There are a lot of fashion blogs out in the blogospere. So when I decided to start my fashion blog, Chic Renegade, I knew that if I wanted to seriously compete for traffic, I had my work cut out for me.  I must admit that although I only started the blog about a month and a half ago, I have a little more experience in traffic generation being that I have been blogging for three years and this is my third blog. I used my past experiences and lessons learned (mostly the hard way) to get my new blog to about 350 unique visitors per day and an Alexa Rank of 500k (everyday I jump anywhere from 10-30k, so who knows what this number will be by the time you read this) in just a month and a half!!

Those numbers by no stretch are as impressive as the stats of other guest posters on this blog, but for a blog that’s been around for just a month and a half, I will say that I’m impressed with myself.  Also, keep in mind that I’m not the best social media marketer out there (I hate social media marketing), so most of that traffic is pure organic search engine traffic.

Although a lot of fashion bloggers use Blogger’s Blogspot platform, I decided to use WordPress because I am a WordPress junkie! Before I actually started my fashion blog, I had an idea of what functions and design elements I wanted since I am so familiar with WordPress and a good amount of its plugins.  I also, picked up a few new plugins during the building process that have proven to be the perfect plugins for a fashion blog.  So here are my:

Top 5 Worpress Plugins for Fashion Blogs

Top Worpress Plugins for Fashion Blogs #5: WordPress SEO By Joost de Valk:

Since there are so many fashion blogs, then that can only mean one thing…many Fashion Bloggers are competing for the same keywords.  Why not give yourself a leg up by having total control over your post keywords, meta data, and indexation.  With WordPress SEO By Joost de Valk, you can edit each posts meta description, SEO title, key words, 301 redirects, sitemap info, and Canonical URL right in the post!!!! So cool and convenient.  Thanks Joost!

Top Worpress Plugins for Fashion Blogs #4:  YD Recent Posts with Thumb Nails by Yann Dubois

Some WordPress themes come with a widget that you can add to your sidebar that will display your latest posts.  Most of the time the display is pretty boring, and includes only the title text. When you have a fashion blog, if you want people to actually click on your recent posts, you are gonna have to do a little better than that.  Fashion blogging is all about images, so why not include an image with the thumb nail of your recent posts? YD Recent Posts with Thumb Nails Plugin allows you to display your recent posts with a cool thumb nail of each post.  After installation, the plugin adds a new sidebar widget that can display the recent posts with automatic thumbnail images and allows for different settings on the homepage. You can choose to list all recent posts, or specify by tag. You can display a different selection on the home page and on other pages. You can even adjust the size of the thumb nails. Love this plugin!!! Bring on the pictures!

Top Worpress Plugins for Fashion Blogs #3: Ajax Post Carousel by Mantish – 8manos

The Ajax Post Carousel Plugin is one of my favorite plugins for fashion blogs.
It allows you to display your post thumb nails in a carousel, giving your visitors the option to quickly browse through your content by only looking at images and clicking the carousel arrows…Perfect for Fashion Blogs!  It is especially cool if you have a WordPress template with a wigetized homepage (The full homepage layout is controlled by widgets, not just the sidebar, giving you full control over your homepage post preview layout) . But you can also use the Ajax post carousel in your side bar.  There are some limitations in placing the Ajax Post Carousel in the sidebar due to space constraints (depending on the size of your sidebar) but nonetheless, it works just fine and is just as cool!  You can filter posts by category and control how many show up at a time. I use Ajax Post Carousel widget in both my wigetized homepage area AND my sidebar. #POW

Ajax Post Carousel on Homepage

Top Worpress Plugins for Fashion Blogs #2: Image Zoomer by Reza Erauansyah

The Image Zoomer plugin is simple.  It allows for your images to be zoomed in when you hover your mouse over those image.  Kinda like when you hoover over an image on any ecommerce site.  This is good for a fashion blogger who is  showing an image that has minor details that are difficult to see.  With the Image Zoomer plugin, the user can set all images to zoom or specify some images to allow preferred by image class.  The Image Zoomer is so simple yet so necessary!

Top Worpress Plugins for Fashion Blogs #1: Quick Page/Post Redirect DE by Don Fischer

This plugin is cool because you can redirect any post to an internal or external link.  Why would a fashion blogger need this?  Let’s say for instance, you are an affiliate for your favorite online clothing store and want to offer a hot new pair of jeans to your visitors in hopes that they buy them. Just create a post, add the title and meta data for SEO purposes, add a featured image for the post thumbnail, and set the post to redirect to your product affiliate link.  This way it looks nice and pretty on your blog home page and blends in with the rest of your content.  It looks like a normal post but guess what?  When the visitor clicks on the image, they are taken to the website to buy the jeans…with your affiliate commission link. I know…I’m a genius

If you have any questions about fashion blogs or any of these plugins please feel free to leave a comment below or contact me on the about us page at ChicRenegade.com

What’s in a name right? I’m sitting here writing this guest post and while you read it I want you to ask yourself, What’s in a name, more importantly what’s in your name. If you can take a pen and write down the first 10 things that come into your head when saying your name.

Our name represents who we are and what we stand for. If you mention my name to many bloggers online some words that come to mind are, social media marketer, entrepreneur, nice guy, Blog Engage owner, and perhaps others I don’t like to admit. (lol) The point is our name is important and in fact there’s a lot in a name.

Branding

When people start to know us by name we start to build an online brand. Everything we do is going to affect this brand, what it represents and what others think about it. It’s up to us to build the brand we want and to influence the opinion of others about ourselves. This is nothing new we do this every day of our lives except some forget to apply it online and specifically with blogging.

The Message

What is our message, what do people that meet us take from our activity together. Do they pass on the message we are trying to relay to others? It’s very important for people you meet to fully understand what your intentions are or what your message is. This is going to be the determining factor to whether or not a relationship will be created. It will also reflect the idea others have of us so it’s very important to get our message across fast and clearly.

We are in control

We create these feelings and have the power to be whatever we want to be online. You can be the nice guy, smart a$$, techno geek, Mr. Know-it-all, my point is it’s up to you with regards to what you want to be, the sky’s the limit. Take control of your online identity and make it everything you want it to be. Just be sure to get the right message across in the beginning as it will have a major affect on your success or potentially create more work for you in the end.

Change is good

Change, under normal circumstances is a good thing. When you bring change you have one thing to remember, you must be consistent. If your changing your blog profile information, change it on all your guest blogging sites, if your adding a new picture make sure to update it on all your social networks, if your changing our message make sure all your visitors receive it and more importantly understand it. Change is good, if it’s consistent!

So if you ask me what’s in name, I would say everything you are, everything you work towards and stand for online is in a name. How important in your name? Do you work hard at creating your message or building your online identity? Tell me in a comment below, if someone was to say your name, what would they say about you?

When it comes to blogging, when you start guest posting will determine how fast you can succeed with your business. No matter where you turn now days, you will find loads of people, myself and Ileane included, talking about how guest posting is a great way to build your blog traffic, especially if you are brand new.

But, I got a question the other day about when to start guest posting. How much content do you really need, and how much harm can you do to your site by guest posting too early?

Generally, I find that when people ask a question like this, there are a lot of others who have the same thought, but never say anything, so I thought I would explore this today, and talk about when to start guest posting.

“How Much Content Do You Need?”

Although you can get some traffic with little content on your own site, most sites simply won’t let you guest post if you don’t have any content up yet. I would recommend getting at least 15-20 pages of content on your site before you try to do a guest post.

However, I have gotten guest posts before with a 3 page site, so you don’t HAVE to have that much. A lot of that will depend on the guest posting guidelines of the blog you are guest posting on.

Networking Helps You Start Guest Posting

I just started up my new Relationship Marketing Conversations Blog, and don’t have a whole lot of content on it yet. I have about 6 posts as of writing this, plus a few pages in the background. The main purpose for that particular site is to host my members area where I am working on developing some of my own products. The blog is mainly just to drive people into the members area as well as updating members with news related to the niche.

However, because I have spent 2 years networking with people in the niche, and I have a lot of contacts already, I was able to start guest posting early on. I just did my first guest post over at Attraction Marketing Online, where I discussed How to Get Traffic From Product Owners, and it is leading some really great traffic into my new site already.

