Why do you want to blog?

If you cannot answer this question, you are more likely not yet prepared to start your own blog. There are several reasons why people blog. According to a report by Bonnie A. Nardi, Diane J. Schiano, Michelle Gumbrecht and Luke Swartz, there are basically 5 reasons why people blog:

1. People blog to document their life

• You want to document what happened to you during your pregnancy, etc.
  

2. People blog to write about their commentaries and opinion

• You blog to campaign against global warming
  

3. People blog to express what they feel

• You blog what you feel about working in a foreign country
  

4. People blog because they want to write

• You blog to write poems and stories
  

5. People blog to build communities

• You blog to make friends with other bloggers
  

With the advent of payperclick programs, affiliate programs, paid reviews and blog ads, more and more people, however, are starting to blog to earn money. This is evident in a large number of blogs blogging of ways to make money online.

I made this site to help my friends who want to start blogging and to serve as a helpful guide for those who have already started blogging.

Background

I started to blog in 2005 (G-Blogs) but I was not able to pursue mobile blogging because of the recurring technical problems with G-Blogs. I went on to use bravenet, blogger, wordpress.com and I currently blog in a self hosted wordpress.

One of the challenges I met while exploring the world of blogging is that I do not have a friend who actually blogs. (Yes, I am still overcoming my shyness making friends with other bloggers). This meant that I have to do my own research to understand what RSS is, spend endless hours trying to figure out how I can drive traffic to my site and skip meals just to know how to strategically place google adsense in my posts.

Just last August, I had a hard time when I started my self hosted wordpress. The customer service representative of my host sucks. He was very UNHELPFUL while I was installing wordpress simply because "they do not provide support for wordpress installation". I felt so helpless during that time because I do not have any close friend or classmate or cousin, etc who can actually help me with my concern.

Now, I am a blogging prophet, I tell my friends the benefits of blogging. I tell them that blogging can help them promote their advocacies and express their beliefs and opinions. Of course I also tell my friends that I am receiving cheques from adsense (which reminds me, my 3rd cheque hasnt arrived yet).

So here are my friends specially Ernie asking me what I now consider as trivial things. (Where do I get templates, how can I add this, etc.) and the number of my blogging friends is increasing. My friend Cathy who is in Indonesia was asking me how she can start to blog and Emily just bought her laptop. (I promised her I will teach her how she can monetize her blog as soon as she has bought a laptop).

Purpose of this blog

Unfortunately, I am not a full time blogger. I am a busy person so I need to come up with a means how I can help my friends with blogging without me teaching each of them. I do not want my friends to experience the same ordeals that I had.

I decided I will be writing a blogging guide for them so here are some of the things that I have learned which will mostly be guidelines for people who want to start blogging.

10 Tips for Becoming a Great Corporate Blogger

Successful blogging is not just about being the best writer on the web or even the most prolific. Being a successful blogger is about creating a connection with an audience by providing relevant content, nurturing that relationship with comments and links and keeping the dialogue flowing. Here are ten tips to get you started.

1. Understand the fundamentals of Blogger Relations

While anyone can set up a blog in a day and start publishing articles, it takes far more work to be a great blogger and see the real benefits of blogging. First, you need to have a blogging strategy that is in line with your PR strategy and business goals. Next, you have to provide relevant content. Most importantly, you must conduct what is called Blogger Relations. Blogger Relations is what blogging is all about—starting and maintaining a conversation. Unlike Public Relations or media relations where you are trying to pitch your story, with Blogger Relations you initiate and participate in ongoing discussions with other bloggers and your target audience. As the conversation progresses, you get to know the other players in your industry; you gain credibility by listening as well as commenting; and you gain new readers as other bloggers provide links back to your blog to give you credit for your ideas. The more you conduct Blogger Relations, the more successful your blogging will be.

2. Create value

Creating something of value for your audience should be the first aim of your blog; otherwise your readers will have no reason to return. This is where a public relations strategy can help you develop content that keeps your customers coming back for more.

3. Grow and sustain your audience by providing real analysis

Monitor the news and blogs for articles that would be of interest to your audience. When writing about the news as a blogger, it is not just a matter of describing the news—though that is important. It is more imperative that you provide new, informative and entertaining analysis in order to sustain and grow your audience. That is why opinion and your personal perspective interlaced with your past experiences will help to add to your credibility and foster loyal readership.

4. Report on community opinion

If you think the news is important but don’t have an opinion or perspective, one way to provide opinion is to provide a synopsis of ideas from the community at large. In addition to acting as a valuable resource for your audience, you create the opportunity to send a trackback link to one or more blogs, connecting with more bloggers AND more readers.

5. Respond with comments to build relationships and traffic

Responding to another blogger’s comment can be just as important as the article post itself. Blogging is about dialogue and the opportunity to interact with your audience. Many posts will not receive any comments, but when they do, you have to be ready to respond. Blogging is a little like having an amphitheatre of people viewing a conversation between two people. While you must focus on the conversation with your commenter, you must also be aware of the rest of the audience. In other words, you should respond to the challenge the commenter presents while at the same time providing greater context, so the entire readership can follow and benefit from your conversation.

