This is a guest post by Michael Evans. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

The world, as we know it, is about to change and its impact is quite palpable.

I am talking about the world of search and social media, and it is none other than Google who is to blame squarely for this.

Yes, Google has introduced social search, which is changing our very idea of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) by serving completely different search results for different people.

So, the line between social and search is about to blur and as obvious, the importance of links and all that, is going to take a back seat as long as we are logged in to our Google account.

Let’s drill down the details to find out more about this social search thing.

What is Google Trying to Do?

Simple, Google is trying every vertical to make its search engine reach new heights of success.

It has access to our website’s online presence via Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools, apart from its much famous bot and now it has access to your social presence via Google Plus.

So it’s got everything to merge two things into one, a unique search experience that gathers data from across the web and data from your social circles.

Personal Search

Google is transforming into something that will not only be able to understand content and web pages but will be able to judge who you are and the world you live in.

Since it has access to your social profile, it will be able to help you find Google+ posts and photos, which are shared with you specifically right inside the search results page.

This is advantageous, for example when you want to buy a new laptop and you would like feedback from those people and friends who are using laptops of different brands.

With Social Search, you will get search results from those people in the Google search results pages, provided those other people have shared their information about laptops in Google+.

So if you have friends and followers in your Google Plus profile, you are sure to see a surge of personalized information right inside the SERP.

Profile in Search

Profile in search is another novel addition to the Google search results page. This will let you connect with people you are looking for in Google+.

All you need to do is type the first few letters of your friend’s name or anyone else you’d like to connect with.  Choose the auto-complete option and Google will show a complete profile page of that person in the SERP. You will then find an option to connect with that profile.

People and Pages

It is nice to find what great minds have to say regarding a topic you are searching for in Google.

For example, when you are searching the term “SEO”, it is always good to find information from a search guru like Matt Cutts.

This indicates that Google is presenting quotes and comments from popular and prominent figures into the search results, but it does not display directly in the list of search results.

These prominent and popular figures will be featured on the right-hand side of the search results page. Options are presented so you can connect with those people in Google+ as well.

Conclusions

Though this feature is still in its infancy, it seems online marketers need to fasten their seat belts for some bumpy rides ahead as they discover what social search will do to their online marketing efforts.

The personal side of Google search can be turned off by using the buttons at the top right of the search results page.  This allows a searcher to view the search results in both social or what has become known to us as “web” search.

But what will people use?  Both social and web search or consistently use social search because that’s the new default?  Time will tell.

What do you think of Google+, Social Search and all the other Google goodies that go with it. How are you going to use it all? Let us know in the comments below.

About the Author: Michael Evans loves blogging on different subjects and he is a regular writer at Web Hosting Deals.  He has written articles on the topic of host alligator.

This is a guest post by Maitreyee Sinha. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Occasionally, a website designer may want to highlight a particular element. In such a situation, he/she can opt for certain strategies. These can include isolating the element, increasing its size, and placing it at the center/left hand section of the web page.

As a website designer, you may want to highlight a particular element in certain situations. This element can be a particular aspect of the content, a graph, or even the web page layout. A good way of highlighting this particular element is by converting it into a focal point.

In simple terms, focal point refers to any element that guides the visitors’ eyes to itself. In this article, we will discuss a few strategies that will help you to develop a focal point.

1. Clever Placement
Studies reveal that most visitors tend to observe elements that are placed at the central section of the web page. Now, implementing this strategy may not always be feasible. The reason is that if you place your intended element at the center of the page, just for the sake of it, it will confuse your visitors.

In such a situation, you can opt for an alternative technique that is placing the element on the left corner, upper section of the page. This is a good strategy, because most people start with left -hand section of the upper page, while observing the site.

2. Contrast
Using contrast to highlight an item is the most commonly used strategy in the website designing industry. Various ways of using contrast and highlighting an element exist. For example, you can place a bright-colored item against a dark background and vice-versa. Alternatively, you can incorporate large-sized elements against small-sized ones.

