About Blogging

What Can You Do to Stop the Pirates When You Write for Ezine or When You Blog

2009-01-04T05:29:00.000-08:00

We were having a discussion about whether or not it's a good idea to publish your articles into an article directory, such as Ezine Articles. I've published my articles sometimes on Ezine, so I was attracted to join the discussion. I personally think Ezine is the best of the bunch, having a high Page Rank (6), and a fair amount of traffic.

Someone asked, what can you do if you find that people are lifting your articles from Ezine and re-publishing them without giving you any credit as the author? The answer is not really an encouraging one. It really seems like there is nothing you can do about it.

Regrettably, theft is part and parcel of the internet. It's ironic really that all these amazing advances in technology that have occurred in recent decades have created a situation in which writers have even less copyright protection than they had in medieval times.

When I re-publish other people's work, I always carefully give them credit and backlinks. Not because of fear of the law, since in effect there isn't one, but only because I prefer to treat others as I would like them to treat me.

When I first noticed my own articles being re-published without credit, I was outraged. I would go to the site and, if there was a comment space, I would write "I am the author of this article, and I assert my right to be named as the author etc. etc." but of course it didn't make any difference!

There are, however, two consolations. First, these people are stealing from everyone, not just you. And you have the God-given talent to produce more, whereas they don't, they can only copy. So you will win out eventually (but it may take a while.)

Second, when the Google Search Robots see duplicates of the same material, they will show on the search results listing the occurrence of the material on the higher Page Rank site. This means that traffic will tend to go to your Ezine article (with its backlink to your site) rather than the pirated version, since pirates generally do not have high Page Rank. In fact, if you have copied the article on to your own blog, the search will STILL usually point to the Ezine article.

Blogs Can Be Quirky

2008-09-28T13:01:00.000-07:00

We like the whole idea of blogging so much, that we have made a blog just to talk about blogging. We think that most people who blog probably use a laptop computer. We're not sure why this is so, or why it is true, it's just that we have a feeling, you know? What do you think?

We would like to tell you about a blog by one of our friends whose user name is zencath. The blog is a bit quirky and a bit, you know, ironic, if that's the right word, but we think you might find it entertaining, so here is the link for it. It's called "Journal of an Ex-Philosopher."

There's a WordPress version of the same blog, but with different content, it's called "Everything is Radio." The link for that one is here.

See what you think...

Why Do People Blog?

2008-09-07T11:51:00.000-07:00

There can be no doubt about it. Blogging is big. Everyone, it seems, has a blog now. I just had a look on the Home Page at Wordpress (where I have a couple of blogs) and on that Home Page they have some stats and you know what? The number of blogs currently at Wordpress is over 4 million! Can you believe that?

And that is just at Wordpress. Blogger don't seem to publish stats like that. Or if they do, they don't make it obvious, as I haven't been able to find them. But I bet it's a similar figure.

Some of the blogs I've looked at though, and I really do wonder why the people bothered to even start them at all. I looked at a blog last week and it was all in English words but they were just strung together, it looked like at random to me. I don't know, maybe there are some people in some clique or other that can understand it, but I certainly couldn't!

Then there are the cat-picture blogs - oh, no, don't get me started on that. Sorry to those people that enjoy seeing other people's silly cat pictures, but - excuse me?

So, why do people blog? Is it a) to connect with family or friends? b) to make money? c) to get it off their chest - that is, to voice their opinion about something they feel strongly about? d) or some other reason?

Tell us what you think!

Blogging is a Way of Life

2008-09-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

For many people now, blogging is a way of life. It is as though we are addicted to it. Blogging is not something we would comfortably want to do without any more. But what do we like, us bloggers, and what do we not like?

Well for one thing you have to remember that we bloggers have tried just about everything that there is to try. We are not impressed by anyone who comes on and says that this product or that product will change our lives forever if we just transfer $97 into your PayPal account. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but we are not going to be swayed by exaggerated claims. We have already been there, we've seen it done it, and not only have we got the T shirt, but it's already faded from repeated washings.

We don't mind if you include a link to your product range in your post, that's OK. But what we really like if you are going to do that is for you to say what you yourself are doing with your OWN use of that product. Many people will tell you that you should concentrate always on telling the customer what the benefits will be for them. But we prefer if you tell us how it has benefited you. We can easily apply what you are saying to our own situation.

What Do We Want To Read In A Blog Post?

2008-09-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

The kind of things we like to read are those things which tell us about the person who is writing. It is not good enough for us if we think the person writing is following some rigidly mechanical formula. If they are looking at something that has worked in the past, so it should work now by doing that exact selfsame thing, then we find ourselves turning away.

We do not want that. We want the writer to be spontaneous, we want them to give us something. I do not mean money, I mean we want them to give of themselves. Do they lose out by this? Certainly not! Because they gain our approval, and our good-will, which is worth more than money. The author who is straight and honest with us, who is just trying to be themselves, is far more likely to win return readers, to have their readers clicking on AdSense, to want to try the products the authors recommend.

If we can see from their writing that they are giving of themselves, they want to communicate, then it does not matter so much if their English grammar and syntax is not of the very best, if their spelling is not perfect; we will in those cases make allowances.

These are some of the things we want to read in a blog post. So, when you blog, don't always be thinking about what you should write or what you ought to write, or how much stuff you can sell in one post; rather try every time to put yourself into your writing. Your readers will love you for it.

The Blogs We Like

2008-09-03T02:41:00.000-07:00

There are probably as many reasons for writing a blog as there are people writing them. In my travels around the internet I have seen a huge variety of them, some wonderful, some weird.

The kind of blogs I like to read are those that are neat and tidy in their layout (like my one!) making it easier to read them. I prefer if there are not too many ads littered all over the page, but its actually nice to see some ads on a page. Many is the time when I have clicked on an ad on someone's blog and found it led to something that I have later used a lot.

I don't really like blogs that seem to be shouting at me. You know the kind, blaring loud ads, or some kind of political harangue. And I also detest those stupid pop ups that float across the screen at you and tell you that a customer adviser would like to have a one to one chat with you. And those boxes that come up and say things like, Please don't leave!

I think I'm not alone in having the above likes and dislikes, I think that most people feel the same way. After all, we do not like to feel that we are just ciphers, or that we are just ad fodder. And we like to be treated like we are just a little bit intelligent and that we are capable of making our own decisions. I mean, think about it, how do YOU want to be treated when you are reading someone else's blog. That is, or should be, your criterion when you are making a decision about what to put into your blog or what to leave out.

So my advice is, when you blog, don't shout or beg or wheedle or try to con your readers, keep it calm and reasonable. Just be yourself, treat your readers nicely. They will love you for it!

What Is The Blogging Secret?

2008-09-02T01:50:00.000-07:00

When you start blogging, the natural questions you ask yourself are things like this: What should I blog about? How can I get people to actually read it? Is it possible to make any money from it?

All of these questions have received a good deal of attention recently, and if you just do a quick search around, you will find literally thousands of people giving their own opinion. I think I must have read just about every one of those thousands - it certainly feels like that anyway! I have picked up a few tips along the way, but there is one thing I have learned that I consider is the most important of all in blogging.

This post is coming out so that I can share that truth with you.

You see, when you read what other people have read, you just have to add a little pinch of salt. I am not saying that these people are lying to you - far from it. Of course, there may be some liars and scammers out there, but you do not ever have to have anything to do with them. To use the current phrase, you do not have to invite them into your experience. But I am not talking about such people, I am talking about the people who have tried something, found it to work, and now they are telling YOU that if only you do exactly what they did, then you will get the results they did.

Often this promise comes with a condition, by which I mean that one of the steps involved in reaching your success, in making money from blogging, is to buy something from them, some software, or a template or the like. Now I am not saying they are wrong to do this. Everyone is entitled to try and make a living in any way they can, and I have no doubt that some of this stuff may well be effective, given the right circumstances. What I am saying is that going along with their scheme is not necessarily going to take you where you yourself want to go, it will take you along their rails like a little train carriage.

The internet is absolutely huge and there is a lot of room for diversity. What works in one situation might not work in another, even if they appear to be very similar. And by the same token, lots of ideas and techniques which at first may not seem very promising have suddenly gone viral in their popularity. What I mean to say then, is that if someone tells you that their way is the only way, then you should reserve judgement until you know a bit more about it, because what they said is just not true.

For the people who are saying this, the important thing for them is to get you doing the same thing they do, so that they can be lifted up by what you do. This is called "duplicability" in the parlance of our times. However, at least for bloggers, duplicability is not necessarily the most desirable goal.

You see, we bloggers are in a uniquely powerful position. Most of us are posting on a blogging platform for which we do not have to pay so much as a dime, we can pick and choose what we want to advertise, who we want to affiliate with, when we choose to work, say what we want to say with no corporate agenda controlling us. We are the people,and blogging has given us, for the first time in history, the opportunity to do and say whatever we want to.

So now I come to what I want to share with you. In blogging, the key thing is to experiment for yourself. Keep trying new things. Keep yourself as free as possible from commitment to anyone else's scheme. That way you have no vested interest in whether it succeeds or fails. Be like a scientist and try out ideas and adapt ideas to see if they work in your own context. Do not be discouraged if such and such an idea does not work - learn from it. It is possible for you to make money from blogging, but don't expect it to come in very quickly at first, you need to be patient. Just keep trying things and finding out what works for you. Reject what does not work and keep going with what does. Your success will eventually arrive.

Then you truly will be your own boss.

This article was first published on Qassia

Small Business Blogs Vs Corporate Communication Blogs - Customers Choose Creative Content

2008-09-01T00:43:00.000-07:00

By Lance Winslow
Okay so you are a small business person and you now have your own blog. Of course, now you have also noticed that your major competition, a big corporation, also has a communication blog. You worry because it is slick, trendy and obviously professionally done. Thus, you are wondering how can you compete with that? Well, the Internet levels the playing field in this case. How so you ask?

Well, it is the customer who chooses which content they wish to read on the Internet, the consumer is king, they know it and no corporation or anyone else for that matter is going to tell them what to read, how to think or what to say in the information age. Indeed, power to the people is a very good statement right about now in the blogosphere.

Guess what? You have a serious advantage on your blog, because your business is local and you can cater to the local area, whereas your corporate communication blog competitor cannot! You can write posts about your small business and how you interface with the community locally; you can discuss nonprofit groups, schools, parks and all things local.

Folks are concerned about the things that affect themselves and their families personally. So, capitalize on this fact. Make a list of potential things that you hear your customers talking about and ask them for advice on what to post on your blog. Many of your customers will have opinions on such things. You see, you can compete against the Big Boys Blogs without any problem, so don't let their communication blogs psyche you out.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Blog Content Service. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Blogs - 4 Steps to Write a Winning Post

2008-08-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

By Sonali Sengupta
Blog posts are a great way to bring traffic to your web site. If your blog offers interesting and useful information to the visitors and is updated over regular intervals of time, chances are high that people will visit it. So, to make the most of this tool, it is important to know what makes a blog post interesting and attractive to the visitors.

The following are some of the factors that will help you to write a winning blog post:

Catchy titles: Your blog should use titles effectively. A catchy and search engine friendly title goes a long way in making your blog work. It also helps readers scan your post quickly. If your title catches their fancy, they will even read what you have written in your post.

Use bullets and bold fonts to highlight matters: Most people scan information on the net rather that reading the full matter. So, it is important to use techniques to get their attention quickly. Using bullets, bold fonts and highlighters can be used in moderation to draw attention to the important aspects of your blog post.

Original content: People love to read content that echoes their feelings and thoughts, is unique in its approach and has a creative and fresh feel. Writing the same thing that everyone else is writing in the same way as others will almost ensure of your content being largely ignored. So, try to bring your unique approach to oft-repeated facts and try to write about something new and in vogue.

Use of images: Images are a powerful medium that can communicate in ways, which words cannot. Try to include some visual elements in your blog that will provide another point of interest to your readers. It is not necessary to use images in every post but whenever you have the chance of using one, do it but ensure that the images are in tune with what your content wants to convey.

Read some more interesting articles on website design and development at our website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sonali_Sengupta
http://EzineArticles.com/?Blogs---4-Steps-to-Write-a-Winning-Post&id=1442278

Blog For Fortune

2008-08-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

By Ajit Airon
Thoughts of MONEY are everywhere. A father, mother, brother, sister friend or relative, whomsoever you talk --- you will find that MONEY is the basic subject which keeps on bothering everybody.

Leaving aside "What we need MONEY for", let us find out some convenient way to earn MONEY.

There is a popular saying-Where there is a will, there is a way. But how strong is the WILL? If you sincerely have a WILL for something then you have to think regularly about it. You have to devise ways to achieve it. You have to work hard for it. You don't have to loose patience but keep on trying for it-till you achieve it.

Have you ever heard of a person who just walked and got money or position and award or reward? Everybody has to work hard to achieve it.

So, in the present times of electronic age, everything has become easy. Even earning MONEY is also very easy. BUT you have to have a WILL to achieve it. The food will not jump into your mouth. You have to find it, pick it up and put in your mouth.

