Rules are everywhere.  Rules exist for almost everything.

There are rules as to how you should behave. There are rules about how you layout a book. They simply are everywhere.

And there are also rules that exist for blogging.  Believe it or not.

Now you are probably thinking that these rules concern your blog, or your content, but they don’t. They are not so much about your blog but more about you as a blogger. The way you behave and what kind of mindset you have.

It Takes Time

If you want to become successful through blogging than this will definitely take time. You won’t become popular overnight. It’s a rule of blogging, a rule of the Internet. There is no immediate success.

Building a blog requires patience and persistence. Not everyone has the right skill set to become a blogger. If you think you have the skills than go ahead and create a blog. But remember, it will take time to get where you want to be.

It’s Not About You

That’s one of the most important things I have learned through blogging. It’s not about you.

Don’t think that you don’t need to help others or build relationships with them because you are a successful blogger. Almost the reverse is true. Once you have become well-known you need the help of others to keep you there.

To become successful anywhere in life you need to stop thinking about yourself. Stop thinking about what others can do for you, and start thinking about what you can do for others.

Learn to Give

It’s strange that some people think they don’t need to give in order to receive on the Internet. I have made the mistake myself. You definitely need to learn to give.

The best thing you can do is to help people. Help others with your knowledge and expertise.

And really, you need to give because you want. Because you want to help. Not because it will help your blog. Give because you care about other people. Everything you have done will come back to you, whether in a bad or good way.

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life — happiness, freedom, and peace of mind — are always attained by giving them to someone else.
Peyton Conway March

You cannot gain happiness without giving it to someone else first. You cannot become famous blogging without making someone else famous first.

That got me thinking. One of my goals was to build a community around this blog.

In order to achieve this it’s essential to connect with each other. To help each other out.

The best way to help each other out as bloggers is to help them grow their blog. One of the ways that will help to grow a blog is by critizing it. By showing what could be done better.

That’s my idea for this article, help other bloggers out by showing them what they could improve on their blog.

How is This Going to Work?

Well first off everyone who is interested in creating a better blog should definitely participate. It doesn’t matter whether you have a popular or an unknown blog. Simply participate.

Here are all the steps you need to take:

• Take a Look At Other Blogs – This is the first step you need to take. Visit the blogs of the people who have already commented on this article. You can also take a look at this blog and decide on what you think needs to be changed.
• Comment About What They Need to Change – This is the second part. Simply post your thoughts as comments on this article. Be critical but not inappropriate. Write about what they could do better.
• Prepare to Get Advice Yourself – Once you have done the above steps other bloggers, including me, will take a look at your blog. We will tell you what you could improve about your blog.

So now you know what it’s about. To get this started I think the best way is to simply post your thoughts about this blog. What could you improve? What is irritating?

But again don’t only take a look at this blog. Once there are enough comments also take a look at the blogs of all the other people that commented on this post. Tell them what they could improve.

Take Action

In order for all of this to be effective I want you to change one thing about your blog. Apply the advice from someone else and use it to create a more successful blog.

You don’t need to apply everything of course. The point is simple. Improve your blog by listening to other people and getting to know their point of view.

Now share your point of view. What do you think about this blog? What could you improve on this and other blogs?

I feel like this is a little bit like Darren’s 31 Days to a Better Blog which is another great way to spice up your blog.

In fact, your guest posts should be some of your best articles. If they aren’t then you went wrong somewhere. But this is not the only aspect you should keep in mind about guest posting. In order to make a great first impression there are some things you should definitely keep in mind.

Take Your Time

You are not in a hurry to write a guest post. Take some time to find out what kind of articles are typical for the blog you chose to guest post on. Does every article include a picture? If yes, does the picture spread across the whole content section or is it just a smaller image aligned to the right or left?!

