Learn to make money from blogs

"PageRank competition" is a sport usually practiced by webmasters. On the other hand, the management of the pages relevance is not considered as important factor. However, the fact is that some websites, presenting a pretty low pagerank, appear in good competitive conditions based on the search engines results. This is caused by their proper relevance on certain keywords.

In this publication we present RelevanceSpirit, a specialized tool to manage website relevance.

Whatever your current pagerank is, or your future pagerank will be, your classification between the results of the search engines depends significantly on the terms used in your pages, of the number of times that these terms are repeated, and in the way in which they figure in your meta tags.

Relevance approach is strengthening a competitive position of the website and might offer even better results on the long term website exposure, in comparison with the pagerank.

This utility was developed to manage and optimize all the parameters which influence your pages relevance. Software is open source, absolutely free and does not require installation.

Developers Website: http://www.rankspirit.com/downloadrseng.php

Direct downloading link: http://www.ziddu.com/download/2060669/relevance_spirit.zip.html

In one of the previous publications Embed Documents in your Blog with DocsToc I have presented the opportunity to embed the entire documents in your blog posts for easy viewing. Now, I had an opportunity to test it myself, but, for some reason, my Blogger editor crashed and refused to accept the code. It is possible that the problem is just temporary, but as all of you “I need it now!” So, I went back on the market searching for the good alternative. And, there it is - I found a good one! It is Scribd!

Scribd is allowing to anyone for free to upload any documents on their website, to view them later with online viewer iPaper, and to share with community members and with anybody you like. Built with Adobe Flash, iPaper will display documents in the same way regardless of whether you’re using Windows, MacOS, or Linux. Your readers no longer have to download files or extra software to view your documents.

You can convert just about any major document format into iPaper, including Word docs, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, OpenOffice documents, and PostScript files. Supported formats include:

Adobe PDF (.pdf)
Adobe PostScript (.ps)
Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps, .pptx)
Microsoft Excel (.xls, xlsx)
OpenOffice Text Document (.odt, .sxw)
OpenOffice Presentation Document (.odp, .sxi)
OpenOffice Spreadsheet (.ods, .sxc)
All OpenDocument formats
Plain text (.txt)
Rich text format (.rtf)

Once you’ve uploaded your documents and converted them to iPaper, you can publish them to Scribd - the world’s largest library of user-generated documents. Scribd documents are indexed by major search engines, so you can broaden your audience and share your creative works with the world.

Scribd’s iPaper document viewer is embeddable in any website or blog. Get your HTML code, embed it in your post, and… see how it looks like:

Inside Your Computer - Upload a Document to Scribd

Visibility should be the first criteria when you intend to buy or rent out a place for your office or shop. It can be even away from the usual commercial real estate area. I have seen small shops do roaring business but still located away from the most sought after commercial complexes.

Any commercial complex can only accommodate so much-right?

Cityfeet.com is a grand network of commercial properties across the length and breadth of the U.S. with 125 web sites. Yes, 125 websites! (cityfeet.com/Help/CommercialRealEstatePartners.aspx?PartnerPath=&)

Think of the reach your listing gets. I think your listing will get immediate inquiries because of this mammoth exposure.

From the buyers’ point of view, looking for a commercial property is made damn easy with cityfeet.com. The searching of office space, industrial lands is easy and interesting in cityfeet.com

Yahoo! Buzz is a social bookmarking sites. So what new? Yes, there is absolutely nothing exciting about it. Just because it is a service from Yahoo! doesn't make it to be a compusion for Internet marketers to use it.

Ok, at least I don't surely chase it. It is just another social bookmarking site to me. To get your submitted story to the front page requires the same effort to take your Digg story to the home page of Digg.com

If you search,"How to get more Diggs", you are sure to find many links. If you follow the tips in them for Yahoo Buzz also, you are likely to get it to the home page.

See, I know the existence of excellent stories in Digg.com but they just didn't have enough votes to make them popular. Here, to get more votes in Yahoo or to get more Diggs, you just need to have a good number of friends in these social bookmarking sites. Just let them know about your submission and they will vote for it. They might not even read it.

You return the favor in the same way. In short, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours. I used to Digg around, Mixx a lot;I just click on the interesting titles and visit the links without remembering to return to the source and cast my appreciative votes.

You can call me a freak but I don’t really bother about such comments. I think those kinds of remarks only make me popular though that was not my intention.

I admire beauty in everything that is natural and also man made including kitchen sinks where beauty is hardly a place to look for. But, no, don’t count me in that category. This rare quality is cultivated in me by my husband.

I know your question:” What is there in a kitchen sink that is used to load leftovers and unclean cooking vessels?”

I know my answer will not convince you so let me keep it to myself. But, I can direct you where you can buy beautiful kitchen sinks, hot water dispensers and other kitchen needs.

KitchenSinkOutlet.com offers you the best of kitchen sinks made by top names that include Kohler, Blanco etc.

Recently, I have found an opportunity to display certain amount of the recent post of the blog on sidebar of the Blogger hosted blog. If your reader came to the particular article, he might just miss the opportunities to review your other content. So, the developed widget will help you capturing attention of your reader to your other posts.

"Display 10 recent posts" (10 posts represent just default setting, but you can alter the number as you like) widget is a free and can be easily embedded on your Blogger blog. You do not need to know scripting to do so. Just follow the simple steps given below.

Step 1: Go to Add and Arrange Page Elements page.
Step 2: Click Add a Page Element.
Step 3: Choose HTML/JavaScript
Step 4: Copy the following code to the ’HTML/JavaScript’ element.
Step 5 (optional): The red highlight code (var postshow=10) is the number of posts you want to display (Default is 10).
Step 6: Change the default address (http://yourblogaddress.blogspot.com/) to your blog address.
Step 7: Save your changes and review your blog.

Code to be copied from the developer website: http://kanlab.blogspot.com/2007/09/display-10-recent-posts-on-your-blog.html

It took me to act on the blog editor called Scribefire that was lying idle in my browser for a long time.

Surprise! When I did finally browsed what exactly is Scribefire, I was surprised by blog editing features. More surprise was in store for me when I learnt that it also offers bloggers a platform to monetize their blogs.

Initially, I faced some difficulties in configuring the ads to be placed in my blog. I did not inform them about my the problems but I just blogged in in one of my blogs. It was read by Scribefire staff and our communication started.

