Easy ways to get hundreds of blog post ideas...!

11 Proven Ways to Come Up With Great Blog Post Ideas

1. Have blog post topics on your blog

Having clearly categorised blog post topics will naturally help you come up with ideas to fill each topic, and quickly let readers see what your blog covers.
If you find you’re not writing much about one topic you can always delete or change it later. If one topic is proving popular you’ll know where to focus your blogging efforts.
Hot Tips

• Limit your blog topics to eight or less so your blog readers can scan them quickly and you stay  focused.
• Look at my blog topics here and at Get In the Hot Spot to give you ideas on how you can split your main niche out into sub-topics.
• If you’re a small business owner base some of the topics around the services you offer.

2. Use the Google Adwords keywords tool

The Google Adwords keywords tool will help you learn what people are actually searching for before choosing your blog topics.
If you use those key words as topics, or sections on your blog, it should also help you rank better with the search engines in the long term.
But let’s not worry about search engine optimisation now. The key to successful blogging is to have useful content and engaged readers so focus your blog post ideas on your readers, not the search engines. Just use the Google keywords tool to help you come up with related ideas.
For example, by using the Google Adwords tool for the terms “health and well-being” I can see that blog topics like beauty, kids, fitness or mental health might interest readers.

3. Narrow your blogging niche

It’s counter intuitive, but the tighter the focus of your blog the more readers you’ll get and the more ideas you’ll have for what to blog about.
The Health and Well-being niche is too wide. If you narrow it down to Kid’s Health and use the Google Adwords tool again, you can come up with much tighter blog post topics such as: Growing Bodies, Active Games, Healthy Food and Troubleshooting.

4. Choose short, meaningful and fun blog topics

The Google Adwords tool gives great ideas but I usually change the names to make them more interesting. For example:

• “how the body works” becomes Growing Bodies
• “games” becomes  Active Games
• “problems” becomes Troubleshooting. It adds a touch of humour to a sticky topic and parents of kids with health problems will probably appreciate that.

If you’re interested in the search engine optimisation side of things you’ll need to make the  permalink to your section contain the key words Google found. For example:  www.healthandwellbeing.com/how-the-body-works/
But let’s work on that another time. Right now we’re focusing on generating ideas that inspire both us bloggers and our readers.

5. Brainstorm

Now you have up to eight topics for your blog you’re ready to start coming up with blog post ideas.
Come up with ten ideas for blog posts for each category in ten minutes. No ifs, no buts. Just do it in ten minutes.
Just think, in ten minutes you’ll have up to 80 blog post ideas, enough for at least one blog post per week for a year or more
Hot Tips

• Don’t discount any ideas, just write them all down somewhere you won’t lose them.
• Brainstorming with a friend is fun. Either a fellow blogger or someone with an interest in your topic. But make sure you set the ground rules and stick to them: don’t poo poo or discard any ideas, just write them all down.

6. Create hot blog post headlines

Use the five winning headline formulas from my post on blog headlines to come up with yet more ideas.
Eight topics times five headline formulas should help you come up with forty more blog post ideas.
If you need more help check out the post on blog headlines but the idea is to use each of the blog headline formulas for every topic.
There may be some overlap with the other ideas you brainstormed but don’t worry about that. You’re just generating ideas. Later, you can pick the best headlines and rework them to make them irresistible.
Here are the headline formulas:

1. Ask a question
2. Ask Why
3. How to
4. Numbered lists
5. Best or worst

Hot Tips

• Write these blog post ideas down with the others and don’t worry about having more blog post ideas than you could ever use. Now you’ll have the luxury of being able to pick and choose the blog posts your readers most need to read, or the ones you most feel like writing.

7. Use your comments

You’re a good blogger who leaves comments on other people’s blogs aren’t you? Long, meaningful ones that add to the conversation?
Good. Then use them.
Keep a note of all your thoughtful comments. Copy and paste them into a document along with a quick title.
This document will help you see what makes you tick, give you ideas for future blog posts and give you a short piece of writing to get you started.

8. Read other bloggers’ comments

On one of my Copyblogger guest posts over 50% of the comments are about one specific thing I wrote. So I know I need to write about that more in another post or posts.
You’ll find out about what interests blog readers in your niche, and what they need help with, by reading their comments on your blog posts and on other blogs.

9. Stop thinking about your blog

Have you got blogger’s block or blogger burn out? Go for a walk or take a week off if you need it. Hopefully ideas will start popping into your head, probably around 3am if you’re anything like me.

10. Write all your ideas down

Keep a trusty pen and paper to hand at all times (even on your bedside table), so when those ideas pop up you can make a note of them before they get forgotten again.
The Evernote app for iPad or cellphone is useful for this too.

11. Ask your readers for blog post ideas

I regularly ask my readers to tell me what their biggest blogging problem is. I often send new Twitter followers a direct mail telling them to fire away if they have any blogging problems.
In fact that’s why I’m writing this today.
Of course, the topic of coming up with blog post ideas was already in my long list of blog post ideas! But when Philippa Smart sent me a direct mail asking for tips on coming up with blog post ideas it gave me a much needed push to actually write the post and publish it. Thank you Philippa.

Hundreds of Blog Post Ideas

If you follow these ideas you’ll have plenty of ideas to choose from next time you’re stuck for blog post ideas.
In fact, you’ll probably never get stuck again. Now your biggest problem will be finding enough time to blog about them all.

Take Action Now

Set aside 30 minutes to come up with interesting blog post ideas. Make a nice cup of tea and have fun spending your time as follows:

• 10 minutes – Create up to eight blog post topics for your blog.
• 10 minutes – Come up with ten blog post ideas for each of those topics.
• 10 minutes – Use the five headline formulas above to come up with up to forty more ideas.

What Do You Think?

Share your blog post topics in the comments below if you’d like feedback or a pat on the back.
Got more ideas on generating hot blog post ideas? We’d love to hear them..

Amzing ways to use twitter to get your blog followed...!

There’s a myth that says that you have to slog it out in the blogging trenches for at least a year before you see significant traffic to your blog. To be fair, that may have been the case a few years ago.  But now, with Twitter, it’s very possible to launch your blog and attract some crazy traffic within months rather than years.
Now you can jump in the middle of highly targeted conversations, rub elbows with mega-influencers, and watch your posts go viral with a single tweet.  You don’t need PPC or a giant email list.  All you need is persistence, good manners, and some clever tactics.

I’ve seen it happen first hand.  My blog Pushing Social started in April 2010.  It already has 300 visitors a day, averages 50 retweets a post, and attracts bunches of influential twitter followers. Not bad for a 5 month old blog.
Here’s the kicker – My only promotion method has been Twitter.  Here’s how I did it:

#1 Participate in Tweet Chats

Almost every night of the week, hundreds of people are getting together and exchanging tweets in Tweet Chats.  These chats are labeled with a hashtag such as #blogchat, #techchat, and even #dogchat. The moderator asks a question, everyone tweets a response.  You join in by answering questions and adding the hashtag to the end of your tweet.
Just find a chat in your niche, show up, and start tweeting.  You get to share your blog’s URL at the start of the chat and chatters usually follow fellow participants AND visit their blog.

#2 Follow and Retweet Links for 10 Niche Influencers

Find the movers and shakers in your niche.  These folks are usually the ones with a large following AND are included on a large number of lists.  For example: @AskAaronLee has 140,947+ followers and is listed on 4,535 lists a clear sign that Aaron can move some serious traffic with a single tweet.
Once you’ve created your list, go follow each person.  Now keep an eye on their tweets and retweet whenever you can.  The idea is to get on their radar screen.  Once they notice you – they are likely to retweet one of YOUR links – putting your blog on the map.

#3 Directly Ask Influencers to Mention Your Posts

Be careful with this oe.  Although it is extremely effective it can backfire if you don’t use sound judgment.  Here’s the best way to do it.  Take at least two weeks and make a point to leave great comments on your influencer’s posts and retweeting their links.  After two weeks, consider Direct Messaging  (DM) the influencers that follow-you with a request to tweet about your post.
Only do this once or twice a month.  If you abuse this you’ll just get unfollowed (or blocked).  Also make sure you are only requesting a mention for your very best posts.

