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Twitter Chats for Fun, Connections & Business with Jewel Fryer & Blog Bloke: Blog Talk Radio

2013-03-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

Please join us Tuesday December 18, 2012 at 5:00 pm pacific time with Jewel Fryer, Wayne Hurlbert and myself for a special Christmas show as we discuss how to use Twitter Chats for fun, connections and business. I promise it will be a fun and educational experience for all.

Here is the show summary:

Community manager at Social Media Farm, Jewel Fryer and long time blogger BlogBloke describe the lighter side of participating in Twitter chats. Jewel Fryer and BlogBloke share he fun ways that Twitter chats can contribute to your overall social media presence. They point out that Twitter chats are more than simply meeting people on a business network, but also for connecting with them on a social level. They offer ideas for why some chats are fun for participants, including the addition of music, lively conversation, and personal connection.. They explain why chats are much more than meets the eye, and move far beyond the business sphere, to integrate personal aspects and fun into the sharing process. Learn why chats are fun and enjoyable, and why a musical soundtrack enhances the overall chat experience.

See you there!

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Filed under: Blog Tips, Featured Articles, Radio Shows, Social Media Tips, Technology twitter

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How My Old Blog Post Got Half a Million Pinterest Views [Case Study]

2013-03-24T16:46:00.000-07:00

There’s a lot of information on the web, including ProBlogger, on how to maximize Pinterest to get traffic to your site. Between tutorials on how to optimize Pinterest as part of your social media marketing strategy, Darren’s own experiment on Pinterest, how to create Pinterest-worthy graphics, and how to run a Pinterest contest, there are some great tips out there.

But I wanted to share my own personal experience on how an old post on ecokaren received almost half a million pageviews—50% of all-time page views on the post—just from Pinterest. Along the way, I’ll share some tips (and some of my biggest pet peeves) that you can use for better a Pinterest experience.

Image by unknown photographer, licensed under Creative Commons

Now this wildly pinned post from ecokaren—which received over 490,000 pageviews and was pinned more than 129,000 times—is about … how to wash a washing machine.

Woah, did you read that right? 129,000 pins and 490,000 pageviews?

Yup. You read that correctly.

And the post is about washing a washing machine?

Yup. Again, you read that correctly.

I was shocked too when this old post started receiving crazy traffic without my trying, never mind that it was from a newly un-shrinkwrapped social media site called Pinterest. One person’s pin of the post was repinned over 1400 times and has more than 300 likes. I should buy her a drink! Or maybe send her my homemade laundry detergent.

Now, the post was not your typical pin-worthy post. It had no huggable furry animals, no wise quotes, no cute babies nor scrumptious gourmet food. Nor did it have trendy ensemble suggestions for a fashionista or bare-chested Ryan Gosling wannabe.

Instead, it had a few small, individual photos of moldy interior of a washing machine and how it looked after it was washed. Not pretty at all, as you can see here.

So how did a boring, three-year old post get pinned so many times, to the point that it now continuously brings traffic from Pinterest? How did I make pinning sexy? (No, sex has nothing to do with it.)

Here are my unwritten (now written!) rules on pinning and driving traffic to your site.

It’s a no-brainer, right? But it’s true. I pin or repin almost every day, even if it’s just one pin. It’s always better to pin original posts than just repin what others are pinning but either way, I’m active on Pinterest daily.

And when do I pin? The prime time for pinning is between 4 to 11pm US EST. I pin while waiting at the bus stop in the afternoon, waiting for my daughter. But I also pin early in the morning, while my coffee percolates. It’s a perfect way to spend time in the morning.

The unspoken rule of pinning is similar to StumbledUpon. It’s better to high-five others than yourself. (Did you try high-fiving yourself? Yeah. Doesn’t work well.)

You don’t want to be bragging about your post or product all the time. If you compliment others by pinning and repining, pretty soon, others will do the same for you. Sure, you can pin your stuff once in a while but it’s always better to pin that of others.

My general rule of thumb of ratio is 1:6 in pinning my post to those of others. Again, this is not written in stone, but it’s my own unspoken rule. And remember, don’t ever violate Pinterest’s copyright rules when pinning. Just don’t go there.

It’s obvious that you need a Pin it button on your posts. I use the Pin it extension or widget from my bookmark bar. But it’d be easy to have a Pin it button somewhere on your post too. Don’t make readers have to search for it. Make it easy for them.

To take it one step further, I like icons with counters. I was f-l-o-o-r-e-d when I saw “108k” on my Pin It icon on that washing machine post when its pinning frenzy started. That number will be over 127k by the time you read this. Your posts’ readers will see that number too, and they will be more inclined to pin it, seeing that it’s a wildly popular post.

Why? Readers feel validated when their views are in line with the popular majority. They want to share that feeling with their followers, and that makes them want to pin.

Add nicely and thoughtfully constructed personal comments to pins. Not one word comments like “nice” or “

They don’t allow interactions. A real sentence or two will.

Also, reply to comments on your posts that have been pinned. I always check the comments people are leaving on posts of mine that have been pinned or repinned. I thank the original pinner and leave replies to other commenters too. Some people are shocked that “ecokaren” is “that personal” and actually came to comment. That always cracks me up. I feel like a total celebrity when I read comments like that.

Load a generic blog badge or logo on your landing page, so that even if there is no image attached to your post, at least your logo or badge for your blog will be pulled up on Pinterest for people to use.

I loaded my logo into the sidebar so if there is some reason an image doesn’t load up for visitors to pin, at least they can use the blog’s logo. I see my badge on Pinterest once in a while, alongside comments like “Awesome site!”—and that makes me grin.

My all time record-breaking pinned/repinned post is about washing your front loading washing machine. Yes: a very sexy topic indeed!

But apparently, people had so much trouble with moldy-smelling front-loading, high-efficiency washing machines that they were pinning and sharing my post for “solving their problem.”

So even though the post was written three years ago and images are ugly, it finally got the attention it deserves—albeit late—and all because of Pinterest. All because the post taught readers something. It solved a problem.

How do I know that? I receive emails from housewives weekly, (I don’t mean to stereotype housewives but let’s face it folks, who does the laundry the most often in your house?) thanking me for the post.

I also created a Welcome page for email subscribers and about 75% of the signees are from the post. And in the comment section, they describe how I solved their front-loading washing machine mystery. I feel their warm hugs daily.

Here are some clean stats for the post (as of January 21, 2013):

Publish date: June 2009Total pageviews: 965,085Pageviews from Pinterest: 489,014Average time: 1:27Bounce rate: 57.21%Approx. number of pins: 127,000

And the post is getting more views as you read this.

So, it’s great that this little star of a post is getting oodles of eye balls. But what did I do optimize it?

As soon as I noticed the traffic, I made a few key changes to the post:

I added related links into the body of the post to other posts readers might be interested in, like how to make dryer balls out of orphaned socks, how to make homemade laundry detergent, how to clean your dishwasher, and more. And now, those posts are getting traction on Pinterst. I can tell you are fascinated by these topics too!I added affiliate links to relevant products on my Amazon affiliate account. I’m not a millionaire yet, but it’s paying the bills.I cleaned up the images. Okay, so the images are still not Darren’s quality but I cleaned up the images that were dingy and blurry looking. A moldy washing gasket is never that pretty but the older images were dark and less desirable for pinning.I added text to the images to make them more pinnable and gain attention right away.I added watermarks to images so that even if someone pins (or “steals”) the images, anyone who sees them will know where they came from.

If you want to get more exposure on Pinterest, some of these ideas might work for you, too.

Finally, I wanted to highlight my biggest pet peeves about Pinterest. These are things I always avoid—as does any good citizen of Pinterest!

I abhor when people don’t give credit where credit is due on Pinterest. In other words, they steal your image and don’t link to your post. So I started watermarking all my images. And I check on Pinterest to make sure the images are linking back to my site occasionally. So far, I haven’t discovered my image being hijacked, but I have seen plenty of other pins that do not link to its original post. I think that is wrong!I wish there was an easier way on Pinterest to see all the pins that others pinned from ecokaren. Currently, there is no way for me to search my URL or name on the site to see all the images or posts that are pinned. I still have to use Google Analytics for the stat. Not cool. I’m hoping that Pinterest will improve pinning visibility for blog owners before long.There isn’t a fool-proof method of searching for Pinterest users. I tried to search for pinners and more often than not, they don’t appear in the search results. Again, I have better luck using Google. Something is wrong with that picture.I wish there was an easier way to conduct contests. A Pinterest contest is one of the best social media campaigns you can do for your business or your blog. At Green Sisterhood (http://greensisterhood.com), we manage Pinterest contests for our clients and they require a lot of maintenance. A tool that finds boards and pins that have been repinned the most would be ideal. Again, let’s hope Pinterest adds functionality for this kind of thing soon.

Are you listening Pinterest? If you can make these four things happen, I’d love you even more!

Solve people’s problems!

On Monday, Jamie highlighted the fact that attractive, inspirational content does well on Pinterest, and that’s true. You can put up pretty images or cute animals pictures and even life changing quotes with awesome graphics on the network.

But nothing—and I mean nothing—gets people’s attention like solving problems that they have been struggling with.

Ask yourself, “What would I want to pin and repin?” That’s the post that will get pinned the most.

Do you have a personal success story on Pinterest? What was the post about? Tell us about it in the comments.

Contributing author Karen Lee is a co-founder and managing partner of Green Sisterhood, a network of green women bloggers with aggregated monthly page views of over 2.5 million pageviews. We help companies to increase online branding awareness with content and social media marketing strategies, like Pinterest contests. Karen is also a founder and publisher of ecokaren where she writes about importance of washing your washing machine and on greening your life.

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What Progress Have You Made on Pinterest? [Discussion]

2013-03-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

This week has given us a chance to look at Pinterest from a few different angles.

If you’ve not had a chance to get into Pinterest, I hope that our Complete Guide to Pinterest got you inspired to set up an account and start pinning. If it didn’t, EcoKaren’s story of Pinterest success should have convinced you of the pulling power of the network.

Our look behind the scenes of Pinterest practice with Jade, my own Pinterest consultant, hopefully gave you a bit of insight into the ways you can learn more about the platform—or find someone who already does! Her expert advice on creating Pinterest Personas should help you take your first steps toward setting a Pinterest strategy for your blog.

Today, we’re interested to hear your stories. Have you already established a Pinterest account for your blog? If you have, how’s it going? How are you managing it, and what kinds of results are you getting? Let us know of your successes—and the other stuff!—in the comments.

If you’re not yet in Pinterest, we’d love to hear why not. Is it that you don’t feel your audience uses the network, or is the problem time constraints—or something else entirely? Is there anyone among our readers who uses Pinterest personally, but not for their blog? I’d love to hear from you, too.

So let’s get talking. How’s Pinterest helping you as bloggers? Let’s hear about it!

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Social Media Helping Others | Blog Talk Radio

2013-03-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

With Thanksgiving and Christmas season upon us it is so easy to get caught up in making our wishlist for that next iPhone or drooling over sumptuous meals and making merry. Black Friday commercials bombard us with teasers of the latest and greatest gadgets at amazing prices. TV specials will soon be upon us singing Christmas carols of joy and love.

It is all so easy to forget this is also the time of year that is hardest on those who have less and are suffering. Believe me I know. I was recently reminded that there are friends who are less fortunate and are dreading the season and slipping into deep depression. They are jobless, facing bankruptcy, losing their homes, lost loved ones … the list is endless.

Tonight Wayne Hurlbert and I have an important Blog Talk Radio Show as we discuss how Social Media can be used to help our online friends. Here is the show description:

Long time blogger Blog Bloke describes how social media has many different uses, and one of the most powerful acts of social media users is to help others. At this time of the year, Blog Bloke shares the story of a business person who faces serious financial difficulties, and suggests that social media is one tool for spreading the word to help. While not everyone may be able to give money or merchandise, the ability to share the message of hope everywhere is where the vehicle of social media can make a difference. Blog Bloke discusses the many different ways that people can help this person and others through tweets, Facebook posts, Google+ posts, blog posts, instagram photos, and more. Learn how to employ social media to change the world through helping one person at a time.

