Sometimes all you want or need is simplicity. Nothing says simple like a single page portfolio or blog on WordPress. The following 30 designs are just that, single page WordPress themes for the blogger, artist, or business who just want to keep it simple. Some of these themes accomplish their single page design through sliders, others through auto-scrolling, and still others by pure minimalism. No matter how it’s accomplished though a single page theme stands out from the crowd and can give your website a truly unique look and feel. Let us know if you like the themes in this roundup and please don’t hesitate to drop us a link if we missed one of your favorites.

1. Mojo
Regular License: $20

Info & Download | Demo

2. Solo
Regular License: $49

Info & Download | Demo

3. Glider
Access to all Elegant Themes: $39 per year; Developer Access: $89 per year

Info & Download | Demo

4. Box One
Standard License: $32

Info & Download | Demo

5. Box Two
Standard License: $37

Info & Download | Demo

6. Ability
Regular License: $35

Info & Download | Demo

7. In-Motion
Regular License: $35

Info & Download | Demo

8. ShapeShifter 2
Regular License: $35

Info & Download | Demo

9. Carbon
Regular License: $20

Info & Download | Demo

10. Woop
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

11. Slicer
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

12. PhotoGrid
Regular License: $40

Info & Download | Demo

13. ExcelsiorWP
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

14. Retro
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

15. Hypax
Regular License: $35

Info & Download | Demo

16. Cocoon
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

17. Da Vinci Theme
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

18. Jumper WP
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

19. Personality
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

20. Temptation
Regular License: $25

Info & Download | Demo

21. Locus
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

22. Coalition
Regular License: $35

Info & Download | Demo

23. Auzora
Regular License: $35

Info & Download | Demo

24. Nanica
Regular License: $25

Info & Download | Demo

25. Volemo
Regular License: $25

Info & Download | Demo

26. Zipfolio
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

27. Slide One
Regular License: $35

Info & Download | Demo

28. WordPress HUD
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

29. Identity
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

30. Great Portfolio
Regular License: $30

Info & Download | Demo

While web traffic and search engine optimization tips are absolutely useful for a blogger hoping to gain in popularity throughout the web, there are many basic elements of blogging and writing that can also help significantly with this pursuit. Oftentimes, it seems that bloggers today get so caught up in SEO, traffic, and social media marketing that they forget about the writing element of blogging. After all, the cruxes of blogging are the posts that you write. If you want to be a truly successful blogger (a challenging feat at that), you have to consider important things like SEO, web traffic, marketing, and design, while also maintaining focus on your writing itself. Trust me, there are very few individuals out there that are going to read a blog if the post are poorly written or constructed. Try out these three essential writing techniques to create a blog people will actually read.

Better Titles

While we all know just how important our blog titles are, it can be easy to slip into the habit of using “the standard blog title”. While titles like “3 Awesome Things…” and “5 Tips for…” may be descriptive and follow some of the trademarks of successful title writing, there are so many posts like this on the web that they can get lost in the crowd. As always, you want to try to stand out to your readers. Using numbers and descriptive adjectives is a great start, but you also want to be creative and unique. This is no simple task. Finding a way to be original online today is really difficult. Try to put a little bit of personal voice in your titles. You want to come up with something that is punchy and attractive while still being descriptive enough to demonstrate what you’re writing about. Try using imaginative language, interesting formatting, or fun punctuation in your titles to come off a bit fresher.

Clear Formatting

The shape and physical appearance of your blog post is also endlessly important to keeping your readers around. We’ve all done it before. You click on an interesting title online, scan the piece in record time, and decide if it’s worth taking the time to actually read based on the first sentence of each paragraph or section. The web reader has a short attention span and a speedy clicking finger. You want to shape pieces that look inviting and easy to read. Use bullets, bolded headers, numbers, and line breaks to make things easier to read through. Large blocks of text are daunting on a computer screen. Sure, there are visitors who will read a piece if it has long chunks of text, but the average internet goer wants his or her articles short, snappy, and fun. Break things up. Use headers. Be brief. The web audience likes to read pieces that look more like outlines than essays. Keep that in mind.

Hook ‘Em In

The bloggers challenge is always to keep their readers around with their writing. That’s the hard part. Internet goers, as I said earlier, lack attention spans. We have to fight to keep you guys around (if you’re even still reading). One of the most essential aspects of keeping your readers engaged is your lead in sentences. When someone skims an article to decide whether they are going to read it or not, they typically skim through the first few sentences of a few paragraphs. These have to be your winning sentences. Of course, you want each and every sentence you write to be engaging and purposeful. But, the first sentences of each paragraph are paramount to your post’s success. Find a good hook line. Try to convey the central point of that section with that first sentence without giving too much away. Writing strong hook sentences relies in many ways on experience and practice. Find a way to say what you want clearly and cleanly, but also interestingly.

This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online courses.

As your blog continues to grow and mature, you’ll likely start looking for other ways that you can expand this online business. After all, your blog is a legitimate business, even if it may have started out as a personal interest or hobby. When you’ve built up an audience and developed a sizable mailing list, it’s time to capitalize on that reach by building a product or service off your blog.

Release an E-Book or Digital Product

You might remember an earlier article in this series where we talked about writing an e-book to accompany your blog. There are two main ways that you can go about handling the e-book. You could use your branding power and reach, selling the e-book to your audience either directly or through an online marketplace like Clickbank. Alternatively, you can give away your e-book for free, in exchange for people signing up for your mailing list.

Either way, it can prove to be very fruitful to offer an e-book or some sort of digital product. In terms of an e-book, you may already have a wealth of valuable material on your blog. You are updating it on a regular basis, after all, and you are establishing yourself as an expert in your field. This content can be re-purposed as an e-book, which can help to further establish and legitimize your position in the growing “blogosphere.”

If your niche lends itself better to a digital product, that’s a great way to go too. If you’re a software developer, perhaps you could offer some sort of online tool. If you’re a designer, you can offer a WordPress theme. It really depends on what you’re good at, what you like to do, and what you think would be received the best by your readership.

