Tips & Tricks: Blogger

Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts

10 Ways to Build Links to your Website

Links are still one of the best ways to increase traffic and authority status to your website, which will in turn increase your site’s search ranking.

The higher the rating, the more prominent you will be listed on the search engines, the higher the click thru ratio of your optimized title and description, and the more people will stop by your website, creating a snowball effect.

Let’s not forget that there are other great ways for you to build links without buying them and here are 10 of my favorites.

People Love Lists & Linkbait : Having a 101 list, a top ten list, or a list of tips for a specific niche category can help generate readers, links and bookmarks.
Having lists of resources, experts, and other research necessities can attract people looking for more information on your subject.

When people like your list, they will submit the article to Digg and other social news sites, which results in your site building natural inbound links because the readers of these social bookmarking and news sites tend to blog.

Kick starting those submissions yourself or asking friends to also helps.

[Note : Yes, I know I’ve been writing a lot of lists lately, but I’m kinda on vacation, so please I hope this is not overkill.]
Get Social Bookmarking! Do not forget the social side of the Internet. On Flickr, pictures of important events, particularly involving the top people in your industry, will generate interest. On YouTube, the same style videos will generate interest, and maybe even make it into the Google Universal Search results.
Network in the real world with people in your field – network on Facebook or LinkedIn if you don’t have the chance to conduct face to face networking or attend industry conferences.

Interesting, insightful interviews will also bring in readers. When you have interesting, relevant content, your site will be submitted to Digg and other social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Ma.gnolia.com or AOL’s Propeller, which will give you great links.
Blog for Links. Blogs are rapidly gaining in popularity and can help your business website become popular too. The great thing about a blog is the content publishing is instant and so is the recognition. A blog can give your company the freedom to communicate openly, even attracting more links and bookmarks to your blog itself than the homepage, which are stiill good if you market your company and services well on the blog (and link to your homepage from the blog pages… I can’t count the amount of internal blogs I see which link to http://domain.com/blog as the “Home” link in the CMS).
Search engines have specific fresh bots that seek out new content, especially Google. Start a blog with great content, and the search engine bots will come back to index your site, including your links to and from other blogs.
News and Syndication Build Fresh Links : You can syndicate an article or blog post and submit it to good article sites, industry news sites, and other related media outlets : especially those indexed in Google News or Yahoo News (just do a search in these for your niche keywords and “submit”, you may find sites that accet guest articles or opinions. Doing so will generate authority links that boost your website’s standing.
Take this to the next level by coming up with a press release highlighting new products, services, or upcoming events. Make it sound newsworthy and send it to journalists and bloggers.

Your RSS feed or blog will also attract natural links, so get them kicking and submit to the top blog & feed directories.

Keep track of the people who follow the press releases or your articles and offer them exclusives. Writing about companies in the news or doing surveys on hot topics can also help generate interest in your site.
Directories Will Help Create Links. Submitting your site to free sites is one way of developing links; however, keep in mind that you should go for quality, not quantity.
Even creating your own niche directory linked to your website will generate traffic and prestige, especially if you make it useful enough to users and also include other resources amongst original content.

Look beyond PHP Links and other directory scripts and try building something with Wordpress. Chances are, a directory in your nice with original content and internal pages will do better than a cookie cutter site.

If you don’t have time to launch or market something of your own, contact a current directory owner about spinning off a niche joint venture (or just submit to the main web directories).
Network With Your Local Community. Your own local community can be a source of links. Get a link from your Chamber of Commerce or join the Better Business Bureau. If you have relevant city or state governmental resources, link to them. Other business may be willing to link with you if you are non-competing and in the same field.
Better yet, donate to local charities which have an online version of their newsletter. A $50 donation can result in a high quality and relevant link from a well linked to non-profit organization or association.
Review Products or Businesses. Reviews attract people, especially if you can write about brands that have not been established online.
Writing reviews on websites like Amazon.com can generate interest in your site if people like you what you have to say. Writing testimonials for products you use can also turn into links from others which find your organic review online.