Consider sign up/sign in page of Twitter. It uses white and pale blue colors throughout the page. However, for the ‘sign up’ button, it has used the color yellow. The reason is that it wants visitors to join the site. Therefore, it has cleverly highlighted the call-to-action button against a dull background.

3. Isolation
Isolating your intended element is another smart strategy. If you place an item at a faraway distance from other elements, it will naturally grab attention. Try out this strategy and observe the results!

4. Continuance
Continuance is another popular strategy designers use for distinguishing an element. When we read or observe any design, our eyes move in a single direction. They continue moving, until another powerful feature appears and forces us to notice it. Let us elaborate the concept by using an example.

Assume that you have incorporated a huge element in a web page. Above it, you placed an arrow, leading towards a smaller element. Now, logically, the bigger element will grab attention of visitors initially. However, within few seconds, the arrow will force them to observe the smaller object as well.

5. Proportion
If you place a large-sized element against a background that contains smaller elements, it will inevitably draw attention. This strategy utilizes the principle of proportion. To draw more attention, you can make the target element colorful.

Consider these tips to make an element stand out from others.

About the Author:  Maitreyee Sinha is the author and works for Web Guru India, a website design company based in India offering high-quality and cost-effective website design and website development solutions to people worldwide.

If you analyze backlinks to websites or blogs, you might have used some of the free tools out there like SEOquake and the Quirk SearchStatus Add-on for Firefox.

Both of these tools provided backlink information which was gathered from Yahoo Site Explorer. YSE stopped providing this information in 2011.

YSE allowed you to track what sites were linking to other sites including yours.

This was good, because you could find out who was linking to what website and how they were linking.  Once you had this information you could use it to pursue new backlinks to your site.

And while the above mentioned tools look to replace YSE with other backlink sources, there are tools out there right now that you can use to analyze backlinks.

First, let’s take the opportunity to talk about backlinks for those who might be new to this.

What are Backlinks and Why Should You Care?

When someone places a link on their website or blog that points back to any page on your site, that is a backlink.

Backlinks have quality. When you get a backlink from a popular blog or website with higher quality, it’s a good indication that the site’s owner thinks, your content they are linking to at your site is worthy of their visitor’s attention. This is a good thing. Why?

For a number of reasons and here are just a few:

1. If you get higher quality backlinks, you don’t need as many lower to medium quality backlinks to get more traffic to your site.

Higher quality backlinks include links from sites that end in .gov and .edu, because those types of sites are trustworthy and authoritative already.

Side note: I’m using .gov and .edu sites as an example.  These are some of the hardest backlinks to get.

Higher quality backlinks also include links from popular sites, whether their content is related to your site’s content or not.  Examples include LifeHacker.com, the New York Times, and many others.

2. When Google’s indexing robot goes around and finds backlinks that point to your site, it says to itself,

“Hey, this big popular site that we already trust and think is an authoritative site, is linking to this other site that THEY trust.

So maybe we better check it out, and if we determine it worthy, we’ll give it some extra index juice for it to rank higher in our search engine result pages (SERPs) for the search phrases (keywords, keyword phrases) that people use to find this type of information.”

Now that’s a high-level view of what Google’s indexing robot (aka “Googlebot”) does and it’s not the only thing it does (read more here), but it does something like that to help determine what sites have relevant content for Google’s customers, people who search the web using Google.

3. Of course, the same thinking happens to other website and blog owners who want to link to good information.

Those sites find out that the big popular site that is linking to your site, might be something they want to link to as well – your site.  So you end up with a bunch more links to your site without even trying.

This is a wonderful side effect of getting linked to by more popular and authoritative sites.

4. The obvious – If you’re running a website or blog as a business that sells products, services, or advertising, then more customers end up at your site because of those higher quality backlinks to your site. Again, another good side effect.

Example: On one of my sites I’ve got three different articles that relate to the same topic. One of those articles received a link from Big Site A.

Because all three articles relate to each other, they all benefit from more traffic because of the Big Site A linking to one of the articles, and as a result those articles get pushed to the top of the Google search engine result pages (SERPs).

