Hot Shot Blogger

5 Unusual Ways To Grow Your Blog For Five Bucks

2013-09-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

First off, let me just say that even the poorest of bloggers probably have five bucks laying around somewhere... I can search my couch cushions and find five dollars, or raid my five year old's piggy bank (I wouldn't really), or if I was really unscrupulous I could stand on a street corner with a sign for about five minutes and come up with a five dollar bill. The fact that most bloggers have $5 in their bank account makes this list of ways to increase blog traffic or grow readership very appealing. It's not an overnight sort of thing, but having these resources in your 'almost free' arsenal can help you achieve some of those blogging goals that may have been evading you until now.

You may be asking yourself, what can I buy for $5 that will really help my blog or get me new traffic? Is she going to try to sell me some junk e-book (have I ever tried to sell you anything?). No, I haven't. Let me introduce you to Fiverr if you haven't already met. It's a marketplace where people sell products, information, or do simple (and sometimes wacky) tasks starting at $5. The simple fact of the matter is that sometimes as a blogger, there are things we need done that we can't do, or don't know how to do yet. Whether it's a software impairment or you want something done fast, cheap and right, Fiverr is a great place to have a look around. Browsing can't hurt, right?

1) Make your presence known on YouTube
As I talked about in #15 on my post about getting more blog traffic, posting video tutorials on Youtube is a great way to bring new eyes to your content and create loyal subscribers. There's lots of free software out there for making videos or screen captures, but that doesn't mean your video will look appealing to people and get them to watch past the first ten seconds. Paying $5 for a video intro and or video outro can help make your videos look appealing, and help viewers identify your videos right away when they start to watch. It's similar to creating brand identity. Check out the video intro I had made for my Hot Shot Blogger videos on YouTube below.

Also have a look at this video outro for Photoshop Helps purchased on Fiverr.

As with any gig you purchase on Fiverr, take a look at the product, the description of the product, and the rating and reviews of the product and seller before purchasing. There are some scammers and bad sellers on Fiverr, but for the most part, the ratings and taking a look at the actual product and description will point you towards the good sellers. If in doubt, you can always message a fiverr seller to ask questions about the product you're thinking about purchasing. Check out the Video Intro's available on Fiverr here.

2) Purchase Advertising

Advertising for your blog for only $5? Are you crazy? Well, maybe just a little, but there's an entire advertising section on Fiverr devoted to helping you advertise your service, business, website, or all three. Whether you need video testimonials to post on your blog, want a guy to drive around advertising your website on his car during rush hour in Washington DC, need 100 fliers about your site handed out at Harvard, want your message out on the radio, or just want some guy in a hot dog suit to dance around in public singing a song about your site, Fiverr makes it available to you in their advertising section. You don't just have to advertise your site online (although there are a number of people offering this to you on Fiverr as well). Think outside the box, and start getting new eyes to your content!

3) Let someone else take care of your graphic design needs

If you don't feel comfortable drawing, don't have Photoshop or the skills to use other graphic software, or just want something that looks polished (and frankly, awesome) then you can hire someone on Fiverr to design your web graphics for you. You may not realize just how important eye candy and the look and feel of your site can be. First impressions on new readers are important if you want those readers to come back, so having a good looking banner, a smooth blog design, slick post graphics, an eye catching logo, and even good advertising banners is a big deal. There are hundreds of graphic designers on Fiverr waiting to draw, design, and create just for you, so why not take advantage of them? Find someone with a style you like and good reviews, and contact them about a project you'd like them to get started for you.

4) Have someone test your website

Note: You should not give anyone on Fiverr your username or password to let them have access to your blog account.

Sometimes your bounce rate is high and you can't figure out why, or visitors just aren't converting to sales. Having a fresh pair of eyes look over your site, test loading times, and give you suggestions for improvement might be what you needed to push your site into overdrive and get it working for you again.

5) Get someone to help you fix your website code

Learning to code is just part of learning to blog, but sometimes you make a mistake, or something funky happens with your code and makes everything go wacky. It also may happen that you need a specific code written into your blog template to make it do what you need it to do. Hiring someone on Fiverr to help you with your code is a cheap and easy way to take care of your coding problems. Before you order any gigs for this, you'll want to make sure to send a private message to the seller and talk to them about what you need done and get a guarantee to make sure they can do it for you.

I've shared only five ways in which you can spend $5 on making your blogging dreams a reality, but if you take a good look around Fiverr I'm positive you'll find more ways to use this service to your advantage.

What are some of the ways you use services at Fiverr to help you blog or run your website? Let us know in a comment below!

Platforms 203 - Platform Showdown: Tumblr, Blogger and WordPress

2013-03-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

This guest post is by Anny Solway of themefuse.

Blogging for marketing purposes—or just to build an online following for vanity’s sake—is one of the most popular things going. When you’re trying to reach out to an audience, however, it’s important that you’re using a platform that makes it possible to reach the broadest possible cross-section of users. Which platform should you use? Numbers always give the best insight where questions such as these are concerned.

Unique Visitors

According to numbers compiled by Compete.com, WordPress is still the place to be if you want the most unique visitors. In fact, compared to the competition, there’s really no question in this regard. From September 2009 through September 2011, WordPress hovered around a whopping 30,000,000 unique visitors per month.

Compare that to Blogger and Tumblr. During the same period, Tumblr did see some impressive growth, moving from less than 5,000,000 unique visitors per month to over 15,000,000 by the end of the period. Blogger did almost the opposite, plunging from more than 10,000,000 unique visitors per month to just over the 5,000,000 by the end of the measurement period.

What should you take from this? WordPress is still the dominant site for unique visitors and hasn’t slowed at all over the two-year measurement period. Tumblr seems to be displacing Blogger, but there’s really no comparison between Blogger and Tumblr and WordPress where unique visitors are concerned.

Don’t Get Too Comfortable

There’s one other site that isn’t figured into the numbers given above. Compete.com did the same study, starting in January of 2010 and ending in January of 2012. When they included BlogSpot in the numbers, a very different picture is painted. During the time period measured, BlogSpot hovered around the 60,000,000 unique visitors per month mark, sometimes exceeding 70,000,000 unique visitors per month. The growth rate of BlogSpot is a nice, slow rise in numbers, while Tumblr has grown very quickly and WordPress has held its own, but stayed mostly horizontal in terms of movement.

Friends Who Hang Around for a While

So, you get your visitors in terms of unique hits but are they interested enough to stick around for a while. If you’re on Tumblr, the answer is yes. During the 2010-2012 measurement period, Tumblr lead the pack in terms of how long visitors stuck around at the sites that they visited, and they did it handily.