Won’t you join Wayne and I this evening Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at 5 pm PST and 8 pm EST?

Here is the background post to help a friend in need.

If you would like to make a contribution to help this person out then please click on the link.

Thank you.

Filed under: Blog Tips, Featured Articles, Internet, Radio Shows, Social Media Tips, Technology

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Heavyweight Help: The Ultimate Guide to Selling Your Blog

2013-03-24T05:25:00.000-07:00

Did you know there’s a massive marketplace out there filled with people who want to buy your blog?

Yep, your blog!

Image courtesy stock.xchng user JMGRIFFIN

It’s really big business and you can make serious money if you know what you’re doing.

In fact, some clever people make a pretty decent living just from building up blogs and then flipping them for $10k, $50k or even $100k+. And while I haven’t been quite that successful I have sold several blogs for around $20,000—the first time all the way back when I was at Uni.

In this post I’m going to try and cover everything you’ll need to know to sell your blog for the best possible price with the fewest possible regrets. I’ll cover things like:

why you should think carefully about whether you sell or nothow to calculate your blog’s value and why that measure is controversialhow you should set up your blog so it’s easy (and possible) to sellwhere you can sell your blog safelyhow to write a good and trustworthy listingsteps to take to ensure you have a stress-free transactionclever things to do with the sale money (and an embarrassing story).

This is going to be a long post so set your eyes to strained and get your scroll finger warmed up. Let’s do it!

How good does it sound?

You build up a blog, make a bit of consistent revenue, and then sell it for a handsome sum of money.

Great, right?

Well, actually, there are a few considerations that you need to take into account before you get selling. Broadly speaking, there are two categories of pre-sale issues to think about:

Emotional factors: You might be keen to sell your blog now but are you sure you’re not going to miss it once it is all said and done? Remember, once that blog is sold you lose all rights to your logos, articles, design—it will all belong to the new owner.Financial factors: Having a big chunk of money in your bank account is really exciting but you need to figure out how long it’s going to last you, what you’re going to invest it in and whether the short-term payout amount is more valuable to you than keeping the blog for five or ten years.

If you are thinking about putting your blog up for sale I urge you to take a few weeks to carefully think things through.

Most importantly, if you rely on your blog for a good portion of your income you need to make sure that you have some other projects on the go that are already earning you some money. One of the key mistakes people make (myself included) is selling their blog before they really have another solid income to rely on.

The title of this section covers both what your blog is worth and what buyers are looking for because often those things are totally separate from each other.

What do I mean?

Well, as I wrote about in this post on valuing a blog, you’ll often find that what your blog is worth to you is totally different than what it is actually worth in monetary terms, or to an independent buyer. The cold calculation of a blog’s value is often not inclusive of all the things that it means for you and your career.

Some people are going to disagree with this but in my experience the safest way to calculate what your blog is worth is like this:

Monthly revenue x 12 to 24 months = sale price

This is by no means a hard and fast rule; some people get 36 months, 48 months, etc. But for the most part you’ll find that people who buy blogs usually only offer around one to two years’ revenue.

So, at the most basic level, if your blog makes $1000 a month you will probably be able to sell it for between $12,000 and $24,000.

You’ll often see people trying to sell a blog or website for a higher price because it it is under-monetized, inefficiently set up, or not fulfilling its “potential”.

These words and scenarios mean very little to buyers who are essentially trying to purchase a successful and stable business. It is rare (though not impossible) to find someone who is investing in developing blogs because they want to build them up.

Something that I learned the hard way was the fact that your blog is worth a lot more than just the money that it brings in. It sounds crazy at first but you’ll often hear guys like Darren say that even though Problogger.net doesn’t make him huge amount of money it elevates his profile and gives him a hugely valuble marketing tool.

When thinking about selling you need to consider whether your blog:

Promotes other stuff: Do you use your blog to promote and expose other products or websites? Can it send traffic to other sites and give solid SEO links to new projects?Helps you: Some people use blogging as a method of dealing with stress or anxiety, which is obviously hard to put a dollar value on.Connects you: Does your blog help to connect you wither big players in the online world and therefore bring in new opportunities?Utilizes its list: If you have a big mailing list but have never done any successful promotions you might be sitting on an asset worth a lot more than it would appear on paper. Remember, a good mailing list promotion can bring in large amounts of money in a single day.Has a replaceable social media brand: The last point is that almost all of us have social media accounts that are connected with our blogs. For example, if Darren sold Problogger.net, would he also have to give up the hundreds of thousands of followers @problogger has on Twitter?

As I mentioned, a lot of these last items are things that are totally irrelevant to an independent buyer. They are, in some ways, unquantifiable considerations that will often hold great importance to you but very little to someone else.

Now that we’ve got the basic valuation types out of the way it’s a good idea to discuss exactly what buyers are looking for. I’m not going to go into too much detail here as there is a post coming up later in this series about buying a blog which will get you sorted.

However, having a basic understanding of what buyers are looking for will help you plan future sales:

Consistent earnings: Google updates and other internet changes often mean that blog earnings fluctuate in a way that is totally unacceptable to regular businesses. You need to make sure your earnings are stable if you want a good sale price.Consistent statistics: Again, if buyers can see big fluctuations in your search engine rankings they will consider it a warning sign that you might be selling for a reason that you’re not disclosing.An easy-to-adopt website: If your blog is totally wound up in your personality and has readers and content that apply to your life and experience it will probably be very difficult for someone else to take over and profit from.Historical reports: I almost lost out on one big sale because I hadn’t installed Google Analytics on the blog in the early stages and thus the buyers was worried that the current trends and traffic levels weren’t truly representative of what was going on. Make sure you have stats installed early on and clear histories of traffic and earnings.

So, if you want to sell your blog, make sure you know how much it is worth to you (in the short and long term) and how much is worth to a buyer. These are different numbers.

What a lot of people don’t realize is that selling a blog means that buyers are going to need access to a lot of stuff that you might never have intended to hand over to anyone else.

If you think you might want to sell somewhere down the line or you’re building a blog specifically for the purpose of a future sale, you want to make sure you have a few things covered.

Although it does happen sometimes, you’ll find that most of the time people will want to buy sites that are fully owned and operated by the individual they are dealing with. With free blogs like Blogger and Tumblr the lines are less clear—who own the domain, the content, the theme, etc.?

The ideal situation is one where you have the domain name and WordPress blog host all in separate, individual places that aren’t mixed in with your other sites and domain names.

Of course, it isn’t all that hard to transfer a domain name or migrate a site to someone else. But it is much easier if you can just do one change of ownership transaction, which means the site doesn’t experience any downtime.

As mentioned before, it can be a little bit tricky if your personal social networking accounts are also tied up in the brand name that you are selling. For example, my Twitter handle is @blogtyrant which means that if I ever sold www.BlogTyrant.com I would probably have to hand over that Twitter account as well.

I once spoke to Kristi Hines about this issue and she told me that it is much wiser to have a personal account that you use for yourself and a brand-name account that is just for the website and its followers. This is a lot harder than it used to be, however, with Google+ profiles and pages, YouTube, Facebook and accounts all over the place being linked together and muddled up.

If you can manage, find a way to separate your personal accounts from your brand-name accounts so you don’t lose it all or have headaches transferring them.

When you own a blog you often sign up for things like Google Analytics and other online services with your personal email. Much like the social networks, this can cause a huge pain in the future if you sell the site and need to give someone else access to this stuff.

Some services don’t let you remove the original email address that you signed up with but instead only allow you add new accounts. What this means is that you might always be linked to that old site in some way if you want to hold on to that email.

As far as I can tell, the best way to avoid these traps is to sign up for a separate Gmail account or create a Google account/other accounts with an [email protected] email address that you can hand over at the sale.

I’ve heard of blog sales getting into hot water when the seller doesn’t realize that some of the assets for sale actually belong to someone else.

It’s extremely important that you know whether you have the copyright all sorted for photos and images as well as whether your theme is original or something used by thousands of other people.

When it comes to selling your blog, the options are actually a lot more expansive than people usually think. That being said, I really only recommend going about it either of two ways, in order to keep your stress levels low and your chances of success high.

Sell your blog on Flippa.com.Sell your blog in a private sale.

I’m going to go over each option in a little bit of detail so you get a good idea about how they work, and which one is best for your situation.

Flippa.com is the absolute go-to website for selling your blog. It is the largest marketplace of its kind and, even better, it is owned by Australians—a trustworthy and handsome lot.

All jokes aside, Flippa is the kind of site you rely on because their entire business model is wrapped up in the convenient and safe sale of blogs and websites. That’s all they do. What that means for us is that we get a good service because Flippa knows that their reputation is important for their continued success. In 2012 alone over 29,000 websites were sold there.

The great thing about this site is that you find a rare mix of highrollers and budget buyers here. This means that you can sell blogs that might only be worth a small amount as well as those $100k+ monsters.

Selling a blog on Flippa is a lot like listing a product on eBay or any other selling site, except that Flippa only deals with websites and blogs.

The basic process goes like this:

Create an account: You’ll need an account to list a site for sale as well as manage any messages that bidders send to you.Create your listing: This is a seven-step process where you list all your blog details, provide screenshots of traffic proof, explain your reasons for selling, etc. You’ll also be able to set a Reserve Price so that you don’t sell for less than you hoped for. More on this process below.Add upgrades: One of the ways Flippa makes money is by offering you certain upgrades to enhance the visibility of your sale. Some of these are a really good idea and you can see them all at Step 6 of the listing process.Manage your listing: Once your listing is up and live you can’t just leave it alone; you need to stick around and answer any questions that people have. Most serious bidders will ask questions and won’t be willing to move ahead until you’ve answered them properly.Proceed with the sale: Once someone has placed a winning bid or purchased your blog for the Buy It Now price, you proceed with the sale process. This is extremely safe and involves using Escrow.com which means that nobody gets any money or domain name access until both parties are happy.

Of course, the whole shebang is a lot more involved than that, but those steps should give you the basic idea of how Flippa works. I’ve gone into some more detailed Flippa listing tips below, but this video gives a quick overview of the auction listing process.

What are the advantages of using Flippa?

Some of the main reasons I think Flippa has gained so much popularity include:

Safety: The Escrow process and the increased transparency that comes from requiring buyers to be verified, etc. makes the whole process a lot safer for everyone.Reach: To put it simply, there are a lot of buyers on Flippa looking to acquire your blog. I’m yet to find another marketplace that has such an active community.Support: The support staff at Flippa are happy to jump on board and give you help when you need it with a transaction or a listing problem. I’ve found them to be quite responsive.Simplicity: The listing process is extremely easy to follow. It’s no harder than composing an email and attaching a few images to prove your revenue, etc.Feedback ratings: Although not always relevant, Flippa has buyer feedback ratings which means you can see how buyers have performed in previous transactions.

What are the disadvantages of using Flippa?

As always, not every web service is perfect. There are a few drawbacks that people often talk about when it comes to using Flippa as a blog seller.

It’s somewhat expensive: Flippa has listing fees and upgrade fees but, frustratingly, a fairly high success fee. What this means is that an established website will pay $29 to list the site (without upgrades) and then 5% of the final sale price. This is capped at $2,000 but for some people it is still too high considering other costs that go along with making a big sale, like local taxes.There are still risks involved: Although a lot less risky than the alternatives, there still are risks involved in selling a site on Flippa. Admittedly the risks are higher for buyers than sellers but you still need to exercise a lot of care.Publicity: I have heard some people express concerns that listing a site for sale on Flippa can have a negative impact on that site’s readers and even SEO rankings. Flippa does offer an option to hide your listing from Google, but you still need to consider any impact that can occur if people find out you’re selling, and then you don’t actually make the sale after all.