6. Track your conversations

In order to keep conversations flowing, you have to stay aware of each discussion in progress. Unfortunately, we are still in the early days of blogging, and many blogs do not include notification technology to let you know where there has been a new post. And even if a blogger receives notification that you have commented on his/her blog, does not mean that you will receive notification when that blogger replies to your comment. If comment email subscription is available, it is wise to subscribe. You may also choose to use tools such as del.icio.us or Cocomment for tracking comments online and subsequent follow up. But, ultimately, you may have to monitor for comments manually to make sure you keep the conversations alive.

7. Don’t be afraid of criticism

Dialogue is also about criticism; so don’t be afraid when others criticize your ideas or actions you have taken on a blog. See it as opportunity to keep the conversation flowing. In the blogosphere, you are more respected when you demonstrate the ability to respond. In addition, a “foil” critiquing your work can often draw more attention to the discussion and increase readership. Furthermore, criticism can be constructive. Feedback related to product flaws and improvements can actually help your product development process.

8. Conduct interviews to generate content and ideas

Interviews are a great way to generate interest and content for the blog. Picking other bloggers to interview is particularly helpful in generating links and traffic. Many bloggers will enjoy the added attention and more than likely link back to your interview post.

9. Promote your blog

When an author writes a book, the writing process is often very much solitary. Once the book is published, however, a writer must reach out to others and promote that book through public readings and strategic marketing. Building a successful blog requires a similar approach. Once your articles are written, you have to promote them by chatting with colleagues in the industry and starting a dialogue. Connect with loyal and thoughtful readers as well as industry authorities. When bloggers take note of your article, it tends to have a viral effect, increasing eyeballs exponentially.

10. Monitor the web for brand names and references

Using RSS feed search engines such as technorati.com and blogpulse.com, monitor for mention of your company and corporate blog posts as well as important developments in your industry.

The idea of eLearning is to popularise an indepth, convenient, interactive mode of education through the Internet.

Scientific research reveals that the best way of learning methodologies are the mix and match of 3 modes namely Instructor Led, Web Based and Computer Based. The popular terms are ILT, WBT and CBT. The more demand of career orientation in this highly competitive professional world and the simultaneous problems of routine study system through the formal mode of education (ILT) have left us with the only option of eLearning. The reach of the Internet to the furthest corner of the world has really eliminated the geographical distance. The forums and online helps have made eLearning real time. The laptop has given one the flexibility to enhance his skills even while traveling.

The time-bound schedule of ILT has put it slightly below in the common mode of learning. The lack of updations and upgradability in case of CBT has not allowed it to top the list even having the flexibility of carrying heavier graphics and movies. Rather now the people are becoming aware of even today’s updates through Internet. The convenience factor in eLearning has been fueled by the factor of “learning at one’s own pace”. The dollops of at his own residence has made eLearning more dependable way of education.

Now, what are taught in eLearning? The answer in one word is “Infinity”. Some may teach Computers, some management, some again cooking and mixing. There are sites today, who are teaching even plantation and e-security. Lets assume, you are tired at the end of the day and your strain has become a stress on you, which has started affecting your personal life badly. Don’t you feel to get a course in Stress Management? If you think of the cost, it may be at a price of $100, that too on the higher side.

The prometric certifications have been continuing for long. Sun, Oracle and Microsoft have been continuing their online certifications for years. Many educational portals have come up in the recent past including some top shots coming up with their eLearning mode. eLearning caters to the need of the age group between 6 and 65. If a housewife does not find time or a senior executive of a multi-national firm feels shaky for attending courses with the junior people, eLearning is the only solution for him or her to accomplish further education and enhance the knowledge base.

Article Source: http://wowarticles.com
Ken Charnley is a personal finance enthusiast with www.online-loans-pro.com/ dedicated to quality information on online loans. For all your online loan needs visit and Apply For Loans Online
Article Submission done by: www.articles-submit.com
Courtesy of:Articleteller.com

2. Choose Related Keywords

Once you have your master list of keywords, find long tail related keywords to target. Again, check out the competition and daily searches made for each chosen keyword.

3. Use Quality Content For Your Keywords

Creating quality content should always be your main goal. Write for actual visitors who will see and read your content. First and foremost you must have good useful content that your visitors will use themselves and recommend to their friends or colleagues. Tie this quality content in with your chosen keywords. Use one keyword phrase per page.

4. Keyword In Domain Name, Title and URLs

Having your keyword in your domain name will score big points from search engines. Plus, each page of content should contain your keywords in the title & meta tags for that page. Most experts also suggest you have your keyword in the URL and use hyphens to separate your keywords. Although the author has gotten good results by using an underscore and htm in URLs.

Example: www.yoursite.com/your_keyword.htm

5. Do On Page Optimization

Keyword ratio is a much discussed topic by SEO experts and many suggest you should have your keyword in the H1 or headline title of your page. Sprinkle your keyword and variations of it throughout your page. Don't over do it but make sure the robot/spiders will clearly discover what your page is about. Many webmasters make sure they include their main keyword in the first and last 25 words on their pages.

6. Use Traffic Modules

One technique that works extremely well in Google is clustering a closely related topic or subject into a distinct separate section on your site. For example, if you have a marketing site, you could create a whole section on article marketing where you would have 50 to 100 keyworded pages all relating to your subject. Writing articles, formatting articles, submitting articles, article software... place a keyword linked menu on each page to connect all your pages together.