So far, it is doing Amazing. I got a ton of free traffic to my new blog within the first day of the post going live, and a lot of new leads.  It also is helping me with incoming links to my blog, both from the post itself, and the CommentLuv links in the comments.

But, I wouldn’t have even been invited to guest post if it wasn’t for the relationships that I had built through networking.

Join Guest Blogging Contests

When I started guest posting, I started by joining a contest. I didn’t do all that well, but part of that was because I was trying to build my following. I didn’t have one in place to promote my contest entry for me.

However, that contest led me to more guest posting opportunities, as well as helping me build my email list and my reputation. The good news is that there are loads of contests going on all the time, you just need to look around and find them.

Often, even if you aren’t blogging in the IM niche, guest posting on a few of the contests about blogging will help you get exposure with people in the business. Although they won’t necessarily be relevant leads for your site, they can be beneficial because you can make contacts with other bloggers who ARE in your niche. These bloggers can help you start guest posting on relevant blogs!

Also, you never know how you will do. I had an entry in a contest that got me $100 in cash just for writing a post and sharing it on a few social sites. Even with my small following, I was able to make a little cash. I didn’t put on airs, or try to be a blogging expert. Instead, I just shared some of my own insights based on the limited experience that I had at the time.

“Does It Hurt You To Start Guest Posting Too Early?”

This is a really popular question that almost all of my consulting clients ask me when I start discussing guest posting.

Really, it will depend on how your site is set up. Whenever I start a new site, my focus is to build an email list first. I usually set up an autoresponder with at least 1 weeks worth of emails and an opt-in giveaway before I do anything else. A simple squeeze page is all I generally set up with a brand new site before I start promoting it. Later, I will set up a blog and start posting regularly, once it has had some time to age a little.

If you have your opt-in funnel set up, and provide a good reason for people to sign up, you can build your list pretty quickly through your guest posts.

However, if you just send them to a site with a few articles and heavy advertising, you can damage your reputation. In fact, this is where most people (especially those building affiliate marketing sites) go wrong.

You might get a few sales, but you will drive most people away.

Instead, focus your efforts on list building and creating a relationship of trust and value with your new leads first. This will get you a steady flow of traffic that not only read your post once, but come back time and time again to see what you have to say.

Overcome the Fear of Rejection

Guest posting can be really hard on you if you fear being told “NO!”, especially with a new blog. Many people will not want to share your new blog if you have little content, or no name within the industry. However, the more you try, the more chances you will have to succeed.

Learn to take rejection as a way to improve yourself, and get over your fear. If you just keep trying, start networking with the right people, and get involved with other bloggers, you will find that you get a lot of benefits for yourself and your blog.

Don’t hesitate to get your blog seen in your niche. Start guest posting today, and start seeing the results that it can bring to your business!

Gadgets are becoming a popular and very essential in our daily life. I learned these from the experience I’ve gained, but also from asking many close friends from around the globe, who are involved in technology and blogging simultaneously. It can also be stated that “no gadgets, no blogging”. I’ve managed to find the best gadgets that can be very helpful for most of us who are bloggers.

Lastly, I put together a combination of top 6 most essential blogger gadgets.

Look at the list of blogger gadgets below and you’ll find out just how really important they are:

Top Gadgets for Bloggers

1. Netbook or Laptop:

A notebook/laptop is essential and every bloggers need to stay on the web 24 x 7. Not only you’ll have the wireless setup to allow you to remain around campus and work, but it’s also a flexible device that can be carried along with you, or taken home for the couple of days in your bag.

A laptop is designed to take a seat on your lap and you’ll thus expect it to be quite large and packed down with features and the ability.

Most laptops today have similar specs to desktop pcs; my own laptop has a built-in processor that’s faster than my 6 month old desktop. Based on what you do, you can either go for a 15-inch or 17-inch laptop or perhaps a 10-inch Netbook. The point I’m attempting to get across is the ability to do the job anywhere, which is key to your blogging success.

2. External Hard Drive:

External devices are a part of our lives now as many people are gathering more and more files. I can remember when I was impressed by a new external hard drive on my computer. This is a must have for on-the-go professional bloggers who know the way in which digital technology works. There will be tons of business opportunity for you to find a useful piece of information or even a media file. Today, people have a larger amount of GB external hard drives or even larger, but the smaller ones will always be in handy. All this will depend on how much space you personally need.

The benefits of having an external hard drive:

•    It’s a portable device
•    Safe Backup Device
•    Easily upgradeable
•    Can store a lot of Data and files
•    Will keep your PC from getting blocked with downloads and huge files
•    You can format anytime

3. Wireless Router or Data card:

In today’s Internet era, everyone wants to stay connected, whether it is their own home, office or business spot. For that reason, installing of good quality wireless router or a data card is a must.

Blogging can be a stressful job in some cases. Clearly, how can we manage to blog effectively without having the Internet? If you’ve been running a blog for a quite good length of time, you must have found a poor Internet connection. Getting a good wireless router or data card or any other is a must. In addition to it, a backup Internet service concerning data card is likewise significant. If you’re using iPhone or iPad, one can definitely make use of Internet tethering services in order to share your online coverage. It’s safer to go wireless for everything rather than establishing with wire completely.

4. SmartPhone:

Modern smartphones like the iPhone and Google Android are a more challenging device than a laptop computer. With a smartphone, you can always cut down on the couple of devices which you carry with you at any time limit. Since bloggers spend frequently at home and also their own office, what is nice about all of these is that one would not have to go to a computer to publish your data in order to share it with people.

For professional bloggers like us, having a smartphone will make a great difference. For communicating and branding, you can even install apps like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and much more.

As a freelancer and a website designer, I usually use IM like Skype on my smartphone for a quick chat with my clients, while I’m on the move.

5. Printer and Scanner:

There are lots of great printer and scanner developments in 2012. Since live blogging is a hectic job, you will not believe how many times I honestly needed a printer and scanner for my job. Believe me as a blogger, you’ll need it a whole lot. My piece of advice will be to use travel time when possible. Also, I suggest that you get a Fax, which can be very useful occasionally. I recommend trying out the new HP multifunctional printer models, which have great benefits I’m sure every geek wants to own.

Sometimes, you’ll have to publish an image or a piece of content. For this, you might need a printer and a scanner to take an image of your desired content to upload to your website or blog.

6. Professional Digital Camera:

Though photography was perhaps not added into your job description, having a digital camera can help meet both professional and fun objectives. A digital camera is something every pro-blogger needs to have for their use. Personally, I’m a great fan of Canon digital cameras. Displaying one of a kind and relevant images on your own blog can bring you lots of website visitors and for taking HD photos, a professional digital camera is very important.

I hope you find these gadgets valuable. These are my most recommended gadgets for pro-bloggers.

Please share with us your highly recommended gadgets for bloggers.

Blogging is no different when it comes to the IT factor. You know IT when you see it, read it, hear it, taste it, smell it…etc.  The IT factor is something that you really can’t explain, you just KNOW.  It is why some things get instant notice and go viral and others no matter how good are just missing the “IT” that would make it become an instant success.

As a blogger I often find myself looking for the IT factor in my posts, not only my own but the articles written by my staff.  I have seen several of my writers have breakout success articles that exceeded my wildest hopes for an article, one writer in particular I paid more than $120 in performance payments for a single article over the course of 8 months.  This is because the article just kept delivering traffic by the thousands, month after month and caused a huge spike in AdSense earnings just from the traffic it brought in.

Blogging for the IT Factor

When blogging I can translate the IT factor into being something that stands out in a readers mind, either you solved a problem that many had, or you provided a unique perspective that many were looking for in your article.  Each article is important and you have to strive to provide meaning to your article.  Each article you should have a goal of what you want your reader to takeaway from this article, ask yourself this:

What do I want my reader to have gained after reading this article?

Is it information about a product or service that you want to sell?  Is it leaving with a chance to win something?  Is it having a solution to a problem that was plaguing them?

The other thing you need is to measure how successful your article was at providing what you wanted your reader to gain from it.  This comes many different ways and can be measured by # of conversions if you are selling a product from the article, # of visitors to the article, # of comments which are engaging and clearly for the article and not a backlink…etc.

