Tune-ups for your blog!!

The A to Z Guide for Beginner Bloggers:

2015-02-17T19:25:00.000-08:00

The following is a guideline that will help you in becoming a better around beginner blogger. Hope you like it!

Aim to be a better blogger every day. Always try to learn something different and new. Here is a great site that will help you build your site by personally developing yourself along with your blog. Either you keep up with the times/technology or your blog will eventually fade into the black-hole of the blogosphere and be but a forgotten memory.

Be yourself! Don’t try to be someone that you’re not. People will see right through it. Readers of your blog will be able to connect easier and relate to you in many ways. Being yourself lets the readers know that you are sincere and helpful at the same time. Your personality will show through your blogging and the people will love you for just being yourself!

Caring about what you blog will make you a more sincere blogger to your cause. Whether it may be helping people with HTML or fixing cars, you will be able to write better articles and will be knowledgeable in your field.

Don’t ever copy anyone else’s works on the net. Plagiarism is frowned upon and you will never live it down if you are found to have copied another person’s works. Not only that but you might find yourself in a legal battle that you don’t need.

Entertain your readers! Entertaining your readers with great articles, tips and free stuff will always keep them coming back for more. People love a site they can have fun with and learn at the same time. Use your imagination, when we were kids we were able to do anything right (at least in our minds)? That imagination will help connect you to your inner-self and let you grow freely with your blog.

Find your niche carefully. Finding a niche where you fit in is critical as this will help you as a starting blogger. Your knowledge of course will depend on your experiences and how much you care to expand your knowledge of that subject. We are all experts in our field, but can still master new ways of approaching problems and fixing them.

Great articles. Great articles are the gateway to your massive traffic building. Write great authoritative articles and share information with your readers. They in turn will keep coming back for your advice and share their information with you that they think might help you.

Help out new bloggers. Helping out new bloggers and inexperienced persons will build you great character. Your readers will know deep down in their hearts that you are willing to take time to help them and are once again, sincere about it. Helping out other people also makes a world of difference; you might even need help from one of them in the future!

Implement all the learning and plans that you have made for your blog. Find that “master plan”, gather all the advice you have read and tips given to you and IMPLEMENT them. If you don’t your success rate will drop dramatically.

Join articles submission sites. If you are a great writer, let the world know about it. Submitting to article submission sites will drive massive traffic to your site and earn you a reputation as a knowledgeable author in your field. Use sites like EzineArticles, Stumble and the other article directories.

Knowledge on the blogosphere. Keep up to date with your knowledge from the blogosphere. Always find new methods that will save you time and money. Know how to work with all the aspects of blogging, from traffic building, readership, RSS feeds, link building etc.

Limitations are nothing on the web. There are no limitations on the web. You can always get help from other like minded individuals and experts in your field. If you don’t know how to do something, just ask. Most bloggers are willing to help you or will point you in the right direction. Link building is one of those areas where there are no limitations, with over 50 million sites and more being made everyday, there are no shortages of links!

Make friends with the top-bloggers. Making friends with the popular bloggers will help you get an inner perspective on their workings and how they achieve the things they did with their blog. Brainstorming with these experts gives you a lot of advantages and in time maybe you can contribute to their sites also, earning you authority and links for your own site! Imagine what ideas you could come up with if you had Steve Pavlina and Darren Rowse just to name a couple, in your corner.

Network with as many people as you can. Even if the person you are networking with is just beginning their blog, they might eventually become a PR 5 or higher blog. Networking is a great way to increase your rankings and PR for your blog. Networking can be done “on” and “off” line.

Offer great tips, free advice and other free stuff that your users/readers will be able to take with them and that makes a difference to them. Offering material that they cannot get from another site will have you one up on the other sites. They will love you for it and as a bonus come back often to see what they can get again.

Page rank. Your page rank will not increase unless you have useful links, hundreds and/or thousands of them pointing to your page. Page rank can be obtained by having an informative blog. A blog where people can keep coming back for more and refer other people to your site. Page rank should come second to writing great articles for your readers. Always put your readers first, PR will come eventually if you have a great blog.

Question everything about your blog. Are you using an easy layout that people can easily navigate through? Is your color scheme easy on the eyes and not blinding people or make people wonder what happened to the text when they scroll through your site. Are all your links working? Is ad placement optimal, if that’s the way you’re going with your blog. There are many aspects to blogging that you must always question to yourself.

Read other peoples blogs! Reading other peoples blogs will increase your knowledge and you might learn something that you didn’t know before. Reading also gives you great ideas, maybe you can out-do someone or write an even better article on the subject. Reading forums, how to’s and personal development sites are a great way to answer some of your questions also.

Special style of your blog. You got to have your own style. That’s what makes your blog unique. Your writing style and layout of your page will be remembered easier by people if it’s not in the “norm” of other bloggers. Have a great looking graphic on your home page, write with passion and sincerity. Great first impressions last a long time. Slim-lining your blog will also create a more user friendly site and get rid of the stuff that just clutters your site making for a more eye-pleasing site.

Tools and training. Suggest web tools like SiteMeter and Google Web Tools etc. that users can use for free when checking their links, traffic, ranking or site building. Train other people in your field that are just getting started. You will have a loyal following and can do site sessions/reviews of each others’ blogs on what needs to be overhauled with blogs, what can be done better and so forth. As you are the more experienced person in your group, you will be responsible for being a leader to the others.

Understand the needs of your readers. Understanding the needs and what they crave will help you to build a better site for your readers. User friendly, easy to navigate pages and TONS of informative articles will do wonders for your blog! Understanding your readers will also help to maintain your reader author relationship in the long run and you will have loyal subscribers that keep coming back. Don’t be afraid to ask your readers what they want more of.

Verify all sources used in article writing. Verifying your sources will help you keep from “looking like a fool” and “looking like a liar”. Be sure of your sources first before publishing your article. No one likes to read one thing and it turns out to be the total opposite of what you published! Author expertise is a must for blogging. If you are not sure about it, don’t even publish it.

Who, what, where, when and why. Ok, I’m having a 6th grade flashback to my English creative writing labs, oh no! Actually, these are the 5 points that you should cover for any article written by you. If there is anything that pertains to these 5 points about the subject you are covering, then you should include it in your article. This basic guideline will help you also cover the basics of the articles, insert your interesting facts after the basics are done!

X-ray your blog. Yep, that’s exactly what I suggested. Just like we use x-rays to find broken bones in our body, x-raying your blog is just taking time out to find broken links and URL’s that don’t work. Nothing is more frustrating than clicking a link and going nowhere! It only takes a little time, but will show your readers that great care goes into your blog maintenance.

