Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, create a blog, learn to blog, make a blog

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Wordpress plugins can make your blog more user friendly. You’ll find everything you need to turn your blog into something that is every bit as great as you would have imagined. There are a lot of blog plugins out there are that are good to use, the five that are listed here are at the top of the list.

Akismet

This plugin actually comes standard with your Wordpress installation. You will have to get a Wordpress.com API key to activate it, but after that it’s really simple. It virtually eliminates spam commenting! Akismet is an intelligent plugin that will move suspected spam into a separate folder and will learn from you as you go. Always activate this plugin to achieve the best results out of your blog. It is a time saver also!

Related Posts

Linking to different pages in your blog from every page is a great search engine optimization tactic. One of the downsides of blogs is that it is difficult to go digging through old posts to find ones that are related posts to link to your new post. That problem is solved with Related posts! It automatically will insert a few relevant posts for your blog. It is very effective and hands off. Both search engines and vistors love this plugin.

All in One SEO Pack

Once again, optimizing your site for the search engines is going to be one of the best ways you can make money with your blog. The higher rankings you achieve, the more traffic your blog recieves. The more traffic your site recieves the greater the level of income generated! The All In One SEO pack will make things easier because with it you can specify tite, description and keywords.

Wordpress Database Backup

Backing up your blog is crucial if you value your business. You need to be prepared as you don’t know what could happen to your server and you could lose all your data. You can very easily back up everything with this plugin.

Top Commentators

This plugin is really cool and it encourages a lot of interaction on your blog. It lists the people who have the most comments within your blog. People who comment on your blog really like this because they gain extra exposure. You are happy about it because people have a natural desire to be at the top. It also provides social proof. First time visitors to your blog will be more likely to stay awhile if they see other people valueing the sites content. It is a good thing for your blog that they see other people participating.

There are an incredible number of different plugins out there that are ready for you to use. Using these essential blog plugins will get you off to a great start to becoming a great blogger.

For more blogging tips and information on how to make money with your blog check out http://www.profit-from-blogging.com

Technorati Tags: Blog Plugins, blogging

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Blogging in Action is the package that gets us the most excited. It’s rare you find a book that’s ‘not too hot, not too cold, but juuuust right.’ The author, Shaun Taylor, has certainly outdone himself — but what you really care about is how the book and resource can help you, so let’s get to it!

The thing you notice first when you start reading the ebook is that is it tips the scale at 258 pages! That is absolutely unheard of in the ebook publishing world. There could be some people who may be concerned that it will be too much information in too small a space, but the organization of the material makes it a non-issue.

Shaun staets out by outlining his expectations and goals for the ebook. He wants it to be up to date and current, covers many dfferent topics, appeal to readers of different levels of experience, breakdown concepts into actionable items, and create a clear roadmap for anyone who desires to be a successful blogger. He achieved his goal.

As much as we like to give impartial reviews and tell you about the good and the bad — it’s really hard in this case. Even with a critcal viewpoint, there isn’t anything that screams out to be changed here. There are times we thought, “wait a sec, he should have…oh, he did!”

For those who are concerned about having to dig through a pile of information they already know or aren’t interested in, Shaun takes a unique approach to solving that problem. Not only does the ebook include a regular table of contents, there are also ‘tags’ that indicate when you should read something. For example, if he includes non-essential information he marks it with a tag! It is a clever and effective addition especially for those who haven’t much time to read.

Everything that is covered in this ebook is explained so that anyone can grasp the concepts. The different sections in Blogging in Action generally start out with an overview of that particular section, but then they quickly move into action steps. This is fantastic, because you can’t become a successful blogger just by reading, you need to actually do something with the material. If this book doesn’t convince you to do that, nothing will!

