Recently I had the occasion to choose a WordPress theme for my new blog. I thought it would be fairly simple job but this turned out to be more difficult than I initially imagined. My new blog is about tourism and exploring old palaces and forts.

 Trying out some free WordPress Themes

My search began with some free WordPress themes. Within minutes I realized that I would not get anything perfect for my blog. The tourism themes were pretty lame though some photography themes seemed to have potential. Going through the themes was a nightmare of sorts. Though a few free themes had demo versions which I could try out, most were like ‘take it or leave it’ kind. This on your face attitude did not help because I had to install these themes myself and then evaluate them one by one. This can be really tedious. Having done with my experiments with free WordPress themes, I moved on to some paid ones.

Paid WordPress Themes

Ploughing through these paid themes was no easier. In addition I had to look at various payment options. There was more pain to follow. Some theme providers give a framework for a certain price and then you have to purchase a theme built on that framework. I am not a geek and it took me time to understand this whole idea of framework and themes. Finally, I concluded that, buying a WordPress theme can be a nightmare if you don’t know technology.

To my surprise, I couldn’t find a paid theme which fitted my requirement. Each one of them needed some changes to fit into my mental framework.

What is Theme Framework?

Do you know that people own more than one blog? In fact, many have multiple blogs. In such cases instead of searching for themes every time you launch a blog, you can buy a theme framework. Two well-known framework developers are StudioPress and DIY Themes.

Genesis Framework

StudioPress provides WordPress Framework popularly called Genesis. I personally like this framework because of several reasons. One of them is cost. Once you have purchased the framework you can pay a bit more to buy themes based on it. It works out quite cheap this way. Another reason why I prefer this framework is because it has a fantastic yet simple layout. I could grasp the essentials of this framework in a couple of days.

Thesis framework

Thesis is a wonderful framework adopted by many famous bloggers. It’s a nice framework around which some great themes have been developed. Thesis is aggressively marketed and you will find it being sold almost everywhere.

Tweaking a WordPress Theme

Whichever framework you choose, if you are a heavyweight blogger, there may be a need to tweak your blog. Since coding is involved with this activity, you may have to get a developer to do it for you.  Some time back I wanted to do some customization and got a freelance developer to tweak an available theme. I only wanted some small changes to some already existing theme. If I was going to pay someone to personalize a theme, why should I buy a theme? Why not go with a free theme and work on it?

Finding a Theme developer

This was another problem I faced. There are many developers who will customize a paid theme. But to find the right developer for a free theme is not so easy. The ones WordPress recommends ask for a hefty price which I could not afford.

If you want to shed some money, you can go with a framework and get someone to tweak it. When you go with Genesis or Thesis you also get a list of developers you can work with. Time required getting your blog up and running is reduced since developers are already acquainted with the framework.

Conclusion

Finding the right theme can be very difficult. There are thousands of free themes though none would fit your size perfectly. Imagine going around with baggy pants two sizes too large? It’s the same with a blog. You need a near perfect fit or you would be dragging your feet forever.

Whether free or paid, you must take a decision real fast. You can get bogged down with this stuff if you are not careful. If you want to go the paid way, it’s advisable to buy a framework rather than a standalone theme.  Remember that your blog will ultimately be about you and your writing. The details can be worked out later. Time to get off the block is critical. I have known guys who could never launch their blog because they got lost in the details. Just make sure that the theme just about fits your blog and get going.

Sarah Lamb is an online marketer who likes to share her views and experiences with fellow bloggers. Besides she also writes reviews about mobile catering vans for sale  and catering trailers for sale, among other products for a living.

Why Go for Paid Themes When You Have Fabulous Free Themes is a post from: Rojish dot Com

Any company that’s made it has branded itself. Some companies have branded themselves and their top products as well. Does your blog brand? What do you need to create, establish and popularize your blog’s brand till it becomes well-known in your niche?

Creating Your Blog’s Brand

1. Assign An Original Name For Your Blog

Think in terms of ProBlogger.net, MamaBlogga.org and CopyBlogger.com. Give your blog a unique name, short enough for people to recall it easily and unique enough to make an impact. The name should be on topic. This makes it easier for people to recall your blog’s brand and helps cement your brand to your blog as you grow.