Your blog is your soul. What you write about will give people/readers their personal assessment of you. It’s like meeting a complete stranger through your blog and seeing if you can connect with that person. Have an outstanding and caring blog, and the people will come back.

“Zone” out in a place where you can get ideas. Zoning out can be daydreaming, or just sitting by yourself with a pad and pen and writing/jotting down ideas or articles you would like to incorporate into your blog. The best ideas come to us when we have no distractions and our minds are free to flow with ideas and imagination!

By following this list, you will have an alliance when Traffic Building, SEO (Search Eng!ne Optimization), Article Writing, PR (Page Rank) building and Monetizing. Just follow these tips and they will open doors to the above mentioned site elements that will help you achieve your goals. I wish you the best success!

Help With Online Car Insurance...

2008-06-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

Have you ever tried to shop for online car insurance? Ever been confused and didn’t know where to start or what questions to ask? Here is a good website where you can start your exploration for just the right insurance coverage, whether it’s for your used or new car. It also has lots of quality information that you may want or need to know, like what are the top ten stolen cars, or how hard is your car to get insured and other fascinating facts. Whatever the reasons may be, their website offers various help articles pertaining to car insurance and is easy to navigate giving you an easy way to figure out your online car insurance needs. If you have any questions, you can speak to one of their representatives who are more than glad to help you and best of all it’s toll free.

There are 5 main categories on their website as follows:

Home Page- Brings you to their Home Page where you can get started reading their articles or navigate to the category of your choice.

Guide- Frequently brought up questions about various topics of car insurance and some good to know facts.

Questions and Answers- Nice set-up to where you can actually ask a personal question in regards to your car insurance experiences or if you just want to find something out.

State by State- Gives you a guide on what the insurance coverages are in your state. Great helpful tool to gain you more knowledge on insurance policies.

Get a Quote- Get an on-line quote instantly with this easy to use tool. All you have to do is fill out the form and it takes so little time!

So there you have it. Now you can start on your way to getting the online car insurance that you need. Armed with this knowledge, it will make you savvy shopper when it comes to car insurance and will make the whole process a little easier, after all you know what kind of questions to ask and have a good outlook on what you are dealing with. Good luck!

Using Credit Cards Wisely for Your Future...

2008-06-11T19:27:00.000-07:00

If you ever thought about applying for a credit card or just wanted some information on them, here are a few tips to keep in mind as you are searching. First of all, don’t just pick any credit card. You would do yourself a great favor by looking at the type (i.e. Visa, Mastercard, American Express etc.). Visa and Mastercard are the more widely accepted ones for almost every business. They also have secure (needs collateral-usually in from your savings or checking) and unsecured (no collateral for using it) credit cards. It will just depend on what kind of credit history you have.

Look at the interest rates for purchases or cash advances made on the card. The lower the rates are the better. If you already own a credit card and want to transfer your outstanding to balance to another card, take advantage of that opportunity, most balance transfers have a really low interest rate. Don’t use more than your allotted budget when using your credit card. Budget wisely and make sure you can afford to pay back the amount that you spent. Credit cards can help you start building your credit history that you will need if you want to buy a house or car or even apply for a loan. Here is a site that will greatly improve your knowledge of credit cards. Their site is layed out particularly well, has good categories for easy navigation and the information provided will greatly improve your understanding of credit cards and their use.

Protecting your content and yourself.

2008-05-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

So, you’ve been racking your brains out with ideas, thoughts and grammar usage for your new article. You end up contributing your free time and slaving away all hours of the day and into the darkness of night so you can submit your article in time just to find it copied by someone else the very next day! This is an article on how to protect yourself from having your content stolen and posted on someone else’s site without your permission. Albeit, this will happen whether you like it or not, you do have a choice in protecting your articles and your site. These are just a few tips to help you.

Find out where your stolen content is being displayed. You can find out here.

Contact the person directly. Email them and ask them to either take your content off of their site, or add your credits. This is one of the simplest and more civilized way of doing things. You can also send a cease and desist letter, but you have to be careful in wording this one. You can get a reference for that here.

Contact their service provider and explain to them about your stolen content. They will eventually contact the owner of the site hopefully!

If they have ads displayed on their site, contact those advertisers. Advertisers don’t want to deal with a site that may be held liable for copyright infringements.

You can usually find the authors name and other personal information in the about section of their site. If their site is hosted on a free sub-domain site like Blogger or Wordpress, using the whois.com site is practically useless. Hopefully they have an e-mail address somewhere on the page.

You can write an article about them! This is what I had to resort to after two of my articles had been plagiarized. I wrote about the site and what they did, at least the world knows now what kind of site that is. It worked though, I took a look at the same site two weeks after I had written about them and my works are now off of their site.

Copy and save images of your stolen content, go to the site that has the stolen content, press the PrntScrn button on your keyboard and save the image. These are important documentations for you if it really has to go to down to the nitty gritty. Hopefully it doesn't have to go there.

You can visit this page to make a free copyright if you’re in kind of in a bind or if you just prefer a free service. This site will provide you with the following free services:

1. Registers date and time of your site.
2. Registers title for your blog / site.
3. Description of your site.
4. Registers text from your site.
5. Registers a digital fingerprint for your articles.
6. MCN (My Copyright Number) number assigned to all copyright users.

A digital fingerprint is easiest explained is a hash value created by a hash algorithm. Now what this means is, the software used to create a fingerprint takes your article / graphics and mixes them up to create your unique alphanumeric string (containing letters and numbers) specifically assigned for that piece. A date and time stamp is put on this piece so you can identify it easily for your reference. Just a note, if you do change your content in the future, you will have to make another fingerprint of the new content.

All your content that you publish should be copyrighted since it will be viewed on a public domain (internet). Everyone will see this content and this can be way of protecting yourself from the very start. One thing to remember is, just because the content is on a free domain (internet) that does not give any person the right to claim the content as their own. Plagiarism occurs often especially when you have a great article.

You can simply put a note on your site. This is an example of one you can use. “The works expressed here are the sole creation of the author and cannot be reproduced without the author’s express consent. If you would like to use any works from this page, a backlink to this page is necessary along with credit to the author. Copyright infringement will not be tolerated in any manner.” It sets a firm but acceptable tone to anyone that reads it. It is not offensive and gives the person an idea that you mean business but are also willing to share your content with everyone else.

You can also put a logo on your website showing indisputable proof that your content is copyrighted. Content thieves will think twice before claiming it as their own. There are other cases though when they will just blatantly disregard your warnings and steal your content anyways.

This is in no means legal advice on what to do if you have your content stolen. Protect yourself and your content, you have the right to do so. This article also in no means covers everything on plagiarism and protecting your content. That will be up to you, research everything you can. It will also depend on where you are located at. Free services such as the one listed above can and will hold up in a court of law if your documentation is complete! Hope this helped in some small way. Happy blogging!

