The question “How to make money blogging” sits high on every blogger’s mind. In fact I received many questions on “How to make money blogging” when I conducted my first webcast to answer my subscribers’ most pressing questions on Blogs and Rss.

You can make money Blogging in a number of ways, and in this article I share with you up to nine strategies in which you can make money blogging.

1. Make Money Blogging by Selling Advertising Space

Before the advent of Blogs, we have e-zines and selling advertising space on ezines was a popular way to earn extra money. If you run your own Blog, you can let others advertise in your Blogs with banner ads, solo ads, sponsor ads, classifieds and so on.

Now that we have Blogs, you can repeat the same business model that e-zine publishers do, that of selling advertising space.

One popular advertising company that helps Bloggers look for advertisers is Blogads (www.Blogads.com).

Besides placing advertisers ads on your Blog, you can also make money Blogging by placing Google Adsense into your Blog.

In my “Marketing Rampage with Blogs and RSS” Videos, I show you how you can customize your Blog template to include the Google Adsense into your Blog template so that you can make money blogging.

2. Make Money Blogging by providing technical services such as Blog hosting or setting up Blog

You can also earn money blogging by providing technical services such as helping people to set up their Blogs or providing your own Blog hosting service.

One example of this is www.typepad.com . This is a Blog hosting service provider that charges a monthly fee. Typepad lets you create your Blog and they will host your Blog for you, and provide you with a number of Blog features.

3. Make Money Blogging by setttin up joint venture marketing

Joint Venture marketing is a powerful marketing strategy employed by many top online marketers.

Basically how joint venture works is this: You promote person B’s products to your subscriber and customer list, and you get a cut from whatever sale that follows from this promotion.

You can apply the principle of joint venture marketing to Blogs as well. If you have a substantial readership to your Blog, you can also promote or endorse certain products to your Blog readers and this way, and split the profits from the sales generated. This is another way to make money blogging.

4. Make Money Blogging from using the Membership model

Over time, if your blog has lots of postings and provide good quality content, you can consider turning it into a membership site and charge access for it, again giving you another avenu

5. Make Money Blogging by turning your products into

Another way in which you can make money blogging is to repackage your Blog contents into an e-book or an audio product and sell it. For example, if you run your own Podcasting show or an ‘online radio show’, you can easily compile your podcast recordings into a CD compiliation and sell it.

6. Earn Money Blogging by Swapping blogs

You’ve heard of ad swapping when it comes to e-zine publishing, where publishers publish each other’s ads in their own e-zines. This way, you save on adveritising costs.

You can repeat the same model to Blogs, as swap ads on Blogs as well. So instead of paying up front, you get to save, which means more money for you to spend!

7. Earn Money Blogging by turning your Blog content into RSS feeds and sell it as premium feeds

Your blog contents can be turned into an RSS feed. If the content is good, you can look for web businesses that are looking for good content for related topics and sell their feed to them.

8. Make Money Blogging by well, asking!

Hey, who’s stopping you from putting a PayPal donation jar or button on your Blog? After all, there are lots of generous people out there you know.

9. Make Money Blogging as an Affiliate Marketer

Another way you can make money blogging is by promoting other people’s products on your Blog. This is also known as affiliate marketing.

In affiliate marketing, you get paid a commission when someone clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase. Depending on the subject of your Blog, you can recommend products that solve people’s problems.

For example, I had a subscriber who asked me how she can blog about cats and make money from blogging about cats.

I shared with her that firstly, perhaps she might want to go niche instead of targeting the broad category of “cats”, and using the example of a Persian cat, which is a niche by itself, she can start a blog on Persian cats, providing valuable information as well as recommended solutions and products to the upkeep and maintenance of Persian cats.

http://www.blog-and-rss-revealed.com/category/make-money-blogging/

Brandon is the author of “Marketing Rampage with Blogs and RSS” Videos and Audio ebook “Blogs and RSS Revealed” that teaches online businesses strategies to getting more free targeted leads, subscribers and traffic, turning them into highly responsive visitors and sales without additional advertising costs, as well as increasing search engine rankings and obtaining quick listings in Google, Yahoo and MSN, by using Blogs and RSS.