Answering these questions will help you to determine what the guest post should be like. Ultimately it will make a great impression on the owner of the blog. There is nothing worse than people sending you articles that have nothing to do with your blog or your readers. It simply shows that the person hasn’t taken time to find out what your blog is all about.

Go the Extra Mile

Especially on very successful blogs you need to go the extra mile. Doing that can mean a lot of things. What I like to do is to for example search for the type of category you would put your article in.

You need to do that because especially well-known bloggers don’t have a lot of time. By suggesting a category for the blogger you have helped him reduce some of the work which he would usually have to do himself.

Searching for articles on the blog to link to is another very effective way to help the blog owner. If you really think about it, guest posting is not only about getting exposure it’s also about relationships.

In the end going the extra mile will pay out.

Cover Unknown Territory

One of the best ways to make a great impression is to think about what the owner of the blog would be interested in. Don’t write about something that the person is already an expert in. By doing this you would only give the owner an opportunity to criticize your article.

Write about something that the person doesn’t know about. That way you will be sure to make a great impression on him. But that’s not the only advantage. You will also position yourself as an expert in the field. You know more then the blog owner, that means that he will be interested in your ideas and expertise.

What are your strategies to make a great impression through guest posts? Do you write a lot of guest posts?

Some people invest in stock, others in bonds. And even some invest in real estate. No matter what investment option you take your ultimate goal is it to earn a decent return.

The same applies to your blog. Now I don’t mean that you necessarily want to make money through your blog, some people do. But this kind of return can also simply be kind words or hearing that what you write is interesting.

Start to think of your blog as real estate. Every house has a price and so has your blog. There are actually web sites out there that tell you how much your blog is worth. Market it that way.

Invest in It

In order to have a nice house you need to spend some money on it. Without it, it’s hard to get it to a point where you and others will feel comfortable living in it. To get people to feel comfortable with reading articles on your blog you too need to invest some money in order to get a good design.

But not only stick to that. As a home owner you might need to learn about gardening. Just educate yourself. The same applies to a blog. You don’t know everything from the start, so buy books and visit seminars. Your followers will appreciate all the knowledge that you will gain over time.

Maintenance

Houses or apartments tend to get dirty over time. So you need to clean them.

Moderating comments, updating plugins and writing posts are all things that a good blog owner needs to take care of, in order to grow his blog. It’s the kind of maintenance a weblog needs.

Be a Nice Neighbor

Talking to neighbors and building up relationships with them is something that is essential in order to have a comfortable life in your neighborhood. You never know when you are going to need your neighbor’s help.

So treat them politely, foster your relationship with them and eventually when you need a favor, be it a real neighbor or a fellow blogger, they will be glad to help you out.

Measure its Size

A common concept with real estate is to measure a house or apartment by its number of square feet. The higher the number of square feet the bigger the house. Further there is a set square feet price depending on where the real estate is located.

Now why not do the same with your blog? One way to implement these ideas is to set a fixed price per square pixel on your blog. Let’s say you charge $1 per square pixel than someone wanting to place a 125×125 banner on your blog would have to pay $125.

It’s an easy way to calculate the different price you would charge for the different ad banner sizes.

What do you think? Are there any other concepts that are important but that I’ve missed?

The issue is not about failure itself, but about the way you react to it. Some people tend to get angry because they think they can’t get it right since they have failed once again.

On the other hand there are people who are grateful for making mistakes. Being grateful for failing is such an important practice. Why should being grateful for failing be a powerful routine?

You are about to find out!

Failure can accomplish many things such as getting depressed or even creating a successful business. Is that true? You bet it is.

Learning through Failure

Failure is not as bad as people think it is. Without it we would probably be still in the stone age hammering on a dead animal trying to crack it open. The reason behind this is that the only way humans learn is through failure.

You don’t learn how to shoot a ball at the goal by getting it right each time. No you learn it by completely missing the goal. And the more you miss it, the better you will become.