The table of contents for things you’ll learn is too large to list, but here are some of our favorites:

• Choosing a platform
• What is a blog?
• Configuring your blog for readers and search engines
• Backing up your blog
• What is a niche?
• How to do keyword research (comes with a tool!)
• Building your brand
• Creating compelling content
• Mistakes to avoid (this goes against what is taught in our least favorite blogging book)
• Which directories to submit to
• Article marketing
• Finding .edu and .gov links!
• Using social networking sites and strategy
• Monetization strategies
• Quick start videos for every step of the way

Clearly, Blogging in Action is the definitive guide for anyone who wants to get started with blogging. The book itself is well designed and edited, and was created for readers at any level. This is the ebook to get if you want to get an ebook on how to blog and make money doing it.

Technorati Tags: Blogging in Action, make money blogging, Making Money With Your Blog

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For those who are hoping to make money blogging and are busy developing the web content to be featured on the blog, one of the most important things to keep in mind is simplicity in website development. Today, more and more internet visitors want to find good quality and dynamic web content that provides the information they are looking for, while keeping them engaged.

Dynamic content has proven to be one of the most important elements in not only attracting targeted traffic to a website, but also in bringing them back to the site again and again. Webmasters across the board agree that it is much better to provide the things that web visitors seek so that they come back rather than constantly trying to attract new traffic. It is much easier to make money blogging when your blog attracts repeat visitors as most experts agree a site visitor often needs to see your message around seven times before they will buy a product.

At the same time that dynamic web content is very important to the visitors to a site, it is also fundamental to attracting the search engines and gaining a favorable placement in the search engine ranking pages, often called SERPs. These days, all of the search engines give a lot of weight to fresh content that is kept updated and to user-generated content, in addition to relevant information about the keyword used for the search.

Because of these factors, having dynamic content throughout a site can weigh heavily in favor of a site that is diligently trying to make the most of search engine marketing. Good SEO (search engine optimization), together with great web content that is updated regularly, is a powerful combination that can improve your potential to make money blogging dramatically.

Ranking high in the search engines for specific keywords that are directly related to the topic and purpose of a website is an essential internet marketing strategy and one of the easiest ways to assure a regular stream of visitors, without having to go to the cost of advertising your site. At the same time, once visitors arrive at a site that is filled with dynamic content that provides the kind of information they are seeking, they are more likely to bookmark the site, subscribe to your rss feed, or subscribe to your email auto responders that promises additional free web information on the topic of your blog.

One of the easiest methods of generating dynamic content that visitors enjoy and benefit from and that the search engines are attracted to is to provide a way for visitors to interact and add to the content. Allowing your blog visitors to leave comments about your posts will encourage open discussion and debate between your visitors. This encourages them to return to check other comments plus the search engines love the fact that your posts are forever changing and growing with fresh dynamic web content.

The blogging platforms, like WordPress, can function as a very effective web content management system and blogs have all the tools and controls that support sites that offer dynamic web content. WordPress has become a popular platform because the software is simple to set up and manage from a simple control panel. Blogging software has made website development simple, fast and easy, allowing even a novice webmaster to make money blogging.

Technorati Tags: dynamic web content, make money blogging

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Full time professional blogger Darren Rowse from Problogger.net has almost 400,000 visitors per day! Hong Kiat from hongkiat.com and John Chow from JohnChow.com has nearly 200,000 visitors per day! How do these professional bloggers do it? You won’t believe me if I told you how they get their traffic!

The secret behind blog traffic…

Just sit tight and be prepared, what I am going to tell you is huge, if you take this lightly, I guarantee you will fail! Without this step, you are just another blogger, no more no less.

Secret #1 - Participate in bloggers’ community and build relationship with them.
You need to make friends with a lot of bloggers to e successful, each of them including yourself will be other’s “salesman” to promote their blogs! When I tell you those professional bloggers are sharing the **SAME** traffic, don’t be surprise, this is very true. You help other peoples to promote their blog, and they will return the favor to you too.

Secret #2 - You need to jump start your traffic, at least 100 unique visitors per day!
Don’t think for a moment you can have 200,000 visitors in few months time, it takes at least 2 years to build that amount of traffic, I mean from scratch…After first blog succeed, you can start multiple blogs and build your traffic a lot faster with your first blog’s resources - Your communities’ help and experience from your fist blog.