Overall Flippa is, without a doubt, the best place to sell an established blog that you really care about. The second optionis something that’s perhaps better suited to more experienced sellers with some trustworthy connections.

The only other option that I really wanted to share as a method of selling your blog is to do so yourself, through a private buyer. This has a lot of advantages but also some pretty tummy-upsetting disadvantages.

Unlike using Flippa, this process has many different variations depending on who you are selling to an how paranoid each party is. Generally, however, it will go something like this:

You decide to sell: First of all you need to make the decision to sell your blog and package it up ready for the transaction. This means getting your accounts in order and having another project ready in the works.You find buyers: Perhaps the hardest part of all is finding buyers without actually listing your site anywhere. Of course, many people do list their site for sale in various places and then move the transaction to private method but this is both risky and against many of those flipping sites’ terms of service.You bang your head against the wall (or “negotiate”): The next step in a private sale is the process whereby both parties go back and forth for days, weeks, or even months until a price is agreed upon. This involves giving them access to revenue proof, stats, etc. as well as not caving in at the 12th offer simply because you are so exhausted.Arrange the terms: Because there is no site guiding you on the transaction, you need to come up with the terms of the trade yourselves. How is payment made? Which shadowy carpark will they meet you in with the contract? So on and so forth. This is the stage where a lot of inexperienced sellers get into trouble. You really want contracts and other protections in place.Make the trade: Selling your blog like this is better described as a trade. They give you money and you release the site files and, last of all the domain name. Once the buyer has that domain name, there is no going back, so you have to make sure you have the money and are totally happy before that happens. Again, it’s very wise to use a site like Escrow.com for this process, and not a site like Paypal where there is less protection.Assist with the transition: If you’ve made a good sale to a genuine buyer, they will probably want you to help with the transition period. It’s always a good sign when the buyer asks you to stay on board for six months so as to train them up and keep the site running well.

Again, each blog sale is a different process that can be done in different ways. It’s important to know how the basic process works and to make sure you know as much about the buyer as possible. This is a big asset that you are giving up so you want to make sure to take your time and get it right.

What are the advantages of a private sale?

Let’s have a quick look at some of the advantages of selling your blog to a private buyer:

No fees: Unless you use a payment site that charges a fee there are no fees involved in the process.No restrictions: You aren’t restrained by any website terms or service and as such can often negotiate a better position for yourself or take more time to select the right buyer. It’s not a matter of “highest bidder wins”.Better prices: It might seem strange, but I’ve heard people say that they’ve achieved slightly better prices with private sales because the buyers didn’t feel guided by “standard pricing” that often becomes commonplace in set markets. Of course this is a very case-by-case phenomenon and might be totally incorrect for your sale.

I have sold one five-figure blog in a private sale and it went extremely smoothly. The clinching factor, however, was that the guy lived in my town and I was able to meet him face-to-face to sign papers, have a chat, etc. That gave me a lot more confidence.

What are the disadvantages of a private sale?

By now you probably have a pretty clear idea about why you might not want to sell your blog privately:

It’s really risky: You have no idea who this person is or what their motivations are. Are they trying to scam you? Are the competitors trying to see your stats and methods? You need to exercise a lot of care during a private sale.It’s not monitored: When you use a site like Flippa, you can often contact support if something fishy is going on. When you are doing things privately there are very few methods you can resort to if something weird happens.It’s stressful: To be honest, I get a lot more stressed out than most people by this stuff so you might not find it as horribly nauseating as I do. All the negotiating, risk-taking—it just stresses me out too much and makes the Flippa fees seem worthwhile.

All in all Flippa is a really good place to start out and learn the ropes. The process is simple and extremely guided which means you’ll have less chance of running into trouble. Of course, you still need to use your brain and be careful when you are dealing with such an important asset, but by and large you should be happy with the process.

I couldn’t really talk about how to sell a blog without sharing a few tips for creating a listing that will help you promote your blog well while creating trust and increasing your chances of a successful sale.

Most of these tips will apply to Flippa sales but you can implement a lot of them in private sales emails and negotiations too.

I’m really surprised at how badly some listings are put together. There’s a lack of clear information, unbelievable reasons for selling, etc.

Before you sell your blog it’s a good idea to check out some other Flippa listings that are doing well. Of course this has a large part to do with the quality of the site for sale, but you’ll also pick up some tips on how to write your listing so as to improve your trust.

As I pointed out before, most blog buyers are looking for established businesses that they can purchase and maintain. This means they need proof. They want to know that your traffic isn’t periodic or paid and that your SEO rankings aren’t going downhill.

Make sure you give good and transparent proof while still keeping in mind the various Terms of Service agreements that you have. For example, there are parts of your Adsense statistics that you aren’t allowed to reveal publicly.

Some people might disagree with this but I’ve found that a lot of people want to buy not only a good site but a good site that comes from a good person. If someone is going to part with $10k+ they are probably going to want to know that the seller is trustworthy and cares about the site.

Of course, you don’t want to go on about your weekend in the sales pitch, and you don’t want to give away any information that puts you in an unsafe position, but you do want to create a sense of transparency and honesty that buyers feel comfortable with. Be open about how the site developed, why you like it, why you’re selling, any concerns you have, etc.

Especially in any private negotiations, it’s really important to know what you want out of the sale and to not back down because someone is a better negotiator than you. Quite often you’ll face savvy buyers finding very good reasons to get your price down even though they fully intend to pay what you’re asking for. Know what price you want to achieve (realistically) and be prepared to back yourself.

Honest people don’t need to be told this, but it’s critically important that you leave any sleazy sales tactics at the door and forget about lying or exaggerating to get some money. Not only does this make for a bad listing, it can really ruin someone’s financial situation if you sell them a site that has “skeletons in the closet”.

One of the most common things you’ll see in this regard is people trying to sell a site that has just been penalized by Google for one reason or another and claiming that they are just bored with the niche or need the money for family reasons. Forget it! It’s dishonest and will come back to bite you. As you can see from the few honest users featured in the screenshot above, there are both buyer and seller ratings, so all of your dealings go on record.

Wait a sec! Writing a sales listing is like writing a blog post? You got it!

It’s not uncommon to see listings that are pages of clumpy text with no real order. Try and keep it in a structured format that is easy to digest. Break it down into headings like Background to the Sale, Why I’m Selling, Traffic Details, Revenue Details, Expenses and Costs, Problems and Issues, and so on.

This is the largest ever sale completed on Flippa ($750,000) and while I don’t support gambling sites I think it is an interesting study in setting up a listing.

If you are asking for a decent amount of money for your site you’ll want to know its strong points and be able to communicate them convincingly. Now, I’m not talking about tricking anyone or being really pushy. I’m just saying that it’s wise to clearly communicate why your blog is a good buy.

For example, if you rank for a particularly competitive set of keywords you might want to share that. If your site has survived Panda updates that other sites in your niche haven’t, that is also a good thing to get across. If you have a high converting opt-in form or a great email open rate you should absolutely tell them about it!

Don’t assume that revenue details are all they care about (although it is a big deal). Some other factor might be the difference between them buying your blog or another one on the same page.

As soon as you sell a blog you’ll have one of those “wish I had thought of that…” moments which can leave you with a few regrets. With that in mind I thought I’d go over a few little things you can do that can make a big difference to your happiness before and after the sale.

Know the process: A lot of bad mistakes happen when people haven’t done their research. Find out about how the process works and what is expected of you before, during and after.Know the financial details: Find out how much the transaction is going to cost you from every angle. You need to know the fees Flippa charges, if you’re using that site, as well as any other fees/costs like bank fees or taxes.Know your limits: If you have a strange feeling in your gut about something or someone then just stop right there and wait for another buyer. It’s better to be safe than sorry. It’s a good idea to set up some limits that you won’t go past to keep you focused during the sale.Control the post-sale climate: In some situations it is possible to specify what can and can’t be done with your site once you sell it. You might need the help of a lawyer in order to draft a contract but if you don’t want your site getting used for unethical purposes down the track, for example, try and make it a condition of the sale.Stay on board: Again, if you care about the site it is sometimes wise to stay on board for a few weeks or months to help the new owner get used to the day-to-day activities involved in running it.Protect yourself: Don’t give out personal information that you don’t need to and try to use every protection that is available in the selling situation.

A lot of this stuff comes with experience but if you are selling your “pride and joy” blog it’s a good idea to take your time to do the preparation.

I thought I’d share a pretty embarrassing story at this point.

When I sold my first blog I was quite young and was living like a broke college kid. So when the money hit my account I was pretty excited. It felt like a million dollars to me!

A smart person would have stored that money away or re-invested it into new businesses or blogs.

Not me. I ate the money.

Not literally, but I spent most of the profits sitting around playing video games and eating footlong Subs. It was a great holiday but a huge waste of money.

So what should you do with the money?

Well, it seems to me that if you’ve just sold a blog for a good profit, then maybe you have a skillset that you can develop and grow. Making money online isn’t easy so it might be a good idea to see how far you can take the blog development/sale process and whether you can scale it up.

For example, if you sold one blog for $50,000 with two years’ work, I wonder whether you could repeat the process on a larger scale and aim for three or four sales a year by hiring writers, coders, assistants, etc. A post later this week will look at buying blogs so that might be a good place for you to begin.

Reinvesting the money is smart. Eating sandwiches isn’t.

Sometimes we bloggers spend a lot of time reading and not a lot of time doing (myself included) and so I thought I’d encourage you to develop your own guide to selling a blog by trying it for yourself.

Remember, selling your blog is forever, so make sure you really want to go ahead with it before jumping in.

I’d love to hear from the Problogger.net readers on this one. Would you sell your blog? How much would you hope to get? Are you worried about the risks associated with the transaction? Drop a comment and let me know.

Contributing author The Blog Tyrant is a 26 year old Australian guy who plays video games at lunch time and sells blogs for $20,000 a pop.

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Audio Books: A Powerful Tool for the Busy Person

2013-03-24T01:21:00.000-07:00

For years I have been struggling with two goals of mine: to read more books and to improve my physical conditioning by walking/jogging regularly. Things weren’t terrible, as I was managing to read 6-8 books per year and to walk 2-3 days per week, but my goal is to read 15+ books per year and to walk/job every day.

Sure, these are two tough goals to have, but late in 2012 I came across something that is helping me to get closer to both of them, at the same time: audio books.

I always listened to podcasts (mainly the shows from the Twit network, which I highly recommend), but never got interested in audio books. I even tried to listen to a couple of novels, but found it boring to follow along the audio file.

Then last year I decided to try something new: a non-fiction audio book. The first one I purchased was Liar’s Poker, which describes the experience of guy working as a bond salesman in Wall Street. To my surprise it was much more pleasing to follow along the audio, and I was done with the book within a couple of days.

After that I got the biography of Steve Jobs, Rich Dad and Poor Dad and Getting Things Done. Again the experience of listening to those books in audio format was very pleasing, and it even encouraged me to find more activities where I could be listening to the books.

As a result I started taking long walks pretty much every single day, either as a first thing in the morning or late in the afternoon. Sometimes I will walk longer than I need to just to keep listening to the book.

And don’t worry, I won’t be plugging any company or product on this post. The message I wanted to pass is that audio books can be a powerful tool to help you read more and perhaps even get healthier, so if you are not using them yet you should give it a try.

There’s a project called LibriVox with thousands of public domain audio books, so they are free. As I mentioned above fiction books didn’t do the trick for me. I only find it pleasing to hear non-fiction, so make sure to try both genres to find what works best for you.

Sign-up to the Daily Blog Tips newsletter and you will be able to download the "Make Money Blogging" eBook for free (worth $47).You will also receive tips to improve your blog, strategies to make money and useful resources from around the web.

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Another Genesis WordPress Theme Giveaway – Enter Today!