I was terribly impressed (yes, an oxymoron) with their support.

Read my blog post titled,"Scribefire helps you to earn".

Using smartphones and other mobile devices for Internet search is new and growing trend of the Modern World. Blogosphere is adopting quickly, and there are multiple opportunities for the bloggers to create specific mobile versions for their blogs to make easier for readers to access the data and improve readability. The new service MoFuse is offering free and nice solution for all blog owners to bring their blogs to the portable media in the suitable format. Authors claim that it is not the only reason for opening your account at MoFuse. They list some additional points, that at some extent interacts each other and make this effort more valuable:

Making your readers happy... People want to read your blog on the go!
Getting new readers... MoFuse will help to promote your mobile blog which will increase traffic.
Making some money... Mobile ads will provide you with an additional revenue channel from your blog!
Getting smarter... Our analytics let you see information about your mobile visitors.
Getting going... More and more of your readers will want your content on their mobile devices!

Signing up to MoFuse is incredibly easy. All you need to do is enter your email and a password and you’re good to go. Creation of 5 mobile blogs and adding mobile badges to them took no more than 10 minutes of my time.

The dashboard is very easy to navigate and the FAQ is pretty good. The first thing you need to do is add your blog feed. All you need to do is add your blog URL and decide what mofuse domain you want (for this blog, I chose a nice address http://blogging.mofuse.mobi/). It’s possible to change this name at a later date as long as the keyword hasn’t been taken away.
After establishing your mobile site, make additional step to monetize it through our revenue sharing program. MoFuse splits the revenue 50/50 with blog owner. All you need to do to enroll is choose which mobile advertising program you want to use on your MoFuse mobile site and enter your ID (I would stick to Google AdSense).

Mobilizing your Blog with MoFuse

Your blog promotion is a project. As every project, a constant feedback is required to determine of what is working, and what is not. While many free opportunities are available for bloggers to check statistics, post popularity, and keywords success, sometimes you need to check the effectiveness of a single link and get instant notification, when somebody clicks it. Well-known approach would be to make a short URL at one of the redirection services, where detailed statistics are available. However, this approach, while being quite effective is also passive, since you need to check the stats manually to see the results.

LinkBlip (http://linkblip.com/) offers you even more proactive approach. This free service will send you an instant email notification as soon as link you provided is clicked by someone. This email notification includes the time your readers clicked on the link and their virtual location (the city and state they are in). There service is absolutely free, and does not require registration (definitely, you need to provide your email address, where notification is supposed to be sent).

Note that this simple, but quite effective service for some specific tracking purposes, is currently on sale. Visit it at http://linkblip.com/ and buy, if you are interested.

Ever since an article that appeared in our local daily about the increased number of people that buy pimple cream, I have received more than 15 emails asking for recommendations for acne cure.

I think my several articles on pimple cream were read widely and this led them to form an opinion that I can give correct product advice.

To answer those emails, I scour the web and read several websites that review acne treatment creams and solutions. Most of the sites review pimple creams based on a few criteria such as ingredients, side effects, customer feedback etc.

I also noticed that the price range of the top ten products don’t show a big variation.

Acnecuresrevealed.net has reviewed a lot of products and they also carry plenty of articles on acne treatment.

If you don't know about Pepperjam Network and the potentiality it offers to earn from it, then consider yourself lagging behind from what is happening in the blogosphere.

Pepperjam Network is sweeping the Internet business community by storm. It is a huge affiliate marketing company and they have just been placed in the top 100 fastest growing company in the U.S.

Well, if you don't take my word for it, please read the official list released by INC 500, a daily resource for entrepreneurs.

Their marketing effort is commendable and they have already impressed hundreds of advertisers that have approached Pepperjam network to improve their product sales.

They must have been highly satisfied with affiliates of Pepperjam Network and that's why Pepperjam Network is on a affiliates recruiting spree.

Throughout August, they are paying $10 as a sign up bonus for everyone that joins as an affiliate of Pepperjam Network.

The most impressive and innovative way of approaching the affiliates is just fantastic. I have applied for a few companies as affiliates and pepperjam sends me an email whenever an advertiser has approved my application. In that email, itself, I am given a facility to generate text and banner links.

I have never seen this thoughtful facility in other players in the same field and they are supposed to be stalwarts in the affiliate marketing industry.

Another interesting opportunity they now offer for bloggers is to allow bloggers to write about Pepperjam Network's tool or Pepperjam Network itself. For their effort, bloggers are paid $10 per post to a maximum of 5 posts per month.

I have so earned $1.50 to generate a lead through one of the affiliate program links.

Pepperjam Network is a perfect platform to set up your own genuine Internet business.
Click below to be a part of the Pepperjam Network.

Darren Rowse not only answers my question but also answers hundreds of bloggers like me who feel like digging out some of their old blog posts to write/review again.

There are two reasons for this:
* Suddenly find yourself of want of blog content
* There is really a need to review your old posts because of a change of your opinion or to just remind your blog readers about the usefulness of the blog post.

In my experience, I very rarely face the problem of want of blogging ideas but yes, I must admit that I have come across at least once before. And at such times, I rewrite a old post of mine.

Here is what he says in the Facebook.com
"My own approach is that I definitely do go over old ground on my blogs.

The way I justify this (if it needs to be justified) is:

1. As my blogs attract a lot of new readers I feel that repeating some of the basics is actually doing a service to those new readers.

2. I am constantly learning more about the topics that I blog about and as a result my own ideas and knowledge is growing. While I cover the same ground as I have previously I do try to add extra value and updates on what I’ve been learning for longer term readers. In a sense I see repeating topics as a way of updating my blog."

Blogger Buster: 125 More Excellent Blogger Templates (The Best Yet!)

The free, small, online application, presented by SocialScan, might be useful to the bloggers in many occasions. It is fast and does not require registration or code installation on your site or blog. Therefore, you can check not only sites you own, but any other sites on the Web. Knowing popularity of your own sites will help to review and assess the site promotion strategy. Knowing popularity of your competitors will give you one more hint, who you against to is. Just enter the URL, click on submit, and you get immediately results, covering 10 most popular social sites.

To show, how this application works, I made a simple comparison of the popularity between Microsoft and Google.

