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Show Google Adsense inside blogger post

2008-09-19T18:31:00.000-07:00

By using the CSS method you can make Google Adsense ads appear on either the left side of your post content or right side of your post content as you can see in this screenshot:

Here is how to do with CSS.

The CSS code

Open your blog's template in the template editor and add the following code. Simply paste the code into the stylesheet, before the
]]> tag in your template.


.adv
{
float:left;
padding-right:10px;
padding-right:10px;
}

The above code aligns your ads to the left. If you want to align your ads to the right simple use float:right in the third line.

Changes in the Adsense code

Now grab the Adsense code of your favorite format and before pasting it in your template just make a small change in the code. Wrap the code in the tags

and

Wrap the code in the tags <div class='adv'> and </div>

For example,

Your adsense code

</div>

That's it, your adsense ads will now appear besides your posts.

Google Page Rank

2008-08-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

While it is argued that Google PageRank (PR) is no longer as important as it once was, it still plays an important part of Google's algorithm that determines where in the search engine results a certain page is displayed for a given query.

A high PR page will usually rank higher in Google's search results, and better results means more organic traffic to your website.

You can increase your PageRank by increasing the number of links to your website. Quality links from quality websites with high PR and the same theme as yours influence PageRank the most.

Check Page Rank of a website:

Then, click on a Google Page Rank button to get code for putting in your web.

Tips to Drive Traffic to your Blog

2008-08-15T15:31:00.000-07:00

Traffic is everything! How to increase traffic to your Blog? Here is some tips for you

1. Optimize Your Website

It is a matter of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Maybe you have never heard of it. Even though you heard about it already, not everyone is familiar with it. In fact, Search engines will look at both the internal and external profile of your website while assigning a rank to a web page.
Internal profile of a website (which is so-called On-Page Optimization) includes usage of meta tags, heading tags, keywords, targeted content, and internal linking of website. External profile of your website defines the websites that are linking to your website. It also defines the pages where your link is placed. Besides, it identifies the Page Ranking of those pages along with the placement of your link. And it also includes the number of inward links you are getting. Using the relevant keywords in anchor text gives a boost to rankings on the search engine result pages (SERPs). For more information on On-page optimization, please refer to our relevant posts in Da Adsense Code.

2. Linking Your website

After talking about the on-page optimization, here comes to off-page optimization. More often, webmasters only focus on on-page optimization, and neglect the presence of off-page optimization. In the world of internet, there are two kinds of links - External Links and Internal Links. External Links define the websites that are linking to your websiteInternal whereas Links refer to the internal linking of web pages. Getting links from other websites is the most powerful tool to drive traffic to your website. The results are instantaneous and highly effective. Getting links from quality websites with higher PR and proper anchor text definitely helps your site a lot and results in more fruitful traffic from search engines. Half the battle is won if you are able to provide the links in abundance. There are many tools available for automatically building links to your website. There are some link exchange directories on the net which are a good support in link building campaigns. However, the use of these support systems depend entirely on your beliefs and strategies. Proper inter-linking (that is intra-linking) of your web pages is also relevant and significant in driving traffic.

3. Post Articles

It is important that you publish and post more and more articles on the net or article websites. This gives you an advantage as it gets incoming links to your website. Posting unique articles catering to the interest of a large number of readers is also an effective way of driving organic traffic to your website. Well written articles bring more traffic to your website. More traffic means more profit for you. It is observed that as the PR of your website increases, the AdSense payouts also increase. You can hope to get many more internal links to your website through this medium. Search engines take into account the number of quality back links while assigning rank to your website. If visitors reading your articles are interested, they will check out your website and you will have increased number of links. In comparison to the links that point to other websites from your website, the links that point to your website give more points to your rankings.

4. Anchor Text

Anchor Text refers to the clickable text of a hyperlink. Anchor Text plays an important role with regard to the target traffic as well as the search engine rankings. An appropriate Anchor Text apprises the visitors of the content of the page it links to.
Besides, Anchor Text gives a real clue to the search engines regarding the content of the web page it links to. The right Anchor Text improves your website’s search engine ranking. That’s why it’s imperative to pick the Anchor Text astutely.
Google reckons Anchor Text to be an indicator of the page relevance. Google, using its special operator “allinanchor:keyword”, separately indexes the Anchor Text. Given below are some tips for choosing the right Anchor Text that suits the search engine algorithms, and attracts the right traffic.

5. Tools

To a lesser extent, website tools makes your blog user friendly. It is recommended that you make use of the tools that are visitor friendly. New scripts and innovative schemes for the visitor help you get more inward links. This in turn builds traffic to your website. You should add the tools that are attractive. For example, you can offer free e-books, or introduce new exciting sections relevant to your website. This will make your website exciting for the visitors. Google loves unique content. It richly rewards the websites that provide more content and better facilities to the visitors. Google likes genuine of traffic coming to your website from Ad Sense network. Genuine traffic yields higher payouts. Website tools makes your website a genuine one. The credibility of your website increases the probability of your website getting high paying ads via Google.

6. Target Niche Keywords

It is important for you to identify the niche markets. This will enable you to fetch the traffic that has not been targeted much, and at the same time gels well with your industry. If your competitor is leading with X traffic on one keyword, you can compete with him by targeting ten niche keywords. This will give you the same amount of traffic. Keyword country provides you with hordes of niche keywords. These niche keywords bring more target traffic to your web pages. This results in a better ROI (if you are selling products or affiliates) or an increased Adsense CTR (Click Thru Ratio) of your ads.
(to be continued soon...)

Google Adsense Vs Bidvertiser

2008-08-15T06:28:00.000-07:00

This slide is from YouTube. Just give you another idea on two ways of Make Money with your Blog: Google Adsense and Bidvertiser. The final choice is up to you, of course ^_^.
Enjoy make money blogging!

Maximize your Google Adsense

2008-08-13T23:21:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about how to maximize your Adsense revenue based on your existing traffic.
Let say that again - with the same amount of traffic, how can you increase your Adsense income?

1- Use the "Large Rectangle" format

This format is the most effective among all other Adsense ad formats.
In fact, this is tested it and found that it can get up to 4 times more clicks on the large rectabgle ads than any other format.

2- Make it Blend In with Your Site

Google allows you to customize you ads to make it match any website design.
Take advantage of this, and make your ads look like they are part of your content, links or navigation bar.

3- Make it Stand Out

In contrast to number 2, this strategy makes your ads stand out from the rest of your blog content, with hopes that people will notice them and click on your ads.
Instead on "blending it in", you make it "scream out for more attention"
However, this works only on certain blogs, but you can most certainly test them out to see if it works on yours!

4- Overcome "Ad Blindness"

The amazing thing with the human brain is that it can train itself to ignore information, especially advertising information!
This is called "ad blindness" and it happens when the same person has visited your site so often that he doesn't even actually notice the ads anymore.
When this happens, you may mant to use tactic 3 or shift the position of ads on your blog to "disrupt" their mental filter and regain the lost potential clicks.

5- Target Your Keywords Properly

Make sure your posts are on topic, and put the keywords in the title of your blog post as well as in the content. When you do this, you'll find more relevant ads displayed on your site, resulting in more people clicking on them.
Poolry written, off-topic posts make poor Adsense ads.

I hope you enjoyed those little tips, but remember it's the little changes that make all the difference.

Track Adsense Income, Statistics and Clicks

2008-08-13T06:46:00.000-07:00

With some tips and tools, you can track or test your Google Adsense in many ways and much more easier:

Adsense Notifier - Firefox extension that displays your Adsense earnings on the Firefox statusbar.
SysSense - personal desktop Google AdSense monitor. It keeps your current Google AdSense information in the Windows system tray.
Adsense Widget - a Mac Dashboard widget that automatically logs into your AdSense Google account and displays the last 6-days of revenue generated from your Google advertising account.
Google Adsense Yahoo Widget - displays the current income directly from your Google AdSense account.
Stats for AdSense widget - allows you to view your Google AdSense™ reports directly from your Mac OS X Dashboard.
Adsense Status - GoogleDesktop plugin to View earnings information from your Google Adsense account in the Google Desktop sidebar. Available information: page impressions, clicks, page CTR, page eCPM, and your earnings.
Adsense Alert - desktop client monitors your adsense earnings.
Performancing Metrics - a free professional grade blog statistics service that track limited adsense click data
Adsense earnings RSS feed - a simple script that will create an RSS feed with your daily Adsense earnings to track via your regular feed reader.
Google AdSense Charts and Graphs - chart your adsense data in a multidimensional line charts.
AdSenseLog is a tool for checking and analyzing your Adsense ads data (Content, Search, Custom/URL channels and Referrals).