2013-03-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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The Guide to US Census Data for Local SEO

2013-03-23T16:46:00.000-07:00

Posted by OptimizePrime

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

As tax time nears in the United States, it’s hard not to wonder what exactly all that money is being spent on. Instead of getting into politics, I’d rather describe something our taxes do pay for and how it can help you plan an effective local SEO strategy.

During the daily grind, we can become accustomed to exclusive data available to us only through analytics platforms, Webmaster tools accounts, and other resources requiring a username, a password, and a mother's maiden name. This private-access mentality makes it easy to overlook that which is freely available to everyone – including our own Census. I’m Harris Schachter (you might know me better as OptimizePrime) and I'd like to show you not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you.

All of the information and images presented from the US Census are free to reproduce unless otherwise noted.

Using Census Data When Planning Local Strategy

During the planning phase of a local strategy, you need to identify which specific localities will serve you best, whether it be local content, social media, community engagement (geographic community & company community), on-site optimization, off-site citation building, link building, or anything else that goes into local SEO.

By using census data, these viable hyper-local markets can be identified before you even publish a single tweet. You can plan micro-campaigns designed to match each of the various cities, counties, towns, or even city blocks in your selected location. This type of analysis is particularly important when considering where to open a new brick-and-mortar establishment.

Demographic data can guide everything from the language and reading level of your content, to the methods by which it should be distributed. Distinct personas for each of the geographic components can be made to help you visualize the potential customers within them. Once armed with this information, local strategies (including everything you are going to learn from GetListed+SEOmoz) can be applied with laser precision.

You can spend hours on Census.gov exploring the myriad databases and tables. It can be overwhelming, so I’ll just demonstrate three of the most useful resources. If you’re an international reader, let this guide serve to motivate you to seek out what is available through your government.

Since it’s been cold lately, and Richmond has as enough plaid and square glasses to rival Seattle, I’ll use hipster snow boots as my example of a locally marketable product, targeting the 20-24 age groups. I’ll look for viable hyper-local markets in the Richmond area since that is where I live, and do most of my local SEO here at Dynamic Web Solutions. I’ll go through each of the three Census tools using this scenario.

1. Interactive Population Map

First is the Interactive Population Map. With this interactive map, you’re able to utilize population data at the most granular views. Currently the data is for 2010, but if you suspect a large population shift since the last data collection you can use proportions instead of volumes to make your observations. The image below shows counties, but you can view data at the following levels (from widest to most specific): national, Indian reservations, congressional districts, counties/municipalities, subdivisions, places, census tracts, census block groups, and census blocks (basically city blocks).

You can segment population data by age, race, ethnicity, and housing status, and compare these features to those of nearby locations.

How to use the Interactive Population Map:

Head over to the map. Enter your location into the Find field, place your area of interest within the cross hairs, and use the on-screen controls to adjust the view and detail level.
Choose any of the segmentation tabs, select a location, and click Compare.
You can compare up to 4 locations to examine their demographics side by side. Once in the compare screen, you can flip between the tabs to view populations by age, race, ethnicity, or housing status for each of your chosen locations.

In my example, I chose Richmond City and the nearby counties of Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover. Since my hipster snow boots business isn’t concerned with any specific ethnicity, race, or housing status, I’ll flip over to age since I am primarily focused on the 20-24 age group.

From the table, I can see the city of Richmond has more people in my target demographic (20-24) than the three neighboring counties. Interesting.

2. County and Business Demographics Interactive Map

Next up is the County and Business Demographics Interactive Map (or CBD Map). This is similar to the interactive population map, but provides more robust information in addition to population, race, ethnicity, age/sex, and housing status. This map layers in three business demographics: industries, business patterns, and raw counts of establishments per industry.

Industries are the general market classifications, such as Accommodation and Food Services, Construction, Manufacturing, Health Care, Real Estate, etc. Business patterns contain data on annual payroll, and employee counts (within a location or industry).

The CBD Map is limited to the county level, but the additional information makes it an essential tool to decide where to focus your marketing efforts. This map can display the number of establishments in each industry, in each location. The capability for local competitive analysis is priceless.

How to use the CBD Map:

Head over to the map. Enter your city, state or zip code into the Find field. It should automatically switch to the County view on the left (under Geographic Levels). Choose any of the top demographic tabs – anyone will do for now.
Select a location and click “Compare” at the bottom of the window.
In the new window that appears, click “Add Topic” to choose your areas of interest.
Once you have your topic areas chosen, go back to the map and select up to 4 more locations.

Going back to our cooler-than-snow snow boots business, I chose Retail Trade from Industries, 20-24 from Age/Sex, and Total Establishments from business patterns. In addition to Richmond City, I again picked the neighboring counties of Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover.

The goal while using the CBD map is to identify areas with large shares of your target demographic, but low business counts for your industry. This is a good indicator of areas with many potential customers, but low competition for them. Using the table, I can do some quick math to rank the four locations along these criteria. The comparison metric to use in this instance is number of (20-24 year old) people per retail trade establishment.

Richmond has 33, Chesterfield has 19, Henrico has 14, and Hanover has 15. Richmond has the greatest number of potential customers per establishment, suggesting comparatively low competition for retail store customers. Interesting.

3. US Economic Census

The final data table is the Economic Census within the American FactFinder collection. This is the most powerful database of the three, and also the most complicated. Data contained here includes everything the interactive maps do but at a much more granular level. Specifically, industries can be further broken down by individual product or service, and how many establishments offer them in any given area. This resource also contains a search bar- a familiar face in an unfamiliar environment.

The FactFinder database is rather complex, so I’ll dive right into how to use it. Because this one is so detailed, the accessibility and recency of data is highly variable, so you may have more or less than what I’ve found.

How to use the Economic Census:

Step 1. Visit the American FactFinder database. Don’t be tempted to use the search bar just yet.

Step 2: Program

Choose the Topics tab.
Select “Economic Census.”

Step 3: Location

Choose your location by selecting the Geographics tab. Use the “Geographic type” dropdown, and pick your level of detail.
Select State from the next dropdown. I’ve selected County and Virginia respectively.
Pick your actual locations from the next dropdown.
Use the “Add to your selections” button to select your criteria.
You’ll see the chosen options in the left sidebar under “Your Selections.”

Step 4: Industry

Select your industry by finding the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) number under Industry Codes.
Do this by using the search bar to find your business. This one is much more detailed than the industry selections of the Interactive Map, so try a few queries until you get a solid match.
For my example, I first searched for “boots" with no luck. I then tried "shoes” and found the codes 4482 for “shoe stores.” Check off the applicable industry code and click “Add.”
Close this window to reveal your search results.

Step 5: Database Results

First, review your selections in the left sidebar.
Check off the source most applicable to you, and make sure it is the most recent version.
Select View.

Step 6: Data!

Finally, we’ve got the goods. First of all, I should warn you not to use your browser’s back button – all of your selections will be lost and the process starts over again. Instead, take note of the “Return to Advanced Search button.” Use this if you want to go back to the search options.

Check out the data columns. Specifically, the most important are: geographic area, number of establishments, and sales.

Data Collected From the Economic Census

Due to the sheer number of search options, every research endeavor will be different. My results had three of the four locations in a data table, and the most recent data is from 2007. Immediately, we can see Chesterfield had 31 shoe stores, Henrico had 47, and the city of Richmond had 32. This is another good indicator for the city of Richmond, since it shows a relatively low number of shoe stores, and we already know it has the greatest volume of our target demographic.

Now let’s look at the sales column for the total sales each location’s shoe stores generated. Using our county population data from earlier, we can calculate how much the average person spends on shoes (customer value) in each location. Keep in mind the population numbers are from 2010 while the sales figures here are from 2007, but hey, we're just making estimations.

Sales, Population, and Businesses

Divide the sales figures by the total county population. I found the average person in Richmond to be worth $101, in Henrico $174, and in Chesterfield $85. Of the three locations, the average Henrico resident spends the most on shoes. But what about our target demographics of 20-24 year olds?

For this calculation, we’ll apply the percent of target population within the total population, and apply it to sales for each location. Although this assumes the different age groups purchase shoes at the same rate, it will give us an estimated percent of sales contributed by our target demographic.

From the first analysis, we found the 20-24 year old group made up 13% of Richmond’s population, 6% of Henrico’s population, and 6% of Chesterfield’s population. After applying these percentages to total shoe sales, we find our target demographic spending $2.7M in Richmond, $3.2M in Henrico, and $1.6M in Chesterfield.

At this point, it might seem wiser to go after Henrico County, since the target demographic spends the most on shoes there, in total. Given the sheer amount of money spent on shoes in that county, I might consider a separate strategy to attract Henrico's business.

However, keep in mind Henrico has 47 shoes stores, while Richmond only has 32, and Chesterfield has 31. Taking this competitive information into account, we can compute the sales generated by the target demographic, for each store in each location. The data translates into $84k in sales per Richmond shoe store, $68k per Henrico store, and $52k per Chesterfield store. This suggests individual shoe stores in Richmond generate more sales from our target demographic than they do in the other two nearby counties. In-ter-est-ing.

Analysis Results

After three rounds of analysis, Richmond looks like the ideal place to set up a shoe store (especially one that sells supa-fly snow boots to young adults).

So, what have we learned from all this? From the data available, I’ve found:

Richmond has a greater volume of people in the target demographic than neighboring counties.
Richmond has more potential customers within the target demographic per retail store than neighboring counties.
A shoe store in Richmond generates more sales from the target demographic than a shoe store in a neighboring county.

Apply the Insights

Now that you've identified the most viable business locations, it's time to incorporate these findings into local strategies. Go after these promising localities by gaining relevancy and ranking through a variety of methods, including:

Hosting events in the chosen location to establish an audience.
Building inbound links from sites which rank well in/for the target area (and be sure to diversify these links).
Doing competitive analysis for the most visible websites in the locations uncovered by the analysis. Go through their backlink profiles for relevant links and try to attain them too.
Encouraging customers to leave reviews, with specific attention to people in the targeted areas. Include the reviewer's location in the review itself to gain more trust and influence among the potential customers.
Engaging with prospects in the identified locations through social media. Find them through various tools like Followerwonk's Twitter bio search and get the conversation going.
Creating content specific to the viable locations. Dedicate a section of your blog for things to do and see in the area, why you like doing business there, interview citizens, government officials, or well known residents. Publishing content about the area can gain you exposure well before your visitors are even looking for your products or services. Once aware of your business, they'll likely keep you in mind at some point down the road.
Optimizing your content with traditional on-site methodologies for the locations uncovered in the analysis (but don't overdo it).
Developing press releases specifically for the target locations and distributing them to online sources like chambers of commerce, colleges and universities, local newspapers, free publications, etc.
Considering mobile users and making sure your site delivers a satisfactory experience for people in the targeted areas. Local and mobile go hand in hand.
Finally (and possibly the most effective in the long-run) is to consider opening a physical store within the location.
- Claim all profiles and listings from data aggregators using consistent NAP citations.
- Use consistent NAP citations on the website itself.
- Consider including the name of the location in a brand name.
- Utilize rich snippets to take full advantage of your new location in the SERP
- Complete your Google+ Local page with proper categorization, and mentions of the location within the business description.
- Modify social media profiles to include this new location.

I encourage you to explore Census.gov, and subscribe to the Census RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss any of their interesting publications. They recently released mobile apps for the true geeks out there (I recommend the iPad app "America's Economy"). Also be sure to check out the data visualization gallery to learn something new or just to get some data vis inspiration.

So the next time a Census taker knocks on your door, answer it! You never know what type of product or business you'll be working with in the future, but chances are good that you'll have data for it.

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A Warning About Facebook Contests – What You Need to Know

2013-03-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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Now you can Contact and receive free consultation from AdSense!