2. Use Your Blog’s Name With The Domain Address

If you look at the top blog examples in the first point, they’ve all been established as proper brands with their domain name. Whenever you refer to your blog, don’t just use the prefix. Use both the prefix and the domain address. This way people won’t have to wonder if you’re a .com or.org or .net.

3. Define A Purpose For Your Blog

Define a clear purpose for your blog, a blog mission statement. It must be clear and non-ambiguous. What would you consider as a suitable mission statement for your blog? Can you encapsulate it in the form of a tagline that is easy to remember? You can use your mission statement in your signatures, in your post endings, in your About Us page and in your email newsletters – it becomes an extension of your blog’s brand. This helps in several ways – it not only establishes your position within your niche, but also narrows down your SEO keywords. Having a great mission statement / tagline sets you apart from other blogs in the same niche.

4. Create A Unique Blog Design

You aren’t being obnoxious by wanting to stand out from the crowd. You have the right to express your individuality – only when it comes to your blog, study a bunch of other top blogs in your niche first. Then find your own signature colors – define, and stick to specific color and fonts for your headlines, your tagline, and your content and so on. Use creatively designed sidebars and above the fold areas. Decide on the colors and fonts you’ll use for your graphics and for your infographics as well.

5. Be Consistent

One major aspect, though frequently underemphasized of blog branding is consistency. Be consistent in the look and feel of your blog – don’t keep twisting looks and changing your logo every other day.  It also helps to use the same colors and fonts to customize your email newsletters, your RSS feeds, your Tweets, your Facebook account and every other aspect of your brand personality. The basic idea here is that people should remember your blog’s design when they recall your content – soon your design becomes associated with your blog.

 6. Create A Logo For Your Brand

Design a logo that best represents your blog. Look up the logos that the top sites of this world use, right from Google, Twitter, and Facebook to the top blogs. Your logo need not be complex – some of the best remembered logos are actually just letters, such as McDonald’s. However, be sure to use bright, bold colors in your logo for quick impact and easy recall.

7. Add A Favicon To Your Address Bar

Add a small favicon to your blog’s URL. When people click your blog’s link, this little favicon will appear to the left of the address. Open Google, Facebook and any other branded site and you will see the favicon. Most of these sites use their logos as their favicons, which makes sense.

Establish And Publicize Your Blog’s Brand

8. Use Social Media

Promote your blog and brand on social media sites like StumbleUpon or Technorati. Make sure you use your mission statement tagline, your logo and your standard colors. Sign up for social media accounts using your blog name in full, including the domain address. Customize the colors on all these sites so that they match back to your blog colors.

9. Use Your Blog’s Name In Your Comments

When you comment on other blogs, enter your blog’s name in the Name field (including the domain address). If you want, you can add your name first and then your blog’s name in brackets following your name. Consider the additional search engine credit you get for using your blog’s name, especially if the blogger has removed the No Follow tag.

10. Publicize Via Email

You can email people about your blog to let them know about your brand. Be sure to design the email template using your brand colors. Include your logo along with your blog name right at the top for maximum visibility and recall. Be sure to customize your email newsletters to reflect your brand as well.

Dean is a freelance writer for conversion optimization company Invesp where he blogs about landing page optimization tips, website usability and campaign management.

10 Ways To Establish Your Blog’s Brand is a post from: Rojish dot Com

Have you even questioned if your performance as a blogger, even your income, is related to your diet and exercise? You bet it is.

You don’t hear this very often. Most bloggers will insist that the more your work, the more you earn. The fact is that in order to enjoy optimum earnings you have to balance working and working out!

It’s not impossible to get and stay fit as an active blogger. Follow these 5 tips for staying fit while you manage your busy blog.

1. Exercise at your desk

Sit on an exercise ball while you’re working at your desk. Your core muscles will be forced to engage just while you’re working at your computer. Your posture will also improve by sitting on a ball instead of a chair with a back that you can slouch into.

Take breaks to stretch while you blog. Whenever you hit a resting point in your work, take a few minutes to stretch out. Simply sitting at the front of your chair and bending over to reach your hands toward your toes to open your lower back or clasping your hands at your low back to open up your shoulders can make a big difference.