Google Adsense and Affiliate Marketing

2008-08-11T00:24:00.000-07:00

If you are now blogging, you may want to know what kind of methods can bring you the most revenue? Affiliate Marketing or Google Adsense?

Google Adsense

It is the most common and well-known money-making model nowadays, and is very suitable for those who does not want to deal with other people. With Adsense sites, you can have a virtual passive-income that requires little maintaining.

Below are the pros of Google Adsense:

- They are perfect for people who run information sites that have no related affiliate product
- You can set it and leave it. With Google Adsense, you can create a content page, and there is little need to update the content.
- Adsense sites are easy to scale. Since they require little upkeep, you can easily create multiple websites that each make a nice income.

Below are the cons of Google Adsense:

- They are not a great long term solution. Instead of getting your visitors to subscribe to a mailing list, you are focusing on getting people to click on ads. Real online businesses concentrate on building assets that can use for long-term growth.
- These sites are dependent on search engines. Most Google Adsense sites make the mistake of depending on search engines for the majority of their traffic. If the SE algorithms change then your income might drop significantly.

Affiliate Marketing

Being an affiliate marketer is great for those who want build a theme site. With this type of business, you can easily create web pages around a topic and get people to buy products through your products. If done correctly, you can easily build a loyal following that will help you make money for years to come. But can affiliate marketing make you more money then Google Adsense?

Below are the pros of affiliate marketing:

- A great advantage of affiliate-marketing is that you can build a long term business that will bring in a revenue stream for years.
- With affiliate-marketers you need to focus on building an email list. This list is a major asset of your business. Every time you have an offer, you can go to your list and increase your profits.
- Unlike Google Adsense sites, which only concentrates on high paying keywords, an affiliate marketing site can be centered on a topic that you have an interest in.

Below are the cons of affiliate marketing:

- You have to learn how to write persuasively and get people to purchase the product that you are recommending. For many people this is a difficult skill to learn.
- Each affiliate marketing site requires a lot of effort. You must spend a lot of time writing product reviews, building your email list and creating web content.
So which is better: Affiliate marketing or Google Adsense? The answer is that both are great solutions for an online business. Instead of choosing one over the other, you should create websites that can take advantage of both.

Here is some tips and tricks how you can do this:

1. Create a content site on a topic that you are interest in, while paying a good amount per Adsense click.

2. Integrate your Adsense into the menu bars and the top of your web content.

3. Add web pages for affiliate-products and your opt-in email list. But, make sure that you leave out the Adsense blocks on these pages. This way you are ensuring that you are building your long-term assets.

4. Create optimized web page articles that focus on a specific keyword phrase. Place your Google Adsense in these blocks.

5. Provide your email list with good content and product recommendations. Once in awhile, email your list and provide a link to some of your web articles. That way, you can earn a little bit of money from your subscribers while giving them good content.

By focusing on both Affiliate products and Google Adsense, you will be able to have a successful internet business and generate hundreds of bucks every month. Good luck.

18 Common Mistakes Violate Google Adsense TOS

2008-08-10T06:07:00.000-07:00

1. Never click your own adsense ads or get them clicked for whatever reason.

2. Never change the Adsense code.

3. Do not place more than 3 ad unit and 1 ad links or 2 adsense search boxes on any web page.

4. Do not run competitive contextual text ad or search services on the same site which offer Google Adsense competition in their field.

5. Do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual ad units or any other confidential information they may reveal to you.

6. Label headings as “sponsored links"? or “advertisements"? only.

7. Never launch a New Page for clicked ads by default.

8. One Account suffices for Multiple websites.
Place ads only on Content Pages.

9. Do not mask ad elements.

10. Do not send your ads by email.

12. Keep track of your content.

13. Do not alter the results after ad clicks or searches.

14. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing.

15. Ensure you language is supported.

16. Maximum 2 referral button per product per page.

17. Do not specify Google ads as your alternate ads.

18. Do not confuse with adjacent images.

30 SEO Tips to Boost your Blog Traffic

2008-08-10T03:04:00.000-07:00

1. Make sure your site is not under construction, incomplete, with little or no unique content.

2. When your site is ready, submit it to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com. Consider also submitting to other search engine but most of them are powered by these four leading search engines. Submit also your site to reputable high PR web directories, open directories, yellow pages and social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, furl, etc.

3. Submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com (sitemap for search engines usually in XML format)

4. Offer sitemap to your site visitors for easy page navigation. (sitemap for visitors in HTML format)

5. Create unique and rich content sites. Avoid duplicate content. Do not create multiple pages, sub-domains, domains, mirror sites or sites with different domain names but same content.

6. Check your keywords and make sure they are relevant and actually are contained in your site. Avoid keywords stuffing.

7. Use text instead of images in your content, links and important subjects.

8. Make your TITLE and ALT tags descriptive, simple and keyword rich. Avoid irrelevant and repeated keywords.

9. Title tag should be 60-80 characters maximum length.

10. Meta tag description should be 160-180 characters including spaces. (about 25-30 words)

11. Meta Tag keywords must be 15-20 words maximum.

12. Optimize Pages with Headings (H1, H2, H3..) containing your site’s primary keywords.

13. Validate your CSS and HTML. Check for errors and broken links.

14. If your site contains dynamic pages(i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), make sure you use SEO friendly URLs. Search engines’ spiders having difficulty indexing dynamic pages.

15. Maximum links per page must be fewer than 100. Avoid the risk of being flagged as link farm by search engines.

16. Allow search bots (good ones) to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site.

17. Check your web server/host if it supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. It tells search engines whether your content has changed since last crawled your site. It will save you bandwidth, resources and avoid server overload.

18. Do not attempt to present different content to search engines than what you show to your site visitors.

19. Avoid dirty tricks and exploiting loop holes to improve search engines ranking.

20. Avoid links to bad neighborhood such as web spammers, link farms, phishing, hacker, crack, gambling, porn and scam sites. Linking to them will greatly affects your search engine rankings.

21. Do not attempt to join in link schemes, excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging and link exchange web rings.

22. Do not use unauthorized programs or online tools to submit your site, check page rankings and other automated queries. Avoid the risk of being flagged as spam.

23. Do not use hidden text and links. Show to search engines what you show to your vistors. It will greatly affect your site’s reputation.

24. Do not attempt to create pages that contains phishing, scam, viruses, trojans, backdoors, spyware, adware and other malicious programs.

25. Make your site useful and informative.

26. Improve your link building. Link to high PR websites. Quality of relevant links are far more important than quantity. Links will greatly improve your site’s visibility, popularity and rankings. Search engines consider links as votes to your site.

27. Check your page link structure. Every page should be reachable by a single static text link.

28. Be extra careful in purchasing SEO services. Some uses illegal and questionable ways to improve rankings.

29. Do not buy or sell links.

30. Do not create sites that contains purely affiliate links and no valuable content that are useful to the users.

9 Golden Google Adsense Tips to Make Money

2008-08-10T02:33:00.000-07:00

1. Follow Google AdSense Terms and Conditions. This is their game. Play by their rule. If in doubt, ask.
2. High traffic is important. Search Engine Optimization helps achieve this.
3. Content is king. Update your website regularly. Create fresh contents everyday.
4. Give reasons for your visitor to come to your site. Provide values.
5. Some subtle changes on your site can double or triple your earning.
6. Never stop experimenting.
7. AdSense is not the only game in town. Try other networks. You may find that others are better suited for your website.
8. Never stop learning.
9. Don’t give up.

Build A High Traffic Blog Part 2

2008-08-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

(Continued from Build A High Traffic Blog Part 1)

6. Let your audience see the real you

My life and my writing are intricately intertwined, such that it’s impossible to separate the two. When someone reads this web site, they’ll eventually come to know a great deal about me as a person. Usually this creates a skewed and inaccurate impression of who I am today because I change a lot over time — I’m not the same person I was last year — but it’s close enough. Getting to know me makes it easier for people to understand the context of what I write, which means that more value can be transferred in less time.

I’ve told many personal stories on this site, including my most painful and difficult experiences. I don’t do this to be gratuitous but rather because those stories help make a point — that no matter where you find yourself today, you always have the opportunity to grow in some small way, and no matter how small those changes are, they’re going to add up over time to create massive lifelong growth. That’s a lesson we all need to remember.