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The role of an internet marketing specialist is to drive traffic to a website and to assist with the improvement of conversion rates – converting website visitors to buyers. Some individuals are good at driving traffic and others are good at creating web copy that closes sales. In order to be a full-service internet marketing specialist, you really have to have the skill to do both because enormous amounts of traffic doesn’t matter a bit if that traffic does not result in revenue.

Even so, different people have different talents and one person’s gifts may complement another’s. So, if you have strong skills in one area and not the other, you may need to work with an internet marketing specialist whose strengths compensate for your weaknesses and vice versa. Sometimes an internet marketing team achieves much more than any internet marketing specialist could do alone.

Specific tasks that an internet marketing specialist or team of internet marketers engage in to accomplish the two main purposes of internet marketing – driving traffic and closing sales – include:

1. Brainstorming

2. Market research

3. Identification of target markets and niche markets

4. Competitor analysis

5. Development of products and services

6. Creation of a unique selling proposition

7. Keyword research

8. Identification, analysis and selection of marketing

channels

9. Budgeting

10. Strategic planning and setting of milestones

11. Creation of marketing materials including sales copy

12. Website development

13. Administration of the internet marketing plan

14. Analysis of the effectiveness of the marketing program

15. Continual strengthening and improvement of the marketing

plan and marketing program

Effectively addressing all of these tasks that are necessary for productive internet marketing really requires quite a vast skill set. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses in various areas of internet marketing. It is ideal if you have an internet marketing team made up of individuals that are internet marketing specialists in all of these areas; however, reality is not always ideal. Because it is rare for any one individual to be strong in each of these areas most people need professional assistance from an internet marketing specialist with one or more of the internet marketing tasks.

If you work with an internet marketing specialist or a team of internet marketers, it is vital that everyone on the team communicates clearly and effectively. With clear communication the results from specific internet marketing tasks can be integrated to create a strong, effective internet marketing program that produces significant results in regard to driving traffic and generating revenues.

In order to determine whether or not you are capable of being your own internet marketing expert rather than contracting your internet marketing tasks to an internet marketing specialist or an internet marketing firm, do an honest analysis of your skills as they relate to the fifteen internet marketing tasks mentioned previously. In reviewing them, you are sure to find some that you feel confident about and some that cause uncertainty. If you are not comfortable with your own internet marketing knowledge and skills, you may choose to hire an internet marketing specialist to complete the tasks you are uneasy about, or you may choose to pursue training or education to enhance your knowledge of internet marketing and strengthen your own skills.

With desire, drive, time and perseverance, just about anyone can become an internet marketing specialist. To be an effective internet marketing specialist you must be willing to learn from others as well as learning from your own mistakes. As you gain experience in internet marketing, you will naturally develop expertise and as time marches on you will undoubtedly feel more comfortable with tasks that seem complex at first and you will definitely gain self-confidence as you experience the positive effects of your internet marketing efforts.

Copyright Christopher J. Enders. Are you at the end of your rope, fed up and confused by all the scrambled internet marketing advice you’re getting? Whether you are new to internet marketing, or a website owner who wants to make more money from your website, learn the proven strategies that will sky-rocket your internet business at http://BiznessTips.com

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Blogging is easy, blogging is fun. And what’s more…it can help your business in a lot of ways. A blog is a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and web links in the cyberspace. You could call it an e-diary where you can register your thoughts, opinion and comments on anything and everything under the sun that interests you. Though people had been ‘at it’ long before the term blog was coined; it has gained currency as an effective medium of communicating over the Internet only recently. The introduction of automated published software like “Blogger” at www.blogger.com has been instrumental in blogging success. A blog or a weblog’ is conceptually similar to a website and is accessible to anyone on the Internet.

