._/\_., originally uploaded by anto-XIII.

Using photos from flickr.com on your blog can make your writing come to life and provide your readers an exceptional experience. The photo above taken from the seat of a motorcycle, heading for the Eifel Tower, is just an outstanding photo. It makes you wish you were there. The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words really is true.

To get started, you’ll need to go to flickr.com and sign up for a free account. There are paid accounts with a small yearly fee of $24.95 which will allow you to upload your pictures for distribution.

Once you have signed up with flickr, you will find that there are over 139,726,734 photographs available for your use in the area called the Creative Commons.

These photographs have been given the CreativeCommons.org license which gives you permission to use these photos with a few restrictions. You receive worldwide, royalty free, permission to use the photographs indefinitely.

There are restrictions to the way you can use the photos that are reasonable and that you must agree to.

Here are the rules you must follow:

1. You must attribute the photograph to the owner in the manner that the owner sets on the photograph. You can find that information on the bottom right hand side of the page that the individual photo is on. Basically you use their name and title of the photo.

2. You can’t use the photos for monetary gain. For example, you can’t download the photos and make calendars out of them to sell.

3. You may not collect any royalties on the photos.

4. You may not distort the photo in anyway. So Photoshop editing is not allowed.

5. You must include the URI for the license with every copy of the work you distribute. This is the copy of the license so that you can read the license in it’s entirety: Creative Commons License.

In your search for the right photograph for your story, you can see the most popular image topics that people have been posting in the past 24 hours, 7 days and since the beginning of flickr.

There is also a service called “Blog This” where you can find a photo and just click on blog this. Type your story directly on the same page that the photo is and push a button and it will post it to your blog. You’ll need to register your blog with them so that logging in to your site and posting can be done quickly and easily. The photo will be inserted into your post like the photo in this story was inserted.

Make your blogging more interesting by adding photographs from all over the world. You’ll learn what type of camera took each photograph and you’ll be adding a little BAZINGA to your story.

Timothy Ferriss

1. If you use the Category widget on your blog, change the name of the header to “Topics.” This dramatically changed the click through rate. It’s easy to do in WordPress 2.8. When adding that widget, just put the name you want in the form. Tim reports better responses with the title – Topics.

2. Sometimes an older post doesn’t have as much appeal as newer ones do. To fix this problem, you can display the dates on the bottom of your posts. To get this done, you need to change some coding on a file in your theme. You will have to look at the index.php file in the theme you have and find:

[php]<span class="time"><?php the_time(‘F j, Y’); ?></span>[/php]

You’ll need to comment that out by replacing that with:

[php]<!–<span class="time"><?php the_time(‘F j, Y’); ?></span>–>[/php]

Then you need to find this:

[php]<div class="date">
<div class="dateleft">
<p><span class="time"><?php the_time(‘F j, Y’); ?></span>
</div>
</div></blockquote>[/php]

and cut that (that means copy it and delete it) and paste it after:

[php]<?php the_content(__(‘Read more’));?><div style="clear:both;"></div>[/php]

Save that file and upload it to see the changes. If doing that scares you, ask someone to do it for you.

3. List the total read time for your reader. 250 words = about one minute. This helps prepare your reader for what you have written.

4. Write about what makes you angry without being negative about anyone in particular.

5. Write your post and then do SEO research after. Then make your keyword insertions or changes.

6. StumbleUpon is one of the cheapest sources of traffic there is. One post that ranks well can bring 40,000 to 50,000 page views.

7. Flickr has a section of photographs that you can blog about by going to the advanced search and then choosing Creative Commons, then most interesting. You can actually blog about a photo right from Flickr.

These are just some suggestions to make your blog better. Tim Ferriss has some great blogging tips!

On the internet keywords are basically what words the user types into the search engines to find what they are looking for. Keywords can be fun to research. This data is relevant to bloggers because it helps them know what to write about and what people are interested in.

Where do I find keyword tools?

