Common Blog Mistakes and Users Can't Distinguish Blogs

A recent study by the Catalyst Group shows that users couldn't distinguish a blog from a standard site and also points at some other common blog mistakes.

A full summary of this limited study, which only took a look at one blog (the Well Spent blog from BusinessWeek) and studying only the reactions of 9 people, can be found here. [link via WebProNews]

Here are the key points you should understand and learn from ...

"1) The participants looked at the site and were surprised to find out they were on a blog. Whatever "fuzzy ideas" the participants had about what blogs are, they didn't match what they found. "

This point really isn't that important, but it does show that no one really cares that much if they're reading a blog or not, since they're only looking for information. Basically, what matters is the source and the content, not how it's called.

And why should they care?

"3) Participants didn't understand what would happen when they posted a comment, whether all posts appear or just an edited selection. It was not clear why the subjects might want to post."

Just goes to show that adding a nice little explanation above the comments form really wouldn't hurt, unless of course you're only using your blog to communicate with other bloggers. You're probably not ...

"4) The concept and mechanics of RSS "failed utterly with test participants," the executive summary said. While frequent blog users see RSS feeds as a central part of a blog's value, the test participants didn't understand that at all."

This is the one field where most blogs and other sites, with the exception of larger media sites, fail the test.

The lesson is simple - create an RSS presentation page, on which you explain:
- What RSS is
- How the visitor will benefit from using RSS
- Where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!)
- How they can install it (provide step-by-step instructions)
- How they can subscribe to your RSS feeds
- Why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds

"5) XML and RSS buttons, even brightly colored ones, didn't attract the subjects' interest. Terms more common to newsletters and e-mail (subscribe, update, etc.) would be more easily understood."

And for the final key points, which I've been trying to make for a few months now:

a] Blogs also need e-mail newsletters / e-zines. RSS is a great content delivery channel, but if you're using it instead of e-mail, as opposed to using it as a supplementary channel, you're wasting your visitors and subscribers.

b] Even for your RSS feeds, bring them closer to your visitors. What this simply means is promoting your RSS feed directly below your e-mail newsletter subscription box, telling people they'll be subscribing to your newsletter delivered via RSS.

And for the final piece of direct marketing advice ...

A visitor that visits your site and does not subscribe (either via RSS or e-mail) is more or less lost to you, as they will quickly forget about your site and move on.

One of the key functions of e-mail and RSS is to bring people back to your site, to remind them that you exist and bring your content directly to them. Without this, you're wasting your visitors.

Consequently, each website (including a blog) should strive towards generating subscribers.

But how can you expect to achieve that, if you're generating subscribers with a little XML button at the bottom of your page where no one really looks, and that by not giving a compelling reason to subscribe?

How much traffic is Bing sending to your blog?

I thought it would be interesting, a couple of weeks in, to see how much traffic Microsoft’s new Bing search engine was sending to a range of blogs I have stats access to.

While it’s very early days and the sample size I have access to is fairly limited compared to the web statistics collection companies, it does suggest that Microsoft has a long way to go to begin challenging Yahoo, let alone Google.

Bing’s highest share was on my personal blog, which covers a range of topics including technology and current affairs. Even there it mustered just 2.35%, putting it in second place behind Google’s massive 93% lead. It seems to have taken some market share from Yahoo and AOL.

On a site about families and relationships, Bing accrued 0.5% of the share in the past two weeks. Here it possibly took a little share from Google, though the giant still had over 90%.

On a large general consumer technology site, Bing managed 0.67%, putting it in fourth place, though it took no share from Google or Yahoo.

Bing did less well, accruing just 0.46%, on an iPhone-related blog, while on a blog about high definition TVs it scraped 0.69%.

Hardly anything to write home about.

iTWire reports that StatCounter search engine market share data also showed Bing got just a fraction of a percentage point.

It’s hard to get an idea of the keywords and phrases someone uses to find each site differs between Google and Bing because Bing’s sample size is so small. The fact is, with such a huge market share and history of crawl, the list of keywords from Google is huge and far more varied.

When it comes to how many pages have been indexed and listed (using the “site:” modifier, which isn’t perfect), Google often seems to return more results than Bing, though some larger sites have more returns from Microsoft’s engine.

It’s unfair to draw conclusions just a fortnight after Bing launched. At one level, I’d like to see Google’s dominance challenged just a bit by some other players, as it reduces our reliance on one company to send visitors to our sites. At the moment, though, Microsoft is playing catchup with everyone else.

Have you noticed any significant influx of visitors from Bing or is Google still your main search engine traffic driver?

How to Find People to Follow on Twitter

We’ve all heard of how awesome Twitter is for social media marketing, but you may not know how to get started. One of the most important and basic things for Twitter marketing is finding people to follow.

Here are a couple ways to do that, so you can start networking with active people in your industry.

1. Search Twellow.

With the popularity of Twitter, Twitter profile directories have started popping up. Twellow is my favorite one. It’s pretty easy to use. Just enter the name of your niche in the search box and you’ll get a list of profiles that are interested in your niche. The profiles will be ordered by followers so you can easily follow the most popular ones.

2. Search Twitter itself.

You can use Twitter’s search function to see which people are currently talking about your industry. Simply search for the name of your industry or other related keywords. Then, check out the profiles and see how often they actually tweet about your niche. The ones that are big fans of your industry are great candidates to follow.

3. Check out bloggers.

Check the active blogs in your niche to see if they have a Twitter feed or a link to a Twitter account. Many bloggers have become active on Twitter, so this method is an easy way to find people to follow.

4. Find out who other people follow.

Once you’ve found some quality Twitter profiles, browse through their friends and see who they follow. I’ve found great people through this technique. Oftentimes, there are quality Twitterers that are under the radar because they don’t follow a lot of people. However, you can find out about them with this technique since many people usually follow them.

If someone follows a lot of people and you don’t want to wade through all their friends, you can ask them for the top 10 people they like to follow.

Over to You

How have you found people to follow on Twitter?

This is a guest post from TwitQA.com, a twitter tool where you can ask and answer questions.

Passion versus Pay versus Profile: Blogging deal or no deal?

You’ve a finite amount of time to write, you have to pay the bills, but perhaps you don’t love the subject as much as you used to. How do you know when it’s the right time to leave a project?

This post is primarily targeted at bloggers who have one or more regular, paid writing positions with a blog network/company and may be considering their current position.

It might also be useful for those bloggers running their own blogs (over which they have complete editorial and publishing control).

Passion | Pay | Profile

Blogging for a liveable wage isn’t easy — at least if you’re keen to do it ethically and above board.

Getting a paid writing gig with a large company can get you money and exposure much more quickly than you’d likely attain it (if at all) by publishing your own blog.

You’ll likely have access to on-tap resources to help you improve as a writer. At very least, you’ll probably be working for an editor who will critique your work, give you post ideas, and generally encourage you onwards.

Assuming you applied for the position because you had a decent amount of knowledge and passion for the subject, it’s the near perfect experience.

Isn’t it?

The longer you blog for high profile sites, the more you’ll be noticed. The more you’re noticed, the more opportunities present themselves. You also have the potential to earn more, either because your payment per post increases (often with a new position) or your posts become more popular and you get a proportional share of revenue.

The trouble begins when your passion goes, the amount of work you’re required to do is worth more than you’re being paid, or you don’t believe the work improves your own profile – only that of the company you’re working for.

It’s worth reassessing the work you’re doing on a regular basis. Think of it as a self-appraisal — when you work for yourself, no-one else is going to appraise everything you do.

Consider:

Passion

• What are your main passions?
• Do you want to blog about all of your passions?
• Are you blogging about something you have little interest/enthusiasm for?
• Are some passionate blogging subjects worth keeping for yourself rather than giving to someone else? (in other words, should you be running your own blog instead of relinquishing control and writing for a company?)

Pay

• Are you still being paid enough for the work you’re doing?
• Would you be able to make more money working for someone else or for yourself, or changing project priorities to give more room to new money-earners?
• Is the work you’re currently doing taking so much time or energy that you have no resources left to do things your heart tells you to?
• Are you sacrificing long term gain (sidelined projects) for short term gain? (fixed pay working)

Profile

• Is your blogging gig still giving you, as a person / brand, the exposure you desire?
• Do your efforts seem to be rewarding the company’s profile at the expense of yours?
• Would your personal brand be improved by moving on?

Contracts and Bridges

If you have a written contract in place then you need to consider that before taking any action that may breach the terms it lays out.

You may have a notice period which must be worked out before you can leave. If you want to change the level of work you do for someone else, it may have to be negotiated and a new contract drawn up.

If you have a verbal agreement then you may have no legal/contractual obligations, but think very carefully about burning your bridges with any one company. You never know when they may be a useful contact or source of work in the future.

Final thoughts

These are just a few points to think about, whatever situation you’re currently in.

It may be that you don’t think there’s anything wrong, and if you’re enjoying what you’re doing and getting what you want, digging around may not be helpful (if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it).

Then again, if there’s even a niggle that you’re selling yourself short, skimping on projects you really care about because you’re bogged down by a regular contract, or running yourself ragged without the passion to energise you, then it really is time to sit down and consider what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

The three elements — passion, pay, profile — need to be weighed together, and any decisions you make will be based on your current situation and how much of a risk-taker you are.

Doing a regular check-up like this will help to ensure that you’re giving your best and being fairly rewarded, while still enjoying blogging. After all, that’s the main reason you started, right?

Success in the Business of Blogging is More than Passion

Over the last four years, I have watched as many successful bloggers stopped blogging, and new bloggers took their place. Having success in the business of blogging requires more than passion, and I think that is something far too few people make sure to mention.

If you want to have a successful business where your primary product is your blog, then you might want to think long and hard before you dive in.

Creating a business from blogging is like any other business. You need to think about what you are trying to build, and come up with a plan to get there.

Organize Your Thoughts and Ideas
If you can write down an idea map, or even just a procedural list of your goals and how you want to accomplish them, you’ll be further along than many. Giving yourself clear points of comparison is key. While many people become successful by accident, there are just as many that do so because they know what they want.

I consider myself fairly successful in the niche that I targeted, but the wider web audience don’t know me from Adam. The reason for this is that I wasn’t trying to make myself successful and well-known in all niches, but instead, I focused in, and since the competition was less in the niche I chose, I was able to make great strides and earned enough community clout and success to keep myself employed for the past four years.

Network, network, NETWORK!
If there is one tip regarding business success that I enjoy giving out, it is to network with others. I feel like I go back and forth between being an introvert and an extrovert, but in the end, I have met many people, and connected with my fair share. I can pull out an e-mail list of network connections, and if I’ve done things right, I can get more than a few of them to help me out, give ideas or feedback, and even help promote my work. Network connections can mean the difference between getting your site, business or idea in front of a few hundred and a few hundred thousand.

Timing and Luck
With success, there is always an “X-Factor”. You can do everything right, and keep within budgets, meet metrics, and never see the doubling effect growth curve that some of your competitors might see, and that is because there is something to be said for luck and timing.

Many people recognize the name Jeff Chandler within the WordPress circle of enthusiasts, and I would hazard a guess that more recognize his name than my own. I’ve been using and talking about WordPress since I began, four years ago, while Jeff is relatively new to the software and the community. What he was able to do in such a short amount of time was bring a community and brand around himself in a way that I’ve never been able to do. I’ve had more people recognize me as the co-host of his successful podcast, than for any of the other projects I’ve ever done.

Other Factors
Of course there are many other factors regarding success in the business of blogging, and for each person, the goals or point of success might be different, but what far too many people forget is that blogging can be a business, and like any business there is more to it than just creating a product, or being a service. Marketing, network connections, skill, timing, luck, and a savvy mind can help your business go a long way.

Review: Using the iPhone OS 3.0 for blogging

A few months ago, just after the upgraded iPhone operating system was announced, I speculated on whether iPhone OS 3.0 would make the iPhone a better blogging platform, basing my article purely on the specifications Apple provided.

Now that iPhone 3.0 has arrived, here are my initial thoughts on whether the iPhone is good for performing a variety of common blogging/social media tasks.

Blogging

A number of applications already exist to integrate with popular blogging platforms such as WordPress and Movable Type, and it’s possible to access most admin panels via the Safari web browser.

The main improvement here is the ability to use the landscape keyboard in more applications, though it should be noted that a number of third-party apps already offered this functionality.

Those blogging via email (where a blog can be updated by sending email to a private address) will likely find landscape mode in Mail improves their typing speed and accuracy.

The ability to cut and paste text from web pages and other applications such as the notepad is useful for those who quote other people, though it can still become tedious to do this task because, if you’re following web etiquette and attributing your sources, you first have to copy the text from Safari, go back to your blog app, email message or other Safari tab, paste that text, then return and copy the URL of the original web page to create the link.

Those creating large link lists will likely find this extremely irritating, unless an app exists that can speed up this process (if it does I haven’t seen it).

So, those relying predominantly on text are better catered for thanks to copy/paste and the landscape keyboard, but unfortunately image processing is still far from ideal.

Because iPhone 3.0 is so new, not all third party blogging applications will support direct pasting of a copied image from a web page.

The only other options for importing images into blog posts is to take a photo directly with the iPhone’s camera or add one from the photo library. It works, particularly if you’re liveblogging or using images of your current surroundings, but makes it difficult if you need to edit images first.

Video bloggers who have bought the iPhone 3G S should soon be able to upload videos to supported services, though we’ll have to wait for developers to update their apps to allow this.

Moderation and Admin

I’ve found the iPhone is most useful for those little administrative jobs that need doing, such as moderating comments, deleting spam, quick fixing typos and other non-network intensive tasks.

Nothing particularly outstanding has been added to help with this, except features that have already been mentioned such as the landscape keyboard and copy/paste functionality.

Microblogging

The iPhone is already well served by Twitter applications, and solutions exist for other services.

I’ve not yet seen any of the Twitter apps updated to allow push notification of new tweets. I expect it will happen, and this alone will make staying in touch very useful.

Podcasting

Apple’s built-in voice recorder is a bit of a letdown. It does the job but is very basic in comparison to some third party apps such as Griffin’s iTalk.

Nevertheless, if you don’t want to use something else, the built-in app will capture live audio and let you upload it to your computer for subsequent processing.

Room for improvement

Here are some additional features that could make the iPhone even better for blogging tasks:

• Multi-clipboard: The ability to store and retrieve more than one text block/image at a time would aid in quoting and source attribution amongst other tasks.
• Hardware keyboard: Now that Apple has allowed third-party hardware development, an add-on QWERTY keyboard would allow much faster entry of text. It could either plug directly into the dock or possibly work via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Could include a built-in stand.
• Access to file system: Adding images from the photo library in dedicated blog apps works, but it would be useful to be able to insert images directly into blog posts when using a blog platform’s web interface via Safari.
• Instant Messaging: Meebo was due to be released as a native app for the iPhone, but it doesn’t appear to have made it into the first 3.0 release. Though it is available for the iPhone, making it native would likely afford it more system privileges.
• Application switching: Even if Apple won’t allow more than one third-party app to run at once, some tasks would be so much easier if you could quickly switch between recent applications (Mail, Safari and WordPress app for example) without having to navigate in and out of the home screen.

Conclusion

The iPhone still isn’t the greatest mobile blogging platform available. It’s great for microblogging, blog admin and quick posts including live photos. Other tasks take a bit more work – good in an emergency but you probably wouldn’t want to rely on it long-term.

That said, it’s a mobile phone and pretty amazing when you consider just what you can achieve on it.

Would You Pay to Read Someone’s Tweets?

Would you pay to read someone’s tweets? For some time now, enterprising individuals have been trying to find the holy grail of Twitter monetization. Some have been blatantly spamming advertisements through @replies. Some have indirectly monetized their Twitter accounts by using it as a viral marketing tool. Still, others have created Twitter clients that are funded by advertisements.

Will you dare to venture into Twitter monetization by limiting your audience to paying subscribers? This is what TwitPub aims to do. It’s supposed to be a

marketplace made for Twitter so users can buy and sell premium tweets.

Is this a viable business model? It could be, if you are in the business of dispensing important, expensive advice.

While TwitPub’s activity may not be all that impressive, their service may have potential within the political and financial realms (as people would pay to access gossip and financial advice, especially in this economy).

I come from a school of thought that says the moment you set a price to your content, you would have already devalued it. For one, you are limiting your audience severely. Secondly, you won’t have as much interactivity and viral marketing potential if your content is closed. Of course, this may not necessarily be true in all cases, but unless you’re really famous and powerful, I’m not sure if anyone would be interested in paying to read your tweets. And if you’re already famous and powerful, you probably don’t need anyone paying a few bucks to read your tweets or to send you direct messages.

Would you pay to read someone’s tweets? And would you pay to get your direct message sent into someone’s inbox?

Would You Withhold Information If It Meant Saving a Life?

A lot of bloggers tend to be trigger happy with publishing information. There’s always the desire to be the first to post about breaking news, especially if it’s fresh and yet unpublished by the more mainstream news sources. Bloggers and editors of new media publications take pride in this. But how far will we go with the desire to be first? What if it meant possibly endangering the life of a person–a fellow writer or journalist at that?

Back in November of 2008, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist David Rohde was kidnapped in Afghanistan. His employer, the New York Times, has struggled to keep this information under wraps for about nine months until Rohde’s escape from his captors just a few days ago. The reason: word going out would potentially endanger the life of the kidnapped reporter.

However, some Wikipedia editors (which means virtually anyone who knows how to edit content on the site) felt the need to make the information public, and Wikipedia’s administrators likewise fought a “convoluted game of cat-and-mouse” in preventing this information from being included in Rohde’s Wikipedia page. They were met with much criticism and outrage from these editors. And the administrators felt they could not arbitrarily suppress this information without attracting too much attention. So they kept trying, keeping a low-profile, and trying to stick within the limits of Wikipedia’s terms of service.

In hindsight, the Wikipedia editors who wanted to include the information on Rohde’s kidnapping probably meant no ill will. But looking at the big picture, their actions could have, indeed, led to trouble on the kidnapped journalist’s part. Even if this piece of information on Wikipedia will probably not have any direct bearing on the captors’ activities, it could perhaps be a catalyst to bigger things. People do trust Wikipedia, after all (or at least that is my perception), and if adequate sources are cited, then bloggers, Twitterers and social media users of all kinds would post, link and discuss. And as the Times’ executives fear, the publicity could, indeed, “raise Mr. Rohde’s value to his captors as a bargaining chip and reduce his chance of survival.”

As a social media user, what do you think if this dichotomy between security and freedom of information? I know this has been a pressing issue in many oppressive regimes where information is curtailed in the name of national security or such ideals. But when the risk is concrete and identifiable, and when you know that someone could, indeed, die if you leak out sensitive information, doesn’t that make you think twice before hitting the “save” or “publish” button? Which do you value more: freedom of information or life?

At the very least, this makes me realize that I should be more mindful of what I post online, whether it’s on a blog, Twitter, Flickr, and other public places.

Would you withhold information if it meant possibly saving a life?

Making money with Amazon even if you miss the direct sale

Until recently, I’d almost given up on being an Amazon affiliate. It wasn’t necessarily hard to get people to click on links but they rarely seemed to buy what I was offering them.

However, times have changed. I can’t think of any of my family, friends or acquaintances that isn’t aware of the Amazon brand and hasn’t bought at least one item from them.

What I’m discovering more with Amazon is that, while the basic rules of affiliate success remain the same — including traffic, deep-linking, compelling and relevant enticement — Amazon is one of the few big names that rewards you even if your visitors’ first clicks don’t make a sale.

Granted, you only get 24 hours from a visitor landing at Amazon from your site in order to earn commission from items placed in their basket, but there’s also a 90 day window of opportunity if users add something to the basket on day one but don’t purchase it immediately.

I used to think that Amazon had less earning potential than pay-per-click advertising such as AdSense or Chitika, because someone not only has to click but also purchase before you earn any money.

Thing is, I’m finding that if I can get people to visit Amazon, I have a good chance of earning commission on everything they decide to buy, even if it’s not something I initially recommended.

Looking a what people order, a number of items are either the exact product I recommended, or something closely related. The other items are seemingly random.

So, with decent traffic and a positive push towards Amazon from a wide variety of your blog posts, you do have the potential to earn, letting Amazon do its usual great job of drawing people further into its site and towards the “Add to Basket” button.

I know some other affiliate programs also offer this kind of deal. It’s worth looking into. If you’re transparent about your links and recommend stuff that you own, or would buy yourself, then regardless of whether your visitors buy those items when they go to a merchant site, they’ll hopefully remember your site as a useful source for genuine product recommendations.

Income from Amazon is still far more unpredictable than from other forms of advertising I run on my blogs, but I now believe it has much greater earning potential too.

Now to drive the traffic in.

What’s your experience with Amazon or other affiliate programs and indirect conversions like this?

Twitter and Twitocracy: the Case of Moonfruit

If you haven’t eaten moonfruit, then you’re missing out on a lot. It’s a delicacy in some parts of the world. But it’s rare and expensive, and not everyone can afford it.

Of course, there’s no such thing as a moon fruit. But there is a web development company called Moonfruit. To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they’ve recently run a Twitter campaign involving the giveaway of 10 MacBook Pros. The mechanics are simple: Just include the hashtag #moonfruit in your tweets and every day they select a winner at random from among those who mention the keyword in the past 24 hours.

Sounds interesting? Of course to the folks who want a free MacBook Pro, it is. And a lot have participated, resulting in #moonfruit being a trending topic. People have won, and Moonfruit has even sent special prizes to folks had been creative in using their keyword–some have sung, some have created poems, some have recorded videos.

So is everyone happy? Apparently not. According to the Moonfruit blog, Twitter imposed some kind of censorship, in particular by taking the #moonfruit keyword off the trending topics list.

Late Friday night 3rd July, around midnight UK time Moonfruit finally tumbled off the top of the trends list on Twitter. Now this wasn’t wholly unexpected with July 4th on the way and the resignation of Sarah Palin. But what was odd is how it that it never returned despite the stats being above other trending topics.

…

[I]f Twitter had come to us and said, “guys, enough is enough”, then we would have worked with them to limit the campaign, or complied with whatever they were demanding. However, if they have pulled the trending without explanation or communication, this sets rather a different tone.

Moonfruit provides some links to statistics, claiming that the #moonfruit hashtag continues to surpass most others, but is nowhere to be found in the trending topics list.

There are precedents here. Twitter is known to have taken off inappropriate terms from the trending list in the past. It’s understandable that Twitter needs to protect its network and technology. Adult and raunchy material definitely don’t fall under “acceptable” given Twitter’s diverse audience. I wouldn’t want my kid to read about those kinds of things. But what about keywords that are not necessarily offensive?

The argument here is whether Twitter’s trending topics list should be a pure numbers game, or whether it should involve some algorithm that determines which is eligible, and which is not.

Should there be an algorithm for trends rather than making trending topics a pure numbers game? Should the system be fixed so that #liesboystell doesn’t win out over truly important, significant, or newsworthy content? Should tweets, like images and other kinds of content, be screened for “adult” material and user preferences be set accordingly? Or do trends really belong to the lowest common denominator?

And if all else fails, should there be human intervention to flag something as spammy or obscene?

Other social media services involve some sort of algorithm to minimize or moderate the possibility of gaming. DIGG, for instance has its secret algorithm for bringing entries to frontpage. It’s not just a purely numbers game, but it also involves a host of other factors like aging, authority, timeliness of votes, and the like. Even Google doesn’t use a purely numeric algorithm in determining PageRank. It’s secret algorithm also uses a lot of factors. And even search results don’t rely solely on PageRank and the quantity of links.

