Blogging - Facts for Those Starting a Blog

If writing is referred to as an art, blogging is the process of using words in such a way that the art is produced. People who write blogs are artistic in their own right. They ensure that they choose the exact words which explain and communicate their feelings, desires, wishes and sentiments in the best way possible.

Initially, these blogs were introduced as Weblogs that refer to a "server's log file." This was conceptualized when web logging was made available in the virtual market. Ever since its introduction in the mid-1990, web logging slowly inundated the virtual community and made the internet a prime source of information.
With web logging, the user requires a website as well as a domain name. But in case of blogging, the writer just needs an account along with blog providers. In the majority of cases, the blogs are absolutely free of charge.

When blogging was introduced to the industry, people who wanted to be known all over the world took to writing a personal journal. However, such people do not become famous in the literal sense as they don't become popular like the well-know personalities.

Usually, blogs are written by people for personal reasons. Just like a journal or a diary, the people can put down and express their ideas, sentiments and adventures online.
The importance of blogs has increased tremendously with the onset of online businesses as they allow the businesses to improve and increase their productivity over the internet. This is the main reason for business blogs hogging the limelight.

The main motive of business blogs is to advertise products and services being offered by a particular online business or website which in turn will help in increasing the sales that take place online.
In addition to this, business blogs serve as a means of promoting the company and letting the other readers know about the existence of such a company on the internet. Blogs play an important role in helping entrepreneurs build a name in the virtual markets by way of articles that are of use, interest and importance to the readers.

Entrepreneurs can earn money from blogs. They simply have to syndicate it with the website of their business. RSS technology is the means of undertaking this task.
If you have been thinking about creating a blog, the tips below can be of great assistance in making the blog interesting, whether it is for work or for pleasure.

1. Consider your audience:
Even though you are writing a personal blog, it is important for you to be aware of the preferences of the readers. This way, you will be in a better position to write a blog that would be of interest to them.

The reason why people write on their blogs cannot be confined only to their personal aims. People writing blogs wish to be known to the audience who read the blog. Thus, the most important thing is to write something that people can easily understand. It is not possible to get everybody to relate to the blog but the understanding is of prime importance.

2. Pictures speak a thousand words:
When one puts pictures on his blog, he makes the entire process of browsing through other blogs to reach this one worthwhile for the readers. By pictures, it does not mean that the blogger must necessarily put his picture. The picture posted could be of anything as long as it does not threaten or offend anyone who is reading the blog.

3. Make constructive and beneficial blogs:
In spite of the fact that the writer of the blog has the liberty to write anything that he desires, it is advisable that he writes about things that will prove to be beneficial to the readers in some way.

Blogging is nothing but informational technology. Hence, the motive of the blog should be to divulge information and not just provide entertainment.

4. Avoid multifaceted and complicated blogs:

In order to make the blog readable and understandable to all, ensure that the blog does not involve the usage of advanced technical jargons or difficult words. Blogging is not the platform for scientific brainstorming. Hence, the shorter and simpler the blog, the more interest it will generate.

Majority of the people who make use of the internet do not have the time to read the blogs word to word so they tend to just run through the text. This is why the blog should not be very lengthy or they will definitely bore the reader.

5. Make it interactive:

It is important to make the blog as interactive as possible so that the interest of the reader is maintained. This can be done by incorporating some audio and/or video clips in the blog.

There can also be a space that is allotted only for comments and feedback. Through this, the reader can receive reactions and suggestions from the readers which will help him write the blog better. Imparting this cordial feeling on the blog site can also earn the writer some good friends.

No wonder it is said that the contemporary term used for creative and commercial writing is blogging.

Peter Fitzgerald has been involved in online, affiliate and internet marketing for over seven years with various projects. He freely admits that he was knocking his head against the wall for the first three years. Success came to him some five years ago after taking a six month break in order to study the subject of online marketing with some of the leading authorities on the subject. Peter says: "Investing in my self to improve my worth to others is the most profitable thing I ever did." Peter now runs several blogging websites. He also enjoys article marketing, finds both activities compliment each other and will show you how to build a free web site

View the original article here

A Beginner's Portrait Into the World of Blogging

Unless you are one of those people who tend to stick their heads in the sand, ostrich-wise, there are not many computer savvy people who don't know what a blog is. However, for the ostriches amongst you, a blog is an online journal where any person online, if they choose to, can write about their experiences, concerns, opinions and ideas and then post this personal record online where all the world can read it. Nowadays there are innumerable blogging sites, specific websites designated to publishing personal blogs and nothing else.

All Blogs are Different
Blogging has come a long way since it was first introduced. There are many blogging websites which have the facilities to include your audio or video files with your blogs. As you read through lots of different blogging sites you will notice one thing that all blogs have in common: that is, they are all different! They each follow different text layouts, a range of styles and a choice of formats, as well as using a diversity of settings.

You are the Author
When you write a blog for publication the final choice as to how it looks after publication is up to the writer - i.e. the blogger: in other words, YOU! So, when you write your blog, include pictures, hyperlinks, unbroken texts, audio, video - whatever you want to include to personalize those thoughts and opinions you are intent on putting into online print. You may prefer to record your thoughts and ideas as words rather than writing it down and then add this audio recording to your blog. This kind of blog is called audio blogging.

The Shape of your Blog
Templates designed to be used for blogging are essentially very simple and you can add new pages without having to perform mental calisthenics! Each template has been designed to fulfill specific settings so that it is extremely easy for bloggers to get on with blogging which is what they are interested in and forget about the complicated bits. Almost all blog template designs have fixed spaces for you to slot into place your title. There is then space left for you to insert your actual blog.

Incorporated into this part of the page is a place for backtracks which enables other websites to link back to the blog you are writing. Each blog you write acquires its own URL once it has been written and published. This is referred to as a permanent link. Finally, at the end of your blog the template allows for comments, offering readers a means to post any comments they might have back to you so you can take on board what your readers might be saying about the subject you have written about, or even how they feel about you - the writer of this particular blog.

A Choice of Templates
Of course, to blog you do not actually need to use a pre-defined template but, if you are new to the world of blogging, then you will certainly find there are certain advantages to choosing an appropriate template design. Nowadays, all the blogging websites - and there are many of them - offer the prospective blogger a wide range and diversity of template designs; one for every situation, in fact.

How to Get Published
Getting published is as easy as falling off a log - no matter how much of a novice you are to the blogging fraternity. Simply 'Google' blogging websites and then take your pick as to which ones to join. Your first step really is in choosing which websites you wish to deign with your web presence. Immediately your membership has been approved - a mere formality - you will be a fully accepted member of that particular blogging community.

This enables you to peruse through the blogs supplied by fellow members of this community, incorporate those blogs into yours through embedded linking as well as being able to offer your own comments, opinions and criticisms to any blog you have read within the community you are now a member of. Furthermore, you have full and equal rights within this community to write your own blog and have it published.

Specific Themes
For those of you who follow a specific sport or who is an ardent supporter of a particular actor's career; maybe you are a Royalist and enjoy following the antics and nefarious activities of some of the more infamous members of the royal families around the world; or, perhaps you are of a more serious and academic style and have an inherent desire to read about all things medical: whatever your chosen interest, there is a blogging community specifically for you.

Once you have found that relevant community and become a member, you can read other blogs and write about your own interests within that specific theme to your heart's content. All blogs appertaining to that subject and topic matter will be accepted for publication. In fact, blogging has become an entrepreneur's paradise and an ideal way to market their goods and make money.

From Advertising to Education: blogging makes it happen!
You may have just had your very first novel printed - but, since your income from this novel is directly dependent on the number of books you sell, how do you get the word out? The answer is through blogging. Are you involved in direct marketing informational products online? Again, blogging is the answer to get the word out and about. In fact, there are few places where blogging fails to play its part.

Even in the world of higher education there are going to be students who, for one reason or another have missed a vital class. How do they catch up on the work they have missed? You've guessed it - following each class the lecturer arranges for their teaching blog to be updated, with a piece of the lecture presented in blog form for the benefit of missing students.

A Vital Means of Expression
Clearly the blogging phenomena has caught the imagination of everybody from politicians to policemen with just about every other person and his dog writing about their everyday lives and the antics of that said dog, along with blogs now heralded as an opportunity for revealing personal expression as well as keeping the art of writing alive and well. The majority of people treat their individual blogs as a personal rant and cant against the stress their daily lives generate, an opportunity to criticize the government and its policies and generally let off much-needed steam.

This vital means of expression creates a community of like-minded people who can all interact amongst the other people belonging to each blogging community, generating an online community that has replaced many of the social communities displaced by modern city regeneration and the mobile job market fracturing traditional societies as nets are cast far and wide in an ever-widening search for scarce and scant job opportunities.