Know Your Audience

Right now, the biggest thing in connecting over the Internet is social networking. Tumblr has a lot going for it in this regard. The site allows people to cross-post and cross-tag content, allowing them to find it more easily, even if that content didn’t originate on a blog that they read regularly.

The numbers, in this regard, are telling. The same source pegs Tumblr's attention numbers over the course of 2009-2011 far surpassing those eon the other sites and, in fact, WordPress and Blogger are both falling in this regard.

At the same time, Tumblr is utterly destroying its competition in terms of the number of pages that people view on their site. People visiting Blogger and WordPress viewed around 200,000,000 pages on WordPress, which lead Blogger by approximately 50%. Compare that to Tumblr, where people were viewing as much as 1.5 billion pages at points during that same time period. In addition to this, Tumblr has seen almost completely vertical movement, while the other two competing sites have seen a very gradual, downward slope in this regard.

The Takeaway

Tumblr is taking off, the numbers demonstrate this clearly. If you want unique visitors, however, head over to WordPress. Just don’t expect them to hang around for nearly as long as they will on Tumblr.

BlogSpot has impressive visitor numbers, but hasn’t shown the same explosive growth the Tumblr has demonstrated. For that reason, you might want to stick with BlogSpot if you have it, but consider adding a Tumblr blog to the mix if you want to get in on the next big thing.

Blogger lags far behind in most categories. The site is well known and has impressive numbers, of course, but all things are relative with numbers and Bloggers numbers are relatively unimpressive where most of the measures discussed in this post are concerned.

Social networking may be dominant right now, but Tumblr’s format lends itself well to keeping the best of the newsfeed idea while making it more substantive, but not as long-winded and sometimes tedious as WordPress blogs can be. Many WordPress templates, even professional ones, are still based around the basic blogging model that this content management system started out with. Short, snappy blog posts that can be tailored to a niche and gain a great many followers characterize the Tumblr format at present, and that formula seems to be working very well.

Questions? Comments? Drop them in the comment box below! Don't forget to share us with your friends.

Anny Solway is a dedicated writer at ThemeFuse – a web studio that creates original WordPress themes, that can be used out of the box. She loves to share blogging and technology tips.

If you'd like to read more about starting a blog, check out our post Starting A Blog 101.

Resources - Video Marketing Video Editor

2013-02-22T17:45:00.000-08:00

Today I want to introduce to you 'Easy Video Suite' an all in one software for your video marketing campaigns and video editor needs. Typically I only tell you about free tools, but I feel this one is worth the price because of how much it offers video marketers.

When I say "all-in-one" I mean it. This software lets you easily:

Record videos from your webcam or screen capture.
Embed buttons directly into your videos.
Convert your videos.
Create video pages with a drag and drop system.
Create timed events in and around your videos.
Secure your video url and embed code.
Create playlists.
Do split testing.
See in depth statistics on your videos.
Upload your videos online.
Do SEO for your videos.
Integrate your videos with Amazon S3.

The best part about this software isn't even all of the features, it's the ease of use. There's a desktop module for you to use, as well as an integrated online platform, and most of the functions are drag and drop, so this video editor software gets you what you need and fast. It doesn't matter if you're a beginner or a video guru, this video software will get you where you need to go.

Another huge feature of Easy Video Suite is it's compatibility with iPad, iPhone and Android devices. Today making a video and sticking it online isn't enough. Your videos need to be playable on devices as well since a majority of people now use their phones or tablets to browse the web and watch videos. With a click, this software converts your videos to be compatible with other devices.

They also give you a 60 day money back guarantee, but I'm pretty sure that once you buy it you won't want to give it back.

Have you used Easy Video Suite? Let us know what you thought in a comment below!

Building Your Blog 502 - Buying a .com Domain Name

2013-02-03T12:04:00.000-08:00

This guest post is by Lee Manning of the Website Marketing And Design Blog .

So You're ready to buy a .com domian name? Good for you! Go get 'em! Here's a little advice to get you on your way!

1. How Do You Decide On The Right Domain Name?

Basically, you want a name with these characteristics:

Memorable: Are you called Jim and do you sell cars? How about www.jimquickcars.com - do you get the drift?

Descriptive: Use your company name rather than company initials (don't make the user have to think). I know a guy called Sam, who does great transport and logistics over at www.samstransport.co.uk. Ok, so it's not a .com domain, but the point is that he decided not to make people think, by choosing to using his full company name: Sam's Transport (Heathrow) Limited instead of the initials www.STHL.com.

2. How Do You Check Availability Of A Domain Name?

Here's a list of decent domain name providers, for a good place to start - they all pull from the same source of information, so it's mainly about shopping for price and deciding on a company you can trust to make the transaction.

- Godaddy

- 123-reg

- Fasthosts

Domain name registrars are companies accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and/or by a national ccTLD authority to register Internet domain names. These companies are often web hosting companies who offer a range of website-related services.

3. What If That Swish Name You Chose Is Taken?

It happens: you're late to the domain party - try not to forget that! I could take some time to offer you suggestions on how to go about making contact with the owner of the domain and reaching out to see if you can make a purchase, you can read about it HERE if that's your goal - but take it from me it's not that important. Your websites target audience will find you if your site is:

Relevant
Shared often via social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, etc)
Marketed properly both online and offline

It's my opinion that your domain name is only important in two ways:

1. Easy to remember (2-3 words)

2. Key worded based on your sites likely content.

Here's a quick-fire list of frequently asked .com questions:

Q. How much is this going to cost me?

A. Anything from $2 to $50 per year - any more and you should re-think how important that chosen domain is.

Q. Wait... You said per-year - Don't I own it then?

A. You'll be the rights holder to your domain, but you'll have to pay to renew it. The only way someone can steal it is if you forget to renew. Ensure the email you sign up with is one you can be contacted with in the future - they'll tell you many times that your domain in nearing renewal.

Q. Should you buy .net .org .alternative domain?

A. If you have a brand that you need to protect from copy cat's -YES. It's costly, so you need to be confident that there's value in protecting your brand that far. If you're just making a blog - you should be ok with your one domain, but the choice is up to you mainly depending on how awesome you think your site will be.

Q. Can I call my blog: www.twittermessage.com (Or the like)?

A. You better have pretty awesome lawyers if you're thinking of stealing ANY traffic from a popular site. Popular sites generally have specialist teams to ensure that their brand is protected. You do not want one of these teams to make contact with you.

I hope this information is useful to you. Now it's over to you - go and set the internet on fire! You can do it champ!

Like this article? Don't forget to share it with your friends and subscribe for more great content!