A product review may also land your site’s homepage a link from that product’s news room, so don’t always resort to paid reviews as natural ones can be more beneficial in gathering natural linkage.
Link Trading Works. Link trading is still a legitimate way to get links. The key to this is to swap with relevant partners and get linked in the content of relevant pages.
Being just one link on a page full of links will not help your cause, nor will publishing some on-site link farm which is only reachable via some hidden sitemap page.
Experts : The Internet loves expertise and becoming an expert on your subject matter will generate interest, which leads to more links.
Make sure that your content is easy to understand and grammatically correct, but not so “dumbed down” that it seems vague or uninformative.

You will want to make sure that you keep your information up to date, and that you have information that is not readily available elsewhere. An About Us section and/or Privacy Policy will help lend authority to your site.
People Love Contests and Freebies. Spending a little money on a cash prize can save you money on advertising. Free samples, exclusive giveaways, and other items will attract people, and then your content can get them to stay and link.
Go an extra step to make your contests seasonal… a smoked turkey for Thanksgiving, a product (thinking free iPod) when it launches or a trip to Cancun during its low priced off season.

All in all, the key is to not just buy links, but to create natural link building campaigns to compliment your link advertising. If you spend $1,000 a month buying links, chances are hiring a professional link builder for that same amount will result in a vast and diverse array of incoming links, which stick around permanently.

Help Boost Your Search Engine Rankings

If you are a webmaster, chances are that you already know the huge role that search engine optimisation can make in the success and failure of your business. In this industry it is often said that content is King, and while this may be so there are so many webmasters out there that are also drastically underestimating the importance of title tag optimisation. Actinic SEO makes use of this to optimise your page and boost its rankings.

At this point, you are doing one of two things; either you're nodding your head as if you just learned something or you are wondering what in the world title tag optimisation could possibly be. It sounds complicated but it's really not - it just means making the best of your title tag as far as search engine rankings are concerned. If you don't know already, the title tag is the message or page title that appears in the top left corner of the page on Internet Explorer or another internet browser. Sometimes it contains keywords, sometimes the company name or genre. Failing to make proper use of the title tag is a waste of space on a page, as it can easily be optimised with a good company name and/or slogan and a keyword or two.

It is easy to think that the title tag is one of those things you don't have to bother with but that is not so. The title tag is what shows up in the Search Engine Rankings List and that is often what entices people to click through. By changing your title tag to something catchy and search engine and user friendly you can pick up that much more search engine based traffic which makes your actinic SEO more effective.

If you want a really great title tag, you can make use of the content that you are placing on that page as a guide. If you are managing a wedding site and a page had an article on it about wedding favours, your title tag could say 'Fabulous Wedding Favours for your Tropical Destination Wedding by XYZ Favours Company' or something to that effect. It includes both keywords and the company name and a hint as to what the content of the page is going to be about. Actinic SEO can accomplish this for you.

Don't underestimate the power of title tag optimization to boost your search engine related traffic. This is targeted traffic from people who have a purpose on your site - don't waste it, put Actinic SEO to work.

How to read the web stats lie!!

Your web statistics might not be lying on purpose. They might just
give you the wrong impression about what is happening with visitors on
your site. Keep the following seven possible lies in mind when you
check your web statistics next time.

Web Stats Lie #1 - All Your Visitors Are Being Counted

If you're using more than one web statistics tools, you already know
this isn't true. But do you know why?

Each web statistics software package counts visitors in several ways,
and each one decides what constitutes a unique visitor differently.
For example, some web statistics programs may set a cookie on a visit
from what it perceives is a new visitor. This may work well enough,
until that person moves to a new computer, or changes their browser.
Or they may be using a shared computer, and more than one person at
that computer may be visiting your site.

The programs that measure by IP address aren't necessarily superior.
An IP address may represent a single user at a single computer, or it
may not.

Still, this is just an issue to be aware of, not a reason to abandon
all hope. The very best stats program is giving you an estimate at
best. A close estimate, but not an absolute number.