There are millions of bloggers in the world today blogging away to glory. But blogging can be more than just chatter in the cyberspace. It can be a great tool for boosting your online business’s profitability once you’ve understood how it works and what are its limitations. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblog#Corporate for some more information.

How to become a Blogger?

The key to learning how to become a blogger is to start blogging! Easier said than done? Not really. There are several websites that can give you information on how to be a blogger. Blogger.com is one of them. You have three options here to choose from:

- Have a hosted service like Blogger allows you to set up an account and fire away in a matter of minutes.

- A remotely installed blog like movabletype allows you to install on a server for a small fee.

- Desktop blog programs like Radio Userland are installed on your desktop and then uploaded to a host. These are usually desktop programmes that include hosting and upgradation for a certain period of time and charge you a small fee.

You can get more information on blogging resources from http://www.blogroots.com/resources.blog.

Also see: http://www.blogger.com/start

Once you have decided what option you want for setting up your weblog/ blog you are ready to start blogging. It is that easy. It could take a while before anyone will notice your little blog in the corner and take you seriously. But you can cut down this time with some great ideas at: http://help.blogger.com/

offers some great ideas on increasing your blog’s readership. There is a Chinese saying, “ It’s a wise man who learns from others’ mistakes”. Read others blogs to see what works and what doesn’t, what are their writing styles etc. It’s a great way to teach yourself and fun too…. you are learning on some one else’s expense.

Guidelines for the greenhorn blogger

Here are some simple guidelines for a newbie blogger. Take a chance with these to increase your chances of success.

1. Get Blogging: Like I said earlier, the best way to learn blogging is to start blogging.
2. Recognize your motivation: Why are you blogging? What do you hope to achieve?
3. Link to other blogs: the best way to popularise your blog is to link to other blogs. So link you must!
4. Develop a unique style of writing: Developing a writing style is an evolutionary process. Try different approaches and formats until you find one that fits your message, audience, and personal motivations.
5. Express your personality… let your humour, your perspective on life, and your values shine in your writing.
6. Be regular with your posting: readers will quickly wander away from blogs that are not updated regularly. So this is very important.

More blogging resources are available at: (www.lights.com/weblogs)

How to profit from Blogging?

Now that you have understood what a blog is and how to get blogging, its time to make it pay. Blogging is a great way to enhance your online company’s bottomline. It is a popular and an easy medium and has potential of reaching millions.

Here are some tips for you to turn blogging into a serious profitable strategy.

1. Customer Interaction: A blog is a good means to keep in touch with your customers regularly. You can keep them updated on new events, happening in your company, new products and services and other developments. the best part is that you can do it more cost effectively and in much less time than other methods like newsletters, customer updates and customer meetings. The elements of interactivity, community and collaboration are key here. Your blog can also serve as a platform for advertising, promotion and even internal communications. One well-known business example is software company Macromedia’s use of blogging to keep customers updated on what’s happening with its products.

2. Query management: With a blog you can receive and answer to customer queries more quickly than an email. For potential customers it is very important to have a sharp turnaround and you can do that easily with a blog.

3. Link to other sites: Linking your blog to other similar, but not competing, sites is a great way to get some free publicity and traffic for your online business. It is also one big reason why Search Engines will grab your site in their result pages. Ask any online entrepreneur what getting quality traffic to a website means and you’ll know what I am talking about.

4. Get Feedback: Getting feedback from your customers on your products and services, on your company practices and other things is one of the most valuable resources you can build. With a blog, it is not just easier but also time saving for customers to leave feedback for you without filling complicated and mile long forms.

5. Get Google to work for you: Selling ad space is one of the most popular revenue streams for online businesses. With Google’s free AdSense service it just got easier www.google.com/adsense. AdSense allows bloggers to display up to three content-specific “ad units” (boxes that can hold up to four ads each) per page. Each time a visitor clicks these ads, you get paid. Need more convincing?