Where Weblog Rules, there are no Rules
What started out as an online journal known as a weblog soon became abbreviated to blog as its popularity increased all over the world. Blogging communities became the normal way of addressing people's need to interact with others sharing a similar mind-set and similar opinions. Blogs became the 21st century's answer to man's need, as a social animal, to intermingle and exchange ideas with others. One of the benefits of blogging is the fact that there are no rules to inhibit either reader or writer of blogs.

The majority of blogging websites are free to use and, for the members of each blogging site, the word 'free' extends to the manner in which blogs are written. In other words, no format is considered wrong and, similarly no style or manner of writing is considered better or worse than any other. The true essence of a blog is to get the idea over to the reader; information the blog writer wants to impart is presented from the blog writer's heart: that is all that is important for the dedicated blogger.

Benefits of Blogging
The true benefits of blogging is that there are many of them and they are usually free to use. You can consult a blogging directory if you are concerned with finding specific themes. Themes will be organized and collated according to subject and theme, in much the same way that a business telephone directory is organized. Blogging is now such a widespread and popular activity that it is simple to get started and quite easy to find a suitable blogging community to belong to. In fact, you can join as many blogging communities as you want to, each with a different theme - or simply blog on a daily basis using a generic blogging site and the most basic template design. The fact of the matter is that blogging is intended to be straightforward and simple to get involved with and, overall, amongst the blogging communities, there are no rules to adhere to: happy blogging!

Peter Fitzgerald has been involved in online, affiliate and internet marketing for over seven years with various projects. He freely admits that he was knocking his head against the wall for the first three years. Success came to him some five years ago after taking a six month break in order to study the subject of online marketing with some of the leading authorities on the subject. Peter says: "Investing in my self to improve my worth to others is the most profitable thing I ever did." Peter now spends his time writing successful blogs and fully understands the meaning of blogging. He also enjoys article marketing, finds both activities compliment each other.

View the original article here

Blog Traffic - Ways to Generate More Traffic to Your Blog

If you currently own a blog then you are probably looking for solution on how you can increase your blog traffic. After all you want to help, inspire, and motivate people with your content.

I want to go over three quick steps that you can do to start increasing your blog traffic.

How to increase blog traffic can be challenging but it can be done by taking care of one of the most basic action that sometimes we all tend to overlook.

One of the main components to a blog that will get massive amounts of traffic is the ability to provide solutions to a problem.

If you have a blog that provides the solution to someone's problem then you will have a blog that will be visited by many looking for the same solution.

Think about some of the solutions you are looking and write content based on that. Chances are someone else is looking for that solution as well.

Another great way to increase blog traffic is to provide comments and feedback on other people's blogs. Don't just say hey great post but add some value to your comment.

By doing this you will spark interest in other people to visit your blog and see what content you have and if it is a great resource for them.

Once they look at the value and solutions you have to offer then chances are your content will be shared and this will generate more traffic to your blog.

One final piece that can help you get the blog traffic that you are looking for is to be part of a tribe. Being part of a tribe is great way to get blog traffic because the members of the tribe will syndicate your blog content for you.

This is great because your content is shared by others and you get to share their content as well and with valuable comments left on the content you share you are sure to get traffic to your blog.

Working on these three steps consistently you will begin to see more traffic to your blog.

The crucial step to this process is to be consistent. Don't give yourself a time limit of 30 days, 90 days, or even a year. Your blog traffic will ultimately depend on the quality and value of your content.

This will be an on going improvement on developing your skills to provide the content that will captivate your audience and keep them coming back as well as sharing your content.

Network Marketing is the new business model. Learn the skill set needed to succeed in this business with the right MLM training platform.
Exclusive FREE video training.

To your success,
Marlon Acosta

View the original article here

Blogging - What Is It and How Do You Do It?

Blogs were first known as weblogs that refer to a server's "log file." It started in the early 1990's and fast became the easiest and most popular way for everyday people to get their thoughts, views and opinions out there on to the world wide web. With blogging you do not even need to purchase a web site or domain names. Once you create your free account with a blog providers they will allow you to have a 'subdomain' of their site. An example would be "yourdomain.blogsite.com". Blogs are predominantly created for personal use. Like a journal, people can write their daily thoughts, adventures, opinions, sentiments, and whatever ideas they want to express online. They can do this in their own words and allow their own personality to shine through into the writing.

It goes without saying that with the commencement of online businesses and internet marketing, blogs have gradually taken over as one of the most common ways for a business to boost their marketing and advertising efforts. Business blogs are generally created to advertise the services or products of a certain web site or online business in order to increase customers, sales and ultimately profits. Moreover, business blogs are also being used as a way of promoting the business and the company itself - rather than just the product or service - so that they can build a following with their customer base and gather feedback and insight from their followers.

So, if you are interested in starting your own blog, for business or pleasure, these tips will help you not only build your blog, but make it popular and one of the more interesting blogs in your particular niche.

Here's how:

1. Who is your audience? Even if your blog is personal, still, you need to 'proof read' your posts as if you were a follower. Whatever you write needs to be relevant to the reason that people visit your site and needs to stay on the same topic. When you are expressing an opinion it is important to ensure that you are ethical and moral in your writing so as not to offend your readers - even if you have a difference of opinion. This is one of the hardest things to achieve. It is very important that people can understand your blog, even if they do not agree.

2. Pictures & videos speak a thousand words It is amazing how many more people will come back to your blog if you use pictures and videos to break up the text on your pages. Make sure the pictures and videos are relevant to what you are writing about and your blog will be much more attractive and user friendly.

3. Make your blogging constructive and beneficial Even though you can write about anything in the world, you will get much more traffic to your blog if your content is constructive and beneficial to your readers. This is, in fact, the best way to build a loyal following - by adding value and offering real advice or suggestions to your readers.

4. Keep it simple and truthful! Keep your blog simple and straight forward to retain the reader's interest. If your writing is too boring or long winded the reader will lose focus and leave the page, most likely to never return. Also ensure that you are being truthful as if you are caught out telling fabricated stories or blatant lies, your reputation may well be damaged forever!

5. Make your blog interactive Use video, audio, pictures, social media to make your blog interactive and interesting. By adding social media buttons your readers can 'like' or 'share' your blog through their Facebook or twitter account and this is a great way to get extra readers. Ensure that your blog has a place for comments and feedback as this can also spark some healthy debate and ensure that people come back to your blog.

Blogs are certainly much more than just a fun way to get your thoughts and views out there onto the world wide web. Blogging is now a great option for businesses to grow their customer base and keep in touch with their followers. What is stopping you? Get started on your own blog today, have fun, blog often and begin building your own online following.

Luke Riley is an Internet Marketing Coach, Mentor and Entrepreneur who thrives on helping others achieve financial freedom by leveraging the internet.

Visit my blog http://www.luke-riley.com/ to see a real blog in action that you can model your own blog around!

Also please visit http://www.thesixfigurementor.com/how-to-generate-50-leads-per-day.html to grab my free report that will teach you how to use your blog to generate 50 leads per day!

To your success

Luke Riley

View the original article here

Blog to Success, Making Money Online by Blogging

The great thing about blogging is that it is absolutely free and you can create and publish a blog post within 30 minutes. There are so many type of different blogs out their from music fans creating blogs for their favourite artists, business owners sharing their products and football fans talking about there favourite clubs.

So why do people blog?? there are different ways to how people blog there are people just sharing there views on a given subject maybe a hobby or something they are really interested in. On the other hand there are business owners who blog and share value and products in a certain niche. Over the past 5 years blogging has increased dramatically as it is simple to set up a blog and share value. Treat your blog as an online journal and update it everyday and you will see readers come back to your site as you are giving value and they will become a regular reader and that is what you want. I always stress that building relationships is vital to be a success online.

Become an authority in your niche and you will gain the respect of your reader and your traffic and sales will increase. It is very simple to run a blog but is so effective.

Ok you may be thinking how do I set up a blog? well there are 2 websites that you can use to build a blog without too much hassle. WordPress or Blogger are the ones to use as they have videos to help you set up your blog pain-free. A blog is just a web page, you build your web page then add the content relevant to your subject then you can go and publish it to the world.

Get a domain name, get your content on there and you are good to go something I will not cover in this article but will do a special article on it is search engine optimisation. This is very important as you want your blog to get on the front page on a search engine so you people can find your site. I will cover this or alternatively research it or join a training programme to help build your business.

There are some simple and easy ways to make money with your blog. You can add AdSense this is where Google places adverts on your site normally at the bottom or to the side of your site and when someone clicks on the add you get paid. You can even sell other products for different companies and you will get a commission back make sure you choose your products wisely as you want to promote good valuable products that will help your reader.

My last point I will make is make your blog interesting. start with words but add images to attract the reader and the next step is adding videos on there to make it interesting and for your reader to interact with you. You will find people coming back to your blog if you do this.

Hope this article has helped you understand on making money with blogging

thank you for your valuable time.