Lee Manning is an enthusiastic marketing blogger from the UK and the founder of the Website Marketing And Design Blog. If you’d like to reach out to Lee, contact him on his Facebook page or send him a Tweet.

Getting Traffic 304 - Twitter Rank

2012-11-16T16:03:00.001-08:00

If you're trying to drive traffic to your site, Twitter is a great way to do it. You can start a Twitter campaign and get your content out to the masses. But how do you know what to tweet 10 times a day? How do you know what kind of visibility your tweets are getting... aka how many people are your tweets reaching?

Well luckily for you I've just discovered another free tool on the net for you to use and I'm pretty excited to share it with you. Click HERE to go to the Twitter Rank checker. The higher rank you have, the more visibility your urls are getting. This tool is pretty awesome, not only because it shows you your visibility, but also because it shows you what others are tweeting about your competition. That might not seem like a big deal, but let's talk about building a Twitter reputation for a moment.

If you're a new Twitter user, you're going to have a very low reputation. People don't know who you are, and they probably don't care. If you do have some followers though (i.e. you've added people in your niche and they've followed you back), then you have a chance to start building up your reputation with them. You don't want to seem like that spammy sort of Twitter user that only tweets their own urls do you? Of course not. Instead you want to post your own content as well as relevant and interesting content from other websites, yes, even if it's from a competitor's site. If you're constantly tweeting out awesome content that will interest your followers, your reputation will go up with them and they'll become more interested in visiting your own content when you do share it with them. This is where this Twitter Rank Check tool comes in handy. You can see what is being tweeted thousands of times about your competition and then snag the url and tweet it yourself.

Back to the example of your cat website... yes, that again. You're out of ideas about what to tweet, so you put in your url and a competitor url in the Twitter Rank Checker Tool. The tool brings up several tweets that are very popular from your competitors and have been tweeted thousands of times. You see a tweet about an amazing new product to help you train your cat. It seems relevant to your followers, and you think they'll appreciate the link, so you tweet it out. Viola, the tool has helped you already.

It's also good to keep an eye on your Twitter rank vs your competitor's so you can try to keep up with them. This tool is also good to keep track of new twitter campaigns you may decided to run such as giveaways focused on twitter entries (Check out #9 in THIS post).

Overall I'm going to give this tool a 10/10 because it's free, easy to use, and invaluable in monitoring your Twitter rank, competitor's tweets, and twitter campaigns in the short or long term.

Do you know of more great Twitter tracking tools? Let us know in a comment below! Don't forget to subscribe and share for more great tips and tricks to growing your blog!

Tools - Text Link Checker Tool

2012-11-14T17:03:00.001-08:00

Worried that your site's page rank might be affected by outgoing links from your site? Sometimes Google will penalize your site if you've linked to other sites that are penalized. Use this free tool to see if you've linked to any questionable sites: Text Link Tool.

Win A Wacom Drawing Tablet!

2012-11-14T14:47:00.003-08:00

We've just become sponsors of a giveaway over on Photoshop Helps! They're giving away two Wacom Bamboo tablets!

Head over there to enter! The contest starts at midnight on 11/15/12 and ends on midnight 12/15/12!

All you have to do to enter is make some tweets through their widget or like their Facebook page!

Getting Traffic 108 - Adding Meta Tags To Your Blog

2012-11-08T14:59:00.000-08:00

What are Meta tags and why are they important to my blog? A meta tag is a tag in your html that tells search engines and visitors about your site. It contains a site description, keywords, and an author name. These are hugely important if you want to see some good organic search engine traffic to your site. The neat thing is, even if you know very little about coding, these tags are very simple to place in your site, especially with this easy step by step tutorial to guide you.

1) Log into your blogger dashboard and go to Template from the drop down menu.

2) Next you'll go below your 'live on blog' preview and click 'Edit html'. A warning will pop up. Click 'Proceed'.

3) On the left of the edit html box you'll want to click 'Expand Widget Templates.'

4) Hit ctrl+f on the keyboard to bring up the search function, and type in: include data='blog'

it should be near the top of the template.

5) Copy this code and paste it in directly after the above code you just found, as shown in the picture below.

<meta content='DESCRIPTION HERE' name='description'/>
<meta content='KEYWORDS HERE' name='keywords'/>
<meta content='AUTHOR NAME HERE' name='author'/>

6) Now comes the fun part. Those words in red that you pasted in are the words you'll replace. You can see that for this example I've already replaced some of them in the highlighted text in the image above.

<meta content='DESCRIPTION HERE' name='description'/>

For 'DESCRIPTION HERE' you'll erase that text and put in your blog's description. This should be a short once sentence summary of what your blog is about. Do not just fill this space with keywords or you could get penalized by search engines.

<meta content='KEYWORDS HERE' name='keywords'/>

For 'KEYWORDS HERE' you'll need to go to the Google Keyword Tool and search for relevant, low competition, high monthly search results keywords to put into your description, separated by a comma. Be sure to scroll down and then check the box on the left hand side that says 'Exact' so that you can get exact matches rather than broad. Sort by global monthly searches, and then pick low or medium competition keywords or phrases out of those.

<meta content='AUTHOR NAME HERE' name='author'/>

This one is pretty self explanatory. In 'AUTHOR NAME HERE' input your author name.

7) When you're all done you'll want to click 'Save Template'. If you did everything right, the template will save with no error, and your blog will now be set up with meta tags and will be ready to start receiving organic search engine traffic.

Questions? Comments? Let us know in a comment below! We love to hear what you think! Also don't forget to subscribe, and share if you liked this tutorial!

Wordpress - 102 Installing WordPress using cPanel

2012-11-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

This guest post is by Nick Goodall of The Balanced Life.

When I first started my blog I was a bit stuck on how to get WordPress up and running with my host, but after figuring it out, I’d like to help and guide you to do the same! It really is a simple process.

First off, to install WordPress on your website, I’m going to trust that you have two things:

A domain name, which is linked to your web host (if the host is separate)
A web host with cPanel (many popular hosts use this nowadays)

Now that you’ve got those two, let’s move on!

1) To access your cPanel, you need to go to your web address: www.yourdomain.com/cpanel and it should look something like this:

2) Log in with the cPanel details your host has given you.

3) After you’ve logged in, you’ll be welcomed into the cPanel admin area. Get rid of the ads you don’t want, then scroll down to Software/Services, and click on ‘Fantastico De Luxe'. See image below.

