Free Automatic Blog Backup Online

Not long ago, I have presented the free blog backup solution BlogBackupr. In this publication, I will show you one more way to backup your valuable blog content - blog backup system by Techrigy. Blog backup is very important because in the event your content is lost, you have the straightforward and simple way to restore it is fast. Furthermore, blog owner is able to store his blog backup anywhere, export it, and transfer it to any other compatible platform.

Blog Backup Online

The project is currently in beta testing stage and has several limitations like:

1. 50 MB limit.

To get more space allocation, all you need to do is just send the administration an email request at morespace@techrigy.com.

2. Blogging platform limitation. Blogs hosted on the following platform types are qualified for free backups:

* Blogger
* WordPress
* TypePad
* Friendster
* LiveJournal
* Serendipity
* Windows Live Space
* Movable Type
* Terapad
* Vox
* Multiply

3. Switch Blog Platforms

You can easily switch to a different blogging platform by using the ‘Restore’ feature.

4. Images & Videos

Images and videos backup is not currently supported, but the new service capabilities will be introduced soon.

There are three levels of support, and just the first one is free for all users. Levels and pricing:

Freemium

* Backup unlimited number of blogs
* Run backups daily
* 50 mb storage

Professional

* $4.17 per month ($49.95 per year)
* Restore your blog
* Backup images linked from blog
* 250MB of storage

Enterprise

* $8.30 per month ($99.95 per year)
* Restore your blogs
* Backup images linked from blog
* 1GB of storage

It is recommended to start from a free service, and if they fit your needs, you can eventually switch to more features-reach service level.

Developers Website: http://www.blogbackuponline.com/techrigy/

20% off for one week only!

I was once led to believe that replica watches are made in Asia and Europe only. I too held onto it for a long time till I saw bluefakes.com, an American site that sells replica watches of every Swiss brands that include my all time favorite Rolex among other brands such as Piaget and Rado.

I like the services offered by Bluefakes.com such as shipping within 3 days, big discounts, 24 hours accessibility and 100% free return policy.

Oh, they offer 5 years warranty on Swiss replica watches. Replica watches should be bought always from reputed dealers like Bluefakes.com

eHow is hiring writers.

"How to" is one area I am yet to develop my skill. I mean writing in depth articles on "How to" or "DIY" is so for not my forte. But I am an avid reader of e-how, an extraordinary site of just great information. I would rate them next to About.com

Even for some of my blog content ideas, I look up at ehow.com

I came to know through the feeds of Blogger Jobs that eHow is hiring writers. The advantage of writing to eHow is the freedom to write on the topics we are fully well versed with.

Another big advanatge is the scope of e-How. They deal with every topic one can think of. Also, since eHow is a big web site, one can expect to lokk forward to long term work.

For more information and to start writing, visit the link below and and create an account.

http://www.ehow.com/make-money-online.aspx?tcid=bjbiz

BlogBackupr Provides FREE Blog Back Up Service

If you are experienced blogger, then you probably know the importance of your blog data and the hard work you do to keep your blog alive. Loosing your blog data will be a nightmare. It is a good idea to perform back ups of your blog content at regular intervals so that you will not loose much of you blog data in case of disastrous crash of your blogging platform.

BlogBackuper

I am a Blogger platform user, and I am using the embedded opportunities for the data backup. However, if for some reason Blogger itself cease to exist, the blogs content and all the backups will be gone as well.

It would be good to have blog backups preserved by the third-party platform, no affiliated with blog hosting site. There is a free service - BlogBackupr - who will do all the will do it for you on daily basis. This service works with all blogs that have a RSS-feed. It runs over the Internet and takes daily backup of your blog. The good thing is - you do not have to install any software on your PC as services are purely web-based.

Currently site supports the following blogging platforms:
* Wordpress Open Source (wordpress.org)
* Wordpress.Com
* Blogger.Com

Note that there are still certain limitations as the site does not support backup of images and your blog templates at the moment. However soon the support for all media files such as images (jpeg, gif etc) or any other files that’s currently on your blog (Powerpoint slides, ZIP-files, CSS, etc.) will be introduced. This will be done automatically for all BlogBackupr-users.

Sign for the services: https://blogbackupr.com/.

I got paid by Widget Bucks.

Image via WikipediaI was casually looking at my emails when I noticed the word, "payment" in the subject of one of my emails. A decade of experience has built in a few hunches in me which always proved to be true.

I knew I have received money in my paypal but I did not expect the payment from Widget Bucks because I only joined Widget Bucks, kept their widget in one of my blogs for two weeks and removed it. It happened almost 6 months before.

The $50+ that I received from Widget Bucks was a total surprise to me. I was sure they sent it to the wrong person. Just when I was about to write to them, I decided to check my widget bucks account.

Yes, I earned it! Several people have joined Widget Bucks clicking on my link and they have made money for me. Imagine how much they would have made if I were to receive $25+ from their earnings. Widget Bucks also kept their promise of giving me $25 as a sign up bonus.

Want to join now Widget Bucks? It is never late buddy. I am lucky to you and you, to me.

PS: The image here is nothing to with Widget Bucks. It is just a jolly good image.

Free photos for your blog content.

Every blogger's aim is to attract readers to their blogs by giving useful content. But useful information is not always sufficient. This blog is a fine example. No matter how useful my information I give in this blog, it still is read by less than 30 people a day.

But whenever I place an image in my blog post that is relevant to the content, the visitors increase slightly and they also tend to comeback. But where do one search for images? Obviously there are lots of sites to look for image.

But we can't use any image that we like. Some of them may be copyright protected. Here is a place you can search for images that are free to use.

Visit Font Play for free photos. Look by categories to find the image you want.

Eat to live.

My son’s boss informed my son one day that IT employees who sit for more than 4 hours at a stretch in front of the computers need to engage the services of professional fitness trainers to avoid getting obese and pot belly.

This has to be seriously viewed at the start of their careers before it is too late, by which time, even weight loss pill won’t help. Generally, IT people eat less than most of the others and this habit of eating to live is a healthy habit.

But our metabolism tends to change depending on the age, the type of food we eat, the time of lunch and dinner and so on. So, before you are forced to suppress your appetite by taking diet pills, suppress your urge to eat even when you are not hungry.

Don’t live to eat. Focus your attention on your stomach only when it calls for.

Tips to choose profitable affiliate programs.

A new blogger who is sincerely trying to monetize his blog will easily get carried away by signing up to each and every affiliate program that he comes across by reading money making blogs.

I don't blame you if you are one, as I too was like that several years ago. Here are some useful tips to choose the right affiliate program.