Your Inner Clock

Think of it this way. Your brain is like a little clock that needs to be adjusted to get the time right. If you always do it right, your internal clock will never get adjusted, i.e. you will never actually learn.

That of course doesn’t mean that I want you to go out and do everything wrong you could possibly do, no. You should be happy when everything is working the way it should since these are part of the good times of your life.

But the true meaning behind it is to not let you get bogged down through a mistake you’ve made. Why should a simple mistake be able to change your mood completely? You don’t understand it and me neither.

Thinking Differently about Failure

In order to become more successful in life and achieve the things you want, you need a new way of thinking about failure. Try to think of a mistake as a gift. It sets you on the right track. Before you might have been wrong but this mistake adjusted your internal clock. It simply made it a bit more precise.

Then the question is obvious for you. Why would you be mad at something that actually helps you to get further in life?! I actually don’t know but many people are.

Try practicing being grateful for mistakes, it will definitely change your attitude about life. Of course you can feel bad about a mistake, but always try to look at the positive side of it.

What do you think? Have you always thought of failure this way?

Social media has become a big part of every Internet marketer’s life. Lots of people claim that they are getting huge amounts of traffic through social web sites. And people believe them. And so do I.

That’s why I’ve tried to use social media thinking that I could easily generate massive amounts of traffic to my blog. The sad part is that I haven’t been able to do so.

And do you want to hear something even more pathetic? Until now, I haven’t realized that social media isn’t about promoting your content, it’s about relationships. Why did it take me so long to realize this?

When you are new to blogging you visit highly popular web sites searching for information. There you find all this information about blogging, SEO and also social media.

Some of the articles on social media tell you that you need to promote your web site. So logically you arrive at the conclusion that social media is all about promoting your content. And that simply promoting your content will drive traffic to your web site. Then you try it and it doesn’t work.

The reality is different. Social media isn’t about generating traffic. It’s about building relationships. And it is sad that it took me almost a year to figure that out but I am glad I have realized it at least.

If you focus on building relationships first then traffic will follow.

Building Relationships

Making friends is not as hard as people think it is. Building a relationship with someone you don’t know can be quite strange but it can also be easy.

In order to build a relationship we need to first know what it is all about. A relationship is about a mutual exchange. This exchange can take any form whether it is love or simply helping someone out.

You need to give in order to receive. But how do you give through social media?

Give in Order to Receive

Well the idea is quite easy. Let’s say you use Twitter as a social media web site to drive traffic to your blog. A way you could give, is for example by retweeting someone’s tweets. That shows that you find the information useful and that you are willing to invest in the relationship.

Instead of retweeting you could also follow a link via Twitter. On the web site you could leave a comment or simply tell the person via Twitter that you enjoyed his content. If you didn’t quite enjoy it then you criticize the article but in a way that is not disrespectful.

Promote Value

When you have enough followers don’t feel the need to promote every of their posts. They won’t do it either. But simply state what you like and what’s worth looking at. Ask questions, create conversations and write about interesting topics.

It should be a very simple form of communication. A conversation on Twitter might go like this.

You: I like this post
You: I am writing a post
Other Person: RT I like this post too
You: @Other Person thank you for retweeting it. I hope it helped
Other Person: My new blog post
You: RT My new blog post .. Great article

That’s a fictive conversation via Twitter but it shows the mutual exchange that needs to take place. The way I used to tweet was like this.

Me: New blog post, take a look at it
Other Person: my own new post
Another Person: Read this …
Me: Latest blog post ..

It’s easy to realize that this is not a conversation. Now it seems so obvious that such things don’t work but when you start out using social media it doesn’t.

My goal now is to use social media to promote my web site. I want to build relationships with lots of Internet marketers, present my ideas and promote theirs.

What do you think about it? Do you use Twitter or other social media web sites? Do you use them actively?

If you don’t already own any other web sites then it is a lot of work to get your web site to the point where it will start to generate a decent amount of money for you.

