Blogging?What is it?Can I Make A Living With It

What is a Blog?

Blogging is a way of collecting links to webpages and sharing thoughts and ideas with people online.Blogs (or Weblogs) are basically online journals or diaries which are great for sharing information and ideas.I call a blog an online journal that is frequently updated.If you understand the concept of keeping a diary,you will understand the concept of blogging.

Blogger.com says:

“A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.”

As well as text, blogs often contain audio, music, images and video.They’re also really easy to make, so you can have one even if you aren’t very technical.Anything can be posted instantly to a blog.

Now,Why should you blog?

Surfing’s no fun if you can’t tell people what you’ve found.How many times have you sent e-mails to your mates with the address of a particularly interesting web page, annotated with your own hilarious comments? Wouldn’t it be good to get your own web page where you could publish these comments, plus the links you find, turn it into a daily journal of thoughts and ideas and make the whole thing available to the world?

Well now you can, and if you do, you’ll be joining the phenomenon that has become ‘blogging’.Before I tell you how to blog your way to the bank,let me quickly tell you the history of blogs.

Blogging has become something of a big thing in the last few years, and some of the biggest and best known weblogs attract the kind of traffic that even big name e-commerce sites would be jealous of.Weblogs are more than pages of links - they tend to reflect the personalities of their owners. They are personal web pages,updated very often.

They are the product of their owners’ imaginations, interests and wit, and it’s probably this personal touch which has made them so popular, especially for political issues.

The word ‘weblog’ was coined by Jorn Barger,owner of the long-established and extremely popular Robot Wisdom weblog. You can get a lot more about the history of weblogs from his site at robotwisdom.com.

Which Blogging Platform to Use

There are several blogging platforms but the most common are Blogger, Wordpress,Typepad,Reallifelog,etc

Of all these platforms,I know blogger as well as wordpress inside out but I prefer wordpress above blogger any day because it will be hosted on your own server.If you want to use your blog to make money,I think you should be prepared to spend some money to create your own blog.Am I saying you should not use the free blogger? No. But if you use blogger and one day Google phases out blogger,what happens to your blog as well as all the work you have put into it? Did I hear you say Google cannot phase out blogger? Ok,company policies change and only recently,Google announced the suspension of Google Adsense referrals in all countries except Japan,US and Canada.Do you now see why you should go for a paid blog? I only advise my students to use a free platform just to test if blogging is for them.Once they are sure of that,they can then go for a paid platform.Now,let this sink into your sub-conscious.Serious bloggers use wordpress blogs.

The One thing You Need to Blog for Profit!

Many people dream of blogging for profit, and this goal is not far beyond the reach of someone with average intelligence, a willingness to work hard, and a basic grasp of blogging technology. However, very few people manage to reap the profits they want from their blog. Most people who attempt to make money with their blogs do not succeed for two reasons.

Often, bloggers have unrealistic expectations of how fast their readership will grow and how much money they will make, and when these expectations are not met the disappointment can crush the desire to continue blogging. The other trap that many bloggers fall into has to do with lack of planning. If you want to turn a profit as a blogger, the key to success is to make a realistic plan and stick with it.

To succeed at blogging for profit, the main thing that you will need is a large readership. The higher your traffic, the more advertisers will agree to pay you. However, cultivating the regular visitors that you will need in order to make a profit isn’t easy. As more and more blogs appear each day, having a great idea or a wonderful writing style is no longer enough to get attention.

You need to be able to market your blog effectively. Too many bloggers spend all of their time writing posts and almost no time marketing their project. To be certain, updating as often as you can is a great way to keep your blog high on blogrolls and high in blog search engines like technorati, and once your readers know that you update frequently they will return to your site on a regular basis. However, it does not matter how often you update if nobody is reading your page, so don’t skimp on the time that you spend drawing visitors to your site.

