much information as possible about the job prospect before submitting any of your personal information to apply for it. If possible, get a phone number and address where you can actually talk to someone. If they don’t want to give you any of this information, walk away.

If something doesn’t feel right, go with your gut. If the person sends you to a web address to apply for a job, do a Google search on the website’s address and see what comes up. That’s how I was able to find information on the Internet Solution Corporation. I typed in thecareerwizard.com and was led to the Internet Solution Corporation Watch site. The one thing about scammers is that they always have leave a trail of victims and chances are good that, like me, someone has written about their experience to prevent others from being taken too.

If even one person is saved from being victimized by Internet Solutions Corporation, then I’ll consider this episode well worth the embarrassment. Be safe.

Additional Information

Fraudwatchers thread on ICS

Taking the Bait On a Phish Scam – Washington Post

Looking for a job? Phishers are looking for you by the Washington Post

VeriResume vs Marshall

Better Business Bureau Report on Internet Solution Corporation

Something’s VeriRotten with VeriResume

Complaints regarding calls from VeriResume

List of domain names owned by Internet Solution Corporation

Criminal profile for Ayman El-Defrawi

Updates

I have received another email regarding a position I applied for. This time I was directed to connectioncareersnow.com. This is another domain owned by Internet Solution Corporation. Be on your toes.

Updates 04 July 08

A few days ago I received another letter telling me to apply online, this time at myemploymentspot.com. This company also goes by the name of VeriResume.

Additionally, I received an email from a Mr. Alex Simon threatening to sue me if I did not take this post down. I refused. I have edited the post to clearly indicate that this is my opinion based on my experience with this company and additional information from credible sources. You, as the reader, are free to make up your mind as to whether or not you wish to do business with them.

I will continue to update this post as more information regarding this company comes available.

As mentioned several times before, it is important to understand your motivations for blogging because those motivations will influence your decisions on how to best position your blog for success. Blogging for money requires a different strategy than using a blog as a medium for socializing.

Blogging for Money

Professional Blogging, or Problogging, is the act of blogging for money. This can be accomplished in one of two ways. The road most often taken by novice blog entrepreneurs is to start a blog on a particular topic and to make money by charging others to advertise on it. To me, this is the internet version of starting a magazine or radio show. The goal here is to get as many eyeballs visiting the blog so as to attract high paying advertisers.

An effective strategy for this type of blogging is to write on a topic that people will be interested in. The trick here is to find a topic that has an audience big enough to attract advertisers but not so crowded that the voice of your blog gets drowned out by the hundreds of other blogs on the same topic.

Another way to make money as a Problogger is as a freelance writer. One that only writes for blogs. In this way, you would hire yourself out to produce content for a blog and/or in some cases get hired by a corporation as the “Company” blogger.

The purpose here is to get potential clients looking at your site. Therefore a development strategy would be to write about topics that would appeal to those clients and get them on your site so you can sell to them.

Blogging for Customers

Independents, small businesses and corporations alike have found that a blog is a good way to find, connect with and retain their customers. Business owners uses their blogs to introduce the company to new customers, bump up the perceived value of their products and services as well as introduce new ones.

A great way to draw in loyal customers is to use the blog to teach customers how to make the most of the product or service they purchased from you. For example, the search engine giant Google has a blog for every product they own and uses them to educate people about available features, to discuss features in development and announce new ones. By doing this, you are showing your customers that you care about them and their success with your products. You are also soft selling to potential new clients by showing them how your product can help them solve a problem they may be having.

Blogging for a Cause

These blogs usually center around generating social awareness and/or support about a particular topic. For example, The Darfur Blog focuses on exposing the atrocities occurring in that region of Africa. Aids.gov is another social awareness blog run by the US government to educate the public about the AIDS epidemic. Both of these blogs also aims to connect people with resources.

With this type of blog, you should aim help people understand the issues, how those issues affect them personally and what they can do about it.