In this article I want to give you an idea of what you can do to increase the revenue of your e-business. I myself took the time to analyze one of the most successful businesses on the Internet: Amazon. There are several strategies Amazon uses that you can employ in your e-business to increase your revenue and get it to a level you are happy with.

There are lots of popular web sites out there but what sets Amazon apart from so many other businesses? Why is it so successful at selling products?

One key aspect Amazon has perfected is trust building.

Building Trust

One of the most important aspects of e-commerce is to build trust. If people don’t trust you or your business they are not going to buy from you. Some web site owners make the mistake of trying to rush the customer into buying without having prior established what every person needs, trust.

Word of Mouth

Trust can be conveyed through friends who simply recommend a business to you. People who are told that a product is great believe it as it comes from a person they can trust. That’s the power of word of mouth. You can create word of mouth through excellent customer support or by giving away free gifts, simply be creative. If you want to gain further insight into how word of mouth marketing works than I can truly recommend Andy Sernovitz’s book about How Smart Companies Get People Talking.

Just remember, it’s all about getting people to talk about your business.

Web Site Design

The design of a web site alone can establish trust. Think about it. You are much more likely to buy from a site that has a nice design because it means that the owner cares about the customer. If a web site doesn’t look professional people are less likely to buy from it. In order to have the right look & feel for your web site include lots of white spaces.

Testimonials

Some businesses also focus on testimonials from customers to establish trust. Amazon doesn’t use this kind of strategy since it doesn’t need to, people already know it very well. The practice is rather common among small e-business startups.

If you are using testimonials don’t forget to add the name of the customer you quote. Otherwise people won’t believe you. It’s even better to include a picture of the customer.

Verifications

Trust building can also be achieved through so called verifications. If you have a sign on your web site stating that you are “Paypal Verified” then this helps to build trust. It means that people from the outside trust your business, and that other people should too.

Social Proof

Trust can also be established through social proof. Social proof can be found everywhere. It states that when a lot of people do something then you are much more likely to do it too. Thus statements such as “100.000 satisfied customers world-wide” do create a certain amount of trust, especially if you are able to back up what you have stated.

Navigation

Once you’ve established trust then navigation becomes important, especially for product-based businesses like Amazon. The customer has to be able to find the product he wants within, let’s say, a maximum of 5 clicks.

That’s why you need to have a big search box on your web site. New customers will generally not click through a list of categories in order to arrive at the product they want. They want to find a product fast, i.e. they want to search for it. Therefore two mouse clicks should be all it takes for the customer to find a product.

Also think of it this way. By reducing the number of clicks you also reduce the load on your web server.

The next big part are categories. They are much more important for the returning visitor who has used the web site before and comes back to search the web site for a product to buy. These customers don’t know which specific product, they just might be interested in something to buy.

Especially before Christmas people visit web sites to get ideas of what they can buy as gifts. If you fail to give them ideas than they won’t come back the next time for Christmas shopping. And everyone knows that people spend a lot of money for Christmas. It would be a disaster to miss out on that opportunity.

That’s why it’s a good idea to design your web site differently for Christmas. Give people gift ideas by offering lists of what other people bought.

Follow along for a more in depth discussion of what you can do to give people these gift ideas.

Giving People Ideas as to What to Buy

Especially in product-based e-businesses this needs to be applied. Amazon has been incredible about inventing features that make their sales skyrocket by presenting lots of related products.

First of all Amazon has created wish lists to which users can add a product to. In turn customers can send the link of their own wish list to friends who might buy some of these products for them as a gift.

Another feature they have added to their web site is the special shopping cart.  After you’ve clicked on adding a product to the shopping cart it takes you to a new page where similar products are presented in which you might be interested. Buying on Amazon has truly become more like a personalized shopping tour.

Listing bestsellers is also a strategy to get people to buy more. People tend to buy products other people have previously purchased. The same can be applied to web sites which simply offer information. For example on blogs you commonly see a list of the most popular content. It’s the same concept.