Here’s a screenshot from Google Analytics for one days worth of visits to these three articles from the search engines because of this linking affect:

Click image for larger view

In case you wanted to know, the three articles for this example are something like these titles:

• “How To Do This Cool Technique With Newest Version…”
• “How To Do This Cool Technique With Current Version…”
• “How To Do This Cool Technique With Older Version…”

Those articles are step by step instructions with screenshots on how to do something. Just another indication that people love “How To…” articles when they’re trying to find a solution to a problem.

One side note on having a popular site or a handful of popular articles, is that the popularity is enough to keep traffic coming for a very long time without you having do any extra work for backlinks.  This is a very good thing.

Quality and Websites

Keep in mind there are different types of websites and blogs with different attributes that make up what quality is for that type of site, e.g. ecommerce sites like Amazon.com, photo blogs, entertainment sites, company websites, non-profit sites, etc.

When talking about quality websites, I’m referring to following attributes a website might have.  This is not intended to be a complete list:

• Relevant information to a searcher’s query. Example: When a searcher is looking for something, your site has the relevant information they are looking for that satisfies their query.
• A beautiful design that holds a visitor’s attention, forcing them to stay on the site because it’s hard to look away.
• Social proof.  Your site has social proof if it has comments that keep trickling in over a long period of time. It has facebook likes and articles that have been tweeted and retweeted. Your articles, videos, pictures have been shared on other social networking sites around the web.
• Simplicity in navigation and providing an obvious call to action.

These are just some of the attributes of a site that help contribute to the quality of a site.

PageRank – What Is It and What Does It Mean for You?

Also known as PR, PageRank is a way to label the quality of a web page and website.  You might have a PR 4 for your website but your pages might have a pagerank of 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.

Google’s PageRank is a measurement of your web page and is represented by a number from 1 thru 10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest.

For example, one of my sites took one full year to go from a PR 0 (zero) to a PR 3.  The more content I provided on a consistent basis over time AND the more comments, backlinks and retweets on twitter I got, the more that site rose in pagerank.

However, another site I’ve owned since 2007 went from a PR 0 (zero) to a PR 3 in two years and popped up to a PR 4 in the following year.  So it took three years to get to a PR 4.

This all happened even with a less frequent posting schedule.  I’m talking about maybe one new article a month.

As Google tweaks their page ranking system, and they do this all the time, those sites of mine that have their content updated on a less frequent basis, might suffer in the long run.

So a good tactic for those sites would be to add more frequent content to them.

To help you investigate pagerank, use the above mentioned tools – SEOquake and Quirk SearchStatus to display pagerank of every page you visit on the web.

Something to keep in mind about pagerank: Just because a site has a lower pagerank doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of getting a backlink to your site from it.

Those sites that are pagerank 1, 2, or 3 might just become PR 4, 5 and 6 over time.  Increasing the value of the backlink you left at their site pointing back to your site.

That’s why in your strategy to gain backlinks to your site, the tactic of leaving good comments at PR 1, 2 and 3 sites, that have good content and relevancy to your site, can be valuable in the long run.

So Then What Tools Should You Use for Analyzing Backlinks?

Since Yahoo Site Explorer is gone, and actually they merged with Bing Webmaster Tools, the tools you can use right now that are free and paid (usually considered premium or pro version) are wide and varied in the types of information they provide.

But for now, I’m using Link Diagnosis. I see that the Firefox Add-on Quirk SearchStatus is using Blekko and I have started investigating that tool as well.

Link Diagnosis

Link Diagnosis allows you to enter a website URL and get a report back that is displayed on the same page you entered the website’s URL.

For bigger sites, this might take some time. But be patient and you’ll get some valuable backlink information about those sites.

Link Diagnosis works with Firefox only. Download the Firefox Add-on for Link Diagnosis and you’ll be able to use more of its functionality.

After registering you’ll be able to export the information that Link Diagnosis displays to your computer’s hard drive or save it as a report at the Link Diagnosis website for viewing at a later time.