Blogging on the Soapbox

These blogs exist solely to put forth the opinion of the blogger. I think the majority of political blogs fall into this category. The primary purpose is to give the reader an earful and to encourage discussion of the issues. This sounds a lot more rational than it is. In reality, people get a little hot under the collar when it comes to putting forth or defending an opinion and these blogs often end up as breeding grounds for flame wars.

Developing this type of blog is both easy and difficult. People have opinions about everything so the topic can really be about anything. The challenge here is to write in a way that encourages feedback as well as moderate that feedback to discourage trolling and blog rioting.

Blogging for Fun

Personal blogs make up the majority of this category. People discuss their daily lives and generally only blog as a way to network with other people who share their interests.

People want to get to know you so, with a personal blog, it is more important to be yourself and to discuss topics of interest to you. Some bloggers separate their interests into multiple blogs such as a blog for crafts and a blog for books while others combine everything into just one blog. It really is just a matter of personal preference.

Money, money, money, money…MONEY!

One of the most frequent questions I see on blogging forums around the ‘net is some variation of “Can I make money blogging?” The simple answer is: Yes, you can make money blogging.

However, it’s not as easy as it was in the days of Darren Rowse of Problogger when blogging was still relatively new. Nowadays the market is filled with people trying to make a buck just like you. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t go for it. But understand that it will take some time, creativity and work (that’s right W-O-R-K) to make it happen. And the more money you want to generate with your blogging, the more time, creativity and work you’ll need to bring to the table.

Later in this series, we will go over, in more depth, the different ways you can generate income with your blog but for now just know that the ways income is generated from blogs is through advertising sponsorship, the selling of a product or service, donations or a combination of all three.

Types of blogs/blogging

There are an infinite number of things you can do with a blog but blogs are categorized either by media type or genre.

Media Type

Standard Blog- This is your basic text blog.

Vlog- This is a blog where the majority of the blog postings are video.

Podlog- This is a blog where the majority of the blop posting are audio recordings.

Moblog- The act of blogging by mobile phone. Also a blog specifically set up to be accessed by mobile devices.

Genre

Artlog- The blogger uses his/her blog as a show case for their artwork (other than photographs)

Photoblog- A blog consisting of mostly photos.

Edubog- Blogs about education or a particular educational instituition. Usually run by a student or someone in the field.

Newsblog- Blog that tracks upcoming stories in a specific industry or society at large.

Collaborative Blog- A blog that is run by more than one blogger.

Tumblelog- A blog consisting of short succinct posts.

Fictionlog- A blog that consists of fiction writing and/or is run by a fictional character.

Flog- A fake blog. Different from a fictionlog in that the blogger is posing as a real person but everything in the blog is fake.

Subject Matter

There is a blog for every topic that a human being can conceive of discussing. But here are some of the most popular ones.

Beauty/Fashion
Politics/Government
Relationships
Sex (as in Entertainment)
Self Help
Current Events
Financial Advice
Parenting
Entrepreneurship
Business
Gender Based Issues
Religion

In the next article For Newbs: How to Blog-Tools, we will go over some things that will help make life easier in your blogging career.

Blog Providers vs. Self-Hosting

The fastest, easiest and cheapest way to get a blog is to sign up with a blog provider such as Blogger.com, WordPress.com or Vox. With these types of providers, everything is done for you. The software is installed, the blog is set up and many have a variety of themes to choose from so you can personalize your blog a bit. The only thing you need to do is start writing.

While this may seem like an ideal option, there are several drawbacks to third party blog hosting:

Limited room to grow- To maximize space on their servers and encourage the purchase of premium services, blog hosts will often limit the amount of space and level of traffic available for your blog. On top of that, since you do not have access to the administrative side of the site, you won’t be able to install additional useful software such as a shopping cart or a contact form.

