Wednesday, October 19, 2011

10 SEO Tools




If you wish to check Google page rank of your blog and several other blogs without doing it manually then you should use this tool. It saves a lot of time as one can check page rank in bulk.
It is one of the best SEO tools for all those bloggers who have just started promoting their blog. You would also be able to download previous reports easily by using this SEO tool. All the applications in this SEO tool are user friendly.
3. Use Backlink Checker from Link Diagnosis
It is one of the best free backlink checker tool. As a blogger you need to use this tool for checking backlinks. One can also analyze backlinks of competitors by using this SEO tool.
This seo tool is available from Google for free. By using this tool, you can get reports related to traffic to your blog, funnel information etc. This seo tool is based on Urchin and used by numerous bloggers and website owners.
By using this tool, you can get to know about the density of keywords on a particular page. It also analyzes the keywords included in tags.
People who are fond of graphics would find this seo tool very nice. Page ranks can be checked with this seo tool visually. A lot of people who find it dull to check page rank in their blogs use this seo tool.
By using this seo tool you can check rankings for a website for upto hundred keywords of your choice at a time on Google, Yahoo and Live.com.  The best thing about this tool is that you can get rankings for keywords in country specific searches on Google and Yahoo. Suppose, I want to check my website rankings on Google.co.uk, I can do that by using this keyword rank checker tool from Seobook.
By using this seo tool, you can get reports about all types of communication between servers and the browser. You do not need to pay anything for using this seo tool.
9. Use SEOQuake SEObar Internal links option
By using this seo tool, one can get to know about the strongest pages on any website or blog. It helps people in knowing about the pages which have a large number of inbound links.
internal strength analysis
One can use this keyword tool from Google to get more keywords around a keyword of your choice and also can use this tool to find out keywords list by entering a website address. This tool provide many more features like monthly searches for keywords globally and locally, advertisers competition with average cost per click etc
These were the top 10 seo tools I think every blogger should use. Do you think I missed any of your favorite tool in this list, please share in the comments section.

Friday, October 14, 2011

how to create a facebook business page



You may already use Facebook for personal reasons such as keeping up with your friends or sharing photos, but the idea of running a business page on the world's largest social network might still seem intimidating. Where do you start? What should your goals be? How much work will it take?

Fret no more! This short video and blog post will offer step-by-step instructions on how to create a Facebook business page, covering some of the reasons why you should set one up and why its interactive elements make it such a great tool for business promotion.


1. Choose a Classification

Facebook provides six different classifications for creating a page:
  • Local business or place
  • Artist, band, or public figure
  • Company, organization, or institution
  • Entertainment
  • Brand or product
  • Cause of community
It is likely you will fall into one the top three options. This classification will help you rank in more relevant searches and provide relevant information fields on your page.
After selecting one of the six, choose the category you are in, and fill out your business name (or if you selected one of the other options, your brand or company name). The business option also asks for further location information. Keep in mind that your category and name cannot be changed once your page is created. So type wisely; otherwise, you’ll have to delete the entire page and start anew. 

2. Complete Basic Information

Upload a photo that will stand as the main visual representation for your business page. Ideally, this should be your company logo. Facebook will then ask you to invite your friends. Uncheck the option to “share this page on my wall” and “like this page.” You don’t want this popping up in news feeds until you’re done building the foundation of your online image. You will next be prompted to fill in your basic information. Add your website URL and a brief bio in the ‘About’ section. You can choose to focus on your product, business model, strategy, or the like. 

3. Fill the Page

Click “Edit Info,” and add information you deem pertinent for your organization. If you’re a local business, you’ll likely want to add your hours of business. Businesses should also add a description. A description is different from your ‘about’ section in that you can share more in-depth information about your business.  Be sure to add an email address, and spend time adding pictures to the photos tab. 

4. Take Advantage of Features

Take advantage of the various features Facebook business pages have to offer. Clicking on the “Get Started” button under your default image displays multiple steps you can take to make the most of your page. Here are six worth trying:
  • Invite your friends.
  • Tell your fans.
  • Post status updates.
  • Promote this page on your website.
  • Set up your mobile phone. 

5. Play and Track

At this point, you have built and shared a Facebook page that, hopefully, accurately represents your business, brand, or company.  Play around with the page and see if you can discover any original ideas on how to present your business, brand, or company.
To measure how all these efforts are going along the way, make sure you take advantage of Facebook Insights by clicking the “View Insights” tab on the right-hand side of your Facebook page. This will allow you to see how many people have become fans of your page, or in Facebook terms, “Liked” your page. You can change the time frame to compare how many Likes you received on one day versus another. Also check out the insights tool for additional tracking information.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic



One of the most common complaints that I hear from bloggers is the fact that no matter how hard they try, they can’t grow their blogs past 100 or so daily page vies. Those early days are indeed the hardest, because you need to put hard work in without the certainty of achieving results.
If you are in that same situation, here is a simple strategy that will certainly increase your blog traffic and make you break the 1,000 daily page views mark. In fact, the strategy could be used even if your are already over that number but have reached a traffic plateau lately.
Just make sure to execute the 4 steps as planned and to spend the two hours and a half every day (obviously if you have more time available you can expand the time spent on each of the four steps proportionally).