There are a lot of tools on the internet that research the number of times keywords are searched for. One of those keyword tools is provided by a company called Wordtracker. Wordtracker has recently come out with a beta version keyword tool that will tell you what questions people are asking based on the keywords you enter. This keyword tool is very handy and a lot of bloggers will enjoy using it.

How many results for keyword searches are considered popular?

When you begin your keyword research, you’ll see that many questions get less than 100 searches. To be included in this list of 100 popular internet questions, I chose the majority of questions that had been asked over 400 times.

What keywords are people using in the questions they ask?

Being a curious person, I spent some time this morning researching keywords used in questions on a variety of different topics and chose to list 100 of the top ranked questions that people are asking. The number that you see represents the number of times that question was asked over the past 140 days.  You may be able to use these statistics to write your own blogging posts.  Spend some time using this keyword tool to help you with ideas of topics to write about.

100 Popular Questions Asked on the Internet 

 

Number	Keyword Questions	Times Asked
1	how much does beyonce weigh	2,650
2	who invented the computer	2,287
3	show aaliyah when she died	1,955
4	who invented football	1,834
5	doctor who	1,689
6	who invented the television	1,596
7	who invented velcro	1,577
8	who created the internet	1,522
9	what nationality is barack obama	1,483
10	how much does britney spears weigh	1,435
11	who invented the internet	1,403
12	who invented basketball	1,320
13	who invented soccer	1,175
14	who invented the telephone	1,164
15	who invented the car	1,162
16	how much does jennifer aniston weigh	1,135
17	who invented the ipod	1,103
18	who invented the radio	1,098
19	who invented the tv	1,070
20	who invented baseball	1,043
21	what does red pubic hair look like	985
22	how much should i weigh	956
23	what is the precursor of the internet	945
24	in what year was the first computer invented	937
25	what is love	917
26	how many gold medals did the u.s. women win in the olympics	884
27	why did the pilgrims come to america	875
28	how much does kelly ripa weigh	838
29	who invented the mp3 player	831
30	what does wii stand for	793
31	what does meerkat mean in south african language	788
32	how to draw cars	784
33	how to make paper guns	779
34	what is the definition of news media	771
35	where was barack obama born	770
36	who invented american football	706
37	who invented the cell phone	701
38	how much will the nintendo wii cost	700
39	scorpio behavior when in love	679
40	the black eyed peas where is the love	668
41	black eyed peas ft justin timberlake where is the love	668
42	who invented legos	662
43	who invented the snickers candy bar	659
44	who invented hip hop	656
45	who invented the world wide web	638
46	how many people die from cancer each year	636
47	where can i watch movies absolutely free	632
48	how to make a fish costume	631
49	what type of government does china have	612
50	who invented electricity	611
51	who invented video games	610
52	what causes cancer	604
53	when was the first television made	586
54	why are gas prices so high	578
55	when was the first mobile phone invented	574
56	when is high school musical 3 coming out	573
57	who invented the microwave	572
58	what type of government does canada have	568
59	how many people in the world have cancer	558
60	who invented the cd player	554
61	how much does jessica simpson weigh	547
62	what is computer software	538
63	why is education important	536
64	when does a scorpio say i love you	532
65	when were m&m’s invented	530
66	how many people died at pearl harbor	529
67	what is the best love match for sagittarius	527
68	how can win the heart of a aries man	519
69	who invented medicine	518
70	what time is it	516
71	who invented sign language	511
72	who invented the zipper	493
73	why is education so important	493
74	how much does mary kate olsen weigh	493
75	what is the food web of the grey wolf	483
76	how much money do you have to make to file taxes	481
77	how to get a capricorn man to fall in love	473
78	what kind of government does canada have	471
79	who invented the light bulb	467
80	who invented google	467
81	what does html stand for	459
82	who invented the airplane	448
83	why people love cars	443
84	why people love cars	443
85	what to say to someone who has cancer	441
86	who invented fireworks	439
87	who created the world wide web	431
88	who is the vice president	428
89	what are the most exciting jobs in the world	420
90	what type of government does france have	417
91	who invented the game of baseball	412
92	millionaires who give money to help	410
93	why is government important	408
94	where did our love go the supremes	407
95	who invented volleyball	403
96	how do you get a scorpio to fall in love with you	401
97	how to write a business plan	322
98	how much water should a person drink a day	316
99	how can i get money to start my own business	265
100	how to start a cell phone business	226

 

Using popular keywords in your writing will help you attract readers to your blog.  Be sure to use keywords that are meaningful to your readers and that provide answers to their questions.