The danger here is that using a simple numbers game would make Twitter prone to spam. I’ve already encountered my share of spammy marketers trying to push affiliate links at my face. Without some filtering or moderation mechanism, the Twitter trending topics list would be easy to fill up with useless keywords. Not that marketing on Twitter is bad. There is, after all, a better way of doing it, which does not involve in-your-face, pushy and spammy advertising. But if trivial, unimportant topics keep on edging out the more relevant keywords, this could dilute the value of Twitter as a live search platform.

Still, the question here is about “Twitocracy.” Is Twitter democratic at all? And is there sense in implementing a purely democratic system of presenting information? Or is pure social media democracy a pipe dream?

Why WickedFire is a Great Forum to Learn Online Business and Marketing

Look, if you’re interested in joining a forum where everyone is polite but nobody is making serious money, try WarriorForum or DigitalPoint. Those two, for example, have very strict etiquette rules but only one “minor” problem. Simply put, lots of WarriorForum and DigitalPoint members talk the talk but few of them walk the walk.

Do you know why most people are extremely polite over there? The answer is almost obvious: it’s because a lot of them are trying to sell you something. Maybe an e-book, maybe a coaching problem, maybe some other semi-useless product.

WickedFire is different. Nobody’s there to sell you anything. Well, almost nobody and those who are just trying to sell you on something you don’t need, usually get “loved tenderly” (a commonly used WickedFire term, just like “making monies”, that represents anything but the pleasant idea the phrase conveys) by the community. This forum is what it is and there’s no other community out there that’s even remotely similar. Let’s try to look beneath the surface and determine what exactly makes WickedFire so special.

Demographic Analysis 101

Let’s put the three most important webmaster forums under the microscope, shall we? Let’s start with DigitalPoint, the largest of the three. As strange as it may sound, the fact that it’s the largest webmaster forum out there works against it. There’s just too much noise.

DigitalPoint is the forum most people who are new to the game of making money online come across first. And what does that mean? Simply put: for every good thread or post, there are literally hundreds of utterly useless ones. Even people with huge post counts can actually be complete beginners.

Three Main Types of DigitalPoint Members:

• people who have just found out that you can make money online and start asking lots and lots of ridiculous questions instead of using the “search” function
• people who make lots and lots of meaningless posts just so their signature can receive more exposure
• people who have lots of post there, have been members for a long time but still don’t quite “get it”

What about WarriorForum? Well, things stand a bit differently when it comes to that forum. The first impression you get is that it’s quite transparent: you see people who publicly post their names, who have a picture of them as an avatar and so on. You’d think that you finally found the forum of your dreams, but it’s all fluff.

Most WarriorForum members do nothing but try to sell “get rich quick” products, even if they never actually got rich. After you analyze this community a bit more thoroughly, you are left with the following impression: WarriorForum is full of people who sell each other moneymaking ebooks, even if they aren’t actually making money from things other than selling the e-books in question. This forum is more dangerous than DigitalPoint because you get a false sense of legitimacy when visiting it.

Three Main Types of WarriorForum Members:

• complete beginners who usually far for the BS they’re fed and buy all sorts of “reports” and e-books (the “prey”, if you will)
• people who have a bit of experience, try pushing their products but don’t receive a lot of attention
• the “gurus”, a handful of people who make money by taking advantage of their WarriorForum status and selling lots of stuff to newbies

Of course for both of these forums, there can be value found, but overall it can be much more difficult, especially since you’ll have to cut through the noise and the personal business objectives of those within.

And, finally, we have WickedFire. It doesn’t have as many members as the previous two and there’s a reason for that: it’s hard to “survive”. Let’s make one thing clear: if you sign up just so you can push a certain agenda, you’ll get called out before you make a single penny. Trying to scam people from WickedFire is not exactly the smartest thing you could do.

In fact, messing up on WickedFire can turn into a reputation management nightmare. There are several examples of threads which have first page Google rankings for a scammer’s name, for the name of a shady company and the list could go on and on.

Three Main Types of WickedFire Members:

• the newb (a person who happens to stumble upon the forum and there are two possibilities: that person either adapts and starts making money or gives up after asking a few stupid questions and getting the WickedFire “special treatment”)
• players (in other words people who earn a living online and share ideas/interact via WickedFire: if you’re a “newb”, you need to read between the lines and you’ll come across quite a few great posts which can help you start making some serious money)
• companies and representatives (another great thing about WickedFire is that most network owners and/or representatives are active there: while this forum doesn’t have a lot of members, the average yearly income per member is most likely far superior to what you’ll find elsewhere)

Getting Started at WickedFire

Now that it’s clear why WickedFire is the best forum you could possibly join if you’re interested in making serious money, let’s find out how to get started.

The worst thing you could do is sign up and start asking lots of question in the “Shooting the Shit” section. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. Always use the “search” function before even thinking about asking a question.

And in nine out of ten cases, you had better ask the question in the newbie section (that’s because people will be more patient with you if they at least see that you’ve chosen the appropriate section for your “newb” question). One more thing: never ever ask general things like “hello I’m new, how do I make money?”. Seriously, just don’t. Nobody will hand anything to you on a silver platter.

On the other hand, if they see that you have tried to do something and failed, their attitude will change. WickedFire members like people who take action, so if you explain what you did and ask for their input, you will receive a lot of helpful advice. Don’t start a huge numbers of threads right from the beginning, take it one step at a time. If you start posting like there’s no tomorrow right from day one, people will take it the wrong way.

If you have something worth sharing then by all means, share. But don’t try too hard. That’s exactly the mistake most people make on WickedFire. If you try too hard, people will pick up on that and call you out. Oh and here’s something else: don’t try to come off as some kind of a “guru” because such an attitude never impresses anyone. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, just keep your mouth shut.

Networking

Once you start understanding how things work, you’ll probably make lots of friends. Be willing to help people out because if you will, they’ll return the favor at one point or another. A lot of times, people send you PMs (Private Messages) after reading one of your posts. This happens for a lot of reasons. Some people want to receive more details, some would be interested in receiving clarifications and so on. Never ignore PMs, be genuinely helpful.

Be sure to sign up for an AIM ID and add the people you want to keep in touch with. As a webmaster, you’ll need lots of favors and by keeping in touch with other successful people, you can help each other out. Don’t start bugging everyone 24/7, the last thing you should do is annoy people. Only ask a question if it’s absolutely legitimate and only ask for a favor if you’re 100% sure that it’s not something you can do yourself.

Don’t be “nosy”, there’s only so much info you can expect people to share. Did you actually think that people will hand over valuable data (keywords, CTRs, conversion rates and so on) just because you’re such a nice guy? Think again! If you had a campaign that was netting you 4 figures/day, would you be willing to hand over vital info to other people (who would turn into competitors)? Of course you wouldn’t.

Even if you have some decent activity on WickedFire, it doesn’t mean that you can get away with anything. There are certain rules which should never be broken. Outing landing pages is frowned upon these days. In the past, people weren’t as vocal against it as they are today but things have recently degenerated to a “too much is too much” point (you need to squeeze as much as you can out of a creative/profitable campaign fast nowadays, because it’s only a matter of time until an overwhelming number of people start duplicating everything you did).

A lot of people are on a “let’s call networks out” spree these days. In other words, they start a negative thread about a certain network in order to “convince” the network in question to pay attention. If you’ve tried absolutely everything but still haven’t heard from the network then sure, you have to do what needs to be done. But if the lines of communication are still open, don’t make things public. While there’s nothing wrong with starting a thread about a network as a last resort, that doesn’t mean that you have to do that whenever your payment is delayed or whenever an issue that could be handled privately arises, especially since many networks have staff at WickedFire and will call you out of you circumvent their support system and go right to trying to make them look bad.

Giving Back

There are countless examples of successful WickedFire members who give back because they’re genuinely grateful. This community has helped a many marketers make a lot of money and they didn’t forget that. You’d think that a person who earns seven figures yearly doesn’t exactly have all that much to gain by posting helpful advice on a forum but that’s just plain wrong. Giving back can work in your favor (it’s not just a matter of being grateful) and here’s an example: network owners who used to be affiliates.

A lot of people have made millions as affiliate marketers and decided to start or buy a network. Given the fact that they’ve been on the other side of the fence, they understand the issues affiliates are dealing with. There are even examples of owners who paid people out of their own pockets when things went belly-up with an advertiser. They gave back and gained one important thing: loyalty. A person who earns $30,000/month today could earn $30,000/day in a few months and if you have people’s loyalty, your bank account will thank you in the long run.

Giving back always works in your favor, so never forget where you came from. WickedFire is a great example of how people can help each other make money without there being any kind of ridiculous scheming involved. WickedFire members are not interested in selling you anything, they’re not interested in getting you to look at their signature or something like that. They’re interested in networking and making things happen. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can start working towards earning a piece of the pie.

What Will It Be?

Other forums out there do nothing more than sell the dream. If the thought of hearing people who aren’t making money talk about making money all day long sounds appealing then by all means, become a member. It is a lot easier to “survive” there but what’s the point if those communities aren’t actually of any help?

If your skin is thick and your mind open, sign up for a WickedFire account and do your thing.

Read as much as you can initially and only “open your mouth” if you’re sure that you actually have something to say or that the question you want to ask is perfectly legitimate. People will probably give you a hard time initially but if you’re able to adapt, things will start getting a lot better. Don’t try too hard, don’t pretend to be something you’re not because the chances of getting away with something like that are slim to none.

As previously mentioned, WickedFire is what it is: stop trying to define it, just sign up for an account and start making money!

Real Comments, Spam URL’s

So lately, I’ve been spending a fair bit of time going through and dealing with Spam on so many blogs. The comments look real, they read like real comments. They are most likely done by hand rather than spam bots, but if you look at the URL they’ve used, and sometimes their name as well, you’ll see that they are still trying to spam.

This is frustrating because their comments add some small value to blogs, but on the flip side, they are just trying to get links to their site, drive traffic to their ads, or otherwise create a poor experience for people online.

How do you deal with this type of spam on your blog? Do you mark it as spam, delete it, edit it to not include the URL, or just approve it outright?

We can’t check the URL on every comment, as it can get time consuming, but by marking good quality comments as spam based on the URL field, are we messing up Akismet?

Let me know in the comments below, and please…no spam.

Sidenote: J Angelo Racoma recently wrote about this on Performancing (What do you do with valid comments that have commercial links?) and got a few opinions about what to do with the comments, so I’d love to see more discussion on what tools you use to moderate and manage these comments without getting too many false positives. Is Akismet still the best way to manage spam on WordPress blogs, should people be using multiple plugins, or is another service better?

Tablet Input: Helpful for Blogging?

I just finished writing a review of the Adesso CyberTablet Z12 on Forever Geek, where I took a look at the tablet, comparing it to other devices in its class, and it made me wonder if a drawing tablet could be useful for blogging.

I usually try to stick to only things that I can easily adopt and use as part of my blogging duties, and so I wasn’t too impressed with what I, as a blogger specifically, could do with a tablet input system.

This doesn’t have any effect on my review of the tablet, as I found the Z12 to be a great product, but what could I use it for on a daily basis?

It has the ability to convert writing into text using handwriting recognition, but I type faster than I can hand write a sentence (in part because writing with a stylus or pen is a one handed experience, and typing is a two handed one).

Even if the handwriting recognition was perfect, which it isn’t due to my horrible chicken-scratch, it would still take me longer to pen out an entry than typing it on my computer.

For doing mock-ups of designs, annotating pictures and drawings, and doing other simple editing tasks, I found the tablet to be helpful, but I don’t do these things every day, and I don’t have a very still hand, leading to graphics that aren’t as clean as I’d like them to be.

Sure, the technology is great, but I feel like for blogging, there isn’t much that beats a keyboard and mouse. Hopefully, this doesn’t erupt into the same kind of battle people see with console gamers (game pad users) versus keyboard and mouse users, but do you have any input device that you enjoy for blogging above and beyond the keyboard and mouse?

Five mistakes PR execs make when engaging bloggers and how to solve them

Do you deal with PR companies? Having been fortunate enough to blog for several larger networks, I’m definitely “on the radar” and am contacted daily by those wanting to promote companies, products and services to me.

In general, this is great — I’d rather receive interesting information about new products and services than not at all — but sometimes things aren’t perfect.

This guide looks at five mistakes PR executives make when engaging bloggers and what can be done to improve the situation.

1. Poor contact etiquette

Problem:

I realise that one of the core parts of being a successful public relations professional is making contact with people who can spread the word about clients, but I sometimes feel like I’m hounded (pestered, at least) by pushy account executives who feel they just have to talk to me.

Whilst I’d love to get to know PRs better, it’s not always convenient to talk every time one calls. My tolerance for interruption is low, which is why I have voicemail. Unfortunately, calling every half-an-hour instead of leaving a message and waiting for me to return it does not endear the PR company to me.

Similarly, phoning ten minutes after sending an email is also not appreciated. I probably did get the email but I haven’t had time to read or digest it yet. Again, I don’t jump at every email the moment it arrives, and if PRs do get to speak to me on the telephone I’m likely to respond negatively or at least be non-committal.

Solution:

It’s worth making your voicemail message specific, encouraging people to leave a message and explaining how you’ll deal with that message.

It won’t necessarily stop people trying to contact you multiple times in multiple ways (I have three phone lines at home and have had PRs alternate between them) but it will hopefully let them understand how you like to be contacted, which in turn should create more positive communication.

2. Inadequate resource provision

Problem:

I like to get as much information about a new product or service as possible in one go without having to jump through hoops to get it.

I hate being sent:

• minimal information
• dead links
• proprietary format for press releases (particularly Word documents) with no plain text alternative
• press release text saved as an image
• no images
• excessively high resolution images
• multiple copies of the same email
• complicated instructions on how to request images / more details

Solution:

PRs can do themselves a great favor here by sending out as many resources as possible in the first instance. This includes:

• Press release in plain text
• At least one low resolution image of product/screenshot/logo
• Web links to more information
• Company web site
• Price and availability
• Contact info for someone in PR dealing with the account

If any of the above aren’t available it’s far more helpful to say so upfront.

While print journalists tend to need high resolution images, low-res is generally fine for bloggers so it needn’t cause the emails to be excessively large.

The immediacy of blogs means that a well-pitched press release can be up and published within the hour, but if bloggers have to chase around for information this will either get delayed or the story simply won’t be published.

As bloggers, it’s worth suggesting this list to PRs with whom you have an ongoing relationship. You may not always get everything you need first go, but there’s a greater probability that you will.

3. Irregular contact

Problem:

I don’t expect hand-crafted emails and one-to-one service, but I would expect to be on relevant mailing lists so as to receive timely information.

I still don’t understand how the same PR person can send me information on a company one day, then another I’m completely missed off the list.

Solution:

PR companies need to ensure their contact database is up-to-date and their mailing lists are consistently sending information to the right people.

If you have other blogger or journalist contacts who receive information that you’d like to get, contact the individual PRs involved and ask to be added to their mailing lists.

Be specific about the kinds of information you’d like to receive.

4. Sticking to traditional working practises

Problem:

Many bloggers, even those who do it full-time, often don’t adhere to a standard working day, therefore PRs who expect them to be available for events during a standard working day may well be disappointed. This is particularly true for bloggers who have other jobs.

Additionally, events which are effectively just glorified press release presentations are, in my opinion, a waste of time. Seeing new products and being able to interview company representatives can be great, but when a blogger has limited time, often has to travel in to a large city to attend, and is doing it completely within own budget, the event needs to be exceptional.

Solution:

PR companies which embrace the often differing working practises of bloggers are at a distinct advantage. If companies want to reach out to bloggers then positive ways of doing this include arranging exclusive, value-rich events at convenient times, and understanding that bloggers’ resources are often limited when compared to full-time journalists and other media professionals.

Again, communication is key for bloggers. Make it clear what time you have and what kinds of events you’d be interested in attending. While it won’t guarantee a PR company accommodates you, if they don’t know how you work it will be very difficult for them to help.

5. Expecting (positive) coverage

Problem:

There seems to be the notion that bloggers are desperate for content and will publish anything. While that may be true for some, it certainly isn’t for all, and sometimes an over-pushy PR can really damage the reputation of the company they’re representing.

While I, as a blogger, may want to give your client some free publicity if it fits in with what I believe my readers want, don’t assume that because you’ve pitched me an idea, I’ll run with it.

And don’t assume that any coverage I do give will be glowing.

Solution:

Though you can’t change someone’s perception of bloggers and blogging overnight, politely outlining what you blog about and explaining that you don’t publish news or features for the sake of it should help.

After all, there’s little point promoting a company’s new line of hamburgers on a blog ready by vegetarians.

Conclusion: it’s all in the dialogue

At the end of the day, good relationships with PR companies can be a great source of timely information on which to build news stories and original features for your blog, but good communication is key to ensuring that you, the blogger, aren’t bombarded with irrelevant and unhelpful content and that the PR company doesn’t get frustrated because they can never reach you or you don’t seem interested in what they’re offering.

Given the choice between being contacted by PRs and not, I’d definitely choose the former. Would you?

If so, build those relationships whenever you can, and don’t be afraid to stand up for what you want and need.

Blackhat SEO: Never a Long-Term Strategy

In the world of Internet business, just as in life offline, there are those who are looking to make a fast buck and there are those who want to earn their way to the top in order to create a lasting business venture. When it comes to SEO, these two approaches to the search engine marketing game are known as blackhat and whitehat, respectively. If you’re looking to be a serious player in the Web business game then you’re going to want to know the difference between both of these approaches and why a person or company would choose one over the other.

A quick definition of blackhat SEO is that it tends to be geared towards scoring big amounts quick, short term money. The methods used are intended to trick the search engines by using deceptive techniques and fool Web surfers into clicking links to visit sites that they otherwise might never think about clicking. While it’s not always true, blackhat techniques sometimes go hand in hand with malware, viruses, spam and other criminal or borderline illegal techniques. While the methods and tactics employed vary, the key point to remember about blackhat methods for making money online is that all of them involve some level of trickery for either man or machine and are designed almost exclusively to make cash as quickly as possible.

Many people are attracted to blackhat SEO because it’s said to be easier than whitehat. This can be true, but many times you first need to buy expensive software to perform the methods. These software programs may work for a limited time, but it’s not uncommon to find out that the program you paid a good deal of cash for only ends up working for a few months or maybe even just a few weeks. If you’re looking to pull in massive traffic, a blackhat program may at first look to be the ideal solution to yank visitors into your site and crank them through your Pay Per Click or affiliate sales pages. If we’re completely honest (which is a core component of the whitehat approach) then we have to admit that yes, blackhat can earn big money. However, the method must be changed constantly and using blackhat to turn a website into a cash cow is absolutely a short term venture. Once you’ve earned some money you’ll end up having to shut the site down and build a whole new site to keep your income stream up and even then it’s unlikely you’ll be able to pull this off with any level of consistency. Blackhat SEO ends up being very similar to treading water, it’s a lot of work to keep yourself afloat and you still won’t go far.

While whitehat SEO appears to take more work, in reality it pays off better over a longer period of time and your earnings rise, they don’t plummet due to penalties from the same search engines that you need to make a living from. The people who develop and maintain search engines have entire divisions of their companies dedicated to eliminating websites and marketers who pollute the Internet with garbage links and spam style websites. You’ll be going up against an army of folks who are paid to lock blackhat sites out of the upper echelons of Internet commerce and if you’re publicly exposed for your actions you’ll most in the industry completely unwilling to work with you, much less cut lucrative deals that the Web business is famous for.

Besides, let’s face it, having to crank out lame website after lame website ends up getting old, especially after you figure out that you’re doing more work than the whitehat guys in the long run. This and the fact that the future holds more challenges for blackhat, rather than less, makes whitehat appear to be not only more ethical, but a more attractive choice for earning money all around. As the search engines increase in sophistication they will come to resemble the human mind more closely and that’s bad news for those who have build miniature empires based on the ease with which we can trick computer programs right now. It’s an uphill battle for smaller and smaller profits while over on the whitehat side profits continue to rise for everyone rather than only the major players.

If you can provide a genuinely good product or service that people want they’re going to want to see what you have to offer, they’re going to want to do business with you or your company, and most importantly, they’re going to want to repeat that business over and over again. Repeat business is how individuals and companies thrive at the commercial level. A solid reputation continues to become increasingly more crucial for those doing serious business on the web. It’s no longer about bold, colorful text and ‘click here now!’ style advertising. Internet users are becoming more savvy and the more they experience the negative types of marketing thrown at them, the more wary they’re going to become. Building trust online has become the absolute must for anyone seeking to build a business with a Web presence. There’s no real future in scamming, especially since legally, it’s becoming much riskier to trick people online no matter how insignificant that deception may seem to the person hoping to score some easy money.

As you can see, the future is definitely going to be whitehat all the way, not just because it’s the nice guy approach, but because it makes sense. No one wants to feel cheated and everyone wants a great deal. Those who can offer a quality experience are going to thrive as the global Internet population keeps on rising. Make sure you consider which path you want to take before you set out to earn a living from the Internet and keep in mind, you get what you pay for and reap what you sow. If you keep your business clean, valuable to the consumer and run honestly you’ll get the fruits of that labor.

Part I: Three Problems that Blog Networks Often Experience

If you’re reading this, there’s a healthy chance that you’ve either written for a blog network or managed one — you’ve done both. Blog networks are the magazine publishing companies of the Internet and though there obvious advantages to having your publication purely on the Internet, there are still some organizational pitfalls that blog networks encounter. I’ve thought about this on occasion and though the list can go on and on, writer dissatisfaction and communication problems actually stem forth from three behaviors. This is the first part of three.

The Disappearing Act
The joys of the Internet allows us to establish a “global frequency” of sorts around the world. if you’ve managed a blog network before you’ll be amazed with your newfound reach. But the same convenience comes with a price and that is .. all of a sudden your writer — or worse yet, your “tech ninja” disappears. No responses to emails. Nothing on Skype or IM. More than half the time, the reasons are justified and understandable. A loss in the family (knock on wood), a big residential move hence the lack of Internet, a storm or something tragic in that side of the world (I used to get emails of genuine concern from my Internet colleagues when they saw CNN reporting armored tanks storming into the business district of the Philippines a few years back).

As a network manager, you’d need to exercise judgment on how to deal with these situations. You’ve never met them in person, but there still should be some form of empathy. Now in other pejorative cases where your writers never respond (they continue to update their Facebook and personal blogs but not yours!) then actions should definitely be taken. Let me ask you. How long should you wait? One week? One month? No reply on the third email?

To be continued…

nota bene: Obviously we’re professional enough to understand that by writing this post I mean no specific reference to anyone I’ve dealt with in the past. These are general problems that many network owners and editors have experienced before and are experiencing today.

I’d love to hear about your experiences on how to remedy situations like this as it does help the industry become better

Writing vs. Blogging: Is There a Difference?

A lot of bloggers are proud of the fact that with blogs, they are finding a medium for sharing content with the rest of the world. They have become writers. Similarly, a lot of writers have found a new medium to publish their works. They have become bloggers. You often see published and famous authors starting blogs, and sometimes discussing the differences in publishing a blog post and the process of publishing a book.

Bloggers are, by definition, writers. Yes, you can even pardon the fact that a lot of bloggers write as if they need lessons in grammar, spelling and sentence construction. But are writers automatically bloggers? Well, the moment someone hits the publish button on his first ever blog post, then that person can technically be considered a blogger. But even if you’re a topnotch writer with dozens of books published, or if you have a regular newspaper column, or if you’re a literary genius, you don’t automatically become a good blogger, in the fullest sense of it.