When I find ways to turn some of my darkest experiences into lessons that might help others in similar situations, it actually transforms those painful memories into joyful ones. They take on new meaning for me, and I can see that there was a positive reason I had to endure such experiences, one that ultimately serves the highest good of all. Oddly, I now find that it was my darkest times that help create the most light for others.

With respect to privacy, I don’t really care much for it. I do respect other people’s right to privacy, so when people tell me personal stories via email, I don’t turn around and re-post them to my blog. But I’m OK with being rather un-private myself. The need for privacy comes from the desire to protect the ego, which is a fear-driven desire, and fear is something I just don’t need in my life. My attitude is that it’s perfectly OK to fail or to be rejected publicly. Trying to appear perfect is nothing but a house of cards that will eventually collapse.

I think allowing people to know the real me makes it possible to build a relationship with my audience that’s based on intimacy and friendship. I dislike seeing people putting me on too much of a pedestal and using labels like “guru” or “overachiever.” Such labels create distance which makes communication harder. They emphasize our differences instead of our similarities. Communication between equals — between friends — is more effective.

More genuine communication means better connections with your audience, which means more repeat traffic and more referral traffic. This isn’t a manipulative game though, and excessive or overly dramatic self-disclosure for the purpose of linkbaiting will only backfire. Your reasons for storytelling must be to benefit your audience. The traffic benefits are a positive side effect.

7. Write what is true for you, and learn to live with the consequences

If the stuff I’ve written on this site means I’ll never be able to run for a political office, I can live with that. I’m willing to write what is true for me, even if it goes against my social conditioning. Being honest is more important to me than being popular. But the irony is that because bold honesty is so rare among civilized humans, in the long run this may be the best traffic-building strategy of all.

People often warn me not to write things that might alienate a portion of my visitors. But somehow I keep doing the opposite and seeing traffic go up, not down. I don’t treat any subjects as taboo or sacred if they’re relevant to personal growth, and that includes diet and religion. It’s no secret that I’m a vegan ex-Catholic. Do I alienate people when I say that torturing and killing defenseless animals for food is wrong? Perhaps. But truth is truth. I happen to think it’s a bad idea to feed cows cement dust and bovine growth hormone, to pack live chickens into warehouses where the ammonia from their feces is strong enough to burn their skin off, and to feed 70% of our grain to livestock while tens of thousands of people die of hunger each day. I also think it’s a bad idea to pay people to perform these actions on my behalf. It really doesn’t matter to me that 999 people out of 1000 disagree with me. Your disagreement with me doesn’t change what went into producing your burger. It’s still a diseased, tortured, chemical-injected cow, one that was doomed to a very sad life because of a decision you made. And you’re still responsible for your role in that cow’s suffering whether you like it or not.

That last paragraph is a good example of the kind of stuff I write that makes people want to put me in a cage, inject me with hormones, and feed me cement dust. It wouldn’t surprise me terribly if that ends up being my fate.

I write what is true for me, regardless of public opinion. Sometimes I’m in the majority; sometimes I’m not. I’m fully aware that some of my opinions are unpopular, and I’m absolutely fine with that. What I’m not fine with is putting truth to a vote.

I take the time to form my own opinions instead of simply regurgitating what I was taught as a child. And I’m also well aware that there are people spending billions of dollars to make you think that a burger is not a very sad, diseased, tortured, chemical-injected cow. But I’m going to keep writing to help you remain aware of things like that, even though you may hate me for it. That defensiveness eventually leads to doubt, which leads to change and growth, so it’s perfectly fine. I’m good at dealing with defensiveness.

I don’t worry too much about hurting people’s feelings. Hurt feelings are a step in the right direction for many people. If I’m able to offend you so easily, to me that means you already recognize some truth in what I’ve written, but you aren’t ready to face it consciously yet. If you read something from me that provokes an emotional reaction, then a seed has already been planted. In other words, it’s already too late for you.

My goal isn’t to convince anyone of anything in particular. I’m not an animal rights activist, and I don’t have a religion to promote. My goal is to awaken people to living more consciously. This requires raising people’s awareness across all facets of their lives, so they can make the big decisions for themselves. It requires breaking social conditioning and replacing it with conscious awareness and intention. That’s a big job, but someone has to do it. And if I don’t do it, then I have to admit I’m just part of the problem like all the other hibernating bears.

A lot has been written about the importance of transparency in blogging, and truth is the best transparency of all. Truth creates trust, and trust builds traffic. No games, no gimmicks… just plain old brutal honesty. Even the people that say they hate you will still come back, and eventually those people will become your most ardent supporters. Even if they don’t agree with you, they’ll learn they can trust you and that your intentions are honorable, and trust is more important than agreement.

8. Treat your visitors like real human beings

Even though I’m sitting at my computer writing this, seemingly alone, I know you’re a real human being reading it on the other end. My apologies to sentient androids who may be reading this years after it’s been written. You aren’t just a number in my web stats. Despite the technology involved and the time-space differential between my writing and your reading, there’s still a human-to-human connection between us that transcends time and space. And that connection matters to me. I feel its presence whenever I do my best writing.

While I imagine being on a stage in front of a million people when deciding which topic to write about, once I actually get going, I imagine having a one-on-one conversation with a friend. This means revealing some of myself and being honest, as the last two points already addressed, but it also means genuinely caring about you as a person. And that’s perhaps one of the best kept secrets of my success as a blogger. I actually care about helping you grow. I want you to become more conscious and aware. I want you to experience less fear in your life. And my concern for your well-being isn’t conditional upon you liking me.

I happen to think we have a lot more similarities than differences. Based on what I know about myself, I imagine you’d like your life to be better tomorrow than it was yesterday. I imagine you’d like to be happier, more fulfilled, and more at peace with yourself. I also imagine you’re living below your potential and could use some help overcoming fear and solving certain problems to enable you to tap more of that potential. And finally, I imagine you wouldn’t believe me if I said you can have it all for only $19.95 (as well you shouldn’t).

The reason I work so hard to create original content and then give it away for free is because I want to help as many people as possible. I genuinely care what happens to this beautiful planet and to the people who live here. It’s possible I actually value your life even more than you do. This is the kind of motivation that never wanes. I sometimes lose sight of it when I get caught up in the details, but the connection is always there, waiting for me to tap into it whenever I want. This provides me with a wellspring of creative ideas and an inexhaustible passion for contribution.

I don’t need to play stupid marketing and sales games with you. There’s nothing for you to buy here. Even if I add some products in the future, I’m not going to try to manipulate you into buying something you don’t need with a slew of false promises. I might make more money in the short-term by doing that, but it would sever our genuine connection, create a wall between us, and reduce the level of impact I’m able to have. Ultimately, that approach would lead to failure for me, at least in terms of how I define success. I can’t help you grow if I violate your trust.

I cannot force anyone to grow who doesn’t want to. But there are a lot of people on this planet who are now ready to let go of low-awareness living and start pushing themselves to the next level of human existence. And they need help to get there because it’s a difficult journey, and there are strong forces working against it.

Real human beings helping real human beings is ultimately what traffic growth is all about. That’s precisely what a link or a referral is. If you align yourself with the intention of genuinely helping people because you care, you’ll soon find yourself with an abundance of traffic.

9. Keep money in its proper place

Money is important. Obviously I have bills to pay. Money pays for my computer, my high-speed internet connection, my house, and my food. I just returned yesterday from a vacation that money paid for. My wife and I had a great time partly because we didn’t have to worry about money at all on the trip. We did everything we wanted to do without being hampered by a lack of funds. And this web site paid for it.

It’s important that I generate some money from my work, but it’s not necessary that I extract every possible dollar. In fact, relative to its traffic levels, I’m seriously under-monetizing this site. But money is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. Making a positive contribution to the world is a lot more important to me than money. Money can be useful in achieving this objective, but human relationships are far more important. The funny thing is that the less I rely on money, the more of it I seem to have.

I’m already making more money than I need to pay my bills, and my income from this site keeps going up each month. If I simply keep doing what I’m doing, I’ll probably end up becoming fairly wealthy. But money is an extremely weak motivator for me. Very little of what I do today has a profit motive behind it except to the extent that money will fuel more important goals. That tends to confuse certain people because some of my decisions align with earning money, but many don’t. While I do consider myself an entrepreneur (at least it’s less isolating than “guru”), I only see money as a tool for enhancing and expanding my contribution.

While many entrepreneurs pursue money for the purpose of becoming wealthy, I chose a different route. I sought to earn money for the purpose of increasing my freedom. I don’t want to get myself stuck in a pattern of working for money, so I’m constantly turning down opportunities to make money that would restrict my freedom. For example, I don’t do any consulting or coaching. Consequently, my calendar contains very few fixed appointments. This doesn’t mean I’m idle. It just means I spend my time doing what I freely choose to do instead of what others would have me do. I require this level of flexibility to do my best work.