Build up your basic traffic with consistent quality post, the very basic traffic will come from Strategy To Increase Blog Traffic:

1. Forum
2. Articles
3. Blog directories
4. Bookmarking sites
5. And many more…

Secret #3 - Create Good Content.
You must put a lot of effort and passion into your blog, when your reader feels your passion, they will follow you from the start of your blog! This is very important for your blog traffic to grow, do it CONSISTENTLY!

Secret #4 - Just Do It Until You see Results!
You won’t see result for the first few months, and if you don’t give up doing it, you will see some great result after 3 months! Your blog traffic will jump fast! Next, you need to create the momentum for your blog traffic, you won’t see immediate result, but as you roll the snow ball more, the effect will became larger and larger…

Just be patient, you can make money from a blog very soon, just do it and IMPROVE what you are doing from experience, as long as you see a bit of progress, don’t give up… We all will be there for you!

Technorati Tags: Blog Traffic Secrets, Traffic Secrets

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In the earlier article in this series, I discussed what blog carnivals are and why all new bloggers should be participating in them. In the event that you missed that post, let me review briefly the benefits of participating in blog carnivals:

• They increase your authority
• You immediately gain profitable, regular subscribers of your partner blogs
• You get a quick boost of traffic to blog entries
• You get a longer term increase in search result rankings

What I want to cover in this post is how you can get the most benefit out of your carnival participation. Let’s be real, carnivals require effort and time, so you should get as much good will and benefit from them as you can. Here’s how you can do just that:

1) Contribute your articles early. There will be a call for entries deadline, but it’s likely that the host already has a good idea about how the post will be structured before the deadline, so you want your article submitted during this formative stage.

2) Make the host’s job easier: Learn how to create blog article titles that are compelling, and come up with two or three powerful, compelling headings that can be used for the anchor text in links. Good titles are difficult to craft, so create them on your own. You’ll save the host the effort and get more traffic from a more powerful headline.

3) Follow the submission guidelines.

4) Get organized: Organize the information you submit. Include your name, e-mail address, blog name, article title, post summary, several sample headings, permalink, and trackback URL. Place this information in an e-mail above the full article itself, unless told to do otherwise.

5) Promote: Once submitted, make sure to advertise the event. What goes around comes around, and your aggregate efforts to generate traffic will payoff for everyone in the long run. That’s the point of these carnivals: all participants are sharing subscribers, giving each the opportunity to attract the others’ regular subscribers.

6) Make sure you can handle your visitors: Prepare your blog for any traffic spikes that might occur, and optimize the page that the carnival readers will be viewing. You’ll want to aim the offers or ads to your audience, provide a very visible subscribe link, and follow-up with at least a week’s worth of strong articles to capitalize on any repeat traffic you might have.

Blog carnivals are an excellent way to bring qualified, relevant, profitable, long-term readers. Use them correctly and you’ll reap the rewards. But you must be ready to put your best foot forward. Pick up a good blogs how to if you have any doubts on how you can prepare your blog for this kind of traffic.

Good luck!

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs how to, how to blog, how to create blog, promote blog, traffic to blog

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Let me start by saying I’m a big fan of blog carnivals. They’re not without their disadvantages, of course, but the benefits completely outweigh the amount of effort and time that you put into them.

That’s why it confounds me that blog carnivals aren’t more widely used. Yes, the first couple times that you participate in them, it will take you some extra time to learn how things work. And new carnival networks can sometimes be more unreliable than you would like. But get hooked up with a reliable group of bloggers in your market, and carnivals are excellent ways to:

• Increase your authority
• Quickly gain regular, profitable subscribers of your partner blogs
• Get a quick boost of traffic to blog entries
• Get a longer term gain in search result rankings

Carnivals: What are They?

