Blogdog - Resources for blogging, marketing and social media

Understanding Pinterest

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:12:00 +0000

If you’ve never used Pinterest, the concept is easy to grasp. Once you’ve created an account, you can ‘pin’ images to individual boards that you create. You can set each of these boards to a specific category, i.e. cooking, fashion, photography etc. and add as many images that you want. You can even share boards with other users and contribute content together. Anything you pin can be liked or ‘repined’ by any other user, more commonly your followers. Basically it’s just a way to build a collection of anything that sparks your interest.

How Pinterest have taken action against spammers

When Pinterest was fairly new on the scene, some people found it fairly easy to manipulate the system. For instance, following mass users in the hope that some would follow back. With no max follow limit and the use of automatic bots, these users could follow thousands of people per day. The use of automatic bots has become much more popular with social media sites this past year, especially Pinterest. It was also very easy to submit content with an affiliate link (most notably amazon affiliates). So coupled with the use of automatic posting bots, these spammers were making a killing from Pinterest up to a certain point.

Since a popular spammer revealed his massive earnings, Pinterest has improved its system and upgraded its anti-spamming features. For instance, any user may only follow a maximum of 200 users pay day before being greeted with a ‘warning message’. It also blocks the use of affiliate URLs from major networks when submitting content. If you’re a legitimate user promoting a brand, it’s still possible to link to the sales page of your content. Pinterest have also been cracking down on users with multiple accounts, although this is obviously very difficult when the users are using proxy servers.

Can you make easy money on Pinterest?

If you’re looking to make easy money on Pinterest then you’d better start building your time machine because the current outlook doesn’t look promising. Although if you do manage to build a time machine I’d suggest you visit a more historical period in time instead of 2010. Now if you’re looking for a way to compliment your brand’s website, Pinterest can be extremely useful. An official Pinterest account with a recognisable brand is obviously going to attract more users from the off. Affiliate URLs may be out the window, but if you’re linking to your website or perhaps even your sales page I can’t see why Pinterest would have a problem with that. Just be sure your target audience actually uses the thing.

Pinterest user demographics

As soon as you start using Pinterest regularly you’ll probably notice that pretty much all the users are female. I can’t guarantee that all these users are legitimately women because let’s face it, we’re on the internet. According to a recent study, over two thirds of the users are female, with the most popular age group being the 25 – 35 year olds. Plus a whopping 97% of fans of Pinterest on Facebook are apparently women. If your website specialises in mustache combs or home brew beer, it’s probably time to throw in the towel. With such a massive female user base, it’s no wonder clothes dealers, jewellery makers and interior designers are so popular on Pinterest.

How Tumblr can promote your brand/website.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:49:00 +0000

What is Tumblr?

Tumblr is a micro blogging platform. You can quickly share content with all of its users in seconds. Although most of you will associate Tumblr with bored teenagers, pretentious hipsters, spammers and SWAG enthusiasts, there is still a warm sense of community here. The most popular type of content shared on Tumblr is pictures. Although you can just as easily share articles, videos or audio, you’re more likely to be successful using Tumblr if your content usually involves images. For example humor websites, comic artists, painters, graphic designers etc. all thrive on Tumblr. I’ve been experimenting with Tumblr a lot recently and so far I’ve seen great results. The best thing about Tumblr is that it’s completely free to host a blog on!

Understanding Tumblr

Tumblr is pretty straight forward and easy to get the hang of. You create a blog on a subdomain, post content and gain followers, reblogs and likes. There is no limit to the number of users who can follow you, but you can only follow a maximum of 5,000. When you post content, it appears on your follower’s dashboard. If they reblog your post it will then appear on their blog so their followers can view it and so on. Another way for users to find your content is by searching tags. You can tag your posts with popular labels such as humor, fashion, art etc. if your tag is featured by the Tumblr staff your content will appear above everyone else’s content, albeit for a very small time.

What about SEO?

So when someone reblogs your content, it will appear on their own Tumblr blog with a link back to yours. This is great for content sharing but is it helping to rank your site? All the backlinks are under the same domain (Tumblr.com). This means it’s very easy to build up a ton of links in a short amount of time, which is why Google are pretty strict on Tumblr blogs. If you’re using Tumblr as the main platform for your blog, don’t expect any quick results on the search pages. You can use a custom domain name though, which is recommended if you want Google to take your blog more seriously. I suggest setting it up on a subdomain. This way it will still help to strengthen your domain whilst also being a fantastic tool to share your content.

If you want any more information feel free to leave me a comment below!

The iPhone’s Struggle to Maintain Dominance

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:43:00 +0000

Human beings are funny old creatures. One minute they love something as if it’s the dearest thing in the world to them, and the next, they grow weary and seek greener pastures. One can find examples of this extraordinary tendency through the actions of the general consumer; always looking for an upgrade on what they already have. In technology, the field in which upgrading is the very essence, this is most apparent. One needs to look no further than the iPhone for proof. Each new release prompts speculation of what is to be expected with its successor. There are however signs that rather than eagerly awaiting its successor, many consumers are switching to a different phone brand altogether. After half a decade in control, we could be witnessing the decline of the iPhone.

Apple’s Mistake

Yes, it is very reasonable to suggest that tech consumers are slowly but surely growing rather tired of the iPhone. This is down to a number of reasons. Firstly, Apple’s last smartphone release, the 4S was just too similar to its predecessor. This is commercial suicide as similarity breeds weariness and familiarity breeds contempt. Apple would have been much wiser to either delay the release of the iPhone 4, and makee sure that it was sufficient enough to not require the 4S to follow it; or by not bringing out the 4S altogether. If there were no 4S, consumers – particularly those with an inclination towards Apple – would have most certainly been restless and may have even opted for other smartphone brands in the short term. However, the euphoria upon the next iPhone’s release would have been utterly sensational and Apple’s dominance eventually restored.

Rivals

The iPhone also suffers from the exceptionality of its rivals. The Samsung Galaxy S3 is a work of art and a technological beast, while the upcoming HTC One XXL is expected to be just as powerful. Furthermore, Apple’s very own iPad currently provides consumers with a device that can do everything the iPhone can do and more. Why would a consumer with an iPad look towards any iPhone deals?

This could all be meaningless talk if the next iPhone delivers something truly special. It will have to be utterly unique in comparison to its predecessors however and a landmark in mobile phone technology to really succeed. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

David Adams

The Must Have Android Apps For Bloggers

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 25 May 2012 11:45:00 +0000

Blogging has become so popular nowadays worldwide that many users use their mobile phones as well for posting the content instantly. In fact, you don’t need a desktop or laptop when you have the most advanced phones like Android phones in your hands. Following are some of the best Android apps for bloggers

WordPress

Wordpress is one of most used blogging space by numerous people globally. The WordPress Android application lets you carry your blogging activities conveniently through your Android phone wherever you are. This app allows you to create, edit and publish posts, also lets you manage comments and view blog statistics – the similar way that you do on your laptop or desktop. In addition, WordPress Android app supports WordPress blogs that have been self hosted. It includes an elegant dashboard which makes switching between different options on the blog menu easy.