Web Stats Lie #2 - Common Terms Have Uniform Meanings

Even if your stats show as many of your visitors possible, the metrics
they measure may not mean the same thing from program to program, or
even from report to report.

A common term like page view might mean an entire page has been
completely displayed, or it might mean that an invisible graphic has
been loaded.

Web Stats Lie #3 - Your Page Views Can All Be Matched to a Person

Not all the times your pages are viewed are necessarily loaded by a
person. A common miscounted page would be an RSS feed. It may be
fetched once by a popular program, and then redisplayed to several
other viewers. Unless the referring site tells you the number of
subscribers, you have no way of knowing for sure.

Web Stats Lie #4 - Number of Page Views is of Utmost Importance

At the same time, how many pages are viewed isn't as important as it
may seem when you look at your report for the month. For years, the
page view was one of the most important items on a web stats report.
It's of some importance now, but just because it's still prominently
featured on reports doesn't mean it's the main point of focus.

Page views were important because they were attempting to measure how
engaged visitors are with your content. Now, with audio, video, web
content feeds and other dynamic content that can be accessed from one
location, the length of time spent on a site is more important than
the page view.

Web Stats Lie #5 - Hits Are Meaningful

This is an old myth that has plagued the internet and allowed many
unsuspecting web owners to be duped by companies promising outlandish
results.

One of the first things you should learn about website traffic is what
a hit is. A hit is a successfully requested file. But your typical web
page may yield five hits when it is loaded. How is this possible?

A web page is a file often made up of several other files. The text of
your web page might be accompanied by four pictures. Each of those
files is counted under the term hit, where page view, or impression
entails the entire web page.

In fact, it's possible for hits to be down when page views and uniques
are up. If you change the design of your pages to include fewer
images, each web page will yield fewer hits.

Next time you look at your web stats, ignore the hits column. It
doesn't mean anything significant in terms of traffic, and is truly a
relic of the early era of the web.

Web Stats Lie #6 - Only Your High Volume Keywords Are Important

Since you are probably only seeing the top few dozen, few hundred, or
few thousand keywords in your reports, you might think that only the
keywords that bring the most visitors are of any importance. They're
at the top of the list, and the program might not be able to show the
lower volume terms.

In some case, the high volume visitors aren't the ones that bring the
most sales. The lower traffic keywords also often pave the way for
keywords that yield larger volumes, and can give you clues about what
you're likely to rank for in the future.

Web Stats Lie #7 - The Amount of Traffic You Get is All That Matters

Your stats are measuring who came to your site, how long they stayed,
what they did, where they came in and how they left. These are all of
significance, but of equal importance is the number of those visitors
who turn out to be buyers. And there are other aspects of a site's
success that stats can hint at, but not necessarily predict.

This isn't to say that the information that web statistics programs
give us aren't valuable or don't give us important data. In proper
context, the information we get from observing visitor activity is
helpful to the point of being essential to monitor.

It just helps to understand what you're reading.

Top Money Making Methods for Bloggers

Making money from blogging has become easier over the past two years. Advertisements, sponsorships, fundraising and even blogging jobs are only some of the ways a blogger can earn money these days. So, if up until now you weren't financially rewarded for sharing your world view with the blogosphere, continue reading to find out how to make your blogging efforts more profitable.

Advertisements
Google's Adsense is one of the easiest and most popular ways to earn money by putting advertisements in your blog. Anyone who owns a blog (or a website) can open an Adsense account, place ads in his blog (or website) and earn money depending on the number of clicks on the Adsense links from the blog. Adsense advertisements fit themselves to the target audience of the blog. For example, if you write a blog on the popular board game backgammon, the ads would probably lead to online gaming sites. Therefore, the size of the revenue from your blog is subject to the appeal of the ads among your readers.

Sponsorships

If your blog gets a lot of traffic, you can try to approach a certain company or a business and offer them to run an advertisement campaign at your blog. Many of today's companies appreciate the widespread potential hidden in popular blogs so you might even receive a positive answer.

