This is in response to a direct message I got on Twitter by someone who requested not to be named.

(If you have a question for me that you’d like me to answer in the blog, you can send them to me on our contact page. If you’re reading via feed, it’s a good time to stop by the site and see the last round of changes we’ve made to help you. Just sayin!)

The question was:

 I keep getting ideas of what to write from my peers, how do I avoid looking like the “me too” person? 

 

That’s actually a common problem for bloggers, especially in the tech area. Blogging veterans call the tendency for a lot of people to report on the same thing “the echo chamber”. None of us wants to be the blog that just reports on the other blogs — our readers will say, “but TechCrunch already told me that, Tinu, so why should I subscribe to both of you?”

The answer to this issue is two-fold.

First of all, strive to be as unique as possible. You don’t want to bill yourself as the cutting edge expert, then cover the same content other industry leaders wrote about the day before, the month before, the year before. Remember that people who read Newsweek, sometimes also read the New York Times. They don’t cover the same topics the same way, in part to remain useful to that over-lapping audience. 

In journalism, this is why reporters look for “exclusives”. In some cases, you aren’t going to be the only person reporting a story though.If If Google comes out with a new feature that is helpful to your readers, you don’t want to just tell them to go read the Google blog – so offer them some piece of information other blogs aren’t.

How is this relevant to their business? 

What are some steps to implementation?

What’s your opinion after a “first-look” at the tool?

Unique content, regardless of the format you deliver it in, is a key element for retaining visitors. 

Secondly, you’re going to find that there are times when not telling others about something you discovered is unavoidable, because it’s better to sound like a me-too person than to neglect to inform the part of your audience who pretty much only listen to you online. You have people like that in your audience, who are only subscribed to your newsletter, would only buy products on a topic if you made one, who just don’t read any other ezines in your industry, because they happened upon you or simply because you’re the only one who makes sense to them.

Most iPod users would rather be shot than have to switch to a Zune. And vice versa, by the way.

The question is, how do you serve those people with the information you find without alienating your advanced people who may have heard the news you want to report ten times before they get to your blog?

It’s so easy. And you can get TONS of traffic out of doing this. 

Link to the other sources. Do a shorter audio, video, slideshow, bullet list, and link to all the other references. Send trackback notificaitons to all the other blogs. Write to the authors to let them know you wrote about them. 

Add/vote on the other sites in social media bookmarking sites, and share your article about them in social networking sites. 

So how does this bring you traffic?

You have no idea of the gratitude that results when you fully credit other people with an idea, a breaking news story or simply, a good blog post. It’s done so seldom online that it’s now the norm for someone to see a fresh perspective on someone’s blog, create a product from it, and have it on the market before you can say “stop, thief!”

When, instead of opening oneself up to an ugly lawsuit over copyright infringement, or the ridicule of your customers who see that all you do is reblog other people’s content, you can do an end run around all these problems with one simple, elegant sentence. 

“I’m writing about that same thing – where would you like me to like to you?”

And when you link to people? They tend to link back.

You’ve heard that before… but what you don’t understand is that linking is the key to ALL the traffic on the web. 

Better search results come from proper contextual linking.

Links are the roads on which internet traffic travels. 

Linking out can help you become seen by humans and search robots alike as an authority site – it says “I’m so confident in the quality of my content that I will show you where you can get tips elsewhere.”

Give credit where credit is due. 

Send links to the people who have the same great ideas. 

Before you know it, you’ll have built a highway of traffic pointing to your site as the premier destination.

Coming soon – How Traffic Works, a preview to understanding the Whys of Traffic.

I didn’t think so – so see ya!

Just kidding. Sorta. Kinda. Maybe. Who knows. ??

If you’ve heard about this site and haven’t shared it, I don’t know if we should be angry with you or just chalk it up to your not wanting to let the cat out of the bag.

Well, tough. I’m letting the cat loose, so there.

Yes, I had thoughts of hanging on to this for a while, but that wouldn’t be friendly or nice, and as you know by now, I’m a nice guy.

So what is it, you ask.

Well, featured on this site, which places blogs on nearly 100 top-tier news and media sites, are: Reuters, USA Today, Gannett, McGraw-Hill Architectural Record, FoxNews and Internet Broadcasting, just to drop a few names. Not that I’d drop names.

Excited yet? I can hear you say “Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie!”