What keyword tools do you use and why do you like them?

Sure, you can get readers to your blog when you have already established some notoriety for yourself, such as writing a best selling book like “The 4 hour Work Week” by Tim Ferris.  Maybe you have somehow gotten masses of people to a website through some special offer like Zac Johnson did. Or you could be a popular blogger like John Chow who now has such wildly successful friends that they sit around discussing how they can’t live on $10,000 a month income anymore.

The question is, how do you get people to read your blog when you are first starting out and you don’t have these incredible stories to tell people?

Well, the answer is given to us by Denise Wakerman, co-founder of “The Blog Squad.” She has been assisting professionals and small businesses to use marketing strategies on the internet to improve their businesses.

Here are her 23 best tips to get more traffic to your blog

1. Post nearly every day  on your blog; the more you post, the more readers you’ll have.
2. If you have more than one blog and it’s appropriate, cross post to drive readers to each blog
3. Write and submit articles to directories with links to the appropriate blog
4. Write and post news releases online, about onece a week, with links back to the appropriate blog
5. Provide links to blogs in email signatures
6. Comment on other blogs
7. Write posts with links to other blogs and mention the blogger’s name (if they’re watching Google Alerts then they know you’ve posted about them and will usually visit your blog)
8. Thank people who post comments via email
9. Put links to your blog in product than-you emails
10. Put links to your blog on than you pages people see when they purchase your product and services
11. Encourage people to subscribe to your blog in follow up email autoresponder messages
12. Put blog links on LinkedIn profile, MySpace profile, Facebook profile and Twitter
13. Put links to your blog in your ebooks
14. Put links to your blog in your bios
15. Tell people about your blog when you do presentations
16. Encourage people to visit your blog when they sign up for your ezine so they can get even more free info
17. Put a featured blog post with a link in your weekly ezine
18. Pull blog feeds into your Facebook profile and other social networks
19. Include blog links in signature blocks on forum posts
20. Submit your blog to all the blog directories and search engines
21. when appropriate, direct people to specific blog posts to answer their questions in discussion forums
22. If you post videos on video sharing sites, include the URL for you blog in the description
23. Most importantly, write informative content using keywords that will be picked up in organic searches

When planning strategies to get more traffic to your blog, be sure to make a committment to yourself to post as frequently as possible and to provide your readers with some fresh new ideas. They’ll be glad you did.

Next post: Getting People to Comment on Your Blog Posts

Find and fill a unique need in a way that no other web site does. You’ll then be able to build a lasting readership among web surfers. Once you have discovered a niche, you will still have a lot to do, but finding your place in the constantly evolving blog world is the place to begin. It can be tough to distinguish your blogging web site from all of the others.

Every great blogging web site starts with a great idea, and you can’t build a successful site that will last without one. There are many great sites aimed at today’s bloggers, and competition for the attention of this growing demographic is fierce.

To make your blogging web site unique, you will need to offer something that no other site is currently offering….. or you will need to do the same thing that an already popular site does, but in a more relevant way.

One way to discover an ideal model for your blogging web site is to look at the sites that have successfully captured a blogging audience already.

Then determine how you can adapt some of these existing strategies.

You will also need to add a unique selling position to your project in order to stand apart from your competition.

The most successful websites that consistently do the best in today’s market are the sites that have the “personal touch”. The fiercely individual surfers who are bloggers are a demographic that responds best to personality, so consider how you can give your site a unique and attractive feeling by lending your own voice and sensibility to your site’s design and content.

Once you have a great idea for your site, have pinpointed a special niche that you are well equipped to fill, and have infused the site with personality, the next step is figuring out how to get the word out to bloggers.

