ABC Blog Tips

Why Being SEO Friendly is important to your Site?

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:46:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaYou spent a good deal, worked hard for many days and nights and built a great website, but alas! it doesn't get enough visitors. There are millions upon millions of pages of web content out there and your website is totally lost in the shuffle, like the proverbial needle in a haystack. When search engines ignore your site, your site becomes non-existent in the cyber world. The real problem with your website is that it failed to harness the most cost-effective and powerful Internet marketing strategy: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)!

Search Engine Optimization is the process of making your site appear at the top of search engine results for your domain-specific keywords and phrases. The higher your website ranks in the results of Google, Yahoo, MSN etc., the greater the chance that your site will be visited by many, which in turn would skyrocket your sales.

Simply put, Search Engine Optimization is about making your website visible on search engines. Its commercial purpose is to be the first to hit a customer base effectively.

Why Search Engine Optimize?

Everyday, millions of people search the web to find out what they look for. If your website doesn't come up top in the results, you lose your business to your competitors. SEO is important not only because it brings lots of visitors to your website, but also because it helps to increase the return on investment, if harnessed properly. Say for example, you have a website that sells mobile phones online. Optimizing the site for targeted keywords like 'low cost mobile phones' would bring it to the top results on popular search engines. This would in turn bring prospective customers to your site, which would result in higher sales.

However, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that requires patience, careful planning, and a long-term approach. Don't worry, here are 4 easy steps that will help you get started with optimizing your website.
4 Easy Steps to get started with Search Engine Optimization

a) Create traffic targeted content

Identify the keywords, i.e., words or phrases using which your potential customers will search the web. Example, if you are a hair salon, they will probably search using the keywords "hair cut", "hairstyle", etc. After identifying and gathering a set of keywords, categorize them under various themes and write web contents on those themes. That is, under the "hairstyle" theme, you can put keywords such as hairstyles, crew cut, long cut, short cut, curly cut, layered cut, etc. Using a Keyword Suggestion tool, you can see how many people search for a certain keyword. Any keyword for which the number of listings is less and the number of searches is more gives you a better chance of ranking higher than keywords for which the listings are more and the searches are less. Once you got the right keyword, use it appropriately in the page so that the page appeals to both the visitors and the Search Engines.

HTML tags such as title tags and meta tags also play a role in ranking top on search engines. These tags must contain only relevant keywords. Neither fill these tags with keywords that don't appear in the content nor leave them empty.

b) Make your pages Search Engine Ready

Check if your pages are search engine ready, i.e., are they crawlable by search engine spiders, is there something in them that will make the Search Engine neglect the page or give it a lower ranking.

To make your pages search engine ready

* Your website content must be readable. For the sake of appearing top on the search engines, do not make the content clumsy by repeatedly using the keywords. These kinds of clumsy sites may get top rank, but won't get readers.
* Add only relevant keywords: Do not stuff the website content, title tag, and meta tags with too many keywords. The keywords that are provided in the title and meta tags must appear in the website content.
* Do not add invisible text: Most of the search engines find them out and ban those sites.

c)Submit your site to Search Engines.

Now that you have made your site search engine ready, start submitting it to the popular search engines. That way, they know your site exists. Some search engines may require periodical submission. If you find the submission process tough, get a Site Submission tool available on the web. (More on Submitting to Search Engines)

d)Track your performance

Often times, people complain that their position in search engines has gone down. We must not forget that Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process for reasons like, Search Engines changing their algorithm frequently, new sites coming up for the same keywords as yours, your watch sites (competitor sites) optimizing themselves for search engines and so on. Thus, it is important you keep track of where you rank for each of your keywords in the most important search engines and constantly modify the content so that search engines know that your page is active. This enhances your rank on the search results.

Conclusion

Although Search Engine Optimization seems to be so complicated at the outset, it really is a simple and interesting process that you will enjoy doing yourself. Search Engine Optimization is the most cost-effective, easy to implement Internet marketing strategy that can get you more traffic and in effect more revenue. So go ahead, start optimizing your site. Happy Search Engine Optimizing...

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9 Steps toward a Search Engine Optimized Website

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:32:00 +0000

Image by hongxing128 via FlickrSearch Engine Optimization - An Introduction

Search Engine Optimization is probably the cheapest and most cost effective form of Internet marketing. In fact some studies indicate Search Engine Optimization as being the second most effective marketing strategy. The increasing popularity of Search Engines and the fact that good quality and cost effective traffic can be brought through them to websites has led to the development of a whole industry that revolves around how to make Web pages/Websites more search engine friendly or in other words better optimized. The result of this advent of Search Engine Optimization industry is the feeling among webmasters and novices in the industry that SEO is like rocket science and has to be handled by professionals only. Thankfully, the truth is that anyone can search engine optimize Websites. All it takes to optimize a Web site and get better ranking and traffic are 9 simple steps.
The 9 Simple Steps

1. Select Right Keywords

This is THE most important step and can easily be the reason for your ranking ahead or ranking below your watch sites (competition). Identify the words or phrases using which people search(might search) for your Web page on the Internet. If you sell dog food, your keywords must have something to do with "dog food". Do not use irrelevant keywords, even if they get you more traffic. If you are not sure of the keywords to be used, use any of the following tools to find good target phrases:

* Overture is a great tool for assessing popularity of target phrases.
* Google is great for brainstorming target phrases.
* Word Tracker can help you assess popularity and compare how the competitors use the target phrase.

2. Analyze Competition

Determine who your competitors are. It is quite simple; search for the keyword on popular search engines. The sites that show up above your page are your competitors. Analyze those sites and find out how effectively they have used the targeted keywords. Remember that the more popular a target phrase is, the more competition there is likely to be. Sometimes, it makes sense to target a less popular phrase where you can corner the market rather than aiming for the highest popularity phrase.

Check out yours and your competitor's link popularity. In many engines, you can type: link:http://domain-name and get a link count for that particular site. The more the link count, the better.

3. Page Creation and Optimization

After identifying the keywords, create Web pages by targeting one word or phrase for each page. One common mistake most novice SEOs do is dump many keywords into a page. Not only does it make it difficult for you to rank high for each of those keywords, but also it makes the page less readable.

i) Make sure your keywords are present in the following places:

* Title tag
* META tags: Description tag and Keywords tag
* Body text: Heading tags, comment tags,alt tags and prominent places on the page content

ii) Conduct HTML validation for your Web pages. HTML validation helps you find out the errors in HTML code, which may prevent search engines from indexing your site.

iii)Then check and ensure that your pages are Spam-free. When your page elements, such as Title tag, META tag, and body text, are stuffed with repeated keywords, search engines may consider them Spam and ban your site.

4. Visual Review of Page

* Check whether your site has usable navigation.
* Ensure you have informative and readable content. Good content will ensure that your page appeals to human visitors as well as spiders.

