We have discussed many great tips on setting up Blogs for businesses.  It’s a great way to relay current information to customers and in some cases it is an absolute must.

Today we are going to examine one such site.  The burl is http://www.destinationstationseries.com/. The company is Iron Fire publishing and they just finished their first children’s book called “The Greedy Race Car Driver”.  I my self ended up making an order because it is a rather unique product.  More on that later.

The reason we wanted to examine the site is because it’s 100% flash based.  That means that the on page SEO factors (Search Engine Optimization) will be very limited.  They can still place in Meta tags like Description and Keywords as well as a title but that is it.

Situations like these require a blog.  Luckily they must of known this because they implemented one.  It is very important for all based flash sites to have an area of the site that can be used for on page SEO factors.  Search engines can not read flash pages and if your site is all flash they will not understand what your site is about and you will have to focus on off page SEO as well as other means of marketing to drive traffic to the site.

Having a blog will not only help them drive more traffic to the site but if you examine theirs you will see they are using it to relay information to their potent ional customers and make announcements about their first book.  This is the perfect example of a business that would require a Blog.

I do think they should implement a kind of newsletter that members could subscribe to.  This would enable fans who like the book being able to keep up to date with the next book in the series and it’s a great way to gain repeat customers.

Now I mentioned earlier that I purchased the book.  The reason was from the article I found on Ezine articles called Teaching Children Values Through Reading.  This book series is called a project book.  In a nut shell you not only get the book but a rather large wooden race car that goes with the book.  The car has to be assembled and thus the term project book.  I think this is a great way for me to spend time with my 7 years old and at the same time build the toy with him and read the book.  The book is about teaching a very important life lesson.  Read the Ezine review for a full review or just visit their site and see how it is built.

Think how much harder it would be to sell this book if they did not have a blog.

Be sure to post your comments.  I have already contacted the owner of this site so he should chime in soon as well.  I’m sure this publisher would love to hear your feedback.

In the Race to Rank series I reported last month that my Alexa rank was at 166,686.

My goal is to reach below 80,000 by February 2009. At the rate I have watched my Alexa rank decrease (remember, lower is better), I figured that this type of goal was not only obtainable but I could easily do better.

Using the Sparky add-on for Firefox, when I visit my sites on a daily basis I watch to see how rank is improving or declining. This is vital information for me to know on all of my sites. Losing traffic and rank for me means I’m losing business. This isn’t good so I heavily monitor what’s happening with rank on all my sites.

Today, as I logged into my dashboard to see the comments left over night I noticed that my rank with Alexa has changed. More specifically today’s Alexa rank is 156,977.

Quick math tells you that in just 20 days, my Alexa rank has dropped by 9,709.

Logic says, what happened? We’ve got to repeat what happened on my blog in the last 20 days to reach the 100,000 goal by January.  And continuing the same steps, how can I drop to 90,000 or maybe even lower?

The best way for me to sum up what has happened in the last 20 days is to give you just one word:

Stumble

Yes, that’s right. StumbleUpon brought so many visitors in the last 5 days with two different blog posts. This is the only thing out of the ordinary for BlogSavvy.

To get specific, the post Race for Rank was stumbled several times which brought 617 visitors to my site directly from StumbleUpon.

If you’re keeping track, this means that in two days BlogSavvy had 968 visitors from StumbleUpon and that’s not counting residual traffic for either post on the same or different days.

The lesson learned is to write posts which will help you bring in traffic. You knew this, didn’t you? I mean, how many times exactly have we, as bloggers, heard Content is King. Aren’t you sick of it at this point?

However, the truth remains that while the saying sucks, it’s absolutely true. If your posts are on topics that people actually care about and you do the networking required to promote such posts, you’ll have traffic. Traffic is links, better Alexa rank, and in the long run, a better blog community.

A simple, simple post that explained I knew there was an update because I had pages on my blog, previously not ranked, showing PageRank.