Getting the Sales

Sales are not that easy to make. But still somehow Amazon has managed to increase their number of sales over the last few years. So what techniques does Amazon use to generate sales? Of course there are several but I will only cover the most effective ones.

Have you ever noticed how Amazon keeps the list price on the product page and actually crosses it out?! Then below it lists the “Amazon price” and a line saying how much you actually save.

Now we need to understand what the list price really is. The list price is the suggested retail price (SRP). This is the price that is suggested by the manufacturer to give the retailer an idea of what they should sell the product for. Therefore it is not necessarily the price you would pay in other shops.

In this example Amazon uses a psychological aspect to its advantage. Think about it. Would you rather buy a product that costs $300 or one that costs $350 which suggested retail price is $400 thereby saving $50?! I think you would go for the latter one.

Another strategy Amazon uses is the concept of scarcity. If a product exists 100.000 times does that make you likely to buy it? No. On the other hand if only 5 copies of a product are left does that make your decision whether or not to buy it harder?! It certainly does.

You can easily apply this concept to your e-business. If you only have let’s say 10 copies left of a product then show this to your customers. Simply state it on the web site.

One very important aspect I forgot to mention is to always include pictures of a product. Not using pictures will vastly decrease your number of sales. Everyone wants to see what they are buying.

Customer Reviews

Amazon is so successful partly because of their great customer review structure. First of all only customers who have previously purchased a product can post a review. This eliminates untruthful reviews. Another essential function is the ability to rate the review itself. The simple star rating system makes it also very easy for customers to differentiate between good and bad products.

If you own a product-based web site then include reviews of products since most people decide whether to buy a product based on the experience of others.

Setting Yourself Apart from the Competition

What you, as a business owner, always need to take into account is that there are thousands of other web sites out there just like yours. In order to become truly successful you need to set yourself apart from the rest!

You can achieve this through better prices, special offers or great support. Whatever it is, know your strength! And show this strength to your customers.

Has this been helpful to you? What strategies do you use to make more money through your e-business?

Pictures make you remember good times but also bad times. They capture the past and let you remember all the moments that made your life worth living. Imagine the world without images! It is impossible.

The importance of pictures can also be seen in the Internet. On every other web site you can see pictures, as bandwidth is not an issue anymore. And with digital cameras the burden of having to develop pictures has gone too. As a web site owner you might have asked yourself the question of where you can find pictures.

I hope to uncover this to you in this article: How to find good pictures on the Internet.

First we have to figure out where we can get pictures that we will be allowed to post on our web sites.

Where to Find Great Pictures

If you want to start up your browser and open Google to find pictures than you are not on the right track. The first problem with using Google is that you never know, with the pictures you found, whether you are allowed to use them on your web site or not. Secondly you don’t know whether the person who uploaded it, stole it from someone else. If that was the case you could be held accountable for uploading it to your web site even though you didn’t know about it.

Therefore don’t use Google to find images. It simply doesn’t work for our purposes.

Buying Pictures

One method to find good pictures is to buy them from stock image web sites. The images available on stock image web sites are of great quality. But buying a picture for every article will be quite expensive. As the average blogger cannot afford to buy a picture for every post, it is of no use for us.

But what if you want to find great pictures that don’t cost anything? Which web site could you possibly visit?

Free Pictures

Flickr is the first address I can recommend to find images for articles. Flickr offers pictures from professional photographers for you to download. This is one of the reasons why it has become so popular.

The next source I can recommend is stock.xchng. This is a web site which offers free images available for you to download. All you really need to do is sign up for it and you can start downloading pictures right away.

But be aware, in both cases there are some restrictions you need to know about.

Image Restrictions

If you want to add a picture to your web site you need the rights to be able to do that. You can’t just go on a web site and simply download an image and post it on your web site. That’s not how it works.