Read your own article from the mindset of a new unique reader stumbling on it, see if they would have gained everything needed in a clear, concise way.  Articulation is everything and you must make sure you write only the number of words you need to to get the information across, don’t overstuff your articles and don’t leave any thing out that would help make your article have the IT factor that a rushed article would.

Your blog is your voice and why would you mute it?  You want to be heard and you want to be heard clearly, so leverage all of your personality when writing articles.  You will become a better writer and blogger if you keep thinking about your article IT factor and remembering to write for the reader and not just for the sake of writing (or trying to make profit from a affiliate product review).

Image Credit: sxc.hu

It’s important for us to have incoming links from around the internet pointing back to our blogs and websites. Google and the other search engines use this as a barometer to measure the importance and value of our content. As time goes by, and we start to accumulate more and more quality incoming links we’ll see a direct correlation to the rise in the amount of traffic coming to our sites from Google as well as the other search engines.

Tools To Track Incoming Links

There are many tools we use to track our incoming links and we can even track links to other websites if we want. There are days with I use a tool called Market Samurai which is well worth the investment and if you want to take a test drive you can sign up for a free trial with my MS affiliate link.

On the other hand there are days when I want to KISS – “Keep it Short and Simple” and I’ll turn to these three resources instead. Watch this video where I demonstrate how you can get a quick snapshot of your incoming links for free!

Find Backlinks to Your Blog in the Dashboard, Technorati and Google Webmaster Tools

Three free ways to check incoming links

In the video you’ll see 3 free resources that you can use on a daily basis to check on your incoming links. Sign up for my email tips and you’ll be the first to get notified when I upload videos like this to YouTube and get more tips that will help you build your audience. (Btw if YouTube is blocked in your area, click the link to watch the video on Vimeo, let me know if that works for you.)

1. Your WordPress Dashboard (go to “screen options” and check “incoming links” if you don’t see it)
2. Your Technorati Listing (here’s what my blog’s Technorati listing looks like)
3. Your Google Webmaster Tools account (if you don’t have this sign up now!)

I am sitting here at my home with nowhere to be and no appointments to keep, all because I had the guts to take the plunge and buy Web hosting, more than a few years ago now. This was the most defining moment of my career and I bet it would be the same for many other successful bloggers.

I remember the decisions that went through my head that day..

• Should I buy this hosting or not?
• What if it doesn’t work?
• What if I buy it and it is too hard to work out?
• What if building a blog or website is not for me?

My final decision was “oh who cares, it is only the price of two takeaway meals for the family”… What? Why was I even thinking about it?  I have no idea but I am sure most people think the same things!

All I say is “Thank God I bought that hosting that day”…. Imagine if I didn’t take the plunge?

Many of us here took the same plunge and others are still on the fence. I am here to push you off!

What is the real investment when you get web hosting?

Well let me tell you now, we are not talking about risking your life savings here as the monetary investment to get web hosting is very small. Therefore the real investment here is TIME.

Unfortunately most people say they are very busy in their day to day lives; however I bet I could find some spare time for you to build a blogging business.

Here are some time wasters that could be swapped for building a blog:

• Watching TV. Even the news is mostly rubbish nowadays. Better to listen to on the radio while doing something else.
• Sitting around doing nothing at all.
• Reading fiction. Why not read about blogging and increase your knowledge?
• Shopping when you don’t really need anything at all. ( I do that! )
• Spending hours surfing the Internet??
• Playing solitaire on the computer. I had to mention this one because I know a lot of people that do it.
• Playing gaming consoles. This is my pet hate because they are so addictive and suck you win. I agree that they are fantastic and a lot of fun but do not get hooked on them.

These are just a few examples, however all you have to do is think about your time that you have and manage it correctly. Everyone has the same amount of time so do not think you are special or even busier than everyone else. It’s how you manage it that counts.

What if I am not technical?

I cannot use myself as an example in this situation, because I am a self-confessed computer geek, however I have taught the most non-technical people how to build websites and create businesses. Of course these were one-on-one classes and this definitely would have helped their progress, but I believe that if you want something bad enough, you will achieve it.

The first thing you need to do is stop saying negative things about your technical ability. Be positive and move forward with your learning process. If you have trouble with some technical aspect of building a blog and getting web hosting, just work on it a little bit harder. The rewards will be all yours in the end.

Also a bonus for you is that you can now build WordPress websites from scratch within minutes and there are literally thousands of tutorials to show you how. So what’s your excuse now?

Not just that, you can even install a premium WordPress theme and make the website or blog look ultra professional in seconds!

What have you got to lose?

I’m not really sure you have anything to lose because even though you are investing time into building a blog, I guarantee you will come out at the end with more education and knowledge up your sleeve. Lets face it, if you do not jump in the water you will not get wet!

If you are worried about not watching your favorite TV show or missing out on going out with your friends for a coffee and a chat, you can’t be too serious about building a blog.

The time that I invested to build a blog was the most valuable time of my life and extremely hard work, but now because of the small investment in web hosting, I have been paid back more freedom than I could ever imagine.

Has getting web hosting changed your life too, how so?

Blogging is the most in-demand cyber tool today which anyone can have an easy access. With the presence of Web 2.0 platforms such as WordPress, Weebly, Typepad, Blogger and many others, blogs can be created without any problems of coding or too much web designing. But the biggest road block in any types of online business is the marketing part. Without proper Internet marketing regimens, your blog won’t survive the hefty blogging competition.

Social Media can save your business

Like blogging, social media sites are today’s trending tool for communication. It is an easy and quick portal to share content, connect with other people and create a “network” or community. In recent months, we saw another social media platform that is now making waves worldwide – Google+.

The rise of social networking has transformed the way people use the Internet. It has become a necessary part of our lifestyle. Different business industries are positioning themselves well to get a fair share of the social media exposure. With social media, your business can gain better marketing leverage plus, adding some value to your brand.

Social media and blogging as one!

Blogging and social media are the perfect combination for your online business. You just have to know the proper way of marketing your blog posts to your favorite social media network like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and many others (including Pinterest). Below are the 5 effective ways you can promote your blog through social media networking.

Link your posts on your social media profiles

The number one rule is to post your individual blog posts into your Facebook page or group. It is required that you create your own blog Facebook page to keep a good followers of your blog through Facebook. If you wish, you can also build your own Group page to better expand interactions between you and your readers. You can do the same with other social media networking sites.

In Twitter, it is better that you tweet your post several times as long as you are online. Make sure that you take enough time gap as Twitter never allows repetitive tweets of the same content. Make use of URL shortening tools to shorten your blog post URL. This is very much essential especially if you want to add an enticing description to your tweet.

Use enticing descriptions for your posts

A research reveals that a question heading better attracts readers rather than just title of your blog post. You have distinctively write the best description to make your readers curious about your post, and hopefully visit your link. This is a type of link bait similarly used by expert Internet marketers in email marketing and other viral marketing regimens. So if you don’t know what to post or tweet, ask a question to make your readers respond by clicking your link.

Re-post other people’s content

It is essential that you share valuable and useful content from other people’s site to your social circles. This is the essence of “networking” in the first place. By sharing other people’s content, you are also exposing your own wall or profile to your network which will have a bigger probability of reaching your website or blog. Any people that were satisfied with the content you shared on your wall or pages, they will surely go to your own profile to look for more informational content.

Re-posting or tweeting other people’s content makes your social media interaction more natural. It means that you are not only caring about your own site or product, but you are open for discussion and friendship. Just look at people who are not Internet marketers, how do they use social media sites? Yes, they share valuable contents coming from different Internet sites. Similarly if you are a blogger, you should do what normal people are doing in the social media networks.

Don’t force yourself to acquire more followers

Forcing your way to gain more people on your network is not a good idea for your business. You should not apply “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” type of ideology. This means that you don’t have to follow more people just to urge them to follow you back. That is not proper marketing using social media sites. Networks are created naturally primarily because people likes your stuff, ideas and your personality. If you are using social media networks just to expand a large number of friends, then you are accumulating non-targeted people on your network.

So how can you gain more people on your social circles? The answer is Trust! You have to build a more reputable persona online through the presence of your blog. People will follow you naturally if they love your work and your site as a whole. Every post you publish is guaranteed to be viewed by people in your circles because they are targeted individuals who have interests with your work. So give your social networking endeavor a time to grow and nourish because in the long run, the wait is priceless.