Offer Consulting or Other Services

Having a blog is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field. If you are blogging a lot about real estate and you demonstrate knowledge in this area, people will come to respect your opinion on matters related to real estate. The same can be said about nearly every industry and nearly every niche. This “expert” status can prove to be very lucrative.

In this way, you can parlay your blog into a consulting business, allowing the two to work in tandem. If you are a realtor blogging about real estate, your blog can be a great source of referrals. This has also held true for designers, writers, artists, search engine optimization experts, and more. You can sell your services and use your blog as a means of reaching new clients.

If you happen to be a mobile developer, another great option is to sell (or give away) apps for smartphones like the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry. These can be directly related to your blog or they can be tangentially related. If you blog about mobile games, why not develop and release your own game?

Sell Premium Content and Subscriptions

In addition to premium content that you can offer as a “members only” area on your blog, you can also think about subscriptions in a slightly different way. Using the example above of an online tool or service, you can offer this on a subscription basis.

Say, for instance, that you have developed on online tool that will help camera enthusiasts find the most highly-rated camera based on a set of criteria and preferences. This tool can then be made available to subscribers for a monthly or annual fee. Let your imagination be your guide and ask yourself whether you would pay for such an online service. If you would, there’s a good chance that other people with similar interests might too.

Be creative. Be original. And above all else, offer real value to your readers that is worth their hand-earned money.

This blog post is part of the BloggingTips.com Complete Guide to Blogging. Be sure to visit our Blogging Guide for the full break down of all chapters and posts in this series.

I was recently catching on my daily reading when I came across the headline Youtube becomes the Top Dog in Mobile Data Traffic.

One thing that we all know is how great and powerful Youtube is, but the above headline says it is now the most influential site when it comes to mobile traffic; in other words, it has dominated the mobile market.

Taking a look at that headline made me realize how much a lot of marketers are missing on just for not using videos on their blogs, and I’ll be sharing a few ways to use Youtube to grow your blog below.

1. Be Ready to Break the Rules

If you’ve taken any time to study video marketing in all phases of it, you’ll notice one thing; less than 98% of the videos that are put online stand a chance to succeed online.

Why?

Because these videos are preaching to the choir and are not practical in the real sense of it; they’re telling us what we already know.

When it comes to creating viral videos that work on Youtube, the key isn’t just that your video should have practical advice that works; the key is that your video should make people realize what they’re probably not aware of already.

A great example of a video that was very successful at this is the Kony 2012 video; the video is currently said to be the most viral video in history, yet it goes against almost every rule of viral videos. For one, it is too long, when the recommended viral video length is 2min – 5min. The video also actively channeled people’s emotions towards a common cause, and as a result became an instant sensation.

2. Use Brevity to Your Advantage

While the Kony 2012 video used as an example above is 30 minutes long, that stands against what a lot of viral videos have proven over the year.

We can say that video is a rare example, but that dispel the fact that breaking the rules is key to success.

The key to getting people’s attention is to be brief; don’t waste hours of their time repeating the same thing over and over again.

What is your message? Make it clear in as few words as possible, and don’t leave any room for doubt; also make sure it is very easy to understand your message. Don’t just leave people hanging with brevity as an excuse.

3. Define Clear Goals

One thing is obvious, success doesn’t happen overnight. This, however, doesn’t mean you should ignore possibilities.

The key to success is in knowing what you want to achieve, and how you want to achieve it.

Don’t just start uploading videos to the internet and expect to get results.

Have clear goals, and do everything to bring your goals into fruition.

Your first video might not be a hit, but make sure you don’t give up until you achieve the success you desire; experiment with different options and formats, and try changing your approach after a few tries. This should fast-forward you to success.

4. Have a Story

People don’t want to be lectured, they want to be impacted.

Having a story is one of the best way to teach your lessons to your audience without lecturing them, and it will be better still if they’re a part of the story.

Every viral video has a story, with a major antagonist that people need to fight; depending on your niche, this antagonist could be poverty, obesity or whatever.

Let your audience see that you’re living the story. Let them see how you overcome the major antagonist you all have, and let them know that they can overcome it, too.

5. Use Your Blog URL, and Have Clear Call to Actions

Don’t just include your blog URL in the video description. Mention it at the middle of the video, and at the end of it, too; if possible, use captions to keep your URL visible throughout the end of the video.

The first step is to have your URL visible, and the next step is to get people to check it out.

To get people to check out your blog as a result of watching your videos, you need to give them valid reasons to do so; you also need to actively encourage them to do so.

People are not usually in the mode to visit a website when watching a video, and you need to give them reasons to; let them know why reading your blog will benefit them, use clear call to actions to encourage them to visit your blog, and make it very easy for them to do so.

Paul is an expert broadband and mobile freelance writer that helps people find the cheapest SIM only deals.

The Internet or the World Wide Web is a vast universe in which millions of web pages are filled with tons of information on a plethora of topics.  But the only problem is that, all these web pages are either titled with some mysterious name or placed on a server with coded paths.

What makes the use & searching of the Internet easy even for a newbie is the effortless access & use of search engines. Search engines are online tools, which can be used to find specific information on sites on the Internet.

Whenever any person is looking for some information on the Internet, they typically go to either a popular or a personal favorite search engine. They enter the query in the search engine & check up the results or links displayed. People generally tend to click the results or links displayed at the top. It is perceived that these links are more precise or closer to their original query.

Hence being among the top links displayed by the search engine is important for any site to have visibility. If you are offering any kind of service on your site, being among the top links is of utmost importance for your business success as it helps to generate online traffic for your site.

Search Engines are one of cheapest tools for online marketing. But the important question is to find out, why some sites rank better than others in search engine query results.

This is on account of a powerful technique & web-marketing tool called ‘Search Engine Optimization’, popularly known as SEO.

SEO is a technique with the help of which, search engines are able to find and prioritize the rank of your site, higher than thousand & millions of others in response to a particular query. SEO helps in generating online traffic to your site from respective search engines.

Before we understand these techniques, it is important to have general idea of the methodology employed by various search engines to search & rank sites on the web.