However, it would be easier to get sponsorship for your blog if you are willing to settle for your original content ideas and include a preordered review on a specific product chosen by the company that will pay your hosting bills. Services such as Pay Per Post (PPP) or Review Me, specialize in connecting between advertisers and bloggers. Of course that if you write a beauty blog, you will not be paid to post a review on a set of golf woods and vice versa.

This money making method has its pros and cons. Looking at the bright side, you get free products, content idea at no cost, plus you get paid to post. On the other hand, you can never be the same independent and free of commercial considerations blogger you used to be.

Fundraising

If blogging takes over most of your spare time and your community of readers still can't get enough of you, why don't you ask them to lay a few pennies at your donation box? Fundraising buttons, also known as tip jars, ask the readers to take part in the blog maintaining expenses or to help the blog owner to spare part or all of his day job to become a full time blogger, have been in use for a long time. Over the past few years, rumors on the effectiveness of this monetizing method supported the growth in its popularity among successful bloggers.

More Ways to Make Money from Your Blog

Additional ways to make money from blogging include joining an affiliate program (such as Amazon Associates) in which by linking your readers to the business you receive an agreed share of their revenues; developing blogging related career which can range from a ghost blogger to newspaper columnist through business blogging counselor and merchandizing, whether by offering t-shirts with your blog logo for sale or by selling an e-book on your field of expertise.

How to read the web stats lie!!

Getting Your Money's Worth With Pay Per Click

If you're running a web site, you're well aware that the game is all about numbers and traffic flow. However, not just any traffic will do. You want traffic from people who are interested in what your web site offers, content wise, and if you're looking to make some money, you know full well that it's not just browsers, it's buyers who are important.

Like all things related to marketing, your aim should be to maximize the number of pre-qualified, already interested readers to your web site that you can, while raising your web site's overall page ranking, boosting the awareness of the internet at large to your products and services.

Now, you could use an advertising model like print magazines which you pay X amount for exposure to Y number of potentially interested customers who see a banner ad. The problem with this is that most web surfers have gotten to the point where banner ads get mentally filtered out, and while you pay per impression, you have no idea if your costs are going to be an accurate indicator of the ad's effectiveness.

Enter AdSense and Google AdWords. These are competing services where an ad is listed in a search engine result, and you only pay for each click on the ad. Instantly, you only pay for the advertising that you actually use, and which provably directs traffic to your web site.

Key to this kind of advertising is picking the right phrase for the search engine optimization. You need a phrase that will cause people to find your ad by looking for something related and similar to it. You also need to look at common mis-spellings similar to the term you want people to find.

Buying a comprehensive set of AdWords or AdSense package can get pricey, if you aren't very careful about it. Remember the following tips from long time marketers in this field:

1) Pinpoint accuracy is better than a broad net. If you have a very specific term that you're good at (like "Lower Denton Real Estate", put that in rather than just Denton, or Denton Real Estate."
2) Most people only type two or three words into a search engine field to find things. Do a little bit of digging to find a blanket of related word combinations that will work for you.
3) Make sure that your landing page is optimized for human visitors, not Google's web crawling spiders. That means real content, that gets updated regularly and that isn't aggressively search engine optimized into utter drivel.
4) If you must use a squeeze page (a form where a user has to enter some data to get at the content) be sure to put some of the content outside the squeeze pages area, otherwise, you're going to get a serious case of sticker shock when the bill comes in and Google and AdSense both charge almost 15x as much for a naked squeeze page landing page as they do for a real web site, and real web site will get you more repeat traffic.

Your 7 days program to Stress management

"Have One Week, Will Relax"

They say there's more than one way to skin a cat. The same goes when you start tearing your hair out with all the frustration, grief, anxiety, and yes, stress. It's a state of mental conditioning that is like taking that bitter pill down your throat, causing you to lose your sense of self, and worse your sanity. Just thinking about it can drive anyone off the edge.

And they say that the proactive ones are already living off the edge.

