Guest Post by Chris Brantner.

If you want to be successful as a blogger, there’s something you must have. Readers. More specifically, you need to have loyal readers who subscribe to your blog so they can keep up with your latest posts, interact in the comments, and share your content with their friends online.

This begs the question: How can you get more blog subscribers? There are many different ways to do this, and most of them are actually pretty easy.

Just start by following these 8 simple tips.

Place a subscribe button above the fold—You can’t expect people to subscribe if they don’t know how. You need to have a big RSS subscribe button above the fold on the sidebar of your blog. This way, blog readers will see it as soon as they land on your blog, and if they like your content, they’ll click to subscribe.

Checkout how you can give a good impression to your RSS subsribers with 5 simple steps.

Remind users to subscribe at the end of posts—I believe in placing a call to action in every screen view. So, in addition to the subscribe button at the top of your blog, try adding a signature to your posts where you provide a link and call to action encouraging readers to subscribe.

You should also learn how not to irritate your blog readers.

Create quality content—You aren’t going to trick people into reading or subscribing to your blog. If you want to build a loyal reader base, you need to produce quality content. Period.

You should also know how to pass the quality content with proper content marketing.

Make it easy to share your posts—You need to have social media buttons on your posts so readers can share content they enjoy with just one click. Make sure to include buttons for the most popular social networks and any niche networks that are relevant to your blog. Promote your posts on social voting websites—You need to promote your posts on voting sites like Digg, ReddIt, Mixx, StumbleUpon, and other similar websites. This can help drive traffic and build awareness for your blog.

You can also add google buzz button to your wp blogs with counter for a better sharing over Google buzz.

Guest post on other blogs—Guest blogging is a powerful technique for building links back to your blog and increasing awareness. With a regular guest blogging strategy, you can attract more readers and subscribers.

Allow guest bloggers on your blog—In addition to posting on other blogs, you should also allow good bloggers to post content on your blog.Why? Because they’ll tell their readers about their post on your blog, driving more traffic to your blog.

As an example this site has also increased its follower base by inviting all guest bloggers for guest blogging.

Update on a consistent basis—You can’t build a loyal reader base if you only update your blog on a rare occasion. You need to update consistently. Set a posting schedule, and stick with it.

For a step by step help you can checkout how to increase blogging efficiency.

What have you done to get more blog subscribers? Share your best tips by leaving a comment.

Chris HELP! is the co-founder of the copy writing agency HELP! Copy and Design. HELP’s website copywriters specialize in creating content that converts.

8 Tips for Getting More Blog Subscribers
Originally Published at Activr - A Simply Technology Blog

Guest Post by Anna Cruz.

The easier it is to use a website, the more effective it will be. Web surfers are fond of convenience and not likely to put up with websites with any lack of usability. Improve the layout and content of your web pages and the time visitors spend on your site will greatly improve.

Use a Fluid Layout

A fluid layout allows more of your website to be viewed on a larger screen. Fixed layouts can be just inconvenient enough to chase away potential customers.

You can create flash websites with Wix to be more accurate on fluidity of your blog.

Check on Several Versions of Browsers

The browser you use is not the only one that visitors to your site will be using. Make sure that it does not look terrible on any browsers, and if it does, make the appropriate changes.

Stick with One Color Scheme

A consistent color scheme is more attractive and will support your brand. Choose 2-6 colors that work very well together and do not vary from them. Also be sure that the color scheme you choose represents your business well.

Choose Consistent Image Sizes

Your website will make more sense if the image sizes are consistent. Use the same size for all of your thumbnails. Make all of your product pictures the same size. And use the same size for all of your extra images.

Use Minimal Fonts

The more fonts you use, the more cluttered and unprofessional your website will look. Stick with two or three font styles and sizes and use them consistently throughout. For instance, use the same font and size for subtitles and the same font and size for text.

For this purpose you can use google custom fonts into your wordpress themes.

Create Easy Navigation

One option is to create a site map that is easily found. You can also make drop down menus to make finding content simple. Or you can implement several options to make navigating your website exceptionally easy.

Plugin for random posts in wp sidebar helped me with deep linking with no much effort.

Give Your Site a Clear Purpose

Your customers should know what you are selling or promoting within five seconds of viewing your web page. If it is not clear, you could lose their interest and the sale.

Present a Clear Call to Action

Your viewers should not have to question their part of the sale. If your call to action is clear, then there will be no question. Be sure to place it within the first paragraph or two of your content and possibly in a separate box on the side.

To get through this you can always read a very useful article on successful content marketing.

Use Plenty of Graphics

Digital designs and photographs make your website more attractive and effective. Graphics also serve to reinforce your message so that your purpose is made clear. Be sure that the file size of your images are not too large to reduce the load time of your site.

Images would surely help you attract more readers to your blog posts. Wowzio theme for wordpress blog serves you best.

