Ask yourself these questions about your blog:Does it offer RSS feeds?Does it allow comments?Does it have 'Categories' listing for topic-wise navigation?Does it have 'Recent Posts' listing?Does it have timestamps on all of your posts?Do the posts show the category in which they were posted?Does it offer a newsletter?Does the logo/layout match the content of your blog?Are your blog posts unique enough to convert your 'first time visitor' into a subscriber?And last of all, does your blog solve the purpose you gave it birth for?
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I've noticed several blogs not providing a 'Home' link in their blog templates. Its highly frustrating for new readers when they happen to hit any of your post (via search or referral) and do not find a link to your home page.Take your own blog for example. Suppose I land on one of your blog posts via google search for a particular term. If the post is impressive I might want to take a look at other pages of your blog, or in most cases, your home page, which contains the summary of your recent posts. Now, if I don't find a 'Home' link, I'll click on your blog title. If that doesn't work (some designers leave the blog's title or logo 'unclickable'), I'll have to click on several 'newer posts' links until I reach the latest post written. And if the post I'm cu...
There is no such things as 'the right time to invest in domain names'. Log in to Sedo at any time of the day and you will be presented with figures similar to the following:And now take a look at some top domain name sales of 2006:Diamond.com $7,500,000.00Vodka.com $3,000,000.00Cameras.com $1,500,000.00On.com $635,000.00AntiSpyware.com $550,000.00Macau.com $550,000.00Gays.com $500,000.00Wrestling.com $500,000.00Bike.com $500,000.00Blue.com $500,000.00Sex.net $454,500.00Templates.com $450,000.00WirelessPhone.com $355,000.00FunGames.com $350,000.00Hotels.eu $329,509.00Jasmin.com $310,250.00Cafe.com $300,000.00Blackjack.de $300,000.00Brown.com $300,00...
Blogs are not like shampoos or perfumes that can be launched with a tag like 'New & Improved'. (I find this term quite misleading - how can a product that is 'new' can be an 'improved version'?) Blogs are blogs and there is no such term as 'improved blog'.It takes time for a new blog to acquire a respectable position in the blogosphere - no matter who it's author is. For a new blog, I strongly suggest to turn off features that reveal that the blog is new. I'm listing below some useful tips for newly launched blogs that will help you (of course if you have a new blog) to avoid creating an impression of being new and inexperienced.Switch off Article Count - If you have over 10 categories in your blog and no more than 50 arti...
"We, the humans, are creatures of habit, and our lives are ruled by it"From the toothpaste we use to the choice of underwear we wear, we never let our habits change easily. Even when we know that the only thing that is constant in this world is 'change', we find it hard to get accustomed to some things.So you might be asking what relationship does this have with blogging? Agree or not - we are caged by our own minds and hence we never dare to think out of the box. Just check out the list below and note the number of items you qualify for:Using a big (really big) RSS buttonNot having a 'About Me' or 'Contact Me' pageUsing 3 Adsense ad units, 3 link units and all the referrals offered by Google's AdsenseDisplaying a calender on your blogUsing absurd Google...
I've been following JohnChow.com since about 6 months now and its one of my daily reads. JC is known for his evil strategies of making money online. I sometimes find it funny, because almost every other blogger uses some or the other evil trick to make that extra bucks, the difference being that JC discloses, others don't!Anyway lets get back to the point. JC today posted his blog's income for the month of June 2007.Take a look at his June 2007 earnings:ReviewMe: $3,800.00Affiliate Sales: $3,213.02Text Link Ads: $1,506.71Private Ad Sales: $1,440.00Kontera: $1,000.00Google AdSense: $778.90TTZ Media: $339.85Buy Me a Beer: $219.39FeedBurner: $201.74Subscription: $70.00Grand Total: $12,569.61Ther...
I've been noticing well established bloggers using the ridiculous Technorati trick for gaining (un)targeted traffic to their blogs.What is the trick?When you visit Technorati, you will find a tag cloud of currently hot topics (the most searched keywords on Technorati) You will notice that most of these keywords are celebrity names. The reason being obvious - fans keep searching for stuff related to their favorite celebrities. This stuff can be anything - jokes, news, photos, gossip, etc.How does this trick help?This tag cloud gives you an idea of what hot and being searched for. Now what some bloggers do, they just digg around Technorati's tag cloud, pick a random celebrity name (like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears), and start
The importance of a domain nameIf you are serious about blogging, you HAVE to be serious about the domain name you select for your blog. Your domain name is your identity. A to-the-point domain name makes it easier for a common visitor to develop an idea of the content of the site. If you want your visitors to create a buzz about your blog, you will have to select a domain name that is easily rememberable.My mistakesSeveral times I made the mistake of going for domain names that did not even provide a clue about the content of the blog. I just used slogans complementing my blog's content. The content was always good. I used to get around 100 visits per day on some blogs and an average of 2-3 comments daily. But going ...
If you read my previous post on domain squatting, you must have developed an idea of the high earning potentials of domain names. But don't worry if you're out of luck and all the domains you want to register already belong to someone else. Domain squatting is not the only way you can make money from domain names. There's this other little scam you can use, and its called SpellingPiracy.Everybody knows the importance of traffic. Getting traffic to websites takes years and years of work. It means working hard on your content to make sure people come back to it again and again.But then like other things, there is an easier way to get traffic - and as usua...