1. Don't fall for big players alone assuming that they are the best. It is not always true. For example, I am sure you are aware of the stalwart CJ (Commission Junction). They only encourage U.S. marketers. Most of the their merchants will reject your application if you are elsewhere. It is true some of their merchants will auto approve your application but such merchants' products or services are not in big demand. It is my experience. (I am in India)

2. Choose and apply for products/services that will be most useful to you. This is a smart way to think on the lines of others' needs. I would definitely recommend the following two popular affiliate directories. Both have excellent products that even I am able to sell.

Pepperjam Network

My Help Hub

3. Will you buy a product purely based on popularity than need? No, you won't. At least I won't. I will remember this principle while promoting products.

4. Look for products that offer a minimum of 20% commission on sale price.

5. If an affiliate directory pays only when you reach $200, don't join even if they offer high commission rate. It is quite probable that their products are not in demand.

6. Don't accept check payments if you are outside U.S. Accept only through Paypal.

7. Be prepared to get payments only after 45 days of making a sale because of refund policy.

Christian books as Christmas gifts.

I could not refuse the invitation by my husband’s friend, a devout Christian and 76 years old. He invited us for a pre-Christmas lunch because we had already given appointment to another Christian friend for Christmas lunch.

Yesterday, we decided to buy some gifts for both the luncheon dates. My husband gave me free hand on spending limit.

Suddenly an idea stuck me. Why not swap both the friends’ products? One friend is a publisher of Christian books and videos and his products are in good demand in Singapore and Malaysia. Another person is businessman selling high-tech video cameras and accessories.

We decided to buy one or two camera accessories to the publisher friend and buy his Christian books to the other friend. I also thought of Christian music but did not proceed further.

This way, both will have meaningful gifts and we can link them both in their respective business.

Adult Content Definition by Google AdSense

I got an interesting question from this blog reader, which I could not answer right away. The question was: How Google AdSense defines adult content? Since I never considered even approaching the safe borderline of adult and porn related content, this simple question never sparkled on my horizon.

It is not the secret that the adult content is of great demand online. Google AdSense from the very beginning alienated the program from the potentially danger of entering this category of advertising.

Adult Content Definition in Google AdSense

Explicit nudity, for example, was always way beyond Google’s terms of service.

However, there are many posts that are getting really close to the mature content line. In fact, some webmasters are intentionally playing the game of attracting more visitors by intentionally bordering on that line. It is quite understandable since they might benefit from additional income from advertisers who are also close to violating the AdWords TOS, prohibiting explicit ads as well.

In the article on the AdSense owned blog, there is a post “Inside AdSense: Play it safe, family-safe“, clarifying Google AdSense position on the topic.

In short, Google replaces the “explicit” term with “family-safety”. In their own words:

“Our policy regarding adult or mature content may include any material that is not appropriate for all audiences. While this obviously includes full nudity or sexual activity, it may also include textually explicit sexual content, image or video content containing lewd or provocative poses, strategically covered nudity, see-through or sheer clothing, and close-ups of anatomy that would be inappropriate if shown nude. Additionally, topics such as sexual health and sex tips may be held to a higher standard of professionalism than content that isn’t bordering on mature”.

Google also provides a view good questions that a webmasters should ask themselves:

Would I be comfortable viewing this content with my parents or children in the same room?

Would I feel comfortable viewing this content if my boss walked up behind me while I had this content on my screen?

Of course, the level of comfortability perception varies from person to person. But the point is clear - play safe, and be safe. We, webmasters, are working for Google, and not the opposite, so we should apply common sense to define the publically accepted family-oriented guidelines.

Unbelievable blog editor.

Image via Wikipedia

The blog post you reading now is something special to me and will be to you too once you fully read this post.

I learnt about Windows Live Writer about 15 minutes ago from Blog Doctor whose author Vin is one I respect most as a consummate blogging coach.

The 15 reasons Vin has cited in his post to use Windows Live Writer to post to your blogs have aroused considerable interest in me. I love to use blog editor and if that comes from Windows itself, it must be damn good.

Some of the 15 reasons to use Windows Live Writer:

* It is free

* Post to multiple blogs.

* Save bandwidth by publishing post once only instead of continuously saving posts as you make them in a web browser Post Editor.

* Add Technorati/ Delicious/Flickr/Live Journal/Ice Rocket etc Tags to posts.

I hope you download it from here:

Technorati Tags: Blog editor,blog writer

Submit your blog feed.

FeedSee will accept your site's RSS feed immediately. No questions asked. I mean, no registration is required. Not even your email is asked; just the feed URL only.

But be prepared to use your general knowledge while submitting. Their system will ask you to answer a question. This is in place of the usual 'Captcha'.

You can also search for feeds for a set of keywords.

All bloggers who are blogging about ways to earn online by blogging should immediately submit their blog's RSS feed URL.

The reason:
I just searched their database of feeds for this keyword: "Earn money by blogging"
The result is just one feed URL and it has nothing related to the topic searched.

I searched for 'Blog Promotion'. Again nothing.

They have a database of tags. I found the tag, 'blogging' and it yielded 62 feed URLs.

FeedSee is a human edited RSS feed directory.

What is meant by web savvy?

So far, not a single inquiry for my blogging academy. Oh, there were some emails asking for 'more info' but they vanished into thin air or into the web after deciding that they are not web savvy.

Yes, in my reply email, I clearly informed that my blogging academy can take in students who are web savvy. I can't teach people who know only reading email.

Web savvy persons are familiar with:

• search engines
• search engine optimization (SEO)
• affiliate programs
• RSS/syndication
• page rank
• contextual advertising
• social bookmarking
• blogging
• text link advertising
• ppc advertising
• traffic analysis
• web forms
• pinging
• feed readers
• blogging platforms
• cpm and cpa

And they assume they too can earn without knowing anything of the above! At least, they should have came forward to admit that they are newbies.

Even God can't motivate them.

How to Delete ‘nofollow’ Attribute from Blogger Blog

Blogger by default, and other blogging software such as WordPress, automatically adds the "nofollow" microformat extension to all links from user generated content. User generated content is defined as comments or external sources such as linkbacks and trackbacks.

Difference Between NoFollow and Follow Links?

Follow Back Links

These links pass on all “link juice” to the site being linked to, which means search engines follow this link to your site and take note of it. This is why the link is called a follow link, and this is also why these links are the best for your SEO.


Pros

* Link Juice - The most obvious and lucrative benefit of follow back links is the link juice they send to your site. This will help boost your rankings in search engines because most search engines (Google being the main one) calculate your rankings based largely on the amount of links you have coming into your site.

* Increased Interaction - Every visitor of your site had something they were looking for. If you own a webmaster or make money blog or site like mine, follow back links can increase your interaction because these readers are often looking for ways to get a free back link when they visit your site.

* Higher Value - If you sell links on your site, they will no doubt sell for more if they are follow back links rather than if they are no follow back links.