5 more free directories that you can submit to!!

2008-05-06T00:59:00.000-07:00

My fellow bloggers and readers. Another gift for you to help you in your blogging adventure. PR update on my blog-as of today, May 06 2008 I have achieved a PR of 2 and hopefully to keep raising it. I was able to achieve this PR in a time frame of about 3 1/2 months. I am actually trying to raise it for a multitude of purposes for my blog. Here are five more free directories that you can submit to to build up your links from higher PR sites. Remember, building your backlinks from sites higher than yours will always help, as long as it has a higher PR than your page. So without further adieu here are five more to add to your list.

Dramba.com PR ranking 4

Illumirate.com PR ranking 5

busybits.com PR ranking 6

cyber-find.net PR ranking 2

topblogarea.com PR ranking 4

I will try to provide some more for your use and references. Remember, choose first the category that your blog will belong to and then find the submit site/link button. Have fun and good luck with your PR and backlinks building.

Sign up with Paypal, it's great and secure!!!

2008-04-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

When I just started out in the world of blogging, I wasn't exactly sure of how to make money from the internet and if when I did, how would I withdraw this money?

Well, Paypal actually solved that problem for me. It's a great and secure way to transfer or withdraw your money. You can get up to 1,000.00 for referring a merchant and has other perks like money transfer bonuses and so forth. I just received mine today!! So if you would like to sign up, you can do it right here. Sign up today and you can withdraw that money and make money from referrals you just made from your blog!!! Good luck with your blogging and always be a true blogger and you will succeed in your blogging endeavors.

Want to make more money and write at the same time?

2008-03-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

Helium is a place where you can make money and share your writing talent with the world. The more articles that you submit the more money you make. If you have the gift of writing and even if you don't, you can still make some money here. They will pay you by how many times your articles are viewed according to it's rank. The better written your article is, the higher the ranking. Helium is a great place to submit articles that you want the world to know about. It will also give you an extra boost of traffic, which is always good! You can also make money by referring people to join and write for them. It's a win win situation! So here it is, sign up, submit your work and make some extra money! I know I am!

Want a million human visitors to your site for free?

2008-03-14T00:28:00.001-07:00

This post is about promoting my TrafficTorrent program. Are you craving more traffic? Want a million human visitors to your site absolutely free? No need to surf or traffic exchange! This program will work if you let it work for you. Try it, you might be surprised, if you get a fairly good amount of traffic now, then it will multiply it fairly well. You can get your free copy here and I am giving it away for free! This is a free program. No catch, nothing. Here is your copy that I am giving to you! Free!!

This is what you call viral marketing at its best. Enjoy it and I hope it works wonders for you. Good luck.

Submit your site link to Free PR-5 and up directories.

2008-02-27T18:18:00.000-08:00

Here is another service that I have provided for my fellow bloggers that will come in handy when building those "quality" one way links that we talked about from my recent article. I have manually sifted and combed through these directories myself. These directories all have a Page Rank (PR) 5 or higher. Submission of your URL or link is FREE. There are no sign-ups or all that other bothersome stuff. You will have to confirm some of them from your email though, no biggie! Each week or so I will try to submit some more free directories and sites to help you along the way. Good luck. Note- I added 30+ sites for you so you can get started with at least 30 in case some of them are now closed to submissions. Some may take weeks to include your submission but is worth it.

Abacha

Acoon

Accoona

Alexa

Amfibi

Burf

Cipinet

Dramba

Entireweb

Exactseek

Ezilon

Freewebdirectory

Geniusfind

Haabaa

Homerweb

Imegamall

Info-listings

Infotiger

JDGO

Myahint

Mygreencorner

Qango

Search4i

Searchwiz

Sighbercafe

Softzdirectory

Somuch

Towersearch

Webworldindex

Zeezo

Zensearch

Zurchdirectory

How to on: Protecting yourself from article/content thieves.

2008-02-26T19:36:00.000-08:00

Due to the recent proliferation of three articles from my site, I have decided to arm my fellow readers with some knowledge on protecting yourself from these un-original pirate scum. First off, copyright your works and content. One by one if you have to or do the whole site at one time.

Here is a great tool that I found on the net that will copyright your works for free and you can actually use it in a court of law. This site allows you to make a copyright of your works and gives you a "digital" fingerprint of your content. Now what this means is this digital fingerprint will have the time and date stamp of your content and your registration date/time with them. Here is the site. http://www.myfreecopyright.com/ It's easy and free to register and easy/free to use.

You can also use this tool to see if any of your articles are on the net. This will detect close copies of your works if there are any articles that it traces on a word for word basis. You can use this free tool here at http://www.copyscape.com/.

If you need a more in depth view about what to do when your articles/content get stolen, you can look at this site here. It serves as a great reference in your step by step recovery of your articles etc. and how and where to report these thieves. I will refer you here...http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum44/2199.htm

Hopefully you will never have to use this last site that I gave you. Protect yourself everytime you publish your article or have a new idea on your site. This will save you a lot of time and hassle. Good luck and watch out for the pirates !!

www.royalidea.blogspot.com ARE ARTICLE THIEVES!!!!

2008-02-25T23:21:00.000-08:00

This site www.royalidea.blogspot.com has 2 articles plagiarized from me. Word for word!! They are as follows: A to Z guide from beginner bloggers. and Links, linking and SEO what they have to do with each other explained. I have seen them being DUGG on DIGG!!! This is straight out disgusting, please report this site to google and the other search engines. This will ensure that my site can go on and keep bringing you articles that help you. We will rid these pirate scums and their sites as well. You really can't come up with any original ideas can you? I'm the original writer for these two articles that you stole. Once again, that's http://www.royalidea.blogspot.com - POS ARTICLE THIEF !! I will not stop posting about their sites until my content is taken down and they are banned from the search engines !!!

WEB PIRATES - STOLE MY ARTICLES!!!!

2008-02-25T18:37:00.000-08:00

This really makes me angry!! I am writing this post in retrospect to the events that happened today. I was going through my usual routine of checking my keywords when a second site popped under mine. Lo and behold I saw the same title for his article as mine!! These are the websites that have MY stolen content on it:

http://www.hauntologie.blogspot.com/ - has one article plagiarized from me.

http://royalidea.blogspot.com/ - has 2 articles plagiarized from me. Word for word!! Can you believe this? No link backs, mention or nothing, it's like he's the one who wrote it! They are even getting Diggs and bookmarked for MY WORKS. This is BS. Here's a way you guys can help me.

