With search engine rankings playing such an important part in online business success, press releases have quickly become the primary method of gaining top rankings for your keywords by using paid distribution to put your press release across the Internet on major news websites as well as distribution through RSS.

This content will essentially discuss two things:

• The different strategies distribution services use to get you those top rankings.

• What you need to do to ensure that your press release gets you to the top (and hopefully helps you stay there).

What is Search Engine Optimization?

In the simplest of words, search engine optimization (SEO) is about making sure that your website shows up as high in search engine results as possible when users search for information / products / services in your industry.

One of the biggest (and most successful) strategies of doing this is to ensure that you get as many other websites as possible to link to your website. The more, the merrier (and to a certain extent, the better chance you have of ranking high in search engine results).

With competition for the top page (and especially for the top 3 listings) of search results extremely intense, quality links (from high ranking websites in your industry) are at a premium.

So how can a single press release help you with that?

Let’s find out.

Keyword-Based Search Engine Presence

Online press release distribution services have evolved to include complimentary services such as search engine optimization and press release tracking (to determine where your press release is eventually displayed, and to find out how much traffic a press release has brought in).

One of the keys to building a high-profile search engine presence is to have quality links pointing towards your website. When you press release is distributed to newspapers and media outlets, it is NOT posted on their websites.

So where are the links coming from?

• From the distribution service archiving / posting your press release itself.

• Websites that place the PR service’s RSS Feed on their website (incidentally, this means that your feed will be ‘cycled’ out as new press releases come in).

• Newspapers, journalists and media outlets that post your press release and / or write a story based on your press release in their publication, blog or website.

Essentially, a press release is like a ‘shout-out’ in time – you have a limited amount of time make your impact on the media before your news becomes old news and is replaced by fresh press releases.

What can we learn from this?

Sending out a press release is no guarantee of better search engine rankings. The primary purpose of a press release remains the same: to sell your story to the media. Your success in this regard will determine whether the media will run your story, and in the process, build links for you.

Another aspect of search engine visibility is how well your press release is optimized for the search engines. Building links and optimizing your content goes hand in hand; without either one your efforts would be start failures.

Formatting for SEO

Formatting your press release for SEO requires two steps:

• Keyword optimization

• Linking strategy

Let’s take them one by one.

Keyword Optimization

When you search for something on Google or Yahoo (or the search engine of your choice), you use key-phrases to indicate your query. For example, if you’re looking for news on Saddam Hussein, you’ll type something like “Saddam Hussein” or “Saddam Hussein news”.

Search engines, on the other hand, rank websites and web pages by a variety of factors, in which one of them is relevance, or how relevant a particular page is for a certain keyword.

Keyword optimization involves preparing your press releases so that when someone searches for information in your target market, your press release is seen as being as relevant as possible by the search engine.

Linking Strategy

The second important part of optimizing your press releases is to use a linking strategy. Note that free press release distribution is always a text-based submission, so you will not be able to add any HTML tags – i.e. you cannot add your keyword-optimized links into the press release.

For paid distribution, it’s a different ballgame. You can place links in your press release pointing to your website with the anchor text of those links exactly as the primary keywords that you know are relevant for your business (keywords that people would be using to search for information in your target market).

Placing links to your website within the press release then means that wherever this press release is fully displayed on the Internet, it will count not only as one link (in the contact information box), but as multiple links for search terms that are highly relevant for your niche.

Alternatively, you can pay the distribution service to optimize the press releases themselves. Usually, the press release distribution service will be able to take care of all aspects of press release optimization, including keyword optimization and placing links in your press release.

Getting High Rankings

A press release is no guarantee for your business to get high rankings in the search engines. Instead, your press release is a time-sensitive opportunity for your business to get noticed by the media.

Your success in the search engines (based on your SEO press release) directly depends on how well your story sells and how well your press release is received by the media.

Don’t be pulled in by the hype of search engine optimization for press releases. It is a complimentary, value-added service that you can just as well perform yourself.

Instead, keep in your mind that you are paying the press release distribution services to do one primary thing:

Project your presence (via your press release) to a highly targeted market on as wide a scale as possible. The story, the content, the ‘selling’ part of your press release…

That is the only key to success with SEO press releases. Don’t get me wrong. Search engine optimization is important. However, don’t look to replace your regular search engine marketing strategy with distributing press releases.

A press release performs a specific purpose, and so does your search engine marketing strategy. Both are for different purposes. Your SEM strategy will ensure long-term presence and visibility on the search engines.

Your press release, on the other hand, is a limited opportunity to promote a specific event related to your company.

Do you have any tips on optimizing SEO Press release?

This guest post was written by Bill, who is the author of seoarticlewriteservice.com, a popular blog that provides Guaranteed SEO Services to small business people and affiliate marketers. Subscribe to his RSS feed for more SEO Tips.

Building a successful blog takes a lot of hard work and patience. I’ve seen many folks who start a blog and quit within a few weeks or months.

You know Why? Because no one give a damm about what they write.

But you aren’t in the same league! Are You?

You’re writing high quality articles and getting few comments..and you’re happy with your progress. Now don’t you want to increase the number of comments on your blog. If yes, then keep reading this post…

In this post, I’m going to share 2 simple yet effective tips that I’m using to get a dozen of comments on every blog post -

Comment on other blogs

A sure fire way to get more comments is by doing commenting on other blogs in your niche. Set aside 30-60 minutes for blog commenting, everyday. Create a list of blogs of popular blogs on which you comment every day, with time the readers and owners of these blogs will come to notice you.

You can also use a tool like to Feel Demon to notify you, whenever a new post is published.