Cons

* Search Engine Backlash - Search engines, Google in particular, are really cracking down on follow back links. They are not only penalizing the site that sells the links or distributes them, but if they have proof of a paid link they will go even further and penalize the buyer. This could backfire on you, so you have to make sure your links look and seem organic, all while not overdoing the whole process.

* Decreased Value - Too many follow links on your page and Google will label you as a link farm and discount the value of each individual link and may even reduce your rankings. Generally speaking, the fewer follow links on a page, the more juice to pass on to each one of those links.

NoFollow Back Links


No follow back links are just like any other link, except they have a small “rel=nofollow” added to the end of them, which means that a search engine crawler will not follow the link to the next site and therefore will not index your page and mark the link as a backlink. These links will still bring you traffic though, which means they are just as useful for normal visitors.


Pros

* Make Genuine Ones Count - By keeping the majority of your links as no follow, you will be making sure your actual in-post or on site links are worth more. So if you’re selling paid reviews and paid links, it may be in your best interests to keep the paid links nofollow to increase the sales of your paid reviews and to make the actual links in your post count more.

* Search Engine Favour - Google has repeatedly been quoted as saying that sites with more nofollow links will fare better in the future, and many are pointing this out as a clue on their part that if you use nofollow links for all your irrelevant or link sales, you will rank higher in the search engines.

* Made for Users - Even though a nofollow backlink may not be helpful to search engine or a webmaster, it is made for users. There is no visible difference in the link, first of all. Secondly, you are helping keep the web clean and to maintain its high quality. Finally, since you are not changing the appearance of a nofollow link, you are still sending traffic or allowing users to visit a site of a commentator or a friend.


Cons

* Link Juice - Once again, the primary and most important factor in the entire nofollow vs follow debate is the “juice” you get from high pagerank or high quality pages linking to yours. This juice is not passed on in a nofollow link and therefore you get minimal SEO benefit.

* Reduced Interaction - Some of your visitors might be “turned-off” by a nofollow link on blog comments, and many times they will not comment if the links the blog is providing are nofollow. This can be a big hit if your blog is fairly small and in a webmaster related niche as commenting and interaction on your site and blog will dip.

* Lost Revenue - If you sell text-links on your site and you mark them as nofollow, be ready to take a hit in your revenue. Like I’ve pointed out above, nofollow text links do not bring nearly as much money or sales as a follow text link will. The reason behind this is because people who are looking for text-links are primarily looking for SEO benefit.

As you see, the advantages of removing no follow attributes in your Blogger blog are not straightforward, and you might decide not to do that removal after all. But if you want to experiment with that modification, or you are positive that potential advantages are overwhelming, you will find below the Blogger hack on how to remove “no follow” attribute from you account.

How to Delete ‘nofollow’ Attribute on Blogger

1. Login into your blogger. Usually you will bring to Dashboard after login.
2. Choose your blog and click “Layout”.
3. Click “Edit Html” subtab on the “Template” tab.
4. Before removing ‘nofollow‘ attribute (as with any other template modification), it is recommended to backup you template by clicking Download Full Template and saving in the safe location on your Hard Drive. You can re-enable it if your template modification producing the errors.
5. Check “Expand Widgets” checkbox at at the top of the Edit Template text box. This expands the Blog Posts Widget Code within which is the comments code.
6. Scroll down the template and find below code

<dl id=’comments-block’>
<b:loop values=’data:post.comments’ var=’comment’>
<dt class=’comment-author’expr:id=’"comment-" + data:comment.id’>
<a expr:name=’"comment-" +data:comment.id’/>
<b:if cond=’data:comment.authorUrl’>
<a expr:href=’data:comment.authorUrl’ rel=’nofollow’><data:comment.author/></a>
<b:else/>
<data:comment.author/>
</b:if>
<data:commentPostedByMsg/>
</dt>

7. Detele the code rel=’nofollow’ (or you can remove only no, making it rel=’follow‘) and save the template.

You are done!

Bazzill Value Pack for interesting scrapbooking!

A mini contest was announced in my old school for the thanks giving day. The contest was limited to only 200 students. The contestants were supposed to come up with unique gift ideas for the Christmas.

--->Bazzill Value Pack from a Cherry on Top

And the main rule of the contest was that the gift should be affordable by even fruits vendors.

Some of the school students are also my present math students. They sought ideas from me. I know I am not good in this area and asked my husband, a true virtuoso to suggest ideas for gifts.

He didn’t take more than 15 minutes to produce a rather lengthy list of gift ideas starting from scrapbooking supplies and ending with handmade cell phone holders made of wooden ice cream spoons.

Do you want the list?

Earn $25 per blog post.

Had you visited this blog in he last two days and had you been alert enough to have looked at the ads by Google, you would have noticed one ad with the title, "We buy article posts".

Personal Money Store is what it is-a money store where one can apply for personal loan and gets it in two hours. They disburse payday loans and also offer their credit repair services.

But they are also inviting articles from freelance writers. They are paying an average of $25 per article which equals about $.05 cents per word (excluding words such as: a, and, I, it, has, had, etc).

What they are looking for is technical writing as well as common sense writing and also humorous articles. The are article should have 525 words. They have mentioned a bunch of rules about the article they are expecting. Quite scary!

Please submit all articles through email.

Bringing more traffic to your blog - December 5, 2008 - 9th Ed.

Welcome to the 9th, December 5, 2008 edition of "Bringing more traffic to your blog" Blog Carnival. Some statistics: Submitted Articles - 92. Published Articles - 41. I want to thank all the authors contributing to the issue. Some articles were excluded from the review, since their topic of discussion did not match the main target of the carnival. I am sorry, that not all submissions were accepted, as some of the excluded articles carried a significant value.

Alex_Sysoef presents Allow Google Tell You What Search Results To Dominate posted at WordPress Web 2.0 How-To Spot-er, saying, "In this post I want to share a very simple tip that will help you not only determine what to write about but also show you how to allow Google to tell you what search result pages they WANT YOU to dominate! It is not a lesson in SEO, although it partially covers the point, but a strategy to help you get more targeted traffic to your blog. And if you are like me - you wouldn’t mind to get a few more visitors to your blog, would you?"

Dwight presents When will my website get ranked? posted at TM Blog, saying, "Detroit Michigan Digital Advertising Agency talks about SEO, Website Design, Development and Online Marketing for consumers. Great Tips for getting better rankings."

Brian Terry presents 4 Great Ways to Explode Your Article Marketing posted at Big Marketing Secrets Blog, saying, "The idea of building your online business via article marketing has been around for ages. Even before the Internet it was used by publishers to get free content from contributors in exchange of free advertising."