This was my original article published in Jan. of 2008 as you can see here
http://www.moonburst-tones.blogspot.com/2008/01/slim-lining-and-fine-tuning-your-blog.html. He didn't even give me credit for it!! Not to mention the gross grammatical errors he has in his article. Please, if you see any of my articles on the net, please feel free to contact me at my email address moonburst2008@yahoo.com. I have already reported this site to all the major social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumble etc. since they are using them to even favorite this article!! If you see yours or my articles, images or other content that's originally yours on the net. Report them as soon as possible. If you use someone else's posts or articles, please give credit to the author!! To all of you stealing content on the net, thievery will not be tolerated on the net. I will find a way to get your site banned. I will also follow legal procedures and prosecute you to the full extent of the law. To my fellow bloggers, here is a great tool that will detect plagiarized works on the net. Use it to see if anyone has your articles on their site. Let me make this as clear as I can. I DON'T MIND you using my articles and ideas, just LINK back or give me credit. Blatantly copying any articles here and then putting your URL or link on it is disgusting and unoriginal.

“Master Plan“ Part II - Monetizing our blog:

2008-02-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

Before we start with monetizing our blog/site, we have to ask ourselves this simple question. Why are we monetizing our blog or site? You may either choose to or not. For many of us, it’s as simple as extra income, short term income, long term income. These can be primary or secondary sources for us. Monetized blogs are different from other sites from the mere fact that they have ads pasted into them unlike the unadvertised blogs. Nowadays, it’s rare to come across an established blog with no ads. Other blogs of course are there for reference and teaching purposes only. If you want your slice of the pie in the blogosphere here are a few programs to achieve that:

Adsense: Has Pay Per Click (PPC) and Cost Per Mille – “every 1,000 impressions” (CPM). Free sign up and you can make money on their referral programs also.

Adbrite: Has Cost Per Mille (CPM) program. You can choose from automatic advertising or choose the ads that will be displayed on your page. Free sign up.

Atomicseek: Pay Per Click program. You can earn up to 50% of commissions from their revenue share.

Auctionads: Display live eBay auctions and get a commission from your site’s referrals.

Azoogle Ads: Has a Cost Per Action (CPA) program (usually form submissions or purchases made). High payouts attainable.

Bidclix: Has Pay Per Click (PPC) text ads.

Bidvertiser: Has ads (almost like Adsense) the difference is Advertisers bid for the ads by site (the better your site, the higher commission you get). Has affiliate program.

Blogsvertise: Program where advertisers advertise through way of reviews posted on your site. You can either choose to accept or deny assignments given to you.

CasaleMedia: Has a Cost Per Mille (CPM) program.

Chitika: Currently has six (6) earners for publishers. eMinimalls, Related Products Unit (RPU), Shoplincs, Shopcloud$, Owna and Linx. Free sign up.

Clixgalore: Affiliate marketing program with text and graphic based ads. Has referral program. Free sign up.

CommissionJunction: Offers Pay Per Lead and affiliate marketing programs. Hundreds of merchants to choose from. Free sign up.

Edgebiter: Has ads like Adsense and also offers graphics ads. Has an affiliate program you can join.

Exoclick: Offers graphics advertisements. Another Pay Per Click (PPC) program.
Free to join. Haven’t used them yet.

Fastclick: Offers contextual ads in either banners or skyscrapers etc. (Adsense like ads).

TextLinkAds: Sell text links on your site. Pays 50% of link ad revenue.

Valueclick: Offers CPC and CPM ads. Has referrals programs.

Websponsors: Offers PPC program. Ad network.

I know that I may have left some of the more popular programs out. Please bear with me as there are literally Hundreds of ad networks and PPC programs on the net. These are just some of the more recognizable ones. Visit each site and find the ones that you are comfortable with. Adsense is by far the best one out there.

Tips for your newly acquired ads:

Experiment with ad placements on your site.

Ads should either be at the upper right side (skyscrapers), across the top of our posts (banners) or where they are easily seen.

Ad colors can go either one of two ways. Either you can blend them into your background or you can make them stand out from your background. It just depends on the sites layout color. It will be different from other people’s sites. See what color combinations give you more clicks.

Do not!! Over swamp your articles. If people can’t read your articles or are overwhelmed by the ads, chances are they won’t come back to your site.

A well placed/colored ad will make money depending on the CONTENT of the blog/site. The more traffic your site has, the more likely that your ads will work out for you. Appropriate use of ads will ensure you have good start on your way to earning.

Trial and error is the only judge of how your site will perform with the chosen ad programs that you chose to incorporate. Give it a little time and see how each one works out for you. Good luck.

Using Stumble as a traffic generator, the easy way!!

2008-02-16T13:41:00.000-08:00

Looking to get more traffic from your niche? Using Stumble is a great way to drive that extra traffic to your website. It won't be like the massive traffic spikes that you might receive from Digg, but will be a constant stream that should build up over time. This is the type of traffic most of us want since people from the same niche will refer to our site and just might give us backlinks. This method can be used for each "great" or helpful article that we write. What better way to spread traffic? Ok, so how do you use it? It's simple, here is the step by step on getting it and using it.

Download the Stumbleupon tool bar here!

After installation you will see a toolbar just under your Yahoo or Google toolbar that has a two blue hands, one with the "thumbs up" and the other with the "thumbs down". Your toolbar will also have extra options to show a page from any of the following topics, stumble thru a website, show a page liked by a friend, show a news item, show an image and video at Stumble. Each of these elements let you use Stumble with ease.

When you use the tool bar, navigate to your webpage, articles or home page. When you are there, click on the "I like it!" icon. You will be required to log-in with a yahoo i.d. on the screen that will pop-up. Enter the information in all required fields. In the keywords field, make sure you use the same keywords that pertain to your site. Now click "submit" and you are all done.

So what happens now? Well your "stumble" will be placed in the coinciding category that is used to separate the Stumble articles. When people "stumble" (type in keywords for articles or sites they are looking for) your article / site will be listed along with the description that you wrote or other people wrote for your articles. If you have a really great and informative article you may get hundreds or even thousands of hits driving your traffic up if your lucky. Just using this tool will boost your traffic and make it easier for you also to navigate to sites just like yours! Have fun Stumbling and building your traffic at the same time!

Add a Social Bookmarking Widget to Your Sidebar.

2008-02-16T11:09:00.000-08:00

Why should you add this widget do you ask? This widget will let your readers know that you have bookmarked your site with all the major social bookmarking sites. You will be found easier and it's easier to use for your readers letting them enjoy the ease and not getting frustrated. Besides it looks great and makes your blog look more professional. This code is great for the blogger platform.

You can make your link code here (highlight the code + copy it). Please insert this code into your sidebar or after your comments, depending on what style you chose. If you need help with adding page elements to your blogs body look here.