#4 Follow-up On Mentions

Soon you will get people mentioning you on Twitter.  When you see yourself mentioned, immediately follow the person mentioning you.  Follow-up and answer any questions and if they retweeted you then DM them your thanks.
I also suggest you visit their blog and read through their recent posts. This will put you on the person’s radar screen and increase your chances of getting retweeted and promoted in the future.

#5 Include URL when welcoming newcomers

As you get new followers, take the time to write each a personal welcome.  Along with your welcome include a link to your About Us page or your latest blog post.  Keep this up as long as you can.  Warning, don’t auto-direct-message your new followers.  It’s rude and sends the wrong message.  No greeting is better than offending a potential influencer with a impersonal Auto-DM.

#6 Be Generous

I’m still a fan of #ff (Follow Fridays). But, I would suggest your pick 4 or 5 key influencers and write a 120 character tweet that explains why you are recommending them for #ff.  This makes your tweet stand out and will certainly catch the attention of the person you are recommending – driving traffic to your blog.

Can You Do This?

If you are launching a blog then give these techniques a try.  Which ones do you think you can use right away?  Are you already using any that are showing results?

What should I blog about?

Let’s Fill that Blog With Awesome Content

Remember your high school English teacher? The ol’ professor spouted lots of rules, but we can guarantee one thing he or she said was: write what you know. The same holds true for blogging – you must be at least familiar with your topic. There are a lot of things that you already do know and have an opinion about.

Five Ways to Find Your Blogging Voice

Here are some tips and questions that can help you to keep the creative juices flowing as your blog starts to take shape.

1. What is your expertise? Readers want to read about what you know and your special experiences. Really!
2. What’s the news? While you don’t have to necessarily be a new breaker, you can give your view on what happening in your industry and how it relates to your hobby, life, etc.
3. What is your personality? Do you like to take a stance? Are you funny? Do you like being contrarian? These insights can help you to write about your topic.
4. What are your hopes and fears? Things that you can’t stop thinking about or what keeps you up at night can be good things to share with others.
5. What are your hobbies? Things that you like to do on your free time are often great topics to discuss.

Getting Inspiration

It’s scary to stare at a blank page or a blank screen – darn that writer’s block. Here are 5 tips to keep you inspired:

1. Other Blogs. Follow others who write about your industry or topic of interest. While you can’t copy them, you can springboard off their ideas and add your special spin.
2. Go Social. What are people saying on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+?
3. Read Alot. Did you get anything interesting in your RSS reader, newspaper,  magazine,  emailbox? Anything that made you pause could be used to get you typing.
4. Google Alerts. Get regular notifications on whatever you like to search on in your inbox.
5. Post Types. Change up your repertoire from offering only text-based posts to adding podcasts or video in the mix.

Five Post Types to Consider

What posts are more likely to be read? There are no fast rules, but these types prove to be perennially popular:

1. Top __ Reasons Why or Why Not … (list posts of any number are great)
2. Q&A or Interviews (ask an expert from your industry)
3. How I Use … (review a product, movie, book, technology, etc.)
4. If I Were A … (put yourself in someone else’s shoes or imagine a new experience)
5. Personal Posts (our humanness often endears audiences even more)

What Else?

Now that you have your topic, places you can go for inspiration, and some writing tips, it’s all up to you. Get blogging and keep at it!

Get your blog Noticed By people...!

Let’s Help You Gain a Following

Blogs are everywhere! But you can still stand out in a busy blog landscape if you employ any and all of the techniques below. In the end, it’s hard work, but don’t give up if you are truly passionate about your topic.

Write Great Content

• Unique content will always keep them coming back. While it takes time to craft quality posts, retreading others’ content can get you in trouble with copyright laws.
• Try to post regularly to consistently share your story, point of view, expertise, etc. and the Googlebots will love you.
• It’s true that content is still king – here’s some tips on that will keep you writing.

Share Your Posts With the World

• Want more reach? Post your stories to Digg, delicious, and StumbleUpon for starters.
• Add Facebook Like, Twitter, Google+, Email This to posts so visitors can share your content with a click of a button. Take advantage of DiggDigg, ShareThis, or ShareDaddy plugins to easily integrate on your WordPress blog.
• Install a search engine optimization plugin to encourage search engines and directories to index your blog. We recommend both the  All in One SEO Pack and WordPress SEO by Yoast.

More Ways to Push Content Out

• RSS (or Really Simple Syndication) allows your content to be syndicated via RSS or news feeds. This helps your fans to stay in touch with what you are doing by reading your posts in a news reader.
• Newsletters offer visitors to be notified of updates via a nicely formatted email. Our favorite service is MailChimp, but we also have recommended Feedburner and Feedblitz.
• Take advantage of WordPress’s built-in Update Services (found in your Settings > Write panel). Minimally, you should be “pinging”  to pingomatic, but there are other services you may wish to add.)

Be Social

• Create Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn accounts, if appropriate, to promote your posts. Don’t feel compelled to join all the social media networks – just the ones that make sense for your business.
• Be actively engaged by following others and promote their content along with your own.
• Respond to your own blog’s comments to show you care about your readers.
• Comment on other’s blogs and forums.
• Answer your email promptly – within 24 hours is a nice rule.

Off-Blog Techniques

• Send out a press release.
• Create a Google AdWords campaign.
• Reach out to other bloggers and offer to guest blog.
• Write an article for a local newspaper, trade magazine.
• Attend or speak at conferences in your industry.

Don’t forget to track your good progress with tools like Google Analytics for metrics and Clicky for stats.

30 techniques to make your blog Effective..!

1. Write short and on the topic posts. Break up your posts in paragraphs and put them in a logical order. For example: A review is always written in parts like design, performance, new features and verdict. All the parts are on the same topic still not mixed up. It makes a post easier to read and understand.
2. Blog on your own domain. It attracts search engines’ attention. Moreover it becomes easy to remember xyzstuff.com rather than xyzstuff.abchost.com.
3. Blog on a particular topic. Don’t mix things like technology and travel stories together on one post or even one blog. A reader interested in books might reach up your blog and read an article or two. But then if he finds no more articles on that topic but some kind of travel stories or other stuff, then he is obviously not going to return.
4. Write unique content. Don’t follow the beaten track. Coping content from other sources and writing in your own words is not unique content. Unique content is which comes in yours and only yours head.
5. Write for loyal readers and not for loads of worthless traffic. The blog’s quality is judged by subscribers and not traffic which leaves your blog reading one page or even just the title.
6. Encourage your readers to comment and help make your blog better. This will provide good co-operation between you and your readers and you will eventually come to know about their likes and dislikes.
7. Take help in writing content from someone having similar interests. They might also have some creative ideas in their mind jumping out to stick to your blog.
8. Don’t think you have to know all about the topic which you are writing on. You learn as you write. But keep on reading books and other stuff on the topic you write just to enhance your knowledge.
9. Do some e-mail interviews to get some popularity. This means doing interviews with the well known and not the one living down the street.
10. Always answer to questions asked in your e-mails or comments on your blog. The questions will enhance your knowledge and your readers’ also. Give some suggestions if you don’t know the answer but always reply.
11. Use both text and photos in your blog posts. No one is interested in plain text or just a bunch of photos. Insert related photos on the right spot in your post and only where they are necessary.
12. Create squidoo lens of some of your greatest posts. The ones discovering your squidoo lens and finding it useful will surely visit your blog.
13. Use a good template and font that makes your posts easier to read. A great post which is not readable is a waste of time.
14. Use some great ideas of others, break them up and then create your own. This will help you creating a good and unique content for your blog.
15. Post regularly. Regularly doesn’t mean daily, it means consistently in a routine. When readers know your posting routine, they will visit your blog when you post. If they don’t know your routine and when they visit your blog and find no new content, they will surely not come back.
16. Write about different topics so your readers never get bored. But write on topics that you know about and not anything that others are writing about.
17. Give credit to those who inspired you. It creates a good image of yours in the readers’ mind.
18. Write in proper language. Take care of your spellings and grammar. If your post is great and useful (according to you) but not written in proper language, then it is not worth reading for others as they will not be able to make out what you have written.
19. Write a great title which attracts on the first sight. A good post with a bad title is often ignored. Title is the first thing which a reader reads. Then he analysis that is it of his interest or not. If a great post is not given a proper title, even the interested readers might not read it.
20. Be patient. Don’t give up if you don’t get a lot of readers at once. Rome was not built in one day. You go up the search rankings as your blog grows old and readers pour in and not immediately when it goes online.
21. Write a detailed post. Don’t be too long or too short in your posts. Longer posts might bore the readers whereas short posts might not provide complete detail.
22. Don’t give up quality for quantity. Don’t write tons of content which is not useful. It is just a waste of time and nothing more.
23. Categorize your content properly so that readers have an ease browsing your blog. It makes readers view articles pleasing to their interest. They don’t have to search all the way to read the article they want to.
24. Provide useful contents which readers are interested in. Don’t write about your husband, kids, uncles and aunts. No one is interested in knowing about someone whom they don’t know.
25. Write content which is useful either read on the same day or after one year. Don’t write on topics which are useful only when read on the same day. Create sequels of your articles based on stuff which keeps on updating like software, plug-ins etc.
26. Comment on others blog fairly. Include your opinion and suggestion. Don’t post a comment like “I like this post. You are awesome” on blogs you like. It will be considered as spam. Always remember to include a link to your blog in the comment.
27. Provide some quizzes, polls and other fun stuff on your blogs. Readers are always interested in them. They provide you a break from posts and help in interacting with the readers. It will be great if you provide a type of weekly content like “Review of the week” or “News of the week” or maybe “Gadget of the week”.
28. Give some free stuff. Everyone loves freebies. But see your budget first. You could hold a competition for a software license, hardware upgrade, gift card, or even software created by you. Competition grabs a considerable amount of attention.
29. Don’t fill your blog with useless ads. It distracts the readers. Put up ads that are related to your niche and are even better than your content. You could earn a decent income through this. If possible, market your own stuff. This way you will earn more.
30. A new advertisement method is “Text Link Ads”. The creators claim that it is a great advertisement method. I totally disagree. I advice you not to put it on your blog. Some readers are in a habit of rolling their cursor over the words as they read. Text link ads interrupt them. It is really frustrating.