Strengthen and tone your glutes while you sit at your desk by squeezing and releasing your posterior muscles. You can still work or talk on the phone while you do this one—but you may want to avoid it in meetings as you may visibly move up and down.

2. Make mini workouts

If you have the space, keep a treadmill, elliptical or stationary bike in your room. Take three 10-minute breaks throughout the day for mini workouts. You can also find mini cycling machines that fit right under your desk so you can pedal while you work.

If you go out for lunch, walk there. Walk as fast as you can to get your heart rate up (and save time if you have a limited lunch hour). If you are on an empty street, do lunges for a minute or two on your way to and from lunch. These help strengthen and tone your legs.

If you don’t want to go out for lunch, consider trying nutritionally proven meal delivery services, such as Medifast and Nutrisystem. They provide portioned control meals that are rich in all the vital ingredients you need to boost your energy levels and maintain the right number of calories.

3. Walk more often

If you have in working place outside your home, walk or bike to work a couple times each week. Whenever the weather is nice, leave a little bit early so you can get some casual no-sweat exercise in before you get to work. If you tend to be rushing out the door in the morning, take the train or bus to work and walk all the way or part of the way home. You’ll feel refreshed, have time to shake off any office stresses, and save money from driving or taking public transit.

If you usually drive to work, park as far as you can from the door. You’ll force yourself to walk further than you usually do, and burn calories while you’re at it.

Take the stairs instead of the elevator. If you work in a high-rise, take the stairs part way, then jump in the elevator. Each week, try to go up a few more flights before hopping on the elevator. Before you try this, make sure the stair doors are unlocked at each floor.

4. Join forces

Get together with some other blogging (or non-blogging) friends to go for a walk, bike or jog. Join or create a sports team. In the US, many places already have walking teams established, but you can always create your own. If others are counting on you, you’ll be more likely to stick with your new fun form of exercise.

Jane loves to write about fitness for bloggers. She wants you to check out Medifast discount codes and Nutrisystem coupons 2012 if you’re a health-concerned blogger. You can find similar deals at weightlossdiets4women.com.

Blogging and Weight Loss – What Blogging Experts Have Never Told You is a post from: Rojish dot Com

A blogger has to think out of the box. You may wonder about the necessity of thinking out of the box and more specifically in blogging sphere. Well! There are many reasons to substantiate this need. Blogging in general evolves over a period of time and there will be a number of new entrants into the sphere at any particular point of time.

New technologies are part of the process and new marketing methods are new opportunities to promote your blog. All this brings-in new challenges in a blogger’s life. Hence, periodic overhauling is required by thinking out of the box.

How to think out of the box?

When you are fully immersed in your blogging job, it may be very difficult to know where you are lagging behind and it may be difficult to move forward or make changes from the current rigid process.

By thinking out of the box, you will take advice from others in the field so that you will get to know how to proceed further. This may include various aspects of your blog including choosing domain, web hosting, theme, mentoring etc.

It is also wise on your part to learn from professionals and entrepreneurs who are successful even in other niches. These studies will encourage you and inspire you to proceed further.

Thinking out of the box includes your ability to understand what your audience is thinking about your blogs and what they are expecting from you. When you are fully messed up with routine set of activities, it is time to think out of the box.  You can think out of the box as a blogger.

When everyone is captivated with ideas about promotion of blog through social media networking sites, you may consider the option of reaching new customers through iTunes. You should be able to think differently than everyone thinks. Your quiet times often turn out to be times to think out of the box. Sometimes, in these quiet minutes you will get very creative thoughts. Your brain works at its best when you are able to maintain a few quite minutes. Sometimes, these ideas will be life changing.

It is really a great challenge to go out of the box and think beyond. Sometimes, you will be flooded with new ideas and new opportunities when you visit a new place or interact with new people. To think out of the box you should have open mind. It should be without any reservations.

You should be ready to listen from a person who is less experienced or less educated or even from children. Your attitude also matters most in this direction. To think out of the box, you will try to learn from others. It is not imitation but it is betterment process to achieve success. Sometimes, unique opportunities will be created with change in technology. It is your turn to jump ahead and seize the opportunities to stand ahead of others by thinking out of the box. To think out of the box, you should have time for fun, recreation or entertainment.

