Lucid was launched in 2005 and offers a search technology based on open source platforms. Its product is used at Zappos, Nike and Netflix, among others. The latest round of funding brings the total amount to $18 million.

I prefer to describe it as a kick in the metaphorical crotch to your readership, and instead say that building an email address list of your subscriber base is the WORST thing you can do as an online entrepreneur.

Now, admittedly, there’s something to be said for occasional messages to your readership that hit them where they live, in their email inbox about something special you’re doing or offering.  But without a LOT of care and forbearance, all you’ll be doing is alienating your readership and hurting the ones you depend on most.  And don’t even get me started on selling email addresses to affiliate programs….

So I wouldn’t be quite so concerned about the email address list, but that’s a call each person has to make for themselves.

And your blog just still isn’t going anywhere.

So like I said…you have to ask the toughest question of all.  Am I any good at blogging?

This isn’t a question people want to ask.  No one wants to hear they have no talent.  That’s why most people would rather WATCH American Idol than go ON American Idol.  They want to hear how badly OTHER people suck, not how bad THEY suck!  But you can find out.  Talk to your friends, any of your blogging contemporaries.  Send out links to your blog.  Specifically request they not spare your feelings as you want to improve, and MEAN it.

Then, see what’s wrong, and try to fix it.

There’s only one way to be a better writer, folks, and that is TO WRITE.  It’s the very definition of “writer”.

Writer. Noun. One who writes.

But if you’re willing to practice, to turn in the work even if no one’s watching, keep up the promotion and everything else, chances are you can become a good writer…even if you aren’t right now.

I know you veterans out there understand the idea of submitting your blog to search engines and giving yourselves that extra push in building traffic.  I know you’re well aware of how important it is to do that, and how it can not only give you traffic spikes but also improve your rankings, help you get links and trackbacks, and help you push your bottom line up as well as give you a source of steady reliable readership.  I know that.

That’s why I’m apologizing to you up front.  See, it’s not just the veterans that come here.  We’ve also got the next generation of bloggers looking for tips and advice, so this one is just for them today.  You know I give you plenty of good advice too…so today, let’s just spare a thought for the folks just getting started.

And in case you need it, here are some links to where to submit your blog to search engines.

Google

Yahoo

Technorati

MSN Live Search

The Open Directory

What this means is that anything that you submit that doesn’t meet the quality standards of front page material will simply by marked as spam, and it will be a waste of time to even have submitted it in the first place.

Although this may not sound like good news for anyone trying to get some quick “link love”, it’s better for everyone this way. This means that there will be less low-quality content flooding the site, and more meaningful articles. Not so say that a majority of articles submitted are simply blogspam (e.g. a blog containing an embedded video from YouTube).

Be more selective to what you submit to Digg and try to keep things clean. Remember, make it seem that you’re an actual human and not just a spam-submitting machine. Work on building your network as a “power-user” on Digg, and you’ll be well on your way to the front page.

But if no one sees it, then what good is it?

Like asking the question about trees falling in the woods and the sounds they make when no one’s around to hear them, so too does your blog run on readers.

I know, this is sort of a basic-level concept, but it’s the kind of thing that you may not be thinking of in a rush of ideas about the long tail and web 2.0 and the legion of other buzzwords that you hear about blogging on a daily basis.  But it’s the kind of thing you’d do well to bear in mind.  Remember, it’s all about the readers.  What do they want to see?  What do they want to know more about?  The more you can do to engage your readership, the more they’ll do to keep you alive and blogging.  And the more your readership does, the better your bottom line as a blogger looks.

Posting news that was posted weeks before or even yesterday doesn’t help with SEO. You need to get the post out before everyone else, and a good way to do this is to post as soon as you find the information. If you blog at late night, you’ll be getting all of the news after your competition. As they say, the early bird gets the worm.

It’s important not to post all of your articles simultaneously; even it out. Let’s say that you already have written five articles for the day and are ready to publish them. Instead of publishing them all at once, set scheduled  publishing in intervals of thirty minutes to an hour, depending on how much content you put out.

You don’t want to overwhelm your reader with loads of news that were just burst onto your homepage; give them time to enjoy what you have posted and work up to your new posts.

Again, it depends greatly on what kind of blog you have, so make sure you make the adjustments to fit your needs.

• Google
• Yahoo! Search
• Yahoo! Small Business (paid)
• Bing
• DMOZ

That’s pretty much it. Every small website search engine relies on these results alone in order to give you your search results. It only takes a few seconds of your time to do this, so be sure to get on it.

What if they just right clicked and copied the images as well. If you write good content then this is something that you will face at some point in your blogging career. For users of Wordpress there is a plugin that will help you prevent this from happening.

Called WP-Content Protector it provides you with the ability to control how your content is used. Through the settings you can decide to turn off the ability for images to be “right-clicked” and the ability for a reader to highlight text. These can be selected individually.

I think this is a great start to protecting your content, and considering the amount of time you probably put into it why wouldn’t you want to protect it? One more thing about this plugin that adds to its recommendation, it is already Wordpress 2.8 compatible.

Have you ever had your content stolen?

One very valuable plug in for Firefox is SEO Blogger from WordTracker. This browser plugin opens in a sidebar and while you are typing your post it suggests keywords for that post. Not only does it suggest keywords but it also provides you with the ranking of that keyword so you can see which words are going to get most traffic.

For example I know that the word “Firefox” generated 30,000+ searches. The term SEO generated 4,000+ searches so by putting both those in the title I am guaranteeing that this post will get good results in search engines.

How much attention do you pay to your blogs SEO?