Keep in mind, your main objective is to supply quality information to your visitors. One reason Google may favor this type of structure is because they want quality content returned in their SERPs.

7. Try Article Marketing

Article marketing is writing short informative articles on keyword topics related to your sites. You then submit these helpful keyworded articles to ezine directories on the web, when your articles are picked up by related sites you receive quality One-Way links. The higher the quality of your article, the more links you will receive.

Another ranking tactic to use, if you're just starting out your site will probably have a low PR rank and you will find it hard to rank for even modest keywords. That's why it's useful to take advantage of the higher PageRank of the major ezine directories. Your keyworded articles on these high PR sites will get picked up by Google and displayed in the top 10 rankings. Now the displayed URL will be the article directory site but the links in the resource box will be pointing back to your site. Over time this article marketing technique will raise your own site's rankings for those keywords. Simple but effective.

The author is a full-time online marketer who contributes his high rankings in Google as the major source of his online income. For the latest web marketing tools try: http://www.marketingtoolguide.com For the latest Internet Marketing Strategies go here: http://www.bizwaremagic.com Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

Most webmasters go totally "gaga" for top 10 rankings in Google. And for good reason, Google is the most dominant search engine on the net and will deliver the largest amount of traffic.

More importantly, those same webmasters will also inform you, getting top 10 rankings in Google often means your site will prove profitable. Mainly because obtaining targeted traffic is usually your first obstacle in creating a viable online business. In other words, if you get top ten listings in Google for good searchable keywords, it is almost impossible not to earn money.

How To Proceed?

First, you must know the rudimentary basics of how keywords work. Keywords and keyword phrases are the exact words someone types into a search engine to find what they're looking for online. If you have a site on "dog training" then your goal is to get a top 10 ranking for the keywords "dog training".

Now if no one searches for "dog training" it would be a useless keyword, you would get no traffic no matter how perfectly your site is optimized for that keyword.

How Do You Know If A Keyword Is Good?

To find out, you have to do some keyword research on your particular keywords. Many professional online marketers use keyword research software like Brad Callen's Keyword Elite. However, you can also use the keyword suggestion tools supplied by Google Adwords or Overture. Try here:

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Now if you check "dog training", you will find it receives around 4,469 searches each day. That's a lot of traffic but you must realize that it may be too good, or rather too competitive for your purposes, especially if have a new site.

Biggest Mistake When Choosing Keywords.

The most common mistake most novice webmasters make is targeting keywords which are too competitive. You simply will not be able to compete or place for extremely competitive keywords. Well established sites and businesses with very deep pockets have the resources to completely dominate those keywords.

While it is not entirely futile nor a waste of time to concentrate your efforts on highly competitive keywords, you will have better success if you target low to medium competitive keywords.

Long Tail Keyword Marketing

Besides online marketers have discovered that longer keyword phrases are usually the most lucrative. These phrases deliver traffic which is better targeted and more likely to convert into a sale. "Dog hunting training" which gets around 100 searches a day will be more targeted than the general term "dog training" and if you have a site devoted to training hunting dogs then this keyword phrase may convert better for you.

Always keep this "Long Tail" keyword strategy in the back of your mind as you implement the following steps to achieve your own Top 10 Rankings in Google.

1. Make A Master Keyword List

Your first step is to make a master list of the keywords you wish to target. Obviously these should be closely related to the theme of your site. Check the keyword competition by seeing how many sites are listed in Google for that keyword. Webmasters also check the Google PageRank of the sites that hold the top 10 positions. If all those sites are PR6 and above it may be hard to get ranked high for your keywords.

The author is a full-time online marketer who contributes his high rankings in Google as the major source of his online income. For the latest web marketing tools try: http://www.marketingtoolguide.com For the latest Internet Marketing Strategies go here: http://www.bizwaremagic.com Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

A web directory provides the perfect place for a webmaster to advertise their website. Users that visit a web directory do so, in order to find websites on a particular category or topic. Therefore if you promote your website in the correct category then you can drive the type of users you’re looking for to your website.

A business directory provides the ideal directory to submit your site to if you’re trying to attract customers. Users can usually search these directories by category and location making it very making it very easy for your customers to find you. A business directory usually allows webmasters store more relevant business information than a standard web directory. Each listing usually includes the Company Name, Address, Phone, Fax Website, Company Overview, Directions and Email Contact.

Apart from the obvious benefit that a web directory provides in attracting potential customers, web directory submission has become an essential component of search engine optimisation (SEO). At a very basic level Google calculates a Pagerank for each website based on the number of inbound links a site receives. This is where a web directory can be of benefit. A web directory allows webmasters to get an inbound link to their site that will potentially add to the overall Pagerank of their homepage. The more directories a site is submitted to, the more inbound links it receives and therefore the higher the Pagerank. If a site hasn’t been indexed by a search engine yet then adding a site to a web directory can be a good way of getting your site noticed. Web directories are regularly crawled so it’s more likely to be picked up by a search engine quickly.

A deep link directory is a web directory that points to a specific page rather than the homepage. The real benefit that a deep link directory provides is that it allows users to get exactly what they want from your site in a single click. This makes your site more efficient and stress free. The deep link directory also provides some additional SEO benefits that improve the rankings of internal pages.