Andy presents Tip On Writing A Feature Article - For Online Success! posted at Personal Plug, saying, "The No.1 challenge of all marketers is getting targeted traffic and targeted paid traffic is rarely cheap. You all know that Adwords costs are skyrocketing these days just like oil prices and it is getting harder to make money using PPC."

Greg Nemer presents Free and Low Cost Web Pages, Blogs, FTP’s and Html Editors posted at INTERNET MARKETING WITH PURPOSE, saying, "Some of the very best free and low cost tools for building web pages and blogs, editing HTML, and even a few FTP programs to upload your web pages and files"

Wayne John presents 10 Cool Create an Avatar Web Sites posted at Wayne John, saying, "What web site are these people visiting to create these cartoon styled avatars? I found a mess of them, and tried each one out. If you are looking for a new look on the web, this is a great starting point."

Andy presents Top 5 Tips On Designing An Seo Friendly Website posted at Personal Plug, saying, "Getting high rankings in major search engines is essential for maximizing your visibility online and growing traffic to your small business website. More and more small businesses are realizing that the best way to reach prospective customers is through search engines like Google."

Matthew Paulson presents The Importance of Frequent Website Updates posted at American Entrepreneurship.

DebbieDragon presents Baby Stepping Your Way into Social Networking posted at Empowering Mom.

Brian Terry presents Traffic vs. Sales Conversions - Which Is Better? posted at Big Marketing Secrets Blog, saying, "This is a question I get time and time again, “how do I generate more traffic to my website?”. The problem is and it’s what most people miss out on is it’s not just about the traffic."

Peter Jones presents Bauu Institute: Successfully Building Links via Forums, Blogs, and Social Networks for Book Marketing posted at Bauu Institute and Press, saying, "How to build links to your blog or website to increase it’s traffic."

Jessica presents 10 Top Notch Link Building Tactics for Real Estate Websites posted at Real Estate License Information; Real Estate License Training.

Buildify presents Are You Using Social Networking Enough for Your Corporate Blog? posted at Buildify.

Kiltak presents How to write posts that people will actually read posted at [Geeks Are Sexy] Technology News.

Alex_Sysoef presents Blog Carnivals As Source Of One Way Links posted at WordPress Web 2.0 How-To Spot-er, saying, "Blog carnivals is perhaps one of the most underused methods and yet - one of the very effective ways to Build One Way Links for FREE. I don’t know about you but incoming link is an incoming link and taking a few minutes to do some simple submissions in my book is VERY EFFECTIVE way to build your blog authority."

cfgoulart presents Blog Promotion and Free Website Content posted at Making Money Resources, saying, "Free content for your blog, help increase traffic to your blog with more content, very interesting."

swollenpickles presents Why I’ve lost faith in Google posted at Swollen Pickles.

Peter Jones presents Bauu Institute: Resources for website page rank building posted at Bauu Institute and Press, saying, "How to bring more traffic to your blog via directories, article marketing, and forums."

Erika Collin presents 100 Fun & Useful Search Engines for Writers posted at LearningXL.

HowToMakeMyBlog.com presents Get Traffic By Building Your Blog Awareness posted at HowToMakeMyBlog.com, saying, "Brand awareness is a marketing concept that refers to a consumer knowing of a brand’s existence. We can translate this into blog traffic building and call it blog awareness."

gazzali presents How To Rank High In Google posted at PROenrichment.

Abel Christianson presents Add Url To Search Engines posted at Adsense Templates Blog.

Brian Terry presents 5 Red Hot Tips To Effective Forum Marketing posted at Big Marketing Secrets Blog, saying, "You’re NOT allowed to advertise or market directly through your forum posts, this is seen as spamming the forums. It’s a “surefire” way to get banned from ever posting to them again. Here’s the secret to highly effective forum marketing…"

Peter Lee presents Squidoo Secrets Revealed: Drive Unstoppable Traffic To Your Home Business | Work From Home Business Blog posted at Work From Home Business Blog.

Ian Richardson presents 5 Ways to Make Your Website Sticky posted at Make Everything EzyAs123, saying, "This is an excellent article on 5 effective ways to make your website sticky."

Greg Nemer presents Time Saving Tools and Strategies For Twitter posted at INTERNET MARKETING WITH PURPOSE, saying, "Time Saving Tools and Strategies for Getting More Web Traffic To Your Blog Using Twitter"

Wayne John presents One Simple Method to Keep Visitors on Your Site posted at Wayne John, saying, "One method I use to help keep visitors on my site is by creating my hyperlinks so they open a new window when they are clicked."

Amanda Dry presents Getting Backlinks To Your Webpage | Ashley’s Picks posted at Ashley’s Picks, saying, "Get more traffic by creating backlinks."

Welly Mulia presents 4 Ways To Promote An Affiliate Product And The Most Effective One Is… | Internet Business Make Money Online With Welly Mulia posted at Internet Business Make Money Online With Welly Mulia.

DebbieDragon presents Get More Traffic to Your Blog posted at Empowering Mom.

Anthony McCune presents Thinking Of Starting A Business? The Top 10 Tips posted at The Lives and Times... of Anthony McCune.

The Investor presents Why blogging for money will not make you rich posted at Monevator.com, saying, "Why do people blog for slave-labour wages? While some bloggers make a lot of money online, most people it’s a somewhat unrealistic dream."

Alex_Sysoef presents Why “More” Is Better? posted at WordPress Web 2.0 How-To Spot-er, saying, "An inspiration for this post was recent conversation with one of my friends, who is brilliant internet marketer but blogging, using WordPress as platform of choice, is rather recent for him. It made me realize that what many of us bloggers accept as common knowledge might have the learning curve for him and many others. In this post I want to describe - Why “MORE” tag is a must have on blog and how to implement it. And as always - this post is based on my personal opinion and something that I use and has proven beneficial to me."

Fiona Veitch Smith presents Dofollow Search Tool is online posted at Hippo Web Solutions, saying, "Use the Dofollow Search Tool to identify blogs that reward commenters with search-engine-friendly links that you can use to boost your own PageRank - and by doing so attract more organic search traffic."

Kano presents Free Keyword Research Tools - Wordtracker GTrends posted at Online Money Making Guide, saying, "Keyword research is one of the linchpins of your efforts to make money online. The Wordtracker GTrends free keyword research tool is a great way to plan your next online endeavor or maybe just tune up your current one. This article looks at what the Wordtracker GTrends keyword research tool is and how you can use it."

Peter Jones presents Bauu Institute and Press: Check Your Competition’s Traffic. posted at Bauu Institute and Press.

Kara-Leah presents Why writing a communications strategy matters - even for a yoga website posted at Prana Flow NZ, saying, "A website is a way to communicate, and if you’re running your own website you could benefit massively from writing a communications strategy for your site. Simply a plan of attack that articulates your key messages, audience and how you’re going to reach them, a strategy is something that anyone can write. Join communications professional K-L Grant of Prana Flow NZ as she leads by example and puts together a communications strategy for her yoga website."