Commenting on other blogs will also help you to get traffic, exposure and quality backlinks.

Bonus Tip: The days are gone, when “great post” comments could drove tens of hundreds of visitors. If you want to get noticed by the blog author, then you need to leave the high quality comments. This will only help you – in building a powerful connection with the author of a blog.

Use WordPress Plugins

There are few great plugins that can encourage the visitors to leave comments on your blog. One of them is CommentLuv plugin, which allows the commentators to add links to their latest blog posts along with their comments.

CommentLuv is one of the essential plugins for WordPress that every blogger needs to install.

If you’re a Blogspot user, you can install intensedebate which works perfectly with CommnetLuv plugin.

Another one is Reply Me plugin, which sends a email to the author automatically when someone reply to his comment. It also helps the blogger to keep the conversation going.

Hurry, BloggingTips has got a new look! 

I’ve been a regular contributor on this blog and I must say it’s one of the best moments I cherish as a writer.

I was glad to see the new design, an awesome theme and how customized everything was.

But that’s not all; I think Zac has done a fantastic job with this new project. It’s the best decision ever. Kudos to you!

Admiring the design is good, but more has to come in. Our goal with BT is to ensure you grow your own blog and bring it to an A-list level.

Below, you’ll find 3 secrets that can help your blog experience a meteoric growth. You don’t have to stand to watch how others are doing it, get started today:

1.    List Building Is “Vital”

If you look at the BloggingTips homepage, you’ll see leads capture system at work. Zac has decided to focus mostly on capturing readers’ email addresses and every visitor who comes to check out latest stuffs here.

Does it mean he should have started building a list earlier? Off course, he has an optin box on the sidebar – which generates trickles of leads I presume, but that’s not enough for building a blog empire. You need to totally focus on building a mailing list.

To help you understand the power of email marketing, here is a quote from my affiliate mentor:

The success of your internet business is directly proportional to the number of people you’re able to reach at the click of a button – Ewen Chia

2.    Branding Is the Key

How unique is your business to millions of similar businesses around?

When it comes to building a profitable blog, branding is fundamental. Don’t try to build a blog first, before instilling the brand image on readers’ heart – from the outset, set up systems and platforms to make your blog stand out. Over 100,000 fresh blogs are being launched every day; you wouldn’t want to compete with that number.

Bloggers don’t have to compete; we only need to complement each other. Find out a ‘thought’ or information that prospects are searching for and fill it. Zac has created a powerful brand for BT.

Did you see his customized avatar holding dollar bills? Look at the dollar sign inscribed on his shirt, the crown showing kingship and authority. That’s branding my dear. Use this same secret to boost your blog.

3.    Exclusive, Quality Contents

The last secret I want to share with you on the new bloggingTips design is the exclusive contents on it. Most of the blogs out there that have landing pages as the forefront page do not provide enough quality contents to gladden readers’ heart.

But here, if you’re not interested in subscribing, you can click the blog (menu link) and dive into the blog itself. Those who were not convinced to subscribe initially would definitely reconsider, having satisfied their taste for exceptional contents.

So, when you’re building a list of targeted subscribers, make sure you’ve figured out the best contents to feed them. People who visit your blog have one thing which is dear to their hearts and they can do anything to get it. Valuable information is what they crave for and if you can’t provide it, don’t blame them for leaving.

Your backend product should be exclusive, quality contents. Consistently deliver on this and your blog will grow exponentially.

Over to you

What did you like about the new BloggingTips design? Share your comment and views. Your success is sure – see you at the top!

Much has been talked about the characteristics and features of a successful blog, let’s see how to determine if a blog is failing or not.

(1) You Are Not Making Any Money.

For this criterion to be applicable, your blog should have had a working blog monetization plan, that is, if you are blogging for making money only. If after 6 months of fiercely active blogging you are not able to earn even a dime, you have a failing blog on your hand.

It’s not that the situation can’t be remedied but you don’t have any idea how to turnaround your blog. You are depressed and letting the blog to languish.

(2) You Are Pulling Out Of Social Media.

At one time, fellow bloggers could have vouched for your fierce devotion towards social media blog promotion and engagement but not it is a ghost of the Christmas past! All the social media accounts are there but it has been weeks that you have visited.

Reasons could be many like dismay over not receiving much visitors or feeling of helplessness because the blog is not popular with social media users. Whatever the reason, this negative attitude is failing your blog.

(3) Your Choice Of Niche Is At Fault.

You have selected a niche which is either too much popular or not popular at all, that is, either a broadly defined niche or a narrowly defined niche. Both the kinds are killers because if it’s a broadly defined niche, everyone is already working on it, reducing your chances of success and if it’s a narrowly defined niche, there is no immediate scope because there is no demand. In either case, you created the blog with best intentions but for no result. Sad!

(4) Over Dependence on Guest Posts.

Perhaps many of the readers will agree to disagree with me here but I feel that a blog which mainly depends on guest posts to keep the content rolling is going the wrong way; the blog owner is intentionally failing the blog’s potential. I say this because over dependence on guest posts show that the blog owner is not even remotely interested to put his or her thoughts on their own blog.

Getting bloggers to “contribute” is a different thing altogether. Ideally, 30% of the blog’s content can be guest posts while the remaining 70% can be a mix of contributions from bloggers / staff writers and the blog owner.

(5) You Are Not Updating Content.

Just because Google has given your blog a PR number doesn’t mean you become lackadaisical, take the ranking for granted and sit back to enjoy it. No matter whether your blog is PR 1 or PR 9, updating it with content daily will save it from turning into a blogging failure.