First Step: Killer Articles (1 hour per day)

Spend one hour brainstorming, researching and writing killer articles (also called linkbaits, pillar articles and so on).
Notice that your goal is to release one killer article every week. If that is not possible aim for one every 15 days. So the one hour that you will spend every day will be dedicated to the same piece. In other words, expect killers articles to take from 5 up to 10 hours of work.
If you are not familiar with the term, a killer article is nothing more than a long and structured article that has the goal of delivering a huge amount of value to potential visitors. If you have a web design blog, for example, you could write an article with “100 Free Resources for Designers”. Here are some ideas for killer articles:
  • create a giant list of resources,
  • write a detailed tutorial teaching people how to do something,
  • find a solution for a common problem in your niche and write about it, or
  • write a deep analysis on a topic where people have only talked superficially
When visitors come across your killer article, you want them to have the following reaction: “Holy crap! This is awesome. I better bookmark it. Heck, I better even mention this on my site and on my Twitter account, to let my readers and friends know about it.”

Second Step: Networking (30 minutes per day)

Networking is essential, especially when you are just getting started. The 30 minutes that you will dedicate to it every day could be split among:
  • commenting on other blogs in your niche,
  • linking to the posts of bloggers in your niche, and
  • interacting with the bloggers in your niche via email, IM or Twitter.
Remember that your goal is to build genuine relationships, so don’t approach people just because you think they can help to promote your blog. Approach them because you respect their work and because you think the two of you could grow together.

Third Step: Promotion (30 minutes per day)

The first activity here is the promotion of your killer articles. Whenever you publish one of them, you should push it in any way you can. Examples include:
  • letting the people in your network know about it (don’t beg for a link though),
  • letting bloggers and webmasters in relevant niches know about it,
  • getting some friends to submit the article to social bookmarking sites,
  • getting some friends to Twitter the article, and
  • posting about the article in online forums and/or newsgroups.
If there is time left, spend it with search engine optimization, social media marketing and activities to promote your blog as whole. Those can range from keyword research to promoting your blog on Facebook and guest blogging.

Fourth Step: Normal Posts (30 minutes per day)

Just like a man does not live by bread alone, a blog does not live by killer articles alone. Normal posts are the ones that you will publish routinely in your blog, between the killer articles. For example, you could publish a killer article every Monday and normal posts from Tuesday through Friday. Here are some ideas for normal posts:
  • a post linking to an article on another blog and containing your opinion about it
  • a post informing your readers about a news in your niche
  • a post asking a question to your readers and aiming to initiate a discussion
  • a post highlighting a new resource or trick that you discovered and that would be useful to your readers
While killers articles are essential to promote your blog and bring new readers aboard, normal posts are the ones that will create diversity in your content and keep your readers engaged.

101 Blog Tips






  1. if you are not, start blogging today
  2. write about something that you love
  3. if you are serious about blogging buy your own domain
  4. make sure your domain name is equal to your blog name
  5. use a short and easy to remember name
  6. use WordPress
  7. use WordPress plugins
  8. blog with consistency
  9. write at least 5 posts a week
  10. proofread
  11. proofread one more time
  12. interact with other bloggers
  13. leave meaningful comments
  14. leave funny comments
  15. leave the first comment
  16. backup your blog
  17. get rid of the sidebar calendar
  18. choose your niche wisely, not too big and not too small
  19. participate in online forums
  20. put a link on your signature
  21. use blog carnivals
  22. content is king
  23. customize your blog template
  24. use trackbacks
  25. simplicity is the way to go
  26. leverage social bookmarks
  27. consider joining a blog network
  28. write “Top 10″ lists
  29. use tags
  30. use pings
  31. write “How to” articles
  32. make your posts scannable
  33. list your blog on directories
  34. ask questions to your readers
  35. use Feedburner
  36. use sense of humor
  37. be generous
  38. encourage readers to subscribe
  39. have some spare posts for emergencies
  40. encourage readers to digg your posts
  41. put an RSS subscription icon on every single page
  42. use “series” of posts
  43. return comments
  44. return links
  45. use readable fonts
  46. gather .edu and .gov backlinks
  47. break long posts in more parts
  48. experiment with different revenue sources
  49. write “pillar articles“
  50. use Google Analytics
  51. study those numbers
  52. use email interviews
  53. be yourself
  54. avoid duplicate content
  55. use an RSS reader
  56. read as many blogs as possible
  57. focus on timeless content
  58. have an “About” page
  59. have a picture of yourself on the “About” page
  60. crate your own “Advertise Here” page
  61. use meta tags wisely
  62. learn the basics of SEO
  63. use pictures whenever possible
  64. create value for your readers
  65. place ads wisely
  66. be patient
  67. consider getting a co-blogger
  68. submit your articles to directories
  69. share what has worked for you
  70. share what has not worked for you
  71. read Problogger.net
  72. do not clutter your sidebar with icons
  73. get rid of looooong blogrolls
  74. experiment with Google Adsense
  75. experiment with Text-Link-Ads
  76. link to other blogs as often as possible
  77. make it easy for visitors to contact you
  78. use titles effectively
  79. offer email subscriptions
  80. always answer to questions
  81. always answer to comments
  82. use Technorati
  83. enable subscription to comments
  84. offer useful tools or resources
  85. write with a personal touch
  86. become an expert in your niche
  87. do not rely on “linking posts”
  88. always give your opinion
  89. use simple colors
  90. participate in blogging projects
  91. get to know other bloggers personally
  92. list your best articles
  93. have a voice
  94. organize your categories
  95. talk directly to your readers
  96. make your URL structure efficient
  97. put functional links on your footer
  98. mention your sources or references
  99. do monthly roundups
  100. consider adding podcasts
  101. create a “101 list”