Search engines use software known as a crawler or spider, which jumps from one link to another from a specific web page & indexes everything its finds in its way. By indexing, the search engine identifies certain keywords & expressions (also called search strings), which best describes a particular web page. It assigns these search strings under particular keywords in its database. These indexes are stored in huge databases & the activity of crawling & indexing is an on-going process.

When a particular query request comes to search engine, it compares the query expression to its indexed pages in its database. Since there could be millions of web pages that contain the query expression, hence search engines use algorithms to calculate the relevancy (rank) of each indexed web page & accordingly displays them.

Now if you want to improve the rank of your site, you need to be in harmony with the methodology followed by search engines in ranking web pages. Based on the same, I am jotting down the top 10 techniques, which can be employed to improve the ranking of your site.

1. The right Keywords

You need to come up with keywords that describe your site. It is better if the keyword is 2 or 3 lettered words i.e. string of words. These should be available in the content of your site & especially in the first web page. Search engines target keywords to index sites.

2. Appropriate Keyword Density

In addition, you also need to have a right keyword density. That is the webpage should have a right mix of the keywords spread over the other contents. A webpage with good density has a higher chance of being identified by the search engine than one with thin keyword density.

3. Quality Back links

Back links are those links that come from other sites to your site. The more number of back links your site has, the more popularity it commands. You need to work on this & also keep in mind the quality of the back links.  A nice way is to register with popular web directories like DMOZ & yahoo.

4. Use descriptive Meta tags

When designing a wordpress driven and html based websites every page has a space between the head tag to insert relevant information about the contents of that page. Meta tags are primarily used by search engine crawlers. They summarize the information of a page. The writing of Meta keyword tags is another way to provide the description of your site & directing the search engines to the basic theme & relevance of your site.

5. Title Meta data

This is responsible for the title of your page & is displayed at the top of your browser window. It is extremely important & should be relevant to the respective contents of the page. The same should change as the contents of your pages change.

6. Use Text more than images

Search Engines have one problem, which site administrators fail to consider. That is search engines, cannot index images, sounds, flash movies or JavaScript. It is important to have these keeping the end customers in your mind, but we need to be innovative with them. You can add ‘text descriptors’ or text tags to the images & videos on your site. Also avoid using these as links as search engines will not register them.

7. Using Site Maps

There’s a lot to consider here, but the goal is to create a site, which search engine spiders can easily access and crawl, a site that tells them where to go and what to index. Site-maps are vital for this purpose.

8. Frequently Updated Content

It is important for you to regularly update the content of your website. Not only do the customers take notice of it but so do search engines regarding the relevancy they allot to a particular site.

9. Social Media

Social bookmarking can be expressed as one of the best techniques of pulling traffic to your website. Every blogger in the blogosphere must include this in their plan to get their website or blog noticed.

Social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Pinterest and many more helps a blog to rank higher in SERPs by providing them with quality backlink. These sites along with social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc helps a lot in pulling traffic to the blog concerned. It’s all about leveraging social media.

10. Avoid the following

In addition to the things you should do to improve the ranking of your site, there are also few important don’ts, which you have to bear in mind. These can result in getting your site blocked or banned by search engines. I am writing them down for your reference:

Some Don’ts

• Don’t use Keywords for the heck of using them or putting them just to get indexed by search engines.
• Avoid un-related reciprocal link exchange programs
• Avoid using duplicate content

By following the above-mentioned techniques, slowly & gradually your ranking will improve in the search engines. There are no magic formulas but some good tried & tested techniques.

This guest post is written by Debarshi Ghosh Dastidar. He is an entrepreneur and a part time blogger. His interests are content writing, internet marketing, Web Designing, SEO and many more. He works for WebCreationUS – one of the US’s fastest growing web design companies. You can follow him on Twitter @DebarshiGD.

Haven’t you noticed? BloggingTips has been ComLuv enabled for the past few weeks and going by the number of comments we are receiving, I can comment two things with firsthand experience:

• The ComLuv plugin draws more traffic;
• The ComLuv plugins improves blog’s user engagement.

Aren’t these two things that every blogger, from newbie’s to experienced, craves for? YES?

Then if you haven’t already, below are the important links to help install and activate the ComLuv plugin:

• ComLuv plugin for WordPress
• ComLuv plugin for Blogger

They are really good tutorials. You won’t have problems to install them. Read the tutorials in detail before attempting.

The blog Pro Blogging Success gives a list of 8 WordPress plugins which should be deactivated before installing the ComLuv premium (paid) plugin. These are:

1. KeywordLuv
2. GASP
3. Twitterlink Comments
4. Free ComLuv version
5. Trackback Validation Plugin
6. Top Commentators Widget
7. Do Follow Plugin
8. No Self Ping

Benefits of the ComLuv Plugin:

Apart from guest blogging, commenting on ComLuv plugin enabled blogs have given link building an entirely new twist. Bloggers and marketers are more than ever on the lookout of ComLuv plugin enabled blogs to post comments.

Any ComLuv plugin enabled blog will allow the commentator two back links: one to the domain name and the other to the latest blog published on the linked domain name. Bloggers and marketers are thrilled about this because these link backs are ‘do-follow’ and gives necessary link juice back to the linked site.

From the perspective of SEO, some of the ComLuv plugin enabled blogs allow the commentator to use keywords as anchor text. For instance, when I am commenting on BloggingTips, I use the name “Chitra@SmallBusiness” where “SmallBusiness” is my targeted keyword.

Only with these two major benefits, the blogging world is mad over the ComLuv plugin…and why not?

Disadvantages of the ComLuv Plugin:

The only disadvantage of the ComLuv plugin is the rising number of spam comments. But if the webmaster is careful, the spam comments which look real can be spotted easily.

Further, some visitors comment just for the sake of commenting and get two valuable links. Comments like “What a good post” | “I really like this” | “keep it up” are from genuine commentators also but they don’t add anything to the reader’s engagement. If you see such commentators taking link backs, they should be discouraged instantly.