As one stressed-out person to another, I know how it feels, and believe me there are many variants when it comes to stress. Coping with life, and carrying the problems that may or may not belong to you can scratch away the little joy and happiness that you can carry once you head out that door. You can't blame them for being like that; they have their own reasons, so much like we have our reasons to allow stress to weigh us down. They say that stress is all in the mind, well, what's bugging you anyway?

There are several ways to manage stress, and eventually remove it out of your life one of these days. So I'll try to divide it into a seven-day course for you and I promise it's not going to be too taxing on the body, as well as on the mind.

1. Acknowledge stress is good
Make stress your friend! Based on the body's natural "fight or flight" response, that burst of energy will enhance your performance at the right moment. I've yet to see a top sportsman totally relaxed before a big competition. Use stress wisely to push yourself that little bit harder when it counts most.

2. Avoid stress sneezers
Stressed people sneeze stress germs indiscriminately and before you know it, you are infected too!

Protect yourself by recognizing stress in others and limiting your contact with them. Or if you've got the inclination, play stress doctor and teach them how to better manage themselves.

3. Learn from the best
When people around are losing their head, who keeps calm? What are they doing differently? What is their attitude? What language do they use? Are they trained and experienced?
Figure it out from afar or sit them down for a chat. Learn from the best stress managers and copy what they do.

4. Practice socially acceptable heavy breathing
This is something I've learned from a gym instructor: You can trick your body into relaxing by using heavy breathing. Breathe in slowly for a count of 7 then breathe out for a count of 11. Repeat the 7-11 breathing until your heart rate slows down, your sweaty palms dry off and things start to feel more normal.

5. Give stressy thoughts the red light
It is possible to tangle yourself up in a stress knot all by yourself. "If this happens, then that might happen and then we're all up the creek!" Most of these things never happen, so why waste all that energy worrying needlessly?

Give stress thought-trains the red light and stop them in their tracks. Okay so it might go wrong - how likely is that, and what can you do to prevent it?

6. Know your trigger points and hot spots
Presentations, interviews, meetings, giving difficult feedback, tight deadlines…. My heart rate is cranking up just writing these down!

Make your own list of stress trigger points or hot spots. Be specific. Is it only presentations to a certain audience that get you worked up? Does one project cause more stress than another? Did you drink too much coffee?

Knowing what causes you stress is powerful information, as you can take action to make it less stressful. Do you need to learn some new skills? Do you need extra resources? Do you need to switch to decaf?

7. Burn the candle at one end
Lack of sleep, poor diet and no exercise wreaks havoc on our body and mind. Kind of obvious, but worth mentioning as it's often ignored as a stress management technique. Listen to your mother and don't burn the candle at both ends!

So having stress can be a total drag, but that should not hinder us to find the inner peace of mind that we have wanted for a long time. In any case, one could always go to the Bahamas and bask under the summer sun.

How to show-hide sidebar widget

How to make so, that the part of contents would show on the main page and disappeared on associate pages. For example on this blog the section BLOGS is visible only on the main page.

For this You should do the following:

Open Template -> Edit HTML tab
Set checkbox Expand Widget Templates
Find bigining of fragment that you are going to hide in the HTML. In this example that is: <b:widget id='HTML1' locked='false' title='Blogs' type='HTML'>
Inser after <b:includable id='main'> the next code:<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'> and </b:if> before </b:includable></b:widget>
Save template

All code for this example: <b:widget id='HTML1' locked='false' title='Blogs' type='HTML'>
<b:includable id='main'>

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>

<h2 class='title'></h2>

<div class='widget-content'>

<data:content/>

</div>

<b:include name='quickedit'/>

</b:if>

</b:includable>

</b:widget>

There is no necessity more to edit html code at desire to change contents of this widget.

Tips on getting the right Blogging Software

Choosing the right blog software for your new blog requires that you ask yourself some questions and make a list of all of the features and tools you need as well as your budget. Once you have this information written down you will be prepared to start shopping for blog software. However, keep in mind the following seven tips for choosing the best software for you.

Tip 1. Ping Updates
These allow you to update your blog and are very important in blog software. Make sure the blog software you are interested in provides automatic ping updates.