Whether you are a serving executive or a college graduate, whether you are a retired officer or a new mother(who has to pay full attention to her new baby), anybody can make money through trusted methods. You have to maintain patience and confidence. Your sincere labour will put you on the right way to earn a regular income.

There have been thousands of cases, all over the world. Lots of people tried to take a dip in the electronic ocean for earning MONEY but they had to loose money and time. After getting discouraged they finally stuck to their usual jobs. There have been number of cases when the persons could earn MONEY and improved their standard of living. I am sure you would wish to know the right way to approach so that your labour does not go waste.

Now I will tell you some established ways of earning handsome incomes:

1. Make a list of the subjects or items, which make you happy. It could be Games, sports, Bollywood, singing, acting, cooking, Auto repairs, Car mechanics, decorations of houses, Dress designing, facial make-ups, Jewellery designing, teaching any subject or any other subject of your taste.
2. Gather maximum information about your interested topic.
3. Put all the material in a systematic form so that you may talk about your subject as an EXPERT.
4. Organise a Computer with internet connection.
5. You need a site with your favoured name. Initially you may go for a blog with your chosen name.
6. The name of blog should indicate the material in your blog
7. Start loading small articles on different topics related to your site.
8. After placing some 15 articles, you need to publicize your Blog,
9. Write some articles and place it on EzineArticles.com. At the end of the article you must indicate the link for your Blog. It will help the interested viewers to visit your Blog. That way more and more people will start knowing you.
10. Meanwhile visit Google AdSense and get registered with them. You will get the Registration link from them which you will put on your Blog. Visitors to your site will start clicking the advertisements at your Blog and you will start earning.
11. You may visit www.Clickbank.com, and find out the products related to your subject. You can become Affiliate for those items. You may write blogs for those selected items. Include the Affiliate links, so that viewers visiting your site, if interested, may click those links and buy the material and enabling you to make money.
12. You may prepare Digital books which details your expertise. That EBook can be sold directly from your Blog site and help you in making money.
13. There are many locations where you can get more EBooks related to your subject. You can buy the selling rights and finally sell it from your Blog site.

You must be clear about one thing that you are open to world market. Your knowledge is surely required by lots of people and your sincere labour will be rightly rewarded. You can conveniently earn $1,000 per month, within a short span of 90 - 120 days.

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How to Write Great Blog Content Quickly - 2 Shortcuts to Get More Blog Readers Fast

2008-08-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

By Ian Hollander

In this article we are going to take a quick look at how you can write great blog content quickly. The simple truth is that for most of us, creating copious amounts of killer content on our blog sites is often tedious, time consuming and frustrating. Writers block often feels more like the creative equivalent of the great wall of china, and high stepping these hurdles sometimes feels like more effort than it's really worth. (which is why something like 98% of blogs will NEVER make $100 online) I say with the proper amount of philosophical fuel you can create tons of content quickly without having to break a creative cognitive sweat, and I'm going to share with you too elegant and easy ways to do it! Read on..:-)

Shortcut #1: Use great free blogging tools

One of the best ways to build a great readership quickly is to have lots of content, right? The easiest way to do this, especially if you maintain many sites like we do, is to use free tools to help you get there. Flock, for example, is one of MY favorite blogging tools, it's a FREE browser that doubles as a GREAT way to interact with content you find on the web that would be helpful to your own blogs readers. Simply right click, and post great content, pictures and more STRAIGHT to your blog with properly formatted links back to the original content source! Dead simple and a hyper fast way of marking up and creating killer content quick!

Shortcut #2: Plug and Play Content Creation

It's no secret that some of the very best blogs are simple, useful and "list" driven. What does this mean? Simple! Lots and lots of lists! 5 ways to do this. 7 ways to do that. 3 tips for something else. The beauty of these sorts of sites is that not only can you sort of interplay and overview LOTS of topics quickly, people (and search engines) love these sort of bulleted blurbs that are short, sweet and easy to read. I simply create a master list of "power" words, and plug in an article a day, per niche in this simple format, often giving the very same topics a FRESH spin simply by changing the way in which they are presented to my readers! Very easy, and effortlessly efficient as well..:-)

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13 Tips on Writing Blog Posts That Sell

2008-08-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

By Jane Robinson

If you are struggling to write posts on your blog and want to improve your style there are a few things you can use to create more interesting blogs.

1. Think of a catchy headline. Your potential reader surfing the net, often stumbles across you via a search engine and all they have to go on is the title, so think of short catchy titles that might catch their attention. It also means you can practice your own skills in writing headlines for your sales letters of the future.

2. Keep your sentence structure short and simple. This isn't about using big words and convoluted (there's a big word for you!) sentences, its about being understood and getting your points across.

3. Get to the point. Put the most interesting information at or near the beginning and engage your reader. There is no point in waffling on, people will lose interest.

4. If you are unsure about anything, research it,don't make it up. Go and look at reputable sources. Check and double check your sources

5. You could make bullet point lists, its easier to scan and your readers will often scan rather than read fully at least to start off.

6. Make your posts consistent in style. Don't chop and change style.

7. Proof read. Copy and paste it into word and do a spell check. Simple (you can do a word count at the same time).

8. Write with your reader in mind. You are giving information,they want to know what is in in for them. Let them know about the information on offer early on .

9. Keep it lively. Write like you are talking to a friend but make it short and snappy.

10. Think about using keywords. Use them naturally when you are blogging.Think about what keywords people might search for and drop them into the posts where you can. Pepper your posts with keywords without losing the natural flow.

11. Time is money. People don't stay around for long. Give them maximum information and minimum words. Write short sentences and use commas and dashes. This breaks up the post and makes it more appealing to the eye.

12. Ask a question at the end or invite a comment. Encourage interactivity!

13. Be opinionated when possible but only if you feel like it and don't mislead. Creating conflict and tension is what writing is all about and people want to know what other people think, that's the beauty of blogging.

So before you hit the save and publish button ask yourself the following:

-Does it engage?
-Is it clear what the post is about?
-Can someone read the title and have a good idea?
-Do the opening paragraphs give an idea of the content and why someone should read on?
-Would someone who knew nothing about the topic, understand the post?
-Have you got some keywords in?
-Have you written with the reader in mind?
-Have you asked a question at the end or invited them to engage in some way?

There are a lot of things you can do to improve your blog posts.

For my free course and an opportunity to beta test my new product for free, visit.

http://www.janerobinsononline.com/free-course

To read more about this and other topics go to http://www.janerobinsononline.com - Coming soon, step by step videos on how to find your niche, how to get a cheap domain name and more!

I provide help and information on blogging for newbies. FREE tips for you,how to start on the internet, problems you will face and how you solve them. I have been there believe me!

Jane Robinson

Get More Clicks With Google AdSense

2008-08-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

By Matt Rankin

I have been a member of Google AdSense for a while now and almost daily I hear the the question from other website owners "I have Google AdSense but I'm not getting very many clicks, what should I do?" Well I'm tired of answering these questions individually so I've decided to make a guide on how to utilize Google AdSense to get the best results.

1. Strategically place your ads

I have done many, many experiments with my AdSense and have figured out what the best place for my AdSense is. I have had the most success using two types of ad placement. The first is to place your AdSense in a vertical skyscraper to the left of your text. I can't be absolutely sure why this works, but I believe it is because people read from right to left so every time they finish reading a line of my content their eyes instantly return to the left of the page and see the ads once again. The next successful ad placement is a horizontal banner in-between the content of your page. I believe this works for me because in order for people to continue reading the content of my page they have to look at the ads. Note: These ad placements work best for "ME", and I am still experimenting to make sure I get the most of my AdSense. That being said, I recommend you perform numerous experiments every week to see what works best for you.

2. Don't have to many ads on a page

I see websites all the time that have pages with 75% ads and 25% content. This is a bad strategy because people will not only think your website is spam, but your Google AdSense will not always be relevant to your page content. If you have 200 words on a page and have three AdSense scripts usually only one of them is relevant to your page content because their just isn't enough information on the page for Google to read and decide what ads should be on your page. This is how I decide how many AdSense scripts I should have on a page.

1. 0-600 words = 0 AdSense
2. 600-800 words = 1 AdSense
3. 800-1200 words = 2 AdSense

You should only have 3 AdSense (which is the maximum allowed by Google TOS) on your page if your page is very popular and receiving many page views a day.

3. Search Engine Optimization

Now this isn't specifically about getting more clicks with AdSense but it is still very important in making money through Google. If you want to learn about search engine optimization (SEO) you can read my guide at Search Engine Optimization. You can also try our free webmaster tools to help optimize your website at The PC Line Webmaster Tools

4. Get your website more traffic

There are more ways than just SEO to get your website more traffic. For example; you can purchase traffic through available online services, you can participate in traffic exchange programs, and you can sign up in a banner exchange program. SEO is the most effective, but when you are starting out you should take traffic from anywhere you can get it.

Lastly I would just like to say, don't expect to make a lot of money from your website when you first start out. True, there are many people out there who make over 1000 dollars a month from their AdSense alone, but they have spent a lot of time experimenting and promoting their websites. When you first start out expect to maybe get one click a day which can pay between .05 and .50 cents depending on what topic you chose for your website. Only after months or even years can you expect to make over a hundred a month from AdSense. You have to spend time every day working and advertising your website if you want to be successful. Don't let this deter you, rather let it inspire you because now you know that it is possible to make some decent extra income from your websites.

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http://www.thepcline.com/website-analyzer-tools.htm

Presidential Convention Blogger Tent?

2008-08-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

By Lance Winslow

Apparently, Google is going to set up a huge tent outside the democrat convention in Denver for bloggers who will be blogging about the event. Perhaps, you are unaware that there are some 500 dedicated bloggers who helped Senator Barrack Obama with his rise to Stardom. Well, these bloggers, many of them are still at it attempting to get the word out and get Obama elected. Google realizes that they want to be involved in the race to show their technological and Internet prowess.

The Republicans have about 200 dedicated bloggers out there, not as many as the democrats, but a respectable number of fully dedicated individuals. These bloggers are actually certified with credentials from the national parties. Each of the credentialed bloggers has a vast amount of knowledge of current political events.

So, what will these "big Google Tents" have in the way of accommodations? Well, they will have high-speed Internet access, electricity, food, couches, beverages, smoothies, and HD TV of all the news media. Cost, $100 for entry and a work station to blog away on. And these are not little tents, we are talking some 8,000 square feet or so.

For those who do not have the respect for the Blogosphere or do not understand what it is all about or why it matters, soon they will see just why it may be the bloggers that swing this election. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are counting on their bloggers to make a difference. Will it be enough, can they make a difference? We shall see, but one thing for sure, either way they are making history.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Blog Content Service

If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/

Harness the Power of a Video Blog

2008-08-25T05:47:00.000-07:00

By Lee Scutchings

One of the great things about blogging is that it is an interactive way for you to get your thoughts out on the Internet to millions of potential readers and customers. And a popular way that blogging has progressed recently is in the form of audio and video on your blog and within your posts.

People love to be entertained and you just need to look at sites like Youtube to realise how popular posting and watching videos has become. They get millions upon millions of hits every single day.

Now I'm not suggesting your blog will automatically get that many hits if you put up a few videos, but it does go to prove that a lot of people prefer watching something than reading words on a page and, done correctly, you will be able to earn yourself some good money from blog videos.

Learning how to create a Youtube type of video is really not that hard and the benefit to you as a blogger is you can create a blog video and add it to a post to make it more entertaining and informative.

Some people do not just like to read a blog post. They want the option of clicking on a link and watching the video and listening to audio. It is becoming important for all bloggers to understand this and move their business up a notch by adding video blogs where relevant.

Because so many products are sold on the Internet today via affiliate marketing, you are beginning to see videos created where you can embed your affiliate ID directly into the video itself and this allows you to add script in your blog post and play videos without actually creating them yourself.

If you consider yourself an amateur videographer you can quickly put together a video that expresses your thoughts about a particular product relating to a blog post that you are doing.

If you have a home business you can personalize a post by videoing yourself and your thoughts on it.

If you are unsure about how to start creating blog videos one website you can check out is: http://www.freevlog.org/

They offer a great online tutorial that teaches you everything from how to start your own video blog, to creating videos, to content ideas and so on.

Another simple thing you can do is become an Internet marketing spy. Look at some of the blogs that your competitors have, and note down things they are doing to use video to build their business.

You do not want copy them verbatim but you can certainly take some of the good things you see from various blogs and implement them into yours to make your own business stronger.

Having a informative video on your blog may be the difference between making a sale or not and you will definately have more chance making the sale than a competitor who does not have a video.

The important thing about video is that you use it to complement what you are currently doing. This does not mean, however, that you have to create a video blog that is 100% video. Just add them as necessary, and make them a part of the overall experience and excitement you are trying to create with your own personal blog.

One last point to bring up is that search engines are now beginning to spider videos. This gives you yet another opportunity to help your blog be found for content that you produce.

By combining video, audio, fresh content, content provided by your readers, graphics, banners, and so on, you are providing a totally enhanced experience to your visitor.

Having a video blog, or adding blog videos, is just one more way to potentially increase your income and work towards your financial freedom. Plus it can be a lot of fun for both you and your visitors.

