Monik and Mihai have completed another great task - they translated the whole site to Romanian. Now people visiting the site from Romania will be able to use it for their advantage even if they don't know English. That's a great news!
Mihai, Monik, great work!
Monday, May 29, 2006
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Promote your language lessons 4. Blogging
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Blogs. These things are quite new on the internet - even a year ago very few people knew about them. And today (some people say) only lazy don't have their blogs. This is of course an exaggeration but still there is a grain of truth in it.
While going to forums is a fun way of promoting your lessons, blogging seems to be more effective. The reason behind it is because blogs can be easier found by the search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) and read by more people. An example of such a blog could be the InternetPolyglot blog, the page that you are reading at the moment.
So what does it mean for you? It means that you will need to register at a blog host and start writing blog-posts. As a blog host you can use blogger.com - the one that currently hosts this blog. Another example is http://wordpress.com - it all depends on your personal taste and preferences. Blogger is a bit better because it is owned by Google so the posts on it are getting to the Google's database faster.
What do you do after you get registered on a blog host? You start writing your blog. You try to write regularly, write as much as you want, write about any subject you want - it becomes kind of your diary. Of course it is more preferable if you write articles about language learning but it is quite hard to imagine too many posts about this subject from one person. So write about anything you want. You can also create multiple blogs - you can see in my profile that I also have a couple more blogs: j2eespot.blogspot.com - this is a blog where I write about technological stuff that I deal at work; repuplick.blogspot.com - it's basically about nothing, I just find the word repuplick funny :-) . So you can open as may blogs as you want and write about different subjects in them.
But don't forget about one thing: links.
All you blogposts should contain links to your lessons. You can place them in the middle of you post like this: Spanish-English lessons. Or you can put them at the bottom of each of you posts just as a signature. When you get more familiar with the blogging process you can even modify the template for your blog. As an example you can see that this blog has links to different language lessons on the right side-bar. I mean these links:
Blogs. These things are quite new on the internet - even a year ago very few people knew about them. And today (some people say) only lazy don't have their blogs. This is of course an exaggeration but still there is a grain of truth in it.
While going to forums is a fun way of promoting your lessons, blogging seems to be more effective. The reason behind it is because blogs can be easier found by the search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) and read by more people. An example of such a blog could be the InternetPolyglot blog, the page that you are reading at the moment.
So what does it mean for you? It means that you will need to register at a blog host and start writing blog-posts. As a blog host you can use blogger.com - the one that currently hosts this blog. Another example is http://wordpress.com - it all depends on your personal taste and preferences. Blogger is a bit better because it is owned by Google so the posts on it are getting to the Google's database faster.
What do you do after you get registered on a blog host? You start writing your blog. You try to write regularly, write as much as you want, write about any subject you want - it becomes kind of your diary. Of course it is more preferable if you write articles about language learning but it is quite hard to imagine too many posts about this subject from one person. So write about anything you want. You can also create multiple blogs - you can see in my profile that I also have a couple more blogs: j2eespot.blogspot.com - this is a blog where I write about technological stuff that I deal at work; repuplick.blogspot.com - it's basically about nothing, I just find the word repuplick funny :-) . So you can open as may blogs as you want and write about different subjects in them.
But don't forget about one thing: links.
All you blogposts should contain links to your lessons. You can place them in the middle of you post like this: Spanish-English lessons. Or you can put them at the bottom of each of you posts just as a signature. When you get more familiar with the blogging process you can even modify the template for your blog. As an example you can see that this blog has links to different language lessons on the right side-bar. I mean these links:
Your articles shouldn't necessarily be in English - you can write in any language you want.
Other good things you can get from blogging:
- You become a better writer. It also means that if you learn English and write in English regularly your English improves, you style improves. And what happens when you have a better English? That't right - you get a better job! Or you get a promotion! You become more educated person! You pass your GRE, TOEFL, IELTS exams easier! You can continue counting the educational advantages of writing endlessly.
- Writing makes your thoughts more organized.