When you are surrounded by your family members and friends and if you can spend quality time with them, you can eliminate unnecessary or unproductive habits from your lives. You can catch new techniques and new styles that further your growth.

A blogger needs to think out of the box in every sphere right from the launch of new niche blog-site. There are plenty of opportunities for a blogger to present and market content. There are various grounds to sow the seed. You can spread on YouTube or iTunes or mobile platform or various social media platforms or social bookmarking sites. Opportunities are wide open in every sphere right from the niche that you want to launch to the place (web platform) you select to the promotional medium you choose.

There are multiple options to choose your area of specialization, multiple options to present your content on the web and multiple options to reach your visitors. Open approach in all these aspects will not let you down to think within the four walls. Thinking out of the box is the need of the hour for a blogger to compensate many new challenges including the SOPA or PIPA. When you think out of the box, you will not be restricted to work below the potential or like a hideout seeking asylum in some corner of the world.

You will still be influential in your area of your expertise by launching new spades in new dimension and thus will be able to play an entirely new ball game in any kind of setup. Thinking out of the box will let you face any kind of challenge that comes on your way and in the end you will be happy and will be able to pull the engine when your fans ride in their coaches comfortably!

Are you ready to think out of the box?

Jane also writes about discount coupon deals as that of webhostingpad coupon and register.com promotion code. She wishes to tell you that you need to think out of the box even while choosing web hosting deals!

How to “Think Out of the Box” to Succeed with Blogging is a post from: Rojish dot Com

Join.me makes collaboration a breeze

The basic free app makes collaboration a breeze; setting up conference calls is incredibly quick, with no sign-up required. The presenter simply heads to the join.me site and hits the “Share” button to start their conference. The join.me application will download and run automatically. The presenter is then given a unique join.me URL that can be sent to everyone invited to participate in the conference. Even the URL is easy to remember and it makes perfect sense when you consider that this is a screen sharing / free conference call tool.

The most useful feature of Join.me is that you can let one participant at a time control your screen. To share control, click the mouse button and then select a viewer. You can still control your own screen.

To connect to someone’s screen, go to join.me and then Type their 9 digit number into the join box and Press Enter.  There is no download, it just opens up in your browser. When viewing someone else’s screen join.me is entirely reliant on only your web browser. It even supports browser zoom, so you can make it as big or small as you like within your window.

Connecting to others screen just need inputting a 9 digit code

Other features of Join.me

• Chat – You can send private messages to specific people or can send message to all participants. This is a really useful feature.
• Pause –  The presenter can pauses the screen in case he needs to do something on his computer the others don’t need to see
• File Exchange –  The presenter can share a file with the group

What I don’t like about Join.me

No Recording feature – One of the benefits of having an online meeting is the ability to record the session. Unfortunately, Join.Me doesn’t offer this feature yet. But other web conferencing services like GoToMeeting (it is a paid service) allow you to record the meeting right to your desktop.

Weak security – In the free version of Join.me anybody can join any meeting. All they need is the 9 digit code to join. But in the PRO version it has a “lock” feature. When locked the viewers have to knock to enter. You can decide who can join.

Despite these few disadvantages Join.me is a very useful tool and it will make your online collaboration a lot easier. If you haven’t tried this service yet, then you should.

Join.me – The Free Screen Sharing and Online Meetings Tool is a post from: Rojish dot Com

Social media networking is a great way to build links that grow your business. LinkedIn is a fast growing social network that can be used as an amazing tool to popularize your blog. It is a powerful social networking site that helps you to generate leads and traffic. Here is list of steps to use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your blog.

1. Profile

If you are serious enough to build links and relationship using LinkedIn, then your profile should be complete and search engine optimized one. No one is interested in weak profile. Make sure to make your profile a robust, search engine optimized profile. Then only, people who read your profile will click on to the links to your blog. Ensure to include your good photo.

It is important to complete your profile 100%. Another important reason for making your LinkedIn profile compelling and value driven is that if someone were to Google your name, the first thing that pop up is your LinkedIn profile. You can check your profile’s position by Goggle your name. Make sure your profile tots at least 5 glowing recommendations from others. Link your blog, twitter account and your business in your profile.