Lee Scutchings invites you to get a complete money making website set up for free by visiting Online Money Swarm today. There you will also find step by step instructions about starting up a home business on a shoestring budget. Take back your life and go here now: http://www.OnlineMoneySwarm.com

5 Top Blog Tips

2008-08-24T05:10:00.000-07:00

By Lee Scutchings

In this article I want to give you 5 simple blog tips that can make a real difference to your business.

We will look at some of the basics of blogging, where you can find free blog templates, and a few other nuggets that will make your life that little bit easier and far more profitable.

1. Pick Out A Good Template

The most popular blogging platforms used today are Blogger.com and WordPress. Both of them offer many different templates for free that you can quickly use to set up your blog.

It is to your advantage to pick a blog template that is easy for you to work with, matches the theme of your website (if you have one), and gives a general look and feel that visitors will be comfortable with.

You can Google search the words "free blog templates" to find millions of websites offering you more choices if you need them.

2. Be Consistent

The biggest mistake that people make when they blog is that they don't do it on a consistent basis. I cannot stress how important it is that whatever you choose for your blogging schedule you be consistent in doing it. You do not have to look very long to find literally millions of orphaned blogs on the Internet today.

Because it is very easy for people to start a blog they initially get all excited without realizing how much actually goes in to making it a successful business.

Blogging can be very hard work, so it will be important to your success that you consistently stick with it.

My suggestion when you first start out is to try and post a new blog every day for at least the first month (if not the first 2 months) and then every 2-3 days thereafter. You do this so that you get visitors used to coming and reading your content as well as getting search engines spidering your blog on a consistent basis.

Eventually you can settle into a schedule that might just be a couple of times a week but that will really depend on the theme of your blog and the type of content that you offer.

3. Create A Buzz

Number three in my top blog tips is to make sure you are offering fresh, entertaining, controversial, thought-provoking content that will create a buzz and possibly go viral.

You will be working hard to attract visitors to your blog and your goal should then be to get them coming back and bringing their friends.

4. Keywords Are Massively Important

Today with the number of websites and blog content available on the Internet you have a better chance to be read if you target, primary keywords in your blog articles.

You want to choose your primary keyword and put that as close to the front of the title of your post as possible. You also want to include it in your introduction and closing paragraph and make the keyword font bold if possible.

As you write your post try to use variations of the keyword phrase and make them sound natural throughout the rest of the article.

What you are doing when you do this is practicing basic search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that most bloggers miss. You will find that your various blog posts will begin to show up on page 1 of search engines such as Google and Yahoo when you lay your blog articles out this way.

5. Don't Forget To Hyperlink

Another basic blogging technique that people miss out on is hyperlinking keyword phrases in their post back to sales pages of products they sell. If your goal is to create financial freedom and make money with your blog the article itself is an excellent place to do that.

Your visitors will notice your page as they come to it, but then they will be drawn to the content. You stand a better chance to make a sale by hyperlinking back to the sales page in the blog article itself, than you do plastering banners all over the top and down the side of each page.

Use these 5 basic blog tips to become a more accomplished and profitable blogger.

Work From Home - How to Create a Blog Making Extra Money

2008-08-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

By Alan Lim

Creating a blog is a common part of any work from home opportunity in making extra money. If you have not realized the commercial application of blogs, you should take the time to understand the concept of a blog and how it can be helpful to you. A blog helps to bring traffic to your site, it helps to define what your web site is all about and it helps to encourage visitors to your blog to become buyers of your products or services. You can either prepare the blog articles and post them yourself, or you can hire the work done by freelancers.

What is it?

A blog is a shortened version of 'web log' which originally began as a web based page where you could keep track of favorite web pages, similar to a bookmark, only on the internet so you could access it from any location where you have internet access. As the idea of a blog expanded, it became more of a personal journal which eventually expanded to become a utilized as a business blog. When you work at home, you can make good use of a business blog to let visitors know what your business is and why they should purchase your products rather than those of your competitors.

Who Reads Blogs

Blogs have become popular with search engines and with those who are looking for particular information on the internet. Blogs contain keyword rich content designed to attract visitors to the web site and provide a constant stream of targeted buyers to your web site. Those who want to know more information about a subject will be linked through the search engine results page to the work from home blog that you have created which contains much relevant and informative data. In short, many people looking for specific information will read and enjoy blogs.

Where Do You Find Content?

When you have a blog as part of your work from home activities in making extra money, you will need a constant stream of information, tips and articles to place on your blog web site. If the subject is one with which you are familiar, you may want to write the blog entries yourself. Most blog site owners, though, contract with others to prepare and post relevant content to place on the web site. This provides variety in presentation style, while maintaining the overall theme of the site. If you are providing content for a site owner on a contract basis, you have realized a great income opportunity.

Making Money With Blogs

For blog owners, the chances in making extra money with this work from home opportunity is obvious. You can incorporate a blog into your web site easily and utilize it to draw visitors and hopefully buyers to your web site. You can also create passive income opportunities by using the blog as a basis for Google AdSense. All you need to do is add a few lines of code to your blog site and you will receive the benefits of the keyword rich ads that draw others to your web site.

If you are looking to Making Extra Money with your blog, you can visit the link at Work from Home to learn how to maximize your revenues. Information about blogs and how to use them can help you effectively create an online presence that pays.

Money From Blogging

2008-08-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

Author: sandeep

Sometimes I do some blog hopping and I find a lot of good blogs out there. So I try to follow what they are doing in the hope of increasing my money from blogging. Lately I have noticed a lot of "U Comment I follow" sign. It is only now that I have discovered what they really meant. The "U Comment I follow" sign basically means if you place a comment in a certain blog which has that sign, the search engines will follow the author's links, or the links placed on the comment itself. Eventually, this will result in the "commenter" getting a back link. According to some search engines (like google) they do not follow the links in the comments. A test done revealed otherwise. There are other search engines who say they treat the links like any other link. No matter what they say, I am sure it is sensible to say that disabling the "No follow" will be of mutual benefit to both the owner of the site and the commentor. So what really does "nofollow" mean ? Google orchestrated this scheme. They observed that spammers are putting up spam comments in a lot of blogs in the hope of getting a lot of back links. (Note that back links help boost ranking in the search engines) To remedy this situation and to aend spamming, Google enforced a "no follow" policy when it comes to comments. This was then followed by other search engines. The big question is did they succeed ? Unfortunately the answer is no. In fact spamming in websites and blogs are a much more bigger problem today than ever before. Spammers still spam. Word Press founder Matt Mullenweg made a terrific comment on this subject "In theory this should work perfectly, but in practice although all major blogging tools did this two years ago and comment and trackback spam is still 100 times worse now. In hindsight, I don't think nofollow had much of an effect, though I'm still glad we tried it." So why should you continue to allow "no-follow" after all, it has no effect after. (This is enabled by default) You are better off protecting your blog by activating spam filters. The adverse effect of "no-follow" is that it punishes the commentor with legitimate and sensible comments. As one blogger puts it so nicely, "PUNISH SPAMMERS, NOT BLOGGERS."

About the Author:
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Monetizing Your Blog - Closer Look

2008-08-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

By Peter Nedyalkov

Monetizing your blog is probably an idea that came into many people heads primarily because of the different benefits it offers. People are starting to read on these things, leaded by two motivational factors - endless potential, self control.

Let's look closer at the different ways to monetize your blog or website.
1. PPC Advertising Networks

As many of you already know, Google AdSense is probably the most popular option under this category, which doesn't mean that there are no others to chose from. Basically what you need to do is - signup with the network and paste the code snippets on your website. Then the network itself will serve contextual ads, being either images or text which correspond to your website. For every click you will earn a certain amount of money.

The success of PPC depends primary on the traffic levels of your website, which leads us to the click-through rate (CTR) and the cost per clicking an ad (CPC). Have in mind that the CTR might really depend on the design of the website, ads which are placed above the fold or merged within the content will be clicked more frequently.

Talking about the CPC, it only depends on your niche and the current situation with advertisers. Financial products, college related ads etc usually get a higher CPC, and meanwhile site like mine or any tech site get just a couple of cents per click.

The source of the traffic is also important for the CTR rate. For example certain countries, including mine, are probably the worst ad clickers ever. We just have some natural ignorance about it, nothing personal, I was born that way. On the other hand organic traffic, the one that comes from the major search engines, tends to perform better cause the visitors were already looking for something, they found your site and might click on ads often.

There are some popular CPC advertising networks, that we will look closer at later.

* Google Adsense

* Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)

* BidVertiser

* Chitika

* Clicksor

2. CPM Advertising Networks

Similar to PPC networks, CPM is all about impressions. You get paid for a fixed amount of page views (impressions), CPM is the short for of Cost per Mille, in other words 1000 impressions.

Let's pretend that your blog generates 500,000 page views monthly, and you have a banner with $1 CPM. You will earn $500 monthly only from displaying the ad on your site. The rate may vary, depending on the network, position and format of the ad. The better network you pick, the higher your CPM rate might be, also you will be interested to put the ad as top as you can on the page, that will help your CPM too. Another aspect of the CPM is the size of the ad, in pixels, the so called banners.

Normally the CPM varies from $0,1 to $10 per 1,000 impressions. Keep in mind it works better on community sites that generate lots of page views per visitor, such as forums, magazines and so on.

There are some popular CPM advertising networks, we will look closer at each of them later on.

* Casale Media

* Burst Media

* Value Click

* Advertising.com

* Tribal Fusion

* Right Media

3. Banner Advertising

As stated previously, selling advertising space on your site is a very profitable monetization method, and the best of all is that you can determine your own rates. Will it be either a 120×600 skyscraper, a 125×125 ad space like mine, or a 720×90 leader bord, its up to you. However you do need a lot of visitors to get good advertisers.

Related links:

* How to Find Advertisers for Your Website

* Finding Advertisers for Your Blog

* Direct Advertising Sales for Beginners

* Openads Ad Server

* OIO Publisher Ad Platform

4. Text Link Ads

Text Link Ads are becoming less and less popular cause of the fact that Google will penalize blogers who don't use the no follow tag on their text links. People still use them however.
5. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing involves promoting a specific product or service and eventually earning commission whenever a referred user makes a purchase through your site, or reaching the seller site by coming from your site.

This is quite profitable industry with endless options to pick from. You like cell phones? Promote cell phone selling sites and cell phone plans, simple as that.

The end results of course depends on you, your blog visibility, your product and the way you do it. If you do it the proper way, affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful ways to make money from the web. You can consider using programs such as ClickBank, CJ, Amazon which are one of the main affiliate marketplaces.

List of popular affiliate marketplaces and networks:

* Commission Junction

* ClickBank

* Azoogle Ads

* Link Share

6. RSS Feed Ads

Due to the growing of the RSS technology, website owners started to find ways to monetize even this. Feedburner for example has its own publisher network for displaying CPM based advertising on your feed footer.

Some blogs are even opting to sell banners or messages on their feed directly.

Related links:

* Feedburner

* BidVertiser

* Pheedo

7. Sponsored Reviews

The base was set by PayPerPost, it took a while but many companies followed their example. We have to stop here at Sponsored Reviews as one of the biggest.

In case you join in such community, it will give you the opportunity to write sponsored posts on a wide range of topics which match your blog. You might not be enough, you might not like the product but.. many people are doing this and making good money of it.

List of sponsored reviews and paid blogging networks:

* PayPerPost

* Sponsored Reviews

* ReviewMe

* BlogVertise

* Smorty

8. Donations and Contributions

Placing a "Donate" link or button on a website can be an efficient way to earn money, especially if your blog is on a niche where readers learn and gain value from your content.

While asking for donations you have to be very constructive as this might help the donations them self.
9. Private Forums

You do know that the internet is full with free forums, however there is also a way to create a private one where members have to pay a fee to join. You have to provide good content in the forum however, to keep visitors loyalty.
10.Premium Content

Some websites and blogs give away part of their content for free, and charge for access to the premium content and exclusive tools for a certain amount of buck monthly of course.

There are many possibilities to create a private and profitable forum, you just need to find an appealing angle that will make it worth for the members.
11. Paid Surveys and Polls

Yes you heard me, there are paid surveys and polls, companies that will pay you some money to run a small surver on your website. The most popular is proably Vizu Answers.

Basically, what you need to do is signup with then, pick up the right poll and put it on your site.
12. Selling the website

This should be the LAST thing to do, however it has the potential to generate a big sum of money for a short period of time. Big community forums such as Digital Point or Site Point are the best place to put your site for sale. There are of course tons of parameters that determine the value of your website, the most popular it is, the higher the cost will be.

How to Sell Advertising on Your Blog Without Worry - Blog Advertising Solutions That Work

2008-08-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

By Ian Hollander

In this article we are going to cover some simple steps for selling blog advertising directly from your blog, WITHOUT having to have a ton of traffic first. The simple truth is, if you want to sell ads on your blog as a monetization model, the very best way of course is to control the process yourself, right? But it seems like a pretty audacious undertaking if you don't know what your doing, too. It isn't..:-) And I'm going to walk you through the steps EXACTLY as I teach other people to follow below.