A badly written page may get a good ranking on search engines, but visitors will move away from your site with the same speed they came in. Although Search engine spiders that grade your site will not look for visual appeal, directory editors and human visitors will!

5.Link Building

Get inbound links from quality sites. Quality sites are those that rank high on search engines and/or have a good Google PageRank. If the sites are in someway connected with the theme of your webpage that will help increase your rank better. DO NOT turn to link farms for link building this can get your site banned in search engines.

6. Submitting to Search Engines

If you have followed steps one to five you are ready to submit your webpages to the search engines. Chances are the search engines found your webpages through the links that you built but if they some how missed your webpages don't worry you can always let them know that your pages exist through Search Engine Submission.

Trouble Shooting Photobucket Bandwidth Exceeded Problem

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:20:00 +0000

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown Recently my blog experience some irregularity. This really shocked me when I see the sign Photobucket Bandwidth Exceeded all round my blog. In my mind I was thinking where in the world did I used "Photobucket". Later did I realized that the problem lies with the images with the free template that I uploaded. My blog bandwidth is riding on the free template ptovider's "Photobucket" account.I found out that during the 2nd week of the last 3 months I have been experiencing this problem and have no clue why?

After much research this is what I have discovered. Photobucket has 2.5G of Bandwidth monthly and on the 16th of every month the bandwidth will reset, therefore if you have high amount of traffic coming into you site, you will definitely hit the bandwidth limit before that.

This is what I did - to resolve this problem:

First - Get my own Photobucket account
Second - Download all the image files into it
Third - Login to your blogspot account, go to layout>edit HTML>click Ctrl F
> since the problem is from photobucket, type the word photobucket

The word photobucket from your edit template page will be highlighted. Copy the complete url of all links that has the word photobucket. Download them, one by one and save it to your own Photobucket Account or any filehost that you prefer. Then, replaced all the Photobucket link in your template to your own, one by one, make sure that you’ve replaced the correct photobucket link to the new link to avoid further problems

After when I have done all this my Blog went back to normal again. I hope this will help you solve your misery too.

18 Adsense Mistakes a Publisher Must Never Commit

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:41:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia Google Adsense is a popular web advertising program which provides a good income source for many websites. There are a set of clearly defined terms of service (TOS) a publisher must strictly follow when participating in the program.

I visit tons of sites and forums daily , I do notice several instances of misuse of Adsense ads. So here a few helpful Google Adsense tips, probably many you already know, and few you might gain by knowing now. These adsense faq are all picked from the Program Policies, Terms and Conditions and FAQ itself and presented in a simplified manner.

1. Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason. You know this one very well. This is a surefire way to close you Adsense account. Never tell your office associates or friends to click on them. Keep a check if your family or children are busy increasing your income by clicking your ads and indirectly trying to stop your income. Dont even think of offering incentives for clicks, using automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Adsense is very smart to detect fraudulent clicks. Check the ads which appear on your pages by the Google Preview tool if required.

2. Never change the Adsense code. There are enough means of adsense optimization & customizations available to change the colour, background or border to suit your needs. Do whatever you want to do outside the code, never fiddle within the ad or the search code. They know it when you do. The search code has more limitations to colour and placement, but you should adhere to the rules. The code may stop working and violates the TOS.

3. Do not place more than 3 ad units and 3 ad links or 2 adsense search boxes on any web page. Anyway, ads will not appear in those units even if you place more ad units. But this is the limit they set, so it is better to stick to it.

4. Do not run competitive contextual text ad or search services on the same site which offer Google Adsense competition in their field. Never try to create link structures resembling the adsense ads. Never use other competitive search tools on the same pages which have Adsense powered Google search. They do allow affiliate or limited-text links. Update: Google has allowed you to run contextual advertising like Yahoo ads, Chitika etc provided the ads do not resemble Adsense ads.

5. Do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual ad units or any other confidential information they may reveal to you. However, you may reveal the total money you make as per recent updates to the TOS.

6. Label headings as “sponsored links” or “advertisements” only. Other labels are not allowed. I have seen many sites label ads with other titles. Dont make your site a target in a few seconds gaze.

7. Never launch a New Page for clicked ads by default. Adsense ads should open on the same page. You may be using a base target tag to open all links in a new window or frame by default. Correct it now as they do not want new pages opening from clicked ads.

8. One Account suffices for Multiple websites. You do not need to create 5 accounts for 5 different websites. One account will do. If you live in the fear that if one account is closed down for violation of TOS, believe me they will close all accounts when they find out. You can keep track of clicks by using channels with real time statistics. They will automatically detect the new site and display relevant ads.

9. Place ads only on Content Pages. Advertisers pay only for content based ads. Content drives relevant ads. Although you might manage some clicks from error, login, registration, “thank you” or welcome pages, parking pages or pop ups, it will get you out of the program.

10. Do not mask ad elements. Alteration of colours and border is a facility to blend or contrast ads as per your site requirements. I have seen many sites where the url part is of the same colour as the background. While blending the ad with your site is a good idea, hiding relevant components of the ads is not allowed. Also do not block the visibility of ads by overlapping images, pop ups, tables etc.

11. Do not send your ads by email. HTML formatted emails look good and allow placement of these JavaScript ads. But it is not allowed as per TOS. You do not want impressions registering on their logs from any email even once. They are watching!

12. Keep track of your content. So Adsense is not allowed on several non content pages. But it is also not allowed on several content pages too. Do not add it on web pages with MP3, Video, News Groups, and Image Results. Also exclude any pornographic, hate-related, violent, or illegal content.

13. Do not alter the results after ad clicks or searches - Ensure you are not in any way altering the site which the user reaches to after clicking the ads. Do not frame, minimize, remove, redirect or otherwise inhibit the full and complete display of any Advertiser Page or Search Results Page after the user clicks on any Ad or Search results.

14. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing - Although the definition of ‘excessive’ is a gray area and is subject to discretion, yet Google adsense with correct placement, focused content and high traffic will get you much more income than other programs, so excessive advertising is not required. Keyword stuffing does target better focused ads, but overdoing it is not required.

15. Ensure you Language is Supported - Adsense supports “Chinese (simplified), Japanese, Danish, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, English, Polish, Finnish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Swedish, Italian and Turkish”. In addition, AdSense for search is available in Czech, Slovak, and Traditional Chinese. If your web pages language is not supported, do not use the code on such pages.

16. Maximum 2 referral button per product per page - With the launch of the Google adsense referral program, you are allowed to put only 2 referral buttons for adsense referral, adwords referral, Google pack and Firefox with Google toolbar referral. Update: This feature is closing Aug 2008. [ended today]

17. Do not specify Google ads as your alternate ads. - Several services like Chitika eminimalls allow you to place alternate urls, when a targeted paying ad cannot be displayed. This involved creating an simple html page and putting the ad to be displayed instead. Even Adsense allows an alternate url feature instead of displaying public service ads. But never use Adsense ads as alternate urls.