Surrender control of the site- While you will not have to worry about things like server security and software upgrades, you also give up some control over the site. If an internet troll is plaguing you, there isn’t much that you can do about it. In addition, if you violate a blog provider’s terms of service, they can take your blog away before you can say “Wha-”.

Messy move- Moving your blog from their service to your own space on the web is often a pain. A few hosts, like WordPress.com, make the process easy but with most it is an absolute nightmare that will cost you time and visitors.

Personally, I recommend going the self hosting option when it comes to starting a blog. While there is a bit more work involved, the long term benefits far outweigh the drawbacks especially if you are blogging for money.

Pros:

Freedom- As long as you are not crashing the server or doing something illegal, your web host couldn’t care less what you do with your site. You can add as much software and gadgetry as you want to your site.

Looks more professional- If you are operating a commercial site or blogging for money, it looks so much better when you put your blog on its own domain. It shows your clients that you are serious about your business and encourages them to trust you.

Minimal Moving Headaches- Moving from one web host to another is much easier and some web hosts will even transfer your websites to their service for you (for an additional fee of course).

More troll busting capabilities- You have a few more tools at your disposal when it comes to dealing with trolls disrupting your site.

Cons:

Learning curve- If you don’t have a clue about how the internet works or have the equivalent of two left feet when it comes to technology, then it will take some time and effort on your part to learn what’s what. The great thing about the internet, though, is that help is just an internet search away.

More responsibility- Keeping your site safe from hackers and other degenerates is now upon your shoulders.

Some control issues- You must operate your site according to the web hosts terms of service. For example, if your web host does not allow adult materials on your web site and you put up a porn blog your site will be taken down. Shop smart and find a web host that supports your goals for your website.

Host Shopping tips

Whether you’ve decided to start off with a blog provider or brave the world of the self-hosted, there are several things to consider when picking your providers.

Stability- It is way too easy to become a web host these days and as a result the web is filled with fly by nighters. Do your homework. Check out the business thoroughly. How long have they been around? What do people who have hosted with them say about their experiences? There are many review sites out there. Grab a search engine and see what the internet pulls up.

Affordability- Can you fork out the monthly fee? While the price of web hosting has come down quite a bit, a monthly bill can still be a burden if the only thing in your bank account are tumble weeds.

Reliability- While server failures and down time does happen, it should not be a constant issue. Almost every web host on the market boast an uptime of 99.9% but reality is usually much, much different. There are tools online with which you can monitor the uptime of a particular web host. Use them find out the truth.

Support- Do the people hosting your blog know what they are doing? This is so important because if you have problems with the service they are the first people you will turn to for help. They need to be able to answer your questions and solve problems. Take their support services for a test ride. If there is a telephone number for support, call it! Check out their forums and see if questions are being answered in a professional and timely manner.

Additional Resources

Here is a list of places where you can sign up for a free blog:

A list of free blog providers

Here are some instructional articles for the technical aspects of setting up your blog:

How to Install WordPress manually on your own domain

How to Install WordPress on your own domain using Fantastico

How to install a Blogger.com blog on your own domain

While WordPress is the most well known blogging software that’s free, there are other blogging platforms on the market.

B2Evolution

TextPattern

Expression Engine

In the next article in this series, For Newbs: Types and Topics, we are going to delve into some motivations for blogging and the different types of blogs you can run for fun and profit.

Brian E. Redman created the first blog when he started up his Usenet group mod.ber. In this group, Brian and his friends wrote about the interesting things they found while surfing the Internet. It wasn’t long before the novelty of this new media format caught on and people, like Justin Hall, began using it to share their daily lives with others in the web world. Like a small country town suddenly exploding into a metropolitan city, blogging has since evolved from being a hobby of the uber geeks into a public megaphone for anyone with access to a computer and an Internet connection.

Should you jump on the blogging bandwagon?

People start blogs for a lot of reasons. Some want to express an opinion or release their pent up creativity. Others blog to inform the public about the injustices in the world or to generate support for charitable causes. And some do it just because all the cool kids are.