Endnote

Running a blog for making money is never easy, no matter what the internet stalwarts say. One you are on the other side of the fence, it is easy to preach and advice but the listener has to still struggle his/her way out of every problems associated with blogging. Don’t make the above mistakes if you don’t want your blog to fail.

Infographics are an easy way to break down data so that anyone can understand it. They’re likeable because they can introduce simple, easy to use break downs of information that can quickly help a person. Bottom line, they are easier to digest than a spreadsheet full of numbers, dates, percentages and the like, so we love them. But there are few do’s and don’ts with infographics creation and using them for promotion and link building.

It works like this, you:
-    Find something people are actively discussing.
-    Create several demographics with interesting data in your website’s niche using factual data.
-    Publicize and do outreach of your infographics to the most fitting, popular sites and to bloggers.

It sounds like a simple procedure, but there are a number of guidelines that should be followed in order to achieve the most success for a link building strategy that relies upon infographics, this can also be implemented with other types od media and content used for promotion and branding.

Prerequisites for a Successful Link Building Infographic

The golden rule I tend to use is “avoid fragmentation”! Another rule goes hand in hand with the previous stated and that is “make it easy to share and link to”. The first rule basically tells you to choose one page, one URL where you will first publish your infographic, preferably on your own website. It sounds like a “Duh” moment, but it isn’t! I have seen too many failed promotion attempts because webmasters made the mistake of posting their infographic, video or whatnot to countless of places, breaking their chance of tipping the viral point and getting enough shares, likes, mentions and links for a single URL to become viral. Once your first outreach and promotion ends you can submit your infographic to other sites that are used as showcase, example visual.ly. The second rule is probably a lot easier to understand now, especially its importance.

If your infographic can be found only on one page, then the share buttons and the easy to use copy and paste code provided on that page will help you get that page a lot of links, mentions and social signals. If that infographic was posted on several pages or websites, then links would go all over the place and the promotion will most likely end up as a failure.

As for the infographic itself, well there are too many out there, so don’t break the basis upon which infographic are built, visual data representation. In other words, make sure that all the data presented on your infographic is accurate and up to date. Use only data which you can verify. Statistics published by the figure in question or by other reputable sources will work. Do not include estimates or outdated information. This is also one of the reason why this sort of promotion fails, all you need is one discussion talking about the fact that your data is wrong and no matter how good your design looks it will fail!

Spreading Your Infographic

Infographic is set, not fragmented, cool design, actual facts, then you are ready to start promoting it.

The initial push for getting your infographic to become posted in different websites is to post it where people find it useful. If your infographic is about something technology-related such as “How Much Waste Does Apple Produce in One Year?”, then post it on sites like Mashable, TechCrunch and Slashdot. Of course, it’s not as easy as register and post, but you need to identify the right markets for you to be targeting, so the first target are the main news and media sources that love data.

You may have to make some compromises here too. You won’t always be able to get a link from your initial seeds, nor will you even be able to post a direct link. So make sure that the infographic is branded with all the sources and URLs at the bottom. But don’t worry, even if you don’t get links from Mashable, you will sure get a lot of social friction.

This also brings the added benefit if your infographic gets saved and reposted that you can earn more traffic and links down the road.

Major sites like those mentioned earlier can be a valuable way to start gaining traffic and some backlinks from your infographics. But there are a variety of other places that you can use.

You can find a variety of them by using Google discussion search and find people talking about your infographic’s main topic. If you can vaguely relate it to the thread, make a post and embed it. Sometimes this will net you a backlink, sometimes it will just lead to people spreading your infographic. Or you can try to contact people interested in the topic with a few lines introducing your visual data to them. Since it’s easy to copy most webmasters and bloggers tend to jump on the opportunity to write a few lines and present a great design on their website, of course with a link back, few more social shares and a bunch of new eyes.
This deals with that last point. Reach bloggers and the readers of their blogs by finding a way to show them your infographic. Most small time bloggers will find the effort put into your material as endearing and may re-blog it. Others may just find it genuinely useful.

Further Infographic Spread

It’s not only important to spread your infographic, but to continue spreading it. The more you do, the more links you will ultimately build. The best way to make sure that your infographic is being spread is by searching Google for it.

We are talking about link consolidation, once a certain period has passed and your design has seen it’s share of action you can search Google for it and find websites that have your entire infographic or parts of it on their website without a link pointing back to the source. You can use regular search or image search to find your lost infographic. Then kindly contact the webmasters and ask them to link to the source as you have right to do that, most of the will agree politely, those that don’t will probably remove the infographic. Some won’t reply, but don’t stress over it, think how to get the most out of your current project and how to use the knowledge and experience you gain for the next one.

This guest post was written by Zarko Zivkovic, who works as SEO consultant for Dejan SEO, an Australian SEO company. Managing several large clients with both strategic planning and link building Zarko manages to run his own website and blog, Practical SEO. You can connect with Zarko on Twitter and Google+.

These days having an attractive and highly functional website for you business is a must. People just don’t take you seriously otherwise. And yet, countless businesses still have websites that look like the 90′s threw up on them. While that may be a popular trend in fashion right now having a website that looks 15 years old is not good for anyone. Part of the problem may be that most of these business owners have no idea how EASY it is to set up an awesome looking business or corporate website with WordPress. Below I’ve gathered 30 stunning corporate WordPress themes that should get anyone with an outdated company website excited.