Install share buttons

Readers will more likely share your blog content if you offer plugins or social media share buttons at the end of each of your posts. This will make it easier for them to share your blog posts on their own social media profiles, giving your site a big boost of exposure. Every blogging platform has its own way of inserting this type of widgets so I suggest that you instal social media buttons in your blog as soon as possible.

These are the 5 effective methods on how you can use social media and social networking properly to promote your blog. If I missed something here and you have other great idea about social media marketing that you wish to share with us, then I welcome your opinion and comments below.

Blog Challenges.

What a great way to get exposure, traffic, subscribers, money and maybe backlinks all at the same time.

Well, the above statement depends upon the challenge.

There is only one other way, that I can think of, that gives all these benefits – Guest blogging.

Nowadays, you can see a lot of blogging related challenges online. Participating in those challenges offers you a good deal of benefits. In this blog post, we will take a good look at the benefits of hosting and participating in a blog challenges.

Do You Host Blog Challenges?

What is a blog challenge?

Well, if you ask me, it ranges anything from a small giveaway to big bash writing contests.

Blog challenges also refer to personal challenges that you take (we will talk about this later in the participation section).

So, do you host blog challenges?

Why or why not?

It does offer a lot of benefits to you.

For instance, if you decided to harness the power of guest blogging and combine to a blog challenge, to form a guest blogging contest, here are the usual benefits:

• Traffic – Guest bloggers blog and they market their blog post (And if they market the blog post, you get exposure along with it).  And that, my dear friend, may mean a whole lot of new subscribers and readers for your blog.
• Fresh, new voice – You see, people always like reading things from a different perspective. So, why not give them that? Some of your readers might be bored reading your article (who knows, there are not really going to tell you).
• Vacation – Take a break from blogging or better yet, plan and write out some articles for future. Or may be, comment on some blogs.
• Backlinks – You will get backlinks,  if you have about the contest as a required thing for the contest.
• Interaction – Interact with various bloggers, work with them, make friends.
• Community – Many guest bloggers do spend a lot of time to market their article and get more comments, which in turns helps you to build (or strengthen) your blog community.

You could also have more benefits depending upon the rules of the contest. For instance, I am participating in Probloggingsuccess guest blogging contest and Jane is giving 25 points for each back link that I get for my guest post.

Jane benefits from: Multiple backlinks to her blog’s posts, guest posts, traffic, interaction and community (check out how the contest posts are doing!).

Hosting a blog challenge is not a bad idea at all. And you don’t have to have money to host a challenge. You could host personal blog challenges – write a post everyday for next 2 weeks –  that don’t really require a prize or award your eBook/product for contest winners.

The Key is to be creative. You can really get the most out of this through creative thinking. I think, Jane is the first one to incorporate the idea of back link points to guest blogging contest.

Do You Participate in Blog Challenges?

As I mentioned earlier, blog challenges can be of two types

• Ones hosted by you.
• Ones hosted by others.

The ones that are hosted by you (for yourself) are used to increase your productivity. For instance: I recently had a personal blog challenge in which I challenged myself to write at least 2 articles per weekday. With the exception of few days when I wrote one instead of two, I was successful with the challenge.

And can you guess what I accomplished:

Lot of guest posts = Exposure, Traffic, Backlinks and Networking.

The most important of all, Community, I was able to build a community at my blog.

When you are hosting personal blog challenges, be sure that you can find time for it, commit to it and it is something useful to your blog.

How To: Setup Personal Blog Challenges

• Identify something that you really need to work on – Commenting? Writing more articles? Networking?
• Form a really targeted challenge – for instance: Comment 3 times in at least 10 different blogs every week day.
• Commit to yourself to the challenge – If you want things to get a little more easier, write a blog post about your challenge, this will put more pressure on you – pressure to perform the challenge.
• Make a small schedule – Allot time to your personal challenge. Promise yourself to not do anything else by following the challenge.
• Accept the challenge and Take Action
• Write about it – After you achieve/fail the challenge, write about it. What were your positives? What were your negatives? If you didn’t pass the challenge, write about what you could have done better? Share your experience because experience is the best tip.

Personal challenges are really a lot like Personal goals. They add up and help you to achieve your long term goals.

Blog challenges hosted by others – Well, the main incentive here is the prize itself. Participating in blog challenges may get you exposure, traffic, subscribers, and money (all of this depends upon the challenge).

You will probably know the  benefits of participating in blog challenges hosted by others, so I am not going to write about those.

 Blog Challenges – The Key

The Key here is to be creative and do things creatively. Participate in blog challenges. Enjoy. Don’t Worry, Be Happy. Even if you fail, because mistakes teach us  - failures are more valuable than success. By the way, if you liked the article, do let me know of your comments!

Note: Also would you mind to check my entries for two different blogging contests? Thank you

Are fewer ads always better?

Google recently announced that it will penalize sites with more than three ads above the fold. Frequently, these sites are low-quality sites with super-SEO’d, thin content landing pages designed to have people quickly bounce off the site when they click on one of the ads.

There are two conflicting reasons why Google may penalize them:

1. People may be less likely to click on AdSense ads if there are more ads, or
2. if too many of these pages rank high on search results then people won’t use Google.

Most likely, it’s the latter, since Google knows that content-thin landing pages hurt it in the long run even if they produce more immediate profit for Google. However, placing advertising this densely before Google started penalizing sites was only profitable for thin content sites specifically designed for it, not for sites with actual human readers. Many of the clicks would even be misclicks, which would decrease the value of AdSense ads for AdSense advertisers. This would hurt Google even though they received more clicks for a while if they had continued to not penalize sites with more than three ads above the fold.

For sites with real content read by real people, too much or too little advertising can drastically cut revenue and either one could make a site with good potential to make money unprofitable. This is true for almost any type of advertising but it’s especially true for banner ads and in-text ads. In-text ads by companies like INTENTclick, a specialist ad provider for sites about making money and coupons, highlight words with links and you get paid each time someone clicks on a link. Figuring out how many INTENTclick ads to place per page is difficult if you don’t understand why you don’t want too many or too few ads. That’s why I’m taking a concept from government and economics about setting the proper tax rate to maximize government revenue and applying it to advertising density to illustrate how you should figure out how many ads to place on your site:

Laffer curve explained

Politicians use the Laffer curve to claim that reducing taxes for the richest Americans will raise government tax revenue, because they assume that the reduction in taxes will create so much more commerce that more money will be generated even the wealthy are being taxed at a lower percentage.

But it doesn’t usually work that way. There’s really an optimal tax rate for getting the most tax revenue. If taxes are already below this rate, like they are in the United States, then cutting taxes even more will decrease revenue. Cutting taxes when the tax rate is beyond the optimum will raise revenue, but the optimal tax rate for wealthy people is usually pretty high since they tend to save their money instead of putting it back into the economy. This means that although cutting taxes for the wealthy doesn’t increase revenue when taxes are too low, it can increase revenue it taxes are too high and the tax cut brings the tax rate closer to optimal.

How does this apply to INTENTclick advertising?

The Laffer curve can be applied to a site’s in-text advertising density, and reducing the density of in-text ads results in more revenue a lot more frequently than cutting taxes does in the real world. The reason is that too many ads devalues your site since people quit going to it if you have too many ads, or they quickly go back to their search results. On the other hand, if you have too few ads, you’ll have a lot more readers but they won’t give you PPC revenue very often since there won’t be enough opportunities for them to click on ads.

This is a guest post by Murray Newlands. Murray’s company, Influence People, does blogger relations work with INTENTclick.

Have you used Forum Marketing to promote your blog?

We always talk about building community around our blogs which can engage and aid lot of useful thoughts in the posts. An engaging community can add a lot more than just comments, they can give feedback, suggestions or they can even contribute.

One of the good ways to build community is engaging your readers with the help of forum marketing. You can establish a forum for your readers on your blog.

The first dilemma is to either wait till you have a community on the blog and then starts a forum or should we go ahead and start it right away.

Do you wait for an engaging community, before opening the blog?

You know where I am going with this. Yes, I am in favor of opening it right away.

We can open a forum and promote it to create a community. You can use the community you have on your blog, or you can build a community on your forum which can later be diverted to your blog.