Tumblr

Tumblr Android application helps those who are much into micro blogging who depend on Tumblr to share their views. This application allows its users to do everything that they do from a desktop, but with the comfort of a smartphone. It lets you post text, video links, photos and so on. Tumblr also enables you to follow other tumblelogs of your interest, also to re-blog existing posts that you want onto your own tumblelog. This application offers an advantage of finding and following someone from your address book that are also present in Tumblr.

Blogger

Blogger application designed for those people who blog at Google’s Blogger space. Despite not being the full-flash version and missing a few formatting features, Blogger still allows its users to write and publish new posts easily on the move. This app also lets you include pictures and your location to the posts.

Travel Blog

As in the name, Travel Blog makes your life easy if you are a travel blogger. It lets you blog about your present location along with a little description on it. Hence if you are using a travel itinerary that you like to blog about, Travel Blog app is helpful for you. This way, your blog followers as well can use your travel itinerary to plan their upcoming travels.

LiveJournal

LiveJournal app is perfect for the users and fans of LiveJournal. It lets you access your journal on your smartphone and make the entries easily. Similar to its desktop version, this app too lets you post new entries and manage published posts and comments too.

Moby

Moby Android application allows video blogging too, other than text, audio and image posting. The best thing about Moby is that it distributes the blogs to 25 different websites and services that may include your favourite social networking websites such as Twitter, Facebook and so on, services like YouTube, and blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger and so on. However, Moby app has got mixed user reviews hence it is advised that you do proper research before deciding on it.

Thus, if you like blogging and if you do not have to sit in front of a desktop, now you no more need to worry about it as you can continue your blogging activity from your Android phone too using the above apps! This has been a guest post, courtesy of Anna, who loves to blog on latest mobile technologies. To find out about her updates please view Cell phone surveillance!

Three Essential Apps for The Professional Blogger In 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:05:00 +0000

There are plenty of people who love to blog in their spare time, which is all well and good, but if you're someone who takes blogging as a professional pastime then you'll need to make sure that you have the best tools at your disposal. So, for starters you'll want to get yourself kitted out with the latest gadgets and gizmos for blogging from just about any location.

Next up, you'll also need to ensure that you've got a decent trio of software apps that will allow you to stay on top of your blogging duties, no matter what the time, location or indeed, device that you're using. With more professional bloggers now migrating to something like the iPad or a similar style tablet gismo, having a hand-picked selection of the right apps can make blogging better than ever.

Go for it!

So, you've got yourself the shiny new mobile device to help push your professional blogging activities to the fore, but what sort of apps should feature in a typical top three selection? Well, one of the best for producing scratch built blogs that not only look great but also give you all the powerful usability you'll even need has to be WordPress.

This is an app that comes with an excellent pedigree from the days when people used it in traditional desktop computer surroundings, while the mobile version is even better. There are plenty of tools for building pages, adding posts and then managing your blogging content over a longer period of time. What's more, it's been suitably optimised to work on mobile gadgets so you can update content and place new posts no matter what your geographical location.

Evernote is another one of those apps that somehow just works and seems to get a little better each time you use it. This is an app that helps professional bloggers, and those who aren't so professional too, stay on top of all of their posting chores. This is also an app that might not seem too fancy on the face of it, but it is such a practical software tool that once you've discovered its simplistic charms, you'll probably wonder how you ever got by without it.

And, finally, what about Twitter as a mobile blogging ultimate solution? While many people love to write lengthy blog posts and that's all well and good, there is still a fantastic appeal about being able to create and post short pieces that sum up an idea, option or experience to much greater effect. Naturally, the Twitter app has been perfectly honed to work on the bulk of mobile devices and is also well suited to helping people Tweet in the most awkward of surrounding's.

Add it all together

These might just be three apps, but they have a cumulative processing power that could transform the way you carry out your blogging activities. If you're looking to go mobile now, or in the not too distant future, then they're certainly three programs that should appear on your desktop, no matter what device you happen to be using.

Rob Clymo is an expert on all things mobile Apps and writes on behalf of www.broadbandgenie.co.uk, comparing everything from broadband to the best iPhone 4S deals!

Cloudcache: Why It Can Grow Your Website Too

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:05:00 +0000

This is a guest post courtesy of Jason Case, an online lead generation website developer.

I was offered a Cloudcache trial a few months ago as part of a special promotion, and so far I've had a great experience with this service. Unlike most cloud hosting services, Cloudcache is a cloud caching service secured by secure socket layers (SSL's), which means that data sent from the Cloudcache server to end-users is encrypted. That's one reason why I chose Cloudcache, and the other reasons may surprise you:

Cloudcache Secure Socket Layer

I sell many products on my website, both as an affiliate marketer and first-party products like eBooks and coaching videos. PayPal takes too big of a cut of what each person pays so I've quit using PayPal for my financial transactions. Furthermore, many of the things I sell are bought in shopping carts, which need a SSL to work properly.

SSL's keep your content safe too

Sometimes you want somebody to pay to see content, and the content is your product. Often, they will have to log in with a username and a password to get access to your content. This username and password combination needs to be encrypted, but that's not all. The content itself needs to be encrypted or else they could just tunnel in and pick up unencrypted content, as long as someone else is receiving that content. Even if not many people are consuming your content (so it's unlikely that a tunneler will be able to find someone else who wants your content at the same time as they do) they can still set up automated listeners (much like tapping a phone call) that will download content that's sent from your domain while they are away from their computer. However, Cloudcache let me encrypt my content so this is not a problem for me.

Cloudcache doesn't cut corners on lower tiers

When I was looking for cloud hosting services, I noticed that many lower tiered plans had missing features. The higher tiers weren't necessarily more costly for the service provider, but they included things that are critical to a working cloud hosting service. Worse, some of them would give you the premium tiers' features with the starter tiers for a few months, and then take the features away. This seems like a good thing at first, but then you realize that the features they took away are critical to your cloud caching service. Had I chosen a service like this, I would have been tied into an expensive service just to use a few easy-to-provide features.

Cloudcache doesn't throttle speeds at lower tiers

Even though I did not get a premium tier, I still got good features. There was no cap on my download speed or anything like that. The main difference between Cloudcache's tiers is that the higher tiers give you higher amounts of storage and more bandwidth, but the speed at which people get content is lightning-fast at the basic packages too. The only feature you get with the higher tiered ones is a custom SSL that runs through your domain instead of Cloudcache's domain.

Blogger: How To Lock/Unlock A Widget

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:43:00 +0000

While I was customizing my layout yesterday I noticed my Attribution (i.e. the text that reads ‘Powered By Blogger’) had somehow found itself stuck at the top of my Blog and wouldn’t let me highlight it and drag it to the bottom. After researching how to move it I realised that the widget was locked and a simple HTML modification would solve the problem.

Notice how the locked widget is greyed-out and can't be moved

Finding the right code in your HTML

To unlock a widget, first open up your HTML and make sure you tick ‘Expand Widget Templates’. If you want to find a widget that is locked, simply search for:

locked='true'

For instance the code for my Attribution widget looked like:

<b:widget id='Attribution1' locked='true' title='' type='Attribution'>

To search for other widgets, change the widget id, or just search for:

Locked=

This will show you all the widgets which can be locked or unlocked. To make it locked change the value to true, or to unlock the widget simply change the value to false. Also, locked widgets can’t be removed, so if you were to unlock the Attribution widget, you can remove it although that may be against Blogger’s terms and conditions.