18. Do not confuse with adjacent images - It was a common policy to increase CTR by placing same number of images as the number of text ads, which falsely gave the impression that the text ads represented an explanation to these images. Inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads is not allowed. Make sure that the ads and images are not arranged in a way that could easily mislead or confuse your visitors

Definition of Web 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:57:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia Why does Web 2.0 – a complex, subtle, yet practical topic – need so much definition? That question was addressed by social computing and Web 2.0 expert Dion Hinchcliffe in an end-of-year round up that he compiled all the way back in December 2005. To this day it makes a very handy starting-point for anyone seeking to get themselves up to speed.

Hinchcliffe's "Best (Or Most Interesting) Web 2.0 Definitions and Explanations" list was as follows. (Remember he was writing in December 2005, after what he called "the rough and tumble ride" that 'Web 2.0' as a term had in its first 12 months.)

O'Reilly's What Is Web 2.0 - The famous meme map alone is worth serious study and is the central work defining the interlocking elements of Web 2.0. O'Reilly touches on Web 2.0 as having more of a "gravitational core" than being a concrete set of technologies. He also introduces all the major planks of his vision of the next generation of the Web as a set of best practices from the first generation. A terrific read worth every minute spent on it. Finish this before starting the rest.

Wikipedia Definition for Web 2.0 - While this entry undergoes near constant revision, I recommend a visit to see what an amalgam of opinionated contributors brings to the table for Web 2.0 definition. Devoid of hype or even many buzzwords, the entry has become somewhat disappointing but the key facts are present and is also notably lacking in major anti-hype. In the end, a balanced if slightly boring view produced by a little wisdom of the crowds.

Richard MacManus Defines Web 2.0 in February, 2005 - It's amazing to see how far along things have come when you read the very interesting pieces hyperlinked within. Richard does a bang-up job rolling up prevailing opinion at the time from around the Web. He finally settles on Web as Platform for the time being, but of course, the concept would continue to grow.

The "Official" Web 2.0 Compact Definition - Tim O'Reilly realized his 5 page essay would not result in a pithy definition and so he obliged everyone in October with a more compact definition. While quite the run-on sentence, the definition does capture the essence: "Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences."

A Cumulative Web 2.0 Definition: Here is an interesting one, if more than a little obtuse. Incredibly, this is what comes up first in Google when you search on "Web 2.0 definition", presumably because the word definition is in the title and a few people have linked to it. While technically not inaccurate, it's not very complete either. I can't help wondering if partial definitions like this are a big part of the problem people are having understanding the concepts.

Jeff Clavier Tries His Hand At Web 2.0 Definition - And does a credible job. He puts openness of data and services as job #1, then rich application experences, and then low cost of delivery using lightweight programming models and techniques. A bit of a light definition in my personal opinion but highly accessible.

Paul Graham Weighs In On Web 2.0 - Here is one of the most recent explanations and one of the clearest headed. While I certainly don't agree with everything he says, it's an excellent antidote to some of the most extreme Web 2.0 hype, while not throwing out the baby with the bath water either. A must read.

Y! Buzz The Web Content Directory

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:05:00 +0000

Y! Buzz is a new service provided by Yahoo, if you are familiar with Digg.com you will know what I mean.

* The buzz can be about anything - a great story on a major news site, an extraordinary bit from an obscure site, an intriguing video, or a fantastic blog that shouldn't be missed.
* Instead of editors, people like you determine the top-rated stories.

How it works.

* First, we determine the most popular topics that people are searching for on Yahoo!.
* Then, we showcase the most popular stories within those topics, based on activities like voting and emailing stories to friends.
* Stories with most Buzz may be published on the Yahoo! home page - you can impact what millions will see on Yahoo!.

Happy Stinging!! Opps sorry it is Buzzing

SEO stuff that people don't really want to let you know

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:07:00 +0000

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Through my personal observation I have found that people who try to increase traffic to their websites domain will at some point attempt a whole bunch of “optimisation techniques” without knowing if any of it really has had, or is having, any effect at all.

Some of the SEO techniques I have seen people attempt are, whilst quite useless, based on a good idea. Other methods continually surprise me. Perhaps people that try such things have heard spurious rumours of how to get their site into Google’s top ten listings from certain forums. Incidentally they are probably at such a point of desperation that they are willing to try anything to gain just ten more visits.

I am regularly inundated with the same questions such as: Is it worth submitting my site to 300 search engines? Will I be penalised for cross linking my sites? Should I pay to have high ranking sites link to mine? And what exactly does Google page rank do, if anything!?

Questions such as these have driven me into despair and consequently writing this article during which i will attempt to explain definitively the more common SEO questions which many people will like to learn about. In this article we will examine some of the more common beliefs.

Before we get to the list it is worth noting that I have not written it in a particular order and at times I have explained the topic the myth concerns before answering the question.

Link Building

Q)Will the more links that point to my website increase my sites placement in search engines?

Yes, It will definitely help your website as far as the major search engines are concerned. The most popular search engines (Google, Yahoo!) use the number of links aimed towards a website as an important factor in determining the sites placement. They look for a link(s) to your website to be coming from sites with; high traffic, quality content and a high page rank, amongst other things.

Do no cross link, do not spam your address in forums and on social networks and do not put it on irrelevant sites, or those that seem slightly dodgy. Take your time, aim for directories that are related to your website, aim for directories with page rank 3+ or aim for blogs or similar sites that are relevant to your content.

Q)Is it worth me buying a place on a high ranking directory?

So the idea with this is that, say, a directory has a Google page rank of 7 and is very popular. Any site on it will be getting a big rub off via a higher spot on search engine rankings. However the catch is the directory charges £50 a month for your listing. Is it worth it when there are so many free directories out there?

Personally I think it is worth it, as long as the site holds its high rank and doesn't have thousands of listings competing with yours on it. The added bonus with pay for listings is that they usually review and include your site very quickly (24hours), which by itself may be worth paying for. And if you could buy 10 spots on decent directories your site will most likely become highly ranked on search engine results.

There are problems with this though. Firstly, it is said to be against Google’s terms of service – paying to get a higher listing on Google’s organic results. (Google want their results to show the best and most relevant websites, not those with the most money behind them) They are however, unlikely to be too bothered even if they do find out.

The next problem is the cost. For a small company or personal website it is too expensive to pay monthly for many directories to list them, and possibly not worth it. Lastly, it is not guaranteed to help your website. It should, but does not always. I have paid for listings before and noticed very little difference, whilst other times it has made a huge contribution to my sites ranking. So it may be a risk, but it can pay off extremely well.

Q)Will submitting a video about my site or product to places such as Youtube be of benefit to me?

A recent link building trend has been to submit a short video describing the webmasters site or the service it provides, to as many video submission sites as possible. The theory behind this being that search engines give more weight in their results to pages with videos.