Forum Software

Once you decide to open a forum, the first question is which software you will use for your forums.

There are some free softwares like SMF, PHPBB or Mybb forums or paid softwares like VBForums, IP Board etc available for forum creations.

In case of forums the free softwares are really good. SMF and PHPBB are two very good options for the forum creation which are on par with each other.

The only difference I found is that in PHPBB you need some knowledge of coding to add mods, it is not an automatic process and require manual updates of PHP files. In SMF mod installation and updates can be done from admin panel, you might require some manual work depending on how many mods you install.

Both platforms have some good free themes to make it look attractive and many other useful mods to make it work.

Paid software’s are good but I found them bit costly for the starters though they provides many options out of box like SEO and many other customizations.

SEO Options for Your Forum

One most annoying thing with the free forum softwares is that they are not SEO friendly out of box. There can be duplicate content as same content can be accessed via different URL’s, or the forum URL’s are not descriptive.

There is some work involved when you install the forum software, to make them SEO friendly. Benefit of doing that is huge, as it can get you additional visitor from search engines.

Descriptive URL’s for forums are always a point of discussion, many people believe that they do not add anything in SEO and other says it does. You can decide which group you want to follow but they do add a value to the users. They provide an understanding about the topic to the users.

With the help of mods like pretty url’s and some manual work you can make them look SEO friendly.

One other thing which you might want to do is setup RSS feed for your forums. This makes it easy to promote your forum in commentluv way, you will be able to create links to forum topics with the help of your RSS feed.

Spam Preventation

Spam is a big thing with the forums, lot of false accounts, garbage posts etc. There are few software which make life little easy, but be prepare to see something which you might not have seen in blogging platforms.

Here are the basic steps which you should take to fight spam:

• Ask readers to answer captcha or some random questions in order to create account. It’s a one time activity so it should be fine with the users.
• You can request email verification before activating the account, so that spammers need to do one extra step.
• You can activate the account manually. It can be a good choice for the product support forum. Only people who have purchased the product can have an access to it.

Whatever you do, it is going to be a good fight.

I have just started Makewebworld Forums at my blog and I am making the transition towards the forum marketing, it’s a place to join and engage with fellow bloggers and share your ideas. So come and join me on Makewebworld Forums.

One unique proposition on Makewebworld forums is that there is a board for Deals on online products. You are allowed to use your affiliate links in the forum, which can generate some extra income for you.

After over a year into the blogging world I felt I had to discuss conformity. Most of us are suffering from a severe case of blogging conformity. Because we just ran out of the uniqueness in blogging.

What is conformity?

Conformity is when you conform or comply or behave according to certain rules and standards because they are perceived as the “norm”. Let me make it easier. You act in a particular manner and stick to it because that manner is perceived as socially acceptable. Okay, this might work in the actual social world. But it really is something to think about when we enter the blogging scene.

Many of us have this tendency to stick to the same pattern of blogging behavior because we feel it might “work”; it will do the “trick” and because others are saying so. We tend to get into the trap that we feel will lead to blogging success and help us make money.

Two major symptoms of the conformity case:

• You don’t know what your passion is

That’s right. You are just blogging because everybody seems to be doing it. You don’t have any idea as to what you want to be blogging about and where your core interests lie. So, you blog hop and see how blogging is done and then seem to know it all. And begin your own blog about how it’s all done.  Not everybody out there is blogging about blogging and social media. And not all top blogs have to do with social media. There are loads of topics, why stick to one?

• You have nothing new to offer

All your topics have been discussed and written about a million times over. You talk about the same old tricks and tips about making your blog number one, blogging ideas, making money, optimization and all that jazz. Why didn’t you think of something new? No one is going to read another SEO tutorial. There are major sites already telling them how it is done. What’s the point about talking about it all over again?

The conformity cure:

Though there isn’t one way to find the cure, there sure are a lot of things that can be thought about.

• Find your passion. I can’t stress this anymore. What do you really like talking about and writing about? What kind of posts do you enjoy? Where does your passion lie?
• If you HAVE to talk about the same topics, have your own twist to it. Be fresh, be interesting.
• Bring in new ideas. Loads of us are all waiting for new ideas to come by and strike us. Inspire us.
• Experiment, push your abilities, test your ideas.

Final thoughts:

Do you think there is such a thing as too much conformity in blogging?

Do you think you have fallen into the conformity trap?

Any other conformity symptoms that you have noticed?

Are you following your passion in blogging?

What is your take on the conformity cure?

I love talking and I love your thoughts! Jump right in! 

P.S. A special thanks to Holly for her anti-conformity comment that started this discussion!

I write for a blog and read many blogs as well. Whenever I find a blog with even a little piece of useful information for me, I just follow it via email, Google connect, Facebook, or RSS subscription. But there are many blogs out there which aren’t on my list OR which I will soon remove from my daily blogs to read list, most probably because I’m not getting what I expected.

I’d like to be more descriptive and share my personal reasons for “Why I don’t visit some blogs again?” My 10 reasons with descriptions can help you to know why your readers may not like your blog.

10 Reasons – Why I will not visit your blog again?

#1 I don’t like your pop-ups

Maybe, you think it’s cool but I don’t. I think most readers out there don’t like that. Whether those pop-ups are for subscribing options or any of your eBooks, they interrupt me in reading. Do you think you need to force me to subscribe? Or will it be worthy enough to overcome my irritation? I don’t think so. I can find my way to subscribe or buy your eBook if I need it, myself.

A simple and small widget in the sidebar is enough to offer subscribing options. But it really feels like an interruption when a box pops up to my face and asks me something while I’m reading.

#2 You never reply to my comments

I come to your blog, read your tips and query via comments when I’m stuck somewhere. But I never see you replying to my comments. It looks like no one is out there on the other side of the blog. I don’t think it would be worthwhile to follow an unresponsive blogger who will not help me while I work on his or her tips.
Blogging is about building relationship with your readers. But it’s not possible if you don’t listen to them. Ignoring your readers can be the biggest mistake in blogging. I reply to every comment on my blog. Even to the comments like “Thanks for sharing” or “Nice post,” I reply – Thank you for stopping by.

#3 You’re sharing the same stuff with old style

Believe me; I’ve seen 100 times that “How to make a Facebook fan page for your blog?” From little blogs to top blogs, many have already shared the complete tutorial for that. Then why are you sharing it again? Sharing popular stories from top sites like Mashable is not blogging. It’s okay to share the same information if you can add your own perspective on it, or express it in your own, original style. But why copy Mashable when you can just provide a link to the original post?”

Moreover, I’ve never seen anything other than simple text on your blog. Don’t you like images or audio files and videos on your blog? Don’t you think images speak more than words sometimes? I think these are important to make your blog interesting. They can help to break up big blocks of text and are more appealing to visual learners.

#4 Your blog is for ads not for me

Are you really blogging just for money? I can see ads all the way on your blog. I need to get my spectacles to find the content to read in a big forest of advertisements.

If you think stuffing your blog with advertisements will help you to earn money, then most probably you are wrong. Losing readers will obviously lead to losing traffic. Consequently, there will be NO REVENUE.

Blog and web sites are to share knowledge and provide useful information, NOT to share advertisements. It’s not wrong to advertise on a blog but anything in excess is bad.

#5 You are not regular in updating

I cannot expect when you’ll update next. Sometimes you write a bunch of articles at once and sometimes you do not come for a week. So, I’ve NO idea when I can come to check for more.  Sometimes it looks like a DEAD blog.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t write everyday but it’s important to write with consistency. If you decide to write three articles a week, then don’t miss any. Readers should know on which days they can expect new articles.

#6 Your blog loading time makes me sleepy

Your blog takes too much time to load. Those unnecessary widgets and scripts running behind makes my surfing slow when I’m on your blog. Those flash widgets and banners take all my time. It sometimes hangs and crashes my browser.

I’m really not interested in rotating a globe that is showing your online readers around the world.

#7 I cannot navigate easily to my favorite category

You have only a HOME button on your blog. I have to go to the next page, one page at a time, if I want to read some old posts. You have no category or label tags associated with the article.

You might consider adding a widget with most popular tags or categories? That way, one can see all the posts under a particular topic. A sitemap can also help in making navigation easy.