In the long run, a great idea just isn’t enough to propel your blogging web site to success. You will need to draft a smart and realistic marketing plan in order to draw readers to your site. Once you hook a blogger, your great content will keep them coming back, but it is vital to get that first glance or your site won’t have a chance.

And, once again, the key to any online success is TRAFFIC.

Without traffic, you might as well just be writing to your Mother (which at this time of year is also a good idea).

Always be aware that traffic doesn’t just happen; but is the result of some pretty serious marketing efforts on your part.

Oh sure, the search engines will find you….eventually; and you will get some traffic from paid advertising….usually very expensive traffic.

So what works? Quickly? Most effectively? And most affordabley?

You may start by asking yourself, “How did I get to this blog?”

Check back regularly to find out. Bookmarking this page right now could prove to be one of the better “get traffic” decisions you make.

Or better yet, the very bottom right hand corner of this and all of our pages contains an RSS link. Just click the button and relax. You will automatically start receiving any and all updates.

Till next time,

Fred

Check back regularly as we explore some of the more obvious cash blog, and some of the not so well known “TRAFFIC PUMPS” money blog.

PR: 2 I: 0 L: 7 LD: 0 I: 1 wait… CY: wait… I: wait… L: wait… YCat: wait… I: wait… Top: wait… I: wait… L: wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

It was thought to be nothing more than another one of those passing internet fads that wouldn’t last out the year.

It ended up being considered as one of the most addicting internet “fads” that spawned a whole lot of new internet marketing products. It has become way more than just an outlet for peoples emotions where they can blurt out whatever bugs them or whatever makes them feel elated. Savvy marketers have discovered that blogging is one of the best Internet marketing methods that won’t cost you a cent.

What exactly is blogging? Blog is the widely used term that refers to web log. Basically, a blog is an online journal. A blog could be set up to no cost at all, and can be used for just for the fun of it or for business reasons.

Blogging for your Internet business is one surefire way to boost the visibility of your products and services.

Here are just a few ways to boost your internet advertising via blogging:

1. Keeps your clients or customers abreast of changes to your website.

2. Your new products and affiliate websites could also be announced through your blog.

3. Keep track of your business objectives and plans through open writing. Your blog content can be easily stored through archives. What could be better than searchable information that could be easily accessed by anyone browsing the web.

4. Air your opinions, advice or reviews on specific services or products that are related to your business. Publishing is a very easy process with blogging.

5. Include links that will fetch back links and subsequently improve your ranking on search engines. This could be better executed through putting well-written articles in your website. Affiliate links could also be included in your blog to earn more extra income.

6. Collect response through the ability of blogs to fetch comments from your blog readers. You can learn and improve your products and services through with the feedback from your readers.

7. Connect easily with other bloggers. When other bloggers notice that you have something good in your blog, they will put you in their favorite lists that will automatically link you to their blogs.

So, how do you set up a blog?

One option would be to load a blogging software on your website, set it up and customize it to your needs. A second option, and one that is used by millions of bloggers is to signup with one of the blog hosting service such as LiveJournal, Blogger or WordPress.

Those hosts will provide you with easy instructions on how to put up your blog and are used by blogging worldwide.

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Start getting free traffic – it is time you find out how others are doing it.

My previous article on keyword strategies for WordPress covered blogging tips and the question of where exactly in your posts do you want to see your keywords. While that strategy is the number one strategy you should use, you also should consider what happens to your website as a whole when you start adding good content on a regular basis.

The excel chart below (please click on it to enlarge it and read it well) explains an interesting thing that happened to www.coolchecks.net as a result of posting content to the blog a regular basis.

Many hosting companies provide website owners with a way to measure their traffic through a program called the Cpanel. Cpanel lets the webmaster control a lot of things on a website, but the thing I like best is the daily reports it can give you about your website traffic.

For my four-month case study, using the Cpanel web stats, I charted the results of the traffic I received from the keyword phrase “cheap checks.” This phrase is important to the site because the site sells bank checks.