Log into your blogger account.

Go to the Edit Layout tab.

Then go to the Add Page Element tab. Click on the add HTML tag and paste the code into the box.

Save it and preview it. You should see the little bookmarking boxes after your posts or in your sidebar depending on the bookmark graphic you chose and the location of where you put it.
Enjoy.

Links, Linking and SEO. What they have to do with each other explained.

2008-02-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

After I had been asked by a fellow blogger on linking and the significance of links to your blog, I wanted to clarify a few details about linking that should help with your linking strategy. The Google and Yahoo algorithms look at the links pointing to your page. The more you have the better. BUT! It depends on the “characteristics” of the links that you have pointing to your site. There are “bad” links, “quality” links and “regular” links. I will offer more detail for the “quality” links as they are more useful and so that we know what we are looking for in a “quality” links characteristics.

Here are some few guidelines that you should follow and you will be ok and on your way to a better spot on the search eng!nes not to mention driving additional traffic to your site!

1. “Quality” backlinks are links that are:

a. Coming from another site that has a high page ranking (PR) ranking of 4 or better. (PR ranking is from 0 – 10 with 10 being the best).

b. “One” way links from similar sites as yours, as these links carry a heavier weight in the search engines.

c. Links that are coming from sites of a similar niche or nature. (I.e.: If you have an automotive repair site, then contribute to a site where they sell automotive parts or give automotive tips and tricks).

Getting these “quality” backlinks:

a. Join “niche” directories and forums where you can contribute and leave comments on their site. Leaving thoughtful and provocative comments will almost always coax a response from either the Author himself or Readers. Always input the URL of your website when leaving comments so that they can follow your URL to your site!

b. Join social community sites like Friendster, Mybloglog, Mylot, Blogcatalog etc. will help out not only with exposure of your blog by giving you extra traffic but you can also place the link of your URL on these high PR sites.

c. Ask to trade links with high PR pages. This will only work if they somehow think that you have a really good site, are really friendly or helpful. If you do get a link from them TREASURE it!

d. Befriend top-notch bloggers and learn from them their secrets also on obtaining “quality” links. Brainstorming with experienced people is always a plus.

e. Writing authoritative articles that helps or informs other bloggers, for beginners, novices and experts alike. They will link to your article if they like it! Valuable information can be passed onto others and used as references by many readers.

f. OFFLINE NETWORKING-This is one tool that is free for all of us and can play a big part in link building if done right! Tell all your friends, family, classmates, co-workers and associates that have blogs and sites about your new site. They can write a review or instantly provide a link to your site for you, over a cup of coffee or tea of course!

g. Make a business card for your blog. You can have thousands of business cards printed out for a very nominal fee. Leave them at checkout counters of stores or hand them out to your friends and family.

h. If this is your 2nd or 3rd blog, have your main blog link to it, if your PR for your main blog is pretty high.

i. Free submission directories. With this tool you will have to use your own judgment as to whether you want to submit to that site or not. Ask around the web and see what people say about that site first, it will save you a lot of time and hassle before submission.

2. “Bad links” links and other things to avoid:

a. Bad links are the links from other sites (mostly submission sites) that have nothing to do with your site. These links are not weighed heavily by the search engines but can help you drive a miniscule amount of traffic to your site.

b. Bought links in the hundreds or thousands, too many traded links and submission to link directories or FFA (free for all) should be avoided whenever possible. According to Googles algorithm, sites can be penalized if this is found to be within the site. The intermittent use of link trading is ok and manual submission to specific safe directories is ok.

c. Spamming your link to forums, sites and directories alike is a big no-no and should be avoided.

3. Regular links:

a. Regular links are the reciprocal links or links accumulated through “link trading”. This can be of good use especially if the sites linking to you are high PR sites and sites within your niche. This can also be bad if they have no PR or not within your niche.

b. Links that you use as a signature in a comment not relevant to your site can be classified as a regular link.

One thing to remember? Having a lot of “quality” backlinks to your site is good for your SEO and does wonders for your site as far as traffic and PR are concerned. Avoid the negative “linking” practices and your blog will grow and be a place that people can always come to depend on for information and knowledge. As with anything else seo, adding links and taking them out is and will always be a constant battle. Be patient when building "quality" links, have fun, enjoy your blog and be yourself. It will work out in the long run and readers will see you are real people and care about what you blog. That's the next generation bloggers way of LINKING! Happy blogging!

Blogging Tips: Driving more traffic to your site with a ping!

2008-02-13T00:07:00.000-08:00

If articles are the blood that supply oxygen to your blog, then a "ping" would most likely be the synapses to your blog's brain. Whatever you would want to compare it to, pinging is a function that must be done in order to maintain a steady stream of traffic coming to your blog. Pinging is usually done when you have updated your blog or have changed something in it (i.e. seo tricks or what not).

Definition of a ping:

A ping also known as an ICMP (Internet control message protocol) is a program that sends an incoming "echo" request to another computer asking if it can receive information packets. It is used as an update tool for most blogs/sites. (Same as they use in a submarine to pinpoint location and distance of another sub, albeit the computer ping is not for warfare. It is only used in the ever and on-going blogwars!!).

This will give the search engines the "go" signal and spider your site to look for new materials. Pinging will also bring in some traffic that just might do your blog some good. Extra traffic is always good :-). There are a few pingers that have a good service. Here are a few that I use myself! I have included both the "manual" and the "auto" pinging services. They will ping most of the larger blog search engines and then some.

1. http://www.pingoat.com/

2. http://www.pingmyblog.com/

3. http://www.pingomatic.com/

4. http://www.technorati/

5. http://www.autopinger.com/

The first four will ping your blog and most of the pings are ok. Sometimes there are errors though, but this should not stop you. The last one can be used to "auto-ping" your blog, which is good if you are busy or need to step out. If you need to manually ping your blog also, you can do it on their site. Pinging should be done only once an hour or so. So, break out the new content, load it and ping! Moonburst

Cool blogging tips: Adding page elements to blogger!

2008-02-12T23:13:00.000-08:00

So, you got the itch to add a smooth looking design or a cool pic to your header, body and/or footer? When you start out with Blogger, you only have limited Page Elements that you can add to. Usually, the header (top), body and footer (bottom) will not have the option to add additional page elements. The sidebar is the only place that you can add extra Page Elements. I will show you how to modify the Blogger code in order for you to add that cool pic of yours or design to either, the header, body or footer. Cool huh?

Open up your blogger account and go to the “Layout” tab. On the second row of labels, proceed to the Edit HTML tag. Open up your favorite text editor (Notepad or Word) and COPY your ENTIRE HTML code. Save it in a safe place. You should always back up your sites HTML code before proceeding to dissect/encode it. Note: I took all the opening and closing HTML tags out so I can show the code.