Its important that you chose a quality web directory to submit your link to otherwise you will waste your time. It often occurs that when you subscribe to the free web directories you might not hear back about your submission for weeks, if at all. Webmasters may be better off paying for their links in good quality web directories that are managed well. The internal pages of these web directories are likely to have a higher PR and more traffic which will benefit your site.

Premium Paid Directory Deeplink Directory DFW Small Business Directory

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

Good news to all movie, music and game enthusiasts! You can now swap DVDs, CDs, video games and books with other people who might have the item that you are looking for. If you are tired of seeing an old nancy drew pocket book that you own stuck in your cabinet and you have been dying to read another book, you might want to exchange it with other people who swap DVDs, CDs, video games and books at www.swapshop.co.uk. The best thing about swapping your goods with others at www.swapshop.co.uk is that you can swap your items for free.

The site currently has around 1000s listed items such as Happy feet DVD; The Sims 2: Nightlife (PC Expansion Pack); and even the much awaited Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book. In addition to this, around a hundred items are still being added to the site listing everyday. Swapshop also adds fun to the swapping community because there is a points system wherein members can use their points to avail of the items that they want.

Isn’t it great that in this world of internet and technology, barter is back? And the best of it all, it’s free and it’s fun.

Commonly referred to as Article Marketing and Bum Marketing, writing articles is a means of driving free traffic to your website in a relatively short period of time. Article marketing is a free website promotion technique through which the author writes short articles (typically between 300 and 1,000 words) relative to ones niche industry and then distributes it and makes the article freely available for publication to anyone that wants to use it. In order for a website to progressively rank higher in the search engines, it is imperative that webmasters add new, interesting and relative content to their website very frequently, otherwise, the website will grow stagnate and the search engines will slowly loose interest in what once was a highly ranked site. Article Marketing has filled this 'need for content' in a very effective way.

How does this help you, the writer?

When you write a good article you can post it on your website or you can submit it to publishers or submit them to Article Directories, the repositories that proliferate and serve as the go through for webmasters to actually read and pick your article up for use in their ezines or on their websites. By submitting your article to these sites, you give exposure to yourself, you ideas and to your website. At the end of each article there is a Bio box or Resource box which allows the author to list a little about themselves, their website and also place a link to your website. This link is your ace in the hole as readers will invariably click on your link to visit your site; thus, the free traffic you are seeking.

When a publisher or webmaster positions one of your articles on their website and with the use of the Resource box, this establishes a link back to your website. Search engines love a website with a large number of links coming from other websites (back links): it is one of the most beneficial means of increasing your website ranking in the search engines. So, the more articles you write and distribute to the various outlets on the Internet, the greater your chances are of increasing your website ranking in the search engines and driving free website traffic to your website.

There are a few rules the author needs to play by if they are to reap maximum rewards in the search engines. It is critical that you consider your niche and find out which keywords are in greatest demand when someone does a keyword search. For example, say your niche is horse shoeing and you determine that the most searched for keyword in your niche is Platinum Gold Horseshoes. Now that you have figured out that horses really are a fashionable lot, you would want to center your article context around that particular keyword phrase, Platinum Gold Horseshoes. It is recommended that you use the keyword or keyword phrase at least 3% of the time when writing the article. As an example, lets say you have written an article that has 400 words. Simply take 3 % of 400 which comes to 12 and that is the number of keywords or keyword phrases that would be ideal for for use in your article. This will optimize your article for search engines spiders.

Now let's examine the real benefits of article marketing. It is obvious to those that use this free website technique that writing articles is one of the best free website promotion methods you can use. Here are several major reasons you should incorporate Article marketing into your daily Internet marketing regimen.

1. You will reach more people and be able to share your ideas with more people too.
2. You will get free exposure and free advertising.
3. This will help you gain a higher search engine ranking.
4. Article Marketing is an effective way to increase your link popularity.
5. Provides new and relative content for your website as well as possible other websites as well.
6. Properly written articles will optimize your site for improved search engine ranking.
7. Writing good articles will establish your credibility through references and testimonials.
8. Article marketing will greatly enhance your reputation as an authority in you niche.
9. It will establish a good first Impression with your readers.
10. And last but not least, articles will grow virally on the Internet: thus, creating more free traffic for your website.

Article Marketing will not provide you with overnight success but it will rock your world in a pretty short period of time. It requires a dedication and persistence over time before you will begin to reap major rewards financially. But who knows, maybe your first article will be picked up by a major network with hundreds of sites: you will be off to the races. Good luck in your Article Writing endeavors. Taking the time to write interesting and pertinent articles for your niche with proper research will pay big dividends in the long run and maybe in the short run too.

About Author

Jimmy Oakley-Author-2007- Jimmy Oakley is an Internet Marketer that markets many of the most sought after Advance Email Marketing and Internet Marketing Courses online. Learn the right ways of marketing on the Internet at the most acceptable prices you will find! Visit Grand Slam Special Event now! Today you can learn his secret weapon to getting 1,645 quality, 1 way links to my brand new websites in less than a 2-4 weeks with very little effort. you'll be surprised when you visit the website and watch the demo video and read all of the user comments... Visit Directory Submitter today!