By paying close attention to how I earn money and not just how much I earn, I keep money in its proper place. This allows me to stay focused on my purpose without getting wrapped up in less important concerns like building a brand, closing sales, or doing phony marketing.

I dislike it when other people use one-dimensional sales and marketing tactics on me, so I avoid using these techniques on this site. I’ve sort of unplugged myself from the current capitalistic system and set up a side system of my own that I find much more congruent with conscious living. I would love for other people to have the same level of freedom I enjoy each day. I’m sure I’ll continue to improve my approach over time, but it’s working wonderfully so far. Imagine having a business with no products, no inventory, no sales, and no customers, but still generating an abundant positive cashflow.

Since the income generation is largely on autopilot, I can focus my time and energy on creating content instead of on doing marketing or trying to sell something. And being able to devote so much time to content creation without worrying how I’ll pay my bills makes it a lot easier to build high traffic.

Some business models make it very challenging to build traffic. You have to spend a lot of time and energy just on lead generation, and then maybe you try to monetize those leads by selling a product or service. It’s always an uphill struggle.

I give all my best content away for free. Word of mouth does the rest. So my traffic building strategy is more like flowing downstream. It hasn’t been a struggle for me at all. And once you have sufficient traffic, it isn’t that hard to monetize it without becoming an ogre.

We’ve all heard the expression, “Build a better mousetrap, and they’ll come.” And we’ve also heard marketing and sales people say that this is just plain wrong — you have to market and sell that mousetrap effectively too. I say they’re all wrong. My approach is the equivalent of, “Build a better mousetrap and give it away for free, and they’ll come — and they’ll bring friends too.”

10. If you forget the first nine suggestions, just focus on genuinely helping people, and the rest will take care of itself

One thing that turns me off about typical self-help marketing is that authors and speakers often position themselves as if they’re the opposite of their audience. I’m successful and you’re not. I’m rich and you’re not. I’m fit and you’re not. You need me because something is lacking in your life, I have exactly what you lack, and if you pay me (and make me even richer and you poorer), I’ll show you how you can have it too. And if it doesn’t work for you, it just means you’re even more of an idiot than the people who provided my testimonials.

I’m sure you’ve heard this sort of nonsense many times before.

All of this I’ve-arrived-and-you-haven’t stuff is stupid. It suggests that life is about destinations and that once you’ve arrived, you’re done growing and can just relax and sip fruity drinks for the rest of your life. But there’s more to life than border crossings. If you go from single to married or from non-millionaire to millionaire, that’s fine and dandy. Crossing the border into parenthood was a big one for me. But that’s only one day of my life, and to be honest, I didn’t have much control over it except for a decision made nine-months earlier (and it seemed like a pretty attractive idea at the time). What about all those other days though?

Growing as a human being is something I work on daily. I’m deeply passionate about my own growth, so naturally I want to share this part of the journey with others. If I start marketing myself with the “I’m successful and you’re not approach,” I hope someone will come put me out of my misery, since that would mean I’m done growing and ready to die. I don’t expect to ever be done growing as long as I exist as a human being. There are always new distinctions to be made and new experiences to enjoy. And yes… plenty of mistakes to be made as well.

One of the great benefits of focusing on helping others is that it gets fear out of the way. Without fear you become free to just be yourself. You’re able to take intelligent risks and remain detached from any specific outcome because the journey is more important to you than the specific stops along the way. Personally it’s not the destinations that excite me but rather the unfolding process of discovery. I love the anticipation of wondering what lies around each new bend.

If we are to help each other, we need to be partners in the pursuit of growth, not opponents. So it makes no sense to put up fake walls between us. The ego needs walls to protect it, but if we can get past the fear-based needs of the ego, we’ll make a lot more progress.

There are plenty of things I could do with this site that would make me more money or grow traffic faster in the short-term, but I won’t do them because they’ll just put more distance between us. I’ll be on my side, you’ll be on your side, and we’ll each be slightly afraid of the other. I’ll be worried that maybe you won’t buy what I’m selling, and you’ll be worried about getting ripped off or taken advantage of. We’ll just be drinking yet another round of fear, which is exactly the opposite of what we need to grow.

One of my biggest challenges in life right now is figuring out how to help enough people switch their primary polarization from fear to love. Our emotions are an energy source for us (they drive our actions), and most of the world is still driven by fear energy. Watching TV news is a good example; we can actually feel energized by watching others suffer. Hurting animals is another example; we eat their fear for breakfast. But there’s another fuel for human consciousness, and perhaps the best way to describe it is unconditional love. This isn’t the squishy emotion of romantic love — it’s a sense of connection to everything that exists and a desire to serve the highest good of all. Unconditional love, when it becomes one’s primary fuel, cultivates fearlessness. In this state you still have the biological fight-or-flight response, but you aren’t driven by emotional worries like fear of failure or fear of rejection. You feel perfectly safe regardless of external circumstances. And when you have this feeling of unconditional safety, you’re truly free to be yourself, to embrace new experiences, and to grow at a very fast pace.

Personal growth is not a zero-sum game. If you grow as a human being, it doesn’t harm me. In fact, ultimately if all of us grow as individuals, it’s going to make this whole planet better for everyone. When enough people switch their primary polarization from fear to unconditional love, this planet will become a true paradise. That’s a good thing for all of us, one that’s more important than all the money in the world.

Perhaps you have a less ambitious goal for building web traffic than raising human consciousness and working towards world peace. That doesn’t matter. You can still make helping others your primary focus, and if you do that, you’ll find it relatively easy to build a high-traffic web site. If you align yourself with serving the highest good of all, you’ll receive plenty of help along the way, and best of all, you’ll deserve it.

Do your best to help your visitors out of genuine concern for their well-being, and they’ll help you build your traffic and even generate a nice income from it. It’s as simple as that

Build A High Traffic Blog

2008-08-08T02:32:00.000-07:00

Here are 10 of my best suggestions for building a high traffic web site:

1. Create valuable content.

Is your content worthy of being read by millions of people? Remember that the purpose of content is to provide value to others. Do you provide genuine value, and is it the best you’re capable of providing?

When I sit down to write, I sometimes imagine myself standing on an outdoor concert stage before an audience of a million people. Then I ask myself, “What shall I say to this audience of fellow human beings?” If a million people each spend five minutes on this site, that’s nearly 10 person-years total. I do my best to make my writing worthy of this differential. I don’t always succeed, but this is the mindset that helps me create strong content.

Think about the effect you want your writing to have on people. Since I write about personal growth, I want my writing to change people for the better. I want to expand people’s thinking, to raise their consciousness, and to help them eliminate fear from their lives. If my writing doesn’t change people’s thinking, actions, or awareness, then my value isn’t being transferred well enough.

When you focus on providing real value instead of churning out disposable content, your readers will notice. And they’ll refer others to your site — in droves. I typically see at least 10 new links to my site appearing each day (mostly via trackbacks but also via vanity feeds). I’m not going out and requesting those links — other bloggers just provide them, usually because they’re commenting on something I’ve written. Many fellow bloggers have also honored StevePavlina.com with a general recommendation for the entire site, not just links to my individual blog posts. It’s wonderful to see that kind of feedback.

Strong content is universally valued. It’s hard work to create it, but in the long run it generates lots of long-term referral traffic. I’d rather write one article I’m really proud of than 25 smaller posts. It’s been my experience that the best articles I write will outperform all the forgettable little posts I’ve made. Quality is more important than quantity. Quantity without quality, however, is easier, which is one reason so many people use that strategy. Ultimately, however, the Internet already contains more quantity than any one of us can absorb in our lifetimes, but there will always be a place for good quality content that stands out from the crowd.

If you have nothing of genuine value to offer to a large audience, then you have no need of a high-traffic web site. And if there’s no need for it, you probably won’t get it. Each time you write, focus on creating the best content you can. You’ll get better as you go along, but always do your best. I’ve written some 2000–word articles and then deleted them without posting them because I didn’t feel they were good enough.

2. Create original content.

Virtually everything on this site is my own original content. I rarely post blog entries that merely link to what others are writing. It takes more effort to produce original content, but it’s my preferred long-term strategy. I have no interest in creating a personal development portal to other sites. I want this site to be a final destination, not a middleman.

Consequently, when people arrive here, they often stick around for a while. Chances are good that if you like one of my articles, you may enjoy others. This site now has hundreds of them to choose from. You can visit the articles section to read my (longer) feature articles or the blog archives to see an easy-to-navigate list of all my blog entries since the site launched.