Now scroll down until you get to this section that shows as follows:

** Page structure tweaks for layout editor wireframe **

(This is your Header-Wrapper code **at the top**)

div id="header-wrapper"
?xml:namespace prefix = b b:section class="header" id="header" showaddelement="no" maxwidgets="1"
b:widget id="Header1" title="Tune-ups for your blog!! (Header)" type="Header" locked="true"b:widget

(This is your Footer code **at the bottom**)

div id="content-wrapper"

div id="crosscol-wrapper" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"
b:section class="crosscol" id="crosscol" showaddelement="no"
b:widget id="HTML7" title="" type="HTML" locked="false"b:widget
b:widget id="Text1" title="" type="Text" locked="false"b:widget
b:widget id="HTML2" title="" type="HTML" locked="false"b:widget
b:section
div

(This is your Body code **where your articles are**)

div id="main-wrapper"
b:section class="main" id="main" showaddelement="no"
b:widget id="Blog1" title="Blog Posts" type="Blog" locked="true"b:widget
b:section
div

Go to the “showaddelement=no” and replace the no with a “yes”. Do that for all 3 sections. Now you can add additional elements to those parts of your blog. Easy no?

Preview your new HTML code by clicking on the blue preview button. You should now be able to see the additional page elements in your header, body, and footer. If this is correct, (make sure this is correct first!!) press save and you’re all done. Use these page elements as you would regular page elements from the sidebar. Have fun and experiment. Moonburst

Making a blog and money the real and sure way.

2008-02-11T20:57:00.000-08:00

First off, if you are looking into making "money fast" the easy way or any other hair brain scheme, you can forget about it. All those ebooks that people try to sell are facts and tips that you yourself can find on the internet and implement yourself. Most of us that are beginning simply do not know how to start our way to making a blog, so I will help you as much as I can. Before starting a blog, we have to have "master plan" among the other things that we should consider. We have to plan that blog of ours or it will more or less be a failure. Here are some of those few things that should help us on our way to choosing and setting up our first blog or second if the first didn't work out. This will be part 1 of my "Master Plan". Every week I will post the other parts, so stay tuned and shall we get started? This is the "Master Plan" layout. Each topic will be covered individually, since I cannot touch basis on each one here at one time. It's just too long!!

I. Setting up our blog
a. Finding a niche
b. Manually setting up our blog
c. Choosing colors
d. Adding widgets etc.
e. Setting site up for SEO
f. URL submission of site

II. Monetizing our blog
III. Optimizing our blog
IV. Traffic building
V. Re-check of I.-IV.

Master Plan: Part I.

A. Find a niche:

Finding a "niche" blog. What that means is that we should start a blog that has high demand with low supply. If we try to compete with the more established blogs or popular blogs right off the back, we will have a hard time. Find something that you enjoy blogging about. Something that you are a pro at whether it be "sports statistics", "repairing cell phones", "how to's", or "backyard mechanics" etc., the list goes on and on. Choosing our "niche" according to our skills and knowledge would give us an optimal head-start. Google the keywords for our niche to see how much competition we have and what other types of websites are out there. If we have a feeling that we can compete, then it's a "go" signal. if there is too much competition, back to the drawing board until we can find that "niche".

After we have found our "niche" we have to ask yourself, will it be profitable for us (if we would like to make money from our blog)? Or if money is no concern and we just want to spread our knowledge, that's great. Now, we have to set-up the blog. But, before we can set up our blog, there are some preparations that we should undertake! Write about 10 articles (300-500 words) on our "niche" with either Notepad or Word. A couple
"how-to's", "interesting facts" or any knowledge based articles should do the trick. If you
cannot write 10 articles, then research the net and deepen your knowledge on the subject. Your articles should also be "keyword rich". What I mean is, the articles that we write should contain the main keywords for our niche at least 10-12 times in the article. Article writing will make or break a blog. Learn how to write well and definitive. Set those articles aside.

B. Setting up our blog:

You can either choose to set up your blog with Blogger or
Wordpress if you would like. These two would be good platforms to start with as you don't have to have any/or very little knowledge of HTML encoding and they are free. We can check these two out and find the one that we would like to use. It all depends on you. If you are serious about starting a "real" blog or site, then opt to host your blog and buy your own domain name. A domain name and hosting can be had for very little these days. Just check which hosting services can accommodate your budget. Now, after you have your blog set up, it's time to incorporate these articles into your blog. Depending on your platform and hosting of course, add these 8 articles that you wrote into your blog. Notice I said eight (8). Save the other two. The method for this is, you can write two more articles. Once you are done writing those two articles, submit the last two (leftover from the original 10), that way, you always have 2 articles for a back up!

C. Choosing colors for your blog:

Choosing the right color combinations for your blog, or a premade template should be easy. Go for the "easy on the eyes" color combination when coloring your blog. After all we want our readers to be able to easily read our text, I mean who wants to read yellow text on a hot pink background, right?

D. Adding widgets and other cool stuff:

Here, we can add widgets of other stuff like Adsense ads (for serious money making), lists of other websites, our blog roll (favorite blogs), links etc. Once you have those set up, you are almost ready to go. Placing ads, hmmmm...this one's a toughy. Depending on the layout of your blog, you should have it either to the upper left or upper right. Experiment with placements and see where you can get the highest average of clicks. Placement of our other widgets is all a personal choice as to the order or place that we want them. Just make sure that they are easily accessible!

E. setting up our site for SEO

Now, we can set up our SEO (search eng!ne optimization). This is kind of tricky, so I will refer you to my OTHER article when you get to this part. Meta tags are the keywords that search eng!ines will be looking for when they crawl your website. keep it to a maximum of 20. You can also look for other SEO tips from my Blogging Tips section.

F. Submitting our site to search engines:

Search engine submission is where we can finally see our finished site on the web searches! Just go here to submit your sites to all the major search eng!nes. Here we can submit our site to all the big engines in one fell swoop, saving us time from manual submissions. Manual submissions to other directories is another SEO trick, but that's another article!

Wow, ok, if I didn't scare you away yet, congratulations on setting up your blog. We are now on our way to becoming part of the blogosphere and contributing to it. I wish you good luck on your ventures and may you succeed with your ambitions. Moonburst.

Blog it forever!!

2008-02-08T00:46:00.000-08:00

When we blog, it's meant to be something that either helps people out or is intended to change the world as people see it from another persons perspective. We are all familiar with the phrase "If you build it they will come". Of course, the same is with blogging, "If you blog it they will read" and so forth. My question to you is, with the stuff that you are blogging about, will they be able to read it "forever"? Another words, is your content timeless? If it is, then you have just accomplished something phenomenal. You have created a masterpiece of writing that will withstand the test of time and contribute to the masses in it's own little way. Whatever you may be blogging about, put your 100 percent honesty and truthfulness into it and it will show for itself. Blog it forever, and people will remember your name. Even if its been years after your last blog, hopefully not!