Kind regards

Lewys Davies

Lewys is a home based marketer with a life changing business opportunity. Find out more about Lewys at http://lewysdaviesofficial.com/

View the original article here

Advertise Your Blog - 3 Great Places To Promote Your Blog

When you are looking to advertise your blog what are the best places to look for and why?

So many people think that they have to spend out lots of money to advertise their blog and the truth is you can do it for very little, in most cases it's free. With the current state of the economy that is something that every home business owner and blogger wants to hear.

By the end of this article you will have a very good understanding of where to advertise your blog and the reasons why you should be advertising there. Now when I say advertising its not really advertising but more about getting your blog noticed.

You could argue that every time you place a link somewhere that heads back to your blog then that is advertising! Well I will leave you to decide on that one. Here is a list of place I like to use to get my blog noticed.
Search EnginesSocial MediaForums

Search Engines - Now I know what you are thinking, you're not allowed to pay for advertising for a blog on the internet and you're absolutely right. However I'm not talking about paid advertising like pay per click but getting free organic traffic from your advertising.

This long term strategy is actually better than pay per click anyway. Did you know that only around 3% of people will click the top spot on a pay per click campaign and that around 40% of people will click the top spot on the organic searches for the same keyword?

So not only are you getting 15 times more traffic than a paid campaign but you are getting it for free as well.

Social Media - This is great as you can use this as an extension of your blog and you can put links in lots of different groups within your niche. Most social networks will have groups setup for most kinds of niches.

The draw back to this is the time you spend placing those links in each group. Also if you stop doing it than your traffic stops as well and therefore your income stops at the same time.

Forums - Forums are great because you can really showcase your talents and help lots of people with your in-depth knowledge. With a forum you get a signature box which leads back to your blog.

As with social media this can be very time consuming, however if you are involved with a long and interesting thread then you may be posting quite a lot and more people will see that all important signature box. Also the thread will continue after you have gone so people may read your comment.

All 3 are very powerful but the one that stands out the most is to advertise your blog is on the search

engines. The other two strategies can be used to push your posts up the search engines, but it is those that will bring you the most traffic over a longer period of time.

These tactics are very useful when blogging for profit as you will be able to form a long term strategy using these and other techniques to build a tremendous income online.

Of course knowing how to build a successful blog will also help in securing your long term financial future. Thank you for reading this article.
Tristram Lodge

View the original article here

7 Tips for Enhancing WordPress Templates

That's not a secret that millions of blogs owners use WordPress solution and generally base their sites on WordPress themes. Whether WordPress templates are free or commercial you can always improve them, boosting with some plug-ins, additional setting and pieces of code.

The following ways of templates improvement don't require any knowledge of code or other specific skills:

Optimize template pictures

Images used by WordPress templates developers are sometimes not optimized. You may optimize them easily using reduce their size which is possible with "Save for Web" feature you will find in the Adobe Photoshop toolkit. Besides, you may use the special Smush.it tool that allows to optimize the images without loss of quality.

The images you may optimize are the logo, stock images, icons, headings, CSS background images etc. What do you need the images optimization for? This can significantly improve the valuable for your readers page response times.

Reduce the WordPress theme files size.

Some WP templates include not minified CSS or JavaScript files and you may enhance the template by reducing their file sizes. This process is called minification and gets rid of the extra characters such as spaces and tabs. Speaking about JavaScript, you are free to minify it with the special free JavaScript Compressor. As for HTML there are plugins like W3 Total Cache that will minify the front-end HTML code to improve the blog speed.

Apply a custom favicon.

You may have noticed the tiny icon representing a website in browser tabs address bars. This is the favicon that should also represent your brand and look professional.

To include this favicon you may simply place the following code inside the header.php in your template directory:

The location of your favicon file can be pointed in place of the href attribute value.

Use custom styles to make image captions stand out.

The WordPress image captions serve to describe images. WordPress themes usually include the default styles for these captions. And you may change the.wp-caption class in your template styles.css to pally the certain unique style for all image captions.
Make the template code secure

This can be achieved by removing the generic WordPress code you will find inside tags of your template. This action will prevent the other users from knowing our WordPress version that could help them to attack your website using some weak points of the definite versions.

Use the third-party search feature instead of the default search bar

Many users don't even know that they can easily replace the core search function with another search service that is more accurate and fast like Google Custom Search or Yahoo! Search BOSS. Using the authoritative third-party search option will reduce your server load for searches.

Use WordPress Internet marketing tools

To bring more traffic to your WordPress blog you may use the following market tools:

All in One SEO Pack
XML Sitemap Generator
digg digg
Onlywire autosubmit plugi
Twitter tools

All the aforementioned steps will improve your WordPress themes, enhance promotion and bring more dedicated visitors to your blog.

Stan Lem is not a newbie in writing for the web - he started about 5 years ago and took special involvement in the area of website development and website templates - more specifically WordPress Themes

View the original article here

Blog Comments: Tips to Build Backlinks and Traffic

One of the simplest ways to build traffic is to leave comments on DoFollow blogs. In my particular niche I spent an entire afternoon researching the best blogs and forums to comment on. All you have to do is put "your niche" + "blog" into one of the search engines and it will return a long list of blogs. I was quite surprised at the poor quality of some of the blogs I found. Out of every ten, I only found one that I would even consider participating in! Some were redundant, with hardly any visitors or comments, or the comments were irrelevant to the niche, and it's amazing how many blogs are not carefully moderated by the owners, meaning that comments like "great blog dude" were allowed to get through along with a backlink to that commenter's site.

What's wrong with that scenario? It would be quick to leave short comments like that, and easy to get backlinks. Sure, but Google would assign no relevance to the posts on the blog and it wouldn't rank high. You want to find blogs with high traffic, because more visitors means more click throughs for you and better qualified visitors.

Google and visitors all want to see quality content, and that includes blog comments. If you can leave an educated and helpful blog comment frequently on a site, then visitors will see your answers and comments and are more likely to click through to your site.

Look for high PR (Page Rank) blog sites. Ranking goes from PR0 to PR9 - Google, Yahoo, Facebook and YouTube are all PR9 sites. The higher the PR blog site you can find and leave your comments and information on, the more credence and ranking points Google gives. This means your ranking will increase more if you are a regular contributor to a PR7 site, than a PR0 site.

Look for CommentLuv sites. Andy Bailey has worked hard on this concept, and by joining the CommentLuv family, you can leave a blog post, and the CommentLuv WordPress plugin has the ability to choose between five to ten other comments you have made, and display those too, creating more interest in what you have to say. A new version has just been released and is recommended.

Once you find high PR blogs that have regular participants, build your credibility by using their RSS feed. That feed will tell you when someone has commented on your comment and you can get straight back to them and continue the conversation. It's also a good reminder of the blogs you are contributing to, and seeing how active they really are.

Blog owners love regular participants - you are actually adding content to their sites.  Eventually you could be invited to be a regular guest blogger as you become perceived as an expert in whatever the blog is about. A win-win for you and the blog owner that will gather increased traffic for both of you.

One little trick I use for blog commenting is cutting and pasting paragraphs from my site into the blog comments, and perhaps tweaking them a little. It saves time, and you know you have already proofread the material you are using.

Blog commenting can also give you some great ideas for articles for your own site. If members are constantly asking "how do I do this" or "what is this thing for", write an article about it and send them through to it with a link.

I find blog posting to be fun most of the time, and a learning experience. I recently discovered a new blog and now have a rapport with the owner, who turns out he lives about 30 miles away. There may even be a joint venture discussed over breakfast soon.

If you are not using blogs to get backlinks, which really is the easiest and most enjoyable part of getting tedious backlinks, you should start today.

Has anyone found a way to find high PR blogs quickly, without paying for the privilege? If you enjoy blog commenting - leave us a comment!

Gabriele Cramer-Knebel is the Founder/CEO of Network Marketing Made E-Z! and is an experienced network marketer helping new entrepreneurs to build a successful online business. You can find out more at http://networkmarketingmadeez.com/

Copyright © Network Marketing Made E-Z! 2011. All Rights Reserved.

View the original article here

Are You Blogging For Business? Is Blogging A Part of Your Business Plan?

SEO Blogging- Blogging For Business- Are You On The Online Track?

If you are Blogging for business and Blogging from your heart with SEO sprinkled on top you are on the right track. Don't give up. Never give up. Remember that right after the point where people quit is where the success lies. Just one more post, just one more day. Keep going because it will pay off.

You need to be setting yourself apart from your competition and from the big boys right now. The big boys are catching on to organic traffic but don't yet understand the heart part. Stay out in front. Now is your time to get that footprint on Google so when they try to kick you off your spot they won't be able to.
This is what companies are starting to realize:

Most traditional marketing is dying.

When was the last time you picked up your yellow pages? Where is yours? Most businesses, when I ask them, they say it is a doorstopper or they recycled it.