Flickr Licenses

In Flickr there are lots of different licenses. These licenses restrict what you can do with the picture you downloaded. Some of them can’t be put on a web site that contains advertisement. Other licenses won’t allow you to edit the picture in any way.

I personally use the Attribution license since you are allowed to do almost everything with the pictures. All you have to do is credit the author of the picture when using it, by linking to the author’s Flickr page. You can search for pictures with the Attribution license here.

The other Flickr licenses, in my opinion, restrict too much what you can do with the photo. If you want to read more about these licenses then go ahead and visit Skellie’s great article about finding and using amazing flickr images.

Stock.xchng

Stock.xchng’s licenses are similar to those of Flickr. Generally you can use the pictures for anything since they contain very few restrictions. But sometimes the author requires you to notify him or to give him credit by also linking to the author’s page.

Before downloading pictures please read about the standard restrictions of stock.xchng pictures. Also visit both web sites to see which works best for you.

What to Search For

The trouble with finding images is to know what to search for in order to find them. There are thousands of great pictures out there but what good is it, if you can’t find them. First of all let’s explore what you want to find.

There are several types of things you want to find as an image:

• an object
• a location
• an emotion or feeling

You can of course add to this list but I feel that these are the most important ones.

Finding an object is rather easy. For example if you want a picture of an apple you might search for apple. If you want to find an apple that is used in a recipe or simply as food, then you should search for apple food.

Similar to objects are locations. They are also relatively easy to find. All you really need to do is to search for the specific location you are looking for.

You can also search for emotions or feelings. This is actually the very best way to find amazing pictures. Feelings describe a picture as a whole. If you search for a sad picture then the whole picture will convey a sad atmosphere. On the other hand when you search for an object then the object is usually just part of the picture. It doesn’t sum up the picture all together but it is just one element of the picture.

Pictures that stir a feeling in the viewer make the person that much more interested, not only at the images but also at your written words. If you can offer a great image then your visitors will look more closely at it and probably even remember it better.

If the picture conveys more than one emotion than this is great. It is even better if these emotions are almost opposite of each other. For example this picture conveys both sadness but also calmness.

This picture seems to be very simple. On the other hand it is very complex.

How to Find Great Pictures

Since we now know what we should search for, we can start using Flickr’s and stock.xchng’s search functions.

To find good picture through Flickr you might want to consider using the Attribution license search function. When you enter a keyword such a yellow flower it will return all the results.The results are sorted by “most relevant”. Generally though these pictures are not the best. In order to find better pictures you should click on “most interesting”. And just like that we found a beautiful picture of a yellow flower.

In stock.xchng it is similar. You can decide whether to use the date as a basis for a search. But of course there are other possibilities such as the number of downloads it has received. In this case, I recommend to use the number of downloads as a basis for finding good images.

Don’t Destroy It

Once you have found a great image that you could use on your web site be very careful with the editing. There are some pictures that you can edit without losing its feeling. But there are some which can be totally ruined through simple image editing.

I actually wanted to use another picture in this article as a way to show you what a great picture is, but then after trying to make it fit to the web site I realized that it lost all of its power.

Therefore always take a second look at the pictures you are including in your articles. You might even compare them to the original ones. If you think there is something wrong with a picture or it simply doesn’t work then go ahead and search for a new one. You now have the skills to do this.

Was this article useful for finding images? Do you now know where you can find the right pictures?

Today I want to talk about all the little neat things bloggers have to know about. All the skills bloggers have acquired throughout the years.

What is it that you need to know in order to build a successful blog? There are simply certain things you have to know about as a blogger.

Some skills are just essential. You own a web site, for that matter you need to be at least aware of the technology underlying it. It will make things much easier.

I’d like to think that most of the average bloggers are all-rounders. They can pretty much do everything, concerning blogging, on their own. It’s rather the people that make a living out of blogging that have specialized in a certain topic and let others take care of the rest.

