Easiest Way To Make Money Online

Change the Title Tags in Blogger for More Search Engine Optimization

2010-10-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

By default Blogger displays the blog title first, followed by the name of the post. As you might notice this is not good when it comes to SEO. It's important for the name of the post to come before the name of your blog, especially when it comes to google search results. Learn how to make your post title show up first so that you can reel in more traffic from the search engines.

Why Change the Titles?
It's quite important to have the Post Title + Blog Title arranged accordingly because this is how you would want your blog to be displayed on google's search results. This way more people will click on
your link when searching google because the post title is more relevant than your post name.

Example Google Search Results:
You are most likely to click on the bottom image when searching google for the keywords "image reflection generator". The reason being is that your mind reads text from left to right. So it makes sense to have the more important title on the left.

How to Change the Titles:

Go to Layout>edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard.
Search for this tag: <data:blog.pageTitle/>
Replace this tag with the following code:

<data:blog.title/> <data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/>

Save your template and you should see the results in your web browser as depicted in the images below.
It may take a few days for the changes to show up on the google search results. I guarantee you that you will start receiving more traffic from google once you are re-indexed!

Ways to Monetize Blogs

2010-06-01T02:46:00.000-07:00

Commercialization of your blog must undergo serious thinking and evaluation on whether you’re up to the challenge or not. Monetizing your blog is a higher level of blogging compared to the early days of blogging where you just express your feelings, write about your interests, or just want to create networks. It is considered a higher form of blogging since your main goal is to generate income. Now, if you’re up for the challenge of earning income through blogging, here are some ways on how to maximize that writing talent of yours.

Advertisement
Web pages and blogs nowadays are full of these advertisements. You have the Contextual Advertising, the most popular one, probably due to Google Adsense. It has made a major impact because the advertisements are more targeted, and are more likely to be clicked. Another one is Text Links Advertising or Link Popularity which uses the text link ads or adbrite. This advertisement specializes on placing a static text link ads on high quality websites where there is high traffic. There is also what they call Direct Advertising. Here you create a page or dedicate a portion of your blog which offers options to businesses to directly place banners or links on your website.

Commissions
The other way you can earn is through commissions, others may call it affiliate program. Here you write something about the product and if someone buys that product you earn a percentage of there income. Sometimes it can be through a link inyour blog that leads them to the the page where they can purchase the product. The commission maybe big depending on the cost of the product being sold. .

Begging/ Donations
it never hurts to ask your readers directly for donations. It is not a shameful act especially if you have a good, honest and well composed blog. But of course you have to ask them in a polite way.Readers who truly value you work will be more than willing to support you. This is advisable if your blog has already a lot of followers.

Selling Products
If you have already mastered the way of blogging and already have a lot of follower, you may now sell the content of your blog through CDs. Your readers might want a compilation of your works. A good review of something you are selling could also result to a profit. You can also sell or endorse other products. A lot of big companies hire bloggers in order to promote their products.

Selling your blog
Sell your blog for a handsome amount of money. This way of monetizing your blog could be the most lucrative among the rest. But like any other product your blog must be on top of the line, must have a great content and a high level of traffic..

Monetization of blog will not happen overnight. It takes time, more good blogs and good traffic. Continue creating great blogs, and it’s pretty sure revenues will soon follow.

How To Choose A Blog Topics?

2010-05-25T02:41:00.000-07:00

Choosing a topic has always been my dilemma. It is not as easy as it seems. Every time I start a blog, I always ask myself these questions â€“ What topic should I discuss that will be of much interest to the readers? How to choose a topic that will always attract the whole blogoshpere’s attention? One has to give much effort on what to write since it is one of the most important part in writing an exceptional blog. Every good topic that you choose to write about in your blog will add to the blog’s appeal and uniqueness. It is important to have topics that are interesting for the blog to be successful and popular.

How then to choose a topic? According to what I have researched, it has to be something of your interest, something you are passionate about. The main topic of the blog should be something you can write about practically indefinitely. The overall topic of your blog should be interesting enough to you for you to right about it forever, and it should be broad enough to attract readers. Your sub-topics should have something new from time to time. By doing so, you’ll keep your readers wanting to read more and more of your blogs. Keep them interested. Keep them craving for more of your blogs.

Another is, your blog topics should be something fun. Make sure that you’ll not treat your blogging as a job. Your blog topics should never feel tired and monotonous. Your readers will feel it too. It is important that you choose blog topics that interests you and that will make you feel afresh and anew. You should choose a topic you like to discuss with others. After posting the blog, you, most possibly, will have some people comment on your blogs. Make sure to have a topic you want to talk about for you to be responsive to yourreaders.

To create a successful blog, you should create a rapport with them to keep them coming and visiting your blog. In this blog world, some people may agree with your blog, some may not. As long as you are enjoying discussing and you are doing it in a healthy way, keep going. Keep blogging. The topic should be something that is also of interest to you readers. Blog about what your readers want to read. Don’t be bias. Balance your interest with theirs. Keep an eye on your target readers’ favored topic. Talking about it would make them appreciate your blog. This is also one way to have a financially rewarding blog.

Keep these in mind and you most probably will have a favorable, profitable, popular blog.

Are You a Blog Addict?

2010-05-18T02:36:00.000-07:00

Are you a blog addict? If you answer yes, you did found something worth your time and effort. Most people say blogging is an art, a way of expressing yourself, thoughts, and feelings. Others say, its a new way of communicating or conveying your thoughts to others. The majority also say that blogging is an income generating activity. Maybe, these are the reasons why you are hooked into it.

Blog, according to Wikipedia, is a type of website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Some bloggers fill their blogs with comments about any topics â€“ whether about events, politics and just anything under the sun. Some individuals made their blog to function as online diaries. Some others focuses on art â€“ poems, photographs, sketches, videos, and music. But this individuals who maintain it sometimes get hooked that they wrote anything and everything they can think of, and posts blogs depending on what they think and feel at the moment.

Blogging is a new way of expressing oneself, thoughts and feelings. Gone are the days where only good writers can make books or novels to express their selves, because even a young adult now a days are into blogging where they express there opinions and experiences spontaneously and freely. The generations who got hooked into this stuff is getting younger and younger. We’ll never know it would be part of a curriculum in elementary in the near future.

Another good thing about blogging is that it is a way of communicating with others. With your thoughts expressed in blogs, you conveyed a message where people can react through comments. Others may like what you wrote and re-post them, while others may not. But what you wrote may, in one way or another, be beneficial to your readers. Others may find your blogs unhelpful as of the moment, but in the long run, as time and need arises, your readers will still, even in the littlest use, benefit from it.

The good thing here is you still communicated with them and you intended to impart your thoughts and ideas with them through your blogs. You may want to influence your readers through your words of encouragement but even if you can’t, even if your readers won’t agree with what you wrote, what is important is you shared something, you gave out ideas and you made it known loud and clear.

Writers are truly blessed. They are being paid for what they enjoy doing most. True to blogging, it has been a source of gaining revenues now a days. Some people earn a lot of money on this, others made it their profession by monetizing their blogs even those personal ones. Bloggers, not only earn money, but also knowledge from other blogs and articles they have and they will still read.

Both the bloggers and their readers will learn from blogging and reading blogs. What disadvantages could you get from blogging? None. Blogging is indeed a good addiction.

Guidelines for Search Engine Optimization

2010-05-12T02:26:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimization is a trick to optimize or improve the volume or quality of traffic to a certain web site. There are two types of SEO. First is the â€œblack hatâ€ SEO where search engine optimizers’ main goal is to achieve high rankings in the search engines through any possible means, even in an unethical manner. Optimizers breaks search engine rules and regulations, and unethically presents contents in a different visual or non-visual way to search engine spiders and users. The second type is the â€œwhite hatâ€ SEO, where the usage of SEO strategies, techniques and tactics focuses on human audience opposed to search engines. This type is also called the Ethical SEO because it completely follows search engine rules and policies. Both types’ primary goals are to increase the visibility of your website, to gain high rankings and for internet marketing.

Here are some guidelines to achieve the primary goals of Search Engine Optimization.

1. Clear Hierarchy and Text Links.

Webmasters should make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Each page of your site should be reachable from at least one static text link. In giving very informational heading tags, the bots will see the hierarchy of the page. This is very important foryour site to be very visible to bots. Webmasters should choose the right text to be used as links in each page and should put relevant Tag for clear hierarchy.

2. Site Map.

Create a site map for your users. A site map lets the search engine know that the pages that might not be discovered through spiders exist. The site map must have links that points to the important parts of your site. If you have a large website with so many links, you can break the site map up into many pages.

3. Useful and Information-rich content.

Having a solid content would entice more the users to continue reading and browsing through your site. Therefore it is very important for your site to be full of useful, clear and accurate information about your topic. Your content should be original and should make sense. Throw relevant keywords in your content, and have it updated once in a while. Besides, it is what your users are really looking for.

4. Keywords.

Don’t use words that are too generic since it would be very hard for you to optimize for them. Try to pick keywords that are specific; words that users would usually type when searching. You make sure that these words are found in your article or blog. Research your keywords and know which of these are most possibly going to be searched by most users.

5. Use texts instead of images in displaying important names, contents, or links.

Search engines don’t recognize images. So instead of displaying names or contents through images, it is advised to have it displayed through text. And if you need to use images for your content, try using the â€œALTâ€ attribute, where you can include some words that would describe that image.

6. Descriptive and accurate Title elements and ALT attributes.

You should make sure that what you wrote in the TITLE Elements and ALT attributes should be descriptive of the content of your site. What you write in the title element and the alt attributes will be used by search engine to find the articles related with the user’s given keywords. Feel free too to make bold the texts that are important since bots will tend to give value on bold texts.

7.Check for broken links and correct HTML.

The spiders will stop the search if they find broken links in your site. Check your site thoroughly for broken links in order for the bots to have something to crawl through. You should also create a proper 404 page in casethe search engine gives the visitor an old URL. Include in it the appropriate link in the error page for the visitor to know where to go.

Top 5 Ad Networks To Use On Your Blog

2010-05-06T02:21:00.000-07:00

More often than not, bloggers and website owners allow contextual ads on their blogs and sites. These contextual advertisements are web ads that are “targeted to the specific individual who is visiting the website,” Webopedia. That is, the ads appearing on the site are based on what the user is viewing and on what the users is searching using the search engine of the site.

Why do site owners allow these ads to appear in their sites? Simple. It’s purely business. Site owners receive revenue from the ad networks hosting these ads and at the same time ad networks also receive revenue for hosting these ads while the advertisers attracts and gains more costumers thru these ads. Site owners, primarily wants to gain something out of their sites. Whether we all agree or not, websites, at the moment, are created for monetizing purposes.

So I’ve gathered up some resources about these ad networks for which you can choose from for your site. Top five of my researches about them are listed in here.

Google AdSense. This one is a free program allowing you to display interrelated Google ads on your site. They offer competitive filter which enables you to filter competitors or advertisers, contextual filter, which eliminates delivery of ads found inappropriate for the page, editorial review which means all Google ads are reviewed and approved before being provided on the page, and customizable default ads wherein in the unlikely event that Google is unable to provide your page a contextual ad, they allow you to place a default ad of your choice. Consequently, it doesn’t just add up volume to your site but definitely lets you earn money. How? It is very simple. You earn just through valid clicks or impressions. It is definitely plain and simple. Just visit their site by clicking Google AdSense. Apply. Once your application is approved, you can get started in a jiffy. You basically copy and paste a block of HTML to your site and voila! Google ads will now start appearing on your site.

AdOn Network This one now is a subsidiary of PV Media Group, Inc., which offers a full set of online media solutions from leading companies in online advertising, SEO, and more to form a first-class Internet marketing powerhouse. AdOn Network guarantees an innovative contextual and behavioral advertising solution to both advertisers and publishers to deliver quality traffic from the US and Global sources. It allows publishers, that is, you site owners and bloggers, to monetize your traffic from multiple forms of display and search advertising. Their turnkey, private-level ASP(Active Server Pages) solution, AdOn Direct, allows you to create, manage, and distribute your own advertiser account. AdOn Network fully handle keyword management allowing you to concentrate on marketing and advertiser attainment.

Simply sign up. Then you can now get started. Create your own codes with just a few simple click and then you can now display contextual Banner Ads, Pop-Under Ads, Search Listing Ads, and BackgroundAds on your site.

Chitika. This ad network assures you to be a full-service, on-line, easy-to-use platform for receiving on-a-daily-basis ad revenue. Chitika is made for bothadvertisers and publishers and it allows views only from Canada and the US. You can use it with AdSense or as an AdSense alternative. Yes. You can use it altogether in one site. Like any other search targeted advertising, they assure you to be able to display relevant ads on your site. And just like the previous ad networks mentioned, you simply apply as a publisher and then you can now get started displaying contextual ads on your site in just a matter of seconds. No hustle.

Viral Ad Network. This one is used by, BBC, Nokia, Sony, Greenpeace, Polaroid, and easyJetsHotel. Yes, you read it right, coming straight from their site. All the world-renowned companies mentioned use this ad network on their site. Viral Ad Network offers a great deal of earning an income the easy way. It provides you with a high quality content the readers will surely love. This network is run by seven people at Rubber Republic, a specialist viral and buzz marketing company. They deliver a great deal of “addictive, ROI-driven creative campaigns and effective viral seeding services for clients like JVC, Easyjet, Warner Music and Sony,” Viral Ad Network. Again, simply sign up and it would only take you a moment to start earning out of showing ads on your site.

ValueClick Media. Made for both advertisers and publishers, ValueClick Media assures you of a leveraged “expertise, scale, extensive targeting capabilities and market leading optimization technology” to achieve both direct response and brand marketing goals. Publishers are further guaranteed that ValueClick Media serves as a strategic buddy “offering a national sales force” and a complete suite of tools and services. This makes these publishers get the chance to earn the maximum possible income from a variety of online advertising inventory. Moreover, they offer you a great arrangement of qualityadvertisers , advanced technology, and superior support. As usual, it’s easy to start earning through them. Simply sign up and them you can now get started.

Have a happy way of earning. Don’t waste the chance. Every penny counts.

Top 5 Photo Hosting Websites for Your Photoblog

2010-04-29T02:09:00.000-07:00

Blogging doesn’t just constitute on text documents alone. Blogs can be of different forms depending on the blogger’s specialization. You can have vlogs (video blogs), sketchblog, artblogs and even photoblogs. Vlogs are for blogs making videos its topic, sketchblogs for sketches, artblogs for arts. Photoblogs are for your great photographs and for displaying the art of photography.

Photography had taken a real leap in our world today. As what they say, photographs aren’t just still images of memories and the world. It is far more than that. If you take a good look at every picture there is you’ll see that they aren’t just memories of events, places and people. It talks to the soul. Yes, if you’ll look at it more closely, you’ll certainly feel different emotions it employs. It is more than just an art. It is more than just a piece of paper. It is more than just a mere photograph of something.

That is why more and more people are getting hooked at photography. And displaying it is just a wonderful way of telling the world how magnificent a photograph is. Photography is one theme you can have for your blog if you have that love for photography. And displaying these photographs isn’t hard. There are lots of photograph hosting websites out there of which you can choose to host your beautiful pictures for your blog.

For photobloggers out there, here are 5 top image hosting websites you can choose from:

Photobucket.
Is a free image hosting site dedicated to make sharing images hassle free. It has a total of 500MB free storage. They provide you with easy sharing and with family and friends with just a single link you will give them.

No hassle with sending them photo attachments on emails. Various themes are available for you to choose from to make your Photobucket account more alive and inviting. There’s a built-in organizer for you to be able to organize photos into albums for easy access. A built in photo editor is also available for easy fixing and editing of your photos. Built-in searching, scrapbook builder, slideshow builder, remix builder.

ImageShack®
Just founded on November 2003, ImageShack® had taken its way to popularity on photo hosting. It provides a user-friendly line of image hosting. Powered by Linux, they offer an easy uploading of different image formats, an unlimited storing time, and a better security. They can support file formats like JPEG, GIF, PNG, SWF(flash), BMP, and TIFF.

Images of BMP and TIFF formats are automatically converted to PNG formats. And you ca store these photos on ImageShack® forever as long as it doesn’t violate any of its terms and conditions. And you are rest assured that you are totally protected because the thumbnail links provided after every upload is limited to the account owner only. Photos must not exceed a size of 1.5Mb/photo.

TinyPic.

Is owned by Photobucket Video and Photo Sharing Company designed for you to easily upload, link, and share your images and videos on your online scrapbooks, blogs, journals and on messageboards. It is a fast, simple, and reliable photo and video hosting website you can use for free.

ImageHosting

This image hosting site has dedicated servers which hosts your images for free. They make your photos easily get linked in websites, emails and blogs. You can upload an image of up to 1.5MB in file size in any formant and as many images you want, photos will be stored as long as you want in to be stored, thumbnails are automatically created, and you can easily share image with friends and family.

It is also a free image hosting site designed to make sharing photos easy and hassle free. You can upload photos of up to 10 photos and a maximum size of 3.5Mb/photo without registering to Pict. Registered accounts, that is, those accounts of registered users with personal Pict accounts, can upload of up to 20 photos/album and a maximum of 3 albums also at 3.5Mb image size. And if you apply for a Pro account, you can upload unlimited photos and create unlimited albums with a maximum of 12Mb image size. Pict has its own uploading software to make downloading fast. They have an application for Windows which allows you to upload, manage and share photos and screenshots with just a single click. They also have a Firefox Add-on to make screenshots in just one click with an automatic upload to Pict image hosting. They also allow you to upload images online with just a right click.

Never waste an opportunity of sharing wonderful moments and places to the public and especially to your families and friends. Bring photos to your blog and let them see how wonderful photography is. Have a happy photo sharing!

Search Engine’s Web Crawlers: its importance to web rankings

2010-04-24T02:05:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder how search engines rank your sites? What these engines do to determine how popular your site is, especially the crawler-based search engines? Crawler-based search engines have what they call a â€œweb crawlerâ€, and that will answer if not all, most questions lurking in your mind.

What is then web crawler? How does web crawlers work? What does it do or what is its purpose? Well, a web crawler is a simple, automated program or script that â€œcrawlsâ€ or scans throughout the internet pages. Some call this crawler, automatic indexer, web spider, web robot or bot. This leaves traces in your access logs, which means that, if you know what to look for, you will know too that a spider has visited your web site.

You can also tell what it has or has not recorded. This unmanned program is operated by search engines. And how does this works? The web crawler visits each Web site and, each and every pages of your site. This then reads the visible texts, hyperlinks and contents of the tags used. In short, it reads all the contents of the site’s page and the pages of your site. It then determines, using the keywords gathered, what the web page is about. Then records all the words and notes each links to other sites.

The web crawler indexes the information and stores the web site into the main database of the search engine it’s working for. And from there, the web page will then be included in the page ranking process. A web crawler is programmed to follow web links from one web page to another, and from one website to another. The more links this web crawler finds in you site, the more they will visit your site for indexing.

These web crawlers are important for it serves many purposes. Linguists use web crawlers. They use web crawlers to perform textual analysis by determining the words that are commonly used now a days. Market researchers may also use web crawlers in order to determine and to assess the trend in a certain market. This just means that web crawlers can be used by anyone who are collecting information on the internet. But the web crawlers’ most common purpose is associated with search engines.

These search engines use web crawlers to collect information from web pages for them to quickly provide the internet users or surfers with websites that are related with the keywords they [meaning, the internet surfers] have inputted in their website. This web crawler is your most important visitor. If you allow these to have an easy access to your site and make it easy for these crawlers to go around your site, then you will have more points, which also mean higher search engine rankings. Search engines use web crawlers to collect data and to keep up with the rapid internet change and expansion. These help search engines in keeping their databases up to date.

But recently, many search engines index only up to a certain number of pages, often it indexes at about 400 pages, then it stops. This is due to the rapid expansion of the world wide web. It has become impossible to index everything. We cannot really determine up to how many pages the web crawler will index. It is therefore important for web developers to submit each page of the site that you want to be indexed, especially those pages that contains important information, hyperlinks or keywords. This just means, web crawlers are very important for web developers too. Through these, search engines will know the sites that you linked to and the sites that are linked to you. The number of links to your site indicates popularity, which will then boosts your ranking.

Commonly Used Blog Types

2010-04-16T02:01:00.000-07:00

A blog is an online journal where a business can share information about their product and their company and where a person can share their opinion on any topic. Blogs are used to communicate online. A blogger, in order to choose a topic for his blog, must first choose the type of blog he wants to create. Below are the different types of blogs that a blogger may consider creating.

The Personal Blogs. When the word BLOG is heard, people usually think of it as the Personal Blog. This type of blog is the most popular blog since this triggered the start of blogging. This diary type of blog contains the different aspects of the author’s life â€“ like the important events in his life, about his family and friends, or about his thoughts, feelings, emotions, or this may contain his opinions or reviews about topics such as politics, music, religion, photography and just anything under the sun. It may also contain the blogger’s rants. This type of blog is great especially in starting a conversation, a serious discussion and debates. But bloggers must be careful on how he will convey his thoughts since it might also trigger a controversy that may blemish his reputation. This is the most famous type of blog used in some of the networking sites.

The Corporate Blogs. Corporate blogs, also called as Business Blogs, is a blog about the stock markets and other business related topics. This blog is published by an organization in order to achieve its goals. This facilitates the organizations with proper communication flow, and is concerned about the culture of the organization. This blog has two types: the internal corporate blog and the external corporate blog. The Internal corporate blog is created to share information and views just within the organization, while External corporate blog is created in order to communicate with the public for marketing the organization’s products or services.

The Professional Blogs. Professional blogs are created for bloggers to share about their expertise on a certain subject. This is where the blogger can chronologically record his career development. Professional blog is a way for the blogger to present his career history that may answer questions the interviewer may have about the his resume. Professional blogs are made forreaders, a real contrast to personal blogs since what the blogger may share in this blog will help his readers gain knowledge about the subject he is tackling; and may help the blogger’s future employers to learn more about their potential employees â€“ the blogger.

The Micro Blogs. Micro blog is a form of multimedia blogging. This blog may contain brief posts or micro media like that of the photos, audio or video clips. This is done for thereaders to cope up with the latest trends or the little changes of the lifestyles of the people. This kind of blog is typically smaller or shorter. Its contents may consist of just a single sentence or an image with just a brief description or a short video clip. But it has the same purpose as the traditional blog â€“ to share about ones plight, thoughts and interests; or a news about a company’s product or services, only that Micro Blog is short and concise.

What To Do With a Messy Page

2010-04-06T01:51:00.000-07:00

Who wants to see a very messy page? Most likely, no one wants. Definitely, readers want to see a dense page not because of the content of the sidebar, but rather, because of the substance of the posts. So make sure thatyour blog looks tidy in every way. To get into attracting more readers into following your blog, start cleaning it. Let them see the professionalism beyond the uniqueness of your page.

To get into it, here are 3 easy ways to cleaning up your page.

Be specific.

Surely, blog readers don't want to go over a blog with an undefined topic, right? They want to know what sort of topic they would probably be reading or else they would just get totally confused over whatyour blog is all about and end up closing your page and never ever come back again. You don't want that, don’t you? So GET SPECIFIC. Define your blog, make sure your topics are on the range of your blog definition. And then by that, soon enough, you'll get readers interested on your blog. You definitely will be able to get followers engrossed on it sooner or later.

Be organized.