Commenting on BloggingTips

A commentator on BloggingTips gets all the benefits highlighted above. However, I strongly discourage you to leave phrasal comments and/or spamming comments because the blog can ban you forever, which will affect your SEO activities only.

Moreover, all the comments are moderated for tone and content.

Your blog is starting to gain some traction and you’re wondering what you can do to take it to the next level. If you’re at this stage, then you might want to think about adding a forum to your blog.

Why You Want a Forum for Your Blog

Some people may think that forums and blogs are two very distinctly different kinds of websites, but that does not mean that they cannot co-exist. In fact, many of the most popular blogs on the Internet also have their own forums. This is the case with shopping sites like SmartCanucks, as well as technology sites like Futurelooks.

One of the biggest reasons why you may want to add a forum to your blog is that it can be (almost) self-sustaining. We’ve mentioned several times before that content is king on the Internet, and when you set up a forum, the community will freely add new content to your site on a continual basis. This helps to keep your site very active in the eyes of the search engines and it helps to generate even more traffic through a variety of means.

This increased traffic, of course, represents some terrific advertising and monetization opportunities for you too. With the community constantly starting new forum threads and replying to one another, you have a constant stream of site visitors that the advertisers can then target.

On the flip side, just like you should be careful about spam comments on your blog, you have to be careful about spam posts in your forums. You also have to keep an eye out for trolls and other people who may not make for the best community members. That’s why it may pay to hire a part-time forum moderator, either paid or volunteer, to help you in that regard.

When You Should Add the Forum

A common mistake that many beginning bloggers make is that they add a forum right when they launch a new blog. This is not the best strategy. The fact of the matter is that a “dead” forum is actually quite a bit worse than no forum at all. People engage and participate in forums that are active. If you do not have the traffic to sustain a forum, you should probably wait until you do.

It’s hard to tell exactly when is the optimal time to launch a forum to accompany your blog, but you will want to have a reasonable level of “engaged” traffic before adding a forum.

How to Add a Forum to Your Blog

Just like how blogging has been increasingly simplified and made more accessible through the advent of WordPress, the same circumstances have parlayed into the world of online forums too. No longer do you have to deal with complicated coding and complex installations. Many forum software packages have easy installation guides; if you were able to launch a WordPress blog, you’ll be able to install a forum.

If you like the interface of WordPress and how it operates, then you’ll feel right at home with bbPress. This forum software was developed by the same people who created WordPress. They’ve kept things as small and light as possible, while still allowing for all kinds of customization and features through plug-ins, just like WordPress.

Another free option is phpBB. Designed to help you create communities, this forum software is completely free and open source. While it has been dubbed “bulletin board” software, that is fundamentally the same thing as what we would normally call a forum. phpBB offers an extensive database of modifcations, as well as many different styles and image packages.

For people who would like a more premium product, vBulletin comes highly recommended. Unlike the first two options, however, vBulletin is not free. The “Forum Classic” software is $195 for a new license and it includes an asset manager, greater customization, and SEO-friendly URLs. The Publishing Suite is more expensive and includes a widget platform, community blogs, and more.

This blog post is part of the BloggingTips.com Complete Guide to Blogging. Be sure to visit our Blogging Guide for the full break down of all chapters and posts in this series.

Ouch, your blog income just dropped!

The Penguin left the sea and didn’t see the ugly blogs out there, but yours.

And you’ve obeyed SEO rules and optimization tricks from so-called experts who says: write quality contents and build backlinks as much as you can.

Oh, how can I get back my first page ranking in order to make Good money blogging?

Google must have good explanations for these quirky animal names they’re using to render my blogging efforts homeless.

They started first with Panda, and now Penguin. Who knows if they’ll release the LION on the next update?

Enough of the pity-party, let’s get serious now!           

Have I spoken your mind? Does the above statement sound like what you’ve in mind?

If for any reason, the Penguin struck your blog due to over-optimization, the right question to ask is how to regain top search engine ranking so that your business will continue to sail smoothly and generate income.

Can blogs still make money?

If you expect me to give a straight answer, I’m sorry to disappoint you.

Truth is, several blogs that were penalized by the Penguin will never raise their heads again. I mean, it’ll be almost impossible to bring the blog back to its initial stage where it can generate the same income and organic traffic. The reason is simple: A lot of bloggers are yet to learn their lessons, they still over-optimize; stuff keywords, engage in artificial link building.

However, you can still make money from your blog, but there is a shift in approach.

It’s seems everyone is doing the same thing, writing the same thing. 75% of bloggers are lazy; they no longer research topics and target market before writing articles. They believe they’ve gained enough knowledge to make a profitable business –how pathetic?

The only way to continue making money from your blog, in this era where we don’t know the next program in Google’s ranking agenda is to:

Lookout to help other people (prospects)

Don’t you realize that pursuing money can destroy your relationship with prospects and readers? Yes, it can. When I started blogging in 2011 (I was an affiliate marketer prior to this time), I was so conscious and desperate to make money from blogging.

I could do anything to earn income online – even data entry and survey couldn’t pay me. It was a waste of a rare gem – time.

I didn’t realize at the time that blogging is different from affiliate marketing.

Unfortunately, some folks who don’t know that blogging is all about (1) communication, (2) engagement, (3) sharing, (4) giving and (5) style are always looking out for loopholes to generate income, whether good or bad without considering the audience (readers)

If you approach blogging with the mindset of a money-maker, YOU’LL FAIL.

In fact, Google will continue to release weird and wild animals to smash blogs and websites that are irrelevant or acts as content dumps. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I like to make money and a lot – I run three blogs already and I earn decently.

You need money to pay for web hosting, renew autoresponder subscription, pay bills and attend to pressures online and offline – but not at the detriment of your readers.

You think Google hate your blog, right?

Wrong, Google doesn’t hate you. They don’t even know you or where you live. So, how could they hate you so much? Lol!

The other day, I was speaking with a blogger friend whose blog was smashed by Panda, then penguin for over-optimizing his contents. I had earlier advised him to focus on creating epic shit (valuable contents) and to build outbound links naturally and gradually.

