Adsense blog tip and trick collection

Reasons To Avoid Writing Free Samples

2011-02-21T05:10:00.001-08:00

I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like a crow that's obsessed with picking up anything shiny when it comes to the free samples that people ask us content writers to provide to get the work that pays our bills. It's hard to discern between the people who will rip you off and take the sample and never return any of your subsequent emails, but I've found there are certain criteria that can be helpful when trying to separate the honest clients who just want to get a feel for your writing and the shysters who are out to take you for a ride.

First of all you need to be sure that you've got adequate contact information. It used to be an e-mail address was good enough so that you could start a business relationship but now you need to get some further point of contact like a telephone number, a snail mail address or even some kind of social media to look at like a Twitter or a Facebook page. The reasons for needing this much contact information are simple. It’s important that you can rest assured that you are dealing with a reputable company and on the Internet that means you’ll need to have several different points of contact.

Even then you want to be extremely careful when people start asking for free samples of your writing and one of the best ways to get around it is to have a comprehensive list of your past work on a website. Several times I’ve been asked to write samples and pointed perspective clients to my website where I've stored information away that highlights my experience and provides URLs and samples to my previous work.

One of the rules that I like to use is the fact that if you’ve been around for a while in the writing game and have a portfolio of your work there’s really no reason to provide anything for free. If you’re a proven writer with a background you should get paid for what you do even if you make a promise to rewrite according to your client's specifications for free so you can get on the same page.

There are several other things that you want to look out for when you’re writing for a living on the Internet and they include the promises that go along with free samples. Usually I found that companies who promise you a lot of work without being clear about payment methods can be the ones that you need to watch out for in the end. Sometimes the people who promise you the world aren't necessarily dishonest but they've just oversold the amount of work that they think they’ll be able to get.

Finally, I just like to remember that there’s never a contract with any freelance writing that I do on the Internet so there’s never any reason not to pay me for my time and effort because clients can let me go just as quickly as they hire me if they don’t find my writing is up to the standards they set. For me there’s no reason to give out any kind of free samples.

How To Make A Blog

2010-05-31T19:30:00.000-07:00

How To Make A Blog And Adsense
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Backlinks from Every Tweet

2010-02-26T21:00:00.000-08:00

Get Backlinks from Every Tweet
I was looking at where my blog traffic comes from and I’ve noticed something interesting. Google is not the top referrer to my blog. My top referrer is actually Flickr which would make sense because, with my Photo-A-Day project, I post to Flickr every single day. With each uploaded photo I add a link from Flickr to my blog. That is something I do manually and it can take some time on my part, not a lot of time but some time.

What if you could get tons of backlinks doing something you do many times a day anyway?

I’m talking about TweetBrand. This free download that runs on Adobe Air allows you to determine the “via” link under your tweet. Look at your standard twitter programs like TweetDeck, HootSuite, Tweetie and Seesmic. Each one of those programs includes a link back to itself each time you use the service. So you are driving more traffic to these programs each time you tweet rather than driving traffic to your blog.

With TweetBrand you can determine not only the url that you want to link to, but you can define the keywords to drive traffic back to your blog with each and every tweet. For example, I set up my TweetBrand to link to BenSpark.com and I’ve branded it BenSpark’s Photo-A-Day. I’m certainly not an SEO expert and I’m sure I could have named it better, but the fact remains that the tweets are branded as I determine, not as those services brand your tweets.

I usually have both TweetDeck and TweetBrand open. I look for tweets to interact with on TweetDeck and then write out my response tweets and send them through TweetBrand. Is it elegant, no not at all, but it is worth that one little step to get more links for my blog.

your website on Google's first page

2010-02-26T20:59:00.001-08:00

No catch: your website on Google's first page
Some people don't believe it: we can guarantee that your website will be found in the regular (unpaid) top 10 results on Google for the keywords of your choice. It is true and it can be done with IBP.

How can we guarantee top 10 rankings on Google and what's the catch?

Many people will tell you that it is not possible to guarantee top 10 rankings on Google. That is correct. No one can guarantee top 10 rankings except for Google's engineers.

However, our tool IBP has a success rate of more than 98% and we will give you your money back if you belong to the very few people who don't get top 10 rankings on Google with IBP.

How does it work in detail?

1. You choose the keyword and the search engine

You tell IBP for which keyword you want to get a top 10 position and you choose the search engine on which you want to have a top 10 position. This can be Google.com, Google.co.uk, many other local Google variations as well as Yahoo, Bing, their local variations and many other search engines.

2. IBP analyzes your web page

IBP's Top 10 Optimizer will then analyze all the relevant ranking elements on your web page as well as the links to your website and calculate a ranking score based on that information. The higher the ranking score, the more likely it is that your website will be listed on Google's first result page.

3. IBP tells you in detail what you have to change

If your website does not have a 100% score, IBP will tell you in plain English what exactly you have to do to improve your web page and the links to your site. The advice will be tailored to your website, the chosen search engine and the chosen keyword and IBP will tell you in detail what you have to change and how you have to change it.

4. You make the changes on your web page

In the last step, you change your web page according to the suggestions of IBP's Top 10 Optimizer until there are no further suggestions (IBP's Top 10 Optimizer gives your site a 100% rating).

That's it. No catch, no fine print. If you follow the advice of IBP's Top 10 Optimizer then your website will be listed on Google's first result page.

A real top 10 ranking guarantee should be for the keywords of your choice and it should be for the regular, unpaid search results. That's the guarantee that you get with IBP.

what's wrong with blogging

2010-02-26T20:58:00.001-08:00

Back in 2005 I asked my readers a question that surprised some for a blog like ProBlogger – I asked readers to talk about what was wrong with blogging.

I introduced the question by sharing a story of a debate between a Christian group and Pagan group where each group was asked to not argue FOR their own belief system but to share what they disliked about their own Faith perspective. The result of that debate was fascinating.

Instead of it ending in an angry fight where everyone just had their beliefs reinforced the debate was actually quite constructive with both groups coming away having learnt something about the other and more importantly themselves.

Similarly the responses to my question about blogging were insightful also (in fact I’ve asked this question twice previously – in 2005 and in 2006 and both times were fascinating).

There were a couple of things that came out of those discussions:

it was a place for some bloggers to get some stuff off their chest about their frustrations with the medium.
the answers actually gave a number of blog tool developers some great ideas. I know that at least two WordPress plugins were developed to solve issues that came up in the conversation.
It’s been 4 years since I asked the question last – so in the hope of a productive conversation I thought it worth asking again.

What’s Wrong with Blogging?
What are the limitations of blogging as a medium? What are its weaknesses? Where does the blogosphere and/or blogging tools need to improve? What are you main challenges as a blogger that you don’t think you’d have in other mediums?

Hopefully in answering this question and deconstructing the medium of blogging a little we can play a part in the improvement of blogging as a whole. By identifying what's wrong perhaps we can improve it.

Like last time the rules are simple – say anything you like about blogging as long as it's not positive (note: I'm not inviting you to critique individual bloggers – but the medium itself). You can do this in comments below or by writing a post on your own blog (just leave a link below so we can find it). There are no wrongs and rights and everyone's critique of the medium are valid and welcome.

So – what's wrong with blogging?

Most people start a new project

2010-02-26T20:56:00.000-08:00

You’ve started off with a bang, your sizzle has turned to fizzle–what do you do? You get motivated!

Most people start a new project on cloud nine and spend as much time as possible working on the new project, but soon the new-ness and glory begin to fade causing you to lose hope perhaps–it’s just not as fun or as appealing as it once was. It doesn’t mean you’ve lost your passion–it just means you need to get pumped up again.

It doesn’t matter what kind of project or work you’re doing–it can be freelance writing, fiction writing, blogging, building an online business, playing piano, learning chess–it can be anything. Eventually you will have times that you just aren’t as motivated as you were in the beginning.

What do you do? You get motivated!

Zig Ziglar said, "People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily."

Some people have the ability to stay motivated longer than others–some of us need it on a regular basis. I personally can attest to the fact that if I go very long without “plugging in” to a motivational speaker–I lose my drive for success. I don’t lose the desire, just the drive.

If you’re familiar with Network Marketing you know that the majority of those people plug in to training and motivational speakers–it helps them become successful and stay on top of their game. But network marketers aren’t the only people who can benefit from business training or listening to those motivational speakers. You simply apply it to your specific needs.

One of the great things about tapping into this information is the fact you can get a ton of the material on audio–either on CDs, audio books, or podcasts. So if you don’t have time to read all the great material out there–you can listen to it while you work, drive or relax.

My two favorites are Zig Ziglar and Dani Johnson, but there are many others to choose from; Brian Tracy, Tony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, Napolean Hill, Wayne Dyer, Bob Proctor–much of their material is available as audio books or podcasts. Do some research and listen to a few to decide who you like the best–not everyone is drawn to the same voice or style of speaking–just keep looking until you find one that motivates you and plug in to them as often as possible or as often as necessary.

Using motivational “therapy” will help your business grow, help you get more work done and you’ll also notice personal changes taking place too. So, if you feel less inspired and motivated than you did in the beginning of your venture–Get Motivated!

Begin With the End in Mind

2009-11-14T05:36:00.001-08:00

It also boasts a host of extra features:

Choose what font the header, sidebar and body uses.
The ability to set the search box on the left, the right or remove(so that it can be added to the sidebar).
You can add a bio and upload a picture of yourself in the admin area to be displayed in the sidebar.
Choose whether the sidebar is displayed on the left or right.
You can set which social media icons are displayed on the sidebar.
You can determine whether full posts are used or excerpts and how many posts are displayed via title only.
Choose whether the subscription area at the top of the site is displayed or not.
Add additional code to your header and footer directly via the options area. This is handy for adding trackers such as Google Analytics.
Exclude pages from the top navigation menu.
The theme is complete though it won’t be released for another week or so. Why the delay you ask? Well, we are adding more functionality to the theme.

More colours to choose from: In addition to the existing blue, black and white and red designs, we are developing another 7 colour schemes. This will bring the total number of colour themes to choose from to 10.
2 sidebars: At the moment you can choose whether the sidebar goes on the left or the right. However, many people mentioned that they would like the option of having 2 sidebars, so that is exactly what we are developing. Once it’s released you will be able to choose whether you have one sidebar on the left or right, or whether you have 2 sidebars. If you choose to have 2 sidebars you will be able to put two on the left, two on the right, or one on the left and one on the right. All sidebars will be widget ready.
It’s impossible to please everyone but I think that we have developed a WordPress theme which is incredibly versatile and perfect for personal bloggers. Beginners will be able to get their blog the way they want using the admin area though designers should be able to edit the theme to suit their needs too.

If you are looking for a good design for your personal blog then be sure to check out BloggingTips over the next few weeks for the announcement.

Tips for Success: Begin With the End in Mind
Posted: 13 Nov 2009 03:10 PM PST

In my last post, Are You Limiting Your Success, I covered things that may be keeping you from the success you desire. It’s only fitting that I now offer you some tips on reaching your success. But please remember, success does not happen overnight and it’s generally a work in progress. You will have areas that you’re weak in and need to work harder on. But time and persistence pay off.

Define your goals and visualize the end result. Successful people focus on the goal, not the process. They also commit their goals in writing and read them daily. Goal setting is the beginning of a new reality.

Think more positive and avoid the news. The news is the most depressing thing in the world—avoid it! Trust me, if the world comes to an end, someone will tell you about it.

Create a positive environment by putting positive information in your head. It’s essential to success. Successful people are not negative or depressed, they spend part of their free time reading and listening to motivational material.

Change your thinking. Motivational material will also help in this area. They say that fifty to sixty thousand thoughts go through the mind each day. Ninety five percent of those are related to the past. The past not only holds us back, it prevents us from focusing on the future. If you must think about the past, at least think about happy times and remember how good you felt.

Focus on the future. I guess the other tips have been leading up to this, but it’s important to state. This can be very difficult if you’re new at it. But doing so is the first step to change and growth.

Mark Yarnell says, “Successful people always concentrate on the end result, while others get stuck focusing on the process, the “how.”

Use affirmations. This can be a difficult process in the beginning too, especially if you’ve been a negative thinker all your life. It takes persistence but it can be done. Start with something small and gradually build on it.

As you do this you will start to notice changes in yourself and it will become easier. It’s almost like shedding old skin and replacing it with new skin. I’ve witnessed this in my personal experiences. I do fall backwards at times but the adage of “fake it til you make it,” does ring true.

Avoid depressing situations and depressed, negative people. Nothing is more draining or can keep you from success like negative people. Moods are contagious, especially bad or unpleasant moods so avoid them like the plague.

This is just a small sampling of tips for success, but it truly does begin in the mind with positive thinking.

Do you have any tips you’d like to share?

Bring All of Your Social Profiles Together with SocialMix.me
Posted: 13 Nov 2009 06:00 AM PST

SocialMix.me is another site that displays all of your social profiles in one place. FYI, if you do decide to register, the confirmation email comes from an “unknown sender” and will more than likely be sent to your spam folder. When you first login, your page will be empty so you’ll need to add your “info” and “networks” to it.

Info
This is where you enter basic things like job title, home page, phone numbers, city, state, and add a picture. You can also choose whether or not to include your profile in search results.

Time Management today

2009-11-07T05:31:00.000-08:00

I didn’t plan to write about Time Management today, but I do want to discuss something that struck my interest today. I often have too many topics that I want to cover (which in itself, is a form of writer’s block). As I was researching, trying to narrow it down, I ran across something I found interesting. So, I’ve scratched my topic list and decided to go with this spontaneous post.

The tips I’ve just ran across follow the subject of writer’s block—how ironic. Most of the tips are pretty generic: Find a quiet spot to write, divide up the work into manageable tasks, just write, etc.

The one that did catch my attention (it was also generic, but it was attention grabbing) was about setting time aside to write. It suggests to not use open-ended time. This really struck me because I’m guilty of it on most days. It went on to say that Parkinson’s Law states, “work will expand to fill the time available.”

WHOA! I wasn’t aware of this law—but I do know it’s absolutely true—just like the law of gravity. Okay, maybe it isn’t as scientific, but it makes perfect sense. As we don’t, time doesn’t expand—but work does and can. So maybe it is a bit scientific?

It reminded me of Jonathan’s recent post How a Timer Can Help Your Productivity. I’ve been using his method for NaNoWriMo, but didn’t think to use it for work related writing too much—not as much as I should anyway.

After reading about Parkinson’s Law, I think this is something that should be put in to place every day, for everything I write. I do tend to get more work done in a 20 or 30 minute sprint than I do just sitting here trying to write open-ended.

The law basically breaks down to say if set a three hour time limit for work, projects or tasks, it’ll take three hours to complete. If you were to set it for a two hour limit, you’d get the same amount of work done but in less time, saving yourself an hour.

To tie this all together:
Set your work hours.
Use a timer for short sprints.
Get your work done in the allotted work hours.
Enjoy your free time!

Misleading Visitors To Generate Affiliate Sales

2009-07-26T21:38:00.000-07:00

I have read many affiliate marketers say that it doesn’t matter how you convince a web visitor into a buying a product, all that matters is that you generated a sale. I can agree with this on some levels.

For example, one of the most common ways of making money through sites like Amazon is to create a store front and give visitors the impression that they are actually buying the product from you and not Amazon. I would consider this a white lie in some respects as you are helping the visitor find the product they were going to buy anyway.

However, there are lots of other more deceitful ways of making money through affiliate marketing (I won’t go into them in this post). This is something which I was never really comfortable with, which is why I will probably never make a lot of money from affiliate marketing.

I don’t have anything against people who do use more black hat techniques to generate affiliate sales but I don’t think these methods should be used on a blog. A large part of building a successful blog is building trust therefore it’s counter productive to mislead your visitors in order to generate some affiliate commissions. You might make a few quick sales in the short term long term, your integrity will definately come into question.

Trust, influence and integrity are attributes which mean nothing in the affiliate marketing world but in the blogging world they are essential to long term success.

Therefore I think it’s important not to cheat visitors in any way (I have to put my hand up and admit that I don’t always give full disclosure and tell visitors when I use an affiliate link when I link to a website or service because it is so common that I just assume the reader knows that it may be the case, I have disclosed it in many articles in the past though).

The Video Image
Recently, I have come across a technique to get people to click on a link which I think misleads visitors. It is when a blogger displays an image which looks like a video in order to encourage visitors to click on the link.

This seems to be a pretty common technique for marketing blog coaching programs. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Yaro Staraks Become a Blogger course is the one I would recommend most beginners sign up to. However, many of the bloggers who were recommending the course were using this video image trick to direct traffic to the course.

Once visitors clicked on the image a video did not start, instead they clicked on the bloggers affiliate link and were taken to the sales page for the course. Admittedly, I fell for this myself the first time I saw this used and I was a bit annoyed by it. I consider it to be very misleading to suggest to readers that they will see a video if they click on an image and then redirect them to the sales page of the service (via an affiliate referral link).

No doubt these bloggers made some great sales using this technique however it doesn’t sit right with me. I am not trying to be all high and mighty about this, I just don’t like being misled in this way and I have no doubt that others share the same view.

Would you use this technique to encourage visitors to visit the site you are recommending?

Kevin

p.s. Just to clarify, I am not suggesting that anyone who has used this technique is untrustworthy or is intentionally trying to cheat their visitors, I just think that it is very misleading.

Source : bloggingtips.com

Why You Should Track Your Content

2009-07-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

On my main site, Plagiarism Today, I talk a great deal about finding people who are misusing your content and how to stop them. However, not everyone is interested in stopping plagiarists or scrapers, many don’t care if their content is used, no matter the capacity. Other still take a more centrist approach and use Creative Commons Licenses to encourage at least some forms of distribution.

However, Even if you never intend to stop a single infringer, tracking your content, understanding how it is being used and following it as it circulates the Web is extremely important.

The reason is pretty simple, on a Web where anything can be copied, with or without permission, one’s audience is no longer limited to their own site. Rather, one’s audience is wherever their content is and that can be on the four corners of the Web.

If you want to fully understand and take advantage of the impact you have on the Web, as big or as small as it may be, you need to be where your work is, not just where you put it.

It’s Your Audience
The Web of today is significantly more crowded than the one that existed just a few years ago. Not only are there infinitely more sites, but there are more opportunities for works to be copied, shared, cited and commented on. Sometimes this reuse is legal, sometimes it isn’t, but it takes place.

This means a lot of great things for authors. For example, their readership goes beyond, often many times beyond, what is on their own site. For every pair of eyeballs that counts as a “visitor”, there may be two or three that see the same work elsewhere. This can increase exposure and increase one’s reach many fold.

However, it also fragments the conversation. The author, who often isn’t even identified when the content is reused, sees only a tiny sliver of the feedback and commentary on their work, This limits their ability to enjoy praise, learn from mistakes or otherwise grow.