Your LinkedIn profile should not be like a chronological resume. It should expose your strengths and the most relevant information to help you reach your goals. It should be a authoritative source

2. Connections

 Connections play vital role in link building using LinkedIn. The more connection you have, the more people will have access to your profile which in turn boosts traffic to your blog. For building your network, first find people you know and send them a connection request via LinkedIn. Whatever you do on LinkedIn like updating profile, joining a group, recommending someone, these appear on the homepage of your connections.

3. Questions

 Asking questions using LinkedIn Answers is a great way to build credibility. Be active and ask questions and answer questions. Ensure to ask excellent questions. Answering questions is the best way to showcase your expertise in your niche. This helps you to get featured expert. When you are a featured expert, people become more aware of your profile.

4. Customization of links

Instead of using website links like My Blog, My Company customize your website link with your name and your company name. So, replace ‘My Bog’ with your blog name and ‘ my company’ with your company name. This will helps the people to know what your blog is about and tell them what they will actually view when they click on the link.

5. Updating status regularly

If you want LinkedIn to work for you, you have to work LinkedIn. Yes, constant updating your status is vital. You should provide value information to your connections. Share worthy, industry related article, news, blog post etc. Your status update is the first thing that pops up the home profile for all of your connections. Sharing updates regularly helps to pull traffic to your blog.

6. Comment on Updates

LinkedIn is a connecting social media platform. So, respond to updates from others showing you are noticing them. Everyone loves to be noticed.

7. Groups

Building credibility is one of the main goals of social networking. Credibility is not reflected by the number of connections you have alone. It lies in your participation on the social network. Groups help to build your credibility. Join groups related to your niche.

By joining groups where your target audience will be found is a great way to drive these people to your blog easily. You can even build your own group. Ensure to take full advantage of group membership. Every time you create a new discussion topic in a group, it shows up on the home page of every member of the group. Groups give you opportunity to meet new people who share your interests. . You can also invite discussion participants to connect with you.

8. LinkedIn Apps

Employing LinkedIn apps helps to better explain what you do. You can use PowerPoint presentation, slideshow, wordpress app. Adding the blog application to your profile is a way to give your profile a sneak of what they will read on your blog. You can add apps by going to the ‘Application’ page.

9. Adding RSS Feed to group

Each group allows you to add your own RSS feed or website link so it will automatically update the group every time you post a new article on your blog. This helps to boost traffic to your blog.

10. Personalized Messages

The best way to make a sale is sending personalized messages. Once, you find the lead, ensure to connect with them as many personal level as possible. Personal messages help to draw potential.

Following these tips, you can easily drive traffic to your blog.

Rajkumar Jonnala is an expert blogger and shows great deal of interest in building up blogs with good PR in a shorter time frame. He has a vast experience blogging writes about cable floor cover and cable cover. He loves to share tips and information in his blogs.

10 Surefire Ways to Boost Traffic from LinkedIn is a post from: Rojish dot Com

The possibility of a writer’s block is absolutely certain for every writer and the experience or quality of the writer or blogger does not have much effect on the inevitability of this situation.

In short, every writer or blogger faces a dearth of creative ideas at certain points during their career. However, technology and the simple cultivation of methodical awareness, of your niche; can help you overcome your creative block.

You can use these simple tips to enhance your blogging sense for creative ideas. This will directly affect your mental block towards regular flow of interesting blog topics for you to pursue.

Adding sub niches

The most common reason for a dry spell of ideas might be that the niche might have been almost fully explored. It might also be that you need to let some time go before the niche is replenished with more interesting news or ewer topics.

Until then, adding sub niche topics to your regular blog posts frequency can help you alleviate the pressure on the main niche. Try to find relevant and related areas, which can help you explore additional territories of your expertise. Branching out in a completely new niche needs more focus.

However, if you decide to pursue that line of action, you should make sure to update on your main niche at a slow but regular frequency.

Allow Guest posting on your blog

This is an excellent opportunity to get your fellow bloggers to share their slant on the niche. You can invite interesting guest posts from bloggers, where you pre approve topic choices and they elaborate in their own style.