4) Clicking on Fantastico Delux will take you into the Fantastico area, which is where you’ll see a side pane with several options, you’ll want to select the ‘WordPress’ option under the ‘Blogs’ heading, it will look like this:

5) Click ‘New Installation’ and you’ll be prompted to enter some data. The page will look like this:

If your website IS your blog, don’t worry about the directory, otherwise enter the place you’d like to install it to, preceded by a slash, like this: /directory. After entering your details hit install.

6) Click ‘Finish installation’ and enter your email, to which your WordPress details shall be sent.

And there you have it! WordPress is now installed on your website! To access the admin area, you’ll want to go to: www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin. You can now enter the username and password you selected.

Stay tuned for more WordPress tutorials, and in case you don’t want to navigate the admin area alone, be sure to watch this space for a guide to help you out! If you have questions about the process, leave them in a comment below!

Nick Goodall is a passionate health blogger from the UK and the founder of The Balanced Life.

If you’d like to start living a fitter, healthier, and more balanced life you can follow Nick on Twitter.

Google Page Rank Checker - Check Your PR and SERP

2012-11-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered what your page rank is on Google? What about your Search Engine Ranking Position? Now you can check your Google PR and SERP right here on Hot Shot Blogger! Enjoy the free tools below!

Check Your Page Rank
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Check Your SERP (After filling in information, click 'Check All Keywords' to start)
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Know of other great SERP and PR check sites? Let us know in a comment below! Also don't forget to check out our Mega SEO Resource Guide and Link Roundup of 20 Essential Ways To Increase Blog Traffic!

Getting Traffic 108 - Pay With A Tweet Button

2012-10-18T19:05:00.001-07:00

Social sharing is a hugely effective way to market your blog. We've talked about this before in other posts, but it's definitely worth the mention again here. Let me introduce you to the 'Pay With A Tweet' service.

Your first step is to create an e-book with highly valuable information, or offer something else of value to your visitors (mp3's you've created, entrance to your site, entrance to a raffle for a big prize, etc).

Next you'll go to Pay With A Tweet and make a free 'Pay' button.

Offer your free merchandise on your site, and let visitors know that all they have to do to get what you're offering is 'pay with a tweet' by pushing the button. That's it.

Why is the 'Pay With A Tweet' button so awesome? Well let's look at the way Google works now.

After the newest panda/penguin updates, Google doesn't give a lot of importance to low quality backlinks anymore. What they do give a lot of importance to is social media and social sharing. If Google sees your blog or url being shared hundreds or even thousands of times all of a sudden, then they move your site up in the search engine rankings at least temporarily, because they want to share what's hot, and they figure if a lot of people are tweeting about it, then it is.

You're basically letting other people do all the hard work for you of moving your site up in the search engines. Lets just say ten people tweet out your site to get your free offer. Each of those ten people has ten followers that come and get your free offer by tweeting it out... now you've got 100 tweets in just a short time. Each of those 100 has ten people that tweet it = 1,000 tweets, etc etc. Not only are you going to be getting organic search engine traffic because your site will move up in the SERP, but also traffic from twitter itself.

You will of course need to offer something more than just the free e-book or mp3 on your site in order to keep your visitors browsing or coming back for more, or else your traffic is just wasted. Your goal is to offer something incredible that everybody in your niche wants just to get their attention, and then catch their eye with all of your other great content.

Social sharing sites like Twitter are important to boosting your search engine rankings, so give it a try. Do you know of other similar free Twitter Services? Have you used Pay With A Tweet on your site? Let us know in a comment below. We'd love to hear if you had success, or failure using Pay With A Tweet. Don't forget to subscribe and follow for more great blogging, page rank, and Twitter resources!

Getting Traffic 201 - Advertising With Videos

2012-09-28T22:04:00.001-07:00

You might not think you can afford to have a smooth, professional looking video advertisement for your website or blog like big companies do. I mean, having a professional video made just for you can cost tens of thousands of dollars, right? Well yes, they can actually. Companies like CocaCola and Intel spend so much money every year on video advertising that it makes my head spin. The truth is though, that you can have your very own video ad for the price of a Burger King meal.

Head over to Fiverr and check out their video introductions. For a five dollar bill you can have your own video to upload to YouTube, your blog, or other video sharing sites.

Ok, ok, I know what you're thinking. How is having a video going to bring me more traffic if it's not on TV in front of millions of viewers? Well here's the thing: if you upload it to YouTube, then it will be in front of millions of viewers.

In the past I've used my YouTube channel to advertise other blogs of mine like CBSB and Photoshop Helps. By checking the analytics on my sites I've been able to determine that YouTube has generated huge amounts of traffic for me. Check out the newest promo video I got on Fiverr for Hot Shot Blogger below:

Granted, you're not going to generate huge amounts of traffic at first, especially if you don't have any YouTube followers. If however you upload helpful tutorials about your niche along with your promo videos, use high traffic keywords as tags and a title, and put a link to your site at the top of every description, you will start to see an increase in traffic to your blog. In time as you add more and more YouTube videos, the traffic will continue to grow. As a side effect, if you've effectively researched and used your keywords in the video title, descriptions, and tags, then you may one day find your video on page one of Google.

You don't have to purchase every video you upload to YouTube, although, having a professionally made intro and outro in each of your videos will help to gain some popularity. I mostly use Windows Movie Maker, which is a free software that comes with Windows. When you do order a video intro or the like on Fiverr, be sure to ask the seller to send you the video in a format that your video editing software can handle. As an example: often Fiverr sellers want to send me a video in .mp4 format, which just doesn't work with Windows Movie Maker.

What I want you to take away from this post is two things:

1) You can have a stylish, professional advertisement made just for you for the price of a hamburger.

2) Uploading video promos and tutorials to sites like YouTube has the potential to drive large amounts of traffic to your site.

Just because your blog is small right now doesn't mean you have to settle with being mediocre. So go ahead, go get your video promo and show it off to the masses, and feel like you, are a blogging rock star.

Like this article? Don't forget to subscribe, share, and comment below!

Starting A Blog 108 - Adding Favicons In Blogger

2012-09-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

When you first start your blog, it will have a generic favicon (Favorite Icon). Part of making your blog stand out is having a custom favicon. So what is a favicon? A favicon is a little symbol that sits next to your blog's name in the url bar, or in it's browser tab. Also when someone bookmarks your site, the favicon will help give them a quick reference as to which site is yours.

Designing a favicon can be a task in and of itself. I suggest you take a look at some favicon designs to get yourself started. Of course you don't want to copy anyone else's design, but looking at other great designs can give you a jumping off point so you know what good favicon design looks like.