The conversation isn’t just happening via email or one’s own comment form. It’s not just happening at Digg, Reddit and other social news sites. It’s happening on forums that copy and paste works, on aggregators that other blogs. Every use of one’s content, infringing or not, is both an opportunity and a problem.

However, that problem can be mitigated if the author expects this kind of reuse and plans for it. If the author can be where his or her content is, not just where it should be, then they can partake in the full conversations, measure their audience more closely and, if needed, deal with infringements.

Furthermore, following your content lets you see which works are reused the most often, letting you know which are viewed as the best. It lets you better see the types of people interested in your work and lets you see how those with differing opinions read into what you say.

It is your content and it is your audience, it makes sense to track it and understand it.

Tracking Your Work
Back in February, Billy Mabray wrote here about a service known as FairShare, which is one I’ve also touted heavily on my site. For bloggers, there is little doubt that it is the best tool they can use, especially for free.

FairShare works by taking your RSS feed and producing another for you to subscribe to. It will then scan the Web looking for your content and place any matches it finds int the new feed, complete with information about how much content is being reused and if the site is complying with your CC license.

FairShare is a powerful tool that uses the same matching technology as Attributor, which is a system used widely by large news publications, including the Associated Press, as well as book publishers. However, FairShare does not provide of the resolution assistance and case management of Attributor, just the matching.

On that note though, if you’re a blogger who wants to track their work, it’s a free and easy to use service that can do just that.

If you work primarily with static content, such as literature, you may be better off using Google Alerts. Google Alerts lets you create a search, in this case a quote from your content, and then be emailed or have an RSS feed updated when new sites appear with that term. Many use it for vanity searches but it is also very powerful, and very easy to use, for non-RSS based content.

Bottom Line
Your audience is no longer defined by the number of visitors you receive at your site. Your audience is where your content is, wherever that may be.

If you haven’t bothered to track your content before, it might be worth taking at least a quick look, perhaps by just running a phrase or two from one of your works through Google to start. You may find that there is a whole world of people out there who have read your work, commented on it and even been moved by it, but you’ve never met.

Until you understand where your content is, you can never understand your impact or your reach. Looking is the first step, deciding what you want to do with whatever you find is the second.

So if you haven’t, take a look today. It only takes a moment.

Disclosure: I have consulted for Attributor.

Source : bloggingtips.com

Whose Face Are You In Today

2009-07-26T21:35:00.000-07:00

Blogging for Results: Whose Face Are You In Today?
Why You Should Track Your Content
Misleading Visitors To Generate Affiliate Sales

If you happen to have a teenager, then you know how this feels: you have something important to share, you want to teach, and your intentions are pure and loving.

Even if you come off sounding like a self-righteous politician who's just been caught with their knickers down. Because you know you're right.

And still, the fruit of your loins looks back at you – or more likely, not – like they'd rather be having a root canal.

Your kid can't click off. But your blog reader can.

Know your audience is a cliché, and like most clichés it reached that status for a reason – it's an eternal truth. But if you put a small spin on it you get a valuable tool as you write your next blog…

… Visualize your audience.
That's right, actually picture them sitting in front of a monitor reading your stuff. Or better, sitting right in front of you on the verge of rolling their eyes. Feel free to put them into a box, to stereotype them, and see how this might influence your tone and approach.

The rocket science of blogging preaches to clarify your message, to focus on problem solving, and to keep your agenda in the background. It's all about the reader, not about you and what you're selling. Fair enough.

But not all readers are alike, and you have one chance to make an impression. Use your impression of them to make it count.

Understand the demographic differences.
All blogs are selling something. It might be a specific solution or product, it might simply be advice or some slice of philosophical insight. A point of view (which makes it an editorial, which is fine, it's your blog). Whatever.

The trick is to optimize your message, the pitch, for the reader. Or if you're visualizing, for the listener. This subtle difference can make you a better blogger.

Because if you can get them leaning forward in their seat, you win. If you picture their eyes fogging – just like yours fog when someone is pitching you – you've lost them.

Readers of philosophical rhetoric respond best to a different writing voice than consumers of pop music and beer. Parents comprehend differently than students. Retirees tune in to different frequencies than swinging singles.

Write your blog on their contextual frequency, not yours, and they'll stay tuned.

Speak their language.
Great blogs know what they are and what they're driving toward. Great blogs also know the difference between their target reader and other demographic groups.

It's a tone thing. A function of language. Your tools are slang, sentence fragments and pacing. The transformation of narrative into a one-sided dialogue whose only response is an agreeable nod.

Something that makes the reader think, hey, this writer gets me.

If you can picture them reading, you can imagine them talking back. Echo that dialogue in your blogging voice and you'll remain on their wavelength.

And if you need to use words like dude or verisimilitude to do it, all the better.

Isolate their need.
As a blogger you need to be quick. To get right to the point. Because your readers are scanning. Give their scanner something to latch onto.

The best hook isn't your solution, it's their need. Show them you get it. Empathize. Be one of them. Then unveil options, one of which is what you're promoting, however cleverly – a product, an attitude, a change, a world view.

So go ahead, get in their face. Just know that they're looking back at you. Which demands that you answer the question, what face are you wearing today?

If they see themselves in you, you're golden.

How To Blog On A Very Small Budget

2009-01-22T17:04:00.000-08:00

In the first part of this mini-series, I introduced the concept of saving money while blogging. As many of you will understand, there are running costs associated with running a blog: domain names and hosting costs are among the primary expenses we need to account for as bloggers. Furthermore, marketing and effective advertising can cost a small fortune if not performed effectively.

Following on from last week’s article, this week I will offer suggestions on reducing the costs of hosting and bandwidth by finding free (or very low cost) hosting for images and scripts you may need to use for your blog.

Overview
Optimization Week reported in 2006 that the average file size of a web page is 130kb. Of this average, only 25kb consisted of HTML code the remaining 105kb was generated by images, flash, video and scripts (and this does not include CSS background images!).

If you blog using Wordpress or another self-hosted blogging service, most of your image, script, flash and video files will be hosted on your hosting account, using hosting space and bandwidth which could be costing disproportionate amounts of your income every month.

Even if you host your blog on Blogger, you may still need access to images (for your template) or scripts which require external hosting since Blogger does not support file upload (except for images and video uploaded to your posts).

In this article, I’ll explain how to reduce the file size of your images and scripts to help save on your bandwidth and hosting costs, and also how to source reliable free hosting for these files (which is particularly useful for those using Blogger).

Reducing the file size of your images
Wherever possible, try to use images in the JPEG format at the lowest quality, and only upload the image size required.

For example, if you have a 1200px by 900px image which will display in your post at 400px wide by 300px tall, edit this image in your favorite image editor and choose the option to “Save for the web” (if this is featured in your software) to save this at the correct size as a low quality JPG.

This will save a great deal of file size, resulting in reduced impact of your hosting space and also lessening the impact of bandwidth on your server each time your page is loaded.

GIF and PNG image file types are of significantly higher file size though the quality may be much better. It’s best to only use these file types where you really need a quality image. When designing your blog template (or using one provided by a thirs party), do experiment with the quality of image types before uploading. Where a PNG file is provided, you may well discover a low quality JPEG will suffice, saving you a lot of bandwidth as CSS background images will be present in every page of your template.

Finding free, reliable hosting for your images
If you use many images in your posts, or are seeking a reliable host with whom to store your CSS background images, there is a wide variety of sites you could use.

Many have limitations on how much you can store and (more importantly) how much bandwidth you are allocated. Photobucket, for example, is a favorite site for hosting images, but when the bandwidth is exceeded, you will notice an ugly sign explaining this in place of any images you need to use.

Here are a few of the sites I have used to supply reliable free hosting for images used for my own blogs:

Flickr
Hotlinking to images on Flickr is indeed a grey area. While there is nothing in the Terms of Service to suggest it is disallowed, and no prevention of hotlinking, many assume you are not allowed or at least frown upon this practice.

If you would like to use Flickr as an “image host” for your blog, I would suggest you adhere to the following conditions:

Only use your own images: in doing this, you are not affecting anyone else’s account and using your own account for your own requirements.
Do not EVER upload copyright protected content: this goes without saying! Besides illegal infringement of copyright, this practise could also cause your account to be disabled and is downright rude!
Always provide a link back to Flickr, preferably by linking your image back to it’s page on Flickr. This is suggested as good practise where this issue is discussed in the Flickr forums, and also offers your visitors a guide to where they can see other images hosted on your account.
Picasa
If you use Blogger to publish your blog, you may be aware that any images you upload to your posts are hosted on Picasa. Indeed, anyone with a free Google account can also make use of a free Picasa account, of which Picasa Web Albums is particularly useful.

Picasa Web Albums offers 3GB of free image hosting with (seemingly) no limitations on bandwidth. Uploading new images to your Picasa Web Albums is easy: simply log in using your Google Account details and follow the on screen prompts to upload up to 5 images at a time using the web upload service. Alternatively you can upload using free Picasa software and organize your photos online.

To “hotlink” to images held in your Picasa account, you will need to ensure the album in which they are hosted is made “Public” (otherwise you will receive error notices that the images cannot be accessed). While this ensures that others can access these images, the same can also be said of almost every other image hosting service, so be sure that no private images are hosted in the same account.

ImageShack

Using ImageShack allows you to upload any number of images and media files (including PDFs) so long as the file size is under 3mb per file. Bandwidth is only limited to 300mb of trandfer per hour which is usually sufficient for most blogs, particularly if you use linked thumbnails rather than extensive series’ of large files.

Saving money with scripts and applications
Hosting JavaScripts (and other applications) has always been an issue for me. Those familiar with my main blog will understand that I offer Blogger widgets for other Blogger users at the expense of my own hosting. I quickly discovered that most reliable hosting services can become overwhelmed or can cost far more than expected, and have been sourcing out alternative hosting solutions ever since!

JavaScripts and other web applications can be among the most expensive (and bandwidth consuming) file types to consider, particularly if you offer use of your scripts to your readers (as I’m sure Dan Zarella, author of the Tweetbacks script, has come to understand!).

If you are using Blogger, or are simply trying to reduce the impact of acripts sun from your server, there are several resources you should check out for free and reliable hosting of scripts and web applications:

JavaScript Libraries
Many popular scripts are available from JavaScript libraries who permit “hotlinking” to the core files. Linking to scripts hosted on Yahoo! or Google Code can save bandwidth and the costs of hosting these libraries on your own servers:

Yahoo! User Interface Library: here you can find a whole host of scripts and applications to use for your blog. To get the appropriate code for linking to the scripts you require, visit this page. Alternatively you may like to see examples of scripts in action and build your own applications around them using scripts hosted on Yahoo! servers.
Google Code: Google hosts over a hundred projects and thousands of open source projects which you can link to. Simply visit the site and search for keywords of the application you are interested in using. In particular, the Google Ajax API and Web Toolkit are particularly useful.
Free hosting for your own scripts and applications
If you have developed your own scripts for use in your blog (or for others to download/use), I strongly recommend making your project open source and uploading this to Google Code’s Project Hosting. As a developer, you can upload up to 10 projects for free (and each project may have multiple files). You can create your developer account after signing in using your Google Account details and (at the time of writing) there are no costs involved.

When you use Google Code’s hosting for developing your project, you can specify the type of “copyleft” license you want to use, such as Creative Commons or GNU. However, you should be aware that anyone can view, download and access your project files.

Google Apps Engine
I’ve only recently taken interest in the Google App Engine which promises to be a useful and reliable way for web developers to test and run their own web applications.

Currently the App Engine allows you to write your applications in Python 2.5 and is limited to the free account status. You can choose to link your applications to your own domain name or use the free URLs provided by Google for your project.

As yet I have no experience to offer advice or comment on this beta release of the App Engine, though I suspect this will prove wholly useful to experienced web developers looking for a budget (it’s currently free to use!) scalable solution for their applications.

Combine and compress your JavaScript files
If you use more than one JavaScript for your blog or project and need to host your scripts on your own servers, you should consider combining these in a single file. This can result in a smaller combined file size than the two separate scripts.

Also, you should compress the size of your script files as much as possible, eliminating unnecessary line breaks and spaces wherever possible to minimize the size. Milonic and ShrinkSafe offer online tools to achieve this for you quickly and simply.

Not only do these methods result in less demand on your hosting and bandwidth, they can also result in faster loading pages - a bonus for you and readers of your blog!

Prevent unwanted hotlinking to your images and scripts
A simple and rather unpleasant fact about publishing online is that others will steal your bandwidth by linking to your images and scripts in their own web pages. Even if you specifically state on your blog that hotlinking is not permitted by means of a blazing great notice in your header, your files will still be hotlinked by unscrupulous bandwidth theives.

Most frequently this happens because of scrapers: those who steal your blog content to republish in their own sites. But it can also happen when people attempt to copy your site’s design (linking to your CSS and image files) or use your scripts to accomplish similar functions to those you are using.

Yes, it is theft and often invasion of copyright, and you could spend inordinate amounts of time trying to track down the culprits. However, a far better method is to limit the sites which can access your files.

The most common form of preventing hotlinking is by using .htaccess. This method can block requests for content from different sites (ie: sites which are not owned or operated by yourself) or can be used to serve other content (such as a message about stealing bandwidth!).

I’m certainly no expert on using .htaccess to block external access to files as I’ve only had to do this once. Instead, I’ll direct you to this excellent guide to .htaccess by JavaScript Kit which explains the basics and a sample application to prevent hotlinking to image files. You may also be interested to read this article by Jotsheet which explains how to prevent hotlinking to selected files, in case there are particular files you would like to serve to the public rather than prevent external access to all.

It’s also good practice to inform your readers that hotlinking is not permitted by adding a notice or link to terms of use on your site. This will inform legitimate users of your concerns to prevent embarrassing incidents.

Conclusions and “coming soon…”
In this article, we’ve seen how images and scripts constitute over 80% of the average file size of your web pages, and how your bandwidth and hosting costs can be drastically reduced by compressing file sizes or hosting them elsewhere.

Using these methods, those you using Blogger can create professional blogs at virtually no cost whatsoever (with the only outlay being for the charge of domain names) while those using self-hosted blog services can drastically reduce their costs.

In next week’s article, I’ll explain how you can market your blog effectively with little or no costs at all. There are many free marketing techniques and strategies for blogs which cost nothing at all, and some highly effective ones which can be purchased at very little expense.

Please feel free to leave your own suggestions or siply post your opinions on this article (and indeed, this “saving money” series) by leaving your comments below.

Source : Written by Amanda Fazani from Blogger Buster

How to Use Traditional Media Tactics

2009-01-22T17:02:00.000-08:00

How to Use Traditional Media Tactics to Make Your Blog Stand Out, Get More Traffic and Increase Sales.
I read an interesting article this morning entitled Bloggers Erase Lines Between Traditional and New Media. The gist of it was two bloggers who had repeatedly been denied press passes by the NYPD (the police department is in charge of handing out press passes) finally obtained them.

This got me to thinking, what really makes an authority blog – ie, one people go to first for their information on a particular subject. As there are hundreds of millions of blogs, following is some concrete advice to make your blog stand out, get more traffic and increase sales using the tactics of “traditional media” journalists.

Use Sources: As in, quote news articles, give states, mention noted organizations, conduct interviews, etc. Reporters and journalists use sources in their stories. They find statistics, interview professionals, use case studies, etc. This gives more credence to their piece.

Many bloggers don't do this. They speak from a "this is what I think" point of view (I do this a lot). And, while that's nice if you have a personal blog, a professional blog should follow journalist leads and quote sources from time to time.

Use Tie-Ins: News is timely. Traditional journalists tie in their pieces to timely topics. And, this is why you'll see practically every station/newspaper covering the same topics. While they may all do it differently, it is the same topic.

For example, right now, foreclosures are hot in the news. Practically every newspaper and nightly news cast will carry a story about how foreclosures are affecting their communities, homeowners, local businesses, etc.

No matter what your blog is about, you can usually find a way to tie it into a hot national topic. And, this gets good search engine juice for your blog too. How? By using the title of a piece distributed by the New York Times, for example, every time that piece pops up in a search, yours has a good chance of popping up too.

Write Well: While this may seem obvious, it bears repeating. Many bloggers write as if they're barely literate. If you want to be taken seriously, you must write well. No matter how topical your blog is or how many sources you cite, if your writing is bad, nobody's going to want to slog through trying to read it.

While blogs are a new media way of presenting information, the premise is the same – giving readers timely, topical information of interest to them. Hence, the same tactics apply whether you write for a newspaper or a blog audience.

Source : Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial

Blogging Tips To Make It Your Most Successful Blogging

2009-01-22T16:59:00.000-08:00

Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial

With all the new internet marketing methods available, blogging has become a little bit "old hat" in the eyes of many. I mean, it's not sexy like Facebook; it's not as easy as Twitter and it certainly is not as glamorous as having a MySpace page.

In spite of all of this, blogging remains one of the most effective ways to brand your business online. So for this last day of 2008, I'm going to get back to basics, so to speak. Following are 10 reminders about blogging to keep in mind as you head into 2009.

Blogging in 2009: Going Back to Basics

Blogging Tip #1: Post Regularly. Readers will be more likely to follow your blog if you have a regular posting schedule. Post weekly, post bi-monthly, post monthly — it doesn't matter what it is (although it should be at least once a week in my opinion) — but stick to a schedule.

Blogging Tip #2: Use Plugins. Plugins like “relevant posts”, “most popular posts” and “recent posts” make your blog more sticky because they encourage readers to hang around longer. The longer a visitor is on your blog, the better chance you have of converting them into a customer. And that, remember, is the goal when you're in business.

Blogging Tip #3: Post from Experience. I like first-hand information. In fact, many web surfers are looking for this type of info. It's no coincidence that "how to" information is the number one selling product on the web. Most of it comes from first-hand information.

So use case studies, write in the first person (eg, use "I"), tell your readers how you solved a particular problem, etc. I sell a lot of ebooks by doing just this. It lets readers know that you know what you're talking about; hence, you become an authority voice in your niche.

Blogging Tip #4: Niche It. Speaking of niche – clearly define who your audience is and speak to them – and only them – directly. You will get ancillary customers/clients/readers as a matter of course. BUT, you should always blog with your core audience in mind.

Blogging Tip #5: Comment on Other Popular Blogs in Your Niche. Make relevant posts on other authority blogs in your niche. The key word here is r-e-l-e-v-a-n-t.

Blogging Tip #6: Write Well. Make your post long, make it short, make it mid-length, but by all means, write well. This cannot be taken for granted. I don’t care how salient your post is, if it’s poorly written, you will not be taken seriously. In fact, you can even damage your online reputation.