1. Symple
Regular License: $35

Info & Download | Demo

2. Electra
Regular License: $35

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3. Lofty
Regular License: $35

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4. Sona
Regular License: $35

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5. Locality
Regular License: $35

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6. Next
Regular License: $35

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7. Pioneer
Regular License: $35

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8. Stonex
Regular License: $35

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9. Impression
Regular License: $40

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10. Oakland
Regular License: $35

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11. DoBiz
Regular License: $35

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12. Fuel
Regular License: $35

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13. Brave
Regular License: $35

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14. Clean Creative
Regular License: $35

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15. Surplus
Regular License: $35

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16. Saico
Regular License: $35

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17. Poise
Regular License: $35

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18. Goode
Regular License: $35

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19. Antasena
Regular License: $30

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20. Primo
Regular License: $35

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21. Flare
Regular License: $35

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22. InnoTech
Regular License: $35

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23. Doover
Regular License: $35

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24. Moderno
Regular License: $35

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25. Flexum
Regular License: $35

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26. Basix
Regular License: $35

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27. Cameleon
Regular License: $35

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28. Dottoro Studio
Regular License: $35

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29. Gotham
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30. Circulo
Regular License: $35

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You’ve likely heard the phrase “content is king” so much in the blogosphere that you’d like to cry.

As much as people harp on it, you have to ask yourself: is content really everything?

You might be able to create great content an build an audience by cranking out popular posts, but would you have a loyal and thriving audience?

Would they listen to you? Would they trust you? Would they buy†from you?

From my experience (and the experience of many others), I’ve found that readers want more than insanely useful content.

They want consistency, authority, personality, design, passion, and trust.

Is your writing giving these things to them?

If not, you may be setting yourself up for failure.

Let’s break down how you can give you readers what they want…

1.) Consistency

Consistency + commitment (together) is one of the ’6 Key Principles of Influence’ as laid out by psychology professor Robert Cialdini.

People are more easily influenced when you get them to commit (foot in the door technique), and will go out of their way to be consistent.

The thing is, they also want these things from you.

What does consistency mean for a blogger anyway?

You might think that it means just scheduling (or “daily blogging”), but there is much more to it than your posting schedule.

Readers look for consistency in:

• Style of content
• Tone of writing
• Length & information presentation
• Context (or topic) of your content

To give you a quick example, I write about psychology + content marketing on my blog Sparring Mind.

While my blog is a “marketing blog”, the focus on content marketing and psychological research means I shouldn’t be writing about things like “affiliate marketing”, “PPC” or “BlackHat SEO”.

My readers signed up for my list for psychology info combined with content marketing/blogging strategies, so I must deliver.

I also write very long posts, and post very infrequently.

You might hear people recommending that you blog daily, but it matters more that you’re consistent with how you create your content: if I started blogging daily and reducing my post counts to 500 words, I would piss a lot of people off!

People come to my site for 5000+ words on guest posting or lengthy interviews with people like Rafal Tomal, the lead designer of Copyblogger.

Stay consistent to your readers expectations, and they will reward you with loyalty.

2.) Personality

Your blog is much more than just a catalog of things to read.

It’s a user-interface, it’s a community, and most importantly of all, it’s you.

Although your blog can grow to become “bigger than yourself”, step 1 begins with you, and your blog should reflect that.

Your content shouldn’t read like a Wikipedia article: faceless, and overly objective.

Put some personality into each post, push some buttons, and add yourself†to the discussion.

I don’t follow the blogs that are in my reader because I enjoy generic, boring content that doesn’t get me fired up.

I like when I’m awed, outraged, or just plain enjoying myself.

I don’t get things feelings reading an encyclopedia, so your blog shouldn’t read like one either.

3.) Passion

This is no better way to avoid the problems of #2 than by having #3.

In a similar vein, listening to someone present on a topic they have no passion for is boring!

You think you can hide that behind your writing?

You may think so, but you’re wrong.

People pick up on passionate writing, and it has to come from a real in-depth

Have you ever read an article that got you excited?

Peaking emotions tends to get people to take action (like subscribe to your blog), and drab articles that are far†too vanilla do not.

Being yourself can also lead to other big gains for your blog.

Does something make you angry? Does something else bring you great joy?

Blog about it.

Articles that stir up†controversy†or that inspire people deeply are the kind of articles that get shared.

Unleash your excitement and your opinions on your blog, and don’t worry about making enemies.

If you haven’t made a few people mad through your passionate blog posts, you’re probably doing it wrong.

4.) Authority

Authority is another pillar of influence as mentioned by Cialdini.

The best part is, you don’t need a blogging PhD or need to be a world class expert in order to create authority.

In the online world, social proof can come in many forms.

You need to show people that you have the authority to teach them what they want to do.

You can follow the “level-up” method of blog writing, or writing for the person just below you in skill level.

I wouldn’t call myself the “Best Content Marketer in the World”, but I know enough to inform those who maybe aren’t as†knowledgeable†as myself, or maybe they are, but they can still get value from my insights.

How can you build authority?

Showcase where you’ve been featured.

Show off your current following (if you have a decent following!)

Include case studies, interviews with recognized†experts, and break down strategies that truly help people with their problems.

People don’t want “this might work” advice from “some guy”, they want “this will solve your problem”†advice from somebody with authority.

5.) Trust

Why should people listen to you if they can’t trust you?

As Warren Buffet is noted for saying:

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.

So, how can you build trust on your blog?

Simple:

• Don’t lie to readers – should you ever make the mistake, fess up and apologize, immediately.
• Make promises and deliver on them - don’t talk or promise bigger than you can deliver, and always complete what you promise to readers.
• Never stop learning about your audience - as soon as you lose sight in who your readers really†are, you’ll start losing your readers.
• Stay humble, say thank you – your readers make your blog, don’t ever forget that and be sure to thank them.
• Be honest to yourself - write like you talk, discuss topics you know, don’t “fake” anything; a trusting audience starts with being honest to yourself.
• Show some love – people trust people who help others, so respond to most of your emails, and (*gasp*) don’t be afraid to link out every once in a while!