10 blog techniques that you must know..!

1.Support your blog with good SEO.

If you are considering using your blog to boost your search engine rankings, make sure your blog supports all of the features that search engines want to see in your content, such as explicit, unique title tags and good meta description tags.

2.Get stats on your blogs performance.

The same way you want to know how your website is succeeding, you'll also want to know what's working on your blog. How many page views and unique visitors are you getting? Where are visitors coming from? How do they find you in search engines? Which posts and categories are most popular? You can either use the analytics software your blog hosting company provides, or install Google Analytics. WordPress.com has its own stats tool and self-hosted WordPress has a Google Analytics plug-in that makes installation relatively simple.

3.Schedule automated e-mail updates.

As with most marketing, you have to do it consistently in order to maximize its value. But consistency can be awfully time-consuming. This is why we love technology! Feedburner and Feedblitz are two great tools to use that simplify your blog e-mail marketing. They both will take care of two major tasks for you: 1) enabling visitors to sign up to receive an e-mail when you make a new post to your blog; and 2) automatically send an e-mail each time someone posts to your blog.

4.Download the TweetMeme retweet counter.

This little tool is a quick and easy way to get your posts re-tweeted to show their popularity. Note that it doesn't work so well if your title tags are not unique.

5.Help people find archived blogs with categories.

Make it easier to find things on your blog. It's great to have things organized by date but this isn't particularly intuitive to a reader who is looking to find out what you write about or looking for help or answers on a specific topic. Use categories to help readers find what they're looking for and put the categories in your sidebar. Don't be afraid to put a post in more than one category. Remember the categories are for your *reader* so make them as intuitive as possible to the reader.

6.Set up a RSS Feed.

Feedburner and Feedblitz can also help you set up a feed and do all kinds of neat things with your feed. But most blogging software comes with an internal feed tool. If you've ever wondered what RSS is, it's a feed that collects articles and content from different online magazines and websites, similar to myAOL, iGoogle or myYahoo. It allows you to see the most recent headlines from CNN or Inc. or The Economist without having to visit the site. The headlines are clickable. Click on the headline and it takes you to the article. Neat! You may also want to add links to related articles that you like and want people to read also.
 

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7.Stop spam with (re)Captcha.

Captcha is the tool that asks users to type in a set of letters or numbers before submitting a form. This tool is now available as a plugin for websites and blogs. (re)Captcha is captcha with a conscience. While commenters are typing in the confirmation text, they are also helping to decipher text from very old books being saved by digitizing them. If you allow comments on your blog, you will definitely want some sort of spam defense. Even though it will not eliminate all comment spam it will help A LOT.

8.Keep an eye on your comments.

Commenting is an important part of the two-way dialogue you want to develop with your readers. Tap into the voyeur in all of us. Make sure that people who make a comment will be notified when others comment on the same post. Also, if you open your blog to comments (which you don't have to do) you must review the comments. You will get spam. Spam looks silly on your blog. You will want to prune your blog of spam on a relatively frequent basis depending on how much traffic you get.

9.Link to your clones.

Make sure that if people like your style they have ways to connect with you. Enabling them to subscribe to your RSS feed and automated e-mail update is great but how about you on Twitter? You on Facebook? You on LinkedIn? While you may not want to promote all three of these choose at least one and close that loop in the relationship with your reader.

10.Add language to hook your readers.

Make sure to include at least one call to action statement. Provide some indication of what you want people to do if they like your blog. Just read more? Consider hiring you? Buy a book? Come see you speak? Shop at your store? Make sure they know the next step..

Ontology of Adsense

Google AdSense program began in March 2003 when Google introduced its own "automated content-targeted ads." The effectiveness of their advertising system as content targeted was challenged by Applied Semantics, which at that time owned the AdSense technology.
Applied Semantics was started in 1998 (its name was Oingo at that time) by Adam Weissman and Gil Elbaz, with an interest in making computers more "human-literate". They worked to build a new architecture using their expertise in scalable information systems design, database applications development, software engineering, and natural language processing (NLP). Together with a team of linguists and software engineers, they developed the company's patented technology, CIRCA, which serves as the common platform for all Applied Semantics' products.
Google eventually bought Applied Semantics in April 2003, making it the owner of the AdSense technology as well as its CIRCA technology (Conceptual Information Retrieval and Communication Architecture) which AdSense is built on.
The CIRCA ontology is based on a language independent, scalable ontology consisting of millions of words along with what the words mean, how the words are related conceptually to other meanings. Ontologies are commonly used in artificial intelligence and knowledge representation to define a hierarchical data structure containing all the relevant entities and their relationships and rules.

• Synonymy/antonymy ("good" is an antonym of "bad")
• Similarity ("gluttonous" is similar to "greedy")
• Hypernymy (is a kind of / has kind) ("horse" has kind "Arabian")
• Membership ("commissioner" is a member of "commission")
• Metonymy (whole/part relations) ("motor vehicle" has part "clutch pedal")
• Substance (e.g. "lumber" has substance "wood")
• Product (e.g. "Microsoft Corporation" produces "Microsoft Access")
• Attribute ("past", "preceding" are attributes of "timing")
• Causation (e.g. travel causes displacement/motion)
• Entailment (e.g. buying entails paying)
• Lateral bonds (concepts closely related to one another, e.g. "dog" and "dog collar")

A typical example is the word Java, which has a number of meanings, including a synonym for coffee, an Indonesian island and a computer programming language.
In the case of a word like Ford, however, the system has to rank the relationships generated. Ford is a car manufacturer as well as a company. The concept "car manufacturer" is more specific than company, so it would receive a stronger value. This entire scheme of how concepts relate is called an ontology and forms the core of most linguistics engines produced today.
What makes CIRCA ontology a very clever choice for web advertising?

• CIRCA ontology understands and extracts key themes of a page
• CIRCA discerns ambiguous terms
• CIRCA uses the context and delivers relevant keywords

Tips to increase your adsense revenue

AdSense Tip #1: Find your keywords

Before serving ads on a web page, check its keyword density. A free and advanced tool for finding the most prominent keywords in a page can be found here: SEO Density Analyzer. Copy the most important keywords to a text file ([web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt).

AdSense Tip #2: Improve your keywords

Get keyword suggestions from Overture Search Inventory and from Google AdWords Sandbox. Get new keywords that can help you improve your ad relevance. Enter the keywords from [web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt and save the suggestions to [web page name]-adsense-suggestions.txt.