How can I avoid poisoned well syndrome? Find out in this week's Future of Publishing!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:45:00 +0000

In addition to last week's article about Profiting from Google Plus, here’s another post courtesy of Murray Newlands!

Many online publishers still follow the same format: They post content and people read it, and then moderate comments they receive. However, these days a lot of the conversation is taking place on social media, but publishers have little to no control over what direction the conversation is going.

In this week's Future of Engagement, Murray Newlands interviews Chris Saad, the Co-Founder and Strategy VP of Echo. Saad talks about how following this format in the age of social networking can make publishers lose touch with their readership:

Highlights

People use social media to have conversations about publishers and their content
Social media conversations are hard to publishers to lead into positive and productive communication
But publishers can recapture the conversation by drawing people to their site

Building positive conversations

The term “poisoned well syndrome” is frequently used by forum owners to describe a general cynicysm felt by the community. What happens is that the users/readers become disenchanted with the topic the forum is about. So, it usually happens to forums about a specific product instead of one about a type of products, so it might be more likely to happen to a forum about a particular game than happen to a forum about videogames in general. A recent example is what happened to Eve Online. Eve is a videogame but this can apply to a publisher's readership as well.

Eve Online: A case study

For most of its history, Eve was an open-ended sandbox MMO. There were very few rules governing interactions between players. The game was geared toward conflict between players and groups of players, not conflict between players and computer-generated non-player characters (NPC's). It was a very niche product aimed at hardcore MMO gamers, especially ones who like science fiction. However, CCP decided to change the focus from a game based around conflict between players and groups of players to one based around working together to defeat NPC's. CCP tried to make a niche product appeal to a wider audience.

The result was disastrous. Subscription rates plummeted. Famous players publicly unsubscribed and some even deleted their characters permanently. But the main place to talk about Eve Online on the Internet is the Eve forums, which CCP owns. So how did this happen?

Eve Online: Poisoned well

Although people talk about the game on the official forum and the third-party forums aren't as widely used, people also talk about Eve in-game and out-of-game with their friends who also play the game. Although CCP could moderate their forums, they were unable to guide discussions of what people were saying about them in-game and with other players out-of-game.
Plus, they simply did not respond to the needs of their players. Instead of running a PR campaign they fired their marketing team. Instead of developing the game based on the response of the community and based on standard marketing practices (like not converting a niche product into a product with wide appeal), they went ahead and tried to make their game appeal to everyone. In addition to poorly redesigning their product, CCP failed to develop positive and constructive conversations about the future of the game.

What can publishers learn from this?

Publishers such as bloggers can make sure that they always stay in touch with their readership. You don't always have to give into what they want (many readers would love it if you had less ads, but then you'd also make less money!) but you can still listen to them to guide a better conversation that's more productive for you as a publisher.

Future of Publishing is sponsored by VigLink.
Be sure to check out the Future of Publishing Facebook page.

How can I use Google Plus's authorship capabilities to make my blog more profitable?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:28:00 +0000

This is a guest post, courtesy of Murray Newlands!

In 2011, we saw for-profit web browsers make a comeback when Chrome, aided by a massive and questionable advertising campaign, knocked off Firefox to became the world's most popular desktop web browser.

Since the end of 2011, Google has aimed their sites on Facebook, firing the first salvo by tying its own social network into Google Search results and ramping up its Google Plus advertising campaign. However, this has also allowed bloggers to associate their blog posts with their Google Plus profiles, which has some advantages for the author. In the Future of Publishing premiere, VigLink CEO Oliver Roup, Influence People CEO Murray Newlands, and HupPages CEO Paul Edmonson discuss how Google Plus/Google Search integration is changing the content creation industry:

Why does Google Plus matter, and how can you use it to make your blog more profitable?

Readers trust expert bloggers, not random people with keyboards

Your regular readers will believe what you say because they see you as a trust agent and maybe a friend, or at least someone who's honest. This means that you can target with with affiliate campaigns quite effectively, since they will believe you when you tell them that a product or service is worth their money. But most people find sites by first entering a query into a search engine, so a lot of the landings on your pages will be from new readers instead of returning readers. As a result, most of your visitors will not automatically trust you.

How can Google Plus help?

Google Plus helps you build credibility among people who have never read your blog posts before. First, it shows your Google Plus profile picture next to posts you write in Google Search. This makes your post less anonymous, which builds credibility because it's being said by an actual person instead of by a website.

Second, Google Search can show all of the posts you've written when someone clicks “More by [Your Name]”, but only if you have a Google Plus account since the posts will show up in a list on your Google Plus profile. People with more articles are seen as more authoritative, so people will see a list of your articles and give you more credibility.

Third, people see how many Google Plus profiles you're in. Authors who are in more people's circles (being in one of someone's circle is a lot like being a friend on Facebook, but it's possible to be in someone's circles without them being in one of yours) are seen to have a larger audience, so if you get into a lot of people's Google Plus circles then you can be seen as more authoritative on Google Search results.

So how does this make me more money?

Quite simply, if people see you as authoritative, they will be more likely to buy from your affiliate programs even if they don't really know much about you. One of the best ways to do this is to become a product review expert and review good products with VigLink in-content ads (the easiest way to get VigLink is to install the Wordpress plug-in). Just remember to disclose that you're using affiliate links!

Find out more by watching the interview, and checking out the Future of Publishing Facebook page!

Customize your post footer

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:53:00 +0000

If you've got some spare time this week, why not tweek your post footer. It's the first thing a reader is faced with at the end of your article so you need to make a good impression. A post footer can usually contain the number of comments, tags, Author’s name or date published. Even without any HTML knowledge, using Blogger you can edit the basics of your footer by choosing to Edit the Blog Posts section from your Page Layout in the Design tab. You can choose what to include and how they should be arranged to your viewers. Blogger even offers you share buttons which, although might not offer as many platforms as external applications, has recently been updated to include Twitter, Facebook and Google +1, with the removal of Google Buzz.

Adverts

The end of your post is also a great place to display an advert. Adverts that appear above the fold (which means they appear without having to scroll) usually perform better than those further down, but I’ve realised that if a reader reaches the end of one of my longer articles, then there are absolutely no adverts to click without scrolling back to the top. It’s no major issue seeing as blogging isn’t just about making money. But if you are to monetize your blog, your adverts do need to be strategically placed, and post footer is a perfect place to display one. If you display one similar to BloggerBuster, below, you can place a pretty large advert which could potentially earn you more money from advertisers if your using PPM.

Using Blogger, to place an advert in your post footer you’ll need to copy the HTML code from you specific advertiser, i.e. Google AdSense, Amazon Affiliates, and place them in your blog’s HTML code. Expand your template and search for:

<div class='post-footer'>

Basically anything you place below this line will appear in your footer. You might want to play around with the order and positioning of your content.