Blekko

Blekko is another alternative you can use to analyze backlinks and other SEO related topics. Blekko is free but you do have to register.

Blekko has a unique way to search the web which is valuable. It uses slash tags to filter your search results.

They have a quick video you can watch that explains how to use slash tags.

But it also gives you a lot of SEO information about a website, including backlinks.

Wrapping It Up

So there you go.  When analyzing backlinks to websites, Link Diagnosis and Blekko are a couple tools you can use to do just that.

Again, there are plenty out there, some are free and some are premium or pro versions that you can pay for.  But take some time to investigate what works for you and the information provided by these tools.

Another point to keep in mind with these types of tools: Not all tools are going to show you every single backlink to a  site.  So use them as a guide to help you understand more about backlinks.

Over to you.  Got something to say about analyzing backlinks or tools you use?  Talk about it in the comments below.

Google+ (aka Google Plus and G+) is all the rage.  The Google+ social network is getting tested, talked about and turned on every day with new tips, tricks and tools.After you read more about Google+ and start using it, try some of the stuff listed below to help you get the most out of Google+.

1. Brand Your Website or Blog URL with Google+ – Thanks Chris Lang for sharing this one.  It’s a great way to brand your website or blog address so it forwards to your Google+ stream:

2. Use the Google Search Command – Thanks to Chris Brogan for reminding us how to use this Google search command to find interesting people on Google+ in niches or industries we’re interested in:

site:plus.google.com <WhatEverYou’reInterestedIn-WithoutTheAngledBrackets>

So for the term “marketing”, the search command would look like this: site:plus.google.com marketing

3. Improve Your Google+ Stream Display – If you’re using Google’s Chrome browser, try G+me to collapse the Google+ stream into a real-time dashboard for a cleaner display:

4. Follow The Rules of The Road – Here’s some good discussion on Google+ Etiquette.

5. Become a Share Master – Here’s another Google Chrome extension called Extended Share for Google Plus that allows you to share what you’re posting to Google+ on your Facebook, LinkedIn, tumbler and Twitter accounts.

6. Meet New People – And another Chrome extension called Google Plus Directory that allow to meet new people, make new friend circles, and choose from over 200.000 Google Plus profiles.

7. Presenting Google+ – Need to do a Google+ presentation or just want a template that resembles Google+ theme?  Here it is.

8. Read All About It – The Google+ Startup Guide by Saidur (“Cy”) Hossain.

9. Read the ToS – An artist’s rendering of the Google+ Terms of Service, illustrated.

10. Do I Annoy You? – An article on How to Hide From Annoying People on Google+.

11. Show My Circles – Another Google Chrome extension, called Plus Minus, lets you select which Google Circles show up in your Google+ Stream.  It also allows you to easily mark individual or all posts as read, offers a wide-screen view so you can see more content without scrolling, and loads more posts automatically as you scroll down.  Sweet.

12. Make It Flow – This Google Chrome extension called Usability Boost for Google Plus will help you visualize the flow of information on Google Plus.

13. Over To You – Now it’s your turn.  What have you found cool, necessary or just plain fun for Google+?  Add your suggestion in the comments below.

Okay, I’ll add one more.  To keep an eye on the new Google Chrome extensions, apps, themes, etc. for Google+, visit the Chrome Web Store and search on Google+, G+, or ”Google Plus”.

Also, here’s one one more, the Google+ WordPress Plugin that displays your “googleCard” in your WordPress sidebar.

That’s it.  Circle Me on Google+.  I’ll be lookin’ for ya’.

If you’ve ever browsed to a website on your smartphone, you were probably horrified by what you saw and thought you’d never browse a website on your phone again.

You can certainly zoom in and out, if your phone provides that feature, when you want to check a movie time or a phone number for a restaurant, but to present your WordPress blog or website to visitors as is on a smartphone, just doesn’t fit the bill.

Mobile WordPress Themes

When making your WordPress site mobile-ready, there are a few alternatives out there, however, I decided to use a plugin called WPtouch on some of my sites and WPtouch Pro on this site, billbolmeier.com.

