To help jump start your creative engines, we thought we would present to you a compilation of inspiring quotes, some humorous, some profound, some instructive. Hopefully one or two of them will resonate with you, give you some food for thought and help you positively approach your blog.

The following list is divided by themes that we thought were pivotal to achieving success online. Enjoy.

On Blogging

“A well-executed blog campaign is not rocket science. It is, however, an act of love. That’s what gets in the way for some people. Love is scary stuff.” Hugh McLeod.

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At Apollo Media, we manage a wide variety of blogs and find ourselves constantly researching, fully immersing ourselves in the rapidly evolving world of Web 2.0. Because we are always taking on new tasks and developing different types of content, we’ve had to sort out the different types of blogs to better assess the function and purpose of each.

If you’ve ever been confused about blogs, here are 3 blog categories and their brief definitions:

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One of the key features of any successful enterprise - be it a business, service or product - is its brand. Branding involves the name and image or unique qualities that people come to recognize and associate with a company or group.

We see brands everywhere we go: on advertisements, in stores and in our homes. Where would McDonald’s be without the golden arches? Or Nike without the swoosh?

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Avid blogger Skellie has written an impressive post on How to Write Posts that Set Stumble Upon on Fire for Problogger.com, explaining the significance of this social bookmarking tool and providing strategies for optimizing your blog accordingly. As she can attest, Stumble Upon is an essential source of referrals, sending loads of traffic from regular users captivated by resourceful, catchy and valuable blog posts.

Skellie is quick to point out some of the nuances that make Stumble Upon unique amid the likes of Digg and Reddit, and offers practical strategies of drawing in positive stumbles and new, loyal readers. Here is a summary of her findings, with a few tips of our own:
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The search engine gurus at SEOmoz have posted a rather interesting blog article, courtesy of their CEO and co-founder randfish, that poses 5 scenarios that could usurp Google’s dominance of the search engine market share. While the perceived threats to Google vary in plausibility and likelihood, they still highlight some interesting trends that are currently emerging in the ever expanding world of internet marketing.

We thought we would evaluate these so called threats, with consideration of recent developments in the search world, and throw in our own two cents as well. To summarize, Google’s empire will crumble if:

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Web 2.0 is a term which refers to the evolution, i.e. the second generation or version, of the Internet. It is used to describe the emergence of software programs and web-based activities that allow for and highlight the connectivity aspect of the Internet.

Web 2.0 focuses on web-based communities, networks and hosting services which are dependant on open-source, user-generated content and software programs. Web 2.0 relies on user collaboration, sharing and independent, as well as co-dependent, creation.

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In a recent post, the blog masterminds over at Problogger share with us an intriguing blog analysis, revealing elements of content that make it viral and worthy of social bookmarking.

Using the premier social bookmarking site del.icio.us, Darren Rowse breaks down the titles of popular posts on the popular post page to find common concepts and elements that drive massive traffic.

Here are some of his findings:

1. High Level Advice, Practical Tips and Clear Results

   Post Example: Monday Master Class: How to Schedule your Writing Like a Professional Writer.

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Happy Valentine’s Day, Readers! In honour of this day for love, the Apollo Media team thought it would be great to write an article that defines this aptly named SEO term and explain why you shouldn’t wait for Valentine’s to send out your link love.

Link Love is the act of contextually linking to other websites or blogs. You see that hyperlink there? That’s an example of link love. Click on it and it will bring you to Blogossary, the blogophere’s dictionary blog and its definition of “Link Love”.

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Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to the general internet marketing practice of promoting web content by increasing its visibility on search engines, like Google. Since all search engines have the common goal to provide the most relevant search results for their users, SEM is driven by relevancy for the end user.

Search engine marketing methods involve the use of keywords and the pursuit to land on the first few pages of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Statistics show that most web users click on the highest ranking websites (source: SEOmoz) and go no further than the third page of results.

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Organic SEO or natural search engine optimization is one method in achieving optimization. To optimize your site means to help the people most likely to benefit from the website (your target audience) to discover your website through search engines by ranking highly with (and therefore appearing earlier in the pages of search results of) major search engines, like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.

Search engines have one main goal: to present their users with the most relevant and useful information. They do this by identifying key characteristics of relevant websites and creating algorithms for their indexing programs around these criteria.

It is called organic or natural SEO because a website that fits the search engine’s relevancy criteria should also be (in theory) valuable to the web user. If a website is a hit with the user, then it should naturally fall within the search engine’s criteria and appear higher in ranking. In other words, there is no exchange of money for placement in the results pages when using organic SEO.

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