So if your site or product has a video on Youtube, when that product is searched for on the web that video will often come up in the top ten results. If this video has a link to your site in it, under it or as nearby as you can put it, it should be good news for you and your site. People find the video as it is ranked so highly in the results, watch the video, like what they see and then visit your site to perhaps purchase what they saw.

Does it work? At the time of writing, yes it does and it is probably worth doing. Make a video, even if it is just text, sound or a power point presentation, and then submit it to as many video and social networking sites as possible. People will find it and it will hopefully persuade them to visit your site.

The only real problem with this being that the search engines will not like all of the “video spam” now being posted on the internet and are likely to change (lower) the priority of videos in their results.

Google Page Rank

Q)Will having a higher Google page rank(PR) increase the number of visitors to my site?

Before we can answer that we will have to look at what exactly Google page rank is. Google page rank is a spurious form of measurement for site popularity that the company introduced fairly recently. It is unknown to everyone, except possibly Google, how exactly it ranks sites.

It is assumed however that its rankings depend upon links that are outside of your site that point in towards it. New websites may not have a page rank for many months. It is also possible to have a very successful website with thousands of visitors and sales and still not being ranked highly, if at all.

This is because Google only ranks pages once every few months, probably around once every three-four months. So if you start your website and straight off advertise heavily on high PR sites you might receive a high volume of traffic but it may still take months for Google to look at your site and rank it accordingly.

To see a websites Google page rank you can download the Google toolbar and then once it is installed right click on it and select show page rank. However this is only a snapshot taken once every quarter (roughly), so beware.

So back to the myth – Does having a higher Google page rank mean more visits to your site? Well, yes and no. No, because it alone doesn't actually have any effect on search engine placement and as such won’t increase your traffic. However, if you have a high Google page rank it means that your site has lots of quality links aimed towards it and as such you should already be ranked highly in search engine results and thus should be receiving increased traffic.

Purchasing Traffic

Q)Is it worth me buying 10000 hits for £££/$$$?

OK, we have all seen the adverts in our email promising thousands of targeted visits for an amazingly cheap cost. And at one point or another we have all been depressed enough to be tempted by them. But just say no.

The idea is, for say 100 pounds (or 200 dollars), a traffic company will direct ten thousand or so visitors to your site who are actually interested in your content. It sounds great and some companies will actually provide what they say as far as traffic to your site is concerned.

However I have never found one where the traffic is actually targeted and people even bother to look around my sites. Often it turns out to be a robot that is obviously not going to look or buy anything from me. If not it may be that thousands of unfortunate people have had a dozen pop up windows attack them as they bravely try to fight them off.

I may be generalising slightly with this, but usually the people that are directed or redirected to your website will want nothing more than to close it down.

It could possibly work for you if your site instantly captures people and most of your money is made off advertising that these people quickly click on before closing you down. However do not attempt to use bought traffic whilst using Google Adsense on your site as it is against their rules and your account might be terminated without warning.

Another possible benefit is that some search engines rank sites based on incoming traffic, thus 10000 more hits by anybody may actually boost your rankings. However, this is unlikely to fool search engines such as Google or Yahoo!.

Cross Linking

Q)What is Cross Linking?

Cross linking is a webmaster practice whereby a person owns many domains, uploads an identical site to each and then heavily links each domain to the others. For example, person A registers lotsofhits,com, but is not getting enough traffic. To fool the search engines into thinking it is a popular website he registers a hundred more domains, so each will have different web addresses but all have the duplicate page content of lotsofhits,com, and all of them link to one another.

This in theory should boost the pages rank, as Google, along with other search engines, determine the importance of a site based on links from outside websites pointing to it(along with a few other things). It would also mean that there are a hundred more sites on the web that sell the same product as lotsofhits, com that could all possibly be found.

Q)Will Cross Linking my site(s) be penalised by search engines?

This is not a myth - search engines often penalise or even temporarily ban sites that Cross Link. If Google detect completely duplicate content on even just two sites that link to each other, then they will at least lower your page and result rankings, if not ban both sites.

Q)I have heard cross linking is fine as long as the sites do not have completely duplicate content. Is there any truth in this?

If you are determined to Cross Link the safest way would be to own two or three domains that link to each other but each of which have completely unique content and link to other sites as well as one another. It is hardly worth creating two or more unique sites for the sole purpose of cross linking and I would not recommend doing so anyway.

SEO Software

Q.Is it true that there is no point in doing any manual search engine optimisation or search/site submissions when you can buy software that will do the job for you?

There is a little truth behind this, but not much. Whilst certain software might make for an excellent tool in assisting your SEO campaign, in the end there you will find there is no substitute for hard work. For example you can download a program that will submit your site automatically to 10000 search engines or put a link to you web page on 50 other sites.

The problems there being: only four major search engines exist and between them they take over 80% of all search engine traffic. Those search engines will find your site automatically and rank it according to, amongst other things, relevant and unique content – making the 10000 search engine submission promise redundant (even if it were true).

There are good tools available that will track your visitors (Google analytics), tell you how your site could be made more search engine friendly and software that even tracks how each of your keywords are ranked in major search engines. However, if you are purchasing such software, try to find a trustworthy independent review first so that you are sure you are not getting ripped off. Also try to make sure that any software you use does not go against Google’s terms of service.

So, whilst certain software can and will be useful to you, there is no replacement for hard work and unique content and regular updates. The search engine rankings should then take care of themselves.

10 Golden Tips to getting readers participation

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:21:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaThe success of your blog is solely base on User Generated Contents (UGC), therefore the level of comments you receive from your readers is a measure of how successful is your blog. Getting your readers to comment requires techniques, I have listed 10 Key strategies used by successful bloggers whom have attract massive comments to their blog post.

Be Controversial - Writing content that is controversial opens the door for more possibilities, as the controversial subject usually doesn't have a black or white answer.

Be Outlandish - Writing something outlandish can generate either positive or negative comments, depending upon how outlandish the content is.

Ask Questions - This tactic has been proven to work time and time again. Asking questions gives the reader a chance to really digest your content and encourage thoughtful participation. Although, this doesn't work all of the time. There are many bloggers who ask questions all the time which go unanswered. It's been known that if you are passionate about what it is you are writing about, you'll naturally ask questions that matter.

Be Wrong - I really don't like this method of generating comments as it could have a negative impact on your credibility. If you write content that is blatantly wrong, people will stop at nothing to let you know about what it is that is wrong while also giving you a beating. Only use this as a last resort if you are really that desperate for comments.

Be Open Ended - Content which is written in an open ended format tends to do very well with generating comments as it leaves room for the reader to expand upon the initial set of thoughts. Writing content which ends up being a complete thought is an excellent way to keep people from leaving comments. SO DON'T DO IT.