30 Traffic Generation Tips



First of all a big “thank you” for every one who participated. As I said before the number of entries surprised me (and the quality as well, I will definitely apply some of those tips myself).
Now, without further delay, the 30 Traffic Generation Tips:
1. Sridhar Katakam
Keep track of blogs and leave comments on them. A good way to keep the conversation going is to install a MyBlogLog widget and visit the blog of people visiting your site.
2. Ian Delaney
Nothing creates long-term traffic more than value. Consider writing posts with resources or explaining how things work. Useful things get linked to and they get onto del.icio.us, which is far better long-term than a digg front page.
3. Scott Townsend
Inform search engines and aggregators like Technorati (using the ping functionality) when your blog is updated, this should ensure maximum traffic coming from those sources. (check the List of Ping Services)
4. Kyle
Simplify. Pay attention to complex issues in your field of work. It may be a big long publication that is hard to wade through or a concept that is hard to grasp. Reference it and make a shorter “for dummies” version with your own lessons learned and relevant tips. When doing this, I have been surprised to find that the simplified post will appear before the more complex version in search results. Perhaps this is why it results in increased traffic; people looking for more help or clarification on the subject will land on your blog.
5. Grant Gerver
Try to be polemic. I write obsessively about all-things political from the left-wing perspective in the form of humorous, sarcastic one-liners.
6. Daniel
A simple tip that will probably boost your page views: install a translator plugin. I decided to use a paid plugin for this, but if I am not wrong there are some free ones as well. The translation is not very good, as you can imagine, but it helps to attract readers that are not fluent in English.
7. Rory
Submit articles to blog carnivals (http://blogcarnival.com) that are related to your niche. Your article almost always gets posted, and it must generate a handful of visitors, at least.
8. Ramen Junkie
Newsgroups. I always see a spike when I post a review to a newsgroup.
9. Eric Atkins
Create a new design for your website. Not only will it be more attractive to your regular readers, but you can submit it to some CSS gallery showcase sites that feature great designs. This will give you exposure on those sites while generating a lot of traffic and backlinks from those types of sites.
10. Megan Taylor
Participate in conversations on related blogs. Start conversations on your own blog. Don’t just post about a story and leave it at that, engage your audience, ask questions and call to action.
11. Guido
Comment on blogs, write useful content and make good friends on forums.
12. Brian Auer
You must be active to generate traffic. I post comments on other blogs that are related to mine, and I post my site link in my signature at the forums. Spread the word about your blog and it will certainly attract readers.
13. Shankar Ganesh
Just browse around MyBlogLog.com and you will surely get visitors to your blog. Also try to join as many communities as possible that are related to your topic.
14. Andrew Timberlake
A great tip for generating traffic is off-line by including your url in all your off-line liturature from business cards, letterheads, pamphlets, adverts through in-store signage if applicable. I even have our website on my vehicle.
15. Cory OBrien
Read lots of other blogs. Leave trackbacks. Make sure your blog is optimized for search engines. Leverage social bookmarking sites like digg (both for new ideas and for traffic).
16. Jester
Leave comments on other blogs. If you’re already reading them, it takes
just a couple of seconds to leave a message agreeing or disagreeing
with the author, you get to leave a link to your site, and you will almost
ALWAYS get traffic from your comments.
17. Goerge Manty
Post 3-5 times a day. Use ping services like pingomatic or set up wordpress to ping some of the ping services. Engage your readers. Put up polls, ask them questions, give them quizes, free tools, etc. Make them want to come back and tell their friends about you.
18. Engtech
Community. It’s one word but it is the most important one when it comes to blogging. The only “blog metric” that makes sense is the vibrant community of readers it has. Building a community around your blog will bring you increased traffic, but how do you start? The boilerplate response to building traffic is always “SEO, social networking sites, and commenting on blogs” but it can be simplified to “be part of a community”. The easiest way to seed your blog is with an already existing community. But the only way to do that is to be part of the community yourself.
19. Chris
Squidoo Lenses are a good way to generate traffic. By using a lense,
you can generate your own custom “community” of webpages, including some
of the more popular pages in your “neighborhood.” Including your own
webpage in such a list is a good way of generating traffic.
20. Splork
I’ve had good success writing articles and submitting them to EzineArticles. Articles that have been written from well-researched keyword phrases and accepted by EzineArticles tend to rank very high in Google for that search term. Placing anchor text in the footer of those articles so the reader can visit my relevant website has always increased my site traffic.
21. Jen Gordon
I came upon some unexpected traffic when my blog popped up on some css design portals like www.cssmania.com and www.webcreme.com. If you can put some time into the concept behind and design for your blog, I’d recommend submitting your site to a design portal not only for
additional traffic but to build an additional community around your site.
22. Kat
I’ve recently gotten involved with several “MySpace-like” community sites that focus on my target audience. I share my thoughts in their forums, post intros to my real blog on their system blog and I’ve even created a group for my specific niche. It’s been very, very successful for me.
23. Inspirationbit
Well, obviously everyone knows that social bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, etc. bring lots of traffic. But I’m now submitting some of my articles to blogg-buzz.com (a digg like site for bloggers), and I always get not a bad traffic from there.
24. Mark Alves
Participate in Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers where you can demonstrate your expertise, get associated with relevant keywords and put your URL out there.
25. Tillerman
Be the first to write a post about the ‘Top Ten Blogs’ in your niche. The post will rank highly in any general search for blogs in your niche and other bloggers in your niche write about the post and link to it.
26. Nick
Participating in forums is a great way to get loyal readers. Either link baiting people in your signature or posting great advice and tips will give you high quality traffic, which will result in return visitors.
27. Brandon Wood
A simple trick I’ve used to increase traffic to my blog is participate in group writing projects. In fact, that’s what I’m doing right now.
28. Alan Thomas
Don’t forget your archives. I just posted a roundup of all interviews I did over the past seven months. One of them generated a new link and a big traffic spike from a group of users that look like they will be loyal readers now.
29. KWiz
Write something controversial. I don’t think it’s good to write something controversial just for the purpose of getting traffic necessarily (especially if it’s only for that purpose and you’re being disingenuous), but it works.
30. Dennis Coughlin
Find the best blogs on your niche and contact the authors. Introduce yourself and send a link of your blog. This might help them to discover your blog, read it and possibly link to it.