Step 1: Find a plug or extension to your blog software that will accommodate and process advertising payments. If you are using Wordpress like many of us, there are both FREE and inexpensive solutions that will do this for you with plug and play simplicity.

Step 2: Install the Plug in or Extension and display the spots on your blog where ads are available. If you are running post level spots, sidebar placements, header/footer, you name it, have some example ad blocks that let folks know these spots are available to be purchased immediately.

Step 3: Advertise Your Advertisements! Put a dedicated page up that informs folks as to WHY advertising on your blog is such a good investment. Talk a little bit about your future plans, why right NOW prices are so attractive, and offer some good special rates for continuity.

Another easy trick is to send out a mailing to your list, or if you don't, simply making a dedicated blog post to notify your readers by RSS that space is open!

Want to see how I make money Blogging?

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2 Simple Ways to Restore Your PageRank

2008-08-19T03:45:00.000-07:00

By Tinh Tran

I hope these two tips can help your blog back to the previous PageRank level. If you have been punished by Google for selling paid links or sponsored posts of different programs like pay per post.

As you all knew, Google system will crawl your blogs or websites to find any keywords like "sponsored", "paid" "hire me" or even "review me" and sort your blog into blacklist and your PageRank will be down to lower level even "0". You can easily see the PageRank of some big blog like John Chow dot Com down from PR6 to PR3 and now up to PR4.

Just to share with you two simple tips that I learned from some of my friends who successfully restore their PageRank in the period of 3 - 6 months.

1. Remove all sponsored post tags on each of your posts. Search engines can follow these tags to determine if you are being paid for posts.

2. Remove any other tags like "hire me" and "review me". Any general affiliate banners are fine to keep.

Why do we need PageRank? Is the Alexa rank enough to convince the advertisers? No, PageRank is still the most important factor that determine your blog quality and you will easily sell ads space if you have high PageRank.

I hope these simple tips could help you some if you are seriously interested in restoring your PageRank. Further, you can do other methods but you should also be careful as Google system can identify fake Pagerank easily.

See more at my blog: http://vietblogviet.com

Tran Van Tinh

Blog: http://vietblogviet.com

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Blogging For Influence - Part of Your Comprehensive Income Plan

2008-08-18T03:45:00.000-07:00

Most direct marketers will know that blogs, or more correctly web logs, are online journals. But what have they got to do with direct marketing, and how can they help you generate instant income?

Here's the skinny...

1. Interactive: Blogs are interactive. They allow your readers to participate by posting their own entries below your write-ups. They can also provide honest, public feedback to your entry/product/service. For instance, you are an image consultant; you offer makeover advice and tips on your blog and also share photographs from successful assignments from time to time. This is a good direct marketing strategy to demonstrate your service and showcase skills with an interested audience. On their part, your readers can respond after they have tried your makeover tips or share their opinion of what they thought of a particular makeover. Over a period of time, the readers express confidence in your skills, and you come to be seen as an expert. A great system process that can lead to future business!

2. The 'Personal Touch': Blogs give a personal touch to your direct marketing efforts. Your candid entries are seen as honest and credible communications that are not high on marketing spiel.

3. Cost-effective: There is practically zero cost to set up and maintain a web log. Plus, you will find hundreds of free publishing tools to get your blog up and running. Once your blog is up, you will only need to devote a little time and effort to update your entries and keep them current. The readers' comments, on the other hand, will provide you with invaluable and free market research.

5. Viral Marketing: The popularity of a blog spreads from keyboard to keyboard. It's like the 'word of mouth' publicity that direct marketers crave for.

6. Different!: People have become immune to direct mail, catalogs, email marketing, even DRTV. There is no guarantee that your sales pitch is going to find its mark and generate instant income. But when it comes to blogs, they feel empowered. They are able to participate and communicate in what is perceived to be an open column that allows them to drop their defenses and relate on a human level.

7. Highly Targeted: You don't have to fine tune the definition of the target audience for your direct marketing efforts in the blogosphere. People will subscribe to your blog only if they find the content matches their interests and needs. So you are assured of a well-segmented audience.

Armed with this basic knowledge, you can now craft your subtle direct marketing campaign as part of your comprehensive income plan, and decide the right time to share the right information with the right people.

Guy and Alicea Artuso have seemingly 'cracked the code' for creating an endless stream of highly-qualified visitors to their home based businesses.
Helping others who are looking to achieve their goals is what they are passionate about.

Pick up a free copy of 'As a Man Thinketh,' and learn more tips, strategies and techniques that Guy and Alicea use everyday to create Instant Income Streams on demand at their official site: Get Your FREE Copy Here!

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How to Increase the Traffic to Your Blogging

2008-08-17T11:07:00.001-07:00

Author: Sudesh Kumar

The whole purpose of a blog is to put your content in front of as many viewers as possible; so many new bloggers are disappointed when their blog doesn't get a flood of traffic right off the bat. Quite simply, it's not that easy. Blogs have a number of built in features that make it much easier to get traffic that a conventional website, but that doesn't mean you don't have to provide some input to get the traffic flowing.
With that in mind this article covers 7 ways you can get more traffic to your blog. All the tips are tested and proven to be effective.
Tip One: Get Yahoo on your side.
By submitting to My Yahoo! you can get a good return of viewers to your blog. Submit your RSS feed to the My Yahoo! site and you are more or less instantly spidered and added to the Yahoo search rankings.
Tip Two: Get Google On Your Side
What's better than Yahoo on your side? Having Google on your side, of course. You can submit your site to the Google Reader and watch the results you get from being listed in Google's Blog Search.
Tip Three: Submit Your Site to DMOZ and other directories.
Google just plays favorites with some sites and the DMOZ directory is definitely one of them. They are a picky bunch, so you may not have your site accepted, but the resultant pickup in traffic if you do get listed is well worth the effort of submitting your blog.
Tip Four: Add some PING to your site.
Blogs have inbuilt ping capabilities, but you can increase listings by adding to their default list or using an online service such as Ping-o-Matic to get the word out every time you make a new post.
Tip Five: Know Your Keywords
When you first set up your blog you should have researched the hottest keywords for your niche. Don't forget them. Keep using keyword rich articles. Keep checking on how you are performing for each keyword. Keep tracking and testing. Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing to rank above you.
Tip Six: Get Social
Social Networking is without a doubt the biggest change in the way the web works since someone connected one network with another and thought they might be onto something. It's about participation. Use sites like Digg and Stumble Upon to get yourself back links and potentially heaps of traffic.
Tip Seven: Piggyback on your opposition’s success.
If there's a site ranking higher than you work out why and duplicate it. If they are a blog then post a comment or three and get yourself a cheap back link to your blog. If Google likes their blog so much then how much emphasis are they going to put on a link back from that site?
The key to real success with a blog is continuous sustained activity. Keep posting, and keep building back links to your site. Traffic can come in a flood if you hit the front page of Digg or something similar, but it is far more likely to be something that builds up gradually over time.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/how-to-increase-the-traffic-to-your-blogging-524097.html

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Blog Your Way to Internet Marketing Success

2008-08-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

Blogs are the quintessential online journal. A free feature, blogging allows web users to express themselves through informal messages. Gone is the day of disjointed threads; bloggers can engage in five page rants on any one topic. It is an instantaneous act of freedom - sign up for a free blog and begin your claim on first amendment rights.

Blogs can be customized to suit your tastes. Don't like your neighbor's cat? Think you know who's the better presidential candidate? Express your opinion in a blog or cultivate an internet business blog that will fan the flames of financial success.

Blogging is available to people of all ages and is gradually becoming a fact of life to some. In particular, politic icons use the allure of blogs to keep their supporters informed. Since blogging can reach a great diversity of people, it is considered a portal to market success; you can make money blogging and dazzle an audience while doing so.

A blog, which is based on specific subject matter, is perfect for reeling in targeted audiences. If you expound on a topic important to the audience you're trying to market to, your site will receive traffic interested in your product and not just accidental hits of no consequence.

If you plan to make money blogging, you must conspire to build a healthy bond between people and your blog. Internet business blogging entails a well-maintained blog with a touch of honey sweet sincerity toward your devoted fan base. Love your fans in your internet business blog, and they will love your business in turn.

Don't lay waste to an incredibly powerful tool, internet business blogging, because of your lack of dedication to the people who visit your site. The number one transgression in the blogging world is posting information that is estranged from the main topic. To avoid this problem, use different blogs for different products.

Remember that the trick is to cast the net out as far as it will go and hope to seize the attention of a select group of people. In addition, to make money blogging and bring in a constant flow of cash, host all of your blogs on a personally owned server because internet providers have a habit of changing directions habitually.

The best way to catapult you into the wonderful world of internet success is to master the art of using an internet business blog.

Ray Johnson is an Internet Marketing mastermind and is the Google.Com no.1 ranked information product eseller. Find out how you can run an internet marketing business using a blog at:

http://www.ray-johnson.co.uk

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Recounting the Virtues of Guerrilla Blogging

2008-08-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

I like going against conventional wisdom.

Some very good people with strong reputations and whom I respect deeply are giving some misguided advice. One such place is the Church of the Customer. Like most blogging professionals, they're telling people to not be self-centered:

"Do not make your blog a branding exercise of self-centeredness. If you endlessly promote yourself and your services, no one will care."

That's one of five points listed on their five don'ts for small business bloggers. I take issue with this one. Such people are blogging like it's 1999.

There are many different reasons to blog and their are different focuses for every company blog. Depending on the focus of your blog, you may very well want to be self-centered. We all know about political and social blogs, or personal online journals. They're written to encourage comment and debate. Up until now, business blogs have too. The future of blogging, however, will be quite different.

For one thing, not all blogs are aimed at customers. Some may be internal company blogs or simply instructional blogs. Let's run through some of the different types of business blogs:

1) Customer service blog

2) Instructional, or how-to, blog

3) Dialogue between professionals within the same industry

4) Sales and marketing blog

5) One-way conversation about a certain industry

6) AdSense blog

These are just a few of the potential blogging focuses. Obviously, customer service blogs, instructional blogs and dialogues between professionals are blogs where you would want to encourage feedback and discussion. They should be interactive, sparking debate and encouraging criticisms. Other-centered and human-focused.

But what about sales and marketing blogs or AdSense blogs? With an AdSense blog, the most important things should be keywords. You want search engines to recognize your keywords, rank your blog post accordingly, drive traffic to the blog and, you hope, get the click through on the ad.

With sales and marketing blogs, you could style it any way - the first way, with interaction encouraged, or you can approach it from the "hard sell" angle, making each blog post about a specific product or service in an attempt to get your web site pushed up in the search engines. It all boils down to search engine optimization. Your focus is on three things:

1) Link popularity

2) Search engine saturation

3) Fresh content

If your blog is on the web site you want to promote, search engine saturation and fresh content will be more important with link popularity more important at Yahoo! and MSN than Google. If you have an off site blog, link popularity will be your primary focus with search engine saturation a close second and fresh content not at all.

Suppose you have several web sites you want to promote from one single blog? You can do that through an aggressive link popularity strategy by linking profusely to your sites from your blog in an attempt to drive them up in the search engine rankings. Here's how you do it:

1) Focus on one web site at a time

2) Link no more than three times to that web site in the body of your blog message

3) Include a signature at the bottom of each blog entry that is a link to the site you want to promote (you can promote more than one but not more than three)

4) If you do #2, don't #3; if you do #3, don't do #2

5) Keywords may or may not be important, but if they are, don't use more than two instances of your keyword for every 50-100 words in your blog entry

Remember, every blog entry is counted as a single web page at the search engines. Use the same search engine optimization techniques for each blog entry that you would for a web page. I call it guerrilla blogging and it's the future.

Allen Taylor is an award-winning journalist and freelance ghostwriter. He manages more than 50 business blogs and runs a local Internet marketing company at http://taylor-and-associates.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Allen_Taylor
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Why Should I Start a Blog?

2008-08-15T21:25:00.000-07:00

Do you find yourself wanting to write about the things you enjoy? Do you have something of value to share? Will your expertise in a certain topic help others?

The above are questions you may want to ask yourself to find the answers to "Why should I start a blog"?

I've asked myself that question many times before actually launching my blogs. My niche is business entrepreneurship so I decided to express my thoughts and expertise by writing what has helped me along the way. My passion is to help others benefit through my experience and knowledge.

The questions that helped me along the path to deciding why should I start my blog (s) are:

1. Why
2. What
3. When
4. Where

Why start a blog?
Why not? I can list hundreds of reasons why starting a blog would be beneficial to you and your business. First, it allows me to express myself through my writing. I can share my expertise in a blog that can be seen by many. It is a form of promoting myself and my knowledge on a certain topic.

What do I write about?
I write about things that will interest those seeking information about starting a lucrative home-based business. What inspires you? You can post photos and write about what inspired that photograph. You can also post videos of your favorite song and write about what makes it so special and why you feel others may think the same. You can write anything that has helped you become successful so that others won't have to re-invent the wheel so to speak. There are hundreds if not thousands of blogs that are unique in many ways. Think of the things that bring you joy and share them with others. If you enjoy writing, then showcase your writing skills.

Provide basic, real, useful information as well as resources to go along with the information you're writing. What are your interests? Will it interest your readers as well?. Offer "how to tips", "top ten tips", etc., did it make you successful? Be creative!