To make your dreams of blogging for profit a reality, try decreasing your number of posts and using some of that time to draw new visitors by setting up link exchanges with other bloggers, making contacts in the blog community, and following other established modes of winning traffic. Of course, even if you are a marketing genius or have a really great idea for a blog, success is not going to happen overnight.

Building the kind of readership that blogging for profit requires takes time, and in all likelihood it will be at least several months before you are able to turn much of a profit. Try to stay committed to your blogging project during this initial rough period. To stay motivated, set goals for how often you will update and how many readers you want to attract, and then reward yourself for sticking with your plan.

Topics to Write about on Your Blog

Once you have the blog set up, you will then need to post content about a particular topic. You will have to find out what people are searching for, and then start writing content around that topic.

However you can not just pick a topic out of the blue, the topic has to be something that has enough people searching for it, as well as a topic that doesn’t have a lot of competition.

If you pick the wrong topic, you may end up writing content for a year without seeing any real success with it. You may only receive a few visitors to your blog because only a hand full of people are actually searching for that topic each month. Or you may only see a few visitors because there is too much competition and your blog is not near the top of the search engine results.

In order to make a decent amount of money with Google Adsense and other affiliate programs, you will need to find the right profitable niche (topic).

But there is good news…

I have found a great free report called “A Simple, Step-By-Step Formula to Uncover Red-Hot Niches”.

It’s a packed 47 page report that shows you the exact steps that can be used to find profitable niches. The author,Myleena Phan has used these steps to bring in over $15,000 in revenue from her web sites network.

You can start by building free blogs at blogger, then once you have some profits coming in, expand your sites with your own web hosting and then maybe you can even start hiring others to build the sites for You!

Grab the free report here.

Making Money With Your Blog

You can create multiple streams of income with your blog but I will only talk about Google Adsense in this article.Will post a comprehensive article on making money from your blog later.

If you’re looking at Google’s AdSense program to make money with your blog you’re surely asking yourself how much you could make from such a program. You probably think you can’t make as much as you can from traditional advertising schemes.

Google, of course, keeps a great deal of secrecy regarding how much AdWords advertisers pay per each click directed to their site and the same applies for how much AdSense banner holders make from their websites and blogs

While there’s nothing official, rumors circulate around the Internet concerning the amount of cash a blogger can earn by using AdSense. And many people (illegally) disclose how much they have been making with AdSense. There are stories of people raising over one thousand dollars per month using AdSense, some as much as $1000 a day just through blogging.

There are also stories of people exceeding $100,000.00 per month but it’s a bit hard to believe such stories. The truth to the matter is that if you have a small blog and you just want it to support itself with a little extra income, and you don’t wish to reach your pocket for its maintenance costs you can easily do this with AdSense.

AdSense is also very good for people who host a lot of pages or very large community blogs. Even if the said pages or blogs don’t generate a lot of traffic individually, every click counts and you can earn up with a lot of money by doing this. And that just goes to prove that sometimes quantity matters nearly as much as quality.

There’s no telling how much money you’re going to make by using Google’s AdSense program on your blog but you can sort of tell for yourself, before actually starting, by taking a few things into consideration.

First, is the amount of visits your blog may now get every day. While there’s no way to estimate precisely on this, you can generally make a safe assumption that if you have a lot of clicks per day you’ll be making good money.

Also, this depends on what exactly your blog is about. If your site is about anything popular (music, sex, whatever) you’re bound to get a lot of banner clicks. These have a coefficient associated with them, called the CTR (click through ratio).

Basically, what it translates to is that if a large proportion of your site’s visitors click the ads you’ll be making more money. And the best way to do this is to have some popular content in your site, ensuring the links direct users towards popular items as well.

Then of course, there’s the position and number of ads on your blog. While you don’t want to overdo it, having many ads will undoubtedly generate more income for you as a webmaster. Do not however believe, that if you just add a lot of ads in an important portion of your site, visitors could always just skip them (and be assured that many do just that).

There’s something between an art and a science to positioning your ads. People generally look in certain places and never look in others, and knowing this a website author and/or webmaster can do a great deal of things to increase his earnings with AdSense.