9 Blog Hacks to Help Show Readers Your Best Stuff



Are you letting your killer posts languish in your archives, sandwiched between January and March? How many great posts have you published in months gone by that new visitors will never see?
Readers come to your blog for its content, so it’s important to show them straight away what you have to offer.
Your recent posts will hopefully go some way towards doing this, but to rely on them alone is to short-change the long-term effort you’ve put into building your blog. This post contains 9 blog hacks you can use to show new (and regular) visitors the best that your blog has to offer.
1. Introduce highlighted content. This could be a list of reader favorites, popular posts, most commented posts, and so on. Most bloggers handle this with a ‘Popular Posts’ widget. This is one of the most important elements of your sidebar, as it shows new visitors straight away why your site is worth exploring.
2. Take control of your highlighted content. Though most bloggers handle ‘Popular Posts’ with a plug-in there are plenty of benefits to doing it manually. You can choose which posts you want to highlight, and mix up new and old content. If you’ve got a guest-post at another blog, or if one of your posts makes it big on social media, you can tailor your ‘Popular Posts’ to suit the incoming audience.
3. Make your highlighted content unmissable. Your list of killer posts is probably more useful and interesting to new visitors than anything else in your sidebar. The perfect place for it is right under your feed button, towards the top of your sidebar. If you want to be more inventive with your placement you can, but keep it above the fold.
4. Use images to draw attention to your best posts. Images are eye-contact magnets. Rather than displaying your best posts as text links, why not create images for them? The strategy I use on my own blog is to make a medium-sized button from the image I included with the post, and add the headline as text over the image. It’s something a lot of readers seem to enjoy interacting with, and it adds some more visual interest to the blog.
5. Regularly change your highlighted content. Don’t forget about regular readers when highlighting content. If your list is static then visitors will engage with it once and forget about it, thinking they’ve seen everything it has to offer.
If you regularly change your highlighted posts you give new and old visitors a reason to engage with the content you’ve highlighted. One advantage to using images to highlight your content, as suggested above, is that it’s immediately clear when you’ve added or subtracted an item from the list.
6. Give readers somewhere to go when they’ve finished reading. Many bloggers use a ‘related posts’ plug-in, and while I do like this plug-in, I suspect that it suffers somewhat from being outside the content of the post. Firstly, feed readers miss it. Secondly, readers turn down their attention levels once they’ve finished an article. One way to best ensure readers explore your related content is to recommend it at the end of your article. For example:
Interested in this topic? You might enjoy another article I’ve written called …
Adding the suggestion to your article will catch readers while they’re still in ‘reading mode’ and devoting maximum attention to your words. However, I’d suggest using this only when you’ve written something else directly related to the topic. If your recommendation is spot-on, readers are likely to listen to other recommendations you make in future.
7. Weave targeted internal links into your posts as you write. This can be done badly, or it can be done well. A good guide is to make sure your links are highly relevant to the keywords you’re making a hyperlink. Linking a specific match (for example, linking the words ‘writing with clarity’ to an article you’ve written on the same topic) will be appreciated by your readers. Linking vague terms (like ‘blogging’, or ‘making money’), however, is not good usability because it’s simply too unclear where the link will lead.
8. Mix up posts linking out with posts linking in. A great way to draw readers deeper into your blog is to highlight great content in dedicated posts. You could highlight a selection of the best posts last month, or the most popular posts on a specific topic. You might highlight posts from this time last-year, as Lifehacker does, or list some undiscovered gems from the early days of your blog.
9. Give readers a birds-eye view of your blog. Your archives present the perfect opportunity to allow readers to view your blog from a top-down perspective, with everything it has to offer on one page. The SRG-Clean Archives plug-in presents all your post headlines under sub-headings for each month, and displays the comment count besides each. This allows readers to browse through your headlines and explore those they’re interested in.