When I charted the results I could see a dramatic increase in hits during the month of October, for the keyword phrase “cheap checks.” I had only changed a few words on the home page of this site to try to boost the rankings for “cheap checks” and I posted to the web blog on a regular basis.

My monthly hits to the site with that keyword increased by 1273! So how did that translate into real progress financially? There was an increase in revenue from the site of $601.38.

Examining the results from the chart above brought me to wonder about another statistic that I could easily pull from the Cpanel. I wanted to know how many search phrases were used during each month.

The chart below will show you the total number of keyword phrases used to bring people to my site over a four-month period of time.

You will notice a steady increase in keyword phrases. During October, there were 1299 keyword phrases people used to get to get to my site, while in July there were only 685. It appears that the number of keyword phrases almost doubled over four months.

There are several blogging tips you can learn from this keyword case study.

• Adding content on a regular basis can dramatically improve website traffic.
• The increase in traffic improves your keyword search results so you are ranked higher for the keyword you optimized for.
• More traffic means more revenue.
• Cpanel statistics are awesome and should be watched carefully.
• One keyword phrase that you rank well for can affect the other keyword phrases and bootstrap them to higher search result positions.

When you are developing your website business, don’t overlook the importance of a good keyword strategy and the power that it has to improve your financial condition.

John Chow

Have you ever wondered why some blogs become wildly successful while other blogs become ghost towns that no one visits?

In a recent interview on Breakfast Television, expert blogger John Chow was asked what is the biggest mistake that new bloggers make when they start blogging. His response was that it is a big mistake to start blogging just for the money. He recommends doing a blog just for fun.

When people start blogging just for the money, they neglect the passionate side of themselves. People like to read good content from others who are passionate about their topic. Choosing something to write about that you feel a lot of passion for basically makes the job, well, not a job. John said, “If you are passionate about it, it’s not really work, is it?”

 

If you can actually take that advice to heart and focus on what moves you everyday, then you are tapping in to an unlimited source of energy and insight that you can share with others.

John Chow was also asked what his original goals for his blog were. He said that he originally wanted to make $2,000 a month. Basically, to make a full time income with part time blogging. Currently making over $30,000 a month from his blog, he has surpassed his goals.

How does he suggest you get people to read your blog? His overall, number one strategy that cannot be overstated enough is to have good content. No one is going to read your blog if you don’t have good content.

Produce good content and then you have got to get your name out there. John suggests that getting your name out there is a matter of finding other bloggers who are writing in your niche area. Stop and say hello. Leave a comment on their blog that will benefit their readers. Link back to something on your blog that will help that audience.

Getting readers is all about linking to each other in the blogging world. “A blog is like one big link chain, as far as I’m concerned,” said John Chow.

What do you have to contribute today? What can you offer the blogging community? Perhaps an attitude of giving is the best one to have when it comes to writing and owning a successful blog on the internet.

Each guest was asked questions about what made their blog successful and what they recommended to others who are starting out a new blog.  They discussed issues such as which programs were making them the most money, whether Google Adsense was really Webmaster Welfare, and what topics are the best to blog about. They talked about how long it takes to establish a good blog and what to expect from your blog at the beginning.  All of them agreed that you need to have a passion for the topic you are going to be blogging about to avoid the dreaded “abandoned blog.”

Superior Blogging Class Videos

Before I continue, I need to say that I have found a much better video of this Blog World Expo Blogging Tips session than the one I took.  It covers the entire 45 minute session and you can even see me sitting in the audience. I’m the blonde on the right, below Jim Krukal.

I found this today after discovering that Twitter has a search feature that you can search for keywords. Just click on that link and replace the word “keyword” with whatever you want to search for. It’s a great way to hear the latest on the topics you are interested in.

Guest Blog Speaker  -- John Chow of JohnChow.com

John Chow gave some good advice to people starting a blog. He recommended several things. One of his favorites is making money with the WordPress Themes through the Thesis Showcase Gallery

• Blog about something you feel passionate about
• Lay everything out on your website blog and be honest about all your offerings
• Use residual affiliate programs
• Offer direct advertising to people
• Offer great content

He mentioned that if he were to shut off his website blog, he would still be able to make a five figure income because the affiliate programs he offers people are all producing residual income. He also got to the point where he used his Google adsense advertising areas to offer direct advertising and immediately made more money.