There will be times when you are going to encounter writer's block. It happens to the best of us. Not to worry, look for other interesting articles that are related to your blog theme. Remember to ask for permission to use an article and never alter the content of a guest article. These can help when you're experiencing writer's block big time.

When do I blog?
Personally, I love to write and post to my blogs 4 times a week. Others, may want to blog on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, it's up to you. Perhaps you may want to get your feet wet first and start off slowly, that's fine also. Remember that the goal is to write often so that you can create a long lasting readership for your blog visitors.

Where do I host my blog?
There are many hosting companies out there. Visit VisionThisHosting.com or if your a new blogger, blogger.com is a great place to start. Do you prefer to have your own domain name? Check out NameCheap.com. Again, there are hundreds if not thousands of hosting and domain registration sites out there to choose from.

Most of all, have fun! Find something that does not feel like a task but is fun to write about. Show your personality through your content writing and make your readers comfortable.
There are many other ingredients to spice up your blog and add important value to your readership. Remember start with your own writing first and everything else will fall into place!
So, with that said. Why should you start a blog? Tell me what you think.

Sonia Yvette Colon is writer/publisher of http://www.myfashionemallblog.net & http://thebizbuzzofalatinamom.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sonia_Colon http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-Should-I-Start-a-Blog?&id=1401135

Could You Use Contextual Advertising For Your Blog?

2008-08-14T21:04:00.000-07:00

By Mika Tal

Blogging is a great way to get you noticed online, but there is often a conflict of opinion as to whether blogs should be monetized or not. On the one hand people reckon that blogs are supposed to represent a personal point of view about something rather than a commercial one, and on the other it could be said that blogging can be hard work and you shouldn't be expected to do it for nothing.

Of course there is no right or wrong answer, but if you do happen to agree that blogs can and should be monetized then contextual ads are definitely a good way to go. Why? Because they will appeal to your visitors in a way that more general ads wouldn't. Online contextual advertising is certainly picking up pace as more and more people realize you can get good results from it, but not everyone thinks about putting it to good use on their blog.

But contextual advertising doesn't need to be in your face like many other forms of internet advertising are. It can be altogether more subtle than that - and as such this more understated approach can suit blogs rather nicely.

A good example of this kind of contextual advertising is the In-Text Advertising model. This doesn't provide you with ad blocks to position on your website; instead it focuses on the content of your site, and looks for keywords that are relevant to the topic your site concentrates on. From there it finds you some ads that will link in nicely with those keywords and inserts them in your site by very simply underlining the keywords and leaving it at that.

Now if you were to look at a blog which has this kind of advertising on it, you wouldn't immediately be hit by the amount of ads on the page. It wouldn't detract from the overall viewing experience. Instead, you would start reading the content. As you come across one of those underlined keywords, you might well hover over it with the intention of clicking on it to see if it's a link.

It is a link, but it's not one you need to click on. Contextual advertising via In-Text ads means you will see a pop up window containing an ad related to that keyword. It's neat, it's attractive and the user decides whether or not they want to see it.

As such it is one of the best forms of advertising you can use on your blog. It's always worth experimenting of course, but on the whole this gives you the best of both worlds - a monetized blog that doesn't flash adverts at people on every page.

Kontera is an In-Text ad network that offers contextual advertising to publishers across the web. Kontera's advanced contextual ad technology guarantees the highest degree of relevancy between content, keywords and ads.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mika_Tal
http://EzineArticles.com/?Could-You-Use-Contextual-Advertising-For-Your-Blog?&id=1399916

Grow Your Own Top Home Business by Blogging Regularly - More Ideas

2008-08-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

We've looked at setting up your site, and now we discuss tips for blogging twice a week to keep the content fresh. This is what the search engines are looking for.

Perhaps initially write a series of articles about the decision-making you went through, before finally making a start in your own home business. People looking to start their own home businesses will be interested to hear how you made your own personal decisions in selecting the type of home business which was best for you.

What was your original motivation to start working from home? Most people think about the idea often enough, but it's too easy to become trapped in the day to day routine of going to work, and surviving from one month-end to the next. Financial needs are amongst the most common reasons for wanting to leave your job, and to go it alone.

Personal circumstances are often a strong motivational factor, such as wanting to be able to spend more time with children, or to care for a parent who lives with you. Tell your readers openly why you made your decision, and relate the steps you took to get started, and whether this was part-time or full time.

It's a good idea to discuss the financial factors involved, and how you were able to cope financially, especially during the early stages. This type of discussion is of great value to a reader who is thinking of doing the same thing.

Another extremely useful discussion would be about managing children while working from home. Many home business owners have to wrestle with the problems of getting work done, while working from home and looking after children.

Above all, write from the heart. Share the problems you've experienced, and discuss the solutions you found for those problems. By now you will have worked out some sort of daily routine, so that there is adequate time for you to deal with business related issues, and still be able to have quality time with your family. How did you work this out?

Any personal achievement will call for some sacrifices to be made. An honest discussion about the compromises you've had to make in order to get started, makes a valuable insight for your readers.

Don't be afraid to admit that you made some mistakes along the way, but discuss how you realized what was wrong, and what steps you took to correct the problem. Again, some personal advice from the heart will be well received, and your readers will be grateful to you for sharing these with them, especially when you may then be able to help them avoid making the same mistakes!

Mike Muir's blog is dedicated to helping home business owners by providing useful information. For more ideas, please go to: http://www.mikeshomebiz.com/blog Please look at the genuine home business opportunity at: http://www.mikeshomebiz.com

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8 Benefits of Blogging

2008-08-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

For many people who are serious to make money from their blogs, they must know that there are some benefits attached to blogging and knowing these benefits will in know small way help the blogger, particularly a first timer to get off the starting blocks and make head way.

Below are some great benefits of blogging in order of importance: -

1. One of the great benefits of blogging is the relative low cost of setting it up. It is too cheap to set up, You will find it very hard to believe but it is true.

2. Your blog roll will look at you with admiration as an expert in your chosen area of blogging, since you hold some vital information they don't have, you are considered as an expert.

3. You build a reputation from your blog, especially if your blog roll members are very vocal about your comments and views on issues you raise.

4. With your blog you can become a force to be reckoned with in your niche or specialization market.

5. Your blog will help you to develop the kind of public relations you need from your members.

6. Your blog will give you a competitive edge over your competitors, and this will stand you apart from the crowd.

7. your blog roll will help put you and your product on a different level, it allows you to brand your products and services.

8. Your blog allows you to be seen on the search engines like Google, yahoo and msn.

I hope the above benefits of blogging will help you to make money online.

Either you are a blogger or newbie in blogging, you can always make money with your blog. check out our review of John Yeo's [http://www.getreviewed.org/2008/07/07/bloggers-paycheck-review/]bloggers paycheck You will learn making money from your blog with step by step approach.

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Blogging in a World Gone Mad With Olympic Fever - Totally Web 2.0

2008-08-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Cathy_Perkins]Cathy Perkins

Can you blog about the Olympics even if your blog has nothing to do with sports or China or The Olympics?

Of course you can! The whole world is watching the 2008 Summer Games in China - I bet you are too. So why not talk about it on your blog. I have a friend who blogged about his vacation recently. Has nothing to do with his area of expertise but it helped people get to know, like, and trust him. He posted pictures of his boys swimming with Dolphins!

Another friend 'tweeted' on the road while on vacation - nothing to do with HIS area of expertise either but it was fun. A huge part of Web 2.0 is having fun while getting your message out to the people you want to hear it. What good is life or our 'home' on the internet if we can't have fun too.

What is more fun than watching athletes compete for the Gold! And then blogging about it? Web 2.0 is all about building your community. I bet your readers would be happy to read your thoughts on The Games - and not wonder why you are talking about them either.

So go ahead and have fun - put pictures up from your favorite events. Scrape the Beijing logo and put it on your site - as long as you aren't using it for personal gain or some nefarious purpose I bet no one will mind. It's going on my blog shortly - along with a picture of the men's swimming team! What heart they showed and absolute joy in victory. We can all take a lesson from that.

The Bottom Line: Have fun and let your readers get to know you!

I'd like to invite you to find out all about Blogging With WordPress in a Web 2.0 World by going to http://www.WordPress20.com Presented by Cathy Perkins, The WordPressWizard.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cathy_Perkins http://EzineArticles.com/?Blogging-in-a-World-Gone-Mad-With-Olympic-Fever---Totally-Web-2.0&id=1401353

Smart, Efficient and Productive Blogging - Boosting Your Blogs Benefits

2008-08-11T03:19:00.000-07:00

The more efficient you become in your blog posting and blogging endeavors the more time you will have to do research to improve the accuracy of your content. Additionally, you can use the extra time to edit and improve the use of white space and format of your posts, so you can create quality content that your readers and subscribers will be glad to come back to; time and time again.

Think about how much time you spend considering what to post on your blog, how much time to write it up, and edit it. Then consider the time you spend to post it and find the appropriate pictures. If you are a seasoned blogger perhaps you can do all this in under 35 minutes for a 150-200 word quality blog post. Now then, if you can cut this time down, you can boost your blogging benefits by creating a second or third blog to attract your target audience or in the case of a business blog, your target customers.

What I recommend and realize I have nearly 10,000 blog posts already; is to carry with you a small note book and when you think of a title write it down and jot down a couple of thoughts about what you want to post. Then resume your day. By the end of the week you might have ten or more ideas and this will be much easier than trying to force creativity when you finally decide to sit down and pick out topics.

Bloggers Block, like writer's block may not be real, it may all be psychological, but like the pain we often feel, it sure seems real to us. So, see what you can do to cut down this extra time you spend trying to dream up blog posts and this will definitely help improve your blogging efficiency.

"Lance Winslow" - Online [http://www.bloggingcontent.net/]Blog Content Service

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Monetize Your Blog With the Right Posts

2008-08-10T11:39:00.000-07:00

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Christie_Love]Christie Love

Are you tired of going through processes to add an extra source of income to your blog; with no result? Do you often wonder why your blog is making less money than other blogs? Or why other bloggers seem to make money with their blog while you don't?

Making money from your blog may be just a simple act of how you formulate your posts. There are many people who didn't make any money from their blog but after they began to really take time to write posts that are written specifically to make them money, they started to see results.

The easiest way to write an effective blog post is to first use an article as an outline. Remember, blog posts should be under 250 words and therefore, small and specific bullet points.

If you are not a writer, outsource your writing to a freelance writer. You can find the best deals on article writers from Elance. Prices range from $4 to $20 for writers. Be sure to give you're your keywords and topic. You don't have to be an expert at writing, so finding a good article outline to follow by doing a Google search should be just as effective.

Post articles to your website regularly. This will allow you to stay in contact with your visitors and always give them a reason to look forward to coming back to your website or blog. Make your blogs interesting, stay on topics but add something entertaining every once in a while like salon blogs (blogs about salons) or celebrity movie blogs. A boring site will most likely not get visitors to come back for more.

Within your posts, you can add affiliate links to promote a product you have reviewed. Respectful visitors will honor that the affiliate links are your means of making money on line and most likely will purchase products from you. It's kind of like needing to buy a product that you know your friend sells. Of course, you are going to purchase the product from your friend over anyone else as you would expect them to do the same.

You'll also want to post your articles to affiliate directories. You can do a Google search to see which article directories are most popular. I like EzineArticles best, but there are many other article sites you can review.

Go to your blog and really take a good look at it to see which areas you can improve upon.

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Latest

2008-08-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

Countdown To Blasting Off Your Business Blog

2008-04-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

Does your blog need a bit of a kick start? Are you having trouble trying to get things going again? Maybe your blog has never really got started because you are not sure how to get things moving. If any of the above applies to you, then read on to find out how to blast off your business blog. read more

Why Blog?

2008-02-26T11:33:00.000-08:00

By Sheryl Walters

Blogging is one of the fastest growing past times in the world today. From sailing to calligraphy, breeding iguanas to a tiny Indonesian island, there are people out there blogging about it.

Here are some of the reasons that people blog:

1. To Make Money

Some people blog to earn money. There are actually people out there that are earning 6 figures per month by blogging. Many business experts claim that blogging is one of the best ways to make money in the modern world.

There are many ways to earn money through blogging. Advertising and affiliate programs are just two of them.

2. To write about what they are passionate about

Many people have heard that they can make money by blogging, and then write about subjects that they think will be popular and that others want to read. However, most of the best blogs are those written by people who are passionate about their subject matter.

3. To become an expert in their chosen niche

Blogging is a fantastic way to show one's expertise in their niche. In fact, as the blogsphere continues to grow, it is becoming almost essential to have a blog if people want to promote themselves as experts. This is especially true for people whose business is dependent on the internet.

4. To Write

Many people enjoy writing and view blogging as a more public, exciting form of journaling. They may not be interested in getting a large following, but simply want to write about their life and the things that they are interested in. They may not fall into a certain niche; they simply enjoy sharing their ideas and experiences.

Whatever the reason that people blog, it is increasingly becoming one of the most popular past times for people with all interests and experiences.

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Sheryl Walters is an experienced holistic health expert.