Use Web Standards

There are standards for web pages that you should use in order to make your site more usable. Viewers are expecting links to be blue and underlined. If they are not or if you have blue underlined text that are not links, then there may be some confusion. Menus and headers are formatted in much the same way throughout the Internet. These standards make shopping and surfing online more predictable.

For some missing points and a better explanation checkout how to increase blogging efficiency.

Although the above tips are not exhaustive, they will get you a great start. If you have already created a website but find that it doesn’t follow usability features, you will definitely want to make the necessary changes. Usability will keep your viewers coming back and make your web page the successful site you need it to be.

Anna Cruz writes about marketing, advertising, branding, graphic design and desktop publishing. Anna works for PrintPlace.com. You can also submit your guest posts and share your ideas or working tips about improving your website usability.

Improving the Usability of Your Website
Originally Published at Activr - A Simply Technology Blog

Just like any other social media site facebook keyboard shortcuts are found to be hidden. Interestingly, either you discover them accidentally or they are being  offered silently.

This time we have a person at lifehacker has found it accidently and we are too please to share with our friends and readers.

Although this keyboard shortcuts list is not so long but it might give you a little help while on facebook engaging with friends and similar events.

Facebook Keyboard Shortcuts

Alt+1 News feed
Alt+2 your profile
Alt+3 Friend requests(popup)
Alt+4 Messages(popup)
Alt+5 Notifications(popup)
Alt+6 Account Settings
Alt+7 Privacy Settings
Alt+8 Facebook’s facebook profile
Alt+9 ToS
Alt+0 Help center

Previously we have posted about the VLC media player keyboard shortcuts and full downloadable cheatsheat list for Gmail shortcuts

Facebook Keyboard Shortcuts List
Originally Published at Activr - A Simply Technology Blog

A site is not by single person only. It always involves a community and the interaction between its members. More healthy interaction reflects a progressive discussion. In result it helps to get things done by simple notifying and by raising the voice. In short, helping each other with a little effort but a better outcome and long term success.

Just because of this perspective we have always liked to ask the contribution of readers towards the bloggers and got some nice and creative replies.We have got some handy ideas on how to increase blogging efficiency.

These replies not only helped us look forward but also motivated to appreciate this contribution from our readers.

Here we are glad to announce the a little appreciation towards our best or I must say Top Commentators for the last whole month.

At top – is non other than Shabnum Sultan from the wonderful and informative blog Techiez Lounge. She has made her way at top of our friends list. So, do catch up with our list of blogging friends.

Second place is occupied by Arafat Hussain from Worthy Tips. He has also made great and value comments the whole month. It was him we have been looking for special insights.

I welcome both of you to our blogging community.

How to get this chance next month ?

You can also take advantage of this appreciation as we are looking forward to get more friends and little bit more appreciation (125 x 125 add in sidebar)

All you have to is to Subscribe to this blog (RSS or by Email Updates ) and get involve in the discussion via comments.

Note: Person with more comments in July 2010 will get a 125×125 banner in sidebar.

Top Commentators for June 2010
Originally Published at Activr - A Simply Technology Blog

This is probably the second post from the series of Namecheap coupon code we have started last month. This series will let your know about the hosting discounted deals and discounted new domain sales. You can get to know the discount coupon codes for free. Here is the latest and updated July 2010 namecheap coupon code.

This code is available for all new domains and not for the renewals of old expiring domain names. You can also use this domain for transferring the domain from others. Namecheap is the best domain registrar and reliable and trusted company for hosting your websites.

NameCheap Coupon Code for July 2010

Namecheap Coupon Code:  LIBERTY

By using this coupon code you can get the discount of solid $0.88 and domain price reduces to $9.28.

Namecheap Coupon Code For July 2010
Originally Published at Activr - A Simply Technology Blog

Guest Post by Lena Morrish and Dima Nikolayenko.

Many people are writing blogs these days, with varying levels of success. If you want to increase the success of your blog, there are some steps that you can take to do this. As well, everyone measures success differently so you need to determine what is successful to you, amount of readers, subscribers, make money online or something else.

Niche

It is important that your blog follows a niche. As a result, you should decide on your product, service or a topic that you are interested in. Make sure that whatever you choose is something that you can write about every day enthusiastically. The popularity of the topic is not relevant, as long as you pick a topic that has an audience.

To make your mind about a niche you can checkout 25 basic styles of blogging. It will surely help you understand about the blogging types and where you should focus more.

The niche only needs to have a target audience, and it does not matter how large or small this is. A blog about your pet can have a larger niche of information about that type of animal.

You can checkout a nice article on content marketing online strategies. It will surely help you understand working with business website content.