Microsoft vs. Google

Services are available from the Website: http://www.socialscan.com/

I think I should start creating a list of weight loss pills review websites. If these diet pills review sites exist purely as information sources, then I feel I should also contribute towards the welfare of the present and future obese people.

So far, I might have reviewed about 10 weight loss pulls review sites and I noticed that in most of the sites, Orovo Detox stayed at the top of the rank.

I remember an attractive slogan long back for diet pills and it was like this:

“Lose weight while you sleep” implying hat you don’t have to do anything else but to take these diet pills and it will go to action when you are asleep.

Nice concept-eh?

I have used funny pictures in some of my blog posts. But I spent a lot of time to search for proper picture that expresses the topic of the blog post.

At times, I stumbled upon paid cartoon sites which of course I had to avoid. One or two cartoon sites insisted on getting permissions from them before using their funny pictures. I did write to them seeking permission but never received a reply.

Now, here is a chance to use free cartoons for non-commercial use.
This offer came from a fellow member of blog catalog-Past Expiry

I quote his offer:
"Free for personal and not-for-profit (non-commercial) use only for web sites and other online and off-line purposes.

Commercial users, both online and off-line, please contact us for terms before using any of these images.

All users are encouraged to provide a linkback or credit to Past Expiry Cartoon© on their web sites or other materials.

The cartoon galleries can be found at:
http://pastexpiry.blogspot.com/2008/01/over-750
-cartoons-cartoon-galleries-are.html

Make use of the funny pictures, spread this blog post and don't fail to thank the blogger of that blog post.

A sample cartoon below:

In the strong competition among bloggers for the reader’s attention, you can spice your blog and make it more fun to read, adding the most relevant and fresh information with free plug-in, offered by Zemanta (http://www.zemanta.com/). Currently available only in Firefox and Internet Explorer, Zemanta’s adds-on provides bloggers with appropriate links to their articles by suggesting related content through words and images on the side.

One of the great things about Zemanta is that it actually scans the web for Creative Commons content, so bloggers will be able to post useful images without the fear of being sued by an angry author.

As stated by the developers, Zemanta can add

Fun: it is fun to see your words paired with great links and pictures.
Content: Pictures, Links, Articles and Tags
Convenience: no more trolling the web for content for your posts.
Traffic: links to recent blog posts frequently result in return traffic.

The software is currently available for Blogger, Typepad, WordPress.com, and self-hosted WordPress blogs (2.0 and up).

Download free plug-in directly: for Internet Explorer browser.
Plug-ins for Firefox and other platforms can be downloaded from the developers Website.

Fortunately I had saved all the sales flyers and brochures of vehicle insurance providers. This year I have decided to be smart by comparing several auto insurance quote online and then select the insurance provider who offers the best customer service and also who has the back up of a lot of positive feedbacks.

Every year, my auditor reprimands me for throwing away money on vehicle insurance that he feels I should not have paid so much for old vehicles.

On last Saturday, I sat down with my husband and we browsed through the sales flyers and also compared about a dozen online quotes. The final figure revealed to me that I could have bought an iPhone had I been this smart all these years.

Hmmm… a lesson learnt at last!

I don't think so. No pinging service contributes to getting traffic. This makes me wonder where all those pinging takes place and what happens after pinging? Are the pinged results crawled by search engine spiders?

What is pinging?
"Ping is a program that sends a series of packets over a network or the Internet to a specific computer in order to generate a response from that computer. The other computer responds with an acknowledgment that it received the packets". Source:Indiana University

In my early days of Internet marketing, I used these two services quite frequently.
http://www.pingoat.com/
http://www.pingomatic.com/

Gradually, as the work load increased, I simply did not find time to ping. Can anyone tell me if I should revive manual pinging?

Bloggers, spending some time on the forums and social networks, probably used to emoticons - small icons used to convey emotional content in a message. Did you miss these icons on your blog posts? With these simple instructions, Firefox Web Browser, GreaseMonkey extension, and special free emoticons script, you will be able to introduce this feature to your Blogger blog.

GreaseMonkey is a specific extension for Firefox which enable you to add hundreds of other scripts to your Firefox. You can download and install it from here. After the extension is installed you can download and install the Emoticons script from here.
Now, when you write your blog post, you are able to add emoticons by simply clicking on them. Note, that this option works in compose mode, not in text/html mode.

S ocialMatic is a free service that submits your blog posts to several other social bookmarking websites apart from submitting to its own website.

The process of submitting is very easy and gets over in less than a minute.

It submits to the following social bookmarking sites.
Backflip
Bibsonomy
Blinklist
Faves
Buddymarks
Connectedy
Connotea
del.icio.us
Diigo
Folkd
Magnolia
Mister Wong
Yahoo!
Netvouz
Simpy
Taggly

I have used a similar service called Social Wire which submits to 20 social bookmarks. That is also very useful.

I don't expect a sudden rush of visitors by submitting to social bookmarks but it helps in a small way.

Blog Adda is still very young. Oh, I calculated it's age by the density of the tag cloud at its home page pointing to the blogs in its database.

I already submitted three of my blogs including my latest blog-Oceans of Resources. I sent a rather sarcastic feedback to the webmaster of Blog Adda that was very kindly responded to. I felt ashamed.

They asked my date of birth while registering; then their system showed that it is poor in calculating the number of words in a tag. (They have this peculiar condition: the tag should not have more than three words.) Ok, it is their prerogative but their website is rejecting tags with 3 words. I think it is adding the comma (,) after the three worded tag and hence the confusion.

Well, their approval time is pretty fast.

The blog directory being young, will be advantageous for us to submit our blogs. Get in now!

I started this blog in January, when I found out that I know nothing about Blog creation and Blog promotion techniques. More I read, more information remain in my head. It does not mean that I always use what I learn. Even after publishing a series of 11 articles with tonds of advises of how bring more traffic to the blog without investing a dime, I still do not used most of my own suggestions. Why? Probably, because everything should develop organically without forced implementation. May be I am wrong - everybody has each own way. But, little-by-little, it changes. I hope, for the better.

Anyway, I want to introduce one of the most important ways to improve your blog, which works for me: read what other people say, read and think, read and measure for yourself - does it work for me, read and try. Do not be afraid to experiment, do not hesitate to cancel the change, if it does not work. Find your path in the Blogging World - it might be different from all other pathes. Have fun, whatever you do - money is not everything.