When you get specific, certainly, you'll be getting several topics related to one another. What do you do about them? Well, there are two ways to get these topics get to be linked to. You can categorize them. You can think of categories as a filing system and each category is one file case. Be sure to name each category the right keyword for the things you will be putting into it. But then every category can be very vast. So for you to be very organized, tag your every post with the appropriate label. You may think of tagging and categorizing as the same thing. But they are not. You can visualize tagging as small and veryspecific sections on your file cases. But be sure to recycle you tags, don't use varying tags or else it would be useless. Use them for every topic you think is related to them. By that you'll get to link related topics and be organized as well.

Be sensible.

Bloggers wants to earn extra money for what they are doing, even if it turned out just to be a hobby. That is why we see ads on any part of the page. But you have to remember that thesereaders aren't visiting your site for the ads. Rather, they want the main content of your blog, that is, your posts. So don't upset your readers . Don't make them think that you are only after of the money you will be earning for every clicks and every page visit you'll be getting. Minimize your ads sections. Donate be hungry over money. Don't make them look like these ad sections overrule your posts or you end up loosing yourreaders.

So don't waste time, clean up your page now. GET SPECIFIC, ORGANIZED, AND SENSIBLE. Convince your readers with the substance of your page.

Great Resources for FREE Blogger Templates

2010-03-28T01:25:00.000-07:00

Blogger is one of the most popular hosted blogging platforms out there, but many people are still surprised when they learn you can customize the look of your blog well beyond the pre-built options the site offers. Finding these other templates can be a bit of a task, so we’ve come up with over 30 resources to help you find brand new designs, converted WordPress themes, people who will build unique custom templates, and more. What are you waiting for? Get out there and freshen up your blog!

What is your favorite resource for Blogger templates? Tell us in the comments.

Free Templates

5ColumnTemplate.Blogspot.com – This site only offers one template with five variations, but it isn’t every day you see a five column theme for any blogging platform, and it is actually pretty clean in presentation.

AllBlogTools.com – A collection of over 100 templates from an assortment of a lot of smaller designers. You can look them up by layout, color, subject matter and so on.

Blogger-Templates.Blogspot.com – Keeps a small selection of top-notch Blogger themes up and running.

Blogger-Templates.Deceblog.net – A small selection of unique themes for Blogger accounts.

Blogger-Templates-Directory.Blogspot.com – A large directory of Blogger templates, links to resources for further development and a whole lot more.

BloggerTemplates.org – Doesn’t seem to have been updated since it originally launched, but all of the templates still work, and have a lot of resemblance to WordPress themes.

BlogspotTemplates.Blogspot.com – Several pages of Blogger templates with tips on how to use them.

BlogspotTemplate.com – Right around 100 templates for Blogger of varying styles and colors.

BlogTemplates.Noipo.org – A small selection of graphical and text based templates for your blog.

BTemplates.com – Features a wide assortment of over 600 free Blogger templates that can be browsed by category, tag, number of downloads and so on.

Carl Galloway’s Blogger Templates – A small selection of some fairly unique templates that haven’t been updated in some time, but are still fully functional.

FinalSense.com – Offers over 300 templates for your Blogger account. Have just about every theme and color combination that you can think of.
FreeBlogger-Templates.Blogspot.com – Focu
ses heavily on simplified Blogger templates that make for the easiest reading possible.

FreeTemplates.Blogspot.coms – A blog dedicated to bringing you nothing but free Blogger templates. Nicely categorized, and easy to browse.

FreshBloggerTemplates.Blogspot.com – It has been a while since this site released any new templates, but their designs are very clean and still in working order.

Gecko & Fly Blogger Templates – Offers many Blogger templates, most of which are in a more “classic” style, as well as tutorials on how to tweak your blog even further.

GoSuBlogger.com – A large selection of free templates that mix original work with converted WordPress themes.

Isnaini.com – A large and varied collection of templates for use on Blogger, along with a detailed tutorial on how to properly insert them into your account.

JackBook.com – Besides offering a large selection of free templates, with a heavy saturation of video game inspired themes, JackBook also offers tips and pointers on better SEO for your blog.

OurBlogTemplates.com – An odd mix of nearly 200 free templates for you to use and with a dash of reviews of DSLR cameras.

PannaSmontana Templates – Numerous free templates for Blogger, but the site is entirely in Italian. Thankfully it is well designed and you can find your way around.

Public-Template.Blogspot.com – Features a mixture of free templates for you to download, tutorials on how to make your own, and admiration for templates they enjoy.

Simple-Blogskins.Blogspot.com – Offers a handful of free skins for your Blogger account.

Template-Godown.com – A site specializing in converting WordPress themes to the Blogger friendly XML format.

WP-Themes.us – Yes, the name points to them being all about WordPress themes, but they also provide a nice selection of free templates for Blogger.

Yanku-Template.Blogspot.com – Offers some very slick looking, free, Blogger templates of the 2 and 3-column varieties.

How To Launch A Blog On Blogger Platform

2010-03-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

Creating a blog on blogger platform is a matter of minutes. Anyone can create it very easily by following some simple steps. If you are planning to launch a professional blog on blogger platform, some things need to be taken into consideration before you create a blog. It will not only help you in creating a unique, clean and crawler friendly blog, but at the same time it will also save you from messing it up, if you do not plan from the very beginning.

How To Start?

I would strongly suggest you to go for a customized domain for your blogger blog. It gives professional look and feel to the visitor. Once you have chosen the niche of your blog, it's time to look for a good domain name.

Choosing a good domain name is not an easy task and requires some brainstorming. Configuring and integrating your own domain with blogger blog is not difficult at all. Add the following host record in your domain hosting control panel.

HOSTNAME        IP ADDRESS/URL              RECORD TYPE

    www            ghs.google.com.                      CNAME (alias)
     @        http://www.yourdomain.com/         URL Redirect

Once you have added these records, go to your blogger dashboard and click Settings tab, then go to Publishing subtab. Click the Custom Domain link and follow the simple procedure to add your domain URL and click ok. Once it is done, it may take from 1 to 3 days before the DNS records of your domain are cached all over the world in domain name servers. You can also see blogger help of configuring custom domain with blogger.

Choose a good theme

The next step is to choose a good theme for your blog. There are hundreds of blogger templates to choose from, and depending on the niche of your blog, you may choose a specific type of template. Do not go for bright, multicolored and fancy themes.

Tweaking the theme

Almost every template needs some customization as per bloggers requirements. Designing a good landing page from your chosen template is not difficult at all. All it requires is a bit of CSS editing and some add-on widgets. With simple CSS tricks you can make your blog posts more spicy and attractive.

Initial setup

Once your theme is tweaked as per your needs, start building the core pages of your blog. Do not straight away start posting. First create Archives, Contact and About pages with old timestamps, and place a link for each page in navigation menu. It is always advisable to make these important pages beforehand, because any new post on blogger always comes in recent posts. If you will try to make them later, they will appear in recent posts. You can use Disqus commenting system for your blog, as it supports multi-threaded conversations, video comments and standard track backs. A Wordpress style contact form is must for Contact page. Blogger currently has no option to create such form, but you can use Kontactr, to create a customized contact form. Install at least two web analytics script in your blog template, because in case one of the services fails still you can get the traffic data from the other one. Of course Google Analytics should be one of them, the other one can be Sitemeter or Woopra. Both are excellent web analytic services and I use all three of them for my blog. Do not forget to put a search box in the navigation bar. Here is the code.

Building on foundation

Once initial setup is complete, you can start posting on your blog. The first 25-30 posts on your blog matters the most. Make good long posts and put the cream in these posts. Populate the Popular Posts section with selective hand picked posts.

Monetization strategy

After all the hard work, its time to monetize your blog. There are many approaches to that, and you have to choose the best one for your blog. I would strongly suggest leaving home page free from ads. If your new blog's home page is stuffed with ads, it may annoy the visitor and you may loose your valuable subscriber. Some 125x125 ads in the sidebar are fine, but avoid ads between posts on home page of your blog. Only when the visitor clicks the individual post, ads should be placed in the body of post.

Posting structure and frequency

Every blogger has it's own approach in building a post, still there are some common traits in every good blog post. Often novice bloggers take some time to come up with a definite pattern and structure for their posts. Whatever your approach is, stick to your style for uniformity in your blog posts. If you have time constraints, I would suggest you to publish at least two good long posts per week.

Blog Promotion

Unless you do not tell the world, no one is going to see the gem you have polished. Blog directory submissions and RSS feed submissions is must for any blog to grab attention in the blogosphere. You can submit your blog and its feed in most popular blog directories and feed syndication services. Another good way to promote your blog is popular social bookmarking services

Viewing Tags Using Tag Clouds on Wordpress

2010-03-12T01:01:00.000-08:00

For every blogger and website owners out there, tags aren’t new. They know that these though not required, had been essential parts of their every post. Why? Well basically, in computer jargon, tags are non-hierarchical keywords given to articles, posts, images, internet bookmarks or any bit of information. They are generally hyperlinks that lead to a compilation of items that are connected with it. These tags which can be selected personally and casually by its creator and even by its viewers if allowed by the network, are descriptors of your data and allow it to be located again through searching or browsing. They aid classification and are a way of helping viewers to find content on your page.

Consequently, as to further help your viewers in finding content on your page, you need to add a tag cloud on it. A tag cloud is a visual collection of tags with their corresponding weights which depends on how frequent you have used them. More often, weights of these tags regularly used are illustrated in larger fonts or otherwise accentuated and the displayed order is basically alphabetical, therefore allowing probing a tag via alphabet and via popularity. Typically, tag cloud may contain 30-150 tags (Tagclouds). Tag clouds are interactive, which means, tags are hyperlinked therefore permitting the user to surf on the data. When selecting a tag from a tag cloud, it usually leads to a collection of posts connected in it.

These tag clouds are illustrated using inline HTML elements. Thus, you are able to control how they would appear as to their order, either alphabetical or random, how they are sorted according to their weights and more. You can also huddle your tags semantically so that comparable tags appear close by. Then, heuristics can be utilized to decrease the dimension of your tag cloud either you are trying to group the tags or not.
That means, you can customize your tag cloud. All you just need is a tag cloud generator (which we will discuss separately) and a little knowledge on HTML.

Since tag clouds uses HTML and the tags’ range is only within the page, then, for you to indicate that the linked-to page acts as a tag for the current context use the rel attribute value “tag” (i.e., rel=“tag”). The rel=“tag” is exclusively designed for “tagging” content, naturally web pages or portions of it, like blog posts. It is NOT designed for “tagging” random URLs or external content. Although there is demand for an all-purpose decentralized syntax for tagging URLs external to the current page it is beyond the scope of our tags. So basically you cannot use this to help you in taking the top rank on search engines. Nonetheless, it is still essential since your viewers can have the ease of finding related posts.

So look for a cloud generator now, create your tag cloud, customized it, and start collecting your tags for a happy probing in your blog. Make the life of your readers easy.

Optimizing Your Website Brings Traffic

2010-03-05T00:56:00.000-08:00

If you want your website or blog to get good traffic, you need to apply some Search Engine Optimization tricks to entice the search engine spiders to visit your site and rank it highly in the results pages.

Many people avoid using SEO techniques because they think SEO is complicated and difficult. SEO can be complicated and is often best left to professionals. However, you can take a few simple steps to greatly increase traffic toyour site.

The first step in optimization is keyword research. Keyword research is an easy process, although it can be a bit time consuming. Thanks to several online tools like Wordtracker or the Google Keyword tool, you can find keywords yourself and begin using them inyour site content. Start by typing in a word or short phrase that best describes your business service or features. If you are selling auto parts, for example, type in “auto parts” and let the keyword tool go to work. It will show you how often the word is searched for on a regular basis. It will also provide a list of similar keywords used in website searches.

The next step in choosing keywords to optimize your site is to choose the top five or so keywords and run a Google search on them to determine how much competition there is for each one. If a keyword is searched for 1,000 times a day, but there are 2,000,000 websites in the search engine results for that particular word, you may want to consider a different keyword without quite so much competition. By creating more precise keyword phrases, you can whittle down the search competition.

Once you have your list narrowed down to about five keywords, it is time to start using them strategically on your website or blog. For instance, an ideal use of a keyword is in your domain name, but many businesses have already established a domain name and cannot easily change it. You do have other options to use your keywords There are several other places you can add your keywords to help optimizeyour website for the search engines.

The search engine spiders will check you title first, so use your keywords in your website title and page titles as often as you can. Headings and subheads are other great places for your keywords to be noticed when your site is scanned. Using keywords in these two places will increase your visibility in the search engine results. However, because the rules the search engines use to comb sites change on a very frequent basis, it can be difficult to keep up with these changes. For many business owners, hiring a company specializing in Search Engine Optimization is the best route to get their websites ranked quickly and frequently on the results pages of the popular search engines.

Debbie Dragon is a freelance writer providing articles for Trace Media – a New York seo company specializing in getting websites up, and making sure they perform to their full potential.

Edward Roberts Jr. is a owner of GlobeTourGuide, a tourist destinations blog who managed to appear his blog on first page of Google and Yahoo search.

How about you? How do you manage your website's traffic?

Why Choose Niche Marketing Over Mass Marketing?

2010-02-28T00:52:00.000-08:00

Previously we have defined niche marketing and discussed about using it in getting specific on your blog. Now, have you ever been asking yourself on why and is it really important that you should define your niche and why and is it really important that you should know your perspective costumers?

Well then I’ve researched about the importance of niche marketing and saw several similar tips some marketing guides are suggesting which I think are very reasonable on why you should prefer niche marketing rather than mass marketing.

Here are few of the reasons why you should prefer niche marketing rather than mass marketing:

1. Minimizes Advertising Budget

It is apparent that if you know who you are marketing to, you certainly will be able to use your budget wisely to those who are likely to be your costumers, and in blogging, your viewers. Take it this way; your product includes engineering books. Are you going to market that to everyone? Is it sensible to try to advertise your books to everyone? Is it sensible to spend money advertising your products to no one in particular? Definitely not! If you go massive, how many percent of the population you aremarketing are interested in engineering? A little I guess. Then, you should be reasonable enough to advertise only in this small part of the bigger market since most likely; they are the ones who are going to be your potential costumers.

Focusing on people who are likely to buy from you means minimizing your allotted budget. BUT at the same time it means maximizing the chance of selling since you have targeted to a niche who would be interested in buying an engineering book.

2. Easier way of Making Your Website Special.
If you have defined your niche market, then it would be easier for you to develop your website in a way that would meet the needs of your probable costumers. Your site would be narrowed down to topics and solutions which would be of great interest for your costumers. You will be able to have more time in makingyour site stand up in the group of similar sites offering the same product, the same services, the same information, etc. You will be able to think of ways in whichyour site will have more big, sensible, and welcoming offers.

3. Develops Stronger Customer Relationship
When you only have a small number of costumers, you have a big chance of having stronger customer relationship. Why? It is simply because you can easily define their needs. You can definitely meet those needs by sending useful newsletters, replying to their emails and requests, and providing them what they need. Tending in their needs will eventually develop a sense of trust within customer-marketer/advertiser/seller relationship and eventually they become your loyal costumers.

With these reasons in mind, you would deeply think of whether to enter niche marketing or stick to mass marketing. Yet, you may still think about your profit. With niche marketing you probably will worry about less traffic and even fewer sales. But take a few minutes and think over this statement Mila Sidman the Editor of Internet Based oms had left for her readers, “Even if your potential traffic numbers were to a bit lower…isn’t it better to have a small audience of captivated visitors than a large audience of half interested ones?”

How To Get Direct Advertisements For Your Blog

2010-02-23T00:48:00.000-08:00

About a decade back, nobody thought that blogs would transform from a personal diary to full-fledged money making websites. Blog monetization strategies have undergone several transitions during these years, and bloggers have tons of monetization options at their disposal. One of the options is 'Direct Advertisements'. Interestingly, large number of bloggers does not use this option for many reasons. Let's try to understand the dynamics of direct advertising and the methods to grab direct advertisement deals.

If you own a blog with decent traffic (at least 500-1000 unique visits/day) and are planning to monetize it, direct advertising is an excellent option for you. Quality content and good traffic are two most important prerequisites before pitching for direct advertising.

Advantages of Direct Advertising

Cuts out the middleman - Almost every blogger who has monetized his/her blog is familiar with PPC (pay-per-click) ads served by popular 3rd party advertising networks. Since they act as a middleman between the advertiser and the publisher, they take a good share of revenue. On the other hand, getting direct ads from advertisers removes the middleman and you as a publisher get full incentive for your service.

More choice on type of ads - You can offer almost any type of ad format for the advertisers. With 3rd party advertisements, you have limited choices with some predefined standard ad formats. Through direct advertising you can offer a wide array of ad formats with much more flexible ad placements. Following are some popular ad types used by bloggers.

1. Banners (Animated/Static)
2. Text Links
3. RSS Ads
4. Newsletter Ads
5. Site Reviews
6. Audio/Video Ads

When you are in complete control of your ads, advertisers gets more variety to choose from that suits his business demands.

Flexible payment options - Another advantage is acceptance of payment in multiple ways. If an advertiser is not willing to pay by one method you can opt for the second. Normally, bloggers prefer wire transfer or Paypal as the best method to get payments from advertisers. Still, if an advertiser chooses any other payment medium you can be flexible and can go ahead with that option without any chance of losing the deal.

Long-term relationships - More than often, bloggers develop long term relationships with advertisers who are satisfied with their service. This not only opens the door for consistent stream of income from these advertisers, but also increases the probability of grabbing more advertising deals through referrals of these satisfied advertisers.

Flexible pricing - Since you are in complete control of your ad inventory, you can exercise extreme flexibility while quoting price of different types of ads to grab virtually every advertising deal that comes in your way.

Builds Credibility - A blog that gets consistent direct advertisement deals automatically builds it's credibility and is seen as an authority in it's niche.

Disadvantages of Direct Advertising

Difficulty in finding advertisers - Initially, a lot of effort goes in finding advertisers for your blog. Sometimes, it may take considerable time before any such deal is finalized. Once you start getting the deals, things become easier though you still have to move your legs aggressively to clinch new deals.

Time consumption - Keeping track of ad inventory, negotiating deals with advertisers, keeping track of payments and time deadlines consumes lot of precious time. If you have multiple blogs that are updated daily, things can become more difficult as considerable part of your blogging schedule is spent in maintaining your ad inventory and in finding new advertising deals.

Disputes - Sometimes, an advertiser is not satisfied with the results and may nullify the agreement from his end demanding refund of his payment. This can also lead to negative feedback to other advertisers in the pool.

Preparations For Getting Direct Advertising

Before you decide to approach advertisers, you must do some very important preparations to increase the probability of clinching your first direct advertising deal.

Create a dedicated advertising page - An advertising page concentrates all the necessary information needed to convince potential advertisers (kind of a portfolio of your blog). This page tabulates the most important statistics about your blog. In simple words, this page gives all the reasons why advertisers should choose your blog for advertising.

Following are some of the essential ingredients of a typical advertising page.

About your blog section - This section gives a brief introduction about your blog. What it's all about, it's niche, target audience and the purpose of its existence (reader's perspective).

Traffic statistics - The most important part of advertising page. Give all the important data related to your blog traffic to convince the potential advertisers. Following are some major blog statistics that are commonly used by bloggers in their advertising page.

1. Page Views (per day/ per month)
2. Unique Visits (per day/ per month)
3. Alexa/Compete and Similar Services Ranks
4. Number of Feed Subscribers
5. Demographic Data (V. Imp)

Some advertisers don't give much importance to Alexa and similar ranks but others do take them into consideration, so its better to include them in your traffic statistics section. Similarly, providing concentrated demographic data increase the chances of getting advertising deals.

Available Ad Slots - In this section the available ad inventory is showcased. This includes each ad type, their format, their exact placement and the number of such slots available for any location. To give a clearer picture you must supplement this section with appropriate snapshots of ads placed in a particular location.

Now here comes the tricky part. What about pricing of ads? Should we straightaway quote the price of each available ad slot? Well, I would strongly suggest you to keep your cards closed. Let the advertiser contact you with relevant details and then you can play your cards according to the situation. Ask for advertiser's website address when he first contacts you. This way you can visit their web site and can get fair idea about their budget and purchasing power. Through this approach, you create an opportunity for yourself to assess the situation and then create a flexible pricing plan. If you publicly display your ad prices, websites with considerably low budget may not approach you and big websites may grab it in much lesser rate then they were willing to pay earlier.

Testimonials - Great marketers use their customers feedback to promote their products. Same rule applies here. Get some testimonials from your satisfied advertisers and prominently display them on your advertising page. This builds your credibility and shows your track record of giving excellent advertising services. Apart from publishing the plain testimonial statement, you can further replenish it by including thumbnail image of the person with his/her designation.

Calculating Advertising Prices

Often newbies are in dilemma about setting the correct price for their advertisements. Sometimes, they fear that quoting a high price can result in loss of advertising deal, while quoting less will be like giving their real estate in pennies. How to overcome this situation and how to correctly calculate the prices for your ad inventory? Here are some basic guidelines to calculate ad prices.

Image Vs Text Ads - Normally image ads are always priced high than text ads. The CTR (click-through ratio) of image ads is much higher than text ads and hence this pricing difference.

Size Does Matter - Larger the size of the banner, higher the price is. If your 125x125 image banner is priced at $30/month, a 250x250 banner should be priced at 4 x 30 = $120/month.

Placement - If the advertisement appears above the fold (area visible without the need of scrolling), it is priced much higher than those ads that appear below the fold. If an ad is going to appear in the footer, it's price will be considerably low than that placed in the header of your blog.

Pricing Model - There are two popular pricing models for advertisements. The CPM (cost per thousand impressions) model and CPA (cost per action) model. The CPM model is the preferred way to calculate ad prices and is widely accepted model throughout blogosphere. In this model, a fixed amount is paid for every 1000 page views, simple. But how would you calculate the right price for a particular ad in this model? Here are some ways to do it.

The best way to get the correct value of an ad is to check public ad inventories and see their CPM rate. Login to your Adsense account and go to advanced reports to view the CPM rate for a particular ad. Take at least month long data to get the clear picture, though a long-range data will give much more accurate rate. Let's suppose you get a CPM rate of $1.20 from the report. Now according to your assessment of the purchasing power of the advertiser you can increase or decrease this rate. A low budget advertiser can be offered a rate of $1.00 or $0.80, while a big web site can be asked for a CPM rate of $1.50.

Let's assume that the deal is finalized with a rate of $1.50 CPM. How the monthly rate will be calculated? Suppose your blog generates 5000 page views per day. This amounts to 30 x 5000 = 150000 page views per month. So, at this rate the price of the ad will be (150000 / 1000) * 1.50 = $225/month.

Daniel Scocco has written an excellent article about calculating ad prices for your advertising space. If you are still in dilemma, you can also ask an expert to assess your blog's worth.

Finding the Advertisers

Now comes the real tough part (at least for newbies) of finding advertisers for your blog. There are many ways to do it.

Visit Marketplaces - There are several popular forums and discussion boards where advertisers and publishers meet solely for the purpose of finding and negotiating advertising deals. You can visit Digital Point - Buy, Sell or Trade Forum, SitePoint Marketplace and Webmaster World Commercial Exchange Forum to find advertisers for your blog.

Check Competitor's blogs - Visit popular blogs related to your blog's niche and see who is advertising on these blogs. This is a good source of creating a list of potential advertisers. Since they are already advertising on a blog related to your blog's niche, a chance of clinching a deal from these advertisers is more likely to happen.