Share Buttons

Although Blogger may offer basic share buttons, by using AddThis or ShareThis, you can customize a selection of buttons to place wherever you fancy. Leaving some at the end of a post is the easiest way to allow a reader to share some of your content. To install the buttons, visit either website, choose your blogging platform (Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress etc.) and you’ll be given the HTML code or a widget to place in your page layout. To insert the code in your HTML template, expand your template and search for:

<div class='post-footer'>

Then place the code anywhere below, similar to placing an advert. If you don’t like the look of these buttons, then some alternatives are ‘Sharing Is Sexy’, an attractive looking row of share buttons which expands when highlighted. Or you could just place the code for a Facebook ‘like’ button or a ‘Retweet’ Button.

I'd recommend:

Facebook
Twitter
Digg
LinkedIn
Delicious
Email

Others include: StumbleUpon, Reddit, Print, Google +1, Blogger, Myspace... In fact there's a list of over 300 sharing platforms for you to choose from, so pick generously.

Related Posts

If a reader has made it to the end of your article, chances are they enjoyed it. If they enjoyed your article then surely they’d enjoy another one on a similar topic. Including a recent posts section in your post footer is a great way to keep readers interested and keep them on your site. The first time I visited Steve Pavlina’s blog, I found myself hopping from one interesting post to another thanks to this method, until I realised it was four in the morning and my eyes had almost stopped functioning.

CopyBlogger also uses this method, as shown above, complete with share buttons to a few key social platforms. Adding a related posts section varies depending on your Blogging platform. You can find plugins for WordPress, but if you're using Blogger, feel free to check out this short guide on implementing some HTML code, or you could also try LinkWithin!

Author Bio

Including a small paragraph or two about yourself, or even whoever wrote the article, is a great way to get your readers to connect with you. As you can see below, Darren from ProBlogger, has included not just some information about himself, but also links to all his other websites, and also to social networks where he can connect even more with his readers.

Sign-up Form

A great way to capture leads is by including a sign-up form at the end of your post. It’s one of the more effective places to place the form, seeing as the reader has made it to the end of your article, which more than likely, they’ve enjoyed reading. Check out this article for other effective places to place a sign-up form.

As you can see above, Viperchill uses a very simple footer design, which makes it super easy for the reader to share his content or sign up to get free updates.

You’ve got the space at the end of your posts, so you may as well make the most of it. For some ideas, check out this helpful list of 48 fantastic footer designs. Also, after your footer comes the comment form. You can install different platforms to meet your needs. At the moment I’m using Disqus which is universally recognised, easy to use and pretty attractive. I wrote a short post here, about updating your Blogger comment form. Thanks for reading.

DoFollow vs NoFollow

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:37:00 +0000

When you link to another website, or vice versa, that link can be helpful in various ways, depending whether it’s DoFollow or NoFollow. If you search Google, you’ll find lots of arguments about why DoFollow is better for SEO, or why they’re the same, or why NoFollow links are pointless etc.

Basically, a NoFollow link tells a search engine that even though you’re linking to a website, you have no relation to the site and it’s not worth following the link, perhaps if you think the site is untrusted. This means that the site would receive traffic if your readers click the link, but the link will not improve the websites Page Rank or search rankings. So from an SEO perspective, it’s pointless.

Usually, the default for linking is DoFollow. Anytime you link to a website without a NoFollow attribute, it is essentially a DoFollow link. Both have their advantages and disadvantages which I’ve included below.

DoFollow Advantages

By allowing readers to leave a DoFollow link when they comment, there is more chance a user will comment. At the end of the day, who doesn’t enjoy more comments? No matter the quality, more comments makes your blog look popular and bursting with activity.
If you’ve discovered a website you’d like to promote, what’s more rewarding for them than leaving a DoFollow link in one of your posts? This means more traffic for them which could also result in them linking back to you!
A Top Commenters form with DoFollow links is a great way to reward those readers that interact the most with your blog. If anyone tries to spam your blog to reach the top, you could easily just delete their comments.
Another great thing about DoFollow links is that you can submit your site to DoFollow directories. Also, other websites are more inclined to link back to you to let others know that you’re DoFollow.

DoFollow Disadvantages

A DoFollow blog is more prone to spam because some users are there purely for the backlink, not to engage in conversation. You’ll have to spend more time moderating comments, unless your Blogging platform does it automatically for you!
A blog with lots of outgoing DoFollow links can lower your Page Rank. Every DoFollow Link that leaves your blog takes some of your PR with it. Although some links may deserve a healthy backlink to their website, what about those linking to bad websites? The more links to bad websites, the more likely Google will punish your Page Rank, which in turn will affect your search rankings.

NoFollow Advantages

You can link to as many websites as possible without worrying about any consequences. For instance if you accidentally link to a website with tons of infringing links, your site isn’t going to suffer.
By using NoFollow links, a search engine crawler will be able to index your pages faster, without checking out all the outgoing links on your website. This also means less bandwidth usage.
If someone knows your blog is NoFollow, then there is less chance of them leaving a spam comment just to get a cheeky backlink to their own website. You know who you are…

NoFollow Disadvantages

Although spam is bad, less comments from people desperate for backlinks also means less activity on your beloved blog.

Personally, I believe a healthy mix of DoFollow links and NoFollow links are the best method for your blog to succeed. If you’re unsure of whether you’re linking to an untrusted website, just add a NoFollow attribute to your link. Your readers can still access the website and Google won’t deem the link worth following when crawling your blog. To create a NoFollow attribute, keep reading!

How to make your links NoFollow

Creating NoFollow links are easy, assuming you already know how to create a standard link. The tag <a> is used when creating a link in HTML. Say we’re linking to Google, here’s what a standard link looks like:

<a href=”http://www.google.co.uk” rel=”nofollow”>Google’s Home Page</a>

Now, to add the NoFollow attribute to your link, you’ll need to add <rel=nofollow> as shown below. Make sure you leave a space before or after, depending on where you place it.

<a href=”http://www.google.co.uk” rel=”nofollow”>Google’s Home Page</a>

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.google.co.uk”>Google’s Home Page</a>

Support the SOPA Strike

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:49:00 +0000

Today, thousands of websites across the internet will attempt to promote the end of the SOPA bill, Stop Online Piracy Act. The vote will take place next week. If you’re unaware of what this bill details, check out americancensorship.org or feel free to watch the video below.

Websites, including Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, Namecheap and tons more, will fight the bill by blacking out their websites, censoring their logos and generally just persuading people who are unaware to help fight the bill. If you’d like to contribute, insert the HTML code below as a widget on your blog to display ‘STOP SOPA’ banners at the top of your website.