Take a look at these links to get a feel for good favicon design:

Inspire Yourself: 50 Remarkable Favicons

88 Outstanding Favicons

Your favicon should stand out. It can either be a symbol that represents your blog, or a Letter, or both. Mine is a simple H for Hot Shot Blogger.
Some Favicons have no background, others have a colorful background.
If you're just using a letter, then pick a font that is easy to read, but not your typical Times New Roman or Arial.

1) Once you've made a favicon you're happy with, it's time to upload it. Go to your Blogger dashboard, and then go to Layout.

2) Look for the box that says 'Favicon' and click 'Edit' This should bring up a new box.

3) In the Configure Favicon Box that pops up, you'll need to click 'Browse' and find the Favicon file you created and saved to your computer. When you're done, click 'Save'.

4) Your favicon is now installed on your blog, but you're not done yet. The odds are that if you go to view your blog, the favicon will not yet show up for you, and you'll still see the generic Blogger favicon. What you need to do is go into your browser properties or options and delete the cookies and empty your cache. Once you've done this, you can go back and view your blog, and the new Favicon should now be showing up. Congratulations! Your blog is now another step above the rest!

Did you find this tutorial helpful? Leave us a comment below, and don't forget to share it with your friends! You can also subscribe for more great tutorials and resources on building your blog!

Link Roundup - 20 Essential Ways To Increase Blog Traffic

2012-09-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

The more I surf, the more I find to share with you. I've answered a lot of questions for people today on getting traffic to their blog. It seems to be a big question with a big answer, the reason being because there isn't just one solution to the problem of getting readers to your blog.

What I have for you today is a link roundup (or a resource dump as I like to call it) of important articles, tools, and resources regarding the issue of driving traffic to your site. Some of these are articles from Hot Shot Blogger because I've already taken the time to write about them for you, and others are fresh off the web.

1) Post Basics 202 - Adding Social Sharing Buttons - Those social sharing buttons are essential if you want people to spread your content around to the masses. Learn how to add them to your blog in under three minutes!

2) Ping-o-Matic - The best free pinging service on the web.

3) Google Analytics - Without a doubt, one of the most important free resources a blogger can have... a service that tells you how much traffic you're getting, where it's coming from, how long visitors stay, and more!

4) Google Keyword Tool - Another important and free resource. Use this to research hot keywords with low competition so you can SEO your posts, headlines, and tags.

5) Stumble Upon - This site will bring some traffic your way. To learn how to add your site to their listings, look at our how-to guide HERE.

6) Yahoo Answers - Whatever your niche is, you can use Yahoo Answers to your advantage to bring traffic in to your blog and build your reputation as an expert in your niche. Sign up for an account, search the open questions pertaining to your niche, and answer away! Your goal here is to have your answers chosen as the best one, so you'll want to be as in depth (and polite) as possible. Also don't forget to add links to your own helpful blog posts that pertain to the question, as well as put your link in the "What's Your Source" field. Whatever you do, try not to appear 'spammy' about sharing your link.

7) Getting Traffic 107 - The Mega SEO Resource Guide - You really want to take a look at this one. If you have any hope at all of people finding your blog from search engines, you want to take care of some basic SEO stuff on your blog and within your posts. The Mega SEO Resource Guide has a great info-graphic to help you out, as well as links to several helpful articles that are crucial to your SEO success.

8) How to get 2,281 Subscribers, And Increase Blog Traffic by 69% - In 27 Days - Ok, so Derek's post is a bit long (quite a bit) but he does give you a step by step rundown of how he managed to increase his blog traffic by 69% in such a short time. He used a Podcast (I won't tell you how, you'll just have to read it for yourself and put it into action)!

9) Run a giveaway with Rafflecopter - Granted, you'll need to have a following already for this to bring you more traffic (you know, you're going to need some blog subscribers and twitter followers) but running a giveaway is a great way to attract attention to your blog. People love free stuff, and Rafflecopter is a great free resource for you to give your free stuff away to the masses. Using Rafflecopter is two-fold in bringing you traffic: 1) People like free stuff, so your readers are bound to want to come back and see what you're offering, and 2) The way Rafflecopter works is by getting people to tweet your post, add you on Facebook, follow your RSS and more in order to gain entries into your 'raffle' for the free stuff, so they're spreading your website around to others, who will then in turn do the same because they want their entries as well. Rafflecopter = Awesome traffic possibilities for your blog.

10) Getting Traffic 303 - Getting Traffic With Press Releases - (Finally a how-to video and why this works)! Doing a press-release would be a good thing when you have a giveaway going on with Rafflecopter. Can't hurt!

11) Free-Press-Release - You'll need an account, but this site will let you send out those press releases you'll be doing after checking out #10. And if this site doesn't float your boat quite the way you'd like, then you can check out Mashable's list of 20 Free Press Release Sites.

12) Write great content! - This should really go without saying, but without great content, you're not going to get any traffic. Check out our post HERE about how to write great content.

13) Get custom gear on Zazzle.com - What? What the heck is Zazzle? Zazzle is a print on demand company where you can create a free account and then put your logo, slogan, website (or anything else) on shirts, hats, bumper stickers, posters, coffee cups etc. While this is cool in itself, you can generate some traffic to your blog this way. Consider buying a bunch of bumper stickers (about 3 bucks) with your website url and putting them on your vehicles as well as making your family and friends take one. Now you've got mobile advertising. The same goes for shirts and hats that you and your friends can wear. On top of this, you can get custom gear like coffee cups, shirts, etc, and then raffle them away to followers with Rafflecopter (see #9) and then your followers are walking around in your gear too. If your blog is big enough, consider hiring an graphic designer to make some gear on Zazzle for you, and then you can sell your branded clothing etc on your blog... and this is where it's sneaky, because you're making money and your followers are advertising for you.

14) Submit your blog to big blog directories like Technorati.

15) Make video Tutorials and post them on YouTube - You might not see how this can help drive traffic to your blog, but it really can. I run another blog dedicated to Photoshop Tutorials, and a lot of my traffic comes from tutorials I'd posted on YouTube years ago that are still going strong today. The key is to have a professional looking video intro (get one on Fiverr.com for $5), make sure you announce what your blog is at the start of the video, and show your url at the end of the video as well with an invite for people to visit. Also don't forget to appropriately tag your video with Keywords found with the Google Keyword tool (#4) and the YouTube Keyword Tool, and put a link directly to your website in the description. Be sure to have a Google Keyword rich title, and you might just find your video ranking high in the Google search engine results. The more videos you post that are valuable to viewers, the more traffic you will get.