Unless you plan on becoming a scam artist, you need to create this kind of trust over time.

It will be paramount†to your blog’s success, and your branding depends on it.

6.) Design

If you were asked: “What makes you trust a website?”, what would you say?

Amazing, informative content?

Turns out, our brains say otherwise.

In a recent study, researchers found that it was actually design†that evokes the most trust from first time visitors!

When’s the last time you really broke down and analyzed your blog design? Have you ever†thought about how your design is effective conversions?

Readers (especially nowadays) demand that your blog look “clean” and professional.

Luckily, it doesn’t take amazing design skills to appease them, you just need to keep the following things in mind:

• ‘Readability – make your blog easy to read with large fonts and liberal use of line-spacing and white space around your content. Your blog’s typography should be inviting, not scare people away!
• Colors - colors matter big time for your blog: links need to be obvious and apparent, and your link color should never†be used for non-linkable aspects (like H1 tags). You also want to use colors that make you stand out in your space; are blogs in your niche always using black? Go minimal/white and use orange links!
• Navigation – if people cannot find what they want, they will always find an exit. Don’t make your resources and articles hard to find, and NEVER create a site layout that might be viewed as “confusing”.
• Kill Clutter – you must†destroy clutter on your homepage, minimalism converts, because when people have too many options, they often choose none.

Think of your blog as a “user interface” to access your content: it’s not a book, it’s an experience, so treat it as such!

Over To You

How many of these are you giving to your readers in each post?

Which ones are you going to implement today?

See you in the comments, and thanks for reading!

This guest post was written by Gregory Ciotti, who is the author of Sparring Mind, a blog that takes psychology + content marketing and makes them place nice together. Check out his free guide on how to push reader’s buttons if you’d like.

Though there are some blogs which are maintained by only a single person at the back end. The majority of blogs have co-writers and authors to get more articles both in terms of quality and quantity.  You can get at least a plug-in for your every requirement. Plugins can help in Social Media Promotions, Site SEO, Appearence and everything, literally. But what about plug-ins for a multi-authored site?

Managing a multi-authored blog was quite a difficult thing until WordPress 3.x started supporting the latest versions of plug-ins and with this CMS update, millions of plug-ins have got their place in the WordPress Directory. Even if there are many authors to produce content to the site, the admin has still a lot of things to be done from his side. He has to check whether the post qualifies the requirements or not, he has to check if any of the author is driving something wrong at the back-end and many more things will be waiting for his action. Today let’s talk about those WP plugins which enables you to maintain your multi-authored sites with ease.

Role Manager

This plug-in allows you to assign roles to a user and create/modify the existing role capabilities of an user role group. You can give some of your authors a level to let them directly publish the article without your moderation.

Audit Trail Plugin

This plug-in keeps the track of all the things that are happening on your site. This awesome plugins also enables you to restore any of the post to the previous versions.

Edit Flow

Edit Flow is one of the most awesome plug-ins for a multi-authored WP sites. This enables you to post some custom statuses for your posts, to manage the author work-flow.

Multi Author Comment Notifications

This plugin sends email notifications to the author when someone comments on any of his written posts. Owner can also send private emails to the authors using this plug-in.

Co Authors

This plug-in helps in linking multiple authors to a single post. Both of them can work together on that article.

Private Messages for WordPress

You can send private messages to any of the authors of your site using this. You can also control the number of Private Messages.

Author Comments

When you receive many number of comments, it becomes difficult to identify the one from the author. Author Comments plug-in highlights the comment from the author in the conversation.

Out Todo List

This plugin allows you to create a to-do list and share it with the authors. Authors can also share their ideas regarding the to-dos.

Author Advertising Plugin

This is the best WordPress plug-in to maintain a good revenue sharing program between the authors. This enables you to decide the share of the total revenue to the admin and to the author. Author can use his Google AdSense or Amazon Associates program to start earning from his posts.

Dashboard Pending Review

When the author contribution is high on your site, obviously it becomes difficult to find the posts which are pending for review. So this plugin displays the list of posts that are pending for review under you WP Dashboard area.

User Photo

WordPress usually picks up the author avatar from the Gravatar assigned to his email id. But using User Photo, author can upload his picture and assign it to his writings.

Posts by Author

Like we use, YARPP and similar plugins to display related articles; Posts by Author displays other posts which are written by the same author.

Better Author Bio

Better Author Bio picks up the author bio and shows it at the end of the posts. This plug-in also has some extra addons like authors’ Facebook account, Twitter Handle, Google Talk, Google+ and a better bio.

Allow Rel= and HTML in Author Bio

Author can add HTML tags and “rel=” tags in their bio. But use this only if you’ve trusted authors. This can be used for evil too.

This guest post was written by Koundeenya Dhulipalla, a hardcore fan of Apple Inc & Taylor Swift. I love writing and reading books (ofcourse, I’m a book bug). I blog at www.diarywriter.com where I write on Internet Marketing Tips and Writing Tips.

Blogging for business has officially gone mainstream. According to data from MarketingSherpa, blog posts were deemed the most effective social media platform for both B2C and B2Bs.
Marketers have finally realized that blogging can be leveraged as a content tool:

•    To generate enough interest to convert your visitors into leads, and keep you top of mind as they complete the nurturing process (hopefully converting them into customers).
•    In the early stages of the buyer’s journey, it troubles prospects about their business, showing them there’s a better way to deal with an issue that their industry sector is facing.
•    It’s interactive, less formal, and puts a human face to your company.
•    It builds trust and a sense of thought leadership.
•    It can help you increase your ranking on Google’s search engine results page (SERP).