All in all, the amount of money you make with AdSense depends on many factors. But if you have a site with interesting contents and/or many pages, and if you see a constantly large amount of traffic every day, you can bet you’ll be making a lot of money with AdSense.

Even if you aren’t in the above categories, AdSense is still worth using on your blog because there’s very little hassle in setting it up, and many times it can help financially support the site, whilst being a nice bonus to get through the mail at the end of the month.Personally,I have made some good money from adsense using my network of blogs and I will soon post evidence on this blog.So,if you want to use adsense on your blog,I give you my word that you will not regret it.

Iyabo Oyawale assists people achieve success in small business,Internet Marketing and in life generally.You can download her 100% free success manuals at the free ebooks section of http://naijanetwarriors.com and http://askiyabooyawale.com.

Will Longer Keyphrases Hinder The Effectiveness Of Your Copy?

The length of search phrases continues to grow. Back when the Internet was just an upstart, single keywords were the only thing you needed. But in recent years we've seen the number of words used in search phrases triple and quadruple. Rather than a single keyword, searchers who live in countries where English is the primary language are now using three- and four-word phrases as a standard, according to Web analytics company, OneStat.com.

While the worldwide average is two words per search phrase, the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia all show that searchers prefer the use of three- or four-word terms. What does this mean from a copywriting standpoint? Writing with a single keyword in mind is relatively easy. Using two-word terms is a bit more of a challenge. But when you get to three- and four-word phrases, your risk of sounding stiff and awkward increases substantially.

Why Longer Phrases?

Longer search phrases are the natural progression of the Internet population boom. As more and more information is placed online, it becomes increasingly difficult to find exactly what you're looking for. When there were only a few thousand sites, entering the word "marketing" into a search engine would bring up a handful of sites for you to choose from.

Now, however, you find hundreds of thousands of sites dealing with everything from marketing plans to marketing jobs to university curriculums for marketing degrees. The natural action for copywriters is to follow the search trend of the target audience and use the keyphrases that they use.

That leads us back to our original question: how?

Tips for Writing With Keyphrases

The biggest mistake I find search engine optimization (SEO) copywriters making is attempting to substitute a generic term for a specific keyphrase. For example:

At our Mexico cruise vacation site we offer the best rates on Mexico cruise vacation packages to the most exciting Mexico cruise vacation destinations. Visit our Mexico cruise vacation specials page for deep discounts today!

Or

Welcome to our Chicago web design firm site. If you're looking for innovative and creative Chicago web design firm, you've come to the right place. No other Chicago web design firm has the talent or technological skills to develop the type of high-end sites we do. When you're ready for a truly professional Chicago web design firm, contact us today.

Oh please! My 10-year-old nephew could write better copy than that. When you substitute generic terms (in this case: site, packages, vacation destinations, vacation specials, etc.) with the specific search phrase, you get a bunch of repetitive, awkward babble. The longer the keyphrases are, the more clunky the copy will sound.

The best advice I can give is to break up some of the mentions of longer keyphrases. Yes, you do need to keep the words of the phrase in the same order most of the time. However by using punctuation and other elements you can still make the phrase appear less obtrusive.

For example, let's look at our Mexico cruise vacation site again. Rather than using that bunch of fluff written above, try this instead:

Long stretches of sunny beaches, delightful fiestas filled with lively bands and some of the most delicious fresh seafood you've ever tasted. Where can you find it? In Mexico! Cruise vacation destinations from Cancun to Cozumel offer some of the most exciting adventures and beautiful scenery found in Mexico. Cruise vacation specials make these remarkable getaways even more affordable than you might think - etc., etc.

Do you see what was done? Using punctuation, the phrase "Mexico cruise vacation" was broken up between sentences. Because the search engines all but ignore punctuation, they see the phrase as one term. However, the site visitor doesn't. They don't notice that the phrase is being repeated because it spans two sentences.