Naren Ghimire presents How to Write a Great Article and Drive Huge Traffic to Your Website or Blog? posted at Spiritual Pub, saying, "Writing is a powerful medium that allows you to connect with people and the world. Not only does it let you pour out your inner feelings and emotions, but also it helps you discover your true self. If your article is great, then it will motivate others in their personal, social and spiritual growth, and can also light a match of inner revolution in their lives. This article discusses seven sutras that will help you create an article that truly resonates, strikes a chord in millions of readers, and helps you drive a huge traffic to your website or blog."

Wayne John presents Modifying Your Blogger Header The Blogger Way posted at Wayne John, saying, "A common thing you’ll find when you start blogging is that you’ll want to make changes to your template. If you use the Blogger blog system, it can be easy or extremely difficult depending upon what you want to do. This post will show you where to go to modify your header as well as some advice as to how to approach the issue of modifying your header image if you choose to do things yourself."

Kathleen Gaga presents Teleseminars - One of the Best Ways to Build Your Business and Your Revenues posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions, saying, "Holding live workshops and seminars are a good way to build a business. However due to current economic trends, the traditional methods of holding and conducting workshops make it very difficult to execute and get participation. In addition, the costs involved in getting a venue, audio visual aids and providing refreshments for the participants make it quite expensive and there are many factors that could prevent the event from being successful and profitable. Learn why teleseminars are one of the best ways to build your business."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of bringing more traffic to your blog using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Dynamic Tree DTree for Blogger Blog

In course of my experiments to bring normally dynamic content in the Blogger blog to the appearance and functionality of the static Websites, I was trying to implement the Blogger hack, allowing displaying the blog Table of Content in the Windows Explorer similar interface. While there are multiple scripts available online for this modification, I had to try several of them before I actually found one, which worked right away with relative simplicity. It is my pleasure to offer it to you. All credit for this excellent script is to the author of The Blogger Guide. I will repost the article without modification in respect to the script developer.

A tree control (i.e. the GUI element found in the left pane of Windows Explorer) provides a useful way of organizing a set of hierarchical items. This article will present a method to incorporate such a tree control in to Blogger blogs.

Before we proceed, let’s take a look at how our final tree will look like.

Content Tree on Blogger Blog

Now let’s see how to include a tree like the above in your blog.

Step 1
First step is to include two resources, a JavaScript file and a CSS file, in to the Blogger template. Copy the following two lines of code and insert them in to the head section of your template.

<link href=’http://thebloggerguide.googlepages.com/dtree.css’ rel=’StyleSheet’ type=’text/css’/>
<script src=’http://thebloggerguide.googlepages.com/dtree.js’ type=’text/javascript’/>

You can copy it immediately under the <head> tag as shown in the figure below. (These two resources are hosted on the Blogger Guide companion site. Don’t worry, there is no tracking code or any thing of that sort there. It’s used purely for hosting files referred to from these articles)

Content Tree on Blogger Blog

Save your template and exit Edit HTML mode.

Step 2
Next step is to write the code necessary to create the tree. I will first present a sample code and then explain it.

<div class="dtree">

<p><a href="javascript: d.openAll();">open all</a> | <a href="javascript: d.closeAll();">close all</a></p>

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--

d = new dTree(’d’);

d.add(0,-1,’Favorite Articles’);
d.add(1,0,’3 Columns’);
d.add(2,1,’3 Columns Explained’,’http://bguide.blogspot.com/2008/02/three-column-templates-explained.html’);
d.add(3,1,’Skeleton of a Template’,’http://...’);
d.add(4,1,’Adding a Third Column’,’http://...’);
d.add(5,1,’Layout Wire Frame Editor’,’http://...’);
d.add(6,1,’3 Columns with LR Sidebars’,’http://...’);
d.add(7,0,’Blog Traffic’);
d.add(8,7,’How to Monitor Visitors’,’http://...’);
d.add(9,7,’Feedjit’,’http://...’);
d.add(10,7,’Exclude Your Traffic from GA’,’http://...’);
d.add(11,0,’Customizations’);
d.add(12,11,’Add a Custom CSS class’,’http://...’);
d.add(13,11,’Related Posts Table’,’http://...’);
d.add(14,11,’Limit Widgets to Specific Pages’,’http://...’);
d.add(15,1,’3 Column Step by Step Guides’,’http://...’);

document.write(d);

//-->
</script>
</div>

The first line defines a generic div element and applies the class dtree in to that. This CSS class is defined in the dtree.css file which we included in Step 1 above. Next line inserts two buttons (in fact, links) to Expand and Collapse all the nodes in the tree. Thirdly, you find a Javascript enclosed within a <script> element. The first line in the script, d = new dTree(’d’), creates a new tree object to which we can insert nodes. The following lines which start with d.add(...) are the statements that insert all the nodes in to the tree. Then the last line of the script, document.write(d), renders the created tree on to the browser.

The add() function of the dTree takes in several parameters. The first 3 parameters are required (i.e. you must provide values for them) and the other parameters are optional. The above example uses the following 4 parameters.

• Node ID - A unique numerical ID number. Assign a sequentially increasing number to each new node.
• Parent Node ID - If you want to create a child node, then the ID of the parent node should be given here. This will be ’-1’ for the root node. (See the first d.add(...) line in the example)
• Node Name - A textual description for the node
• Node URL - If you want the node to link to some resource (e.g. an HTML page or some online image), provide the URL of the that resource as the 4th parameter.

For a full description of the add() function see here. You don’t have to provide consecutive (or adjacent) IDs for all the child nodes at a given level. For example, node 15 of the above snippet is attached as a child of node 1 called ’3 Columns’. You can have the nodes anywhere as long as you maintain the uniqueness of the node IDs and provide the correct parent node IDs. Step 3 Once you finish adding the nodes, copy the entire code starting from the <div class="dtree"> to the corresponding </div>. Then insert the entire code using an ’Add HTML/Javascript Element’ widget of the ’Add Page Element’ option. Place the widget where you want the tree to appear. Save the template and view your blog. You will have the tree sitting nicely in your blog! One limitation is the fact that node names do not wrap at the edges. So you have to give names that fit withing the width of the containing sidebar (or whatever location). Let me know what you think of it and also if you come across any problems when installing it.

Acknowledgment: I have used the free tree control offered by Geir Landrц at Destroydrop. The original files have been slightly modified to make them available online, to be used inside Blogger.

Note: You are free to use the resources used in Step 1. But if you do use, please link to this article from your blog.

If you want to see the practical implementation of this script, you can visit my new blog Data Recovery Techniques.