You can download the free version at the WordPress Plugin Directory and give it a whirl.  The free version is packed with plenty of settings you experiment with on your site.

Displaying a clean iPhone looking theme by default, WPtouch lists your blog posts in a readable font size without zooming in.  For blog posts, each post is listed by default with title, auther, post date, category and tags.

(affiliate link)

You can tweak these settings to configure how your posts list displays.  Each individual post and page has a font size by default that is readable without zooming.  Again, your results may vary depending on what phone is being used to display your site.

WPtouch and WPtouch Pro

So what’s the difference between the free version and paid version?  While the free version has quite a few settings the paid version has over 200 more settings and features, including support for tablets like the iPad.

Other settings you’ll be able to take advantage of are advertising settings that allow you to control how you want Adsense and other ad networks to display, and whether you want ads to display or not.

You can select a customizable WPtouch theme that allows you to tweak the theme to your liking.  You can set how your website’s menu structure displays and the icons that are used throughout the theme.

You can provide styling settings and enter style elements on the theme’s design configuration page.

Don’t worry about losing your tracking statistics for your site when mobile visitors show up, WPtouch is a separate theme from your desktop, which means you can provide your stats tracking code and keep track of all your site’s visitors.

Both versions allow a visitor to switch between your normal desktop looking theme and the mobile rendered theme by clicking link buttons at the bottom of your site when visited by a mobile or tablet device.  Very handy for your visitors.

Those are just a few of the highlights.

What’s are the problems with WPtouch Pro?  The only thing I experienced was multiple tries to activate the product via their own activation screens in WordPress.  They must have recurring issues with this since they’ve written warning messages about trying again if your activation doesn’t work right the first time.

I just waited for a while between each try and eventually my Pro version was activated.  All said and done, my billbolmeier.com site was mobile-ready with WPtouch Pro in about 30 minutes.  Even though my site was mobile-ready to a certain degree prior to WPtouch, it’s much better and easier to read with WPtouch Pro (affiliate link).

Keyword research is the process of discovering words that searchers use to find what they are looking for on the Internet. These words are known as keywords, keyword phrases or queries. You can use these queries to help people find what they are searching for. The search results are considered organic search results as opposed to paid search results (see image below).

(click image for larger view)

The following steps outline one way to do keyword research and how to implement it on your website.  It is not intended to be the only way.  It will help bring relevant, organic search traffic to your website over time and you’ll be able to rank higher in the search engines for keywords that are relevant to your website and business.

1. Keyword Types
Determine your category keywords that represent major parts of your business. Category keywords will be used to organize articles that contain related relevant keywords. Category keywords also reflect how you want your visitors (customers) to respond. Primary keywords will be used in article titles, primary and secondary keywords will be used in article content, and long-tail keywords will be used in article content as well as back links from other websites.

2. Keyword Tracking Document
To track your keywords and what they’ll be used for, create a keyword tracking spreadsheet. I use Google Docs to do this so I can access the spreadsheet wherever I’m at. I name the spreadsheet “MyExampleWebsite.com Keyword Phrases”. View an example of the keyword tracking spreadsheet.

3. Gathering Keywords
Use the Google Adsense Keyword Tool to start gathering keywords relevant to your business and your ideal customers. As you use this tool always be asking questions like: Who is my target audience? What words will searchers be using to find what I have to offer? What is the purpose of my website related to my business. Be specific.

4. Narrowing in on Keywords
Using the Google Keywords Tool, look for keyword phrases that are 3 or more words in length and have global monthly searches between 3,000 and 30,000. You can certainly set it between 1,000 and 10,000 monthly searches to start. Look at low and medium competition keywords and set the estimated average CPC of $2.00 or more. These numbers are recommended for individuals and small businesses.