2013-03-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

The AdSense team, as you know, is quite eager to work with publishers, because Google values them for the sake of its interest. AdSense has always been helping out publishers by providing access to many tools and resources for problem solutions, such as FAQs, the Fix a problem troubleshooting section, and the AdSense Academy. Now, AdSense is bringing in another feature; a new personalized contact options page. There is a tab called HELP at the top-right, using which you can find solutions to your queries, or send feedback to the AdSense team by automatically sending a snapshot of the page you are on. A really great flexibility for AdSense users.Recommended for you: Complete List of AdSense Features released in 2012
This new contact options page will now act as a central source for most commonly used troubleshooters. This means that you will find solutions to most of your problems under 'one roof', which will help you solve your queries within minutes. Another great thing about this new page is that, some troubleshooters will lead you to contact pages related to different issues. This will speed up the process, since the email messages will be sent to respective departments or teams. Google has also developed some automated tools that enable it to reply to queries sometimes within hours!
This contact options page is available to everyone who has an approved Google AdSense account (banned or suspended accounts do not count). Such publishers also have access to the troubleshooters, and specialized contact forms. To see these features, simply follow this link to the contact options page.

However, if you are a high earner, and have a revenue of $25 or above per week consistently, then you qualify for some special treatment :). This special treatment includes free consultations with members of the AdSense team via email! These members will help you manage your AdSense account, and/or discuss strategies to grow your business. Accounts that qualify for consultations, you will see an alert notifying you on the contact options page.

As was the case with Premium AdSense Publishers accounts, Google closely monitors your progress over a long period of time, and only then deems you fit for qualification. So even if you have a revenue of more than $25 per week, you might not immediately be able to see this option.

Are you excited about this new feature? AdSense is working hard to help out publishers, which will ultimately help Google in turn. Whatever the reasons though, publishers don't have any complains to make regarding this, because it'll help themselves. So, are you excited? Let us know what you think. Cheers :)

Filed Under: Google AdSense, News

Qasim Zaib is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing articles on Technology, Make Money Online and Blogging niche. He is our Gold Star Contributor and co-author of all blogs under our network.

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If you don't want to get yourself into Serious Technical Trouble while editing your Blog Template then just sit back and relax and let us do the Job for you at a fairly reasonable cost. Submit your order details by Clicking Here »

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WHAT ARE THE REASONS TO START A BLOG?

2013-03-23T04:32:00.000-07:00

There are hundreds and thousands of new blogs/websites that gets published online, every minute. And with the internet penetrations increasing significantly, people are getting wired through mobile phones, tablet p.c, desktops, laptops, etc. Along with this the relevance and acceptance of social medium like blogs has also gone up dramatically. It has evolved as a significant medium of choice. Today, every person or an organization (may be it’s a government or non government organization) creates a blog for numerous reasons. But have you ever thought of the factor that motivates them to jot down their words in this online journal and start up blogging. I have captured few popular reasons why people put information online and I will be discussing the same. After going through this article you may find a reason to start your own blog. Believe me; if you get into this blogging business and setup yourself as a professional blogger, no one can stop you from making cash. I hope you will enjoy the post. Please read on... Numerous reasons to start your own blog has been outlined below:................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................ Blogs help you make money online. It gives you maximum options of monetizing your blog by various means. This generally means that there are several different ways to make money with blogs and among top ways the most preferred one is by allowing advertisements to run on your blog. To mention few, you can generate online income with Google AdSense Ads, Buy and Sell Ads, Text Link Ads, Chitika, etc. Apart from this you can also make money by promoting affiliate sites or selling your own product................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................
By posting images, writing articles and posts you can ask people to participate to Support a Cause and make the world a better place to live. If you are associated with any kind of Non Government Organization that participates in helping the people in need or any other such programs working for good will of the people, province, environment, etc than you can set up a blog to let everyone know about your project and ask them to support a cause. Example, Shanker Foundation
................................................................................................................ Make Contact With Clients Customers:................................................................................................................ Different Companies and organizations use feedback and contact forms to make a contact with their clients. You too can build a blog to let your customers know about your product and directly keep in touch with them enabling contact forms and feed back forms in your blog. I have also noted that various companies use this method as progressive steps in building their relationship with their clients.
................................................................................................................ To Stay Connected with Friends Family Relatives:................................................................................................................ Blogs is a platform that helps friends, families, relatives to stay connected from different corners of the world by sharing stories, photos, videos and much more. Blogs are a great way to let your friends and family know how you are doing. You may write something about yourself or your activities and wait for your friends to comment. Let’s say blog has turned into a better option for friends, family, and relatives to get into group interaction................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................ Blogging allows you to share your knowledge and experience with your readers on various topics of your choice. You can write and share articles on the topic of your interest. I have started mine with a view that newbie’s can take enough benefit from my blog ProblogTuts.com and make use of all blog tricks and tips.

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Google Analytics finally introduced Solution Gallery!

2013-03-22T23:57:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, and like to check up on your blog's Analytics data every so often, then you must have wondered many a times as to what are the best metrics you could use to, say, see your stats from a certain perspective. For beginners, setting up Google Analytics can be a daunting task, since there are so many options, and the availability of the thousands of metrics to choose from doesn't make it any easier. Many people feel that their dashboard is lacking, and perhaps they are missing out on a lot of stuff, which is why they often turn towards online help, and see what other bloggers have in their dashboards. Well, hopefully, there will be no more looking now, as Google just announced a new feature, the Google Analytics Solution Gallery!Now you might be wondering, what could that possibly be? Well, the term is new, but the idea hasn't been unheard of. It features solutions that are focused on generating stats and reports dedicated to branding, email marketing and lead generation, eCommerce, and so on. Hence, the term 'Solution Gallery'. You can think of these solutions as presets in your music player's equalizer. You don't know what the best setting would be for you. So you have some pre-defined presets, such as pop, rock, metal etc to help you out and make life easier.The Gallery has nice features that lets you get the type of reporting you need, or the marketing campaign(s) you want to track. You can look for an Analytics solution, Business objective, or a Marketing Function. Once you are ready to go with the solution(s) you want to try, you can just download them, and apply to your Google Analytics profile.

To access this gallery, simple visit this link to Google Analytics Solution Gallery, and then choose the kind of solution you want.

The Solutions Gallery offers you Custom Advanced Segments, that you can use to see the effectiveness of your various ad-spots, such as the top (header) ads as compared to the right sidebar ads. This let's you know what sort of ads are better suited for what ad spots.

Another great feature is the Advanced Custom Filters. You can add Advanced Custom Filters for long-tail words ranging from 3 to 6 words, and so on. You can then generate reports on those keywords, and create a separate dashboard to allow you to analyze your long-tail traffic.

For novices, these features can be a great help. A lot of people use Google Analytics as it came, without any (or maybe very small) modifications. Many don't know about all the advanced features, and how to use custom reporting. But with this tool, it has never been easier. Even beginners can make use of it and get advanced reports on their websites, and they can then use that data to improve their website.

Give this new feature a try, and tell us what you think about it in the comments below. Peace :)

Filed Under: Google, News

Qasim Zaib is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing articles on Technology, Make Money Online and Blogging niche. He is our Gold Star Contributor and co-author of all blogs under our network.

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SIMPLE MAGAZINE MINIMA TEMPLATE DOWNLOAD

2013-03-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

Let me introduce you with this new premium blogger template release "Simple Magazine Minima Blogger Template". Likewise the name suggests this template is an elegant outcome of the popular blogger templates that was release during 2006. This blogger template (2006 release) has helped me immensely in developing various Minima templates such as "Blogger Minima Template Version V.0.3.Kalimpong", "Blogger Minma Template Version V.0.2.Kerseong" (Three Columns, Left Sidebar 160 Adsense, Right Sidebar 310 Adsense Left Sidebar Text Align justified, Four column Footers, Sidebar spitted into two right sidebars keeping original sidebars intact, 4 column footer added) and several other designs such as "Elite Minima Blogger Template" and "Ads Theme Blogger Template". You may easily access all download links of those templates soon. Let me make you clear that this template "Simple Magazine Minima" got its birth from the scratch of our previous popular release, "Minima Template Version V.0.4.Darjeeling". Hence, being Minma based templates this "SMM Template" is easy to configure if so required. We have added various features to this template and to make you understand every single feature of this template, I have discussed small individual fact......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Release Date: 14 July, 2012
Name: Simple Magazine Minima
Template Designer: Yogen Basnet
Blog Url: http://www.problogtuts.com
Template Style: Blogger Magazine Template
Twitter Follow: http://www.twitter.com/problogtuts
Facebook Connect : http://www.facebook.com/yogenbasnet
Template Demo Url: http://simplemagazineminima.blogspot.in Important!!! Back Up your Template before making any changes in the Template. Download the full template and save it so that you can get back the original template even if something goes wrong while editing the template. If you don’t know how to download the template of your blogger blog template read, How to create a back up copy of blogger template?........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ VIEW DEMO DOWNLOAD ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................1. You can use this SMM blogger template as 2 Columns Template or 3 Columns Template just by adjusting wrappers.2. Meta Tags are included with options to edit and replace every meta data with yours. Alexa Verify Meta Data and Bing Webmaster Tool Verify Meta Data, Blog Title Meta Tags, Blog Descriptions, Blog Keywords are few to mention.3. Facebook Like Box and Twitter Like Box is included in this template.4. Templates Right Sidebar is customize for Google Adsense Ads 300x250.5. Post title has been adjusted for better SEO. 6. Beautiful back to top navigation icon is added.7. Both sidebars, Right Sidebar and Left Sidebar text has been justified (aligned).
8. Mini Left Sidebar & Mini Right Sidebars is added below the Main Right Sidebar.9. Header is splitted into 2 column sections for inclusion of ads gadgets or ads widgets.10. 4 Column Footers is also added in this popular SMM template.The original single column footer has been kept intact in the template just below the new added four column footer.11. Labels, Categories, Author links is also added below the blog post title.12. Newer Posts link, Home link and older Older Posts link is customized with css and html. We have also kept an option for replacing css hack with add image links or text links. Not only this you can also replace newer and older link with title of the post.13. Fast loading default Share Buttons that includes Gmail Send, Facebook Share, Google Recommendation, Blog This, Twitter Share is added in this template.14. Automatic navigation hacks with thumbnails is added in this template for displaying maximum numbers of posts on a page keeping the page load speed optimized.15. Posting codes like java scripts, html, css and etc in blogger posts has been made easier achieving beautiful views.

16. Comments Bubble is included in post title and is aligned right.

........................................................................................................................................................................................................................We will add this section if you face any problem in installing or modifying this template. If you have any issue please let us know by using comment form below. Ask us for Facebook Like Box and Twitter Follower Box.

Twitter Follow Us: @problogtuts Facebook Like Us: #basnetblog

............................................................................................................Next Blogger Template Release :............................................................................................................"Elite Minima Blogger Template" and "Ads Theme Blogger Template" is our next template release. ............................................................................................................Other Blogger Template Downloads :............................................................................................................
Please Note: Never forget to back up your template before editing your blogs template. Happy Blogging.

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Installing Zemanta on Blogger - A New Way to create Blog Posts!