Blogging involves more than writing. Blogging involves interaction, being part of the community, and having your blog serve as your online identity and persona. When you blog, you don’t just write a 500-word essay and publish it on a static page. You open up that essay to the world for critique right there and then. You let people talk back to you on your comment threads and on other blogs. You respond, and you talk back.

When you blog, you don’t just publish a column on a newspaper page. You join in on the conversation. You can react to other blog posts of interest. You link, you get linked to, and you link back. You create a big web of conversations and intelligible discussions.

Whe you blog, you don’t rest on your laurels the minute you publish that scathing commentary. You brace yourself for an onslaught of responses, positive and negative, and you prepare to defend your position.

When you blog, you don’t hide your face behind the written word. Rather, your written word is your face in the online world–your identity to your readers.

Simply put, blogging is not solely about writing. It’s about learning how to interact, how to establish a presence, how to make recommendations, how to be reactive and proactive. If you consider yourself a writer, then well and good. But if you want to be a good blogger, ask yourself these. How far have you gone in terms of being interactive? Have you helped a friend online? Have you added value to the ocean of commentaries out there? Are you just another nameless, faceless entity churning out words, or are you being someone–someone who matters?

Blogging is a social medium, after all. And as such, blogging goes far beyond writing.

How Well Do You Work Under Pressure? J Angelo Racoma 7.27.09 Blogging, Writing Writing samples: Parker 75 Image by churl via Flickr People

Anyone who wants to run a serious blog or website needs solid information on the ever changing nature of the SEO/SEM game. If you’re looking to make it to the top of the charts on the web, you’ve got your work cut out for you and you’ll want every tip, trick and piece of advice you can find.

That’s why we’ve put together this list of the Top 50 SEO/SEM Experts. These are the folks you want to keep an eye on, in no particular order:

Matt Cutts – Most of those already involved in SEO know the name Matt Cutts. He’s a Google employee who specializes in SEO issues, with a passion for the prevention of link spamming. His blog is very down to earth and filled with insight you can’t get from someone who doesn’t work at Google.

Rand Fishkin – As a major contributor to SEOmoz.org, one of the net’s premiere SEO sites, Randy got involved in the Web game back in the early 90’s. He’s been invited to speak with the engineers of both Google and Microsoft, not to mention given presentations at Stanford and NPR.

Daron Babin – After starting his career at NBC TV and winning prestigious awards in the broadcasting industry, Babin turned his attention to SEO and SEM. He’s not one of the stars of the SEO world, running WebmasterRadio.

Jim Boykin – A regular conference speaker on the topics of link building campaigns and search engine marketing tools, Boykin not only blogs about SEO/SEM, he’s built tools to help marketers along on their path to success. His down home style appeals to many, but his success is even more attractive.

Aaron Wall – One of the most powerful SEO bloggers online, Wall is the man behind SEO Book, a giant and irreplaceable resource for the SEO industry. Being featured in the Wall Street Journal and a popular speaker at PubCon speaks for itself.

Danny Sullivan – Starting out as a journalist, Sullivan went on to cover search engines in a big way. He has a podcast and also writes for Search Engine Land. The scope of Sullivan’s knowledge makes him a big favorite for aspiring SEO experts.

Barry Schwartz – Another writer for Search Engine Land, Schwartz uses his blog to track the conversations taking place at the most popular SEO forums online. He’s known as one of the hardest workers in the SEO industry.

Bill Slawski – Coming from a background in law, Slawski started out part-time, but his fascination for the SEO world lead him towards a career in consulting. He focuses on ethical, proactive solutions to SEO issues and along with lots of research and experimentation yet delivers the information in a laid back way.

Todd Malicoat – With nearly a decade of serious SEO experience, Malicoat brings a lot to the table in terms of traffic generation. He’s a specialist in how to get visitors to websites and a popular speaker at Search Engine Strategies and Pubcon who’s been featured in Inc. Magazine and the New York Post.

Andy Beal – With a specialization in online reputation management, Beal is an SEO expert who’s serviced commercial powerhouses like Motorola, GlaxoSmithKline and NBC. He’s also a forefront expert on SEM, sharing his wisdom through his popular blogs Marketing Pilgrim and SEM Vendor.

Michael Arrington – You’ve probably heard of TechCrunch, the company Arrington founded after an already successful career as a corporate securities lawyer and serial entrepreneur. He’s shaped the SEO landscape in a great many ways and continues to be a major player in the SEM world.

John Battelle – You may know of Battelle’s book ‘The Search’, a landmark in the SEO world. He’s a journalist and entrepreneur who blogs from a very stripped down site about the high gloss world of Web 2.0 and other topics. His major aim is helping SEO marketers develop towards the future of the web.

Brett Tabke – With more than three decades in the computer industry, Tabke brought his experience to bear and accomplishes great things in the SEO industry. He’s noted for for coining some major basics in the Web world SEO Themes, link farms and SERP.

Rae Hoffman – Along with viral marketing, Rae ‘Sugarrae’ Hoffman took her endless hours of time spent online and turned herself into an SEO consultant. With a flashy yet effective sense of design, her blog offers the SEO crowd a solid source of effective advice for pulling traffic.

Matt McGee – In addition to moderating for Sphinn and editing for Search Engine Land, McGee has carved a niche for himself in local search marketing. Helping companies like Target.com got the Wall Street Journal interested in what he has to say.

Rene LeMerle – Having been in the industry for over a decade, LeMerle focuses on global search engine marketing. He’s also interested in Web 2.0 helping digital marketers get their marketing efforts to pay off.

Benjamin Pfeiffer – Known as Phoenix, Pfeiffer is the owner of Rank Smart Search Marketing renowned as an business consultant and search optimizer. A veteran in SEO, he’s overseen teams of SEO pro’s and knows how to achieve massive success with a campaign.

Carolyn Shelby – Way back in 1994, Shelby was already building websites professionally. Today, she focuses on SEO for sites that are old and outdated, taking them to the next level of performance with a complete re-launch. She’s also well known in the blog radio circuit and many SEO forums.

Patrick Altoft – With the UK’s largest Internet marketing blog, Altoft has a lot of credibility on both sides of the pond. His Blogstorm has gained him so much clout that he’s been quoted by the likes of BBC News, Wired, TechCrunch and Mashable.

Michael Gray – Having started out in the online retail market over a decade ago, Gray knows his way around the net. He blogs about loads of excellent information for SEO and it’s easy to see why he gets invited to so many conferences as a guest speaker.

Bruce Clay – One of the strongest voices for ethics in SEO, Clay has established a large company that offers SEO training among many other services. His blog hosts many excellent SEO and SEM writers.

David Naylor – Not only a digital radio host, Naylor got his start doing SEO work for major corporations. He’s focused on useability in site design and getting Number 1 rankings in the search engines and teaching others how to do that, too.

Jill Whalen – As the founder of High Rankings back in 1995, Whalen is a regular speaker at SEO conferences. As a moderator at Sphinn who’s quoted by Inc. Magazine and the Wall Street Journal, she brings a wealth of experience with her.

Eric Enge – With three decades worth of tech industry experience, Enge keep his focus on total search engine compliance, never cutting corners for solid results. He’s the author of a book called The Art of SEO and a career entrepreneur.

Andrew Shotland – After starting with a site that he SEO’d to three million visitors per month, Shotland sold his start-up to CitySearch. Now he’s an expert in the area of local search, an emerging niche within the SEM industry.

John Andrews – Describing himself as a Competitive Webmaster, Andrews began as an IT professional for a non-profit that needed to spread the word. He now shares his SEO knowledge that he’s gained working for large companies and professionals on his blog.

Vanessa Fox – A prominent speaker at search industry events, Fox not only writes about search engine optimization, she’s also got incredible experience. She helped design the Google Webmaster Central and was a spokesperson for Google.

Eric Lander – From his woodland outpost, Lander blogs about all things SEO. He’s a specialist in both local search and truly organic search engine optimization. He’s also not afraid to be controversial in his posts.

Bill Hartzer – Having been a professional writer for the tech industry and TV, Hartzer understands how search plays a role in popularity. He’s also the administrator for SearchEngineForums.com and a consultant for large companies.

Shimon Sandler – After starting as a marketing manager for a detergent company, Sandler decided to set out to master SEO. He’s come a long ways and is now a popular guest on Good Karma podcast who brings his major corporate SEO experience along with him.

Jaan Kanellis – As an expert in both PPC and organic SEM, Kanellis has worked with big companies like Google, Yahoo and MSN. He’s a moderator at WebProWorld.com and a real asset to the SEM industry as a whole.

Dev Basu – Starting out as a teen at Microsoft Canada, Basu brings an internationalist slant to his work. He’s experienced working for businesses at all levels, helping them establish and promote their online presence.

Kalena Jordan – The founder of Search Engine College, Jordan has put her history of SEO to work for others by teaching both SEO and SEM. She now does consulting with the aim of helping customers achieve the highest ROI for their online sites.

Kyle Bunch – Formerly a contributor to AOL’s Fanhouse, Bunch went on to run Blogebrity to cover the A-list of bloggers. He’s helped develop the SEOi toolset for users at his company SEOintelligence and also runs a sports media conference.

Jeremy Hermanns – Having worked with over 50 Fortune 500 top search engine companies, Hermanns comes from a background of working at Overture/Goto. He’s currently focused on providing the finest SEO toolset available.

Karl Ribas – Coming from a background as a graphic artist, Ribas works in many areas of website marketing with a strong focus on SEM. He mixes a strong desire to create visually appealing sites with a determination to get them high in search engine rankings.

Edward Cowell – A UK native, Cowell focuses on the latest news in the organic SEO and pay per click markets. He created Search Engine War to offer a unique UK approach to marketing online and offers lots of global search information on his blog.

Erik Dafforn – The creator of the SEO Speedwagon blog, Dafforn strives to provide ‘beneath the hood’ coverage in the world of SEO and SEM. His blog regularly delves deep into technical issues that help both advanced and beginning SEO experts alike.

Kim Krause Berg – Known as Cre8pc online, Krause Berg worked for a tech magazine’s website back in the 90’s. She’s used her experience in Quality Assurance to carve a niche for herself in SEO world where she focuses on the visitor side of quality SEO results.

Lee Odden – One of 25 stars featured in the book Online Marketing Heroes, Odden has proven himself to the level that U.S. News and Fortune have taken the time to write about him. He’s focused on the combination of good public relations and SEO.

Roger Dooley – As the consultant and entrepreneur behind Neuro Science Marketing, Dooley blends his offline marketing experience with an understanding of “big picture” SEO issues. He strives to sharpen the skills of those in emerging SEM markets.

Roger Montti – As a site auditor and reviewer, Montti focuses on commentary about the search engine industry in general. He regularly helps those who need assistance building quality links to improve their SEO strategies.

David Brown – A popular podcast speaker at SEO 101, Brown formed the Top SEO Consulting firm to work almost exclusively with large scale corporate clients. His focus is providing high ROI for those he offers SEO advice to.

James Harrison – Coming from a background in Pay Per Click and Internet marketing, Harrison freelances his SEO work using his skills as a writer. On his blog he shares his successes as he works up the rankings in the SEO world.

Jeremy Morgan – With over a decade’s worth of experience developing websites, Morgan brings his history to work for him on his blog. There he offers tips for those just starting in the SEO game and covers topics like using Bing and Twitter instead of Google only.

Roy Sencio – Coming from a background in advertising and marketing, Sencio blogs about topics to help others in SEO and SEM. His primary focus is on getting solid conversions in the pay per click marketing environment.

Steve Wiideman – As a veteran specialist in both organic SEO and pay per click campaigns, Wiideman provides several blogs to offer tips and trips to aspiring SEO and SEM marketers.

Michael Guy – As the CEO of 1SEOExperts, Guy focuses on helping webmasters fine tune their sites and raise their profiles in the search engines.

Brad Fallon – As a specialist expert in SEO, Fallon’s blog offers many tactics and tips to help those who want great search engine ranks and the traffic that comes with it.

Nima Asrar Haghighi – Coming from a background of professional SEO and SEM, Haghighi provides excellent info on his blog for SEM tips and tricks that improve your search engine rankings.

Understanding Social Media Traffic

Online communities have been around since the dawn of the Internet, even before the World Wide Web made its appearance. People have used computer to computer communications for the same reason they’d use a telephone or, prior to that, the postal service – to interact with each other across distance. Today, what appears to be an emerging market, social media, is actually not new at all. Sites like Facebook, YouTube, Myspace, Digg, Twitter and others are all actually evolutions of the founding ideas that the Web was based upon. We’re just beginning to get good at connecting people with each other and only now are business people realizing the untapped potential of interacting with their customers on the more personal level that social media provides.

If you run any kind of business venture online you definitely need to have a social media presence. One of the big ways to gain traffic these days is through social bookmarking services. These include sites like Digg where users submit links or stories. Those submissions are then voted on by other Digg members.

Image via Wikipedia

The higher the number of votes, the higher that article or site rises in within the Digg ranking system. Links that Digg members love can get massive traffic sent to that particular site so pleasing Digg users is definitely a good thing! But be careful, because there is also a phenomenon known as “the Digg effect” where a site will take so much traffic that it actually crashes. That’s not hard to imagine when you realize Digg gets over 236 million visitors annually.

Reddit is another social bookmarking site that focuses on news, rewarding users who submit particularly popular links with karma points. A site called del.ico.us takes an approach that encourages people to comment on each others links and build a strong sense of community. With this site, a wiki adds a more collective slant to the offerings and it’s become a real source for viral Internet memes and other popular Web items. These are only a handful of the social bookmarking sites available to those who want to dive into the social media sea of opportunities.

The thing you need to remember is that with social media sites, the key word is social. You do not want to leap into these communities and start flinging your links and promotions around. You need to keep in mind that like any community, and social media sites are very much communities, there are those who are obnoxious individuals and there are those who add value. To gain a true level of popularity, you need to add value. Find out what’s hot and offer bookmarks that others in the community will love. Leave valuable comments and feedback for other users. Make friends and use the social angle to your advantage by creating a positive reputation for yourself and your business activities. For those who match their business acumen with polite, constructive social interaction, there are no limits to the success that these social media sites can bring you.

If you find yourself confused, do what you’d be advised to do in an unfamiliar situation offline. That’s right, ask others around you for help. Learn all that you can about each community that you participate in and show that you care about more than simply the next visitor or sale. Positive word of mouth is what you want from social media, you want people to spread your links based on their own desires rather than because you harassed them into it. Pay attention to emotional cues that people give off in online communication and if you sense people are becoming annoyed, immediately back off and try something else or even apologize. You need all the help you can get to keep your site attractive to visitors and the more popular folks in the social media scene can either help or hurt your reputation and the traffic that goes with that reputation.

It’s not that difficult to succeed when it comes to social media and using social bookmarking sites. By letting common sense, fair play and the same politeness you learned in grade school be your guide, you’ll find that it’s an easy, efficient and productive way to do business on the web. And you might just have a lot more fun than you bargained for finding your way towards the success you’ve been wishing for.

How Well Do You Work Under Pressure?

People who want to get into the business of professional blogging sometimes have the wrong notion that it’s all easy work. They see blogging not as a serious activity, but more akin to diary or journal writing, where one just posts whatever thoughts, feelings and ideas he has, and that he will earn from these.

Well, in some cases this might be true. But blogging for income is not always a walk in the park. If you want to make a business out of it, it is serious business. It’s hard work. Sometimes you don’t even get compensated well enough for your efforts. It’s not just writing, hitting publish, and waiting for the cash register to ring. After all, blogging is not just about writing, but also about connecting as well.

One big factor here is the pressure–both the pressure to write and the pressure to earn. This is usually the case when you are facing deadlines and posting schedules. This might also be the case when you are assigned to cover a certain event or topic, and you are hard pressed to be the first to provide coverage.

A lot of bloggers, especially those who work for networks, have probably learned to adapt to this type of setting. But some of us–mostly those with more artistically inclined writing, or those who prefer op-ed column type postings–probably don’t feel productive or inspired enough when there are external pressures.

In my case, I’m more of the latter. I work best when I’m able to focus on just writing, and not thinking of deadlines, ToDo lists and other distractions. Give me 30 undisturbed minutes in front of the computer monitor, with only the WordPress New Post page on my browser, then I can probably come up with a (hopefully) informative or thought provoking post. But when I’m required to publish a post on a certain day at a certain time, then most probably I will have to linger around, looking for a topic to write about, trying to collect my thoughts, and looking for information to back up my article. It would take me hours to finish this kind of post.

I also feel most productive when my energy levels are high. I envy the bloggers who have the energy to write several quality posts in a short span of time. Usually, the moment I publish a feature type post, I’m drained. Perhaps I need to manage my energy better. Perhaps I should learn to outline and plan my writing better, so I don’t end up only writing when inspiration hits me.

Which type of blogger are you? How well do you perform under pressure? Are you better under schedule, or do you wait for the muse to come calling? Moreover, does external pressure energize you, or does it drain you?

Do You Separate Your Personal and Professional Twitter Lives?

On Freelance Switch, Will Kenny ponders whether online professionals are turning off prospective clients with personal tweeting. Freelancers have found blogs, social networks and microblogging services to be effective means to market one’s services virally. But the question here is whether one is effectively distinguishing between the social and professional aspect of having an online presence.

Unfortunately, many freelancers, particularly, have seized upon the concept of “social media networking for business” without taking the time to find the appropriate boundaries between “social” and “business.” This is in part because people who do, say, copywriting or website design tend to be “early adopters” of new tools and technology.

The idea is very much similar to running different blogs for personal posts and business-oriented ones. I subscribe to this idea myself, running blogs focusing on commercial and a creative or personal aspects of my writing. Both have their respective audience share, and I am able to differentiate and delineate from personal and business-related writings on those blogs.

But what about Twitter? When you build your personal brand, more often than not that brand is attached to your identity. Say Problogger and I think Darren Rowse. Say Copyblogger and I think Brian Clark. Sometimes it’s not that easy to separate the person from the brand. But in these cases, many of the people who have built a brand around their persona also post on both business and personal matters on Twitter.

Mr. Kenny has it right that reading the online ramblings of a potential contractor might be a turn-off, particularly if those tweets involve rants about work, clients or business. He goes on to suggest that online professionals use a separate account for work, and another one for social or personal use.

The problem here lies with building up a network. When you run separate accounts for work and socialization, you might have to double your effort in establishing a following. If you already have 10,000 followers on your personal Twitter account, would you be willing to forego posting about your business there, and open a new account just for work? What about 100,000? Or 1,000,000 followers?

There’s also the social aspect of business. We cannot always establish a dichotomy between the two. For online professionals, you can usually count on online friends to bring new business your way, whether it’s through word of mouth (such as recommendations), or their hiring your services themselves. Should you rule out that possibility? Should you keep personal relationships strictly personal?

And then there’s the aspect of trust, and knowing a potential client or contractor on a deeper basis than just viewing his online portfolio. We online pros, after all, like to window-dress. Designers feature their best work on their portfolios. Writers highlight their best articles or columns. Developers are proud of their best software and applications. We put our best foot forward as professionals. But with the honesty, straightforwardness and candor you often see on Twitter, it’s easier to see who a potential partner in business really is, and whether you can work with that person based on his habits and personality. And in my opinion, it’s a good thing to start and build business relationships this way.

Still, a lot of people tweet without being mindful of the fact that if you maintain a public account, you are under public scrutiny. This means you can count on complete strangers being able to read whatever material you publish on Twitter. Therefore, it makes sense to be mindful of your tweets, and to think twice before hitting that update button, whether it’s meant for business or personal use.

How to handle blog comments left in another language

David has already raised the issue of real comments with spammy URLs, and that’s something to deal with in its own right, but what I often find is comments left in another language (sometimes including a link) which I have to debate what to do with.

What can you do with comments left in a language that differs from you and your blog’s native tongue? Here are three ideas.

Delete the comment outright

This seems a little unfair, though it could be argued that if someone is genuinely leaving a comment on your blog (and has therefore understood the blog post well enough to leave an informed response) then they should be able to leave the comment in the same language.

However, the visitor may have used an automatic translation service to read your article and yet feels more comfortable leaving a comment in their own language.

They may be able to read and understand the language you use but find it hard to write in that language.

Simply deleting the comment outright may save you time but it could potentially alienate one of your visitors, and who knows how influential that person might be?

You could add this as part of the comment policy for your blog, of course, but it could still be perceived as a snub.

Translate and leave comment in original language

If you’re fortunate enough to speak the same language as the person who commented, or are happy to trust an automatic translation tool such as Google Translate, you can check to ensure that the comment is relevant to the entry and that the link doesn’t lead to a spam site.

Doing an automatic translation may miss some nuances, but you should get the overall flavor of the comment and be able to work out whether it’s a keeper.

Translate and publish a translation

As above, but instead of simply checking out the comment for your own peace of mind, publish a translation (either verbatim, paraphrase, or summary) in the primary language of the blog.

This is done more for the benefit of your other visitors, but be particularly careful with automatic translations because you may well miss nuances or find that some words (especially “slang” for that particular language) are incorrectly translated or not translated at all.

Getting help

If you receive a large amount of traffic from a particular region where another language is predominantly spoken, it might be worth investigating partnering with someone who speaks that language to handle comment moderation for you.

Conclusions

The admin involved in dealing with comments can be fairly high, whatever language they’re left in.

I don’t have statistics for how much spam is left in other languages, or whether spammers are deliberately using non-English languages to try to fool automated spam filters and human detection, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

At the end of the day, it’s your blog and you can choose how to handle the comments you receive. However, I’d recommend making some effort to check them out rather than simply purging them.

What’s your strategy for handling comments left in other languages?

ICanLocalize Provides Human Translation for WordPress Blogs

ICanLocalize has recently released a set of WordPress plugins designed to make the difficult process of translating a website into another language much easier.

The biggest feature of their system is obviously the translation mechanism. Here is how it works (from their website):

Our system produces a translated blog with contents that are based on the original language blog. Whenever there are new contents or when contents update on the original language blog, they are sent to translators. The translations are then published in the translated blog.

The entire process is fully automated. Bloggers don’t need to spend any time administrating the translation. From the translators’ point of view, the process is seamless. They are notified whenever there is new work and translate inside ICanLocalize’s system. Translations are being sent automatically and published.

And the results are great. If you have ever tried to translate a website using an online tool I am sure you have realized how inadequate it can be. Don’t get me wrong, Google Translate and Babelfish have their uses, but nothing can compare to a professional human translator, writing in his or her native language.

More than just translation

ICanLocalize offers more than just translation. They have created several other WordPress plugins that compliment the translation service but are beneficial without it. For example, the CMS Navigation plugin provides “out-of-the-box support for full CMS navigation in your WordPress site including drop down menus, breadcrumbs trail and sidebar navigation.”

The Absolute Links plugin “prevents dead links between any post or page by guaranteeing that all links always point to the current addresses (permlinks).” I could have used that one on a project that I recently completed which required non-technical people to deploy a WordPress blog in test and transfer it to a production site with a different URL.

Each individual plugin is great but the whole package of plugins, used together, allow you to do things that are difficult to do otherwise. They are all GPL and in the WordPress plugin repository. Check it out and let us know what you think!

40 Stylish, Minimal and Clean Free Wordpress Themes

What has happened to blogging, minimal design seems to be a forgotten style within blogging, everywhere you look the themes are graphically and content heavy and the basic premise of blogging is missing, a simple online diary.
Lets make blogging look like its supposed to look!
Minimalism as a term is used to describe a design style that has been reduced to its bare elements, were only the content and navigation are evident and with limited graphics. Below, we present 40 Minimal Wordpress Themes – Lets make blogging look like its suppose to!