When was the last time you got a listing from the ads you place in the newspaper? Readership in newspapers is rapidly declining. It is expensive and no longer gets the phone to ring the way it used to.

When was the last time you watched TV looking forward to the commercials? If you are like the majority you are using DVR or TiVo and skipping right past the commercials. Companies are finding this out.

When was the last time you hired a telemarketing company or did cold calling in your business? The Do Not Call list has made telemarketing a tough field. The results are not great because this is considered "interruption marketing". The consumer is turned off by that. They want to engage on their own terms.

Direct Mail- We still do a lot of direct mail but truth be told, it is expensive. A good return is 1% to 2%. We get about 3% to 4% on our Expired Listing open rate and return call rates. But not all agents can afford the time and the expense of direct mail. Companies are realizing that this is still a great vehicle in which to drive offline traffic to their sites online. But most companies are not doing that.

Print Ads- When was the last time you put a listing in the homes review magazines? I see even on the shelves at Publix that the numbers of these magazines is dwindling. Most of those magazines are trying to now compete on line. The rising costs of printing is also a factor. Oil is used in print inks. Oil is used in print presses. As the price of oil rises so does the price of printing. In my product launch mastermind group there is a man who is a printer. His print shop was doing well over 2 Million in print jobs in 2009. In 2010 he saw the number plummet well below 1 million.

Email marketing by the blasting methods is pretty much out the door. With Spam Software and people reporting spam every hour you are not getting your message across in a delightful manner. Again, this is not permission based marketing. Of course the exception is in building your own list. That is still the most valuable asset you have on your computer.

The fact is that only 1 out of every four businesses have a website today in 2011!!! Most brick and mortar businesses still don't have websites.

Make sure you get on the right track. If you have not started blogging, get on that task now. If you are afraid to write, take a writing class. Study those who write well. Find your voice. Discover your passion. Cater to your audience. Have plan and a message. If writing is not for you than do podcasting or video blogging. Whatever you can learn to do and like, you can do it. Study, learn, practice on your friends and then get on the right track to your online success.

Katerin is also a coach, consultant, author and trainer. She is the #2 Top Blogger with the second most subscribers on Active Rain, a real estate network blogging platform. She was first licensed in California in 1983 and has received numerous awards. She is a guest presenter on Virtual Real Estate Bar Camp and a contributing writer for the Active Rain Guide. She also teaches Realbird tutorials for Realbird. Katerin's passion lies in coaching agents to reach their full potential through developing their brand as well as niche markets with blogging, SEO, PR, social networking and good ol' direct mail campaigns to expired listings. Nestor and Katerin are the authors of, " Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Short Sales". Katerina developed a 9 week webinar course,' SEO To The Top'. Agents rave about their results from attending this course. Katerin works one on one in private coaching sessions and has customized specific to market expired listing marketing letters, branding, SEO and social media management for her clients.

View the original article here

Before You Get a Chiropractic Blog, Read This

It's hard to go anywhere in the social media space these days and not hear about blogging. For chiropractors, this relatively new form of communication and marketing is rarely utilized to its fullest capacity. If you intend on setting-up a chiropractic blog, you'll want to have a firm grasp of the following.

First, you'll want to select a chiropractic blogging platform. I'd recommend using WordPress due to its simplicity and ability to get ranked well on Google. If you currently have a website company, have them install the blog on your actual website.

No need to learn the technical stuff of setting up the blog or installing it. If you don't have a programmer, there are plenty of freelance websites where you can pay someone $20 to do the WordPress install for you. You'll also want to have certain plug-ins that serve a variety of functions.

Some of these add-ons are Akismet, Google sitemaps, Facebook like, Backtype Tweet-count, and the All-in-One SEO pack.

After you have all of those, then you can select a good theme / design. You'll find many free templates on Google. If you want to go the premium route, you'll be able to find a professional chiropractic blog design for under $100 if you look closely.

Once found, you'll be all set to start blogging. You now have to come-up with content to write about. Actually, you can post videos on your chiropractic blog, too. This is easy to do and even easier than writing new content. If you don't like to write, hire a ghostwriter or have someone in your office do it for you.

The key is consistency. If you eventually want your chiropractic blog to be recognized as an authority in your local community, then give great value, tips, and strategies that viewers can implement today.

At the end of your videos or other pieces of content, you can make a strong call to action letting others know what to do next. Invite them to subscriber to your newsletter or to call your office to schedule an appointment.

Sending traffic to your new blog can be done by using email marketing, Google AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, press release submissions, article marketing, SEO, and dozens of other ways.

Blogging is not a magic bullet to getting new patients fast, but it will help you eventually get you where you want to be if done right. Use the tips and ideas here to accelerate your success!

Blogging for chiropractors can get you consistent streams of new patients each month if done right. For the latest chiropractic blog marketing and social media tips click the blue text in this paragraph now.

View the original article here

A Valuable Insight to the Blog Hosts

Chat rooms, electronic mail and instant messengers were all introduced so that the process of communication becomes more easy and convenient. The innovations of today are making way for new opportunities when it comes to interacting with one another. The technological landscape of the Internet is gradually altering the requirement for a personalized and human touch of the online communities.

"Weblogs" or blogging as it is referred to, is the latest development in internet technology that is changing the nature of interactions all over the world. Blogs are nothing but snippets from the personal life of the writer and updated posts and entries from everything that is regular to the absolute bizarre. In other words, it is an unedited and personal diary which is written with an intention to share with others in an online community.

These blogs can be used to publish just about anything ranging from photos to comments to feelings to thoughts and experiences. It can also be called an online journal that consists of videos, opinions, documents, newsletters and links on topic that might interest the writer of the blog.

The main purpose of the creation of blogs was to encourage people to express their opinions and feelings. Hence, blogs are written in an informal manner.

A blog that is formal and intimidating is sure to kill the interest of the readers. The basics of blogging suggest that a conversational tone is ideal in order to reach out to the readers.

The main purpose of blogging is to help an individual communicate his feelings to other individuals. The various other advantages of blogging are:

• Freedom of Expression: a blog is the perfect option for people who want to be heard and wish to communicate their opinions with others.

• Networking benefits: when a marketer of a product creates a blog, he creates a platform where he can communicate with consumers and share ideas regarding the product. This gives the marketer a clear picture and a genuine opinion regarding the product.

• Efficient advertising platform: blogging provides the marketers as well as the audience with a refreshing change from the conventional advertising means. It is also more cost effective compared to the others.

• Weighing the opinion of public regarding products and services: blogs which have interesting and intelligent titles are sure to attract continuous and positive responses from the readers. Blogs are the perfect place where the seller as well as the consumer can exchange their ideas and suggestions. Hence, it enables the seller to understand the views of the public with regards to not only products and services but also politics and business.

• Assists internal communication: having a blog helps the company to create a knowledge-based community wherein the employees of the company can build cordial relations with each other and human resource problems, if any, can be tackled well in time.

• Search engine optimization (SEO) benefits: SEO facilities over the internet can help in making the seller visible on the internet to a large audience, allowing a good amount of exposure to his products and services.

There is a sea of blog hosting services that are available over the internet today. Hence, it becomes increasingly important to decide which one of them is going to prove to be worthy of starting the business blog program? Most often, businessmen are not updated with the technological advancements that they can make use of in order to increase their marketing potentials to the optimum level. Such people should first gain knowledge about the services that are being offered by the various blog hosts. Choosing an ineffective business blogging program can cause serious damage to the marketing opportunities of the seller.

Regarding the blog hosting service, a company can make any of the following choices:

1. Host a blog service of their own.
2. Pay another blog host to provide their services.
3. Create a "blog aggregator page" and let the employees select the blog hosting services individually. As far as individuals are concerned, they have an option of choosing amongst paid and free services.

It is important for business blogs to incorporate the latest blogging features so that they can maximize their marketing operations and improve their public relations an SEO options.

The basic essentials of a blog can be listed down as:

COMMENTS:
Inviting comments from visitors creates dialogue on the blog which provide the business enterprises with valuable consumer feedback which in turn facilitates good consumer relations. Blogging is a perfect way for sellers to inculcate loyalty and trust in their customers and converse with them efficiently.

TRACKBACK:
This service is instrumental in increasing the exposure of the company as well as the product. Through this, the customers can get in touch without having to locate you all over again if they need additional updates and posts. If the blog attains popularity on any online community, the links that go to your blog are likely to be on other blogs, other websites as well as other blog sites.

CATEGORIES AND TAGS:
Both these features assist the visitors in classifying blog searches and make navigation very easy. the category can be compared to a library as it distributes the posts into different sections depending on their subject matter like business, online auctions, distance learning and so on. Tags play an important part in this distribution, especially in the case of Technorati, the blog search engine. Potential customers can conveniently find blogs related to their topics of interest by clicking on these tags.

RSS FEED:
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication which is a feed sent from the seller's blog to the internet and received by the many newsreaders and aggregators.