AdSense Tip #3: Keep your website focused on a theme

Use the keyword suggestions to enhance your web pages and to build theme-based content. And also try to get your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links as much as possible. Don't forget that Google AdSense is keyword-targeted advertising: Google AdSense bases its advert topics on your websites content, this means that content-rich websites of a popular topic should attract a large amount of ads.

AdSense Tip #4: Write a new page every day

One of the best tips is to add a new page to your web site every day. The more content you have, the more visitors you will get. Put an Adsense unit on each and every content page of your site. But where? You will find more about that from the next AdSense tips.

AdSense Tip #5: Choose the right AdSense format

Wider formats are successful because the ads are compact, easy to read and are complementary to the content. The top three AdSense formats are:

1. 336x280 large rectangle
2. 300x250 medium rectangle
3. 160x600 wide skyscraper

Another successful format is the 468x15 horizontal ad links, that can be placed under your navigation bar. 

In part one of the AdSense tips you found out how to improve your keywords and how to build theme-based content.

• AdSense Tip #1: Your keywords are important
• AdSense Tip #2: Improve your keywords
• AdSense Tip #3: Keep your website focused on a theme
• AdSense Tip #4: Write a new page every day
• AdSense Tip #5: Choose the right AdSense format

The next AdSense tips will show you the importance of positioning the ads and how to increase your revenue by adding multiple AdSense units.

AdSense Tip #6: Color tips

When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color.

Create a custom AdSense palette:

• border color = background color of your web site
• background color = background color of your web site
• link color = blue, color of your links
• url color = black, #999999
• text color = black, #333333, color of your main content

You can also rotate your color palette: select multiple color palettes that blend with your site to create variety.

AdSense Tip #7: Position tips

Visitors tend to look at the big headlines to see if your page is worth reading. If you get them interested, they will read the text and look for your navigation links.

Place the AdSense ads in a prominent place around the top/left part of your page or under your headlines, where your visitors are most likely to look at.

If you have an article page with a long body of text, the bottom of that article is a good place for AdSense ads because your visitors read the text and then they want more resources.

AdSense Tip #8: Increase the number of ads, but not too much

If you have a lot of text on a page, use multiple AdSense units. You can use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes and one unit of ad links.

Link units allow the user to refine what they're interested in. So if they may not be interested in specific ads on your page, they might be interested in a particular topic, and by clicking on a link unit and a link in the link unit, they'll be able to specify that they're interested in that specific topic and get a lot more options and variety on the ads that might appear.

AdSense for Search allows visitors to search Google.com or your sites (up to 3 domains). You earn money whenever they click on the ads that come up on the search results. If you click the Open search results in a new browser window checkbox in the AdSense for Search settings, you won't lose your visitors.

AdSense Tip #9: Preview Google ads

You can find out what ads will be served by Google AdSense if you install Google AdSense Preview Tool, a very simple tool available only for Internet Explorer 6.0. Click to advertiser sites without generating invalid clicks, and easily add their URLs to your URL filter list. Because AdSense uses geo-targeting, Google serves different ads for other countries. Instead of faking your IP or travelling abroad to test your ads, use this AdSense tool to see what ads see your visitors from France, Germany or other countries.

There may be no Google AdSense ads available for your webpage, so Googlw will display Public Service Ads. You can hide them using alternate colors or images. Make sure you include the image in a simple html file as a link (use target="_top"). The image size should be the same as the dimension of AdSense units. In the alternate url box, enter the absolute url of the html file.

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AdSense Tip #10: What not to do

• Don't click on your own ads
• Don't ask others to click on your Google ads
• Don't manually change AdSense code
• Don't place Google ads on sites that include prohibited content (e.g.: adult sites)
• Don't employ cloaking, hidden text or farm links
• Don't use AdSense ads on the same page with similar ads (e.g.: Yahoo Publisher Network)

In part one of the AdSense tips you found out how to improve your keywords and how to build theme-based content.

Then we showed you the importance of positioning the ads and how to increase your revenue by adding multiple AdSense units.

AdSense Tip #11: Show images above or next to your ads

Placing images above AdSense ads is not necessarily prohibited by program policies. However, depending on the method of implementation this could be considered encouraging users to click on ads. So you should include a border line between the ads and the images. Don't show specific products in your images, in order not to mislead the visitors. Just use generic images that will increase the visibility of your ads.

AdSense Tip #12: Use section targeting

Use section targeting to emphasize some content in your page. On your site, place this code where you want to emphasize.

<!-- google_ad_section_start -->
Content you want to emphasize.
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

If you want some content to be ignored, use 

<!-- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) -->

AdSense Tip #13: Alternate the colors of your ads

AdSense allows you to have up to 4 color variations for each variable for which you can specify color. You should do that if you put AdSense ads on pages that receive many impressions from the same visitors (for example forums) to reduce ad blindness. For example:

google_color_border = ["628098","628098","000000","000000"]; 
google_color_link = ["000000","BBB90C","BBB90C","628098"]; 
google_color_url = ["000000","628098","000000","000000"];
google_color_text = ["628098","628098","000000","000000"]; 

AdSense Tip #14: Your Google ads should be visible

Make sure your text ads are visible to the surfers in all screen formats. If you put the ads in a table, give sufficient breathing room, i.e. proper cell padding and cell spacing to make the ads stand out from the rest of your content.

AdSense Tip #15: Use AdSense channels

You can categorize the content of your website into channels and then track your performance. This way you can experiment with different types of ads and see which is performing the best. Instead of buying an AdSense tracker, you can enter the most important pages in your site and see how they are doing. Create up to 200 channels for AdSense.

 

How to Improve Your Adsense Revenue (RPM)?

So, is there a way to improve your RPM? The answer is yes and no. You really do not want to become over-infatuated with trying to raise your number. You need to be more concerned with providing quality content on a consistent basis. However, according to the Adsense Rep there are a few things that you can do.

Opt-in to Both Text and Image Ads

Text ads just display links and text like traditional classified advertisements. Image ads will display graphic advertisements more like you would see on a traditional billboard. In your Adsense account you can choose to display one or the other on your site or both.
According to the Adsense Rep, displaying both is your better option. This creates more competition because it pulls in more advertisers competing for the same space. Google Adsense will then display the higher performing ad.
Also, you open up a new income source with image ads. Some image ads pay out income by impressions. That means you get paid even if no one clicks on the advertisement. Of course, you need to test out for yourself whether opting in to display both is the best way for you to go.

Choose the Most Popular Ad Blocks

Another way to supposedly raise your Adsense Revenue is to use the most common adsense blocks. Some advertisers only design graphics to be displayed using certain ad sizes. It does make sense that using the ads that have more advertiser competition could lead to higher revenue for you. Again, test this out to see if it is true for you and your niche.
Some of the more popular ad sizes mentioned were:

• Leaderboard (728×90)
• Large Rectangle (336×280)
• Medium Rectangle (300×250)
• Wide Skyscraper (160×600)

10 ways to increase you Adsense income..!

1. Use section targeting to increase the relevancy of your adverts! This is something I don’t see talked about nearly enough because it really does work out for alot of sites. Its effectiveness really is determined on the site in particular, but no matter what it’s worth a shot!
2. Target competitive niches! I don’t care what anyone says about MFA sites, they work! I’m not talking about spam sites, I’m talking about high-quality, informative sites that are in a high paying market! Some of these niche sites can bring in $5-$10/day after only a couple days. When you’re making over a $1 per click you don’t need much traffic to make money.
3. If a site has a CTR of 1% or less, remove it from your site. Although there is some contraversy as to whether or not CTR causes “smart pricing” to kick in, it’s just not worth risking. At least remove Adsense for a few weeks and see if your overall adsense income rises. If so, you were probably hit with Google’s Smart Pricing. If that site in particular was causing smart-pricing to kick in, consider a different monetization model.
4. Use large rectangles wherever possible. Obviously this will be determined by your own perception of ads, as some people think it’s somewhat “spammy” to have a big ad at in their face, but large rectangles appearing at the top center of a page does work! I use this format on my niche sites above the content and I get very nice CTR’s on most of these sites.
5. Remove the “on-site Advertiser” link from your ads. This is something I noticed a few years back and noticed an immediate increase in earnings. That may have been a coincidence, but it makes sense. It’s just one less thing that makes it look like an ad.
6. Most pages convert better without a border and by using the same link and background color as your page. This is of course dependent on each page in particular, so testing is always important, but more times than not blending in converts!
7. In many instances one individual advert will show over and over again. If you see an ad that continues to appear on your page(s) but isn’t laser targeted to your content remove it with the competitive ads filter inside your account.
8. Do not go by Google’s heat map. It’s a good visual aid for some layouts, but there are just too many variables. The effectiveness of any layout will be determined by color, style, niche etc. so testing is always your best bet!
9. Don’t get too crazy with ads. I’ve seen loads of sites that have there maximum allowance of Google ads stuffed into their pages, a few (or alot) affiliate banners etc. etc. Placing too many adverts on any page does NOT mean you’re going to earn more!! That’s a classic “newbie” mistake that most of us made in the beginning. More times than not, just have a couple well optimized ads on each page will convert MUCH better than 5 or more.
10. Play by the rules. Don’t ever click your own ads and don’t ever have others commit click fraud. You can’t crack their code and trying will only get your account banned for life! If you do click your own ad on accident don’t worry, one or two accidental clicks probably won’t get you banned, but several from the same IP and/or geographical location will definitely get your account banned. It’s not worth it, don’t do it!