Oulipo Minimal WP

View Demo »

Manifest Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modern Clix Minimal WP

View Demo »

Thunderbolt Minimal WP

Die Neue Typographie Minimal WP

Simplicity Minimal WP

View Demo »

Sharpfolio Minimal WP

View Demo »

Typogriph Minimal WP

View Demo »

Undedicated Minimal WP

View Demo »

Cardeo Minimal Minimal WP

View Demo »

Clean Home Minimal WP

View Demo »

f8 Lite Minimal WP

View Demo »

Just Lucid Minimal WP

View Demo »

The Journalist Minimal WP

View Demo »

Magatheme Minimal WP

View Demo »

Kallista Minimal WP

View Demo »

Clean Minimal Minimal WP

View Demo »

Minimal Gray Minimal WP

Information Architects Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modern Minimal WP

View Demo »

Pixelate Minimal WP

View Demo »

Grid Focus Minimal WP

View Demo »

P2 Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modio Minimal WP

View Demo »

Minim Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modicus Minimal WP

View Demo »

Purus Minimal WP

View Demo »

Ambiru Minimal WP

View Demo »

Emire Minimal WP

View Demo »

Simpla Minimal WP

View Demo »

Hemingway Minimal WP

Elite Minimal WP

Sans Serif Racer Minimal WP

View Demo »

Tarski Minimal WP

View Demo »

Sunrise Racer Minimal WP

View Demo »

Agneka Simple Minimal WP

View Demo »

Lead Minimal WP

View Demo »

Textback Minimal WP

View Demo »

Stilbruch Minimal WP

View Demo »

40 Stylish, Minimal and Clean Free Wordpress Themes

What has happened to blogging, minimal design seems to be a forgotten style within blogging, everywhere you look the themes are graphically and content heavy and the basic premise of blogging is missing, a simple online diary.
Lets make blogging look like its supposed to look!
Minimalism as a term is used to describe a design style that has been reduced to its bare elements, were only the content and navigation are evident and with limited graphics. Below, we present 40 Minimal Wordpress Themes – Lets make blogging look like its suppose to!

Oulipo Minimal WP

View Demo »

Manifest Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modern Clix Minimal WP

View Demo »

Thunderbolt Minimal WP

Die Neue Typographie Minimal WP

Simplicity Minimal WP

View Demo »

Sharpfolio Minimal WP

View Demo »

Typogriph Minimal WP

View Demo »

Undedicated Minimal WP

View Demo »

Cardeo Minimal Minimal WP

View Demo »

Clean Home Minimal WP

View Demo »

f8 Lite Minimal WP

View Demo »

Just Lucid Minimal WP

View Demo »

The Journalist Minimal WP

View Demo »

Magatheme Minimal WP

View Demo »

Kallista Minimal WP

View Demo »

Clean Minimal Minimal WP

View Demo »

Minimal Gray Minimal WP

Information Architects Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modern Minimal WP

View Demo »

Pixelate Minimal WP

View Demo »

Grid Focus Minimal WP

View Demo »

P2 Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modio Minimal WP

View Demo »

Minim Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modicus Minimal WP

View Demo »

Purus Minimal WP

View Demo »

Ambiru Minimal WP

View Demo »

Emire Minimal WP

View Demo »

Simpla Minimal WP

View Demo »

Hemingway Minimal WP

Elite Minimal WP

Sans Serif Racer Minimal WP

View Demo »

Tarski Minimal WP

View Demo »

Sunrise Racer Minimal WP

View Demo »

Agneka Simple Minimal WP

View Demo »

Lead Minimal WP

View Demo »

Textback Minimal WP

View Demo »

Stilbruch Minimal WP

View Demo »

40 Stylish, Minimal and Clean Free Wordpress Themes

What has happened to blogging, minimal design seems to be a forgotten style within blogging, everywhere you look the themes are graphically and content heavy and the basic premise of blogging is missing, a simple online diary.
Lets make blogging look like its supposed to look!
Minimalism as a term is used to describe a design style that has been reduced to its bare elements, were only the content and navigation are evident and with limited graphics. Below, we present 40 Minimal Wordpress Themes – Lets make blogging look like its suppose to!

Oulipo Minimal WP

View Demo »

Manifest Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modern Clix Minimal WP

View Demo »

Thunderbolt Minimal WP

Die Neue Typographie Minimal WP

Simplicity Minimal WP

View Demo »

Sharpfolio Minimal WP

View Demo »

Typogriph Minimal WP

View Demo »

Undedicated Minimal WP

View Demo »

Cardeo Minimal Minimal WP

View Demo »

Clean Home Minimal WP

View Demo »

f8 Lite Minimal WP

View Demo »

Just Lucid Minimal WP

View Demo »

The Journalist Minimal WP

View Demo »

Magatheme Minimal WP

View Demo »

Kallista Minimal WP

View Demo »

Clean Minimal Minimal WP

View Demo »

Minimal Gray Minimal WP

Information Architects Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modern Minimal WP

View Demo »

Pixelate Minimal WP

View Demo »

Grid Focus Minimal WP

View Demo »

P2 Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modio Minimal WP

View Demo »

Minim Minimal WP

View Demo »

Modicus Minimal WP

View Demo »

Purus Minimal WP

View Demo »

Ambiru Minimal WP

View Demo »

Emire Minimal WP

View Demo »

Simpla Minimal WP

View Demo »

Hemingway Minimal WP

Elite Minimal WP

Sans Serif Racer Minimal WP

View Demo »

Tarski Minimal WP

View Demo »

Sunrise Racer Minimal WP

View Demo »

Agneka Simple Minimal WP

View Demo »

Lead Minimal WP

View Demo »

Textback Minimal WP

View Demo »

Stilbruch Minimal WP

View Demo »

For the next 1 day we have a special offer for you...

If you want to make money online - for under $25 - you can find out how:

For the last 4 1/2 years we've been making significant amounts of money affiliate marketing through content driven websites.

For the last 2 years we've helped thousands do the same through our development of the Build A Niche Store (BANS) platform.

For the last 3 months we've spent countless hours going over all the knowledge we have about - how to do this successfully.

For the next 1 day you can gain access to all this knowledge - presented in a step-by-step format for a discounted rate of just $24.95.

At under $25 there is nothing else like this online.

On Monday 20th July 2009 (5pm EDT time) the launch price will nearly double.

Below you'll find the “Full Guide Summary” and by clicking on either “Get Started” or “Step 1” through “9” you will be able to read extracts from the guide itself.

“Get Started” Where the money is, why it's there and the basics of how you make it. Points Covered: The Rise Of The Search Engines Consumer Habits The Opportunity Of Affiliate Programs Connecting A Demand To A Supply Your First 10 Websites The Result: Income And Sellable Assets Step 1: Pick A Market How to choose the market(s) (demands) you're going to target to make the money you want to make. Points Covered: What Is A Niche? What Are The Requirements? How Do You Find Them? Creating Your Short List “Validating” Your Choices Step 2: Plan Your Website How to research your chosen market and create a development plan for the website you are going to "serve" and make money from. Points Covered: The Importance Of Planning What Your Site Needs And Why How To “Map Out” (Research) Your Market Why Paid Keyword Tools Aren’t That Important Creating An Actionable Development Plan Step 3: Create Your Content How to put the content that will make up your website together – The hurdle which most simply don’t get over. Points Covered: The Purpose Of Your Content Your Two “Types” Of Content Using Internet Resources Using Written Publications Hiring Writers Step 4: Build Your Website How to turn your development plan into a completed and ready to launch website including a detailed walkthrough of the building process using both BANS and WordPress (phpBay). Points Covered: The Approach And The Goal Your Choice Of Site Builder Templates, Logos, Page Structure etc… Our Own “Start To Finish” Blueprint Step 5: Market Your Website How to get your target market through to your website and converted into revenue. Points Covered: Why Almost NO Marketing Is Necessary Why Your Work Done Results In Most Of Your Rankings What You Need To Know About The Search Engines The value Of “Incoming Links” And How To Get Them Our Simple 3 Step Marketing System The Real Advantage Of Doing Marketing This Way Step 6: Manage Your Website How to manage your individual websites over the longer term to minimize maintenance and enable maximum focus on the development of new websites. Points Covered: Why Management Is Important What Needs To Be Done And Why Periodical Reviews And Updates Staying Above A Larger Network Of Sites Step 7: Building Your Next 9 Having reached step 7 building your next 9 sites is easy. This step tells you how to do that. Points Covered: Repeating The Process Moving Into Outsourcing And Expansion Step 8: Look Into Outsourcing How to increase development and make much more money by hiring talented people to do a lot of the time consuming work for you. Points Covered: Doing Your “First Site Right” Before Expanding What “Outsourcing” Costs And What It Makes What We Outsource And Why Where To Find Talented People The End Game Step 9: Using The Useful Resources Learn more about particular subjects and develop more complex affiliate websites via our useful resources. Points Covered: Site Development Platforms Additional Affiliate Tools Guides And Courses Blogs And Websites Useful Forums

For the next 1 day we have a special offer for you...

If you want to make money online - for under $25 - you can find out how:

For the last 4 1/2 years we've been making significant amounts of money affiliate marketing through content driven websites.

For the last 2 years we've helped thousands do the same through our development of the Build A Niche Store (BANS) platform.

For the last 3 months we've spent countless hours going over all the knowledge we have about - how to do this successfully.

For the next 1 day you can gain access to all this knowledge - presented in a step-by-step format for a discounted rate of just $24.95.

At under $25 there is nothing else like this online.

On Monday 20th July 2009 (5pm EDT time) the launch price will nearly double.

Below you'll find the “Full Guide Summary” and by clicking on either “Get Started” or “Step 1” through “9” you will be able to read extracts from the guide itself.

“Get Started” Where the money is, why it's there and the basics of how you make it. Points Covered: The Rise Of The Search Engines Consumer Habits The Opportunity Of Affiliate Programs Connecting A Demand To A Supply Your First 10 Websites The Result: Income And Sellable Assets Step 1: Pick A Market How to choose the market(s) (demands) you're going to target to make the money you want to make. Points Covered: What Is A Niche? What Are The Requirements? How Do You Find Them? Creating Your Short List “Validating” Your Choices Step 2: Plan Your Website How to research your chosen market and create a development plan for the website you are going to "serve" and make money from. Points Covered: The Importance Of Planning What Your Site Needs And Why How To “Map Out” (Research) Your Market Why Paid Keyword Tools Aren’t That Important Creating An Actionable Development Plan Step 3: Create Your Content How to put the content that will make up your website together – The hurdle which most simply don’t get over. Points Covered: The Purpose Of Your Content Your Two “Types” Of Content Using Internet Resources Using Written Publications Hiring Writers Step 4: Build Your Website How to turn your development plan into a completed and ready to launch website including a detailed walkthrough of the building process using both BANS and WordPress (phpBay). Points Covered: The Approach And The Goal Your Choice Of Site Builder Templates, Logos, Page Structure etc… Our Own “Start To Finish” Blueprint Step 5: Market Your Website How to get your target market through to your website and converted into revenue. Points Covered: Why Almost NO Marketing Is Necessary Why Your Work Done Results In Most Of Your Rankings What You Need To Know About The Search Engines The value Of “Incoming Links” And How To Get Them Our Simple 3 Step Marketing System The Real Advantage Of Doing Marketing This Way Step 6: Manage Your Website How to manage your individual websites over the longer term to minimize maintenance and enable maximum focus on the development of new websites. Points Covered: Why Management Is Important What Needs To Be Done And Why Periodical Reviews And Updates Staying Above A Larger Network Of Sites Step 7: Building Your Next 9 Having reached step 7 building your next 9 sites is easy. This step tells you how to do that. Points Covered: Repeating The Process Moving Into Outsourcing And Expansion Step 8: Look Into Outsourcing How to increase development and make much more money by hiring talented people to do a lot of the time consuming work for you. Points Covered: Doing Your “First Site Right” Before Expanding What “Outsourcing” Costs And What It Makes What We Outsource And Why Where To Find Talented People The End Game Step 9: Using The Useful Resources Learn more about particular subjects and develop more complex affiliate websites via our useful resources. Points Covered: Site Development Platforms Additional Affiliate Tools Guides And Courses Blogs And Websites Useful Forums

Choosing a Web Host Provider That Won't Jack Your Rankings, Part II

Who you choose as your web host provider, or what type of web hosting account you have can have a profound impact on your search engine rankings. In Part I of this three part series we looked at the cost factor as well as up-time guarantee claims from web hosting companies. In this episode we'll look at a number of other factors that can mess with your site's performance in the search engines.

Speed

Your web host should provide consistent and reliable speed for those accessing your site. While there is much you can do to improve the performance of your site increasing download times, the speed of your web host can be a significant factor in this. It doesn't matter how streamlined your code is if the web host won't let traffic through.

Ensure that your web host isn't slowing your visitors down as they navigate your site. If you find that your site runs slow for you, it's likely doing the same for your visitors. With today's technology and high-speed bandwidth availability, there is no need for a site to be slow. If your visitors do not get near instant page downloads they are likely going to leave for a site that won't slow them down.

Bandwidth allotment

As your business grows you will often find that your traffic and bandwidth usage increases with time. The more visitors you get, the more pages and images that are being downloaded and the more bandwidth is consumed. Be certain your web hosting account can support your bandwidth needs, and can be increased as needed to match your business' growth.

Server load monitoring

Whatever web hosting plan you choose, you'll want to ensure that it will be able to handle whatever server load your site might generate, especially during peak times or big marketing pushes. Most web hosts allocate a certain amount of bandwidth usage each month. If you exceed the allotment you may find yourself paying extra fees, or worse, your site may be inaccessible until you ante up more money.

Be sure to know your bandwidth usage and how much you are allocated. Knowing that, you'll also want to be aware of the consequences if you exceed your monthly allotment. Plan for this to happen in advance so you're not caught off guard when you get a sudden surge of traffic.

If you think going over your allotted bandwidth will be an occasional or even continuing issue, it's comforting to know that your web host will send you notifications if you're approaching that point. Then it will be up to you to heed the warnings or not. The alternative is to increase your plan so going over isn't an ongoing concern.

Space

If you use large flash files on your site, or plan to host audio or video, both your bandwidth and space will become an issue. Check with your web hosts to make sure you are not in danger of using more server space than you are allotted. Generally this won't be a big deal, as once you run out of space you'll be notified, but you want to be sure that you have enough room to grow.

Email

Your web hosting account should come with at least one email account, however most offer 50+ email addresses for you to use. Check first that you'll have enough email boxes for the long-haul as your company grows.

Beyond that, you need to consider other email needs such as auto-responders (for when you are out of the office,) email forwarding and even being able to send outgoing email through your web host as opposed as through your ISP.

It's also a good idea to have access to webmail. You never know when you'll need to check your email and not have access to your laptop--or your gmail goes down.

Secure server

If you operate an online store and need your customers to be able to purchase products online, store personal data that should not be exposed, or process credit cards for payments, using a secure server is imperative. Security is a growing concern with Internet shoppers and many businesses report an increase in conversions just by displaying a secure symbol in their shopping cart area.

Some web hosts will provide you access to a secure portion of their server. In these cases when visitors navigate to the secure area of their serve and the URL in the browser's address bar will actually change. The visitor will no longer be on your site (i.e. www.yourdomain.com), but will be on the web host's secure portion (www.webhost.com/securesite/).

Many times this type of set-up actually hides many of the visitors product pages from the search engines by moving crucial product pages off-site to another domain. Overall, it is better to find a web host that will allow you to purchase a secure certificate for your site giving you your own secure area. This will ensure that your visitors stay on "your site" at all times and you can keep crucial product pages on your site and spiderable to the search engines.

I would also recommend keeping as much of your website out of the secure area as possible and only transfer visitors to the secure area when they are in the checkout process. If they leave the checkout to continue shopping they should also leave the secure area.

In the third and final post of this series I'll address ftp access, control panel, tech support and in-house options. Stay tuned.

Helping Google Build a Better Bookmarking Tool

A lot of the time I’m pretty critical of Google, and while I may not agree with everything they do, or every agenda they push, there is no denying that have made the web a better place, and have provided us with some really helpful tools. One of the areas that they have missed the mark on is bookmarks, off the top of my head I can recall having tried four or five different attempts that had some interesting twists but always fell short IMHO. So in this post I’m going to give the folks at Mountain View some ideas on how they can build a better bookmarking tool, and crush everyone else.

Delicious: Delicious is currently my favorite bookmarking tool of choice, I don’t use it for things I visit everyday but I do use it for interesting articles that I think I might want to use or read in the future. I can access from anywhere and even save to it using my mobile phone. However I can’t reach it if I don’t have web access, I can’t type in something I think was on the page, and if the page goes offline it’s gone.

Magnolia: Magnolia seemed like they had the problem solved all of your bookmarks were in the cloud and they had backups of all the pages, so no worries if a page died. Except of course magonolia died, and all of the data did get lost, bummer.

Foxmarks/Xmarks: Foxmarks recently renamed itself Xmarks (umm okay) what it does is sync up all of your local bookmarks and passwords to the cloud, so you can keep multiple computers in sync, or access your bookmarks from everywhere. You have access to all your bookmarks online or offline, but large set of bookmarks become unwieldy, so it works best for stuff you need to visit/use often not long term storage.

What a bookmarking tool needs to do is solve a few problems:

• Store all of the sites/links I visit/use regularly
• Store in a separate “bucket” the sites I want to keep as a reference for the future
• Tags, send to a friend, share
• Keep a cache/archive of the sites in case they go offline
• Have the ability to search the pages I have bookmarked for text I put in
• Sync or backup more than one computer to the cloud
• Store MULTIPLE (double bold double underline) passwords per website and sync/backup to the cloud

Google has a lot of this technology already in place it’s just not tied together. You can bookmark stuff but it’s only in the cloud not your local machine (you know people write offline and can insert links). You can share stuff but it’s clunky unless you use google reader. They have a cache of most pages but it’s not tied to bookmarks. One of the bookmarking tools actually does search the page contents but it’s not a well known feature. There is no sync between cloud and browser it’s either or. Chrome lets you only have one password per site, and doesnt sync to cloud.

If I were running a search engine and looking for ways to gather user data that had a high signal to noise ratio something like that would be pretty darn useful. If I had a new brrowser that I wnated people to switch to giving them features like this would be amazingly powerful. If I was looking to convert the delicious power users, giving them a permenant cache and in page searching would be pretty attractive, especially if there was a migration tool.

Google you have all the pieces to make a better bookmarking tool you just have to find the resources to bring it all together, from where I see it a tool like that could be pretty powerful.

Useful Firefox SEO tools and extensions for bloggers & Web Designers

Today, we are going to look into 15+ Useful Firefox SEO tools and extensions for bloggers. Web designers who run blog may also need these tools.

1. SEO for Firefox

SEO for Firefox is definitely the most powerful Firefox SEO plugin. This plugin pulls useful marketing data points and integrate into your search results. For example, it pulls the PR, delicious save counts, Technorati links, Alexa rank, WhoIs information and etc. You can selectively turn it on and off by using the icon at Firefox status bar.

2. SeoQuake

SeoQuake is a program that integrated in Firefox so that users can view a large number of search engine parameters on the fly. It consists of SeoToolbar, Seobar, and output of requested parameters on Search Engine Result Pages.

3. SEO Link Analysis

SEO Link Analysis enriches the link data in Google Webmaster Tools & Yahoo! Site Explorer by showing the PageRank of the linking page, the anchor text and whether the link is followed, nofollowed or no longer exists.

4. Rank Checker

Rank Checker is another tool from SeoBook. This tool can track and record search engine ranking for a page in Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search. The results are saved in the PC, so users no need to worry about the privacy issue.

5. LinkDiagnosis Firefox Extension

This plugin allow users to see Google PR and anchor text of every backlink, most popular anchor texts and charts with breakdown of pagerank and link types.

6. Smart PageRank

Smart PageRank is a small, simple yet powerful Firefox extension that gain you quick access to Alexa Rank, Google PR, value, WhoIs and backlinks’ PR of the current page that you are viewing.

7. RankQuest SEO Toolbar

The Rankquest SEO Toolbar provides you quick access to more than 30 intuitive SEO tools. Example of the tools are Validation tools, Content tools, Meta tools, Popularity tools, Search Engine tools and SEM tools.

8. Quirk Search Status

SearchStatus is a toolbar extension for Firefox and Mozilla that allows you to see how any and every website in the world is performing. It provide a lot of useful information such as Google PR, Alexa Rank, Compete Rank, mozRank, WhoIs, quick link to robos.txt and sitemap.xml, and etc. You can easily access these information from the Searc Status icon at the status bar.

9. HTML Validator

I had covered this plugin from my previous post about useful Firefox plugins for Web designers and developers. So, why i am saying this plugin is useful for SEO? It is because errors in the HTML structure will affects your page ranking and this tool can helps you to validate those errors. Basically, you should ask your designers to perform validation using this tool before he passes the themes to you.

10. SEOpen

Provides some basic tools to help with search engine optimization. Including google backlinks, yahoo backlinks, PageRank check, http header viewer, and more. All features are available by right-clicking on an open area of a web page, or by using the included toolbar.

11. Google Global Firefox Extension

Google Global Firefox Extension lets users to view organic and paid Google search results as they appear in almost any location on Earth. You can access this tool from the content menu or toolbar.

12. Foxy SEO Tool

Foxy SEO Tool is a free, open source Firefox add-on that offers tools for search engine optimization (SEO), web traffic and page analysis, for webmasters and web professionals.

13. Socialphile

Socialphile Firefox Extension assists users with comfortable searching based on ranking of each search result at social news websites. It allows users to submit search result directly to social news websites. Currently, Socialphile only supports Digg.com, but the developers will add more social news websites in the future.

14. KGen

KGen allows you to get the most important keywords of a webpage. It’s really usefull to analyze the SEO strategy of your competitors or simply know what’s the main subject of a webpage.

15. Niche Watch Tool

Niche Watch Tool gives you backlinks number, indexed pages, keyword occurences on the page, page rank, all in anchor, all in title and all in text rank for both domain and webpage information.

16. User Agent Switcher

User Agent Switcher is a useful Firefox plugin which able to switch the user agent of the browser. Users can use this tool to pretend themselves to be a search engine and see what search engine sees the webpage.

Why I’m Looking Forward to a Google Operating System

As I’m fairly well known for my distrust and criticism of all things Google, so it probably comes as something of a surprise that I’m REALLY looking forward to a Google Operating System … allow me to explain …First off I’m a big fan of cloud computing, there are very few desktop apps

• Itunes – for syncing to/from my iphone and iPod
• Ultra Edit – text editing and PHP files and HTML
• Flickr Uploader – for moving pics in bulk to flickr
• VZ Access Manager – For my USB modem when I travel
• Windows Live Sync – For keeping folders on my laptop and netbook in sync.
• Carbonite – for offline backups (highly recommended)
• Quickbooks – I’d love to get off the desktop version and go online but the accountant says the version I need isn’t online yet.

I do have several other more intense and few non public programs and scripts but those all run on a dedicated server and not on my laptop or netbook. I don’t use word or excel I use google docs in apps for domains. I don’t use outlook or thunderbird I use google email for domains. I don’t use photoshop, or other desktop photo software, I use Picnik for all my photo editing, and I don’t do any video editing. So I pretty much live in my browser.