Check public ad inventories - Some 3rd party advertising networks give public access to their inventory to account holders. Sign-up for these ad networks and browse their ad inventory. Again, filter out advertisers related to your blog's niche. Here not only you can get a list of potential advertisers but can also get a fair idea about how much they are willing to pay.

Write a blog post about it - This is one more way to attract advertisers. Write a blog post explicitly stating that your blog is now open for direct advertising.

Search engines - And last but not the least is search engines. Type in relevant keywords and visit the web sites. Check their contact page and create a list of potential advertisers.

How To Approach Potential Advertisers

Once you have the list of potential advertisers in your hand, its time to contact them inviting to advertise on your blog.

Write a mail giving your brief introduction. State your purpose of writing in brief. To speed up the process give your phone number and messenger id. Attach the media kit/rate card showcasing various advertising options available on your blog. It's somewhat similar to mobile version of your 'Advertise' page. However, this document must contain detailed pricing of every ad type. You must also quote discounted prices for long-term deals. One more convincing methodology is to give limited period read-only access to Google Analytics dashboard to verify your traffic claims for long-term deals (6 months or more). This offer increases the confidence of advertiser and the probability of negotiating a deal also increases.

If this is your first advertising deal, be ready to be flexible enough while negotiating pricing of your ads. Remember, your first deal will open the door for more such deals.

What Else I Have Missed?

I would like to know your experiences in maintaining independent ad inventories and your approach towards grabbing such advertising deals.

Instructions for changing template for New bloggers

2010-02-15T00:44:00.000-08:00

Here are the easy steps made only for new bloggers or beginners.

1. Download a five column template of you choice and extract the xml file from the archive ( Double click on the downloaded rar file and then drag it to desktop or another folder ) .

2. From Dashboard click on Template tab and then Edit Html sub tab.

3. Back up your existing template and widget data.

4. In the “Upload a template from a file on your hard drive”, browse the extracted
xml file and press Upload.

5. Message in red will appear alerting you that “Widgets are about to be deleted” .
You will be also asked to confirm the deleting of existing widgets. If you have already followed section 3. then press Confirm and Save.

6. You are done . Now go to Page Element sub tab and reset your widgets !

Yes, it’s that easy… !

How To Keep Your Domane Name Safe?

2010-02-08T00:38:00.000-08:00

Your blog's domain name is by far one of the most important assets of your blog. It's a brand through which your blog is recognized. One day you wake up and see that your domain name is no more yours and is hacked. It can happen to anybody, anytime. But we can take some precautions to minimize this risk. Let's see what we can do to keep our blog's domain name safe from hackers.

Register Domain Yourself

Let's say, you have decided to hire an expert for designing your blog's theme and for installing your blog CMS. His package also includes domain registration for you. Beware and never fall in this trap. Always register your domain yourself. The person who registers the domain with his name, address, email and credit card details is the legal owner of the domain. So, if your designer is registering a domain name for you, he will be the legal owner of the domain, not you. Once you have decided to register a domain name, make sure to check that your domain registrar is ICANN accredited.

Use WhoIS Guard

Almost every domain registrar provides whois guard subscription on yearly basis to protect your sensitive contact information. Keeping your registration information public invites spammers and domain hackers, especially if your blog or web site gets popular. With WhoIS guard protection enabled your contact information is kept secret preventing any unwanted customers filling your inbox with junk.

Lock Your Domain

Always keep your domain registrar's lock enabled to prevent any unsolicited 3rd party domain transfer requests. That's how domain hackers steal domains. Locking your domain to your domain registrar ensures that no unauthorized domain transfer can take place.

Enable Account Activity Alerts

Some good domain registrars provide the facility of email alerts for any account activity. You can see below, how I regularly receive security alerts whenever any activity is performed in my domain account.

The security notification includes user name, IP address, time stamp and modification done for specific domains. Ask your domain registrar whether they provide similar security alerts or not. Normally, this is service is free of cost.

Keep Registration Information Up-to-date

Whenever you register a domain, you provide 3 types of contact information to the domain registrar.

1. Registrant's Contact
2. Administrative Contact
3. Technical Contact

The first one is of course your own contact information, the person who is registering the domain. Normally, if you are maintaining your blog on your own, you must provide the same contact information in the other two, as you gave in the 'Registrant Contact'. Always, keep your contact information updated. As soon as you change your email, phone or mailing address, do update your contact information in the domain account. If you forget to do this, you will not receive any notifications, alerts and reminders from your registrar and you may end up loosing your domain.

Keep Domain and Hosting Separate

Are your web host and domain registrar separate? If not, think about going this way. These days almost every web hosting service provider is coming up with hosting plans that include free domain with hosting package. I would never advice to go with this kind of arrangement, as it gives complete control of your hosting and domain to one company. In future if you are not satisfied with the hosting service and want to switch, they can create trouble for you by locking your domain and preventing any transfer.

Renew In Time

As your domain expiration time approaches, your registrar sends you several reminders for renewal. Ignoring these reminders and not renewing your domain in time can cost your very dearly. After expiration date, your domain goes into redemption grace period, and you can still get it back. But it will cost you anywhere between $100 or $200. So register your domain for long period (2 or more years) and renew in time to prevent any unwanted expenses or loss of domain. The best strategy is to register a domain name for long period (let's say about 5 years) and annually extend it for one year adding it to that final year. This way your domain expiration date will always remain that many years (5 years in our example) ahead.

Last Piece of Advice

And last but not the least are some general security concerns.

1. Use a separate email account for hosting and domain.
2. Use strong passwords and change them frequently.
3. Keep a back up of your password and registered information.
4. Do not go to your registrar's site via email links. Keep the habit of manually typing the address. This extra burden can save you falling into trap of hackers and phishing sites.

What Else I Have Missed?

I would like to hear more new methods you may have used to keep your domain in safe hands. What other safety precautions you implement to keep your domain safe?

Tips for new bloggers

2010-02-01T00:23:00.000-08:00

If you write only for yourself or people that know you and your blog, it’s ok to just post your content. But if you wish to reach readers that may not known to you, follow these –

Copy your blog address and with that make searches in all major search engines. First time you may see that they haven’t indexed you blog. But as you do query, search engines will come to see what is in your blog so that they can show it later when other people will search topics , relevant to your published contents.

Do not ever publish anything only to test in your blog. Why ? Search engine may index that useless pages. Sometimes these kind of test posts with nothing, can be shown at an upper position than that of your original content pages. To test all your settings set a test blog and play there. After you finish apply the changes to your original blog. Again, before posting, check whether your post title is ok or not. Because blogspot will take the first segment of the post tile to make the post page url.

Try to guess or use tools to know, from which reign majority of your blog readers come . If they are from a reign where provided internet connections are too slow, you should not load your blog with heavy contents like – numerous long posts on main page, high quality images, heavy flash files and unusual scripts. Longer loading time may force your readers to leave your blog.

Let other know about what you are writing. How? By sending 100 of mails to unknown addresses? No. Search blogs of your interest. Go there. Leave your comment along with your blog address. Those bloggers, even some of their readers may get back to your blog. If possible leave a relevant question there, so that a blogger feel interest to visit your blog before answering.

Join different communities and forums. Publish your blog address there.

When you are preparing to write something, think about the words that best present the subject matter. Put those words relevantly into the title of your post.

Try to do post regularly if possible.

Put your blog address whenever you mail someone.

Try to keep pace with latest buzzes and publish them before some other do so before you.

Tips in Optimizing your Website/Blog

2010-01-26T00:18:00.000-08:00

Blogosphere is getting bigger and bigger each day. According to David Sifrey’s alert on The State of the Blogosphere 2007 report, Technorati is now following over 70 million weblogs, and around 120,000 new weblogs being created worldwide each day, approximately 1.4 blogs/ second is created every day! Thinking that the report is dated 2007, blogosphere is really huge now.

If you are a blogger, you would be worrying about how would you makeyour blog stand out with a huge number of blogs published every day. With this info you’ve got in your head, you surely will ask yourself on what to do so thatyour blog would get the attention of active blog followers out there. You might think of it as a big task for you. But hold that thought out, there are a lot of tactics available for you. You just have to scan through several tips, apply those tips onyour blog, if you think they will best help you, and then, voila! You’ll be good to go.

I’ve browsed over some websites offering guides for bloggers out there who wants their blog hit the top rank and collected some of their tips which I find is very helpful. And here is the list of very helpful tips you might find helpful foryour blog:

Comments and Trackbacks. Make sure you allowed trackback pings to blogs you cite on your posts. Press releases distributed via PRweb will in turn link to your blog, so pay great attention to this. This is a great way for driving traffic. Also, don’t forget do leave comments on other blogs and useyour blog name in the field since your name will be linked to the blog url you’ve entered.

Post Often. Frequent posting means the more likely internet bots will stop by on a more regular basis and the more is the probability that your site would be added on their top ranks.

Ping Other Sites. Don’t forget to ping your new entries in sites such as technorati and Feedburner. Pinging let them know you have updated your site. Also, make sure you ping Google’s Blog Search for faster indexing in their blog search engine.

Manage Your Trackback & Comment Spam. These spams won’t do good to your site. So make sure you add a tool to manage both trackback and comment spams.

Use a Good URL Structure. Never use permalinks (www.yourblogsite.com/?p=123) which would not define your entry, instead use you entry title (www.yourblogsite.com/2007/01/01/blog_entry_title) so that bots can crawl on them easily.

Register your Domain for a Lengthy Period.Google looks over the length of your domain’s registration in ranking it. This is because many spam sites only have a short registrations. registeryour site on a lengthy period indicating that you are creating a site with a substance.

Make Sure It’s DOFOLLOW. When building a link, make sure the links are dofollow or else, they won’t count. Do follow links don’t have the rel=”nofollow” attribute on them. A list of dofollow blogs, dofollow bookmarking sites, dofollow social media, dofollow top commentators and free directories to make your link building much more convenient are made available for you so take some time to drop by on them.

Build Links From Relevant Websites. Ask yourself, “Is it better to get a few links from releveant websites than tons of link but from unrelated websites?”. If you answer YES, then get links from other blogs or websites related to your entry.

Use Keywords As Anchor Text. Anchor text is the text contained in a link. They link one “anchor” to another “anchor” in the World Wide Web. Make sure you use these anchor texts as your keywords of which you want to be found by search engines. And as much as possible, include these keywords inyour blog’s title tag and domain name.

Google Page Rank. “I know that some people will disagree with me but Google page rank still matters. Otherwise, Google should have just dissed out page rank as a factor in their search engine ranking algorithm.
Other than looking for relevant websites and using appropriate keywords as anchor text, it should be worth while to build links from dofollow and relevant websites with high Google page rank.” (5 Link Optimization Tips entry)

Less External Links, The Better. “When link building, choose to get links from websites with fewer external links on them. The more external links, the lesser the link juice you get. As a general rule, don’t build links fromwebsites with more than 100 external links on them.” ( 5 Link Optimization Tips entry)
These tips may be found important but still, nothing compares to the density of your contents. So take a good look at your entries, make sure they are quite reasonable and sensible to read. Balance content density and site optimization.

So how was it? :)

RSS Feed Subscriptions for Your Blog

2010-01-22T00:13:00.000-08:00

Being a blogger, you will always anticipate for that moment when you can see regular followers and readers. Then you would think of ways and means for special services you might be able to offer to your loyal readers. I tell you, you can absolutely do that via offering subscriptions buttons. Yes, subscription buttons, because eventually your readers would want to be updated to your every post. Why not do that with RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds?

Now, we’re going too fast with that one. Let me define these feeds first. I’ve told you about subscriptions, so what are these feeds got to do with subscriptions? Feeds are tools for websites (big or small) in distributing contents beyond visitors using browsers. They allow subscriptions to your regular updates being delivered automatically through web portals, news readers, and in some cases even the good old emails of your readers. So for easy subscription of your readers, make sure you have RSS available on your site. Many hosted blogging solution don’t have RSS available, so you may need to add it manually.

Then offer now RSS subscription buttons. Several popular RSS aggregators are available for easy subscription of yourreaders . It is also worth the time to add the RSS logo and these aggregators’ logos for one click-subscription to your feed. With so many aggregators available, you may use FeedButton so you may be able to offer multiple aggregators (which you can even add up manually) on your site with just a single expanding rollover button.

But then, a problem arises when people are not able to get RSS. So accommodate them by offering an option to get your updates through email instead.

Here are two RSS aggregate alternatives available for your blog although there are also many other tools available to do this task:

Here are two RSS aggregate alternatives available for your blog although there are also many other tools available to do this task:

1. FeedBlitz

The FeedBlitz RSS service is a service that makes your RSS feeds better. It enhances feeds with branding, detailed metrics, browser and mobile friendly serving, integrated third party content, easy viral marketing tools and more. It’s fully supported by FeedBlitz, and integrates with the FeedBlitz RSS and blog to email service for one-stop subscriber management and communication. – FeedBlitz

Also, what’s good with Feedblitz is that you can it together with Feed Burner so as to avoid losing RSS subscribers.

2. Feed Mailer (currently for sale)

Feed Mailer was created to keep you updated via e-mail! You select feeds that interest you then sit back and we will do the rest!
You can receive updates every hour, every day or every week!
Feed Mailer takes RSS one step further! It e-mails you the updates! We take the hassle out of staying up-to-date, by e-mailing you the very latest information that you are interested in. – Feed Mailer

Let your avid readers have the ease of reading your posts with easy subscriptions. Subscription is an easy way of letting your readers be updated to your recentposts as well as not losing your readers even if they don’t get the time to visit your site.

Have a great time getting subscribers on your blog!

Some Great Blogger Widgets Part 3

2010-01-16T00:08:00.000-08:00

And finally, we are down to the final list of blogger widgets. Below are some of the most important blogger widgets that you should use to help you making out the best of your blog.

Utility Widgets

Add This – The popular social bookmarking button is available for Blogger accounts.

Easy Comments – This widget allows you to add commenting to any page of your site by placing the widget at the bottom of a page. Allows people to say if they liked the comment, includes comment threading and more.

Google Search – Add an AJAX powered Google search box to your blog that you can allow to search the web and your blog, or even just restrict it to the contents of your site.

Popular Posts – This widget will take a look at your comments, up to the last 5,000, and generate a list of which posts had the most conversation around them.

Recent Comments – Display the most recent comments on your blog in this widget so that readers can join in the conversation.

Related Posts – Not so much a widget as a hack, this will give you the related post functionality that so many WordPress powered blogs use.

ShareThis – The highly customizable green button that ShareThis is known for can be added to your blog. Choose if you want it for social bookmarking, users emailing your posts and more.

Shout List Icons – Be the king (or queen) of social sharing with this widget that generates icons for over 30 social sites your blog can be added to.

Tag/Label Cloud – Gives you the ability to install a traditional tag cloud in your sidebar so people can see what you write about the most.

Miscellaneous Widgets
Flickr – You can generate an HTML or Flash based badge of your photo stream to share your images with your visitors.

Mashable – Yes, now you too can share the best web-related news on your blog with the Mashable widget.

Picasa Albums – Display your public Picasa albums in your blog sidebar with this handy widget.

I hope you enjoy these 3 parts of published widgets! :)

Some Great Blogger Widgets Part 2

2010-01-10T00:05:00.000-08:00

Social Widgets

Delicious Linkrolls – Share your Delicious bookmarks with the world with this easy to install linkroll widget.

FriendFeed Widget – Share all of your FriendFeed activity with the readers of your site.

Google Friend Connect – A makeshift social network that runs across any site that has installed Google Friend Connect. You can join a site, see the other members, play games and more.

LinkedInABox – LinkedInABox retrieves your LinkedIn profile to display on your blog, allowing people to look through things such as your specialties and experience.

MyBlogLog – If someone visits your blog that is also a member of MyBlogLog, their avatar and username will appear in the box. You can then click on any person to check out their profile on the service.

Twitter – Add your Twitter stream to your blog and display anywhere from your last tweet to the last twenty. Also gives a link for people to be able to follow you.

Share on Facebook – A simple widget that allows your readers to share items from your blog on Facebook .

SocialFeed – A miniature lifestreaming widget that broadcasts your activities on sites such as Twitter, StumbleUpon, Last.fm and so on. Has several different skins you can choose from.

more coming very soon... :)

Some Great Blogger Widgets Part 1

2010-01-05T23:45:00.000-08:00

Many people think that Blogger lacks in all of the extra goodies you can add to other platforms like WordPress, but it simply isn’t true. By using widgets you can customize your blog as much as you like by just adding little snippets of code to the sidebars.

Allow users to talk to you via IM, see what your most popular posts are, or even read news from sites such as Mashable. With these 25 widgets, you can create an even more powerful way of communicating with your visitors, just make sure you don’t overload them with too many!

What are some of your favorite widgets for use on Blogger?

For Communications Widgets

Google Talk – Give visitors the ability to talk to you via Google Talk directly from your blog sidebar.
Jaxtr – Create a widget that allows people to call you on the phone without revealing the phone number to them.
Meebo Me – Meebo Me will allow you to create a chat box that you can install on your Blogger page, giving you the chance to converse with visitors to your site.
Skype – The official Skype widget allows you to create various buttons that can show your current status and also allows people to just click it and give you a call.
Tag-Board – Allows you to add a real-time chat board to your blog that your visitors and you can use to converse.

more widgets coming...

Styling Your Blog: Still an Essential Task

2009-12-30T23:32:00.000-08:00

In our previous posts, we’ve always tackled about optimizing your website. We’ve talked about link building, SEO, and the like. But there is one more piece that we dare not focus on. There may be people who think that blogging and website managing is just all about getting into the top rank of search engines through link building and all. But in my own point of view, one thing shouldn’t be left unattended or even paid the least of your attention. This last piece is the appearance of your blog. That’s right, the appearance of your blog is just as important as how you link your sites to others and how you build your site for higher percentage of getting into the top rank.

We bloggers all know that when you start blogging, your blog is in the default styles. And we often don’t want to use these default formatting. We want it to be reflective of what our personality is, or we want it to be somewhat characterizing what our blog is all about.

We may always do what we want for the style of our blog, BUT we should also be sensitive of what our readers might be expecting. That is, we must be careful on how we style it. We should think that our readers have different likes and different preferences over the style they would want. So, to be on the safe side, we should have our style and formatting in a way that would blend in on some if not all preferences we may find in our readers.

And so, to guide you in choosing what style and formatting to use, here is a list of some tips I’ve found to be helpful enough:

ON THE COLORS
Sometimes, we may want to use our favorite color schemes on our website just to be reflective of our personality, BUT bear in mind that we should also reflect on what our blog’s subject is. While a black and red color scheme may be your favorite, you should consider of what your readers might be reading. Black and red color scheme may work perfectly of a Goth fashion site, but what if you have a leisure activities and fitness tips site? Would that scheme still be applicable, or would that scheme be completely out of place? Probably, it wouldn’t fit right? Similarly, pastel colors might perfectly fit on teenage fashion site, but would look totally terrible on a men’s apparel site. So to be safe, just say NO to bad color schemes. Choose those colors which would perfectly fit for all ages and all walks of life.

ON THE TEMPLATE
More often than not, we think of dumping the default template the moment we start a blog. And if we don’t want to create a template of our own, we hire or ask someone to do it for us. But why bother when there are tons of some free templates on the web. Then, adapt it a bit on your desired appearance. You may enhance the colors to what you’ve decided to employ and then add a unique banner logo.

ON THE FONTS
While you may want to see your handwriting be the font of your blog posts, consider again that it may not perfectly suit on your blog subject. Consider again and again what your readers might expect. So I have here a screenshot of font families and styles from www.w3.org which you might want to use on your blog. These font families and style though generic will surely help you be on the safe side.

(You can see more sample of these fonts on www.w3.org)

But then again and again and again I’m telling you that there are TWO things, yes only two things you should always remember on styling your blog, CONSIDER THE USER EXPERIENCE AND EXPECTATION. These two are very important things so keep them in mind.

Thanks for having a time reading this one, I hope you had somewhat been reminded to update your blog appearance into a style that would be likable enough to anyone who would be visiting your site.

Mailing List Provider for Your Blog

2009-12-27T23:15:00.000-08:00

As your website becomes more popular, more and more readers would want to get updated of all your posts. That’s what we, bloggers would always want after we have published our blog. We’ve always anticipated for the time that our blog be known by the public. And when that time comes we need to update our readers with everything new on the site. So what do we do? How do we update them when most of them don’t visit our site 24/7? Most of us know the answer; it’s through the aid of mailing list services. There are a lot of websites offering this service, but how do we know which one’s the best? It is either through the reviews the site is getting, by popularity of by own experience or probably some other way.

So I’ve made a list of some mailing list service provider which I have known so far and of which I think would be reliable.

Aweber is founded in 1998. They create email marketing software to aid small businesses in automating email follow-ups and newsletter deliveries. With Aweber, you can deliver timely email newsletters and offers with their Broadcast tools.
Their offer includes:

Creating and sending newsletters immediately or schedule them for later;
Splitting test messages to find the best offer or best subject line and tracking responses;
Tracking website clicks using own domain name without the unsightly click tracking links;
Automatically twitter your email newsletters; and
Over 100 pre-made templates to choose from, or use your own, or even create messages with their built-in editor.

They offer modest price which grows only with your success. Sign-up is only 1$ with a 30-days moneyback guarantee.

Bravenet. This website offers a lot of web tools. They have everything you need to host, design and spice up your website. They specialize in web tools so you can offer your guests the best user experience possible. Their newest tool available for you now is the mailing list service. Their features and benefits include:

Double opt-in. Confirmed subscriber registers are more secure from spam complaints.
Email notifications. You can get notifications when there are new subscribers to your mailing list.
HTML newsletters. They offer an HTML Builder for you to be able to create and send email from your mailing list.
Subscriber search. You can easily find subscribers by name or even by date.
Multiple templates. Many pre-built HTML email templates are available for you to choose from.
Full site integration. You can completely customize the mailing list subscriber box.
Easy installation. All you have to do is just copy the code into your website.

They offer a free service so you can now maintain a distribution mailing list with ease.

Your Mailing List Provider (YMLP). Created in 2002, YMLP is now one of the best mailing list providers. They offer both free version and Professional version for a modest price (3.75$/month) for you to choose from. They offer email newsletter builder with over 30 sample templates, newsletters are sent fast and professionally through YMLP’s mail servers.
Some of their free service includes:

Contacts of up to 1000 (professional version is unlimited)
Personalize newsletters with “mail merge”
Schedule newsletters
Unlimited image hosting
Send in any language
Redirect people back to your site
Automated list deduplication and clean-up

There are a lot more newsletter provider in the web for you to choose from. And these three I have listed are just a few. I hope even with just three of the best newsletter providers, you’ll be able to find one which would be best for you.

Myths and Facts in Boosting Your Website Rank

2009-12-22T23:08:00.000-08:00

We had tackled Alexa Rank in our previous post. We discussed its importance amidst it unknownness to people who doesn’t bother to even look out on the site’s rankings. We had mentioned that to monetizing bloggers, Alexa Rank is somewhat very useful. The higher our rank is the more chances of earning more. But how do we ensure that we get a high Alexa Rank? Well, here are some pointers straight from the official blog of Alexa.

The MYTHS
Some if not many bloggers who had been giving blogging tips had more or less gave tips which will not work at all. Yes, do not be misguided by these folks posting these tips who don’t even bother check, read, understand and learn the facts before babbling about get-rich-quick wheeze. Here are some of the myths you might find listed on some blog tips you might happen to stumble upon.