But he ignored all I said to him that day. And now, he believes Google is wicked. He wrote me and said, “I think Google hate my blog.”

“What did I do wrong to deserve the ashes from Google” He asked?

Now, forget about my unserious blogger friend and listen to me.

Google does not hate your blog – and Google doesn’t love any blog either. Come to think of it, we’re all in business.

Google is into pay per click advertising and the better search results they provide for her users (you and I), then, we would be encouraged to spend more time searching and clicking those AdWords Ads by the right. Hmm, you know those Ads, right? If we don’t click ‘em, Google would go broke and maybe sell off their assets to me. Hahaha!

If people aren’t satisfied with search results, no matter the brand or wealth of knowledge that Google has built over the years, people will switch over to Bing, Yahoo, Mamma, Lycos, Ask and other search engines. There are hundreds of search engines competing – looking for the same thing that Google has (audience, platform and engagement).

Join Google, make the web better

Even if my blog(s) were drowned by Penguin or bitten by the Panda, I understand that Google is working towards making the web a better place. If you cheer up and look at the good side, you would benefit from it on the long-run.

If your blog was affected, I feel for you, but don’t cry, don’t lament or start hating Google – redirect your mind, your focus and marketing strategy to “help target readers become better when they visit your blog.”

If you give yourself totally to seeing other people achieve their goals, or come closer to growing a better business, burning excess fats off their body or whatever web-solution you provide, you’ll make loads of money. See >> www.makemoneyhi.com for passive income ideas.

It’s for your good

Don’t look at your blog today and give up. The Penguin isn’t an enemy. You can position your blog to ‘attract’ avalanche of paying prospects and expand your business blog – stop crying over spilled milk. You can’t gather spilled milk, but you can get another.

Create excellent and helpful posts; don’t be ruled by money or earning commissions on that affiliate product. Making money online is not as difficult as we’ve been made to believe – the wrong approach and mindset will generate $0.00 no matter how many hours you invest.

Take this home

It’s about the people – the readers – online shoppers who have needs, problems and desire in their hearts. What are you doing to put smiles in their faces?

Use your blog to solve problems – don’t create more problems by ranting about your achievements and the 9 planets you’ve visited in your whole life. Be yourself and don’t promise what you cannot deliver. Forget over-delivering for now, and do what you say you will do. Isn’t it better that way?

And before you know it, your blog would bounce back to regain its initial ranking and climb higher and most importantly, you’ll make good money blogging.

What’s on your mind right now? Share your comment – I can’t wait to reply you. See you at the top!

Image Credit: micronichefellas

One of the first things that people who work on the Internet will tell you is the choices for the marketing that you can do can be overwhelming unless you’ve got a clear plan. That plan needs to include social media and here are few options that will help you to get a little more from some of the more popular choices.

Facebook does a lot of different things for different users and while there are tons of people who use a personal account to get the word out on their goods or services, not everyone knows a business page is available as well. It’s a simple process to get started and all you need to do scroll to the bottom of s personal Facebook page, click Pages, and then Create A Page. The things that’s different here from other kind of social media marketing is the fact that you’ll need to spread the word about your new page organically.

Twitter is another great tool that you’ll need to look at to make sure that you’re getting everything that you can from social media. Once you’ve set up a personal account with this site, don’t forget to look at the other applications that come in handy like TweetDeck. Twitterfall will allow you to define the custom searches that you’ll need to use to make sure that you’re getting all that you can from this social media staple.

When you think of what’s called social media, you don’t always include the more traditional ways to get the word out on your goods and services but a company blog is a great way to have some excellent control over the message that you’re trying to send. Remember here that the name if the game is interaction when you’re dealing with any kind of social media. That means that you’ll need to be vigilante here and respond to the comments on the blog section on your firm’s website.

The toe that you take can make the difference can make the difference between a good result and a bad one. Remember there’s really no room fro the hard sell here and you’ll need to take a friendly cordial tone and give away some information the reader will find useful.

Remember too that a blog of any description requires a long term investment. Even with the right search engine optimization working for you, you might not see any differences in ranking for several months after you start the process.

It doesn’t matter what kind of social media platform that you choose, they all require a constant effort to show any gains. If you’ve decided to go with a blog, its’ a good idea search through all the add ons that you can get with WordPress and what other open source platforms can do for you. Getting all that you can from these social media platforms is all about making sure you understand what each can do for you.

As you probably know, WordPress is the way to go and the tool to use for a fast and painless online business project. The only problem with that is the way how WordPress works. It has some core features that allow you to create posts and pages… and maybe one or two more things. And that’s pretty much it. The good thing is that there are like thousands of widgets and plugins out there that allow you to DRASTICALLY change the way WordPress operates. Rest assured I’m not about to talk about all of them now. I don’t even know most of them. To be honest there’s no need to do that, because once you have a need for some feature or, simply put, functionality, you can just go to the Plugin Directory section of WordPress.org and search to your heart’s content.

Now. let’s get down to business. I’ll give you a few examples of WordPress plugins and widgets so that you can get the general picture of how all this widgets/plugins thing works in the WordPress world.

Akismet

First things first, you need to make sure that your blog does not get cluttered up with that pesky spam within a day or two. And in order to avoid that, you just need to set up your Akismet plugin. The really neat thing about this plugin is that it comes pre-installed and you just need to specify your Akismet API key. And that means just copying and pasting. That done, you’re good to go

Mailchimp

The second thing you should take care of would be to make sure that your visitors can sign up for your newsletter. That might sound a bit weird, but in fact that’s very logical and crucial to enable such a feature asap. The reason for that would be the fact that once you have your visitor’s email address, you’ll be able to contact him or her by sending your newsletter. And that will help them to check out your blog again or even become a regular there. For the newsletter feature, I’d recommend the Mailchimp widget, but you can use whatever works best for you. I like specifically their services because they allow to use it for free till you (your online business) become really big. Plus the user friendly editor they’ve got on board is really worth your while. Learn how to create a mailing list for your blog.

