Internet Farmer

Free Newspaper Venture Depends on Local Blogs – NYTimes.com

In pondering the idea of printing various blogs in a newspaper format, I think it fits quite well and has great potential for the local paper business, but also for any marketer.  Personally, I would rather stick to something electronic that isn’t consuming paper, but that’s another story for another blog!

Back to what this idea means to me in marketing…

I could see any industry expert, company or locality, all creating a paper-versions of topic-specific blogs to suit just about any business plan.

• A consultant in medical technology compiles blog posts from his industry as a part of his sales kit.
• A company publishes something internally for employees who may not be interested in reading everything online.
• A free local paper in need of something different publishes blogs about that location where they do more editing than writing.

• Heck, as a birthday present, I’m sure you could create a fun birthday news-blog-paper with some topic that amuses you and your friends.

The idea translates to just about any topic, and you can have fun with it, or take it more seriously.  Obviously, you don’t want to use a blog post about the kid who’s underpants ended up at the top of the flagpole in your business’s newsletter, or do you?

In the bigger picture, compiling just about anything from the Internet is a great way to deal with marketing in many cases. For those who are not avid writers, but are interested learners interested in sharing what they learn, a newsletter or blog could be entirely based on someone else’s writings.  You, in turn, are creating a “lens”, or niche to the marketers out there, for your audience to enjoy.  To me, where the Internet is a vast hole of information, a little focus helps us all.  And if you choose to print it for off-line consumption, I think that’s great too. (but please use recycled paper!

How would you approach the blog-paper idea?  Please leave comments below.

While reading searchengine.com, I found that Google has launched a new sitemap creator.  Why should anyone care?

First, a quick definition…

A sitemap is a file located on your website’s server that is hidden from public view, but can be accessed by Google so it can easily see all the pages you want it to see.  It’s the best way to communicate every page on your site to google, and guarantee they see it as YOU intend them to.  You can create this file by hand, with a piece of random software, or use Google’s software.

For “website marketing best practices”, you should have a sitemap, it has to be right, and Google probably knows how to generate a sitemap for their own search engine.  And to be a super-geek, a server-based program can automatically do all the work for you when your site changes daily, or just time to time.

Another tool is sitemap.org.  They have been around for a while, and is a more general sitemap builder so there is no allegance to Google specifically.

There are also a number of Mac/PC programs that do this job as well.  For clients with more static websites, I use Mac-based Rage Google Sitemap Creator.

Interested in learning more?  Contact me, or go check it out for yourself!