I was reading this post on ProBlogger (Goals to achieve in a blog's launch phase) and was caught by another post in which he mentions how he bought a house with his blog earnings. I am a die-hard fan of ProBlogger and I never miss any of his posts. Take a look at the house he bought out of his blogging passion:Blogging is not easy. To be true, after creating almost 30-40 blogs and then dumping them for whatever reasons, NetBusinessBlogger is my first blog in which I've blown all my efforts and expertise. And if people like Darren Rowse keep posting such inspiring articles, The day is not far away when I'll join the top bloggers list!
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If you are into some serious online money making, I'd suggest you try domain squatting. Wikipedia defines domain squatting as - "Using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price." Now with domain squatting you are not really doing something wrong (it's a good thing to try and convince yourself like this from time to time). You're legally buying domain names on the internet (you just have to convince yourself well enough!) - so what if the domain name you just bought is Microsoft.com! (just imagine, don't believe!) And then, you're a reasonable person. If ...
For those who don't know what RewardingRewiews is - Its a program similar to ReviewMe & PayPerPost (And if by any chance you don't know what these two mean, you are not worth being here!)Instead of spending some money on quality advertisements, the guys at RewardingReviews are playing around with the MyBlogLog trick of opening MBL in their browser and using auto-refresh softwares like Refresh Thing or Refresh Toolbot. This way, their profile icon is being shown on the MBL home page again and again. I've been noticing this since a couple of days.There are several people using this trick to show up on MBL's home page and gain traffic. It is ok for small publishers but definitely not good for such net businesses as this might hamper their service's quality impression on it's users. Instead they should shell out some money on genuine ppc or banner advertisements.
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If you are reading this post, you (most) probably use Digg as well. You can hit the front pages of Digg with this trick.Less competition means better exposure. During peak hours, there are so many stories being submitted that your story stays on top for a very short period of time (sometimes its in seconds!). During off-peak hours, there are fewer stories and hence you get a longer exposure of your submitted story. My experience with Digg says that stories submitted during off-peak hours stay on top for as long as 15 minutes. Now who wouldn't like to stay on top for 15 minutes on a site that get millions of hits in a month? That's free advertising on a super hit site!
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If you get good traffic on your MyBlogLog profile you can use it to increase your Alexa rank as well. The trick goes like this - While registering your blog with MyBlogLog, instead of entering your original blog address, use the following address:http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.yourblogname.comReplace www.yourblogname.com with the original address of your blog.This method of increasing Alexa ranking is pretty unconventional strategy. Personally, I feel Alexa stats are quite unreliable as smart publishers use several dirty tricks to inflate their Alexa stats. But these tricks in turn bring them more advertisements as many pay-to-post services depend upon Alexa stats to determine the amount of money that is paid for a review on these blogs.
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The number of entries in my Firefox's Live Bookmarks folder had been skyrocketing and so I was planning to shift to Google Reader to manage all my subscriptions henceforth. At first I thought it was easy (for newbies), but it was not! I had to refer some websites and only after that i was able to do it for myself. I'll make it easy for you. You'll have to understand and follow some steps to make it work for you.Well first of all let me tell you that its not 'export-from-firefox and import-to-google-reader'. Before exporting and importing, you will have to install OPML Support for Firefox (you'll find the link below). OPML is a file type that is used to...
SearchStatus is a Firefox plugin that lets you view a website's GooglePageRank, Google Category, Alexa popularity ranking, Alexa incoming links, Alexa related links, Compete.com ranking, and backward links from Google, Yahoo! and MSN. SearchStatus is a highly useful plugin for search engine marketers and webmasters alike.After installing this addon, you will notice PageRank, Alexa and other stats in your browser's status bar as shown below:And its not just PageRank and Alexa stats! When you right click on these tiny icons you are presented with several options to chose from.SearchStatus is compatible with Macs. It runs on any platform that Firefox can run on.Click here to download SearchStatus for Firefox.
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"Errors can be monetized too!"So you've taken your business online and made a pretty decent site of it. Now where is the audience? You might have probably thought that the only ways to attract visitors is either to make sure that you are on the first page of the Google search or pay for traffic using ppc networks.Getting on the first page of Google is not easy. You have other businesses to compete with, and if your keywords are the same as those of many other businesses (admit it - they are!), you might not end up on the first page even if you've optimised your site to the hilt.Perhaps you are one of the lucky, and your site is in the first few results on a Google page. There is still a chance that you're losing precious traffic, though. How? OK tell me wh...
ReviewMe is a service through which bloggers get paid by advertisers just for reviewing or blogging about the advertiser's website or services.Sign up for ReviewMe here.After signing up with ReviewMe, you can add your blog to their database. The price of a review on your blog is automatically determined by ReviewMe depending upon your blog's traffic, feed reader count, technorati rankings, etc. Bloggers can not change the price of the review set by ReviewMe.There are two drawbacks with ReviewMeFor every review you complete, ReviewMe takes away 50% of the amount to be paid as their share.Only advertisers gets to choose from the blogs they wish to get reviewed from. The blogger just waits and waits unless he is assigned a job.Once you've finished the task ...