Since I don’t use many desktop apps, there’s really no need for any of my computers to have a lot of hardware horsepower, in fact the most resource intensive thing they run ran was Windows Vista. The three laptops I own all came with Vista pre-installed and ran slow, very noisy due to the fan constantly being on, and extremely hot. When I downgraded each of them to XP they ran perfectly fine. To put a fine point on it, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to pay for hardware just to run an operating system.

While not everyone operates in a computing style like I do, there are lots of web workers and digital nomads who do, in fact I suspect this is the prime reason for the crunchpad being built. Truth be told I could probably run a linux install, but most people need want a simple GUI, and this is where the Google OS has an opportunity.

There will always be people who need a powerful OS and computer with substantial hardware, but for most it’s overkill. For most people it’s a cycle of operating system upgrades, followed by by a need to upgrade your hardware to run the new operating system. However if Google releases an OS, and makes it easy enough for everyone to use, we may finally have an option that doesn’t require paying for computer hardware just to run an OS. I understand Windows 7 is supposed to be easier to run than vista, but if Mircosoft doesn’t pay attention and service the “light computing” or netbook segment they allow google the opportunity get a foothold.

That’s not to say there aren’t privacy and “phoning home” issues that google needs to handle properly, but competition and options is a good thing … and I’m looking forward to a Google operating system
photo credit: Marcin Wichary

Getting Started With Niche and Blog Marketing

Blog marketing is very easy to do, especially for those who have a hobby to write blogs. Blogs have become such a powerful weapon to persuade others. The strength of blogging has “voodoo-ing” marketing world, so many marketers use blog as special weapon in the business.

For example of blog marketing, let’s say Andi love gaming. He is a gamer freak. He can make his own game. So, let us say he can make many products. Then, he can sell his own game with write his blog. He persuades someone to buy his games with a little review in his blog. We can say that Andi is selling his products with his blog. So, Andi just made a blog marketing.

Marketing blog has many things you should note. First, choose the theme that many peoples searching for, so what you write is not futile or come in vain.
Second, after you get the idea in writing a blog, find the niche. Niche is focused in a specific field, so the visitors can be loyal and will continue to come to your blog. When you sell your product, its come easier with many visitors, right? Niche is an example such as the example above, but more specific. Let us make Andi again for example. He likes playing RPG very much, so he can start writing his blog about the RPG game and start selling his own products.
Third, begin to learn search engine optimization(SEO). With SEO, you can optimize the content of your blog so that visitors will easily access your blog. Although the content is the most important, but the optimization still important to do.

Fouth, decide in your schedule to update your blog, so visitors can find out exactly when your blog updated. Easier way is to direct your visitor to subscribe your articles, so that would be no news or article that your visitors miss.

if you have your own opinion , please share

Enjoy

iman Hartani

Easy Ways to Monetize your Blog. Part 2: Selling Ad Space

While using Adsense to monetize your blog is an easy and no-brainer option, it won't earn you huge amounts of money compared to other revenue streams. Glancing at the money that is brought in by selling advertising space on premium websites can make any blogger drool, but this is one area of income that you will have to work for.

You can sell almost any space on your website. The most common type of space sold on blogs is currently the 125 pixel box, which tends to fit nicely into most blog template sidebars and looks neat and attractive.

You can choose to sell your advertising space independently, by deciding how much you want to charge for each location (e.g. homepage header, sidebar box, or footer). The advantages to running your own advertising sales include:

• you get to decide what you site space is worth
• you have complete control over every aspect of implementation and appearance
• you get to choose your advertisers
• you get to keep 100% of all revenue

The disadvantages are:

• you have to work hard to find and attract suitable advertisers
• you have to convince potential advertisers that it is worth paying your rate
• You may have to keep and supply detailed statistics about your site
• You will need to sort out invoicing for each advertiser
• you will have to manually add and remove adverts

The second option is to sign up with an advertising network such as Project Wonderful or BuySellAds that can manage your available advertising real estate for you. You get to keep most of the advantages mentioned above, without the hassle of the disadvantages.

In most cases, the service is free to sign up for, and they take a small percentage of your earnings. In return, they will manage almost every aspect of your advertising space sales, letting you concentrate on blogging. You add a code to your site, complete a profile of your blog for advertisers to view and sit back and let the company do the rest.

Depending on which company you choose to work with, you may be able to set a price for each advertising location, or advertisers might tell you what they are willing to pay. Some sites also run a bidding war on ad placements, so that as long as your site grows in popularity so should your income from your advertising space.

If this sounds too good to be true to the new blogger, here is the catch: your blog must have a significant level of traffic before you can leverage money by selling your advertising space. Why would a company pay to appear on a page that no-one visits?

Design a nice looking and fast loading blog, fill it with great content, promote it, and then consider selling ad space.

Some companies are pickier than others when it comes to accepting your blog into their program, and most encourage you to re-apply at a later date if you are turned down, so don't despair if you get a few rejections.

Top Tip for this money maker:

• Take a genuine interest in how well your ads are performing and go the extra mile to promote your advertisers.

A Word of Caution:

• Don't even attempt to sell adspace on your site until you have finalized a design you are happy with, and have a good level of traffic to offer advertisers.

Can You Get a Website Indexed with No Links and XML Sitemaps?

This weekend I was doing a little housekeeping on some of my domains and hosting accounts and decided to test and see if it was possible to get a website indexed using XML Sitemaps and no external links.

Since some piano player in New Jersey owns the domain MichaelGray.com I had a few options but the best was to go with my middle initial and byt the domain MichaelAGray.com. Since I’m all about wordpress as a CMS I put the files up, put up my theme of choice thesis, tweaked it with the thesis reputation skin, and installed the XML Sitemaps plugin. I set it up to ping all of the search engines as shown below:

Within 4 days the homepage for the domain was showing in Bing and Google as shown below (yahoo just didn’t love me enough)

I’m a big advocate of using sitemaps, and I think this demonstrates their effectiveness. Unless you have a really small site or really good site architecture, chances are some parts of your website aren’t as exposed, or well linked as others, and this helps you spoon feed the search engines your content insuring better crawling.

That’s not to say you should use sitemaps and not worry about spiders being able to crawl, because internal anchor text can play a huge role in SEO. However use on XML sitemaps as a redundant backup plan to help make sure you fully crawled and indexed.
photo credit: D?ri

SEO Haters: Misconceptions and Misinformation

he following is a Guest Post from Melanie Nathan.

There is a harsh wind blowing through our industry. We all feel it. and if we don’t, perhaps we’ve got our heads in the sand. The truth is SEO’s are, for the most part, loathed.

As a transparent and somewhat public SEO I personally receive at least one piece of hate mail per week. Whether it’s via email, a private message, a stumbleupon review etc; even though I’m an ethical marketer, people always seem to have a problem with what I say or do.

Most recently:

“Good job hurting the internet. Well done.”

“How does it feel to be evil?”

“I would love for at least one fucking “SEO professional” to say “content is king”, “don’t sell out by trying to trick people/systems to give you backlinks” or “focus on providing a good user-experience”.”

“DIAF SEO bitch!!”

I’m no crybaby and I can take criticism just fine but if some of these people knew anything about me they would know that I don’t spam social media sites, I don’t optimize for irrelevant terms, I don’t promote content that is crap and I never forget the end user. The problem is that they seem to make no distinction between “valuable marketing services” and “nefarious, unethical practices”. To them, it’s all the same.

What exactly is so bad about SEO?

I can tell you that there is a lot of misinformation out there. In fact, there’s an abundance of misinformation, exaggeration, and outright lies being spread. Some of the more common ones are:

All SEO’s…

- devalue the search results
- are scammers/spammers
- steal pagerank and links
- don’t care where their traffic or links come from
- overpromise and underdeliver
- will do anything to be #1

No one disputes that there are some very bad apples in the SEO bunch (in which industry is the fruit totally fresh?) but people need to know that there ARE reputable SEO’s out there who actually ADD value to the search results and CAN help online businesses achieve measurable success. This is because most public SEO’s are in it for the long haul and the main way to long term search engine success is through a SE friendly website which publishes superior content and attracts natural links through the right promotion.

Pissing off the search engines or social media communities by using nefarious practices or trying to trick them isn’t on the agenda of most transparent SEO’s. Why? The majority of us have clients to think of and it’s simply not in their best interests. We’re out to impress our customers with tangible results, not damage their (and our) reputations by bringing in the wrong type of traffic etc. An ethical SEO isn’t out to game the system. We’re about helping search engines understand what content is about, improving the overall user experience and helping people get the information they need. How exactly does it benefit us by having our clients, or even our own sites, penalized or worse yet banned from the SE’s? Isn’t it apparent that if we actually did what we are being accused of we would be doing more damage than good?

SEO’s have a responsibility to inform.

I recently, well, “conversed”, with one of my haters over a page I submitted to stumbleupon. It was about how to gain a backlink from apple.com by creating an app. for their iphone. Among other things, his main argument was that my submission:

“Never actually focused on the application, or content, it just said write app, receive awesome backlink”.

Excuse me? My great lead on how to get a link from Apple.com was worthless spammy crap, because I didn’t go into details about *which* application you should write?

I won’t get in-depth (lest I get feisty again), but I defended the industry to the best of my ability and in the end he recanted his scathing public review and instead re-reviewed me as “engaging”. Although I considered it a small victory for SEO’s everywhere, this is the type of attitude I seem to be dealing with all the time now and there needs to be more emphasis on correcting the misinformation.

Some people have become so focused on proving what they think they know about the SEO industry that they’re completely missing out on any benefit it has to offer.

And in the long run, this attitude isn’t helping the online business owner either, unless they’re prepared to pass up FREE organic traffic in favor of expensive ad campaigns and advertising.

SEO’s must combat misinformation.

A person who truly understands the value of an SEO’s service is extremely rare and this makes our job harder than it should be. It’s frustrating having to first convince someone that a) SEO is real, b) you know your stuff and c) there’s actual benefit to them being listed for the products they sell or the service they offer.

This is the general misconception. That SEO isn’t needed. That it’s a scam. That you’ll do fine without it. Ranking is easy! Think so? Try hitting a competitive #1 spot without using some aspect of it (for something other than your domain name). Believe it or not folks, just because you have a pretty website all about jelly beans, does in NO way guarantee you a top 10 spot, in any search engine, for jelly bean related terms.

Defending the SEO industry’s bad reputation doesn’t exactly qualify as “good times” for any of us but it’s a battle we should all keep fighting. Especially if you’ve personally experienced, what really good SEO can do, for an online business.

Lastly, to all you SEO hater’s out there, why not focus your scathing blog posts, reviews and hate mail towards people in the industry who really *do* devalue the internet? I’ll do the same minus the scathing and hating of course.

And for Pete’s sake, please accept that there’s a big difference between ‘valuable marketing services’ and ‘nefarious, ethically challenged cheaters’.

Peace.

P.S. tee hee how *stoked* am I to be the first guest poster here like EVAR?!

Melanie Nathan is Director of SEO, SEM and SMM for Statusfirm, a Canada Internet video company. Follow her on twitter and plurk to learn more about her.

Is Your Blog Advertiser Friendly

There are times when I’m maybe a little harsh on the lifestyle blogging community, but more than anything it’s a Judge Judy kind of tough love. What I really want is for people to grasp the concept that just because some people (who happen to be exceptional writers) are able to make money being lifestyle bloggers, doesn’t mean everyone can. However there are steps everyone can take to make their blog more attractive to advertisers, and increase the likelihood that they will turn a profit from their blog.Trevor Edwards, Nike’s corporate vice president had this to say about television advertising:

We’re not in the business of keeping the media companies alive, we’re in the business of connecting with consumers.

Like television stations too many bloggers and blogging advocates think advertisers owe them a living, this is especially true of bloggers on webmaster welfare using google adsense. Few bloggers give any thought to what an advertiser is looking for on a blog, and what they can do to make their blogs more attractive to the people who actually spend the advertising dollars.

During the last economic downturn when a lot of people where home, unemployed, and under-employed blogging flourished. As the number of layoff’s climbs higher I suspect blogging is going to change again, and it will be just as violent an upheaval.

Newspapers are dying, slowly but surely people are switching away from dead tree dinosaur media. There will never be a world without newspapers, but print newspapers will play a smaller role in every-one’s lives, and people consume more of their information in distributed forms. Reporters and writers will start shifting to the web, squeezing out bloggers who are popular solely because of their legacy status. Hobby bloggers who do it out of love, and not because it’s a business, will still exist, but unless your are a top tier author, the only way you will be profitable is to offer a space that an advertiser wants to pay to be in.

You can go the display advertising route or the affiliate marketing path, or if you’re really clever, evolve and use both. Whichever way you go, now isn’t the time to sit on the fence, paralyzed with fear, embrace your passion, and find a way to make it profitable.

Reminds me I really need to get to work on my new theme cause it looks kinda old and clunky round here.

How to Integrate Advertising into Your Blog

So you’ve been blogging for a while, your getting some links, traffic is growing, but your blog isn’t making any money. While you do like blogging maybe it’s getting kind of hard to justify the amount of time you put into it, if it’s not putting any money in your pocket.

For this tutorial I’m going to show you how to integrate advertising into your blog, so that it’s easy to run and how to make it more attractive and desirable to advertisers. While this post is going to have some thesis specific instructions, they can be adapted to work on any blog, it’s just easier to get things done when you use the thesis framework

So the first thing you need to is to make your blog attractive to advertisers, how do you do that, there are a couple of steps. First thing an advertiser wants to see are some traffic stats, you can use a service like Quancast for traffic and demographic information (see mine here) and they also give you a nice little embeddable iframe shown below:

You’ll also want to show how many RSS subscribers you have, if you are using feedburner you can use the tool they have for an embeddable chicklet shown below

Feedburner can be less than reliable, with numbers varying by several thousand, so just beware. Next you’re going to want to set up an analytics report that just shows the number of page views and unique visitors. This is you can mail it to people who want more information (example from my site). I’d advise putting all of this information on an “advertising information” page. Also make sure you put a contact form up so people who are interested can get in touch.

Once you can prove to an advertiser you have the traffic they want, the next thing you want is to create a space that is advertiser friendly. If you haven’t read Patrick Gavin’s post on “blog advertising is broken and how to fix it“, I suggest you do, he does a really good job at explaining it from an advertisers point of view. Simply put what an advertiser wants is traffic that is on target for their market, and prime real estate to put their ads in. If you are going to offer 125 buttons they better be above the fold. Masthead ads are ok, but the more integral they are the better. Leaderboard ads above the masthead are okalmost useless, leaderboard ads in the masthead are better, and leaderboard ads in the top or bottom of the post are much more attractive.

As a publisher you want two things, ads that are easy to set up and take down, and you don’t want to have to keep running after people to pay their monthly invoices. The easiest way I’ve found to handle invoices is using paypal monthly subscriptions, it auto bills advertisers every month, and they can cancel whenever they want. As far as managing and setting up advertising there are numerous plugins but I have found Ad Rotate to be the most flexible. Once you install the plugin the first thing you need to do is set up “banner groups” this gives you the ability to set aside certain areas and assign ads to them. Look at the screen shot below you can see I’m even using one for my “Hear me Speak” section.

Notice how each group has an ID, we’ll need that information for later.

Once that’s set up we need to enter individual ads for each banner group section. Below is screen shot of the individual ad banner, you may need to click it to see the info but here’s some the info it asks for: start date, end date, link , ad group banner, click tracking option. If you upload the image you can choose it from the dropdown, otherwise just use the URL of the image in the code box.

You can put more than one ad in an adgroup, and display several (like the 125 ads in my sidebar) or have it randomly display one, more about that later. When you are setting this up you probably want to put a few placeholder ads up to make sure it’s working properly. OK onto the code …

Here’s how we tell the code to display the ads

adrotate_banner(1,0,6)

The “1″ says use ad group 1 (in this case sidebar), the 0 says don’t display a specific ad, and the 6 says display up to six ads. So basically it randomly chooses six ads from ad group one and displays them (more info is on the plugin page)

Because I’m using thesis this is really easy all I do is create a function for it like this in my custom_functions.php file

//show sidebar ads group 1
function show_ads_1(){
echo "

Sponsors

";
echo adrotate_banner(1,0,6);
}

then I call the hook and in my case tell it to place the ads above the multi media box like this

add_action('thesis_hook_before_sidebars','show_ads_1' );

This is the benefit of thesis, it makes it really easy to get stuff done on your blog. Here’s how to put an ad in your masthead, again using just the custom_functions.php file

function add_header_image () {
echo "
";
echo '

';
echo adrotate_banner(2,0,1);
echo '

';
}

add_action('thesis_hook_before_title', 'add_header_image');

In this example I told it to use group 2 and randomly display one ad. Once you have this set up in thesis you don’t need to monkey with the code,l you need to use the plugin management screen.

The next part I’d like to talk about is RSS advertising. The thing I like about RSS advertisements are, they allow you to monetize your feed. Including advertising directly in your feed allows you to publish full feeds without the need to drag people to your website, because PARTIAL FEEDS SUCK!

I like to use the Feed Footer Plugin, it allows you to have 10 sequential messages, and one gets inserted in the bottom of each post. I allow people the option to purchase just an RSS advertisement, or bundle it with any of the banner ads, but that’s up to you. I also put the word “advertisement” in front, so we don’t blur the editorial line. It’s really easy to enter ads here’s an example:

That’s all there is too it no monkeying with the code. You could also use Joost de Valk’s feed footer plugin. While it only lets you put in one message it gives you the option of putting it first or last and adding links back to your post.

As far as advertisers are concerned I think a monthly “thanks to our sponsors” post is a really good idea. First it puts the sponsors right in front of the audience, second it let’s your readers know that you are accepting advertising. While they may not be advertisers, they may know someone who is. Once a month is often enough people see it and remember it, but not often enough that it becomes annoying.

Pricing your advertising on your blog requires some experimentation. Try to find a comparable blog, traffic and influence wise, and see what they are charging. If you can’t find one pick a price, if you get inquiries but they never sign up chances are you’re too high. if your inventory is always sold, you are too low. If most of your ads are sold with one or two openings, and you probably hit the sweet spot. I like to offer discounts to people who are willing to pre-pay for 3 or 6 month periods.

The hardest part is probably getting your first advertiser signed up. That why I added a line under my ads that says “Find out how you can advertise here” and I also put it in the monthly sponsor thank you post. Lastly if you don’t have any ads sold put up one or two “place holder” ads. You could make them affiliate links so you have some ability to monetize, also creating a “want to see your ad here” graphic is also helpful.

How Amazon Turned a Mobile Phone into a Cash Register

While there were numerous reports of Amazon being one of the few retailers who were positive this holiday season. One of the things that was didn’t receive a tremendous amount of press was the release of Amazon’s iPhone application. This program harnessed the power of the mobile platform, turning a mobile phone into a portable cash register, allowing customers to make purchases to make purchases when it was convient for them, without the hassle of black friday shopping woes.The amazon App for the iPhone has all of the features you would want in a mobile shopping platform, it allows you to search, shop, add or buy from wishlists, and even check on open or recent orders. However where the program really excels is it allows you to use any stored credit card, and shopping preferences from the Amazon website to complete your transaction without having to enter them everytime. It even allows you to use amazon prime.

That’s a difference that I can’t stress the importance of, here’s a screen shot of an item from the Target Mobile shopping app:

Compare this to the same item in the Amazon App

The price is $24.99 at Amazon versus $29.99 at target. Because I’m an amazon prime customer I get 2 day free shipping. If buy from the amazon app, I don’t have to shop on target.com, worry about the shopping cart breaking on my mobile phone, fill out the forms, enter my credit card info, and hope any of the other things that break during a shopping experience happen. This is really a key point and I can’t stress it enough, Amazon removed all of the friction from a mobile shopping experience, making it as pain free as possible.

Here’s a really neat feature that has a lot of potential, the application also makes use of your camera, you take a picture send it to them and they try to identify it.

You take the photo and usually within 5 minutes you get an email letting you know if they were able to identify your item or not. Also the app lights up with the number of matches:

I’ve tried about 50 items and have gotten about a 90% match rate. I’ve found that if it’s not common item it sometimes help taking a picture of the bar code. I can then buy directly from the amazon app

This has tremendous potential, you can comparative price shop in a physical store, and if Amazon has a better deal have the item shipped without having to schlep it home. You can purchase an item a friend shows you, or you see while you are doing your daily errands. As more and more devices come equipped with cameras, the potential becomes huge. Personally I’m looking forward to using it make my weekly shopping list and save a trip to the grocery store, but currently most of the food items amazon sells are only available in bulk packages.

KISS SEO

When performing SEO its best to first implement the KISS strategy, Keep It Simple S…..

Forget about the old school keyword density equations, being completely W3C compliant, creating X amount of content, pages or acquiring X amount of links.

KISS SEO would include, but not limited to:

• Unique TITLE tag for each page that includes your page’s targetted keyword(s) plus the benefit followed by Company/Site name.
• Unique META Description tag for each page that should be used to enforce the page’s usefulness and be the marketing pitch to the visitor.
• A CSS styled H1 tag centered around the page’s main keyword(s) focus – as a side note when I spoke with Matt Cutts at SMX Advanced he said Google doesn’t weigh the H1 tag any heavier than an H2 or H4, but it shouldn’t be used more than once.
• Content that is both informative, unique, and useful by fulfilling a need of your target audience.
• URLs in a non-dynamic descriptive format.
• A flat site structure with breadcrumb links.
• Absolute internal linking.
• An html user friendly site map plus the backup parachute of a sitemap.xml file.
• Robots.txt file blocking any duplicate content (print pages, etc).
• Using 301 sever side redirects to consolidate similar pages and domain changes, including canocalization such as www vs non-www.

SEO can be boiled down to simply good organization of your site’s code and assets plus acquiring quality links natuarally via useful interesting content.

If this were Gene Simmon’s KISS SEO then it would be keyword heavy toward the ASSets.

KISS SEO

When performing SEO its best to first implement the KISS strategy, Keep It Simple S…..

Forget about the old school keyword density equations, being completely W3C compliant, creating X amount of content, pages or acquiring X amount of links.

KISS SEO would include, but not limited to:

• Unique TITLE tag for each page that includes your page’s targetted keyword(s) plus the benefit followed by Company/Site name.
• Unique META Description tag for each page that should be used to enforce the page’s usefulness and be the marketing pitch to the visitor.
• A CSS styled H1 tag centered around the page’s main keyword(s) focus – as a side note when I spoke with Matt Cutts at SMX Advanced he said Google doesn’t weigh the H1 tag any heavier than an H2 or H4, but it shouldn’t be used more than once.
• Content that is both informative, unique, and useful by fulfilling a need of your target audience.
• URLs in a non-dynamic descriptive format.
• A flat site structure with breadcrumb links.
• Absolute internal linking.
• An html user friendly site map plus the backup parachute of a sitemap.xml file.
• Robots.txt file blocking any duplicate content (print pages, etc).
• Using 301 sever side redirects to consolidate similar pages and domain changes, including canocalization such as www vs non-www.

SEO can be boiled down to simply good organization of your site’s code and assets plus acquiring quality links natuarally via useful interesting content.

If this were Gene Simmon’s KISS SEO then it would be keyword heavy toward the ASSets.

5 Strategies for Business Prosperity in a Down Economy

In a down economy many business owners find themselves low on funds, downsizing and sometimes forced to close their doors. No business is recession-proof… not even funeral homes. But just because there may be a looming recession, doesn’t mean your business has to submit to it.

Implement the following business practices, and although you may not completely recession-proof your business, you will propel it in a positive direction, lay the groundwork for future success and ultimately give it the padding it needs to ride out slow economic times.