Things You Can Do to Improve Your Online Business or Blog

1. Re-Evaluate Your Goals

On a piece of paper (yes – paper), write down where you want your business or blog to be a year from now. Think about the following when doing so:

• Number specific items, such as:
  • earnings
  • traffic
  • sales
  • subscribers / followers
  • etc.
• Non-number specific items, such as:
  • authority
  • design
  • happiness
  • lifestyle

So often, we get stuck in the routine of just doing things, that we forget exactly why we’re do what we’re doing. Re-evaluating your goals will give you that boost of energy you need to get things done, and possibly even help you realize that you need to do things a little differently to get to where you want to go.

2. Visit Your Homepage for the “First Time”

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – first impressions are HUGELY important, especially online. You’ve got less than 10 seconds to make a new visitor decide to stick around, or else they’re going to leave.
So, what can we do?
Role play.
Pretend to be a brand new visitor to your site. Go to your homepage and run through the following questionnaire in your head:

1. What do I notice first?
2. Can I understand exactly what the site is about without scrolling or clicking anything?
3. Have I seen other sites like this before?
4. How easy is the website to navigate?
5. What seems to be missing?

By quickly answering those 5 questions, you can easily see what kinds of things need to happen to improve your website. Maybe it’s just as easy as making some fonts larger, or taking away some annoying advertisements or popups.
If you find that any of these changes will take less than 5 minutes to, do them right now. If it will take you more than 5 minutes to do something, make sure to write it down or put it on a to-do list so you can catch it later.

3. Check and Correct Crawl Errors

Using Google’s Webmaster Tools, you can see if there are any errors on your website that you can fix right now.
Step 1: Visit Google’s Webmaster Tools.
Step 2: If you haven’t already, setup a Google Account (if you have gmail, you’re good), and verify your website address. To verify, you’ll have to “add new site”, and either use a meta or html page on your server to verify your website. (They walk you though how to do this).
Step 3: After you’re all setup, click on your verified website and on the right hand side, you’ll see a section called “Crawl Errors”. What happens is Google’s bots that crawl through your website keep track of any errors that they find along the way for you, which may include broken/dead links, or links that people should have access to, but for some reason don’t. You can click on each individual error and find out exactly where it’s happening, and correct the problem right away.

4. Grade Your Website

An even more thorough way to check the health of your website is to get it graded by a site such as Website Grader. It’s free (and you don’t even have to enter your email address like they ask you to), and it spits out a nice, lengthy but easy to understand report about your website and the things you can do immediately to make it better.
For example, if your meta data or website descriptions are too long, it will tell you (and by how much). It also checks your RSS feed, social media, your image tags, and a whole bunch of other things you should have optimized on your website.
Try it out, it’s free!

5. Ask Someone a Question

No matter what level you’re at with blogging or online business, you’re always going to have questions that you’d like to have answers to. I have questions all of the time, and I’m not shy about going to someone more experienced than me for an answer. More often than not, I will hear back from them.
It’s easy, and you can do it right now. Don’t be shy. When you think about it, what’s the worst that can really happen? You won’t get a response back?
Boohoo.

6. Shoot a Video

That’s right. Turn on that camera that’s connected to your computer and shoot a video of yourself right now.
What are you going to talk about?
Anything related to your blog.
Spend 5 minutes shooting an unedited video, and upload it to YouTube. After it’s uploaded, make sure you have relevant keywords in the title and in the tags section, and make sure to write out your entire URL in the first line of the video description. Blast it to all of your social media buddies without a thought.
In Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Workweek, he likes to give us exercises that we can do that help us step out of our comfort zones. This needs to happen every so often in order to make real progress and take bold actions.
For example, one of his exercises is just to lay down, flat on the ground in a public place, and look straight into the air. It might sound weird, but if you can do that, just imagine what you can do in front of a crowd when you’re talking about something you love and are passionate about.
Shooting a video on a whim like this will help you learn how to step out of your comfort zone, and it’s good practice for public speaking.

7. Spend 5 Minutes to Thank 5 Of Your Customers, Subscribers or Readers

Going the extra mile to just say thanks to someone for no particular reason can make someone’s day. Not only will those 5 people remember who you are just a little bit more, but you’ll never know, one of them may come back and repay you somehow later in the future, just for being extra nice.
Like in happy, successful relationships, it’s the small little, unplanned gestures that make the relationships really special.
(cheesy, I know…)

8. Test Something

You should always be testing something on your website or blog.
Always.
Using Google Optimizer, split test something important on your page and wait to see the results. Even if you’re not selling anything, you can still test conversion rates for subscribership, email opt-ins, and even click-through rates for various links on your site.
If you don’t know about Google Optimizer or exactly how to use it, you can read more about it here at How to Run Free Split Tests Using Google Optimizer (this was a blog post I wrote in 2008, but it’s still good!).

9. Turn Off the Distractions

Distractions are all around us (especially those of us who blog and work from home), trying to stop us from progressing and getting things done.
First, understand what those distractions are. Secondly, conciously make an effort to turn them off, and only turn them back on once you accomplish something and reach a particular goal or finish something that you meant to finish.
For me, I specially have to turn off my Twitter client, as well as my Mail program, so I don’t get notified of a message in the middle of doing something. Also, I put my phone on silent, and sometimes work in full screen so I’m not tempted to click on certain icons.
In the same sense, I consciously think about what’s helping me progress, and what is not. Sometimes, what I think is helping me isn’t doing much for me at all. I take the 80/20 rule, figure out what that 20% is that’s making a difference in my business, and I work on that.
As a great internet marketer once said, “You gotta starve the horses, and feed the stallions.”

10. Follow Up With Your Audience

Whether you have an online business selling some kind of product, or just a regular ol’ blog, you can always benefit by asking your customers or readers what they would like to see improved.
Seriously, if you ask, they will tell you.
Send an email to your previous customers (you’re keeping track of their email addresses, right?), or your email list (you have an email list, right?), or even write a blog post asking for suggestions on how to make their experience a little better. Remember, it’s all about your audience’s experience, not your own.
This is how I finally ended up with a website design for this blog that I love. I went through a previous redesign, asked what people thought, and I got great feedback from you, which is all that really matters.
With my LEED customers, I usually send an email every two months asking my existing customers how their studying was going, and if there was anything I could do to improve my study guide.
Not only will this help you figure out what you can do to improve your business or blog, but it will show everything that you care enough about them to ask

How to add tabs to your blog?

Step 1

Sign into your Blogger account. Find the blog to which you want to add the tab bar in the blogs listed on the default Dashboard page.

Step 2

Click the blue “Design” menu option in the pane under the blog’s title to open the “Add and Arrange Page Elements” design settings page. Depending on where you want the tab bar, click “Add a Gadget” in either the page layout’s top section under the header, or in the sidebar section on the left or right side of the page layout.

Step 3

Scroll to the “Link List” gadget toward the bottom of the Add a Gadget dialog box. Click the white-blue “+” button beside the gadget title to add and configure the gadget with the tab links that you want to add to your blog.

Step 4

Type the URL Web address of the external Web page or internal blog post into the “URL” input box. Enter a title for the website, Web page or blog post into the “Title” box. Repeat this process for each tab link that you want on your tab bar.