1. Put an Alexa Widget on Your Site.

Some say that putting an Alexa Widgets on your site would increase your site’s rank effectively. Is that so? NO! It just isn’t right. wouldn’t be that so pathetic? Alexa widget won’t do anything for your rank.

2. Have help from people who charge you to increase your rank.

There are a number of them on the web. Don’t be fooled by these people. They might have lured a number of bloggers who are so eager to earn high rankings. If you are already paying one of them, then you are just wasting your money on these jinx. Maybe they will. But apparently, they won’t do you any good. TheirAlexa rank will serve as a proof for you.

3. Pinging.

This can’t even be counted as a good tip. This is a crime. Imagine using a phone you don’t own without asking a permission from the real owner. It isn’t good right? It is bad actually. Or let’s say, you’ll live in a land owned by someone and you haven’t asked that someone that you will be living in his land. Wouldn’t you be called a squatter? That is absolutely a crime. And that is just the same as crawling into other sites you don’t own. You are a squatter of that site. Why use it when you don’t have the rights? So if you are already doing that, might as well just cut that act out. It isn’t right, and you are doing a crime.

These are just a few. And just a little warning to those newbies out there. Be cautious about your acts and the tips you would be following. Weigh things out. Know if they are right or wrong. Don’t easily be enchanted by their get-this-and-that-quick schemes.

The FACT
Well, Alexa Blog had long given this tip, and what did it says? Simple. Get more traffic for your blog. That would be the easiest and the truest tip you would ever find on any blog tips available on the net.
For you to be guided well on how you would be getting the rank you want, might as well just visit the Alexa Help System.

Thanks for your time.

What To Do When Running Out Of Topic?

2009-12-18T23:02:00.000-08:00

On part 1, we had dealt with how to come up with a good topic. And I really hope that you had found it somewhat helpful.

At times we love to write, we give our best. Why is that so? Basically it’s just because we aren’t just thinking about what we would be earning from what we write, but rather it is because we want to come up with something wonderful and useful to the community. This may not apply to everyone, but I can assure you that you will never regret it if you believe in this.

Well, there are times that you really cannot think of anything you could manage to talk about. It’s normal, and don’t worry about that. I had made a list in here for you to look at if you ever don’t really know what else to talk.

Now, these aren’t ready made topics for you. But rather, these are tips on how you would be able to come up of something. Probably a word or a thought would come up if you try these things. These are basic things and you might even find these things to be just from a man’s common sense.

1. Read.
Yes, reading greatly help. Because when you read, especially when you love what you read, you can really come-up with a thought about it. Perhaps you can write a review or you can even write your personal reactions about it. It may even suggest you to write something related to it.

2. Ask questions.
Ask questions about anything you could find reasonably questionable. You can ask your self and even ask somebody else. When you ask yourself, try writing down what you think about your question. Work things out with your questions. When asking others choose the sensible questions. You can work that out and manage to ask follow-up questions. And then from that manage to go over the conversation you just had. Think about it and see if you can work it out into an essay or so.

3. Scan for Pictures.
You may have been taking for granted the pictures you have. But actually, you can use those pictures in generating a topic. Yes, because as I had said on my post about image hosting websites,

“As what they say, photographs aren’t just still images of memories and the world. It is far more than that. If you take a good look at every picture there is you’ll see that they aren’t just memories of events, places and people. It talks to the soul. Yes, if you’ll look at it more closely, you’ll certainly feel different emotions it employs. It is more than just an art. It is more than just a piece of paper. It is more than just a mere photograph of something.”

So reminisce with your old pictures even the new ones. You might find what you want to talk about in them.

4. Observe.
There are a lot to see around you. Don’t waste that. God had given you not just mere surroundings but rather a beauty in its own ways. Yes, just look around and you will see the beauty of the world. It will surely be able to suggest you something great.

There are a lot of topics to talk about. So don’t just stop on a dead end. You can always have a u-turn and then manage your way out of that road. You might even be surprised to see a lot of roads still waiting to be crossed.

Top Tips for Search Engine Optimization

2009-12-15T22:59:00.000-08:00

Search engine optimization helps people to have a better access to your web site and more importantly helps you and your business gather more clients. It is less expensive and more doable than doing heavy television and newspaper marketing.

The following are some top techniques in search engine optimization:

• You must take note that it is important to have a key phrase that describes your website. It should be a phrase that a costumer will most likely use in searching for your product or service. In this way, you will then appear on the most relevant sites.

• Search engine optimization requires your excellent understanding of the competition itself. The focus of the process should be on how to outdo the other companies in terms of site rankings and not so much on the theme of the website.

• Keywords are the main ingredients of a search engine optimization process. Always make sure that your page is rich in keywords, and such keywords should be used in title tags and metatags.

• Most search engines have the tendency to disregard web pages that employ excessive keywords and phrases. Therefore you must make sure that you only use the appropriate and necessary keywords in doingsearch engine optimization.

• Using the key phrase of your SEO in your links and blogs is another technique in promoting your website. Search Engine optimization coupled with web site promotion can give better results. You must be open to all possibilities.

There is no better way to test whether or not your search engine optimization yields good results than to key in your target phrase on the popular search engines.

Search Engine optimization Considerations to Reckon With!

2009-12-11T22:56:00.000-08:00

Search Engine optimization is making sure that your web site appears on the top sites of a major search engine. It is a complex and difficult process in the sense that every SEO process does not totally guarantee that your web site will achieve a high rank in a search engine. In spite of that, you can still employ the various tips and techniques on how to improve your web site ranking.

In doing Search engine optimization, there are a few vital considerations to make:

One consideration to make with regards to search engine optimization is whether or not you will need a search engine optimization firm or search engine optimization software.

Right now, there are a lot of SEO companies to choose from. They make a list of promises and guarantees to clients but the big question is can they really take you to the top of the search engine rankings?

Let us not discount the fact that although there are some reputable SEO firms right now, there also as many fraudulent ones. Distinguishing between them maybe difficult but doing a thorough research of which one to choose is the key. Asking the services of an SEO firm means that you have to pay some considerable amount to them. You have to be very careful so that your time andmoney won’t be wasted.

Another big consideration to make in a search engine optimization is which search engine optimization software to use.

A lot of SEO software packages are available in the market these days. These software programs are usually user-friendly ones so all you need to do is to key in the important keywords. But then again, you have to be a discerning buyer when it comes to choosing anSEO software package.

Search engine optimization does not mean excessive use of relevant contents. It is a complex process, and gaining expertise in one aspect of it before going to another is the best technique there is.

Top SEO Money making Opportunities

2009-12-10T22:52:00.000-08:00

When a person searches for something on the internet, he or she keys in a keyword or key phrase for the search. The results are then displayed, which also include the succeeding page numbers related to the keyword.

Once your website appears on the first page, it has a greater chance of being viewed by prospective clients. In most cases, these websites that appear on the first page of a search result are search engine optimized. Search engine optimization means making the website highly visible in keyword searches. In this case, a business or company will have a better chance of improving and eventually achieving success.

Many people are not yet aware that through search engine optimization, they can earn lots and lots of money.

The following are the reasons why you can earn money with SEO.

Tons of firms now are in need of people who can write search engine optimized copies for their websites. If you think you can do it, then you can earn some good amount of money in this undertaking.

You can also get paid if you are well-versed in link popularity. By placing the links that you know at company websites you will earn lots of money.

Earning money is also very easy if you know how to design and place banner ads of a website at appropriate places on the web.

Your expertise in adding tags to the web content can also get you paid.

Certain websites are looking for people who can formulate the most appropriate keywords for a specific product. By making use of your skill, you can earn money.

Incorporating everything that you know about search engine optimization will take you to many more moneymaking opportunities.

Few Tips to Make Money Online

2009-12-09T22:44:00.000-08:00

The internet created a virtual community that has million and millions of people. Everyday a number of them are going online to search and surf the web. These people are either looking for answers on some important queries and others are looking for that job they have been waiting for. There are several roads to trod in order to get that job. Continue reading and see which one can work for you.

Tip #1: Get a freelance job through the internet!Jobs in the internet can be on a freelance basis. Well these jobs are said to augment present financial status. They can work as programmers, writers and graphic design.

Tip #2: Secondly you might consider, affiliate programming of which you create much traffic on the net and you make money by the number of visitors clicking the advertising banner.

Tip #3: you might take interest in advertising using the internet. With a couple of affiliated banners you will rake in a considerable amount of income as product owners will opt to advertise with you.

Tip #4: Write articles and blogs! The hottest means of making money online is exploring the writer in you. Article writing has been a fad lately with the demand from the local and international market for articles that are current and you will be makingmoney like a 9-5 employee does and sometimes it is more than the usual.

Tip #5: Domains are the hottest commodities online! Selling is one way of increasing your income. We are not talking about the selling of insurance plans and house for this matter. One better way of makingmoney online is through the selling of domain names and websites. If you have valuable possessions that you might want to sell, e-bay is the answer. You can post your items on sale and interested buyers can buy stuffs through this.

There are a lot of ways to make money online but you have to realize that there are risks included in this kind of living.

List Of The Best Adsense Wordpress Plugins

2009-12-07T22:41:00.000-08:00

Like it or not, many blogs survive thanks to Google AdSense – a fact that’s leading some to debate the use of ad blocking software. However, implementing and tweaking AdSense ads on a Wordpress (WordPress) blog can be tedious. We’ve gathered 17 Wordpress plugins which help you implement, control and overview AdSense ads on your blog.

Adsense Deluxe – probably the most popular and perhaps the best AdSense plugin out there, AdSense Deluxe lets you automatically insert ads (it works with Yahoo ads, too) into your posts or pages. Very configurable and yet simple to use. (at the time of this writing, the official link for this plugin is dead. Hopefully, it’s just temporary.)

AdSense Widget for Wordpress Sidebar – Add AdSense to your Wordpress sidebar in the form of a widget.

Shylock AdSense – another plugin for easy integration of AdSense ads into your blog; has an interesting feature that lets you set particular ads into blog posts which are more than X days old.

Adsense Injection – random Adsense injection into your blog.

AdMan – integrates ads directly inside your blog posts. Compatible with AdSense.

AdSense Manager – a fully featured AdSense manager. Use the latest version only, as older versions had some issues with the AdSense terms and conditions.

AdRotator – afraid of adblindness? AdRotator rotates (doh!) your AdSense ads, and combines them with other advertising programs.

AdSense Attachment – display extra content, like images, in a new page together with AdSense ads.

MightyAdsense – display AdSense ads without modifying the templates. Has a preview for ads in the Wordpress control panel.

Google Ad Wrap – show that pesky Google spider what content on your blog is really important.

Adsense Inline – another plugin that makes inserting AdSense into your blog posts really easy.

Adsense Beautifier – places images next to your AdSense ads, which should increase the clickthrough rate. Be very careful with this one, as there’s some controversy over whether this violates the AdSense T&C.

Author Adsense – split revenue between several blog authors on the same blog.

Author Adsense MU plugin – same as Author AdSense, only commercial and aimed only at Wordpress MU (Multi User) users.

AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System – another revenue sharing plugin for AdSense on Wordpress. Also shows you your earnings in real time.

Adsense Earnings Wordpress Plugin – always be in control of your AdSense earnings, right from the Wordpress Admin panel.

WP-AdsenseProfit – another plugin that shows you your AdSense earnings in real time.

The Basics of Google Adsense

2009-12-06T04:58:00.000-08:00

Google Adsense is a different affairs that can aftermath a lot of revenues over time if you are patient. Here is an overview of the basics of Google Adsense.

The Basics of Google Adsense

To accept the basics of Google Adsense, you aboriginal accept to accept Google Adwords. Adwords is a affairs breadth bodies can bid per bang to buy amplitude on platforms Google supports with advertisements. This includes the ads you see on the top and bottomward the appropriate cavalcade of after-effects aback you chase on Google.

Adsense is the aftereffect of a adroit little abstraction wherein Google about capital to aerate administration of Adwords. With Adsense, Google took the different access of absolution absolute sites abode assertive types of Adwords advertisements on their pages. This blazon of announcement is accepted aural the Adwords belvedere as contextual announcement and advertisers can opt out of it. Most do not.

The adorableness of Google Adsense is it creates added acquirement sources for sites. For instance, lets accept addition bids 60 cents in Adwords for the adjustment of their ads. A armpit again shows those ads through the Adsense program. Aback an ad is clicked by a being on that site, Google accuse the advertiser and splits the money with the armpit in question. The exact bulk of the breach is not provided by Google, but is accepted to reflect the affection of traffic, bang through ante and added aspects.

The Google Adsense affairs is abundantly simple to use. You assurance up through Google and, already approved, are able to baddest the architecture of ads you appetite to annual on the pages of your site. Google again anon generates a java script, which you archetype and adhesive into the html of your pages. You cannot change the code, but you can baddest any old breadth on your folio you want.

Once you accept amid the cipher and republished your site, it is time to sit aback and watch. Google provides stats aural your annual area. You can see basal bang and acquirement advice as able-bodied as account totals. Already you ability a absolute of $100 in revenues, Google will bang out a analysis to you. The analysis is issued added or beneath at the end of the ages afterward the one in which you hit the abracadabra $100 amount.

Obviously, there is added to Google Adsense if you appetite to accomplish a abounding business out of it, but this provides the basics of the game. You will be tempted to bang the links on your page. Don’t! Google will ban you from the program.

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool

2009-12-05T04:48:00.000-08:00

If you want to run an effective Google Adwords campaign, you’ll find it necessary to learn to use the Google Adwords keyword tool. This handy little tool allows you to select keywords and establish how much you are willing to pay per click for ads that appear on web pages and search engine results pages that contain the identified keywords.

Choosing the right keywords is very important to your success in operating an Adwords campaign. You want to reach an audience that is likely to want and need your product or service so that, once they arrive at your website, they will convert to a sale or lead. Having people click on your ad does nothing but cost you money unless you maintain a high conversion rate.

When choosing the keyword or keywords that you want to target, keep in mind the keywords that your website is based upon. Those are, at least in part, the keywords you will want to select for advertising. However, you may have keywords on your website that are much broader than those that you want to use for your Adwords campaign. Whereas a person selling classic car parts online might use “auto parts” as a keyword on their website, it would certainly be a very bad choice for an Adword keyword. Driving traffic that are seeking auto parts for late model cars will simply leave the website as soon as they see what is offered and, since you choose the keyword, the click would still cost you money. Instead, focus on keywords that are very directly related to what you offer such as, in the case here, “classic car parts”, for example. That way, only those people searching for and visiting websites related to classic cars and parts for those cars will see your Adwords campaign.

The Google Adwords keyword tool allows you to add and remove keywords at any time you choose. You aren’t tied to using keywords that aren’t working for you for any specific length of time. If you find a keyword you have selected is working very poorly, go to the keyword tool and remove that keyword from your campaign. You might replace it with a better keyword, or simply drop the keyword and not replace it at all.
The greatest thing about Google Adwords is the flexibility. You can change anything about your campaign at any time you want. Keywords that prove effective can be changed to a higher price per click while those that offer little traffic can be changed or removed. Find keywords that drive traffic that converts and stick with those keywords.

A great alternative , even better than the google adwords tool is the new keyword elite which has more options and will give you the exact adwords pricing for each keyword and per search engine as well as competition, adsense high paying keywords and so on.

How To Maximize Earnings from Adsense!

2009-12-04T04:44:00.000-08:00

Before this I’ve wrote about Adsense Tips, How You Can Increase Your Adsense Revenue. You can read them all under Adsense Tips. And now, I’m going to share something about the ultimate secret in Adsense. Well, actually they are not secrets, they are just some common ideas and strategies that you need to know if you want to make money with Adsense. If you are serious and wanted to make serious cash in Adsense, then you must read this secret here. So let’s get started.

Well, if you wish to start your Adsense campaign, most of you will look into a hot market and start your website or blog about this market. However, this actually is not the best. Because for a hot market, the competition will definitely be higher and you need to put great effort in it to conquer that market. The best thing here to do is to diversify your market. Sounds familiar as you’re investing in a stock market. If you concentrate all your energy in just one market, fine, maybe one day you will reach the top of the market, but can you guarantee that hot market will keep on hot for the next few years? You can’t, it is hard to predict the future.

Therefore, if you want to make serious cash with Adsense, then you will need to work in many markets. Let’s say if you have 10 blogs out there, and each of them concentrate in different market, for example, Make Money Online, Dog’s Food, Places of Interest In Malaysia, etc, chances are, at least 2 or 3 of your blogs will make money with Adsense. You have to keep on diversify your market niche. Indeed that some markets are more profitable than others, but the main point here is not to focus in a good quality market, it is about quantity. So, the more you diversify your interest across the net, the more you are going to gain. Keyword and market research are still important, because they are the fundamental tools to help you make money online.

The quantity concept here is simple, since we cannot predict the future correctly every time, therefore, the best thing is we work with more opportunities. The more bait you have, the more fish will get lured by it. And this is what was suggested by the Adsense pro, We would put in another ten markets per week, and over time, by doing that, week after week, we eventually built a huge network of sites, in hundreds of different markets, all of them profitable. So this is the tips of the day, don’t put all your eggs in just a single bucket. Make your market larger is the key.

Few Ways For Easy Making Money Online

2009-12-03T04:39:00.000-08:00

1) Google AdSense
It is getting more and more people like to make money with AdSense through a website. Creating an AdSense site is not difficult as there are a number of site builders allow people to build websites without programming knowledge and skills. To generate Adsense revenue from your website you need visitors. The more people visit your site, the higher your AdSense earning will be.

2) eBay Business
Have a lot of old stuff or unwanted things? Why not sell them on ebay and make some extra money. If you need to make more profit by selling a wide variety of products, here's how you can find products for reselling on ebay:
1) Buy from flea market.2) Deal with wholesaler or dropship wholesaler.

3) Virtual Assistance
If you like to have a work at home job, consider becoming a virtual assistance. A virtual assistance work at home for a company or a business. The tasks of virtual assistances may include data entry, administrative works, book keeping, handling customers enquiries, issuing bills and many more. The pay rate of virtual assistances usually anywhere between $5 to $50 per hour.

4) Blog
Blog is often being as a personal diary. You can write anything to your blog as long as the content is legal and ethical. So how to make money with a blog? Below are some of the ways:
1) Sell your own product using a blog.2) Promote affiliate programs on your blog.3) Host Google Ads and earn AdSense revenue.
Your success will depend on the popularity of your blog. The more reader read your blog, the more money you will make.

5) Affiliate Marketing
BusinessAffiliates make money by selling other people stuff. To generate sales, you need to drive potential buyers to your merchant's website. There are several methods you can use to send potential buyers to your merchant's site:
1) Open a Google AdWords account to advertise on Google.2) Build an opt-in subscriber list through a website or blog and promote your affiliate products to your subscribers.3) Article marketing.

6) Get Paid to Sign up Offers
Need an easy way of making money online? Join Treasuretrooper.com free and start earning cash by completing companies offers and building your downline. Most of the paid offers are available to US residents only. International members can still make money by referring new members.

7) Forex TradingIt is interesting to trade currencies. There are many technical tools you can use to form your own trading system and strategy. You can achieve high return month by month if your trading techniques consistently predict the market movement accurately. However forex investment involves high degree of risks. So it is not suitable for everyone. When trading forex, you should investment only the amount you afford to lose.

Ways To Earn Money Online without a Website

2009-12-02T04:32:00.000-08:00

1) Selling on eBay
eBay is the largest auction website in the world. eBay has been helping tons of people to own and operate a home-based or small business. Online entrepreneurs can start an ebay business with little initial capital and sell their products in eBay without spending money on advertising and promotion because ebay has done all the promotion works for the sellers. There are now more than 2 millions people visiting ebay everyday and many of them are potential buyers.

2) Completing Offers
There are many companies willing to pay people to sign up and try new offers. You can find these companies joining

Treasuretroopper.com - Free to join. Currently have over 300 offers in the database. Earning per offer ranks from $0.50 to $35.00 and most are available to US residents only.

3) Writing Articles
There are many webmasters need new and fresh articles for publishing on their websites and you can make money supplying articles to them. The pay usually more than $5.00 per article. Below are sites that contain freelance writing opportunities:
Guru.com
Digital Forum - Copywriting Section

4) Paid Survey
Taking paid survey is an old way to earn money online but it can be a great source of extra income. Yellowsurveys.com provides a long list of survey companies that will pay people (mostly US people) for completing surveys. You should join as many survey companies as possible to maximize the amount you can earn.

Making Money Using Your Videos

2009-12-01T04:26:00.000-08:00

More and more websites like to share AdSense revenue with their members. First article directories, then forums, then blogs and now video sharing sites. So far I have seen 3 video sharing sites that allow members to earn AdSense revenue sharing videos from Youtube and Google Video. They are

http://www.flixya.com
http://www.worldwidebuddies.com
http://www.thevideosense.com

All the above video sharing sites are free to join. Your AdSense ads will be displayed on all your video pages and of course the higher the page views of your videos the greater the AdSense commission will be. Sharing videos online wouldn't make you much more but if you need another source of extra income, you may think about trying these opportunities.

I hope you do enjoy this post!

How To Exchange Links

2009-11-30T04:21:00.000-08:00

Here’s my way of doing link exchanges. I link them first before contacting them. With this strategy, you can get blogs linking to your blog everyday. Here’s how it goes:
1. Search the blogosphere for at least 5 blogs that are related to your niche.
2. Add all of them to your blog roll or link list.
3. Contact the blogger and ask for a link exchange, telling them that you already added them to your blog roll.
4. Most of the time, the blogger will reply and tell you that they agree with your link exchange offer and already linked back.
5. Repeat on the next day.
Do this everyday and for 1 month, you’ll have at least 150 links from other blogs. If 20% did not link back, you still have 120 link exchanges, right? Then, remove those blogs that did not link back after a grace period. I think, 1 month grace period is enough. But don’t mention it when contacting them, that if they did not link back, you’ll delete them from your blog roll. You are the one asking for favor, so avoid threatening remarks, ok?
Now, how do you contact a blogger for a link exchange? Again, before contacting them, make sure that you already linked them.
1. Tagboard. Most personal blogs have tagboard. Blog owners are responsive on their tagboard. They read it everyday. So, look for it first. Link exchanging via tagboard is faster and easier. Make it short and direct to the point.
2. Instant Messenger. Some bloggers give their instant messenger ID. That means they are ok to chat with you, right? Why give it if they don’t want to be disturbed? So, talk to them. Make friends. Then, ask if you can exchange links. They will gladly link back since you already linked to them.
3. Twitter, Plurk, whatever. Microblogging is the “in” thing today. If they publish their Twitter or Plurk IDs, contact them using direct message feature. Again, they will gladly link back since you already linked to them
4. Contact Form / E-mail. If the blogger you want to exchange link with doesn’t have the first 3 options I mentioned above, this will be your last resort. Contact them thru their contact form or e-mail address and pray that they will respond. If they respond, then good. When your grace period expires and they did not link back, simply remove them fromyour blog roll and move on. There are literally millions of blogs you can still exchange links with

-macuha

Way To Get A Google Adsense Account

2009-11-29T04:13:00.000-08:00

Are you getting denied many times when applying for a Google Adsense account? Here’s a sure way to get approved.

Create an English blog on Blogger.com, and after making your first post (at least 200 words), use it on applying for Google Adsense. You’ll get the approval within 24 to 48 hours. I haven’t heard of anyone getting denied on Adsense using this approach.