Okay, don’t wet your pants.

What it is, is BlogBurst!

Once you log on to their site, click on Blogger Info, Publisher Info, Check out their editorial team, the FAQ’s, etc. I think you’ll find it’s a fairly straight forward site and will treat those that play by the rules, quite well.

A million new viewers a month, a million new viewers a month, a million new viewers a month.

Just had to say that a few times.

Makes my head spin. Here’s the front door.

MorganLighter

Okay, we’ve gone over the Backlink Anchor Text Analysis and the Backlink Builder – so, here’s the Backlink Summary!

Quite simply, this tools help you build a LOT of quality backlinks.  It searches for websites of the theme you specify that contain keyphrases like “Add link”, “Add site”, “Add URL”, “Add URL”, “Submit URL” etc. Most of the results could be potential backlinks.

Do it!

Click the link.

Now.

Oh, yeah – here’s the link, sorry.

MorganLighter

Wayback Machine!

If there is anyone out there who never watched ‘The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show’, then I am so sad and sorry for you. You missed out on one of the greatest cartoon shows to have appeared on television. In my opinion, you need to watch this program, or otherwise you will never be well adjusted. You can get it through Amazon!

Okay – What has this got to do with anything, you ask. Hee-hee-hee.

It’s the – (ta -da) Domain Age Tool.

This tools displays the approximate age of a website on the Internet and allows you to view how the website looked when it first started. It also helps you find out the age of your competitor’s domains, older domains may get a slight edge in Search Engine Rankings.

So how you gonna go back to when the website first started? You’re gonna use the Wayback Machine! How clever is that?

MorganLighter

ing.

We all know the importance of backlinking. Most of us use backlinks to help get our sites at the top of the search engine rankings for our target keywords. Each backlink you get helps your site a little bit further up the rankings.

This tool helps you build a LOT of quality backlinks, it searches for websites of the theme you specify that contain keyphrases like “Add link”, “Add site”, “Add URL”, “Add URL”, “Submit URL” etc. Most of the results could be potential backlinks.

Have a go at it.

MorganLighter

How’s your backlinks?

It is not enough just to have a lot of backlinks, it is the Quality of backlinks along with the Quantity that help you rank better in Search Engines.

This tools help you determine the backlinks of your website and the link text used by your backlinks to Link to your wesbite.

Now, aren’t you glad you stopped by?

MorganLighter

Why?

Because this is the friendly Search Engine Spider Simulator!

This tool Simulates a Search Engine by displaying the contents of a webpage exactly how a Search Engine would see it. It also displays the hyperlinks that will be followed (crawled) by a Search Engine when it visits the specified webpage.

Even Hagrid would approve of this one.

MorganLighter

the RankAlert!”

As the author of the site says:

“Rank Alert offers a bunch of free tools for Webmasters to help you with your site’s search engine rankings.  Handy tools here include our BackLink/PageRank Tracker, as well as our PageRank Checker for multiple domains and our Broken Links Checker, and many other useful tools.

The highlight of this site is our awesome PageRank/BackLink Tracker. Once you sign up and add your URL to this tracker, it keeps track of PageRank/backlinks for your URL.  As soon as it detects any changes, it sends you an alert E-mail. So you don’t have to be worried about keeping track of your different sites; just leave it on RankAlert”.

Once you’ve gotten to the RankAlert site, you’ll be greeted by 10 – count ‘em, T-E-N awesome free tools which you can use to your hearts content.  All you need to do is sign up (free) and away you go, daddy-0.

Enjoy!

Oh yeah – here’s the  place.

(The song is titled: “Ive Never Been to Spain”  by Hoyt Axton, 1970).

MorganLighter

Here’s a nifty little tool that’ll let you know how many pages of your website have been indexed by the search engines thus far. A tool that will give you an indication of your traffic patterns. Neat or what?

This tool supports all major search engines – including – Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alltheweb, AltaVista and Hotbot.

“See me, feel me, touch me, heal me”. The Who, Tommy, 1969.

MorganLighter

No, this isn’t about your popularity with the opposite sex, or with your friends, or even me.

We’re talking about Link Popularity! The link popularity – the amount of incoming links to your website, as if you didn’t know, is one of the most important factors for achieving top positions in search engines. The more quality links you can get the better.

With this tool you can check the link popularity for any given page – just enter your URL. You will see how many links have been already ‘noticed’ by the major search engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Alltheweb and Hotbot.