Source: ArticleTrader.com

There are actually a number of online forums where you can log on or register but forums that help participants earn are a magnet to many individuals. If you are interested in discussing about your favorite sports with other fans from other parts of the world and you have a google adsense account, you will find it a better option to participate in forums with google adsense sharing such as Qoo Forum. Qoo Forum gives its members the opportunity to earn from their personal adsense account by participating in this new online community. This is another innovation in paid online postings and discussion. Discussing your favorite topics will never be as enjoyable and profitable than before.

To all advertisers who need additional traffic to their sites and web site owners who want to have additional revenue, good news. There is another site offering pay per click services for advertisers and publishers. The site is ExoClick.com.

What I think about ExoClick.com
The site is actually very simple yet very enticing to both publishers and advertisers. This is because the site's invitational texts are precise and straight to the point. In fact, the site is so enticing I am planning to sign up as a publisher myself.

Service

I cannot yet evaluate the service provided by exoclick.com yet but according to information provided by the site, ExoClick.com.can provide you with detailed clicks statistics so you understand how well you performed in their PPC program. It also has features that are wanting in the google adsense program such as weekly payment through Paypal or Epassporte. Google adsense pays monthly and only when you reach $100 earnings.

I also think that ExoClick.com. has good support because it provides advertiser and publisher support in four languages namely English, Spanish, French and Polish.

For the advertisers, ExoClick.com claims to provide campaigns depending on category, keywords and even country chosen by the advertiser.

***

This is a sponsored post

I am considering the idea of buying custom domains for my blospot blogs. I am doing a research how and it seems that using blogspot instead of wordpress for a custom domain blog is a lot cheaper because you no longer have to pay for the hosting. I still need to verify this though.

The only problem is that, (sorry blogger), wordpress is far better than blogger but for someone like me who do not have the money but wants a custom domain, blogger hosting will do.

Is anybody using blogger in their custom domains? Help please...

I have noticed that spammers are sending more brilliant messages this day. I have scanned the spam messages that akismet filtered in one of my blogs and here are some of the funny and witty sounding comments that I received:

"Bush has turned 61. Congrats mister president! I hope you will do something positive!"
spammer's link

"How do you do…
Very good web forum, great work and thank you for your service."
spammer's link

spammer's related keyword
"I don’t agree with you in 100%, but you covered some good points regarding this topic"

"Hi all!
The Author, you - super hero!"
spammer's link

Hahahahaha!

What Is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimisation is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. ¹

Are You Hiding?
Many websites have great content but are simply hidden from the search engines, like anything in this world if you are hidden you will never be found.

The below article will show you numerous steps that are needed as a minimum to ensure that your website does not go unnoticed.

To achieve high rankings within a search engine requires patience and understanding about your target market.

The Steps?
The techniques I used are not new but hopefully provide a clear and precise path for you to follow.

1) Backup Existing Website

2) Create 3-4 articles based on the products / services your website targets, upload
these articles to article websites ensuring that you provide a link back to your website.

3) Visit Linkpopularity.com to work out total inbound links for Google, Yahoo and MSN

4) Understand and research competition to see the keywords they have used

5) Create unique title; each title should include your chosen keywords.

6) Include meta tags i.e.:
7) Create Overture / AdWords account and add all possible keywords to the account

8) Create a sitemap.html

9) Create Sitemap.xml and upload to Google Sitemaps (http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/)

10) Add webpage to 10-15 paid web directories (pick from http://info.vilesilencer.com/)

11) Add ALT keywords for all main images

12) Create text based links at bottom of page

13) Manual submission of website to directories and search engines

14) Created 404 html file for website

15) Add Google Verify meta tag to index.html

16) Add Google Analytics to ALL PAGES

17) Authenticate domain on Yahoo MY Sites

18) Created inbound links / anchor text

19) Place keywords on front page in BOLD text and/or H1 tags

20) Rename html files to include keywords i.e. support.html, consulting.html etc

Qoo Forum is a new online community that allows members to discuss topics and subjects of their interest. Registered users can participate in online discussions, send private messages to other members of the community and even upload contents. Qoo Forum operates very much like Mylot but the difference is that members can earn from the adsense earnings that their thread has generated. This might be a better option for adsense publishers to earn more most especially if a topic that has been posted has been very interesting and becomes a lengthy discussion.

Will Qoo Forum work?

There have been questions raised in the way other online forums have been paying their members. The concept of Qoo Forum to share revenue with their members through ad sharing (50% of the thread’s google adsense earnings) might be a more transparent way for members to understand their earnings.

The only problem with this is when there would be illegal clicking of ads by members which can result in the forum’s main google adsense account to be terminated. This can possibly lead to forum closure. Hopefully, however, members who register to participate and earn in Qoo forum will understand the implications of illegal clicking of ads.

I was surfing the web yesterday when I have chanced upon a site selling a $7 report on how bloggers and site owners can take advantage of Craiglist to increase their site traffic without spending money.

The Logic
Craiglist is among the most visited sites in the internet today. The site actually accommodates free classified ads for jobs, housing, services, etc. Thousands of site visitors find jobs, clients or products via craiglist.org. Posting your link in Craiglist, I believe, can indeed drive traffic to your site most especially if you make a post that is appealing enough for product and job hunters.