The Best Website Taglines Around the Internet



A tagline can make or break a website (well, maybe not, but it is cool to be dramatic). Below you will find a collection of the best taglines around the Internet. Some of them are funny, some are clever; but all of them deliver the message! Hopefully it will serve as inspiration.
  1. The Straight Dope: Fighting Ignorance since 1973 (It’s taking longer than we thought).
  2. Maxim Philippines: The best thing that ever happened to men … after women!
  3. The Consumerist: Shoppers bite back.
  4. Random Acts of Reality: Trying to kill as few people as possible…
  5. Joshuaink: Same old shit, different day.
  6. The Superficial: Because you’re ugly.
  7. Smashing Magazine: We smash you with information that will make your life easier. Really.
  8. The Best Page in the Universe: This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong.
  9. Scaryduck: Not scary. Not a duck.
  10. The Art of Rhysisms: Chronologically inept since 2060.
  11. Needcoffee.com: We are the Internet equivalent of a triple espresso with whipped cream. Mmmm…whipped cream.
  12. Ample Sanity: Life is short. Make fun of it.
  13. Rathergood.com: The Lair of the Crab of Ineffable Wisdom – a load of stuff by Joel Veitch that will probably crush your will to live.
  14. The Breakfast Blog: In search of the best eggs in town.
  15. Dooce: Not even remotely funny.
  16. Pink is the new blog: Everybody’s business is my business.
  17. Shoemoney: Skills to pay the bills.
  18. Oh No They Didnt’t!: The celebrities are disposable, the content is priceless.
  19. YouTube: Broadcast Yourself.
  20. Waiter Rant: Do you want Pommes Frite with that?
  21. Newshounds: We watch FOX so you don’t have to.
  22. Sabrina Faire: All the fun of a saucy wench, none of the overpriced beer.
  23. Defective Yeti: A maze of twisty passages, all alike.
  24. All About George: All about George Kelly… you know, if you go in for that sort of thing.
  25. Go Fug Yourself: Fugly is the new pretty.
  26. kottke.org: Home of fine hypertext products.
  27. Slashdot: News for nerds. Stuff that matters.
  28. Gawker: Daily Manhattan media news and gossip. Reporting live from the center of the universe.
  29. Get Rich Slowly: Personal finance that makes cents.
  30. hi5: Who’s in?
  31. Fotolog: Share your world with the world.
  32. Jezebel: Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women, Without Aribrushing.
  33. Autoblog: We obssessibely cover the auto industry.
  34. Boing Boing: A directory of wonderful things.
  35. Perez Hilton: Celebrity Juice. Not from concentrate.
  36. DumbLittleMan: So what do we do here? Well, it’s simple. 15 to 20 times per week we provide tips that will save you money, increase your productivity, or simply keep you sane.
  37. Lifehacker: Don’t live to geek, geek to live!
  38. Gizmodo: The gadget guide. So much in love with shiny new toys, it’s unnatural.
  39. John Cow Dot Com: Make Moooney Online with John Cow Dot Com
  40. WebWorkerDaily: Rebooting the workforce.
  41. The Simple Dollar: Financial talk for the rest of us.
  42. TrafficBunnies: Making your hits multiply like rabbits.
  43. Mighty Girl: Famous among dozens.
  44. The Sneeze: Half zine. Half blog. Half not good with fractions.
  45. Buzz Marketing: Because everyone is entitled to my opinion.

What Is A Blog?



It is 2008; do we still need to ask ourselves what a blog is? I think so, and for two reasons. First of all we still have many misconceptions about blogging floating around the web. Pretty much every week I get at least one email from someone asking if I believe blogging has a future. My answer is always “as long as the Internet has a future, blogs do too.” You will see why I answer that below.
You also have countless articles being published every week where the author suggests that blogs are obsolete, and that the next big thing is micro blogging, or lifestreaming or something else. Again I don’t agree with any of those predicted trends.
The second reason for trying to define what a blog is in 2008 (many people have already done that in the past after all) is because blogging is a social phenomenon. As such, it is constantly evolving, and what was true two years ago might not be anymore.

Blogs Aren’t Necessarily Personal

The main misconception regarding the definition of blogs comes from people that associate blogs with their content. More specifically from people that associate blogs with the content from one particular type of blog: personal blogs.
In other words, those people think that blogs are online diaries where people share their opinions, ramblings and personal events.
Wrong!
That is just one of the things that you could do with a blog.
Today blogs are being used for all sorts of purposes. You have companies that use blogs to communicate and interact with customers and other stake holders. Newspapers that incorporated blogs to their main website to offer a new channel for their writers. Individuals that created a blog to share with the world their expertise on specific topics. And so on.

Separate The Content

If you separate the content from the website, it becomes much easier to work with the definitions.
Consider a person that wants to publish a Questions & Answers column online. She could use several types of websites for that purpose.
She could create an online forum, for example, where each thread would be an answer to a specific question. She could create a static HTML website and publish all the questions and answers on a single page. She could create a wiki where users would be able to edit the questions and answers directly. Finally, she could also create a blog where each post would contain a question and its answer.
As you can see, the content is not attached to the website. The picture below illustrates that (note that only four types of websites were used, but there are many more).




Obviously one type of website will be more suitable for a certain purpose than others. It would be easier for a company to use an online forum on its customer support section, for instance.

So What Is A Blog?

A blog is basically a type of website, like a forum or a social bookmarking site. As such it is defined by the technical aspects and features around it, and not by the content published inside it.
The features that make blogs different from other websites are:
  • content is published in a chronological fashion
  • content is updated regularly
  • readers have the possibility to leave comments
  • other blog authors can interact via trackbacks and pingbacks
  • content is syndicated via RSS feeds
Keep in mind that it is the bundle of those features that should define a blog. An online forum could also offer an RSS feed for example, but that would not make it a blog.

