Don’t know where to start building a social media presence? Don’t fret! Visible.net is here to help.

For package information and details, send an email to info@visible.net and a representative will contact you and help you determine what option will fit your site the best!

As you may have noticed, Google has recently had somewhat of a makeover. In an effort to continue Google’s legacy as the best and most efficient way to surf the web, many new Google tools have been introduced. Unfortunately some of Google’s previous experiments have gone by the wayside. Namely, Google Wonder Wheel. We understand that many of our clients utilize the wonder wheel to research post tags, blog post categories and more. Here at StoreBlogs we are working hard to find a reliable alternative to the wonder wheel and we will let all of you know when we find one. Thank you for your understanding and know that we are hard at work finding a reliable solution for you.

Thank you

During the months of January and February 2011 we performed numerous configurations and repairs to our blogging network servers, and database. During this period our bloggers experienced numerous server errors when attempting to access their business blogs. These configurations were necessary for the stability and continued growth of our blogging network.

Our Apologies

We would like to convey our most sincerest apologies to our network members, for any inconvenience that these errors may have caused your business. Please understand that we are working hard to ensure the continuous use of our blogging service, and to assist you with the growth of your online social presence.

Stay In The Loop

Want to be able to get real time network updates? Well now you can by following storeblogs on twitter. We will be posting regularly about newly added plugins, reported network bugs, blogging tips, and Social Media industry news.

We’re Still Growing

We have big plans for our network, along with the expansion of our premium and social media services. We’re still a new network with a lot of room for growth. These hurdles have only strengthened us, and provided us with the necessary knowledge, and experience to take this service to the next level. Look out for new features and tools to help you expand your business’s brand. We are always open to hearing about any suggestions or program recommendations. Please direct these correspondences to joshc@storeblogs.com.

-Happy Blogging

Storeblogs.com Team

On January 6, 2010 we will be performing database maintenance and performance optimization within our Blogging Network. This should resolve the long load times, and time out error that bloggers may be experiencing within Storeblogs.

How long will this take?

We will work diligently to get things back to normal as soon as possible. We hope to be completed with the network maintenance by 12am PST, however unforeseen events may occur that may extend the optimization period.

How does this affect you?

During this period you will not be able to add additional content to your blogs. We would also like to ask you to prevent from making any critical updates to your blog withing the above time frame, because they may not be saved.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this operation may cause you, however it is necessary to maintain the integrity of our network. Should you notice any changes to the appearance of your blog during this transitional period then please report them to joshc@visible.net.

-Storeblogs Team

Storeblogs has been live now for almost 2 years now. We are proud to be able to provide this blogging service to you for the period of time we have. We would also like to take a moment to thank all of our network bloggers for their patience, and understanding while we took this project of the ground. The growing pains we have endured have assisted us in establishing a dent on the internet that has given us acknowledgment from large firms, including major search giants. We would like to notify our network bloggers of the recent changes that have occurred, and are to come within our blogging community.

We Moved!

Through the period of October and November our network was suffering multiple periods of server down time and data base connection errors. The cause of these malfunctions can be credited towards the sheer amount of traffic that our network experienced during a short period of time. Due to these new requirements we were forced to search for a new hosing provider, that could provide us with the bandwidth needed to support the site. The file transfer was conducted on November 23, 2010 went through almost seamlessly considering that we were transferring over 6,000 blogs.

Lingering Bugs

Just like any move, belongings or files may have been misplaced. Please contact support@storeblogs.com to notify us of any unplanned changes that may have occurred on your StoreBlog during this period of time. We have found that a common bug our clients have been running into are image upload errors, while inserting images into blog posts. If you experience this error please contact joshc@storeblogs.com and specify the nature of the bug. We will correct all reported issues in the order that they are received. Premium Blog owners feel free to contact us at 1-888-820-5383.

New Blogging Tools

We are pleased to announce a new addition to our blog plugin library. The first is the XML Sitemap Feed. This program will automatically generate a XML Sitemap file for your blog to notify the major search engines with. The plugin will automatically assign URL priority levels based on your management of the site, along with a Google compliant robot.txt file. In the near future we will be unveiling new plugins that will assist you with leveraging the amount exposure of your business receives on the internet.

Questions/Bug Reports

With all of these dramatic changes that are occurring in our blogging network we would like to give you friendly reminder that we are here to assist you in your business venture, and that all criticism and suggestions do not fall on deaf ears. Should you have any suggested plugins, themes, or services that you would be interested in our network to offer, or any specific questions, then please contact us.