After getting approved, you can now add your Adsense code to all sites that you own. You don’t need to submit or notify Google when you place the code on another site. Read this if you don’t believe me.
That’s all!

Reasons To Start Blogging Today

2009-11-28T04:08:00.000-08:00

1.) Literally each blog post you make will get you closer to your goal. If you wait for the perfect day or some angel to tap you on the shoulder and give you the green light chances are you’ll keep missing the train. Get started blogging as soon as possible.
2.) You only have to build it once and for the most part it will last forever. Maintenance will become extremely simple compared to initially setting up and building out your blogs. The sooner you get started the sooner you’ll get finished. You should be able to get on authority site finished in about 8-10 months and if you work a full week you should get 2 mini blogs up within one week. And once you start working on these time will start flying, at least it did for me.
3.) Right now I can tell you from personal experience that with no special luck, no special connections and no special favors you can retire in 2-3 years pretty comfortably blogging if you are consistent. I have a friend that got out of the Army last year. His retirement check is about $2200 per month. God Bless our brave Heroes, he earned every penny and it will probably keep the wolves away from his door forever. But you can earn this type of residual income blogging within 2 years. This analogy I hope will put things in some perspective.
4.) Learning how to blog, market and monetize your niche blogs properly takes a few months and not years to learn. And it’s cheaper to learn than going back to school.
5.) You’ll make money blogging no matter what. And although SEO is a science, it’s also natural. You really can’t screw things up if you go by the rules. Although you can’t control what google will do, the law of averages will always win out in the end. Too many people get discouraged way too soon. You have to give it a chance and be willing to work for months without expecting any major results.
6.) You only have to build the traffic to your blogs ONE time and you’ll get paid on your efforts forever. Since you are the one generating the traffic through your marketing efforts you control the traffic. The more you blog and market the more traffic you’ll send to your sites. I always take each blog post and submit it to each of the major article directories so each post has backlinks. This is crucial and if you don’t do this you can almost halt your efforts.
7.) If you use a Blogging Theme like Carl Ocab’s Ultimate Blogging Theme, you’ll even be able to sell advertising space once you start getting large amounts of traffic to your blog. Imagine spending just one year making one authority blog that gets about 1000 visitors per day within a year. This is very realistic if you crank out 3 articles per day or 90 per month. Each of the Ten 125×125 ad spaces on the right that come with UBT can quickly be sold for $55.00 per month each. So if you sell all 10 that’s $550.00 per month just from this and from just one website!
If you are consistent with blogging it’s very realistic to expect retirement type income within 2-3 years, as long as you study niche marketing and are consistent, stick to your plan and don’t let all the “Make $87,835 Per Month With Adsense” ads discourage you. Sure you’ll make a few mistakes along the way. You might even have to redo some settings and tweek your systems a few times, but that’s what separates the winners from the losers.
The winners in blogging are the ones who decide to go that extra mile and solve problems as they arise. Remember losers make excuses as to why they can’t solve problems, winners fix them as they come about. And yes I never said this wouldn’t be a lot of work. Not just a lot of work, but at least for me it was also about a 3 month learning curve to learn the skills I needed to put up these types of sites and over 100 videos I needed to watch.
I had to learn which plug-ins to use, how to setup the blog so it was SEO friendly, how to have articles ghost written, what directories I needed to submit them to, how to create and submit Camtasia Videos. You get the idea. So the learning isn’t easy, and there is a lot of work involved. But depending on how you view it the work can be considered fun, especially if you are in love with a particular niche or have a lot of knowledge about it. I hope these Blogging Tips give you a bit more insight and focus and will give you a better idea of what it will take for you to achieve your long term blogging goals.

Free Google Adwords advertising credits

2009-11-27T04:04:00.000-08:00

Earlier I saw a Google Adsense banner ad here on our site announcing the free use of Php2,000 ($42) worth of Google AdWords advertising credit.
The free advertising credits program is dubbed as the “Philippine Business Stimulus Package,” a program by Google and local partners STI, GoNegosyo, and the Philippine Marketing Association aimed at helping Filipino businesses put up and build an online presence.

All companies who will signup for a new account with Adwords will receive P2,000 worth of free advertising credits. These can be used to promote the website of a company.
If a company has no website, STI offers to create the site free for the first 200 companies who will sign up without a site.
Truly a good offer that can help Philippine companies establish a presence online.
If you’re a business interested to take advantage of this Business Stimulus Package, head over to this link.

Step-by-step Guide to Making Money Online

2009-11-26T04:02:00.000-08:00

I just found a place to download an e-book called '33 Days to Online Profit' by Yanik Silver and Jim Edwards absolutely free. This e-book is selling at 33daystoonlineprofits.com at $39.00 currently. It is guide to helping people to start their first online business. You'll learn how to set up an e-commerce website from scratch to promoting your website and generate sales using different traffic generating methods in 33 days. You'll also find many links to websites which contain tools and resources that are helpful to making money online.

The link to download this e-book is http://derrickvandyke.com. Don't worry about any unauthorized reprint right as the webmaster of derrickvandyke.com owns complete master resale right to this e-book.

Simple Steps to Posting Your First eBay Auction

2009-11-25T03:56:00.000-08:00

It's surprisingly simple to get started posting your very first auction on eBay. Here's what you need to do.

Step 1: Open an eBay seller's account
If you've bought things on eBay, then you already have an account - just log in with it and click 'Sell' in the toolbar at the top of the page, then click 'Create a seller's account'. If you've never used eBay before, then you'll need to open an account first using the 'register' link underneath the toolbar, and then click 'Sell' and 'Create a seller's account'. The eBay site will then guide you through the process. For security, this may involve giving card details and bank information.

Step 2: Decide what to sell
For your first little experiment with eBay, it doesn't really matter what you sell. Take a look around the room you're in - I'm sure there's something in there that you're not all that attached to and could put in the post. Small books and CDs are ideal first items.

Step 3: Submit your item.
Click 'Sell', and you're on your way to listing your item.

The first thing you need to do is choose a category - it's best to just type in what the item is and let eBay choose for you. Next, write a title and description. Include key words you think people will search for in the title box, and all the information you have about the item in the description box.

Now set a starting price. $0.01 is the best starting price, as it draws people in to bid who otherwise wouldn't, and items will almost never finish at such a low price. The next thing to set is the duration of the auction: 3, 5, 7 or 10 days. This is up to you: longer sales will usually get more bids, but will also seem to drag on forever. If you've taken a picture, add it now - items with pictures always sell for more. Finally, tick the payment methods you will accept (just PayPal is best for now), and where you will post to (limit yourself to your own country to begin with). Submit and you're done!

Step 4: Wait for it to sell
This is just a matter of sitting back and letting eBay do its thing - buyers will find your item and leave bids on it. Some bidders might email you with questions about the item, and you should do your best to answer these questions as quickly as you can.

Remember that if your item doesn't sell then you can list it again for free.

Step 5: Collect payment and post it
eBay will sent your buyer emails guiding them through the process of sending you payment for the item. Make sure you have the money before you send anything.

Once you've got the payment, all you need to do is pack the item for posting (make sure to use some bubble wrap), take the buyer's address from the confirmation email eBay sent you, and write it on the parcel. Put some stamps on, post it, and you're done!

I hope you enjoyed selling your first item. Now that you're starting to get into it, the next email will give you a checklist of things you need to do to be a successful seller.

More Money in the Coming Holiday Season

2009-11-24T03:53:00.000-08:00

Is your e-business ready for the holiday shopping season? It’d better be as the online holiday shopping season begins the day after Halloween.

Holiday web sales keep growing every year as more and shoppers go online. Online retailers that don’t get ready for the holidays can expect to loose lots of holiday web sales to their competitors.

Preparing for the holiday rush isn’t hard. You know it’s near and its time to start preparations. Even if you start preparing in October or November you can still get ready in time to get your piece of the holiday web sales. The peak of the holiday shopping spree online is between December 5 and 10.

The first step you need to take to get ready for holiday web sales is the most basic: get your website ready for the holidays. Just as brick and mortar stores decorate for the holidays, you should decorate your site with Christmas themed graphics like Santa Claus and Christmas trees. Remember it’s the holidays so remind your customers that the holidays are coming because they’ll need to buy gifts.

Do more than decorate for the holidays; offer your customers something special for the holidays to generate holiday web sales. Hold a sale or spotlight a special product that you only make available for the holidays. To drive holiday web sales consider adding products to your line just for the holidays. Take advantage of the power of bundling by combining some of your products into gift sets.

You can also help your customers decide what gifts to buy with the power of suggestion. Adding a list of great gift ideas with links to products in your inventory to your web site is a great way to drive holiday web sales. Organizing the list into categories like “gifts under $20,” “stocking stuffers” and “gifts for mom” can give people ideas of what to buy.

Generate holiday web sales without adding inventory or shipping expenses by offering gift cards and gift certificates. Gift certificates and cards are a great income stream you get paid even though you don’t have to deliver a product or deal with holiday shipping. Anybody who gets one of your gift certificates or cards is a potential new customer. Gift certificates and cards are great advertising because people receive them from somebody that they already know and trust.

Don’t forget to remind your customers about shipping during the holiday season. Go to the websites of the main shippers such as US Postal Service, UPS, and FedEx and get their holiday shipping schedules. Then post the schedules on your website to remind your visitors that the deadlines for shipping packages to arrive in time for Christmas are approaching. This can drive holiday web sales by creating a sense of urgency, by reminding your customers they have a limited time to place their orders.

What You Need To Know When Making Money Online?

2009-11-23T03:49:00.000-08:00

Making money online is more and more popular in past months and I can freely say in past years, just look at Google search trends and you will understand what I am talking about.

Today I will to explain how sometime can be easy to make quick cash. Let say that there is a thousands ways to make money today using Internet. We will take CraigsList as great example. What we need to make $100 or $1000 weekly on CraigsList? Nothing! Don't believe? Ok, it is not nothing, but You need just some time and patience, and no money investment. We will talk about drop shipping today. So what is drop shipping? That is popular way for retailers to sell any merchandise without having it in stock. Actually, without having any stock at all. Or to be more precise, You can have physical online shop from shoes to iPods without leaving Your home or investing in stock. I hear You asking "how that is possible?", easy, that is something called drop shipping.

In drop shipping You make an online shop (buy domain for $10 and that is Your only money "investment"), use open source cart software like oSCommerce (absolutely free), decide which merchandise You will selling, for example, let say iPods, use Google to find manufacture which support drop shipping, and finally use CragsList and other free classifieds to promote Your business.

I know that You still believe that this what I am talking is possible. Ok, I will go again, step by step, and I hope that then everything will be clear. To become drop shipper seller You don't need money to invest. You don't need to have stock. You don't need to have anything. Nothing. Nada :) Now you for example decide to sell t-shirts. When You decided that Your future job will be an t-shirt online shop, you are buying domain something like my-t-shirt-shop.com or something. Then You are using Google to find company that will cooperate with you, or in other words, that will make t-shirts and send to Your clients. Just use Google. Then You need to find payment processor to accept credit card payments from your clients, and again use Google, I used plimus, authorize and similar services, it still cost you nothing, except of domain name (about $10 depending on your ISP.) After You found and signed online contract with payment processor, you need to build site, so You will use osCommerce or some other cart software, download images from manufacturer that You choose and create 10-50 products.

After this you are ready to go. Start posing ads on CraigsList and similar service attracting customers with low prices, high quality and similar of Your t-shirt. When people (buyers) start coming to Your site, and start buying Your t-shirts, what happens is next: when You receive money for order of 1 or 100 t-shirts, you are paying half of that su (approximately) to Your manufacturer and sending him Your buyer details (name and address), manufacturer packing Your order and sending to Your buyer. Buyer receives t-shirt and he is very satisfied. You made 30%-50% net profit and You are happy too. Manufacturer sold his products and made profit so he is happy to. All of You are happy :)

I hope that You understand that You can really make some money doing nothing, just with some initial work, good idea and a bit of creativity and patience.

Make Money Online – The Opportunities are Numerous

2009-11-22T03:49:00.000-08:00

If you have always wanted to work from home, and you have a computer with an Internet connection, then what is stopping you? Many people make money online successfully every day, and there is absolutely no reason why you should not be one of them.

If you are not sure where to start, you may want to begin by reading up about online businesses. You do not have to spend a lot of money to learn everything that you need to know about making money online. As a matter of fact, you may not have to spend anything at all as there are tons of good, free information online (the very essence of the Internet!).

Read as much as you can, use your discernment and do your best to not get sucked into any Internet scams. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You will never make money online without putting in some time and effort, so be aware that running your online business will require some work on your end.

Make Money Online Tip – Why Are Videos Excellent Teaching Tools?

As you are getting up-to-speed on your ‘make money online’ marketing skills, you may want to see what you can learn on video. Typically, a video can answer questions that you have not even had time to form. You can back-up and watch whatever sections you choose, as many times as you wish.

Once you get your basic information by doing your online research, you are probably ready for a good quality video course. Some people can learn the information they need by reading, but many others learn better by watching videos. If you are one of these people, then you may want to look at a video-based program as you are choosing your online business.

While you can discover everything that you need to know about making money online through trial and error, taking video lessons will save you time and ultimately money in mistakes that you can avoid making. This means you will set-up your business much sooner and as result you will be making money online much quicker.

Some advantages to using a video program to learn are as follows:

• It is an inexpensive way to get training.
• It is an easy and quick way to learn.
• It is easy to remember the material, because you watched how things were done.

When you are learning how to do something on your computer, it is much easier to follow a video demonstration than it is to read a list of instructions.

If you are anxious to get your online business up and running, then a video, training program may be just the perfect thing for you. It lets you cover the material fast, and you can rewind and watch whatever section you may need to until you know the material inside-out.

Once you really understand how to set up your website and get your online marketing program in motion, you will be surprised at how really simple it is to work for yourself and make money online.

How To Become A Better Blogger?!

2009-11-21T00:52:00.000-08:00

As I had some spare time, I stumbled upon some more popular blogging links for you!

Below are some of the very helpful links you might want to read!

ProBlogger : 31 Days to a Building a Better Blog
An amazing collection of blogging tips and tricks submitted by readers and compiled by Darren.
16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
Days go by, you keep publishing, but no one comments and your traffic stats are barely registering. What do you do?
Lifehacker�s guide to weblog comments
“Leaving a comment on someone�s weblog is like walking into their living room and joining in on a conversation.”
RSSTop55 – Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites
One of the key benefits of this reference list is that it provides all of the submission links directly
Creating a Good Blog Archive
Some blogging approaches to help make sure, years from now, your blog makes a good archive
The Top 10 Things You Should Know Before You Blog
Three business blogging experts share their best tips for getting started in the blogosphere.
How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)
The point is that anyone can eventually find your blog if your real identity is tied to it in some way. And there may be consequences.
BlogHerald Guides
It is the blog category which has an amazing collection of tips and tricks for affiliate advertising and better blogging
Where to Find Free Images and Visuals for My Blog
Finding quality images and photos for complementing an important article, essay or news report is already a challenge.
Free Essential Tools for Bloggers
My list of free tools which aid to make a better blog.

I hope you like this blogging tips collection. It has helped me become a better blogger, and hope it works for you too!

The Best Tips For Blogging

2009-11-21T00:47:00.000-08:00

If you’re using a blog to promote your online business, congratulations! If used wisely, blogs are one of the best tools to drive traffic and increase sales. Unfortunately, many business bloggers are blogging ineffectively.

Here are five business blogging tips that can increase the effectiveness of your blog.

1. Make Offers

Some bloggers are so scared to sell on their blog because they’ve heard that a blog is not a place for product pitches. So, they write about their niche but never talk about their product. The problem with this strategy is that you’re not able to fully leverage the trust you’ve built by delivering quality information.

I’ve found that most people don’t mind sales pitches as long as you don’t overdo it. Once you’ve got some steady traffic, feel free to talk about one of your products every 4-5 posts. In those posts, tell your readers why your product can benefit them. If you do this, you should see a increase in sales.

2. Don’t Sell on Every Post

On the other hand, some bloggers overdo it and make their blog one big sales pitch. Every post reads like a product description. This is a bad strategy, because most people see blogs as a place to consume useful and/or entertaining info. They don’t mind hearing about your products once in a while but they’re turned off with product pitches on every post.

If they were interested in buying something, they would’ve gone to your product pages, not your blog.

3. Be Personal

Blogs have a reputation of being a personal medium, so let your personality shine through your posts. Use your name. Share personal experiences about running your business and being involved in your industry. Tell interesting stories about your niche. Write with a conversational tone, or write like how you speak.

Being personal builds trust with your audience and gives your site that human touch that’s missing in most commercially-oriented sites.

4. Use Multimedia

Multimedia is the difference between turning your blog from a boring book to an exciting magazine. There’s nothing wrong with just using text, but many people are visually oriented. It doesn’t take too much extra effort to add an image or two to each blog post. The images will enhance your blog and improve the browsing experience of your readers.

If you’re ambitious and willing to do a lot more work, adding audio and video can be worth it. Video is especially effective if you upload your videos to YouTube. There are many people that don’t like to read or listen to audio, but they do like watching videos on YouTube.

5. Build an Email List

There’s a saying in the internet marketing industry about the importance of building a list: “The money’s in the list.” Email lists are one of the best tools for generating income in the long term. Let’s face it, even if you have an awesome blog, many of your readers will visit a couple times, forget about your blog, and never come back. However, if you’re able to capture their email address, you can keep in touch and notify them of new posts.

Blogs fits perfectly with list building. Over time, you’ll build trust with your blog, which will attract your readers to join your list. You may think RSS fits the same purpose but the vast majority of people don’t know how to use RSS. Email is definitely more widely used.

Also, if you’re not getting many signups, try making special offers to get people to join the list. One of the common giveaways is offering a useful short ebook or a discount code to your products in exchange for an email address.

-john copper

How To Unfollow All Friends On Twitter?

2009-11-21T00:20:00.001-08:00

Do you want to remove everyone you’re following on twitter?

Now there is a powerful mass unfollow Twitter tool that promises to remove all people you are following in minutes.

So why would you want to unfollow all people Twitter? On Twitter, when someone follows you, you follow back to reciprocate the gesture. If you are in the Twitter followers number game, then you could end up following thousands of people, not knowing who they are. This will lead to hundreds of Direct messages, spam and this will not let you follow people you know, all the while filling your Twitter page with Tweets you do not want to read. So you just want to start anew… its better than deleting your Twitter account.
Want to make a fresh start? John Chow has launched his new tool called UnfollowAll – but remember, it is irreversible so be absolutely sure what you are doing.

Tips to Build a Successful Blogging Business

2009-11-21T00:11:00.000-08:00

How to build a successful blogging business? Starting a blog is easy but being a successful blogger and taking the blog to a higher level needs a lot of discipline. Below are some tips that will help you build a successful blogging business.

Stick to one niche: Successful blogs are blogs that have stuck to blogging on a particular niche. It is better to stick to a niche rather than wander everywhere searching for ideas for your blog. By writing on a single topic you make yourself easy on learning. You also define a purpose on your blog by putting in a lot of effort towards a single topic.
Make it interesting: Make your blog as interesting it can be and plan for the things in it. Choose the right theme for your blog and plan it more efficiently. Develop your blog writing skill and have your own style on writing. Readers prefer unique blogs mainly based on the writing style of the author.
Believe in yourself: Belief is the most important thing which one has to have in mind not only for blogging but also for other activities too. With all the billions of bloggers and blogs around you may find it difficult to make your blog special. But always believe that you are unique and you have something unique to offer to people. This will make you stand out from the rest of the people.
Run your blog as a business: Run your blog like a business enterprise, imagine it to be a multi million dollar annual business. Define a set of goals not only for yourself but also for your blog. This will be a very important motivating factor for your blog. If you have built your blog completely for making money then work on it, have a set of goals which you are going to work on for the sake your blog as well as yourself. You will only think like a millionaire when you consider your blog a million dollar business.
Promote, Promote, Promote: Starting a blog is very easy, promoting and generating traffic is difficult . One of the sure shot ways to promote your blog is to write quality content and submit it to directories. These directories are great place for readers and it will help in improving the popularity and traffic for your blog. A lot of blogs and small online publications pull RSS feeds from these directories; by being present on these directories, chances are high that your blog will article also be featured on smaller online publications
Encourage Interaction: It is not enough to simply write good content in your blog but it is also important to promote it and encourage participation in it from not only the community which you are a part of but also from every reader. In fact it is very important to encourage interaction from readers as it is to improve the number of readers sharing their views, thereby not only increasing the quality of your blog but also increasing the number of readers for your blog.
Commitment: Commit yourself to blogging and remember that though you may start off blogging as a fun or a hobby activity, it has the potential to be a multi million dollar business. And just like any business it requires serious action, hard work and disciple. You have to stick and think about success constantly if you want your blog to be successful.

-quickonlinetips

Best Google Adsense Plugins For WordPress

2009-11-20T23:36:00.000-08:00

Wordpress allows bloggers to easily integrate Google Adsense inside wordpress using plugins. Google Adsense has become the most popular online contextual advertising program and proper custom integration with Wordpress can help to increase Adsense earnings.

Google Adsense Wordpress Plugins

Listed below are 10 best Adsense plugins which help you work smarter with wordpress.

Adsense Deluxe – offers advanced options for managing the automatic insertion of Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) ads to your WordPress posts. Easily switch all AdSense ads to a new color scheme across the entire site.
Adsense Injection – inserts Adsense code randomly into a pre-existing blog. Takes a random paragraph (or br tag) break in your article and inserts adsense code. It does one per story on multi-post pages (home, archive, category) and let�s you pick how many to show on single post pages.
Adsense Inline – inserts Google adsense in blog posts.
Shylock Adsense WordPress plugin – allows you to insert Adsense ads on your blog without modifying the template. Set it up to show different Adsense ads for articles older then ‘n’ days. E.g. insert a 468�60 ad at the bottom of a new article for regular readers, and replace with higher paying 336�280 ad after 7 days for the search engine visitors.
Adsense Beautifier – makes your Adsense look beautiful by placing images beside them to increase your clicks (CTR) and subsequent Adsense earnings.
AdSense Widget for WordPress Sidebar – Google AdSense widget designed for the new WordPress Sidebar Widgets plug-in.
AdRotator Wordpress Plugin – rotates your adsense ads with other affiliate programs like Chitika Eminimalls wherever you want. Helps to reduce ad blindness and test different ad formats and affiliate programs.
Adsense Earnings Wordpress Plugin – displays your adsense earning details within wordpress admin panel.
AdSense Manager – is a Wordpress plugin for managing AdSense ads on your blog. It generates code automatically and allows positioning with Widgets.
AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System – allows you to view your adsense earnings and share your adsense impressions with your friends and co-authors.
Author Adsense Wordpress Plugin – allows blog authors to enter their Google Adsense Publisher ID and have ads displayed on their own posts generating revenue. Admin can set the ratio of author�s ads to admin ads.
Author Adsense MU Plugin – Webmasters of Wordpress MU sites can generate adsense revenue from hosted blogs as this script allows you to set an admin ID and the ratio of admin ad�s to blogger�s ads.
Google Ad Wrap – wraps posts and comments inside Section Targeting tags for better targeted ads.

Support and upgrades are provided by the respective authors of these wordpress plugins. Use at your own risk. If you know of more Adsense wordpress plugins you like, let me know in comments and I can add them to the list.

Bidvertiser really sucks!