Step 5

Enter the number of tab links that you want to display in the bar into the applicable box. Select how you want to order the tab links on your tab bar by selecting either the alphabetical or reverse alphabetical option from the “Sort” pull-down list.

Step 6

Click “Save” to store your preferences and close the gadget configuration dialog box. Click the orange “Save” button in the top right-hand corner of the page to add the gadget and publish the changes to your blog. This displays the tab bar in your preferred location on your Blogger blog.

Add a Pages Tab Bar

Step 1

Click “Add a Gadget” at your preferred location in the Add and Arrange Page Elements design settings page to open the Add a Gadget dialog box.

Step 2

Scroll to the “Pages” gadget; then click “+” next to the gadget name to open the Pages gadget configuration dialog box.

Step 3

Click the check box beside each blog page that you want in your tab bar. To automatically add new pages to the tab bar, click and select the check box beside “Add New Pages by Default.”

Step 4

Click “Save” to store your gadget preference and exit the dialog box. Click the “Save” button at the top of the Add and Arrange Page Elements design settings page to save and publish your changes.

How To Set up an Attractive Blog..!

Before you can start posting content to your blog, you need to make sure your blog looks attractive enough so that when people (and hiring managers) visit the site, they stick around long enough to read, watch, or hear what you have to say instead of scurrying off to another site simply because they can’t stand your fascination with neon colors and flashing banners.
Following are some basic blog-design concepts to be aware of:

• Theme: A theme is a template for the look and feel of a blog. It controls colors, typefaces, and layout. When you change the theme, your content isn’t effected, but the way it’s displayed is.
• Page: A page is static and may appear at the top of a blog for navigation. Pages can have subpages. (A page isn’t to be confused with a post as described next.)
• Post: A post is where you publish your most recent article. When someone subscribes to your blog, what they’re really subscribing to are your most recent posts.
• Categories: The categories of a blog are like chapters in a book. Typically, you don’t want much more than five categories. This limit helps focus your writing and keeps you on topic. Use only one category for each post.
• Tags: Tags are like the index of a book. You can have as many tags on each blog post as you like. Readers can use tags to navigate to different posts.

A good blog keeps its focus on the content you’re publishing. Some themes are beautiful but distract the reader from the content. When choosing a theme and setting up your blog, keep the following in mind:

• Your theme is tied to your personal brand. The colors and feel of the layout should reinforce the image you’re trying to convey. If your personal brand is related to the field of education, then you may consider brighter colors than someone writing about finance.
• Archives based on dates are useless for most readers. If someone wants to read your past articles, they most likely want to do so based on category.
• Tag lines or about-me boxes can help readers understand the purpose of your blog. The easier you can make it for a new reader (like a potential employer!) to quickly understand what your blog is all about, the better. So make sure your about-me box talks about why you’re blogging and what you blog about.
• A photograph of yourself adds trust and credibility. A photo can create a sense that you’re talking directly to your readers. Choose one that best represents the voice you write with. If you write more formally, then use the same image as your LinkedIn photo. If you’re more off-the-cuff with your content, then pick a more casual image.

If you want to make your blog look as appealing as possible, skip the other blog platforms and go right to WordPress. WordPress has more than 60 percent market share for blogs, has the largest community of developers, and is favored by Google in search results. Most importantly, you own your content when you use WordPress.

How to blog without getting sued?

Internet used to be the playground of a few handful of people a few years ago. But now everyone has their say, thanks to blogs and social media sites. Social media sites in general and blogs in particular has transformed internet into a democratic media. The 'freedom of speech' that everybody talks about can now be seen on virtual world of internet as well.

Although this advancement has been quite exceptional but the so called 'freedom of speech' has also created situations where bloggers got sued because of it (mostly due to misuse of it). The fine line between being critical and being defamatory is obscure and has added to the plight of bloggers. As a result, the cases of bloggers getting sued has been on rise since last couple of years.



For past few weeks I have been studying some of the cases where bloggers were sued and came to a conclusion that in most of the cases a blogger can avoid the trauma of getting into the courtroom by following some simple steps. This is what I am going to talk off in today's post.

Take care of following points while blogging to avoid getting sued-

1) Don't write defamatory posts-
While as a human being every blogger has right to criticise a person or a company ,criticism based on false facts is something you should refrain from doing. Furthermore, if you are criticising someone and some company time and again on your blog, you are inviting a problem.

In 2007, a blogger named Joe Albero was sued because he made fun of Salisbury police chief time and again in his blog ,Salisbury news blog. Police chief, Allen Webster sued him because he repeatedly made fun of him sometimes calling him "Chief Jack and coke".

Take another example, in July 2008, one of the blogger from Malaysia, Raja Petra was sued by two army officials when he declared the officials to be involved in murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.The blogger made this statement without backing his statement with citations and proofs from reliable sources and did it repeatedly on his blog. He was charged RM 1 million in damages.

In both these cases bloggers were sued because they criticised someone and the statements were based on either false facts or without citations and proofs from reliable sources.Furthermore, they did it repeatedly on their blog.

So, to not get litigated for defamation you need to-

1. Criticise someone only when you have solid backings in the form of solid citations, quotes or proofs from authority sources.
2. Refrain from criticising someone repeatedly on your blog.
3. Refrain from making false statements on your blog.

Don't infringe copyright policies-
While researching the topic last week, I found copyright infringement to be second most common cause of getting sued.

The hottest example of this would be perezhilton.com. The author was sued by a Los Angeles based photo agency company, X17 Inc. for illegally using some of the photographs on the blog. The company charged the blog author, Mario Lavandeira with accusations of using 51 images without permission , payment or credit. (Source)

Another example, Britney spears' label record sued a Los Angeles based popular gossip blogger for illegally posting tracks from her album even before it was released. The company demanded unspecified damages plus legal cost for this copyright infringement.

The lessons to take from these two cases are-

1. Read the copyright policies before using any rich media on your blog.
2. Don't indulge yourself in plagiarism.
3. Take permission of copyright holder before using something in your blog.

Don't disclose other people's secret-
While it is OK to break news of your niche, it is not good to disclose secrets of either an individual's personal life or a company's policies or product secrets.

There was a case when the computer giant company, Apple charged an owner of blog to divulge secrets of the products even before the products were officially launched. Although the company and blogger agreed upon a settlement after 2 years but the mental trauma that the blogger would have suffered during these two years can be imagined.

Although divulging someone's secret can give you overnight popularity but it would be nice to not indulge in such things to avoid future problems.

Take a close look at the comments appearing on your blog-
Once the famous blogger, Aaron Wall of SeoBook.com was sued for the comments that appeared in his blog. One of the Las Vegas based company, trafficpower.com charged Aaron Wall because some of the comments submitted by readers were defamatory for the company.

Some visitors to Mr. Wall's blog had posted comments complaining about what they said were unprofessional business practices by Traffic-Power.com, while others said they didn't think the tools sold by Traffic-Power.com were effective in boosting search-engine rankings.

As a blog owner you are responsible for the things that appear on your blog (including comments). So, to avoid getting sued for comments appearing on your blog you should-

1. Moderate all the comments that are inappropriate or possibly defamatory and harsh.
2. Disallow anonymous comments on your blog.
3. Make a comment policy for your blog stating the types of comment that are allowed or not allowed on your blog.

Don't write anti-government posts if your government forbids it-
There has been cases where bloggers were sued and tried for writing anti-government posts. While it is allowed to criticise government policies in most of the countries, it can't be said for all countries of the world. If writing against government policies is not allowed in your country , you should not write about it to avoid getting into a problem.Please make a note that the freedom of speech I talked about earlier is not followed in all countries of the world.

What is the Pagerank ?

Pagerank is google's way of representing the importance of a page on the web.It is a numeric value between 0 to 10.Higher pagerank mean higher importance and lower means lower importance.

According to google if a webpage is giving away a link to another page then it is casting a vote to another page.For example ,if a page A is linking back to page B then google sees it as a vote from page A to page B. (see the image below)

A site/blog with higher number of votes (links) has higher pagerank and thus, greater importance than a site having less votes (links).


Furthermore, google doesn't only takes the number of votes (links) to calculate pagerank but it also determines how important was the vote at the first place.Generally, links from a site having higher pagerank are more valued than from the lower pagerank if the number of outgoing links on both the pages are similar.