1. Diversify

Seek out ways to expand your goods and services and try to meet multiple needs that your customers have. If you own a bridal shop that carries tuxedos and wedding dresses, could you possibly expand your services to include silk wedding flowers and wedding planning services? If you own an auto body shop maybe you could add car detailing and washing services. Consumers need goods and services, and if your business is reasonably capable of providing more services and retaining a customer, than you have everything to gain.

2. Utilize new technology

We are living and operating businesses in a new age. The way that consumers gather information, buy goods and services, and communicate is changing rapidly. One thing is certain, having an Internet presence is integral to today’s business owner. If you don’t have a web presence, many of your potential customers will have no choice but to find your competitors.

3. Maintain or strengthen marketing and advertising efforts

In a slow economy the first thing to go for many businesses is the marketing and advertising budget; don’t be one of these companies. In fact, use the fact that in a slow economy businesses cut their advertising to your advantage; keep your business in view; if you do nothing, nothing will happen. Give consumers who are leery to purchase a reason to come to you by offering strategically planned freebies, discounts and incentives in your marketing materials.

4. Step up your customer service

Consumers need a good reason to go with you and not your competitor in a slow economy. Consumers are shopping around and checking out all their options. In a down economy impulse buying isn’t the way people purchase. It is no secret that people love to be treated well, so treat your current and potential customers exceptionally well; go above and beyond the call of duty. Give them concrete reasons to give you their business, and recommend you to their friends. Providing great customer service should be forefront in your mind.

5. Keep your eye on long term goals

Stay focused on your business goals, nothing will hurt you more than rash decisions made out of fear. You are in business for a reason; because you are the best at what you do. Keep moving forward and keep your eye on the long term goals you set forth in the beginning. Sometimes it is necessary to deviate from the original plan momentarily, but don’t lose sight of your target goal.

While riding the waves of a down economy you must continue to lay the ground work for future success by diversifying, utilizing the technology available to you, maintaining or strengthening your advertising and marketing, treating your customers like gold and remaining true to your ultimate business goals.

Free Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic

1) Comment on Blogs
Look for large traffic Blogs in your niche, visit them and leave your comments on their blogs posts. You may use blog search engine like www.blogsearchengine.com, www.google.com/blogsearch and www.searchengineblog.com to find blogs in your niche.

2) Submit Articles
Write articles that are related to your blog and submit them to popular article directories such as ezinearticles.com, Isnare.com, Articledashboard.com, Articlealley.com and goarticle.com. Quality articles may drive you a lot of free targeted traffic.

3) Participate in Community Forums
Use google to search for forums that are related to your blog. Look for forums that has over 10,000 members and read the rules of the forums to see whether you can promote your blogs and websites in your signature. Join forums that allow you to add a link to your blog in the signature and start participating in discussion. You can ask questions, answer other members questions and post your articles, ideas and thought in the forums.

4) Submit Your Blog to Directories
This isn't working to me but some bloggers claim that they gain a good amount of traffic from their listings in directories.

5) Post Often
You can lose traffic if you seldom update you blog, try to make it at least 5 posts per week. This not only will maintain your traffic but possibly attract more readers.

6) Write about Blogging
Write helpful and quality articles related to blogging can attract other bloggers link to your articles and gain may be truckload of free traffic.

7) Post Breaking News
If your found a breaking news of your niche very earlier, post it to your blog. It may give your blog's traffic a boost.

8) Social Bookmarking
Bookmark you blog posts in the large social bookmarking sites like Netscape.com, Digg.com, Simply and Reddit.com.

9) Run a Contest
Start a contest on your blog. Think about the prizes that people really want. It will create a viral effect and bring in new visitors.

10) On-page Optimization
Make sure your blog's title tag and description tag contain your targeted keywords. When you have posted plenty of quality blog post and done a lot of blog promotion, don't be surprise to see your blog ranks top 10 in Google and get free search engine traffic daily.

5 Simple Steps to Posting Your First eBay Auction

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.

The Pros and Cons of Selling on eBay

Are you interested in becoming an eBay seller? If you are, you are definitely not alone, as eBay has become a relatively quick and easy way to make money online. Each day, a large number of individuals use eBay to make extra money from home and a few lucky ones are even able to make enough money to support themselves or their families. Before you jump on the eBay selling bandwagon, you are advised to take a few minutes and examine the pros and cons of selling on eBay.

One of the many pros, or plus sides, to selling on eBay is the fact that is it is relatively easy to do. Once you create an eBay account, you can start listing items that you have in your possession for sale right away. When doing so, it is also easy to do. eBay has a step-by-step process for listing items for sale, in traditional auction formats or buy it now formats. In fact, eBay also has a program that lets you compile your auctions, with pictures and descriptions, when you aren’t even connected to the internet. As soon as you connect to the internet, you can begin to upload your listings and have them start right away.

Another one of the many pros to selling on eBay is that just about anyone can do it. You don’t have to have big fancy, expensive items to sell on eBay. In fact, a large number of those selling on eBay are just selling items that are taking up space in their homes; items they don’t want anymore. If you are interesting in becoming an eBay seller, but you aren’t sure as to how much you can depend on eBay for income, you may want to think about testing the waters. You can do this by listing the items have you have around your home for sale. Items that tend to sell relatively well are lots, or groups, of toys and infant clothing.

While there are a number of pros, or plus sides, to selling on eBay, there are also a number of cons, or downsides, to doing so as well. One of the biggest cons or downsides to selling on eBay is the competition. As it was previously mentioned, a large number of internet users have started using eBay to make extra money or even make a living. This is what leads to multiple auction listings for the exact same items. While this is nice for the eBay buyers, it can hurt you as a seller. When the supplier is higher than the demand, you may not make as much money off of your items as you had originally hoped to, if they even sell at all.

Another downside to selling on eBay is the fees associated with doing so. In recent years, eBay has redone their fee structure, often to raise their fees. Although these fees are still considered relatively low, they could put a damper on your profits, which alone are sometimes hard to come by. Of course, there are ways that you can the most out of eBay fees. For instance, if you have a “hot seller,” you could start your auction out at a low price, as the fees are less for doing so; however, you are taking a gamble, as you never have any guarantees as for how much your items will sell for. Perhaps, the unknown is one of the biggest downsides to selling on eBay; you never really know if you are going to make money or even if you will end up losing money.

As you likely already know, the decision as to whether or not you want to become an eBay seller is yours to make, but, when making your decision, you are advised to keep the above mentioned points in mind. With a relatively equal amount of pros and cons, you may be wondering what your best option is. For more accurate information, you may want to think about testing the eBay seller waters, as you are able to sell whenever you want, with no minimum auction requirements.

Perform Better With AdSense: The Ultimate Round-Up

Google AdSense is the easiest and quickest way to make your website, of any size, profitable. Sign-up, generate your ads and copy & paste the code into your web page, and…well, that’s it really. You are earning money. It works by by reading keywords from your content, and then displays content related text and image ads, thus enabling ads specifically targeted to your site and readers.

Of course, there is a lot more to Adsense, but in a nutshell that covers it. This post is not about Adsense and its simplicity, though. This post is about understanding Adsense and all its rules, optimization and ad placement, but mainly it’s about maximising your sites potential earnings using the different types of ads that Google offers. You could use text, image or video ads, or you could display ads within your RSS feed, search, mobile content or applications. Yes, there is a lot to cover. I’ll try not to bore you.

Please notice that we published the first part of the Google AdSense round-up a couple of months ago (100% Google AdSense); this post presents further useful resources that can help you maximize your ads revenue.

Basics, Guides & Optimization

Google AdSense
Google AdSense is a free program that enables website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads and earn.

Google AdSense Basics
Google offers, obviously, the most comprehensive help and guides for using AdSense. This basic help, firstly, takes you through the signing up process and once your application has been approved you can then take the step-by-step Quick Start Guide, which will take you through the process of creating and styling ads that will integrate perfectly within your site. Also make sure to check the Google AdSense Official Blog and the Google AdSense Forum.

Generating Ad Code Video

Google now offers the option to create new AdSense units which you can customize and update within your account and see changes directly on your site, view this video to see how easy it is.

Beginner Tutorials

AdSense Beginner Tutorial from my affiliatepace.biz
AdSense is a quick way to start your earnings potential with any new site or blog. Being green with online advertising you may have one of two opinions: 1) you do not think that AdSense is an important item to have on your site, or 2) in your haste to make money you haphazardly place your ads about in a slap dash manner. In other cases, you may unwittingly break the rules. This is quick tutorial to get you started.

Earn on Your website - AdSense Basics, Advices and Tips
This tutorial will help you in getting started with Google AdSense, with some basic information, advice and tips.

AdSense Starter Video Tutorial

Within this AdSense starter tutorial you learn the basic of AdSense, how to get started and some basic AdSense tips. The guide helps you with choosing the proper colours and proper layouts.

AdSense Starter tutorial from Hendrik Kleinwaechter on Vimeo.

AdSense Tips from Problogger

Darren Rowse from Problogger, is a full time Blogger, he makes his living from blogs like Digital Photography School, TwiTip and Problogger. In a nut shell he is a successful blogger, and lucky for us, he writes in-depth articles, in his easy-to-read style, about making money from blogging on his site. Darren Rowse shares his experiences and knowledge of AdSense in this fascinating 8 part guide.

• AdSense Tips for Bloggers - Part 1
• Is your blog suitable for AdSense - Part 2
• An equation for success - Part 3
• Increasing traffic - Part 4
• High Paying ads - Part 5
• Relevant ads - Part 6
• Well placed and designed ads - Part 7
• Miscellaneous AdSense tips - Part 8

Darren Rowse of Problogger and Digital Photography School talks about his experience with blogging and using AdSense.

How to Build a Profitable Home on the Web - Video Tutorial Series

If you are needing or wanting to start your own Web site, but don’t know where to start, this useful six part video series is for you. It will guide you through everything from choosing a domain name, using WordPress all the way to integrating and optimising Google AdSense.

• Be the Master of Your Own Domain!
• Hook Up With a Web Host
• Why WordPress and How It Works
• How to Score a Design for Your New Web Site
• Tips for Making Easy Money with Google AdSense
• How to Tweak Your Ads for Maximum Earnings

Earn More with AdSense: Tips & Layout Optimization Tricks for High CTR

Tips & Layout Optimization Tricks for High CTR
Here are some of the best Google AdSense Tips and Tricks for making more money (profit) from the Google AdSense program.

20+ practical and ethical tips to earn more revenue from Google AdSense
There are tremendous opportunities to make money online. Currently Google AdSense is the best option for most of the publishers and with some basic optimization tips you can increase your AdSense revenue. Two sites could have the same visitor traffic, but could have huge AdSense revenue differences depending on their ad optimization.

Google AdSense Rules and Taboos

Google is very clear about their rules and policies, they have to be followed, and it’s as simple as that. There is very little grey area, so, make sure you learn these rules and follow them. Read more about the Adsense Terms & Conditions and Policies.

AdSense 12 Golden Rules

Listed below are a very, very abbreviated version of Google Adsenses T&Cs and policies. If you follow these rules you should have no problems.

• Do not encourage users to click your ads.
• Do not put ads on pages with no content, pop-up, pop-under, error page, registration or similar pages.
• Do not overlap ads with content that users cannot distinguish between.
• Do not use automated bots to increase clicks.
• Do not encourage or participate in ‘click groups’ that click each others ads.
• Make sure you don’t display more than the maximum number of ads on a page. Check with the Google Adsense rules.
• Do not create more than one Adsense account. You CAN have more than one site for a single Adsense account.
• Do not edit or modify the Adsense code ( does not include changing properties).
• Do not redirect users away from any advertisers page.
• Do not click your own ads (not even to test them).
• Do not display pornographic, hatred or any other banned content.
• Do not buy banned sites, typically MFA from others.

10+ Google Adsense Rules n’ Optimization Tips
In certain cases the slightest mistake can mean impending doom and cost you greatly for the potential to monetize your website. This should be taken very seriously because Google does not offer redemption or second chances to reinstate your account 95% of the time.

Google Adsense: Rules Surrounding Invalid Clicks and Being in Control!
More than anything, an invalid click is a big no-no and it will get your account terminated faster than anything else. Having said that, an invalid click is when a publisher clicks on their own ads to add to their earning potential. It’s also when a publisher asks others to click on their ads just to raise their revenue.

Ad Placement

Where should I place Google ads on my pages?

The best location for Google ads varies from page to page, depending on content. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when considering where to position your ads:

• What is the user trying to accomplish by visiting my site?
• What do your readers do when viewing a particular page?
• Where is their attention going to be focused?
• How can I integrate ads into this area without getting in the users’ way?
• How can I keep the page looking clean, uncluttered and inviting?

Where should I place Google ads on my pages?
The “heat map” below, from Google, illustrates the ideal placing of ads on a typical web page layout. The colours fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance). Ads above the fold perform better than those below the fold and Ads placed near content and the navigation do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.

Brief Guide to Adsense Ad Placement
Adsense placement is the gentle art ensuring that Adsense ads appear in the correct places on a website, meaning the right place for the ads to have the best chance for any visitor to click on them. So if you are going to use Adsense you might as well give yourself the biggest possible chance for a click - don’t you think?

Best Ad Placement Strategy for Google AdSense Ads
This article gives you a simple guide to were the best and most profitable areas are within a two column or a three columned layout website.

Clever Adsense Placement
This post from Problogger gives you some clever insights for Adsense ads, using examples of well placed Adsense ads on some sites.

Optimization Essentials: Position for performance

This video explains how well-positioned ad units can help improve your AdSense revenue.

AdSense Keywords Tools

Top Paying AdSense Keyword Lists
In this popular video, you will learn how to create a list of high value keywords based on information from search engines like Google and Microsoft.

Google AdWords: Keyword Tool
Use the Keyword Tool to get new keyword ideas, enter a few descriptive words or phrases, or type in your website's URL.

Keyword Suggestion Tool
This handy utility will find you keywords for your SEO, PPC and Adsense campaigns. They keep a close eye on the online industries and discover the most popular keywords even before search engines do (so they say).

The #1 Dumbest AdSense Mistake or How NOT to Earn $10,000/Month
Almost all AdSense publishers seem to look for the most expensive keywords. In this article, the author shoots that idea to pieces. He compares the Top 100 most expensive keywords and compare it to the most profitable. You will be surprised by the results.

AdSense Preview Apps

Adsense Sandox (Geo-Targeted)
Type any web page URL or keywords and then select a country and you will be able to view the latest Google Ads that are contextual and geo-targeted.

AdSense Preview
Google AdSense automatically delivers ads targeted to your website content. The more targeted your pages are for one or two topics, the better the ads are likely to be. This free preview utility will give you a sense of which ads would be placed on a given page.

Google Adsense Ads Preview Tool

Easy Ways to Monetize Your Blog. Part 1: Adsense

Following on from my article on how you can earn money as a blogger, I thought I should share some basic information about how to monetize your blog. If you weren't put off by the long hours of hard work I mentioned and possess the buckets of patience I said you needed to have to make a blog succeed, then here are the six top ways to monetize your blog. Some of these you can implement immediately. $1 per week from adsense hits is better than nothing until your traffic levels and page rank allow you to sell off advertising space for bigger bucks.

Over the next six days I will be sharing the most common ways to monetize your blog. Some require nothing more than building a blog, registering it with a company, popping in a code and collecting the cash while others only accept quality blogs with a particular level of traffic. Other methods might be more work to implement but can reward you with larger payouts in the long run.

Part 1: Adsense

Adsense
Probably the most popular form of monetizing a blog, this system of displaying contextual ads is quick and easy to use. You earn money each time an ad is clicked.

Adsense is the trade name for Google's contextual advertising program. You will have seen these on the majority of websites that you visit. The reason that they are so popular is that they are easy to install, can be used by any website large or small, are customizable, and (used correctly) they aren't too intrusive for your visitors' browsing experience.

By simple copy and pasting a snippet of code, these ads can be popped into your posts or site template to show up just about anywhere you want them. If you run your blog onGoogle's own blogging platform, all you have to do is select the "monetize my blog" option, enter your account code and tell it where you want to adsense units to appear.

Another plus is that these ads are tailored to match the content of your blog. If, for example, your blog post is about West Highland Terriers, then Google will automatically show ads relating to these cute fluffy dogs, the idea being that these will be of most interest to your readers and therefor more likely to be clicked on.

Yahoo and Microsoft also run their own contextual ad programs, and there are lots of other smaller companies offering similar services too. Experiment with each to optimize your earnings.

Top Tip for this money maker:

• Place at least one ad unit in a prime spot, above the fold so that if a visitor lands on your site and it is not what they were looking for, they immediately have some relevant alternative links. If they don't stay on your site, at least you might earn a few cents from them leaving.

A Word of Caution:

• Don't overdo it! Too many ads can distract your readers and send them away from your blog quickly.

4 Basic Formulas To Boost Your Adsense profit

Whenever webmasters want to make money from their websites, the great formula to do it is through google Adsense. For newbie,adsense still be the best way to get money online. There are lots of webmasters struggling heavily to gain some good income through their sites(hey, it just like me!). On the other hand some of the “gurus” of adsense are enjoying hundreds of dollars a day from Adsense ads on their websites or blogs. YES! 100$/day. What makes these webmasters different from the other kind is that they are different and they think out of the box and unique from the other else.

The ones who have been there and done it have quite some useful tips to help those who would want to venture into this adsense field. Some of these tips have boosted quite a lot of earnings in the past and is continuously doing so until now.

Here are some 4 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings. so here we go …

1. Focusing on format of Adsense advertisement. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280),banner, medium rectangle and ads link. Both formats have the tendency to outcome in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. however, it can be replaced by another ads size that looks fit on your website, but keep in mind that google just give you 3 ads per page. Also i am not recommend search ads, because it is very hard(for me) to get money from that ad option.

2. Make a custom palette for your advertisements. Pick out a color that will become well with the background of your web site. If your site has a black background, try to use black as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense appear like it is part of the web pages. This will result to more clicks from visitor that visiting your website and also can convince visitors that they are not for sale :D(many ads will decrease your webite credibility and make your ads vaguely will comfort them, right?).

3. Dispatch the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and assign them at the top. Do not attempt to hide your Adsense. Assign them in the place where visitor can see them quickly. You’ll be astonished how the difference between Adsense locations can make a big impact to your profit.

4. Maintain links to your relevant topics of your web site. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that web site. The key is to learn from the past. find out where your visitor like to click your ads the most. when you have find it, place your ads there and you you will see what happen :D.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands dollar on their sites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people seeing them. So focusing on a limited theme be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

Note also that there are many other Adsense sharing the same theme as you. It’s best to think of making a good theme that will be somewhat different and unusual than the ones already done. Every clickthrough that visitors make is a point for you so make every click count by making your Adsense something that people will definitely click on.

if you have something to share, please share

Top 5 Firefox Extensions for Business Collaboration

The Firefox web browser is popular with many businesses for its speed and its security. However, it has one other great advantage over Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Apple’s Safari, and Google’s Chrome: Firefox extensions.

Extensions allow the user to customize his or her browser by installing add-ons that enhance any number of aspects of the browsing experience. There are literally thousands of add-ons available that can block pop-ups, add toolbars, increase security, and do much more.

If you’re using Firefox for business, you may not realize that it can be a great collaboration tool. From sharing files to making team discussions easier to conduct, there are Firefox extensions that will better connect you and your team. We want to highlight five extensions that really stand out in this regard:

1. Yoono: This extension “socializes your browser” by adding the ability to access your instant messaging clients and social networking accounts from within the browser. This makes it really easy to send links, images, documents, and notes to your team.

2. Xmarks: Formerly known as Foxmarks, this add-on synchronizes all of your bookmarks with any other computer you choose. It can be an easy way to keep bookmarks synchronized with the team. You can also synchronize passwords with Xmarks.

3. Chatzilla: If your company is remote, you may want to use an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to keep everyone connected and chatting. Chatzilla embeds IRC right into the browser, making it easy for team members to communicate.

4. Drag & Drop.io: This extension is a companion to the popular file sharing service Drop.io. With this extension and a Drop.io account, you can share any files, videos, or pictures you come across with team members with a simple drag-and-drop interface. This eliminates the need to send time-consuming email attachments.

5. Shareaholic: Shareaholic helps you share links across 60+ social and web tools, including Google, Twitter, Facebook, email, and more. If your team works with social media, this add-on is a must to not only share links or bookmarks with each other, but with your customers.

Taking the time to research and install key add-ons to Firefox browsers can make a team far more productive. There’s an extension for nearly everything, but it’s your job to explore which ones work best for you and your business.

SEO Haters: Misconceptions and Misinformation

There is a harsh wind blowing through our industry. We all feel it. and if we don’t, perhaps we’ve got our heads in the sand. The truth is SEO’s are, for the most part, loathed.

As a transparent and somewhat public SEO I personally receive at least one piece of hate mail per week. Whether it’s via email, a private message, a stumbleupon review etc; even though I’m an ethical marketer, people always seem to have a problem with what I say or do.

Most recently:

“Good job hurting the internet. Well done.”

“How does it feel to be evil?”

“I would love for at least one fucking “SEO professional” to say “content is king”, “don’t sell out by trying to trick people/systems to give you backlinks” or “focus on providing a good user-experience”.”

“DIAF SEO bitch!!”

I’m no crybaby and I can take criticism just fine but if some of these people knew anything about me they would know that I don’t spam social media sites, I don’t optimize for irrelevant terms, I don’t promote content that is crap and I never forget the end user. The problem is that they seem to make no distinction between “valuable marketing services” and “nefarious, unethical practices”. To them, it’s all the same.

What exactly is so bad about SEO?

I can tell you that there is a lot of misinformation out there. In fact, there’s an abundance of misinformation, exaggeration, and outright lies being spread. Some of the more common ones are:

All SEO’s…

- devalue the search results
- are scammers/spammers
- steal pagerank and links
- don’t care where their traffic or links come from
- overpromise and underdeliver
- will do anything to be #1

No one disputes that there are some very bad apples in the SEO bunch (in which industry is the fruit totally fresh?) but people need to know that there ARE reputable SEO’s out there who actually ADD value to the search results and CAN help online businesses achieve measurable success. This is because most public SEO’s are in it for the long haul and the main way to long term search engine success is through a SE friendly website which publishes superior content and attracts natural links through the right promotion.

Pissing off the search engines or social media communities by using nefarious practices or trying to trick them isn’t on the agenda of most transparent SEO’s. Why? The majority of us have clients to think of and it’s simply not in their best interests. We’re out to impress our customers with tangible results, not damage their (and our) reputations by bringing in the wrong type of traffic etc. An ethical SEO isn’t out to game the system. We’re about helping search engines understand what content is about, improving the overall user experience and helping people get the information they need. How exactly does it benefit us by having our clients, or even our own sites, penalized or worse yet banned from the SE’s? Isn’t it apparent that if we actually did what we are being accused of we would be doing more damage than good?

SEO’s have a responsibility to inform.

I recently, well, “conversed”, with one of my haters over a page I submitted to stumbleupon. It was about how to gain a backlink from apple.com by creating an app. for their iphone. Among other things, his main argument was that my submission:

“Never actually focused on the application, or content, it just said write app, receive awesome backlink”.

Excuse me? My great lead on how to get a link from Apple.com was worthless spammy crap, because I didn’t go into details about *which* application you should write?

I won’t get in-depth (lest I get feisty again), but I defended the industry to the best of my ability and in the end he recanted his scathing public review and instead re-reviewed me as “engaging”. Although I considered it a small victory for SEO’s everywhere, this is the type of attitude I seem to be dealing with all the time now and there needs to be more emphasis on correcting the misinformation.