A blog carnival is an online event consisting of a group of bloggers writing about a predefined topic. The articles created (or linked to) during a carnival frequently end up looking like a magazine. The carnival has a title, theme, writers, editors, and consumers. Most carnivals are held regularly with rotating hosts.

A carnival usually has an owner, who is the organizer of the overall carnival, collaborating or deciding on converns like rules, frequency, how to blog in the carnival, editorial guidelines, and such. The owner also acts as the coordinator, determining the hosting schedule for the carnival.

Every carnival has a specific host, and the host’s blog is where all the blog posts for that particular carnival are located. In response to the call for submissions, each blogger involved in the carnival submits their post to the host, where it is reviewed, edited, and published in the wild as one giant post (link bait) or a series of smaller posts. Obviously, you had better know how to create blog posts that are effective and compelling to get the maximum benefit.

Carnivals usually draw loads of qualified traffic, so bloggers participating in the carnival get a powerful one-way link from the host and the immediate traffic boost associated with the initial readers. The carnival host gets links from each of the contributing bloggers who have partnered together to publicize the carnival, knowing that the better the carnival is, the more powerful the links will be when it comes time for their turn to host.

Now that you know what a carnival is, we’ll discuss how you can get the most out of your carnival participation . . . in our next post!

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs how to, how to blog, how to create blog, promote blog, traffic to blog

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I can’t think of a more common concern or question among both novice and veteran bloggers alike: what blog platform should I choose? Aside from learning how to blog, it’s an almost universal concern.

And there is no one-size-fits-all answer. All bloggers NEED to own their URLs, but choice of the platform is mainly dependent on the indivudal blogger’s needs. With that stated, I’ve compiled a list of disadvantages and advantages of the two main platform options below.

Hosted Platforms

Hosted platforms refer to services whereby a service provider gives you access to their hardware, network connection, and software, and you create a blogging account to use on their service. With a hosted blog, you have access to a control panel for your blog, and nothing else.

Typical hosted platforms include solutions like LiveJournal, Blogger, and Typepad.

Advantages of Hosted Platforms

• Economical: many are free; others (like TypePad) are offered with multiple price points
• Easy to get started: just create an account and then quickly  learn how to create blog posts
• Automatic updates: you don’t have to worry about keeping hosted software patched and updated.

Disadvantages of Hosted Platforms

• Inflexible: there are fewer cusotmization choices with hosted platforms.
• Fewer design options: you usually only get to select from a limited number of mediocre designs, and you often can’t make improvements to them
• Generic URL: some hosted platforms don’t have the choice to use your own URL
• Lack of control: you are at the mercy of the platform
• Migration issues: moving from some free hosted platforms results in a lot of effort and often the temporary loss of search engine rankings

Self-hosted Platforms

Self-hosted platforms consist of your own web hosting account with a host, and the blogging software you install on the data center’s server. With a self-hosted blog, you have access to an administrative panel for your blog, but you also have access to a server account and the blog software where you can do almost anything.

Common self-hosted software includes Movable Type, Joomla, and WordPress.

Advantages of Self-hosted Platforms

• Design flexibility: you have full control over design and layout
• Great software: the best software is available on self-hosted platforms
• Custom URL: custom URL’s are ubiquitous on self-hosted platforms
• Adaptability: your blog can change as your needs change
• Easy migration: should you ever want or need to move to another platform or another server, migrating is a snap

Disadvantages of Self-hosted Platforms

• Difficult setup: setup can sometimes be difficult, but this can be overcome with a good blogs how to
• Cost: while the blogging software is free, the hosting platform will cost you money
• Hosting issues: unless you choose a good host, you might have to suffer from down-time or poor support
• Upgrades: you will need to keep your software patched

The majority of my blogs are self-hosted, and that’s what I generally recommend to anyone looking to create a professional blog. There are too many benefits to ignore, and you usually have the option to host many blogs and domains on one account, driving the cost per blog down to a negligible amount.

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs how to, how to blog, how to create blog, platforms

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