For example ,take a look at the figure below.

As shown in figure page A and page B are giving away links to your webpage.Page B has a pagerank (PR) 7 and page A has a PR of 4. So,the importance of link from page B will be greater than page A if they have equal number of outgoing links 'which is 10 in the above example. (I will tell you about importance of outgoing links later in this post)

Why pagerank is so important?

Pagerank is one of the factors that google take into account while ranking websites in their search results pages.Here, I want to make it clear that pagerank is not the sole factor which determines the high rankings but clearly it is one of the important one.


Importance of PR is more pronounced when you have targeted extremely competitive keyword.Generally ,when many websites target the same keyword then PR becomes an extremely important factor in ranking them.So,if you are targeting a competitive keyword on your blog you need to be more serious about increasing backlinks and PR of your blog or you run the risk of not being noticed on search engines.

How pagerank is calculated ?

The pagerank formula ,I am going to talk about is the original one that google published when they were developing pagerank.Probably they use some variation of this formula to calculate PR.But this formula can tell much of the basics of pagerank algorithm.


The formula is-

PR= 0.15 + 0.85 (PR1/OL1+PR2/OL2.........................PRn/OLn)

* PR1 ,PR2....PRn= Pagerank of websites linking to you
OL1 , OL2.......OLn= No. of outgoing links on the page giving link.


Now,those who are mathematics minded can easily interpret this formula but for those who are not I will interpret the formula.

From the above formula one can draw a conclusion that-

Pagerank is function of-

1) No. of incoming links (The variable 'n' in the formula)

2) The pagerank of webpages giving link. (The variable 'PR' in the formula)

3) No. of outgoing links on the page giving link. (The variable 'OL' in formula)


Now I will talk about each point in some detail.

No. of incoming links is a key factor in pagerank calculation.More no. of links mean more votes and more votes mean better pagerank.I don' think there is any difficulty in understanding this.If at all you get some difficulty ,you are always welcome to discuss that in comment section.


A vote from high PR site has greater importance than a lower PR site.For example , a page with higher PR is able to give you greater share than a page with lower PR.This can be understand as a bucket full of water can give you greater amount of water than one which is half filled.


The third point ,i.e., No. of outgoing links on the page giving links is one of the important point which is easily overlooked.A page with greater no. of links is able to pass lesser pagerank value than page with lower no. of links.It could be understood as, a bucket can give greater share if it has to give away water to 5 pots than giving away to 100 pots.

So, a link from pagerank 5 site having 10 outbound links is better than a link from a page rank 8 site having 100 links.Let us see how-

In former case share of PR that the page gives will be- 5/10= 0.5

While in later case it will be- 8/100=0.008

Simple mathematics, isn't it ?


So, now I think you have better idea of pagerank and factors that determine it.If you have any confusion or some points to add you are most welcome to convey it to me through comments.

About Pagerank

Pagerank has become one of the hottest topic of discussion over internet since google introduced it for the first time.Most of the webmasters and bloggers become serious to get some links and increase their pagerank the moment they start their site/blog.In this post I will talk about pagerank.I will try to explain every aspect of pagerank in as simple language as possible.So,gear up for the go as I explain the pagerank.

How to choose most popular social network for your blog # 3

Earlier I have talked and helped you in answering two questions that help you in choosing right social network for your blog.In this post I would talk off third and the last question- What niche do you cover in your blog?

Niche is important for deciding the right social site for your blog.Different social media users have different tastes. For example, Digg users like tech and news related topics.So, it is of prime importance to know the tastes of the social sites user. If you have a blog on history and you are using a social site with majority of users inclined towards geography then you will hardly get any purchase from that site.



So, just do a research on different media sites and try to find out what topics are liked by the users of a particular social site.But the question that arises here is ,How can I know the tastes of the users of a social site?

Well that is not a difficult task but it requires a lot of work to research it.There are different methods I employ to research this but none of them is perfect.So, what I do is combine different methods to research.I use a combination of three methods to find the tastes of the users.By doing this I reduce the errors in research and thus try to reach a near correct result.I would talk about these methods in following paragraph.

Take a look at the frontpage of social sites you are researching-

This I think is simplest method and and gives best and nearest results among the three.Just take a look at the front page of the social sites and see what sites are appearing there.Note down the site title and niche.Do this for minimum of one week.After you are done doing this, just see what niche or category has most featured on front pages of a particular site. This is most suited for social bookmarking sites like digg.

Take a look at the tag cloud of the social site-

Tag cloud give you a broader idea about the likings of a social site user.You may wonder how tag cloud can help you in choosing the right social site for your blog?? OK, let me explain the things in some detail. Take a look on this image of one of the pages of stumble upon.

Click to enlarge

On the right side of this image you can see the tag cloud. Just see the words that are written in bigger font in this cloud.Then see whether your your blog is about this.For example, one of the words in tag cloud is business (written in bigger font). So, if your blog is about business the social site can be of your choice.

Take a look at the categories-

Categories can be quite helpful in deciding the social site.Just ask a question to yourself. Is there any category which describes your blog or in which your blog can be fitted? If you don't find any category for your blog then probably your blog is not suited for that social site.


Based on these three factors and others I have discussed in earlier posts you can reach to social media site of your choice.In any case go for 2-3 best suited social sites to get maximum from social networking.Social networking is all about communicating with your target audience and the first step is choosing a social site where you can find plenty of target audience.Once you are not taking this first step with caution ,you may fail in social network marketing.

How to choose most popular social network for your blog- #2

Earlier in the series of this post ,I have helped you to answer one of the questions to choose most popular social network for your blog. Now I will move on to the next question- What do you want social sites to do for your blog?

As I have said earlier , social sites can be used in a variety of ways. They can be used to drive traffic to your blog, they can be used to build relationships and increase sales or they can even be used to build links for your blog. So, answer of this question is quite important for choosing right social media site. Let us expand this in foollowing paragraphs.



Social sites of choice if you are there to drive traffic-

This is probably most important reason why bloggers participate actively in social sites. The most efficient social sites in this regard are stumble upon and digg. Of course, there are some other second tier choices like reddit and newsvine. So, if you are there for traffic you should focus on these sites.You don't have to actively participate in conversations here, only thing you have to do is bookmark your posts and encourage your readers to do the same.

Social media sites of choice to build relationships-

One of the reasons why you need to build relationships with others is because you want to win trust or you want to highlight yourself as an expert of some field.For this you need to be personal with your target audience.You have to converse with them. And that is why, you have to choose a social media site that has a messaging interface to make connections with others.Facebook ,orkut and different forums in your niche are excellent examples where you can communicate with others.

Social media site of choice to build links-

Yeah !!! social media sites can be used effectively to build links and increase your pagerank.For this you need to research and find out which bookmarking sites don't use "no follow". Some of the examples of social media sites that don't use "nofollow" are furl and blinklist.There are still some more and I am working on it.I will produce a list of dofollow social sites soon.



So, you can see ,how the answer to the above mentioned question dictates the choice of the social media site. Most of the times you have many reasons to use social sites.For example ,you wish to increase hits on your blog as well as build links from social sites.In this case the choice can be different.Just find out what do you want from social site and choose the one that fulfills your need.In every case, focus your attention only on 2-3 social sites as it is not possible to focus on every site that comes your way.

How to get traffic to your blog through social network marketing ??

In the previous few posts I have been talking about Social network marketing and what you should do to take advantage of social media sites and to drive more traffic to your blog. Earlier have talked about how you should choose a social network site that suits your blog's need. I have discussed this in three posts-
How to choose most popular social network for your blog-#1
How to choose most popular social network for your blog-#2
How to choose most popular social network for your blog-#3

In this post I will talk about some of the steps that you should follow to get maximum from social media sites once you are complete choosing a social media site. To get maximum advantage from the social media sites you need to follow three steps-

• Create the hook
• Communicate in such a way as to make your interaction productive
• Redirect the social site users to your blog

Create the hook-
No matter what topic you cover in your blog, there are thousands of blogs and websites to compete with. So, the chances of reaping benefits from social sites are meagre unless you create the hook.Creating the hook simply means telling others how you and your blog is different from whole lot of other blogs and sites on the topic.Social sites are of little benefit unless your blog stands out of the crowd.