Yes, there’s a lot to read on this site, more than most people can read in a day, but there’s also a lot of value (see rule #1). Some people have told me they’ve read for many hours straight, and they leave as different people. I think anyone who reads this site for several hours straight is going to experience a shift in awareness. When you read a lot of dense, original content from a single person, it’s going to have an impact on you. And this content is written with the intention to help you grow.

Although I’m not big on competing with others, it’s hard to compete with an original content site. Anyone can start their own personal development web site, but the flavor of this site is unique simply because no one else has had the exact same experiences as me.

While I think sites that mainly post content from others have the potential to build traffic faster in the beginning, I think original content sites have an easier time keeping their traffic, which makes for a more solid, long-term foundation. Not everyone is going to like my work, but for those that do, there’s no substitute.

3. Create timeless content.

While I do occasionally write about time-bound events, the majority of my content is intended to be timeless. I’m aware that anything I write today may still be read by people even after I’m dead. People still quote Aristotle today because his ideas have timeless value, even though he’s been dead for about 2300 years. I think about how my work might influence future generations in addition to my own. What advice shall I pass on to my great grandchildren?

I tend to ignore fads and current events in my writing. Wars, natural disasters, and corrupt politicians have been with us for thousands of years. There are plenty of others who are compelled to write about those things, so I’ll leave that coverage to them.

Will the content you’re creating today still be providing real value in the year 2010? 2100? 4000?

Writing for future generations helps me cut through the fluff and stay focused on the core of my message, which is to help people grow. As long as there are people (even if our bodies are no longer strictly biological), there will be the opportunity for growth, so there’s a chance that at least some of what I’m creating today will still have relevance. And if I can write something that will be relevant to future generations, then it will certainly be relevant and meaningful today.

In terms of traffic building, timeless content connects with people at a deeper level than time-bound content. The latter is meant to be forgotten, while the former is meant to be remembered. We forget yesterday’s news, but we remember those things that have meaning to us. So I strive to write about meanings instead of happenings.

Even though we’re conditioned to believe that news and current events are important, in the grand scheme of things, most of what’s covered by the media is trivial and irrelevant. Very little of today’s news will even be remembered next week, let alone a hundred years from now. Certainly some events are important, but at least 99% of what the media covers is irrelevant fluff when viewed against the backdrop of human history.

Ignore the fluff, and focus on building something with the potential to endure. Write for your children and grandchildren.

4. Write for human beings first, computers second.

A lot has been written about the optimal strategies for strong search engine rankings in terms of posting frequency and post length. But I largely ignore that advice because I write for human beings, not computers.

I write when I have something meaningful to say, and I write as much as it takes to say it. On average I post about five times per week, but I have no set quota. I also write much longer entries than most bloggers. No one has ever accused me of being too brief. My typical blog entry is about 1500–2000 words, and some (like this one) are much longer. Many successful bloggers would recommend I write shorter entries (250–750 words) and post more frequently (20x per week), since that creates more search engine seeds for the same amount of writing. And while I agree with them that such a strategy would generate more search engine traffic, I’m not going to take their advice. To do so would interfere too much with my strategy of delivering genuine value and creating timeless content. I have no interest in cranking out small chunks of disposable content just to please a computer. Anyone can print out an article to read later if they don’t have time to read it now and if the subject is of genuine interest to them. Part of the reason I write longer articles is that even though fewer people will take the time to read them, for those that do the articles are usually much more impactful.

Because of these decisions, my search engine traffic is fairly low compared to other bloggers. Google is my #1 referrer, but it accounts for less than 1.5% of my total traffic. My traffic is extremely decentralized. The vast majority of it comes from links on thousands of other web sites and from direct requests. Ultimately, my traffic grows because people tell other people about this site, either online or offline. I’ve also done very well with social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg.com, and reddit.com because they’re based on personal recommendations. I’ve probably had about a dozen articles hit the del.icio.us popular list within the past year, definitely more than my fair share.

I prefer this traffic-building strategy because it leaves me less vulnerable to shifts in technology. I figure that Google ultimately wants to make it easy for its visitors to find valuable content, so my current strategy should be in alignment with Google’s long-term strategy. My feeling is that Google would be well-served by sending more of its traffic here. But that alignment simply arises from my focus on providing value first and foremost.

5. Know why you want a high-traffic site.

I write because my purpose in life is to help people become more conscious and aware — to grow as human beings. I don’t have a separate job or career other than this. Because my work is driven by this purpose, I have a compelling reason to build a high-traffic web site, one that aligns with my deepest personal values. More web traffic means I can have a bigger impact by reaching more people. And over the course of the next few decades, this influence has the potential to create a positive change that might alter the future direction of human civilization. Most significantly, I want to help humanity move past fear and for us to stop relating to each other through the mechanisms of fear. If I fail, I fail. But I’m not giving up no matter how tough it gets.

Those are big stakes, and it might sound like I’m exaggerating, but this is the level at which I think about my work today. Everything else I do, including building a high traffic web site, is simply a means to that end. Today I’m just planting seeds, and most of them haven’t even sprouted yet. A high traffic web site is just one of the sprouts that came about as a result of pursuing the purpose that drives me. But it is not an end in itself.

What will you do if you succeed in building a high-traffic web site? If you someday find yourself in the privileged position of being able to influence millions of people, what will you say to them? Will you honor and respect this position by using it as a channel to serve the highest good of all, or will you throw that opportunity away to pursue your own fleeting fame and fortune while feeding your audience disposable drivel?

Although I launched this web site in October 2004, I’ve been writing articles since 1999, and feedback has allowed me to understand how small slices of my writing have affected certain people in the long run. After reading something I’ve written, people have quit their jobs, started their own businesses, changed religions, and ended relationships. While some people might find this level of impact ego-gratifying, for me it intensifies my feeling of personal responsibility for my writing. I’ve seen that I’m able to have an impact on people, so I damned well better make it a good one.

This “why” is what drives me. It’s what compels me to go to my computer and write something at 3am and not stop until 10am. I get inspired often. The #1 reason I want more traffic is that it will allow me to help more people. That’s where I direct my ambition for this site, and consequently I’m extremely motivated, which certainly plays a key role in taking action.
(To be continued in next post for the rest 5 suggestions)

Search Engine Optimization

2008-08-07T23:43:00.000-07:00

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of searches, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that tend to harm search engine user experience. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove them from their indices.

The initialism "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers", terms adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, URLs, and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.

Technorati Tags for Blogger Posts

2008-08-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

Technorati,which indexes some 94 million weblogs, allows blog owners to assign tags to their posts. These tags are essentially words which describe the category that the posts, photos and videos fall under. Visitors can then search these tags to find the relevant blog posts. How can the Technorati tags be inserted into Blogger posts so that they can be indexed by Technorati? Is there a need to include Technorati tags in the first place?

Tags for Blogs

There is a Blog Finder function in Technorati which searches for blogs within general topics of interest. When you first register with Technorati, you can assign twenty tags which best describe your blog. To edit them, login to Technorati and go to Account -> Blogs. Click “Edit Settings” to change the tags and when finished, click “Save Blog Info” at the bottom of the page. Try to fill up all the 20 tag slots and choose keywords that are relevant to the blog contents.

To check if your blog is properly tagged, copy this URL into the internet browser and insert one of the 20 tags into the portion in red. Your blog should appear in the blog listing.

http://www.technorati.com/blogs/TAG

Tags for Blog Posts
If you search the net, you can find several online tag generators which help you to easily create Technorati tags. What they do is to identify the keywords and insert a code to these words so that Technorati spiders can index them. Those using Firefox browsers download the Greasemonkey add-on and install user scripts to automatically append Technorati tags to their posts. From our reading and testing, it seems that these extra third party scripts and tools are no longer necessary in the Blogger Beta or the new Blogger platform.

When creating a Post, you will see at the bottom of the text editor a box for “Labels for this post”. Enter the labels or keywords that describe the Post. A label can comprise more than one word and each label should be separated by a comma. For example, our labels for this post may read “Technorati tags, Blogger Tips, Labels”.

The limit for this box is 200 characters. What can you do if your labels exceed 200 characters? A tip that you can bear in mind is to remove the spaces after the commas. A spacing is deemed as 1 character. We will therefore have something like “Technorati tags,Blogger Tips,Labels” with no spacing after each comma.