So if the benefits of business blogging are so obvious, then why do many organizations shy away from committing to a blog?

•    Capacity. A number of people need to be tasked with the responsibility of regularly updating the blog. It’s a bit much to assign to just one person, especially if you were thinking of publishing more than once a week. Most blogs fail shortly after inception just because its creators aren’t sure what to blog about – after they post about the first 6 topics they had on their list, they lose enthusiasm and opt to abandon instead of create new, useful content. To pull of a business blog, you need a realistic amount of resources allocated to the task, with a clear editorial schedule in place.
•    Consistency. Forget how great your latest product release is, because that is exactly what people will do if they read a blog post about it (if they get through the blog post in the first place). Decide on a list of buyer-driven themes, and know exactly why they made your list. Think about how you can start conversations around these themes on other platforms, like LinkedIn Groups, Twitter, or eDM articles.
•    Alignment. Your blog should direct the right kind of traffic to your site. Each post you write is a new page to be crawled by Google, so the keywords you use are inherently a part of your SEO strategy. Make sure the same strategy is applied to your other social media channels like Twitter and Linkedin.
•    Metrics. This is probably the most important part. How can you know how well you’re doing, and which areas you could improve in, if you don’t take a look at your analytics? Determine which topics are most popular, and which keywords people are using to find your blog posts. See what you did right – which blog posts generated the most leads? Try to replicate this in future posts.

This may be daunting at first, but blogging is arguably the first pillar in content strategy – especially if you don’t have a content strategy yet. If you don’t have the time or resources to commit to blogging, there are many firms like ours that provide content services to get your blog going. For larger organizations in more complex environments, we would recommend you work with sophisticated integrated blogging solutions like InnoBlog from the US.

Think about business blogging as an inextricable component in your content strategy. It’s vital in attracting prospects to your organization, as well as its offering. As long as you shape your content around the buyer and their needs, your blog will reap success over time.

This post was written by Christabelle Tani, a Digital Content Marketer at g2m Solutions.

Are you a successful blogger yet?  

Everyone is looking for loopholes to climb to the top in their blogging career, but only few bloggers are truly enjoying today.

Others are struggling to drive traffic, while a host of others can’t even generate $100 per month from their blogs. But all that can be changed if you consider these 5Cs of blogging and take actions on them.

The 5Cs of Blogging are:

Create – Command – Creativity- Communication – Conversion : by Michael Chibuzor

Does it make sense to you? All right, let’s break the Cs down to know how they can apply to our blogging success. Are you ready?

Create

Blogging is all about creating exceptional contents for readers and target audience. You need to create a post that’s truly helpful. You can’t continue to churn articles and expect good results. There should be uniqueness in the craft.

Before you create a post, ask yourself what information you’ve in mind and wants to share with others. Are you motivated to read the article or ignore it? It’s a vital question to answer before jamming the keyboard with your fingers.

If you have nothing to say on your post, then take a walk or visit a close friend. I’m sure you’ll get post ideas by chatting with people. The first “C” is to create fresh, insightful and valuable posts. Can you do that?

Command

How can you command readers to do whatever you want? It’s so unfortunate how newbie bloggers are trying to be like professionals bloggers. In order words, they are imitating them.

You can’t be the best by imitating someone. Yes, you can learn from others; read their blogs, buy and study their products but don’t try to be like them. You’ve been equipped to succeed at any project no matter how difficult it seems. The journey might be slow, but the time of waiting would definitely pay off greatly.

To command and build a tribe with blogging, have a way of addressing a problem. It’s no longer providing solutions that counts in today’s blogging world, the solution has to be authentic and presented with style.

If your blog can solve problems, there are 10k blogs with better solutions – the only thing your competitors can’t replicate is your “voice.” It does take time to discover how unique your voice it, but constant practice will get you there.

Creativity

How can you make a difference in the world, when all you do is approach a topic in the same manner like your friends? It’s totally unacceptable and I admonish you to become creative today. Did you see the creativity in the post you’re reading?

The headline was crafted like none other. Off course, the topic I’m writing about has been written by more savvy bloggers and copywriters.

But I decided to add creativity to the mix and now, you’re enjoying it. “The 5 Cs of blogging that makes you successful” is what piqued your mind – you clicked and read.

That’s creativity at work – now, pick a common topic and add spices to it. Your readers would fall in love with you for going the extra mile.

Communication

The essence of setting up a blog is to build a community. Don’t be moved by the hype online, it’s actually difficult to make money from blogs without attaining a level of communication (engagement).

Blog readers are so careful with their money, and will not buy from a stranger. Without effective communication, you’re a stranger to your audience. You may have a beautiful wordpress theme, a unique style of writing but without communicating your brand, your voice and the solutions you’ve, nothing works – trust me!

And communication is a two-way system. Readers and prospects must talk to you. You can initiate communication by asking questions in your posts.

Ask readers to do something and give a feedback. The same concept goes for email marketing. Subscribers must reply and talk to you. A lot of bloggers don’t talk or communicate with people – they don’t even reply to comments. It’s the quickest way to blogging DOOM. Start talking today.

Conversion

This is the point where you can earn passive income from your blog.

The 5Cs of blogging success is arranged in chronological other. You’ve to create first, before you can command. And once you’re an authority, the communication line will be initiated and your readers will start talking.

Don’t try to sell a product or recommend an affiliate offer or service if you’re yet to build trust with target audience. Conversion is what we consistently pursue, but it’ll be futile if engagement is absent.