Updates

It is important that you update your blog on a daily basis. This makes it more interesting to your readers, as well as keeps your blog current and fresh, which makes it more appealing to the search engines. While you may find it difficult to keep up, it’s important that you do not miss too many days at a time. As a result, you should set some time aside every day to work on your blog. Going too long between updates can cause you to lose readers and visitors.

You can also read an amazing post on how to increase blogging efficiency for getting further help. Or if you are regular reader do checkout our full detailed tutorials on Blogging Tips and Tricks

Traffic

Without traffic to your website, you are not going to have any type of success. You can get traffic in a variety of ways – paid or free advertising, word of mouth, viral marketing, search engines, RSS feeds or anything else you can think of. Your blog URL should be in all your email correspondence, as well as forums, message boards or anywhere else you are communicating.

You can also try the proven method of throwing out your blog to new people for a better exposure and increase blog traffic with Guest blogging on other blog of same niche

Submit your blog URL to any directories that you can find. Make sure to share it with friends and family that you feel would benefit from reading it, or that may have other connections that would benefit. You can also take a few of your posts, put them together, and submit to article directories, making sure your blog site is listed in your author profile.

Tracking

Make sure that you are using some sort of tracking program to know how many people are visiting your blog. Just because you do not see comments does not mean that no one has come and checked out what you say. You can find free tools for doing this, or it is possible that wherever you are hosting your blog will be able to provide this information as well.

Listen

You should be able to tell how people are finding your blog. If you find that they are mostly coming through a search engine, and using one or two specific keywords, this is a clue that you should focus your blog around these keywords.

Once your visitors are on your site you should focus on diverting their attention to the relevant information. For this purpose you can increase pageviews with Wowzio widgets or to decrease bounce rate with increased deep linking by displaying random posts in wp sidebar.

When it comes to your blog and making it successful, it is best to always be listening and learning to what people want to see. What works one month may not work the next month.

Photo Credit

Lena Morrish and Dima Nikolayenko are co-owners of a home based web business. They blog about making best out of the sources of passive income. Join their free-email course at Internet Business. You can also submit your guest posts and share your ideas or working tips about running a successful blog.

5 Things to do for a Successful Blog
Originally Published at Activr - A Simply Technology Blog

Here we are with another ABC family series Make it or Break it to watch it online. Now watch drama series Make it or Break it online fore free. All episodes are free to watch online with free streaming video links.

Make It or Break It is a popular ABC drama series, which has been renamed from Perfect 10. Now fans also designate it with MIOBI. This drama series is first of its kind. It features lives of some gymnastics who love to struggle and try to make their way towards the Olympics. It was premiered on 22 June and successful gained visitors of 2.5 million.

You can watch it on your TV screens on ABC Family and on the desktop with the following video streaming links to watch make it or break it online for free. Some of the links are direct streaming links while some are the full episodes of the drama.

Video Streaming Links to Watch Make It or Break It Free

Yidio video link to watch Make It or Break It -best link to watch the full series on time.

SideReal video steaming for Make It or Break It -trusted video site to watch online shows.

Watch Make It or Break It on online free internet TV

TvDuck video for watching Make It or Break It season 2 online – a site with more ads but a good site to watch the show

Make It or Break It on the Blinx onilne TV- dedicated online video channel

CastTv – watch online Make It or Break It shows online fore free with no cost

Compilation of links to watch Make It or Break It shows video streaming

If you are you fond of watching free TV online stuff, you should also checkout watching the FIFA Worldcup online for free.

Watch Make It or Break It Episodes Online for Free
Originally Published at Activr - A Simply Technology Blog

Today morning as I opened by Facebook account I saw link for the invitation. This invitation was non-other than a call to be a beta tester. Interestingly, for quite some time I was looking forward to find this option in facebook settings panels as well as developer tools.

Facebook beta testers will be enjoying the new products and cool features before anybody else. Even before some of their developers. You will then allowed to get the news breaking status on the main news channels or on your technology blogs, about these latest changes on facebook.

Facebook has also planned to arrange a meet-up of these selected beta testers with their team in California headquarters.

Just like any other start-up facebook lacks some features which are possible with third-party apps (i.e scheduling facebook status messages, facebook group chat, adding a chat box to fan pages, similarly much more) but company gradually works to develop a better and incompareable  experience.

I thought it would be something like beta invitations but unfortunately this game is quite different than that.

How to Apply for Facebook Beta Tester

Facebook asks you to provide a logical reason to get you selected as beta tester. No much complex requirement is needed to get selected. All you have to convince them with your creativity and writing to opt you in, with beta tester license. Voila ! you are up enjoying the new facebook cool features

For this purpose you have to submit 3 question and answers – that would reflect your perspective of analyzing things and reviewing them on purpose.

To help you out you are provided with some pre-made questions – you can start answering them with your own creative answers.

Answers should be detailed, with clear concepts and full of facts and figures. You should focus on reality of the answer and must avoid plagiarism. If you take some info from a source do cite that link or source.