If the trend continues as it has in the past, search phrases will get even longer in the not-so-distant future. However, when you get creative with keyphrase use in your copy, you'll find longer search terms are not a problem to work with.

Copyright 2006, Karon Thackston, All Rights Reserved

How To Make An Easy $500+ Monthly Selling Pictures 2

Where Can I Sell My Photos Online & How

The best way to sell your photos is by offering your
stock photos for sale by putting them on the Web. You hope
that the client comes to you by displaying your photos online
and waiting for sales. Its simple. You get all your photos as
you take them, upload them to a website and name them
appropriately with proper keywords and then wait for someone
to come over and purchase them.

You can do this in two ways. First you can get your own
website and second you can go over to photo agencies.

Photo agencies combine the stock photos of many
photographers, hundreds of thousands of them, create a large
exposure and draw thousands of visitors who come to buy those
photos. Based on these reasons, going to these sites
might be your best bet.

Here is a list of some of the photo agencies you can go
to and register an account for free, upload your pictures
and start earning an income.

www.ShutterStock.com- Get Paid 20 Cents Every Time
Someone Downloads One Of Your Images for free! If your
images are good they may be downloaded over 100 times
everyday. With about 10 to 30 good images, you will be
making a good monthly income!

www.Fotolia.com - Sign Up, Upload Your Photos, And Get
Paid! Receive Up To 80% Of The Sales Price!

www.iStockPhoto.com - Once you join them you can
begin selling your photos with them! They also provide free
training on how to make your photos professional!

www.ShutterPoint.com - Upload your photos and sell
them at whatever price you want!

DreamsTime Photo (www.DreamsTime.com - Get paid 50 - 65% off
every photo that gets downloaded!

www.CanStockPhoto.com - Low competition (relatively new) you
are almost guaranteed to sell tons of your photos on this site.

www.Alamy.com - Earn 65% for every photo that Alama sells for you.
Good money!

www.FotoTopic.net - When You upload your photos you can
allow people allow people to use your photos for T-Shirts, Mugs,
etc. - Doing so you are able to set your own rates for your photos!

http://www.bigstockphoto.com Lots of users. Upload a few
hundred "quality" photos here and you will develop a nice
recurring monthly income!

Others include www.morephotos.com , www.FolioLink.com www.iStockphoto.com www.ktools.net/ www.photostockplus.com www.shutterpoint.com www.crestock.com www.stockandprints.com

NOTE: while going to register on these sites, be prepared
with a scanned copy of identification. Some of the sites
will accept your national ID or driver license. Others will
settle for nothing else but your international passport so be ready.

Additional Tips:

People who will come to search for photos at these sites
will search using the search engines. So try and name your
pictures in such a way as to fit description criteria that people
will be searching for. For instance if you have the
picture of a businessman, don?t name your picture Johnny
because if you do, it would most probably never get downloaded
because people won?t search for ?Johnny?. What they will be
looking for is businessman, so it better you label your picture
as businessman.

Also, take advantage of mis-spelling to make more money from
your pictures. You see a lot of people will mis-spell the search word.
For instance someone might spell businessman as busneesman.
Now, because of that mis-spelling, the search engine will give your
own picture precedence over others if t was spelled that way,
meaning more exposure, more downloads and ultimately more cash.

So, what are you waiting for? You?ve got a camera, you can
take the nice shots and you know where to sell your photos. Go and
shoot for $500 to $2000 monthly doing what you love!


Feel free to post back your comments.

-------------
Oluwafisayo akinlolu

How To Make An Easy $500+ Monthly Selling Pictures 1

How To Make An Easy $500+ Monthly Selling Pictures Taken From
Your Digital Camera Over The Internet Even If You Are A Total Amateur.


Can you get a hold on a digital camera and take shots?
Even if you are a complete amateur, you can still rake in
a steady $500 monthly, even more using this unknown
secret strategy I am going to reveal to you today. Not
just can you rake in that much, this will be one of the most
stress-free income you can pull from the Internet.