And now I want to add 99 Ways to Improve Your Blog proposed by Steven Snell. Again, not everything will work for you, but if you find at least one advice that will help you to improve your blog - it was worth reading the entire article.

This post will hopefully give you plenty of ideas for making some improvements to your blog. We all have room for improvement but sometimes it’s just a matter of knowing different ways of doing things. This is a rather extensive list, but I’m sure there are items that have been missed, so please leave your feedback.

Content

1. Write Better Content

Quality of content is the most important criteria for blogging success. Great content makes marketing your blog easier, and you’ll be abel to improve the community around your blog as others recognize the value of the information that you provide. Writing better content is not always easy, but we can all place more importance and dedicate more time to content development.

2. Set Aside Time for Brainstorming

Writing skills aren’t the only requirement for creating great content. First you have to have original and interesting ideas. Without good ideas for posts your quality of content will suffer, even with the best of writing skills. Set aside time each week or month to brainstorm and come up with as many post ideas as possible. Several months ago I wrote a guide on brainstorming techniques for bloggers.

3. Hire Other Writers

If you’re unable to produce enough quality content for your blog, paying others to do it for you is always an option. There are plenty of bloggers who are willing to write for pay. If your blog can produce more money than you spend it may be a situation to consider.

4. Publish Guest Posts

Many bloggers that want more comment but can’t afford to pay writers will publish guest posts from other bloggers. Guest posting is great for everyone as it gives the blog owner some free content, gives the writer some exposure and a link, and it gives readers more content and a different perspective.

5. Publish More Frequently

Would your blog benefit if you were to publish more posts? Not every blogger needs to post more frequently, but some could definitely benefit from it. More posts means more content for readers, more pages for search engines, and hopefully more traffic for you.

6. Publish Less Frequently

On the other hand, do you publish too frequently? Some bloggers could benefit by reducing quantity and increasing quality. There are plenty of authority bloggers that choose to post less frequently and always provide top-notch content. Maki of Dosh Dosh is probably the best example.

7. Start a Weekly Series

You may be able to improve reader anticipation by posting on a particular topic on the same day every week. This can help to create more interest in your upcoming posts, plus it can effectively brand your blog.

8. Link Out More Often

Do you make an effort to link out to other blogs in your posts? Try to find opportunities to link to valuable and relevant resources whenever possible. Others will notice and appreciate it, and many are likely to return the favor. Plus you will be helping readers by putting more information at their disposal.

9. Use More Internal Links in Your Posts

External links aren’t the only links that are important in your posts. Always take a moment before publishing a post to look for opportunities to link to old posts. Internal links can help with search engine rankings, they can drive click-through traffic, and they can also help if scrapers are stealing your feed.

10. Get Rid of Some of Your Other Projects and Focus

Are you trying to do too much at once? Many bloggers are running multiple blogs simultaneously, and too often the result is that all of the blogs suffer from neglect. If you are stretched too thin, give up some of your projects that aren’t as important to you.

11. Include a Podcast

Offering a podcast is one way to add some diversity to your blog and to attract a new audience. Podcasting is not difficult with modern blogging platforms and FeedBurner. For more information, read How to Create Your Own Podcast .

12. Publish Video Posts

Many bloggers have discovered the impact of video blogging. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger regularly publishes video posts, and they seem to always draw a good amount of attention. With the easily-accessible technology that is available, video blogging is an option for just about anyone.

13. Run a Poll or Survey

Polls and surveys can be a fun way to improve interaction from readers, and you can even learn a lot about your readers during the process. WordPress users can easily add a poll to their blog with the WP-Polls plugin. PollDaddy is another free, popular option.

14. Listen to Suggestions from Readers on Content

If you want to provide readers with content that they will appreciate, listen to their suggestions and feedback to see what types of content they like, and what they don’t like. Polls and surveys can be useful for this purpose as well.

15. Update Posts that are Out of Date

It is almost unavoidable that some of your posts will eventually become out of date. This is an understandable part of blogging, but what you should avoid is the confusion and misrepresentation that sometimes comes with these situations. Imagine someone does a Google search for a particular topic and they arrive at one of your old blog posts. To them this is new information and they may assume that it is your current information, not realizing that it is out of date. It can be helpful to include a brief statement at the beginning or end of the post that the situation has changed and the content may not be current anymore.

16. Link to Related Posts

Your readers who are interested in a particular post may also want to read your other posts that are related to the topic. WordPress users have several different plugins to choose from, including the popular Related Entries.

17. Move AdSense Out of the Way

Nothing is more annoying and distracting to readers than advertisements right in the body of the content. If you are going to use AdSense to monetize your blog, at least put it in a location that won’t distract readers (assuming you care about the readers’ experience on your blog and not just the AdSense income).

18. Publish Interviews with Top Bloggers in Your Niche

Interviews can be a great source of information for readers and they can also give you some valuable networking opportunities. Most bloggers are open to interviews, they just aren’t asked very often.

19. Answer Reader Questions in Posts

Some bloggers are very effective at helping their readers by dedicating posts to answering questions from readers. This can help you to come up with content ideas, improve your blog’s value to readers, and get readers actively participating.

20. Proofread Your Posts

We all make mistakes, but by proofreading your posts you can help to present a professional image to your readers. Be sure to spell check your posts before publishing and try to find and fix any grammatical errors.

21. Use the Timestamp Feature When You Will Be Away

Publishing content while you are on vacation or away from the computer doesn’t need to be difficult. Most of the leading blogging platforms offer the option to timestamp the post for a future date and time. When that time comes the post will be published just as if you had done so manually.

22. Use a Blog Editor

Many bloggers use word processors to write their posts because sometimes the standard system from a blogging platform isn’t ideal. However, word processors can cause problems because they insert a lot of unnecessary code that will hurt the performance of your blog. Blog Editors offer the best of both worlds. My editor of choice is Blog Desk .

Functionality

23. Install the Top Commentators Plugin

One way to reward readers that participate and encourage others to get involved is to install the Top Commentators Plugin (for WP). This will put a list in your sidebar with the names and links to those who have participated the most.