Bloggerwave is a new paid to blog service just like PayPerPost and ReviewMe. Paid to blog services are some 'get rich quick' schemes. I just signed up for Bloggerwave today. The signup process was a breeze and this blog was accepted withing 30 minutes! Thats pretty fast when compared to other services that take 2-3 days to get your blog accepted.The look and feelBloggerwave has a dashboard similar to that of PayPerPost. You can have a quick view at : * Your statistics like posts taken, approved or rejected * Current opportunities * Latest Opportunities * Top 5 earners * Blog of the day * Bloggerwave blog (to be added)The interface is very easy and straightforward to use. I found ...
The biggest pay-per-click advertising giants - Google Adsense & YPN (Yahoo Publisher Network) never offered payments by Paypal to their publishers - a feature which has been taking away several potential publishers away from them. Now coming one step forward, YPN announced today in their blog (read it here) that they will now be offering their publishers the option to be paid via Paypal.In addition, publishers opting to get paid via Paypal will now enjoy a reduced payment threshold of 50 dollars as the minimum threshold for other payment options is still 100 dollars.This step from YPN will leave smaller ppc networks like clicksor and bidvertiser biting dirt as the dominant reason fo...
Selling links on your blog can help you make some quick money. You can make thousands of dollars with a single link if you have a high PR. I'm listing below some text link brokers i know.Web Sites to buy/sell links:LinkAdage - www.linkadage.comLinkWorth - www.linkworth.comText Links Ads - www.text-link-ads.comTextLinkBrokers - www.textlinkbrokers.comBackLinks - www.backlinks.comTextLinkPopularity - www.textlinkpopularity.comLiveCustomer - www.livecustomer.comWeb Forum sections to buy/sell links:DaniWeb - www.daniweb.comSitePoint - www.sitepoint.comDigitalPoint - www.digitalpoint.comWebmaster Talk - www.webmaster-talk.comHosting Talking - www.hosting-talking.comWebHostingTalk - www.webhostingtalk.comWebMasterWorld - www.webmasterworld.comDnForum - www.dnforum.comIf you know some more good websites you can leave a comment to this post.
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What is Smorty?Smorty is a paid reviews service just like ReviewMe & PayPerPost. I applied for this service in the first week of this month. The registration process was smooth and i instantly received a username and password.The problem?The problem with smorty is that it doesn't accept blogs easily, and by that i mean they keep a check on duplicate content and will reject your blog if any duplicate content is found.Here is the reply i received when i submitted one of my blogs:"Dear Amit,Unfortunatley your blog was declined due to the following reason(s).site has duplicate content. We have searched 2 of your posts on google and found duplicates.-Smorty"Where's the catch?The problem with this is that duplicate content is not always plagiarized content! Take for example a blog on SMS mess...
PayPerPost is a service similar to ReviewMe, Smorty and SponsoredReviews. Writing paid posts is a very good way to earn money for bloggers who want to earn money from blogging. I've recently signed up with all these services, with each of them having their own pros and cons. Paid reviews are schemes that help you make some quick bucks without any complications. You just login to these service provider's websites, register your blogs, and start getting reviews instantly. The payouts range from as low as 5 dollars to 400 or 500 dollars, depending upon your blog's popularity and traffic.What is PayPerPost DirectYou must have seen in the sidebars of several blogs, a badge is displ...
GetAFreelancer is a service that provides you with several opportunities to earn money. You can even earn money for a simple task as designing a logo for some company! The payouts range from as low as 10-20 dollars to thousands of dollars, depending upon the budget of the service buyer.I have been a member of GetAFreelancer for the past one month and i find it much better and convenient than other freelance dot coms.
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Well i just came through this service - JustAnswer.com, that pays you a handsome amount just for answering other's questions. Prices typically range from $10-15, but bids can be as high as $200 depending on the uniqueness or importance of the question. Just login with your id, read the questions other users have posted, answer the one you think you're good at, get paid! As simple as that!JustAnswer.com is a pretty neat and hassle-free service. Apart from answering questions, you can even post your questions for others to answer.Registration for JustAnswer is free. It is also free to post your question. But, before your answer will be unlocked for viewing, you must pay a deposit equal to the value of your question. This deposit is refundable if you are not satisfied. You will have an opport...
If you are a blogger, you WILL love money4blogs. Money4blogs is a website that will pay you to include a text link (yes! just a text link!) on your blog.The best thing about money4blogs is that there is no sign up form! Just enter your blog URL, email address & page rank and your blog is added to their directory instantly. The process is so simple and straight forward that you will think money4blogs is another useless website with lots of false promises! But hey! its not!I was surprised to receive a mail from money4blogs within 24 hours. They were willing to pay as high as 40$ for a single link for a year on each of my blogs. Quick money! The pay is not high but when you get such amount for just putting up a link on your blog, who wouldn't go for it?The amount of money offered depends upon the PageRank of your website. The payments are made instantly once the links are up on your blog. You should give it a try!
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