George Foreman is concerned about your health.

--G5 grill from George Foreman--

After prolonged procrastination, I decided to attend one day cooking class. Don't laugh at me please because, "Mom, do you need to learn at this age" question you may entertain.

The story goes like this: My husband suddenly picked up a liking for grilled food after he tasted a grilled vegetable sandwich.

Now he wants me to learn to use a sophisticated grill so that he can order (how dare) me to make him a grilled dish daily.

To pacify me, he bought a sleek looking G5 grill from George Foreman who has sold almost 100 million grills so far. He even managed to buy a recipe book full of grilled food.

For healthy grilling, he gathered a few ingredients too, claiming that he researched for them. I am sure he got them from the recipe book he bought.

Why males are still chauvinistic?

In-text advertising pays.

After much procrastination, I signed up with Kontera and I have already inserted their ad code on this blog. You may see their in-text ads in some of the posts in this blog.

Kontera has been in this field for long. They now offer in-text advertising and publishers can benefit from this financially.

Kontera’s ContentLink In-Text Website Advertising lets you monetize your content in real-time, resulting in an increased revenue. These in-text ads always point to us whether our content has really proper keywords to the topic we have written on.

The above point is important and may force us to re-read our blog post and modify if necessary. I was given to understand that Kontera provides more control and better usability than some of the other networks that offer inline text ads.

Any insight?

Forums that pass on link juice.

There may be hundreds of forums that may pass on link juice. Passing on link juice means removing 'no follow' attribute. Our blog gets backlinks-one way backlinks if we happen to leave behind our link to blogs as a signature.

But, I know all such 'do follow' forums may not be interesting to bloggers. Forums must be in our niche to participate-right?

Feedburner forum is definitely a nice for bloggers and it follows our links. I was encouraged to join this forum because it has more 75,000 members.

But, what a disappointment when I opened that site. It is on the verge of closing. I think I have missed out on a golden opportunity to get backlinks and readerships by not being aware of the feedburner forum earlier.

To start or continue a discussion about FeedBurner, please visit our new FeedBurner Help Group, part of Google Groups.

Mobile blogging agent GBlogger

With recent growth of the model communication devices, mobile blogging inevitably gains more popularity. With free mobile blogging utility Mobile GBlogger you can make post on the go to your Blogger account from anywhere in the world using your Windows Mobile 5/6 mobile device. All you need is a means of connecting your Windows Mobile PDA or Smartphone to the Internet.


Mobile GBlogger Basic is the completely free version of the GBlogger service. It is also the easiest to get going with. Simply download and install the client for your Windows Mobile device and you’re ready to go. With Mobile GBlogger Basic you get the following features:

* Publish or save as Draft full blog posts for all of your blogs.
* Insert preset HTML tags and objects such as hyperlinks, text formatting, YouTube Video objects, and others

With the free GBlogger service a small, one line advertisement for Mobile GBlogger is inserted at the end of the post. If you want to remove the ad, you can choose using the Mobile Gblogger Pro software version, cost $15 / year.

You can find more information and download the software from the developers’ website: http://www.pocketwatchsoftware.com/gblogger

Mobile Gblogger carries rating 3 of 5 on the RateItAll Rating List of 32 Free Utilities for Bloggers.

How the Moroccan furniture is known?

Do you know how the Moroccan furniture is known to the world? It is because, the Moroccan tiles and the sheer décor they added to any interior. The brilliant patterns made with pleasing and at the same time innovative color combination has been the choice of kings to households of yesteryears.

Even my husband’s ancestral home had Moroccan Alhambra tiles in the prayer room. I wonder how the Moroccan culture had penetrated deep into South India!

Alhambra Tiles
Source: Google Images

Seen those tiles in many places? I know! But you didn't know they are Moroccan Alhambra tiles! I have seen this in those huge mansions in Lucknow.

Why Moroccan furniture is so captivating?

I think it is because their culture itself is a fine mixture of French, Spanish and African. I have seen this (see below) multi-purpose wooden table in many houses. Actually no one knows that it is Moroccan furniture. These kinds of tables and settees are frequently sold in exclusive furniture exhibitions.

Moroccan furniture
Soure: Google images

How to brand your blog?

I realize I have committed a grave mistake of not closely following Darren Rowse's articles. Today, I happened to glance at the headlines of his blog feed. I ended up spending nearly 90 minutes reading them and many of his earlier blog posts.

No wonder he is very popular and respected in the blogosphere.

Apart from gathering information about various essential tools for bloggers, I read an interesting article about the importance of branding your blog and not you as an author.

This means you concentrate on building up the blog readership based on the content of the article and exclusively the domain of your blog. He has cited the examples of two great bloggers whom I also admire.

They are Pete Cashmore and Peter Rojas.

They are the authors of Mashable.com and Gizmodo.com respectively.

This is what he says about them:

"Should they have started their blogs on petecashmore.com and peterrojas.com, publishing the same content, I doubt that they would have had the same success."- Daniel Scocco in his guest post in Problogger.net

Muse on this please!

The disadvantages of being slim.

Don’t imagine that there are only advantages of being slim! There are areas where a fat person is able to claim certain privileges over me just because I am slim.

Three days before, I was traveling in a train. I was asleep soundly (of course without snoring) in a lower berth when I was impolitely shaken up by a woman and demanded that I take the upper berth because she could not climb up.

One glance at her convinced me that she cannot. Moreover, I did not relish sleeping under her. So I gave her room (?) and reluctantly took the upper berth after giving her a glare that won’t fade away from her memory.

Why don’t such women (I am not bothered about men) take alli diet pills, the FDA approved diet pill at present? Even eBay seems to be a place to buy alli diet pills, so she dare not give any excuses for not able to purchase at the local pharmacy.

Infolinks pays you to blog.

Info Links is an internet advertising company that offers in-text links advertising. Blog publishers can sign up for free and insert a java script in the body of their Blog's HTML .

Ads relevant to the keywords in yours blog will appear when the mouse hovers over the keyword that has two lines underneath it. When the ad is clicked, you are paid. When the mouse is moved away from the hyperlink, the ad disappears.

Bloggers are getting a lot of opportunities to earn from blogs. Every now and then, some innovative blog advertising appears on the scene and bloggers are presented with one more opportunity to get paid by blogging.

Features of Info Links:

. You can run it along with Google AdSense.
• Quick and easy setup with no changes to your website
• Ads are tightly integrated with your content - no additional space required

Yes, you got it right; it is similar to Kontera.

I have experienced some good customer support from Info Links. Sign up now with Info Links.

Create multiple articles avoiding duplicate content

It is not easy to write a good, informative article with original content. To increase readers auditory as much as possible, blogger repost the same article at the different blogs and social blogging communities. But duplicate content is not encouraged neither by search engines, nor by some blogging sites, where the condition to submit exclusively original content is strict.