<a href="http://americancensorship.org/" target="_blank"><img style="position: fixed; top: 0px; left: 0px; border: none;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yi5uS_ylq4Q/TxVR0csJE6I/AAAAAAAACKs/xp6zdQEjed0/s1600/stop+sopa.png" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://americancensorship.org/" target="_blank"><img style="position: fixed; top: 0px; right: 0px; border: none;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yux3YQuToKw/TxVRzjOnv8I/AAAAAAAACKk/PqdYuNV8v28/s1600/stop+pipa.png" alt="" /></a>

Edit: Since SOPA has been shelved (for the time being), another bill now has the potential to cause permanent damage to our online society, and not just in the USA. Visit StopACTA to learn more about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

A list of Social Exchange Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:01:00 +0000

If you’re interested in websites similar to Twiends then look no further. Whatever you’re looking for; more followers, likes, diggs etc. check out this list of 15 Social Exchange websites. I’ve also included what each site has to offer, apart from Twitter followers and Facebook Likes, because most have them (also, 'views' means URL views). People share different opinions on Social Exchange websites, while I see them as a helpful way to get the ball rolling on a new site, others may find them black hat (unethical techniques to rank your website higher) hence avoiding them. If you’re going to use any of these websites, I wouldn’t spend too much time using their services. I mean, 1000 new Twitter followers a week may sound impressive to your friends but your followers won’t give a toss about you, and could also just as easily remove you! Basically they’ll be seen and not heard. Anyway, here’s the list.

The top exchange websites that I'd recommend are:

1. http://www.addmefast.com - My new favourite. Great for Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and YouTube views/subscribers/likes. Also, as well as being more active than most on the list, it also now incorporates Pinterest and SoundCloud.

2. http://www.youlikehits.com - Digg, Google Plus, StumbleUpon, Youtube, views

3. http://www.twiends.com - Only Twitter

4. http://www.traffup.net - Retweets, views (No Facebook)

Here are some more which aren't as active but still useful:

5. http://www.letusfollow.com - Digg, Youtube, Retweets, Google +1, views

6. http://www.tweers.com - Youtube, StumbleUpon, Google +1

7. http://www.addsocials.com/ - Youtube, views

8. http://www.getlikes.eu/ - Google +1, Youtube, views

9. http://www.vote3w.com/ - Google +1, Youtube, views

10. http://www.twidir.com - Basically a Twiends clone

Note: These websites below all use the same code, in case you’re wondering why they look so similar. I don’t use any of them personally so I can’t recommend which is more popular. They all offer a mix of services offered above.

11. http://www.earnviews.com/

12. http://www.likeviews.com/

13. http://www.socialmedianetworkexchange.com/

14. http://www.welikehits.com/

15. http://www.welikesocials.com/

16. http://www.Likends.com/

New Comment System

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:46:00 +0000

Yesterday I decided to breathe new life into the comment system on my blog. As much as I love using Blogger (free hosting, very customisable) some aspects are below par, including the comment form. It’s simple, albeit too simple. You can’t reply to users individually and it’s just visually unappealing. After a bit of research I discovered IntenseDebate offer a great comment form which is also compatible with Blogger, and you can see the results below.

Just visit http://intensedebate.com and sign up, making sure to create an account as a blogger (to install the comment form) and not as a user. If you’re installing it for Blogger, all you need to do is upload your HTML template (after downloading it to your desktop), which they then edit themselves to include their comment form. Then you must copy and paste the completed code they give you into your blog’s HTML template. From your user dashboard on IntenseDebate, you can also alter layout settings, login settings (i.e. Include Twitter, OpenId, Facebook logins) and also how to include number of comments next to your posts.

On a side note, upgrading the comment form has hidden all my old comments and I’m still trying to figure out how to make them visible again (if possible). It’s not a massive deal seeing as I only launched the site a few months ago, but if you’ve been running your blog for a while, then I’d suggest giving a second thought to using IntenseDebate.

Edit: After a little more research, I've decided to go with Disqus, which offers a visually appealing comment form, which you've most likely seen before. I decided to use it because it's more universally recognised than IntenseDebate. Another helpful trick is that it keeps all your old comments, and also links your new comments to Blogger, so if you choose to remove it in the future, you'll keep all your comments! Anyway, to install for Blogger, all you have to do is sign up and install the Disqus widget!

Like Blogdog?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:51:00 +0000

I’ve recently branched out and set up a Facebook page. I’d be overly appreciative if you could give me a like!

If perhaps you’re thinking that you’re not quite ready for a serious commitment between Facebook and my blog, you can find my Twitter account instead, here. Don’t worry, I won’t expect you to cuddle afterwards. Thank you!

Also, after receiving some dodgy emails, I’d just like to clarify that I am unfortunately not a member of the canine family.

Creating a Favicon

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:58:00 +0000

What The Funk is a Favicon?

A sample of popular favicons.

A favicon is known as many things; a website icon, favourites icon, bookmark icon etc. It's the small icon displayed next to a website’s URL. Popular icons like Google, Facebook, and YouTube etc. are instantly recognisable, therefore sometimes only requiring their favicon for users to find them. Having your own favicon separates your URL from your blogging platform and gives your site more credibility.

Using an Image.

Depending on your blogging platform, you may be able to upload an image which is resized straight away and ready for use. On blogger you’ll have to upload an image less than 100kb. If you don’t use Blogger there free websites which offer free image resizing. You could also use a website like Favicon.co.uk to create an icon from any image on your computer. If you're wanting to change the favicon of a site which isn't on a blogging platform, you'll need to upload your favicon.ico into the root directory of your website. The root directory is where your main index.html page is located!

On Blogger, you can edit your favicon from your Design Tab.

Creating a Favicon From Scratch.

If you’d prefer to create an astounding favicon from scratch, DeGraeve is a good place to start. Here you can paint a glorious masterpiece of art imprisoned by a 16x16 pixelated cage of emotion. Although if painting isn’t your forte, and by painting I mean sloppily colouring a few measly pixels which my grandmother could probably do with her eyes closed, then this generator also allows you to upload an image that can be cropped and then edited with the palette.

Other websites which allow you to create a favicon are:

~http://www.favicon.cc/
~http://favicon-generator.org/editor/
~http://www.genfavicon.com/

Or you could just swerve this funny business and use Photoshop.

Note. While normally favicons have the file type .ico, depending on your browser you may be able to use other file extensions for your favicons. Check out this table below, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Facebook 'Like' Button

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:05:00 +0000

Communicating with your readers is crucial as a blogger; Social Networking has made this process easier than ever, allowing you to share content with readers via Twitter, LinkedIn, even MySpace. As 2012 begins, you should maximise the potential of social media, and a well-established blog should definitely be integrated with Facebook. You hear about their statistics all the time; over 800 million active users with over 900 million objects (pages, groups) to interact with. It's pretty impressive, just check out the full stats below, which you can find at http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics.

Don't forget the millions of users harvesting their virtual crops every morning...

How to add a Facebook Like button to your blog

Here’s how to add a Facebook like button to your blog. First visit the Facebook for Developers page. You can customise various features of the button like width and theme. To the right, a preview of your button will be shown. You can add the URL of your blog, a Facebook fan page or simply leave it blank. To create a Fan Page on Facebook, simply visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php and select the type of page you want to create. For a blog, choose 'Company, organisation or institution' and fill in the details.

After filling out the form, you'll receive the HTML code for the button, which you can then place in your blog's code, or as a widget if you're using Blogger.

The difference between liking a Page and a URL

By default (if you left the URL blank in the settings above), if a Facebook user clicks the button they will 'like' the specific page they are viewing. This could be your homepage, contact page, or any article you’ve ever posted. I made the mistake of not specifying a URL thinking that if someone clicked the ‘like’ button, they would automatically ‘like’ my Blog’s Facebook page (located here if you’d like to brighten up my day). If you want to connect with people on Facebook and build up a fan base, you must make sure your readers 'like' your company page, not simply a URL from your blog.