It’s probably no coincidence that the alphabet and sentence construction are among the first things we learn in school. It’s the foundation of communication — so don’t waste it; use it.

Blogging Tip #7: Market Your Blog. Don't post it and forget it. This is your chance to use sexy marketing like social networking. Market your posts on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.

Remember, once you start with social networking though, you have to engage with those communities. So when you start to incorporate social networking into your blog marketing, do it with this in mind.

Blogging Tip #8: Use a Clean Design. A blog doesn't have to have all the latest gadgets to be effective. A simple, clean design – with good content – will compete with the flashiest design every time. Simplicity rocks!

Blogging Tip #9: Personalize Your Blog. Inject some personality. Let YOU come through!

Blogging Tip #10: Don't Give Up. Blogging is tedious, boring, monotonous and downright draining at times. Once you've blogged for a while, there will be days when you just want to chuck it in favor of something more exciting.

But keep this in mind: in many cases success is not gained by the most talented, the most brilliant, or the most beautiful. All of these things help. But, success comes to those who simply "stick with it!"

Keep these blogging tips in mind as you head into the New Year and happy blogging in 2009.

Source : Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial

How to Use MicroBlogging

2009-01-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

How to Use MicroBlogging to Grow Your Business, Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial

If you're a small business owner, microblogging can be one of the best marketing tools at your disposal. It can leapfrog you right over the competition, and fill your pipleline with qualified leads on a consistent basis. And, it's free.

What is MicroBlogging?

Twitter is an excellent example of microblogging. It's a microblogging tool that keeps you in constant contact with potential customers – and it's relatively easy to do – even for the busiest small business owner. Trust me, I know!

Why MicroBlogging is the Perfect Marketing Tool for Small Business Owners

Most small business owners are extremely busy. For this reason, it's hard for them to stay abreast of emerging technologies – even when those technologies can increase their sales.

A microblogging medium like Twitter though makes this a non-concern. You only get 140 characters to say what you want, so you can fire off a few of these every day. This is why Twitter has become so popular, in my opinion.

Traditional blogging can be time-consuming. But Twitter is like speed dating – just the basics (the facts) please.

How to Rake in the Cash with Microblogging

Following is one surefire way to use microblogging to rake in the cash.

Special report: In October, I wrote an industry report on freelance writing (a freelance writing jobs report). I distributed it freely and it went viral – mainly because a big-name blogger "Tweeted" about it.

There are three advantages to writing and marketing special reports like this via microblogging:

(i) Special reports builds your credibility: Credibililty is like money in the bank. If you're considered an authority on a subject, when prospects need the type of product/service you specialize in, you won’t have to "convince them" to buy from you. They will almost do so almost automatically when they’re ready to purchase.

(ii) Special reports stay around a long time: If you write an "industry" report, it will likely be distributed for months – or even years – to come. And with the instantaneous nature of microblogging, this means as new prospects discover it, they will be more likely to pass it along to their friends, who will pass it along to their friends, etc.

This gives it an evergreen life.

(ii) It's quick and easy to get the word out about your special reports via microblogging: With microblogging, nobody expects a long analysis of why you should read a special report. A simple link along with a one liner about what the report is about and you're good to go.

Again, it's a time factor thing.

For example, I spent 12 hours pulling together the special report on freelance writing jobs. The last thing I wanted to do was "promote" it after that. With one simple Tweet from a big-name blogger, the report got picked up by several major sites and the traffic to my blog and website increased substantially over a four-day period.

Reader Blog Critique

2009-01-16T07:10:00.000-08:00

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

Welcome to the 15th Reader Blog Critique. Last weeks critique of ToMuse.com generated some discussion but most of it was regarding the themes feedburner feedcount image!

This weeks review is on Techie Buzz, a blog which covers technology, software and more. Here are the questions the owner Keith would like to ask you all about the blog :

What are your thoughts of the design on the blog?
Do you think there are too many advertisements on the blog?
What are your thoughts about the quality of the content?
Are there adequate and sufficient options for readers to share the content with their friends?
Any suggestions on other areas the blog would require to improve on?

The most helpful and constructive commenter will get $10. Alternatively, if you prefer, I can register a domain for you at eNom and push it to your account Keith will decide who the best commenter was.

As usual, I remind everyone that positive or negative, all feedback should be constructive.

If you have any questions about any of this please let me know in this thread

Goodbye Pownce Is No More

2009-01-16T05:32:00.000-08:00

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

Pownce, the micro blogging service which was co-founded by Digg's Kevin Rose, has been bought over by TypePad developers SixApart.

It seems like SixApart bought Pownce for their talented staff, rather than Pownce itself, as Pownce will be closing down on December 15th 2008. I never used the service myself but I know it had a loyal following and had many great features including the ability to send files between users (something Twitter Users can’t do).

In a farewell post Leah Culver has hinted that they may return with something bigger and better next year :

We're bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we'll come back with something much better in 2009.

With Twitter doubling it’s userbase within 6 months this year, I think going back to the drawing board could turn out to be a smart move by SixApart. They will definately have to come back with something useful and original though as Twitter is growing at an incredible rate.

Did any BloggingTips readers use Pownce?

How to Get Media Coverage for Your Blog

2008-11-20T18:25:00.000-08:00

How to Get Media Coverage for Your Blog

One way to build awareness, brand, credibility and buzz about your blog is to appear in mainstream media.

A lot has been written about how to get your blog featured on other blogs - but how do you get press coverage whether it be TV, Radio, newspapers or magazines?

Following are a few tips on how I’ve done it:

Develop a Unique Story
One of the best tips I can give is to really think about the story that you’re pitching to journalists before you approach them. If you simply contact the editorial staff of a mainstream media outlet and say that they should write about you without giving them a unique angle they’re unlikely to respond positively (if they respond at all).

Stories about a blog are not that exciting to write - so what angle can you give them? What have you done, experienced or achieved that is going to grab people’s attention? What relevance does your story have to the readers or viewers of the media outlet?

Note: you don’t just manufacture these stories out of nothing but if you’re on the look out for opportunities they do come up. They might emerge out of a post that you write that gets attention, causes some controversy (controversy is a great way to get media attention), gets picked up by other blogs etc - or it could even emerge out of something that someone else does that you could comment about or that you’re featured in.

For example I was featured in a ‘top Aussie bloggers’ list last year and shot a link to the list to a national newspaper - the story got picked up with me as one of the bloggers featured.

Think (inter)National AND Local
I know one blogger who complains every time that I bring up mainstream media that he’s never had any success. When I ask who he’s pitched his story to he tells me that he’s approached the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ABC and a few other top tier news outlets.

While I commend him for thinking big - a more successful approach is likely to be to approach not only the big guns but smaller outlets. For one you’ll increase your chances of success in approaching a more local outlet - but you might also see the story picked up by larger media outlets (or you can use it to pitch to them later).

Write the Story
I’m not suggesting that you fully write an article when pitching mainstream media - but I’ve found that when I pitch a story and when I do a little extra work in showing how the story might look that journalists sometimes take what you present them with and build upon it.

So do some work on your pitch. Provide the media outlet with any facts, figures, stats or quotes that might help the journalist do their job more quickly and efficiently.

Be Approachable
Sometimes it isn’t a matter of pitching your story to mainstream media as them approaching you. This grows as your blog and profile grows but you can enhance your chances of being approached by being contactable.

An essential item for blogs should always be a way to contact the blogger. Whether this be by providing an email address, phone number and/or having a contact form - if you’re able to be contacted (and make it easy to be) you’ll drastically increase your chances of being approached.

Also useful for this is developing an about page that contains the type of information that journalists are looking for. Include information like your biographical information, links to a FAQ page and even a specifically written Press Page that shows how other press outlets have covered your story.

Press Releases
I’ve had limited experience and success with writing press releases but know at b5media that we regularly use them and that they are very useful - particularly when launching new blogs/portals.

You can learn more about the power of Press Releases here.

Build Profile
Perhaps the most important thing to do is to work hard at building a fantastic blog and having a great profile in your niche.

I’ve found that as I’ve done this that mainstream media outlets have increasingly come to me and that on the occasions that I’ve approached them that they’ve been much more open to covering me.

This of course comes with time and you can’t manufacture it over night - but I say it to give bloggers having problems getting on the radar of media a little encouragement - stick at it and build a great blog and it’ll come in time.

Keep In Touch with Journalists
If you do strike it lucky and get featured in a story - keep the contact details of the journalist that writes the story. If they’ve written one article they might be willing to do another. Also let the journalist know that if they ever need a quote for another story that they are writing that you’d be willing to take their call.

11 Tips from my Friends on Getting Media Coverage For Your Blog
I asked my Twitter followers for their tips on getting press coverage for blogs. Here’s some of what they said:

“If your writing to try and get press coverage be emotive, timely and topical - demonstrate ’special’ or ‘insider’ expertise” - keithdon
“1- easy to find contact info; 2- photo of self & decent bio; 3- blog trends, hot topics” - alizasherman. She also tweeted - “My miscarriage blog was featured in More mag. I was blogging a “controversial” topic in a daring way. Got noticed & featured.”
“Break the news so the press use you as the source. Has worked multiple times for me.” - michaelmeloni
“Keep blogging your niche and the reporters will find you. And when they do contact, jump at the chance to help them.” - GrantGriffiths
“Treat traditional media like you would want 2 B treated; don’t spam them, read their stuff 1st, be concise, give links 4 more” - CathyWebSavvyPR
” 1) write quality content 2) have clients that write quality content and reference you” - leahmac
“Be bit controversial, write press release for them (they lazy) be original.” - theworstofperth
“provide constructive criticism when everyone else is bitching about a problem and you’ll be noticed” - MadLid
“give your blog a spit shine before press release. Check spelling, grammar and theme errors. Be prepared for a big jump in hits.” - beanfair
“Start small. Offer something eg tips, advice, short column to local newspaper. See what works then go for the bigger papers.” - bussogardener
“Media coverage advice for bloggers- Be honest, be brief, and find a relevant hook. I’ve had success with the press doing this. ” - BJMendelson
To be included in future lists of ‘tips from my friends’ - follow me on Twitter.

Source : problogger.net

The HTML Document Body

2008-11-16T18:07:00.000-08:00

Written by Sarah from Stuff By Sarah

Last week I explained the HTML Document Head, that now leaves us with the Document Body. Once you’ve closed your header using the </head> tag, the next tag should be the opening body tag (note, this is different for frame based sites but I’ll explain those another day, for 90% of sites out there, this is the standard way!).

The body of your web page should include everything that is potentially visible on the actual web page, using (X)HTML markup to structure the document and CSS to control the layout and presentation. The end of your HTML document must then end with

</body> </html>

There should be nothing between these two tags and nothing after the closing HTML tag. Any final JavaScripts should always go before the closing body tag.

HTML Tags in the Body

There are a number of (X)HTML tags that you can use in the body of your document which I’ll be explaining over the next few weeks (as there’s quite a few!). The two basic tags below are the ones that are used in virtually every web site online.

Headings

Different to the Document Header, headings are typically found at the start of content or information. In this post the post heading can be seen at the top of the post - “The HTML Document Body”, then my sub headings can be seen throughout the post eg. “HTML Tags in the Body”. I now have a further subheading above called “Headings”. These are all varying levels of headings starting with a h1 tag and using h2 tags for the sub headings and h3 tags for the secondary headings. Headings can go down to a h6, which is the smallest heading available.

To use these you simply surround your text with the appropriate heading tag eg.

 <h1>The HTML Document Body</h1>     <h2>HTML Tags in the Body</h2>         <h3>Headings</h3>         <h3>Paragraphs</h3>     <h2>HTML vs XHTML</h2>

There are no set rules for where you should use your headers or how many headers to use, but for a well structured document you should try to ensure that text that is a heading, should be in heading tags, and structure your headings to follow the order of their size (the h1 being the largest and the h6 being the smallest).

Headings are block level elements. This means that they will typically take up 100% width of the page and shouldn’t be embedded into some other areas of content eg. a paragraph. Headings can be embedded into divisions (divs) and list items. Headings can also contain inline tags such as the emphasis tag (em), span tag and the anchor tag.

Paragraphs

Paragraphs are used to hold paragraphs of text (I know, it sounds obvious but plenty of people forget that!). If there is no other appropriate markup to hold text, then it should be within paragraph tags. Each paragraph should be contained within the tags, and then a new paragraph should have a new set of tags around it i.e.

 <p>First paragraph</p> <p>Second paragraph</p> <p>Third paragraph</p>

There is no real limit to using paragraphs, however paragraphs are block level elements, similar to headings, and should not contain other block level elements, nor should they be embedded into certain other block level elements such as headings. They can, as with headings, be embedded into divisions and list items however. Paragraphs typically contain inline styles such as anchor, strong and emphasis tags.

Your Basic Page

So to write your first basic page taking everything that has been covered in the past few weeks we can use the following

 < !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">   <head>     <title>My First Basic Page</title>     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />     <meta name="author" content="SarahG" />     <meta name="copyright" content="Blogging Tips" />     <meta name="description" content="Just a basic page, nothing fancy really" />     <meta name="keywords" content="html, document, body, basic, page, blogging tips" />   </head>   <body>       <h1>Welcome to my Site!</h1>       <p>Hello World and thank you for visiting my site.</p>        <h2>About Me</h2>       <p>I'm short, blonde and shy!</p>       <h3>My Work</h3>       <p>I'm a Web Developer.</p>        <h2>About This Site</h2>       <p>It's just a basic site to demonstrate the HTML explained in the last couple of posts.</p>   </body> </html>

HTML vs XHTML

I briefly mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. HTML 4.01 is perfectly fine to use as is XHTML 1.0. XHTML is an extension of HTML 4.01, with more strict rules which in turn creates cleaner code. The main differences when moving to XHTML from HTML are are

1. Tags must be written in lowercase: All XHTML tags must written in lowercase, for example, test would now have to be test
2. Tags must be correctly nested: While it has always been good form to use proper nesting, in HTML the reverse order of closing tags did not need to strictly match the order of the opening tags, however in XHTML they do. So test is fine for HTML but in XHTML this needs to be test
3. Tags must be closed: All tags must be closed correctly. Any tag surrounding content (non empty elements) must have its closing tag where applicable. Tags that do not surround content (empty elements) can be self closed. For example, a paragraph should be testing and a line break (empty element) should be . The exception to this are script tags, which may or may not have content within them, however require a closing script tag as opposed to a self closing tag.

Following these rules, regardless of which doctype you follow, will give you improved and clean valid code.

Source : bloggingtips

SEO for Affiliate Bloggers

2008-11-16T18:01:00.000-08:00

Written by CT Moore from Share Results

A huge part of blogging is generating traffic. Otherwise, you don’t have any readers, and then it’s kind of like you’re writing emails to yourself, and that just makes you kind of creepy

One the interesting things about generating traffic as a blogger, though, is that blogs are very SEO friendly. This means that long after you publish a post, it’ll generate organic traffic. As an affiliate blogger, then, you have an opportunity to make commissions on sales that you refer long after you write about them. In fact, longtail traffic is probably the largest opportunity that affiliate bloggers have to make money.

Last week I posted about how categorizing your affiliate content is important to reap the benefits of longtail traffic. This way, when users search for product reviews months (or years) down the line, they have a better chance of finding your reviews, and you can make a commission on any sale that results from their interest and your content. Another way to enhance the search engine visibility of your content is through deep and internal linking.

Deep & Internal Linking
Now, every time you mention a product, you have two linking possibilities: (1) you can use an affiliate link and possibly make a commission on anyone that clicks on it, or (2) you can link back to a previous review and build the authority of that previous content.

Basically, you face a trade-off: do you stack up on affiliate links and hope to convert current readers, or do you link back to previous content and increase the search ranking of an older post?

Well, consider how you’re mentioning the product. If it’s one of the post’s main points or items, then use an affiliate link. However, it’s just a passing mention of the product, then link back to a post that features the product and contains an affiliate link itself. The anchor text you use to link back to an older post will help boost its search ranking, and that will give it traction over time. In turn, that older post has a better chance attracting organic traffic and then converting some of it into sales.

Similarly, if the newer post also features the product, you’ll probably have an opportunity to use the product’s name more than once. So the first time you do so, use an affiliate link, and the second time you mention the product, link back to a previous post. That way, you cover all you bases.

Six Links of Separation
Internal linking is like building a your net or web out of your blog. The more links you have tying your content together, the stronger your web is: with each post it grows larger, and with each link it gets stronger. Build it large enough, and you catch a lot of traffic. Build it strong enough, and you’ll be able to refer that traffic down just the right sales funnel, and make a commission in the process.

Source : bloggingtips

How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Blog

2008-11-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Blog That Will Generate the Most Traffic

Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial

Years ago, the conventional wisdom when it came to selecting a domain name was to keep it simple, short and ended with a .com. Think Pets.com, Cars.com, Shopping.com, etc. The idea was to give web searchers something easy to remember that also said what the site was all about.

However, domain names like this have long been registered. So, how do you name a blog or website for maximum profit? Thankfully search engine optimization (SEO) has changed what is considered a "good" domain name.

How SEO Has Changed Domain Name Registration

SEO has changed domain name registration principally because most surfers find information via organic searches, instead of heading to a specific site, for example.

Search Engine Optimization Definition: What is Organic Search?

People use the internet to find information. Organic search is when web surfers type in a search terms (ie, keyword phrases) and sites pop up. As most surfers have no specific site in mind when they use the internet to find information, they type in search terms and head to the sites that pop up in their search results. Most keep doing this until they find what they want.

Hence, it's important for sites to be optimized well (eg, have lots of SEO content populated with relevant keyword phrases) so that surfers looking for the type of information they provide will to be able to find them.

It helps to have a domain name that clues surfers into what the site is all about.

Yesterday, I received an email from a reader of one of my past posts here about using dashes/hyphens in a domain name. She wanted to know how the search engines treat them. I wrote her the following:

These days, a site’s domain name doesn’t matter as much as how it’s optimized for SEO. This is because most surfers find a site via organic search, not by specific site name. . . . In fact, some SEO experts say that it’s better to have the subject matter of your site as part of its domain name because it makes it easer to find. For example, if someone typed in the keyword phrase “buy organic oranges”, they would land on your site (eg, buy-organic-oranges.com) faster than one that’s named, “buyorganicoranges.com” for example.

*Note: Domain names buy-organic-oranges.com and buyorganicoranges.com used for illustrative purposes only.

Now, you don't want to go crazy and have a domain name with five, six or seven hyphens, but don't shy away from using hyphenated domain names. They can actually boost your search engine rankings, particularly if it's a commonly searched term.

Search Engine Optimization Tip: Which Is Better — .com, .biz. .info, etc.?