16) Use Twitter to your advantage. If you're not already on Twitter, go create a free account now. Search out other Twitter users in your niche and start adding them. If I were you I would add around 200 per day. A lot of them will follow you back as a courtesy. After about a week, go back and stop following those who have not followed you in return. Before you know it you'll have a fairly large twitter following that will start growing on it's own. From day one you need to be tweeting about the updates on your blog with links to your posts. Don't just tweet once or twice a day, try to tweet 10 - 15 times a day and do it at different times. Some users only get on in the morning, others late at night. If you don't want to sit around at the computer all day, then use an automated twitter messaging service like Social Oomph (find out HERE at Makeusof's article). Don't forget to have a button on your blog in an visible place that will allow readers to follow you on Twitter.

17) Use some of your best advertising space for your own purposes. Don't be afraid to advertise yourself on your own blog. Use that prime real-estate to invite people to follow you by e-mail, RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and whatever other social network you're on.

18) Be active on Forums in your niche. Search out and join forums that are related to your niche, and put your blog link (if allowed) in your forum signature. Be polite and participate daily on the forums, and try to establish yourself as an expert in the field. This will help increase your online reputation as you offer advice and help to others, and will get your link out there to people who will find it useful. Targeted traffic is important, and a great way to get it is by letting people on Forums that respect you see it every time you post. Be careful not to spam the forums with your link. Having it in the signature is more than enough.

19) Write articles for other websites online. Writing quality content for sites like Associated Content (Now Yahoo Voices), and Squidoo will get your name out there and help establish you as an expert in your niche, but it will also allow you to link the article back to relevant posts on your own blog, thus getting your link out there to the masses. People who read what you wrote on those other sites will be inclined to click on the links to see what interesting content you've suggested for them to look at. The same principle applies to guest blogging, although as a new and unknown blogger it will be hard to get guest blogging gigs, and as a guest blogger you don't get the links by linking to yourself, but rather in your author bio.

20) Learn what not to do in your blog so you don't scare away the visitors you do get. We have a post HERE about scaring away your visitors, and I think you'll want to give it a read. It doesn't matter how many techniques you use to drive traffic to your blog if visitors come in just to have you chase them back out the door again.

Well, that's it for this link roundup. I've given you 20 essential ways to increase traffic to your blog, and I hope you found them useful. If you liked this post, don't forget to share it with your friends.

Are there techniques we've missed for increasing traffic to your blog? Let us know in a comment below. As always, we love to hear what you have to say!

Post Basics 202 - Adding Social Sharing Buttons

2012-09-19T17:05:00.001-07:00

When you write great content you want people to share it with their friends. Why? Well for one thing, when they share your content it means they liked it (and thereby you receive a plus 1 on the awesomeness scale) and for another thing, the more people that share your content, the more incoming traffic your blog is going to receive.

Now I could have put this post over with the courses on how to generate traffic for your blog, but this is such an easy and necessary thing to have on your blog that I put it here in the Starting A Blog section.

To start with, what is a social sharing button? Take a look at the bottom of this post and you'll find several buttons that will allow visitors to share this article across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

These are social sharing buttons. There are a variety of different services out there that will allow you to add these buttons to your blog, but I'm going to share with you today the Share This service, which is free, easy to use, and which has already been demonstrated for you at the bottom of this post.

I like the Share This service because it works for a number of platforms including Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, and others. I also like it because of how easy it is to install on your blog. It took me less than three minutes to have it up and running at the bottom of my posts.

Simply go to the Share This page, choose what platform you're using, and then go to the next step. In step two you can choose how you want the buttons to look, and then finally in step three you can choose which buttons you want present on your site. Do you hate Facebook for some reason? If you do, you can remove it from the Share This bar that you're making. Try not to add too many social sharing buttons, but make sure you have the big ones represented that your visitors will most likely be using.

When you're done customizing the Share This bar, it will direct you to sign in (you can use a fake e-mail if necessary) and then it will give you an option to install the bar on your blog. Voila! Finished!

It really is that easy, and the benefits are going to be huge for your blog. Once you start getting traffic to your posts, you are going to be thankful you have an easy way for your visitors to share your content with the world!

Are there other social sharing services you like to use on your blog? Let us know in a comment below, and don't forget to share this post with your friends, and subscribe for more great tips, tricks, and tutorials!

Getting Traffic 303 - Getting Traffic With Press Releases

2012-09-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

Not only can you get great traffic for a short period of time, but you can also be on the first page of Google for a few days if you utilize this strategy right. Take a look at a great video I came across on YouTube today. I want you all to see it, and I want to know what you think about it in a comment below.

Do you use press releases to generate traffic or a high temporary page ranking? If so, how has this worked out for you? What free (or paid) press release sites do you use?

Building Your Blog 500 - Guest Posts On Your Blog

2012-09-18T03:36:00.001-07:00

Guest posting is really a win-win situation for everybody involved. Why? Let's take a look at what guest posting really is to start with.

Guest Posting: The act of an author or blogger writing an article, and then giving it to another blog to post in exchange for a short author bio, and several do-follow back links to the author's own site or product.

Ok, now that we know what guest posting is, let's look at why it's advantageous for you as a blogger, and the guest poster (or visa versa).

Advantages for the Guest Poster:

Author gets exposure on an already established website.
Author gets do-follow back links, which helps the author's own blog rankings, and also sends new readers to the author's blog.
Author starts to become known and well established in the blogging community.
Author creates interest in them self and their own blog or product.
Author gets to show off their best writing work, and knowledge.
Author builds their writing portfolio.
Author begins to build reader trust.

Advantages for the Blog the guest post is being published on:

Blog gets free exclusive content that isn't published anywhere else.
Blog author gets a momentary break from writing.
Blog gets great new content from a new voice that will interest readers and keep readers interested.
Blog author gets the satisfaction of helping new and upcoming bloggers.
Blog author gets new content. New content = more readership and more readership interest. More readership = more traffic. More traffic = more $$!

Advantages for Blog Readers:

Readers get new and interesting content.
Readers get to see exclusive content by this author that they will not see elsewhere online.

As you can see, guest blogging creates a win-win situation all around. Now guest blogging being such a great situation, there are some things you should know about guest blogging, and that's what we're here to help you with today. Below I've compiled some great resources for you to get you started on your guest blogging journey, either as the guest blogger yourself, or as the blog accepting guest posts.

For the Blog Owner:

Plagiarism Checker - As the blog owner, you do not want to accept content that has already been published elsewhere for a variety of reasons, one of the important ones being you don't want to get dinged by the search engines just because a guest blogger lied and copy/pasted someone's work, or lied to you and put the guest post on their own site as well. You want all exclusive content on your blog, no matter what the topic is. Use the free Plagiarism Checker to be sure that the content submitted to you by guest bloggers is exclusive, and hasn't been posted online before.

