Tiny URL

I just went to TinyURL and typed in the URL for an article I co-authored a few years ago (on Human Rights and Music if you really want to know !) it gave me this as a shortened URL http://tinyurl.com/57aamg which is a lot shorter than the real URL:
http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm10-2/universalite-musique-en.htm

I'm sure you have seen these little URLs especially if you use Facebook or Twitter.TinyURL is the most commonly used of these services to shorten long URLs.

The advantages of a shortened URL are:

- URL's are embedded in an e-mail message if they are very long can be spread over two lines and can be off putting.

- Twitter only allows you 140 characters so you don't want to be using up valuable space with a very long URL.

- On Facebook you have a limited space for your "Status" entry so again you don't want to take up valuable space with a very long URL.

Of course for people reading the URL there is no indication where it is going to take them whereas a longer URL can give you a clue to the destination. Having said that would you have guessed that the URL I used as an example would have lead you to an article on Music and Human Rights ?

At the end of the day its all down to the reader having confidence in the person that sent it to them or who is using it in their Twitter Tweet or their Facebook status.

Who's visiting your blog ?

If you look at the right hand side of my blogs you will find that I have added a widget from feedjit.com - Live Traffic Feed which shows who has visited. It shows what country and also by what means they got to my blog. This is providing me with some interesting information on visiters. I have also added MyBlogLog which shows me which MyBlogLog members have been to my blog.

Commenting on Blogs

It is widely preached that commenting on other people's blogs is a good way to build a reputation as an expert and to drive some traffic to your own blog. However, even if you have your hot list of favourite blogs because they are relevant to your business you are almost certainly missing out on commenting opportunities.

So... what's to be done ?

Answer - download Comment Kahuna free of charge.

And what is Comment Kahuna ? it searches for blog posts that rank in Google for a particular phrase. Once you’ve typed in your keyword phrase it will locate up to 50 blog posts on the topic you’ve searched for that are ranking in Google.

Stumble Upon

For a really useful guide to using Stumble Upon to drive traffic to your website sign up for a series of F.R.E.E. lessons put out by Caroline Middlebrook. They can be found at www.stumblerush.com. Caroline is on Facebook and also has a very useful blog packed full of helpful suggstions and advice and refreshingly honest.

Build a blog with WordPress

Sorry blogspot !!! Perhaps not politically correct !! But...

I found the blog of Caroline Middlebrook yesterday and she has produced a great e- book on using WordPress to build a blog that can be monetised. Its downloadable and F.R.E.E.

FREE Blogging course

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you access it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out.
Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Wordpress - free tutorial

If you want to learn Wordpress for free click on this link.

Twittering for bloggers

I just have to share this with you. Out there in the ether is a guy named Darren Rowse who generously shares on his blog (ProBlogger) how to make good use of Twitter to drive traffic to your blog.Click on link to go read this for yourself.

Happy twittering !