24. Change Up Your Sidebar

When was the last time you made some modifications to your sidebar? Chances are your regular readers have kind of gotten used to what’s there and they probably tune it out. From time-to-time it can be beneficial to change things up a bit and add some new features or content to the sidebar.

25. Separate Trackbacks from Comments

Most blogs display trackbacks and pingbacks along with comments from readers. This can help to show that others find your content valuable, and a lot of trackbacks and pingbacks can be impressive to readers. On the other hand, they can also get in the way and interfere with conversations throughout the comments. With WordPress there is a relatively simple way to separate them. Michael from Pro Blog Design has a nice tutorial for doing this.

26. Improve Your About Page

Some of your readers will go to your About page to find out more about you. When was the last time you updated your About page? Take a look at it and see how effectively it is communicating to readers.

27. Add a Sitemap

Users can benefit from having a sitemap available, but often XML sitemaps are the only ones that are considered by bloggers. WordPress users can use the Sitemap Generator Plugin from Dagon Design to create a page that links to all other blog posts and pages.

28. Get Rid of Unproductive Widgets

How many widgets and buttons do you have on your blog? How many of them actually produce any type of results, and how many of them are ignored by readers? If you have unnecessary widgets that aren’t doing any good, get rid of them and free up some space while you improve your page load speed.

29. Add a Forum

Some blogs have added to the community aspect of the blog by adding forums. If you have a tightly-focused community that will be interested in communicating with other readers, consider adding a forum. vBulletin is one of the most popular ways to quickly put a forum on your site.

30. Get a Domain Name

If your blog is hosted on Blogspot or anywhere other than a domain that you own, purchase one today. Having your own domain is essential for building and branding a successful blog. I purchase domain names at GoDaddy.com .

31. Get Better Hosting

How does your hosting plan stack up? Many blogs could benefit from a better hosting company. When your blog goes down you’ll realize that paying a little bit more for quality hosting is a good decision. This is especially important if you plan to market your blog with social media.

32. Install Threaded Comments Plugin

One of the best ways to improve the level of communication with readers is to install a threaded comments plugin. WordPress users have a few options, including the most popular, Brian’s Threaded Comments. If you are not familiar with threaded comments, they allow you (and other readers for that matter) to reply directly to a specific comment. Your reply will then be displayed right below the original comment instead of all the way down at the end of the comments. It makes it easier and more effective for you to answer questions and respond to comments. You can see it in action here at PureBlogging.

33. Add Subscribe to Comments Option

In my opinion there is no reason not to allow readers the option of subscribing to comments. Once they leave a response to one of your posts that should have the ability to get any additional comments emailed to them. This is another way to boost the effectiveness of your communication with readers. WordPress users can install the Subscribe to Comments Plugin .

34. Backup Regularly

If blog security isn’t a priority for you, it will quickly become one when you have a problem. There are a number of different ways to backup a blog. My personal choice is to use WordPress’s export feature which creates an XML file that you can save. Then if you ever need it, all you have to do is import it into WordPress and the problem is solved.

35. Delete Spam Comments

Spam comments can be distracting to readers that are really trying to get involved in the conversation, and they can give your blog a negative image. You can either choose to moderate comments before they appear or just go back and delete spam comments as they come in. Of course, plugins like Akismet make this much more manageable.

36. Have a Comment Policy

If comment spam is a problem on your blog, you may want to post an official comment policy that clearly states what is encouraged, what is permitted, and what will not be tolerated. Most likely this statement won’t completely stop spam, but it can help those that aren’t sure what is appropriate and what is not.

37. Give a Disclosure if You Do Paid Reviews

Many blogs write paid reviews as a way to generate some income. This is fine with most readers, but it is helpful for them to know where you stand on paid reviews. Some bloggers effectively use a disclosure to let readers know that they do publish paid reviews, but they can assure readers that there opinions will not be biased because someone is paying them.

38. Remove NoFollow Tags on Comment Links

One way that you can reward those who comment on your blog is by removing the nofollow tags from links in the comments. By doing this you can give your commentors a real, legitimate link in exchange for their participation.

39. Use NoFollow Tags on Comment Links

On the other hand, removing nofollow tags isn’t a good move for everyone. A number of bloggers, including myself on my primary blog, have gone back to nofollow tags. If you are getting a lot of useless comments that seem to be submitted only for a link, you may want to consider going back to nofollow.

40. Delete Unused Plugins

Many bloggers keep a ton of plugins in their folder even though many of them are not being used. Plugins can sometimes cause problems with your blog, so it is best to get rid of any that you are not using.

41. Stay Up to Date with New Versions of Your Blogging Platform

Most blogging platforms, like WordPress, will release new and updated versions. For security and functionality purposes it is good to stay current. Many of the releases of WordPress address security issues from older versions, so if you are not upgrading you could be facing increased risk.

42. Restrict Access by IP Address

You can thwart would-be hackers by only allowing access to your admin folder for specific IP addresses. If you are the only blogger and you always use the same computer this can be pretty easy. Otherwise, you simply need to include the IP address of any user and any computer that needs access. Daniel wrote a nice post at Daily Blog Tips that gives instructions .

43. Reduce Database Calls

Page load speed can be a major issue for some blogs. Have you ever looked through the code of your blog to see how many times it is accessing your database? In most cases there are some simple changes that you can make to reduce unnecessary calls to the database. For example, your blog may display the title of the blog in the header. This is probably checking your database to see what the title is. You can get rid of this by removing that code and replacing it with the actual title of your blog. The same thing is true with a lot of footer links. Whenever you can get the same result without accessing the database you will be speeding up your pages.

44. Add a Contact Form

Some of your visitors will want to get in touch with you, and it may not be appropriate for them to leave a comment that is publicly visible. Give them an easy way to reach you by having a page specifically for this purpose.

45. Create a Custom 404 Error Page

When a visitor reaches a dead link on your blog or mistypes a URL what do they find? Hopefully an error page that actually gives them some information and helps them to find what they may be looking for. Most WordPress themes already have a generic 404 file, all you have to do is add some personalized content and links to help visitors find the pages that they are most likely to be looking for.

46. Fight Scrapers with a Footer Link

Fighting scrapers can turn into a part-time job. One of the best ways to ease the pain is to include a link back to your blog at the footer of your feed. This way you may be notified with a pingback, plus you will be showing readers that the content belongs to you. WordPress users can install the RSS Footer Plugin .