How To Create Guest Post Guidelines For Your Blog -

This article is a great place to start if you're thinking about accepting guest posts in the near future. I would also take a look at some of your other favorite blogs that also accept guest posts and get a feel for what their rules are. They may have thought of some rules you haven't yet.

For the Guest Blogger:

Our Post on Guest Blogging To Get Traffic

How To Successfully Pitch A Guest Post - This is a great article. The pitch is very important so pay attention!

How Guest Posting is Like A Personal Loan

8 Guidelines for Guest Blogging Etiquette

11 Dumb Mistakes to Avoid When Doing Blog Outreach

Well, that's it for now bloggers. Be on the lookout for more from us on Guest posting. There's so much to cover that I want to break it up into multiple posts, and in later posts we'll focus in a bit more on some of these topics.

Do you guest post? What tips do you have as guest posters, or as bloggers who accept guest posts? Do you have any questions about guest posting? Tell all or ask all in a comment below!

Building Your Blog 205 - What To Do When You Run Out Of Ideas

2012-09-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

I came across a great post today about coming up with new things to blog about when you get stuck or run out of ideas, and I really wanted to share it with you. Check out 11 Fail-Proof Blog Post Ideas.

You can also check out this slideshow about What to blog about when you've run out of ideas HERE.

I'd also like to add the following idea generation techniques to the list:

1) Read other blogs in your niche to see what they're writing about. Of course you should never plagiarize, but reading other blogs might spark an idea you haven't thought about before, or you may be able to expand on an idea another blogger has already written about, but perhaps hasn't covered as thoroughly as they could have.

2) Write about any relevant news in your niche. Back to the time tested dog blog: If you're writing a blog about dogs, then go to Yahoo News or MSN news and search out news about dogs. You might find that you enjoy writing about that latest dog show, the latest dog food recall, or about that dog with a fifth leg that was just born. It will be interesting to readers, and it's a great fail-safe for when you've run out of ideas.

Don't forget to check out our other helpful post on this topic HERE.

What do you think? Are there techniques you use when you run out of ideas? Shout them out in a comment below to help others who need a little inspiration!

Follow Us!

2012-09-16T10:20:00.002-07:00

Did you know you can follow us in lots of different ways? Check out our Follow Options on the right hand side of the page! Twitter, Facebook, RSS, we got it all!

Congratulations To Our Ad Space Giveaway Winner!

2012-07-01T08:47:00.001-07:00

This last month we ran an ad space giveaway, and Amy of http://www.manymoneysaversblog.com/ has won! Congratulations Amy!

You can follow her on Twitter here: @ManyMoneySavers

I love her blog because it's clean, well laid out, professional looking, and easy to navigate (not to mention the deals she shows you)!

Be sure to check it out!

Be sure to watch out for our next ad space giveaway later this year!

Ad Space Giveaway!

2012-06-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

Now you can win premium ad space on Hot Shot Blogger for the month of July! Enter during the month of June below! There will be one lucky winner!

Prize includes:

1 Content Slider advertising your blog or website.
1 Blog post advertising your blog or website.
1 Tweet congratulating the winner and announcing their website
1 Featured Ad Space 204 x 204 Pixel ad block in the right column. (See right column for where the ad space will be). (Note, you must make your own 204x204 pixel ad).

Note: To be eligible for this prize your blog or website must meet the following guidelines:
- Site must not be of an illegal, discriminatory, derogatory, or sexual nature.
- Site must be free of cursing, scams, viruses, and nudity.
- You must own the site you plan on advertising with us if you win.

If you enter the contest but the blog or site you own and plan on advertising with us does not meet the guidelines, then you are not eligible and will not win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Getting Traffic 107 - The Mega SEO Resource Guide

2012-06-11T12:29:00.003-07:00

Ok, so you probably know what SEO is (Search Engine Optimization) and why it's important (you do want higher page rankings right?). What I have for you today is a list of resources and articles that you'll want to have if you're learning about SEO and how to optimize your blog. Check it out, and don't forget to subscribe for more great resources!

Do You Speak SEO? - SEO.com's guide to SEO ling that you need to know.

5 Ways to SEO your posts - Learn how to optimize your blog posts!

Link Exchange: Good vs. Evil - Learn why black hat SEO like a link exchange is a bad idea!

10 Types of Unnatural Link Building and 10 Alternatives

What Is Black Hat SEO? - About.com

50 SEO Tips to Get Good Ranking in Search Engines - From Social Web Q and A

Google PR and SERP Checker - Check your page rank and Search Engine Ranking Positions

Click image below to enlarge.

The rest of the above audit guide can be found HERE.

Do you have more great SEO resources for us? Drop them in a comment below.

Building Your Blog 204 - The Death Of Your Blog

2012-06-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the death of your blog: you. That's right, I said the death of your blog will be you. You are your blog's own worst enemy. It's not the blog down the cyber street that you've been competing with, it's not the search engines that refuse to put you in the #1 spot, it's not the readers that aren't coming to your blog. This is reality talking, and begging you to listen up, lest your blog die a painful, lonely death.

At this point you might be thinking, 'how can I be the death of my blog? I made it look sexy and I wrote a bunch of awesome content! I've even got a few followers.'

Ok, so your blog does look good and you did put up some content, but let me ask you this: are you still actively posting to your blog? Are you engaging your readers? Have you left room for your blog to grow? Truth time.

Death Stage 1) If you're not actively posting to your blog on (at the very least) a weekly basis, then your blog is getting ready to shrivel up and die, and your readers may be getting ready to leave and not come back. Nobody likes a stagnant blog. Your readers want to see new content in new ways. Don't leave them hanging because you got bored with your blog or ran out of steam. Take the time to learn to come up with awesome content with our article HERE, and how to dominate your time HERE, so that you can keep going strong with your posting.

Death Stage 2) Failure to engage your readers and keep them interested, involved, and invested is a fast way to lose them. There are lots of strategies you can use to keep them engaged. Let's look at three of them here:

- Ask your readers questions at the end of posts in order to get them commenting. You want your reader to feel invested in the topic by giving their input. Where a reader is invested, they will want to come back again and again.

- Keep readers interested with contests, polls, sexy graphics, and a constant stream of new and interesting content. If a reader feels bored with your blog, they won't be coming back. You want them to be excited about coming back to your blog on a daily basis to see whats new for them.

- Give readers the option to share your content with others, in as many ways as possible. If your blog doesn't have social bookmarking options like the option to share on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc, then it's time to upgrade. You want your readers to share your content with as many others as possible, and they'll want to share your articles if they're truly awesome. You're only deterring them from sharing if you don't have the option for them to easily share.