Some people have become so focused on proving what they think they know about the SEO industry that they’re completely missing out on any benefit it has to offer.

And in the long run, this attitude isn’t helping the online business owner either, unless they’re prepared to pass up FREE organic traffic in favor of expensive ad campaigns and advertising.

SEO’s must combat misinformation.

A person who truly understands the value of an SEO’s service is extremely rare and this makes our job harder than it should be. It’s frustrating having to first convince someone that a) SEO is real, b) you know your stuff and c) there’s actual benefit to them being listed for the products they sell or the service they offer.

This is the general misconception. That SEO isn’t needed. That it’s a scam. That you’ll do fine without it. Ranking is easy! Think so? Try hitting a competitive #1 spot without using some aspect of it (for something other than your domain name). Believe it or not folks, just because you have a pretty website all about jelly beans, does in NO way guarantee you a top 10 spot, in any search engine, for jelly bean related terms.

Defending the SEO industry’s bad reputation doesn’t exactly qualify as “good times” for any of us but it’s a battle we should all keep fighting. Especially if you’ve personally experienced, what really good SEO can do, for an online business.

Lastly, to all you SEO hater’s out there, why not focus your scathing blog posts, reviews and hate mail towards people in the industry who really *do* devalue the internet? I’ll do the same minus the scathing and hating of course.

And for Pete’s sake, please accept that there’s a big difference between ‘valuable marketing services’ and ‘nefarious, ethically challenged cheaters’.

Peace.

P.S. tee hee how *stoked* am I to be the first guest poster here like EVAR?!

Melanie Nathan is Director of SEO, SEM and SMM for Statusfirm, a Canada Internet video company. Follow her on twitter and plurk to learn more about her.

Roadmap for Hiring in a Small Business – Part 1

Back in the day, I spent a period of my career going through a variety of roles, one of which was Vice President of Human Resources. It was while in that role I heard the mantra, "Hiring a new employee is a million dollar decision. Treat it that way."


That mantra refers to a study (from IBM, if I recall properly) that showed that a company invested a million dollars or more in the average employee in salary, benefits, training and perks over the course of their career. That number has always stuck with me and I use it as a touchstone to remind me NOT to shortcut the recruiting and hiring process. Too much is at stake. With that in mind, I’ve pulled together seven hiring guidelines just for smaller firms:

1. Source candidates creatively.

Two tried and true methods for finding candidates have been the venerable Help Wanted ad and using a staffing firm. But consider these other methods which may be either more up-to-date, or more cost effective, or both:

• Online job boards. Increasingly, people looking for jobs are going on to job boards, rather than picking up the newspaper or trade publications. So job boards are where you want your job posting to appear – because that’s where the job seekers are. Local-based job boards, if available, are usually better for small firms than huge national job boards. If you can’t afford to pay relocation costs, you won’t want to be buried in resumes from candidates 1,000 miles away – so stick with local. Niche job boards are also a good idea if you are looking for someone in a specialized industry. For instance, if you were to look for a freelance blogger or online copywriter, you would be more likely to find qualified candidates on a blog-job board or a freelance-writing job board.

• Temporary to full time. Some small firms swear by bringing in temporary workers and then hiring them if they work out. This lets you “try before you buy.”

• Trusted referrals. Trusted referrals are truly the “secret sauce” of small business hiring. Many small businesses get the best results via referrals from existing employees, friends, relatives, church members, neighbors, and other contacts. The downside is that the candidate’s skills may not be a perfect match – requiring more on-the-job training. However, the upside is that you get a known quantity and may get candidates who are a better match in terms of people skills, strong work ethic, shared values and other “soft skills” which can make all the difference to success on the job.

2. Have an interview plan.

You’ll learn more about interviewees if you structure your interviews in advance. For instance, an interview might break down this way: Spend a few minutes chatting at the beginning to make the candidate comfortable and develop a rapport. Then discuss the company and the job. Then ask the candidate a series of probing questions designed to get the candidate to talk, not just give yes or no answers. It’s wise to have a short list of questions, rather than relying on memory.

Here is a good list of interview questions. Give the candidate an opportunity to ask you questions, too. Remember, communication is a two-way street.

Start the interview promptly -- and no interruptions, so that you give your full attention to the interviewee. Nothing shows a lack of respect more than making a candidate wait more than a couple of minutes, or taking phone calls or stepping out for 15 minutes “to take care of something” in the midst of an interview. (It happens!) Remember, if you end up extending a job offer to the person, that interview will be THEIR first impression of you and the professionalism of your business. You want to get off on the right foot.

3. Include the team in interviews.

There is a lot to be said for involving key team members in the interviewing process. For one thing, candidates may show a different side to them. Plus, employees in small workplaces typically spend a lot of time in close contact with co-workers – probably more time than with the business owner or manager. So it’s important that co-workers get along.

In my experience, if existing employees have a voice in the hiring process, they will feel invested in the new hire’s success. They will try harder to make it work, than if the person is the boss’s choice.

Think Local, Act Conversational - It Just Might Save Your Business

What do people think of when they are considering Corbet's Hardware, a local business near my home? For that matter, what do they think of Ambrosia restaurant? Or Alex's Dry Cleaning? What about Embarcadero Physical Therapy, or Peter Levi Plumbing?

Well, if you've read my previous writings on the subject, when someone wants to know about a local business, the first thing they'll do is put those names into Google and see what happens.

Besides the fact that I've done business with each of these establishments, (and written about a few in this series), it used to be the only thing that connected these companies together (besides geography) was the Yellow Pages. Now, all that's changed with search, and in particular, local search.

And when you drill down into it, what's really a game changer is that the best local search tools all have become platforms for conversation - in this case, conversation about the products, services, and intangibles of each small business.

So let's use Corbet's as an example, shall we, and see what we learn?

Corbet's Hardware is my neighborhood hardware store, it's something of a local legend. Let's see what happens when I put it into Google (I omitted the apostrophe, as most folks do).

Interesting. First up is a link from "zinsser.com", which appears to be some kind of a shellac company (no, really, a company that makes shellac). Corbet's probably carries their products - the Zinsser site lists its distributors - but man, what on earth is that doing being first? Clearly, Corbet's has not exactly joined the conversation economy quite yet.

Put another way, the very first link for Corbet's is not Corbet's own website (the store does not seem to have one), it's some random supplier of Corbet's. This is not a good thing.

Second up is a very nice profile of Corbet's in the local paper. Third is another link from the paper about the store moving. A credit to the store, for sure. But it's not really very conversational (for more on why I think "conversational" is so important, read this).

Fourth is a link from "ziphip.com", which looks like some kind of listings directory (or more cynically, an Adsense honeypot). Nothing really useful for a potential customer of Corbet's - nothing conversational or particularly trustworthy.

Fifth is a link from Yahoo Local about the store. Now we are getting somewhere. When you look at it, you find three reviews of the store, all of them quite positive (including one from someone named John Battelle from back in 2005. Who is that guy?). Regardless of my own bias, here's a conversation about the store folks are likely to trust. Three reviews, all glowing.

Sixth is an entry from Topix, a local news aggregator owned by a consortium of large newspaper companies. In short, the Topix entry declares that local residents are in support of the store in some kind of controversy surrounding a move to a new location. That's good!

Seventh, and just before the all-important "above the fold" (the results you see before you have to scroll down), is an entry from Yelp, one of the leading local review sites on the web. There's only one review, but it's a good one.

I'll stop now and offer a few thoughts. First, the fact is (and I speak from experience), Corbet's is a well-loved local institution, but if your first view of the place is through search, you have to work way too hard to find that out. Second, it's clear that no one at Corbet's has given the web a second thought, because Corbet's doesn't have a website, and clearly no one has joined the nascent conversation that has sprung up around the store (in the first seven links, there are four unsolicited and positive reviews. It'd be great if someone from Corbet's joined the party and said "thanks for caring!"). And third, there's a tremendous opportunity to be had by joining that conversation, in the process branding Corbet's as quite possibly one of the most beloved local businesses in all of Marin.

Turns out, Corbet's could really use that love. Remember that sixth link, the one about "some kind of controversy surrounding a move to a new location." Turns out, Corbet's landlord is raising the rent, and the store is trying to move into a new building nearby. But the city planning commission is making it hard for the company to get the zoning it needs to make the move. Corbet's has mounted a pretty good grassroots campaign through snail mail and petitions in the store, but to really win, it needs to harness the power of the web.

So far, it's failing miserably.

But imagine, if you would, that Corbet's had a blog, and used that blog to talk about its business. The folks at Corbet's could post about weekly specials, tips on home improvement, best approaches to pest control, and all the stuff that brings customers into the store. Oh, and by the way, it could leverage all its built in good will to drive its customers toward theLarkspur City Council, who, in the end, will determine whether or not Corbet's will continue as a business - if Corbet's doesn't get that zoning change, it can't afford to stay open. Ouch!

Given how sparse and poorly connected the first few links for "Corbets hardware" currently are, it's clear that such a blog would come in first, and possibly second, third, and fourth, in any Google search. Add a Twitter account, and you're nearly guaranteed to be a major force in any web-based conversation around your business. (In fact, I'd be willing to bet that within a few weeks, this blog post may well rank in the top ten for a search about Corbet's...).

In short, by joining the conversation, Corbet's would get a chance to shape it. And by shaping it, it just might ensure its future. Which leads me to ask: Has your business joined the conversation? You might consider doing so, before it's too late.

How to Practice Kamikaze SEO

One of the key aspects of any SEO strategy is knowing the risks of the tactics you use. As those tactics approach or break Google’s guidelines the more likely they to get you penalized or banned. Knowing where you are on the risk scale helps you know when it is imperative that you take precautions and try to create a barrier of plausible deniability.

Three tactics that I feel that warrant creating that level of plausible deniability are link buying, buying hosted content, and paying to have negative posts removed/changed. Last week a site I’m involved in received an email similar to this at the webmaster account:

From:Jane@WellKnownDomain.com
Subject: Purchasing Direct Advertising

Hi this is Jane from from WellKnownDomain.com we see that you run a website in the widget area and are very interested in purchasing a direct text link from you. We would like the link to be placed directly in the content area of one or more of your posts.

Hoping to hear back from you.

Jane

There are several things wrong with this type of approach:

• If I reply to the email and it doesn’t bounce back, as long as the headers don’t look forged it’s very hard to deny it’s real.
• If I look at your backlink profile and see some suspicious behavior like really targeted anchor text, it’s hard to deny you aren’t doing this as a regular practice.
• Mentioning things like “direct link” and “in the content area” make it very hard to deny that someone with SEO knowledge or SEO guidance isn’t involved (the search engines call this intent).

If you are aware of the risks involved with these types of tactic, and still want to try them, at the very least put a layer of protection between yourself and the website. Try something like this:

From:Janet@gmail.com
Subject: Advertising Inquiry

Hi this is Janet I see that you run a website in the widget area. I have a client and would be interested in knowing if you accept advertising and what types of placements are available.

Hoping to hear back from you.

Janet

If you get a response and it looks promising then follow up with a SECOND email inquiring about placement within posts and if they offer on-site tracking or if you can use your own direct tracking URL’s. You really don’t want to give away the domain until as late as possible, and you are comfortable the person on the other end isn’t going to NARC on you. Until you give away the domain there’s no direct connection between you and the target domain and deniability is still an option. I understand that this way takes much, much longer to do, but IMHO giving up your domain and signaling your intent to buy links with an SEO mindset in a first contact email is a kamikaze move. If you use your noodle there are other ways you can put barriers between the website you are buying links from, but don’t ask cause I’m not telling.

Google Adsense Tips, Tricks, and Secrets

clipped from www.wolf-howl.com I’ve been reading a few forums and blogs about Google Adsense tips lately, and thought it would be helpful to consolidate as many as possible in one place without the comments. I’ve also thrown in a few tips of my own. We start out with some of the basic general stuff and move to the more specific topics later on. Build an Empire? When you’re deciding to become a website publisher you will fall into one of two broad categories: Publish 100 websites that each earn $1 a day profit Publish 1 website that earns $100 a day profit The reality of it is, most people end up somewhere in between. Having 100 websites leaves you with maintenance, management and content issues. Having one website leaves you open to all sort of fluctuations (search engines algorithm’s, market trends, etc). You can adapt your plan on the way, but you’ll have an easier time if you start out going in the direction of where you want to end up.

Wordpress Can Be Easy To Use, Honest

Wordpress Step by Step Setup is a comprehensive and easy to read tool that takes you though the process of setting up a Wordpress Blog without many of the hassles and pitfalls someone generally runs into during the setup process. The program is not only designed for new users, but experienced Wordpress users will find the tool flexible and powerful enough for them to get benefits from as well.

One of the best benefits of the Wordpress Step by Step Setup program is the easy to read, step by step instructions. Written by real people who have done the process exactly as it’s laid out in the program in easy to read terms (no mysterious technical terms).

The steps within the program are also editable. If you are working along something you want to add or edit, you can add it into that step. Just click on the step you want to change and click on the “Edit Task” button at the top of the program. For more advanced users there is an option available to actually “Add a Task”. This allows you the ability to add in your own specific tasks without editing the ones already available.


Now, everyone works differently due to personal preferences. For those individuals who prefer to work from paper then you will enjoy the “Print” option. This will allow you to print off any or all the steps you wish so you can follow the steps from paper instead of the computer.

As many people know staying on task can be quite a challenge these days. Phone calls, family emergencies and everyday life in general has its own way of catching you off guard. The Wordpress Step by Step Setup program has two features that will keep you on track. Firstly you have the ability to check off and even “hide” the completed tasks you have gone through. Secondly, there is an ability to schedule a “pop up” that tells you what step your working on currently.

One of the best features of the Wordpress Step by Step Setup is the ability to take your work with you, no matter where you go as long as you have a computer. When you use the “Copy to Flash” feature you can copy your work to a flash/usb/thumb or jump drive and take it with you, allowing you to keep on track and have access to the work you have already accomplished.

Whether you have set up a Wordpress blog before or not, you will find that Wordpress Step by Step Setup will walk you through each step from the beginning. Starting off with the preparation of your blog, choosing domain names, finding a Wordpress theme, installing Wordpress on your host, a list of some of the best plugins and widgets available, right down to making your first post.
About the Author:
Setting Up Wordpress can be amongst the most frustrating experiences you will ever encounter. Well now Setting Up Our Wordpress Blog doesn’t have to seem like black magic anymore. Our simple step by step guide will help you get your blog online.

5 Reasons NOT To Have A Marketing Plan

hink of your ideal clients, the ones that will jump to purchase your products or engage you for your premium services. Envision being competent to bring those ideal clients to you and experiencing them purchase your products or services not for one time deal, but over and over again. That’s what an efficaciously carried out marketing plan can do for you and your business. It reaches the people who need what you are providing, convinces them to take action, and engage them to come back again.

Sounds excellent, right? So the question is why doesn’t all business sectors have a marketing plan? Let’s have a look at a few of the points on why you may not:

1. “We have a marketing plan formulated, but it did not work.”
No marketing plan will act if you don’t properly execute the plan. The documentation is there for business managers to utilize as an important reference throughout the year, as programs in the plan are accomplished and as other chances get along. Any marketing plan that is filed and unnoticed as soon as it’s penned is totally worthless.

2. “Mr. X had a marketing plan and it didn’t boost his business at all!”
Marketing is a procedure, not a single upshot. A marketing plan is just the initiative towards that procedure. It directs your clientele in the correct path by detailing marketing schemes and plans that will motivate towards your business targets.

You must accomplish the projects in your plan so that you can assess program success. Seldom does a marketing program act fullest on the 1st attempt. It’s up to you to study roadblocks to success, then fine-tune and mend until you’re having positive results. If you neglect decisive follow-up, most of your marketing plans will go wrong or fall short of their potential for success.

3. “Marketing planning is just too difficult.”
Writing a marketing plan does not have to be too complex. There are many levels of planning. More complex merchandising planning methods will lead to more polished strategies, with ample prospective for success. But, if you have little resources, a top-line approach to planning is a lot better than no planning at all.

4. “We don’t know the process to compose a proper marketing plan.”
There are many articles, software system, “toolbox” resources, and e-book that take you stepwise through the procedure of making a marketing plan. Honestly, not knowing how is an apology, not a reason, to avoid marketing planning.

5. “My clientele is too small for a marketing plan.”
Good marketing scheme is decisive to small business sector’s success, particularly new businesses. Statistics change widely counting on the source, but most reports quote bankruptcy rates for micro business at 70% – 85%. Cognizing early how you’ll contend and how you’ll be successful in your market can dramatically boost your probabilities of success.

Your marketing plan is a critical step for micro business success. If you do not have an actual plan, do begin one now. Your company’s achievement depends upon it. Also it’s never ever too late to make one, so Good LUCK!

How Twitter Makes You A Better Writer

By now you’ve most likely joined Twitter (and if you haven’t, you need to, pronto!). Twitter is not only a great place for businesses and marketers, but it’s also a great place to spruce up your writing skills.

Yes. You read that correctly.

Twitter can make you a better writer. Here’s how.


Twitter forces you to be concise
If you’ve ever used Twitter, you know that you have 140 characters to say whatever you want to say. Now keep in mind, I didn’t say 140 words—or even 140 letters—I said 140 characters. 

That’s not a lot of room. Letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation and spaces all count as characters on Twitter.

What all of this means is, you have to be concise. You have to know exactly what you want to say, and say it in as few words as possible. 

Many writers, however, are “wordy” and often have long, drawn out descriptions and sentences, so it can be pretty difficult to create a message that’s only 140 characters. 

Here’s where Twitter comes in again.

Twitter forces you to exercise your vocabulary
Since you only have 140 characters to get your message across, you’re forced to dust off your dictionary and thesaurus and find new words to use—Words that are shorter, words that are more descriptive, and words that get the job done in 140 characters or less.

Crafting a message for Twitter requires you to “pump up” your verbs (replacing adverbs and adjectives with them), and discover a better, clearer and more concise way to say what you want to say. 

Now most people won’t hit 140 characters right away. No, they’ll end up with 160 or 148 characters to start out with (Twitter tells you how many characters you need to remove to make your message fit).

This is the final way that Twitter makes you a better writer.

Twitter forces you to improve your editing skills
Every writer needs to be able to edit their work. And by using Twitter, you can really hone your editing skills and make them top-notch. 

It’s almost like playing a game; trying to write a 140-character message and still get your point across in a way that inspires your followers to take action, to click on your link or to “retweet” your post. 

I like to think of it as a brainteaser, forcing me to think hard and dig deep down into my vocabulary to find a way to shorten my message. 

I’ve been using Twitter since January, and my writing skills have not only improved, but I’ve been writing better copy as well.

Yet another reason you should be using Twitter. Not that you needed one. 

About the Author: Jennifer Blanchard is a creative and effective copywriter. Her blog, Procrastinating Writers, offers writing advice, motivation and inspiration for writers who procrastinate.

Ernest Hemingway’s Top 5 Tips for Writing Well

Who better?

Many business people faced with the task of writing for marketing purposes are quick to say:

Hey, I’m no Hemingway!

But really, who better than Hemingway to emulate? Rather than embracing the flowery prose of the literati, he chose to eschew obfuscation at every turn and write simply and clearly.

So let’s see what Ernest can teach us about effective writing.

1. Use short sentences.
Hemingway was famous for a terse minimalist style of writing that dispensed with flowery adjectives and got straight to the point. In short, Hemingway wrote with simple genius.

Perhaps his finest demonstration of short sentence prowess was when he was challenged to tell an entire story in only 6 words:

For sale: baby shoes, never used.

2. Use short first paragraphs.
See opening.

3. Use vigorous English.
Here’s David Garfinkel’s take on this one:

It’s muscular, forceful. Vigorous English comes from passion, focus and intention. It’s the difference between putting in a good effort and TRYING to move a boulder… and actually sweating, grunting, straining your muscles to the point of exhaustion… and MOVING the freaking thing!

4. Be positive, not negative.
Since Hemingway was not necessarily the cheeriest guy in the world, what does he mean by be positive? Basically, you should say what something is rather than what it isn’t.

This is what Michel Fortin calls using up words:

By stating what something isn’t can be counterproductive since it is still directing the mind, albeit in the opposite way. If I told you that dental work is painless for example, you’ll still focus on the word “pain” in “painless.”

• Instead of saying “inexpensive,” say “economical,”
• Instead of saying “this procedure is painless,” say “there’s little discomfort” or “it’s relatively comfortable,”
• And instead of saying “this software is error-free” or “foolproof,” say “this software is consistent” or “stable.”

5. Never have only 4 rules.
Actually, Hemingway did only have 4 rules for writing, and they were those he was given as a cub reporter at the Kansas City Star in 1917. But, as any blogger or copywriter knows, having only 4 rules will never do.

So, in order to have 5, I had to dig a little deeper to get the most important of Hemingway’s writing tips of all:

“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

Picking The Best Affiliate Marketing Product To Sell

Choosing the right product to promote is the key to affiliate marketing success. There are thousands of affiliate marketing products out there, but not all of them will make you money. Some products are terrible and don’t work as promised. Another product might be great, but its landing page is bad so visitors are scared away. To succeed as an affiliate marketing, you need to find a product that’s proven to sell well. Why sell something that nobody wants to buy?

To find that right product to promote, we’re going to use the Clickbank affiliate network. While there are many excellent affiliate networks out there, Clickbank is one of the best for those starting out. They have a large selection of affiliate marketing products to sell, they always pay out on time, and it is easy to get accepted into the network. Unlike other networks that make you apply to promote a certain offer, Clickbank lets you promote every offer on their network right away.

The first thing to do when deciding on a product to promote, is to decide a niche. The best way to do this is to brainstorm and write down 5-10 niches you think you would enjoy finding more about. When promoting a product, you will be doing a lot of research and writing about it, so make sure the topics you write down aren’t something that will bore you to death.

Once you have everything written down, visit the Marketplace section in your Clickbank account. Clickbank has its products separated into categories, so choose an appropriate category and do a search for each of the topics you have written down earlier. In the search results, you will get a list of affiliate products that best match your search term. Underneath each product description, you will see a list of different metrics.  

The most important thing to look at, is the product’s gravity score. Gravity is a Clickbank formula that tells you how many recent sales affiliates have been making with this product. If many people are making sales with this product then this says you can probably do well selling this product as well. As a rule of thumb, try and pick a product with a gravity score over 45. The other metric to look at is the dollars per sale. If you are going to use pay per click marketing to promote your product, then pick a payout greater than $30 per sale. By choosing a high enough payout, you can cover any advertising expenses and make a good profit.

Using the two metrics mentioned above, note down the products that meet these criteria. Now pick the product that you would be most interested in researching about and promoting. You already know that other affiliates are doing well with these products, so the key here is picking the product that will keep your interest so you can promote it successfully. This is the first step to becoming a successful affiliate marketer. The next step is to join a site like PPC Coach and learn from some affiliate marketing gurus on how to setup your sites and promote them effectively.

How to Make Money Online Blogging – Content Creation

How to Make Money Online Blogging – Promoting Your Blog

If you are relatively new to stock investing you may not really be aware of all the opportunities available to you. Investors can make money in the stock market three different ways, and can get leverage to enhance profits as well. The big profits in stocks are usually made through price appreciation. In other words, you buy a stock and later sell it for a higher price than you paid for it. Some investors hold stocks for years; some traders might only hold a stock for a few minutes. To enhance profits, some investors buy stocks on margin.