- You can earn money by blogging! Do you already have your Google AdSense account, has you public key been put on your InternetPolyglot lessons? They have started bringing you some money already - so make your blog bring you more money! Simply modify your blog's template and include the AdSense code on it (Blogger.com helps you to do it even without manually adjusting the template) and your blog will become your additional financial source.
- You still don't have AdSense account because when you tried to apply for it they asked you about what is your web site and you don't have one? Now that you've opened your blog and wrote 5-6 articles you can go ahead and apply for AdSense account again - you'll receive it very quickly (remember Blogger is owned by Google?). After that - you know what to do with it, don't you? :-) Right - after that you send me your AdSense public key so that I place it on your lessons and you place it on you blog and watch you account filling with money. So you blog will help you to get the AsSense account.
- Interestingly, it can be fun too. Yes, just writing can be pleasurable.
Don't forget to do a couple of things when you decide to open your blog:
- After you create your blog - write an email to me and I will add a link to your blog on my blog. This way it will be visible to people and search engines earlier.
- After you have 5-6 posts register on blogexplosion.com - for that click on this button on the right sidebar of my blog:
- using it will help to drive more visitors on you blog and, therefore, to your lessons
I can't emphasize more the importance of blogging these days. Write regularly, about 250 words per post, preferably about learning of your language - and it will pay off very soon.
However, if you think that technical part of opening blog, modifying its template and so on is too dawnting for you and should prevent you from start writing articles - I will be willing to do it for you - you'll have to add me as a member of your blog and give me some privileges. When you are ready - just email me or IM me. Another possibility - I add you as a member of this blog and you start writing for it.
And don't forget: links, links, links! Remember to leave on the Internet as many links as you can. Links like that:
English-Spanish Lessons.
Promote your language lessons 3. Forums
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Another great way to place many links pointing to your lessons is active participation in forums. Let me give you an example of what I do. Go to this link: one of the posts of InternetPolyglot on Unilang - you can see my post on the Unilang forum and if you scroll down to the end of my post you will see the links pointing to the lessons on InternetPolyglot:
You can do same thing! You can register in Unilang forum and become an active participant in its topics - you can participate in translations, language discussions and so on. The more active you are the more links to you lessons you'll place on this forum. Don't forget though to set these links in your profile.
But Unilang is not the only forum that talks about languages. You can find on the internet many forums where you could participate. Again, for example if you are creator of Spanish lessons you can participate in the following forums:
There must be a word of caution though:
To beginning Previous Article Next Article
Another great way to place many links pointing to your lessons is active participation in forums. Let me give you an example of what I do. Go to this link: one of the posts of InternetPolyglot on Unilang - you can see my post on the Unilang forum and if you scroll down to the end of my post you will see the links pointing to the lessons on InternetPolyglot:
You can do same thing! You can register in Unilang forum and become an active participant in its topics - you can participate in translations, language discussions and so on. The more active you are the more links to you lessons you'll place on this forum. Don't forget though to set these links in your profile.
But Unilang is not the only forum that talks about languages. You can find on the internet many forums where you could participate. Again, for example if you are creator of Spanish lessons you can participate in the following forums:
- Forums in English that talk about learning Spanish
- Forums in Spanish that talk about learning English, French, Russian, any other language
There must be a word of caution though:
- Do not start blatantly advertising you lessons on the forums like this "Hey guys, look at these lessons - they are awesome!". Most forum moderators will kick you out of the forum without hesitation.
- Before you place the link to your lessons in your signature check if other people have links in their signatures. Simply look through several topics and see if other people have links in their signatures. If you see none it's better not try to be the first :-) you may well get kicked out by the moderator too.
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Saturday, May 06, 2006
Promote your language lessons 2. Friends and Family.
To beginning Previous Article Next Article
Frends and Family.
To my experiense this is not a very effective way of promoting our site. Why? It seems to me that the main reason is that people who are close to us are statistically not in the process of language learning. Even if they are, they maybe at the stage when word memorizing is not an activity that they would like to do. And this is perfectly OK.