Unethical
Before you head on to utilize Craiglist to drive traffic to your site, however, it also pays to ponder on some points. First, it is quite unfair to post a job listing with the sole intention of leading job hunters to your site that has no employment opportunities at all. While looking for additional online jobs, I came upon several job postings in Craiglist saying "XXXX company is looking for a writer. Please see "XXXX.com" for details of employment" only for me to check every page of the website and realize there is actually no job vacancy.

Craiglist is not a directory. I hope that more bloggers will see the importance of keeping Craiglist safe from frauds and abuse.

My goal this week is to learn how to improve my site's traffic and how to increase my PR ranking in the next few months. I blog hopped and found several free useful tools that can increase my PR ranking.

Free directory submitter. Submitting your site in directories can increase back links. Going through manual submission, however, is a daunting task. Thanks to this free directory submitter, you can submit your site to over 100 directories for free and without sweat.

Free keyword selector. Good keywords can help bring more visitors to you site. The keywords that you use will be used by google and other search engines to index your site.

Free article submitter.Submitting articles with links to your blog can also increase your blog visibility. Submitting to article directories, however, is more time consuming than submitting your site's url to blog directories. You can, however, submit articles to article directories with much ease when you use a free article submitter.

I will add some more soon.

Well, obviously I am not using wordpress but since I am planning to switch to it in the near future, I found this article informative:

While Wordpress itself is a robust and complete blogging system, to really maximize the software and make money from Google Adsense you'll need to install and use a couple of Adsense "plugins".

Most of the plugins can be found by doing a search on Google, and installation is simple and straightforward. All you need to do is upload the plugin to your web host using an FTP, and activate the plugin inside your Wordpress administration area.

1) Adsense Deluxe Wordpress Plugin

The first and most important is a plugin called "Adsense Deluxe". While this plugin will help you to display Adsense ads on your blog, it also serves other purposes. You can use this plugin to insert Javascript, PHP and almost any other type of code into your blog posts.

The Adsense Deluxe plugin will allow you to insert Adsense ads into your blog posts by including a simple code like this:

You can create multiple ad formats in the plugin's settings page, and you can always change these later without having to modify the individual blog posts. This makes it easy to test different ad formats over time, and also to replace your Adsense codes with other ads if the need arises.

2) Adsense Injection Wordpress Plugin

Unlike the Adsense Deluxe plugin, the "Adsense Injection" plugin will insert Adsense codes automatically into every blog post, including older posts.

This is great if your blog already has a lot of existing content, and you don't want to insert codes manually into all of them. As the name suggests, when you use Adsense Injection you "inject" your Adsense codes automatically and randomly into all previous and future blog posts.

Thus, you will not have to worry about what's called "ad blindness" as your Adsense blocks will appear in different positions within your content. You can also randomize different ad formats and different alignments to make sure that no two pages have the exact Adsense codes on them.

Unlike the Adsense Deluxe plugin however, the Adsense Injection plugin cannot display other Javascript ads or PHP codes.

3) Adsense Beautifier Wordpress Plugin

The Adsense Beautifier plugin just makes your ads prettier. By adding an image on top or next to your Adsense codes automatically, the plugin can help you to achieve a higher CTR (click-through) and ultimately higher Adsense earnings.

The images are generic so you can use them with any type of content. You can also create and upload your own images to be used with the Adsense Beautifier plugin. If you do this however, make sure you check with the Adsense support team as you don't want to violate any of their terms of service.

Gobala Krishnan is the author of the best-selling "Wordpress Adsense System" and also a niche-blogging specialist. Discover how you too can master Wordpress as marketing weapon now at http://www.EasyWordpress.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

The blog is like a child you have to constantly take care of and not neglect. Once you neglect it, you might start to lose your online community or disappoint the people that normally read your site.

The 7 important things you need to have in your blog are:

1. Template & Design

Great template and design helps in website conversion rates. When customers see a beautiful and professional site, it creates a good first impression that site has in your customer, creating a small amount of trust. Thus purchasing your products wouldn't pose much of a problem with an external factor looking after you. Website conversion rate is the number of visitors who eventually become your customers.

2. SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimization. What it does is to make your sité "geared up" to get listed in search engine rankings and make it easier for your site to be found"geared up" for being listed into search engines and make it easier for your site to be found. When your site is up, compile all the keywords you require for that site and generate META html tags for your site so that people can find you easier. What you should do is to search for the various free META generator softwares online, follow their instructions and make your own META html for your site.

3. Categories

Organization is very important in a blog. Try not to make your visitors confused and do not know which way to go. Categorize your posts according to differnet subjects to ensure no confusion and that you placed those categories in an optimal position.

4. Content Publishing

Update your content regularly. Whenever you're facing a writer's block, seek inspiration from the latest news, the events you attended, and write about them. Every content counts!

5. Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is to bookmark your favorite sites and share them with the Internet community. The social bookmarking strategy that is very powerful traffic generation tool. Sign up for your own accounts at social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us and Technorati. Bookmark your sites on Del.icio.us and Technorati with appropriate tags and keywords, so that your blog can be easily found.