Here’s the lesson of this post:

Pay attention to your ranks, know what they are if you want to make them better. Knowing where you’re at, what your ranking average is, and where you want to be will give you an idea of how to properly promote and network your blogs.

Next, make sure you have something that’s going to report real time statistics for your site. For example, I use and monitor daily my stats with the WordPress.com stats plugin. This has been vital to me.

I find it important to monitor my stats like this in real time because it lets me know where to spend time networking that day. It means if I’m getting heavy traffic from StumbleUpon, I need to head over to the site and spend time networking. It brings in more visitors. And the truth is, if you’re just getting a few visits from StumbleUpon, you can head over there and network to bring in more.

It doesn’t matter where your numbers are at, but on a day when you’re receiving a great deal of hits from one source, spend your time networking that day at that source.

In the end, I have proof now that having posts stumbled will indeed help me to lower my Alexa ranking.

There are three types of goals a blogger can and should set for their blog. This may not be as easy as it sounds but, for long term success, it’s important that bloggers keep focus. With so many things to keep track of to gain authority, you don’t want to lose sight of what your goals are.

Goals won’t be right for every blogger or every blog. Someone, for example, with a personal online diary probably won’t have many long terms goals but to continue to share their own life online. Can it be more? Of course, but that doesn’t mean it has to be.

When your blogging for a niche, just starting out, monetizing, and building authority creating goals are your stepping stones.

So, what are the three types of goals? They are present, future, and long-term.

Each set being a stepping stone to the next and ultimately success. But other than a stepping stone, each goal for present and future should work to reach the long-term goals.

Present

These goals are things that you can get done today, goals you can work to achieve with specific posts, pages, or contests on your blog.

• Comments per post
• Bookmarked posts
• Networking
• Entrecard
• Forum participation
• Guest Posts
• Post Frequency
• Contests
• Advertising

Each of your goals should help you work to reach your next set of goals within the next category.

Future

Larger than present goals, your future goals are reached through mastering your present goals. Each one of these goals will lead to your long-term goals and enable you to reach those. Again, remember these are stepping stones. Few bloggers can jump into the scene and leap to success.

• Rank for older posts (PageRank or Technorati Authority)
• Residual traffic from bookmarked posts
• Power profiles on networking sites
• Name recognition
• Product recognition
• Backlinks

You’ll notice that future goals are typically lesser in quantity because the majority of your goals are present. These are just items you can work on now for long-term success. But each goal is no more important than the next. Each should be treated with equal importance.

Long-Term

These goals are the ones you’ll reach to get to your place of successful. You don’t have to become one of the biggest bloggers in the blogosphere to be successful. What is determined as successful should be set by you based on your goals and your particular interest in your level of reach.

• Steady income
• Monetization
• Power user on networking sites (more than one place)
• Brand recognition
• Authority
• Blog writers

Your long term goals will dictate to you where you’d like your blog to be. This set of goals will be best reached when your present and future goals are a way for you to reach long term.

Time Management

One of the best reasons, besides reaching your chosen level of success, for setting blogging goals is so that you can manage your time.

It’s not at all uncommon for a blogger to spend hours networking and accomplishing their goals. But have you ever evaluated what exactly it is that you’re doing online to keep you wrapped up for so long?

By sitting down to work on just your goals, you’ll keep your focus and manage your time for efficiently.

Staying Focused

Remind yourself daily what your goals are on all three levels. Write out your goals, print them and hang them next to your primary computer. By having something to visually see, you can ensure that you’re keeping your focus.

There are so many things for bloggers to do that sometimes it’s easy to lose focus of what is working to reach our goals. Make sure that you have your reminders to keep you on track, if only for the moment you’re working.

Final Thoughts

Have you thought about goals for your blog or where you’re looking to go with your blog? Or maybe goals aren’t right for you, have you figured out why?

Each day I sit down and proceed to accomplish my work in a specific order. While sometimes a little redundant and boring, I’m ensuring that I’m staying on track and handling my goals in the best way that I can. Do you have a similar routine that helps you stay efficient and on track?

How to Cure Blogger’s Block

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