When the Post is published, the Labels will appear in the footer. What if you do not see the Labels? Follow this guide to Customize the Blog Posts Elements. Make sure there is a tick against the “Labels: photos, vacation” option. In fact, you can change the word “Labels” to “Tags” or “Categories” or even “Technorati Tags”.

If you refresh the Blog page and view the source code, you will notice that the Labels automatically contain an additional code:-

<a href='http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/search/label/Blogger%20Tips' rel='tag'>Blogger Tips</a>

The first part in blue is just a hyperlink, a URL that directs the users to the search results of posts bearing this label. The second portion in red is what we are most interested in because the rel='tag' is what Technorati reads.

According to the Technorati guide, their search spiders will look out for these tag links that bear the rel='tag' code. These will then be indexed and will appear in the Technorati tag pages. To ascertain whether your Blog Post label or tag has been indexed by Technorati, copy the following address into the internet browser. Replace the TAG (marked in red) and your BLOG URL (shown in blue).

http://www.technorati.com/tag/TAG?from=BLOG URL

Using our above example, if we want to confirm that the label “Blogger Tips” has been tagged in Technorati, we would enter this URL into our browser. We should see the posts that are tagged with this label:-

http://www.technorati.com/tag/blogger+tips?from=http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com

Although it appears that essentially all you need to do is to key in the Labels to have them tagged by Technorati, there are still several things to bear in mind:-

1. After posting, submit your blog to a Ping Service which notifies several major feed aggregators, syndicates or directories that your blog has been updated. Ensure that Technorati is one of the sites that you ping.

2. Technorati reads the blog feed to pick up the tags. Check that blog feed has been enabled by going to Settings -> Site Feed -> Allow Blog Feed and choose either “Short” or “Full”.

3. There appears to be a slight problem if you have selected the “Short” feed, syndicating only the first paragraph, or the first 255 characters, whichever is shorter. What happens is that when Technorati spiders visit your site feed, it sees only this short paragraph. As you are aware, the Labels that you have inserted appear at the footer of the article and quite naturally, the spiders may miss out these tags. Fortunately, it seems that Technorati is aware of this and besides the blog feed, they will index the tags that appear in the new posts that are on your main Blog page. So long as you have a habit of pinging Technorati after each new post, and the full article is displayed on the main page, their search spiders will visit your main Blog page to index the labels/tags. Once indexed, it does not matter whether or not your feed shows only a summarised content.

4. For a week, we have not posted any article because our recent posts were not shown in Technorati. We did not realize it until we clicked our Technorati Blog page. To digress a little, the first thing we noticed was that we were somehow ranked within the “Top 5K” blogs. Quite a surprise to us since we were not even in the top 10K the last time we visited the page. Of course, it is all thanks to you, our readers, for the continued support and encouragement. Back to our issue, we saw at the same time that our latest 3 posts were not updated in the index. We submitted a ticket to the Technorati team. Because of what we mentioned earlier, we had to change our blog settings to show 3 posts on the main page so that the spiders can pick up the tags in the posts. As at today, the problem has yet to be rectified. Probably they are too busy. We can't delay our posts and have therefore decided to keep changing our blog settings to show more posts in the main page until Technorati indexes them.

Template Tweaks for Technorati Tags

If you are still concerned that the labels at the footer may not be seen by Technorati spiders, one of the things you can do is to shift the Labels to the top of the article. Go to Template -> Edit HTML and back up the existing template. Next, check the box against “Expand Widget Templates”. Scroll to these lines:-

<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> <b:if cond='data:post.labels'> <data:postLabelsLabel/> <b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'> <a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'><data:label.name/></a><b:if cond='data:label.isLast != "true"'>,</b:if> </b:loop> </b:if> </span> </p>

Cut the entire piece of code and Ctrl+F to search for the following code (marked in green) and paste what you have cut just below it like this:-

<div class='post-header-line-1'/> <div class='post-footer'> <p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'> <span class='post-labels'> <b:if cond='data:post.labels'> <data:postLabelsLabel/> <b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'> <a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'><data:label.name/></a><b:if cond='data:label.isLast != "true"'>,</b:if> </b:loop> </b:if> </span> </p></div>

We have added the code (shown in blue) so that the style of the Labels will follow the Footer styles. Preview the Template. The labels should appear after the Post Title but before the Post contents. If you are happy with it, Save the Template.

Selective words for Technorati Tags

Let's say you have a post and as you write, you want a word in the post to be tagged in Technorati. Switch from “Compose” mode to “Edit HTML” mode. Type in this code before and after the word to be tagged.

<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/WORD" rel="tag">WORD</a>

If the keyword comprises two or more words, use this:-

<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/TWO+WORDS" rel="tag">TWO WORDS</a>

You can change the URL to anything else, as long as you keep the rel="tag" in the code.

About Tags

Tags are not case-sensitive. However, you may want to consider using variations of the keyword now and then. A word in British English may be spelled differently in American English. Some people may even misspell the word altogether. This is very likely since tags are inserted by individuals who write the blog posts and these individuals may not be English-educated. Having different spellings of a keyword may increase the chance of your blog being found. Nonetheless, do not go overboard. Having too many keywords that mean about the same thing may be deemed as keyword spamming and is frowned upon by search engines and users alike.

The tags should reflect the post contents. If they are wholly irrelevant, users who are 'tricked' to visit your blog would be annoyed. If Technorati or other tag search engines heed such calls, you may one day find your blog blackmarked or de-listed.

Submit Blogger Sitemap to MSN and Ask.com

2008-08-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

Blogger Sitemap

If you own an external domain site, you can search the net for sitemap generators which help you create a sitemap file. Upload the file onto the root directory and call it sitemap.xml. The full URL of the sitemap will then be something like this:- “http://domainname.com/sitemap.xml”

However, we cannot upload files onto the root directory of Blogger blogs. Hence, when asked to insert a Blogger blog sitemap, it will have to be either:-

http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/rss.xml

http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Replace YOURBLOGNAME with the name of your blog. For Blogger blogs, do not add "www." to YOURBLOGNAME. As an example, our blog's sitemap will be http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/rss.xml

Submit Blog Sitemap to MSN

Unlike Google and Yahoo!, MSN does not have a set of procedures or an address where you can submit sitemaps to. In the latest post in their Microsoft Live Search Weblog, they had invited webmasters and developers to help build a New Webmaster Portal that would include sitemap creation, submission and ping tools, very much what Google and Yahoo! already had. Once MSN has that user interface, we shall update this article.

The MSN team had suggested that webmasters add this to their robots.txt file to have the MSN spiders crawl the sitemap file:-

User-agent: * Sitemap: http://domainname.com/sitemap.xml

Again, we do not have root access to the Blogger server and this will not avail to us.

The alternative solution in the meantime is to submit the Blog sitemap to Moreover.com. It seemed that there was a standing arrangement for Moreover to provide the submitted feeds to MSN for crawling and indexing.

Whether or not the arrangement still holds true, there is really no harm in submitting your sitemap to Moreover.

Copy and paste this line into your internet browser, replacing the portion in red with the name of your Blog:-

http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/rss.xml

If you have submitted it correctly, you should see this message:-

Thank you for your ping. The moreover database will be updated with the new data from your url - http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/rss.xml as soon as possible.

Submit Blog Sitemap to Ask.com

Ask.com, previously known as Ask Jeeves, is the next major internet search engine. The sites that it owns include Excite, Bloglines, MyWay and iWon. It is also a participant of the Sitemaps protocol program.

Submitting the sitemap to Ask is easy too. Copy and paste this line into your internet browser, replacing the portion in red with the name of your Blog:-

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/rss.xml

If you are successful, you should see this screen:-

Submit Sitemaps to other search engines

Progressively, there should be more search engines that will join this Sitemaps program. More likely than not, they will use the recommended ping submission format:-

http://search-engine-url/ping?sitemap=http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/rss.xml

If you are unable to find a submission link in that search engine site, try the above and keep your fingers crossed that it is the correct ping address

Submit Blogger Sitemap to Yahoo

2008-08-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

Publicize your site by having your Blogger.com or Blogspot.com blog site included in Yahoo! Directory and Yahoo! Search. I went to the official Yahoo! submission of URL page and clicked the link “Submit Your Site for Free”. You will be prompted to log in using your Yahoo! account. For those of you who do not have a Yahoo! account, simply sign up for one. It is Free.

After you have your Yahoo! account, and are logged in, you will see this screen.

Select “Submit Site Feed” and enter the URL of your Blog's site feed. You can use either:-

http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/rss.xml

http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Remember to replace YOURBLOGNAME with that of your Blog's. For Blogger blogs, do not add "www." to YOURBLOGNAME. Once the Sitemaps are submitted, click the “Authentication” link shown at the top right hand corner of the page.