Just imagine. You go to your village and you see
chickens playing around.. you take the photo. You go
to the market place, stand at on top of a story building and
take a shot of the market scene. You see a river side
view and take a shot or maybe you go to a friend?s house
and you take a great shot of the cute little aquarium fish
in the sitting room. You then get back home, process the
picture a little, upload it to some selected sites I will show
you and by next week, you?ve made some cash from your
photo. Between you and I, I won?t say that was so
difficult or was it?

All you have to do is understand how this is done,
know exactly where to take your pictures to and you
are in business. Just start taking pictures and start earning
because as ?amateur? as you consider yourself, you are in
high demand (very high demand) across the world if you
can detect a wonderful scene and take a cute little photo.

Brace up because I am about to reveal to you a whole new
world of unexplored cash in the photography business
that I bet you?ve never heard preached before.

Taking photos is fun. What's more fun, is getting paid for
taking photos. Then you can spend more time doing what
you enjoy. First let me pass you a little secret. In photography,
just like any other field, a lot of the ?hot-shots? did not start off
as professional photographers. Infact, a lot of them started
out in fields far from photography!

Elliott Porter was a doctor, Ansel Adams was a pianist,
Galen Rowell was a mechanic, Bob Krist was an actor. If these
people can start from nowhere and sell their work, so can you.

The nice part about selling photography is that anyone can do it -- you are
not dependent upon physical ability, age, or background. It is more
about art and energy. The photography market is so open that
every photographer I've met to date is pleased to give ideas and suggestions.

Each time since the last 4months (that I have learnt and started
researching this secret), everyone I have spoken to about it have
all asked the same question: ?How Can I Sell My Photos? I am almost
certain that?s the one thing on your mind. Yes, I am going to tell you
all about it BUT first, let me cover some points that will make the
distinction between you wasting your time and you making
money from this venture.

Knowing What To Shoot & What To Publish

As you begin to take photographs, you will quickly learn
that you can easily make income from several areas in the
photography world. You can also decide to specialise. There
are people who specialise in taking only pictures of motorcycles,
or cars or trees for instance. As someone starting however and
I guess without much photography expertise or some ?fancy?
cameras, you might want to stick to the other and do a lot of areas.

The truth is: any area can turn into photo-cash for you.
However, I must warn that you need to know what is legal
to shoot. You can go to http://rcfp.org/photoguide/ ,
http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm, http://photography.about.com/od/legalissues to
learn about some of the legal issues

QUICK TIP: some photo types are more in high demand than
others and so going for such photos will fetch you more cash
and quicker. Examples are beautiful nature pictures (beaches,
trees, sunset etc), electronic stuff that could easily be used on
websites (earn quick bucks with these), business people (men
and woman), money, business related photos (pile of newspapers,
calculators..) etc.

As regards what to publish. There are things like photos that
reveal private facts about someone, images that include
copyrighted logos or trademarks within them, photos that
appear to indicate a libelous and unsubstantiated appearance
such as a preacher in front of a sign for a porn movie, thus
implying he was going to see it etc

That covered, there are 3 basic ways to make money
from your photos. The first is to sell them. I?ll call this stock photos.
The second is to create products out of your photos. For instance,
the creation of an animal book for children containing photos of animals
with short descriptions or to create cards using your pictures and the
third is to render services which is the very popular one we see around
where you lend your skill to people who need to carve a memory
of their events on paper.

My goal here is to show you how to sell your photos over
the web (stock photos). So, what are stock photos?

I?ll describe stock photos as pictures you have already taken.
It is in your pile of photos and is ready for use. I mean if I
tell you how, you could just take them out now and sell for
cash. Simple!

You see, publishers love to use stock photos because
it is easier. It takes a lot of time and money to hire a
photographer and get him or her to take the needed shots.
It is by far better to use cute, ready made pictures and you will
agree with me this is most correct. Each time I have had to design
a website or to do header graphics for my sites or create my
stunning ebook covers, I have always turned to stock photos
because they are plain easy.