When a company plans to undertake a business blogging program, the hosting companies should provide them with a good amount of options with respect to the services. The popular free blog hosting companies are not advisable for business blogging as they are more suitable for individual online journals. The paid blog hosting services offer unlimited packages which are ideal for the needs of any company. Before selecting the host, it is necessary to check out some of the blogs use the services of the host. a good evaluation of their technical support, design and layout is also important.

Once the host has been chosen, a team should be formed to plan the structure and design on the blog. The tasks to be undertaken by the team are:

• creating a style on the basis of the requirements of the audience.
• establishing a tone that is open and credible.
• schedule the blog weekly or a few times a week for better results.
• incorporate web links of other blogs and websites.
• address blog posts in "first person."
• keep the focus on the objective of the business blog.
• keep a conversational quality that is honest and engaging.

A company must keep in mind that the look, style, design and content that is on the blog is the mirror image of the business and its employees.

Peter Fitzgerald has been involved in online, affiliate and internet marketing for over seven years with various projects. He freely admits that he was knocking his head against the wall for the first three years. Success came to him some five years ago after taking a six month break in order to study the subject of online marketing with some of the leading authorities on the subject. Peter says: "Investing in my self to improve my worth to others is the most profitable thing I ever did." Peter, who knows how to create a blog has spent a lot of his time writing blogs for money. He also enjoys article marketing, finds both activities compliment each other.

View the original article here

Blog Commenting For SEO Purposes

This article will discuss important matters that you need to consider when using blog commenting to increase the SEO of your blog. There are a number of important factors to consider when choosing a blog to comment on. All blogs are not created equal. Just because you comment on another blog doesn't mean that you're increasing your blog's Search engine optimization or page rank.

There are three main factors I look for when searching for a blog to comment on to increase my blog's SEO.

1. Relevancy. In order to maximize your SEO results when blog commenting you must comment on relevant sites. Look for sites with posts in the same niche that have similar topics. For example, if you're an affiliate marketer, in order to find a good list of relevant sites, Google phrases like "Top Affiliate Marketing Blogs" to find a list of blogs to comment on.

To get the most "link juice" possible make sure that both the blog and the blog post you comment on are relevant to your blog. For example if you have a blog about SEO, look at the post titles of the blog your going to comment on. Choose one that is very similar to your blog. For example if two of the titles were: 1. Blog Commenting SEO Strategies; and 2. How to get more Twitter Friends, be sure to choose the Blog Commenting Post.

2. Do Follow Links. In order to get quality backlinks when blog commenting for SEO you want to make sure that the Blog you comment on does not use "no follow" links. WordPress Blogs are set as "no follow" by default. A blogger has to manually change that setting. This can easily be done by downloading a "Do Follow" Plugin. By definition a "do follow" backlink is a link that the search engine robots can follow from the blog back to your site. This type of link can help index your site faster, improve your SEO and your page rank. A "no follow" link doesn't give you any link juice or help with SEO, but can lead traffic back to your site.

There are a number of ways to find out if a site is a "do follow" or "no follow":

a. press ctrl + u, then press ctrl + f and type in "nofollow" in the source code, the words "nofollow" will be highlighted if it's a no follow blog;

b. Download SEOQuake.com. This can display "no folow" links with a line through them;

c. Download SEO for Firefox. This can be set up to highlight "no follow" links.

3. Page Rank. Is a numerical method used by Google to assign a value to websites. Google assigns page ranks from 0 - 10. In order to more effectively raise your sites PR you want to blog comment on sites with high PR.

The basic theory is that links from relevant blogs with high pr give you more "link juice", or they have a more positive effect on your blogs rank than links from low PR blogs. To find high PR sites download SEOQuake.com. Then every time you do a search a toolbar will pop up, click on the? next to PR to find out the blogs PR rank. That's the basics of Blog Commenting for SEO purposes.

To find out more tips and strategies about how to boost your traffic, sales and PR on your site using blog commenting I suggest that you click on the links below in my resource box.

To discover more secrets about how to use blog commenting to SEO your blog click on Blog Commenting SEO Tips

If you need more targeted leads and want to learn how to drive targeted leads to your site with blog commenting click on How to Use Blog Commenting

View the original article here

Blog Content Plus Linking Equals Traffic

No matter how you look at it your blog content is the seed from which the site will grow! It is a combination of the quality of information reflected in your blog posting and your success at getting others to view it! What you are ultimately trying to do is get more traffic to your blog platform and our discussion here is how to do just that! It starts with getting more people to see your blog posting efforts which can be accomplished by combining your fine quality content with some strategic linking!

Here are 3 simple yet very powerful ways in which to attract a larger viewing audience to your blog platform by the effective use of linking!

Internal Linking

Whenever you are doing any blog posting to your platform it is always recommended to link the new update with others on your site. What you want to do is determine a relevance between the new entry with any others formerly posted. This helps viewers navigate your platform much easier when seeking additional information they might have otherwise overlooked! In addition search engines will find it much easier to navigate the site and the more relevancy they find between and amongst varying updates, the higher your ranking!

Visiting Your Neighbors

It is always a good idea to go out and visit other sites within your niche to see what is happening and capture new ideas. When you land on a blog platform that has a discussion going on that captures your attention, do not be afraid to join. When contributing always try to add value or insight to the discussion and ALWAYS be sure you leave a link back to your own site! This is NOT a guarantee of having other sites linking back to you since your comments need to be sincere, constructive and without blatant self-promoting. On the other hand when they do it opens the door for you to get more traffic back from these sites. If what you got to offer on your own platform is worth their visit you can be sure they will refer their friends as well!

Killer Updates

Everything starts and ends with the quality of your own blog posting. You can invite any and everybody to come take a look, but if they do not like what they see you will not see them again! On the other hand updating your site with useful, informative or otherwise entertaining information will get you noticed! If what you display is good enough, other sites will notice and refer their own readers by linking to a particular post on your platform. In fact 'resource blogs' thrive on the quality information that 'others' create to update their own sites. The fact is this is yet another source of incoming traffic you did not have to actively invest the effort to generate!

Your blog content is the key to how you will get more traffic which of course is what you will need to operate a successful site! Updating the site with your high quality blog posting efforts is only half the battle, the other being making others aware of what you have posted! No matter what the quality of information that may be found on any blog platform, if you have no viewers your efforts are for naught! The 3 suggestions offered above simply make use of some strategic linking in combination with some already existent content to help you get more traffic to your site! Once people do arrive the rest is up to you insofar as what you have to offer them since it must be good to get them to return!

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina.
To learn more about using links to get the most out of your blog content and to also receive a free instructional manual that teaches valuable niche research techniques for your online marketing needs simply visit: http://blogbrawn.com/

View the original article here

Attracting Visitors To Your Blog: Free and Easy Tips To Follow

So, you have a blog. The problem is you don't have enough readers. Maybe you're paying to post great content: maybe you write it yourself. If you aren't getting the attention you need, here are a few helpful tips that will increase your blog traffic and get some eyes on your updated content. Best of all, they're free and easy to do!

Visitor Attraction Tip #1: Networking. Here, it can be as simple as getting out to meet your neighbors. And I'm not talking about the people down your street. Who's in your niche? Who is in the social forums? Get connected to people you might relate to by posting in relevant forums and making friends. Don't forget the relatives. Email all your friends and family your new blog.

Visitor Attraction Tip #2: Be a Blog Reader. A great blog writer is also a blog reader. What's your competition? How can you succeed like they are? Scoring a post inside a popular blog can get you really high traffic wise: look into being a guest blogger. Comment on blogs that are inside your topics. This is a great way to get noticed by people who might be interested in what you have to offer. It's free and easy and it works. However, the only catch is to give out comments that actually read more than "I agree!"

Visitor Attraction Tip #3: Link Love. Blog owners (other than yourself) watch their blog like a hawk; they'll notice immediately if someone links to them. This will lead to a lovely friendship. Be aware of other opportunities your readers might be into; instead of getting them to stay on your blog, talk to the people they are going to.

Visitor Attraction Tip #4: Promote. You'll never get around this one. Without promotion, I hate to say it, you're really going nowhere. Put your blog URL on every place that will get noticed. Think about flyers, business cards, letterheads, and a link in every email you send out.

Visitor Attraction Tip #5: SEO. Here's another one you can't ignore if you want the search engines to pick up on your blog. Whatever niche or subject you're into, your blog content should be optimized so that someone searching for a relevant keyword on your topics will come eventually to your blog through Google. Don't go crazy with the keywords, but incorporate them at a good density in each post.

Make sure you discover the right blogging services if you are looking to hire someone for writing your blog.

Utilize our blogging services today at Express Writers, founded by Julia Spence, a professional freelance writer and sales marketer. With hundreds of successfully completed writing projects, from creating voice over scripts to SEO web content, and a price budget to fit anyone, Express Writers is the perfect blogging services team for you.