6. Become an affiliate: Your blog can become a cash cow by using the simple idea of becoming an affiliate for other websites. An affiliate basically carries a link to the other site and each time some one clicks on that link, you get a small commission for it.

7. Donations: If you are running a blog that people love to read and keep coming back in hordes, why not ask them for some monetary appreciation?

Put on your thinking cap and let your imagination run unbridled. You will surprise yourself with the number of ideas that will make your blog less of a personal e-diary and more of a digital cash cow. Blogging is a relatively new marketing arena for webpreneurs, but has immense possibility and potential. Be sure to get on to the bandwagon early in the game and reap your benefits later.

==========================================

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In his presentation he shows you exactly what Google is looking for when ranking web sites and why WordPress is one of the best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) web development tools.

You can view his presentation slide show on his blog – View Presentation

For those of you who are wondering who is Matt Cutts, what is WordCamp and why should I care, here’s a little background …

Who is Matt Cutts?

What is WordCamp?

Why should you care?

WordPress is rapidly emerging as the most efficient and cost effective way to build a quality web presence that Google, and other search engines, absolutely love! If you do business online then WordPress needs to be in your arsenal for better search engine rankings, content management and community building.

True Story:

Last month I started building a WordPress blog for a friend of mine who has a photography business. He’s been in business for about 5 years but is wanting to specialize in a certain photography niche. When he asked me what I thought would be the best way to market his business online I said, without hesitation, “WordPress”!

We started building his blog 4 weeks ago. Unfortunately, he had some personal issues come up and we had to put the project on hold for a few weeks. So, for 3 weeks his blog has just been sitting there with a few pages of content and about 4 blog posts. Today, we were able to finish up the blog design and add the rest of his initial content.

Just for grins we decided to test some of our target keyword phrases in Google to see how/if his new WordPress blog ranked. To our surprise he is already #3 in Google for one of his major search phrases. (A phrase that has very heavy Pay-Per-Click competition) And he has 2nd and 3rd page rankings for two others.

If it’s doing this well already just imagine what’s going to happen after he blogs for a few months.

His story is not unique. I have developed dozens of blogs and web sites using WordPress and all of them have similar results.

Want to start a WordPress blog for your business?

We can help! Checkout our WordPress Business Blog Package.

Enjoy, Barry O.

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A few of my favorites include:

• The ability to browse and install themes from within your WordPress admin. No more FTP. (Yipee!!)
• User friendly Widget layout. Finally you can see all sidebars and all widgets at the same time. Plus, you have unlimited number of instances per each widget. Meaning? You can install the same widget into two different sidebars.
• With more advanced Screen Options you have greater control of your WP Admin workspace.

Check it out for yourself. Here’s a video that covers some of most significant changes in this new version of WordPress.

Bad and inaccurate information from websites isn’t new. The Internet can be a fabulous tool, but it should not be the sole source of information for any factual writing from blogs, to research for fiction, to magazine or newspaper articles. Anyone can create a website and fill it with text. There’s never a guarantee that information online is accurate or current. That’s why writers and journalists should not rely on the Internet.

Here’s a dead-on example of what can happen if a writer sucks information out of a website and spits it out as fact, never bothering to make a verification phone call or send an email to a primary source.

Once upon a time, not long ago, a guy with a website thought he’d do something silly to see if media would bite an attractive lure. On an encyclopedic website (yes, that really big one), Shane Fitzgerald of Dublin posted bogus information about a well-known Frenchman, movie music composer, Maurice Jarre.

Fitzgerald made up a deep, thoughtful comment that Jarre might have said about life. Unfortunately for some professional journalists, Jarre never actually uttered the words in questions. They were fiction. Then Jarre died.

How Bloggers and Journalists fell into the ‘net

It seems a couple of journalists needed filler for their pieces about Jarre’s passing. So off they went to you-know-what-ipedia, looked the old fellow up and cut and pasted the pithy comment that Fitz had added to the encyclopedia. Not just blogs, but major newspapers and blogs in the United States, England, and India used the quote in their Jarre obituaries and articles, quoting as though Jarre had actually said the words. Ooops.