Domain names don't have to end in .com anymore either. Again, a site that's optimized well will rank high in search engines, even if it ends in a .info, .biz or any other kind of "dot".

Remember, search engines spider content. If you have relevant content on your site that incorporates well-researched, popular keyword phrases as it relates to your niche, your blog/website will get good search engine ranking – no matter what its named, or what dot it ends in.

Source : bloggingtips

Win 2 hours of blog consultation

2008-11-16T17:47:00.000-08:00

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0
Today is the fourth week of our $1,500 Forum Competition.
This weeks prize is a 2 hours of blog consultation from David Peralty of Branding David. The winner will be able to speak to David for 2 hours on the phone, e-mail, skype, im or ustream. (woth $240). You will be able to discuss tactics for link baiting, SEO, WordPress management and much more.
In the last 4 years David has worked for some of the largest and most well known blog networks on the web so I’m sure he will be able to greatly help the winner with their blog.

Competition Details

Here is this weeks question :

What is the one blog that has a balance of great design, strong branding and excellent content in your mind, and please defend your selection?

As always, I think it’s important that things are kept fair and competitive :

You are only allowed to write one answer so please take your time to think about it and leave a good reply.
Ideas/Suggestions should be original ie. don’t just copy someone elses idea and try and claim it as your own.
Deadline for entries is 12pm ET Tuesday 11th November 2008

On Tuesday 11th November David will choose what he believes to be the best response

Source : bloggingtips

Reader Blog Critique

2008-11-16T17:44:00.000-08:00

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

Welcome to the 11th Reader Blog Critique. Last weeks critique of Home Design Find had some great feedback from Rarst and Mary Ihla.

This weeks review is on Thou Shall Blog, a blogging tips site for beginners which covers WordPress, Search Engine Optimization, CSS Design and more.

Here are the questions the owner Yan would like to ask you all about the blog :

What is your first impression of the blog?
What do you dislike about the design?
Is the layout appeared too cluttered?
What do you think of the blog content?
If you took over ownership of the blog now, what’s would be your first change?

The most helpful and constructive commenter will get $10. Alternatively, if you prefer, I can register a domain for you at eNom and push it to your account Yan will decide who the best commenter was.

As usual, I remind everyone that positive or negative, all feedback should be constructive.

Source : bloggingtips

How to create Blogger widgets

2008-11-16T17:26:00.000-08:00

Written by Amanda Fazani from Blogger Buster

Widgets offer interesting and functional ways of adding content to the layout of a Blogger blog. Using the Blogger widget API, many third party providers offer widgets for Blogger users to install in only a few clicks. Such widgets can be used to add content (eg: banners, slideshows, JavaScript functions) to the end-users blog, and also to help promote the sites from which they originated.

Feedburner, for example, offers users the ability to easily add a BuzzBoost widget (a list of recent RSS items) to their Blogger blog using the one-click widget installer. Similarly, Widgetbox allows members to install any of their widgets to a Blogger blog with ease.

In this tutorial, I’ll explain how you can create a simple widget which Blogger users may install in their Blogger layout with just a few clicks of the mouse. This in turn could offer your readers a valuable resource and help promote your site to other potential readers.

How installable Blogger widgets are formed
To create an installable Blogger widget, you first need to design the content which is to be displayed in the end-user’s blog. This content consists of HTML or JavaScript code so that it can be displayed (or perform it’s function) when displayed in the active blog pages.

Once you have designed the content of the widget, you will need to include this as part of a web form which includes a “submit” button. This enables people to submit the form (which contains your widget’s content) to Blogger; in turn, the Blogger API processes the widget content and adds this as the content for an HTML/JavaScript widget to the user’s blog.

Creating your widget content
The content of your Blogger widget can include anything you want, so long as this is valid (working!) HTML or JavaScript code.

To show you how to make a simple widget, I’ll demonstrate how to make a Blogging Tips banner which can be installed as a widget in a Blogger powered blog.

Here is the code which will be inserted as the widget’s content:

<a href="http://www.bloggingtips.com"><img src="http://www.bloggingtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/blogging-tips-banner.gif" alt="Blogging Tips" width="250px" height="36px" border="0" /></a>

As you can see, this is simple HTML code which produces a clickable widget: a banner link for Blogging tips

In order for this HTML code to be parsed properly by Blogger’s widget API, we need to replace all special characters with their HTML equivilents:

All < should be replaced with <
All > should be replaced with >
All & should be changed to &
All ” should be replaced with ‘ instead (as Blogger always changes double quotes to single ones when used in the template code or widget contents)

Once we have “escaped” all of these special characters, the modified code will appear like this instead:

<a href='http://www.bloggingtips.com'><img src='http://www.bloggingtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/blogging-tips-banner.gif' alt='Blogging Tips' width='250px' height='36px' border='0' /></a>

Building the Blogger “add widget” form
For the purpose of this tutorial, I won’t go into much detail about building web forms (this subject alone would provide enough content for a whole series of posts!). Instead, I will only explain about the form elements required to make an installable widget for Blogger.

Here is an overview of the most basic form code required to make an installable Blogger widget:

<form method="POST" action="http://www.blogger.com/add-widget">
<input type="hidden" name="widget.title" value="Visit Blogging Tips!"/>
<input type="hidden" name="widget.content" value="&lt;a href=’http://www.bloggingtips.com’&gt;&lt;img src=’http://www.bloggingtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/blogging-tips-banner.gif’ alt=’Blogging Tips’ width=’250px’ height=’36px’ border=’0′ /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;“/>
<input type=”hidden” name=”widget.template” value=”&lt;data:content/&gt;” />
<input type=”hidden” name=”infoUrl” value=”http://www.bloggingtips.com”/>
<input type=”hidden” name=”logoUrl” value=”http://www.bloggingtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/bt-icon.gif”/>
<input type=”submit” name=”go” value=”Add Blogger Blogging Tips Banner”/>
</form>

Please note: I have added extra spaces between each line to help you see the content more clearly. When using this as a template for your own widget installer, be sure not to include any such spaces!

The first line includes the most basic information about this form, ie: where to send the contents to for processing.

The second line includes the title we would like to use for the widget. This title will be displayed in the blog layout, and can be changed by the end-user after installation. Do not include this line if you want the title of this widget to be blank by default.

The third line(s) include the modified widget code which will produce the linked banner image in the widget. I have highlighted this in bold so you can easily distinguish this from other content in our form. When making your own installable widgets, this is the line in which you will place your widget content. Be sure to include all of your widget content between straight quotes as in the example above. Any line breaks will be interpreted as such when your widget content is parsed, so be sure not to add line breaks unless they are required to make your content function correctly.

Note: in the example above, I have allowed the code to “wrap” within the post container. No line breaks have been deliberately inserted

The fourth line includes the template for the widget. This is actually an optional line as (at present) we can only use the template data:content. In the future it may be possible to use a different widget template (for example, to add a modified Labels or Archives widget) but at present there is no documentation to support this, and my own efforts to manipulate the template for widget installers have not produced results. If anyone does know how this can be achieved, please do let me know by leaving a comment!

The fifth line (optional) provides a URL which the user can visit for information about the widget. This URL will be accessible on the widget installation page:

Similarly, in the sixth line of our example, you can optionally add the url to a small logo to provide your widget with your website’s “brand” identity.

The seventh line adds a simple “submit” button to the form using the title you specify, while the final line closes the form.

Take a look at this page to see an example of this form in action. This is a very basic version of the form and only the submit button is displayed. When clicking on this button, you will be prompted to add the Blogging Tips banner widget to your Blogger blog.

You can also download the code used for this installable Blogger widget below to use as a template for your own widget installers:

Source Code for installable Blogger widget

I hope this tutorial has provided you with the basic knowledge required to begin building installable widgets for Blogger! Using the code from this tutorial as a basic template, you can build your own Blogger widgets to promote your own blog, add useful tools for other bloggers, or even just as a fun excercise to help you learn more about this free blogging service.

Feel free to let us know if you have created your own Blogger widgets or would like to expand on the information provided here by leaving your comments below.

Source : problogger.net

Time to Change Your Blog’s Design

2008-11-16T17:19:00.000-08:00

Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial

Most bloggers start out on free blogging platforms like blogger or wordpress. This is understandable, as very few bloggers have a concrete idea of where they want to take this "blogging thing" when they first start out.

When bloggers start to get serious is when most settle in on a design – and then proceed to forget about it. But, there comes a time when the design of every blog should be changed. Following are two such instances.

Your Business Plan Changes: As alluded to above, most bloggers don't start out with a concrete business plan for their blog. Once they formalize one -– and this usually occurs six months to one year after blogging — then they figure out a direction for it.

And, this is when the design of the blog needs to be looked at. Why? Because rarely will the design that you start out with suit a formalized business plan – ie, a plan that will make money online.

For example, in the beginning you may monetize your blog with Google Adsense ads. But, most expert bloggers will tell you that private ad sales and affiliate marketing is where the real money in online marketing is.
Your current blog design is probably not set up to maximize revenues for this.

I had my blog redesigned this past summer. Note: I haven't rolled out the new design yet. One of the things the new design incorporates is prominent space for private ads. I will be moving away from Google Adsense and toward taking ads from internet entrepreneurs.

FYI, this same advice applies to websites also, as a both are simply online presences.

Your Demographics Change: What I mean by this is – your target market. Who are you targeting online? Who are you looking to sell your product/service to?

When you get serious about making money online, one of the first things you should look at is how you’re going to monetize your blog. This should cause you to ask – and answer – such questions as who are my customers; what do they want; what is the competition offering them; how can I offer it better, cheaper, differently; how will I reach them; etc.

Whether you realize it or not, when you pose questions like this — what you're doing is crafting a business plan.

Rarely will a design you have in place from when you first started this "blogging thing" suit your needs now that you're targeting a specific group with specific needs (ie, serving your demographic).

Internet Marketing Food for Thought

If your business goals have changed, but your blog's design hasn't, you're probably leaving money on the table.

Source : problogger.net

Promoting Your Blogs Homepage

2008-11-16T17:13:00.000-08:00

When you have an opportunity to promote your blog what part of your blog do you promote?

In 99% of the promotion that I see bloggers doing they promote their blog’s homepage URL. This is a reasonably good way to go - but perhaps there are a few other ways to approach promoting you blog that could potentially be more effective at converting new readers.

You see a blog’s front page is not always a great place to send people for a number of reasons:

it can be overwhelming - a blog’s front page usually has multiple articles on it. A reader hitting that page cold could be a little overwhelmed by the choice of what to read.
content is not always relevant - a blog’s front page is generally always changing. Most bloggers cover a variety of topic, some more serious and ‘on topic’ than others. Send readers to it on the wrong day and they can come away with the wrong impression of you.
no strong calls to action - when you’re promoting your blog you want to convert people into loyal readers. While most blogs have a subscription options in their sidebars they generally don’t have strong calls to action on them (or at least not as strong as some of the other options below).

So what other options are there for you when you’re promoting your blog? Let me explore three:

1. Purpose Built Landing Page
One of the most effective ways to convert new readers to your blog is to have them arrive on a page that is purpose built for new readers and attempts to convert them.

The idea of ‘landing pages’ is one that comes from the advertising world. When a company runs an advertising campaign online they generally will not send people to their site’s front page - they generally will design a page specifically for the campaign that appeals to those the campaign is aiming to convert and which has a strong call to action.

Bloggers can develop landing pages also. This is useful when promoting your blog via advertising but also in other contexts. For example when promoting your blog on social media sites or profiles you could develop a page that you send people to that appeals to social media users.

2. Individual Posts
Another option is to send people to specific posts that you’ve written instead of your home page.

This is a technique that I use particularly when I’m doing an interview or a guest post on someone else’s blog. The key is to pick one of your best posts and make sure that it is on a topic is relevant to the context that you’re promoting yourself in and the audience you’re attempting to attract.

In this way you direct people to a post that is likely to hit the spot with them. You can also tweak the post you’re promoting with a call to action at the end.

3. RSS Feed
This is another technique that I’ve used numerous times with significant success. I wouldn’t recommend doing it all of the time or even doing it in isolation but it’s a great secondary promotion technique.

What I mean by that is to include your RSS feed’s link along side another link when you’re promoting your blog.

For example - if you’re promoting your blog in forums in your signature - why not include a link to your blog AND an invitation to subscribe to it all in the signature. In the same way - if you’re doing a guest post on someone’s blog - don’t just link to your blog, include a way for people to subscribe in your byline.

Source : problogger.net

Get Money From Internet

2008-11-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

Sudah bergabung dengan program penghasil Dollar($)?
Kirim Dollar langsung ke Paypal anda via ask2link.
Penghasil Dollar terbaik melalui Sponsored Reviews.
Raup Dollar + Custom domain gratis (namakamu.co.cc)
Sudah gabung di Paid Review pertama di Indonesia?
Dapat Dollar setiap file anda di Download. Mau?

Get paid for extra space in your website
The Best Dollar maker from Sponsored Reviews
Get Dollar + Free costum domain (Yourname.co.cc)
Free web hosting, chosen by me, want some?
Get dollar when your files downloaded?

Kirim Dollar langsung ke Paypal anda via ask2link.
Penghasil Dollar terbaik melalui Sponsored Reviews.
Raup Dollar + Custom domain gratis (namakamu.co.cc)
Sudah gabung di Paid Review pertama di Indonesia?
Dapat Dollar setiap file anda di Download. Mau?

How To Know Google Capacity

2008-11-01T05:21:00.000-07:00

To know storage capacity and the we use
For email and picture

Google Picasa Storage that we use

Picture that we have in blogger.com is on Picasaweb from Google
You want to know your storage space. Just check now your storage space.

Or you can check bye this google tools Google Accounts Manage Storage

Other Topic :
Google adsense 6 in depth tips
What is link unit
Tips to increase targeted website

How Bloggers Make Money Online without Blogging

2008-10-31T19:22:00.000-07:00

Last month I ran a poll here at ProBlogger which asked readers if they make money online from sources other than blogging.

The result was almost completely split with 1022 of the 2053 people who responded saying Yes and 1031 saying no.

Some of the comments on the launch post of this poll revealed some of the ways people are making money online from sources other than blogging. They include:

Website Design
Flipping (selling) Websites
Selling ebooks
Youtube Partnership program
Freelance writing, graphic design
Teaching and Consulting
Owning other types of websites (directories, forums etc)
Business Documentation site
Developing web applications
Online Surveys
Paid to Click Sites
Selling Products and Merchandise
Affiliate Marketing
Writing on User Generated Content (Revenue Sharing) Sites
Make Online Games
Online Store - Selling Products
eBay
Selling Art
Business Referrals
Market Research
Software Development
Working as a Transcriptionist
Membership Sites
Generating Sales for Off-line Business from Websites

Lots of good ideas there and a nice reminder that there’s plenty to explore outside of blogging.

My own list of online money making sources that are not directly blogging include running a forum (advertising revenue), newsletter lists (affiliate marketing and some advertising), consulting (limited), selling a course, job boards, working at b5media (very part time)… and that’s about all I can think of.

Source : problogger.net

Relative :

Google adsense 6 in depth tips
What is link unit
Tips to increase targeted website

Internet Marketing Masterminds

2008-10-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

Internet Marketing Masterminds - A Course for Small Businesses Wanting to Grow Their Online Presence.
If you’re own or work for a small to medium business and are trying to get your head around how to use the internet, social media, blogging and other emerging online technologies to promote your brand, build income and drive sales then you should check out Internet Marketing Masterminds.

This course will kick off on 12th of November and is being put on by fellow Aussies Alister Cameron and Ben Galt from Australis Media.

Over the last year when I’ve been approached by businesses (large and small) wanting blog consulting I’ve referred them to Alister. The reports coming back from those I’ve referred over have always been really positive. He’s helped numerous businesses take their online presence to the next level. Internet Marketing Masterminds is designed to do the same thing.

There are limited places (150) and the pricing structure is one that goes up as places begin to fill (the earliest in get the cheapest rates).

The course spans over the full year of 2009 and includes monthly webinars, group knowledgebase, discussion forum and mailing list.

The curriculum covers a lot including starting blogs, social networking, internet marketing, developing killer content, SEO, Pay Per Click Advertising, Linkbait, Crowdsourcing, tools like YouTube, Flickr and Facebook and Analytics.

Who is this for?
This course is not really designed for beginner bloggers looking to grow their blogs (although I’m sure they’d learn a lot from it too). No - Internet Marketing Masterminds is a program for businesses owners (and employees) as well as SME marketers wanting to utilize the web to grow their businesses.

Source : problogger.net

Sell Text Links on Your Blog

2008-10-31T18:57:00.000-07:00

Do You Sell Text Links on Your Blog?

Warning - Before answering this question in comments you might want to consider doing so anonymously and without a link to your blog - particularly if your answer is YES. It could hurt you to identify yourself if you say yes publicly.

It is time for another poll here at ProBlogger - this one on the topic of selling text links.

A year or so back selling text links was the #1 income source for many bloggers. The practice was common and all done out in the open. Advertisers wanted to buy text links from blogs and websites that had been around for a while and had established decent page rank in Google. They were doing this to increase their own search engine authority. Bloggers saw the practice as relatively easy money - payments were recurring on a monthly basis and with services like TextLinkAds that emerged there was very little work in finding advertisers or collecting payments.

However the Text Link Ad selling industry came crashing down (to some extent) late in 2007 when Google took the step of penalizing many websites and blogs (some quite high profile ones) for the practice of selling text links. They see selling of text links as people trying to game or manipulate their ranking system and if they find people doing it - issue penalties which can hurt your search engine ranking.

As a result of this action many bloggers stopped selling text links. I had personally stopped selling them before Googles action (although was hit with a page rank penalty for a few days before Google corrected it).

The practice of selling text links continues today - however it’s done a lot less publicly than previously. Services still exist to arrange the buying and selling of links but it seems that it has gone much more underground with many deals being done directly between advertisers and bloggers and with advertisers less interested in site wide text links and more interested in buying them within content on individual pages.

While many bloggers have stopped doing it - quite a few continue to sell them either not aware of the risks or willing to take the risk for the income it provides.

The point of this poll is to find out just how many bloggers still sell text links.

As I mentioned above - if you want to comment on this poll below and you do sell text links you might want to do it anonymously or with a pseudonym as it wouldn’t be hard for Google to hit you with a penalty. Voting yes in the poll without commenting is anonymous however.

Source : problogger.net

The Psychology of Blogging

2008-10-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

Today Life Coach Tim Brownson from A Daring Adventure explores 6 tips to get your mindset right when approaching blogging.