Continue The Conversation

If your content generates comments, the worst thing you could do is not respond. This in turn would end the conversation. Answer questions presented by the commenter's, further the discussion by conversing with those who took the time to stop by and contribute to your thoughts and expressions. Too many times I see blogs in which the author writes incredibly juicy content only to have the stream of comments stop because the conversation grinds to a halt from the failure of the blog author responding to the comments

Join A Social Network

There are so many different social networks now available on the web, there is bound to be one or two that are dedicated to your niche. These social networks are communities of people with the same interests. Joining a social network pertaining to the subjects you write about on your blog is an excellent way to expand your audience.

Join A Social Bookmarking Service

Social bookmarking services are those services centered around bookmarks being shared by users across the net. These bookmarks are sites in which a user as deemed useful, or quality content to come back to later. Social bookmarking services such as Ma.gnolia, BlinkList, del.icio.us and Technorati are all good ones to start out with. Use these services to your advantage to spread your content to a wider audience. Also, make it easier on your own blog for users of these same services to share your content.

Join A Related Forum

This still works. Joining a forum related to the topics you cover on your blog can help you create new one on one relationships with people of the same interest. Many forums also allow you to link to your own content as long as it relates to the forum thread being discussed. Also keep in mind that you can use the SIGNATURE line in forums to promote your site. This will come in handy when you write good quality forum posts and become a prominent member of their community.

Commenting On Other Blogs

I can assure to this method works. Find other blogs related to your niche and comment on them. I'm not talking about the "great article, visit my site" type of comments. I'm talking about the comments which could just as well be a blog post. Writing informative comments on blog posts can do wonders for your own blog. Ever have someone write an excellent comment on your own blog? I bet you visited the URL they linked to within their comment. I've used this method to spread the word about my blog while also discovering new blogs/websites which were worthy of subscribing to.

Conclusion

This post could go on and on, in terms of how to acquire more participation out of your readers. By now, you should have a good idea (or two or three) on how to increase reader participation for your own blog. Treat comments like gold. The majority of bloggers are lucky to see 10 comments in a week, let alone 100 in a day. Keep the creative juices flowing by sharing your thoughts and ideas on how to increase reader participation.

Blogging Tool

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:21:00 +0000

Recently I stumbleupon this blogger tool. It's call Zemanta, it is a plugin/add-on which is compatible with Internet Explorer and Morilla Firefox. Zemanta can be use with blogging platform such as blogspot,WordPress,movable type,livejournal and Typepad.

What Zemanta does is, it will help you find related tags, links, images and article for all your blog posts. It is a complete suggestion tool for bloggers to enable you to write better blog posts. Just to put into simple terms Zemanta will make your life easier.

Go try it yourself and you will know what I mean

Zemanta Demo

Zemanta Blogger integration from zemanta on Vimeo.

How can we make time for blogging?

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:05:00 +0000

We all have times where it seems that there just isn’t any time to blog, even when there are a ton of ideas swirling around in your head. If you have regular life commitments that don’t allow you time to blog at your leisure, you have to make the most of the time you do have to blog. There are definitely plenty of ways to do this, but first and foremost, you need to make the commitment to do so. Here is how you can find the time to blog when it seems you just can never find the time to do it.

Making the time
Make a point of finding 15 minutes in the day to blog… and once you start looking, it might be quite easy to find. Is it making your coffee at home instead of taking the time to stop at Starbucks? Carpooling with other parents? Setting your alarm 15 minutes earlier than you need to get up? And when you make that time, use it to blog and try not to let other family duties interfere with your 15 minutes. This means no cooking, no laundry, no walking the dog.

Planning calendar
Mark off the days you should blog, then do your best to stick to it. It is surprisingly easy to keep putting blogging off, then suddenly discover it has been 7 weeks since your last blog post. So make a blogging schedule and keep to it as best you can.

Notes
When you come up with a blog post idea, write it down. Many bloggers who are pressed for time find that they sit down to blog and can’t think of a single thing to write about. If you keep a list of blog post ideas, even if it is just a title or a couple off-hand notes, this can work wonders for helping you get started when you know you only have ten minutes to blog before the kids need to get up for school.

Automate
Install a plugin to automatically post related articles rather than hunting them down yourself. Use an RSS feed reader to quickly scan industry news, I highly recommend Google Alert. Think of what you can do that relates to your blogging that you can automate… this way you can spend more time doing the actual blogging rather than the behind the scenes stuff that needs doing.

Hand write
You can spend your hour handwriting and editing blog posts, then when you have time, quickly type them into the computer. Because you aren’t having to pause to think up how you want to say something, you can enter your blog post pretty quickly, do a spellcheck and hit publish.

Set Goals
Do you know where your blog is going? Or where you want it to be in X number of months? If you blog without any kind of goal in time, you could be focusing on the wrong things. It could be something as simple as writing a blog post on something specific, or trying to publish 3 new blog posts a week for a month? Or even something longer term, such as getting to the point where you can quit your day job so that blogging can become your day job. Whatever your goals are, they can actually help you stay motivated and on track for what you want your blog to do in the long run. And when you have goals set, it can help you organize yourself and your time better to achieve what you want out of it.

You wouldn’t be the first blogger who tries to squeeze minutes out of a day to blog, when there are so many other things going on that demand attention. But if you follow these tips, it can help you find those precious minutes you can use to blog, and to achieve the goals you want to when it comes to your blog. There are many very successful bloggers who started out the very same way, when time was scarce but desire was strong.

Secrets to Successful Tagging

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:22:00 +0000

What is tagging?

Tagging is commonly used for blogs, pictures, social bookmarking, articles, and more. Instead of the traditional categories, tags allow you to create categories "on the fly". They're then grouped together in a tag cloud, with the most popular tags in a larger font.

Using tags for maximum exposure.

Tags give you a lot of freedom and they're easy to use. Choosing the right tags can sometimes be difficult. If somebody is looking for specific information like blogging tips, they might look under the tag, "blog". But you tagged your blog, "blogging tips" and your blog won't be found.

A good strategy when it comes to tagging is to first see what tags people are using to help choose the ones to place.

I can start some of my own, though, and include "blogging tips" there.

Keep it simple.

Using your own tags to categorize your blog entries.

You can also use tags as a way to categorize your blog entries, though. Let's say you write primarily about 3 different subjects: movies, books, and humour. You can give these original tags that nobody else would likely use, essentially giving them their very own page.

More tagging tips.

Using simple, one to two word tags are best. If you create an complicated tag, it's less likely to be found.

When tagging a person's name, a title, or a TV show, though, use the full name or most popular name. "American Idol" and "Simon Cowell" are good examples of this.

Be consistent. For the same type of topics, use the same tags.

Happy tagging!

"Blogging" can the Youth benefit from it?

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:14:00 +0000

Recent study conducted by Pew Internet and American Life Project in conjunction with the College Board and the National Commission on Writing has come to some interesting conclusions about teens and the effects of blogging on their writing.