However, it still makes sense to send an email to your friends inviting them to visit your lessons (don't forget to provide the link to you lessons so that they don't spend too much time trying to find them). Also ask them what would be their recommendation on how to improve the site, its appearance, what other games they would be interested in playing, and so on. And don't forget to write me about their feedback or write about on the forum (http://www.internetpolyglot.com/phpBB2/index.php)!
To beginning Previous Article Next Article
Frends and Family.
To my experiense this is not a very effective way of promoting our site. Why? It seems to me that the main reason is that people who are close to us are statistically not in the process of language learning. Even if they are, they maybe at the stage when word memorizing is not an activity that they would like to do. And this is perfectly OK.
However, it still makes sense to send an email to your friends inviting them to visit your lessons (don't forget to provide the link to you lessons so that they don't spend too much time trying to find them). Also ask them what would be their recommendation on how to improve the site, its appearance, what other games they would be interested in playing, and so on. And don't forget to write me about their feedback or write about on the forum (http://www.internetpolyglot.com/phpBB2/index.php)!
To beginning Previous Article Next Article
Promote your language lessons 1. Importance of Links. How to build links.
To beginning Previous Article Next Article
Links are very important.
Every link that is pointing to our site brings more people to it. This is how it works:
How to build links to your lessons.
Now let's talk about what the link to your lesson should look like. Let us say, for example, that your are the author of Spanish lessons. The code for Spanish is es and the links to your lessons will look like this:
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-en - Spanish-English lessons
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-fr - Spanish-French lessons
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-nl - Spanish-Dutch lessons
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-ru - Spanish-Russian lessons
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-ja - Spanish-Japanese lessons
and so on.
These are the important rules that you need to follow when you build a link to your lessons:
Albanian sq
Arabic ar
Belarusian be
Bulgarian bg
Catalan ca
Chinese zh
Croatian hr
Czech cs
Danish da
Dutch nl
English en
Estonian et
Finnish fi
French fr
German de
Greek el
Esperanto eo
Hebrew he
Hindi hi
Hungarian hu
Icelandic is
Indonesian id
Italian it
Japanese ja
Korean ko
Latin ln
Latvian lv
Lithuanian lt
Macedonian mk
Norwegian no
Polish pl
Portuguese pt
Romanian ro
Russian ru
Slovak sk
Slovenian sl
Spanish es
Swedish sv
Thai th
Turkish tr
Ukrainian uk
Vietnamese vi
To beginning Previous Article Next Article
Links are very important.
Every link that is pointing to our site brings more people to it. This is how it works:
- First, people are browsing internet, they are coming to a language website of a directory (see for example this page: http://www.hedir.com/education.html ) and they see a link pointing to InternetPolyglot and they like the description that comes with this link and they decide to click it. So they come to our site.
- Search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo - they also go to those sites and if they see a link pointing to InternetPolyglot they decide: aha! this site is something good since some other site is pointing to it. And then they (search engines) increase the rank of our site and move it closer to the beginning of the search results visible by other people. And the closer our site to the beginning of search results the more people come to our site. Ask yourself - when you search something on Google - how many pages you go through after getting the resutls? One, two, maximum three - so that is why it is so important to us to get as close to the beginning as possible.
How to build links to your lessons.
Now let's talk about what the link to your lesson should look like. Let us say, for example, that your are the author of Spanish lessons. The code for Spanish is es and the links to your lessons will look like this:
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-en - Spanish-English lessons
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-fr - Spanish-French lessons
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-nl - Spanish-Dutch lessons
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-ru - Spanish-Russian lessons
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-ja - Spanish-Japanese lessons
and so on.
These are the important rules that you need to follow when you build a link to your lessons:
- It should always start with http:// - this way search engines find it better and idex it better
- It should always contain www. - although you can type the address in the browser without it, it is again very important for search engines.