As a writer, you must understand primary and secondary sources. A primary source is the clichéd horse’s mouth. It’s the woman who pontificated the idea; the man who discovered the discovery. You’re obligated to find their phone number and dial them up. Or send an email. You ask direct questions and receive direct answers which you can quote, without making any alterations, or you can paraphrase if you indicate the paraphrasing.

A secondary source is not the original. Secondary is a he said or she thought kind of source wherein someone heard, or read, or decided what the original utterance or action was. Secondary is Wikipedia, Suite101.com, Examiner, and so forth. You can see clearly how facts get diluted here, right? Did George Washington cut down the tree he allegedly took out? Nope. He did not. Someone thought it was a cool story, so they told two people and so on.

Must Bloggers Abandon Internet Resources?

If you choose to get your lead from the Internet or you’re surfing for a story idea, fine. Mull over what you uncover online. But before you present a fact as a fact – whether you’re a blogger, a Pulitzer winner, a stringer, a novelist, or a freelancer – your obligation is to verify facts you present as facts. Find the horse and get him to whinny at you. Otherwise, folks, you don’t know he whinnied. Sure, print what you cull from websites, but say, “I culled this from a website.”

Do that, and you can call yourself a professional writer of blogs, stories, articles or columns. Anything less, and you don’t even deserve the pennies per article some writers settle for in today’s markets. And that is, of course, why writers and journalists should not rely on the Internet.

Read more: Why online markets are flooded with wannabes and Free database of medical, legal and academic experts.

Maryan Pelland is a professional freelance writer with a strong web presence at Ontext.com, WomenDaybyDay.com and DemystifyingDigital.com.

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Why Writers and Bloggers Should not Rely on the Internet

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List building is largely about building relationships. What better way to start than to give them something of value? Just make sure that you get something valuable in return. When it comes to marketing online, there’s nothing more valuable than your subscribers.

List building is to get people to your website. Every network allows you to set up a page that tells something about you. People on the network will check out this page to learn more about you. So have a link to your website and include some information about you and your business. Make the space interesting by personalizing it. Add some photographs or customize the background. Be yourself, be distinct and provide good info. This will encourage more visitors to check out your website. List building through social networking takes time, it shouldn’t be viewed as a one-time event. Participate in social media every day as one of your internet marketing strategies. The best way to use social media for list building is to provide great content so that people come to you, asking for more information, looking for your website. Then you have built some rapport with them and when they see your opt-in box they are much more likely to say yes.

Without a list, you probably won’t make much money. But with everyone out there asking for names and email addresses, what are the chances you’ll be able to compete, if you’ve just started out online? You have to snatch people’s attention away from the newest product or program and get them to join your list instead of theirs, right? A really great way to do that is with video. You may say to yourself, “are you nuts”? I’m not putting my face out there for the whole world to see. “well, why not”? I mean, almost every video I’ve seen has average people in it, just like you and me. If you’re worried about how hard it is or installing the software, get over it. Pay someone to do it for you and to show you how it works.

List building is the core of online marketing, and any big marketer in the business knows that. You need to build a massive list of people who trust you, and who will trust the people and programs you recommend. Writing articles shows people that you can be trusted, that you know what you’re writing about. List building is greatly improved through articles, and anyone who doesn’t use them for list building is missing something important. It is also one of the last business building activities that an internet newbie engages in. And yet it is one of the most if not the most important parts of any business. The reason for this tardy response to list building is that many internet newbies have no real business experience. All they see in a business is money being made and they have no clue where the real money is. Everyone experienced in internet marketing will tell you that the money is in the list.