One find that was not so great was that teens are increasingly using the abbreviations they use in text messaging in their formal writing assignments. In addition, the study found that teens that text message each other on a frequent basis are not any more likely to write than other teens.

On the other hand, the study did find that teen bloggers are more likely to write online and offline as well. Apparently, 47% of those teens that blog also write for other personal reasons several times per week outside of school. Only 33% of teens that do not have blogs, on the other hand, write outside of school. In addition, only 53% of non-blogging teens say they feel writing is important in order to be successful later in life while 65% of blogging teens felt the same way.

Another benefit to blogging is that some experts believe the style of writing that teens use while blogging can actually be more beneficial to them than the type of writing they learn in school.

“In real ways, blogging and other forms of virtual debate actually foster the very types of intellectual exchange, analysis, and argumentative writing that universities value,” notes Bradley A. Hammer, who is a teacher at the Duke University writing program.

One reason for teens turning to blogging is the fact that they can write about whatever they want. According to the study, teens said they were more likely to write when they were able to choose the topic and when the topic was of personal interest and was relevant to their lives in some way. They also reported that they enjoyed writing for school more when they were allowed to write creatively. Similarly, teens felt more motivated to write when they knew they were writing for an audience. With blogging., all of these needs can be met. Isn't this cool???

10 Ways to Generate Traffic to Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:18:00 +0000

There is no value keeping a blog if no one are reading them. Therefore it is important to know how to generate traffic to your Blog. Here are 10 Ways you can implement overtime to help you drive more traffic to your Blog.

Tip 1: Reciprocal Linking

One of the most proven ways to gain targeted traffic is to exchange links with other bloggers or site owners.

This is a task which requires a little work – by sending an email request for a link exchange with a few follow ups but the results are worth it.

Another linking method is to simply write a testimonial for a product you have purchased. If your testimonial is good, product owners will usually publish it on their sales page with your blog URL included.

If you want to skip the traditional way of exchanging links and go for the easier way, you can automate the process with various software and services found on the net. Just do a search at Google.com and you will have a list of them.

Tip 2: Blog Commentaries

Do you know that your comments also have high potential in generating targeted traffic to your blog and is an effective linking strategy?

All you have to do is find a blog related to your niche and post your comments. At the end of your comments you can include a link back to your blog, this way people who are interested will be able to visit your blog as well. However you should never misuse this to spam other blogs.

Tip 3: Blog Directories

Blog directories are similar to search engines just that they cater only to searches for blogs.

It is advisable to submit your blog to the major directories, some of which include feedburner.com, technorati.com and digg.com

Similarly, there are many blog services like autoping.com which you can use to ping your blog. Pinging your blog notifies the service that you have updated your blog. These services will then publish your new posts and you get traffic from interested readers and search engines.

Tip 4: Writing Articles

This is one of the best ways of pulling targeted, steady and long-term traffic to your blog. By writing your own articles and submitting them to article directories, you can invite a lot of targeted visitors to your blog.

In order to generate traffic by writing articles, you need to include your resource box at the end of every article you have written. The resource box is where you promote and introduce your website or blog.

To truly maximize your results, you need a system to create, submit and leverage off your articles easily. One of the best available is seen at http://EzineArticle.com

Tip 5: Writing Press Releases

Press release is a very effective way of generating instant traffic to your blog. Although press releases only pull in short-term traffic, they can work very well if you continuously write and submit press releases regularly while monetizing the traffic received.

PRWeb.com is one of the oldest and most trusted sources for news distribution on the web. Or you can use an automated press release service like http://www.SubmitYourPressRelease.com to do the work for you quickly.

Tip 6: Start A Blog Mailing List

The phrase “the money is in the list” is true in all businesses. If you want to succeed online, you must start building your own list of targeted subscribers. You can send your subscribers to your blog anytime you have new posts.

By the same token, you can also get your blog readers to subscribe to a ‘blog update’ list which can be used to notify them when you have updated your blog. REPEAT traffic through returning visitors is a key traffic strategy and you can control that with this method.

Tip 7: Publishing Your Own Ezine

You can also provide your subscribers with useful information in several series with an autoresponder. An ezine is often called an online magazine. By publishing your own ezine, you are able to attract readership to your blog when you advertise it in your ezine.

Tip 8: Pay For Traffic

If you have a good monetization strategy for your blog through affiliate programs, Google Adsense and a mailing list, you should consider using paid advertising to drive traffic to your blog.

Recommended options include pay-per-click advertising, ezine advertising and huge banner exposures.

Tip 9: Giving Out Free Reports

Give out free viral reports to promote your blog. Providing useful information in your free reports can trigger readers’ interest to know more about you and your websites. More information on this tactic can be found at http://www.MiniEbook.com.

Tip 10: Niche Discussion Boards

Discussions boards or forums can deliver targeted traffic to your blog. If you have a blog about gardening, try searching for a related niche forum with huge traffic to participate in.

Most forums will usually allow you to include a signature file where you can write a few sentences of words. You can invite people to visit your blog through the signature file by posting more regularly.

In conclusion, realize that getting traffic to your blog should not be viewed as a one time effort. Commit and focus on a long-term strategy in order to succeed. It is all about gaining the momentum.

Once you get a decent amount of traffic to your blog, you will attract more visitors to it everyday as you work on it. As time goes by, you will have an amazing amount of traffic to your blog which you never thought was possible!

How to Creat a Graphical Header For Your Blog?

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:26:00 +0000

If you are blogger with limited HTML knowledge and want to have a graphical header on your blog, this video is made specially for you.

In this 10 mins video you will learn a technique to install a graphical image as a header into your blog. A graphical header can make your blog unique and stand out of other blogs there in the blogosphere.

Now sit back and enjoy this video.

Definition of Internet Advertising Acronyms

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:54:00 +0000

Today I will be touching on the most common Acronyms used in online advertising.
What are CPM (Cost per 1,000), CPC (Cost per Click) and CPA (Cost per Action)? These are methods use for calculating the charge for pages (advertisements) being served.

CPM is a holdover from traditional media advertising, and does not take advantage of the Hypertext nature of the medium. It charges purely on the number of times the advertisement is served. It does account for branding effects, that are not accounted for in the other models.

CPC is a cost associated with each click on the advertisement to the target page. CPA is a cost associated with each lead created from a click on the advertisement (CPL), or each sale (CPS).

Both CPC and CPA are much more accountable means of developing a price for the banner, and either are also used for affiliate programs. They become a variable cost in terms of generating the number of people exposed to the target page (this number is based on the CTR from the host vehicle), the number of leads generated (CPL) or the number of sales (CPS).

The downside for this vehicles are they do not control the design of the banner (poor design = low click-through etc. and they are not rewarded for the branding effect of the banner.