5. How Many Keywords?
You’ll ultimately want to rank for hundreds and even thousands of keywords over time. For starters, you’ll want at least 3-5 category keywords made up of 2-3 or more words.  Categories will contain 3-5 articles per category. Articles will include your primary, secondary and long-tail keywords. The more content you create over time on a consistent basis, will help you rank for many different keywords.  Above all, make sure you write for humans and not search engines.  Use your keywords strategically when it makes sense to a human reading your articles.

6. Create a Website
I use self-hosted WordPress blog software to create websites and blogs. Sometimes I use hand-coded HTML/CSS websites but not so much anymore. You can create a website quickly in WordPress that doesn’t act like a blog but acts more like a static website. You can certainly use WordPress for blogging as well.

7. Keyword Monitoring, Metrics and Maintenance
As your website starts to rank for various keywords, use the Google Webmaster Tools and/or Google Analytics to watch what keywords are being used by searchers to find your website and what pages on your site start to get the most views. You might be surprised what words searchers use to find your site. Track these in your keyword tracking spreadsheet.

That’s it for now. If you want targeted traffic in the form of customers that come to your website, then learn how to cast an extremely wide net in the form of keywords. There’s a lot to keyword research and it’s something you’ll continue to do, to grow your website and business over time.

To receive future articles that will drill down into each step of this process, please subscribe to billbolmeier.com so you don’t miss a word.

Cary Bergeron of Snap In Media and CaryBergeron.com has written a report called The Adsense Report.  In it, Cary outlines the tools, tips and techniques he uses to make money online with Adsense.

The Sale

Now, I know some folks might have given up on Adsense but with Cary’s recent sale of one of his Adsense sites, there’s proof that “it still works”.

Cary sold his School Grants site for $80,000.00 at Flippa.com.  Flippa is a site for buying and selling websites.

The Interview

I was lucky enough to grab some of Cary’s time to talk with him about making money with Adsense and related topics.  I was also lucky enough to view an early copy of his report.

Cary has also been interviewed by eTycoon.net where he talks about the sale of his School Grants site.  So make sure you check that interview out as well to get a more complete picture of how Cary makes money with Adsense.

Here’s the 32 minute interview.  You can listen to it here on my blog or download it as an mp3 and listen to it using your mp3 player.

One caveat: I’m not a professional interviewer!!  

Download the MP3 [32 minutes]

The Questions

Here are some of the questions I asked during the interview as well as questions that are answered in the report.

1. When did you get started with IM (Internet Marketing) using Adsense?
2. Had you done any other IM before using Adsense?
3. How long had you been on the Internet before getting into IM?
4. How did you make your first dollar online?
5. Was there ever an “Ah Ha” moment or moments that indicated to you that you were on the right track, doing the right thing to get your IM sites to make money?
6. Was there ever a moment that you went, “Oh shit I can’t do this anymore, I can’t make money at this?”
7. Who influenced you as an IM?
8. How many IM sites are you running?
9. How long did you do everything yourself, if you did do everything yourself when you started out in IM?
10. How many of your IM sites are making more than $100.00 a month, $500.00 a month, $1,000.00 a month, etc.?
11. How many sites have you started and then closed down because they didn’t do what you wanted them to do?
12. Knowing what you know about IM and Adsense, if you had to start over from scratch, what 1, 2 or 3 things would you focus on?
13. Is there anything related to the work you’ve done to learn IM that you feel like saying, “I wish I wouldn’t have spent so much time on…”
14. What would you tell beginning IMers NOT to spend time on?
15. Have you ever made money online with a blogger blog (blogspot.com)?
16. Do you use free blogging sites like wordpress.com, blogspot.com, posterous, etc., to create backlinks?
17. You’ve written a lot of articles on ezine.  Do you recommend article marketing/directories for backlinks?
18. Any rules you’d like to share like, “I only look at niches that have more than 1,000 searches a month and no more than x a month, etc.”
19. Are there any tips, tricks you’d like to share in this interview?
20. Did you have a schedule every day when doing your IM?
21. Did you have a “normal” day job when you started IM?
22. Do you use Google Keyword Search Tool?
23. Do you use any 3rd party IM tool for keyword research, etc.?
24. Are there any measurements about a niche that you’d like to share, that indicates to you, not to try that niche?
25. When did you start outsourcing and what was it that you started outsourcing?
26. What’s the future for IM’er Cary Bergeron?  Special projects for 2010, 2011, etc.?