Her blog combines the world's most up to date scientific research on how to stay young naturally in both mind and body with a heartfelt, personal touch. When we have the right information and take some dedicated action, we can be in charge of our health and our aging process.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sheryl_Walters
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How To Recognize and Monetize Your Expertise And Passion – Part 1

2008-02-09T12:27:00.000-08:00

by Glenn-Dietzel

Most people tend to dismiss what they’re good at. Part of it is that you become so accustomed to having whatever skill you have that you cease to notice it. Sometimes it is out of a sense of false humility. But every single person has innate talents and gifts that enrich people’s lives—AND provide a source of income for you.

How can you discover what your true talents are? Let me give you a hint. Where your passion is, you will find many of your natural abilities that you probably take for granted.

But it’s more than passion. It’s profit. Thousands of people have harnessed the unbelievable power of their natural talents to not only enrich others, but literally enrich themselves financially.

Here are some questions to consider. Answer these and you will have the core for a profitable business.

1. Define your ideal client.

2. Who are the people you have been working with if you are already in business? What have you liked or disliked about them? Are there any common denominators?

3. What kinds of people could ideally benefit from your knowledge?

4. If you had all the money in the world, what would you be doing?

5. Interview three people you most respect (friends and family members) and ask them what they see you doing? What are your strengths from their standpoint?

6. What have you always been good at?

7. What did you dream of doing as a child?

8. What needs/values do you care about most?

9. Whom do you admire most?

10. What makes you most fulfilled?

11. What do you love to do the most? What are you passionately against?

12. What have you felt called to do?

13. What legacy do you want to leave for your children and grandchildren? What do you want to be remembered for most?

14. Analyze your ‘competition’ and find out all about them. This will give you ideas as to your niche and how you can brand yourself.

15. Remember that you want to make sure your target market has money.

In the part two of this article, I’ll show you two on-going exercises that you can do to create your personal inventory and get a clear picture of who you are. You’ll be able to use these exercises to enrich your pocketbook and your life!

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How Do I Start To Make Money Online ?

2008-02-06T14:02:00.000-08:00

by Folusho Orokunle

People who want to begin a home business often have no idea as to what to do. Sitting in front of a blank pc screen is not going to make that happen; all that it would do is remind one of television. Most of them would be totally clueless when it comes to starting a home business, or what to do and how to go about it. So read this article as it would provide you with some of the most basic building blocks for your home business.

Everything has to have a first step and for you that is to sit down and think about what you like to do. Everyone has interests and as such, almost all interests can be monetized. Even if you are interested in something as unusual as 'Shark encounters', even that has a market as well. It may not have that much of a demand as there are not that many of us who want to go 'head to head' with the great white, but the market is there for that interest as well. But if you are a typical person with normal interests, there is a very good chance that one of your interests can be turned into a steady income stream for you, part time or full time.

The second step is to write down all of your interests and then google it to see if you can find more information on them. For example, let us say that your interest is playing the piano; maybe you are even a very good piano player. Perhaps you have a unique method of teaching the piano to others that you think would be very effective as a learning tool. Here is where you go online and see if there is a market for piano courses and if there are, well, you have got yourself a niche market.

The third step is to gauge the kind of competition that you are going to get. One should not get discouraged if there is a lot of competition, but at least this way, you would know what you are getting yourself into, before you begin. One of the easiest ways to do this is to go to any one of the major search engines and google the term 'piano courses' and seeing the number of websites that offer the same would give us a very good idea as to the competition. If there are millions of sites offering the same product as you have, then it is going to be a little tough. But, if there are just thousands, then the going may be a little bit easier for you.

How are you planning to monetize this niche, this is your fourth step. Are you planning to author an ebook on playing the piano? With the video tutorials being big these days, it may be a good idea to put together a course on DVD with actual videos. People are always interested in videos and as such, they will pay more for a course on video. All you have to do is to think and decide as to how you are planning to present your product to the market that it may have.

This is just a primer on the issues that we would be covering in future articles. But for now, it should give you something to think about.

Folusho Orokunle owns a leading internet marketing company Chicago Internet Marketing Company .Visit Internet Marketing TV and Folusho.com to know about his ideas for making money online.

Article Source: ArticleRich.com

The Best Free Blog Hosts On The Net

2008-02-04T02:51:00.000-08:00

by Don Alexander

For first time bloggers, a free blogging web site is a great way to get started in the blogosphere. Popular blogging web sites like Blogger and Eponym allow users to set up and host a blog without paying any fees at all.

This encourages people to start blogging, because the fact that one of these sites can provide you with all of the tools that you need to get your blog up and running without spending any money means that you have nothing to lose by starting a blog.

The fact that it is so easy to find a way to blog for free is one of the reasons why so many people who have never had any other kind of web presence before find themselves drawn to blogging.

By signing up with a free blogging web site, you may find it easier to get listed in search engines that you would if you were starting your own blog from scratch. For example, Google runs the free blog hosting site Blogspot and crawls its pages very often looking for updates, so if you have your site hosted by Blogspot you are almost guaranteed to be listed on Google's blog search engine.

This easy access to search engines can take some of the work out of promoting your blog, and can help you gain a following with a minimum of marketing effort.

If your blog attracts a large readership, you may want to consider moving your site. Many people feel that being hosted by a free blogging web site gives a blog a kind of amateur flavor that is fine for a new member of the blogosphere, but is not appropriate for a high-profile blog. Having your own domain can help you make your blog feel professional, and finding a company that will host your domain is not difficult or expensive.

Once your blog takes off, you will probably be able to sell enough advertising space to be able to afford to buy a domain and pay for a hosting package, and still have money left over. However, it does not make sense in most cases to invest in these glossy luxuries before you have a sizable readership.

Starting your blog on a free blogging web site is a great way to build a following before you spend any money on your blog. If and when your blog becomes popular and you are ready to take the next step and purchase your own domain, your readers will follow you to your new home. The fact that it is possible to use a free blog host like Blogspot, Blogger, or Eponym as a kind of incubator for your blog is great news for bloggers everywhere.

Don Alexander is owner of leading-online-business.com
and writes on a variety of subjects. To learn more
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Using Your Blog to Promote Your Affiliate Programs

2008-01-30T22:47:00.000-08:00

by

Creating a blog is a great way to popularize your affiliate programs because you can achieve greater results for the affiliate program you are working with. When blogging, consider the type of people who may be surfing your blog; find out if they are looking for any specific products or related accessories and find out what it is that may inspire them to make a purchase. Using these points, start a blog that generates interest in your affiliate program. This in turn helps you to make even more money through your affiliate programs.

When mentioning your affiliates within your blog try to give genuine recommendations of your products and services. Blog readers or bloggers will come back if you gain their trust and respect through your own honesty. Don't give glowing reviews of your products expecting more sales. If you provide sincere reviews, you are sure to get more orders than with fabricated reviews. This is because everyone wants to know what exactly it is that they are buying, before buying it!

It is always better to use contextual deep links. There is no point in just placing some banner ads, thinking that upon seeing this banner ad, surfers will visit the site. Contextual ads prove to be beneficial only if you advertise products that are related to the blog that you write. Place links of services or products that are relevant to the content found. It is with this tactic that your blog on affiliate programs will become profitable.

When placing links of products or services of affiliate programs, make sure that the links are placed on the hotspots of pages. The hotspots of a page may be the top of the left hand side bar or at the end of your comments. Basically, the parts of a page that are most likely to be read by a surfer. Never clutter all of your affiliate programs within a single blog.

Don't use too many affiliate program links within one blog, as with this, you stand to run the risk of reducing the effectiveness of your links. With this reduction of the effectiveness of your links, you only disillusion the readership of your blog. Be as transparent as possible about your affiliate programs. Don't attempt to trap readers into clicking on links hoping that they will buy your product or use your service.

Labeling your affiliate links is not that feasible an idea for your blog. However, you will have to somehow make people know what link they are clicking on by putting a note under or beside your affiliate links. This note is just to inform what the link is; and not to force them to click on the link to make a purchase for you. However, sometimes the name of the product or service is sufficient to inform the blogger on the product or service you offer.

Finally, consider combining your affiliate programs with other revenue sources on your blog. The best means of finding out the effectiveness of affiliate programs on your blog would be by using some tracking package to track which links are most effective. Find out which links sell more products, and which do not.

Keeping a track of the best positions for your affiliate program links, the products that sell the most and which wording works well with your links all help in improving your affiliate program blogging strategy.

Scott White has the top SEO Tips, Facts, and Articles and Jet Charter Arizona, White Inc.,

Article Source: 1ArticleWorld.com

Blogging, Can It Make Money For You?

2008-01-28T10:47:00.000-08:00

By Jim Swank

Blogging is a good way to meet people. Blogging isn't dead but it has sure narrowed down to those who update their blogs regularly. Blogging is bringing new voices to the online world. Most bloggers focus on personal experiences, not politics 7/19/2006 | Release. It is more about speaking out and meeting other people that agree with your narrow point of view. Blogging is easy, almost instant, publishing of content to a website, where every entry is preserved in a database and is therefore categorizeable and searchable.

Blogging

Blogging combined the personal web page with tools to make linking to other pages easier - specifically permalinks, blogrolls and trackbacks. Blogging was used to draw attention to obscure news sources. It can sometimes have unforeseen consequences in politically sensitive areas. Blogging by established politicians and political candidates, to express opinions on war and other issues, cemented blogs' role as a news source.

Bloggers

Bloggers began to provide nearly-instant commentary on televised events, creating a secondary meaning of the word "blogging": to simultaneously transcribe and editorialize speeches and events shown on television. Bloggers think that good argument and strong opinion cause people to seek information, an equally logical sequence. They post about their day or their opinions on different matters. Bloggers consume and extend the shelf life of our reporting, and they scrutinize it at a new level of intensity. They can critique, fact-check or applaud journalists on their own platform, as well as offer their own analysis of world events.

Journalism

Journalism is defined in the Penguin English Dictionary as "a profession managing editing or writing for newspapers or perodicals'. Journalism is always up for grabs, because it only exists in a free society, which is free to redefine itself and always does. Journalism, for many who blog, is one thing they are blogging against. Established schools of journalism began researching blogging and noting the differences between journalism and blogging. It's about how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the business of persuasion.

Google

Google should realize that controversy and selling ad space does not go hand in hand and make sure it doesn't happen again, otherwise people will stop seeing Google in terms of 'not being evil' and see it just as another service provider which would massively decimate not only the good will but also the value of the brand name. Google already crossed a line by setting up a blog specifically to cater to the health care industry. Google can't tell the difference, and customers googling may not care that an opinion they find distasteful is "only being done in off hours. But Google is shamelessly using structural information and photos culled from blogs in its own products (like restaurant search in Google maps).

Personal

Personal bloggers take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them. Personal blogs may not be important to readers, but for the people who write them, they are works of art. Personally don't feel what I'm putting would be that interesting to most people. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Blogging combined the personal web page with tools to make linking to other pages easier - specifically permalinks, blogrolls and TrackBacks.

Money

There's a good chance that if you are reading this you make money online or want to. I think that making money while blogging is like watching grass grow. The reality for most chasing a quick buck from blogging is that few except those at the top of the blogosphere succeed in raking in a lot of money. The vast number of people looking to make a second income from blogging already own and write their own blogs and don't make much money; simply a low paid network blogging job is often more than what they are making from their own blogs. Blogs don't generate that much money so there's no reason to have minimum wages and benefits for bloggers.

Blogging is changing, and for the better. It is a good way to meet people. Blogging isn't dead but it has sure narrowed down to those who update their blogs regularly.

For more information about blogging and other marketing methods, go to Jim Swanks website at: http://www.MultiAffiliateIncomes.com

Jim Swank has been in the internet marketing field for a number of years. His particular area of expertise is showing others how to make a second income on the internet.

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The Top 3 Tips to Making Money With Blogs

2008-01-28T10:46:00.001-08:00

By Ashley Mcallister

These days there are many people finding out exactly what kind of power a blog can hold. There are many people out there quitting their day jobs to take on the blogging career. While blogging can make a large income on the web, how come not too many people know exactly how to do it? Well, it is one of the best kept money making secrets on the web today and I am going to let you in on a little hint on how to make some money,

Blogging is a completely free thing to get started doing. You don't have to pay for hosting and you don't have to worry about it never being found in the search engines. Did you know that blogs are highly rated to Google, yahoo and the other popular search engines? You have a better chance getting ranked well from a blog rather then creating a website from scratch.

Here are a few tips that you can use to get started on making money from blogging. After you are done reading through this, you should get started immediately so you can see the true power a blog can really have.

-Choose a Niche

When you first start a blog you have to figure what exactly you will want to be talking about. For your first blog, I recommend that you choose a niche that you know about that way you have no problems writing a few posts about it. Also, once you choose your niche make sure to do a search for popular keywords that are being search for that pertain to your niche. You will use these keywords throughout your blog.

Go over to click bank next and find a product that matches your niche. Once you do make a link for it and then start putting that link in your blog posts.

-Content in Your Blog

When you set up your blog and you know what you will be talking about make a post about it. It is best to post immediately after you create a blog because it lets the search engines know that you will be posting for real and will not be using that blog for spam. Also, you need to post regularly in order to keep your blogs content fresh.