What Is Your Definition?

As I mentioned on the beginning of this article, blogs represent a social phenomenon, so they are in constant evolution. The Internet itself is changing very fast, so pin pointing a single definition for blogging is a hard task.
The definition above is my personal one, and I am sure that other people will want to add or remove details to it. Some might even completely disagree.
That is why I decided to turn the mic to the readers. I want to hear what you think a blog is. What characteristics define it? Is the definition changing over time?
I am looking forward to reading your definitions of blogs!

Blog Setup: 40 Practical Tips



One of our readers, Max Pool, was kind enough to send a guest post with 40 practical tips to setup and optimize your blog. All the tips are actually links to previously published articles on Daily Blog Tips. Enjoy!

WordPress Setup

  1. Do your homework first and read about others’ mistakes
  2. Choose a reliable web host
  3. Choose a good domain name
  4. If you need inspiration, check this list
  5. Register and keep your domain name with a registrar
  6. Always install WordPress in the root directory
  7. Update your ping list

Themes & Design

  1. Choose a professional theme
  2. Remove unnecessary information from your theme
  3. Add a favicon
  4. Place an RSS icon at the end of single posts
  5. Create a functional footer for your blog
  6. Organize your categories
  7. Optimize the “About” page
  8. Speed up your site

Check & Validate

  1. Make sure your blog works in different browsers
  2. Check the load time of your site
  3. Test the SEO aspects
  4. Validate your website
  5. Keep a maintenance checklist

Plugins

  1. Install Akismet
  2. Install WordPress Database Backup
  3. Install Subscribe to Comments but leave it unchecked
  4. Install Chunk URLs
  5. Install Related Enteries and consider setting it to 3
  6. Install Custom Query String
  7. Install Jerome's Keywords
  8. Install sig2feed

SEO & Analytics

  1. Install Google Sitemap Generator
  2. Install Enforce www Preference
  3. Optimize your Meta Description Tag
  4. Setup an optimal URL structure
  5. Make category pages display excerpts
  6. Setup any needed 301 Redirects
  7. Create a robots.txt file (and here is a collection of different ones)
  8. Modify your title tag to be optimal
  9. Remove the hyperlink from the single post titles
  10. Offer email subscriptions
  11. Install the Feedburner Replacement plugin
  12. Add the Google Analytics plugin and track your stats

What Is Bounce Rate?



Today I was going to write about why new websites can display very misleading bounce rates, but I realized I had never covered the bounce rate concept before, so I’ll stick to the basics today, and expand on the topic over the coming weeks.
If you already know the term, consider this post a refresher.

What Is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is a very important metric for website owners. It basically tells you what percentage of your visitors are “bouncing” away after landing on your site (e.g., they just visit one page and leave before clicking on to a second page inside your site). A bounce can occur for several reasons, including:
  • The visitor hit the “Back” button on his browser.
  • The visitor closed his browser.
  • The visitor clicked on one of your ads.
  • The visitor clicked on one of your external links.
  • The visitor used the search box on his browser.
  • The visitor typed a new URL on his browser.
All the actions above would cause the visitor to leave your site. Provided he did any of these actions right after arriving at your site (and before clicking on to a second page), it would be counted as a bounce. In fact the formula for finding the bounce rate on your website is:

Bounce rate = Visits that left after one page / Total number of visits


For example, if during a certain month your site received 120,000 visits, out of which 80,000 bounced after visiting just one page, your bounce rate for that month would be 80,000 divided by 120,000, which equals to 0.66 (or 66%). Notice that you can calculate the bounce rate of your whole website or of single pages inside it.
Obviously the lower the bounce rate on your website, the better, because it means that visitors are getting engaged by your content and design, and that they are clicking to visit a second (third and so on) page on your site.
How do you know the exact bounce rate on your site? A web analytics program like Google Analytics will automatically track the numbers for you.
Next week I’ll talk about what is considered to be low and high bounce rates, as well as about the misleading numbers you can get from new websites. Stay tuned.

How to choose a blog name



There are three simple rules to follow when choosing a blog name:
1) It must describe your blog: it is probable that lots of people will see a link to your blog before having the chance to actually read it (in search engines, for instance). Guess what, if just by looking at the name they can figure what the blog is about they will be more likely to visit it.
2) It must be easy to remember: suppose your blog talks about cycling, fitness and health advice in general. Naming it “The Cycling, Fitness and General Health Advice Blog” would offer quite an exhaustive description of the blog, but would it also be easy to remember? Stick with simple names.
3) It must be equal to the domain name: this rule is often ignored by people, probably because finding a suitable domain that has not been registered yet is a difficult task. Still if your domain name does not match the blog name you will probably lose some readers along the way. When people visit your blog through a link they will just read the name of the blog. Should they decide to revisit the site a couple of days later they will just type that name followed by a dot com. If they do not find your blog once they hit enter they will just go somewhere else.

Top 10 Tips to Sell Your Website or Blog on Flippa



If you are planning to buy or sell a website, you probably already heard about Flippa. It is the largest online marketplace for websites. Most people who list a website for sale there, however, end up selling it for peanuts (e.g., $100), or not selling at all.
How come? Most of the times the seller didn’t do his homework. If you want to maximize your chances of selling (and your profit), the 10 tips below will help you.