You can also allow them to submit their own creative posts on the niche and in turn gain some fresh perspective that might encourage you to explore that slant yourself. Obviously, this is also a great way to encourage link building and potential professional networking.

Try a new style

There are varieties of different styles of blog posts and sometimes reevaluating a topic in two different styles might lead to the development of two different posts entirely.

Try to conduct a video post, an interview of a potential expert or even a direct review of some pre-posted topics. You will find the new post is refreshingly interesting and encourages new ideas too.

Use old topic ideas to cultivate new ones

The niche develops at its own pace but some tips and topics remain evergreen. Reinvention of older posts might be viable in these scenarios and the new posts can be made more interesting by adding on the recent developments related to the topic.

Personal style posts or opinion

Your blog is an interactive platform. It is true that the basic nature of your blog should remain true to its tone, if you started out in a corporate or formal professional tone. However, this is also the very reason why a new twist of style in some posts might bring out the intensity of the topic in contrast.

Try a personal opinion or share your success or failure review concerning your niche. It makes for a very creative post and encourages interactions with the subscribers too.

All these tips can be used individually or together. Sometimes the effect of the posts can help you find newer avenues of creativity and start new projects. It is always prudent to keep experimenting with ideas to keep from stagnating and stumbling on a block.

Jane shares useful content marketing tips at her blog Problogging Success. She invites you to check out the Blogging Tips 101 Contest she’s conducting at her blog, which involves hard cash and product prizes.

How To Deal With The Sluggish Blogging Sense is a post from: Rojish dot Com

Blogging contests are fun for everybody involved, be it the blogger, the participants, the judges, or the sponsors alike, but fun is not all what you’ll get by being part of a blogging competition. If you are the blog owner, you will get the buzz, free promotion and shares on social media, new readers, new writers, and lots of new content coming your way. If you are a participant, you will get instant recognition, quality feedback from the audience and judges, and of course, there’s a chance that you will go home with one of those prizes. If you are the sponsor, you will manage to get quite some promotion, back links, and plenty of credibility (even sales if you can get to the sponsor’s list on a blog contest taking place on a relevant niche). As you can see, there are a lot of goodies for everybody involved and a well run and well executed blog contest can give your blog the impetus needed for getting out from the crowd and making its own mark.

Now that you’re convinced about the benefits, here’s a kind of a bad news, having a successful blog contest is not going to be a walk in the park. You can’t just announce a contest and expect the sponsors or participants to come your way. Following are some challenges and requisites that you will have to meet in able to launch and administer a successful contest at your blog.

Setting up your blog:

You can’t really launch a blog contest before having reasonable standing and following in blogosphere. Spend some time getting in touch with other bloggers by regularly commenting on their articles, use social media extensively, make friends with your readers and post lots of quality content on your blog to build the platform for a well-received contest. You must be blogging for at least 6 months to a year before you can plan a contest (unless of course you’re ready to spend hefty amounts on promotions).

Getting in touch with the sponsors:

Established blogs wouldn’t find it hard to grab interested sponsors, especially if they have run some successful contests in past as well. However, if you’re doing it for the first time, you might find it hard to convince the sponsors. You can do so by showing them the stats like unique visitors, blog followers, number of posts, comments, and the likes. For sponsors, try to target small businesses who are selling something that will be of interest to your blog audience, such businesses will be more than happy to be a part of the contest as a sponsor.

Planning the contest:

Ideally, you should be having the plan in hand even before you get in touch with the sponsors, but at times it can be hard to devise a strategy, rewards, terms and conditions before you’re aware of the available resources at hand. So you can get in touch with the sponsors with a rough plan and lay down the proper one after you’ve got some sponsors to back it. Try to be a little more innovative since there are so many contests that simply copy and paste the terms and conditions from each other.

Making extensive use of social media:

No blogging contest will ever succeed unless you’re making the most of social media. Encourage the readers and make it easy for them to share the news with their friends, write short requests to other bloggers or well connected persons in the industry and request them to share the news with their contacts … rest assured many will oblige. The idea is to create the buzz; the more you succeed the more beneficial it is going to be for all the stake holders.

Farah is a blogger, and she writes content for a coupon website featuring discount codes and special offers for websites like 1and1 or Network Solutions. You can save hefty amounts by using some of these coupons like 1&1 Coupon and network solutions special code .