Anyway, generally you could say that people that are blogging have developed lots of skills that they use on a daily basis. One of them is maneuvering around in the Internet.

Internet

Bloggers are highly efficient at using the Internet. Skilled ones are very capable of separating blogging activity from everything else. If you want to be as efficient as possible then you are not going to do some shopping while you are writing an article. I know it’s hard to do but when you work you do the same. And for some of us blogging is work. Of course you do not always work but you try to focus on getting things done. That’s your main goal.

Finding information fast has always been a strength of bloggers. They simply know their way around the Internet and are able to find the information they need fast. Not only can they find it fast, but it is very easy for them to just take an article apart and simply look at the essential points the article states.

Recent studies have shown that we spend a huge amount of time on the Internet. To you it comes as no surprise. But who would have thought 10 years ago that Amazon would become the biggest book retailer in the world? It seems so real but only a few years ago no one would have believed you.

Web Site’s Technology

Understanding the underlying behavior of web sites and how they interact is very essential. First of all it helps you when you need to fix a mistake. It’s the same as in a household. You don’t need to call the electrician if you know what’s wrong with the wire circuit and can repair it. You are simply not as dependent on others. Further it makes developing new tools or , in our case, web sites that much easier.

Bloggers also have lots of knowledge concerning web design. Most can build a web site from scratch. And even if they can’t they would be able to learn it quicker than other Internet users.

Marketing

As a web site owner you try to get more traffic to your web page. The same applies for blogs. In order to do that you become familiar with lots of strategies that help you in reaching this specific goal. Blog owners that make a living through their web site have spent a lot of time learning about marketing and its uses on the Internet.

Search engine optimization is just one of the Internet marketing techniques that is considered to be important when working with web sites. Others include affiliate marketing, which is what John Chow has specialized in. No matter what topic you write about, it is always good to know at least a little bit about marketing.

Image Editing

People use lots of images in articles. On the Internet this is especially the case as bandwidth is not important anymore. Therefore there is a huge demand for pictures that can be used in article. The only problem is that not every picture automatically suits your article. In order to have a great picture for an article you need to almost always edit it. There are rarely pictures that don’t need any modifications at all. Even if only small modifications need to be taken, they are still important.

Image editing is also essential in combination with other skills such as designing a web page. You cannot create a new web site layout without using any images. This is what nowadays makes up most of the web page (sadly since it has almost replaced content).

Interacting with People

I would like to believe that bloggers are far better at interacting with other people  then the average Internet user. As a web site owner you have to connect with others. It makes your web site more successful. If you just keep to yourself you will never get anywhere.

Communicating is therefore a big part of blogging. Even if it just means leaving a comment on a blog. By doing this on a daily basis you develop skills other people lack.

Writing

Writing articles is natural for bloggers. Some write more often than others, but really it doesn’t matter how frequent you post. No matter how many posts you write per months, you still need to write articles that impress your readers every time.

And believe it or not, most of the bloggers out there have acquired the skills to write great articles. Why else would you think are there so many articles out there dealing with improving your writing? It’s because people blogging are constantly improving themselves. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying that other people aren’t developing any new skills, I am sure they are, but it is just this set of skills that is very common among bloggers.

Conclusion

If you think you might need to learn about one of these topics then go ahead and do it. There is nothing wrong with acquiring new skills. I think it is the person that blocks himself from learning is the person that will lose in the long run.

Here are some web sites that might help you in developing your skills:

• Internet: The Internet as a whole is hard to cover as a blog but you might know blogs that offer advice on using the Internet more efficiently.
• Marketing: Yoast is a blog that talks a lot about search engine optimization. If you want to learn more about it then this is the right place to start from.
• Image Editing: PsdTuts is a great resource for tutorials on Photoshop. They basically cover everything from creating icons to photo manipulation.
• Web Site Design/Technology: Pro Blog Design is one of the best sources for information about web and particularly blog design.
• Interacting with People: I don’t really know a blog that focuses on the interaction between people. Still learning how to interact is easily done by just doing it.
• Writing: Copyblogger is a blog containing a wealth of information on writing in general. But it also talks about other topics in combination with writing, such as marketing.