1. Make Sure Your Website Is Making Money

This is the most important factor. If you want to sell a website successfully, it must be making money. Even if your site has a huge traffic, listing it before monetizing that traffic would be a bad decision. You would be able to sell it, but the money you would get would be far below the real value of the site.
If your website is making $50 or less per month, forget about selling it now. Try to improve your traffic, increase your revenues to at least $300 per month, make the revenues stable, and then list it. If the $300 are coming from Google AdSense, for example, you could sell the site for as much as $8,000. Obviously, the more you can grow your revenue before selling, the better. The $300 is just a ball park figure.
Remember that you’ll need to show proof of revenue, and that most buyers will calculate the revenues as the average of the past four or six months.

2. Make Sure You Have Google Analytics Data

Most serious buyers will want to see your Google Analytics data before making an official offer. They will use this to verify your traffic levels, and to make sure the pattern is compatible with the revenues you are claiming.
Again, people will want to see data going back to six months at least. If you are planning to sell your website, therefore, it would be wise to install Google Analytics on it at least six months before the sale.

3. Work On Your Trust Rating

Each member on Flippa has a trust rating, and most buyers will check it before placing their bids. In other words, the higher your trust rating, the higher the chances of selling your website.
As a result you should take all the actions that will improve your trust rating (e.g., connect your Flippa account with Facebook and LinkedIn, verify your phone number and so on).

4. Set The Auction Length for 7 Days

In my opinion seven days is the optimal length for an auction on Flippa. With that length of time you are sure that most buyers will see your auction (e.g., those who log during the week and those who log during weekends), yet you’ll create a sense of urgency on those who are interested.
Many people set the auction length for 30 days, and their auctions become dead as a consequence. Many interested buyers will refrain from bidding because there is plenty of time to go, others yet will see the auction once and then completely forget about it, for the same reason.

5. Set A Low Reserve / High Minimum Bid

If you set a low reserve price your auction will display the following message: “Bidding open and reserve has been met!” bright green color. This is a big encouragement for potential buyers, and it stimulates them to bid.
And don’t worry about the site selling for less than what you think it is worth. You can always set a high minimum bid. Apart from protecting you from low bids this strategy will also filter the non-serious buyers out.

6. Set A Reasonable BIN Price

The “Buy It Now” price is there for a reason. It should allow a buyer who is very interested in your website to avoid a bidding war and to buy the website paying what you think it is worth.
The problem is that most sellers have an unrealistic idea about the value of their websites, and hence they set crazy BIN prices. This is a put off for potential buyers, because it signals you have no idea about what you are doing.
Ask some friends what they think your website is worth, and then set a reasonable BIN price for it.

7. Don’t Hype Your Description

The more hype you put in your description, the more people will think you are desperate to sell and that your website is not a solid one. Examples of remarks you should avoid include: “Huge potential!”, “A lifetime opportunity!”, “My loss is your gain!”.
Secondly, don’t hypothesize what the website could be earning. Some people list websites that are making $10 per month currently, and they go on saying: “This website has the potential to make $4,000 per month easily!”. If you knew this for sure you wouldn’t be selling the site for such a low price….

8. Answer to Every Comment

Even if you write a crystal clear description people will still have questions, and they’ll ask them through the comment section. It is important to answer to every single comment, as this will not only encourage these commenters to place a bid, but it will also improve the overall credibility of your auction.
Second, do not delete a comment unless you have a very good reason to do so. Deleted comments are red flags on Flippa, because usually they come from sellers trying to hide something on their websites.

9. Have A Plausible Reason for Selling

One of the first things people will ask you is why you are selling. If there is no plausible reason, they’ll rightly assume that the website is going down hill, and that you want to get rid of it before it becomes worthless.
In fact it would be a good idea to include the reason for selling the description of the auction itself.

10. Invite Qualified Buyers

If you want to get more bids on your auction, you can invite qualified buyers directly. First of all browse through the marketplace looking for websites that are similar to yours (either open or won auctions).
Once you find one, browse through the comments, and try to find users with a high trust rating that were asking questions about the auction. These are qualified buyers, and you can send them a message inviting them to view your own auction.

Bonus Tip: Keep Your Auction On The Homepage

When creating your listing, the most important upgrade you can get is the “Listing Featured on the Front Page” one. It costs $29, but it will give your auction a lot of visibility, because most buyers browse the Flippa front page first.
You can purchase this upgrade a second time, too, once your auction slipped to the second page. This would be a good idea if after the first two or three days you have still not received some qualified bids.