10 spare hours a week - Check
Niche market - Check
Basic understanding of SEO - Check
Google Adsense account - Check
Dummies’ guide to writing great content - Check
Burning desire to succeed - Check

There are a lot of great sites, this one included, that can help aspiring writers progress smoothly through the ranks of mere blogging wannabes to the heady heights of ‘A’ listers. To read some articles it would be easy to assume if you follow this A-Z of Blogging success you’ll be basking in the adulation of thousands of subscribers faster than you can say “Really Simple Syndication”.

The reality is that, like people in most industries, few bloggers make a successful transition to the very highest level. Even though they know at a mechanical level what’s needed, they don’t seem to be able to put everything in place. There are a number of obvious reasons such as a lack of focus and/or discipline, inability to write great content and a lack of understanding of the requirements of their target audience, and one less obvious one.

Few newbies take into consideration (or maybe just take for granted) the psychology behind becoming a successful blogger: the ability to roll with the punches and succeed come what may. It’s not enough to just know the technical side of things, you have to be able to stay on track, stay committed and hopefully stay sane. Otherwise you’re likely to burn out quicker than a magnesium candle.

Here are the six tips that, coupled with all the other great advice on offer, will, if not guarantee your success, certainly stack the odds more heavily in your favor.

1. Patience Is A Virtue
If you’re naturally an impatient person you’ll want to curb that tendency when you get into blogging. Otherwise you’re likely to end up very frustrated and very stressed. Wanting to get on with the job in hand is all well and good - but it doesn’t matter how far your veins bulge out of your neck, Alexa won’t be back to your site for a day or two and Google won’t be indexing you on a daily basis to begin with, so let it go.

Do what you need to do to meet your short-term goals and relax in the knowledge that all is good in the world. Be aware of what is within your circle of influence and what is outside it, and then stay focused on the former.

Unless you are very lucky, have lots of spare cash to advertise or have oodles of time on your hands to go on a commenting frenzy, it’s unlikely you’re going to see much of a return inside six months. It can be done, but don’t bank on it

2. Perfectionism Is Pointless
One of the biggest killers of projects is perfectionism in all its various guises. If you are to stand any chance of getting to the stage where all you have to do is switch your computer on to make money, you need to realize that some of your early stuff will be less than stellar.

I thought my early posts were insightful, thought provoking and witty. When I look at them now I roll my eyes and think they were pretentious, self indulgent and forced. It took me over a year to become happy with my writing style and find my niche. Writing is a practice and you’ll improve in the same way as you would if you took up playing the guitar, speaking a foreign lesson or public speaking.

Accept that some of your early stuff will not be perfect and publish it anyway. In fact publish it BECAUSE it’s not perfect. You’ll only really learn and develop as a writer by getting your stuff ‘out there’ and seeing what response you get, or even don’t get.

3. Embrace Failure
I’m sure you have heard the phrase “fail, fail often, and fail quickly”. It makes perfect sense to fail as quickly as you can so that you can learn from those errors and move forward. Ask any ‘A’ lister if they have screwed up at some stage and I’m confident somewhere in the region of 100% will say yes.

That’s life, that is how human beings are wired up to learn and you’re no exception. Of course you should learn as much as you can and avoid the really obvious pitfalls by reading books such as Darren and Chris’s ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. However there’ll plenty of non-obvious roadblocks specific to your area of expertise that you won’t be expecting and won’t foresee, no matter how much planning and research you do.

Embrace these roadblocks, kiss them and thank each and every one of them for turning up. Each one that you overcome is an opportunity to learn and grow. Not only that, but every one that you deal with successfully separates you from the also-rans that have bailed out at the first sign of trouble.

When (and not if) something goes wrong ask yourself one simple question: “What can I learn from this?” If you can take some valuable experience with you, and know that you won’t repeat the same mistake, then it’s been worth it.

Anybody that has failed spectacularly only to go on to bigger and better things will tell you they wouldn’t have it any other way. We need the agony of short-term failure to ensure delicious long-term and long lasting success.

4. Develop A Thick Skin
Benjamin Franklin once said, “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Unfortunately Benny didn’t have a blog, because if he had the quote would have been “”In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and if your blog becomes popular people will get jealous and want to see you fail.”

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your blog is, how much you pour your heart and soul into it, how genuine you are and what the quality of the writing is like, some people will still want to see you knocked down a peg or two. In fact, the more successful you are, the more some people will want to see you fail. Twas ever thus I’m afraid.

You’ll probably receive abusive e-mails from time to time as well as commenters who want to make you look foolish and/or criticize you. That’s just life as an ‘A’ list blogger. You need to either deal with it or prepare yourself for the day when you’re asked to put on the jacket with the very long sleeves.

Understand your readers do not know you. Some will think they do and may even start to perceive you as a friend. This is cool as long as they don’t start hanging around outside your house and sending you rabbit paws through the mail, but they still don’t know you. Therefore, any criticism that is aimed at you reveals nothing about you. It says plenty about the person that administers it, but that’s about as far as it goes.

You should deal with criticism the same way as you should deal with compliments: with a pinch of salt. Of course we all prefer to receive compliments, but they’re two sides of the same coin. If you take the good stuff too seriously, you’ll not be able to deal with the bad stuff when it arrives.

Whatever somebody says, simply thank them for their feedback. Then decide whether that feedback is useful and can help you move forward. If it can, great, use it. If it can’t, drop it because you don’t need it.

5. Stay Focused
This leads on from growing a thick skin. If you’re too heavily influenced by what others say you’re going to lose focus. Why did you start the blog? What are your goals? Who are you writing for? Get back to basics and re-connect with your real objectives from time to time. Otherwise you’ll start trying to please everybody and end up pleasing nobody.

Readers will come and readers will go, that’s just how it is. It isn’t about you and it’s pointless to try and work out people’s motives. I have enough trouble trying to work out what is going on inside my own head without trying to second-guess what other people are thinking. Firstly, you’re going to waste a lot of time and emotional energy and secondly you’re probably going to get it wrong, if not horribly wrong. Let it go.

6. Know Your Identity
Your blog is not you; it’s not your identity. If it crashes and burns that doesn’t mean you do too. We all want a successful blog with people lining up to comment and pay us homage (I know I do anyway), but it’s really not life and death.

Keep some perspective. Go all out to achieve your goals (you have got written goals, right?), but don’t stay attached to the results. Not only will that mean you keep a sense of balance, but conversely it will make you more likely to achieve your aims anyway.

Google adsense 6 in depth tips
What is link unit
Tips to increase targeted website

Finding Your Posting Rhythm part 2

2008-10-31T18:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I suggested 4 tips for helping bloggers to find their posting rhythm:

There is no Right Posting Level
Start out Slow and Work Your Way Up
Monitor Your Readerships Response to Your Posting Levels
Consistency is Important

Today I want to share 4 more tips on posting workflows.

5. Work on Your Posting Workflow - Identify the Blockage Points
One piece of advice that I give new bloggers struggling with this area is to think about their posting workflow.

Look at the way that you post - from the idea generation stage through to publishing?
Where do the blockages come?
How can you put processes in place at those ‘blockage’ points to help free up the flow of posts?

For example I talked with one of our bloggers at b5media recently who was struggling to get posts out. When I asked her to analyze her workflow she identified her main ‘blockage point’ at the idea generation stage. Once she had an idea she could get the post out quite quickly - but was spending a lot of time each day coming up with topics to write on.

Knowing this we were able to develop a simple plan for post idea generation that included getting a notebook for capturing of ideas, setting aside time at the start of each week to brainstorm ideas (rather than doing it just before deadlines), setting out an editorial calendar for the week (so topics were outlined ahead of time) and finding a blog buddy to brainstorm with (two bloggers coming up with ideas for each other).

Another example that comes to mind was a blogger who identified his ‘blockage point’ as what I’d call ‘polishing’ his posts. He loves the writing process but struggled to make his posts look good (finding pictures, coming up with sub headings and the title for his post, spell checking etc). He just found all of this very ‘chore like’. I discovered in talking to him that he had over 50 posts half written in a folder on his desktop!

Once we identified this blockage point the blogger decided that he needed to do two things. Firstly he enrolled himself in a class at an adult education centre - the class was on copy editing. Secondly he gave his wife permission to get on his back about ‘finishing’ posts.

Where are the blockage points in your posting workflow?

Further Reading on blogging workflow:

How to Craft a Blog Post - 10 Crucial Points to Pause
Marinating Ideas into Blog Posts - My Posting Workflow
My Posting Workflow [VIDEO]

6. Don’t Post Just for the Sake of Posting
Sometimes as a blogger you face the choice of posting something that is second rate or not posting at all. The temptation is to put a post out there simply to meet a deadline or because you fear your readers reaction if you don’t post something.

The reality is that you can do more harm than good by posting something of lower quality than not posting anything.

Before posting each post ask yourself whether the post will actually enhance your readers lives in some way? Will it help them, entertain them, inform them, educate them, inspire them etc? If the answer is no - strongly consider not hitting publish.

7. Batch Writing
One strategy that I find helps me when I need to produce 14 posts a week here at ProBlogger is to set aside time each week to write multiple posts at once. Monday mornings are a a time where I generally camp out in a cafe with my laptop and aim to get 4-5 posts written in one sitting. I also try to do this for a morning later in the week and between the two sessions can usually get one solid post written for each day of the week.

8. You Will Become More Efficient Over Time
Let me finish by giving you a word of encouragement to end on - it gets better! Hang in there.

As I look back on my journey of blogging to when I first started (almost six years ago now) I notice a definite change in my ability to produce content. While it can still be difficult to maintain the posting level that I set myself it has certainly become easier.

One reason for this is that with practice you tend to become a better and more efficient writer. The more you write the better you get at it - particularly if you’re learning from your mistakes and looking to improve.

I suspect also that over time you simply become more proficient with your topic and as you do this are able to draw upon your growing levels of knowledge on the topic.

The other thing that I think I’ve become better at in that time is coming up with topics to write about. I do remember in the early days sitting down at the keyboard and just having a mental blank. However over time you get more used to coming up with ideas - or at least your mind becomes more attuned to capturing the ideas that you get through the day. These days ideas for posts come to me in the most bizarre places (I even recently had an idea while dreaming).

Source : problogger.net

Bloggers Share their Blog Tips

2008-10-31T18:34:00.000-07:00

Here’s another compilation of blog tips from three prominent bloggers - Jeremy from Shoemoney, Steve Pavlina and Andy Wibbels.

The video was shot at Blog World Expo 08 on a Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder.

See this video at full size on YouTube, Blip.tv and Viddler. See the last video in this series with another 4 bloggers here.

About Your Blog in 140 Characters or Less

2008-10-31T18:29:00.000-07:00

OK - here’s a little experiment for us to participate in this weekend. Below I’d like you to ‘pitch’ us on why we should read your blog. Read on to find out how.

I get asked these two questions a lot:

Can you link to my blog on ProBlogger
Can you recommend a blog on the topic of (insert topic here)

The answer to #1 is invariably no. It’s not that I don’t want to promote great blogs - but the reality is that if I promoted every blog I was asked to link to it’d take over this blog completely.

The answer to #2 is for me to sometimes give people a link but more often it’s a blank look. You see while I track the feeds of over 700 blogs that is just a drop in the ocean and the blogs I follow tend to be on just a couple of narrow topics.

So - what I want to do is give people an opportunity to promote their blog here on ProBlogger and an opportunity for others to find new blogs to read.

It’s all going to happen in the comments section of this post.

Here’s how it’ll work.

Over the next 48 hours I am leaving the comments of this post open for you to give an elevator pitch for your blog.
To keep the ‘pitches’ short - you have to do it in 140 characters or less.
You can ’sell’ your blog to us in any way you like as long as it’s 140 characters. Use humor, tell us what it’s about, tease us… what ever you want. Just keep it family friendly please.
Feel free to use your blog’s name in the ‘name’ field in the comments section and to leave the URL in the URL section to help you save on characters.
Please only pitch one blog to us. If you have multiple blogs just pick your best one.
After 48 hours I’ll close the comments on this post and will point people back to it and encourage them to surf through the list and find some new blogs to read. I’ll also encourage people to link up to the ones they find and enjoy reading.
I’m not going to do a summary list of all blogs submitted (I suspect there will be quite a few) but I will pick out a few of my favorite elevator pitches to highlight in the 2nd post.
update - Please include the number ‘140′ in the comment. This will help us find any comments that are filtered as spam. The ‘140′ doesn’t get counted in your 140 characters.

Will this bring you tens thousands of new readers to your blog? Probably not - but it could bring a few, and they could bring others…..

I’m looking forward to seeing how you pitch us your blog (I think it’s important to be able to sell your blog in a few words so hopefully this is a useful exercise) but also to discovering some great new blogs! Your 48 hours starts…. NOW!

The Reasons Af Add A Newsletter To Your Blog

2008-10-31T18:01:00.000-07:00

Almost every time I write about having an email newsletter associated with my blog (as I did yesterday in sharing how I drastically increased subscriber numbers) I get people asking me why I use newsletters?

The questions on newsletters as a medium often include:

Isn’t Email old fashioned?
Isn’t RSS the new way forward?
What about Social Networking - isn’t that more effective than email newsletters?
Aren’t Newsletters very one way and not very conversational?
Isn’t building a ‘list’ as a way of doing online marketing a thing of the past?
Doesn’t the Blog replace the newsletter?

While I can see why people would ask these types of questions - if I had to name one technology or medium that has had the greatest impact upon building my blogs readership - newsletters would be right up there, particularly since moving services to Aweber.

Let me qualify that by saying it does vary a little from blog to blog depending upon the topic and the type of reader they attract.

8 Reasons I use Newsletters & the benefits they bring
Before I go any further - let me say that I’m not talking about RSS to email newsletters that simply convert your RSS feed into emails. I’m talking about building a list of subscribers who get a weekly or monthly (or some other period) purpose written newsletter. It might point people to your blog and posts you’ve written but it’s purpose written and often includes other material exclusive to newsletter subscribers.

1. Newsletters create Loyalty
The majority of your blogs readers never come back.

The sad reality is that despite our best efforts, there’s a lot of passing through traffic on most blogs. People arrive from a search engine, another blog or website or a social media site - they stay for a few moments, consume what they can and then move on.

Unless you find a way to ‘hook’ people into returning to your blog the majority of your readers won’t return. It’s not that they don’t want to or that your site is bad - they just forget and/or have no means to remind themselves of your blog.

A newsletter is a way of giving those people who arrive on your blog a way to opt in to being reminded to come back to your blog. The same can be said for RSS but a newsletter reaches a different crowd to RSS (more on this below).

2. Newsletters Develop Relationships and Trust
After two years of sending weekly newsletters to my readership at DPS I’m now starting to get some interesting interactions from subscribers. They’re emailing me like they’d email a friend.
What I’m finding is that the weekly newsletters (in which I’ve got a photo of myself and share the occasional snippets from my life including the birth of children, trips I’m taking, things that I’m doing) are making me very familiar to my subscribers. They seem to feel like they ‘know me’. It’s difficult to explain but I guess when you get as many emails from someone as these people get from me - they really do ‘know me’ (at least on some levels).
Not only do emails build relationships and intimacy with your readership - they build trust. My newsletter subscribers respond to affiliate promotions much more than my normal blog readers. They seem to follow the recommendations that I make and try the things I suggest.
RSS and just blogging can build relationships and trust also - but I suspect adding email newsletters into the mix adds to it.

3. Newsletters Drive Page Views/Traffic
My biggest traffic days are those that I send out newsletters. I use newsletters to highlight new posts on the blog and key discussions in the forum that I run. The more helpful and topical the posts and discussions the more traffic the links in the newsletter drives.

Interestingly - if you need an ‘explosive’ burst of traffic to a particular post a newsletter can be great for this. For example:

if you’re launching a new product or service and want to kick it off well - do it with a newsletter as well as a blog post
if you’re launching a new affiliate campaign - do it the same day you send a newsletter
if you’re wanting a post to do well on a social bookmarking site like Digg - put a digg button on the post and a few minutes later send out your newsletter pointing people at the post.

These sudden bursts of traffic can really help build momentum around the projects that you’re starting.

4. Newsletters are Familiar
Most of your readers don’t know what RSS is and unless you offer them an email subscription option they are unlikely to ’subscribe’. While RSS awareness is growing, some research shows that it’s slowing and even peaking in it’s use. I personally feel it’ll continue to grow and be utilized by people (even when they don’t know they’re using the technology) but email will continue (at least in the short term) to be one of the most used forms of communication on the planet.

This is a little dependent upon your topic and audience. Some of your readerships will be more tech savvy (and RSS familiar) than others and in those cases email newsletters may not be quite as effective - but I suspect in most niches offering a newsletter will be effective.

5. Newsletters Build a Core Community and Enhance Reader Engagement
One word that keeps coming up as I interact with my newsletter subscribers is ‘membership’. I don’t use the word but have noticed increasingly that subscribers refer to themselves as ‘members’ or as having signed up for ‘membership’. I find it interesting that these subscribers don’t see themselves as just receiving an email (as a subscriber) but as having joined something or being a member of a community.

I guess signing up for something is a reader showing some level of participation and commitment to a site - by doing so they’re investing something in your blog and feel like participants.

I use the words ‘core community’ above because I find that those who subscribe to a newsletter are often among the most loyal and committed members of your blog’s community. These are people who want the inside word on your site and are telling you that they want to know what’s going on as soon as they can. They’ve given you permission to contact them - as a result they’re a powerful group of people to know and be able to communicate to (and they can actually help you grow your blog further as they can be effective evangelists for you).

6. Newsletters can Track and Target Groups of Readers
Using a tool like Aweber to run your newsletter gives you access to all kinds of interesting tools, stats and opportunities. You can track which links in your post get the most clicks (this can be used as a form of research into what readers respond to) but you can also segment readers into different groups and target them with individual messages.

For example:

You can send special newsletters just to new subscribers - for example you could send an email every month just to those who’ve signed up in that time highlighting key posts in your archives.
You can track who clicks on affiliate links in your posts and send them emails with special offers
You can send special emails just to subscribers who never open emails (testing subject lines with different strategies in them)

Really the sky is the limit as to what you can test and how you can target readers.

7. Newsletters help build Momentum
I use my newsletter not only for promotion of content and affiliate products but to build a sense of momentum on my blog. Every few weeks on my photography blog I’ll give subscribers a little extra insight into milestones that we’ve reached as a community, mentions we’ve had in mainstream media, new features that we’re adding etc. In this way I give those subscribed a sense that they’re a part of something that is growing and exciting.

I find that as I do this that readers respond very well and give me feedback on how they’ve been helping the site to grow (by promoting it to their friends).

8. Newsletters Open Up Possibilities for Monetization
Newsletters open up another avenue for profit for those of you developing online businesses.

I’ve already mentioned numerous times that newsletters can be effective when it comes to affiliate programs - but they can also be good when it comes to advertising revenue.