#8 Your theme’s color combination hurts my eyes

Who gave you the idea to have a dark background with brighter text on your blog? Do you know it’s really uncomfortable to read that on a monitor? I have to stress my eyes for reading. Even after finishing, my eyes ask for some rest and few eye drops.

A good blog doesn’t need a sparkling look. A clean and elegant theme with a simple and easy to read font is preferred by almost all readers.

#9 You keep sharing useless stuff on your Facebook Page

I LIKED your blog’s Facebook fanpage to get latest post updates of your blog, not for some funny stupid jokes and images. I’ve already subscribed to some pages for jokes but I subscribed to yours to stay connected with your article updates on your blog. There’s no reason to share something completely irrelevant on your fanpage.

I share my blog’s fanpage to share articles from my blog, and sometimes from other blogs too. But I’ve never shared anything which is irrelevant to my blog, there.

#10 You don’t give proper credits

I’ve seen you using images, videos, infographics, and other information on your blog but I have never seen you give a link to the original author, creator, or source. Simply, it means plagiarism. And I can never support anyone who plagiarizes others.

I’ll also feel bad if someone uses my creation without giving me proper credits or without mentioning me with it.

CONCLUSION…

Don’t feel bad – I liked your blog enough, once, that I’m a bit disappointed to be taking it off my daily “blogs to read” list. All reasons may not be true for your blog but if you really want me to come back, a few simple changes ought to do the trick. It will not make only me to return back but may be, your thousands of previous readers.

The Blog Engage Giveaway here on Basic Blog Tips lasted for an entire month! Many of the contestants threw their hats in the ring the very first day the contest started and they did an outstanding job of tweeting and promoting the contest. Each contestant was also required to subscribe to my YouTube channel, comment on the post and follow @BasicBlogTips on Twitter. Brian, owner of Blog Engage, convinced me to use Rafflecopter to manage the contest and tabulate the votes. I’m so glad he did! The winners were picked by Random.org and this helps keep the results fair and makes any contest easier to manage.

If you ever want to use Rafflecopter for a contest or giveaway, watch the tutorial from Justin at DragonBlogger who does an awesome job of explaining how the system works (you’ll find his video at the bottom of this post).

I’m pleased to announce…

The winners of the Blog Engage Giveaway for February 2012

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The 2 Gold Blog Engage RSS Accounts go to

Tim Arthur from Tim Ponders and Podcasting Tutor and John Komatsoulis from Learn About.

Congratulations to all the winners! Be sure to read a post that I wrote just for you called 5 Tips to Super-Charge Your Brand New Blog Engage Membership

Sign up bonus being offered for Affiliate Lights

As members of Blog Engage we can also be part of the affiliate program called Affiliate Lights. Click on the image and sign up for Affiliate Lights and you can get a $10 USD sign up bonus, and if you write a post about the Blog Engage RSS Service and earn another $5 bonus!

Here’s the video from DragonBlogger about Rafflecopter

Blog Engage is a great community and I’m pleased to welcome these new members. Visit Blog Engage to find out about more of the upcoming giveaways so that you can come and join us.

WordPress is an amazing tool and of the Content Managment Systems I have used, it is by far the most SEO Friendly out of the box. However, there are still issues with pages on your site straight out of the box. A lot of the pages on your blog can cause duplicate content issues. However, straight out of the box this isn’t an issue. Your blog will still rank for all your keywords and there is no danger of your blog – which is full of unique content – from being deindexed. Not actioning the duplicate content issues on the pages I’ve detailed below won’t harm your site.

However, if you make changes to your site detailed below, you’ll find more of your site will be indexed in search engines. More of your site indexed in search engines means more long tail phrases will rank highly in search engines, which should give your more traffic.

Monthly/Yearly Archive Pages

Okay, this is a bit of a lie here. Archives of months and years, whilst important, hold no easily changed SEO value. They are simply archive pages that hold very little SEO value. So you’re best off disabling them.

This is easily done though in WordPress using Yoast’s WordPress SEO. After installing the plugin (if you don’t already have it, which you should), go to the SEO > Indexation page in the WordPress Administration and tick the boxes next to “Subpages of archives and taxonomies” and “Date-based archives”. This will prevent search engines from indexing the pages:-

(The other boxes I’d recommend unticking, for reasons I’ll highlight below)

Note: These pages will still be crawled by search engines, so any links will still pass juice, just that the pages won’t be in the search engines. This is important as you want to highlight your best and most relevant pages. Your archives are likely less relevant than individual posts.

Tag Pages

Tag pages can be a great source for long tail traffic. But you need to treat them with respect.

First of all, you need a structure for the tags. You shouldn’t call tags the same as your categories. Furthermore, you should try to limit tags as much as possible (so don’t have a separate “SEO” and “Search Engine Optimization” tag). Furthermore, you need to push your tag pages. They are automatically linked but need some content on them. If you introduce tags using the description (a paragraph or two will suffice), then you can turn your tag pages into effective landing pages by adding a couple of lines of code to your tag.php template file (I have written about how to add tag descriptions to your tag.php file here).

I also use the plugin Tag Images to add images to the page, making it more user friendly. An example of this is on one of my blogs, which has a Chester FC landing page.

Author Pages

Rich Author pages are going to be vital for your blog in the next few years. By creating a rich author page, with an author bio, links to social networks and other websites that the author helps run, you can rank for the author’s name. This could lead to an influx of traffic when – say – an author of your blog gets a bit of coverage in the major press.

Furthermore, with effective implementation of rich snippets, and you have authoritive guest bloggers on your site, you can increase clickthroughs to your site by having familiar avatars appear in the Search Engines by your link. Here’s an example of one of my posts on Famous Bloggers:-

Implementing rich snippets is fairly straightforward with a tool such as Author Plus, though it does take time for Google to show them in the search engines.

However basic implementation can be done fairly easily using your current author bio (the one shown at the end of posts) – a tutorial is available here. This will give you rich author pages such as the ones seen on this very blog.

In Conclusion

None of the above is mandatory for your blog, your site won’t drop from search engines because you fail to do the above. However, if you want to make your site get more traffic from search engines, by optimizing less obvious pages, you will give yourself a competitive advantage over other bloggers in the search engines.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google + we know all the big names don’t we?

But what if I was to tell you the potential of getting new readers to your blog could be higher in some smaller named communities? All of a sudden size doesn’t matter does it? Blog Engage, Blokube, BizSugar, Blog Interact are some of my favorite social communities on the internet.

You’re probably asking yourself, why would anyone like these small little communities over the big guys like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google +? I find it’s easier to build strong relationships on the smaller communities then it is to on the larger ones. I also find these smaller communities have more article based content as opposed to personal opinion or status update like mentions.

When I join a smaller community I feel as if I belong more then just another number on the big sites. Let’s face it, we are never going to be the Brad Pitt of Twitter, but we can be of the smaller communities. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits we can find by joining the smaller sized blog communities.

Benefits of Small Communities

• Targeted Audience

• Known by first name

• More one on one Exposure

• Higher Quality Links

• Easier Relationship Building Process

In fact when you sit and think about what I’m saying the benefits continue to grow stronger. Some small communities, like Blog Engage and BloKube, have Blog Forums where you can engage on another level with like minded bloggers.

All I’m saying is perhaps it’s time to rethink your marketing strategy. If you are frustrated with the long hours and days on the big sites maybes it’s time to start using a smaller community to feel more accomplished. I still use all the big sites as much as I can but I far prefer some of these smaller sites.

Feedback and Discussions

I hope to see you all on the smaller sites! If you see me, make sure to add me as a friend I’m very social and love sharing on all the social media platforms! Let me know your thoughts on small and large communities. Do you share the same feeling as me and if not let us know why!

Marcie Hill from The Write Design Company is a prolific writer and live blogger. For those of you who are curious about what live blogging is, check out Marcie’s guest post where she gives us Quick Lessons in Live Blogging. I was introduced to Marcie during the Small Business Influencers Awards in 2011 and we have been Twitter buds ever since. I jumped at the opportunity to interview her and gain more insights into her expertise in freelancing, writing and of course to learn even more about the process of live blogging.

Interview with Marcie Hill from The Write Design

Q1. Marcie, some of the readers here might remember you from the guest post you did here about live blogging. But for those who don’t know you, please introduce yourself and give a little bit of insight into your background and how you starting blogging.