The Report

What’s in the report?  Well besides answering some of the questions above, here’s a few items you’ll learn about in the report:

• 10 Thngs You Must Do To Make Money with Google Adsense Sites
• Wicked Awesome Tip for Getting High Quality Links Daily
• Cary’s Ninja SEO Tips
• Super Awesome Tip for Getting Repeat Visitors
• Website Design for 20%+ CTR (Click-Thru-Rate)
• Tools & Website Cary’s Uses on a Daily Basis
• Worksheet – This is not under-rated.  A lot of folks need a path, guidance on how to start and stay on track.  Well, the worksheet section of the report is absolutely necessary reading.  Why?  Because it gives you a clear path/plan to headed in the right direction with making money online with Google Adsense.

The Adsense Report is geared for folks who have online experience. It’s another way to make money online. It’s not a get rich quick scheme either. It will require putting time in for the long-term to get the results. It’s also based around creating quality content that will grow organically in the search engines.

In my interview with Cary, he talks about how he made time to create Adsense sites while having a family and working a day job. That’s a feat in and of itself.

You’ll learn the criteria that Cary uses to decide on whether a niche or keyword phrases might pan out for a good Adsense site.

He’ll also explains his technique to get visitors to come back and click on the Adsense on your website.

There’s tools galore in the report that you can start using for free to get going on keyword research as well as researching the competition.

One of the best sections I like is the Worksheet section. Cary lays out the schedule for exactly what you need to do to make your sites successful.

The only downside to the report that I can see is that it is not for beginners. Cary tells you that in the beginning of the report that he’s not going to teach how to setup a website or use ftp, etc.

Now the upside to that downside is that Cary or someone could start a “pay for” forum where people could learn the details of setting up Adsense sites as well as become part of a supportive community while building Adsense sites.

Want the report?  Go get it at The Adsense Report.

Don’t want to use Adsense? You can still benefit from the report because it provides tips, tricks and techniques on how to build traffic to your website or blog.

Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips has written a free eBook titled Make Money Blogging.

For those of you who don’t know Daniel or his blog, he’s been around for a few years providing valuable blog tips that include a wide range of topics; everything from blog content to blogging with WordPress to making money blogging to blog traffic to blog SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and tons more.

I started reading Daily Blog Tips in 2007 and still do.  The range of blogging topics that Daniel writes about makes you feel like you’ve struck gold in each blog post.  Check out his archives.

One of the things that sets Daniel apart from a lot of the top bloggers is his explanation of why and how things work with your blog.  Not only does he provide the ‘how to’ information but also the ‘why’ side of blogging that answer the many questions bloggers face during their blog’s journey.

When you start blogging, you have lots of questions, including naming your blog, technical aspects of your blog, gaining an audience, and how to make money with your blog.  Well, Daniel has written an eBook that guides you through many of these topics.

The eBook is chock full of gold nuggets that span 5 chapters including:

• Picking a domain name
• Hosting your blog
• Blogging software
• Types of blogs
• The truth about making money blogging
• 3 blogging mistakes to avoid
• Blog content: types of content, examples, and ideas
• Blog design
• Networking with fellow bloggers
• Commenting, Linking, and Guest Posts
• Social Bookmarking and Social Networks
• Monetizing your blog: Choices, Explanations, and Definitions
• …and tons of links to valuable resources

Overall, a concise and informative eBook from an excellent blogger.

This is not a beginners, hold your hand and I’ll explain every detail eBook.  You’ll need a bit of knowledge about blogging and blogging terms to better understand some of the concepts in the eBook.  But guess what?  If you’re an absolute newbie to blogging, you can find most of your answers in the archives of Daily Blog Tips as well as using the search box to find the information you’re looking for.  Download Make Money Blogging and Get Readin’!!