Selling ad space in our newsletter can be quite lucrative when you build up your readership. I’ve found that advertisers can be willing to pay quite good CPM rates because they know a newsletter subscriber base are usually pretty committed and loyal readers (and very focused around a niche too).

Further Reading on Email Newsletters
Google adsense 6 in depth tips
What is link unit
Tips to increase targeted website

Tips on Finding Your Blogging Rhythm

2008-10-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

Today I had this question from a reader about their struggle with posting daily on their blog:

“Darren I am a new blogger and I really want to be posting every day, but I just can’t keep up. I find it takes me so long to put each post together that to do 7 a week would take me 7-10 hours (I am writing ‘how to’ type posts). While I’d love to dedicate that much time to blogging each week I have a full time job, family and social life to keep up. Do you have any tips?”

This is a great question and one that I know a lot of bloggers struggle with - particularly in their early days.

Finding a posting rhythm is important to do - but it doesn’t just happen. In this post (and the next one tomorrow) I want to make a few comments that may assist in the finding of your posting stride.

1. There is no Right Posting Level
One of the common misconceptions that new bloggers have is that they are somehow failing as a blogger if they don’t get a post up every single day.

The reality is that there is no posting schedule that is right for all blogs. For some blogs a post a day is just right, for others posting 20 times a day is ideal, for others it is one or two posts a week. The ideal post frequency for your blog will depend upon many factors including:

Your topic (how wide the niche is, how much news there is on the topic etc)
Your post style (for example posting tutorials can take longer than posting short ‘news’ posts)
Blogger time (how much time you have available for blogging)
Your audience (some blogs readers seem to love lots of short posts each day while others are after something more meaty)
How Many Bloggers You have (a blog with multiple authors can sustain a higher number of posts)
There is no optimal posting level for all blogs. Last time I surveyed ProBlogger readers on how many posts they published a week I found that on average they were doing 8.9. However, as you’ll see from the chart below (showing the spread of results from the poll) the most common answer was actually 5 posts a week.

2. Start out Slow and Work Your Way Up
My advice to new bloggers is to start out slower than what you’re aiming for, to work hard on quality of posts and then over time increase your posting frequency as you’re able.

This was the approach that I had with my photography blog. My initial goal was to post 3 quality posts per week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). Once I had consistently met this goal for a month or so I added a 4th post into the schedule and then a month or so later a 5th.

At 5 posts per week (each weekday) I stopped increasing my posting frequency (I couldn’t sustain any more) until a reader actually came to me and offered to post a summary of the activity on the forums every Sunday. I then decided to make Saturday a ‘reader question’ type day where I simply started a discussion (a fairly easy post to write) and suddenly I was at 7 posts a week.

This process of getting up to daily posts took me over a year to achieve. In more recent times I’ve hired writers to take on 4 of the posts per week and have weaned myself off writing them all. This will enable me to concentrate on expanding other areas of the site in coming months.

The beauty of this gradual increase of posts was that I was able to work up to daily posting and not over stretch myself (or have quality of work suffer). The analogy I use to describe this is that when you’re training as an athlete for a long distance event, you don’t suddenly go out and start running the eventual distance you’ll run. You need to work up to that distance over time, get yourself in condition and get your body used to the distance. Too much too quickly can mean you burn out.

It also meant that there was no sudden change in posting frequency for my readers to have to deal with. I doubt any of them would really even notice the changes.

3. Monitor Your Readerships Response to Your Posting Levels
As you increase your posting levels pay careful attention to how your readership are responding.
What I’ve found is that there is generally a ’sweet spot’ where a blogs audience is most content. This sweet spot will vary from blog to blog.

Watch what your readers say about your posting level - but also look for other signals and signs that you might be posting too much (or not enough).

For example watch what happens to your traffic levels on days when you post more as opposed to days that you don’t post (or post less).

Another thing to watch is comment numbers. I find that if I post too much the numbers of comments on a post will decrease while if I only post once a day the comment numbers go up (conversely if I don’t post for a couple of days comment numbers slow on a post after a day or two signaling that my readership are done with the topic and want more).

4. Consistency is Important
What is probably more important than ‘how many’ posts you do a week is that you establish some kind of consistent posting rhythm that readers can expect to get from your blog. The only time I’ve ever had readers complain about how many posts I do on my blog is when I’ve suddenly changed things in one way or another.

For example there was a week a couple of years ago where I simply found myself with a lot to say and where there was a lot of breaking news on the niche of blogging. As a result my posting frequency here at ProBlogger leapt up from twice a day to 4-5 times a day. Readers pushed back because I’d been consistently producing 2 posts a day and suddenly they were needing to find time to digest double that.

The same thing can happen when you suddenly decrease your posting frequency - readers come to expect a certain level of posts and suddenly it is gone.

If you do make changes to your posting frequency consider doing them gradually and/or explaining what is going on to your readers.

4 More Tips Tomorrow - Have Your Say Now
This is just the first part in a two part series on finding your posting rhythm as a blogger. As I began to write this post I realized that there was a lot to cover so wanted to hold the second half of this post (with 4 more tips on finding your blogging rhythm) until tomorrow.

In the mean time - I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on a couple of things.

Firstly - how many posts do you do a week? Is this your goal or do you struggle to meet your goal?
Secondly - what advice would you give to bloggers on posting frequency and finding your blogging rhythm?
I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts and sharing more of my own tomorrow.

Gmail Adds Canned Responses

2008-10-31T17:09:00.000-07:00

If you’re a blogger with even a smallish readership you probably get asked the same questions over and over again by readers.

Oe great way to save yourself a lot of time when it comes to these frequently asked questions is to have pre-prepared answers that you can email back to those asking the questions. Up until now I’d been using a little program called ‘TextExpander’ (a Mac application) to speed up the process of getting these answers into emails - but in the last 24 hours Gmail came to the party with a new featured called ‘Canned Responses‘.

Canned Responses is a feature you can turn on in Google Labs and allows you to type up responses and to save them as templates. I know a lot of other email programs have this capability already - but as a Gmail convert it’s exciting news to me and I know will save me a lot of time.

I’ve already got a few Canned Responses drafted including:

A couple for most commonly asked questions - pointing people to articles I’ve written on these common topics.
One as a response to a problem that some of my forum users have with logging in.
Another as a response to people wanting consulting.
What would you use Canned Responses (or draft templates in your email client) for?

Google Analytics

2008-10-31T16:15:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics Integrates with AdSense

One of the earliest requests that I remember seeing AdSense publishers making of Google in forums is for better analytics and stats on their AdSense earnings.

Today (years later) AdSense have announced what we’ve all been suspecting would happen for ages - they’re integrating AdSense with Google Analytics stats.

It isn’t available to all publishers yet (they’re rolling it out gradually) but if it is you’ll see an invitation in your AdSense admin area. Here’s how AdSense describe it:

“you’ll now have access to granular reports that break down AdSense performance both by page and by referring site. Armed with this new data about user behavior, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions on how to improve the user experience on your site and optimize your AdSense units to increase your revenue potential.”

Being able to know which specific pages on your blog are earning a lot (or not much) and which sites traffic earns you the most is going to open our eyes as publishers to many possibilities and hopefully more profitable blogging.

How to Drastically Increase Subscriber

2008-10-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

How to Drastically Increase Subscriber Numbers to Your Email Newsletter
Two weeks ago I was seeing 40 new email subscribers per day to my photography blog email newsletter. This week I’ve been averaging over 350 new subscribers a day. In this post I’ll share the story of how I did it.

In this months ProBlogger Newsletter I gave subscribers some inside information on how I’ve increased the daily newsletter subscriber rate to my photography blog almost tenfold in the last couple of weeks.

Before using this technique I was averaging around 40 new (and verified) subscribers a day to my email newsletter (I use Aweber to manage my email newsletters). To be honest I was pretty happy with that. 40 a day is over 14,000 per year - who would complain about that!

However last week I decided to experiment with a feature that Aweber offers its publishers that I’d resisted using previously - the ability to collect subscribers using a ‘Pop Over’ subscription form.

Most bloggers with newsletters put their subscriber form in a sidebar like this:

This is a good and prominent position above the fold and in a place that people notice.

The Pop Over on the other hand is a form that appears, hovering over the content on the page, after a certain predetermined time frame. Here is one of the versions that I’ve been testing:

These Pop Over subscription forms are of course much more intrusive to readers than a sidebar form - this is the reason I resisted using them for so long. My fear was that they’d annoy readers, page views per visit would drop and that I’d end up with a lot of angry emails from readers.

Aweber gives different options to limit how many times these Pop Overs appear on your site - you can show them to every visitor, limit them to show once per visitor or have them show every ‘X’ days. You can also use what they call a ‘lightbox’ which allows you to have the rest of your content fade and for the form to fade in, slide in from above, below or a side etc. I’m testing the Lightbox against the PopOver at present and my early tests are incredibly positive and are increasing subscriber rates even further than pop overs!

So what was the result of my testing?
I think this chart of my subscriber numbers says a lot:

I think it is probably pretty obvious when the test started. The last days results are still incomplete but look like being similar to the day before.

Average confirmed subscribers per day have risen to over 350 per day (over a year this would translate to over 125,000) so at least on that front it has been successful.

But what has the reader feedback been?
To this point I’ve had two readers email me to complain about the Pop Overs. One saw them multiple times (I suspect because the cookies associated with them seem to be associated with different versions of the Pop Overs). The other complaint came from an iPhone user who said that the Pop Over took up the whole screen and was impossible to close (something Aweber might want to do some testing on).

Did Reader Engagement or Page Views Suffer?
One of my concerns with Pop overs was that readers would be annoyed by them and surf away from the page. As a result I’ve paid particular attention to the ‘pages viewed per visit’ statistic on Google. Here’s how it looks (click to enlarge):

Pages viewed per visitor has remained stable - in fact if anything they are slightly up since I began the experiment!

Considering page views per visitor didn’t go down and I’m adding 350 or so new potential weekly readers to my blog each day I’d say reader engagement has actually significantly been increasing!

Split Test for Better Results
One of the great things about AWeber is that they’ve built in the ability to split test different versions of subscription forms.

This means that you can design two different forms and have them each show 50% of the time to readers of your blog. Over time it becomes clear that one version out performs another enabling you to then test the best performer with another version of the signup form - making incremental improvements as you go along.

I’ve been testing on two levels:

1. Timing - you can test subscription rates on forms that have a short time before appearing versus forms that have a longer time before appearing. I’ve found that forms that take longer periods of time to appear have a slightly higher signup rate. However these forms show to less people as some navigate away from the page.

2. Copy and Design - the copy and design in your signup form impacts signup rates. I’ve found pictures seem to increase signup rates - also giving benefits and strong calls to action seem to increase signup rates also.

As a guide - I’m seeing signup rates of between 4-5.5%, depending upon the forms. I’m still playing with the split testing though - there is lots to learn!

Final Thoughts
Over all I’m pretty happy that I began to experiment with Pop Over signup forms. On DPS they’ve worked very well and are helping me to make first time readers loyal readers.

I don’t think that they’d work with every blog in the same way. For example to this point I’ve resisted using Pop Over subscription forms here on ProBlogger as I think the audience here will be more annoyed by them than on my photography blog as ProBlogger readers tend to be a bit more skeptical of intrusive marketing.

As always - it’s something to test and track. Pay attention to signals of how readers are receiving it and tread carefully. However don’t rule it out completely too quickly - you could be missing out on a significant way to convert first time readers into loyal ones.

One thing that I think would also be good to experiment with is targeting specific types of readers with Pop Overs. I think specifically targeting search engine visitors with these would make more sense than to target those coming from RSS Readers for example (or at least to be able to present different versions of the pop overs to different readers). Aweber didn’t seem to have plans for doing this themselves but suggested that it would be possible to do with a little coding (I’ll need to work out how).

PS: Tomorrow I’d like to follow up this post with the answer to the most common question that I get when I talk about newsletters - why should a blogger consider starting a newsletter? Stay tuned to my RSS feed for this followup post.

Are your Readers Doing what You Want Them to Do

2008-10-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

Are your readers doing what you want them to do? - In this post blogger and author Jonathan Fields explores this question and gives some tips on how to get readers to take the actions you want them to take on your blog.

Ask a roomful of bloggers why they blog and you'll get a wide variety of reasons.

Some do it for fun, others for profit. Some do it for platform building, while others love the community aspect. Some do it to practice their writing chops. And, hey, I even know a few who do it as a form of public therapy. The potential motivators for bloggers are endless. But, no matter why you blog…

Nearly every blogger is looking for her or his readers to take some action.

So, I have two questions for you:

What action or actions do you most want your readers to take? And…
Are you making those actions as effortless as possible?
Let's explore the questions, one at a time…

Question #1 - What action or actions do you most want your readers to take?

Hands down, the three most common actions most bloggers would love readers to take are:

Subscribing, either by RSS or e-mail
Clicking on revenue-generating ads or links, or
Evangelizing content through social media

There are likely a number of secondary desired actions, but these tend to be most universally desired.

Whatever your reason for blogging, it's critical to take a step back and ask what single action you most want readers to take. Because, knowing the answer to this question will allow you to make some basic design and formatting tweaks that may dramatically increase the percentage of readers who actually do what you want them to do.

Once you've sussed out an answer to question #1, it's time to move on to question #2.

Question #2 - Are you making those actions as effortless as possible?
Take a look at the design and "action options" offered within your blog. The design may be drop dead gorgeous, but if the design and structure are making it difficult for readers to do what you most want them to do, then the design may actually be working against you.

Ad positions and reader action

If you want people to click on PPC ads more than anything else, take a look at the positioning and type of ad blocks you using and ask whether the positioning and block type you are using will give you the highest possible click thru rate. Sometimes, actually many times, the answer is no.

Many bloggers know one of the highest click thru rates comes from positioning square ad blocks within the content itself. StevePavlina.com and JohnChow.com are great examples of this. And, many larger, more commercial blogs and websites use this approach.

Problem is, it's also one of the most disruptive places to position ads, and many bloggers are not comfortable with this, so they go for less intrusive ads, knowing it's also very likely going to knock down their clicks and potential revenue. That's fine, the point is, if you are going to make that choice, at least do it consciously, with an awareness that you'll be diminishing your most desired reader action in the name of a less "in your face" feel.

Or, do what Steve does and make your content so compelling and highly differentiated, people will put up with more disruptive ad positioning.

Social media button positions and reader action

Another example of the role that positioning plays is social media buttons. Let's say the action you most want readers to take it to promote your content using social media. In order to make that easier, you decide to insert social media submission/voting buttons into the content.

The question arises, then, where should you place them to make is easiest for readers to submit or vote on your content and increase the change they'll promote it? Some people position buttons at the top of an article, others position them at the bottom and some do both. The question is…

Does one option make it easier/more effortless for a reader to click?

At first glance, it seems that positioning social media buttons at the bottom would be most logical, since people would want to read the post first to decide whether it was worthy of promotion, before hitting the button.

But, practical experience also tells you that, as you build your following and network, many people will simply skim the first few sentences and be willing to promote your content based only on their first impression. So, for those people, many of whom might not want to have to read the entire post to find the social media buttons, placement toward the top would work best.

Or, maybe, the best way to cover your bases it to place the buttons in multiple places—top, bottom, sidebar. A similar question exists when asking people to subscribe, one of the other most desired reader actions. Do you ask before the post, after the post, in the sidebar, all over…or none of the above?

Our first hunch is often to give the most possible options in the greatest number of places, but, as we are about to discover, that could be a recipe for disaster. Because, positioning is important, but there's another factor that may be even more critical. And, it's something so many of us get wrong…

When it comes to inspiring our readers to take some action, we may, in fact, be giving them too many choices

There's some fascinating research that reveals that, much to most peoples' surprise, too much choice actually dramatically decreases, rather than increases action.

In a study conducted by Sheena S. Iyengar from Columbia University and Mark R. Lepper of Stamford University, a display of jams was set up in a grocery store. On the first day, 6 flavors of jam were displayed. Then, on day two, the number of flavor options was increased from 6 to 24.

No doubt, the 24 flavors attracted more people. Sixty percent of the shoppers stopped at the table with 24 jams, while 40% of the shoppers stopped at the table with 6 flavors. But 30% of the people who visited the table with 6 flavors of jam actually purchased jam, while only 3% of the shoppers who visited the table with 24 flavors bought jam.

Translation—The people who were presented with 400% more options were 90% less likely to purchase ANY jam. So, the 6 flavor display actually ended up selling way more jam.

The theory is that too many options make people have to work to decide what action to take. They become overwhelmed. And, for many, instead of working to choose what they want most, they just walk away without taking any action.

Now, transfer this principal to blogging
In a 2006 seminar, optimization mavens, MarketingExperiments.com, backed up the jam experiment, revealing:

"Too many choices fragment a prospect's attention. In a split test, we simplified from 3 columns to 1, the subscription process from 2 pages to 1, and reducing the number of subscription options from 3 to 2 resulted in conversion rate increasing 42% and revenues more than doubled."

This is precisely why the classic long format sales pages is only one column wide and offers but a single action option…buy now. Marketers have known for years the power of minimizing action options. So, how does this apply to blogging?

The effect of ad quantity on reader action

Positioning is important, but quantity is also important. If you place too many different ads on your blog, you may in fact offer so many click-thru options that readers will feel overwhelmed. The volume and variety of ads will literally shut down a reader's click response. So, often, a small number of highly relevant ads with yield a substantially higher click-thru rate than a veritable sea of unavoidable ads. Counter intuitive, yet true.

The effect of social media button quantity on reader action

A similar thing happens with social media buttons. There are now so many different potential social media hubs and promotion options, many bloggers feel compelled to add a lot of social media buttons in an effort to give the most possible submission and voting options. And, certain plug-ins, like Sociable or Share This for Wordpress make it easy to simply check boxes and add dozens of buttons or options with the swipe of a mouse.

As we've seen, though, there's a good chance this strategy will backfire, leading not to evangelism, but overwhelm and inaction.

So, you may be better off limiting your readers' submission/voting choices, placing only to one to three social media buttons on your blog and encouraging readers to aggregate their promotional effort among these hubs.

Reality is, too, people who are in the regular habit of promoting content, the social media mavens, often already rely on shortcuts and tool bars to facilitate the process. They don't need to be prompted all that much. So, it's really those not highly accustomed to content promotion that social media buttons target, and those are the very readers most susceptible to becoming overwhelmed and bailing on action.

The effect of too many overall action-options on reader action

Last item, let's bring it all together here, go bigger picture and look at all of the action-options presented on your blog.

A big place we see reader overwhelm shut down action is in presenting too many "overall" options. This is most likely to happen when a blogger doesn't strongly favor a given action. So, instead of simplifying and featuring one or two most desired reader actions, there is equal and frequent emphasis on a wide variety of actions.