Building your list is all about opt-in conversion rates and the value of each subscriber over the life of the relationship. This is where valuable content comes into play. You’re not going to get someone to give up their primary email address unless you promise and deliver valuable content in return. And your lifelong customer value will be lower if you don’t maintain a good relationship with your list. Here are 3 quick tips that make this affiliate marketing strategy work:

1.) You can’t be shy about promoting, or else you won’t make any money. But you also need a balance between solid content and affiliate offers to maintain a positive relationship.

2.) Crafting content that offers independent value but also naturally leads to a product recommendation is one smart way to do it.

3.) The best way to do that is to host the page on a domain with plenty of content and a decent amount of inbound links. So consider marrying this tactic with a blogging strategy that provides the content links you send to the list.

List building is critical in having a successful online business. The more subscribers to your product or service, the more likely we are to be able to convert them into paying customers. It is so shockingly simple that most people don’t even start because they think it wont work because it seems too easy. The guru’s are well aware of this misconception, and they make everything more complicated than it needs to be so they can make more money. The simple truth is anyone can build a list that can allow you to live the life you want.

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Go from newbie to experienced marketer in the shortest time possible. Learn how to plan and discover your own unique selling point. The Newbie Fast Track Guide shows how to step up as an affiliate marketer, adsense advertiser, list builder, ebook seller, article marketer and many more. Have an access also to our monthly resale rights and PLR products that you can rebrand with sales page ready to promote.

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Business Blogging differs from traditional blogging as we know it. In the past blogs were used primarily as platforms on which to express ideas, opinions, and experiences. However as the Internet has evolved so have blogs.

Recognizing their growing popularity with Internet viewers many bloggers have taken to use their platforms as a means to more actively promote for a profit.

The ability to passively advertise to loyal readers while still supplying them the useful content they’ve come to expect has proven to be a very effective promotional marketing approach.

If you want to make money blogging there are 3 steps in which you’ll need to pay close attention to when you create a blog.

1) Layout
Choose a layout or template that best reflects you or the blog theme. When you first create a blog make sure your site is easy to navigate. It is recommended that you also make readily available to your readers your most popular posts. Put them into a separate category or tab for easy access.
This is your best work so be proud of it and allow these posts to continue to work for you!

The popularity of blogging is based upon the ability for visitors to interact with the blog owner thru commenting. Be sure you encourage this and make it easy for visitors to do.

2) Fresh Quality Content
Aside from traffic this area is what sustains the life of your blog. If you don’t believe that, take a break from posting on your blog for a while and watch the subscriber based decrease. With that said POST FREQUENTLY to keep both readers and the search engines coming back for more fresh content?
Your post obviously must be related to the overall theme or purpose on which you chose to blog. Make sure your posts stimulate or reward your readers in some fashion such as useful information or entertaining insights.

Be sure the content you post reflects your feelings or personality. Remember there’s only one you so unleash yourself and let your personality hang out. This is one factor that will distinguish your blog from the rest.

3) Advertising on Your Blog
With a steady flow of traffic and a good loyal following now in place this is the time to introduce a little creative advertising.
If your blog is popular enough you can possibly rent out space to advertisers related to your niche. Take caution not to place too many advertisements on your site. This will disrupt the original flow and feel of your blog that readers have become accustom to.

The ’suggestion’ of a product within the body of one of your post is another approach you can use to make money blogging. Be sure the product, like any creative advertising you may use, is related to what you’re blogging on and can be useful to your readers.

With reader loyalty you have also gained their trust and faith in you as an authority on the subject matter of your blog. Be careful not to abuse this by overly frequent sales pitches or offering inappropriate or inferior products. REMEMBER your objective is to supply helpful content FIRST. This is why these readers subscribed to begin with.

As you can see business blogging involves a delicate mix between the trust of your readers and your promotional efforts. Always remember to serve your readers FIRST with the good content they’ve come to expect. Your promotional marketing efforts should always assume a lower profile!

About The Author

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina.
For additional money making tips and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit: http://blogbrawn.com

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If you’re blogging on the Wordpress platform, I’ll bet my entire life savings that the first thing you ever did was try to install a new Wordpress theme. I’ll bet my future earnings that even today you’re still occasionally changing themes and wasting a lot of time doing minor modifications that when summed up merely distracts you from blogging itself.