All you have to do is to go out and take your photos.
Some of your photos will need processing. If you are
experienced with handling of graphics, you can easily do this
yourself using photo editing softwares like photoshop or you can
just hire someone to do them for you cheap।

oluwafisayo akinlolu

How To Use Ezine Articles To Promote Any Product, Service, or Affiliate program

I bet you can't tell me the best way to use ezine articles to promote your offer.

Go ahead. Give it your best shot. Out loud. Say it. Whatever comes to mind, just blurt it out.

I'm listening.

You see, most people don't really understand how to BEST use ezine articles to promote a product or service, or their favorite affiliate program.

They know they are supposed to write an article, include some kind of clever offer in the text or in their resource box, and convince editors to publish their article.

But, there is a *very* clever way to use your article to promote like you've never seen before.

And I'm going to share it with you right now.

There are only five steps. And they are all super simple...

Step 01: Choose the product or service you want to promote.
This one is kind of a no-brainer. It all begins with deciding what you want to promote. Is it your own product or service? How about your favorite affiliate program?

We're not talking about your newsletter -- we're talking about an actual offer you want to present that you'll earn profits from when readers of your article make a purchase.

Decide what it is that you want to promote through your free ezine article. And then move on.

Step 02: Determine your "useful, but incomplete" approach.
I love to use what Jimmy D. Brown has coined as the "useful, but incomplete" approach when using freebies of any kind. (Ezine articles, free eBooks, reports, eCourses, etc.)

What he means by that is simply this: You provide your reader with "useful" information (something they find of value and are able to actually apply) but make certain that it is "incomplete" in that they can better use the information by making a purchase.

That's "useful, but incomplete." And it works like a charm.

The idea is to use your content to build up to your desired response. You provide the reader with content, and then you make an offer that allows them to fully utilize the content, gain extra insight from the content or maximize the content in some additional way.

Let me give you an example:

Let’s say I wanted to promote Aweber in a free ezine article. This is a service that offers unlimited autoresponders, tracking and all kinds of other stuff for one low price.

So, how could I use an ezine article to promote the service?

By writing an article that explains how to benefit from using autoresponders or mailing lists. My article explains different uses of autoresponders and how the reader can profit from implementing the ideas.

And, naturally, they will need an autoresponder service in order to put the ideas into practice, right?

And I just happen to know of a great service they can use.

OK, so that's an example of how to promote a SERVICE offer with your ezine article. What about a software product or an eBook?

Want some examples?

Good, because I've got two...

TO PROMOTE A SOFTWARE PRODUCT: Let's suppose you want to promote Armand Morin's eCover Generator. How can you do it?

-- Write an article outlining how important presentation of your offer is, and how creating a cover graphic can increase response rates by up to 1300%.

-- Write a step-by-step tutorial article for "do-it-yourselfers", explaining how to design your own graphics from scratch. And then promote the software as a
super-simplified way of doing it.

TO PROMOTE AN EBOOK: Want to promote Jimmy D. Brown’s ListProfitSystem.com ?

-- Write an article that covers the "basics" of building lists, and then promote Jimmy’s product as the "advanced" tactics.

-- Write an article on how to profit from a list, and then promote Jimmy’s eBook as the "how to build the list."

See how easy this is?

That's how it works. Determine what your "useful, but incomplete" approach will be, and then...

Step 03: Turn your approach into a tips list or tutorial.
Let's use my example again. I decided that I would describe various uses of autoresponders and how the reader can actually profit from them. What kind of tips list or tutorial could I create?

"How to Generate More Subscribers, Sales and Profits With Automated Follow-Up Messages"

"7 Powerful And Profitable Ways To Use Autoresponders To Skyrocket Your Sales and Subscribers!

"Want to Increase Your Online Profits And Leads? Here are 7 Ways to Do It..."