2013-03-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

Creating quality content is a major concern for bloggers. It is one thing to establish a good-looking and well-optimized website which is SEO friendly, and quite another to update it with fresh, regular content which is of high quality. No matter how well a site is optimized for search engines, content still remains the king, and Google regards content more highly, since it is oriented towards the users more. Creating quality content, and adding value to it isn't an easy job. But don't worry! People who use Google Blogger now have access to an amazing tool, Zemanta, which will help them create quality content, and spice it up with images, links, and more!When people ask me how they can create 'quality blog posts', I usually tell them to first overview their own posts from an outsider's perspective. Forget the person who wrote the post, and become the person who'd love to find anything wrong with the post so that he could fire the guy who wrote it. This kind of self-criticism often proves to be constructive, and makes you see your posts in a better light.Now the writing part of the blog post itself cannot be imposed on anyone, because not everybody has the knack for writing proficiently, not at the start anyway. So instead, we advise people to focus on the visuals. When you take a glance at a blog post, you generally analyze the structure of the content. One of the most important thing to consider here is visual aids. Adding images can be the key to any post's success, since they add colors and graphics which attract readers.Besides images, there are a few more things that matter within a blog post, such as authority links, further resources, and so on. In other words, working on building trust. Well, as it turns out, this sort of work is right up Zemanta's alley.Zemanta is a free editorial service that will help you build upon your blog post, and add more value to it by helping with images, tags, links, and more. It has just been integrated with Blogger, so Blogger users can easily use this to improve the quality of their blog posts!Images - This is a real time-saver! While you are writing your post, you can see image suggestions appear right on your sidebar. You can choose them at any post, and insert them into your post with a single click! Additionally, you can quickly insert your Instagram and Flickr photos too.Tags - With Zemanta, you can easily tag your posts with Labels. Zemanta will make the process much easier, and bring your site closer to search engines as well.In-text links - This is another perk I was really looking forward to. Zemanta will automatically (or to quote Zemanta, "automagically") link keywords to relevant sources. This will hopefully help readers who aren't clear about a term, and want to find out more about it.Related Articles - Here's another potential gold mine. You can use this tool to link to your old articles, as well as to link to articles from the blogosphere. This way, you will relate to posts from other bloggers, and other bloggers will relate to posts from you. Hence, an effective linking scheme that could benefit both parties.Zemanta is pretty easy to install. And since it's free, there's no hassle about it. Best of all, it is available for most popular browsers, since it is a browser extension. You can get this plugin from its host website. Simply click on the browser icon that you use, and follow the on-screen instructions.For example, to install to Chrome, simply follow this download link. Click on the Add to Chrome button at the top, and this extension will be installed in seconds! Similarly, for FireFox, all you need to do is go to the download site, and click on Continue to download. The extension will then take no time to download and install!Pretty cool, huh? This plugin could really save time, and help with productivity. What do you guys think? Leave your interesting responses below. Peace :)Filed Under: Blogger Widgets and plugins, News, SEO

Qasim Zaib is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing articles on Technology, Make Money Online and Blogging niche. He is our Gold Star Contributor and co-author of all blogs under our network.

Follow him @ Twitter | Facebook

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Google Explains How To Use Search Queries in Webmaster Tools

2013-03-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

Google Webmaster Tools is a great friend to bloggers and webmasters. It hosts a great many features, and provides a lot of help to both beginner, as well as advanced users. For example, the URL parameter customization tool helps optimize your URLs, you can use Google Webmaster Tools to get advanced index reporting, and so on. The list of features is long and distinguished. Have you ever wondered about what the Search Queries feature under 'Traffic' did in Webmaster Tools? You can use some of the information provided to improve your site. We'll talk about this Search Queries feature in today's post.In a typical search engine environment, there are three phases. Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking. The ranking includes putting pages on top of search results etc. Search queries have more to do with ranking than anything else. Even though ranking is important, you must keep in mind that it isn't only part of the process. There are a lot of other factors too that contribute towards conversion. With that in mind, let's look at this video from Google, and then talk about Search Queries in Webmaster Tools as discussed by Google.For beginners, it is important that they know some of the basic terminology so often used in the field. A Query refers to a search word or term that the user enters in the search bar. If your website comes up in the search results visible to the user, then it counts as an Impression. If the user clicks on your site after seeing its impression, then it considered as a Click. Now you must have often heard about CTR, or Click-Through-Rate. This is the ratio of your Clicks versus your Impressions. A low CTR would mean that users see your website, but don't actually open it, since it's not appealing to them.Another term often used is Qualified Traffic.This refers to the users who clicked on your website, and actually found your content useful. This could be shown by the number of conversions you are getting, such as ad-clicks, sign-ups, subscriptions, and so on.This should be the key focus of any business, online or otherwise. You can use Search Queries, and then go to Filter to see the breakdown of your audience. By default, the filter is set to 'the web'. If you click on it, you will see how your audience is divided. You can then use this information to tailor your content for specific audience. For example, if most of your audience is from the U.S, you could do a special feature that applies to people living there.Common questions you could ask yourself while targeting your audience are; who is your audience? Where are they located? What age group are they? What are their interests? How do they browse the web? Does your content match up with the queries they enter?When you go to Search Queries, you'll see a tab labelled 'Top Queries'. Open it, and then Sort by Clicks. This is a nice little feature that will let you know what your top queries have been for a defined time period. You could then create more content based on those queries, and introduce new ones like them.Another good approach for investigating queries would be to take a notice of the changes that occur to your queries over different periods of time. For example, some businesses might see an increase in traffic near holiday seasons. Currently, you can only see history for three months. We'd recommend you download your data every three months to keep track for longer periods of time.If you sort your queries by CTR, you will be able to see where your website is making an impression on users, and where it isn't. A low CTR would mean you need to work on those specific queries, whereas a high CTR means you need to learn and apply from the better performing queries.You also have a 'Top Pages' tab in Search Queries on your Webmaster Tools dashboard. You can apply sorts over here as well. Sorting by clicks will let you see what pages have gained traction, and which have stalled. A strategy can then be set up to improve upon the pages who have very few clicks. With the top queries, we used sorting based on clicks and CTR. But with your top pages, sorting with clicks and impressions sounds more relevant. Now impressions might not always bring in clicks, but the user does go through their abstract, or at least looks at its heading. Pages with the most impressions are usually the highest ranked for certain search queries. So once you know what your most valuable pages are, you can pivot their potential, and use them to feature your other pages that re low ranked, but maintain quality and are related to the high-ranked pages.Sounds reasonable? You can use these simple approaches to take your business out of the middle lane, and onto the fast one, because that is the aim of every business out there. If you liked these tips, then do share them with others. Also tell us what approaches you are using. All the best :)Filed Under: Google, SEO, Webmaster Tools

Qasim Zaib is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing articles on Technology, Make Money Online and Blogging niche. He is our Gold Star Contributor and co-author of all blogs under our network.

Follow him @ Twitter | Facebook

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How to Host Web Content on Google Drive?

2013-03-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

Google Drive, as you might know, is one of the more recent cloud storage services. For starters, it offers some functionality that makes it better than its closest competitors, i.e. SkyDrive and DropBox. One such feature is the seamless integration with other Google products, and the story doesn't end there. Google Drive will also let you host static web content, so that you can run a simple website right on your drive! This sort of functionality was only offered by DropBox before. Now, it's Google's turn to establish its superiority. In this post, we'll talk about hosting your own web content on Google Drive.
Cloud storage is a great way to host web pages. For one, it lets web developers get a feel of how their websites would actually look on the web. Besides, it could be used to share photos, videos, and other information with friends and family, without fear of people from the outside hacking into your system, or spamming your website etc. It is also a great way for freelancers to show their work to their clients.Now you can't host dynamic websites on Google Drive. Nothing that requires server-end computing. Technologies like PHP, ASP etc require back-end processing, so they can't run. You can only host simple, static websites that are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript driven.Now you could use this just like you'd use GooglePages or code.google.com for a similar purpose. But GooglePages has been replaces with Google Sites, and no longer supports direct uploading, which is kind of a let-down, because we need to directly upload webpages in order to test them on Google Drive. Google Code, on the other hand, has bandwidth issues. Hence, Google Drive is the best option you have for hosting your static website.To host a website on your Drive, log into your Google Drive account from a web browser, and create a folder. This folder can be inside the main Google Drive folder, or inside another private directory. The path isn't of concern. What's important is the permission you set on that directory. This directory will host your web files, so it needs to be shared with the public, or else, no one will be able to see it.Now that you've created a folder to hos your files, it's time to put the files in. Upload all your web files in this folder. Now, you need to share it with the public. To do this, right click on the folder, and then click on Share >> Share.....Now, look under the "Who has access" section, and change the setting from Private to "Public on the web". Then, copy the link given on top. You'll need it for the next step.Now, you need to get your hosting link. You can do this manually. The URL you just copied is the link to your shared file, and not to the hosting. There's a slight adjustment you need to make in the URL. The link you copied will go something like this: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/link-to-your-site. You have to change it to https://googledrive.com/host/link-to-your-site. Notice that the 'link-to-your-site' part remains the same.Now, you can give this link to whoever you like! It'll take them to your hosted website. Cool, right? You can see Google's instructions on hosting a website on Google Drive. And believe it or not, they've hosted the instructions on Google Drive itself! You can view the instructions here. You can use any JavaScript files on your own site.Hope you enjoyed this post. Try this out with your own Drive, and let us know if you have any problems. Peace :)Filed Under: Google

Qasim Zaib is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing articles on Technology, Make Money Online and Blogging niche. He is our Gold Star Contributor and co-author of all blogs under our network.

Follow him @ Twitter | Facebook

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GOOGLE ADSENSE REGISTRATION TIPS AND TRICKS

2013-03-22T03:15:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense an online advertising program run by Google is the easiest and best way that helps publishers make makes money with their websites, blogs, classifieds, forums, you tube videos and etc. Yes, this is absolutely true; if you own a site you can apply for AdSense publisher program and earn cash (monthly) by displaying ads in your site. In fact, a good way to earn extra bucks just by lending small space to display content relevant advertisement on your webpage and get paid every time someone clicks on the ads. Though there are several alternatives of earning online, people tends to go with this because of its simplicity, easily implementable ads codes, different ads sizes and quick income generation mechanism. You may learn more tips and tricks about this advertising network by following the link, Google Adsense review?As of now signing process is divided into three halves, selecting an account – providing site details – and finally submitting your application. Firstly, you need to have a verified Gmail account so that it will be easier for you to sign in (login), later in registration process. If you don’t have an account you can sign-up at https://accounts.google.com/SignUp.
Secondly, you need to have a well versed in search engine optimization (SEO) website with unique and original content and obviously great keyword value, so that your webpages can rank higher in the eyes of Search Engines Result Page and drive more visitors to your web page. Read out previously published article on how to optimize a website and blog for search engine and get more visitors to visit your site.

Thirdly, provide a valid contact details or let’s say a mailing address (postal address) where you can receive a cheque of revenue earned. Here you must note one thing, just make sure that the payee name matches with your bank account name.
....................................................................................................................Ad Sense Program Policies as mentioned in registration page:....................................................................................................................
While filling up the form you might notice that they have highlighted five main program policies.Never click on the ads displayed on your site or ask your friends families or any other to click the ads Don’t place ads on any pages of your site if it contains mature and adult content. Porn sites are not allowed.If your site in any way or other, involves in distribution of copyright materials do not make use of ads. Do not sign up for new account if you already have one. Trust me, if your site does not meet above mentioned guidelines than I fear the application reviewer team will not approve your submission. So, before applying you must keep in mind that your websites follows and respects adsense-policy. Read more on how to get your adsense account approval easily in one week or even less.................................................................................................................How to apply for Google Ad-Sense:................................................................................................................ Gear up bloggers! Signing up is simple and quick; follow the step by step instructions for beginners and register an account instantly.
Step 1: Point your browser to www.google.com/adsense/apply or click the link optionally to go to registration page. Now fill up the details according to the page signup page set up.
Step 2: Click on “Yes, proceed to google account”.

Step 3: Enter url of your website. For example, www.problogger.com. You can also use blogger powered blog with blogspot.com sub domain name or a Word Press blog too.

Step 4: Select language. Currently supported languages are supports Japanese, Chinese (simplified), Danish, Swedish, and Turkish, Dutch, English, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Finnish, French, German.Step 5: Check box to accept program policies and TOC.

Submit your contact details carefully. It is in this address you will receive a cheque.