I am a gifted writer with a creative soul. I left my job in 2008 to pursue my passion of writing. After submitting a few freelance stories, which resulted in one response from Essence magazine, which wasn’t published, I got discouraged and stopped trying. A few months later, I attended a journalism conference, and a few of the presenters encouraged the use of blogs. I jumped on the blogging bandwagon and have been riding ever since.

 Q2. Now tell us more about live-blogging and why you decided to get involved with it. What attracted you to that format?

Honestly, I cannot recall how I found out about live blogging. I do remember that Cover It Live was the first software I found. Live blogging allows you to share information instantly. You can also share audio, images and videos in real-time. The ability to engage your online and offline audiences is really cool. However, if your online audience is not very savvy, you may not have much activity, but you are building your brand as you live blog.

Q3. When you do your live-blogging does that include interviews? Have you ever interviewed someone famous or someone that you look up to? How did you get the opportunity to speak with them?

I don’t conduct formal interviews during the live blog, but I do ask random people questions about themselves and the particular event, and share those details. There are two benefits of doing this. First, you give someone their 10 seconds of fame; second, you may create an ally who will share your live blog and expand your reach.

As for interviews with famous people, I was blessed with the opportunity to interview Chaka Khan for a cover story for N’Digo MagaPaper in 2010. Zondra Hughes, one of my most favorite people and former editor at the publication, extended the opportunity.

Q4. Most of the events you attend, I’m sure they are pretty packed with attendees. Have you ever attended an event that was a flop? By that I mean, the attendance was poor or the speakers weren’t that great – or maybe the event just didn’t live up to your expectations.

I am pleased to say that all of the events I have attended have been pretty good overall. However, many were flops as far as networking was concerned. I am finding that not many people respond to attempts to connect in person after the event. However, I will make several attempts before I stop trying.

Q5. Let’s talk more about blogging in general and the blogs you’re involved with. How many blogs do you have and do you also write for other blogs?

I currently have four blogs: Marcie Writes (personal), Shorty: Your Chicago South Side Resource (community), The Write Design Company (business) and Real Skate Stories (roller skating). Right now, I am guest posting on other sites. However, I am looking for paying blog gigs.

 Q6. If there is one thing that you learned since you started blogging that you wish you knew when you first started out – what would that be? And can you talk a little about some mistakes you might have made as a blogger so that others don’t make the same mistakes?

I wish I had more knowledge about affiliate marketing starting out. I read many books and guides, but I never had a full understanding. This goes along with my my biggest mistakes which were blogging for three years with no efforts to get paid and not having a defined target. I was blogging for the love it. However, I really couldn’t offer anything to sell or advertisements if I didn’t know who I was catering to. Thus, my advice for other bloggers: Start blogging as soon as bug hits, but try to define your target market as soon as possible. Also, watch your analytics, which will help with your blogging goals.

 Q7. Talk a little more about the writing process is it any different for you as a live-blogger than it might be for others? For example, to you research keywords or do any other type of SEO work on your blog posts?

The writing process for live blogging is very similar to Twitter. You want to share as much relevant information in as few characters as possible. Although you are not restricted by character limitations, you still want to be concise and engaging. You can’t share a full story, but you can provide background information to draw your audience in and keep them interested. And this is also a way to share your personality online. Be witty and funny.

Because you embed or link the live blog into your blog, you can use the same keywords and tags you currently use on your site.

Q8. Let’s switch gears and talk about social media. What’s your favorite social network and why? And what’s your least favorite social network and why?

I love Twitter. I like the fact that all of the social things that separate people offline are erased online. There is so much positive energy flowing through the people I’m connected with, it’s great.

I’d have to say that Facebook is my least preferred site because of the shallow conversations, and people have started using it as a primary communications tool. Really?? It’s easier to get a response from a friend through Facebook than from a telephone call.

Q9. Do you get a lot of traffic to your blog through social media? When you look at your stats, what are some of the social sites you see in the top ten referrers to your blog?

Traffic to Marcie Writes has picked up because of my Twitter activity. However, I am finding that the keyword entered into Google sends the most traffic my way. Of course, the keywords depend on the site.

Q10. Finally Marcie, what are some of the goals you have set for yourself or your blog in 2012? Any advice you’d like to pass along to people who are reading this?

Increasing my cash flow through writing and blogging trainings, information products and speaking engagements are my top goals this year. I am going to share more engaging content, conduct more audio and video interviews, incorporate affiliate marketing on ALL my sites.

Advice from Marcie

Here’s my advice to others reading. Don’t be afraid to share your thoughts and opinions. Blogging helped give me the courage to speak my thoughts online and I’m working on tact in person. Second, know that your efforts are not in vain. You may not have the number of followers you desire, but someone is reading your work and gaining much from your knowledge and experience – even if they don’t leave comments. Third, if you share love by leaving comments and guest posting on other sites, I assure you, it will be returned. It may not come from those people but you will be blessed greater than you ever expected. Lastly, be you. At the end of the day, people are not only coming to your site because of the things you share; they appreciate who you are.

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights. I appreciate you doing this interview Marcie and best wishes! 

In 2012, companies and brands are more committed than ever to building a strong community around them, after having good experiences with social media over the past year. They have realized that creating a community around their brand is more than a simple promotion message and when it’s done, well the whole sales process will benefit from it. However, not all companies know how to build a community around their business or brand. Here are some tips that companies must take into account when taking the big plunge and start the real adventure in social media.

Create a business community in social networks

Observed before the big jump - 

The first step is to observe, find out where people are talking about your brand or business and where to find your niche market, so you can best serve your audience of potential customers. Not all networks will hold the same value and if we did not assess our strengths, our efforts could eventually lead to us not getting the benefits we expect. Nor should we suffer an ‘anxiety attack’ and open accounts in all social networks. The best thing is to focus on one or two, that are more suited to our business or brand and strive to increase visibility in them.

Know your users and supporters -

Once you have determined the social network you want to target,  get to know the users in it. Relationships must be bidirectional but we should not start desperately tracking everyone who crosses our path, but do it more strategically and selectively according to our objectives and priorities. We can use different tools and options to find topics related to our business, analyze conversations, competitors, etc … and start following people truly interested in what we offer.

Slowly but surely - 

The “rush” is not the best partner in this adventure. A community is not built overnight. The ideal is to make a conscious effort to get to know who composes your community, how they react or behave and stop worrying about the amount or volume of users, fans or followers.

Patience and perseverance as a virtue - 

To succeed in creating a community around our company, brand, or business will certainly take lots of of patience not to mention the all of the continuous work. The evolution in this adventure will pass through different stages and phases in which we will have to face all kinds of challenges and goals. The idea is to establish a solid, stable foundation and we must be aware that we can not have high expectations at the beginning of our journey.

Quality not quantity - 

That’s what we used to have thousands of followers, but if you do not know them, how can you generate reactions or interact effectively with them? The number of followers can be an important indicator of our success in social networks, but this should not preclude us to improve the relationships and connections with them. We earn trust based on transparency, humility and good practices in our relationships or conversations so that our fans continue to increase, thanks to our own supporters.

Experiment without fear - 

A community allows us to experiment, to venture and try new things, especially during the first steps. Yet we must be aware that every action we take can cause reactions accordingly. However, this does not cause insecurity or fear at the time we are doing an experiment or being innovative, we can get good ideas from everywhere and put them into practice to see how they are received by the community.

Use all possible connections of your community - 

Jason Keath, CEO of Social Fresh, makes us a very interesting reminder in this regard: “The mailing lists are often missed when using them to ask our contacts, or if they would be in our community.” We must use all possible channels to attract our current customers. Therefore, it is important to understand the importance of integrating the elements such as icons or social ties and support all areas of our business or any business.

Listen, engage, interact, help - 

If we have taken the leap to maintain a strong presence in social networks and create a strong community around our business, we’re not limited to being mere spectators. The number of followers is not important in itself, a lot of fans does not mean that our community enjoys excellent health. The community needs our constant participation and interaction. Listening is just as important so that we actually provide value to our community by giving answers to questions and solutions to their problems. This can have a positive impact on our business, customer loyalty and lead to increased sales.