-Happy Blogging-

Storeblogs.com Team

As you construct and become more familiar with your blog, you may find yourself wondering how you can spruce up your blog’s appearance to create more visual interest for your readers. By adding a background image to your business blog, you can make it significantly more pleasing to the eye. In this blog post, I will show you how to add HTML code to one of your widgets that will allow you to change the background of your blog.

Acquire a Background Image

The first step that you need to take is to acquire the background image, and then decide what its size will be. I would recommend that you find an image that can be repeated (in a tile formation) so that it can appear as one big image. Once this image has been chosen, upload it to your Media Library, where you will be able to copy the file URL for the image. This action is very important, because if you choose not to upload the image to your Media Library, then it’s very possible that the image will appear as a broken link or even a box with an ‘x’ in it. You can access the file URL for that image by going to your Media Library and clicking on the image that you want to add. Once you have done so, the “Edit Media” screen will pop up and you will see File URL at the bottom of the page.

Configuring Your Text Widget

Next, set up your Text Widget by clicking on “Appearance” and navigating to your Widgets page. Drag the Text Widget to the bottom of your sidebar to the right, making sure that it appears as the last one on the list.

Adding the Text Widget to your sidebar will bring down a drop down menu for that widget. Notice that you have a spot for a title and also a big box for text or HTML. There is no need for a title, since the action that we are performing here is solely intended to change the background. Copy the following HTML code and paste it into the larger box in the Text Widget:

<body style=”background-repeat: no-repeat; background-image:url( ‘MEDIALIBRARYFILEURLHERE‘); background- attachment: fixed;”>

In the HTML code above, you will note the example phrase “MEDIALIBRARYFILEURLHERE” Delete that example phrase, but leave the quotation marks. You will want to paste the File URL that you copied from your Media Library between these remaining quotation marks. Click “Save” at the bottom of the Text Widget, and then check out your blog to see how it looks!

You can also alter the code a little bit by taking out the “no” in “no-repeat,” which will just make your image repeat itself. Be sure to let us know how it works out for you and to share your new blog backgrounds with us.

- Happy Blogging!

What is Twitter?
What do I Tweet?
How do I use Twitter?
Why am I not getting any followers?

In order to fully understand how to use Twitter for your business, we need to know one thing first. What is the purpose of Twitter?

The fact of the matter is, Twitter wasn’t really designed to promote products for businesses. If after reading that, your shoulders shrugged and you let out a big *sigh* I suggest you read my previous blog post Choosing a Social Network for your Business before going any further.

Twitter is not a channel to repost your own website content. There’s a very high probability that nobody on Twitter cares about your brand or business, but they do care about something. That something is you. Twitter is a communication tool to share information, start conversations and create groups of people all interested in the same brand, topic, industry or focal point, etc.

Twitter Profiles

The first step is setting up your profile and finding the happy middle ground between “personal” and “professional”. To successfully convert customers from Twitter we’re going to first have to earn their trust. What this really boils down to, is showing them you care about more than just your bank account. Don’t worry about getting followers, or finding people to follow just yet. Twitter sends a notification to the user whenever somebody new is following their tweets. When that happens, a user will usually review your Twitter profile and decide whether they’re going to follow you in return or not. A profile that’s following a lot of users with few followers and little or no tweets, looks really “spammy,” and its less likely gain you quality followers.

Before you start tweeting read through Twitter 101 for Business – A Special Guide. If you want to be a savvy Twitter user, you’re going to need to learn some of the relevant terminology.

Tweets

Now that you have your profile and some of the basics down, its time to start tweeting. Twitter asks “What’s Happening?” I get a lot of people asking me what to tweet. I don’t know what’s happening in your life right now so I can’t really answer that question; but I can give you examples of what some people are talking about.

Here’s a tweet from Visible.net!

We’re an eCommerce software and internet marketing company, so obviously we want to attract new clients. However, this tweet has nothing to do with gaining more clients. It provides our existing customers with information on some of our training courses to help them become more educated eCommerce business owners.

Here’s one from Matt Cutts (Google)

I don’t doubt that Matt Cutts has better things to do with his time than post this stuff on Twitter. Google’s Webmaster Help Center already talks about buying and selling links, so why did he tweet it? Because he knows that a lot of webmasters and website owners are following him, and he wants these people to be better informed about buying and selling links. In a nutshell, he cares. As a side note it is not good if Google finds out you’re buying or selling links.

Here’s what a re-tweet looks like

Following, and Followers

Find people to follow with the Twitter search by searching for those who are talking about your topic, brand or industry; but don’t just follow anybody. Review the users past tweets and ask yourself “If I was a potential customer, would I be interested in what this person has to say”. If you’re selling camping gear and you find a person who made only one tweet about camping and never talked about it again you don’t really need to follow them.
Also, don’t be afraid to follow your competitors; its a really good way to keep up on industry trends.