That's all you need to do. Determine your end result. Decide how to get there with your "useful, but incomplete" approach. And then develop a list, or even a step-by-step tutorial for your article that leads the reader along.

With each new "idea" or "way" or "tip" or "step" or "strategy" that you share, you can further direct the reader towards realizing their need of your upcoming offer, and lay the foundation for them to accept the offer.

Step 04: Expand on each point to build your content.
Here's more of the easy part. Just "fill-in-the-blanks" to complete your article.

Write 1-2 short paragraphs for each of your points. Make them good. Provide quality content. The offer you will soon make will see poor results if your information isn't useful.

Remember, you are trying to presell the reader on the idea that they are going to need your offer. If you don't provide them with quality information that they WANT to begin using immediately, then why will they want to buy what you are promoting?

Light a fire in them. Motivate them. Challenge them. Give them such nuggets of gold that they want to keep mining until they hit the mother lode!

Step 05: Put on the finishing touches with the "five pillars."
There are five things that you should always do to finish up your ezine article. Don't skip any of them. They are all critical...

1. Polish. Re-read your article. Does it provide information that really is "useful" to the reader? And yet leaves them wanting even more? That's what you want. Polish it. Put on the wax and make it shine. It has a very specific purpose -- make certain it has the means to achieve it.

2. Promote. Use your resource box to promote your offer. This is why we've written the article, right? Remember step one? It's time to put it into play. Give the reader what they (hopefully) are wanting...a way to maximize the information you gave them.

3. Proof. Don't do this yourself. Have a trusted friend, relative or co-worker check your article for grammatical and typographical errors. The last thing you want to do is present a poor image after sharing some high quality information.

4. Publish. Zip your new article out to your favorite list of publishers. Submit it to the announcement lists and the ezine directories. Don't forget to publish it yourself in your own newsletter!

5. Profit. If you've covered all the bases that I've mentioned, then profits are almost certain to start coming in when your ezine article is published. You deserve it. Be proud of your accomplishments.

And then start it all over again!

by iyabo oyawale

10 Tips for Blogger

There are no hard and fast rules on how to blog. Having said that, bloggers will likely increase their exposure by following some simple blog guidelines.

1.) Stay on topic.
Opinions are generally accepted but the content of the items in the blog should all relate to a general theme. Unless you have an uncanny knack for wit, humor or cynicism, the majority of your readers will be interested in the content that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined area of interest. Most readers won't care that you eat Cheerios for breakfast. They may, however, be interested in the fact that vinegar takes out stains and that toilet paper rolls make great wreaths. Define a topic and stick to it. This will ensure that you create a loyal following of interested readers.

2.) Stay informative.
If you are attempting to create the impression that you are knowledgeable about a specific industry or sector, be sure that you stay current on news. If you are endorsing a product or voicing an opinion, be sure to check your facts; your reputation is at stake. If you are offering an opinion, be sure to qualify your post, making it clear that the content is intended as an editorial.

3.) Old news is not news.
While blogging every day can be a drain, it is important that the information presented is current and accurate, writing an article or blurb about something that happened 6 months ago, will not be of interest to many. Telling your audience that Martha Stewart was convicted and will be going to prison, after her sentence is completed will make people question the value of your columns.

4.) Adhere to a schedule.
Create a schedule and stick to it. Realizing that blogging requires time and effort, don't create unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver. An occasional lapse or holiday is generally understood but readers returning to find stale, out-dated content are going to find another blog with similar content. New blogs and RSS feeds are popping up on a daily basis. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and a community you don't want to lose them due to lack of communication.

5.) Clarity and simplicity.
Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy to understand. Remember, the web is global and expressions, idioms and acronyms don't always translate. Sometimes a little explanation goes a long way.

6.) Keyword-rich.
If the goal of your blog is to increase your visibility, include related keywords in the title of the blog. Use the title as a headline to attract interest. Each item post should have a title that will attract attention but still be relevant to the post. The title should be no longer than 10-12 words.