2009-11-15T23:49:00.000-08:00

Do you use Bidvertiser to your sites?

Sad to say, but in my experience it's a fantasy for most of us. There are a tiny minority who actually manage to make a pile but most of us barely scratch an existence, and many that boast of high incomes are usually lying to get you to part with your hard earned.

Well, the biggest problem with Bidvertiser is they tend to record the IP address of every computer, that is the reason why the bidvertiser really sucks!

This is my experience:

I tried to click the ads of bidvertiser 3 times using a single PC just to check how the company works and then I checked my Bidvertiser account, guess what?!! Only 1 click have been recorded out of three clicks!

They earned too much from clicks of our readers and we get almost nothing in return after all. I thought they offer good service and I was wrong!

You should try yourself so you know what to do! They earned too much and we get nothing! That is so unfair right? Test yourself now and decide!

Below only few of the publisher who disappointed by Bidvertiser.com:

Well here again I have tried pretty much every type. Companies like Bidvertiser, Valueclick etc., have received thousands of free ad impressions from me and returned just a few cents. Google Adsense is the only one in my experience that is playing the game. I can earn at least the odd dollar or two from them with even as low as 50 impressions on some of my new sites. On my main site, I have managed to squeeze it up a few dollars to at least make the check come each month i.e. over the $100 dollar threshold.

Let me know what you think!

Use Youtube Videos for Traffic and Promotion

2009-06-07T00:19:00.000-07:00

Did you know that you can use your Youtube Videos as another way of gaining more traffic and promoting your website?

Yes! You can make use of your Youtube Videos as additional source of traffic and promoting your blog. It's very easy.

Here are some few Tips:

Make sure the videos you have uploaded would interest people (funny, teasers, song lyrics etc.)
Be sure that the name you have created for your videos are easy to search and that are attractive.
Next, be sure to add the name of your website on the video you have chosen, have it appear while playing.
Make your viewers curious about your website.

Example:

If you have additional information regarding this posts, please let me know..

How To Backup the Entire Blogger Blog?

2009-02-08T00:33:00.000-08:00

One morning you wake up to find out that your blog has been hacked and all the data is lost. Still there is smile on your face. You open your back up vault on your laptop, and restore the whole blog in 10 minutes. This can happen to anybody and the consequences of not backing up your blog can be disastrous. Unfortunately, a large number of bloggers do not formulate any back up and restoration policy. If you are hosting your blog on Wordpress platform, there are 2-3 back up plugins available that can be easily configured. On the other hand, if your blog is on blogger platform, you will find it difficult to create a single point restoration point for your blog. But there is a solution to this problem. Let us see how to back up the entire blogger blog, for easy restoration in case of any mishap.

Planning The Backup Strategy

A good backup strategy can save you from lot of pain, in case any disaster happens. A big question that you may ask while formulating any backup policy will be, "How often should I take backup?". If your blog is new, you can afford to take backups every fortnight or on weekly basis. On the other hand, if it's an established blog with high traffic volume, daily backups are must.

Backup procedure

At present blog export function is available in draft version of blogger. Generally, features available in draft are in developmental stage and should not be tried on your main blog having good traffic. Still, you can use the following tried and tested technique to back up your entire blog posts and comments in a single file.

Step - 1 Save you existing template on local drive.
Step - 2 Replace your entire template code with the following code.

AUTHOR: <$BlogItemAuthor$>
DATE: <$BlogItemDateTime$>
-----
BODY:
<$BlogItemBody$>
--------

NOTE: Remove any indentations present in the above code after pasting it in your blog template

Step - 3 If you are using blogger native commenting system and want to backup them as well, paste the following code just above the tag.

COMMENT-AUTHOR:<$BlogCommentAuthor$>
COMMENT-DATE:<$BlogCommentDateTime$>
COMMENT-BODY:<$BlogCommentBody$>
--------

Step - 4 Our goal is to adjust the blog settings in such a way that all the posts get displayed on the index page. To achieve that, go to Settings -> Formatting and choose days on the main page option. Set the number of days to 1 more than the number of days you are blogging.

Step - 5 In Settings -> Formatting set the Date/Time format to MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS.

Make a note of existing Date/Time settings, so that they can be easily restored later

Step - 6 In Settings -> Formatting set the option Convert line breaks to No.

Step - 7 Set the Archive Frequency to No Archive in Settings -> Archiving, so that old archive is not overwritten.

Now, publish your blog and you will get a single index page with all the posts and comments on that page. Simply save the source of that page in local hard drive, and all your blog posts and comments will be saved in that single file.

After saving the index page, simply restore your previous settings in Settings -> Formatting and Settings -> Archiving pages. Restore your original template that you saved earlier. Done.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising Success Tips

2008-08-25T04:57:00.000-07:00

When hoping of generating tons of targeted traffic through pay-per-click advertising programs such as Google Adwords, there are few things you need to know when developing your ads. Following the Six tips below would help you maintain a per-per-click advertising campaign that will bring you more profits.

1) Keep Your Ads Short

Make sure your ads are short, simple, and direct to the point as it is important to let its readers know what it is about right away. This will allow you to ensure that those who click on your ads are really those who are interested in your products or services and not just curious about what you are offering.

2) Make Use of Your Keywords

Paying to appear in results for certain keywords is not enough. You should use those keywords in your ad's copy so that you can attract more attention. Keep in mind that when you use those keywords in your copy, they will appear in bold when published.

3) Appeal to Emotion

Don't just mention what you have to offer. By describing them with emotive words, you get to strike readers' emotions and make them more interested in your offerings. For example, use "A remarkable tool to make astonishing amounts of money online fast" rather than "A tool to make money online."

4) Capture Attention with Your URL

Your URL will be part of your ad whether you want it to or not. Make good use of it by capitalizing the first letter of each word. This will help you get better click-through rates as well.

5) Prompt Readers to Take Action

Make sure that your ads contain a call-to-action statement as this will tell readers what to do. For example, you may want to include statements such as "Click here now" or "Sign up here today."

6) Ads Picture

Make sure your ads are attractive and would make your visitors confuse about it. They would probably click on it if they find it interesting.

You can generate as much profit as you can from the traffic that you gain through pay-per-click advertising by keeping this simple tips.

Making Money with Performancing Ads

2008-08-23T06:13:00.000-07:00

You may sell your web space for placing image banner ads. Unlike the PPC Ads these ads does not work on PPC basis. Instead these ads are sold for a particular duration, usually per week or per month basis. This is usually ideal for blog owners but web sites may also integrate this service, depending on Ad Network.
These ads are usually 125 * 125 size. This venue is relatively new and more and more advertisers are attracting towards it. You may earn something from $3 to $25 or even more per banner per week. It depends on google PR of your site and alexa ratings.
Performancing Ads is an example network along with many other available.

Advertisers may apply and get benefit of $25 off for their initial advertisement. Inventory is increasing is increasing day by and so targeted graphic Ads. This is unique from Google Image ads that it runs for a period, irrespective of the no. of clicks.

Work at home or Work from home - A Myth or Reality

2008-08-20T06:07:00.000-07:00

Turn on your search engine, google, yahoo, live or whatever you use, type a work/job related key phrase and you will see Ads stating something like "Work from Home" and make $1000/week or per month, online data entry jobs or some kind of work that can be done online while working at home.

This term is so popular that every month hundred of thousands of people search, on their choice of search engines, to look for some work to make income while staying at home.

Which do you prefer? Working at home or Work from home? is it for real or just a myth?

This is about masses not a few dozens or hundreds or may be thousands "lucky persons" who are having fortune for "Work from home" or "Work at home" myths or reality-- What about masses? A common person who work 9-6, or looking for job to run his/her home to meet the expenditures.

Naturally every person wants life without being dictated or under pressure all the time by bosses, every persons wants luxurious, holidaying life- yet earning a reasonable income to at least a level to fulfill basic to luxurious needs. So naturally we all get attracted by these kind of Ads - But is it a Myth or Internet jobs/work are good enough to fill the stomach of hundred of thousands...?

What do you think, as a person want to earn online or make a living entirely based on online work? Let us know and share your thoughts, reservations, concerns, or future.

Make Money With Pay Per Play Media

2008-08-17T05:47:00.000-07:00

Pay per play media is another way of monetizing your web site along with other advertisements running. This runs independent of your adsense, graphic or link ads and makes you more money.

Pay-Per-Play (PPP) is the web's newest and fastest growing form of advertising.So whenever a visitor lands on your web site, that has integrated pay per play code, and user stays for more than 2 seconds, a background sound ad is played- whether visitor's speakers are On or Off you will make money. Usually it earns you around $350/100K pageviews for US based traffic. So if you are having high volumes of visitors, then happy $350 * (no of 100Ks).

NetAudioAds Pay-Per-Play (PPP) is an online media channel that plays 5 second audio advertisements like the one you just heard on websites that place the PPP code on their web pages. Audio ads are only heard on web pages where the website owner has placed PPP code and is only heard once on the page. The visitor may hear another ad if they visit another page (that has placed the PPP code) only after at least 3 minutes have elapsed.

PPP audio ads play as soon as a visitor arrives on a web page where the PPP code is inserted. The audio advertisement is only heard and not seen and requires no action from a website visitor.

Secrets of Success Online

2008-08-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

1. Know your niche, research it. Whether you are out there doing a job, or promoting a product you need to be an expert. People rely on you to know it all and you should. Research should be ongoing and when new ideas fall into your realm you should be the first to know about it.
2. Believe in your self and what you are doing. It can be very disheartening to fail but it is a part of life. If you believe in what you are doing you can achieve.
3. Focus on what works, learn from what doesn’t and move on. It’s one thing to believe in something and another to take a step back and realize when something just isn’t working. Sometimes it can be hard to know when to reach that point but it is crucial, learn from those mistakes.
4. Plan on starting to work SMARTER and not just HARDER. This was a profound theme amongst our readers. Constantly revaluate what you are doing to see if there is a better way. Think about how you can earn a residual income so that each month becomes easier and more profitable.
5. Outsource. At WhyDoWork we do this all the time. There comes a point when it is more cost effective and beneficial to pay an expert rather than waste your skills doing something poorly. If your car breaks down do you research how to fix cars or take it to the mechanic? Focus on what you are good at.
6. Align yourself with good people. Whether it is an employer, affiliate company, outsourcers, lawyers, online contacts, or friends, a solid network of people makes all the difference. Networking both online and offline is crucial.
7. Treat ‘this’ as a job. Whether you are working an online job, writing posts in a blog, or are contributing in get paid to programs this is one of my favorite pieces of advice by our contest winner. Think of how you approach a job, you start on time, finish on time and work hard while you are at work. Even if you are sitting on your computer in your underwear you need to approach your tasks with the same level of seriousness if you want to succeed. (Don’t forget jobs have days off.)
8. Be organized. Get the necessary equipment you need in order to be more organized. Whether that is a prioritized to-do list or calendars filled out with milestones and goals it is important to have a quantitative means of measuring your ability to stay on track.
9. Find your motivation and revisit it. Whether it be an education for the kids, escaping debt, or your desire for a new Lamborghini, keep in mind why it is you are busting your butt so you can keep at it.
10. Set your goals and be realistic. You can’t expect to get rich overnight. There are millions of people out there competing for the same piece of the pie. Embrace those small successes because over time a lot of small achievements really add up.

The Traffic Killers

2008-08-13T07:41:00.000-07:00

Traffic Killer # 1: Poor Title and Description
People use search engines to find a blog or website that can provide them the information they are looking for. For instance, I want to get more information about blogging so I opened Google and typed the word ‘blogging’ then hit enter. Google will return a list of blogs or websites that contain the information I am looking for. The list is made up of links to blogs and websites with their respective Titles and Descriptions. Google and other search engines are limited to the information that bloggers have provided about their blog’s title and description. Hence, ineffective titles and descriptions discourage searchers to click on it.
Titles and descriptions that you use on your blog should effectively describe the nature and content of your blog or website. Don’t use titles such as ‘My Blog’ or ‘My Weblog’ because people normally do not click on these links. If your blog is all about tips and guides for bloggers then use these words as your title and description. You should also take time to carefully research the most appropriate words that you should use in your title and description. It always has an impact on your blog.
The words EFFECTIVE and FREE are traffic magnets and people are usually driven to click on these links. The more technical issues on title and description using Meta tags and Title tags will be discussed in a separate article in the succeeding post.
Traffic Killer # 2: Begging for Traffic
Begging for traffic is a popular practice among bloggers especially those who are starting to blog and those who have difficulties attracting visitors. Out of desperation for traffic, they join forums and leave comments to other blogs begging for traffic. These are the words that they often use. ‘Pls. Pls. Pls. visit my blog’ or ‘Show some love, please visit my blog’. Instead of begging people to visit your blog, tell them what they’ll find on your blog and tell them what you have to offer.
What’s wrong with requesting people to visit your blog? Well, requesting people to check out your latest post is not wrong as long as you don’t sound begging and desperate. Otherwise, people will think that your blog sucks. Or that you’ve got lousy contents that’s why nobody wants to visit it. As a result, they’ll will not visit your blog. Give some dignity to your blog… don’t beg for visitors.
Traffic Killer # 3: Eye-Sore Layout
When someone visits your blog, it’s important to make your links to your other posts noticeable and attractive (internal links). This will motivate your visitors to stay longer into your blog and read more of your posts. It’s not enough to attract visitors to drop by your blog. What’s more important is to let them stay longer into your blog and read more about your posts. Most importantly, you should give them reasons or impetus to keep coming back and check your blog for updates.
I have come across several blogs that are difficult to navigate partly because of the absence of links to their other posts and partly because of its layout and color combination. I usually don’t stay longer than 1 minute to a blog that uses red as a background and green as the text color.
Here are some suggestions to increase the time spent by your visitors on your blog.
Firstly, you should have links to your other post from the homepage of your blog. It is advisable that you have an archive on your side bar to allow easier navigation. Or you can create links to your best posts and place it on your side bar. You can also include links to your other posts at the end of each of your articles. For navigation purposes, you may want to consider having a sitemap of your blog or website. This is friendly to both the search engines and your visitors.
Secondly, work out on improving your layout, color combination and your style. I advice you to get feedbacks from your friends. Invite them to check out your blog and navigate through your pages. Afterward, ask them about their experience. Ask them whether navigating through your pages was convenient and ask them what they think of your color combination, layout etc. The feedbacks you will get from them will be very useful.
Traffic Killer # 4: Low Quality or Bad Content
How does a blog increases traffic through its content? If someone who visits a blog with unique, informative and relevant content, they will most likely talk about it on their blog or create a link to it or will refer your blog to their friends. As the links to your blog increases or the information about your blog reaches more people, expect an increase in your traffic. Always remember that a low quality content is definitely a traffic killer. It does not only deprive you of more links but it will create a negative impression from your visitors discouraging them from revisiting your blog.
Another factor that makes your content unpleasant is when you copy posts from other blogs. Once your visitors learn that you plagiarize other blog’s content, they’ll lack confidence to your blog and will be discouraged to pay another visit. To avoid this traffic killer, do not plagiarize. Work hard to create quality content for your blog instead.
Traffic Killer # 5: Unmet Expectations
One of the most unpleasant practices of bloggers is to describe their blogs with exaggeration. (e.g. Visit this blogâ€¦ it’s the best blog on earth, or XXX blog is the best blog that provides nothing but the best blogging resources) Using exaggerated words to describe your blog may attract people to visit it and may result to a spike in your traffic but will not be sustainable. The explanation to this is simple. Assuming that someone has visited your blog with high expectations because of the words you’ve used to describe it, but you failed to meet their expectations, your visitors will not pay another visit to your blog for sure.
In order to avoid unmet expectations which is one of the major traffic killers, never exaggerate your description. Use precise words instead.
Traffic Killer # 6: Negative or Bad Publicity
Publicity is a key element in becoming popular. Paris Hilton became popular after the publicity of the sex scandal she was involved at. Like Paris Hilton, we, bloggers should also be popular in order to drive more traffic into our blog. We can do this through good or positive publicity. Negative publicity, just like what happened to Paris Hilton will not last long. Besides, every time men think about her, they usually think about her sex scandal (well not really all men) which is not really a good thing to be remembered. Opps.. I hope I didn’t hurt any Paris Hilton fans here.
Negative publicity or bad publicity may or may not kill your traffic. Most of the time however, it works as a traffic killer. I have seen a lot of bloggers who go around checking other blogs but always leave a negative comment. I have also come across bloggers in forums who are very hostile with their feedbacks and comments. These things create a negative publicity of yourself and your blog. Earning a notorious reputation from your interaction with other bloggers will not help you. Try to be more friendly with the blogging community. Attempting to be the enemy of every blogger is not rewarding. What’s rewarding is when you befriend bloggers and appreciate the good things they contribute. Who knows, they might reciprocate this with a link to your blog.
Traffic Killer # 7: Too Much Adverts
I don’t think this traffic killer needs a lot of explanation. To put it simple. No one likes to visit a blog full of advertisements. These advertisements discourages your visitors to navigate through your other pages. What’s more, advertisements sometimes obfuscate your links to your other posts.
Advertisement is not bad only when it’s not too much.
Now your turn. What else do you think are the traffic killers that have been included in this post? I’m sure you’ve got something to share. Use the comment to include your ideas of ‘TRAFFIC KILLERS’. Thank you for your time.

Many Ways to Make Money Online

2008-08-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

The internet is not just good for reading The Onion and posting pictures of your pet hamster to your social networking sites. If you spend any amount of time online, you know that there is money to be made out here in cyberspace; and many of the pioneers in this still vastly uncharted territory have struck it rich with little more than their personal computers and an eye for opportunity. So, how can you get in on the action? Here’s 16 ways that just about anyone (not just geeks) can use to make money online:

1. PPC and CPM Advertising

PPC (Pay Per Click) and CPM (Cost Per Mille) advertising are similar animals. Both require that you place a small bit of code on your site which automatically generates ads of various shapes and sizes (usually depending on your preferences). PPC ads pay you per number of time someone actually clicks on the ad; CPM pays you per number of impressions that their ads get on your site. The amount of the payout is very small—often a fraction of a cent per click or impression–but if you have a large volume of traffic to your site, it can add up quickly.
Learn More: http://www.payperclickuniverse.com/

2. Affiliate Marketing (a/k/a CPA)

Affiliate Marketing requires that apply for membership in an ‘affiliate network.’ That is, an agency that maintains and monitors accounts for various companies who are willing to pay individuals for sales generated through their websites. Again, a small bit of code is placed on your site to generate ads; and when someone clicks on the ad, your unique affiliate number is automatically associated with that person’s IP address. If that individual buys a product from the advertiser, you receive a commission on the sale. Commissions can range between 5-20%, or they can be a flat fee per sale.
Learn More: http://www.affiliatetips.com/

3. Banner Advertising

Banner advertising is used along with PPC, CPM, and Affiliate marketing. A banner is simply a graphic ad that you can sell in any size or shape you wish. Banner ads can be animated, they can rotate through a series of images, or they can be static. In addition to being used with other types of advertising, individual website owners can simply sell banner space at a flat fee or negotiate their own PPC/CPM with independent advertisers which don’t belong to an affiliate network.
Learn More: http://www.davesite.com/internet/webads.shtml

4. Audio Ads

Audio ads begin playing as soon as you land on a website where they are installed. This is a relatively new development in the world of online advertising, and there is some debate about whether or not these are effective or annoying. Audio ad pioneers say they are incredibly effective in getting the user to respond to the ad. Like other ads, you get paid per play or per impression, depending on the advertiser.
Learn More: http://mashable.com/2008/10/03/audio-ad-networks/

5. In-Text Advertising

In-Text advertising is one of the least obtrusive internet advertising techniques. Basically, hyperlinks are placed within relevant text on your website and distinguished from regular links by a double underline. When you place your mouse cursor over the text, a small box appears with additional information on the product or service being advertised. There are advertising services which, when installed, will automatically place the links for you and will even allow you to set parameters for the products you allow to be sold through your site.
Learn More: http://www.wiliam.com.au/wiliam-blog/considering-in-text-ppc-advertising

6. RSS Feed Ads

RSS Feeds are incredibly convenient for websites that update content frequently. The feeds deliver all the new content from websites that the reader subscribes to; making it possible to stay updated on news and information on multiple websites without having to visit each one. That’s great for the reader, but not so much for you if you rely on fresh eyes for your advertising revenues. Thankfully RSS Feed Ads are now available. These allow you to place both graphic and text ads within your RSS feeds so that they are visible to all your subscribers.
Learn More: http://www.doshdosh.com/monetize-rss-feed-advertising/

7. Popups

Popup ads were, at one time, all the rage with online advertisers. When you visited a site, a box would immediately pop up (hence the name), preventing you from seeing the information you needed until you either entered the information required by the advertiser or at the very least, read through the ad inside. Then, tragedy struck! Someone invented the popup blocker. To be fair, pop ups are pretty annoying; but they are still fairly popular with online advertisers. They are especially useful for capturing bits of information for PPA (pay per action) ad campaigns where you are paid for capturing email addresses or other pieces of information from the user.

8. Sponsored Reviews

A sponsored review is basically an advertiser paying a blogger to write about their product or service. This can either be done through a ‘review site’ which facilitates the meet ups between bloggers and advertisers; or it can be done by individual bloggers who offer the service to advertisers for a flat fee.
Learn More: http://weblogs.about.com/

9. Paid Surveys and Polls

You get paid when someone takes the poll that you place on your site on behalf of an advertiser. Polls encourage people to interact with them, and they can be a lot more engaging than regular old banner ads.
Learn More: http://www.vizu.com/index.htm

10. Private Forums

A lot of popular websites will incorporate a message board or forum for their readers to interact with one another. You can generate revenues by charging a small fee for membership on the board, or for access to special sections of the board. This creates a sort of ‘exclusive club’ where members can talk about industry-related topics, exchange valuable information, and socialize. Charging $5-10 a year per user can add up after membership starts to grow.

11. Donations

Don’t laugh. This actually works. If you have valuable content on your site that you are offering for free, it doesn’t hurt to put up a donation link and point people to it once in a while.

12. Ebook Sales

If you’ve got a blog or website about a particular niche, why not capitalize on it by writing an ebook? Believe it or not, you don’t have to be a brilliant writer to create a useful handbook on a subject that you are familiar with. If you write a blog, you can write a decent ebook. However, if you don’t have the time or the energy to write one you can hire a ghostwriter and then all you need to do is worry about marketing and selling it.
Learn More: http://www.zizzoo.com/guides/ebook/index.php

13. Sell Your Website

Some people live for the thrill of a new project. If this sounds like you, then you may want to consider earning money by starting up and establishing new websites and then selling them off for profit.
Learn More: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/266/how-to-sell-a-website-how-much-is-your-website-worth/

14. Sponsored columns, events, or posts

This is a simple idea that gets back to basics. Simply having a sponsor for regular columns or posts on your site is a great way to earn money. “The Weekly So-and-So brought to you by…” not only earns you money from your sponsor, but it builds a steady readership as people come back week after week for your special content.

15. Premium Content

If you’ve built up a solid website with some really excellent resources, you may consider charging people for access to your premium content. That means creating an area that non-members cannot access unless they pay a small fee. For people who are able to offer readers valuable information, this is a great way to generate some income and help your readers appreciate your content more.