Death Stage 3) Did you build your blog in a box with no room to grow? This is a problem. From the start you need to take steps to leave room for your blog to grow. When one of your posts goes viral you want to have the space for several things, including: hiring more authors, adding new pages, and growing into new topics in your niche area. Don't forget that you'll want to have room for selling advertising on your blog if you plan on monetizing it, and also have ways for your new readers to follow you in a variety of ways including: Twitter, Facebook, and feeds.

Death Stage 4) Giving up. Too many bloggers get discouraged when their blog doesn't become an instant hit or they're not making the big money they thought they would. If there's one lesson I've learned in my blogging career, it's been not to give up. In the blogging world, you get out what you put in. If you aren't dedicated to your blog, then you won't be getting the big results. It's a lot of hard work, and I haven't lied to you about that yet and don't plan to. If you're planning on giving up, have a look at what we have to say HERE. If you give up on your blog, it will be the blog's instant death.

Reality says blogging is hard, time consuming, and is not for everybody. Reality also says that anybody can be a great blogger if they put in the thought and effort. I don't want your blog to die, and I'm positive that you don't either.

What do you think? How many times have you been close to giving up? What are some ways you use to keep your readers engaged? Let us know in a comment below, and don't forget to subscribe to us on Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter.

Getting Traffic 102 - 5 Ways to SEO Your Posts

2012-06-09T19:03:00.001-07:00

Ok, you can say it. This post is long, long overdue. One of the facts of life in the blogging world is that if you want search engine traffic, you want your posts and blog to be Search Engine Optimized (SEO). So how do we do that? How exactly do we optimize our posts for search engines to find them and then drive traffic to them?

1) One way is to optimize your old posts with keywords that are already bringing people in to view them. Below is a great video I found on how to do this. Just remember that search engines don't like posts that are just stuffed with keywords. Your posts need to be well written and interesting. Just a list of keywords in the article will hurt your page rankings.

2) Make use of the 'Labels' function and Google's Keyword tool

When you write a post it's important to label it with relevant keywords. For instance, this post would be appropriately labeled with keywords like Post SEO, and other terms like it. Using the Google Keyword Tool will help you look at what keywords related to your post that people are searching out, how many people are searching for those words, and how much competition your website will have for those keywords. The goal with the keyword tool is to use keywords with high searches and low competition.

3) Use keywords in your post title

Here's some good tips for making a title for your post:

- Make it short

- Make it interesting

- Make it relavent to the post content

- Try to use keywords from the Google Keyword Tool in your post title

4) Interlink Your Blog Posts

We've talked about this before. You need to link to your other blog posts within your blog posts if they're relevant to each other. Not only this, but you should be linking to other relevant content online that is not on your blog.

5) Optimize your post images.

Another great article I want you to see is all about optimizing your images. The truth is, you can get a lot of traffic from people searching for images on Google Images. But they won't just come to your blog if you upload images without making them searchable. Check out DIY Themes' post on image optimization HERE.

By doing these five things you can help to optimize your posts and help search engines drive targeted traffic right to it.

Do you use these techniques to optimize your blog posts? Are there other techniques you use? Let us know in an comment blow! Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger so you don't miss out on other great SEO tips!

Monetizing 107 - Beware of Scams

2012-06-09T15:07:00.003-07:00

If you go to Google and type in anything along the lines of: "Make money online", or "make fast cash", you're likely to come up with thousands of pages of scams trying to take your hard earned money, steal your identity, or just make you frustrated by wasting your valuable time. Today I want to talk to you about avoiding scams. Maybe we can get one up on those people who think it's OK to steal other people's money as a means of income.

First let's talk about what to look for in a scam:

1) Most people who want you to pay for their 'secret way to make money online' are scammers. They will take your money and run, or take your money and then give you the same tips you can get for free online from sites like Hot Shot Blogger, or other similar sites.

It's best to avoid people who want to take your money for their e-book, or video series, or for any other strategy they claim will make you money. Remember, in the real world you don't have to pay money to get a job.

2) Take a critical look at the websites you're viewing.

- Are they asking for money?

- Is the page all white with no pages other than the one you're on?

- Do the testimonials and information go on and on all the way down the page about how great their program is for making money?

- Does it look fake?

- Are there pop-ups that ask you repeatedly 'Are you sure you want to back out,' or something similar?

- Does it seem 'too good to be true?'

These are all things you need to be thinking about. Most legitimate websites are in depth websites, not just one page full of rambling with no real information. If you have to pay to get the information, or give them your credit card or other personal info, then back out immediately and be thankful you weren't tricked.

3) Know who runs the company. Is this company that is promising you money run by another reputable company, or by someone unknown? Take Prizes.org for example. I came across it a few days ago, and wondered if they were legit. Then I saw and verified that they are run by Google, a company I do trust. After looking at how money is awarded and who runs it, I decided that I did trust this website. You can look on Alexa for some of this information as well as reviews. Something you might not know is that you can install the Alexa toolbar on your browser and from there it's very easy to get info about a website you're viewing, and also to leave reviews to help others realize if it is a fraudulent or legitimate website.

A key way to avoid scams is identifying them by A) The way they look, and B) What they want from you, as we talked about above. But what are some of the other ways we can identify harmful scams on the web?

1) Check online. If you're really not sure if something is for real or not, you can go to Google and type in: Is _________ a scam? Or simply the website name and then scam. For instance: you could type in zazzle.com scam? Or is zazzle a scam? If zazzle is a legitimate website (which it is) then you are not likely to find anything online about them being a scam. Most people will report scams to the big scam websites online and google will help you find those entries into the scam databases. Occasionally you will come up with complaints against a website with the BBB (Better Business Bureau) about a website or company, but you can look at the comments and take them for what they are, deciding if there is anything legitimate to the complaints. The BBB allows companies to rectify any wrongdoings with the complainers, and lets consumers know if this has taken place.

2) Brows the internet with your anti-virus software turned on. There's been a number of times when Avast! Anti-virus has popped up on my screen telling me I've just entered a website with viruses on it. I can then back out with no issues to my computer and nobody installing a trojan or something else that will try to steal my credit card info the next time I use it to buy something online. If you don't have a good anti-virus software, I recommend Avast which you can find on CNET. It's free, and trustworthy.

This method is not so much about detecting scams as it is about keeping you safe. A lot of websites with viruses out there aren't even fraudulent, but have sold advertising to fraudulent people who are trying to steal your personal information.

What have been some of your experiences with online scams? What are some ways you avoid getting scammed? Let us know in a comment below, and don't forget to follow for more great tips and info about building your blog!