47. Delete Unused Themes

Much like plugins, most bloggers have several unused themes sitting in their content folder. If you are not using a theme and you have no plans to do so, why not delete it?

48. Reduce the Number of Plugins that You Use

I know I have repeatedly recommended plugins for different purposes, but the truth of the matter is that not all of these plugins are right for everyone, and no blogger should be using every plugin that has some sort of beneficial purpose. Excessive use of plugins can slow down your pages and make your blog more vulnerable. Plus, each time you upgrade to a new version you will have the chore of de-activating and re-activating all of the plugins. Only use plugins that provide something that really helps your blog and try to keep that number as small as possible.

49. Clean Up Your CSS File

Over time a CSS file can easily become a mess. Most likely there is a good bit of code in the file that isn’t even being used if you have made some customizations or changes to the site. I wrote a post 23 Resources for Clean and Compressed CSS that should help you with the process.

50. Fix Broken Links

Dead links can be a real frustration for visitors and they can prevent your content from being seen. Broken links are sometimes unavoidable, but you can always fix them and solve the problem. Dead-Links.com is a great free tool that will crawl through your pages and look for dead links.

51. Use a Google Custom Search Instead of the Default Blog Search

Most blogs have a search function, and that is certainly helpful for readers. However, the default searches from blogging platforms are not the best. Some bloggers use a Google Custom Search to more effectively address the issue.

Design and Appearance

52. Change Themes

When was the last time you changed your blog theme? If you use WordPress there are thousands of free themes that are available to use. Give your blog a fresh new look by finding a new and improved theme.

53. Buy a Premium Theme

If you are interested in upgrading your theme and you’re willing to spend $50 - $100 to do so, a premium theme may be a good choice. With premium themes you get a well-designed and highly functional theme, plus the support of the designer.

54. Pay for a Custom Design

Stepping up a notch from a premium theme, you could pay a designer to develop a customized theme just for your blog (or you could design one yourself). If you are serious about making money from your blog, this may be your best move.

55. Get a Logo Designed

Another way to enhance the look of your blog without going through a re-design or buying a new theme is to simply add or improve the logo. You can run a competition at a forum to have designers compete for your money, or if you are willing to pay more for a better product you could hire a professional logo designer.

56. Use Images in Posts

One easy way to improve the visual impact of your posts is to include images. You can use the advanced search at Flickr to find photos under the creative commons license, or you can pay a few dollars for an image at places like iStock Photo and Stock Xpert .

57. Change Your Color Scheme

Another way to give your blog a fresh look is to change up the color scheme. This can be a pretty simple process that only involves some changes to your CSS file. If you need some help finding the right color scheme, visit COLOURlovers or Color Schemer .

Marketing

58. Integrate Tools/Widgets for Social Media

Social Media Marketing is one of the best ways to get free exposure for your blog. You can encourage readers to vote for you and make it easy for them by adding some elements to your posts, such as buttons or widgets for specific social media sites.

59. Use Niche Social Media Sites

Most bloggers that attempt to gain traffic from social media focus on the major sites. like Digg. Getting to the front page of Digg is no easy task, and it really won’t produce traffic that is very targeted. Niche social media sites will send lower volumes of traffic, but popularity will be more attainable and the quality of traffic will be better. You can find social media sites in your niche at this categorized list of sites .

60. Build Profiles on Major Social Media Sites

For targeting the major social media sites, building a strong profile is one of the best ways to improve your results. To build a profile you should be actively using the site on a daily basis and always keep your eyes open for great content that you can submit.

61. Give Something Back to Your Readers

All blogs provide readers with content. What else can your do for them? By giving something back to your readers you can do a better job of building the community around your blog and developing a relationship and trust with your readers. There are a number of possibilities for giving back to your readers, and some that are mentioned at other places in this post. You could run a contest, give away some free advertising, give away an e-book, basically anything that will add value to your readers above and beyond the blog posts.

62. Feature Your Best Content Somewhere on the Blog

Some of your visitors will not be familiar with your blog and they may not have seen your best work. Somewhere on the blog you should have a list of links to your best or most popular posts. New visitors will hopefully take a look and see the quality.

63. Write for Other Blogs

One of the best ways to gain exposure and to build some name recognition is to write for other blogs. You can either do so as a guest blogger or as a paid writer. Usually if you are providing a free guest post you will get a brief bio statement and a link back to your blog. When you are doing paid writing you typically won’t get the bio or the link, but the exposure will still help.

64. Run a Contest

You can create some excitement from subscribers and generate some buzz by running a contest. Of course, people like to win things, so contests are a fun way to satisfy your readers. You can either put up some of your own money for prizes, or you can get others to sponsor the contest, which has been done very effectively be a number of bloggers.

65. Participate in Group Writing Projects

Group writing projects are a good way to get involved with other bloggers, get a link to your blog, and get exposure to a new audience. Check out Group Writing Projects to find some new opportunities.

66. Do Some Statistical Analysis

Do you know what types of posts draw the most traffic and the best response from your readers? Do you know where your traffic is coming from and what terms people are using to find you in the search engines? Use a tool like Google Analytics to do some basic stat checking on your blog and implement what you learn.

67. Submit Your Blog to Directories

Directories can be helpful for allowing new readers to find your blog, and they can also be good for search engine rankings. There are literally thousands of directories, blog directories, and RSS directories that you could submit to. Unfortunately, you’d have to spend days of your valuable time to get it done. You can submit it yourself to the top directories, or pay someone else to do it for you.

68. Set Up FeedBurner’s FeedFlare

I’m going to assume that you are already using FeedBurner since it is basically a necessity. FeedFlare is a simple way to add some nice elements to your feed that will allow subscribers to interact and share your content. There are a number of options to choose from, including links that will submit and vote for your posts at all the popular social media sites. To set up your FeedFlare, login and click on “Optimize” and then “FeedFlare.”

69. Release Your Own Blog Theme

Do you have an attractive blog theme that people really like? Have you considered releasing it for others to use freely? This has been done by a number of blogs, and sometimes it is done right after upgrading to a new theme. That way you can give something away without allowing everyone else to look just like you.