View the original article here

Automatically Pinging Your Blog For Improved Website Traffic

Imagine yourself sweating the night away, trying to write a unique article which you will post in your website or blog to attract more visitors and readers. Eventually, this readership can translate to bigger profits. After you have written your article and posted it in your website or blog, you wait for search engines to recognize this update and index your blog entry.

Internet users and readers make use of the search engine when looking for information. There are studies showing that internet users rarely go beyond page three and four of the search results. So it is important that you, as a blogger or webmaster to be on the top of the search rankings.

Waiting for Google to index your site, will take weeks. So what you need is notify these search engines to let them know that your blog or website has been updated. This will help in boosting your rankings on the search engines and increase website traffic.

Ping or pingback is one of the techniques that you could use for better Google rankings. In simple terms, ping sends notices to search engines about the new content in your website. Search engines will then direct traces to your blog and index it.

Pinging a website or a blog should only be done once, after the content has been posted. Frequently pinging your blog using different pinging services will make search engines mark it spam. Search engines will dismiss the update, sometimes end up in banning the site. It is also very important to ping your site, if you have new content.

There are blogs systems or sites like Technorati and WordPress that automatically pings the search engines when your website is updated. You just have to look for the Ping Service facilities of these systems to automatically ping your site.

Blogs systems like WordPress and Technorati, will send notification to search engines about the updates made in your blog. To access this built-in feature in WordPress, all you need to do is just into writing mode and choose the settings tab. You will eventually find a box where you will be able to update or access the pinging service.

Often, these services offered by blogging systems are disregarded or forgotten by new and even professional bloggers. It is important to pay attention to this kind of detail in order to generate more results. There are some blog owners or webmasters who prefer to do the pinging on their own.

You could search for a pinging service website and just provide the necessary information. They will often require that you enter the blog title, your blog's URL, and the category of your blog entry. You could also choose what sites you want to send your updates. Normally, it will take about 10 minutes, before the sites that you want are pinged.

So if you are just choosing a blog software or system to host your new blog, consider this automatic ping services. Having a tool like this will definitely be useful in increasing your blog traffic.

Automatic Pinging if done correctly will improve your website with free traffic. However, if you are looking for more than just free traffic and not sure how to go about doing it, you can check with some Internet Marketing Experts. They are the professionals and understand how to help you generate good quality traffics or simply visit http://www.cloudnetmedia.com/ for more information.

View the original article here

Blogging - Why Do Some Blogs Fail?

Starting and running a blog can be a rewarding experience if done correctly and in a manner that will gradually increase the audience. Whether you want to talk about your new tabby cat, what you did today or share information about your business, blogging is a great way to share that information with anyone who is interested in what you have to say. It's a sounding board and as the blogger, you control what the message is.

Most bloggers dream of grander things when they start their blog. They imagine that in no time they will have hundreds of followers eagerly logging online every day to go to their blog and hang on their every word. Months later, when this doesn't happen, some become discouraged and do one of the worst things a blogger can ever do. They stop posting on a regular basis which is blogging suicide.

Truth of the matter is that it takes time to build a following for any new blog. Patience and consistent postings are the keys to building a blog along with a bit of know how in advertising using social media, word of mouth and link sharing with other blogs with similar content and interests.

The reasons for starting a blog are as different as the bloggers that post on them. One of the most popular reasons is to make money with affiliate programs, drive traffic to a business website or entice people to spend their money one way or another. In other words, the blog is created for cashing in on the audience. Granted there are many successful blog owners out there that are making a substantial living with their blog, don't expect to be one of them right from the beginning and don't give up easily while in the process of building your following.

Why do some blogs fail? There are many reasons for failure.

The blog format is too cluttered. Choose a design for your blog that is easy to read and looks organized. It is so tempting to fill the sidebar of your blog up with affiliate links and other money making banners but resist the temptation. It is important that the content of your blog be interesting. Notice I didn't necessarily say informative? That's because there are so many different niches to choose from when blogging that you can write anything you want, just make sure what you write is interesting.
The entries are poorly written. One of the most irritating things in the world for a blog follower is to try and decipher poorly written blog entries. Improper grammar and spelling can be one of the kisses of death for a blog. Be sure to have some sort of grasp on the English language (if your blog is geared toward an English speaking audience) before diving in to write an entry for your blog.
It doesn't tell a story. Each blog entry should read like a mini-story. It should have a beginning, middle and a conclusion. Don't jump around the timeline because that is extremely confusing for most people. Get to the point and close the story out in the end. If it is a business blog, a call to action is an excellent choice that should be included at the end of every entry.
Your entries are plagiarized. No matter how tempting it may be, just don't do it. If you don't know what plagiarizing is then please go Google it now. It is important for every writer no matter how often they write to know the importance of everything being original. It's no fun to find out someone else has stolen your work or to be discovered and the one who stole it. Word travels at the speed of lightning online and your blogging reputation can be shot before it ever had a chance to start.
Your entries aren't consistent enough. Pick a posting schedule and stick with it. If you want to post every day, then post every day. If you want to post a few times a week, then stick with it. Once you stop posting, people will stop reading. Consistency is the key to a successful blog.
You try to monetize too early and become a pushy salesman. Unless your blog specializes in product reviews or a certain niche that deals specifically with affiliates, don't try to push a product down your reader's throat. If you find a product that you like and want to talk about it, by all means do it. It's just not wise to fill your blog up with advertisements. People will quickly think you are becoming a spammer and will stop reading you. When the time is right, you can add affiliate links and monetize your blog for your own benefit.

There are many reasons why blogs fail and those are just a few. Successful blogging takes planning, time and a great bit of patience. It never hurts to have a keen since of humor as well. You never know who will be stopping by your blog at any given moment and the feedback they will leave you in the comments.

Lanie Ricketts is a professional article writer and blogger. You can visit her personal blog at http://www.lanieblogs.com/ or follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/laniehasquin.

View the original article here

3 Tips That Will Help Anyone Make Money Blogging

People of all ages can start making money online with blogging. That's right, you can make money blogging by simply moving forward with the web. Most people think it's an arduous task, and in some ways it can be, but if dedication is met with passion, the world opens up to the possibilities of learning how to earn a full time income with only part time work. The notion might seem too good to be true, and that's what scams are made of, but not this, not the wide world of online income. Consider three tips that will assist in the process of making a passive income.

The first tip to consider is to start writing about something you love. Everyone loves something, everyone enjoys a certain topic and while they might not be experts, they still enjoy the process of reading, learning and sharing certain topics. Take that love and start writing, and just keep on writing. The content doesn't have to be a long form essay, and doesn't have to have the flare of Stephen King or anything like that, it can be simple, to the point, and when in doubt in review format. If you or someone you know is stumped about how to make money blogging, here's the simplest form of content creation, movie reviews. Everyone loves movies, writing movie reviews from your perspective is one of the easiest ways to start a blog and gain followers. Everyone has an opinion, share yours, it's unique it's easy, and it is fun.

After the content is starting to roll in, and appreciation for any subject starts to flow through. Consider the point where it's time to make money blogging. Making money with a website is as easy as recommending products and services (affiliate marketing) and showing relevant ads throughout a page (PPC). These two things work hand in hand to create revenue streams that are not necessarily difficult to manage, because you're not dealing with inventory management or mailing physical products to someone. When someone clicks an ad, for instance, a small fee is charged to a business and a commission is given to the site that displayed the ad. As for affiliate marketing, when you recommend a product or a service and a reader purchases a tangible item, a commission is given to the website, which is in fact income.

Lastly, to make money blogging a person has to be committed. If you're not pulling six figures in a few months, do not give up. People seem to think that earning money online happens over night. It takes time to make serious money, and content creation is going to be the first thing that an aspiring writer will need to work on. Without the continual transmission of articles, words, and links, no blog can thrive. When in doubt, look around the Internet and see how others are making money and emulate them until things are doing well for online earnings. Never giving up is as easy as picking a topic you love. Remember, if you write and work with things you love, it will never seem like you're doing "work".

View the original article here

64 of the Best WordPress Plugins to Enhance Your Blog

The best WordPress plugins can enhance your blog with many exciting features to help expand your online presence, interact with your readers, and increase your blogging revenue.

WordPress plugins are essential to take full advantage of the WordPress blogging platform, and these are some of the best WP plugins in a variety of categories.

Take advantage of these WordPress plugins to enhance your WordPress blog with exciting new features.