Contact Form 7

Now you need to make sure that your audience can contact you in case of need. So, let’s go ahead and install the contact form 7 plugin that easy to install and set up, though you might want to go all the way deeper and add features like captcha, radio buttons and what not.

WordPress Editorial Calendar

I can tell you from my personal blogging experience there will be times when you really want to write and contribute to your blog’s success, but keep in mind that you’ll also have those harsh times when you’re kinda in the blue and don’t really want to do anything for your blog. And that’s why you should consider writing a few posts when you feel like doing so. Having composed a few posts, you can publish one or two posts on a later date. The thing is that sometimes it is unbelievably hard to keep track of what date you set your post to be published on, how many posts for future publications you’ve got and the like. You can just install the WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin that allows you to drag-n-drop your posts and see when your next post is due. I strongly recommend using this plugin because it’ll save you days of frustration.

GetSocial

In this day and age – unless you live under the rock – you need to take all the things social into account, because otherwise you can land in hot water in terms of SEO and overall success of your online business. As it is really easy to install a widget that will magically take care of that, you don’t really have an excuse to ignore it. Having installed the widget, you’ll have a new floating box (or rather a rectangle) on the left of your post (or page). That box will have the default social networking features, such as Tweet, Like, Google+. In addition, it allows you to add custom buttons so that you can slice and dice it to meet your needs. This is a must have for anyone looking for wordpress social media plugins.

The Bottom Line on WordPress Plugins

As you can see, the more widgets you install the more things your blog can do. Though some widgets and plugins are really optional and may either work or not in your case, the must have plugins I’ve just touched on will enable your blog to work properly almost out of the box. If you want to be certain that you’ve installed all the necessary plugins and just for more info, check my ebook about must have WordPress plugins. Plus each plugin/widget chapter has a companion video so that it is really easy to follow along.

This guest post was written by Ken Von Raunch of Webdesy.com. Feel free to visit his web site to download his free wordpress guide.

The only truly non-renewable resource is your time and that’s why it pays to find ways to give yourself more time. Outsourcing, as mentioned in earlier articles, can prove very fruitful in this regard. Another way that you can save some precious time is to automate the tasks that would otherwise occupy an increasingly large part of your blogging day.

Automate Your Post Schedule

Say that you’ve decided to publish a new blog post each and every day at around 2pm. You’ve found that this time window seems to work best for your audience and it seems to generate the highest readership and the highest level of social media sharing. Does this mean that you have to be right at your computer at exactly 2pm every day? Not at all!

There is a great feature that is built into WordPress, allowing you to schedule your blog posts into the future. When in the area to write a new blog post, you’ll notice that you can choose the time and date to schedule your post. This can be utterly fantastic if you can only dedicate Sunday afternoons to writing your posts, for example, because you can pre-write and schedule an entire week (or more) worth of posts all at once.

Automate Your Private Ad Management

It’s a great sign when private advertisers start contacting you to inquire about placing ads on your blog. It means that you are getting enough attention on the Internet that these people would seek you out directly. However, you’ll quickly discover that managing all these private ads — collecting payment, uploading the ads, taking them down when the paid period has expired, etc. — can be very time-consuming.

Thankfully, there is a lot of software and WordPress plugins that can help you in this regard. One of the best is called OIOPublisher. It’s an ad manager that will handle every aspect of serving private ads and you get to keep 100% of the revenue. OIOPublisher is a paid service, but for many bloggers, it’s well worth the expense.

Automate Your Social Media Posting

It helps when you share your blog posts with the online community using sites like Twitter and Facebook, but doing so manually can take quite a bit of time. The bright side is that there are several free options available to you to completely automate the process.

One such tool is Hootsuite. If you go into the main menu,k you’ll find the ability to syndicate your blog’s RSS feed to your Twitter account automatically. You can also find WordPress plug-ins that do the same kind of thing, like WordTwit and Twitter Tools.

On the Facebook front, you can look at some of the apps available there for syndicating your blog content to your Facebook fan page too. These include Social RSS and RSS Graffiti.

Automate Your Blog Backups

It’s every blogger’s worst nightmare. You wake up one morning and discover that your blog is nuked. Perhaps it was hacked. Maybe something went wrong on the server side with your web hosting company. Whatever the case, your blog has been compromised, altered, or deleted in some fashion. This is why having backups is so important.

You can backup the files and databases manually, but the automated process is much more convenient. There are free plugins, like WordPress Backup and WP-DB-Backup, that will not only back up everything you need to reinstate your blog, they will automatically email you the files on a regular basis.

If you use a service like Gmail, you can have a repository filled with all your backup files. No mess, no worries.

Before you continue doing everything manually on your blog, it is worth investing the time in finding ways to automate your blogging tasks and posts. This initial investment can pay off in spades, freeing up so much more time for years to come and you can use this time to grow, expand, and develop your blog business even further.

This blog post is part of the BloggingTips.com Complete Guide to Blogging. Be sure to visit our Blogging Guide for the full break down of all chapters and posts in this series.

Have you ever wanted to save a full Web page as opposed to just a small section of the page? If you’ve been looking for an easy way to clip and save entire Web pages, meet Meaki.

“Meaki makes it easy for anyone to clip Web pages they visit into a visually engaging collection called a Clipset. You can share your Clipsets with the world or keep them private.”

You can get signed up and started clipping content with Meaki in a matter of minutes.

Getting Started

To get started on Meaki, you only need to enter your email and desired username/password. After that, you’ll be prompted to add the “Clip-it” bookmarklet to your browser Bookmarks Bar, which is currently the only way to clip Web pages.

Also, be sure to verify your email address once you’ve signed up.

Clipping Content

As you know, clipping content from the Web and adding it to your Clipsets is simple: just click the “Clip-it” button on your browser’s Bookmarks Bar.

After you’ve found a page that you want to clip, and you press “Clip-it”, you’ll see an oval shaped bar in the center of your page (see image below). From here you can choose to clip the page, go to your Clipsets, or close the bar. So as a reference, remember that you can also click on Clip-it to go to your Clipsets.