People who make money from their blogs have mastered these 5Cs and today, we reckon with them. It takes time, sacrifice and guts to climb to the top in your blogging career. But now, you’ve been equipped with the right tools and insights to sail smoothly.

Leave a comment

Did you find this 5Cs of blogging beneficial? Please leave a comment below or add your own 2-cent. Now, stop reading and share this post with your fans. Will you?

The legendary story of the Middle Ages about the infamous Pied Piper who leads the towns’ children to their doom suits Facebook analogically. A couple of days after their IPO debut, it is evident that Facebook has not received the response it had in vision. Unlike the Pied Piper, Facebook disappoints.

Perhaps, its condition is aptly summed up by Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities: “They were playing for a pop but didn’t get it”.

Before the IPO debut, other social networking platforms had expected an increase in their share value. However, after its lackluster debut, here are the recent market reports:

• Facebook rises just by 1 percent, that is, 23 cents.
• LinkedIn goes down 6 percent.
• Yelp goes down 12 percent.
• Groupon goes down 7 percent.
• Zynga goes down 13 percent (worst hit!)

A day after IPO debuts, I received a newsletter from Perform Insider with some really important links to the reality of Facebook.

Some of them were too poignant to ignore such as General Motors pulling out their entire 10 million USD Facebook advertising budget because “they don’t work” and that 75% of Facebook users do not click on Facebook ads, questioning the revenue model of Facebook. This is more important to think about because since Facebook has gone public, they have to disclose their earnings reports to the public and if they are not able to earn as much as they would like us to believe, Facebook and its shareholders will be in serious quandary. In fact, my own Facebook profile is devoid of ads with the help of AdBlocker Chrome extension!

I have come to believe that in the last few months that sites like Facebook are not meant for advertisement displays because they are not designed in such a way. It would have been better if there had been a Facebook ‘Business’ segment exclusively for business networking rather than the current intermingling of personal and business profiles and pages.

As Keith Reinhard says –

 “There is a huge difference between creating a brand and creating buzz; a buzz is what you create about a brand, and that’s quite different than creating the brand itself.”

This is the problem with Facebook I think. Brands are rushing to Facebook to create this buzz but brands need to realize that buzz is something which Facebook can help to escalate but the basic onus of creating brand buzz lies with the company and its efforts.

Only time will tell whether Facebook IPO will succeed or not. I sincerely hope it doesn’t share the same fate as Groupon IPO but it’s too early to predict.

What do you think? Have you bought any Facebook shares or do you want to purchase? Share with me your honest views.

PS: Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, got married to his long time girlfriend Priscilla Chan a day after its IPO debut. Hope this succeeds!

Granted there are so many different ways that you get the word on your goods and services these days, it’s often difficult to remember that the linchpin foundation of all your efforts whether they are social media or SEO based have everything to do with making sure you have good content. Now while it’s possible to put together a Facebook page that might even include a video channel to add and organize YouTube video content, all these tentacles don’t mean a thing if they lead back to poorly written text.

In other words you can’t forget to write good content and that means you need to understand the differences between the kind of online writing that works well and  the stuff that’s come before it.  Here’s a few rules for you to consider to write the kind of content that sparkles and turns visitors to your website into paying customers.

First of all it’s important for you to forget about old school hard-sell techniques. The writing that does the best on the Internet is of the conversational nature. If people think they are being talked down to or manipulated in some way to buy goods and services  you have for sale, it doesn’t matter in the end whether you’ve found an excellent photo showcase application that you can use with your Facebook page.

It’s also a good idea if you remember that good content follows the 8 minute rule. Empirical evidence is clearly shown people have a problem focusing on any one topic for more than 8 minutes.  Whether you’re writing a webpage or something for mobile content uses, you need to keep this limitation in mind if you want to keep visitors following along at your website or mobile app.

It’s important to go back and edit what you’ve written and write more than one draft before you put it live on the Internet. If you’ve got the time, it’s a really good idea to leave the draft of the homepage sitting for a couple hours or even a day or two before you return to it.  Just a little distance gives you the opportunity to see things you might have otherwise missed

Now that there are so many different avenues for you to get the word out about your goods and services on the Internet, it’s essential that you take the time to write good content not only so you won’t draw the wrath of the search engines, but so you can convert visitors to sales and build a reputation as an experienced professional in your field.

The post penguin period has been a disaster (to most). Many sites are brought down in rank. Webmasters and Internet Marketers are thrown into dilemma. Link building techniques are now pondered. The importance and rightful SEO techniques are now questioned. The whole picture of ranking over Google is scrambled.

So how do we counteract? We do not. We shall play with Penguin. At present, the Penguin update looks forth for Domain Authorities. Domains that have the highest authority rank better. Domains like yahoo, blogspot, tumblr etc are ranking highest. Gain links through these domains and you are all set.

Facebook pages and Yahoo answers are adhered to Google’s first page. Pages from Facebook and Yahoo rarely have external incoming links. Even if they do have, it is a ‘nofollow’.

Let me show an example. I wanted my site to rank for ‘forex no deposit bonus 2012’. Hence did a search over Google for competitors.

Here is what I found in the third place:

At the third place is a Facebook page. The next question: How many incoming links it has? None.

At the fifth position is a blogspot domain.

Below is the screenshot:

This too has no backlinks.

What should you do?

Open pages over Social Medias and other domains with authorities. Run your business through it. Include the keyword in the title for better ranking. The other way is to gain more links from individual domains. Do not focus to get several links from a single domain. Of course, this is tedious work but will pay off later. In fact, your effort will be less, as you will rank higher with lesser links.