WordPress Optimization

Optimization plugins help increase your natural traffic and create a better SEO presence.
Platinum SEO PackGreg's High Performance SEOWordPress SEO by YoastSEO Ultimate

WordPress Links

Link plugins help you manage and organize your links to provide a better reader experience and SEO optimization.
SEO Smart LinkBroken Link CheckerWP Render Blogroll Links

WordPress Comments

Comment plugins help you increase reader comments and interaction between readers with enhanced comment features.
IntenseDebate CommentsDisqus Comment SystemFacebook Comments for WordPressComment Rating

WordPress Email Subscriptions

Email subscription plugins allow you to provide your readers with email subscriptions and send out newsletters.
MailChimp List Subscribe FormConstant Contact for WordPressAWeber Web Form PluginWP Email CaptureSubscribe2

WordPress Membership Communities

Membership community plugins for users allow you to build active communities to help grow your blog.

WordPress Social Media

Social media plugins allow your readers to promote your articles through a variety of social networks for free publicity.
Sexy BookmarksSimple Facebook ConnectWP Tweet Button

WordPress Forms

Forms plugins make it easier for your readers to contact you and more efficient for you to manage your inquiries.
Contact Form 7Fast Secure Contact FormCustom Contact FormsFormiddable Forms

WordPress Polls

Polls plugins allow you to interact with your readers through polls and surveys.
SodaHead PollsPollDaddy Polls and RatingsWP Polls

WordPress Ratings

Ratings plugins allow bloggers to add reader rating systems to WordPress blogs.
Comment RatingGD Star RatingStar Rating for Reviews

WordPress Donations

Donation plugins are perfect if you want to request and process donations from your visitors.
PayPal DonationsDonation CanDonate PlusMingle Donations Button

WordPress Videos

Video plugins make it easy to implement videos on your WordPress blog.
VideoPressAll-in-One Video PackWordPress Video PluginStream Video PlayerMediaElement.jsEmbedded Video

WordPress Audio

Audio plugins help you provide the best quality audio and present it in a simple way to your listeners.
Audio PlayerMediaElement.js - HTML5 Video & Audio PlayerAudio Player WidgetAudio Link Player

WordPress Images and Galleries

Images and galleries plugins help you display your images or galleries in an interactive way for your viewers.
NextGen GalleryPage Flip Image GalleryWP Photo Album PlusFlickr Photo AlbumSEO Friendly Images

WordPress Advertising

Advertising plugins help you manage your advertising creatives and ad placements to maximize your blog revenue.
Simple Ads ManagerWP125AdRotateOzh' Who Sees Ads

WordPress Health

Health plugins monitor the health of your WordPress installation to protect your WP site from security vulnerabilities, attacks, and spammers.

WordPress Backups

Backup plugins help you automate the task of making regular backups of your WordPress site.
EZPZ One Click BackupWordPress EZ BackupXCloner - Backup and Restore

Wordpress Translations

Translation plugins help you expand your international web presence with language translation features.
Global TranslatorGoogle Ajax TranslationTransposhqTranslate

Use these WordPress plugins to enhance your blog and increase your readership.

Max Messner offers money making tips and opportunities to save extra cash at Maximizing Money.

View the original article here

37 Ways to Get More Visitors to Your Blog

This list came together as people in my Marketing Group were sharing what works for them. These are tried and true ways to help you to get more visitors to your blog. I am sure you could keep adding more ideas to this list. If you have anything you would like to add, please let me know. I would love to hear from else you are doing. We'll start another list.

1. Use descriptive key words and write about them

2. Keep your website/blog updated - 2-3x per week

3. Do a newsletter

4. Participate in forums or groups, like LinkedIn, Quora, Ning

5. Submit to bookmarking sites - Stumpleupon, Delicious, Digg

6. Cross promote other people in your community, exchange articles, be a guest writer

7. Put your websites in your email signature

8. Have a contest or promotion

9. Use Social Media tools like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin

10. Be a guest blogger, include your website URL

11. Send out invitations to your site for feedback or for your events

12. AdWords

13. Build relationships by staying in touch, ask them questions

14. Write a book, ask for people's contact info or post it on Scribd

15. Write press releases

16. Create a Facebook Fan Page to direct visitors

17. Twitter to direct traffic to your blog website

18. Join other groups where your customers hangout

19. Take advantage of share buttons and services like Ping fm

20. Get listed in Google's Local Business directory (Google Places)

21. Upload a presentation to Slideshare with a link back to your site

22. Profile people on your site and ask for comments or links back

23. Do Video's of your products/services and upload them to other video services

24. Upload pictures to Flicker

25. Subscribe to newsletters/blogs about marketing to get more ideas

26. List yourself in Craigslist, Kijji and other free ad sites

27. Get valid links to your site from targeted traffic

28. Have more call to actions

29. Offer a free e-book or gift or report

30. Write great content that people want to return to and share it

31. Be an expert by writing for E-zine promote your specialty or expertise

32. Write comments (make them a real, not just this was a nice post)

33. Post videos on YouTube and link back to your website

34. Use Bookmarking services such as StumpleUpon, Delicious, Digg

35. Add social media buttons

36. Learn more about SEO

37. Use Video more often on your blog or to grow your contact base

You can reach Mari-Lyn (Hudson) Harris at http://heartatworkonline.org/, where she writes "How to's" about Relationship Marketing, Marketing and Social Media. Besure to subscribe to her Marketing Magazine and get a Free copy of her Social Media Strategy e-book.

View the original article here

3 Different Writing Styles of Bloggers

In general most bloggers have 3 different writing styles they use when posting that tends to make their content unique. The first thing that attracts most visitors is that the blog content itself is about a subject with which they already have an interest. After that it is the way in which most blog updates are presented that keeps people coming back for more!

Here are 3 popular ways most bloggers use when updating their platform that helps make their content unique and more interesting to readers!

Opinionated

This type of posting borders on ranting insofar as it takes existing topics or issues and injects a more 'personal' take or perspective along with reasoning as to why. People love these type of blog updates because it offers them a 'view' they may not necessarily agree with or a twist they may not have formerly considered. Updating in this way tends to rattle the cages of certain people who feel strongly against the opinions offered! This usually stimulates quite a bit of feedback/debate and this is great for bringing people together in a interactive type of way on the site! This is a GOOD thing!

Insightful

Everybody has a tendency to view things differently and sharing your 'perspectives' can be very thought provoking for readers. People love to be provoked in this way since it helps them view things in a different light thereby 'stretching' their own beliefs or way of thinking! This type of blog content can even help the reader 'grow' insofar as giving them a broader perspective or even deepen their understanding. You can imagine how much someone may enjoy this affect when it pertains to subject matter with which they have a personal interest!

Knowledgeable

The really 'pillar' blog content is the type that teaches people new things about subjects of interest to them! Whether it may be personal experience or the result of research any information that serves to teach and inform is generally regarded as quality information. On the flip side however this type of updating is difficult to maintain continuously since new information is not always available! On the other hand whenever something 'new' does arise the blogger should 'run with it' since content unique in this way can easily go viral online!

For the most part there are 3 different writing styles people tend to use when posting blog updates to their site. These styles, as discussed above, serve to make a bloggers content unique which is obviously important in order to keep people returning to the platform! As you can also see by weaving personal feeling into any blog content the writer is better able to maintain their uniqueness! Although some updates may focus on subject matter seen elsewhere online it is their personal perspectives that make the content unique!

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina.
To learn more about different writing styles people enjoy seeing on blogs and to also receive a free instructional manual that teaches valuable niche research techniques for your online marketing needs simply visit: http://blogbrawn.com/

View the original article here

3 Reasons Your Blog Credibility Stinks (And How to Fix It Fast)

You and I blog because it makes us money... or hope it will eventually!

We don't blog to let people know about our feelings, or what we had for breakfast, or our latest Star Wars figurine we added to the collection. We're in it for the dinero, comprende? And it makes us money because our blogs establish ourselves as credible authorities within our niche. At least... we hope it does that, right? Does your blog actually do its job and make you look like a superhero? Unfortunately, most blogs in the internet network marketing niche fall short in this regard... And it's usually one of a few things that you're doing wrong, but in the long run it ends up hurting you much more than it helps.

Now here's why your blog credibility stinks:

3 Reasons Your Blog Makes You Look Wimpy

1. Blog Layout/Design Stinks

This one's a little tough because a lot of "newbies" think they can't help that their blog doesn't look very good.

But... how often have you visited a blog, but you didn't even read anything because it looked like a complete pile of junk?

Or you did read it, but you had this feeling of "this person doesn't really know what he's doing..." It might take a little more work than you'd like up front, but getting your site to look decent pays back dividends in the long run. You have two options: outsource or learn to do it yourself. If you already have a site set up, but just need help with maybe a header or a few other little tweaks, most blog services will give you a steep discount. For example, if you send a message to a "setter-upper" and say that all you need is a header, and ask how much they charge, you could probably get away with like $30 or something. Or, you could do what I did and learn how to do it yourself! I say this a lot, but I've learned how to do every single technical aspect of internet stuff by Googling it. Learning it yourself means you've got the know-how for helping other people later (and charging $$ for it too). Just remember that a good amount of your credibility is tied to whether your blog looks professional or not.