It’s actually easy to see why this single aspect of running a blog demands so much attention. With the correct theme, you can accommodate all the nifty little widgets and codes, and may also mean better search engine rankings and tons of fresh traffic every day.

So what are the factors you need to consider to make theme-hunting easier?

Here are five important ingredients:

1) Theme Width and Columns
Typically, Wordpress themes come in 2-column or 3-column formats, with widths ranging from 500 pixels to 960 pixels wide. If you’re blogging for non-profit purposes, a 2-column theme can look more compact and reader-friendly. Since you have less images of products or links to other sites to display, you can focus exclusively on the content without leading readers away from your site.

On the other hand, if you’re blogging for profit, you may want to consider a 3-column Wordpress theme that will be able to accommodate your Google Adsense, Chitika and Text Link Ads codes comfortably without squeezing everything in the content area. 3-column themes allow room for expansion, but in the event that you’ve filled up all available space with ads, then it’s time you removed the non-performers and use only the advertising services that work for that particular blog.

2) Use of Images and Icons
A theme with images and icons can look good, but it rarely increases your web traffic or subscriber base. In fact, most “A-list” bloggers have plain vanilla themes with a simple logo on top. Reducing the amount of images also means faster loading time and less stress on your servers. This vital aspect of server load become apparent only if you have tens of thousands of visitors a day, but it’s worth designing for the future.

A image-laden theme also distracts readers from the content itself. This is the reason why blogs like Engadget and Tech Crunch use images intensively in the content areas to add value to a post, but the theme itself is simple and rather minimalist.

Ideally, a theme should allow you to use your own header image for stronger branding purposes, yet replace images and icons with links and text, or just not use them at all unless absolutely necessary.

3) Compatibility with Plugins
Another time-sucking activity is installing plugins that improve the functionality of your site. There’s a plugin out there for almost everything you want to do with your blog, but while most of them are free and easily obtainable, it’s not always easy to install the plugins and insert the codes into your Wordpress theme.

If your theme is too complicated, it may be a headache to even insert that one line of code you need to make a plugin work. This is often the case with advanced AJAX-based Wordpress themes that have too many files and heavy coding. I’ve always preferred a simpler themes that stick to the default Wordpress theme as much as possible, so I can cut back on the learning curve and just get on with my life.

Remember that the purpose of your blog is to deliver timely, relevant content to your readers, Any theme that preserves or improves the reader experience is good, any theme that subtracts from the experience is bad.

4) Search Engine Optimization
A lot can be said about search engine optimization, but at the end of the day if you have content worth reading eventually you’ll get the rankings you deserve. That doesn’t mean that you don’t need SEO; all it means is that what you really need to do is to make sure:

(a) Your tags are formatted properly, with the name of the post first followed by the name of the blog – some themes can do this automatically without modification to the code or use of a plugin

(b) All your blog content titles use the H1 tag, with the main keywords used instead of non-descriptive text for better SEO relevance

(b) Your theme has clean source codes, and if possible all formatting is linked to an external CSS file which you can edit independently

5) Plug-And-Play Ease of Use
Can the theme be installed easily on an existing blog without having to move things around? Can the same theme be used and customized easily on your other blogs? These are some additional things you may want to consider when theme-shopping, especially if every minute of downtime on your blog may mean lost revenue.

While it’s hard to make comparisons due to the sheer amount of free and paid themes out there, it’s still a good idea to have a test blog site. Test any theme you plan on using, and make sure your test blog is also fitted with all the plugins and miscellaneous widgets used on your real blog. The last thing you want is for your readers start seeing weird error messages on your blog.