You will now have to authenticate your site ownership with Yahoo!, by either uploading a verification file to your site, or adding a META tag to your site. The authentication via a META tag was only introduced by Yahoo! recently, on Jan 30, 2007.

Note: Blogs created under Blogger.com or Blogspot.com cannot upload a verification file in the root directory. The first method is therefore NOT applicable to you.

The only way to authenticate your Blogger.com and Blogspot.com blogs with Yahoo! is to add a META tag. Copy the META tag that is generated for you, and paste it in your site's home page in the first section of the page, before the first section. What you do is to go to your Blogger dashboard. Under Template ->Edit HTML, somewhere near the top of the script, add the META Tag as follows:-

<head> <META Tag> <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

Remember to replace the META Tag with the code generated by Yahoo! Site Explorer. Once done, Save the Template. When you return to Yahoo! Site Explorer, click the button that says “Ready to Authenticate” as shown below.

You will see a message that says “Your site is pending authentication.” Check back later, and you will notice that your site is now indexed and crawled by Yahoo!

According to the Yahoo Site Explorer instructions:-

“If you have added the META tag, please keep the tag in your site's home page. We will revalidate your site ownership by checking this META tag regularly.”

It is alright to leave this meta tag as well as the Google sitemap meta tag in your template.

Submit Blogger Sitemap to Google

2008-08-06T15:28:00.000-07:00

Submitting your blog to Google Webmaster will enable Google to find, index, and rank your site. For those who are new to this, you may go to the official Google Webmaster Tools site to create a new Webmaster profile.

Upon logging in using your Gmail account, key in your blog site URL, and click OK. You will then be asked to verify your site. This is to ascertain that you are indeed the owner of the site.

There are two ways to verify your site. You can either add a Meta Tag or Upload an HTML file. If you are using the Meta Tag method, Google will generate a Meta Tag code. Copy the META tag that is generated for you, and paste it in your site's home page in the first section of the page, before the first section. What you do is to go to your Blogger dashboard. Under Template ->Edit HTML, somewhere near the top of the script, add the Meta Tag as follows:-

<head> <META TAG> <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

Replace the META TAG with the code generated by Google Webmaster. Once done, Save the Template. When you return to Google Webmaster site, you can click the button that says “Verify”.

Note: The second method of uploading an HTML file is NOT applicable to Bloggers using Blogger.com or Blogspot.com because this requires you to upload a file to the root directory of your Blog, which is not possible. There is therefore only one method for you to verify your site, and that is by inserting the Meta Tag as explained above.

After you have had your site verified, click on the Sitemaps tab as shown below. By adding a Sitemap, you will be providing Google with more details and information about your Blog. With this, Google will crawl your site, report information on any errors in the Sitemaps tab, and index your Blog site at a faster rate.

Click the link that says “Add a Sitemap”. This will take you to another screen where you should choose the type “Add General Web Sitemap”. The Sitemap URL for any normal website is usually the index page that is stored in the highest-level directory of that site. In the case of Blogger.com or Blogspot.com, the only way to add a Sitemap is to use either of the following 2 Sitemaps:-

http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/rss.xml

http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Remember to replace YOURBLOGNAME with that of your Blog's. For Blogger blogs, do not add "www." to YOURBLOGNAME. Once you have added your Sitemaps, you will receive a confirmation telling you that reports are being generated but “may take several hours to update”. Congratulations! You have successfully added your Sitemaps. When you login to your Google Webmaster days later, you should be able to see the indexed pages and statistics of Google webcrawl of your Blog.

Leave the meta tag in the template if you want to view the statistics of your site. If Google can't find the meta tag, it will show an error message in your webmaster toolbox and you may have to verify your site again.

Best Luck!

Add Slideshow of Picasa Photos to Your Blog

2008-08-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

Picasa is a free photo management product by Google. The software organizes and can adjust your photo albums on your computer and then easily uploads them to your Picasa account. I love the ability to quickly upload pictures from my trips, etc and just send the url to my friends and family.

So if you already have a Picasa account and have pictures you’d like to include on your blog, you should check out this widget.

Here’s a screenshot of the widget being setup:

After you select the photo album and settings you want to use, it gives you some code to paste into your site. You can either paste it into your post or add it to your sidebar by creating an html/javascript widget. Then just paste the code into the widget and save.

Notice how easy the setup process is. It provides the code to paste into your blog and then you’ll have a flash slideshow rotating through all your photos! Pretty cool!

Best lucks!

Add “Read More” Expandable Posts Link Tag for Blogger

2008-08-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

With this hack, you can choose to display a select amount of text from the beginning of each post as a teaser instead of showing the entire post on the front page of your blog. Then when people want to read the rest of the post, they can click a “read more” link to see the full post. This is very handy if you have lots of long articles all on one page. (Note that you’ll need to have post pages enabled in order to make this feature work.)

Step #1 - Update Your Template Code

First you need to edit your existing code so I recommend copying and pasting it into notepad or any text editor. Also, it’s smart at this point to create a backup of your template just in case something goes wrong. Now do a search (CTRL + F) within the text editor for the following code post-header-line-1. This is the default code that Blogger includes but some custom templates remove or change this code so you might have trouble finding it. If you can’t locate this text then try searching for <data:post.body/> instead. Your template will for sure have this since it’s the tag that actually prints the body of your post.Add the following code below the <div class=’post-header-line-1′/> and <div class=’post-header-line’> tags if you’ve got both.

Now depending on which code you were able to find will determine how easy the next steps will be. You might need to do some detective work first in order to get this working properly in your custom template. The idea is to get this new code into your template before the <data:post.body/> tag. Keep reading and hopefully the explanation will illustrate the concept clear enough so you are able to adapt this hack to your custom template.

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'> <style>.fullpost{display:inline;}</style> <p><data:post.body/></p> <b:else/> <style>.fullpost{display:none;}</style>

The result should look something like this:

If you don’t have the default <div class='post-header-line-1'/> tag then your result should look something like this instead. This is how it would be done in the MushBlue Blogger custom template:

Notice in both examples that the code in yellow and the <data:post.body/> tags are the same — it’s just tag above it that will differ based on the template you’re using.

Now let’s add one more bit of code which will actually create the “read more” link in your post. This code will go below the <data:post.body/> tag so copy the following and paste it in. Feel free to change the “Read more…” text to whatever you want the link to look like. Be careful not to delete any other code during this process.

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'><br /> <a expr:href='data:post.url'>Read more...</a> </b:if> </b:if>

Yes, there are supposed to be two </b:if> tags in the above code so don’t think it’ s a mistake. The result should look like this:

This code will be the same no matter what template you are using. Just make sure it goes below the <data:post.body/> as shown in the image above.

Now let’s look at what the final result should be. Here’s the updated code block you just worked on all put together:

Ok, you’re all done editing the template code. Paste it back into your Blogger html window and save it. If you get an error, you made a mistake. The most common mistake is to accidentally delete a > or < while pasting in the new code. If it saved successfully, it’s time to move onto the next step and modify a quick Blogger format setting.

Step #2 - Add a Class Tag in Your Default Post Template

For this step, you need to navigate in your Blogger account to “Settings” => “Formatting” and scroll all the way down to the bottom. It’s the last option called “Post Template”. You’re going to paste in the following code:

<span class="fullpost">

</span>

You’ll want to keep the spaces in there which will make sense later. After you save this, it will look like this:

Step #3 - Create a New Post

Ok, we’ve got everything all setup so it’s time to go and test it out. Hopefully you’ve got a new post in mind for your blog. If not, then we’ll just create a test post which you can later delete. When you click on the “Posting” tab, you’ll notice that the post text area is now pre-populated with the <span class=”fullpost”> and </span> tags. If not, then you didn’t save it properly so go back and re-read step #2.

So when writing your new post, anything you put above the <span class=”fullpost”> tag will be the teaser text. The main body of your post needs to go in between the <span class=”fullpost”> and </span> tags in order for the “read more…” link to work properly. See the screenshot below. Sometimes pictures illustrate better than words.

Now publish or preview your post to see the “read more” hack working on your blog. If it doesn’t show up for some reason, go back and run through the steps again. Most likely you pasted the code blocks in the wrong places. It’s difficult to troubleshoot these issues since each template can be unique so please make sure to double-check your template before asking for help in the comments section below.

Here’s the live post with the “read more…” link properly working based on the text I used above in the post text area.