Tip 2. Comments
Whatever blog software you choose, you'll want to make sure that it has an area for comments from visitors. This will help you understand what is successful in your blog and what is not, as well as guide you in future blogs. This is a really great tool and should be part of your blog software.

Tip 3. Trackback
If you are discussing your blog on another blog, or simply adding information to another blog, trackback will allow you to update this information. This is a little confusing, but trackback allows you to talk on your blog about information on another blog and ping the writer of the other blog to let them know what is going on. Trackback is certainly a feature you want in your blog software.

Tip 4. Pingback
Pingback is similar to trackback, but it just sends a URL to the other blog to let them know you are talking about their blog on your blog. This is not used as much as trackback, but you will want a blog software that has at least one of these two functions.

Tip 5. Web-based
The point of a blog is you can post information instantly online, so you want your blog software to be similar to a word processor and web based without a shadow of a doubt.

Tip 6. Archiving
You want a blog software that supports archiving, and most of them do. The reason for this is you will want to save all of your past blogs by the date they were published and archiving allows you to do that.

Tip 7. Categorize
Another great tool you will want in your blog software is the ability to categorize. You want to keep your blogs organized and in categories, if you have them, so this option is really a great one for most bloggers.

Get relief from Credit Card debt

Credit card debt relief is what every debt-struck credit card holder is looking for. Credit card debt relief is not just about reducing or eliminating credit card debt; credit card debt relief is also about getting de-stressed. Credit card debt relief is about working for oneself and not just for the credit card debt that you have on you. Yes, it’s unfortunate but true. In fact, you can hear statements like “I have got a better job, now I can pack up my credit card debt even faster”. So, in that sense, credit card debt relief is really about getting your life back on the normal track.

The most important credit card debt relief comes in the form of de-stressing you. Everyone knows about the harmful effects of stress; so, if credit card debt relief means postponing your purchases for later, you should do so. There are no goods out there that can give you as much joy as credit card debt relief can. Besides postponing the purchase of your favourite goods, there are few more things that you need to bring into practice in order to get credit card debt relief.

Most of these credit card debt relief mechanisms advocate restraint spending e.g. preparing a (tight) monthly budget and sticking to it. Using cash instead of card for making the payments for your purchases is another advice. Debt consolidation is another popular way of getting credit card debt relief. You will find a lot of advice (and you can even hire a consultant) for ways to achieving credit card debt relief. So, there is no dearth of advice on credit card debt relief or credit card debt consolidation or credit card debt elimination. However, what is not so common is the advice on how to act in the post ‘credit card debt relief’ period i.e. after credit card debt elimination. It goes without saying that if you don’t exercise care in the post ‘credit card debt relief’ period, you might again fall a prey to credit card debt. So, if you have been refraining from making purchases, you should not, all of a sudden, start purchasing all those favourite goods that you had been avoiding. The recommended guidelines for post ‘credit card debt relief’ period are not much different from the ones for achieving credit card debt relief.

Here are the top 5:
1. Plan your expenses using a monthly budget
2. Do not buy anything that you don’t need
3. Do not go for too many credit cards (just one or two should be sufficient)
4. Always make full payments of your credit card bill and do it before the due date
5. Never use more than 60-70% of the credit limit available to you.

Add Digg vote button on Blogger Template

This tutorial explains how you can add a Digg vote button for each post into the new blogger template.

Open your blogger template, expand the widgets and find this code's line:

and replace with this code:

You can view the original post here

How to Hide Blogger Navbar?

Just Paste the code below in Edit Template section

#navbar-iframe {
display: none !important;
}

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Tips & Tricks

Free Blogspot templates

10 Ways to Build Links to your Website

Help Boost Your Search Engine Rankings

How to read the web stats lie!!

Top Money Making Methods for Bloggers

How to read the web stats lie!!

Getting Your Money's Worth With Pay Per Click

Your 7 days program to Stress management

How to show-hide sidebar widget

Tips on getting the right Blogging Software

Get relief from Credit Card debt

Add Digg vote button on Blogger Template

How to Hide Blogger Navbar?

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