Hopefully you do get my point though. People say blog as if no one is listening, but if you write that one blog that gets to everyone, then everyone is listening, no? What you have to say makes a difference to people out there. Whether it be your opinion, helpful hints or what not. Contributing to the blogosphere is something that you should be proud of. You have made your mark on this world through your writing. If you want to be remembered as a good writer, then you better pour out your heart and soul and unbiased comments on that keyboard. If you had a million people looking and waiting for you to speak, what would you say to them?

There will forever be doubters and slackers when it comes to writing good content. Others just need to brush up on their writing skills and like some of us, we are just beginning. Research everything that you will blog about, now it's not mandatory that you are a specialist in your field, but it helps a lot. People will know that you are knowledgable in what you are talking about. Increase your knowledge, there are so many blogging tips out there and blogging advice, you can't read them all in one month! Don't worry about anyone's comments about your writing or what you write. You can't please every one, but try to at least embody your writing to a broad spectrum of readers. Hopefully, you will have good luck with your blogging and as long as you have perseverance and patience, then you will succeed. Remember, blog for the people first and the computers second. That is always the golden rule. Traffic and seo will come hand in hand with your content. Best of luck to you.

Blogging tips. Free English and Grammar lessons.

2008-02-04T22:20:00.000-08:00

I was going through my usual routine today and researching more ways on making legitimate money online and other ways of developing my blog. What I found astounded me. I was actually perplexed by it you see. There were I'd say maybe, on the short end 8 blogs that have incorrect grammar usage and misspellings. I don't claim to know everything about The English language, but I do know that Microsoft Word does have the tools for grammar and spelling corrections.

For beginners and Novices alike, it is best that you proofread your entries and make sure there are no such mistakes. It will help make your blog look more professional not only to other bloggers like myself but to the advertisers as well. I know that we are all human and mistakes are bound to happen once in a while. So, I have decided to offer beginner bloggers my services of proofreading / wording adjustment of your blog entries after they are posted. Or if you prefer, before you post. You will have to I.M. me thru yahoo (moonburst2008@yahoo.com) right after you post. You can also send your posts to my e-mail at moonburst2008@yahoo.com. All e-mail sent to me will be responded to within 24 hours (Monday thru Friday). The 24 hours will be an exception on maybe Saturdays and Sundays (Pacific Time) but I will try!! So, if you are not pressed for time on the weekends nor have a deadline due, then that's great.

If you I.M. -Instant message- me and I don't respond within 5 minutes, then I am not at the computer, seeing as I don't have my own computer set right now. Hopefully, I will acquire my own pc after 3 or 4 months. I will let you know how it goes. All material sent to me will be strictly on a confidential basis. I will not recycle your posts, and I will not steal your material. Besides, that's plagiarism and so unoriginal and unethical, which is a really big no-no when you are blogging and trying to build a reputation in the blogosphere.

So there you have it, tell all that you know, your friends, relatives and associates, that I will proofread your works and try to help you in the correct usage of the English language. All I ask of my free service is that you leave me a small donation thru Paypal if you feel that I have helped you out so that I can buy my own computer and work from my home in my uninterrupted time. Whether you give or not is up to you. Donations can be sent via Paypal to this Paypal address - gigaclix2007@yahoo.com. Thanks, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Affiliate programs you can make extra money with.

2008-01-30T10:34:00.000-08:00

On my journey to trying to make extra money online, I came across a few sites that I would like to list as far as customer service is concerned, their payments and job assortments. These affiliate programs I have listed here are personally used by me. They are really good sites for beginner bloggers who want to make a little extra cash on the side. It won't make you rich, but it will help you pay some of those electrical and dsl bills.

BLOGSVERTISE

You can get a good start with an affiliate program here at Blogsvertise. They find advertisers for you and you can either decide to go with the project presented or reject it. Pay for each Blogsvertise.project differs according to your blog and its content. The better your blog, the easier it is to get projects and higher paying projects. Payment is made automatically to your Paypal account after they review your post project.

Times I have been paid: 2

SPONSORED REVIEWS

This affiliate program is great as it has tons of advertisers to choose from. It's set-up is a little different though. You make bids on the projects that you select, according to the project minimum and maximum. Once your bid has been accepted, post the project accordingly to the requirements and wait for approval. Payment is made every two weeks thru Paypal. You earn a percentage of the price that you bid. 65 percent goes to you and 35 percent to Sponsored Reviews. It's free to join and no hidden fees. I have just started with this program barely a week ago only and I already got paid!

Times I have been paid: 1

ADBRITE

Adbrite is another way to make extra income online through an affiliate program. It's easy and free to join. Adbrite picks advertisers for you and you select the advertisers that you want to display, it's that easy. Minimum payout can be as low as $10.00 if you like, or higher if you want. It's up to you what kind of ads you want displayed on your site. You can click on the button below to get you started. I will also update you on my first payment from them!

MYLOT.COM

Here's an affiliate program that's great for you who have the gift of gab or good at giving someone advice, or if you just love to conversate with other people. This program is also free to join and no hidden fees. The minimum payout is $10.00 dollars (U.S.). Easy to achieve if you have downlines and referrals. I believe that every comment that you post will bring you two cents each. It's not much but if you have the time and love to talk, then this could be for you. Like I said, it will help a little with your electric bill! You can check it out here. I haven't reached the minimum payout yet, but I haven't heard any bad news from the people who have reached their minimum.

MONEY4BANNERS.COM

Money4banners is currently giving you $10.00 dollars just for signing up and if you keep their banners on your site, they will also give you about $5.00 per month. It's not much but it will help you out in a little way. I have just started with them, so I will update you when I get my first pay from them. Try them out, they are free and maybe you can make a little moolah on your quest.

GREEN HORSE

Greenhorse is a little different also, but is an affiliate program just the same. Green Horse pays you just for leaving your computer on. It's supposed to pay you 1 cent every hour that your computer is on. You make bigger earnings if you have at least 10 downlines for your account. That's where you will make the real money. Will let you know the outcome and we will see what happens.

These are only four affiliate programs that I have experimented with and actually made money with. So when I have more money making programs under my belt, I will do a review of each and tell you how they are. Stay tuned up!

Murder Mystery at St. Lukes Medical Center

2008-01-25T09:14:00.000-08:00

There was this case in the ICU ward where patients were
always dying in the same bed, every Sunday mornings at
11:00 a.m. regardless of their medical conditions.