I think blogging is the best thing since sliced bread. I feel it promotes a sense of community in this fractured world of ours as well as put a human face on tragedies like the war in Iraq. You can generate income through blogging or use it to draw in customers for a new or established business. Bloggers also served as digital archivists, preserving information at risk for extinction when they blog about obscure topics. On top of that, many bloggers, such as Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, have been able to cross the digital divide into television and radio because of their blogs.

Blogging has many positive benefits but there are drawbacks. In many ways, the Internet is like the wild west of American history. There is always a threat of an ambush by lawsuit from those claiming to have been defamed by a blog post. Bloggers have been known to face off in virtual communities at digital high noon over a simple misunderstanding. Several bloggers have lost their jobs because of things they wrote on their blogs while others have had to endure death threats because of their blog. If that isn’t bad enough, blogs are constantly being hijacked by villainous spammers who spew their viagra and pharmaceutical graffiti everywhere for the hapless blogger to clean up. It’s enough to put anyone off the idea of starting a blog.

Putting aside the negatives for a moment though, I think the greatest benefit to becoming a blogger is the potential to affect society in a positive and tangible way. In 2002 US Senator Majority Leader Trent Lott made a comment about how much better the United States would be if Senator Strom Thurmond, an advocate of racial segregation, had been elected president. The television networks and newspapers failed to report on the incident even though Lott made the comment at a public event. It was the bloggers who broke the story and the political scandal that followed forced Lott to resign his position.

To decide if blogging is for you ask yourself:

1. What is it that I want to get out of blogging?

2. Can I commit the time necessary to keeping my blog updated and spam free?

3. Can I handle the negative elements floating around the Internet such as trolls and psychopaths?

4. If I become an Internet superstar, will I be able to handle the notoriety?

5. Am I able to commit to learning about the art of blogging and associated topics in order to make my blog the best it can be?

Words of Wisdom

If you’ve decided that blogging is right for you, here are a few tips to help you make the most of your blogging experience.

Know why you are blogging- Before you start looking for a platform with which to begin building your blogging empire upon, you need to decide why you are blogging. This will help you make better decisions regarding how to run your blog. For instance, if you write about your personal life, you’ll want to consider using a pen name as well as changing the names of the people you talk about in order to preserve your relationships and your job.

Make a sensible commitment- Blogging is like being the host of a television show. If you want to keep your audience, you need to make sure the show comes on regularly. At the same time, you don’t want to over commit yourself. You will only end up lowering the quality of your life and blog to keep up. Start with one day a week and see how things go. If you find you have more time and energy, simply increase the number of days you blog.

Think for yourself outside the box- When you first begin blogging, it will be tempting to take everything other people say about blogging as the law of the virtual land. While it is good to read the advice of “experts”, don’t be afraid to declare it all rubbish and follow your own path. Not every square peg will fit into the same square hole. Experiment. If it works, great! If it doesn’t work, trash it and move on. Find what works for you and go with it.

Understand that Success is not guaranteed- You can do everything right and still fail. This is just a fact of life. One of the major advantages of blogging is that if things don’t work out as planned, the most you’d lose would be time and maybe $50 if you purchased a domain name and website hosting. So don’t let the fear of failure deter you from trying in the first place because as John Whittier once said “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’”

Give it a year- True overnight success is rare. For the most part an “overnight success” is the result of years of hard work. It is unrealistic to expect massive traffice and accolades the first day you set up your blog. Give your blog some time to grow and the blogosphere time to get to know you. I recommend at least a year simply because I’ve always felt that you don’t really know a place (or a job or a house or a city) until you’ve experienced it in all four seasons.

Have fun- Don’t get so caught up in your blogging adventure that you forget to have fun. The world is full of people who take themselves way too seriously. If you find yourself falling into this mindset, take a break. You’ll come back more relaxed and your blog will be that much better for you having taken the time to refresh yourself.