After clicking on “Clip this page” you’ll get a pop-up window, which allows you to add details to your clip. You can choose which Clipset to add it to and even create a new Clipset from this window. You can also add a title and description or change it, if it already happens to be filled in using the site’s meta-data.

Finally click on “Save” and you’re all done – your clip is saved.

Viewing Your Clips

You can view all of your clips and Clipsets from your Meaki profile. Snapshots for your clips take a few minutes to show up, so if you don’t see it at first you can check back in a couple minutes.

When you click on a clip, it opens a full screenshot of the page from top to bottom. So you definitely won’t have to worry about missing anything on the We page. Clicking on the screenshot then takes you to the original source of the page.

Profile View

The Meaki homepage is much like Pinterest, but when you click on a clip, it takes you to the user’s profile and of course displays the screenshot in full. You can also view other clips in the current Clipset at the top of the user’s profile – it looks much like a mini slider.

One of the unique things about profiles on Meaki is that you can change the view. The default view (as pictured above) is Snapshots, but you can also change it to Text view and Slideshow view. Each view type is pretty unique and definitely visually appealing.

There are also other options on user profiles like being able to view similar Clipsets, sharing the user’s Clipset on various social networks, and quickly surfing all clips in the set.

Final Thoughts

Meaki appears to be much like Pinterest, but for Web pages because it works pretty much in the same manner. Plus it’s extremely easy to use and the three different profile views are a huge plus. It’s also nice that you can see what others are clipping, view popular clips, and also view clips by country.

Meaki is currently in beta and seems to be going in the right direction so far. What do you think of Meaki?

You cannot do it alone. That’s why the previous articles have discussed outsourcing your writing and possibly hiring a virtual assistant to help with some tasks related to your blog. However, both of those are considerations that are internal to your blog. You also want to build a blog around your blog, not just in it. What exactly does this mean?

Your Blog Does Not Exist in Isolation

The Internet, by its very definition, is a highly interconnected place. If you focus solely on what is happening on your blog, you are going to lose perspective on the bigger picture. As obvious as it may sound, many bloggers lose sight of a very simple fact: your blog does not exist in isolation.

When we suggest building a team around your blog, it means that you need to look outside your blog and see what kind of relationships you can forge. Some of these exchanges will involve exchanges of money, perhaps in the form of paid advertising, but many more are about networking with people in such a way that is mutually beneficial.

Partnering with Other Blogs and Bloggers

One of the critical differences that you’ll see between the traditional business world and the world of professional blogging is the way that bloggers interact with one another. We usually don’t see one another as competing against each other, even if we are targeting the exact same niche, writing about the exact same things.

Make money online guru John Chow is very good friends with successful Internet marketer Jeremy Schoemaker. Tech blog owners can become very good friends with one another too, exchanging contacts and helping one another with cross-promotion (and moral support). It’s not about competition; it’s about collaboration. Partner with like-minded bloggers and you can both benefit greatly from the relationship.

Exchanging Guest Posts and Blogrolls

One of the benefits that you can gain by partnering with other bloggers is that you can exchange guest posts. You can write a guest blog post targeted at the audience of another blogger and have him or her publish the post there. At the end of the post, you can include a brief bio about who you are and offer a short plug about your own blog. If the readers like what you wrote there, they are likely to pay your blog a visit too.

On the flip side, the other blogger can then submit a guest blog post to your blog. You offer him or her the same courtesy that he or she offered you, publishing the post on your blog and allowing for that brief plug toward the end. This provides your blog with some fresh content (for free) and this adds great value to your site’s visitors.

You might also notice that many bloggers keep a “blogroll” either in the sidebar or in the footer of their blogs. These “blogrolls” are meant to provide a list of blogs that the site owner recommends. When networking with like-minded bloggers, you can offer to exchange blogroll links. They link to you and you link to them.

Sharing Social Media Mentions

Do you know what’s better than you promoting your blog posts through your own Facebook fan page and Twitter account? When someone else recommends one of your blog posts through their own social media channels!

As you build a team of people around your blog, you can (either officially or unofficially) help one another promote your respective posts, contests, and content through your social media channels. This is like the guest post idea above, but through services like Facebook and Twitter. In addition to learning from one another, you’re also helping everyone involved get even more exposure in the social media sphere.

One person can only do so much and it’s really not the way you want to do things. Partner with other bloggers, forge those friendships, and you can all achieve great success together.

This blog post is part of the BloggingTips.com Complete Guide to Blogging. Be sure to visit our Blogging Guide for the full break down of all chapters and posts in this series.

Let’s face it, there’s no end of ‘email marketing experts’ out there running workshops and courses on how to deliver a winning email newsletter. In reality there really are no ‘secrets’ to success – it’s all just common sense. From having a plan in place to making your content stand out, a good newsletter is basically all about proper checks and good practice.

With that in mind, here’s 20 very simple email marketing tips you need to know before you send your next newsletter. Nothing complicated, nothing hard – just plain common sense.

1 – Have a plan

A successful email marketing campaign is based on having a plan in place, so work out what it is that you want to achieve. Do you want 100 sign-ups? Do you want 100 click-throughs? Work out what it is you want to achieve and plan how you’ll get there.

2 – Design

When designing your emails, it’s good practice to have 60% text coverage and 40% images. There are also only four consistently web-friendly fonts – Arial, Verdana, Courier and Times New Roman. In order to avoid the junk folder, make sure the biggest size used is only 24 pixels.

3 – Alternative text

Always make sure you are using alternative text in your emails, so even when images are blocked they can still easily see the purpose of your mail.

4 – Mobiles

More and more of us use our mobiles to access out emails, so in order to ensure your newsletter can be read keep it short and sweet. Use bullet points and double spacing to make your content stand out.

5 – Legality

Email marketers have to abide by the law. Make sure you comply with the Data Protection Act, don’t ever disclose recipients’ details and always, always make it easy to unsubscribe.

6 – Welcomes

The moment someone gives you their email you have their attention so make it count. Send a welcome and make it relevant and useful. Give them a special offer as a way of saying thanks – they’re at their most engaged now so are more likely to respond.