2. Your Content is Mostly About Your MLM

Really, the issue is that your content isn't any good... but a big rookie mistake is to write large amounts of content centered around how your MLM will make instant millionaires. Writing about how amazing an MLM is only interests people already in that company and yourself. Someone looking into the company will only think you're just hyping it, and that ruins your authority. The "quick fix" is to focus on providing value to as many people as possible within the industry.

3. You Don't "Prove" You're An Expert

I say "prove" because you don't necessarily have to be an expert, but there are ways to show that you know a little bit about what you're doing and that others trust you.

(Just don't lie... that absolutely WILL ruin your credibility)

A few ways are through testimonials, recommendations that you make, your "About Me" page, and writing blog posts demonstrating what you know.

The simplest of these is to make recommendations about useful tools, products, or other MLM'ers to follow. Talking about those things makes it look like you're "in the know". You seem to be informed about what's happening and also on the "latest and greatest" tools and marketing strategies. People will listen to you! These simple fixes will go a long way in creating a buzz around your site, and also to form long term relationships with your readers! Feel free to leave me a comment! What have you done to establish credibility on your blog? Your success starts with you, so make it happen!

Erin

To get access to Erin's free video report about how you can generate at least 36 leads per day absolutely for free, visit Erin Smith's MLM Secrets

View the original article here

5 Content Development Ideas For Bloggers

Having a content development strategy in place is a key component of the blog building process! Without the ability to create fresh and unique content for visitors a blogging platform will quickly fall out of favor! It is therefore up to each blogger as to how will consistently update their site with the unique content that will be required to keep people coming back!

Here are 5 simple ideas you can use to easily develop interesting updates that visitors to your blogging platform will appreciate!

Old Posts

Using a new angle focus on the same topic to compose something that is completely fresh and unique content! More times than not it is the insight delivered with any information that readers crave to view. It offers a new perspective for them and also encourages their feedback when they tend to disagree with what they read!

Social Bookmark Sites

These site possess more information, news and ideas than you could find in any 10 newspapers from the largest cities you can find! More times than not you can simple search on a specific topic that will be better suited for your particular blogging platform. This source is not only great for ideas but also for updates pertaining to your chosen niche! You can NOT go wrong using bookmark sites!

Internet Search

Seeding a search with a few chosen keywords will help keep the results you get more relevant to your needs. The results that are returned will likely turn up ideas that never occurred to you! Using the Google suggest option is highly recommended since many times it will even give you ideas upon what direction to take in your search. The internet holds plenty of unique content which you can further develop into something truly your own!

Network with Friends

This approach is a great way to find out what's on the minds of your own peer group and why it matters to them! The ideas you can gather from a simple casual discussion with friends can easily send you in several different directions. Blog building is just as much 'connecting' with what is on the minds of people as it is supplying them with news and information! This is a great way to keep your posts relevant and fresh!

Personal Concerns

Hey your opinion and concerns count just as much as the next persons and perhaps in some cases even more! Visitors come to your site because they like what you write or the way in which you write it. With that being said it only stands to reason that they would have an interest in what is on your mind, so share it with them! By doing so you are better able to 'connect' with readers which is critical during the early stages of your blog building efforts. This helps to establish a steady following upon which you can continuing growing your platform!

Content development is at the core of any blog building process since updates to your blogging platform is what will make it grow! It is always advisable to establish an ongoing strategy that will allow you to continually create unique content you can offer your readers. In this way they will continue to return and your site will continue to grow. The 5 ideas offered here today are great sources of news and ideas that you can easily access and develop into the type of updates that will keep your platform popular!

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. To learn more about content development for your blog and to also receive a free instructional manual that teaches valuable niche research techniques for your online marketing needs simply visit: http://blogbrawn.com/

View the original article here

3 Benefits of Blogging

There's no getting around the fact that a wide variety of businesses can benefit from having a blog. Maybe not one hundred percent, but a big majority, especially when it comes to small and solo businesses. For those of you who are new to the blogging world and you're not sure what should be happening, let's talk a little bit about what those benefits are. While your exact mileage may vary as they say, here are a just a few things a blog can do for you and your business:

1. Easy Updates

If you want to make customers aware of special events, changes or news, blogs are one of the easiest ways to do it. Compared to a static site that your webmaster likely has to update for you, posting in a blog is just about as easy as writing email. A few clicks, some typing and you're done.

2. Getting to Know You

More often than not, people want to know a fair amount about who they're doing business with. How often have you heard of a new restaurant, salon or artist and then popped online to check them out before actually visiting? You may have even done this if you got a referral from a friend. Having a blog is a great way to let people get to know who you are and what you do. It is easy to share everything from tips to photos, stories and samples to show people why they need to choose you over anyone else. It's also a great chance to showcase your personality. Are you or is your business quirky, sweet, a little edgy? Make sure your blog reflects who you really are and that will help those who appreciate those qualities know they're in the right place.

3. Stand Out

Even though millions of blogs are added to the web each year, and it seems like everyone has them, in fact, not everyone does. This can be especially true for those who sell products verses services. If a lot of your competitors don't have one, that's all the more reason for you to have one. Why? First, because you can showcase your expertise. That adds another layer to the like and trust factor compared to someone who only has product and pitches on their site. Depending on your niche, your blog could also become a central point of reference for customers interested in your product. If they feel they can rely on your information, they'll also likely see your products as worthwhile as well. As you can see, a blog can be a time saver, a showcase, as well as an edge above the competition, and that's just the beginning. If you aren't seeing those benefits yet, don't give up. Keep learning and trying and you'll be on your way to success in no time.

If you'd like to learn how to create quality content for blogs, books, articles and more, I invite you to visit my website http://www.cherylpickett.com/ and sign up for my free, weekly tips and strategies. I look forward to helping you create content faster, easier & with less stress!

View the original article here

4 Blogging Resources Absolutely Worth Purchasing

There's a saying that goes, "You have to spend money, to make money". I believe this is true in the world of blogging, especially if you lack basic web design skills and SEO knowledge, which I do. Here is a list of 4 different blogging resources that I have purchased in my last 2 years blogging, all of which I'm glad I did. I recommend these items to anyone looking to make improvements upon their blog, increase readership and make money. Let's get started:

Premium Theme or Framework: Many bloggers out there lack the design capabilities to make a beautiful looking website on their own. Rather than cut yourself short with a free WordPress theme, I suggest investing some extra money into a "Premium WordPress Theme". They will usually run you under $100, far less than getting a custom designed blog. Two themes that I recommend, which are actually called "frameworks" are Genesis and Thesis. I personally use both, however I find Thesis easier to use for beginners. You can also purchase "skins" for these frameworks, which give a fresh look to your site simply by uploading the files

Gravity Forms: Gravity forms is a WordPress plug-in that allows you to build and create your own custom contact forms. Gravity Forms far exceed the functionality of the free WordPress contact plug-ins in basically every way. With integration of ReCaptcha, Paypal and more, this plug-in will do more than its fair share of work. At a starting price of $39, it's well worth the investment if your interested in providing your viewers an easier, better looking way to contact you, sign up for your e-mail newsletter, etc.

Scribe SEO: Search Engine Optimization is crucial to creating a successful blog or website, and if you don't know how to perform SEO, the Scribe plug-in will get you there! Scribe is a built-in service, that analyzes posts and pages of your choice and gives you an SEO rating from 0-100%. Along with the rating, it indicates measures that you could be taking to increase your effectiveness in search engines, keywords to target, etc. Scribe has taught me a great deal about SEO and increased my visitors from search engines as well. Scribe is a pay-per month service, which starts at $17 a month and goes upwards as the number of post analyses increases. I highly recommend this resource to anyone who is lacking visitors from Google and really wants to make an effort to increase their numbers.

E-Mail Newsletter Solutions: While many people once thought e-mail marketing was dead, bloggers everywhere are proclaiming a comeback. Yet to effectively perform e-mail marketing campaigns, it's often easier to have an established company behind you. Companies such as Constant Contact, MailChimp and AWeber all take the hassle out of e-mail marketing and creating newsletters. Most have a starting price from around $10 a month for quite a large amount of contacts and e-mails, so it's definitely a bang for your buck. You also receive incredible e-mail and phone support that will assist you in your marketing campaigns.

There you have it, 4 blogging resources that are absolutely worth purchasing! If you are interested in seeing any of these plug-ins in action, you can check out my mens entertainment blog, BROcrastinator, as I use them all there. I hope this list helps you build the blog of your dreams and gets you one step closer to reaching your goals.

*Special note: I have no affiliation to these companies, nor did I profit in any way from this article. I'm just a satisfied customer who believes you will be as well.

Rob Paone is the founder of http://brocrastinator.com/ An entertainment blog geared towards the Average Joe interested in sports, music, movies, humor and hot girls.. When he's not blogging, he's working towards his college degree, working-out, or enjoying some cold beers.

View the original article here