So, for example, if don't have a strong reader action preference, we might ask a reader to subscribe by RSS or e-mail in three or four different places, click on a variety of ads and links in 5-10 different places, promote content in 3 or 4 different places and at offer them the option of 10 to 20 potential social media hubs. In the end, rather than taking all of the above actions, or even a single action…they shut down and take none.

It comes down to knowledge and simplicity

Know what action you most want your readers to take. Then make the changes in design, content format and layout that will make it as effortless as possible for your readers to take that action. Create what marketers call a sales/action funnel that leads the reader to a single, compelling action…the one you "most" want them to take.

Then once you have your blog optimized for that action, slowly introduce other potential action options, test how they impact your most desired reader action and choose consciously as you add then.

As always, feel free to share your own experiences, insights and observations in comments below.

We're all in this blogging evolution together…

Jonathan Fields writes on the crossroads of work, play and life athttp://jonathanfields.com/blog and is the author of forthcoming book Career Renegade: How To Make A Great Living Doing What You Love (Jan ‘09).

Let Your Readers Promote Your Posts

2008-10-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

Here’s a cool little blogging tool to help spread news of your blog posts from readers to their networks of friends via email, social networks, instant messaging and their blogs - it’s called TellaFriend.

IN essence it’s a little widget that you embed above or below your posts that readers can click to ‘tell a friend’. Here’s a video to describe it.

There are numerous tools out there that do this type of thing but this incorporates a number of services into one. The only thing I’d probably suggest that they add is the ability to include submission to social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon etc (think ShareThis (which enables bookmarking and emailing a friend) meets Tell a Friend).

Day of Digital Learning in Sydney

2008-10-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

Earlier in the month I ran a competition here on ProBlogger in conjunction with World Vision Australia and their blog Learn About Poverty. The competition was for Australian bloggers to give World Vision advice on their online strategy going forward.

We had 29 entries and having read through them all late last week I was really impressed with the quality of the work submitted. The effort that some of you went to in putting your submissions together was quite extraordinary and I know the team at World Vision are incredibly pleased with the advice that they’ve received and with the wisdom that was in the comments.

However there can be only one winner of the amazing prize (a trip to Sydney and a day of digital learning with Microsoft, Amnesia, Yahoo!7 and Google. That winner is Loreena Walsh.

Steve Hopkins from World Vision said this about Loreena’s entry:

“I loved this post, largely for the great way she outlined how we could get around the staff-safety thing. Whilst many people had great suggestions about how we could ignite a social movement with social media tools, Loreena’s response to how to achieve this AND protect the safety of our staff was top notch. She highlighted what was most important to her, and the blogging community, and that helps us enormously. Certainly, we have already taken much from her post.”

Steve also went on to mention another submission that was incredibly helpful from Pete Williams who came a very close 2nd place. While there’s no prize for 2nd - I’d like to send Pete a copy of my book as a token of appreciation for sharing his wisdom. If for some reason Loreena is unable to take the prize we’ll send Pete to represent ProBlogger readers on this day!

Thanks to everyone for their submissions. Loreena and Pete were just two of the great entries received. There were plenty of others also! Thanks everyone.

What is link unit

2008-10-21T22:55:00.000-07:00

Link Unit is rows of address nor name that link to the specific address or website that serve by google.

Link units is an alternative to standard text ads that we're offering to our AdSense publishers. Using the same contextual targeting algorithm that targets Google ads to your content pages, link units display a list of topics that are relevant to your page. Each topic, when clicked, brings the user to a page of related advertisements.

The result is advertisements that are closely targeted to the interests of your users. By selecting the topics through interaction with the ad unit, users are presented with useful information in the form of related advertisements. Their direct involvement with the evolution of the ad unit guarantees an interest in the ads that are presented.

After you click the link unit it will show the advertisement address and description.

The step on link unit when you are clicking :

Google adsense 6 tips

Credit Card And Making Money Online

2008-10-21T20:48:00.000-07:00

We all know by using credit card we can do our payment in quick time because credit card is the simplest payment tool. Credit card also used for many payments in making money online. Because of credit card selling and buying product can be carried out as soon as possible. That is he reason why many people use credit card for their business.

Credit card also related with many online business closely. Becoming an important tool to do payment among internet merchants. For example, when we want to start to make money online through internet we must own a domain at least. We can get it by buying the domain from the provider who most of providers using credit card for doing transaction. So this is show us that to start making or earning money online we need to own a credit card for buying a domain and hosting.

Then after we look at our domain improvement we may want to start to to earn money over website, like try to place adsense in our website. Most people also know that we need to own paypal to withdraw our adsense payment.You won’t able to get your money that you get from website if you don’t have any credit card
since to get get paypal we must own a credit card although to day we can apply to get paypal account by using virtual credit card. This is the second examples why most of online business person must own a credit card.

Actually there are many online business require credit card. Like paid survey, paid review, affiliate online and many others. Moreover, almost online business need credit card to do payments from one business person to the others. If so when you try to start earning money online make sure that you have owned a credit card before.

Tips How We Make Money Online

2008-10-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

It is has been known that we still can earn money from house although we don’t go outside from our house. Yes it is making money online which still allow us to stay at home. With only internet connection and a website and some SEO tips and Trick We have been able to get more than enough for our need. More over making money online give more prospect for people in this era as internet connection can be gotten by every people.

There are many kinds of online program which have been used by people and most of them are very profitable. From the the most earliest known by people Google adsense until paid review which famous in current time. Among many programs that we have known there are some that we like better and the most liked program making money online.

Like me who prefer to choose Google adsense program which clearly has supply money for me. But it is not close the possibility for me to try many others making money online over website, like paid review which will give us earning when we finish reviewed the other website. Then How about you it is difficult to find the best making money online that really suitable with your condition?, don’t worry you can choose one of the programs which can be adapted with your current job.

Then how we can get get the success in running business in internet?, you can try some tis and trick below in order to get success :

Select one program that you like best. Pay more attention for this program and maximize your work as long as you hope to get money from this program. This is better than we try many program which are get little attention for each.
Try the other making money online program after you clever on your current field. It can be done without leaving your most like program. When you find it difficult to be done, difficult to learn the work of this program you can ask the expert.
Keep to be patient in running making money online although we have faced some failures.
It is also most suggested to get a program that suitable with your hobby. You might in trading, so why you don’t try to earn money over forex trading or affiliate program. Become freelance also a good idea if you have ability to write. You can become content writer which also give you chance to earn more money.
Do you have the other tips, please leave yours in comment box.

Pemasaran Online Terbesar

2008-10-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

1. Amazon
http://amazon.com/
Amazon ini adalah reseller online dunia terbesar. Mereka menjual apa saja, mulai dari buku, DVD, groseri dan elektronik. Pada dasarnya, jika anda ingin membeli sesuatu tempat yang paling mungkin anda mendapatkan barang itu adalah di Amazon.

2. Buy
http://buy.com/
Buy.com ini hampir mirip dengan Amazon, mereka menjual apa saja mulai dari baju hingga asesoris iPhone. Tetapi meskipun begitu, perusahaan ini tetaplah di bawah amazon kepopulerannya.

Product Search

3. Google Product Search
http://google.com/products
Google’s product ini mencari berdasarkan indeks sejumlah toko online dan langsung memberikan hasil instan yang relevan. Anda bisa melihat harga berdasarkan tawaran terbaik dan juga review user pengguna barang.

4. Live Product Search
http://products.live.com/
Situs milik microsoft ini menggunakan data dengan index database pencarian dan langsung dari penjual. Anda dapat menampilkan hasil pencarian dengan berbagai cara.

5. Yahoo! Shopping
http://shopping.yahoo.com/
Yahoo! Shopping ini hampir sama dengan Google Product Search, tetapi dengan lebih ke arah struktur direktori, sehingga anda bisa dengan mudah browsing melalui direktori.

6. Become
http://become.com/
Situs pencari produk ini melakukan hampir seperti apa yang orang lain lakukan tetapi dengan beberapa fitur unik menyertainya. Anda bisa mencari berdasarkan warna produk dan link pencarian untuk setiap produk untuk mencari review dan menyebutkan jenis-jenis barang pada forum dan panduan pembelian.

10. PriceGrabber
http://pricegrabber.com/
PriceGrabber ini didesain untuk membantu anda menemukan tempat harga terbaik untuk suatu produk, sehingga anda dapat membandingkan harga pada berbagai toko online berbeda dengan disertai filter untuk membantu anda menemukan produk yang anda cari.

11. BizRate
http://bizrate.com/
BizRate ini sangat mirip dengan PriceGrabber dan memasukkan banyak fitur-fitur yang sama dan pilihan filtering.

Lelang (auctions)

12. eBay
http://ebay.com/
Siapa yang tidak tahu tentang eBay, situs pelelangan terbesar di seluruh dunia. Anda dapat menemukan hampir apa saja yang anda cari disini. Pengguna situs ini dapat membeli dan menjual item-item dan juga memberi tawaran untuk apa yang anda inginkan. Tempat ini merupakan tempat terbaik dimana anda dapat menemukan produk dengan tawaran terbaik dan juga produk yang susah didapatkan.

13. uBid
http://ubid.com/
uBid ini adalah alternatif lain dari eBay. Hampir terlihat mirip dengan eBay tetapi penggunanya sedikit tetapi jika anda tidak menemukan barang yang anda inginkan di eBay, anda bisa mencarinya di situs ini.

14. ePier
http://epier.com/
ePier ini hampir sama dengan situs-situs pelelangan lainnya tetapi tidak ada biaya listing/untuk mendaftarkan produk.

15. OverStock
http://overstock.com/
Situs ini merupakan situs seller barang-barang overstock, tetapi mereka juga meiliki situs pelelangan. Hampir mirip juga dengan eBay, tetapi disini anda bisa memasang tawaran item-item overstock tersebut, tidak seperti eBay.

16. Yahoo! Auctions
http://auctions.yahoo.com/
Situs pelelangan ini tidak lagi tersedia di US dan Kanada. Tetapi masih begitu kuat di negar-negara lain di seluruh dunia termasuk di UK.

17. eBid
http://ebid.net/
Situs pelelangan ini hampir mirip dengan eBay tetapi tanpa membebankan biaya pendaftaran barang untuk daftar biasa. Selain itu banyak sekali toko dan merchant di eBid menjual barangnya.

Classified (Daftar Klasifikasi)

18. Craigslist
http://craigslist.org/
Situs klasifikasi online ini memiliki banyak iklan di berbagai tempat di US, penggunanya dapat menempatkan iklan untuk area lokal-nya.

19. Kijiji
http://kijiji.com/
Situs klasifikasi gratis ini merupakan tempat dimana anda bisa mengajukan barang yang anda miliki untuk dijual atau anda mengiklankan suatu even acara. Selain itu anda juga bisa meletakkan iklan bersifat pribadi disini.

20. Yahoo! Classifieds
http://classifieds.yahoo.com/
Situs klasifikasi gratis milik yahoo ini adalah tempat dimana anda bisa memposting iklan tentang apa saja mulai dari jenis barang hingga penawaran pekerjaan.

21. Google Base
http://base.google.com/
Situs klasifikasi dengan integrasi dengan layanan Google dapat membantu anda mengajukan barang untuk anda jual tanpa biaya dan orang lain dapat menemukannya melalui search di Google termasuk berdasarkan Pencarian produk melalui Google.

22. Half
http://half.ebay.com/
Half.com ini merupakan situs yang dimiliki eBay yang menjual berbagai macam buku, film, musik dan video game dengan harga tetap. Anda bisa menemukan harga-harga menarik produk second di situs ini.

23. Etsy
http://etsy.com/
Etsy ini bisa membantu anda untu membeli atau menjual barang-barang homemade seperti pakaian dan peralatan rumah tangga dan masak memasak. Situs ini bagus buat orang yang tertarik ingin menjual benda-benda yang mereka buat, dan membuat toko online untuk hal tersebut.

Review Produk

24. Epinions
http://epinions.com/
Di Epinions ini, pengguna situs dapat memberi rating nilai dan menulis tentang review produk yang mereka beli. Anda dapat mencari produk yang anda inginkan dan menemukan produk terbaik berdasarkan rating keseluruhan. Bagi para pemberi review, dapat menerima nilai kredit yang dapat ditukar menjadi uang.

25. Shoppero
http://shoppero.com/
Shoppero ini dapat membantu anda untuk menghasilkan uang dari review yang anda buat. Anda dapat menulis review tentang suatu produk dan Shoppero akan membayar anda berdasarkan trafik review yang anda dapatkan.

26. SharedReviews
http://sharedreviews.com/
Pengguna situs ini dapat menulis review tentang suatu produk yang kemudian dibayar sebagai cash jika diterima. Anda dapat menerima sekitar $10 untuk setiap produk review yang diterima, hal ini sepertinya menjadi pekerjaan yang merepotkan, tetapi sebenarnya pembayaran di situs lain juga kecil dan sama saja.

27. ViewScore
http://viewscore.com/
Viewscore ini mengumpulkan review-review dan menjadikannya satu rating, anda kemudian dapat membandingkan harga-haarga dan menentukan dimana harus membeli barang tersebut.

28. Buzzillions
http://buzzillions.com/
Situs ini juga membantu mengumpulkan review-review produk dari berbagai situs dan kemudian menjadikannya sebagai ukuran rating dengan disertai kelemahan dan kelebihan produk.

29. Wize
http://wize.com/
Review dari wize ini dibuat oleh pengguna-pengguna toko online di seluruh dunia sehingga menjadikan review dari situs ini sebaik situs review yang ditulis para ahli seperti CNet.

Kupon Potongan Harga dan Harga Spesial

30. RetailMeNot
http://retailmenot.com/
RetailMeNot ini dapat membantu anda untuk memasuki website dan menemukan daftar kode diskon-diskon. Pengguna situs ini dapat voting apakah kode tersebut bekerja atau tidak.

31. Trezr
http://trezr.com/
Situs yang mirip seperti Digg ini berguna untuk menemukan harga spesial dan kupon-kupon potongan harga yang tersebar di seluruh internet.

32. DealsOnTheWeb
http://dealsontheweb.com/
Situs ini memiliki daftar harga terbaik yang di-update harian.

33. Digg Tech Deals
http://www.digg.com/tech_deals
Salah satu bagian Digg ini membahas deal deal harga terbaik gadget teknologi di seluruh web store.

34. Ebates
http://ebates.com/
Situs kupon potongan harga ini memberikan cash back (uang kembali) jika anda membeli melalui mereka.

Penjualan dan Distribusi

35. CD Baby
http://cdbaby.net/
Jika anda seorang pemusik, memiliki band dan tertarik menjual musik anda, CD baby ini akan membantu untuk membawa musik anda ke toko-toko penjualan musik seperti toko musik online iTunes. Anda hanya memberikan sedikit persen untuk toko ini dan sisanya untuk anda sebagai pemilik musik tersebut.

36. Lulu
http://lulu.com/
Lulu ini dapat membantu penulis buku atau tulisan-tulisan lain untuk di-print dan selain itu, mereka juga membantu distribusi tersebut. Mereka juga membantu pembuatan buku anda dan kemudian meletakkannya di situs seprti amazon untuk dijual.

37. CafePress
http://www.cafepress.com/
CafePress ini dapat membantu untuk membuat sendiri toko online dengan merchandise online brand produk atau website anda. Item-item ini termasuk berupa kaos dan mug dengan logo gambar atu tulisan.

38. Zazzle
http://zazzle.com/
Zazzle in akan membantu mengubah desain anda dan kemudian print ke beberapa benda seperti kaos dan pin, anda juga dapat membuat toko untuk menjualnya.

39. iStockphoto
http://istockphoto.com/
Situs ini dapat membantu penggunanya menjual foto-foto dan video-video mereka untuk dijual. Tempat ini merupakan tempat para desainer dan pembuat film untuk membeli stock photo dan jenis foto-foto lainnya.

40. Zooomr Marketplace
http://zoomr.com/
Zoomr ini adalah situs photo sharingdengan fitur-fitur dimana penggunanya dapat menentukan hasil penjualan foto dan kemudian menjualnya sebagai stock photo di pasaran.

Other : Hw to get blogs, Increase traffic with simple and easy, Google adsense 6 tips

Google Adsense 6 In Depth Tips

2008-10-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

So, we’re ready to start talking in depth about the steps you need
to take to start seeing a real change in your bottom line.

Here are 6 in depth tips to give you a better insight into the
world of Adsense customization.

1. Use the large rectangle ad.
Tests have shown again and again that the large rectangle ad
outperforms every other ad size. No one has ever figure out exactly
why, but if they produce, who cares?

2. The font color in your ads should be blue.
The URL should always be blue. People are used to clicking on blue
links so it’s an easier decision for them. This might sound dumb,
but again, it’s proven.

3. Ensure that the traffic coming to your ad is interested in what
you have to say.
If the ads aren’t relevant to your traffic, then they’re not going
to click on it. There is no point in driving huge amounts of
traffic to your not showing your visitors anything interesting t
them. All it’ll do is ruin your click-thru rate.

4. You should constantly be testing to see what works.
Don’t settle for the income you are currently making. There is
always more money to be made if you continue optimizing. Always
look for ways to improve your click-thru rate.

5. Continuously move forward.
You should always be on the lookout for new Adsense opportunities.
Always keep an eye out for when its time to build new sites and
when its time to improve your current sites. If you stand still,
eventually the whole world will pass you by.

6. Target the right keywords.
It is vital to your Adsense business that you build each site
around the correct keywords and that you optimize your pages
towards these keywords. Keyword traffic is an Adsense marketers
best friend.

Increase Traffic With Simple And Easy Tips

2008-10-21T19:56:00.000-07:00

Increase traffic with simple and easy tips and tricks is most wanted by many bloggers. simple and Easy in running the tips and getting the result, the increase of traffic. Then traffic it self is hunted by most blogger since it is related closely with the earning that we can get over many online money maker that are placed in our website. they can be Google Adsense, affiliate banner, selling link text, selling products and many other money maker program.