Show some personality. We should not be boring. It is best to present a close and friendly nature where conversations can be nurtured in an open, relaxed and transparent environment.

Analysis, goals and objectives - 

These are perhaps some of the most important aspects that must not be forgotten. Metrics and indicators will be our allies in setting up or keeping a record of good performance and progress of our community. But we must also note that we must set goals and objectives to define the way we want our community progress as our social networks continue to grow. If we decided to take the plunge, we must take this into account without involving a barrier to continue our adventure. The results will come sooner or later but not initially appear noticeable, so it is advisable not to be obsessed with the results that we generate after our first steps.

If you liked this article and want to express or share your opinion about building community, you can participate by adding your own comment.

Guest blogging, if done correctly, has good potential to attract traffic from all corners. The power of guest posting is so vast that you start experience it almost instantaneously when you start posting articles on various sites.

You will be bombarded with innumerable opportunities which you might not have anticipated at all. It has been proven time and again that guest posting will help you achieve success that you cannot make through other ways. The success rate is so high and so quick. I am one of the living proofs

By the way, don’t forget to check out my guest blogging guide that will help you get quicker blogging success with guest posting.

Guest blogging: Mutual benefit

Guest blogging help bloggers mutually. As a guest blogger you can share your views, ideas and thoughts to a new segment of audience. You will get the opportunity to tap traffic from new locations.

As an author you will get exposure. If your articles are enjoyed by the audience, you will be encouraged to write more for those sites. The blog owners who give you the opportunity to contribute will not hesitate to even hire you for paid blogging.

You might be invited for potential revenue sharing agreements (like sharing adsense revenue) also on the articles contributed by you. Hence, a new set of opportunities are generated when you win through guest posting.

On the other hand, bloggers can engage experts in the domain through guest posting. Even though a blogger confines to a niche topic, he or she cannot be an expert in every sub-topic and may not satisfy all kinds of audience. By allowing guest posts, a blogger can give a different perspective or style of writing to audience. This will help attract new visitors and retain current regular visitors.

By inviting guest bloggers who are specialized in a particular topic, the subject can be covered in-depth plus more authority can be established.

Back links and new visitors

High quality back-links can be created through guest blogging.  These back-links are crucial in SEO as they will give good rank on Google and other search engines. The links placed on other sites through guest blogging will help promote your own blog.

The links are also searchable through search engines like Google, Yahoo Search, etc. Thus, you will be benefited through direct traffic and search engine traffic.

Guest blogging gives you an opportunity to present unique and wonderful content. It is an opportunity to fill the thirst of the audience. You should be better informed of the type of audience that you are going to face through your post. The content should be adapted to their level of understanding.

If you are made available to be found and connected by them, there will be great chance to win new set of visitors to your blog. You can utilize the opportunity of serving first time visitors to your site by offering food for thought.

You can even create a fresh contact list by offering free stuff or free subscription to your monthly newsletter. These are some hidden possibilities that you can convert into cash through guest blogging.

Whom to write and how to write?

While writing guest posts, you should target blogs that pertain to your niche. You can Google for sites that are relevant to your niche. You should narrow down the list to high ranking, high performing and high trafficking sites. You should connect with lively sites. Blogging will be fruitful when your voice is heard and when you can respond to your audience’s comment or suggestion or feedback.

The content should be cured or crafted as per the taste of audience. Even though if you want to present your own flavor, it is always better to start with the native flavor i.e., the taste the audience is accustomed to. Spending few minutes to understand about the targeted audience is useful.

When you are able to strike the audience at a level they are resonating, you job is made easy. You should not forget to deliver the best of your stuff through guest blogging. It is a great opportunity to connect through diverse audience through commenting and active participation through forums and social networking sites.

Adding value to the audience in your unique tone and unique way will boost your chances of winning as a guest blogger.

Guest blogging: Takeaway

When you are aiming high as a guest blogger, the efforts you put-in should push you to the next level of success.  This will not happen without sticking to the basics of blogging.

With guest blogging the rules of the game are not changed rather they are implemented in a more rigorous mode. Hence, you should be prepared to present fresh content that is not hoisted by anyone at any point of time before you present on a site that you guest blog for.

You can include one or two related images in every blog post to get the attention of passive visitors. You should be prepared to present your master pieces through guest blogging. It is not only the addition of new blog post but also the addition of value that matters most. The best efforts that you place through guest blogging will improve your blogging prospects to a great extent.

Jane encourages you to check out webhostingpad coupons and register.com coupon code if you are interested in web hosting deals. She also writes for a blog that features cool discount deals as that of webhosting pad and register.com.

What is your blog post?

I will give you two options:

An essay or a novel.

Which one do you want your blog post to be compared to?

To make things easier for you, I will describe it a little more:

An Informative Essay and an Interesting Novel.

Key: Take a close look at the words: Informative and Interesting.

Would you want your blog post to be informative like an essay or interesting like a novel?

You know, I have written many blog posts. Some of them got more success than I expected. Some of them didn’t. Some of them – I spent a little time writing it – but still brought me lots of traffic. Some of them, I spent a lot of time writing, didn’t get me any traffic at all.

In this blog post, I will share you what I have found about writing interesting or informative post and help you decide whether you should write an informative or interesting blog post.

Your Blog Post – An Essay?

How do you describe an informative essay?

Think about what an essay is supposed to do.

An Informative Essay is supposed to:

• Teach you,
• Teach you, so that you can teach others,
• Try to change your perspective on an issue or help you to look from another perspective,
• Get you thinking about the issue, and,
• Provide More Information than you already know

Well, that’s basically how I would describe an informative essay. Now, let’s talk about the pros of writing a blog post like an Essay:

• Teach Your Readers,
• Get You More Readers,
• Help You Readers to Do Better at Blogging – If you blogging about blogging, and,
• Get Your readers think about it.

The cons of writing an informative post is that if you don’t have traffic already (or if you don’t do effective marketing), the chances of your blog post going viral is very very small.

For Bloggers who blog about blogging:

Information is rather small nowadays (especially in blogging). We can’t really give any new information (unless you talk about a new strategy, method or whatever). Otherwise, it is all the same content. What we have to do is to write it in a different perspective, a perspective that is interesting (this is where the Interesting part comes in).

 Your Blog Post – A Novel?

What does a Novel do to you? An Interesting novel?

As far as I understand, an interesting novel is one that gives me fresh experience (what is a novel anyways? A “big” short story right? kind of, right?).

Well, here is how I would describe a Interesting Novel: An Interesting Novel is supposed to

• Entertain you ,
• Entertain you once again,
• Have a plot (a story),
• Be Interesting to read (of course)
• and blah blah…

Let’s see how that relates back to a blog post:

An Interesting Blog post is supposed to have

• A story,
• Be interesting and entertaining,
• Get your readers to continue reading,
• Get your readers to be loyal,
• Get your readers to comment (better chance here – than at informative side),
• Get your readers to share (again better chance here), and,
• so on…

So, What Does That Mean To You?

Well, nothing.

And, possibly everything.

About writing a blog post

 Your Blog Post – Be Interesting and Informative

Your Blog post must be interesting and informative at the same time – if you want it to go beyond your expectations.

It should be informative because:

Your Blog is supposed to teach your readers –  to blog better. And your blog is supposed to reflect your blog’s  goal to teach others. So, it has to be informative.

Well, information is good. But, don’t you want your readers to read your blog post?

That’s why we should let our blog posts be interesting.

I don’t have any tips for making your blog post informative. You just have to work on that on your own. But, I can tell you how you could make it interesting

Make your Blog Post Interesting

• Include a story in your blog post – How about your experience? Did you know that your experience is the best blogging tip that you can provide? Blend your experience into your blog post.
• Write in an interesting format – Don’t be like other bloggers. Write in a different format. Write as you like
• Be Creative – Change things up a while. Do things in different ways. For instance: Instead of starting with a whole new paragraph, start your blog post with a question
• Write from your heart – You have read a lot of stories (I bet, you have!). What were your favorites? Why? What did those authors include in their stories? Incorporate that into your blog post.

From my 2+ years of blogging experience, I can surely tell you that I got the most traffic for blog posts that were interesting and informative at the same time.

Try to make your blog posts informative and interesting.

Inform.

Entertain.

And do the writing.

Just write