This puzzled doctors and no one could solve d mystery
"Why deaths happend on Sundays at 11:00 a.m". A group
of paranormal experts were then called to see if they
could give any help.

They arrived armed with special photographic equipment,
infrared devices and motion sensitive radar to detect
any presence.

So, the next Sunday morning a few minutes before 11:00
a.m., the doctors and nurses nervously waited outside the
ward to see what the mystery was all about. Some were
holding wooden crosses and prayer books to ward off the
evil spirits.

just then, the clock struck 11:00 a.m. ....................

Mr. Joe, who was a part-time janitor then entered the ward,
unplugged the life support system and plugged in his vacuum
cleaner. :-p

Link Building the sure way.

2008-01-23T00:37:00.000-08:00

This article will cover only a few strategies to link building. Please stay tuned for more articles on link building. Link building is one of the very important elements of having traffic come to your page and also for building up page rank. We can achieve this as a beginner blogger the sure way by following these tips. This article is a bit lengthy, but worth it for every beginner. So, without further adieu, here are my link building tips...

Leaving smart comments from forums and posts is a good way to leave your mark out there, slowly but surely. As you can see, I said "smart" comments. Do not just go there and say "I agree" or "nice article" and leave it to that. Really read what other people have to say and what experiences they have from blogging. Learning from others' mistakes will make you wiser and you won't make those mistakes that they did.

Join communities like Facebook,
Spicypage, Mylot, and Mybloglog, just to name a few. These are high page ranking (PR) sites that you can actually put a one way link to your site. One way links are by far the most important as these have high standings with the Google Spider as of now. Links coming from your readers of course are just as important because not only do they link to you, they are part of your blog family and your leads to more readerships. Getting to know your readers will build strong bonds and trust.

If someone links to you, link them back. It's a universal give and take here if you really want to survive. It also shows your readers that you took time to look at their site and are interested in what they have to say also. You can give me your sites address and I will link to you! Just e-mail me @ moonburst2008@yahoo.com or just leave a message in my cBox. Please do not spam my cBox though, thanks much!

Patience! Link building and other people linking to your site DOES NOT happen overnight. It takes time just as any good project would. I think your site deserves the kind of patience that will make it shine don't you?

Writing timeless and killer content articles are by far the easiest ways to get noticed. Especially if it helps a lot of people out with a problem they have or it's something that they can keep coming back to read for reference. People will link to your articles if they are thoughtful, incisive, helpful, progressive and entertaining or is something that they can relate to. People love to read. If they find one of your articles that meet these qualities, of course they look for more! More articles read means more links to your articles/site.

Submit your best written articles to carnival blogs and article submission sites. Namely anywhere it can be read. See number 5 for the effect of submitting well written articles.

Do a review of other peoples blogs who are willing to give a link out to yours. A free link should be treasured. Networking with other people of the same subject/site is a great way to build links. Encourage feedback. Encouraging feedback will let you know your audience in a more personal way by talking to them and really listening to their needs or advice.

Don't be discouraged by your low stats at the beginning. Everyone starts out that way. Rome wasn't built in a day. When Link building, set a goal for yourself when building your links for your site. Ask yourself first what you want to get out of it. Are you just doing this for money? That will almost fail for sure. You can't do it just for the money, there has to be something else that will drive you to work harder and smarter for your site. Making money from your site will come as a reward of your hard work (see link building, hehe).

Try to interview high profile bloggers, or well known bloggers of the community. Enticing the public to peruse your interview. Another great link building technique. Of course the public is curious as what a famous blogger had to say to you! If you don't get any replies from them, keep on trying. Ask "smart" questions to them once again, not everyday questions that they have already answered a gazillion times on their sites. Ask a prodding question that will make their
wheels turn. You might be surprised by their answers.

Offer a free service to your readers, like tips or money making strategies, ways to make their blog better or technical advice that they can use. Everybody loves to get something for free. It will help them out in the long run and be more appreciative of your site. Link building is a challenge that we all must face. It doesn't mean you have to face it alone though! There are tons of link building tips out on the net. I encourage you to learn as much as you can and read as much as you can for your own benefit. This list I have given you is by no means complete. You can also try other link building sites like this one to help you out a little. Good luck!

Or even sign up for absolutely free traffic here! Great site for building your traffic.

Get 100 FREE Visitors to Your Website!

Slim lining and fine tuning your blog for seo.

2008-01-22T09:17:00.000-08:00

Slim lining and fine tuning your blog doesn't have to be difficult. Having a slim lined and fine-tuned blog is a never ending battle. It's hard work and you have to constantly fine-tune your blog in every aspect, whether it be monetizing, seo, or for traffic reasons. Fine-tuning your blog can help in various ways. Here is a list as to how to slim-line your blog and design it to be more user friendly.

1. Use categories. They will help your audience find what they are looking for a lot easier. They will appreciate you more for that.

2. Get rid of the cluttered look. Everything in your blog should have a proper "place". It makes your blog look more professional and not something that you just put together overnight or something.

3. Unused links or dead links can be frustrating to users. Weekly checks of your links should just about do it. Remove or replace any dead links as soon as you can.

4. Don't burden your site/blog with a lot of pictures or movies. If it takes your page a long time to download see what you can take out that won't sacrifice the quality for your users, users will usually go the other way if it takes too long. Download time should be 1 second or less, depending of course on the users connection!

5. Keep your articles well organized. Looking for an article that should be in one category and finding it another kind of defeats the purpose for categories.

6. Blogging layout and articles should follow the K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple silly) method. Beginners (like myself) don't understand a lot of the technical jargon. If you can, put it in layman's terms. If it's meant to be for beginners, make it for beginners.

7. Keep your "super" links and ditch the old ones or not so good ones. This will make your blog/site more search friendly by keeping the URL's found on your blog to a minimum.

8. Keywords should be kept to a minimum of 20 in your meta tags. If you want to know how to insert or use meta tags for search optimization (seo) please feel free to look at my article on adding meta tags to your site/blog.

9. Design of your blog/site is key when users want an easy to use interface and when keeping seo in mind (mind you, do not rely purely on seo for your site). Providing and easy to use interface to users lets them browse, link and subscribe a lot easier to your site. Visit your site and test it to see if it's user friendly. Compare it with other sites and look at the differences, then write them down and see what you can improve on.

10. Provide and RSS feed so that your users can subscribe keep up with your articles and always be "in the know" about your blog or articles.

These ten tips should help you out in a small way. Maybe there are a few points that I missed again, please feel free to add. Like I said before, fine-tuning your blog is an almost weekly if not daily (for some of us) routine, especially for seo modifications. Your users will appreciate you for it and it will help your blog out at the same time. Moonburst.