7 – Re-send to non-opens

Don’t forget to schedule your campaign to re-send to non opens. Inboxes are busy places, so it’s possible your email just got overlooked and they’d actually be really interested in what you have to say!

8 – Timing

Sending your email at the right time can make all the difference between a campaign succeeding or failing. Most research reveals personal emails are opened outside of office hours, either before the working day or on a lunch hour. Tuesdays are when most people feel productive, whereas you’re unlikely to get much response on a Friday as people are winding down for the week.

9 – Copy

Keep your content short and to the point and always give your emails clear call to actions. Remember, you don’t make money from sending the email – you want people to visit your site and see what you have to offer.

10 – Subject lines

Crucial in improving your open rate is to have a really good subject line. No open = no conversion, so make sure you’re giving yourself the best possible chance in a crowded inbox.

11 – Cross-channel marketing

To get the best possible results from your marketing campaigns, make sure all strands are working together. Think about what you’re doing outside of email and integrate them – direct mail, social media, SMS… incorporate your message into one for a stronger campaign.

12 – Lists

Bought data may seem like a good idea but it rarely works. Where possible it’s always best to grow your lists organically. Signpost website visitors to sign up, tell them what they are going to get and let them choose how often they want to hear from you

13 – Trust-earning text

Trust earning text lets your recipients know why they are receiving your email and how they can unsubscribe. Having it at the top of your email will keep them hanging round for longer.

14 – Test

Few email marketers test their emails frequently. It should form an integral part of any email marketing campaign, so make sure spam check often. Also be sure to enable analytics so you can ensure you know what recipients have gone on to do after they’ve read your email

15 – Personalize

A personal email is more likely to be opened and read. You could try and use their name in your subject line, use a different color for your email template depending if it’s for a male or female or send targeted offers based on their past purchases.

16 – Reporting

Measuring success of your email campaigns is vital in knowing how you can improve on them and do better next time. Heat maps, device reporting, analytics… there’s plenty of tools out there to let you know how we’ll you’re doing. Record, Refine and Repeat – the more often you look at your reports the more successful your campaigns will become.

17 – Social media

Integrating your email newsletters into social media is key in helping spread the word of your offers, products and services. Use Twitter to grow your email subscribers, put social shares on individual bits of content so they can share the bits they want to – and post a link to an online version of your newsletter.

18 – Checklists

Before you click “send” it’s a good idea to have a checklist for every campaign. Include checks to ensure links are working, there are no spelling errors and it reads well. That way you’ll be more confident that there won’t be any mistakes when it’s opened.

19 – Preference Centers

Preference centers are a great way of ensuring that you’re only emailing subscribers with content that they’re interested in, helping to boost open and click-through rates as well as levels of engagement.

20 – Unsubscribers

Finally, make it easy for people to unsubscribe from your emails. If you hide it away you’re more likely to be reported as spam. Inactive recipients are only going to have a negative impact on your campaigns, so if they’re not on your list you’ll end up getting better results.

This guest post was written by Rechenda Smith of email marketing company little green plane. To sign up for a free trial of the little green plane software please visit the website.

As your blog continues to grow and evolve, so will your needs as a business owner. That’s right. You’re not “just” a blogger. When your blog is a steady source of income, it’s important that you think about your blog not as hobby, but as a real business. It needs to be treated as such and that’s why you may consider investing in a small (or even a large) staff.

Part of this will involve hiring a virtual assistant. The great thing about having a business on the Internet, like a popular blog, is that it can be run from just about anywhere with Internet access. It also means that you don’t need a physical office where all your employees need to commute each day. It also means that your virtual assistant can be located nearly anywhere in the world. You can hire locally, outsource overseas, or use some combination of the two.

So, what can your virtual assistant do for you?

Hire a Researcher

The best blog posts are the ones that are unique and provide great value to readers. Quality content really is king, but quality content can be time-consuming to produce. That’s why it may be useful to hire a researcher.

This virtual assistant will do all the groundwork for you, looking up important pieces of information and finding valuable sources that you cite for your blog articles. They can help you line up interviews with notable people in your field, providing another useful source of information. With all the research cleanly organized and laid out, you can get down to work on writing that killer blog post.

Hire an Ad Manager

In an earlier article, we talked about Google AdSense. In others, we talked about Amazon Associates and affiliate marketing. One other area that you should be adding to the overall advertising mix on your blog is private advertising. However, this can sometimes prove to be a time-consuming task.

That’s why it may pay off to hire an ad manager to handle this side of the business for you. You don’t need to hire a full-time outsourcer, so don’t worry about losing all of your advertising revenue having to pay for this ad manager! He or she can work part time, helping you find the best ads to run on your site and soliciting private ad sales from prospective buyers.

Hire a Link Builder and SEO Specialist

Search engine optimization can be an intimidating field and it is constantly evolving to involve new tactics, new strategies, and new terminology. By hiring a SEO specialist, you can give yourself the best chance at staying ahead of the game and ranking above the competition for your highly prized target keywords in Google.

You’ll want a SEO specialist with proven experience. Alternatively (or additionally), you might consider hiring a link builder. This person can help you get those valued backlinks directed back to your blog, getting links through forums, blog commenting, link exchanges, social networking, and other techniques.

Hire a Guest Poster

As discussed in the previous article, one of the best things you can do for your blog is to hire a team of writers. These guest posters can add tremendous value to your blog through their unique experiences, knowledge, and perspectives. It helps to keep the content fresh, original, and attractive to readers, who will come back again and again to see what new posts have been published.

It should, of course, be noted that you have to look past the price and see the value that freelancers and other outsourced professionals can provide to your blog. You don’t necessarily want to give the job to the lowest bidder (or the person who is willing to work for free), because you may not get the quality that you desire.

Make sure that you are getting someone who is good at what they do and have proven this ability. Ask for referrals and samples. That way, you can breathe a sigh of relief and let these professionals take care of the rest.

This blog post is part of the BloggingTips.com Complete Guide to Blogging. Be sure to visit our Blogging Guide for the full break down of all chapters and posts in this series.