8 Tips to More Traffic and Rankings

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:45:00 +0000

Here are 8 secrets for getting noticed and gaining traffic and search engine rankings with online content postings.

Tip 1
Use a ‘link-bait’ title. The most important factor in getting read is the title of the post or article. This must be balanced by the fact that the title tag on any post or article is the most important factor for getting search engine rankings; so it is also important to use keywords.I personally recommend Google Adwords Keywords Tools
for keywords research, this has been one of the most effective free keywords research tool I have come across.

Tip 2
Give a compelling preview to the content. If you must ramble on about historical facts to set the stage for your point, provide a compelling prelude to give the reader hope that the effort will be worthwhile. For example, this article touches on a reason to read the article-the chance that the reader may be doing a less than perfect job of posting. If the reader is interested in the subject matter provided in the prelude, they may sit through your article as you build up to your point.

Tip 3
Allow the reader to participate. Anyone can make statements, but questions are more engaging, and convincing. Are you getting a good return from your posting efforts? Would you like to get more traffic? Would twice as much return for your time investment, or a thousand times more hits interest you? I have not made any outrageous statements here, I have only asked compelling questions.

Tip 4
Repeat the keywords that are in the title in the body of your message. The search engine robots need to see that the content within the article is relevant to the title in order to achieve search engine rankings.

Tip 5
Do not over-do keyword density. While the density of the keywords matters, ‘keyword stuffing’ is bad and will result in being relegated to the “supplemental index” (IE: oblivion).

Tip 6
Lead with the sexy part, and then reveal the "Main Dish" later. While ‘secrets’ is the ‘hook’ here, the real dish is a few simple formatting issues that will greatly affect your results.

Tip 7
Insert anchor text linked back to your website, containing your keywords. Many places where you can post allow a last minute edit in the html code before publishing. Add a link to your website by highlighting your keywords and clicking “insert link.” Then, after inserting the link, click HTML or Code Edit and search for rel=”no follow,” and then remove just that part of the code. Then click publish or submit, as the case may be. This creates a pointer stating to the search engines that your website is a source of information on this topic.

Tip 8
Make it personal. I was trained to ask myself, “so what?” after everything I say. Try doing this as you write. If you answer the “so what” with the benefits to the reader, they will have reason to read on. If you take my advice, you will rank higher on the search engines and get more traffic and better links back to your site from your efforts.

1 Traffic tip by Integrating Digg to your blog

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:21:00 +0000

I have heard many blogger complains that they don't have much traffic coming to their blog. I'm going to share one tip that is going to drive more traffic to you blog.
I've found the submission of articles to social media directory a great way to drive traffic to your blog. One of my favorites is DIGG.com, it is a site where people discover and share content in it, there are tons of articles in it. When you have an interesting article, remember to submit into DIGG and post your article under the right category, this is going to help you attract readers who may be interested in your topic

Digg Integration
I'm very sure that you can see this in every of my post. Another tip I am going to share in regards to DIGG is the integration of DIGG tools into every of your post, Just by placing this widget, you will increase the chances of your post being DIGG by your readers by 3 times. The number in the widget indicates the number of people who had dugg the post.

How to integrate?
This is how I do it, first go under integrate Digg Tools and paste this code into your post. You can find this code under Example: Simple usage for a web page you want to enable to be dugg paste this code in every post. This will enable every reader who comes to your blog to be able to DIGG your post.

Give it a try and experience with it, see what will happen. Let me know if it works for you.

Why blogging can be a massive mistake?

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:15:00 +0000

Think Of The Millions About To Start A Blog...Thinking they can be a Problogger making tons of $$... That's wishful thinking!!!

I like to stir things up sometimes. When I see someone
wasting their time I just want to grab them and say...SSSTTOOOPPP!

And the simple fact is that blogging is just NOT right for
the majority of people who want to start a real e-business.

o You're missing all kinds of key tools.

o It takes too much of your time, under pressure.

o Your traffic will not last unless you keep blogging.

o You won't make as much money (several reasons for that).

o You'll still need to learn how to market your blog.

o You won't be building a deep relationship with your
visitors and audience.

So here's the obvious question...

"Why not just do it the right way the first time?"

You know why?

Because people like "fast and easy." Somehow, "fast and easy
to nowhere" doesn't seem to matter. But it should, to smart
and serious business people. And as you, our partner-in-sales
knows so well by know...

THOSE are OUR kind of customers.

Blogging is also the "hot way." There are so many bloggers
talking about blogging who are talking about even more
blogging, you'd think that this is simply the only way.

So combine the herd mentality and the easy mentality.
That's blogging. This site gives you what you need to
dispel the noise that simply fails to make sense. Beyond
sense (cents), it fails to make dollars.

It's all to easy, with all this noise, to think blogging is
cheap and quick and will make them easy money fast. Tell 'em
they don't know what they are talking about.

Yes, a blog goes up fast (but after zero planning for the
long term, from keyword research to monetization plans).

Yes, blogs get indexed fast. That is the nature of blogs.

But content sites build traffic momentum. Take a two-month
vacation from your blog and see what happens.

Time sensitive information is like a 3-day old newspaper. Good
only for wrapping fish. How does Google know that? Because
it knows that visitors don't visit the old posts...

Build your site on a foundation of stone, not sand. Sooner
or later there's gonna be a "shake out" and your business
may come tumbling down.

Please tell them! And more importantly, don't just tell those
with blogs already. They may have to learn the hard way.

Be sure to tell those who are just about to start their first
blog, or their next one. I guarantee you that very, very few
are making money, nor will they make any, with blogs.

The site discusses that, too. And we're not talking short-term
success like a blog may occasionally see in early days....

So why the big buzz about Blogs?

On the surface they just seem like another type of "content"
site. And with some of the new features available they can
even look like a "real" site these days.

Blogging is indeed easy. So is Yahoo!'s sitebuilder. So
are a ton of WYSIWYG editors. But reinforce this message...

"Easy to nowhere" is still a waste of time and energy.

SBI!'s BlockBuilder? It TRAINS you. You actually build an
effective page, for both spider and human. You can graduate
to ANY sitebuilder, not be restricted to any particular one
after that, and it all works with SBI! seamlessly.

It seems pretty obvious which way leads to success when you
stop to think about it, doesn't it? :-)

Easy Money Making Tip 1

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:32:00 +0000

Blogging is a way to express our freedom of speech, thoughts or opinions. Usually it’s about a specific topic or if it’s a personal blog. Blog posts could range from anything like your latest visit to a swanking restaurant or about a humorous joke you came across .

For those who enjoy blogging and spend lots of time doing it, why not make some extra pocket money from it? It doesn’t cost you anything and only requires a little bit of effort to setup but the return could be well worth it. That’s the beauty about online advertising programs — they work 24/7 even when you’re sleeping. Talk about a nice passive way to earn some extra money each day!