When you buy on margin, you borrow money from your broker who charges you interest. What’s the advantage? Let’s say you have $10,000 to invest and you really think a stock has potential for big price increases. You buy on margin … $20,000 worth. It doubles in price and you sell. Instead of making $10,000 for a double, you make $20,000 with only $10,000 of your own money invested. That’s called using financial leverage (other people’s money) to increase your profits. On the flip side, losses are magnified as well, and if your stock falls too far your broker will give you a margin call. He will either ask you to put up more money, or he will sell out your position. After all, they lent you $10,000 and your investment does not look too sound at the moment.

The purpose of this main blog is to attract the search engines back on a daily basis to index your content. It is not also let him put in to that content is provided it keeps attracting the search engines back.

You can also get a lot of inspiration to create your blog posts are reading relevant articles at the article director at where other people have done research and then all you need to do is to lace and your keywords into the content as you are creating it so you have reasonable amount of keyword density to attract the right traffic from search engines.

As soon as you do the search engine follow that link through to your new blog and index the pages that have been created. What you should do is to get some posts made on the new blog before you create that link so that when the search engines to come through to the blog they will find that there was already content waiting before them.

Once you’ve created your content you should take the time to load up your blog also in one sitting that can run on autopilot depending on how much content you have created.

Make Money Blogging - How to Make Money from Blogs

Make Money with Your Blog - Blogging to the Bank

Whether to Make Money Blogging or Not?

If your question is whether you should make money blogging, I would answer yes and I want to prove it to you!

A young guy from the UK has blown the lid off all the blogging money game. His name is Rob Benwell and he's making up to $34,244 per month from blogging. The best news is that he is sharing his exact system he uses with a limited number of the public now. His latest blogging ebook - Blogging To The Bank 3.0 looks like it's going to be another best seller as it's selling really quick.

Go to visit : www.bloggingtothebank.com

Make Money Blogging with Blogging to the Bank 3.0 

Have you ever tried to make serious money from blogging? If you've already got blogs that are struggling to earn a few dollars or you're sick of spending thousands of dollars on Google Adwords or other paid advertising then you need the blogger's blueprint - Blogging To The Bank 3.0

Blogging To The Bank 3.0 is a new step-by-step roadmap on how to create a new successful blog that will bring money in automatically for years to come, even if you know nothing about blogging but just want to learn a fool proof way to generate thousands of dollars per month.

The Million Dollar Blueprint's Results Are SHOCKING!

$90,480.34 In One Month
256,667 Visitors In 30 Days

You can click here to see more details.

There's nothing but hard hitting, proven techniques to build blogging empire that brings in thousands of dollars every month. Here's just a tiny fraction of what you'll discover...

An ingeniously simple formula to create cash on demand without a product or website of your own
Why making sure you actually own your blog is an absolute must... it's amazing how many people don't know this
Which hosting company you should use if you're just starting out... This will save you a huge headache
Discovered... How to tap into the hottest new niches that have little or no decent competition
The Most Successful Step-By-Step Blueprint For Long Term Blogging Success
Which keyphrases to target to generate the most money in as fast a time as possible
The 2 stats you need to analyse when choosing an affiliate program
How to pass the 7 seconds test... Fail this and your blog is as good as dead
The Secrets To Selling Your Blogs For Six Figure Paydays
How To Create Real Blogs In Just A Few Minutes

Take a look at what you actually get when inside the download area(main manual):

Introduction
The 2 Big Changes In Big Money Blogging
The 5 Blogging Commandments For 2009
The Blogging to the Bank Million Dollar Blueprint
Market Research & Keyphrase Lists
Domains & Hosting
Creating Your Blog
Optimizing Your Blog
Content
Promotion & Backlinks
Advanced SEO Techniques
Web 2.0 Strategies
Outsourcing & Building Your Blog Empire
Selling Your Blog
Getting Your Blog Indexed Within Hours
How To Get Thousands Of Link For Free
The Sneaky Theme Sponsor Trick
Make Money From This Ebook
Final Words

The previous versions of Blogging To The Bank were both really great, but due to the every changing nature of the way search engines work, some of the information was not as effective as it once was. With Blogging To The Bank 3.0, there is even more information on how to effectively dominate the search engines and use excellent free techniques and strategies that will catapult your blog to the top of the search engines in the shortest possible time.

Blogging To The Bank 3.0 is laid out in an easy to follow manner and all the newest techniques and search engine strategies are fully explained. The complete system shows you how to identify profitable online markets and products, how to find the right keywords and properly promote them and the fastest way to set up your blog to start making money quickly. I'd say that only people willing to follow through and actually put some time and effort into this guide should actually invest in this product.
Who Created the Blogging to the Bank 3.0? 
The creator of Blogging To The Bank 3.0 is Rob Benwell, who created the original Blogging To The Bank back in 2006. Rob Benwell is a successful blogger who knows what he is talking about when it comes to making money with blogs. His strategies and techniques have been proven time and again and his new strategies are even better. You will learn everything you need to know to start a successful blog and more importantly how to make money with it. If you have always wanted to start blogging and felt intimidated or that it might be difficult, you can rest assured that Rob spells out eveything you need to know in a clear and easy to follow blueprint.

Photo: Speaking On Stage At The Underground Seminar
Who Need Blogging to the Bank 3.0? 
Blogging To The Bank 3.0 is a guide and tool to help one set up a blog that generates money. Once set up the blog will generate money over time with little to no maintenance. While making money on the side or using blogs as your sole income as I do sounds great, it is not for everybody.

Everyone can set up a blog at one of the major sites like MSN or Google, but what Blogging To The Bank teaches you is how to set up your own personal blog and how this is much more efficient in generating page views. For one to do this on their own would require knowledge of setting up websites and simple web design. With Blogging To The Bank 3.0 though, it will show you step by step what to do to set up a professional blog system that once set up, requires not much more work, but will continue to generate revenue. So if you are good at following directions and have some extra time Blogging To The Bank will show you how to generate money while sitting at your computer at home.

Blogging To The Bank 3.0 is good for people who have computers and have about 15-30 minutes a day to spend maintaining their blogs. If you just want to set up one blog you will only to work for a couple days, but if you want to set up multiple blogs, this will obviously take more time. The more blogs you set up, the more time it will take, but also the more money you will make. It is all up to you.


Tips to Make Money Blogging 
Everything you read about how to succeed with your blog recommends writing frequently. Blogging to the Bank 3.0 is no exception to this rule. As a matter of fact, Rob offers several recommended resources for finding and creating content for your blog.

The importance of posting often and regularly to your blog is a critical part of your success formula. If you establish a consistent routine for posting, your readers will eventually begin to anticipate the days when you post. These are the repeat readers with whom you must establish a relationship if you plan to make money blogging.

Literally hundreds of blogs are launched each day, but very few will survive more than a few weeks. No matter how passionate you are or how much you know about your topic, in time you will run out of things to say. But don't despair.

Everything you post does not have to be written by you. Discuss another blog post on the same topic. Perhaps, you want to praise a new perspective. Can you add a tidbit of information? Exposing your readers to other blogs in your niche shows your confidence and builds trust.

Be sure to provide a link to the other blog and credit the author. This is a great way to network with others in your niche. It also demonstrates your interest in providing fresh new information.

Making money with blogs is much easier if you post often and build a large base of repeat visitors. Blogging to the Bank 3.0 is a great source of techniques to assist you in reaching this goal.

5 Keys to Make Money Blogging

Mindset: learn what it takes to be a successful blogger from people who make thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per month with their blogs.
Content: learn how to develop attractive content for your blog that gets people talking, linking to you, and makes the search engines fall in love with your blog.
Traffic: learn all the latest techniques for getting into the search engines, building links to your site, social marketing, networking and much more. These are the techniques the pros use and you can use them too, no matter what your blog is about!
Monetization: learn the best ways to make the most money with your site from people who are actually using those methods with great success.
Technical: learn how to use blogging software, how to get hosting, choose a domain name, and everything else it takes to set up and run a cutting-edge blog using the latest technology available. (And learn it from non-geeky training videos, text, and audio.)

Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read

Having your own blog isn’t just for the nerdy anymore. Today, it seems everyone—from multinational corporations to a neighbor up the street—has a blog.

They all have one because the folks at WordPress make it easy to get one. but to actually build a good blog—to create a blog people want to read—takes thought, planning, and some effort. From picking a theme and using tags to choosing widgets and building a community, creating your blog really starts after you set it up.

In this amazing book by blogger extraordinaire Scott McNulty, you learn how to:

1. Install and get your WordPress blog running.

2. Set up your site to ensure it can easily grow with you and your readers.

3. Be the master of user accounts.

4. Manage your site with the WordPress Dashboard and extend its capabilities with plug-ins.

Make the most of images.Work with pages, templates, and links and—of course—publish your posts. Deal with comments—if you even want readers commenting at all.Find a theme—or build (more…)

About the Author/Founder of the IMS Blog

This former Navy Senior Chief (ret.) and professional entertainer didn't stop when he retired from the military...

Steve Roye is also an author who has also been an online business owner and consultant for almost a decade.

Now Steve focuses on helping others start or expand their online businesses.

Use Twitter to Make Money Online - What You Need to Know

Microblogging has become one of the biggest trends in both social networking and making money online. The website Twitter is one of the biggest and most widely used micro blogging sites on the internet, and can be a powerful marketing tool if used properly.
Here’s the key: Using Twitter to make money online is all about driving traffic to places where people will take an action that will put cash in your pockets. Micro blogging gives you a chance to target your audience and build a very personal relationship with them while still using massive leverage.
Because of this, the traffic that you generate using Twitter is some of the best web traffic that you can have visiting your site. This is because if someone visits your site due to something that you mention on Twitter, then you aren’t a ‘total stranger’ to the person.
This means that you have a higher degree of trust with them, and higher trust always = more sales. Also, it can have a viral effect if you are giving people links to content, tools, or information that they enjoy. Imagine passing a link onto people who will repost the link for 100’s of their followers to check out… The possibilities are endless.
One of the most effective tricks of using Twitter to make money online is to use Twitter to drive people to articles that you’ve posted on your blog(s). Blogs are very dynamic and allow you to constantly add new and relevant content on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. This keeps you fresh and allows you to keep people coming back to your site over and over again…
If you offer people good content on your blog, then they are likely to tell others and return themselves. However getting people to your blog originally can be tricky.
This is where micro blogging really shines because the number one thing that you need to know to make money online (for your own ‘brick and mortar business’, affiliate marketing, or something else) is how to get the right people to visit your site. Twitter and other micro blogging sites will help you to supercharge your targeted traffic faster than nearly any other form of free marketing.
Here’s how it works:
Twitter can help you generate traffic by allowing you to let all of your followers know that you’ve posted something new and letting you link to it. A good tip while doing this is to post the article name as a question that will arouse curiosity. One example might be, “Are you using the #1 trick to making money online with Twitter? (insert your link here)”.
This tip can also be used when using other people’s articles through your blog. Simply tell people that you ran across a great article and link to your blog. Then have a blog entry that summarizes the article or promotes it briefly while linking to the original post.
This will get people to your blog and often they will read other posts, ads, reviews, etc. before clicking through to the main article you are referencing.
This is just one of many ways to use Twitter to make money online by driving traffic to your blog. Use it as an idea and get creative in your own way because the possibilities are endless!

Link2Post: A Free WordPress Plugin For Getting More Backlinks

It’s become common knowledge that the more backlinks you have to your WordPress blog, the more “search engine mojo” that your blog will command.

Backlinks from other blogs, websites, and social networks give your blog more weight as an “authority” and can greatly enhance your search engine rankings (which means more traffic).

Are you currently providing your readers with an easy way to link back to your blog posts without obstructing your content?

If not, then you might want to check this out to help you maximize your readership backlinking efforts…

I just developed a very simple WordPress plugin called Link2Post that automatically generates:

- A direct link to your blog post for use in social network sites (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Hub Pages, etc.)

- The HTML code link for use on blogs and web pages (uses the blog title as anchor text)

This linking information is provided automatically at the bottom of all your blog posts, making it easy for your readers to copy and paste a link to any of your blog posts (single posts).

You can see the Link2Post plugin in action at the bottom of this post.

There are no settings—but if you want to make some color changes it is very easy to do using the Link2Post Formatting Guide, which includes screenshots for using the Plugin Editor in your Dashboard to adjust the Link2Post box background color, border color, and more to match your blog theme.

Click here to download the Formatting Guide. You can find the Color Section Tool mentioned in the formatting guide here.

If you have any conflicts, simply uninstall the plugin.

I don’t know about you, but…

I want every bit of “search engine mojo” I can get for my blogs. You may also want to check out my article called Starting From Zero Traffic: My Intial Traffic Strategies. You will see that Link2Post is one of those strategies.

And I do want to provide visitors and regular readers with easy-to-grab links they can use to link back to the posts they like and would like to share on their blogs, websites or social network pages.

The Link2Post plugin is the easiest way I know to do that neatly and automatically without sacrificing the look and feel of my blog or obstructing my content.

Use the button to download the plugin (IMPORTANT: The Link2Post plugin has only been tested with WordPress 2.7+):

Download Stable Version 1.2

Installation:

1. Download the file link2post.zip to your computer
2. In your Dashboard, click Plugins ==> Add New
3. Use the Browse button to upload the zip file to your blog
4. Follow the prompts to activate the plugin

Change Log v1.1 ==> v1.2

1. Adjusted HTML to accomodate narrower blog post area without jacking the box format (500 px).
2. Link2Post box is displayed on single posts, not on the home page or other pages.

Future Additions Under Consideration

1. Color selector for box color
2. Per post selection option

I hope you enjoy this plugin. Your comments would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Steve Roye
Online Business Consultant

About the Author/Founder of the IMS Blog

This former Navy Senior Chief (ret.) and professional entertainer didn't stop when he retired from the military...

Steve Roye is also an author who has also been an online business owner and consultant for almost a decade.

Now Steve focuses on helping others start or expand their online businesses.

Social Bookmarking Sites That Share Adsense Revenue

Social Bookmarking Sites That Share Adsense Revenue

Social bookmarking sites are a great way to share your bookmarks of interesting websites that you come across. Now you can even earn money from sharing your bookmarks with others. There are a couple of sites that share Google Adsense revenue with users. When your bookmarks are viewed there are small ads on the page from which you earn revenue.

Infopirate

Infopirate is a social bookmarking site that shares Adsense revenue with users on an eighty percent basis. Eighty percent of the time the ads shown feature your Google Adsense code, twenty percent of the time they feature Infopirate's code.

Infopirate is my favorite social bookmarking - revenue sharing site because it has a very high page rank, so it is also an excellent tool to use to get traffic to your site. You will find that quite often, sites that you bookmark on Infopirate come up in the top ten results in a Google search.

In addition to finding cool websites by browsing other Infopirate's bookmarks you can use it to help promote your own websites, blog or articles.

Tag photos, videos, articles and websites and earn from doing so. Infopirate has an active community of users and you can add them to your Buddy List and share bookmarks as well as discuss site related issues in the forum.

There is not plug in for Firefox or Internet Explorer yet, but you can drag the IP tool to you bookmarks, place it at the first of the list and use it to tag sites you come across. Remember to not just use Infopirate for your own articles. Contribute lots of great sites and interesting content. You'll not only make more money on Infopirate by submitting lots of different, cool websites, but you will develop a bigger following of friends on the site.

click on the logo for more about Infopirate

Tagfoot

Tagfoot is another good social bookmarking which will share Adsense revenue with you. It is shared on a fifty-fifty basis. Half of the time the ads shown will feature your code, the other half of the time they will feature Tagfoot's code. All you have to do is download the plugin for your browser and begin tagging. There are plugins for all the major browsers to make bookmarking sites easy.

To qualify for Tagfoot's revenue sharing program you must fulfill some simple requirements first. You will have to post at least ten each of bookmarks, news items, You Tube type video links, photos, and wish list items. Once you have done this send a message to the site administrator.

Tagfoot is a great bookmarking site and you will find some interesting bookmarks that other users have tagged. Like Infopirate it has an active community of users and a forum.

Note of Warning: Don't use tagfoot for getting traffic to your articles. They are cracking down on use of links. Instead join and act as a contributor of valuable content and interesting sites. They are currently considering implimenting a "nofollow" code, so that Google does not consider links from Tagfoot as something to follow.

click on the logo for more info on Tagfoot

Linkbee

Linkbee is both a social bookmark site that shares ad revenue, and a way to shorten long website addresses. You simply find a site that you want to share with the world, shorten it's URL in Linkbee and post it wherever.

The new URL will still lead to the same page, only with a small banner or interstitial ad on the top of the page. You earn revenue from these ads. You are paid by Paypal, by requesting a payout when your account reaches only fifteen dollars. For more info, click on the Linkbee logo below.

click on the bee to learn more

Why You Should Use Social Bookmarking Sites That Pay You

If you are going to to use social bookmark sites to keep track of your bookmarks, promote your site, or to share bookmarks with friends, using ones that share revenue with you makes sense. Whether you use them for fun or for promoting your articles or websites, you can create a good stream of income just by adding websites, videos and images to your favorites.

Xomba

Xomba is not actually a social bookmarking site but it does have a feature that allows you to submit "Xomblurbs" or brief descriptions of other websites and information about them. Because Xomba has a very good Google page rank it can be an effective part of getting traffic to your sites or articles. However, that being said, what is true for the sites above is true for Xomba. Become a regular contributor of all kinds of interesting content and post comments to other publishers articles and you will earn more. You can also post a referral link along with the comments you make about other articles, earning you ten percent of the Adsense revenue that anyone who signs up under you earns. They still get the standard fifty percent cut from Xomba.

Click Here to Join Xomba

Tips to be your own 'mom-preneur'

Some "mom-preneurs" are giving advice on how to start your own business.

By Linsey Davis

NEW YORK -- If the recession has left you out of work, one way to get a job is to create your own. If you've always dreamed of starting your own business you might follow in the footsteps of some women who blazed their own trail through the unemployment jungle.

Sidney Miller's friends have always praised her cookies. So when her corporate job gave out, she went to work in the kitchen.

"So I'm out of a job and in the back of my mind I'm like, because why not?" said Miller.

She started by using her Facebook friends to test the market and take orders. Her company, "Sid's Viciously Good Cookies," sold 500 dozen cookies in the past three months. Then you have Mindie Doney and Julie Pickens who take the cake. These "mom-preneurs" came up with a better way to wipe kids' noses. They call it "The Boogie Wipe." It started in one store and has already gone international.

"It's a wonderful time to start into a business. But you have to have the right attitude about how you're going at it," said Dave Ramsey, "Dave Ramsey Show."

The majority of small businesses started last year with less than $5,000. The good news is technology is making it more affordable to start a business. Outright.com, for example, is bookkeeping on auto pilot.

"We will help you keep track of your income, track your expenses, deductions, pay estimated taxes throughout the year, we help you see how your business is doing," said Kevin Reeth, CEO and Founder, Outright.com.

Instead of paying a Web designer thousands of dollars, go to www.Wix.com.

"One of the first things you want to do is get Web presence up, you don't have to have any programming knowledge, wix.com will help so people can find you," said Reeth.

Gmail is one of the few free services that can associate your website domain; yourname@gmail.com can become yourname@yourbusiness.com.

For Sidney Miller, starting her own business was more about sweat equity than spending money, but success has been sweet.

(Copyright ©2009 ABC News Internet Ventures.)

Save time and save money with Adobe Volume Licensing

Save time and save money with Adobe Volume Licensing





StarsTwit.com, a site where you can find your favorite celebrities on twitter, and read about the latest celebrity tweets.

Stars Twit: Celebs on Twitter: StarsTwit.com!

• Buy Tia Kemp Much Deeper Book -50 Cent- Rick Ross Baby Mama Drama
  Tia Ross, Rick Ross baby mom, was just tweeted by 50 Cent… She’s in video talking about Rick Ross’s…
• Let Down Guidance - Quote by Dawn Richard
  Have you ever been let down? If so, here’s your daily dose for positivity. Just tweeted… Dawn Richard tells…
• Khloe Kardashian Gives Dodgers Jersey to Winner
  Just tweeted… Khloe Kardashian was kind enough to hold a contest for her fans. The winner walked away with…
• Life with Mashonda, Alicia Keys - Swizzz: Life Is Music
  Just tweeted… This is Swizzz chilling in a photo shoot. What a true musician to pose in headphones. He…

Google webmaster tools

It had been a while since I last visited Google’s sitemaps page. My movie weblog has a sitemap plugin installed that generates a feed that Google uses to index the site. It turns out Sitemaps has grown into “Webmaster tools”, and it’s great. Not only does it offer lots of details about how your is indexed, they’ve just added a tab that displays exactly who’s linking to what page on your site.

I’m very new to SEO techniques, but this seems like the perfect starting point for optimizing your site for Google. You can see what keywords are recognized in your site and how you rank for them.

Flash search engine experiment - the results - updated again

We’re now three days into my little experiment, and it seem the three most important search engines have found the page I created. Here are the results I’ve been able to gather so far…

Test	Google	Yahoo	Live search
Page indexed?	yes	yes	yes
Static text	yes!	no	no
Dynamic text through AS	no	no	no
Dynamic text form external file	no	no	no
Actionscript string variable	no	no	no
Extra var in external file	no	no	no

Things are looking rather grim. Although the page containing the swf file has been indexed by all three major search engines, none of it’s contents are turning up. This surprises me. Other movies on my site have had their static contents indexed, so why not this one? Perhaps indexing an swf requires more processing time and this one’s in some kind of queue waiting to be processed? I’ll keep checking to see if any of my fantasy words turn up.

To rule our any embedding code related weirdness, I’ll post the movie again here using SWFObject. Most of my movies that are currently in Google’s index use this method. I used a simpler one in the original experiment because I thought that would improve things. Apparently not.

Flash Player7 or better is required to view this.

UPDATE
I noticed that Google came by and indexed this post, again without touching the swf. Since this experiment is not about getting the swf file indexed, I’m just going to link to it from here and add it to Google’s indexing queue. I’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE2 - Finally, some real results!
Google has indexed the flash movie. The short description is “[fake word] static text field dynamic text field, content set through actionscript dynamic text field, content loaded from text file.” So that’s all the static text in the movie. I updated the table to reflect this and manually added the swf file’s path to Yahoo and to Live (which would only let me add the root url for some reason). Let’s see what they make of it.

Another thing I noticed is that the SERP links to the swf file, not the containing page. This means users will see the movie without context, probably at the wrong size and without any parameters the html page passes to it (so-called flashvars). So even if your movie is indexed, it’s still pretty much useless.

Share and Enjoy:

Gravity adds some sexiness to Symbian

Symbian may be the smartphone OS with the most experience, it does suffer from a certain dullness. It’s like the MS-DOS of mobile phone operating systems. Where the iPhone basically runs a trimmed down version of Apple’s OSX, Symbian was built to be light. Also on eye-candy. And it shows.

Fortunately, there are developers out there that create software that goes beyond that typical boring Symbian look and feel. Like mobileways.de, who recently released Gravity, a native Symbian Twitter client that brings both features and eye-candy.

Gravity has everything you might expect from a Twitter client, and it makes clever use of Symbian interface conventions to make it very fast and efficient. It also allows you to post pictures to TwitPic, which I’ve not seen before on my Nokia. But the real difference is that it looks stunning. There’s iPhone style kinetic scrolling, two nice interface themes and nifty buttons that pop up when you select a tweet. It feels decidedly un-Symbian.

As an open source fanatic, I’m usually reluctant to buy this kind of software. But Gravity is so far ahead of its free rivals that I bought it after trying the demo version for 15 minutes. And besides, this has somewhat restored my confidence in the future of Symbian. And Symbian is going open source.