In the next article, For Newbs: How to Blog-Getting Started, I will show you the tools you need to quickly and successfully jumpstart your blogging adventure.

As a webmaster, you may be wondering how to get your brand new, still in the bubble wrap, website listed in these giant cyber catalogs. Well, there are two ways robots find new websites. Either by following links from other sites or from the queue of direct submissions.

It has been my experience that sites found via links from other, trusted, sites are indexed faster and avoid the sandbox effect than when submitted directly to the search engine. I call this the referral effect and the keyword here is “trusted”. A trusted site is a site that’s been around for a while, uses no or very little reprinted content and has accumulated a good quantity of quality links itself. The trick here is finding a site that fits all of these qualities, that is active and does not use the no-follow link attribute.

A link from these sites can gained in several ways. You could get added to a blogroll or link page. You could purchase advertising on the site or you could post comments in the area designated for them. To view whether or not a site uses the no-follow link attribute you can either view the source or install an extension such as SearchStatus for Firefox by Quirk.

The second way to get indexed is by direct submission. Though you can submit to every Search Engine you come across most search engines get their results from the big three; Google, Yahoo and MSN. So directly submitting to them is your best bet.

Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

MSN: http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

Enter your web address and then wait. It usually takes a few days before the robots show up at your site to index it.

Additionally, all of the search engines support sitemap submission. A sitemap is a document that lists all of the content to be found on your website and makes it easier for the robot to fully catalogue your site.

Go to:

Google Webmaster Tools

MSN Webmaster Tools

Yahoo Site Explorer

As a bonus, you can also ping the search engines to notify them when you have new content and therefore entice the robot to come visit your site again.

Yahoo Ping

http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/ping?sitemap=

http://www.yoursitemaplocation.com

Google Ping

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping?name=You+Site+Name&

url=http://www.yoursiteaddress.com&changesURL=

http://www.yoursitemapaddress.com

MSN Ping (Note: Moreover is MSN’s ping service)

http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://www.yoursitemapaddress.com

If you use WordPress, you can just set it up to automatically ping the appropriate servers by going into your dashboard, click on Options and then Writing. At the very end of the page will be a box that says Update Services. Just add the above to the list. For an entire list of places you can ping visit Update Services.

You can also use your Robots.txt page to help robots find your sitemap when they visit. Robots will usually hit this file first when visiting your site for instructions on what they can and cannot index on your site. To direct them to the sitemap, add the following code to your robots.txt file:

Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/yoursitemapaddress.xml

Getting your website indexed is only the first step towards doing well with the search engines. In an upcoming article, we will talk about how to optimize your website so that it ranks well with the search engines so that they can actually bring you enough traffic to make you the internet rockstar you were meant to be.

Your blog’s design is the book cover for your writing. You may be a brilliant blogger, the best in the web kingdom, but you are scaring off potentially loyal subjects if your template is visually overpowering, difficult to navigate or just takes too darn long to load.

Here are a few things you can do to help make your blog user friendly.

Get Rid of the Music

You‘re a hard core 80’s music fan. Who wouldn’t be with songs like Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” and Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately”? That doesn’t mean, though, that you should have Queen screaming “Another One Bites the Dust” at your visitors when they come to your site.

I favor not having any music at all but if you just have to have it, be a good netizen and disable the auto start on your music player. At the very least, offer an option, prominently displayed, to turn the music “Off”. Otherwise your visitor may become nothing more than a one hit wonder.

Common Sense Site Navigation

It’s really annoying when I click a link and end up on an orphaned web page with nary a link to any other page in sight. Worse than that is having to deal with confusing, strangely named or symbolic navigation.

Put a navigation menu in a place that is repeated throughout the site such as the header (preferably), sidebar or footer. Keep the menu structure simple and use recognizable names or images for your links. For example, if you have an online store call it “Store” or “Shop”. Don’t call it “Procure” or something equally obnoxious. You may have a vocabulary that’s out of this world but your buyers may not and they’ll thank you for making them feel dumb by giving money to someone who won’t.