My first easy money making tip online is probably the most common and easiest method to get started with easy money making online from your blog. The program called AdSense where you can find in your dashboard if you are using Blogger. You may viewed hundreds of Google’s ads online and probably even clicked on a few since they were relevant to whatever topic or website you were reading at the time. That’s one of the great things about this program as it creates relevance to your readers and support the topics you blogs about.

Google Adsense
Google’s advertising program is free for all to sign up and application takes a few to days to approve, depending on how much content you already in your blog. Then adding AdSense to your blog is easy especially with Blogger’s new AdSense widget. Once your application is approved, just log into your account, customize your ad unit, and copy and paste a block of HTML code into your blog.

Step 1
First you need to sign up an AdSense account. This will take not more than a few minutes to do. Once you’ve your account setup and approved, go on to Step 2.

Step 2
The good thing about Blogger is you can easily add Google AdSense to your blog using their built in page elements. Login to your Blogger account, navigate to “Template” => “Page Elements” and then within the layout area, click on “Add a Page Element”. From there you’ll see this screen where you want to select the “AdSense” Page Element and click on “Add to Blog”.

Next you’ll see another screen where it will ask you to login (if it’s the first time you’ve tried to add this AdSense Page Element before). Just enter the email address and password you used when setting up your AdSense account. Once you successfully login, you’ll next see the ad configuration screen. This is where you select the ad format type (leaderboard, banner, text ad, etc) with many different sizes to choose from. Now remember to keep your site visitors in mind when selecting an ad format. You don’t want the ad to dominate your entire blog page which would annoy your readers. I’d recommend starting with a small rectangle or horizontal row format before going too crazy.

Don’t forget to also select a nice color scheme that matches your blog. Statistics show that the more blended in your blog ads are, the better change people will click on them. Remember to abide by the Google TOS though which I encourage you to read before breaking the rules by accident. Now once you’ve got the exact color scheme and ad format ready to go, click on the orange “Save Changes” button to add it to your blog.

Step 3 - Save and View Your New Ads

You should now save your Page layout and view your blog. The ad unit should be in place and ready to start making you money! Sometimes it takes a little while before ads start showing up and even a couple of days before relevant ads are displayed. This is usually the case if you’ve got a newer blog and Google isn’t familiar with your blog’s content yet. Google will then crawl your site and identify it’s general topic so it knows what ads to display.

Why You Should use Google AdSense
* It’s a very simple and proven solution that millions of blogs and websites around the world are using today.
* AdSense belongs to Google and they are extremely credible. Once you have make money from AdSense, Google will pay it to you. Unless you cheat them " Read Points to Take Note" below
* The ads will be contextual, which means they will be relevant to the content of your blog. Targeted ads = happier visitors, higher click through rates, and more money for you.
* You get paid on the click through which is far better than on a conversion.
* Google provides free reports so you can see exactly how many clicks and how much you’ve earned! You’ll find yourself using that report every day just to see how much money you’re making.
* The ads are so well-matched to your site’s content that your readers will actually find them useful.

Points to Take Note
* Please remember that you must never click on your own AdSense. Consequences is your account will be BAN by Google
* Don't get involve in any AdSense exchange scheme or any kind of Program to earn AdSense clicks. Trust me Google will get to know about it. Don't even try to cheat them, they are way smarter than you think.

Choosing a Domain name for your blog

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:16:00 +0000

When your are starting a blog choosing a domain name can be a mind bogging experience. You may not go through extreme length, but at least ask yourself this question. Do you have a domain name idea? Will people remember my domain name?

Try choosing a name that will enable people to create a mental image in their mind. For instance "Plenty-of-fish.com" & "nameboy.com", "eatafork" these words create a mental image, as people can see it in their mind and it leaves people a memorable impression. Being memorable will get you repeat visitors.

The other thing you will want to consider are these questions:

What is the topic of the blog? - an obvious starting point - most blog names reflect their topic

What do you hope to achieve with your blog? - is it about having a hobby, is it about building your profile/expertise, is it about earning an income via ads, is it to support an existing business

What style will it be? - is it a blog with one or many authors? What length of posts will it have?

What tone and voice will it be written in? - Will it be conversational, newsy, rant-ish, humorous?

Who is the intended audience? - Are you wanting to appeal to professionals, young people, cool people, teenagers?

I hope these tips will let you some idea when choosing the idea domain name for you blog.

What is a RSS Feed?

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:00:00 +0000

It's "the next big thing" -- you can use it to get newsfeeds from CNN or
BBC, as well as just about anything else, including news on upcoming movies,
DVD releases, your favorite band's tour updates, etc.

Once you get started, it's like having your favorite parts of the Web
come to you. No need to go out and check for updates all the time.

No more bookmarks for me!

"RSS" means "Really Simple Syndication. But that is just a fancy way
of saying that you can keep up with all the updates to Abc Blog Tips without having to check the site every week to see "what's new." Whenever I put up a new page or update an old one, I release it through RSS.

Yes, RSS is amazing. If you can't tell, I'm completely addicted to it.
No e-mail. No spam. It's so easy to subscribe and unsubscribe.
If you get tired of me , you just have to delete the feed. It's awesome!

And once you start, you'll soon be tracking all your other favorite
interests and news in the world.

How do you get started? Very Simple!!!

Download free RSS Reader first.This is special software that reads the "RSS feeds" from the largest news organizations. After you have done that you are ready to syndicate any online post whenever RSS Feeds is available

RSS Feed

How to add a picture to your post?

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:28:00 +0000

A picture says a thousands words, this video shows you how to add a picture to your post.

Recommended picture resources: alltheweb ,ask.com

How to post a video into your Blog?

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:21:00 +0000

Many people have been figuring out, how can they post a video into their Blog? It is very simple, basically it is done by copying the video embed code and pasting it into your blog, that's all. Follow this video tutorial and you will know what I meant

About ABC Blog Tips

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:24:00 +0000

ABC Blog Tips was founded in 2008 by Harris Mak with the goal of being a no holds barred blogging resource blog, to share everything he knows about blogging using blogger. From basic blogging questions like "How to start a blog?" to more advanced blogging techniques like writing SEO content we have it all.

The idea of this blog is to bring the benefits of blogging to the masses.

ABC Blogging Tips focus is based on:
Aim- Niche Market Segment
Brand- How you should brand your blog and yourself as the Expert voice in the niche market Segment
Content- How to research and write content for that specific market segment

Blogging is one of the most cost efficient method to bring an idea to the masses through the internet. Ranging from "Writing your own personal online journal" to promoting your products online you can do all this through a blog.

At the end of the day the information here is to help you be more effective in blogging. Happy Reading!!!

How to Start a Blog?

noreply@blogger.com (stormwhistle) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:19:00 +0000

Want to start a Blog? Just follow this 1 min 58 Sec video it's really simple you can't go wrong from here.