Submit blog to Search Engines

2008-08-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

(http://shareblogtips.blogspot.com/) After creating a blog, the next thing you should do is submit to seach engines.
These are the links to places to submit your blog to search engines and companies for better traffic:

Google: http://www.google.com/addurl
Yahoo: http://submit.search.yahoo.com/
Live: http://search.msn.com.sg/docs/submit.aspx

And more:
www.scrubtheweb.com/addurl.html
www.altavista.com/addurl/default
www.whatuseek.com/addurl.shtml
http://search.aol.com/add.adp
www.findlaw.com/info/write/addurl.
www.alltheweb.com/help/webmaster/submit_site
http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
www.exactseek.com/add.html
www.infotiger.com/addurl.html
www.walhello.com/addlinkgl.html
www.canada.com/search/web/addurl.asp
www.mastersite.com/addurl.htm
www.gigablast.com/addurl
www.uknetguide.co.uk/AddURL/
www.qango.com/dir/addurl.html
www.surfgopher.com/addurl.htm
www.uazone.net/go/addurl.cgi
www.ananzi.co.za/Add_site/
www.ixquick.com/eng/url_submission.html
http://www.ineedhits.com/free-tools/submit-free.aspx
http://dmoz.org/add.html
http://www.exactseek.com/add.html
www.submitexpress.com/submit.html
http://www.iwebtool.com/top_sites/
http://www.linkreferral.com/
www.evrsoft.com/fastsubmit/
http://www.addme.com/
www.uswebsites.com/submit/
www.addyoururl.org/
www.pagerank10.co.uk/
www.searchsight.com/submit.htm
www.gigablast.com/addurl
www.dmegs.com/
www.hit-counter-download.com/free-search-engine-submission.html www.websitesubmit.hypermart.net/freesubmit.htm
www.search.live.com/docs/submit.aspx
www.infotiger.com/addurl.html
www.caribseek.com/Suggest_A_Website/
www.referer.org/
www.firefactor.coffeecup.com/
www.thebest25sites.com/
www.alexa.com/site/help/webmasters
www.geminigraphics.com/promote.htm
www.addurl.altavista.com/
www.bravenet.com/
www.searchmonster.org/
www.relevantdirectory.com/
www.iblogbusiness.com/add.html
www.dxpnet.com/riot/submit.asp
www.rlrouse.com/add-url.html
www.canada.com/search/web/addurl.asp
www.powerhomebiz.com/Links/addurl.htm
www.entireweb.com/free_submission/
www.travelnotes.org/General/addurl.htm
www.global.gr/mtools/linkstation/
www.wwwomen.com/notes/addurl.shtml
www.walhello.com/addlinkgl.html
www.search.iwon.com/commerce/submitasite.jsp
www.maxxhits.com/
www.aesop.com/add.html

Hope these many are enough. Most of these links do it for free (over 98%)
How this works? Ok...here I will explain how this works: When you submit your site to these sites, you will either be entered into the search engines or onto their website... But in both cases, your traffic would boost higher than before as more people will be exposed to your site!
Thanks

Additional "Add Page Element" Layout

2008-08-05T20:10:00.000-07:00

( http://shareblogtips.blogspot.com) By editing HTML, you can add more "Page Element" to your existing template.

Do it yourself following below steps:

Below is the LAYOUT of a standard Minima template:

Note that there are only 2 "Add a Page Element" (one of them highlighted with red ellipse). Below is an extract of relevant section of the template:

Now if you want to have additional [Add a Page Element]'s, change showaddelement='no' to showaddelement='yes'

and where appropriate, change '1' in maxwidgets='1' to any number greater than '1'. If you just delete '1' and leave it as maxwidgets=''
you can add an infinite number of Page Elements.

The edited script shown is in the scroll box below:

Note that all three showaddelement='no' had been changed to showaddelement='yes', and in the LAYOUT, you will see three additional "Add a Page Element":

BidVertiser Vs. Google AdSense

2008-08-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

(http://shareblogtips.blogspot.com/) If you got banned by Google Adsense or just simply interested in alternatives to Google AdSense, you may find here some comparisons between BidVertiser and AdSense.

(Latest update: Google Adsense just change their rules so that you can show Bidvertiser and Adsense on same webpage. But should not make user confuse. Ads should be in diffence colors/fomat)

All right, here we go to the comparison.

Pros for Using BidVertiser

1. BidVertiser pays via Paypal. AdSense pays via check. Paypal deposit is quicker to get than a check.

2. The minimum payout from BidVertiser is $10. AdSense has a minimum payout of $100, which takes more time to reach. Many beginning advertisers give up on the early stages of using AdSense and never realize any of the profits for their labor.

3. You can choose to have links opened in a separate window. This allows users to stay on your website and hopefully click on other ads on the website.

4. You can manually approve ads. You don't have this control with AdSense.

5. When creating your ads, you can see a template for what the ad will look like before you put it on your site. For AdSense, you have to click on a separate link, for example, to see what a 234x60 ad looks like. This is excellent for beginners, but also for experienced users because the default selection on AdSense is 728x90 "Leaderboard", which many times is not what you want.

6. You can choose to display eBay auction ads (by default) or not. AdSense does not allow you this freedom.

7. Finally, a very good thing, you can see how much money the advertisers are bidding for the ads that will show on your website. You can't see that information from AdSense; you have to use some other system, like AdWords, to get an idea how profitable your ads can be for your niche.

Cons for Using BidVertiser

1. Some people experience slow page loads with BidVertiser compared to AdSense. This is a problem, because users don't like slow sites. They will go to the next one if yours is too slow.

2. Ads are not as relevant as the ones from AdSense. For example, I have a blog about chronic pain, and some of the ads I saw on my site were about dieting. Of course, I can manually block those ads that are not relevant. But the problem is that there were a lot of ads that were not relevant. There is no such problem with AdSense because you have more advertisers using AdSense than any other ad system.

3. AdSense pays more per click. This is not always true; it depends on the keywords that you use. But like I said on the previous point, there are more advertisers competing for AdSense ads, and competition in this case is good.

4. AdSense has a better reputation. Some people complain that BidVertiser did not pay them when the minimum payment reached the $10. Some people say that BidVertiser does pay. You have to experiment on your own to find out.

The above contents are collected on Internet. Here is my experiences:

For the forum (hight impression) you can go with Bidvertiser rather than Google Adsense. I am showing Google Adsense on my homepage and Bidvertiser on forum. And it get very very good results!

If you have your own opinions and experiences, please comments here to share with others.

Google Adsense Skin Template

2008-08-04T04:51:00.000-07:00

The template of this blog is "Adsense -Skin"- a free copy of this Google Adsense optimized template. It includes special space allowances using the widgets in the heading area, the upper right sidebar and the lower left sidebar for three of the most popular and best paying Google Adsense formats. The widgets are useing the HTML/Javascript page elements for ease of use.

The ad space in the header is sized to 468 x 60 pixels, the upper right side is the 336 x 280 and the lower left sidebar is 160 x 600. You can use any combination of text - image ads, or all text. The lower sidebar widgets can be easily swapped into either the left column or the right column if you prefer the archives and RSS subscribe links closer to the post area by drag and drop on the page elements editor.

The header background image is easily replaced in the style sheet with any image of your choice, but it must be sized to 930 x 150 pixels, or you can use no header image and set just a background color for that section. The overall font styles and sizes are closely matched to the default ad text sizes.

Download "Google Adsense Skin" Blogger Template

Some Money Making Tips

2008-08-04T00:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a short checklist of things you can do to increase readership, traffic, and overall visibilty on the internet. These things are all must have if you expect to make money!

Write well and write often
Write what you know and what you like writing about
Stay with your general topic, and be informative
Answer comments kindly and promptly
Never make lame excuses for not updating
Keep your site neat and orderly

Your site should be easy on the eyes and easy to read

Toss out the trash regularly by deleting and blocking spam comments

Use social bookmarking icon links for Reddit, deli.cio.us and Furl and many others

Use Technorati tags on keywords in your posts

Make sure your readers can reach you by email or web form

Don't have more than 2 or 3 posts showing on the front (index) page

Make sure your site loads quickly with no major errors

Frequently check your site in all major browsers for appearance and readability

Leave relevant comments with your return link at other sites

Good content is most important

Don't distract from content with excessive buttons and blinkie ads in sidebar

Use relevant images in posts, don't over do it

Those are the most important ones I can think of at the moment but I'll probably add more in the future.

How To Customizing Your Blogger Template

2008-08-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

Do you notice other people’s blog that showing fancy color of template? How they did? The following video shows you how to customize the look, feel and color of your blogger template.