Here is one of the example Question and Answer to assist to in time

Facebook Beta Tester Direct Link

This link could easily be seen at the end of the sidebar in facebook. Here is the direct link to Apply for Facebook Beta Tester

Facebook Beta Tester Program Invitation – Apply Now !
Originally Published at Activr - A Simply Technology Blog

Guest Post by Amanda.

When it comes to finding your place on the web, many professionals start with their company website, while many individuals tend to start with their blog. Blogging is a great way to start your search engine marketing, and a powerful way to drive business and respect to your website. Whether you are blogging for your business or as an individual, having blog followers is a great way of creating your own space on the Internet.

If you are a regular reader you can always check out the dedicated section for Blogging Tips & Tricks for better blogging. You can find a whole lot of tutorials there to maintain your blog like a pro. Just like – how to increase your blogging efficiency.

The best way to have a blog that is bookmark-worthy is to provide valuable content on a regular basis. If you submit one great post twice a year, you are not doing much to gain visibility and attention for your site. If you are able to create content with interesting tips and tricks of the trade on a regular basis, readers are much more likely to want to bookmark your blog.

For this purpose here is a must read on how to give a good impression to RSS subscribers to help you out on time.

Once you have a blog that people want to bookmark, you should make it easy for them to do so. Most bloggers provide RSS feed links and share buttons to their sites as a way to encourage followers of their blog. You can utilize a great deal of share buttons from a variety of social media networking sites as well. Digg, Sphinn, StumbleUpon, Facebook,  and Twitter all have share buttons that can help get your blog shared across the web. You can take advantage of adding Google buzz to WP blog.

A great site to visit for any and all sharing needs is AddThis.com. This free service provides over a hundred different share buttons that can easily be added to your site. You simply select your service and choose a button style. They even provide free analytic for the share buttons you add! With easy to use share buttons, social media marketing for your site has never been easier.

Amanda is a writer and blogger living in San Diego, CA. You can also submit your guest posts and share your ideas or working tips about blogging tips and tricks.

Ways to Make Your Blog Easier to Bookmark
Originally Published at Activr - A Simply Technology Blog

Guest post by Steve Lazuka.

Making the most of a business website is not rocket science, but it does require the business to keep up-to-date with what is happening in the online world. This will help them take advantage of new trends as well as ensuring their customers don’t perceive them as out of step.

Some recent developments have demonstrated what can be achieved by successful website content as a way of moving a business forward.

Infographics

These are a really great way to get a lot of information across, whether serious or light hearted. An example of the latter is Mike Wirth’s Best Beer in America Map, which shows how one image can be worth more than hundreds of words. It’s fun, but also does its job well. The simple color-coding is a really effective guide to visualize what is actually quite detailed information. The two side panels extend the information in a simple to understand manner. Overall, the map is a superb example of how a business can get across detailed information in an easy to understand format.

Successful You Tube Videos

One of the most recent examples of this has been Cadbury’s Gorilla Advert. It begins with a recognizable logo and then builds up suspense very slowly. It’s the perfect example of the “slow-drop” method where we attach and watch not knowing what is going to happen, while not leaving in frustration. When the drums finally come in there is a great moment of resolution followed by more playing and finally the logo. Of course, most companies do not have the budget of international corporations, but the good news is that these aren’t required. Taking the Cadbury’s video as an example, posting on You Tube can be a great way to reach customers and by doing something just a little different, word of mouth can act as a superb way of generating interest. Combining this with blog updates will help ensure that YouTube marketing is as cheap as it is effective.

You can also take help form social media as blog marketing on facebook to get double effect. It is really a proven method to get a quick response by a number of people in less time.

Promotion

Many of the most read posts have a few things in common that can be utilized for your business site. One of the best ways to achieve high numbers of readers is to post about something that is topical. This will help ensure many additional readers come your way. It doesn’t matter if you are in the business of selling something that you feel has no topical relevance such as washing pegs. You could post about any extreme weather and how winds over a certain speed can affect building in different ways. The next step is to generate traffic by good use of SEO content and commenting on other similar blogs with a link back to your site. This is how many people find you and can get an otherwise standard post to increase its readers.

However check this video from Matt Cutt explaining Keyword meta tags useless for Google SEO juice.

It always makes sense to take a little time every week or so to see what is proving the most watched and read items on the web. Look at items such as the beer info-graphic or a popular You Tube video to see what you can learn and then in the coming weeks, it may be you clocking up the most visitors for your business.

Steve Lazuka is owner and operator of Interact Media, a content marketing company based in Ohio. He regularly guest blogs about social media, web content, content development and business blogging. Follow him @SteveLazuka. You can also submit your guest posts and share your ideas or working tips about content marketing online.

Successful Content Marketing: Making the Most of a Business Website
Originally Published at Activr - A Simply Technology Blog