Use Vision Friendly Color schemes, Fonts and Font-Sizes

Neon yellow text on a black background is “da’ bomb” and not in a good way. An extreme color combination makes for difficult reading. Equally, using a font color barely darker than the background color turns your blog post into one big blob for the visually impaired. It is best to stick with dark text on pale backgrounds or dark backgrounds with light text. The contrast should be sharp and the colors complementary to each other.

There is an ongoing debate in the design community as to whether font sizes should be set using pixels, ems or percentages. Internet Explorer will not scale fonts sized in pixels whereas using ems or percentages will make the font scalable in all browsers but can produce unpredictable sizes and break the design.

From a usability perspective, it is better to use ems or percentages so people can adjust their browser settings to read what you have written. If you decide to go the pixel route avoid going smaller than 14 pixels as differences in browsers, operating systems and screen resolutions can make the font impossible to read.

You should also use a font that is common to all operating systems, that is evenly spaced and easy to decipher. If necessary use the letter-spacing property in your style sheet to space the letters out so that they are readable.

Get Rid of the Clutter

One of the biggest traps new bloggers get caught up in is the accumulation of web “Stuff”. Awards, tracking meters and flashing graphics that then they use to “MySpace”-ify their template.

Instead of supporting your content, all of these things compete with your writing for attention. On top of that, too many blog gadgets slow down site loading times. Keep only the bare essentials and place everything else on a separate “award” or “links” page and link to it from your navigation menu.

Optimize Images for Quick Loading Times

For the quickest loading times, resize images as small as you can without losing quality. Ideally, your images should be in the 10 kilobytes to 50 kilobyte range which will produce a loading time of about 1 to 10 seconds per image on a 56.6k dialup connection.
Use Photoshop or Gimp to resize images, rather than uploading them and using the height and width properties to make them smaller. This is because the browser still loads the full image and then resizes to your specifications. If you operate a photolog, create thumbnails of your pictures and link them to the larger sizes to improve loading times.

Practice Ad Blending

There is no shame in displaying ads to make money from your website. However don’t make the mistake that countless blogs do and place ads after every other word. I once visited a blog where the entire upper portion of the site was nothing but advertisements forcing me to hunt for the content. Needless to say I couldn’t click away fast enough.

Don’t force people go on a safari to find your content! You will be rewarded with a larger audience, which will net you higher advertising rates, if you make is easy for people to access your content.

Make your pages printer friendly

Sometimes your content is so good that people will want to print it out and save it in a scrapbook of the best blog posts ever. The problem is that when the user hits that print button, instead of outputting a neat and organized article that fits perfectly one sheet of paper, the printer shoots out a hot mess consisting of six fragmented pages of text and graphics.

Take the time to format a style sheet that will make your web pages play nice with the printer. Your visitors will love you for it and you’ll look like a genius compared to the other websites that don’t. For more information how to do this, check out Eric Meyer’s article “Print Different” .

Write for the Web

Due to the influence of television, people’s attention span is not what it used to be. And because the computer monitor resembles a television screen, that attention deficient gets transferred online.

The optimal length for posts is about 750-1000 words. Use short paragraphs followed by a reasonable amount of white space to help combat reader fatigue. Consider breaking up longer posts into a series. This will help your search engine rankings because there will be more content to rank for and your traffic because people will revisit to finish what they started.

Make sure it works in all browsers

Though Firefox is clearly the superior browser on the market, the sad truth is that the majority of people still use Internet Explorer. Even though Internet Explorer fails to conform to web standards, you want to ensure that your users are able to access your site and have the same experience despite the browser they use. This means using XHTML valid code and accounting for browser quirkiness. Failing to do so and favoring one browser over the others is just asking for trouble.

Taking the time to implement these basic suggestions will reward you with happier visitors and a site that stands out from the crowd.

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