How much of anchor text is too much?

In your basic SEO, it is taught not to gain several links for the same anchor text. Yet, we do not know ‘How much is too much’. However, many sites still rank better with focused anchor texts. Do a search for ‘forex bonus’. The first result will be an ‘Exact Domain Match’ (EDM) (fig 3). It has 3896 links. Every link has the anchor text as ‘forex bonus’ (except for one or two). Several incoming links are from a single domain. So what does it say? Well, with this example it is evident that you can focus on the same anchor text (at least up to 3000).

The above examples are just a minor research done from my side. In case you have something to share please let me know in the comment.

This guest post was written by Richie Richardson, who is an Internet Marketer. Recently he launched a forex site wherein he writes about forex no deposit bonus 2012 and other forex bonus in general.

How do you improve search engine ranking?  

I came across Ping.fm a few months ago and I’ve fallen in love with it.

It’s a great social bookmarking and pinging tools. It’s so easy to use and can provide your blog with the edge to rank better.

The first time I pinged my post with the tool, Google spider immediately crawled and indexed my article and within 24 hours, it was on Google first page. Wow!

Disclaimer: the keyword I was targeting wasn’t competitive at all. It had 230 searches locally according to Google and the competing webpages were 740 when searched with quotes (“ ”).

Bear in mind that ranking on Google first page takes time and you need to build quality links.

Writing isn’t enough

Publishing a new post is the first stage. You don’t have to stop there. It’s called “article marketing” not article writing. So, the marketing aspect has to come in. Google and other search engine spiders could miss-out on new posts, especially when your blog is new and has little or no external links.

Marketing effectively can take your blog to the next level. You’ve to have the guts to go out there and get fresh readers, external links and the right resource to engage readers.

But how do you do that?

Ping your new posts with Ping.fm

When you ping a new post, it’ll notify all major search engine spiders that a new and quality post has been published. The spiders would in turn visit the blog, read through the pages to determine what topic you’re addressing.

They need the right placement of keywords and how cute your content is. With ping.fm, you can syndicate your post across 10s of social media networks like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Digg, Simply, Google bookmarks and so on.

When you register with this network, you’ll be given the opportunity to share your best and unique posts – and it’s 100% free.

Use anchor links to beef up

Let’s assume you’re reviewing htc phones on your tech blog. When you want to ping to social media networks and web 2.0 sites, hyperlink htc phones and link it to either the product page. Using anchor to syndicate your new post can make a great difference.

You’ve to do it discreetly especially now that Google is releasing Panda and Penguin to penalize over-optimized blogs.

Write Helpful Contents Always

Ping.fm can work effectively if the contents you’re syndicating are helpful and valuable to the end user. It’s not enough to write crappy posts and expect Google spider to pick it up. Research extensively. Study the various aspects of your business to ensure you know the topic before writing.

Those who produce exceptional contents will benefit from organic traffic in the long-run. Even as Google frequently updates their ranking algorithm, you need to position your blog for better and legit ranking. Don’t use tricks or go through the backdoor.

If you’re a tech blogger, the android tablet is a hot market right now, and when you syndicate latest review and articles with ping.fm, you would’ve better chances of ranking well. But pinging works both in the midstream and downstream niches – take action on this.

Get started with Ping.fm today and share your experience. See you at the top!

Google is doing it again. Making sure content is king. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a slow but steady sea change in the attitude of the internets content gatekeepers. The change will affect how everyone approaches doing business on the web.

The shift may, as one writer suggested, define the next incarnation of the web. The wide-open, everyone is welcome structure of Web 2.0, is shifting back to a form that emphasizes quality and accuracy. And it can’t happen too soon. Especially when you consider the proliferation of keyword-stuffed junk that often passes for “content.”

Underscoring this shift is Google’s latest search algorithm update, which has caught the attention of web masters and designers. Dubbed Panda, the new search algorithm was rolled out last year and an update was announced at the end of March.

When originally announced, the update was specifically aimed at reducing rankings for low-quality sites and boost rankings for those of higher quality. So what constitutes a high-quality site? For quality content creators, this wasn’t rocket science. Google defined these sites as having “original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.” Something most of us knew all along.

In defending what seemed to many to require no defense, Google said, “Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.”

Google is always updating its algorithms and changing things, which keeps web specialists busy keeping up—and content creators on their best behavior.

Website managers and marketing experts say the changes to Google Panda are more significant and place renewed emphasis on building better sites. The initial response has been to beef up content and to build better links. Google is even helping developers with a number of tips for building better websites to achieve better search results.

Here’s a sampling:

• Include a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

• Offer a site map and make sure the links point to important parts of the site. If the site map has too many links, break the site map into multiple pages.

• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number.

• Make sure your site includes the words users would type to find your pages.

• Use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.

• Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.

• Check for broken links and correct HTML.

• If you use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), know that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages.

• While content has always been king, good content rules. So it’s no surprise that Google’s is increasingly focusing on bringing better quality to websites. As those who engage in print have long known, quality trumps quantity.

Tony Dokoupil’s recent article in The Daily Beast highlights the shift toward higher quality on the web, not the least of which is the increased use of experts to generate, edit and manage content on websites.

The return to expert-moderated web content will also influence how website experts, marketers and users approach the internet. Designers and creators will be focused on improving quality, and users will increasingly rely on search engines to return the best content for their searches. It’s a win-win for both quality content creators and those who seek it.

This guest post was written by Mike Sobol, who is Co-Founder and COO at GuestBlogGenius.com. A prolific writer, he’s always providing search marketers with cutting edge insights about white hat link building, guest blogging, and seo tips and tactics in general.