-Traffic

After you are done adding some content your blog is know ready to get traffic. You can do this by writing articles, social bookmarking, link building, forums and many more.

There you know have the top 3 tips to get your blog working to make money for your online business. Motivation is key and you should get started immediately in order to get results quickly.

For more information, you can check out: Blogging to the bank

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The Power of Blogging

2008-01-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

By Jeremy Long Chia Teik

Blogging is an activity that has changed our landscape on the internet so dramatically that millions of blogs are floating in the blogosphere right now. How do we view blogging and the outcomes of indulging in it like a drug addict is to drug? How much do we know about and to what extent the power of blogging can impact upon our online business?

Even in the mortar-and-brick business, we need to look at certain factors to put our business into trim and fit shape. We often look at good ideas for our product or service, the greatness of the product or service itself, how visible is our product or service, and what comprises support to achieve our goals.

Let's look at each factor individually:-

* Good Ideas

It is beneficial to our online business if we often have good ideas to further improve it. We have to give our ideas the space to grow, besides nurturing them and bring them to fruition through their implementation. We will see the power of blogging in action if we allow our blogs to be truly transparent and peer reviews to be permitted. For the sake of internal blogs, such strategies will remove the obstacles in idea generation and vetting. There will also be interaction from your customers if you provide the necessary space for them on your blog.

* Greatness of product or service

We have good ideas to be turned into product or service for our online business. We can churn out them out according to our plans. One thing is crucial. The product or service may be great but may under-perform when facing stiff competition. We need to talk and find out from our customers to get feedback, primarily to study the buying patterns of our customers. Blogging helps us unselfishly in this problem area. Through your blog, you are able to obtain answers from your readers at least. Not only locally, but globally, as your blog transcends boundaries on the web. We will definitely know the truth.

* Visibility of our product or service

It is obvious that to market our product or service, it needs to be visible to the world. The right customer will come along at the right time to buy the right product or service. We are in reality talking about the global reach, when your blog has the capacity to touch readers effectively through various programs such as contests and press releases. Interaction with the readers is important. Mindshare, which reveals how many people are really aware of your product or service, is even more significant. The power of blogging brings your online business to a global audience, who must be given an appreciable amount of mindspace. They will of course decide how and when to engage and build a relationship with you. Here, we can actually notice viral marketing in action too. Blogging, with its intrinsic characteristics, will surely bring about the formation of a community of reading participants, large enough to positively affect your online business.

* Support

Through your blog, internal communication is greatly enhanced. Information can be viewed through the blog, similarly minded people can share exchange of views and interests through the blog. The power of blogging brings out the beauty of the blog - it keeps your team informed and motivated at all times. Great ideas can be easily archived and viewed any time. There is common ground to work with passion. The blog does it all in rendering support for better internal communication.

Blogging requires a voice from you. It is the new platform from which you will provide information to meet the needs of your customers and to build relationships with them. Along the way, you will immerse yourself in the culture of blogging. Well, that's indeed the power of blogging!

For latest updates on how to increase traffic, raise page ranking, write effective articles and powerful squeeze pages, create explosive blog marketing system, learn about viral marketing, and bring in massive income from your internet marketing business, please Click here Webmaster: Jeremy Long Chia Teik.

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Success in Blogging Through Relationships

2008-01-17T11:35:00.000-08:00

By Jeremy Long Chia Teik

We all know that blogging is basically founded upon the relationship between the blogger and readers. A voice is required in blogging. The blogger speaks and the reader listens. A kind of relationship is formed at that instant. Whether that relationship will materialize or not cannot be confirmed though at that very point in time. It's even more difficult to predict if it will bring any success in blogging for the blogger.

Talking about a relationship, let's be honest about it - every blogger loves to blog and it's always because of this factor that to establish this relationship with other bloggers , we can safely confirm that this is the key reason and is an important strategy for success in blogging.

When we get to know other bloggers during blogging time, we'll be able to get feedback through comments. They will be glad to provide us with their honest and unbiased thoughts about our presentation, content or even the blog as a whole. From such feedback which will always be ever so readily provided, we will be able to fine-tune the design of the blog or put in more effort to post more fresh content. The blogger must be willing to share views or ask questions if unsure about blog matters. Other bloggers are always ready to give a helping hand; they will have no problem helping out with the problem blog.

We should be aware that not all bloggers are well-known personalities who are publicly recognizable. Of course, there is also no need to be alarmed, simply because individual bloggers do possess some extent of influence. Through building the relationships with these bloggers, we will be able to enhance our positive experiences, and they too will be more than willing to offer us help using the influence that they have. We know that a friend in need is a friend indeed; most bloggers fall into this category.

Building the relationships with other bloggers is always progressive. It comes naturally and over some period of time. It doesn't not follow any standard pattern or single process.

I'm sure we know that the blog is really a good opening to knowing someone who reads it, that is, your blog. The reader will be able to know a little more about you through the feed. From your blog, it is always possible to form an opinion about you, the blogger. The reader will be able to think about the passions that you have, or even your personality traits.

Comments left by the reader on your blog will always influence you to read them. This is because you will surely be able to recognize the name of the reader who leaves the comment on your blog. There is this opportunity for a relationship to start between you and the reader.

One point worth mentioning and admiring is this - the blog builds mutual respect between blogger and reader. We must know that links actually are a measure of respect. This stems from the fact that the reader has been actively reading your blog and not just about an isolated item. That said, the more links the better.

The relationships can be brought up another level. With the benefit of links, it is time to further strengthen the relationship through email. We know that bloggers love links, but they also love to email. From the comments that are posted, it is good to continue to make progess in the relationship building by extending the conversation from the comments.

From blogging, it is fairly noticeable that bloggers really love to talk and contribute in blog conversations with other bloggers sharing same interests. With advanced technology, it is the right time to bring the relationship another level higher by engaging in conversation over the phone , or even Skype, a new real-time talk technology.

It is best if bloggers can meet up personally. This will consolidate the relationship that they are trying to build. The time spent face-to-face can be about any topic, not necessarily to be about blogging. In fact, this is the golden opportunity to cement the relationship between two bloggers who are trying to find value.

If we seriously want success in blogging, we have no choice but to build a real and caring relationship with the blogger on the other side. It's still the human touch that is important.

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Discover Top Secret Blogging Strategies To Explode Your Home Based Business (Part 1)

2008-01-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

By Joe Okoro

Blogging has become a way of life for most business people on the internet. What started as a way of people to document the events in their lives digitally some 18 years ago or so, has now become one of the most effective sought after marketing strategy, responsible for creating millions of dollars in sales for some thousands of online entrepreneurs who realized its potent.

If you are promoting your home based business and you are not blogging, then you are allowing civilization in the information age to leave you behind. You must move at the same pace with development or else your business suffers whether online of offline.

Blogging has become a very interesting tool in the internet marketing world and a lot of internet online entrepreneurs have gone ahead to replace their day job income with blogging.

Find below the reasons you need to start blogging in order to magically boost the response rates of your marketing efforts.

- Free to use

Most blogging site offer free blogging website to interested individuals. Hence you can start with the free version to test the waters of blogging for profits and see if its something you should implement in your home based business.

However, a paid blog generates more and you are more in control to post as many offers as possible on your blog and gives you professionalism as a marketer.

- Genuine and Original feedbacks.

When you blog and post comments or tips on your blog site, you tend to get honest opinions of real people about what you posted. If its a product they have used in the past, it allow other users to read how effective a solution is and can generate more sales for you because, the internet is so full of
hypes and false claims.

However, real and interactive sessions on the blog gives everyone freedom to post so that others will see and reply to each other without the intervention of the blog owner.

- Relationship built on trust

It is very easy to gain the trust of your readers when they see you are truly transparent and your post are as truthful as it can be. This is supported by comments from other readers. You should know that the most influencing factor online is peoples comments and views about an individual. As this have more power than the claims of this person.

In order words, it is more believable to hear people talk about you than when you say it yourself. As a home based business person, you should exploit this simple phenomenon and use it to build a business for yourself through the incredible power of blogging.

Watch out for the concluding part of this article (Part 2).

I have just concluded a free report that you can use to quickly build your downline and develop your home business in time. You can Claim Your
Free Copy Now!

Joe Okoro is an accomplished networker who has successfully used internet marketing to grow his downline for 3 years now.

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Paid Review, Another Opportunity to Make Money Online

2008-01-17T11:31:00.000-08:00

By Eko Nurhuda

Have you ever heard about paid review? If you've never heard it, maybe you just come back from moon. It's a great deal today. Many bloggers all around the world are making bigger money than their Google AdSense's check using this program.

Paid review is simply explained as another affiliate program between blogger and ads agent/broker. Ads agent acts as a mediator between bloggers and advertisers. The money circle in this program is quite simple. Advertiser pays ads agent to buy some blog posts reviewing their products or services, than ads agent asks bloggers in their membership to write the review. When the review has been posted, bloggers will get paid.

There are so many sites offering this program. Each site has different rules and requirements to accept a blog. But, as they need as many blogger as they can attract to join, most of these sites even accept PR 0 blogs. Of course, the higher the PR your blog has, the higher money you'll earn and more jobs coming to you. One or two site(s) has strong requirements and can only accepting PR 1+ blogs and/or having their own domain name.

How much money you can earn with this program? A PR 0 blog will be paid $2-10 per review, PR 1 and higher will earn much more money writing the same 300 words review. Yes, it's easy. Just write a review with at least three links to the advertiser's site, post it on the blog, submit the URL of the review to the site where you've joined, then dollars credited to your account in a minute. If you could manage to write a $10 review a day, in the end of the month you'll earn $300. For newbie bloggers that can do nothing to increase their AdSense earning, even earn $100/month writing reviews is a good deal. Bloggers with higher PR of course will gain better as I saw an advertiser offering $200 to PR 6 + blog to write a 300 words review about their service.

Well, when you think Google AdSense is the hardest way to get money online, then you should think about paid review. But, never join to a paid review program just for money. You should consist to your blog readers as well your contents. Don't let your credibility fall down to the earth by writing a review that irrelevance to your niche. Yes, you'll earn money posting the review, but your readers would leave you because they know that making money is number one for you. Just think about it, your reader is everything. Don't annoy them with an out-of-topic paid review posted on your blog. Then, your content is a king. You can still earn money writing review without losing your readers or breaking your blog consistency. The key you need is, be selective.

Happy earning, bloggers...

Eko Nurhuda aka Eko Sudjarwo is a writer and an active blogger. He learns to gain better life by writing online in affiliation with some paid review programs. Everyone's invited to take a look at the reviews he has made on http://www.eko-sudjarwo.blogspot.com , or visit http://www.jogja-inside.blogspot.com to know more about Jogja, a beautiful town where he lives

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Women Power Bloggers - Inside the Minds of Today's Successful Female Bloggers - Part I

2008-01-17T11:29:00.000-08:00

By Tierra Montgomery

According to the Pew Internet Project's PIP Blogging Report, 46% of bloggers are female and the numbers are growing everyday. However, many woman bloggers are a slightly upset with the lack of recognition in their industry. After a week of research I finally asked myself why aren't women more prominent on the web? Of all the blog ranking lists, except fashion and celebrity blogs, an average of 12% of women appear in the top 100 of each list. And some sources have the nerve to think that fashion blogs are "personal diaries of style". After doing some research I realized why so many bloggers and readers today perceive women bloggers differently than men:

Many men bloggers don't link to women bloggers

Less than 10% of women are political bloggers

60% of women created blogs are categorized as "personal diaries"

Nearly 88% of top bloggers are white American men.

Some guys don't appreciate being lectured by women

Instead of analyzing RSS feeds and researching list after list, I decided to go directly to the source to get more answers and find out how women power bloggers reached success, how they reach their readers, and what they think about the discrimination towards professional women bloggers in today's blogging community.

I communicated with four very different women bloggers (Chanel Ward/Hip Candy, Charlene Li/Groundswell: Winning In a World Transformed by Social Technologies, Michele Obi/My Fashion Life, and Julie Strietelmeier/The Gadgeteer) and asked them the same five questions:

What is the focus of your blog and why did you choose this particular niche?

If you could describe your readers in three sentences or less what would you say?

How has blogging advanced your career?

On average, only 12% of women bloggers are featured on top 100 lists. Why do you think that is?

If you could give one word of advice to women bloggers today what would it be?

After talking with these women I realized that a "power blogger" has nothing to do with your ranking on a list but the quality of your posts, the awareness of your reader's needs, and the ability to look beyond fame and fortune and stay true to your subject matter. This is part one of a two part series featuring women bloggers who have changed the way the world views them and their readers. Today's featured blogger is Chanel Ward from Hip Candy and Charlene Li from Groundswell: Winning In a World Transformed by Social Technologies.

Chanel Ward / Hip Candy

It's hard to pick one of my favorite blogs, but Hip Candy is very close to my heart. From the tag line, "sweet... but not in that fattening kind a way" to the blog's owner, Chanel Ward, Hip Candy is fresh, exciting and new.