6. Comments Box

Make your site to be as interactive as possible by adding in a comments box after the end of every post. Let's say if your readers like what they've read, they can compliment you or comment on your article in the comments box. Make friends with some of the commentors, and try to build an online community just for your blog.

7. Tag and Ping

Tag and ping works by tagging your keywords and pinging them to social bookmarking sites to show that you have updated your blog. This is a great tool to use because it increases your backlinks to high ranking sites, making it easier for you to obtain more traffic.

These seven fundamentals are a must-have for blogs in order to attain high traffic generation and rankings. Many blogs in the future will also implement these features, so why not YOU get a headstart now?

Jo Han Mok is the author of the #1 international business bestseller, The E-Code. Unlock the code for unlimited online profits for yourself by visiting his website today at: http://www.SuperFastProfit.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

By Rudsree
The New Blogger has recently rolled out its latest feature - custom domain. With custom domain, you can have your own domain name like www. myblog.com and have your blog hosted with Blogger for free. You may also choose to host your blog with a third party web host or even on your own, but you will have to grapple with various issues like the hassle of publishing your posts via FTP (File Transfer Protocol). A big disadvantage of hosting on your own is that many of the new features of the New Blogger like drag-and-drop Layout, Label List, etc., will not be available to you as you will have to use the old classic Blogger template.
Others who don't use custom domain will have to live with sub-domain like www.blogging-basic.blogspot.com. Some don't like it because they say the sub-domain does not belong to them, but to Blogger. In addition, some are of the opinion that sub-domain are command less respect from surfers, rather like using a home as an office.Just read this interesting news that you can have your own custom domain, still use the Blogger platform and not need to get someone to host the blog because Blogger will host it for you for free! And you need not bother with FTP (File Transfer Protocol)! You don't even have to find someone to host your blog and pay for the monthly/yearly hosting fees! This is indeed good news for blogger who want their own domain like www.xxxxx.com instead of a sub-domain www.xxxxx.blogspot.com. See How do I use a custom domain name on my blog?. This is only for those who are using the New Blogger (formerly Blogger Beta), not for those still using the old (classic) Blogger.Why own domainFirst, why some people want their own domain like www.myblog.com instead of www.myblog.blogspot.com. People have compared using blogspot for their blog to having a free Yahoo! or Google email address. They say having an email address likemyname@mysite.com
command more respect than having an email address like myname@gmail.com. For me, I may quote the difference between having your business office at a proper office address rather than your own home.
Also, you have more control over your site. You own the site, not Blogger. Blogger can't take the site away from you. However, to be fair to Blogger, Blogger doesn't take away your blog (even blogs which have been neglected by the creators with no post or no update for umpteen years, much to the chagrin of those who wants those particular URL), except for what they identify as spamblogs.
How It is pretty simple. The first step is to register a domain (.com, .net, .org, .us, .co.uk, etc). A place which has gained a reputation for cheap domain registration is godaddy.com. There are many others.The next step is create a CNAME record for your domain with the DNS (Domain Name System) with the registrar. (I will explain what DNS is all about below so it does not interfere with the flow of the instructions here) The instruction on how to do it you can get from the registrar. For example, if you register the domain with godaddy, the instructions are given here: Creating Your CNAME Record: GoDaddy.com. For your convenience, I reproduce here the instruction so you have an idea of what is involved so that you can see it is not something very complicated:

Rudsree is the owner of Add Url Free and Make money blogging Add Url is free link directory for SEO where you can add URL free to your homepage.

There is one hard and fast rule in generating income for your website: A steady flow of website traffic. If no one goes to your site, it hardly bares a chance of generating an income. Many sites have tried and failed in doing so, and these results to the sites demise. It takes money to maintain an income generating site; it also takes money to make money.

BUT, it doesn’t take a whole caboodle of cash to generate website traffic for your site.

Ever wonder how does big hit sites drive traffic top their site? Most of them are spending tons of money to drive the traffic to their sites, investing in many advertising campaigns and different forms of marketing schemes and gimmickries. This is all worthwhile because, well, they are what they are now, high earning, big hitting websites.

You don’t have to do this if you don’t really have their resources. There are many ways to generate low cost website traffic without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford. Many people have banked on high cost methods and have ended up losing their shirt over it.

Here I present to you the Top five ways to generate low cost website traffic that could help your site a whole lot. Even if you only get a small percentage of successful visitors in to client ratio it still works especially if you get a high number of website traffic.

Exchange Links

This is a sure and proven method. Rarely would you see a site where there is no link to another site. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. You’ll soon see and feel the sudden upsurge of the traffic coming in to your site from other sites.

A major prerequisite in exchanging links with other sites is having the same niche or content as the other site. They should share a common subject so that there is continuity in the providing of service and information to what interests your target traffic.

Exchanging links also boosts your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more traffic in your website without the high costs.

Traffic Exchange

This is like exchanging links but on a different higher level. This may cost a bit more than exchanging or trading links but could be made cheaper because you get to earn credits. You can use those credits when viewing others traffic, while you earn credits when someone views yours.

Traffic exchange services are the viewing of another’s site or page. This is done vice versa where a site can use your sites contents and so can you to his or her site. You both benefit from each others efforts to generate traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. Once again the public awareness of your sites existence is boosted.