Readers ‘liking’ an URL of your blog isn’t a bad thing though. It will show up on their profile enabling their friends to see it on their newsfeed. The URL can then also be easily copied and pasted to other users to view your content. Once they've 'liked' the URL though, you won’t be able to connect with the person. This is where your Fan page comes in handy. Note that a user 'liking' one of your URLs i.e. http://www.blogdog.co.uk/p/archives_15.html, does not mean they 'like' http://www.blogdog.co.uk/, to Facebook, these are treated like two separate URLs.

If you take a look at my blog in it’s current form, to the right there is a button for you lovely people to ‘like’ my Fan page, while on the left there is a button for you to ‘like’ a specific URL, like a post you’ve enjoyed reading, albeit probably not this one. Basically, the right button should stay the same no matter what page you’re viewing while the left one will be different every time. I just thought I'd write this article after I was confused about the whole 'liking' situation, myself. Or perhaps I'm just trying to use the word 'like' as much as possible in one post...

Happy Holidays!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 20:21:00 +0000

Happy holidays everyone! Christmas Day tomorrow and I can't wait to see the family. Hopefully 2012 brings us something other than certain death.

If you're feeling festive, which you should be, check out some of these festive themed Blogger templates, here. Anyway, hope you all have a great Christmas, I leave you with this short film by Eliot Rausch, enjoy!

O NIGHT DIVINE from Eliot Rausch + Phos Pictures

Creating your first mailing list

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:40:00 +0000

An electronic mailing list is a collection of email addresses which are available to receive a widespread distribution of information. Such a list may be kept by any company for sending relevant information to its members or customers. Building is a list is one of the most important things you can do to for your online business and is crucial to capture those people visiting your blog.

What’s the difference if readers sign up to your mailing list or feed?

For those of you thinking you’ve already got an email sign up form, it could be for your blog’s feed. No matter what blogging platform you’re using (Blogger, wordpress, Tumblr etc.), your blog will have its own feed, either RRS or Atom. Feedburner offers a widget to allow readers to sign up to your updates via email. When they sign up, they receive updates from your blog’s feed directly to their inbox. Although this is a great feature to keep your readers updated, the content they receive is normally just what you post on your blog which can’t really be modified. This is where a mailing list comes into play. Once your readers sign up, they gain access to any mass emails you choose to send, for example, a monthly newsletter, which you have complete control over.

Who should host your mailing list?

You could manage your mailing list yourself, but as it grows you may want to think about using an external application to host your list. There are many websites offering to host mailing lists. To get an idea of what they offer and their cost, check out this list, however the prices may have changed since it was published.

If you’re prepared to pay for hosting then your best bet is Aweber, which is currently offering a generous $1 free monthly trial. As well as hosting your list, they also offer many other fantastic services including email tracking, an autoresponder, and sign up widgets amongst others. Their pricing is realistic considering what you receive is probably the best quality out there.

If you don’t have the money to host a list, I’ve found that MailChimp offer a free service to host your first 2,000 email addresses and also allows you to send 12,000 emails per month, which is more than enough to start with. Although the free service includes most of the premium features like privacy protection and reporting, it doesn’t include an autoresponder. Once you reach 2,000 subscribers, you can choose to upgrade your package with MailChimp which, price-wise, is reasonable compared to other hosting plans from say Aweber.

How to create your first mailing list for free

Step 1. Sign up for a free account with MailChimp, no credit card details are required for a free account, just a valid email address.

Step 2. Once you’re logged in you’ll be faced with the Dashboard, from here you can create and manage a subscriber list, design sign up forms for your list and also create campaigns to mail to your list (ie. A newsletter, special offers etc.).

Step 3. Choose ‘Create a subscriber list’. Now simply fill in the boxes to complete your brand new mailing list, how awesome. Creating the list is easy, filling it, not so much. You’ll want to design your sign up form which is pretty easy using their interface. Just decide on your categories and background colours. You can then link people to this page or MailChimp gives you other options to include sign up forms on your blog.

MailChimp's Dashboard

How to get people to sign up?

Once your list is set up, now comes the difficult part; actually persuading people to sign up. If your blog is already established in the blogosphere, persuading your current readers to sign up shouldn’t be too much of a hassle, it’s capturing new visitors which can prove difficult. You’ll not want to overpower your blog with sign up forms, but include at least one above the fold. Here are some methods to add sign up forms to your blog.

An interesting way to add a sign up form without altering your blogs layout is by using a lightbox like the one above, offered by Aweber. The lightbox will appear to the reader depending on the settings you choose, for instance the first time you visit, or perhaps every other visit. If it’s only appearing once to your reader, it shouldn’t be much of a turn off as it can be easily closed and doesn’t open in a new window like a pop-up.

Another similar method without changing your layout is by displaying a sign up form in a page footer. Using Aweber, you can modify the settings similar to the lightbox, customising it to suit you and your readers.

I think the smartest place to include a sign up form is in your post footer. If a reader has enjoyed reading through a specific post then they’re definitely more likely to sign up there and then. Your post footer can be crucial for capturing leads to your blog. I remember the first time I visited Steve Pavlina’s blog, and as I scrolled to the end of an interesting article, there would be another ten similar articles waiting for me that tickled my fancy. Anyway, back to your mailing list. Once you’ve added sign up forms to your blog you’ll then need to entice you valuable readers into signing up to your magnificent service.

By offering something of good value, i.e. a free e-book or perhaps just the first few chapters can intrigue visitors, especially if the rest of your blog has quality information. In fact, if you’re too lazy to produce an e-book, you can find PLR material related to your niche from a quick Google search. Remember, never send your readers irrelevant content or products just to make some quick money. They can opt out just as easily as they can opt in. If you’re planning to use your mailing list to sell products, the best advice I can give you is to build a relationship with your readers first and only offer them relevant products now and then.

A Bloggers Guide to Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:44:00 +0000

In this article, I’m going to talk about why Twitter is important, how to grow and manage your account and also how you can use it to earn you some money. As a blogger, I’ve grown to love Twitter, it’s a useful way to share your content and attract new readers. In fact if you’re running a business and haven’t incorporated the use of Twitter, then you need to stop writing letters and join me in the 21^st century. Twitter’s been around for some time now, but only in recent years has it amassed such a huge flow of users that have now propelled it to one of the top 10 visited websites worldwide.

Social Networking has become a major part of blogging, and nowadays people will rate the quality of a blog based on Twitter followers, Facebook likes, Diggs etc. as well as its readers, page rank and traffic. If you’ve only just begun blogging or perhaps only just started using Twitter, growing your followers from nothing can take time and effort. With the ability to drive traffic to your site or share content with a single tweet, surely it’ll be worth it in the long run? Check out some interesting Twitter stats below.