Do you have these skill sets?  Do you agree as to whether they are important or not? What did we miss?

A web site isn’t worth anything without traffic. And because of that people have developed different strategies to generate more traffic.

Link building is one of them. As the name implies, it’s a way of getting links back to your web site. This will ultimately lead to more people visiting your web site.

This article will cover the art of link building through forums. It further talks about hidden problems that you will eventually encounter and more importantly about how to avoid them.

The first and essential part of link building is choosing a relevant web site from which to get links. In our case we are going to look at forums.

Choosing Relevant Forums

The first key aspect to successful link building is choosing a forum that is relevant to the topics you talk about on your web site. If you are writing about blogging then a forum which contains information about blogging would be suitable.

For every topic that exists, there are forums readily available on the Internet, even if you write about uncommon topics. To find these forums you could simply use Google. Enter something like yourtopic forum and off you go. You should be able to find at least 3 different forums. Now that you got forums to choose from simply decide on which forum would suit the best. We can than work on creating links.

Our Strategy

Before jumping ahead and creating lots of links, let me say a few things concerning our strategy: We want our link building efforts to look natural and legitimate since that’s what they are. Strategies such as spamming forums will cause more harm than good to your web site.

If 90% of your links come only from forums then this just looks wrong. Do not only use forums to create links to your web site, it will look artificial. You also have to avoid to always use the anchor text to link back to your web site. If you are not sure what the anchor text is than take a look at the picture below. In the signature are 3 links (they are underlined). In the first case the anchor text of the link is Experiment Garden.

Now that we got the basics let’s move on to the actual link building.

Forum Signatures

Throughout forums signatures are used. These signatures are a way of telling other people what web sites you own and how people can contact you. It is basically the forum version of a business card.

The Troubling Signature

As seen in the picture, people use this signature to link back to their web site. There is just one problem: The signature never changes. If the signature never changes then that means that will have lots of links back to your web site with the same anchor, which is what we originally wanted to avoid.

We have to change the anchor text from time to time in order to look genuine. If you want to change your signature in your profile page of the forum it will be changed  in every thread you have written on. Then you would only have a different signature but one that is still the same in every post. Therefore this doesn’t help.

Using Custom Signatures

Instead of using always the same signature, there are people out there that use a custom signature, meaning one that changes all the time but that is not really a signature after all.
In forums it is common to use a long line to indicate the end of the post and the beginning of the author’s signature. Instead of using your default signature you can create your own one different for every post. All you really need to do is just copy the line, that indicates the beginning of the signature. Then you add a new line below it and enter your custom link with custom keywords. The next step is to simply paste it into the message you are posting in the forum. And you are done.
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My Custom Signature

The great advantage of a custom signature is that you are always able to change it. Also keep in mind that in order to make it work, you need to uncheck the box which says to add your default signature as otherwise you would have two signatures below each other.

The next time you post something to the forum you just follow the steps mentioned above but use a different signature. That way you will have lots of links pointing to your web site.

Embedding Links into Your Forum Content

A better way to generate links and also traffic is to add links to the words you post on forums. If someone needs help with building a blog, why not give him some good advice containing links, one of which is pointing to an article of yours that talks about how to build a blog. This is the best way to gain links and also traffic through forums, because search engines also look at the context of the link to determine whether it’s important. A forum signature then is not as important as a link embedded in the post you just created.

It is further more natural for people to follow links that are embedded in content.

Conclusion

The best way to truly generate relevant links from forums is to use a mixture of both strategies I talked about. Just keep in mind that the relevancy of the links is very important.

What do you think of the strategies? Have they worked for you?