Tips, Tricks & Hints

So far you should have more than enough information to start tweeting. On a final note:

Thanks for reading and subscribe to our RSS Feed for all the latest news, tips and updates from StoreBlogs!

Everyone wants their blog to look as smooth as possible, so why not add a video to your sidebar?

When people visit your blog, they will be able to see your video advertisement at the top of the sidebar immediately as the page loads. Since the video is on your side bar, you wont need to hide it on your About Us page or somewhere in the back of your blog.

Changing the Size of Your Video!

First, you need to pick out a video that you want to work with. If you have a Spotlight or Premier Video from Visible.net, this video is an ideal choice. If you haven’t signed up for one, then you’re always welcome to check out Visible.net’s Video packages. Once you’ve chosen a video that you believe represents your blog or your website, locate it on any streaming video website like YouTube or Meta Cafe. Find and copy the embed code below the video window or at the end of the video, depending on where the service places it.

Once you have the embed code, login to your blog dashboard at StoreBlogs. Click on the ‘Appearance’ tab and click Widgets. Under your available widgets, you will want to click and drag the Text widget over to your sidebar. The Text Box should open up and you will be able to title it, and also allow you to add the embed code to the bigger box. Once you have added the embed code, it should look something like this:

<object width=”480″ height=”385″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/DiPITNqSVLY&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/DiPITNqSVLY&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”480″ height=”385″></embed></object>

By adding this code to your sidebar, you will be able actually play your video of choice on your blog instead of having just a link to the video. That said, you can’t simply add the code and call it a day. You still have to resize the video. There are two spots in the code that indicate where you can manipulate the size of the video. Only one area will change the size of the video, and you can find it toward the end of the code where you can find the terms “width” and “height” with accompanying numbers.

Most videos are displayed in a square shape, so you will want to make sure that the size parameters are as close as possible when they get resized. For example, let’s say the size of the video is 480 x 385. To ensure that it will fit in the side bar, I would advise bringing the size down to 170 x 150, which is pretty close to being a square. Once you have added this to the Text widget, you’re able to save it and check it out on your blog.

Good luck!

Hello all online store bloggers! If you own a starter StoreBlog, you may have noticed some added links to your business blog’s sidebar. These are related links to other blogs within our network. Links to your blog are now appearing in this links section through out our network of 5,700 plus business blogs!

To increase the relevancy of these links and your advertising on other blogs be sure to manage your blog tags correctly. We are still currently testing out this new feature, which may turn off and turn back on from time to time, while we work out the “bugs”. Should you see any changes to your blog’s side bar, please feel free to submit a help ticket through the support section of your blog dashboard.

If you own a Premium Blog, links to your blog will be distributed through out our network too, however you will not see any other advertising placed onto your blog unless you have placed it there yourself. Be sure to check out and comment on the other business blogs in our network. Who knows, you may obtain a new relationship and get your self a guest blogger.

Spring 2010 Blog Service Features

In the very near future,  we plan on expanding the current Starter Store Blog features, to include customizable headers. This will allow  you to upload custom banners to your blog’s header, on themes that support this option. Be sure to keep an eye on the “appearance” section of your blog dashboard to access this new feature.

Our Premium Business Blog services have also had several changes made over the last few months that you may or may not be aware of. Our Blog team is proud to implement the new Premium Blog training curriculum, which will feature a checklist that will monitor your progress with us. To get set up with a checklist, please schedule an appointment with one of the Blog Technicians by contacting 1-888-820-5383.

We currently have all the blog classes scheduled and posted on our training website. We are still adding dates for webinars for some of the classes, so please check the training website frequently for updates. These new blog classes are set up to follow the three phases of the premium blog training program:

The training website has also undergone a few structural changes to include instructions on how to set up your checklist, as well the categorization of the site. To access the new premium business blog classes, simply click on the “Premium Blog Clients” icon when at the Visible Training Classes website.

Our premium blogging services have also had some sweet new features added to it as well. We are going to have scheduled uploads of new themes that will allow for easy customization of headers, backgrounds, tables, and font colors for company branding. We also plan on adding 3 to 4 new plugins per month, so be sure to monitor the plugins section of your blog dashboard to insure that your using the newest plugins, that will enhance your readers and yours experience.

I would like to add that we  are always looking for ways to improve our services,  so any added feed back suggestions can be submitted through the help form or directly to joshc@storeblogs.com.

- Happy Blogging!

In the “Special Guide” Twitter breaks down their site into six sections explaining EVERYTHING you need to know about using this widely accepted social networking tool.

If you’re considering using Twitter to promote your business, products, services, blog, or all of the above, you need to read this guide!