Stats courtesy of KISSmetrics and twitter.com

Growing your followers

Growing your followers naturally is the best possible way to maximize the potential of your Twitter account. What I mean by naturally is with no help from external sources, which I will talk about in the next section. The best way to grow a community is by simply posting quality and relevant information. If people enjoy what you write, what’s the reason for them not to follow you? To further increase your following, linking back to your Twitter often and getting retweets from your current followers is a must.

If growing your followers naturally isn’t good enough for you, there are other ways to boost your follow count and cheat yourself to a better social proof. The first website I’m going to talk about is Twiends. Naturally, I’ve been able to grow my Twitter following by about 100 new followers per month, nothing fancy but I’ve only been running my blog for a few months. After using Twiends, you can see the increase of followers below. Over three days I managed to boost my follow count by almost half of my original followers.

Stats from TwitterCounter.com

To begin using Twiends, if it’s your first time visiting the site simply sign in using your Twitter account, and authorize the application. You won’t receive any spam from the website and you’re free to remove your account at any time.

Once logged in, you may not be able to follow others just yet because of your ‘Twust’ score, a percentage which measures your account trust. This can easily be improved by producing a few tweets, changing your background, adding a location to your profile, getting listed by a friend etc. Basically, if you’re account is brand new, expect quite a low ‘Twust’ score. Once you’re allowed to follow others, you’re ready to go.

The website uses its own currency in the form of ‘seeds’. The basic premise is that you follow a user to earn a designated amount of seeds, and then you offer these seeds to other users in return for following your account. You can find other users based on their interests. You must set up your account by choosing: the amount of seeds to offer between 1 and 10, and who can follow you based on the length of membership or their unfollow rate (Yeah don’t forget, users can unfollow you whenever they please). Don’t worry if your seeds run out though, people can still follow you without earning anything.

You can also choose to only allow followers from your own country, and choose to follow users back as soon as they follow you.

Account settings

Also, on the right you’ll notice a featured user’s column, you can purchase a days’ worth of a featured users slot along with seed packages as shown below. All featured members offer 7 seeds, but this comes straight from twiends so you don’t even need to have any in your account!

Package prices for Seeds

When Twiends first arrived, it was a pretty unique idea, and while many people may not agree with the whole process that it offers, it’s attracted over one million members so far. Not so long ago, the site offered free Facebook ‘likes’ in a similar process, until the company blocked the application from it’s website. It’s unsure whether Twitter will follow suit in the future but with similar sites appearing like twidir, which as you can see below is actually just an exact clone of twiends, there’s bound to be a lot more websites offering unique methods to boost your followers.

twidir.com

Similar Websites

TraffUp offers a similar process to twiends, once signed up you must accumulate points from following other users, retweeting users or viewing websites. You can add your own blog url, twitter account or tweet and set the amount of points to give a user for viewing your site, following you or retweeting you. Although similar to twiends, TraffUp actually offers you more help to promote your blog or business. It may not be as popular (yet), but with the ability to get your tweets retweeted, it should start attracting a lot more users.

Edit: Another similar website to TraffUp is YouLikeHits, which offers Stumbles, Diggs, Follows, Likes, pretty much everything your heart could desire. I've found this website to be slightly less active than others but obviously there's a lot more variety to choose from, enjoy!

JustRetweet also offers a similar service. As well as offering Follows and Tweets, you can also add your blog's RRS feed for other users to tweet!

5 minutes of fame is website where Twitter users can post their username for, yep you guessed it, five minutes of glorious recognition. Your account will appear on the homepage along with details of your website URL and location. Now watch as vast hordes of Twitter hungry folk begin following you, ravenous for more of your delectable tweets. What, no one followed you? Well you could always try for another five minutes, then maybe another five and another five and another five…

Spread your tweets is another website I’ve come across which helps you gain more followers. Basically you let Twitter authorize the application and it guarantees a follower for every person you follow. Sounds promising, but you have no control on who you follow and the application also posts tweets without asking your permission. Feel free to check it out but I wouldn’t recommend it.

The most helpful use of these websites is by giving you a better social proof, ie. more credibility. If someone finds your website and sees you’ve got thousands of followers, then they believe your website is of good quality with relevant information. This may sound appealing, but by using these websites, the quality of your followers will dwindle. Think about it, what’s better? 100 followers who are interested in your content and can’t wait to see more? Or 1000 unengaged followers who basically couldn’t give a shit. The purpose of your followers will be mostly for show!

Managing your Account

Now that you‘ve grown your Twitter following to billions of users, managing your account can only get more time consuming and boring. There are two websites I’d strongly recommend to help you on your perilous social networking quest, and they’d be Tweepi and twittercounter.

Tweepi is an application which allows you to flush, reciprocate, cleanup and follow. You can choose between using it free or creating a premium account. A premium account allows advanced options like removing people with a low Klout score or removing people who haven’t tweeted in a month automatically etc. Once you sign in, or authorize the application, with your Twitter account, the dashboard allows you to:

Flush: Remove the people you’re following who aren’t following you back.

Reciporcate: Follow people who are following you that you aren’t following already.

Cleanup: Remove inactive or irrelevant accounts that your following.

Follow: Find new users to follow, yay more friends!

Due to Twitter’s Terms of Service, you can’t unfollow bulk users at a time, just one by one. This might seem boring but it’s better than unfollowing someone you didn’t want to by accident.

Next up, TwitterCounter lets you track the amount of followers or friends you have over a weekly or monthly basis. It also allows you to track other users or brands, and compare them against each other. Again, this website has premium features, but you can get by just fine being a free member!

Looks like I've got a while to go...

Earn Some Money

You probably wouldn’t have even begun reading this article if you hadn’t noticed a section on making some cash. Before you start reading this section though, note that Twitter is a social networking website, not a money tree. These are just a few ideas about how Twitter could compliment your income. Twitter is best used to drive traffic to your site, by posting tweets relevant to your readers. By generating traffic to your site, you’re already increasing the potential amount of income your site could earn. Of course there are more ways Twitter can boost your income, albeit it marginally.

Sponsored Tweets are a way to earn money via Twitter, where someone pays you to include their website, product, brand etc. in your tweet. I remember reading a while ago about Darren Rowse, that chap from ProBlogger, who was offered over ten thousand dollars to promote a company in a series of tweets. He declined for ethical reasons, I mean ten thousand sounds great but is it worth compromising your Twitter and alienating all of your wonderful followers and readers? Well, if it is, I wouldn’t get your hopes up for offers of that vastness. Instead, you could sign up to SponsoredTweets.com where they essentially cut out the middle man, helping companies find you and vice versa. Once you’ve set up your account, it evaluates how much a tweet from your Twitter account is worth, based on your number of followers. Just a heads up, if your only follower is that account you created for your cat last Christmas, this probably isn’t the service for you.

If you aren’t afraid to alienate your followers, why not spam them with affiliate links? I mean, if you’ve got a decent amount of followers why not harass them continuously with links to get ripped in four weeks? Although waking up the following morning to find they’ve all abandoned you can feel pretty ghastly.

Finally, if you’ve had enough of Twitter and it’s #hashtag bullshit, maybe it’s time to just move on. No one forced you to be a member in the first place remember, and if you believe it’s not even helping you and your business then perhaps the time has come. If you’ve built up quite a few followers, or maybe have a unique username like @at, you could perhaps try finding some schmuck to buy your valuable account... Anyway, thanks for reading my article, feel free to comment below!

