Blogging Tips From The Experts

While listening to Tim Ferriss on WordPress.tv I toke some notes that might help people with their blogging projects. Here are some of Tim’s best tips to make your blog better. Of course watching the video is ultimately the best thing to do, however reading this short digest may give you that extra “push” you needed to take your blog to the next level.

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!

Five Tips To Keep Websites Ranking Well

If you have a business on the internet, then you are well aware of how important it is to keep your search engine rankings for your best keywords. When your rankings drop, your sales drop immediatley. When your website gets dropped from the search engine results panic may set in. Life becomes frantic and you begin to picture your business coming to a screaching halt. You will certainly understand how scary it is to watch your website disappear in the SERP’s (search enine result pages) for the keyword phrase that brings you the most traffic.

That is the dilema I faced this past week and it was one I hope doesn’t happen again. It made me realize how totally reliant an Internet business is on search engines and unfortunately sometimes there is nothing you can do about it but wait and see if your good website ranking comes back.

To help you live through a traumatic experience like this, I have a few suggestions for you in keeping your website running smoothly.

1. Review all the files on your site to see if there are any files that shouldn’t be there. Look carefully at the ones that raise any questions in your mind. 
    
2. Use Google webmaster tools.  There is a tool there that you can use that will delete undesirable pages from their index. So any unwanted pages that are indexed by Google can be removed.  I did that for a lot of pages that were reporting 404 errors because of what I had done to reorganize my blog pages.

 

3. In Google webmaster tools there is a blog that you can post questions, complaints, etc. and read about what others have experienced. Many people have experienced the same problems you have had.

 

4. Review the page in question that is not being included in Google’s index. Go through the page with a fine tooth comb and get rid of any unnecessary coding, make sure you are using your keyword phrase in all of your alt tags. Rename some of your photos with the name of your keyword phrase.

 

5. You can always pay a SEO specialist to take a look at your site. Let them see if they can spot anything unusual.

Hopefully your website business won’t go through this, but because it is on the internet, it is vulnerable to that. Use these tips to help you keep your search engine rankings.

Blogging, Your Free Online Marketing Method

It’s been many, many years since blogging first started.

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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Passionate Blogging Works

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?”

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Blogging experts reveal their blogging tips

Learning To Blog Class Sessions

One of the fun things about going to BlogWorld Expo 2008 was listening to expert bloggers reveal their personal blogging tips and tell us how they make money with blogging.  Jim Krukal lead a question answer session with four very successful bloggers, Brian Clark, Zac Johnson , Darren Rowse  and for a brief time Jeremy Shoemaker.

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.”
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Blogging News From BlogWorld 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.
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Blogging Expert John Chow to Speak At BlogWorld Expo 2008

One person I’d like to meet at the next BlogWorld Exp (Sept. 19-21, 2008) in Las Vegas is John Chow. Well known for his crazy videos, explosive income growth and personality, he has one of the most successful blogs on the internet and he shares his secrets to success. He actually keeps a log of his monthly income growth and what programs he used to generate that income.

John is best known for showing the power of blogging when he used his blog as an income case study. He took thejohnchow.com from $350 per month to a over $27,000 per month in just one year.

This is what is posted on his blog:

Total Blog Income for May 2008: 227,705.80 RMB

Despite the difficulties of doing business in China, the blog posted a record high income of 227,705.80 RMB, or 228 times greater than the average monthly income of a Chinese factory worker. The income converts to $32,529.40 USD. Here is the breakdown.

• Private Ad Sales: $16,380.00
• Affiliate Commissions: $9,757.04
• ReviewMe: $3,000.00
• Text Link Ads: $2,036.22
• Kontera: $1,000.00
• TTZ Media: $329.50
• Subscription: $20.00
• FeedBurner: $6.64
• Grand Total: $32,529.40

Sign up now for BlogWorldExpo 2008

Don’t forget to take your video camera and take videos.

20 Top Blog Submission Directories in a WordPress Plugin

A new WordPress plugin has been created that will have direct links to 20 different places to submit your blog.  These twenty blog submission directories are popular places to advertise your new WordPress blog. They appear as links inside the back office of your WordPress blog.

These links are great places to submit your blog to get traffic back to your URL.  Some of the links go to blog tracking web sites like www.technorati.com where you can see tracking statistics and find out the popularity of your blog.

Some of the links, like the blog analyzer go to places that analyze your blog posts so you can see which of your posts are pulling the most traffic.

Other links are popular blog submission directories that have been recommended.

If you want to suggest a blog submission diretory to be added to this list, please suggest one!

What does it cost?

I am releasing this 20 Top Blog Summission Directories WordPress plugin into the blogging community as donation-ware.

However, these plugins do take time to write, update, and provide support – so if you find it useful then please consider making a donation. You just click the button below and it will direct you to PayPal. You can donate any amount you wish.

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