Fashion designer/graphic artist/writer Chanel Ward was featured as 225 Magazine's Top People To Watch in 2008 and for good reason. After being the voice for the America's Next Top Model Interviews and one of the finalist for Project Runaway's fan favorite blogs this fashionista was invited to experience and write about Fashion Week and is soon launching the much anticipated clothing line Hip Couture. Blazing a trail of personality and style her blog and her career has a life of it's own, but don't take my word for it.

1. What is the focus of your blog and why did you choose this particular niche?

The focus of Hip Candy is in my tagline. Fashion. Celebrity. Entertainment. Me. That's basically what I blog about in a nutshell! I like to think of my blog as fashionably fun! I chose this niche because my background is in Fashion Design (graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles, 1999 - www.fidm.com) and I've always been intrigued by celebrity culture, so I just thought it would be an adventure to start a fun site that would focus on those things, and at the same time, it would keep me abreast of what was happening in the [fashion] industry. Hip Candy is a fun forum for readers to come and share their opinions on fashion, (the latest trends, fashion don'ts...) celebrity (what they were wearing, what were they thinking?!) the latest happenings in entertainment, with a little bit of what's going on with me thrown in for good measure.

2. If you could describe your readers in three sentences or less what would you say?

I was surprised to learn recently that some of my readers are as young as 12! But I also have more "seasoned" readers, women over 50 and beyond as well as every age (and gender) in between. Hip Candy readers are very opinionated. Even though most of them usually agree with most things I opine, and "wax poetic" about, they don't always agree with everything I put down, and that's okay! Having a difference of opinion is what makes us unique! One of my most commented posts (69 comments at last count) has a firestorm of strong opinions on it from start to finish (http://hipcandy.blogspot.com/2007/03/style-verdict-hetero-men-in-heels.html) Anyone who takes time out of their busy day to click onto to Hip Candy, read a post and share their opinions is more than alright with me.

3. How has blogging advanced your career?

Wow. That's such a loaded question! I'd never really considered myself a "writer", but after starting Hip Candy, I slowly began allow myself think otherwise. My blog has already reached levels that I wouldn't have imagined when I started it. I figured it would just be a fun hobby. The response since I started it has been phenomenal already! It's very humbling. Some of the more noteworthy advancements have been 1) exposure to the masses from conducting the "Top Model" interviews 2) getting credentialed and being invited to Fashion Week from my fashion coverage on the blog coupled with solid readership 3) That same solid readership translating into monthly ad revenue generated on Hip Candy 4) all-expense paid trips to cover trade shows and events (http://blogs.dreambrizo.com/kbis_2007/) 5) recognition and acknowledgement from magazines, and finally and ultimately, 6) built in name recognition for a future clothing launch! Blogging has truly been a surprise and a blessing and I look forward to more in 2008!

4. On average, only 12% of women bloggers are featured on top 100 lists. Why do you think that is?

I hadn't heard this statistic before, but it's pretty staggering given that I did hear that about half of the people blogging right now are women. I don't really know why more women aren't considered top bloggers. I'd love to find that out myself. I'd love to find out what we as women could do to level the playing field. I'm not as privy as I'd like to be on how blog ranking works. I've made a couple lists in the past, (http://www.fashioniq.com/wordpress/2007/04/23/top-50-fashion-blogs-in-the-us/) (http://www.customizedgirl.com/blog/) but unless you're a site like Technorati who ranks blogs on several different statistically based criteria, I'm not sure how much weight it holds. That being said, I'm always grateful to be included on people's "Top" list, whatever the criteria!

5. If you could give one word of advice to women bloggers today what would it be?

My word of advice to women bloggers would be to not give up! So many of us who may have a strong voice on whatever subject, fall by the wayside after starting blogs and don't ever see the full fruit of what could have been. Unless you are a celebrity, nobody ever starts out with millions of readers! I'm still striving for that myself! So it's definitely a process, and growing pains are a part of that process. I can remember back when my mom and a few of my friends made up the entirety of my readership. But if you're putting out good content, readers will always follow. Have faith in yourself and what you're doing! Especially if you love it.

Charlene Li / Groundswell: Winning In a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Charlene Li knows what she's talking about and she is passionate about it. Groundswell: Winning In a World Transformed by Social Technologies is one of the best written blogs on the web, period. Charlene is an expert on technologies like blogs and social networking and uses this knowledge to lead the marketing and research team at Forrester.

Charlene doesn't just write about her passion, she consults others about trends and methods surrounding her niche. She is the one of the most quoted analyst and has appeared in The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, CNN, NPR, and BBC, as well as The Wall Street, Journal, The New York Times, and BusinessWeek. As a matter of fact, while writing this biography and researching Charlene's accomplishments, a commercial for 60 minutes segment on Facebook was advertised, Charlene provided background on that story. Reading Charlene's blog has personally advanced my career as a technology leader within my company and has kept me fully up to date on innovative marketing solutions through social networks and blogging. I am very honored to have her take the time to reach out my readers on the topic of women and blogging.

1. What is the focus of your blog and why did you choose this particular niche?

The focus is developments in interactive and social technologies primarily for marketing purposes. Most recently, the focus is on the use of social technologies and supports a new book that I'm publishing in April 2008. The blog is an extension of my work at Forrester Research.

2. If you could describe your readers in three sentences or less what would you say?

I have three very specific readers: 1) Businesspeople interested in leverage interactive and social technologies, primarily in marketing; 2) Influential press and bloggers; 3) Thought leaders in the field, whom I can tap for research purposes.

3. How has blogging advanced your career?

Oh, in so many ways! It's given me visibility beyond the limited Forrester client base and extended my influence tremendously. I have contacts that I would never have developed without the blog. And I rely on it consistently to conduct research amongst a community that doesn't exist anywhere else. As such, I have access to better research faster than anyone else in the industry.

4. On average, only 12% of women bloggers are featured on top 100 lists. Why do you think that is?

I'm assuming that you mean only 12% of top bloggers are women. This is partly a matter of who does the listing. And frankly, why does it matter if you're a "top" blogger? The most important thing is to know who your reader is and to hyper-serve them better than anyone else. I'm unlikely to ever make it on the Technorati 100 list, but I'm clearly considered a "top blogger" in my field.

The other way to look at it is do women consider themselves to be a top blogger? If the stat is 12% of women bloggers consider themselves to be top bloggers, then we have a self-esteem problem!

5. If you could give one word of advice to women bloggers today what would it be?

Be true to yourself and to your reader. There's nothing worse than a blogger who's striving to be something they aren't.

Tierra Montgomery is the Vice President of Training & IT Development at Joy Corporation of Baton Rouge as well as a former Adjunct Professor at Baton Rouge Community College's Small Business Training Center, where she teaches employees of Cox Communications, Casino Rouge, and Shaw, Inc. computer literacy and proficiency in Microsoft Office Applications. Ms. Montgomery has an immeasurable amount of experience dealing the displaced community. She currently serves on the LARebuilds steering committee and also designed and implemented Joy Corporation's Community Technology Initiative providing training to the community free of charge using Microsoft Unlimited Potential Curriculum. As a community volunteer, she has designed art programs, play productions, and youth leadership programs to benefit African American youth in the Baton Rouge and surrounding areas. Ms. Montgomery is a certified web designer from Louisiana State University and authors three professional blog including The Technology Starlet at http://techstarlet.blogspot.com/ where she focuses on women and technology.

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How to Increase Your Blog Traffic

2008-01-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

By Jordan Whitewood

If you have a blog you are probably interested in increasing the traffic to the blog. It only makes sense, why take the time to write out a blog post if no one is going to read it?

Anyway, I have found six simple methods that will show you exactly how you can increase your blog traffic. The six methods are simple yet effective.

Method #1: use a pinging service

Ping-o-Matic is a great resource to use to drive traffic to your blog. Basically, Ping-o-Matic is a service that will ping with other services to let them know that you have posted on your blog. You can find a service at pingomatic.com

Method #2: Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking lets people bookmark their favorite posts and basically spread the word. Social bookmarking has become widely popular and is becoming a better way to drive traffic everyday. A few examples of social bookmarking sites would be Digg.com, reddit or del.icio.us.

Method #3: Comment on Other Blogs

Commenting on relevant blogs is a great way to drive traffic to your blog. However, you must make sure that you are actually commenting on what the poster has posted and not spamming their blog. Too many times I see people take the strategy and abuse it. As long as you are posting thoughtful and meaningful replies you are not taking advantage of this, you're actually providing real value.

Method #4: Quality Keyword Rich Content

I am sure you've heard the saying content is keen over and over again. Well, the reason is because it is so true. Search engines love original content and are looking to provide the searcher with what they're looking for. So it is only natural to say that if you provide good content, that is laced with keywords that the individuals looking for you should do well. Now, you must understand that good content alone does not guarantee good search engine results, but it is a darn good start.

Method #5: Google Reader

Submitting your blog's RSS feed to Google reader is a great way to heat your blog to read and indexed.

Method #6: Writing Articles

Writing keyword rich articles is always a great way to increase your blog traffic. All you need to do is research some long tail keywords and write a few good articles and you will see the traffic start pouring in.

With all things it takes action. If you not take action on what you've read today nothing will happen. Do not let that happen you. Make the most of every day you have and take action to move closer to your goals.

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How Blogging Gives Small Businesses The Competitive Edge

2008-01-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

By David Skul

Blogging produced a revolution in the business of online marketing. While blogging is a great Web 2.0 marketing tool for any business, it has become, especially for new, shoestring budget start-ups, a vital means to getting website traffic.

The following are ways blogging has helped level the playing field between well established, corporate giants and small businesses just starting out.

Setting up a Blog is Fast, Free & Easy

There was a time when setting up a business online wasn't free. Many businesses were at the mercy of the technologically savvy - the "gurus" who knew design. Then the concept of "free" became synonymous with blogging. Now, it's incomprehensible to think otherwise.

For startup businesses, blogs provide a great alternative to quickly and affordably setting up an online presence. There's no technical knowledge required other than basic internet skills.

With so many blog building tools and software freely available, creating a blog is faster and easier than setting up a web site. There's no need to send yourself, or staff, to expensive training programs or seminars. Once you've decided which software and tools you'd like to use, it will usually take less than ten minutes to beup and running.

Maintaining a Blog is Fast, Free & Easy

Content is good but unique content is the key to your success. Carefully crafting timely and relevant information potential customers can identify with is essential.

If you're passionate about your business, you shouldn't have trouble creating the content your blog needs to keep rolling. On the other hand, the excitement of launching a blog can give way to dread as a small business owner realizes that a blog, by nature, isn't static.

Planning ahead with an editorial outline will greatly reduce the stress of trying to figure out what content to post next. It doesn't take a lot of content to be successful. It just takes consistent effort.

Marketing a Blog is Fast, Free & Easy

If done correctly, publishing your ideas, articles, sales pitches and assorted web page links on your blog can be just as effective as advertising anywhere else online only without the excessive costs. A blog is real time, which means you can communicate with your customers and your customers can communicate with you 24/7.

The upside to blogs is that they're fast, easy, and free. The downside to blogs is that...they're fast, easy and free. Blogging removes the technological barriers to small businesses. But, it also requires a small business to focus on content.

If you would like to read other articles and watch videos on topics like this one, you can join us at http://www.relativitycorp.com. We have tons of resources on Social Network Marketing written by David C Skul CEO. You can also sign up to get information in you email in box weekly at the site as well.

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Discover Top Secret Blogging Strategies To Explode Your Home Based Business (Part 2)

2008-01-17T11:15:00.000-08:00

This is a continuation of the article on how top blogging strategies can skyrocket your home based business opportunity through the roof. If you have read part one, then this concluding part, gives you all the information to take your home based business opportunity to the next level using the power of blogging.

By Joe Okoro

- Simplicity

In order to blog, all you need to know is how to type, copy and paste. If you can log on to your mailbox, then you can use a blog. A blog is so simple to use that a 10 year old can easily use it. Therefore, a huge percentage of your blog readers can actually reply to your posts even if they are not very knowledgeable on the use of the internet.

- Blogging explodes your market incredibly.

The following ways are the ways you can use blogging to explode your market reach in the shortest time possible.

1. The use of email.

When you make a blog post, just send a quick email to your readers to check out the new post on your blog with a link to your blog. This will get them to visit your website and read what you have to say on the post.

2. Make it subscription based.

When you allow a subscription to your blog, only interested readers sign up for it and post their comments too as well as relate with other subscribers.

As more subscribers gain access to your blogs and see that your blog is very valuable, they can send their friends to check out your blog and also sign up for your subscription, thus increasing your readership.

3. RSS feeds.

Generate people of similar interest to your blog by syndication your blog with other RSS feed networks, this way you improve your chances of getting targeted traffic.

4. Use Survey

Surveys allows your blog readers to post their opinions and give you opportunity to supply the best information to your readers which include recommendation of your products and opportunity.

5. Join other blog networks

One of the best way is to use this as avenue to attract like minded people in your market. You can also ping each time you post on your blog to notify other blog networks of the new post. This keep the search engines crawling your blog site and bringing new traffic.

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Joe Okoro is an accomplished networker who has successfully used internet marketing to grow his downline for 3 years now.

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