Let us be honest - search engine results are a dirty topic with Thanet's home-brew media. However, it is a subject that, much like sex, is better off out in the open. We are much less likely to get funny ideas that way.

In the first of what I hope will be a series of posts on the topic I want to address to address the subject of crafting content to get readers. This is simply done by writing some of your blog posts or site pages specifically with a single search phrase in mind. By picking a relatively highly used phrase with a low quality of results you can be sure to score well and get the attention of the people doing the searching.

Thanet has, on the whole, got some amazingly under populated niches with high levels of traffic. Traffic that would produce reasonably well paying AdSense prices (for those that run such adverts). It would not take an SEO genius to dominate the search results for any of the searches I have identified.

Each one has a high level of daily search traffic (people looking for these phrases) and a low level of relevant Thanet based results. In some cases there are more adverts than search results. Consider: kent England genealogy, DJ Equipment Kent, DJ Equipment Thanet, Thanet Real Estate, Rent Prices Thanet and Thanet Homes To Rent they are all ripe for the taking.

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» Continue Reading: Topics that guarantee new readers to Thanet blogs

Thanet's home-brew media is and has become a deeply divided place to be. It is subject to a worrying trend of verbal violence, threats, veiled spite and outright rudeness. So much so that people like Simon Moores have felt compelled to bow out of local blogging. What causes otherwise rational and pleasant people to suddenly become animistic, crude and abusive? How did this trend start in Thanet and what can we do to change it? In short, what is going on and why?

The answer lies in understanding the joint effects of anonymity and emergent crowd behaviour. This is a posh way of saying "how and why gangs do things". I am going to try to explain exactly what is going on underneath the surface and the best practices that have emerged to deal with this behaviour.

The short truth is that we are all guilty. There are, sadly further truths that you may find shocking - they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and in Thanet this has proven to be true. The key architects of the "attitude of hate" are the key voices of Thanet's home-brew media. Not because they have wished to create hate but nevertheless from the purest of intentions, albeit poorly informed ones, Thanet's home-brew heroes have allowed the fox into the chicken coup. The result is the only possible outcome when that happens - metaphorical bloodshed.

Read on to find out more about how Thanet is better off without a "blog war".

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» Continue Reading: Ending blog wars for all time

(What am I trying to achieve, why and how.)

Reading the comments at Big News Margate I see that Tony may have the idea that I'm only interested in ratings (Blogging Controversy rumbles on, comments). So perhaps I am guilty of giving this impression to people. After all I am only a human being and as such like everyone else I make mistakes sometimes.

I would like to create a successful blog (who would not?) and yes I do have to justify my time in terms of earnings as part of a greater whole. This is both the joy and the downside to working with oneself as the boss. But beyond these limits what am I trying to do?

I am trying, in my own small way, to make my hometown a better and nicer place to be. I am also trying not to loose too much money doing so. How am I am trying to do this and why I am now going to outline.

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» Continue Reading: What realy matters here

This is the Thanet Star and I am Matt B bringing you a round up of the headlines that evidently matter to you. What have the "home brew" media been saying of late? What is the hot topic? Find out now.

General Thanet News Zumiweb and the Balkan Belly Dancers invites you to visit the Belgian Cafe for a "...fusion of Belly Dance and Burlesque eccentricity..." For this story "Thanet Creative Arts Network" comes back to life. So the whole world is off to see the ladies then?

Meanwhile David Clare goes with a far more "safe for work" story of his own success taking photographs of Robins in "The Rewards of Patience or The Poser Robin". (Any one who has tried to photograph a small bird and get a good image knows that it's not easy.)

Bleak Mouse has the interesting title of "Hello...Yea..Can't talk now ...I'm on the Evolutionary Ladder".

Keep reading for coverage of Margate, Ramsgate, Politics and Mainstream News.

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» Continue Reading: Red Hot News: Thanet's Buzz Right Now!

Most modern site offer site feeds. For example blogspot blogs have them by default and most modern blog platforms do too. A site feed is an XML encoded file that carries the latest headlines and (optionally) the content of posts (full or tease).

You probably use feeds without realising it (according to a white paper from yahoo). In fact the white paper found that over a quarter of Internet users used syndicated (feed) content but that 12% of users were aware of RSS (the most common feed flavour) and that a mere 4% had knowingly used RSS. So if you have little or no idea what it is then you are not unusual as the majority of people are currently unaware of it.

People that own a PDA, a laptop or even some mobile phones will often use a feed reader to get the latest posts from their favourite blogs and news sites to read at lunch or while traveling to work. Offering a news feed allows you to extend the range of your readership. Something the local news sources seem to have failed to understand (whereas the nationals have all embraced this technology).

But it does not just stop there - other uses of feeds exist. The Thanet Blog List uses site feeds to create a summary feed of the local activity of Thanet blogging. Yahoo, Google and MSN allow users to put headlines on their customised "start pages".

Keep reading to find out the tools that are available (mostly for free) to consume (read) feeds and do other interesting things with them. If you blog or plan to then you can not afford to let yourself fall behind. Feeds are already becoming a vital part of the blogging landscape but they need not be a big deal.

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» Continue Reading: What is a feed and how do you use it.