FREE TweetAttacks – Twitter Adder and Mass Unfollow Tool



his free version have the following features It can follow users from search results It can follow users from other users followers It can follow users following It can follow users in lists It can unfollow those who dont follow you back You can download the free version here:http://rapidshare.com/files/386472895/TweetAttacksFree.zip Published by AdSense tricks







# How to get Indexed by Yahoo! fast

Thursday, September 29, 2011

How many backlinks need to get PR3, PR4, PR5





No of Backlinks from Website with PR
RANK
REQUIRED
12345678910
21011831111111
3555101183111111
4305555510118311111
51680330555551011831111
692414168033055555101183111


Wednesday, September 28, 2011

How to get Indexed by Yahoo! fast



How to get Indexed by Yahoo! fast
The best source of targeted traffic to your blog is still the natural traffic provided by the search engines. If your blog is new, getting indexed by Yahoo and Google takes time and a lot of effort.
Constantly updating your blog is necessary to attract the search engine spiders. But there is one trick that can be done to get your blog indexed really fast. You may be surprised that Yahoo may do it in one hour. Google can in as fast as 15minutes.
Here’s how. You must have your real simple syndication feed ( RSS ). I prefer using the one provided by feedburner.com. I won’t discuss feedburner anymore. Getting an account is so simple.
For Yahoo:
1. Access your My Yahoo page. If you’re not using a yahoo mail, get one.
2. On “My Main Tab” click the “add content” link.
3. Click the “Add RSS Feed” link at the bottom.
4. Type or paste the exact link provided by feedburner, NOT your blog url.
5. Click “Add” and you’re done.
If you’re lucky, you will immediately see your feed, the name of your blog and the titles of your posts.
If not, be patient. Try again after an hour. The worst is it may take up to a day.
When you have successfully added your feed to your My Yahoo, you will get an added bonus. Google will follow and index your blog. If you need to be sure, do the same for Google reader. Get a gmail account, look for the “reader” link. Same principle applies.

RELATED POST

how you can make $ 100 each month writing for triond



In a recent article, I asked What Are Your Income Goals for Triond? In that article, I offered a general formula based on my own experience. I noted that for every batch of 100 articles, my Triond earnings were approximately $25.00. I then worked out that if a person wrote two articles each week, he or she could double those earnings in one year.
If a person wanted to earn $100.00 each month from Triond articles, they would have to produce approximately 400 articles in one year.
Breaking this down (based on 4 weeks each month), a writer would have to produce: 2 articles each day, which would equal 10 articles each week, which would result in 40 articles each month and that would 480 articles in one year. Or, if you based your calculations on 52 weeks in a year, this would work out to be 10 articles each week x 52 weeks = 520 articles in one year, which would mean you would make $100.00 or more each month writing for Triond.
So, for those who have set a goal of making $100.00 per month from Triond writing, the “2 articles per day or 10 articles a week” formula will help them to reach their objective in one year. That’s seems reachable, doesn’t it?


Read more: 
http://writinghood.com/online-writing/how-you-can-make-100-each-month-writing-for-triond/#ixzz1YJ4TX8qS
If a person wanted to earn $100.00 each month from Triond articles, they would have to produce approximately 400 articles in one year.
Breaking this down (based on 4 weeks each month), a writer would have to produce: 2 articles each day, which would equal 10 articles each week, which would result in 40 articles each month and that would 480 articles in one year. Or, if you based your calculations on 52 weeks in a year, this would work out to be 10 articles each week x 52 weeks = 520 articles in one year, which would mean you would make $100.00 or more each month writing for Triond.
So, for those who have set a goal of making $100.00 per month from Triond writing, the “2 articles per day or 10 articles a week” formula will help them to reach their objective in one year. That’s seems reachable, doesn’t it?


R

Social Bookmarking Websites



Social bookmarking sites are designed to allow members to submit references (bookmarks) to different third-party recources on the web. The bookmarked resources can be a blog post, an image, a video or any other kind of web pages.
The social bookmarking sites are using many ways to organize the bookmarks, thus creating pages and sections of targeted content, making the web content easier to find.
Below is the most comprehensive list of social bookmarking sites on the web. All of the social bookmarking sites in this list were recently reviewed by our editors. More bookmarking sites will be added soon, as our list is updated regulary.





Sunday, September 25, 2011

AdSense Tricks for Bloggers




Google AdSense is the most popular contextual advertising network on the internet. This is the first post in the series of posts which can help you to make more money through the AdSense. I’ve asked so much times to post a similar articles on this blog. I’ll do that in few steps, because I want to guarantee you the most adequate and accurate results and want to help you making money from this ad network.
A lot of bloggers and website owners successfully earn money through this ad network. Most of them make enough money to cover the ISP and web hosting costs, and earn little more money on the side. In the other hand, there’re a few experts which can generate enough money from AdSense to actually live from it.

Why Google AdSense is Good?

Google AdSense is the most popular ad network. That means you can get the most relevant ads for your pages and increase your earnings comparing to other ad networks on the internet.
AdSense has unbelievable number of the advertisers and the merchants. Thanks to the advanced technologies, it’s possible to crawl your site and find the most appropriate ads for each page. The ads are dynamic and they’re automatically related to your site contents.
Because of that, AdSense is the great way to make money at beginning. Much better from other similar ad networks currently available on the internet.

How do I make money from AdSense?

in the basics, all you need to do is to sign-up completely for free to get an Google AdSense account. Once approved, you can make money placing an advertisement code on your pages.
First of all, I’m no expert in this area and there’re a lot of webmasters and bloggers which make much more money than me. I make enough to cover some basic web hosting and ISP costs for all my blogs. But also, I can earn enough money which I can spend on the side.
I’ll post my thoughts and my opinions regarding the most popular advertising network on the planet. Anyway, I use this program for over 2 years, with the constant increase in the income – which makes me happy of course.

Where to Find Out More about Google AdSense?

The below links are very useful if you want to find out what exactly is the Google AdSense. What you can do with it and simply how it works. If you are the absolute beginner, the below links can be very useful for you.