DupeFreePro is a free software tool that will make your life easier to avoid using duplicate content when you’re posting articles here and there on the Internet. Note that it is not similar to those automated programs which create hundreds of junk articles, but it will help to evaluate your own modified articles for perceived uniqueness.

 

As you may know, Google ignores duplicate content while assessing the site SEO ranking. If you post the same article (containing a link to your web site) in more than one location, when Google calculates your web site’s rankings, it uses what it considers to be the first posting or the earliest article and ignores the others.

For optimal results, you want to rewrite the article enough so that Google perceives it as original content. This can be tricky, since it’s difficult to know when you have modified an article enough to rate as new content.

DupeFreePro solves this tricky problem for you, among others. DupeFreePro will tell you if the two articles are sufficiently different to be considered unique. It will also give you a keyword density rating so you can be sure your keyword or keyword phrase appears the “right” number of times. Additionally, it suggests other related words that Google expects to find in an article that contains your keyword phrase.

You can use DupeFreePro to be sure your rewritten PLR articles are sufficiently different from the originals; you can use the software to prevent accusations of plagiarism if you are using material you have researched online; and lastly, you can use it to optimize your articles’ keyword density for the search engines.

DupeFreePro is freeware and it can be considered as mature well-developed product. It’s a good help to anyone who uses article marketing, PLR articles, Squidoo lenses, HubPages, blogs or similar. There’s nothing to buy, or any special offers, just a form to opt-in and get the software.

Developers’ direct link: http://www.dupefreepro.com/

Additional Reading:

http://www.businessbrainwaves.com/blog/2007/02/useful-free-software/dupefreepro
http://www.junecampbell.name/?m=200802
http://imstemp.blogspot.com/2007/11/dupefreepro-helps-fight-duplicate.html

How to increase marketing conversion rate?

Every blogger is striving hard to promote his blog to get more and more visitors daily. I am tapping several blog marketing resources like actively participating in bloggers forum and blogging communities.

I also do social bookmarkings and outsource blog directory submissions. But I don’t get the desired results due to low conversion rate. When I hired a SEO specialist for just one hour, he reported that my advertising efforts are not enough to get a better response conversion rate.

In order to get a higher conversion rate optimization, the SEO person suggested a series of steps o be taken immediately else I will lose even the current blog traffic though I blog about useful matter to Bloggers.

I realized what I should do to achieve a higher conversion rate of up to 100% if not 900%.

Please, I urge you to visit websiteoptimization.com/services/marketing/conversion.html without any delay. I am sure you will find the site very useful.

New way to get one way backlinks.

Have you ever thought of giving useful tutorials about various aspect of blogging as a means to get one way backlinks?

Yes, writing articles with an author's byline is definitely a method to get one way backlinks but do you really think people will look for blogging tutorials in an article directory rather than in an exclusive site for blogging tutorials?

I would first search dedicated sites for blogging for guides and tutorials for blogging.

Here is WPTUT, a shortened name for Wordpress tutorials. This is a place where beginners can learn wordpress by browsing through great tips and guides for operating a blog based on wordpress.

If you have some knowledge about wordpress to share, you can submit your tutorial and point it directly to your blog post where the tutorial can be read in full.

There is also a forum in the site but that is still new and hence no activity as of now.

Removing Newer and Older Post Links in Blogger Blog

If you are using Blogger as blogging platform, you might be used to some of the built-in features, that you consider hard coded, but can be changed with slight template code modification. One of the hacks, presented in this publication, addresses a seemingly minor issue on the page - two links “Older Posts” and “Newer Posts” on the bottom of the page.

For those, who prefer their blog to be maximally close to the static webpages, these links not just unnecessary, but are plainly irritating. There is a way to remove them once and forever. And that is quite easy to do, even for not very experienced users. Note, that this hack will also remove “home” link from the bottom of the blog page.

Open Layout Tab in your blog profile page, choose Edit HTML, and search your code in your blog template for the following text:
#blog-pager-newer-link {
float: left;
}
#blog-pager-older-link {
float: right;
}
#blog-pager {
text-align: center;
}


Now replace that code with the following code:

#blog-pager-newer-link {
display: none;
}
#blog-pager-older-link {
display: none;
}
#blog-pager {
display: none;
}


Save the template and you are done. I hope that was indeed an easy and straightforward one.

Additional Reading:

http://bloggeruniversity.blogspot.com/
http://tipsforwebsite.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-remove-post-and-post-link-on.html

If it is Las Vegas, it must be…

Many of you might remember the wonderful movie, “If it is Tuesday, it must be Belgium”. Similarly, if you have a dream to go to Nevada, then you must experience some of the Wild West scenes, cuisines, wine and of course a bit of wilderness that merges with the horizon.

But to enjoy the above, you must plan well in advance. There is a particular show called “Spanish Trail Lunch Ride” in Las Vegas. Of the myriad Las Vegas Shows, only those that would like to soak in a bit of Wild West would prefer to enjoy this show than spending time indoors and juggling with coins in front of the machines.

Though horse back riding is not my chunk of sports, the idea of wearing one of the western straw hats and riding through the desert is quite tempting. Oh, I could even dress like Ursula Andress!

There are more exciting shows in Las Vegas to suite myriad tastes.

Image courtesy: Google Images.

Create online buzz hires bloggers.

I was sent an email by my online friend to register at a get paid to blog opportunity. It is a new Internet marketing company on the horizon: http://www.createonlinebuzz.com/

The parent site is 9.9 media.

I know you would be interested in making money through your blog by occasionally writing reviews of products and services.

Visit http://www.createonlinebuzz.com and register as a blogger. The rest of the formalities are nothing to seasoned Bloggers.

Once registered, you need to submit your blog by clicking on the "Submit / Manage My blogs" menu and "Submit New Site" button. Just follow the on screen instructions and fill out the form that opens wherein you need to specify your blog URL, category, common keyword tags of your blog, etc.

Await for their approval of your blogs. This happened to me in less than 48 hours. Now the impatient wait has begun to get the first assignment through email.

How to disable text selection on Blogger blog

In one of the previous publications, we presented a way to disable right click on the page of your Blogger blog to decrease the copyright violations from your readers “borrowing” your content for their own purposes. To go further in your content safeguarding efforts, you can make the next step, disabling text selection on your page entirely.