16. Job Listing Bulletin Boards

If you’re involved in a specific market, you may consider creating a job listing board and either charging employers to place ads there, or charging job seekers to access it. (Or both). This may take a little time to maintain and will require special software, but if you’ve got a loyal following it can definitely bring in revenues.
Learn More: http://www.jobcoin.com/

How to Make Money Online Consistently by Blogging

2008-08-08T07:06:00.000-07:00

If you will search the phrase making money online, this will give you millions of posts and might drive you crazy. Then, you read about Google Adsense tips, affiliate marketing tips, and blogging tips. Next, you will make some experiments and start to make money. Now, your hard effort is paying off and you’re about to reach your goal. But suddenly, you noticed that your earnings became stagnant until it started to slow down. You began to panic, and a lot of questions are now bothering you. Why am I not making money online consistently? What went wrong? Is my Lady Luck leaving me now? Where should I start investigating? After reading this post, you may be able to detect the root cause and might discover the solutions that you need.
Statistical analysis - Statistics are not created for monitoring only. You should analyze which of your pages are mostly being visited, and improve it more. Choose your top ten pages, and include some internal links to help the less visited pages. What were the ads that paid you less? What was the exact date that your earnings became stagnant? What were the changes you last made to your blog? What traffic that you are not making money from?
Posting strategies - Have you checked your latest posts? Paid product reviews sometimes distract the visitors, and even overlapping the ones you are actually selling. It can also be that you’re overselling a product. On the other hand, you might be putting more focus on writing instead of promoting them. Posting daily is only applicable to fresh blogs, not unless your posts are really compelling and can invite back links. Study your posting frequency.
Product diversion - If you’re into affiliate marketing, you can compare your status with your competitors. If they are encountering the same problem, maybe it’s time for you to look for another product to sell. If you’re going crazy about resell rights products, check if the product is not yet being outdated by the fresh ones. Maybe it’s time for you to update it to make it more applicable to the fast changing world.
Focus management - I noticed that a lot of bloggers are very excited to make money at once. Apparently, they try many things simultaneously. After earning a few bucks from Google Adsense, they immediately jump to another making money strategy considering that their content and traffic are not yet sufficient. Some are even selling too many products at the same time, but cannot manage to sell all of them. Focus should also be managed properly.
Conclusion - Making money online is giving what people need and not what you want to give. It’s not even just about selling hot products or using the high paying keywords that you can make money from. There are really no secrets to success, as it is only you who can discover the right marketing strategies that will work for you. Blogging for money is entering an online business that needs planning and patience.

Earning Cash with External SEO

2008-08-06T06:44:00.000-07:00

Too often people spend time optimizing their own site’s internal SEO but ignore doing external SEO, aka link building. Most people who’ve learned a little SEO know about trying to get dofollow comments on other blogs and article marketing. Here are a few other tricks you can use to further expand your external SEO efforts.

There are many sites where you can build free blogs and static sites ranging from big names, like Squidoo and Blogger, to small private and semi-private WPMU and free webhost sites. How you populate them depends a lot on their level of moderation and their terms of service so make sure that you understand them ahead of time. For some sites, you can use content generated with tools like my own Blog Content Wizard or unaltered PLR articles. For others, you’ll need to have quality original content. Also bear in mind that the more obscure and less moderated a site is the more likely it is to be penalized by Google. The opposite is also true, Google is unlikely to deindex Blogger (which they own) or WordPress.com.

Another way to improve your external SEO is to analyze what other people are doing and figure out if you can use it as well. The first place to look is at your competitor’s sites, especially those that are outranking you. This will give you niche specific information that can be quite valuable. Another good place to look are sites related to Internet marketing product launches since the competition is always high there. Lastly, look at sites that rank well for highly competitive terms.
Now, let’s investigate these sites in SEO Elite or even with a free tool like the SEO Quake plugin for Firefox. What we’re wanting to discover is where the site in question got its links, especially it’s higher quality ones in terms of anchor text and PageRank. While you’ll see some obvious related sites, such as a flagship blog, you’ll often see other stuff. This might include blog comments, especially comments on high PR posts on dead blogs. You may also locate abandoned forums which are left unmoderated. You may find link and article directory sites that are easy to get listed in and produce good results. You can even find guest book pages from years ago that have left the door open. You might find other interesting locations where you can add a link yourself or that reveal more about how others get their links.
Also look at “Web 2.0″ locations they’re using, like those on free web hosts like Squidoo or bookmarking sites. Often people will setup a tiered approach where lesser sites link to a free host and the free host points to the primary site. Check the links on these sites as well to discover hidden linking resources.
Pretty soon you’ll have a good list of resources you can use for linking to your supporting sites and perhaps even your primary sites. One important thing to remember is that sometimes these links get abused and lose their link juice. Should you see a sudden drop in PageRank or search engine results placement then this is probably what has happened. Your defense against this is to build a large and varied promotional network for your sites so that if one part of the network is weakened, other areas can be used to pick up the slack.

When you find sites where you can promote your site, make sure that you promote them as well. How can you do that?
One of the easiest ways to do this is to use social bookmarking to promote pages that link to your pages. If you leave a comment on a blog, bookmark it with StumbleUpon or Digg. This will often bring appreciated traffic to a blog, especially to a blogger who’s concentrating mostly on social referral traffic. Also use Bookmarking Demon to bookmark the site to Scuttle and Pligg networks. Do BMD runs for other pages, like forum posts and such, that link to your site. The idea is to build a strong cluster of links that promote your site. Not only will you get more search traffic but you may also get decently targeted referral traffic as well.
Remember, the more you can do to promote sites that link to yours the better off your site will be.

7 Wonders of the Blogosphere

2008-08-04T06:14:00.000-07:00

Antipater of Sidon and Philon of Byzantium, drew up two of the most well-known lists of the wonders of the ancient world. Since then, other lists came out to include the other wonders that Philon and Antipater did not live long enough to witness. Inspired by Philon and Antipater, today’s post compiles the 7 Wonders of the Blogosphere.

7. Akismet
Along with the birth of the internet, spamming was introduced. This abhored lame practice has been plaguing the blogosphere for quite awhile now. To resolve this widespread problem, bloggers resorted to moderating all their comments, which is time consuming.
“Akismet, or Automattic Kismet, is a spam filtering service created by Automattic and was released on October 25, 2005, the corporation which employs most of the main developers of the weblog platform WordPress. Akismet attempts to filter link spam from blog comments and spam TrackBack pings. The filter works by combining information about spam captured on all participating blogs, and then using those spam rules to block future spam. Akismet has captured one billion spam comments and pings as of March 2007.” - Wikipedia
6. Technorati
What makes Technorati one of the wonders of the Blogosphere is the fact that it indexes millions of weblogs. It also counts the number of links pointing to a blog, known as blog reactions, and uses this information to rank blogs. From blog reactions, Technorati awards Blogs with an Authority. Technorati’s blog ranking are authority are used by review site and advertisers to gauge the value of a blog.
“Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs, competing with Google, Yahoo and IceRocket. As of August 2007, Technorati indexes over 94 million weblogs. The name Technorati is a portmanteau pointing to the technological version of literati or intellectuals. Technorati was founded by Dave Sifry and its headquarters are in San Francisco, California, USA. Tantek Ã‡elik was the site’s Chief Technologist.”Â - Wikipedia
5. Digg
I’m not a fan of Digg but I believe that it deserves a spot in the 7 Wonders of the Blogosphere. Making it on the front page of Digg means crazy traffic that sometimes exceed your bandwidth limit. Digg is one of the valuable sources of traffic for blogs but making it on top is like trying to reach the peak of Mt. Everest.
“Digg is a community-based popularity website with an emphasis on technology and science articles, recently expanding to a broader range of categories such as politics and entertainment. It combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication with a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control. News stories and websites are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front page through a user-based ranking system. This differs from the hierarchical editorial system that many other news sites employ.” - Wikipedia
4. StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is a better form of Digg. Stumblers use a web browser plugin that is used to rate, review and discover great weblogs. Since StumbleUpon was introduced, it has become a valuable source of traffic for blogs. Like Digg, it can spike traffic to the point of exceeding your bandwidth limit.
“StumbleUpon is a web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles. These webpages are typically presented when the user — known within the community as a Stumbler — clicks the “Stumble!” button on the browser’s toolbar. StumbleUpon chooses which new webpage to display based on the user’s ratings of previous pages, ratings by his/her friends, and by the ratings of users with similar interests. i.e. it is a recommendation system which uses peer and social networking principles. There is also one-click blogging built in as well. Users can rate, or choose not to rate, any webpage with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and clicking the Stumble button resembles “channel-surfing” the web. Toolbar versions exist for Firefox, Mozilla Application Suite and Internet Explorer, but also works with some independent Mozilla-based browsers.” - Wikipedia
3. Blogger
With millions of bloggers using the services of Blogger, there is no doubt that Blogger deserves the 3rd spot in the 7 Wonders of the Blogosphere. Blogger offers an easy entry in the world of Blogging. Most of the successful bloggers have started their blogging quest at Blogger.com. With the easy interface provided by Blogger, it’s by far the most ideal blogging platform for those starting to blog.
Blogger is a blog publishing system. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Click here for more information.
2. Google
I know that alot of bloggers would probably hate the idea that Google holds the 2nd place of the 7 Wonders of the Blogosphere but considering the influence of Google to blogging, blog monetization and traffic, it just couldn’t be ignored.
Google is the largest search engine and the potential traffic it can give a blog is enormous. Recognizing its potentials, bloggers and webmasters observe the proper search engine optimization techniques. Also, Google’s Page Ranking, although its relevance has diminished over questions on its reliability and credibility, is still widely used as a yardstick to measure a blog’s value.
1. Wordpress
On top of the list is Wordpress. Do I need to explain why?
“WordPress is a blog publishing system written in PHP and backed by a MySQL database. WordPress is the official successor of b2\cafelog, developed by Michel Valdrighi. The name WordPress was suggested by Christine Selleck, a friend of lead developer Matt Mullenweg.” - Wikipedia
There you have it, the 7 Wonders of the Blogosphere. If you feel that I missed a “Wonder” that should have been included, you are free to share it through the comments.
Thanks for your time.

Websites for Free Wordpress Themes

2008-08-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

With the phenomenal success of Wordpress, the demand for Wordpress Themes have dramatically increased. Today’s post provides a short review of the different websites where you can get Free Wordpress Themes for your blog. The links are opened on a new window so you don’t have to hit back and forward. I’ve also ranked the sources according to my own standard with 10 being the highest and 0 being the lowest.

Wordpress Themes 2.3 Compatible - Provides a long list of free Wordpress themes that have been tested to be compatible with Wordpress 2.3. The Wordpress themes have been organized alphabetically based on its theme making navigation a great experience. From the list, you can also find compatible plugins to Wordpress 2.3. I’ll rate this source a 9/10.

Free Wordpress Themes - Free Wordpress Themes offers a really huge collection of quality Wordpress themes. You can find 3 column templates, 2 columns, rounded, themed, widget ready and a lot more. I’ll give this source an 8/10.

WP Themes Free - Another great source of Free Wordpress Themes with a really huge collection to choose from. The themes come in 1 column, 2 columns, 3 and 4 columns. Searching for a specific theme is made easy by the search tool made available at the right side bar. I’ll rate this source an 8/10.

Fresheezy : Make sure to check out this website especially if you are looking for professionally made Wordpress themes. Although the themes available is not as much as the others, Fresheezy certainly has one of the best Wordpress themes. A search tool bar at the left sidebar makes it easy for you to filter out the Wordpress themes in the gallery. I’ll rate this source a 7/10.

Free WP Themes - Has a collection of 48 free Wordpress themes. Information about the theme as to whether it’s widget ready, whether its width is fix, and when was it added is available at the bottom of each theme’s thumbshot. I’ll rate this source a 6/10.

Wordpress Skins - Choose from a large number of Wordpress themes in their gallery. You can find some similar themes from other websites offering Free Wordpress Themes probably submitted by the same designer. I’ve tried using the search filter system found at the right side bar but I frequently encounter errors. Nonetheless, their templates are still worth checking out. I’ll rate this source a 6/10.

Kate’s Theme Viewer - This is another source for free Wordpress themes with alot to choose from. The themes are mostly fancy but you can also find professionally made themes to suit your niche. The only problem is that their is no available search tool so it means you need to go through all the pages to find one that you like. I’ll give this source a 6/10 score.

Themes Wordpress - The home page has a search tool that allows you to filter their huge gallery of free Wordpress themes. Templates available range from one column to four columns Wordpress themes. You can also filter your search to look for specific theme properties. I’ll rate this source a 6/10.

Wordpress Templates - Wordpress Templates offers some fine themes I’ve not found on other sources. The collection of free Wordpress themes are unique and professionally done. A search tool bar can be found at the right side bar but it’s not as efficient as the search toolbars of the other sources. You can always use the categories at the lower right side bar for a more efficient navigation. I’ll give this source a 5/10.

Theme Time - Offers some interesting Wordpress designs. The gallery is not so huge compared to other sources but searching for specific theme is much easier because the themes are categorized. I’ll rate this source a 4/10.

The UK Map - The UK Map has some large collection of cool free Wordpress themes. The designs are interesting and varies from 1 to 4-column templates. You can also find a great number of simple, widget ready, personal, professional and themed templates. Although there is no available search tool bar, the navigation at the left side bar makes viewing the templates easy. I’ll give this source a score of 4/10.

Free WP Themes - This website also offers different collections of free Wordpress themes. The free Wordpress themes are classified into 2 columns, 3 columns, black, blue etc. You can also find a collection of free SEO friendly Wordpress themes. Check the left side bar for an easier navigation. I’ll rate this source a 4/10.

WP Themes ErikGyepes - With WP Themes ErickGyepes, you can download free Wordpress themes but you’ve probably seen most of the Wordpress themes available in other sources. There’s not much templates available in this source but some unique designs are worth checking out. I’ll rate this source a 3/10.

WP Designer - WP designer features some fresh looking Wordpress themes. There is not much template available in this website but it offers useful tutorials about Wordpress, Wordpress hacks, blog design tips and tips on enhancing your blog performance. I’ll rate this source a 3/10.

SkinPress - Another website dedicated to free Wordpress themes. At the moment, there are 51 Wordpress templates available. This source gives you some cool 2 columns and 3 columns Wordpress templates. I’ll rate this source a 3/10.

CSS Design Templates - This website does not only offers free Wordpress templates but also offers templates from other blogging platforms like Blogger and Joomla. The Wordpress themes available are mostly two columns. All the free Wordpress templates have recently been updated to be compatible with Wordpress 2.3. I’ll rate this source a 3/10.

Template Monster - This source offers a few collection of good looking free Wordpress themes. Most of the themes on this site however are not free but the prices are cheaper compared to other websites selling Wordpress themes. I’ll rate this source a 2/10.

WP Mix - You can find simple to artistic to professionally done Wordpress themes in this source. The number of choice is not that much but surely the templates are worth checking out. The templates are categorized so navigation is much easier. I’ll give this source a score of 2/10.

SiteGround Free Wordpress Themes - SiteGround is mainly offering hosting services but has made some free Wordpress themes available to everyone. To avail of these free Wordpress themes, you need to fill up a form and the link where to download the themes will be sent to the email you’ve provided. The themes have simple designs and most of them are two columns. I’ll give this source a 1/10 score.

Jauhari WP Themes - This source has a collection of interesting Wordpress themes. There’s not much to choose from but you can take a look and see the designs for yourself. Most of the Wordpress themes are Adsense ready so if you are into monetizing your blog with Adsense, this is probably a good source of Wordpress template. I’ll give this source a rate of 1/10.

Wordpress Themes - Check out these 10 free Wordpress themes available in this source. Personally, I didn’t like the designs but hey it might be the place where you will find the design you’ve been looking for. I’ll rate this source a 0.5/10.

I guess that’s it for today. I’ll update the list or make another post as soon as I’ve found some more. Hope this list helps you to find the Wordpress theme that meets your requirements. Enjoy your search.

Free Blogger Templates With Unique Designs - For Classic Blogger

2008-07-29T04:54:00.000-07:00

I have received an email today from Pinay Ladies, one of the readers of Blogging Mix. Pinay suggested me to review SuckMyLolly.com, another great website that offers Free Templates for Classic Blogger. The designs of the free blogger templates available at SuckMyLolly are simple, unique and very attractive. Here are some thumbnail shots of the template designs.

Sharnee, the author of SuckMyLolly started her blog because she got tired of the generic Blogger template designs and because there is a limited number of free Blogger templates available. Like she said, she simply wants everyone to have an awesome template design so don't forget to take a look at her template designs.

Custom Blogger Template

When Sharnee started her blog, she also accepted request for a custom blogger template. Unfortunately, the number of requests were overwhelming so she temporarily stopped accommodating requests for custom blog templates. If you would like to request for a custom blogger template you would have to wait as the list has gone long.

Suggestions For SuckMyLolly

Most Blogger users are now upgrading their blogs to use the New Blogger so it would probably be a great idea if Sharnee starts to create free Blogspot templates. Also, the free blogger templates at SuckMyLolly are all 2 columns. Right now, there is a high demand for three column blogger templates so creating 3 column templates is probably a good idea. Lastly, I am hopeful that Sharnee changes her mind and create templates for New Blogger as well.

SponsoredReviews.com - Get Paid For Your Reviews

2008-07-27T04:34:00.000-07:00

Another option if you want to monetize your blog is Sponsored Rev iews. SponsoredReviews is another great websites that pays you to review blogs, goods, services etc.

After Make Money Online has been approved by PayPerPost, I've submitted my blog at SponsoredReviews.com. The approval process was rather quick as it took them only 3 days before I've received their confirmation that Make Money Online was accepted. So far, I've done 4 sponsored post with SponsoredReviews and I was already paid $78 two days ago via PayPal. In contrast, the money I've earned from PayPerPost has not yet been paid considering that my paid post was done earlier.

Get Paid To Blog With Smorty

2008-07-23T04:23:00.000-07:00

I've submitted my blog with Smorty two days ago and I have just received a notification from them that my site has been officially accepted. This is exciting as it gives me another opportunity to monetize Make Money Online Made Easy. At the same time, Make Money Online will have a broader list of advertisers to choose from.

Smorty is a website that offers opportunities for Bloggers to earn money from reviewing blogs and products offered by advertisers. Advertisers on the other hand are given an affordable option to create buzz or reviews about their blog, website or products. Get paid for blogging about the things you like by taking this time to register your blog at Smorty now.

Mistakes in Affiiliate Marketing that Can Stop You to Succeed in Affiliate Marketing

2008-07-21T03:24:00.000-07:00

Although anyone can start an affiliate marketing business but not everyone can achieve success in affiliate marketing. What is the reason? Well, there are 10 of them, actually. There are 10 affiliate mistakes that deter people from succeeding in affiliate marketing business. To avoid all these mistakes, you first need to study them and understand them thoroughly.

Believing that visitors would only click on their affiliate links. Although the task of an affiliate is only restricted to pre-selling, pre-selling isn’t just limited to displaying the affiliate links. It also entails enticing visitors to click on them by listing out the benefits of the affiliate products, giving positive recommendations by writing reviews to encourage readers to check out the products.
Promoting too many affiliate programs at the same time. If an affiliate markets 8 affiliate programs at the same time, he or she will have 8 affiliate marketing campaigns to handle. Most probably, the affiliate will find difficult to manage all his campaigns and unable to concentrate on each one of his or her affiliate programs in this situation and ends up losing money.
You should begin with one affiliate program; choose a program that you are passionate about. Then put your best effort to market the product. Test different marketing strategies to see which one works best. Once you are making a steady commission with the product, then maybe you can look for second affiliate product to sell.
Believing that using a single method of marketing technique is sufficient. There are people actually think that submitting a few articles to article websites will generate the amount of traffic they expected. But this is wrong. Focusing only one marketing technique will limit the number of potential buyers you can send to your affiliate merchant’s website
Failing to improve the performance of your marketing campaign. Many affiliates tend to concern on checking their daily commission only and have no interest on studying and analyzing their marketing campaigns performance. When their campaigns don’t work as expected or don’t generate sales, they will fail to make corresponding adjustments because they don’t know which aspects of their campaigns need to be improved. It is essential to learn every aspect of our marketing strategies. Which marketing techniques are attracted most visitors? How many unique and returning visitors generated? How long do they stay in our website? Where they come from? These are the questions that could help us enhance the performance of our affiliate marketing business.
Promoting affiliate products that are lacking of demand. Some affiliate programs offer extremely high sale commission to their affiliate. But the products aren’t sellable and thus earning nothing.
Failing to find an affiliate program with a proven record of consumer satisfaction. The trustworthiness of a company relies on how people view it. If the affiliate program has established good relationships with their customers, then it has established a brand which is recognizable for its excellent service. You will find easier to pre-selling such an affiliate product.
Failing to keep abreast with the latest developments in the industry. There will come a time when the marketing knowledge we know would become obsolete, more so in the field of internet marketing where everything transpires at a rapid pace. You have to constantly update yourself with the newest trends, techniques and news in this field to always keep your competitive edge.
Failing to invest on knowledge. Knowledge likewise evolves and you have to evolve with it. Buy noteworthy eBooks, special reports and the likes… those which would teach you the latest tactics to help you conquer your field.
Resting on your laurels once a semblance of success is achieved. Success is not eternal. You have to sustain it. If you leave your business alone once it shows the promise of success, you’re just setting it up for failure.
Though that affiliate program can help you become rich fast. No, affiliate program isn’t a “get rich quick” scheme. You have to put in a lot of effort and time, and some capital before you can make money in affiliate marketing.

Making money Online is not Easy

2008-07-15T02:41:00.000-07:00

People always thought it is easy to make money online. The reality to make money online is not easy. A lot of effort must be put on table and time consuming as well at the early stage. To make money either online or offline must correctly conducted in order to maximize the possible revenue. The method is the same; the more customers we received the more money will be generated.

In every business, analyzing is key area to success. In order to maximize money what we need is to analyse our make money online strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Below is the example of my make money online analysis.

Strengths
Have some knowledge about SEO to optimize my website for higher ranking. I would like to share my knowledge to everybody but at the moment as my blog is still new, there is no proof of my ability. I will wait patiently and will try to increase my page rank as soon as possible. If you find this blog on major search engine such as Google and Yahoo, especially with “make money online” search keyword, that mean I have succeed and you can use this blog as guidance.

Weaknesses
There are a lot of weaknesses on my make money online strategy such as number of visitors and ranking. As I say be patient, it is still new. We will see for the next 3 months the performance of this make money online blog.

Opportunities
There are a lot of opportunities to make money online available on the internet such as affiliate programs, blogging, paid survey and more. Please make sure you have chosen the reliable one. Examples of affiliate are SFI and Adsense.

Threats
There are lots of individual doing the same thing as I do making money online by blogging. I do not see them as a threat. Instead as an opportunities to gain back link for better page rank.

This is just a basic example of making money online analysis. Maybe in my next post I go in details to talk about my making money analysis and perhaps sharing my strategy on how to get a better ranking in order to increase my making money online.