Well, what the heck are you waiting for? Charge!

MorganLighter

In my continuing effort to help you with blogs, traffic, feeds, RSS, Google, Yahoo!, news, posts, SEO, MSN, Paris Hilton, music, fun, entertainment, learning, making mo money, etc. – Here’s a list from Blog-Maniac.

No, I haven’t read them all. No, we are not endorsing anything. No, you may not yell at me if you follow something they say and it f’s up. No, you can’t go whining to Tinu with ‘Morgan said…’. No, you may not, not, not, not!

Starting a Blog: Blogging Basics

Blog Writing Tips

Corporate and Business Blogging

Blogging for Profit

Blogs as Search Engine Optimization Tools

Building Traffic To Your Blog
Starting a Blog: Blogging Basics

Blogs Explained

Web Blogs, Defined, Explained and Understood

Why Should I Use Blogs And RSS Feeds?

Why You Need to Blog and use RSS Feeds

What are Blogs, and Why Your Business Should Use One

“Blogging” For Fun & Profits

The Biggest Reason To Start A Blog…(and it’s not what you think!)

Brain of a Blogger

A Blog Isn’t Just For Christmas

To Blog or Not to Blog: Are Blogs Becoming More Popular than Forums, Newsletters and E-zines?

7 Questions To Ask Yourself BEFORE Staring A Business Blog

Why It Took Me So Long To Blog

How to Get Started Blogging in 5 Minutes or Less

Why WordPress is Now my Blog Software of Choice

Starting Your Own Blog

Blogger Secrets: Things You Probably Didn’t Know

How to Read Blogs Using Free RSS Readers

Top 10 Tips for Creating a Blog

Blog Writing Tips

How to Write A Blog… And Survive

Top 10 Blog Writing Tips

Writing Good Blogs

How To Avoid Blog Burnout

Corporate And Business Blogging

The Rise of Business Blogging

Blogs Still Mystify: Ten Companies That Missed Great Blog Opportunities

Is a Blog Right For Your Business?

Blog for Business: Is It Right for Your Company?

Business Blogging for Search Engine Traffic

Business Blogging – 5 Tips to Help You Barrel Through Writer’s Block

Business Blogging: Where Do I Start?

Blogging For Profit

Marketing With Blogs – Part 1

Marketing With Blogs – Part 2

Marketing With Blogs – Part 3

Marketing With Blogs – Part 4

4 Ways to Profit From The Hidden Revenue In Your Blog

6 Ways That Blogging Can Save You Money

Can Blogs Be Useful Marketing Tools?

It’s A Blog, Not A sales letter

Top 10 Reasons to Use a Blog to Publish Your Ezine

3 Reasons To Publish An E-Newsletter AND A Blog

Blogs – Diamond in the Rough for your Marketing?

How To Make Money With Blogs And RSS

How to Build a Niche Site With a Blog

What Every Blogger Needs To Know About Their Target Audience

Blogging for Dollars

How To Profit From Your Home Business Blog

BlogKits BlogMatchTM Network: World’s First ‘Paid To Blog’ Network

Blogs As Search Engine Optimization Tools

Blog Wars: Attack Of The Splogs

Will Spam-Blogging Be The Death Of Blogging?

Use Blogs and RSS Feeds to get your New Sites and Pages Indexed Fast

If an RSS Feed is the Yahoo Backdoor, is a Blog Google’s?

If an RSS Feed is the Yahoo Backdoor, is a Blog Google’s? (Part 2)

Multi Linking with Blogs vs Link Spamming

Creating Multi Links with Blogs

Can A Ping Really Help Your Blog Get Top Search Engine Rankings?

3 Overlooked Ways to Get Hundreds of Links and Prospects to Your Blog

Should Bloggers be Helping Google Fix Their PageRank System?

Anti Trackback and Comment Spam Methods

Building Traffic To Your Blog

Articles Build Blog Readership

Article Marketing For Bloggers – 4 Tips To Build Traffic For Your Blog

Increase Traffic to Your Blog from Search Engines – The Top 5 Tips

How To Build Traffic To Your Blog

Search Engine Optimization For Blogs

How to Explode Blog Traffic

Search Engine for MoBlogs

Your homework is due on next Friday. And don’t tell me that the dog ate it.

Morgan