That’s why we can try many tips and tricks that we can get from other websites as it won’t bad effect if you try them. Here are some of easy tips and tricks we can try for getting website:

Increase traffic by making articles. More articles we made more chance to get more traffic. You might difficult to find topic because you are new in writing article for your website. But it is no problem, just find the way to make article for new blogger. Find the easy topics to be written but still included with keyword you targeted.
Place URL to the other website which mean that we walk to other blog and comment and write your website URL in comment box.
Bookmarking your article into some social bookmarks, like Google, yahoo, MSN or Technoraty. These bookmark is the most give you link back from other member than the other social bookmarks. It is so simple and easy way since they just require short explanation and the tags we use for making article.
Submit Website into site network. It can be top100bloggers.com which allow to sign up and get the code which you can place it into the part of your website. By doing you will get the result, it is your website will be find and search easily.
Become the part of a forum. This is the place where you will meet with the other bloggers who maybe has same topic with yours. When you don’t find it, search by using the topic that you use. post your comment for the topic written by other member and don’t forget to leave your URL signature.
Track back the other blog for more visitors or traffics. This is the almost same way with commenting, but the difference is you place the other blog URL into your website. Onetime they will visit your website as the track back of your links.
Promote your website with offline also can be the simple and easy way to get traffic increase of your website. It can place it at your working car, your products or many others.
Place your feed burner to keep your visitor come in next time. This placement is dealing with your content quality. Better content will lead people to use your feed burner as they want to know what the good and new think that they can get from your website.
Tips above are the way to increase traffic with simple and easy tips. If you find difficult let me to know which one it is.

Good luck.

Tips To Increase Targeted Website Traffic

2008-10-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

I thought briefly and in very simple words to explain how I specifically to the traffic on my website largest of about 1000 to 10000 visitors per month. It is ten times more - I want a hundred times as happy, but to the thirty or forty times the traffic.I receive, on average, around 10000 to 12000 visitors on my main site each month. In fact, when you spoke about the Internet, it is not too much, so that brag, but it is better to say that 1000 2000 visitors, this is my record, until I went transport to compete for my target group website.

As I was more traffic on my website? The answer could help you to get more traffic on your own site. Most of these techniques are very simple to implement, and if you are serious, the construction of the on-line trading, these can be overcome, is the first thing that you must go, the visitor to your target site.

I hope you have noticed that I mentioned, the words “targeted” several times. I did that in order to understand that you are not directly under the road, but the road or a visitor to your site. They want the visitors to your site, which already interested in the topic of your site, and they are more likely to use the content of your site or product.

It is the first ingredient for the success of the site.

Here are my main sources for 5 targeted traffic to my site. In a brief statement, as you can or have the same practical work for your own site.

1st RSS EMPOWERED One of the most effective sources of traffic on my website should my blogs and RSS feeds. Please note that I said, and feeds on blogs I have of blogs and feeds just for the big issues on my website: rss resources, the web-hosting solutions, computer,… These blogs, in a stream pick large numbers of visitors are on my website.

With the introduction of the Google Blog, my blog traffic even increased. In the minutes, the display on my blog - I get a traffic from Google. They are now indexed Google Search blog: This is reason enough for all webmasters, at least a blog on their website.

Try to imagine the traffic that you at the next RSS empowered Windows browser from Microsoft. Get your own website ready and prepared for RSS and use everything traffic. You can Google relatives blogger.com blog - it is important that all blog search bar above!

2nd EMPOWERED Seo SEO optimization should be your goal! Remains the most important source of traffic on my site are the search engines. Essentially from Google, followed by MSN and Yahoo. You optimize your site for search engines. This includes off-site and the links on the site and tactics.

I am online depuis’98 then I thought that I knew how to create a website. Boy, was I wrong! I do not think that a big jump in my traffic until I fell on a SEO expert stumble, in fact, is not the right word, in fact, I have the best SEO experts that I could find. His name is Brad Callen. It offers a free e-mail course on ways to optimize your web site for search engines. Its main product is SEO elite.

It is the free rein and a newsletter are really useful so as to my site, resulting in a sharp increase in traffic from Google in particular. You should try the same for your site or your web pages and see the results by themselves.

3rd ARTICLE ENTITLED The Works. Article Marketing for me was the most important reason for the U-turn traffic got my sites. This is one of the most effective means to targeted visitors to your site.

Your article in ezines and on sites like addme.com or sitepronews.com is a tremendous amount of traffic to your site. As a bonus, you also get the 100 participants to your own ezine in one day!

The trick is to write, as the articles on current topics, the other to the webmasters on their websites, raising your link popularity with the search engines and improve your ranking. They must also be very precisely the right keywords for your target audience in articles, the content of your site. One way to do this is with a site such as www.nichebot.com - it shows how the right to choose “competitive” keywords for your site. They have targeted the keywords that a trade very important, but little by competition from competitors sites.

My main sources of traffic from the Web sites and articles www.buzzle.com www.ezinearticles.com.

4th EZINE EMPOWERED build a large opt-in or from the list of participants in my e-zine is another method, which brings a lot of traffic on my website. You can use an ezine offers useful tips for your subscribers. There is a very simple way to repeat visitors to your site and build a relationship with your visitors.

My webzine should deal with the topic of your site and provide more information about the same. What you do not believe, if you run a Web site on a specific topic for a couple of years, you will quickly become an expert on the subject. People who consider you as such, and it is beyond the visitors to your site.

5th VIRAL MARKETING EMPOWERED Another way to attract visitors is targeted for free, a product or a service. I use the free brandable reports that the visitors can download and use. These reports and ebooks have links back to my websites. One of my favorite is appropriate to submit a report and guidance on the use and utilize RSS for all your sites. He brings in a lot of traffic.

Similar to the above, I use other viral techniques for targeted free traffic to my site. These are products that may mark your connections and one around. Helpful software, with the theme of your home is a good choice to do so.

Another to put on my site, the DATEwise eCalendar personal planner and visitors can download and in their workplace. He hotlinks my site, which circulated. It can be tailored with the products for your site so visitors or customers.

OTHER SOURCES Other sources of traffic on my website that I effectively, but they have less traffic, that the methods that are listed above. But they are yet to mention one of them is regular on the major online forums. What is in very good traffic concentrate the same, is the display of comments in the blogs online.

Another good source is an exchange of traffic data “Traffic Swarm ‘- most of the places where the members peering agreements will not work. Value you receive visits to your site. However, traffic Swarm is an exception, that you should try. You come to define, your home page to this exchange, and click on the web pages you want to visit.

The increase in targeted traffic to your site is a constant struggle for every webmaster. I hope you can try some of the techniques that have worked for me. I am sure that they will also work for you.

Give your site targeted traffic!

How to Get Blogs to Link to Your Posts

2008-10-21T18:50:00.000-07:00

Getting other blogs to link to your blog posts is not easy to do - particularly when you are starting out.

Taking a ‘write quality content and they will link up’ approach can work once you have a readership (although even then it’s not that easy) but what if your readership is small and other bloggers are not likely to see your posts?

One of the simplest things to do to get your contact in front of other bloggers in these circumstances is to email them to let them know of your post and/or to suggest it as a potential story for their own blog.

Sounds simple doesn’t it?

Of course there’s a little more to it than just banging out an email with your link to another blogger. In fact if you do this you could actually do more damage than good.

Here are a few ideas for suggesting links to other bloggers:
Let me start by saying the most obvious thing - your content needs to be of high quality - the type of thing that people will want to link to. You can beg for links from other bloggers until you’re blue in the face but if your content isn’t linkable - you’re wasting your time (and theirs).

1. Reserve it for Your Best Content
Let me repeat what I’ve already said - it is all about ‘great content’. This is not a technique to use with every single post that you write. Use it selectively on your very very best content.

2. Check if the Blogger Links Out
Different blogs have very different approaches to what they write about and where they get their story ideas. For example a blog like Engadget links to other blogs in most posts that it writes - it’s almost like a news aggregator blog and is constantly pointing people to interesting stories on the web. Other blogs rarely link out - not because they’re selfish, but because they are blogs more about original ideas. You are likely to be wasting your time by pitching blogs that never link out.

Also look at HOW the blog links. Do they link to news stories? Do they link to other blogs as ‘examples’ in their posts. Do they link to controversial posts? Do they only link to blogs on certain topics or written in certain styles? The more you learn about HOW another blog links the better position you put yourself in to create your pitch to them.

Special Note: Some blogs even present you with methods to pitch them stories with contact forms dedicated to story submissions. This is a signal that you have permission to send them ideas.

3. Don’t Ask for a General Link to Your Blog
In most cases it is not appropriate to ask another blogger to simply ‘link to my blog’ (as in the front page). You’ll have much more chance of a link if you pitch them a story (a post you’ve written) than just to link to your blog’s front page. I find that generally people link to blogs in their blog rolls after they’ve been following you and relating to you for a while and see you as a helpful resource for their readers.

4. Relevancy Relevancy Relevancy
Only suggest posts on your blog that are highly relevant for the blog you’re pitching the story idea to. You drastically decrease your chances of being linked to if your story isn’t relevant.

5. Present a Posting Angle
When emailing a blogger with a post idea show them some potential angles that they could take with their post. For example - I used to pitch my links to gadget blogs when new cameras came out. I found that when I wrote a short summary of the story in my email with some potential points of interest that the stories got picked up more regularly than if I simply sent an email saying - ‘here’s a link that you might find interesting’. So I’d include a few features, why the camera was better than previous models etc. Often this extra information appeared in the post that these blogs published - in essence I was helping the blogger write their story for them.

6. Present Helpful Resources
Another thing that increased the chances of my camera posts being linked to was when I sent in pictures of the cameras with my email. Gadget blogs love pictures so if you save them time by providing them along with the story idea you’re cutting down work and again increasing your chances of having the story picked up.

7. Have They Already Covered the Story?
There’s nothing worse than being pitched with a story idea that you posted about yesterday. Scan the blog that you’re pitching to for their recent posts - it could save you embarrassment.

8. Be Personal
Where possible pitch a blogger rather than just pitching in impersonal ways. Use their name, show that you know their blog etc. However be careful when doing this to multiple blogs - you don’t want to personalize an email and then send it to the wrong blogger - major embarrassment!

9. Be Brief, Polite and Helpful
What ever you do be polite with your pitch - keep it brief (there’s nothing more of a turn off than a long pitch), introduce yourself and keep your email as helpful as possible. Only include details that will help the blogger write their post and in no way pressure them to write the story.

10. Don’t Ignore the ‘B, C and D-list’
Don’t just promote your content to Top-Tier blogs. Big blogs are being hit with story ideas all day everyday (often the same ones over and over again). Smaller blogs can be just as fruitful to pitch to because they often have more focused groups of readers. Sometimes multiple smaller blogs all picking up a story can get the attention of bigger bloggers too - making the story viral.

11. Build Relationships Before AND After Promoting Your Blog
I’m much more likely to link to someone (either on my blog or on Twitter) if I have had some kind of interaction with them before they pitch their story idea. Spend time building your network and don’t make your relationships with people just about what they can do for you. Also - when people do link to you after you’ve promoted something to them thank them for the link, offer to reciprocate and keep in touch. Don’t take their first link up as a signal to spam them with everything you write - but see it as a deepening of that relationship.

Source : problogger.net

Why Do We Blog

2008-10-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

Today in response to an article that Andrew Sullivan published that was titled ‘Why I Blog‘ I asked my Twitter followers and Facebook friends to tell me why they blog. The responses were so good that felt it was a pity to just see them myself and not share them.

I’d love to read your answers below or on your blog. If you choose to blog or tweet your response please leave a URL in comments below so we can read it.

PS: For me it is a complex question to answer, particularly when you only have 140 characters to do it in but for me it boils down to:

Beside i got a experience so and can give to many people too.

Make Your Blog into an iPhone App

2008-10-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

AppLoop is a great little tool that is currently in beta that will take any RSS feed and turn it into an iPhone Application.

All you need to do to set it up is to add your feed, a logo and name of your blog, provide a valid email address - select how much you want to charge for it (if anything) and submit it to Apple’s App Store to await its approval. It all is very automated and simple.

They give you stats to see what content people are viewing using the application. The application allows people to view your post, save it for later and share it with friends.

The video above sheds light on new features that’ll be added. The beta test is closed at the moment but you can submit your blog’s details and an email to be included in future intakes.

Other : Hw to get blogs, Increase traffic with simple and easy, Google adsense 6 tips

Simply getting the blog designed

2008-10-18T06:53:00.001-07:00

That might seem like a long time to get a blog up and running but for me the 'launch phase' meant more than simply getting the blog designed and announcing it - for me the 'launch' is all about these sorts of things:

building a foundation of solid content (the blog now has 713 posts, most of which are 'how to' or 'tutorial' style content)
getting an initial design up (I launched with a free design and quickly upgraded to a purpose built one. It's now dated and we've outgrown it - but it has served us well).
building a loyal readership and subscribers (the blog is now read by around a million readers a month and subscribed to by over 100,000. The forum has around 200,000 visitors a month.)
building community (this takes time. Initially I did it with a Flickr group and then leveraged that to start a forum - now with 23,000 members).
building a 'list' (at the heart of DPS is a newsletter which drives traffic and builds community. It is sent to around 48,000 subscribers per week).
establishing a publishing routine (I started off posting 3 times a week and have built it up to posting 7 times a week)
building a content creation team (originally I wrote every post - now the blog is written by a team of 5 paid writers (each doing one post per week) and a number of regular guest contributers)
building a team of community leaders (the forum is moderated by a wonderful team of voluntary members)
building relationships with other bloggers and partners (something I was slow doing, mainly due to being time poor - more recently however I've been more intentional building relationships with others in the industry)
experimenting with monetization - (making money from the site hasn't been high on my priority list to this point - rather in this launch phase it has been more about working out what types of monetization works and what the community responds to. The site does make money, but more importantly I've been learning about monetization)
Most bloggers probably don't see a lot of this as a 'launch phase' - but for me it has definitely been more about building foundations for what is to come than seeing anything I've done so far as an 'end result'.

While I'm really happy with (and surprised by) what we've achieved so far at DPS - seeing it as being in it's launch phase reminds me to keep lifting my sights and to keep on building and dreaming.

One of the Results of Building Good Foundations
Over the last few months I've been approached on 3 occasions by potential buyers of DPS. It has actually been quite strange because they all came very quickly and quite out of the blue. The offers ranged quite considerably in terms of numbers but a couple were tempting.

In each case the potential buyer commented that they wanted to buy DPS because it was 'solid'. Each one was less interested in what the site was making in terms of income or how much raw traffic it had than other factors. They were looking more at things like brand, community, reader loyalty, influence, reader morale and user participation.

In fact what surprised me is that the valuations that they put on the site (very high six figure sums) were not based upon what it was currently earning at all. They made offers based upon these other factors - factors that made their offers much higher than a valuation based upon traffic or monthly income alone.

What Will Phase 2 Look Like?
While a couple of the offers were very tempting I realized as i deliberated that the potential for DPS was far greater than what it had yet achieved. I've only just begun. To sell now tempted me (and I probably would have sold at the right price) but I realized that for me to take it beyond where it has grown to will see it rise exponentially in value.

It has been 2.5 years now since officially launching the site - so it's now time to move into the next 'phase'.

I'm not ready to fully announce all of the details of the next phase of DPS - however it will involve a redesign (hopefully to go live around the end of the year) and a fairly significant 'expansion'. In essence the way I'm viewing the last 2.5 years is that I've been building foundations and that now it is time to expand and leverage what has already been built.

To do so means significant investment back into the site financially but with the solid base of readership, community and relationships that I've been working hard to build I'm pretty confident that Phase 2 will be successful. I'm also really excited about what's coming!

Build Solid Foundations
When I speak with many bloggers I get the feeling that all they're really thinking about is growing traffic and subscriber numbers as fast as possible. While these are definitely things to work hard on I attempt to convey to them that there are other 'foundations' that need to be built into a blog than just traffic.

Most bloggers put a lot of energy into building blogs with high readership - but how about setting goals and strategies in place for some of the other areas mentioned above?

Take a long term view of your blogging
Take your time to build strong foundations that go beyond traffic and income

As you do these two things you'll put yourself in a position to build a site of significance.

http://blogtemplate-collection.blogspot.com/

5 Tips for Overwhelmed Bloggers

2008-10-18T06:44:00.001-07:00

5 Tips for Overwhelmed Bloggers
1. You're Not Alone
There are days when I look at the things that I do and feel like I'm going backwards. I'm lucky enough to be able to dedicate full time hours (in fact I'm probably doing this 60-70 hours a week) to what I do - and I there are times when I can't keep up!

You're not alone. I hear stories of people who can't 'keep up' every day.

2. Focus Upon Your Core Tasks
My Mum isn't on Facebook, she's never heard of Twitter, she thinks YouTube is a deodorant stick and things RSS is something most people keep in their boxer shorts.

Sometimes it feels like we're falling behind in adopting technology but it is good remind ourselves that what we do do online is actually ahead of the curve of the majority of 'real people'.

What I remind myself on those days when I feel overwhelmed by it all is that 95% of the people who read my main blog don't really care that much about social media or web 2.0 - they're coming to my blog to read information on how to use their cameras.

As a result my core task is to develop that content and to distribute it using mediums that they are familiar with. My core task is NOT to have my finger on the pulse of every new technology. While it can be helpful to know about the latest widgets and tools to become distracted by them could actually be taking me further away from my audience.

3. Be Smart, Establish Boundaries and Focus Your Energies
I am not suggesting that we all ignore social media, emerging web technologies or forget about Web 2.0.

There is a lot to like about Web 2.0 and it can bring a lot of life to your blogging. However unless you're blogging about Technology or have a very Web Savvy audience you'd do well to pick and choose what you do and don't focus your attention on and to put boundaries around these activities.

I wish I could list the 3 tools and technologies that you should focus upon - but it will differ for each blog and every topic - but rather than focusing upon everything, narrow your focus and pick a few achievable technologies to 'play' with at a time. My approach with social media has always be to pick up new technologies one at a time rather than to start with multiple ones at once.

Picking new tools to play with one at a time allows you to fully understand it, work out how it might work for you and to add it to your natural work flow. Do too many new things at once and you're not likely to be able to integrate them into your life to it's potential.

Remember my post from last week on Home bases and Outposts and how it relates to Social Media - while spending time on outposts can be useful you also need to spend time on your home base - that needs to be your priority.

On Boundaries - One of the techniques that I use to help me to put boundaries around the things that I do is to use Batch Processing. Put most simply it is about setting aside blocks of time to work on tasks in a focused way instead of flitting from one thing to another all day.

4. They are Tools - Refocus Upon Your Goals
Sometimes the tools and technologies become bigger than they need to be. I am constantly reminding myself to spend less time focusing upon the tools and more time focusing upon my goals.

If you know what you want to achieve you can then decide how to move towards that desired goal. In doing so you can select the best tools for the job. If you start with the medium or the tools and try to fit it to your 'goals' and objectives you'll just get muddled.

Web 2.0 technologies can help you achieve your goals - but they are much more effective if you know what you want to achieve.

5. Have Fun
Sometimes I take things too seriously. Sure - blogging has become a business and a way of sustaining my family so there needs to be some element of taking it seriously - but that doesn't mean it can't be fun. Social media is a space that is at it's best when it is fun and playful. Let it bog you down and you're kind of defeating the purpose of it all.