70. Use Entrecard

Entrecard is a unique way to make your sidebar more productive. With Entrecard you can network with other bloggers and with your readers, and drive traffic to your blog.

71. Submit Your Posts to Blog Carnivals

One of the easiest ways to start building links to your blog is by using blog carnivals. You can submit one of your posts to a carnival on a specific topic and if the host decides to include your post you will get a backlink. There are carnivals on just about every topic you can think of.

72. Host a Blog Carnival

Another method for driving traffic to your blog is to host a blog carnival. In this situation other bloggers will be submitting their posts to your carnival, and sometimes those who are included will also promote the carnival once it is published. If you’re looking for an easy way to get some other bloggers to visit your blog, consider hosting a carnival.

73. Submit Your Blog to Web Design and CSS Galleries

If your blog features a unique and attractive design (not a free theme), consider submitting it to web design and CSS galleries. There are more galleries than you can keep track (there’s a good list at Virtual Hosting). These galleries can give you a great deal of exposure and send some traffic and links your way.

74. Encourage Bookmarks

Bookmarks are a great way to increase your repeat traffic. If someone has bookmarked one of your posts they obviously have some intention of coming back to it later. Make it easy for your readers to bookmark by using the del.icio.us tagometer badge or something similar.

SEO

75. Give the Blog an SEO Check-Up

Most bloggers initially set up there blog to be search engine-friendly, however, over a period of time your blog may develop the need for an SEO checkup to keep the blog optimized. There are a number of free tools that can help you to check the SEO health of your blog. For a list of some of the best tools, see Giving Your Blog an SEO Check-Up .

76. Improve the Structure of the Blog for SEO Purposes

Blogs can be very search engine-friendly, or they can be SEO nightmares. What have you done to prevent duplicate content, to create optimized page titles, to use better URLs, etc? By improving the structure of your blog you may be able to drastically increase your search engine traffic. WordPress users see WordPress SEO from Joost de Valk.

77. Use Custom URL Structure

Some blogs create URLs that are no help for search engines. WordPress users have the option to set up custom URLs that will be more search engine-friendly rather than using the number of the post.

78. Use Custom Slugs

WordPress users also have the option within each post to create a custom slug. How often do you use this feature? Try keeping your URLs shorter and full of keywords with this simple feature.

79. Give Each Post a Meta Description

The meta description may not have a big influence on search engine rankings, but it can significantly influence the click-through rate to your pages from the SERPs. The meta description is shown by most search engines to tell searchers what your page is about. Use the description to draw attention and increase the chances of a click.

80. Use Robots.txt to Block Duplicate Content

One of the most effective ways to control and prevent duplicate content is by using the robots.txt file. With robots.txt you can instruct search engines to ignore certain pages and types of pages (for example your archive or category pages) which means your posts are less likely to suffer from the penalties of duplicate content. WordPress users should see the article on Shoemoney about robots.txt .

81. Submit a Google Sitemap

The easiest way to get you pages indexed in Google is to submit an XML sitemap that lists all of your pages and posts. The Google Sitemaps Generator for WordPress is a great tool.

82. Don’t Add Posts to Multiple Categories

An easy way to prevent duplicate content is to limit your posts to one category. By adding it in multiple categories you will be adding it to more archive pages, which increases the chances of a duplicate content penalty.

Networking

83. Build a Network with Other Bloggers

Other than creating great content, networking is the best thing you can do with your time. Every successful blogger has a strong network of other bloggers. Everything is easier when you have a good network and you’ll make a lot of friends along the way.

84. Thanks Others for Links

When other bloggers link to you, take a moment to leave a comment and thank them for the link. They’ll appreciate the fact that you stopped by and they’ll be more likely to link to you again in the future. Everyone likes to be thanked.

85. Comment on Other Blogs

One of the basics of blog networking is commenting on other blogs in your niche. It’s a great way to start getting to know some other bloggers, plus you can help others, demonstrate your knowledge, and drive some traffic to your blog. Try to make some time each day for commenting.

86. Join Groups at MyBlogLog, BUMPzee, and Blog Catalog

Blog community sites are a great place to start networking. You can join groups and communities and get to know some other users.

Making Money

87. Find More Relevant Advertisers

Advertisements will be more effective for the blogger, the readers, and the advertisers if they are highly relevant to the content of the blog. Don’t just throw any advertisement on your blog. Make sure it is useful to readers and the ads will actually be helpful instead of annoying.

88. Use Affiliate Marketing for Appropriate Products

When monetizing your blog, don’t forget affiliate programs. By marketing products and services that are targeted to your audience you can make a nice amount of money. Plus, affiliate programs can help to fill voids when you haven’t sold all of your direct ad spots.

89. Provide an Advertising Page with Details

If you are selling advertising space, set up a page dedicated to providing information and details to potential advertisers. This will hopefully help to generate interest and it will also reduce the amount of questions you get. Don’t forget to let people know why they should advertise on your blog instead of the millions of other blogs out there.

90. Offer Premium Content

Some bloggers make money by selling access to premium content. That premium content could be articles, online tools, a member’s only forum, premium blog themes, etc. To make money this way you have to be able to offer something that others will be willing to pay for.

91. Use an Ad Management System

You can save yourself some time and increase your productivity with an ad server like OpenX or the OIO Publisher plugin for WordPress. These resources will make life easier for you and for your advertisers.

Subscribers:

92. Add an Email Subscription Option

If you are not offering an email subscription option in addition to RSS, you are losing subscribers. Some people just prefer to use email. FeedBurner makes it easy to offer email subscriptions.

93. Offer a Free Giveaway to Subscribers

Some bloggers successfully use a free giveaway to generate more subscribers. Chris Garrett uses a free e-book to draw in new subscribers, and plenty of other bloggers have used this method as well.

94. Make Your Subscription Links More Noticeable

In order to increase subscribers, make it as easy as possible for visitors to subscribe. This includes placing your subscription links and icons in highly-visible locations where they can’t be missed.

95. Publish a Full Feed

Subscribers prefer to receive a full RSS feed rather than a partial feed. Personally, I don’t see any reason to use a partial feed. More people will unsubscribe and it really won’t have a drastic effect on click-throughs.