At the end of the day, a theme is just a theme. Instead of spending your time installing them, it may be wiser to outsource the task and focus more on your readers. Alternatively, you may also want to consider buying “plug-and-play” themes for a reasonable price. Dennis De’ Bernardy of ProWordpress.com has probably one of the best themes around, but if you’re short on cash there are certainly cheaper alternatives.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gobala Krishnan

About The Author

Gobala Krishnan is a niche marketing and Wordpress blogging expert who has helped thousands of beginners start blogging for fun and profit. With his “Instant Wordpress Themes” package you can get “Plug-in-Profit” niche themes for $1 each. You can browse the current selection at http://www.easywordpress.com/go/instant-am

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Okay, so you want to start your own blog. So where exactly do you start? Basically there are two options open to you:

1. You sign up with a free blogging service like WordPress.com.It’s free and it only takes a few minutes to sign up. Once that’s done you can blog away. The only problem with this is that you can’t have your own domain name – you can but it will cost you $15 a year – so your domain name will look something like this: http://mygreatsite.WordPress.com (unless you pay,then you can have any domain name you like). So if you’re happy with that then get over to WordPress.com and get blogging.

2. You have a domain name and a hosted account, which supports MySQL, and PHP and you want total control over your blog. In this case then,there is no question but to use WordPress, it is simply the best.

I highly recommend option 2. With this option YOU own your blog and have complete control. When you use a hosted service they own your blog and you are at their mercy.

What is WordPress?

“WordPress is a powerful personal publishing platform,and it comes with a great set of features designed to make your experience as a publisher on the Internet as easy, pleasant and appealing as possible.We are proud to offer you a freely distributed, standards-compliant, fast,light and free personal publishing platform, with sensible default settings and features,and an extremely customizable core.”

So what can WordPress do and why should you use it? Here are just a few reasons why you should use WordPress:

1. If you’re into programming, it’s licensed under the GPL so you can mess with the code and contribute to the development of WordPress.Also, it runs under the PHP and MySQL platform – both open source and popular so there’s no problem with stability and support.

2. You have complete control over WordPress as it is designed to be installed on a web server or shared hosting account. You can even install it on a desktop pc or intranet.

3. WordPress is easy to install and upgrade. It takes just 5minutes!

4. It’s easy for readers of your WordPress blog to keep track of any new posts as the RSS 1.0 (aka RDF), RSS 2.0 and ATOM specifications are fully supported.

5. The URLs for all the pages in your WordPress weblog can be made to conform to a standard with all the links being understandable to humans and search engines alike, which is essential for search engine optimization.

6. WordPress is PingBack and TrackBack ready, which is useful for connecting to other weblogs.

7. WordPress manages users by controlling their user-levels so you can control who can create and modify content.

8. Each WordPress user can create a personal profile and decide whether or not their profile is displayed.

9. WordPress uses templates to generate the pages dynamically.This means that you can control the presentation of content by editing the templates.

10. WordPress has its own template and file editor so that you can edit within your browser without having to download any files.

11. WordPress uses readily available themes, which you can use to style your blog. You’re welcome to edit these or create and share you own theme.

12. There are a great number of plugins (which extends the basic functionality of your blog) available to allow you to do just about anything you want with your WordPress blog. You can also create you own plugins.

13. WordPress gives you total control over your blog, right down to password protecting a post.

14. You can upload pictures or files and either link to them or have them display within your WordPress blog.

15. You can email your posts and have them appear in your WordPress blog.

16. WordPress allows you to keep in touch with your audience through the use of comments, trackbacks and pingbacks.

17. WordPress prevents spamming through allowing you to moderate any comments. WordPress can also notify you via email as soon as a comment appears.

18. WordPress allows you to manage links with ease via its Links manager.
In summary then, WordPress is easy to install and use with you in total control. WordPress themes enable you to quickly and easily change the look and style of your blog while WordPress plugins gives you the flexibility to do just about anything with your blog. Go getit at http://wordpress.org

About The Author

James DuPont works for Independent Digital creating dynamic websites and will be happy to help you with your WordPress blog. James can be contacted via the Independent Digital contact form. See http://www.idig.za.net

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