This hack was created by Dynamicdrive as well in the form of Javascript, and is also applicable to those bloggers who don’t like their content copied by others. If this concern is on top of your priorities list, then Copy the following code and Paste it to your blog template:


<script type="text/javascript">

/***********************************************
* Disable Text Selection script- © Dynamic Drive DHTML code library (www.dynamicdrive.com)
* This notice MUST stay intact for legal use
* Visit Dynamic Drive at http://www.dynamicdrive.com/ for full source code
***********************************************/

function disableSelection(target){
if (typeof target.onselectstart!="undefined") //IE route
target.onselectstart=function(){return false}
else if (typeof target.style.MozUserSelect!="undefined") //Firefox route
target.style.MozUserSelect="none"
else //All other route (ie: Opera)
target.onmousedown=function(){return false} How to disable
target.style.cursor = "default"
}

//Sample usages
//disableSelection(document.body) //Disable text selection on entire body
//disableSelection(document.getElementById("mydiv")) //Disable text selection on element with id="mydiv"

</script>

Slim claims?

Quick slim pills consumers claim more than the slim pills manufacturers. Is it a sales strategy? It must be because I too know a few persons who are on regular diet pill for long but still show no visible signs of matching my figure.

Or, do you think they are not taking the correct diet? I know diet pills takers are supposed to follow a few diet regulations.

Well, it is for them to figure out. Still, I thought I would ask them to read reviews of over 200 diet pills at pricexposed.net which seems to be getting more and more and visitors, a sure sign of providing useful and honest and reviews.

SEO guide from Google itself.

I have added one more ebook on SEO in my collection of SEO guides. But this time, this SEO guide in PDF format is none other from the might Google.

I started implementing slowly what I read and I definitely see a better search engine traffic. The comments for my blog posts are from new visitors.

Some of the content in the SEO starter guide from Google.

* How to create unique, accurate page titles
* How to make use of the “description” meta tag
* How to Improve the structure of your URLs
* How to make your site easier to navigate
* Write better anchor text
* Use heading tags appropriately
* Optimize your use of images
* Helpful resources for webmasters

I should thank Search for Blogging for having wrote about this SEO starter guide from Google.

Smart Blogger Assistant for Simple Blog Publishing

Developer Description:
Smart Blogger allows centralized management of your all diaries and blogs regardless of its Internet location. The software has a single universal interface for reading and sending messages to all blogs; it makes text formatting possible. With this application, you can monitor your friends' diaries checking their blogs for new postings. You can also look through commentaries to your postings as well as other peoples, place comments in blogs, and leave answers to threads.

The software supports three web-blogs:
- LiveJournal
- Blogger
- WordPress

Disadvantages:
This post has been made in Smart Blogger. I already see several disadvantages of using this free software for blogs publishing:

1. No possibility of the text alignment options.
2. Very basic text formatting: color and bold/itallic/under only.
3. No spell checking option.
4. No advanced features as horizontal lines or tables generation.
5. Small publishing field, not very convenient for big posts.

Advantages:
1. Nice and pleasant interface.
2. Easy to use.
3. Portable software exists, so you do not need to install the software on your PC

Developers WebSite: http://www.smartpctools.com/smart_blogger/index1.html

Assessment: The software is good for the light operations, small notes in your Journal, but is lacking functionality for serious blogging.

Software carries rating 3 of 5 in the RateItAll List of 29 free software titles:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24825-blog-publishing-freeware.aspx

If you have personal experience using this software, you are welcome to leave your feedback in the rating widget below:

Blog Publishing Freeware on RateItAll

Marketplace for freelance bloggers.

The press release of Freelance Bloggers is a bit late I suppose as I have already written about them in my blog. The site is still very slow in loading and this is what keeping me away from it.

Well, Freelance Bloggers is actually a forum which also serves as a marketplace for bloggers and organizations looking for bloggers. As the press release said bloggers can post free profiles highlighting their blogging expertise; companies, organizations, and individuals can post open blogging jobs.

As I am writing this, I noticed a bunch of opportunities are posted for bloggers to grab. But, you should the patience of an eagle to read as the site is abysmally slow. Here are two sample posts:
Looking for Writer/Blogger
Sports Writer/Blogger

As my blogging assignments are already tieing me down, I am really not looking forward to sign up for more paid blogging jobs.

Customize 404 Error Page on WordPress Blog

404 Errors

By default, most Web servers return a simple "404 Not Found" error message when they are getting a request for a URL that they don’t have. This error message violates the three basic guidelines for error messages. All error messages must be:

• written in plain language that is easy to understand for non-technical users and that does not imply that the mistake is the user’s fault
  
• precise in specifying exactly what was done wrong (that is, not be generic or vague)
  
• constructive in suggesting steps the user can take to correct the problem

In terms of the "URL not found" error message, it would be better to explain to the user why the URL could not be found. It would be even better to list the most common mistakes in accessing files on the given site: for example, users often request URLs ending in .htm for sites that consistently use .html for all pages (or they use .html when all pages end in .htm). For any given site, it is recommended to have consistent naming conventions and list these conventions on a custom error message page.


The Importance of 404
Why working on the 404 optimization makes sense? It does not matter, if readers were looking something on your site and got there by mistake, or the link is incorrect, or visitors misspelled the address. They might go forever, never turning their head back to you and your site; even thou the site might have an excellent content. So, the main reasons your visitors may stumble into a 404 "Not found" page on your website are:

• A mistyped URL, or a copy-and-paste mistake
  
• Broken or truncated links on web pages or in an email message
  
• Moved or deleted content

It is a good idea to treat the 404 page as a doorway to your site, giving it the same degree of attention as a regular home page. The visitor who arrived to your 404 page by error, in many cases was actually looking for something on your site. Now you have to help them find it. That’s really the guiding light of 404 page design.


Tips for Improving Your 404

1. Don’t call it a 404 page. Your visitors have no idea what this means. Personalize your 404 page to make it user-friendly and understandable to any level of technical expertise.
   
2. Provide a way for the visitor to search for what they were looking for, installing the search box on the page.
   
3. Show them what you have to offer - the best of the best. Try to surprise and attract the visitors. You have may be just one chance to keep him. Show your blog sitemap or provide the easy visible link to one to let visitor know that you have indeed good stuff under your belt.
   
4. If none of the other options work for them (in other words, at the end of all of this, at the bottom of the page) get them a link to your contact form. If they get stuck, you want to know about it. Of course this is a last-resort option since no typically wants to contact the site owner when they have a problem. Just in case.

Using Wordpress to Improve Your 404
One of the beautiful parts about Wordpress is that you can very easily fix up your 404 page. It’s as easy as changing a template file.

1. Go to your Wordpress Theme Editor under Presentation. Select the 404 page to edit.
   
2. Edit the page using the offered guidelines. Two possibilities here: 

• If you’re a designer you should make this page look like the rest of your theme. I
  
• If you’re only a user, do your best to customize what you can. Change the headline, at the very least, to something like “Whoops, it’s not here!” or something of the like.
  

Custom 404 Samples

Find below a small collection of the funny and smart custom 404 pages screenshots, found on the Web.