Blog Contests – The Benefits and the Challenges You’ll Have to Face is a post from: Rojish dot Com

Google Chrome is one of the best browsers now and what makes it better than others is a huge collection of nice browser extensions which enhances the user experience. Apart from speed, chrome is praised for its simplicity, security and great extensions. They’ll increase productivity, security, and make the overall experience of using this already-great browser even better. Being a blogger myself I know how much it is difficult to manage multiple blogs, works with clients, and to stay productive. But fortunately there are some great chrome extensions which help me in this. Here is my list of 10 awesome chrome extensions for bloggers and entrepreneurs.

1. Evernote

I would like to call Evernote as an extension of my brain. Evernote helps you to remember anything and everything that happens in your life. From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, put it all into Evernote and watch as it instantly synchronizes from your iPhone to your Mac or Windows desktop. Users can take notes, clip webpages, snap photos using their mobile phones, create to-dos, and record audio. Additionally, the Evernote web service performs image recognition on all incoming notes, making printed or handwritten text found within images searchable. Another useful extension from the Evernote team is Evernote web clipper which lets you save interesting stuff you see on the web. See something you like, clip it and it will be added to your Evernote account.

 2. Awesome Screenshot

Awesome Screenshot is a really awesome extension for Google Chrome which allows you to take an image of the website you are viewing and save it to your computer or share it online. Once you click on Awesome Screenshot icon next to your address bar, it will give you option to either take screenshot of the entire page, selected area or the visible part of the page. The screenshots once captured, can be edited by adding text, shapes like rectangle, square, circle and add lines, arrows and can be cropped. There is a blur option for erasing any private information on the web page.

 3. Stay Focused

Stay Focused is an extension designed to block those time-wasting sites that can suck the life out of your working day. For bloggers who lack the self-discipline (like myself) not to check the weather, score, stocks, or social networking sites when they should be focusing, it can be a real help. The idea of the extension is that you can block groups of sites for specified periods of time – either an amount of time per hour/ day/ week (eg you can access the sites for 15 minutes an hour) or between certain times of the day. Just type in the website URLs you find hard to resist, and enter the maximum length of time you want to spend on them.

 4. WebRank SEO

WebRank SEO is one of the best Google Chrome SEO extensions. WebRank SEO gives you website ranks (Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Compete Rank and Quantcast Rank), traffic graphs, social statistics, pages indexed and backlinks in various search engines (Google and Bing). You can analyze your competitors just by one click. A must have tool for your SEO endeavours.

 5. TweetDeck

TweetDeck makes it easier for bloggers, marketers and power users to track the real-time conversations they care about. It brings more flexibility and insight to users through a customizable layout that lets you keep up with the people and topics that matter most to you. And, you can join the conversation by tweeting, sharing photos and links to news stories, and more.

 6. Feedly

Feedly is a fast and stylish way to read and share the content of your favorite blogs. Feedly integrates with Google Reader, Google+, Twitter and Facebook. It had a number of different “views” you could use to browse your feeds. Feedly syncs in real time with Google Reader, so changes made in Feedly should reflect in Google Reader as well. If you haven’t tried Feedly before, this would be a good time to check it out.

 7. Google Dictionary

English is not the mother tongue for many bloggers (atleast not in my case), so a dictionary is a must have for many of them. The wonderful Google Dictionary extension makes it easy to view definitions easily as you browse the web. Just Double-click any word to view its definition in a small pop-up bubble. Another notable feature is that foreign words are automatically translated to your language of choice.

 8. LastPass

LastPass is a password manager that makes web browsing easier and more secure. LastPass captures passwords that other managers won’t including many AJAX forms, and allows you to make strong passwords easily. You can import from most major password storage vendors (such as RoboForm, 1Password, KeePass, Password Safe, MyPasswordSafe, Sxipper, TurboPasswords, Passpack, Firefox and Internet Explorer’s built-in password manager) and export too.

 9. SlideRocket

SlideRocket is one of the best online presentation software available today. It lets users create, manage, share and measure presentations. SlideRocket not only allows you to create stunning presentations but also to manage them intelligently, share them securely and then measures the results. This Web-based presentation tool is a great online alternative to PowerPoint and Keynote. The application, built on Adobe’s Flex platform, features many professional-grade design tools and includes libraries that centralize slides and share presentations and objects within a company.