Write and Submit Articles

There are many e-zines and online encyclopedias in the internet which provides free space for articles to be submitted. If you want to save costs, you can do the articles yourself. There are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee, but to save money, it is wise to do those articles yourself.

Write articles that are themed along with the niche of your site. Write something that you have expertise on so that when they read it, they can feel your knowledge about the subject and will be eager to go to your site. Write articles that produce tips and guidelines to the subject or niche your site has.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that can link them to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your site for more.

Make a Newsletter.

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a newsletter but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many writers and sites that are willing to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in on your newsletter. This will also provide free advertising for them as well.

As your newsletter gets pass around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list that can regularly visit your site.

Join Online Communities and Forums

This only requires your time and nothing else. You can share your knowledge and expertise with many online communities as well as your website. You can get free advertising when you go to forums that have the same subject or niche with your site.

Share your two cents and let them see how knowledgeable you are with the subject. As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site, making it a reputable and honest business that could be frequented and trusted by many people.

This article is provided by Free Articles

Source: ArticleTrader.com

Your favorite thing about having a blog may soon be this - they naturally attract search engine traffic.

Blogs already have optimized site architecture. Most are set up with a clear navigation, where every page is set up to link back to the other main pages.

They also have the inherent potential to be well-linked.

If you haven’t already submitted to blog directories, you are missing out on some great one-way links. Many of the top directories can be found on Robin Good’s Top 55 list at MasterNewMedia.org.

But before you head over there and start submitting, you should know a little about how to optimize your blog. Then your new listings can help your site get the best keyword placement in the major search engines.

These are my top five tips for lucrative blog search engine optimization.

Lucrative Blog SEO Tip #1: Lucrative Keyword Choices

You have a choice. You can target a general high traffic keyword you have little chance of ranking well for and get barely any traffic.

Or you can shoot for a keyword that gets a moderate level of targeted traffic resulting in more subscribers and sales. I like to call this a “lucrative keyword”.

Whatever you call them, here’s the most important thing: They may not get you the most traffic, but they often bring the most profit.

You may be surprised to learn that there isn’t always a correlation between high traffic and high sales. Many of the most profitable sites in the world get moderate traffic because their lucrative keywords result in a much higher ratio of visitors to buyers.

A recent article in Information Week stated that the highest conversion rates from search engine traffic comes from people who do four word queries.

The great thing about your blog is that it can get so well-indexed that you have the potential to show up for any number of four word phrases that are relevant to your industry.

It isn’t just the four word phrases that get converting traffic - there are two and three word phrases that can bring you traffic and sales.

Targeting your blog discussion to a two or three word phrase that has a high yield of traffic, and yet has little competition, is not a dream of past Internet days. Another recent study revealed that surprisingly high percentages of search engine queries debuted as late as 2004.

As long as there are new developments, new products, services and trends, you’ll never have a shortage of these terms if you learn how to discover them.

Lucrative Blog SEO Tip #2: Keyword Placement

Your blog can be set up to repeat the keywords that you want to target just enough times to establish a theme.

You can take full advantage of this in your post titles, your category names, the pages URL names, or even a combination of Technorati tags and the text of your permanent links that appear after each post.

Lucrative Blog SEO Tip #3: Timely Posting

Instead of pinging at 15 minute intervals when your site hasn’t been updated, or even pinging after every single post, you can actually get better results if you update or ping just once during one of three sweet spots in the day. Here’s one that you can use today.

Check your web site statistics. If you’re getting spidered every two weeks or even monthly, you can increase your number of spider visits by blogging on the anniversary of the period that the spider comes to your site. It takes a bit of monitoring, but you can often predict when the date of your last spider visit was.

An even faster way is to ping at a time when the spider is reading a page that carries your update. (This is a little harder to explain, as I’ve mentioned, but I have a resource that explains this process in-depth at my site.)

Lucrative Blog SEO Tip #4: Get Linked

Turn on your site feed(s) and use them to promote your blog. Robin Good’s guide can get you some great one way links.

If you sparingly include the lucrative keyword you selected in tip two in your title and description, all those link backs will contain the keyword term you most want attention for, which is often noted by the spiders as they follow the link through to your site.

Once there, if you use these and other tips to skew your blog a little more to the search-engine-friendly side, the synergistic effect is better, more profitable traffic.

Lucrative Blog SEO Tip #4: Frequent Updates

The more you post, the more food for the spider, which can cause the spider to react by splitting up its job into several visits, whereupon you have even more content, and so on, until the spider just adds you to a more frequent schedule of returns.

For example, my main site gets spidered several times daily by Google, and yet I can go a week without an update with no change in spider visits. This means my pages get indexed more often and my new pages show up faster.

Think of what that could do for the launch of your next product.

You’ll be happy to know that you don’t have to slave over long blog posts several times a day, all day long to get similar results from your blog. In fact, some blog software will let you set up your posts in advance, so that you can have posts show up daily even though you technically only blog once a month.

Bottom line: A few small changes to your blog can draw more search engine traffic without turning off your blog visitors. Done properly, this gives your audience more of what they were searching for in the first place.

About Author

Tinu is a web site promotion specialist and the author of several books on search engines, blogging, and RSS. You can read more tips in her blog at http://www.FreeTrafficTip.com.

Source: ArticleTrader.com