7.) Quantity matters.
In order to attract the attention of search engines, you will need to develop content and substance. A headline or simple sentence is not going to generate the interest of readers or help with search engine ranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop a large portal of similarly-themed content.

8.) Frequency.
If your blog content is updated frequently, search engines will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals.

9.) Spell checking and proof-reading.
It only takes a few extra moments and can save you from having to make embarrassing explanations. Remember that whatever you publish on the Internet can be found and archived. Think carefully about what you post before doing so.

10) RSS.
RSS will increase your blog's reach. It is important that you include your blog's content in an RSS feed to increase readership and distribution.

Most weblog audiences are small, but with time and regular updates audiences grow. Bloggers may never have more than a few hundred readers, but the people who return to regularly are generally interested in what you have to say.

Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley

A Step-By-Step Guide to Using Autoresponders

Autoresponders.Have you ever heard about them? Anyway,as the name suggests,they are automatic responders.They respond to emails on your behalf.I call them virtual secretaries because they make Internet Marketing fun.

Now,If you’ve reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to bury you alive every single day, you’re ready to learn about autoresponders.

On the other hand,if you have heard about Internet millions and you want to go into Internet marketing fully,you have to have a list.And you can only build a list with an autoresponder.

You see,email marketing is the lifeblood of Internet marketing but the bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they’re eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free -
method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as they are received.

Emails are essential to your business for many different reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices give you their feedback about your website - for free! However, if you spend all your working hours answering these emails, how are you supposed to run your business?
The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders are programs that automatically respond to your emails without you so much as having to click on your mouse.

There are a number of good reasons why you need an autoresponder besides just answering your email. For example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to send information about your services or products, price lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across
large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your business and then build stable relationships with your
customers by using autoresponders.

Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with your email program to a specialized script that runs on your web hosting company’s server. This kind of script may use a web page form or simply operate with your email account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a standardized message whenever an email is received. The message is sent to a particular script or email address.

Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to send out a new message every day for as long a period as you desire.

There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free of charge. Your website hosting company often provides autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge,providing you attach an advertisement for their company to your emails.

To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact numbers and addresses, and a brief message.

It’s a good idea to attach a signature to every email that is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your business identity every time a customer sees it. The more they look at your signature, the more likely your company will spring to mind when your particular service or product is needed.

You can create a standardized signature that every employee in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every staff member create their own personal signature. Of course, like everything in life, there are some rules and guidelines to creating a personal signature.

Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line.Make sure that your email program does not cut off your text! The content should include your name, your company name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a short personal message about your company. It should be a
subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly your company’s reliability and longevity.

Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create courses that you can then offer your site visitors for free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert and that precisely targets your potential customers.

Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation
about what is to follow. Your explanation should be enticing, getting the point across that you are offering free, quality information that your target audience will find of great value.

With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the topic title, information about your company and its services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue on.

Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more.Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.

Of course, you have to write up your course before you can offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the material carefully, employing a professional writer or editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your autoresponder.

There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. I use Getresponse,you can try it out by clicking this link-http://tinyurl.com/2lkt2g.There is the free and paid version.I started with the free version but now,I use the paid version.I must however warn that the free version has some limitations,like not being able to send broadcasts to your list.With Getresponse,setting up your autoresponder is not so difficult as you will receive instructions
as to how to set it up and transfer your text.

Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing your email address carefully. Your website should contain different email addresses for different contact requests.For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about
sales. It’s a good idea to set up one for the owner, such as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in a personal, approachable light and insures that direct contact is provided.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of potential customers. This is an invaluable asset considering how many potential customers you usually have contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially,
an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your marketing campaign.Use it to maximum effect today!

Written by Iyabo Oyawale(2007),you can use the above article and all the others on my blog f-r-e-e- if you include the following:

Iyabo Oyawale assists people achieve success in small business,Internet Marketing and in life generally.You can download her 100% free success manuals at the free ebooks section of http://naijanetwarriors.com and http://iyabooyawale.com/blog.