96. Follow Up with Unconfirmed Email Subscribers

Regardless of how good your blog is, some people will sign up for the email subscription and then never click on the confirmation link from FeedBurner. When you login to FeedBurner you can see who has not yet confirmed. You can export all of your email subscribers (confirmed and unconfirmed) into an Excel file, then sort the file to get all of the unconfirmed subscribers together, cut and paste the address into an email, and send a brief message to remind them to subscribe.

97. Use Subscriber-Only Posts

With WordPress you can create a post that will go out to your subscribers but will not be displayed on your blog itself. I first read of this trick from Courtney Tuttle at this post. If you have a message that you want to go to just your subscribers, this might be a good thing to try.

98. Don’t Display the Subscriber Count Until it is High

In my opinion it is a mistake to show your subscriber count if it is low. It only shows visitors that you have not established an audience yet. A low subscriber count is normal for new blogs, but it’s not something that you want to proclaim to the world. The hard part is knowing when it should be displayed. I think between 100 - 200 is safe, but that’s a matter of opinion.

99. Subscribe to Your Own Feed

No, I’m not saying this to boost your feed count, but rather to see exactly how your feed is appearing to your subscribers. You wouldn’t publish a website without testing it, so why not see what you feed is doing? Personally, I subscribe to my feed in an RSS reader and at an email address. That way I can keep an eye on the appearance of the feed and detect and correct any issues.

Sujatha is my school mate. I can’t say we were close then but now, after a long time I met her last year, we are attached to each other like belt and buckle.

She owns her rather big shop selling unique baby gifts. Yes, I visited her shop several times in the past year and bought quite a lot of gifts for a few babies and for more adults. Yes, that shop has recently added a section for grown ups too.

I always buy useful items for babies like huggies (they are never enough, right?), bed materials, toiletries, pacifiers etc. I used to be very careful in not selecting anything plastic.

For those, who can’t visit Sujatha’s gifts land, I recommend Simpleuniquebabygifts.com, the online shop that has a vast range of products exclusively for babies. Their baby shower cake is a hot selling product.

My eyes are damn tired searching for 3 column blogger templates. Still I have not found one to my liking.

When I did find after a bit of compromise, those templates have their own bugs. For example, the template I chose for Web Tools Gallery cannot be customized related to font colours. BTW, watch Web Tools Gallery for some rare tools and software. I request you to subscribe to its feed.

These are the places I have already searched for blogger templates.

http://blogandweb.com
http://freetemplates.blogspot.com

http://freshbloggertemplates.blogspot.com

http://www.jackbook.com

http://www.eblogtemplates.com.

I looked into the list provided by Mashable.com but most of them are not compatible or I don't know how to install.

I am looking for 3 column blogger templates that are beautiful to look at and bugs free. Any suggestions?

Not only do I depend on buy.com for my computer peripheral needs but I also don’t fail to watch their funny videos to keep my light mood updated and it also makes me aware of new products online.

If I remember correctly, my last best buy from buy.com was a 4 GB flash drive for just $ 14.47. Why I call this as the best buy is because it generally sold at about $20 elsewhere. The shipping cost is zero. Yes, it is shipped free of cost even today. So hurry.

Now about the funny videos- watch a lively video clip showing the cooking of beautiful Blue Donuts in buy.com

Here is an image of exotic Blue Donuts taken from Yahoo! images.

I read about this Blog Submitter software that submits your blog to the top 50 blog directories for just $20. This works out to only 25 cents per blog. That is definitely affordable to us. Considering the one way backlinks our blog gets from 50 top blog directories, it is definitely worth.

The only thing is they have not given the list of 50 directories that the software submits to. The software is called nicely as Blog Planter. This can save you valuable time.

I have a good list of blog directories and may be I can give them the list free of cost and I hope many will benefit from that.

Blog Planter is blog submission software that will help with blog promotion and ensure that your blogs are crawled, pinged, and indexed quickly.

Personally I can’t answer but as per my son’s emphatic views, I suppose one’s observation and the ability to find a solution outside of a problem increases by playing high-end video games.

Having bought his xbox 360, my son has been building up his collection of action based games and he now stores more than 200 different games. He has a big circle of friends who used to gift him their games.

I know my son truly meant when he said about his intelligence is increased by all those games.

I also know a lot of parents discourage their children from playing video games. But playing with xbox 360 is a different game than just navigating the computer keys.

This is real thrill and I got the hang of it with my son’s help.

Traffic Marks is an absolutely free Web 2.0 service, helping bloggers to find the authority websites for certain keywords.

It is not a secret that “The No.1 Way to Rank on the 1^st Page of Google is to Get Incoming Backlinks from Authority Sites”. Traffic Marks is a web-based SEO application that identifies so-called hub sites that usually rank in at least 3 of the top 10 ranking sites for your given keyword.

SEO experts say that just one link from these sites is more secure in getting first page position than 100 different incoming backlinks from unknown websites! Traffic Marks now brings the ability to hone in and pinpoints these authority sites to the home user. And, again, the service is absolutely free.

The full process of successful site utilization can be structured in 4 easy steps:

Step 1: Identify the keyword you want to rank on Google for.
Step 2: Use Traffic Marks to find out what backlinks the top 10 search results in Google have in common.
Step 3: Identify the key authority sites for your chosen keyword phrase.
Step 4: Formulate a strategy to obtain links from these sites to your page.

Definitely, that is just beginning of the process, since you still need to get these backlinks, but at least you know exactly, which Website you need to target, and that is very important for efficient blog or site promotion project completion.

Sign up to start: http://www.trafficmarks.com/

I am sure the big list of tutorials for bloggers developed by Blogger Buster is useful for all of us. We can't say we know all about blogging-right?

There are areas we can be well versed but may be weak in some areas. For example, I am good at searching content for blog, keep them organized and blog about them frequently.

But I am not good at tweaking my blog's appearance by altering the HTML code or writing Java script.

I know hundreds and thousands of bloggers enter the blogosphere as raw as freshly caught fish and this tutorial is extremely useful to them to some of us also who have been blogging for quite some time.

This tutorial is bog and one of the best resource I have seen so far in this area.

Blog Archive

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Friday, August 29, 2008

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Monday, August 25, 2008

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Monday, August 18, 2008

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Friday, August 15, 2008

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Monday, August 11, 2008

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Friday, August 8, 2008

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Monday, August 4, 2008

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Friday, August 1, 2008

About Me