- Always check that the link points to the right location after you place it anywhere - click on it and see that it opens the right page
Albanian sq
Arabic ar
Belarusian be
Bulgarian bg
Catalan ca
Chinese zh
Croatian hr
Czech cs
Danish da
Dutch nl
English en
Estonian et
Finnish fi
French fr
German de
Greek el
Esperanto eo
Hebrew he
Hindi hi
Hungarian hu
Icelandic is
Indonesian id
Italian it
Japanese ja
Korean ko
Latin ln
Latvian lv
Lithuanian lt
Macedonian mk
Norwegian no
Polish pl
Portuguese pt
Romanian ro
Russian ru
Slovak sk
Slovenian sl
Spanish es
Swedish sv
Thai th
Turkish tr
Ukrainian uk
Vietnamese vi
To beginning Previous Article Next Article
Promote your language lessons. Introduction (What do I do with my lessons now?)
Content Next Article
My dear lesson creators!
All of you have done an incredible job in translating this long and sometimes boring iPolyglotDictionary.xml file, I have a good job too in loading these lessons into the database and now you are the author of virtually hundred of language lessons online. You have also gave me you Google AdSense public key and you lessons can get you some extra money.
Congratulations!
Emmm... you say... and what am I supposed to do with them now? Huh? Isn't what I have done going to be in vain? Are people using my lessons? How much money am I going to get from it?
The answer is yes - people use them and I can clearly see it in the site's statistics. And people do click on Google ads (my statistics show that from about 10 visits one of them clicks on an ad).
Another answer is - too few people are still know about this site, therefore too few people know about your lessons. And without people knowing about your lessons they will not be visited, used, played, no ad clicks.
People should know about your lessons. I am personally working day and night to make the site visible to the search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.). The latest new is getting a fabulous result in appearing on the first page on MSN search on some very competitive search keywords. Check it out: MSN search on "english spanish lessons". The amount of visitors grows month by month.
And you can help too. You can create a significant amount of visitors going to your lessons. How? This is the topic of this new series of blogposts in this blog. In this series I am going to share with you my experience on how to attract new people to our pages, give you advice on how to do it without too extensive effort.
Ready? Here we go!
Next Article
My dear lesson creators!
All of you have done an incredible job in translating this long and sometimes boring iPolyglotDictionary.xml file, I have a good job too in loading these lessons into the database and now you are the author of virtually hundred of language lessons online. You have also gave me you Google AdSense public key and you lessons can get you some extra money.
Congratulations!
Emmm... you say... and what am I supposed to do with them now? Huh? Isn't what I have done going to be in vain? Are people using my lessons? How much money am I going to get from it?
The answer is yes - people use them and I can clearly see it in the site's statistics. And people do click on Google ads (my statistics show that from about 10 visits one of them clicks on an ad).
Another answer is - too few people are still know about this site, therefore too few people know about your lessons. And without people knowing about your lessons they will not be visited, used, played, no ad clicks.
People should know about your lessons. I am personally working day and night to make the site visible to the search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.). The latest new is getting a fabulous result in appearing on the first page on MSN search on some very competitive search keywords. Check it out: MSN search on "english spanish lessons". The amount of visitors grows month by month.
And you can help too. You can create a significant amount of visitors going to your lessons. How? This is the topic of this new series of blogposts in this blog. In this series I am going to share with you my experience on how to attract new people to our pages, give you advice on how to do it without too extensive effort.
Ready? Here we go!
Next Article
Friday, May 05, 2006
Site translated to Spanish and Japanese
Albina has previously translated the entire site to Turkish, she is a co-author of Turkish and Spanish lessons and now she has translated the site to Spanish so all our Spanish-speaking friends will be able to use our site in their native language!
Let us exress our huge thanks to Albina and hope that she is going to continue her great participation in InternetPolyglot project. Please also visit her Turkish lessons - you will be able to better appreciate the language and culture of this country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey
And we have the site in Japanese too. This was done by a freelance translator. So please check it out in Japanese too.
Let us exress our huge thanks to Albina and hope that she is going to continue her great participation in InternetPolyglot project. Please also visit her Turkish lessons - you will be able to better appreciate the language and culture of this country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey
And we have the site in Japanese too. This was done by a freelance translator. So please check it out in Japanese too.
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