There are certain ways that you can make a good impression on the social media site users. Firstly create quality ,original and useful content.Remember that age old phrase- 'Content is King'.

Secondly research in your niche and find out what are the areas that has been little covered by your competitors.Just focus on those areas and congratulations you have created the hook.

Although I know creating hook for social networking sites is not that easy as it sounds but to get success in these sites you have to sound different from whole bunch of other blogs.

Communicate to make your interaction productive in social networking sites-

A productive interaction is one that makes interaction beneficial for you. For example ,if you are blogging to sell your products then a productive interaction would be one that makes other social site users to buy from you.If you are on social networking sites for traffic then a productive interaction is one that makes others to visit your site.

In one of the earlier posts in the series I have told , Social networking should be done to build trust and not essentially to build links and traffic.Just keep this thing in mind while interacting with social site users.The easiest way to do so is by giving useful advices and helping others without expecting or demanding anything in return. Social sites should essentially be used to make relations without promoting your blog or products directly.

Follow the following points while interacting with other social networking sites users-

• Say no to affiliate links in social sites. While giving affiliate links in social sites may make a few dollars for you but this way you will loose your credibility very fast.Don't use affiliate links in social sites.
• Be helpful to others and always be keen to help others in whatever manner you can. Give impartial opinions and genuine advices to users if they are seeking one from you.
• Be courteous and polite. Your words are the only weapon when you are interacting on social networking sites.People can't see your faces and can't hear your voice.So, your words are the only weapon you have. Use good ,polite and be courteous.Your words should reflect that you are courteous and friendly towards other social site users.
• Don't demand something in your first meeting (rather avoid demanding anything anytime during your interaction) .I remember an interaction with a blogger on blogcatalog when she requested a link exchange in the very first chat she had. Although I am not against link exchanges but requesting it even before we know each other well is something I can't digest.
• Don't spam social networking sites.Social sites are a potent way to build loyal readers but if you start spamming it , you would loose most of the loyal readers.Social networking sites are meant to be used not abused.

These are some well known points but very useful points that can make your interaction positive and productive.Keep these points in your back of the mind while interacting in social sites.

Redirect users to your blog-

Once you have interacted in a positive way with keeping the above points in mind, you now need to make the social sites users to visit your blog.In most of the cases you can skip this step as the social site users will visit your blog once you have interacted in right way. But in general keep these following points in your mind-

• If there is a discussion going on about a topic on which you have written a post then it would be good thing to provide the link of the post with a short description of what you have discussed in that post.
• The easiest way to get some visitors from social sites is by leaving a signature link or a link of your blog in your profile.People who are inquisitive about you would certainly visit your site.
• If you have written a post that you think would help others then it would be nice to let others know about it.

This way you can make full use of the social networking sites.Remember, social sites have big potential to drive traffic to your blog but it should be done in right way.Don't abuse the service just to make some short term benefits instead go for a long haul by interacting in a nice courteous way.Build trust through the social sites and keep everything else in back of your mind.

What are the methods that you use to get benefits from social sites.I would be happy to know your tactics and methodology of using social sites.Just comment to let me know about your methods.

7 Tips To Run Affiliate Program In Personal Blog

How exactly do you run the affiliate program? There are many ways.

But the simple, at least there are two ways to run the affiliate program.

The first, with arbitration techniques. For example, suppose you want to promote the product of Nintendo Wii from Amazon.com affiliate program. With arbitration technique, what you do is take advantage of pay per click ads campaign (Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing / YSM, or Microsoft adCenter / MSN) on the Nintendo Wii with Amazon.com using your affiliate link.

Every time your campaign ads are clicked, the search of information about the Nintendo Wii will be brought to the landing page of the Nintendo Wii Amazon.com product details. Every time a purchase transaction through your Adwords ads put it, you get a commission from Amazon.com.



The advantages of this way, you do not need to maintain or write new articles every day. The downside (if I may say so), you must have an initial capital to start doing PPC campaign and have enough knowledge about the affiliate arbitrage strategies.

The second way, by using blogs or personal sites that you already have or make an online shopping mall. In other words, you use the media blog (either in the form of posts, sidebar spot or banner) to promote the affiliate products you are taking. Every time a purchase transaction with an affiliate product links on your blog, you get a commission from Amazon.com.

The advantages of this way, you do not need an initial capital to invest in PPC programs. It’s just with your own personal blog. The downside, you must have and write in your blog regularly.

Because of my limitations, this article will not discuss the first way that is quite advanced and sophisticated level. This article will only discuss tips to run affiliate programs by the media using blogs or personal sites that you currently have.

7 Tips Affiliate Programs Starting With Personal Blog

1.    Focus On Your Blog Visitor Needs.
What to look for your blog visitors? What information can you give to your blog visitors? Often we are so tempted to promote products that labeled as Best Seller or Hot Deals from our affiliate program follow regardless of whether your blog visitors need these products or not. As a result, not the buyer, your blog visitors even bored with the sales pitch pages you create. Try to meet the needs of the visitors first. If your personal blog contains more about the flower arranging tips, do not push yourself to promote the Nintendo Wii to your blog visitors.

2.    Select a Product and the Best Affiliate Program.
After determining what products are in accordance with the needs of visitors to your blog, the next step is to select the products and the best affiliate programs you can promote. There are thousands of products you can promote through affiliate programs that you can follow. I personally followed some affiliate programs (Amazon Associates, Commission Junction, ClickBank and Linkshare), but I feel more comfortable promoting Amazon products rather than other products of the other three programs. Perhaps because the Amazon branding is established relatively easy to make it acceptable. Or maybe because I still have a lot to learn about the three other affiliate programs. Choose the product and the best affiliate programs you think that you feel comfortable to promote it.

3.    Your Personal Experience Is The Best Recommendations.
One of the advantages of the personal blog is a personal nature. Owner relations with personal blog visitors are often like the relationship between friends. By utilizing the nature of this personal relationship, it’s easier for you to promote affiliate products to visitors of your blog. Especially if you have purchased or use affiliate products that you want to promote on your blog. Ken Evoy, founder of CTPM Pilar, calls it pre-selling advantages. When you have a close relationship and a warm, honest, serve and demonstrate proficiency in the areas that you control your blog visitors, it will be much easier for you to do the selling without having to impress as sell something.

4.    Text Link is Much Better Than Banner Link.
Install affiliate banner link is much easier, but its effectiveness is much smaller than using a text link in your blog post section. Concretely, try to enter text link affiliate products that you follow in the article. Of course the topic must be according to the article that you want the product to promote. I personally tend to use text links to promote Amazon Associates product that I follow. And the result is different than just installing Amazon Associates banner links.

5.    Be Honest To Your Blog Visitor.
Promoting affiliate products on your personal blog is not something unlawful. However, there is no harm in also to be honest with your visitors by telling that you want to paste the link in your article that are posting an affiliate link. Put a (Ref) or (Aff) if you use a link that will bring visitors to your blog affiliate program to the landing page that you are taking. Why should you be honest? First, your integrity. Because of the nature of a personal blog, your blog visitors will be more appreciative if you are honest with them. Second, appreciate the time of your visitors. If they want to know more, they click on the affiliate products link on your blog even if you had marked (Ref) or (Aff).

6.    Giving More Options To The Visitors of Your Blog.
That cliche but true: Do not put all your eggs in one basket.Try to diversify your revenue streams from online business. Do not be fixated on one program alone. If possible, combine it with other affiliate programs or even with other programs in online businesses. However, it remains important to note that your personal blog is not too much crammed by various programs. Imagine if in every post you’ve pasted the article 10 of the affiliate links for 10 different programs. Your blog visitors will be disgusted and run away from your blog.

7.    Promote.
The key is: do not be too quick to stop promoting affiliate products that you follow even if the value of earnings that you get was little or even none at all. Try to keep writing and paste the link (of course once again relevant to the topic of your writing) affiliate programs on your blog. Over time, it is not impossible if your affiliate products links are sought after one month, two months or even a year after you write it on your blog. If you have post pages indexed search engines, it is not impossible people will find your blog, click on your affiliate link and make a purchase. So, just wait. Do not despair. 

Perhaps the seven simple tips above could be the beginning to start running affiliate programs on your personal blog. How do you think? Do you have any personal tips that proved to give positive results for affiliate programs that you run? Or it does not work?