Step 6: Select Country. If you are Indian select India, like wise select Srilanka, USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, France, Nepal, and etc.Step 7: Choose individual or business account.Step 8: Write Payee Name. Just note that the given payee name should match the name on your bank account.Step 9: Add your Street address. For Example, Sector3, House No. 74/1, R.K Puram.Step 10: Add the name of the city. For Example, New Delhi.Step 11: Mention how you found about them.Step 12: Add your Email Preference.Step 13: Submit the application for review.

Wait for few more days. Most probably you should get response in two business days. Happy Blogging! Happy Earning!

Note: We do not work for Google adwords, Adsense or any of their ads products. Please refer to their website for more details. All the images, names and logos used in this article is solely for tutorial purpose and it may be trademark of the respective owner. If you believe this is violating any breach of law, kindly contact us for removal of the same.

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STEPWISE TUTORIAL TO CREATE A FREE BLOGGER BLOG

2013-03-21T22:43:00.000-07:00

"Create a blog, its free." Stepwise tutorial about how to start a blog for beginners, explains newbies on setting up free blogs whether its WordPress hostedblogs, Blogspot hostedblogs or any other.Creating a blog is very easy than you might be thinking. You don't have to be a computer or programming genius. Clear instructions provided in this blog will guide you through the process of building your personal or business blog. Once you will end up setting up your basic blog with the help of our step by step tutorial, gradually you can also learn how to add templates, blogwidgets, pictures, and many other stuffs. Please note that this is a tutorial on 'how to build a free blog'. If you are thinking to create a professional blog than you read this post(updating soon). Before creating a blog you might also want to know, What is a blog?
.............................................................................................................Creating A Free Blog With WordPress or Blogger :.............................................................................................................So, how to start a free blog online? One of the easiest and free way to create your personal blog is by using Blogger, WordPress, etc. Among various other blog creating resources, I would like to use Blogger.com in this tutorial because of its simplicity, user friendly, free hosting and a free sub-domain name. For those who wants to host a blog with Wordpress.com may visit this link (updating soon) and if you are not sure about platform to host your blog than I would suggest you to take a look at the lists of best free blogging hosting platform (updating soon).
TRICKS AND TIPS TO CREATE A FREE BLOG WITH BLOGGER
.............................................................................................................Steps Wise Instructions (new interference) :.............................................................................................................STEP 1. Sign in to blogger with your Google account, if you don't have an account with Google sign up here.(You can do this without signing in but you will get into trouble after few steps)STEP 2. After you get logged in to your account you will be redirected to blogger dashboard. Find the link "New Blog" (look at the left sidebar). Once you click the link a pop up box will appear on the screen. STEP 3. Name your blog in the title field. I mean give a title to your blog. (You can change it later on) For better SEO your title should contain a good keyword or a key phrase that reflects your blog. For better understanding on S.E.O you can check the article 'Ethical SEO Tricks and Tips' or directly jump to article 'Title and Meta Tags Explained'.
STEP 4. Choose your blogs URL (blog address). This is the most important part of building a blog. Blogger provides you a free sub-domain URL and also a room for your own domain name, a unique URL. It's up to you to decide which URL you want to use; sub domain provided by blogger or your own branded domain name. (google and the article, why its not good to use free sub-domain) If you don't have a branded domain name and want to get one, than you can get it here. Remember one thing, the URL you select will be used by visitors to access your blog so try to keep your blog URL easy, short tagged with best keyword as far as possible. (It is tough to set a blog URL so you have to try and try until you find a suitable address. Make use of URL finder tool.)
Example of blogger URL: http://problogtuts.blogspot.comExample of branded UR: http://www.problogtuts.com
STEP 6. A default template will be selected for further creation of blog, select Simple Template. You can also change the template later on and even customize with various online editors so nothing to worry about. Lastly, click the link, Create Blog!. Yes! you have successfully created a blog of your own. You can start blogging now for sharing text, photos and video with your friends. Happy Blogging!Before starting your own free personal or business blog take time to choose from the list of best free blogging hosting platform that suits your need...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................What is a blog or a weblog?
Why do people create blogs?
Tutorials on how to make money with your blog?
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................Create a free blog on blogspot, create a free blogging website, create a blog page, creating a blog blogger, create a free blog for kids.

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Facebook's Location Tracking - Are We Ready For This?

2013-03-21T19:42:00.000-07:00

With a stalling stock, and tough competition from peers, it seems Facebook is now getting a bit more than it bargained for. This probably explains why they're hard at work improving their service, and introducing more features such as Graph Search, video and voice calling, and some brand new marketing features, the list is long, but doesn't end there. Facebook is introducing a new location tracking feature, which will help Facebook friends who are nearby to connect to each other. Additionally, businesses will be able to reach out to customers and promote offers to users based on their location. Apparently, this is a big change. But are we ready for this kind of thing?Back in the days Facebook was born, there wasn't really much concept of a social media where people could connect and get together to form private circles, share life events etc. Back then, Facebook was one of the very few social tools for connecting. Fast forward now, and you'll see a plethora of such services waiting to be checked out. The social media user is no longer restricted to a few means of communication. There are so many other tools that directly (Google+, Twitter etc) or indirectly (Skype, WhatsApp, Instagram) compete with Facebook. Hence, the competition may be too much for Facebook to handle in the long run.Another trend that's been on the rise for the past few years is that of users going mobile. More and more people are now using mobile devices to surf the web. And an even higher percentage of social users use their mobile devices for socialising. According to Facebook's latest 10-K report, about half of its monthly active users are mobile users. This clearly points to the eventuality that Facebook will have to find mobile revenue streams as well, such as mobile ads, since around 85% of its income comes from advertisements. Facebook also seems to have lost some of its charm. According to a study, around 21% of its regular users are now too busy to log in as much. 10% think it's a waste of time, whereas another 10% have deleted or deactivated their accounts for long periods in the last year. This goes on to show that users are less and less interested in Facebook with the coming days - all the more reason for Facebook to enhance its features and bring life to itself.With the world going mobile, it's no wonder Facebook has decided to do the same with its location tracking feature. It bought a location tracking setup in the form of a social media known as Glances last year. And the year before that, Facebook acquired Gowalla, another location-based social media. Now, combining the efforts, Facebook has launched its own location tracking feature that is based on the push technology. Push notifications will tell Facebook when a user is at some place, and when his friends are nearby.Great mobile feature? Probably. But breach of privacy? Totally! Users were already agitated on the photo tag suggestion feature. So this new feature might just send the paranoid user into a frenzy. People don't want their location to be tracked, and their whereabouts be disclosed to a company that's made up its own little world out there? Besides, this new feature would be a heaven for stalkers, which I am sure none of us sane people want, do we?What do you think of these new features Facebook is so intent upon introducing? Would you like to be tracked socially? Answer with a yes or no in the comments below, along with a remark to let us know how the majority of you feels about this. Cheers :)Filed Under: Facebook, News

Qasim Zaib is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing articles on Technology, Make Money Online and Blogging niche. He is our Gold Star Contributor and co-author of all blogs under our network.

Follow him @ Twitter | Facebook

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ADS CONVERTER HTML ENTITIES ENCODER TOOL

2013-03-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

With the help of this “Special Character to HTML Codes Converter” or “HTML to Special Character Codes Converter” you can avail the benefit and easily convert Google AdSense Codes, Adbrite , Chitika or any another adscode so that you can directly paste the code in the post body of your blog. This is a popular tool to encode HTML and JavaScript advertisement codes. With this tool you will be able to encode or decode special characters. Encode / Decode HTML Entities. Convert text to HTML entities (and vice-versa). Give it a try and see what will this tool really do for you. Simply input a string of characters like < " & ' > into the top box and click the button "Click Here To Encode" to convert it.
Free Ads Convertor/HTML Entities Encoder and Decoder

Entities Decoders and Entities Encoders are just the opposites of one other. You can directly enter your code to get an encoded output. If you have any queries and suggestions than feel free to add a comment.

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FREE HEXA HTML COLOR CODES GENERATOR TOOL CHART

2013-03-21T11:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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JVZoo Review – New ClickBank Killer?

2013-03-21T07:58:00.000-07:00

JVZoo is perhaps the most talked-about affiliate network among Internet marketers today, and in this JVZoo review we’ll tray to explain why.

There’s a very good reason to love them: they pay your affiliate commissions instantly to your PayPal account.

I mean, why wait weeks or months to get paid for your efforts?

Although relatively new, JVZoo has achieved amazing traction among marketers in the “make money online” or “get rich quick” niche market. In this JVZoo review, we’ll find out exactly why most marketers prefer to promote JVZoo Products on their blogs and to their mailing lists.

Click Here to Signup for JVZoo

First and foremost, JVZoo commissions are instant via PayPal. In my opinion this is the number one reason affiliates are flocking to JVZoo. As compared to ClickBank who makes it hard for new affiliates to get paid, and traditional networks like Commission Junction that may take up to 90 days to pay your commissions, JVZoo uses PayPal’s Adaptive Payments technology to pay you instantly at the point of sale.

According to their site:

Our system runs on Paypal’s adaptive payment system which allows your payments to go directly into your PayPal account the moment a sale is made. Unlike other instant payment systems with Paypal, JVZoo has a true payment system that allows you to be paid for EVERY sale that is made.

If you’ve been in affiliate marketing long enough you would have probably tried various affiliate programs that implement “instant split PayPal payment” for sales and commissions – sites like . In theory the program will split payments received from buyers between sellers and buyers, directly to their PayPal account. In practice however, it uses a rotational order button to distribute payment between the seller and affiliates at the percentage set by the seller.

In other words, if a seller set commissions to be 50%, the first sale will be made to the seller’s PayPal account, while the second sale will be made to the affiliate’s PayPal account. The third sale goes back to the seller’s PayPal account, and so on.

There’s a massive problem with this model: REFUNDS!

When a buyer requests for a refund, the seller would have to check if the payment was made to his PayPal account, or to the affiliate’s PayPal account. If he did not receive the payment, he would have to ask the buyer to contact the affiliate directly (or contact the affiliate on the seller’s behalf) to get a refund.

As you can expect, this is a very messy and potentially destructive for your online reputation. Buyers would find it difficult to get their money back from the affiliate, especially when some of them may have never known a third person was involved in their purchase.

It has also landed more than a few marketers and affiliates in trouble with PayPal, partly due to the complaints by buyers when they do not receive their refunds.

With PayPal’s adaptive payment however, a single payment is truly split between the seller, JVZoo, and you. When the seller initiates a refund for the buyer, PayPal will automatically deduct the split amount from all three accounts.

But it gets even better – JVZoo offers customer services to all buyers.

As you can see from the PayPal screenshot below for a commission I received from JVZoo, they list their URL and phone number for customer service.

This creates the ideal win-win situation for all parties involved. Sellers get to be hands-free on billing matters, customers get good service and prompt refund fulfillment, and affiliates get paid instantly.

Another big thing we want to mention in our JVZoo review is the integration with Warrior Forum, probably the largest marketplace for Internet marketing products. This is done through their “Automated WSO Failover System”, which is basically a replicated offer of your original WSO post on their own forum.

A WSO (Warrior Special Offer) forum is where hundreds of Internet marketers in the “make money online” niche post huge discounts for their products. Some even sell exclusively through the Warrior Forum.

However, Warrior Forum has frequent downtimes, and every second the site is down both sellers and affiliates lose money.

According to JVZoo:

JVZoo’s new system checks to see if the Warrior Forum is up and running every few seconds. If it is down, your backup URL kicks into gear. That means all of the affiliate links will now point to your backup!

Offering a bonus to your subscribers and blog readers is a great way to rake in higher commissions. However, the manual process in delivering bonuses can be quite tedious.

With JVZoo however, you have a built-in system for delivering any bonus you want to your buyers.

According to the JVZoo website:

Now, when you promote a product through JVZoo, we will also deliver your bonus for you, completely hands off to you! All you need to do is simply enter your URL of where your bonus is, or upload the bonus file to our servers and when someone goes through your link and purchases, their bonus from you will be waiting for them on the receipt.