Guest Blog Speaker Brian Clarke of CopyBlogger.com

 Brian Clarke gave these blogging tips

• Repitition is the key -- Talk about things over and over again
• The worst thing on a site is banners -- the best things are product reviews where you convey to people that you are a real person, you used a real thing and you should too -- teaching sells
• Don’t be a cat blogger where all you talk about is your cat.
• You may want to check this out with him, but he says that he’s able to make a lot of money from recommending WordPress Themes through the 
• Build an audience and find out what they want to buy.
• Build an email list
• For handling newsletters and email lists, use AWeber
• Write for people, not search engines
• Word of mouth traffic is golden
• Use Chitika for advertising

Guest Blog Speaker Zac Johnson of ZacJohsnon.com

Zac Johnson’s blogging tips

• Zac started on the internet 12 years ago and he’s only 26
• He makes 5 figures a month
• He likes direct ads and blog ads
• Meet with and talk to affiliate managers on a regular basis
• Zac tells people on his blog how he made $860,538.38 in 4 months

Guest Blog Speaker Darren Rowse of ProBloggers.net

Darren Rowse recommended these blogging tips

• Put ads inside of the content of your posts
• Affiliate products that you personally recommend sell well

Thank you to Jim Krukal who inspired me to invest in a Flip Video camera! He shared with the audience that these five star bloggers, pardon the language…”Bust their ass with blogging.”

Blog World Expo 2008

BlogWorld Expo 2008 was held last weekend, Sept. 19-21, 2008, in Las Vegas, U.S.A. More than 200 expert presenters in the field of blogging and internet businesses spoke at the 2nd annual Blogging Convention.

With so many great presentations, the hardest thing about attending the conference was being able to decide which speakers to listen to.

The conference started off with Richard Jalichandra of Technorati presenting the State of the Blogosphere.  Technorati.com allows users to submit their blogs and provides people with a system of tracking their blog popularity. Technorati has a list of the top 100 blogs according to user voting and community interaction. You can read the best blogs on a variety of topics.

Richard Jalichandra presents the State Of The Blogosphere 2008

In the state of the blogosphere report that Richard Jalichandra presented, we learned that there were 1.5 million posts in the last week on any given day and that Technorati has indexed 133 million blogs since 2002. Between 50 to 100,000 blogs where considered influencial.

The advice Mr. Jalichandra gave bloggers was to be transparent and authentic. He said that the new influencer in the blogging world, is…you guessed it…YOU!  Blogs are all about information and influence.

Technorati has a system of assigning blogs an authority ranking.  This ranking is based on a number of factors, one of them being the interaction or number of comments people are making on the blog and the number of times your blog is mentioned in other blogs.  They have said that there are between 50 to 100,000 blogs that are considered to be “influencial.” This authority ranking can be tracked by going to Technorati and registering your blog. 

There seems to be a critical point at which a blog turns the corner of being one in millions to becoming influencial.  Mr. Jalichandra stated that blogs with rankings in authority of 50 or higher have reached that critical mass point.  So bloggers, aim for that 50 authority.  Apparently there are only only 76,000 blogs that have reached that point.

The people at Technorati.com have conducted surveys to determine the answer to the question – How old are bloggers?

The results showed that 37% where between 25 and 34, 27% where between 35 and 44, 15 percent where between 44 and 54 and 8% were over 55 years old.

Only 14% of the bloggers surveyed were using their blogs to enhance their business. One out of 4 people spend 10 hours a week blogging. Out of the high money earners, (the top 10%) made 81 posts per month. $19,000 a year was the media income from blogging.

Blogging is here to stay and in my humble opinion will only become more influencial as time goes on. With the free software provided by WordPress and the inexpensive costs of buying a domain name and securing a hosting company to host your website, there aren’t any big hurdles to high to jump to get your blog started today.

* You can read the State of the Blogoshpere 2008.