A Guide on RSS Tool

2008-07-14T02:31:00.000-07:00

RSS is an abbreviation that has evolved into the following, depending on their versions:

RDF Site Summary (also known as RSS 0.9; the first version of RSS)
Rich Site Summary (also known as RSS 0.91; a prototype)
Really Simple Syndication (also known as RSS 2.0)

Today, RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’, and it has the following 7 existing formats or versions:
• 0.90
• 0.91
• 0.92
• 0.93
• 0.94
• 1.0
• 2.0
RSS tools refer to a group of file formats that are designed to share headlines and other web content (this may be a summary or simply 1 to 2 lines of the article), links to the full versions of the content (the full article or post), and even file attachments such as multimedia files. All of these data is delivered in the form of an XML file (XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language), which has the following common names:
• RSS feed
• Webfeed
• RSS stream
• RSS channel
They are typically shown on web pages as an orange rectangle that usually has the letters XML or RSS in it.
RSS feeds can be used to deliver any kind of information. Some of these ‘feeds’ include:

Blogs feed - each blog entry is summarized as a feed item. This makes blog posts easier to scan, enabling ‘visitors’ to zoom in on their items of interest.
Article feed - this alerts readers whenever there are new articles and web contents available.
Forum feed - this allows users to receive forum posts and latest discussion topics.
Schedule feed - this allows users (such as schools, clubs, and other organizations) to broadcast events and announce schedule changes or meeting agendas.
Discounts or Special feed - this is used to enable users (such as retail and online stores) to ‘deliver’ latest specials and discounted offers.
Ego or News Monitoring - this enables users to receive ‘filtered’ headlines or news that are based on a specific phrase or keyword.
Industry-specific feed - used by technical professionals in order to market, promote, or communicate with current (and prospective) customers and clients within their specific industries.

RSS feeds enable people to track numerous blogs and news sources at the same time. To produce an RSS feed, all you need is the content or the article that you want to publicize and a validated RSS text file. Once your text file is registered at various aggregators (or ‘news readers’), any external site can then capture and display your RSS feed, automatically updating them whenever you update your RSS file.
RSS tools are useful for sites that add or modify their contents on a regular basis. They are especially used for ‘web syndication’ or activities that involve regular updates and/or publications, such as the following:

News websites - as used by major news organizations such as Reuters, CNN, and the BBC.
Marketing
Bug reports
Personal weblogs

There are many benefits to using RSS feeds. Aside from being a great supplemental communication method that streamlines the communication needs of various sectors, RSS tools and feeds can also have tremendous benefits in your business, particularly in the field of internet marketing.
RSS tools and feeds provide Internet users with a free (or cheap) and easy advertising or online marketing opportunity for their businesses. Below are some of the RSS features that can help make your internet marketing strategies more effective.

Ease in content distribution services. With RSS, your business can be captured and displayed by virtually any external site, giving you an easy way to ’spread out’ and advertise them.
Ease in regular content updates. With RSS, web contents concerning your business can now be automatically updated on a daily (and even hourly) basis. Internet users will be able to experience ‘real time’ updates as information in your own file (such as new products and other business-related releases) is changed and modified simultaneously with that of the RSS feeds that people are subscribed to.
Custom-made content services. With RSS, visitors can have personalized content services, allowing them total control of the flow and type of information that they receive. Depending on their interests and needs, visitors can subscribe to only those contents that they are looking for (such as real estate or job listings).
Increase in (and targeted) traffic. With RSS, traffic will be directed to your site as readers of your content summary (or 1 to 2 lines of your article) who find them interesting are ‘forced’ to click on a link back to your site.

These are just several of the many things that you can do with RSS. The possibilities are endless, and they are all aimed at providing you with an effective internet marketing strategy for your business.
In the mean time, Good Luck on your journey to success…
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Thesis Wordpress Theme

2008-07-11T02:17:00.000-07:00

If you’re in the middle of choosing the best Premium Wordpress Theme for your blog, Thesis Wodpress Theme is the answer.

Part of the reason why Thesis is a kick ass Wordpress theme is because it’s created by the best Wordpress Theme Designer. Chris Pearson’s experience as a web developer and extensive knowledge of SEO + CSS + PHP + HTML guarantee that Thesis is the only Wordpress Theme you’ll ever need.

Why Thesis Wordpress Theme?

Good question! That’s the same question I’ve asked myself before I finally decided to use Thesis on my blog. There are tons of reasons why you should use Thesis but here are some for your consideration.

THESIS IS FOR PROFESSIONAL AND NEWBIE BLOGGERS

If you’re new to blogging and you totally suck at SEO, CSS, PHP and HTML, Thesis is for you. Chris Pearson created Thesis with the users in mind. That’s why he did all the job to let you “DO MORE, CODE LESS”. After all, bloggers’ least worry should be the design of their blogs.

Take a look at my blog, TheWeblogZone.com. I did all the customization myself… the design and everything and let me tell you that I barely know CSS, PHP and HTML. That’s because Thesis is easy to customize. In fact, 90% of all your customization needs can be done through Thesis Options and Thesis Design. All you have to do is click and save. Thesis also has its own Support Forum where you can find solutions to all possible problems you might encounter.

Well, if you’re a professional blogger, Thesis is still for you. Thesis has unparalleled SEO, CSS+PHP+HTML optimized and inspiring typography. What else would a professional blogger need from a Wordpress theme?

THESIS TESTIMONIALS

Just wanted to let you know that The Bygone Bureau is a finalist for this year’s SXSW Web Awards in the Blog category. People started paying attention to our publication once we switched to Thesis last fall, and I think we owe much of our success to your design work.- Kevin from The Bygone Bureau

…. Thesis is the best out of the box solution I’ve seen in regards to a blog theme. Easy to use, pretty damn customizable and when you see them say over and over on the Thesis sales page that the support is awesome, they ain’t lyin’. And all future upgrades/releases of the theme are free.- Sugarrae from her Thesis Theme Review

Thesis is incredible…. One week ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed of paying money for a WordPress theme. Now, I’m seriously considering laying down $77 for the developer’s option.- Jordan from Elegant Digital

“Great, simple, effective SEO.” From my mate in Australia who’s a senior SEO guru for Yahoo, when he saw my site.- Mark McGuinness via email

The truth is, your personal attention to this and the Thesis theme in general is why I signed on. I know something good when I see it. Not only are your skills exemplary, but your heart’s in the right place. Please keep up the good work.- John Farr via email

Just want say you created a great theme! It’s very flexible, SEO-optimized and so simple to customize. Just 3 words: I love it! - FlepStudio via email

Just wanted to express my gratitude for Thesis…. and all the work that Chris et al. have done. I installed it this morning, followed instructions by the letter, and things went very smoothly. I had to familiarize myself with the hooks concept - it makes all the sense in the world! I like to tweak code here and there, and the hooks method as well as the whole Thesis framework/vision helps me do just that without having to get too engrossed in code! When I do have to know some code, the forum is absolutely the best place to go. I’ve been most appreciative for the support community…. So thanks for a great product and community.- Sister Julie Vieira, IHM from A Nun’s Life

Well I’m totally stoked with the latest release of Thesis and so glad I hitched my web aspirations to your talented little wagon; plus the support on the forum is superb.- Raquel from Growing Up Green

I really don’t see how any other wordpress premium theme designers can compete with you. I have been following your work since you started thesis as well as the other top wp theme designers, and the work you are doing is really 1,000 steps ahead of them.- Jake Summers

Thank you so much for your AWESOME THEME!! I have been trying to do it the “free way” for a while and I am blown away by how awesome this is.- Jamey from Miami City Diggs

Awesome! This is the best Wordpress theme I have ever used. I believed in this theme so much I bought it. I was nervous at first after investing money into this theme, but today, the support and community have made that decision a worthwhile one. I can only hope more people buy into this great theme. This theme is worth every penny! - Nightfall from Nightfall.net

What an adventure. I literally did not know a single thing about blogging or Wordpress two months ago. I’ve lurked on here for awhile and picked up the coding knowledge I needed. Thanks for the (affordable!) design and amazing functionality.- Michael from ICM-Bot

Chris, I get complimented on my blog’s design at least several times a week. I am SO happy I bought this theme! It’s been the best. And I agree with the others, thank you so much for taking the time to add all these tutorials. I feel spoiled.- Toblerone from Simple Mom

Thanks for the info… works great, instructions are very clear which is great for someone like me who doesn’t know a lot of coding. Just learning as I go along. Great theme, so happy I purchased it! - Sasha from The Slavic Bazaar %u2026People have told me I was crazy to pay for a theme, but at every stop you make it worthwhile with updates such as this and the thesis forum which I have found extremely helpful. - Lee from The Blissful Pixel

Not only does your Thesis Theme rock, but I am shocked how much effort you are putting into providing tweaks and very detailed tutorials after the initial development and launch.- Casper from Conscious Bliss

I however am not a top-notch WordPress designer, but rather am learning the trade. So I value my time highly enough that paying Chris P. $87 (less during intro phase) is ridiculously inexpensive to me. And the fact that Chris P. spends time here and in the forums answering questions, ….. priceless! - Rees from Women’s Memoirs

You know, I’ve waded hip-deep into a lot of Wordpress templates in the past 2 years, both for my own, and other people’s projects. Thesis was by far the easiest to work with, and with the best results. - Torideaux from MindTweaks

Everyone who sees it, loves the look. In fact, I got a small job out of it last week because the client believes I “Get it.” (his words).- Michael from The Editorial Engine

The thesis theme has been such a great investment. I am new to website design and wordpress, so I’m really glad I went with Thesis because of all the support. It’s been really easy to figure out how to customize things how I want, and I’ve gotten so many compliments on my site. - Eileen from Breathe

Hope Chris’s themes (both Thesis and his free themes) are much more well-crafted than the typical themes out there. It’s what’s on the inside (the code) in addition to what you can see (attention to details) that sets them apart. - Lisa from Hit Those Keys

There are not enough superlatives in the lexicon to describe this theme. It is SMOKIN’ HOT! - Jay from Phoenix Real Estate Search

Thank you for your commitment to excellence and continuous improvement. I love the theme, and love that you continue to improve it. Thanks! - Bruce from Keener Living

Blogskins.com - Free Templates for Blogger, Xanga and Movable Type

2008-07-09T02:11:00.000-07:00

Do you want to improve your blog’s layout and design but you don’t have the necessary skills to do so? You can hire someone to do it for you or you can just join Blogskins.com and redesign your blog’s layout by yourself. Continue reading to learn more about this.Today, I’ve just received 9 emails from different people extending their appreciation for making it convenient for them to search for free blogskins that they can implement on their blogs. I’m really glad that my previous posts on Free 3 Column Blogger Template - I and Free Templates for Blogger.com were useful. I just hope that next time when you want to appreciate any of the articles here at BloggingMix, leave it in the form of a comment. I regularly check on new comments and try to respond to it if necessary.

In my post on Free 3 Column Blogger Template, one of the links I have mentioned is a link to Blogskins.com, which by its name alone you already have an idea of what they’re offering.

Free Blogskins and More at Blogskins.com

BlogSkins is a community of blog template designers, users, and friends. Whether you’re looking for a fresh new design for your blog or wanting to share your hot designs with others, this is the place for you! - Blogskins.com

Using Blogskins is free and they offer one of the largest if not the largest collection of free blogskins mostly contributed by its members. What’s more, Blogskins supports Movable Type, Xanga and Blogger.com templates. In order to avail of their free services you need to register and confirm your registration through an email that Blogskins will send you. It will take you less than three minutes to register but sometimes, the confirmation email will normally take no longer than 24 hours before you receive it. This is probably due to the huge number of registration they receive everyday. But don’t worry because once you’ve registered, you can already start to browse and download their free blogskins. However, in order to comment on their free blogskins and submit your own blogskin design, you need to confirm your registration first.

Free templates at Blogskins comes in different styles.

3 Column Blogger Template

2 Column Blogger Template

Themed Templates

Other than the free blogskins offered at Blogskins.com, you can also join their forum where you can seek for help when you encounter troubles installing their templates. You can also exchange ideas with the other members and meet new friends. Once you’ve confirmed your registration, you can leave comments and give your ratings to the blogskins contributed by the members. For those who are good at creating blogskins or templates and would like to exhibit their works, Blogskins is definitely a great place to do so. I would suggest that you visit Blogskins.com now and discover all the benefits you can get. After visiting Blogskins, feel free to come back and leave your impressions of the site

Free Templates For Blogger (Blogspot) and Wordpress

2008-07-04T02:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I have discovered Cool-Template.Blogspot.com, another great blog that offers free templates that you can implement on your Blogger or Wordpress blog. All the templates are free.To date, Cool-Template.Blogspot.com offers 41 Free Wordpress Templates, 31 Free Blogger Templates and 13 Free Three Column Templates. Other than templates, the blog offers free tutorials on blogging, photoshop and graphic designs. You can also download anti-virus softwares for free.

Steps to a $50/day Income Online

2008-07-02T00:52:00.000-07:00

There are countless ways to earn a living online. The following is a list of steps that I refer to as the “Shampoo of Online Success”. What do you hopefully do in the shower regularly? Wash, rinse, repeat, wash rinse, repeat, etc. Repeating digital products or duplicating success on the Internet can be surprisingly easy. Here’s a great list of steps that I found scouring the forums.

1 Find a niche

Check out some forums, usergroups, and places like yahoo answers. See what kind of questions people are asking. Look for popular topics.

2 Keyword research

You can use the free tool over at digitalpoint.
Suppose you type in ‘any keyword’;

It will return to you a list of related key words and how often they are searched a day. Then go to Google and search the keyword (with ” ” around it) and see how many sites it will return. The fewer the better for now. Once you get the hang of online marketing I wouldn’t really worry about competition. Just build the better mouse trap.

3 Get a web hosting account

They are pretty cheap. Around 10 bucks a month for a good shared host. Stay away for free web hosts. They are not worth it. I strongly recommend hostgator.com. You can host unlimited domains there, and there price is under $10 a month. If money is an issue, do a search for hostgator coupons enter the code when you signup and the first month is only 1 penny.

4 Find or create your product

You can write your own info product or you can go to clickbank.com and chose a product for there. You will get a commission for each sale. (There are novels I could write about in this step, but to keep this post readable I’m assuming you have a product in mind.)

5 Create your site

Now you will want to create a content site. This only needs to be a few pages. You will want to put 10 articles on the site. Make good use of the keywords you researched. Also put out product on the site.

6 Set up an auto responder

This is optional if you REALLY don’t have the money, but it’s something you will need to do eventually. This will collect peoples emails on your website. You write a small report (you can base it off of your articles to save time) Have your visitors sign up to get the free report. Make sure you include a link to you product in the report.

7 Marketing

Remember those forums you looked up to find a good niche? You should start posting (not spamming) on them. Help people out, become an expert in your niche. You don’t really have to be an expertâ€¦but you should look like one. Share and help as many people as you can. Include a link you your site in you signature. Also places like yahoo answers. You can answer peoples questions and include a link in your resource box.

You will also want to submit articles to article directories such as EzineArticles.com.

Another good marketing tip is to exchange links with site in the same niche as you.

There are a lot of different marketing techniques you can use (too many to go into here, but this should get you started) Just search around the forums here.

8 Wash, Rinse, Repeat

Do this with several different niches. The more sites you have going, the more money you have coming in.

Give it a try!

Submit Your Blog At Baidu.com

2008-06-28T17:52:00.000-07:00

With over 1.3 billion people, China has the world’s largest population and according to a Forbes report, China surpasses US in internet use. Reaching over 162 million internet users as of June 2007, China has the world’s second largest internet population. A statistics that can’t be ignored by online entrepreneurs. Given the enormous number of internet users, it is therefore not surprising to find out that Baidu.com, China’s most popular search engine, is ranked as the 5th most popular website in the world. The fact is, there are more people who are using Baidu, than Yahoo, MSN Live and Ask to search the internet. Hence, appearing from Baidu’s search result is a great potential source of traffic to your blog. Today’s post answers why and how you should submit your blog at Baidu.com.

Why Should You Submit Your Blog To Baidu.com?

Probably, you don’t care submiting to Baidu for several reasons. Firstly, Baidu.com is a Chinese search engine and most Chinese don’t understand English. Since your blog is written in English, it will be of no use to them. Secondly, your target readers are from a certain geographic location (e.g. United States of America, United Kingdom). And lastly, you don’t understand Chinese so probably you won’t understand the submission procedures of Baidu.

Since China has embraced globalization, it has welcomed foreign languages especially English. As China prepares to host the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government launched a massive campaign to teach English to its citizens. Assuming that the trend of studying English continues in China, China will soon be the largest English speaking country in the world.

Regarding targeting specific geographic location, I don’t see any reason why you should deprive your blog of traffic from other countries especially from regions where the Alexa toolbar is widely used. Submitting your blog to Baidu.com will take you less than 1 minute. Simply enter your blog’s URL and a enter the verification code and you’re done. That’s how easy it is.

Simple Steps In Submitting Your Blog To Baidu.com

CLICK HERE to submit your blog/website.
Enter your blog’s URL just like it’s shown in the picture. Enter the verfication code and hit the gray button.
You should see this message confirming that you’ve submitted your blog’s URL successfully.

Now that you’re done, you will have to wait for Baidu’s crawler to visit and index your blog or you can submit your blog to other search engines.

5 Link Optimization Techniques

2008-06-27T05:20:00.000-07:00

The most effective search engine optimization strategy is to build more inbound links to your blog. As more inbound links are accumulated, it’s search engine ranking goes up. This could lead to a higher traffic from search engines. And because traffic is the lifeblood of every blog, bloggers are doing all possible methods to build more inbound links and jack-up their position in the search engine result pages.

1. Make Sure It’s DOFOLLOW

When link building, make sure that the links are dofollow, otherwise, they won’t count. Dofollow links are links that don’t have the rel=”nofollow” attribute on them. I recently compiled a list of dofollow blogs, dofollow bookmarking sites, dofollow social media, dofollow top commentators and free directories to make your link building much more convenient.

2. Build Links From Relevant Websites

Building links to boost your search engine ranking and Google page rank is not a question of quantity but of quality. And by quality, I mean relevance.

It is therefore better to get a few links from relevant websites than tons of links but from unrelated websites. In simple words, if your blog is all about body building, then it is better to get links from other blogs or websites about body building.

3. Use Keywords As Anchor Text

Anchor text is the text contained in a link. It is called anchor text because it links one “anchor” to another “anchor” in the World Wide Web.

When building links, make sure to use your keywords as the anchor text. These keywords should be the terms you wish to be found when people use search engines. For better SEO result, include your keywords in your blog’s title tag and domain name (if possible).

4. Google Page Rank

I know that some people will disagree with me but Google page rank still matters. Otherwise, Google should have just dissed out page rank as a factor in their search engine ranking algorithm.

Other than looking for relevant websites and using appropriate keywords as anchor text, it should be worth while to build links from dofollow and relevant websites with high Google page rank.

5. Less External Links, The Better

When link building, choose to get links from websites with fewer external links on them. The more external links, the lesser the link juice you get. As a general rule, don’t build links from websites with more than 100 external links on them.

TheWeblogZone

Blogskins.com - Free Templates for Blogger, Xanga and Movable Type

2008-06-24T05:17:00.000-07:00

In my post on Free 3 Column Blogger Template, one of the links I have mentioned is a link to Blogskins.com, which by its name alone you already have an idea of what they’re offering.

Free Blogskins and More at Blogskins.com

Free templates at Blogskins comes in different styles.

3 Column Blogger Template

2 Column Blogger Template

Themed Templates

How To Improve Your Alexa Traffic Rank?

2008-06-21T04:53:00.000-07:00

Although a lot of bloggers and webmasters will argue that Alexa Traffic Ranking is not an accurate representation of your blog’s actual traffic rank, it’s still very important because most advertisers depend on it to measure the value of a blog. If you are one of those people interested in monetizing your blog, then you should work in improving your blog’s Alexa Traffic Rank.

There are three possibilities that might increase the number of Alexa users who visit your site.

First, you will want to see that your site is properly categorized in our Directory so it may be easily found by our users. The Directory (browse subjects) on www.alexa.com is a copy of the Open Directory (www.dmoz.org).

To add your site to the Open Directory, go to www.dmoz.org, find the category your site should be listed in, and click the “suggest URL” link at the top of the page. We highly recommend reading their submission guidelines first at:

http://dmoz.org/add.html/

Adding or changing your site through the Open Directory is the most efficient way to modify your listing, as the Open Directory is used on thousands of major sites across the web (like Google and Netscape).

Secondly, you can submit your site as a Related Link for sites with similar content. Go to http://info.alexa.com/data/details/editor?type=rl/ and enter the URL of the site whose related links you wish to be included in. Enter your email address and your URL in one of the empty boxes, and then press submit. These submissions are reviewed by an Alexa editor for relevance before appearing in the service (with our current load, approximately 8 weeks if approved). We do not guarantee that we will accept or display these submissions.

Finally, you may also want to promote the Alexa Toolbar to your users. If your regular users choose to download Alexa, that may lead to more Alexa visits and a higher ranking. You can learn more about this at:

http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/associatetoolbar.html/

Submitting your blog to the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) on the other hand which is used by Alexa will usually take sometime. Submitting your blog to the Open Directory Project does not only improve your Alexa Traffic Rank but it also improves your blog’s search engine ranking. I’ve made an article about how to improve your blog’s search engine ranking by submitting to the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) that you might be interested of. The post summarizes some of the key aspects of the submission process that you should know before attempting to submit your blog.

Blog Traffic For Beginners

2008-06-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

Traffic is one of the reasons that keeps bloggers motivated. Traffic is so valuable that it could mean your blog's failure without it. For those who have just started blogging, building traffic is the second priority next to building great contents. But how exactly can a beginner generate traffic to his or her blog?

There are three possible sources of traffic for any blogs namely; search engines, referrals from other websites/blogs and or paid traffic. For beginners, which among the possible blog traffic sources is ideal? To answer this question, let's first have an overview of each traffic sources.

Traffic From Search Engines

Most of the traffic in the blogosphere is generated by search engines. Search engines like Google, Windows Live, Ask etc. are widely used by the netizens to search for specific information. Search engines when used refers websites or blogs that potentially contain the information being searched. Because of the significant roles of search engines in building traffic to a blog or website, search engine optimization became an important element in successful blogging.

Paid Traffic

For those who have the finance, paid traffic is a good and easy way to increase your blog's traffic. However, since it's paid, the cost increases depending on your traffic requirement. Adwords and Text Link Ads are some examples of companies that provides paid traffic services.

As beginners in blogging, I don't encourage you to jump into buying traffic yet. Since your blog is relatively new, I assume that your blog has few content. I suggest that you build content for your blog first before you avail of any paid traffic services. This will ensure that your visitors will have sufficient articles to read when they visit your blog.

Traffic From Referrals

As I've said it before on my previous post, traffic referral from other blogs or websites is your best shot if you have just started blogging.

In order to increase blog traffic from referrals, links to your blog from other blogs or website should be made available. There are several ways to do this. Here are some of my previous articles you can read that provides you with good information on building traffic to your blog.

Why Buy And Use Thesis Premium Wordpress Theme?

2008-06-15T05:45:00.000-07:00

When I started to take blogging seriously, the first thing I had in mind was to find the best Wordpress theme to match my blog. And I don’t just want any Wordpress theme. I wanted a Premium Wordpress theme for the reasons that most free Wordpress themes lacked search engine optimization, are not well designed and makes branding more difficult.

Because of the too huge selection of Wordpress theme available online that are claimed by their designers to be of top quality, choosing a Wordpress theme has become even more difficult. In my experience, I bought three Premium Wordpress Themes but ended up not using any of them. Instead, I found Thesis Premium Wordpress Theme designed by Chris Pearson and have used it ever since. After using it for quite awhile, I am most certainly satisfied with its positive impact on my blog.

What’s with Thesis Premium Wordpress Theme? What makes it different and powerful from the rest? And why should you buy your own copy and use it in your blog?