 10. Offline Gmail

Gmail Offline beta is a Gmail app built to support offline access, allowing mail to be read, responded to, searched and archived without network access. This app makes it simple to take your emails on the go, even if you don’t have an internet connection. Emails appear instantly when they’re received, and past emails are synced to your computer locally blazingly fast. The app even downloads attachments so you can access them when you don’t have internet access.

 Did I miss any good Chrome Extensions? Let me know in the comments.

10 Great Google Chrome Extensions for Bloggers is a post from: Rojish dot Com

How effective are your search engine optimization practices?

Getting your content across to multiple search engines doesn’t come easy, but it’s doable. If you follow a well structured system, you’re going to see huge success on your way to the top. As they say, there’s always room at the top.

I’ve been optimizing web pages since 2006 and often times, beginners ask me what’s the most important factor to effective ranking. Well, there is no straight forward answer to that question because ranking has several arms.

But let me simplify the entire process. So called SEO experts have made ranking processes a lot difficult with their big grammar and terms. I’m not an expert yet, but I’ve achieved tremendous success with my niche blogs.

Is SEO Complicated?

Absolutely not! You just need to understand how it works. The sole purpose of Google and other search engine companies is to provide the right information to her web users. People who search for certain keywords on Google are her prospects. Sooner or later, they would be converted to customers when they click an ad that appears at the right in the organic search results (OSRs).

In the first place, Google doesn’t care about your blog. They want more money and you want more traffic. Do you think they would do you a favor by displaying your web page to their user when the right information is missing? I don’t think so!

You’ve got to please Google for them to please you. It’s like a 2-edged sword that penetrates both parties (you and Google).

How to Please Google Search Engine

By now, you should have figured it right. The best way to please search engine is to write in their favor. Do what they ask you to do and they would send you bunch of buyer traffic every day. Don’t sit on the fence and hope that your blog would make it to the top one day; instead focus on what Google wants the most (quality keyword rich content).

Here’s the Truth: If search engine users (you and I) are not satisfied with what Google presents as search results, we would all migrate to other search engines like Bing, Yahoo or MSN. If that happens, Google will no longer be the giant of online search machines; they could go bankrupt in few years and lay off their high paid staffs.

What do you think is the reason for the frequent Google panda updates? It’s a simple way to reshuffle web results, eliminate the bad eggs and deliver the right information to us when we search.

When we are satisfied, AdWords advertisers would get more clicks, increase in sales and Google would make more money from their Advertising business. Do you see how the whole chain works?

Why Keywords Are Still Important

Thousands of changes have taken place around the world, and search engine algorithm isn’t stable. But one thing will forever be certain; keywords would still contribute to Google’s ranking criteria.

Why is this so? It’s because, keywords give search spiders direction on what to do, where to go and what links to follow. Anchor text links are becoming stronger by the day even when quality content is the #1 key to improved ranking.

The Right Key Terms Matters

But the way I research my keywords is quite unique. There are two kinds of key terms: informational and commercial. The former is for those looking for information on how to do a particular thing while the latter is for online shoppers.

A combination of these two kinds of keywords would give you an upper hand in search engine optimization. The common rule of thumb still holds: don’t stuff your content with key phrases. Write naturally and interestingly. Add these terms few times within the body and especially on the title – you know all these, but why are you neglecting it?

SEO Marketing Takeaway

Search engine optimization principles apply to every niche you are in. you can use it to situate product name terms and rank well for them. A good example is for household brand products like sittercity coupon codes and 6pm discounts. The above strategies can boost your top 10 performance and sales.

The only litmus test left is action. Will you step out and make it happen? The choice is yours – be wise!

Michael Chibuzor is an SEO consultant and coach. He also reviews viable coupon and discount deals. His current project involves a coupon blog that features sittercity promo code and 6pm coupons free shipping and other popular brands to online shoppers. These sittercity coupon and 6pm discounts can help you save for your Entertainment and Health Shopping

How to Approach Search Engine Optimization for Effective Ranking is a post from: Rojish dot Com