Developers and third-party software owners would love JVZoo’s each integration via their own IPN, as well as PayPal’s IPN.

Their IPN seems to be copied from (or borrowed from) ClickBank’s IPN, and I think it’s a smart thing to do if you want ClickBank affiliates to be able to migrate easily. We managed to use it without much issues when setting up Sociabot, our social media automation product.

Documentation is reasonably well-prepared, another plus for developers who don’t want to waste too much time figuring out the JVZoo backend.

Of course, we cannot conclude this JVZoo review without commenting on the look and feel.

Although JVZoo’s interface leaves much to be desired, it’s practical and easy to navigate. A lot of thought has been put into helping you find the information you need when you need it, although the poor design betrays that.

No mobile version site or mobile app is available for JVZoo at the moment of writing. I also noticed quite a number of irregularities when using different browsers.

However, I think a design makeover could be just around the corner. If they do redesign their website, it would make JVZoo much more appealing to potential affiliates.

So is JVZoo a ClickBank killer? Yes they are, in my opinion.

Although there are no numbers, I don’t think JVZoo has even 10% of the affiliates ClickBank has. That could change in a few years though, as most affiliates seem to be disenchanted with ClickBank’s recent policy changes.

It’s not easy to unseat one of the largest digital product affiliate networks on the Internet. But perhaps that’s not what JVZoo needs to succeed. As long as they keep engaging sellers, buyers and affiliates the way they do now, they could carve out a strong niche market for themselves and ensure survival in a competitive market.

Click Here to Signup for JVZoo

If you liked this JVZoo review, feel free to recommending it by linking back to this post.

Tagged as: jv zoo, jvzoo

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HostGator's Biggest February Discount - 35% OFF!

2013-03-21T03:48:00.000-07:00

It's our third continuous happy year since 2011 when we first hosted all sites of our network under the protection of this blue alligator. The reason what makes HostGator folks special is their great discount offers on special occasions. The coupon code that we received this month will give all MBT readers a straight 35% OFF on all shared hosting, reseller and dedicated server plans. To make it more simple, a 3 year standard registration of a hatchling plan will grant you a discount of over $62, $100 for baby plan and amazingly $163 discount for Business Pan. Registering directly from elsewhere would give you only 20% discount, therefore you still have over a week left to utilize this great opportunity to kick start a new online venture. Note: Offer Expires on 28 FEB 00.00 US Time. Please first choose a plan that best suits your requirements before using the coupon. Click here
This EPIC sale starts today and will end by the end of Feb i.e. 28th February. The sale is publically available for both US and non-US citizens. In order to successfully insert the coupon code and get your proper share of concession, Copy the coupon code below and then Click the link "Grab it" to land on the promo discount page directly. Enjoy this best sale!PS: This discount applies to new customers only. If you are already a hostGator customer then this discount wont apply to you. If you have not yet signed up with hostGator then you are fortunate enough to kick start your online business today. I have shared several great stories of our experience with hostGator and I must assure you that HostGator has never embarrassed us or any of our clients so far. More than dozens of our readers are already enjoying running their online business without worrying about any technical troubles thanks to the free 24/7 Live Chat Support and unlimited bandwidth and uptime servers. To explore why we recommend hostGator with confidence to all our readers each month, please read it for yourself:In times of great technical trouble, great customer support is what that counts more. They have always helped us with any technical or SEO problem arising in our sites and amazingly their help has always won my heart. Its indeed their great server speed, fair affordable service charges, unlimited bandwidth and excellent customer service that has won HostGator several awards for consecutive 10 years. You can see the long list on their homepageYou can create almost anything using the friendly user interface of HostGator's control Panel (Cpanel) with just a click of a mouse.Blog Software eg: Wordpress, LifeType Mail Software eg: xyz@mybloggertricks.com Social Networking Software eg: Facebook, mySpace Our Blog and all its pages is a live example! I am using Free Blogger, How would it effect me? I am using Free Wordpress, How would it effect me? I want to transfer my Domain to Hostgator, Will Domain Migration Effect my Ranking or Traffic? Read tutorial here
There are three webhosting plans that HostGator offers which are:
1. Hatchling Pan
Single Domain UNLIMITED Disk Space UNLIMITED Bandwidth Shared SSL Certificate Starting at $3.96/month | With 35% discount it would cost just $1.39/mon 2. Baby Plan (The plan that we use)
UNLIMITED Domains UNLIMITED Disk Space UNLIMITED Bandwidth Shared SSL Certificate Starting at $6.36/month | With 35% discount it would cost just $2.23/mon 3. Business Plan (Obviously Not for bloggers)
UNLIMITED Domains UNLIMITED Disk Space UNLIMITED Bandwidth FREE Private SSL & IP FREE Toll Free Number Starting at $10.36/mon | With 35% discount it would cost just $3.63/mon Use Hatchling if you want to run just one Domain
Use Baby if you are planning to open more domains in future. We use this plan to host all our websites at hostGator.
Use Business Plan if you want to run several domains on a single account for a corporate firm.
Small Age domains are treated more as spam webpages and never attract robots to its full potential. Therefore to gain respect in they eyes of search engines like Google/Yahoo/Bing then you must Register your domain for no less than 3 years. If you have any query in mind and need any help related to choosing a plan for your business then feel free to post your queries in the comment box below. I will release the Kitchen recipe for webhosting next week where you will receive 24/7 free technical consultancy related to your webhosting and domain hosting problems. I am sure it would be a great help for all those who want serious help related to DNS settings, servers errors and related issues. If in case you are only interested in buying a domain and don't want a storage space then you can do so by reading the following post:Filed Under: Blogger domain hosting, web hosting

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HootSuite For Blogger - Install the App Now!

2013-03-20T23:44:00.000-07:00

Probably one of the best things about blogging in this age has to be the level of automation you can get nowadays. Long gone are the days when you even had to add html styles in your posts by hand. It is amazing how easy things have become today. You might already be familiar with social media automation, and how you can cross-publish your posts across multiple platforms. HootSuite is one application that's pretty well known in this regard. Well, now there's good news for bloggers! HootSuite has finally been integrated with Blogger! Now, you can automate the whole blog posting process right from where you manage your social media!HootSuite is a very popular application that connects with all your social media profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and so on, and amalgamates them all into a single dashboard from where you can update them easily. It gives you powerful features, such as scheduling your posts, cross-publishing on multiple platforms, and more, all from the convenience of a single browser tab!This functionality has now come to Blogger! You can now update to Blogger, and more, right from your HootSuite dashboard! I, for one, was really looking forward to a solution that'd allow me to create and manage Blogger posts right from where I manage my social interactions. Now that this feature is finally here, let us look at what you can do with it.View content - You can view all your published content, posts, and even pages right from HootSuite. You can also see the comments on your posts and pages.Create posts - As mentioned already, you can create and edit your posts in the stream. No need to visit Blogger separately for managing your blog posts.Share content - What better way to share your blog posts than on social media right from the number one social media manager? You can use HootSuite to easily share your posts and pages to your connected social media networks.Multiple blogs - Instead of just one, you can monitor multiple blogs that can be affiliated with different accounts.
You can connect blogger simply by signing into the social media management dashboard that is HootSuite, and then adding Blogger easily from the dashboard. Alternatively, you can visit HootSuite's app directory, and click on the "Install App" button right below the Blogger icon.HootSuite also held a Google+ hangout on the 28th, where they talked about Blogger integration with HootSuite, and also gave a live demo. MBT was especially invited for this event. And it was pretty informative, especially since there was a Q&A session at the end, where people asked some useful questions. Here is the link to the hangout.So, do you like HootSuite? Try connecting Blogger with it, and let us know what you think of it! Happy blogging :)Filed Under: BLOGGER TOOLS, Blogging tips, Social Media

Qasim Zaib is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing articles on Technology, Make Money Online and Blogging niche. He is our Gold Star Contributor and co-author of all blogs under our network.

Follow him @ Twitter | Facebook

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Top 10 Google Drive Tips for Advanced Users

2013-03-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

Google, as you know is the leader when it comes to web technology. It launched its cloud storage services around two years ago, which is an infant age when compared to other closest competitors from the crowd, such as SkyDrive and DropBox. Some people might have some reservations against Google Drive, but a lost of people, especially avid Google users love it, probably because integrates so well with other Google products such as Docs etc. If you're one of these people, you might like to check out some of the top 10 Google Drive tips for more effective usage.
As I just said, probably one of the best things about Google Drive is its integration with other Google products. You can use Google Drive to share photos on Google Plus. If you have some pictures on Google Drive you want to share on Google Plus, you can easily do that without uploading that photo to Google Plus. To do this, you just need to click on the photo icon on Google Plus, and hover over that little arrow. You'll see an option to upload "From Google Drive".While adding attachments to Gmail, you can once again rely on Google Drive to have your files ready at hand. Now, you don't need to upload and send people files through email. You can just add files from your Google Drive, and the other party can simply download that file from your public shared link.When you right click on a file on your computer (windows), you can see a 'Send To' option, which lists options like Send to Desktop, Documents, Bluetooth device, and so on. You can add Google Drive to these options as well.To do this, simply copy your Google Drive icon (shortcut). Now, open Windows explorer, and enter the environment variable %appdata% in the path on the top bar. You can write this in the start menu as well. A window will open. Now, navigate to Microsoft >> Windows >> SendTo, and paste the Google Drive shortcut there.Usually, when you delete a file from your computer (and the Recycle Bin as well), it's probably the last time you'll see it. Not with Google Drive though. You can recover your deleted files from Google Drive. Just open Google Drive on your browser, and click on the More button on the left. Now, open your Trash, and right-click on our deleted files to restore them back.Some of you might not know this, but you can set your libraries, such as My Documents, My Music etc to fetch content from multiple locations (Windows Vista and higher). You can do the same with Google Drive. Open your Documents from the Start menu, and you’ll see a link saying ‘Includes: 2 locations’ at the top just below the title. If you click on it, you will see what locations that library is fetching content from. To add your Google Drive content into your Documents, simple click on Add, and then browse for the Google Drive folder. Add the folder, and you’ll see all your Google Drive files and folders in your Documents library.You can use some shortcut keys for Google Drive on your browser.Shift + A = Select AllShift + N = Deselect AllShift + S = New spreadsheetShift + D = New drawingShift + F = New folderShift + T = New DocumentShift + P = New PresentationCtrl + Alt+ G = Revision history for a fileUp/Down arrow key = Select previous/next item in listShift + Up/Down arrow key = Select multiple previous/next items in listJ or K = Go to previous or next item in list without selecting itX = Select/deselect currently highlighted itemS = Stat/de-star currently highlighted item
As mentioned above, you can see a file's revision history (Ctrl + Alt + G). You can restore previous versions of your files you made changes to, such as documents. Simply click on More on the left side, and click on activity. Now, you'll see a list of all the files you made edits to. Right-click on any one, and click on Manage Revisions. Now, you can restore any previous versions stored.Pixorial Video is a great plug-in for Google Chrome. It allows you to view your Google Drive videos online. And in Google Drive, it will also let you do small bits of video editing, such as cutting clips, adding clips, add music, and so on.While we're on the subject of Chrome extensions, there are a lot of other Chrome extensions that work great with Google Drive. Check out this app collection for find apps that you like.Previously, in Google Docs, you could tag a file with more than one tag so it could be in multiple collections at the same time. You can do that in Google Drive. Create separate folders for each tag you want to make. Now, select a file, and click on Organize. Hold down Ctrl, and select all the folders you want that file to appear in. This way, you can have one file in multiple folders at the same time.Liked these tips? Share this post with friends to let them know too! And do share your own best tips with us. Peace :)Filed Under: Google

Qasim Zaib is a passionate blogger who enjoys writing articles on Technology, Make Money Online and Blogging niche. He is our Gold Star Contributor and co-author of all blogs under our network.

Follow him @ Twitter | Facebook

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