Top 25 Worst passWords 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:24:00 +0000

According to SplashData’s annual list of worst internet passwords, which are ordered by how common they are, the worst password of 2011 is simply 'password' (“Passw0rd,” with a numeral zero, isn’t much smarter, ranking 18th on the list.)

The list is somewhat predictable: Sequences of adjacent numbers or letters on the keyboard, such as “qwerty” and “123456,” and popular names, such as “ashley” and “michael,” all are common choices. Other common choices, such as “monkey” and “shadow,” are harder to explain. As some websites have begun to require passwords to include both numbers and letters, it makes sense varied choices, such as “abc123″ and “trustno1,” are popular choices.

SplashData created the rankings based on millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. Here is the complete list, courtesy of mashable.com:

1. password

2. 123456

3. 12345678

4. qwerty

5. abc123

6. monkey

7. 1234567

8. letmein

9. trustno1

10. dragon

11. baseball

12. 111111

13. iloveyou

14. master

15. sunshine

16. ashley

17. bailey

18. passw0rd

19. shadow

20. 123123

21. 654321

22. superman

23. qazwsx

24. michael

25. football

SplashData CEO Morgan Slain urges businesses and consumers using any password on the list to change them immediately.
“Hackers can easily break into many accounts just by repeatedly trying common passwords,” Slain says. “Even though people are encouraged to select secure, strong passwords, many people continue to choose weak, easy-to-guess ones, placing themselves at risk from fraud and identity theft.”

The company provided some tips for choosing secure passwords in a statement:

1. Vary different types of characters in your passwords; include numbers, letters and special characters when possible.
2. Choose passwords of eight characters or more. Separate short words with spaces or underscores
3. Don’t use the same password and username combination for multiple websites. Use an online password manager to keep track of your different accounts.

How to Pick the Best SEO Software

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:07:00 +0000

This is a guest post courtesy of Michael R. Roberts

Establishing your online presence and getting yourself on top of your competitors need lots of hard work. The process is long, complicated and requires too many hours. There are many tasks you need to do to achieve your desired results. Manually, it could take you a full month, usually longer. The process could be boring, tiresome and exhausting which can be a difficult challenge. But alas, there are software in the market that could make things easier for you, and help you achieve your goals faster. You just have to evaluate your need for one and choose the most useful and best SEO software for you. But what makes a software the best software in the market?

Software Features. The best SEO software for you and your website should have all possible functionalities that could help you accomplish your SEO tasks easier and faster. Vital features like search engine submissions, social bookmarking, directory submissions, RSS submissions, status updating in social sites, and a lot more should all be in one place.

Ease of Use. The user interface and the system itself should be simple and easy to use even for beginners. Processes and procedures should not be too confusing and complicated to use. The software should be designed to help the user, and not to complicate things even more.

Reporting Functionality. What the software does for you should not be kept hidden in the dark. You should be able to see and verify all submissions and back links it made for you. There should be a way to tell whether it is indeed helping you accomplish tasks or just taking hard earned money out of your pocket.

Training and Support. No software is good enough if it does not offer easy to understand training videos, user manuals and email or chat support. It should be able to meet the training requirements of both beginner and advanced users. Tips and tricks to maximize the use of the software should be continuously introduced and presented to users.

With the above factors and issues considered, you should be able to identify which software is suited for your needs. So grab one that have everything we mentioned. Lack of one or the other might mean failure of your internet marketing campaigns. Remember that with the best SEO software at your immediate reach, you could well be spending time on page one sooner than you expected!

Michael Roberts,

Creator of Ping Kaching

Blog Directories

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:40:00 +0000

As well as submitting to Search Engines, an easy way to promote your blog and produce a bit of traffic is by submitting it to blog directories. Most directories allow a free submission or require creating a free acount, so why not submit your blog? Here’s a captivating list of a few popular ones. If you can't find a submit form, you may have to browse to the catergory of your blog then submit it.

1. Technorati

2. Blogged

3. On Top List

4. Best of the Web Blogs

5. Bloggeries

6. Globe of Blogs

7. EatonWeb

8. Bloggapedia

9. Blog Universe

10. Blog Catalog

11. BritBlog

12. Bigger Blogger

13. Bloggernity

14. Spillbean

15. Blogging Fusion

16. Blog Flux

17. Blog Digger

How to hide the blogger navbar

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:09:00 +0000

If you're like me, attempting to create a professional looking blog in 2011 without emptying your pockets for web hosting then you might be using Blogger as well. Hiding the Blogger banner (ie. Navbar) which appears at the top of your blog is definitely a good way to improve your graphic appearance, especially if it doesn’t match your blog theme. To remove the blogger bar simply go to Design>Edit Html, and whack this following code before the </b:skin> closing tag.

#navbar-iframe, 
#navbar, 
.navbar {
height:0px; 
visibility:hidden; 
display:none; 
margin: 0 !important;
}

Number 5. Make money from twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:47:00 +0000

Number five of 101 ways to make money online. To read the other 100 ways to earn money on the internet click here!

Since 2007, Twitter has grown rapidly in popularity to become one of the most popular websites on the Internet at the moment. Although we enjoy watching celebrities quarrel with each other through chains of entertaining tweets, Twitter is also a great place to promote you website or business.

The first step

You’re not going to earn much money from Twitter if your Nan is your only follower. The more followers you have, the more potential money to be earned, well obviously. Be sure to advertise your Twitter account on your blog, website, emails, newsletter, you get the picture, put it anywhere! You can read this article about increasing your Twitter followers using websites like Twiends and TraffUp.

Link your blog

The easiest way to increase your earnings through the medium of Twitter is simply by linking your followers to your website. More views = more chance of one clicking an advert. Don’t spam brain-dead tweets to your followers though, cluttering up their feed is an amazing way to make them remove you. Just post spontaneous and interesting tweets, or maybe mention free topless women? Anyway if you don’t have a website to link your followers to, read on.

Sponsored tweets

Companies are always looking for new methods to promote their business and sponsored tweets are becoming increasingly popular. Basically, you tweet about a certain company or product, and they pay you either a fixed sum or on a PPC (pay per click) basis. You can use websites like Sponsoredtweets.com to get started; this reduces the hassle of finding companies and advertising your tweets. When you sign up, all you need to do is wait for a company to pay you to tweet. You can also sign up as an advertiser and browse accounts to sponsor their tweets.

Post affiliate links

Similar to sponsored tweets, you can post affiliate links in your tweets. Like I mentioned before, don’t tweet the same link thousands of times a day. To really make decent money posting links your follower count must have at least surpassed ten thousand.

Sell your twitter username

As far as I’m aware, I don’t believe it’s illegal to let someone purchase your Twitter username. If you’ve got a username like @john or perhaps an account with over one million followers, it makes sense to be able to sell it on. Similar to one selling a popular website or unique domain name. Anyway, these are just a few ideas about possible ways to make money using Twitter, if you’ve got any more feel free to share!

I've written a more in depth guide to Twitter, here, which includes managing your account, increasing your followers and earning some cash. Feel free to check it out :)