Men’s Fashion and Style Blogger

If you are male, and you pay particular attention to how you dress, then this blogging job is for you. Essential Style for Men is looking for a fashion and style blogger who has a strong sense of style and can dish out practical advice.

SEO Copywriter

Do yo live and breathe SEO no matter what topic you writer about? Do you know about furniture? Send your portfolio now, and get this telecommute job.

Social Media Specialist

This is a full-time job, but if you are a social media expert, and there is nothing you like doing more, then you might want to give this a shot. The job is freelance in the beginning.

Experienced Blogger – Marketing Firm

Versatile bloggers who can write for different audiences ought to go for this remote job. The company is based in San Jose, but you can work from home.

Associate/Senior Editor

Experienced editors who have a love for art, listen up! Art in America, a magazine, is looking for a part-time freelance editor. You only have to work 3 days a week!

You can start by downloading the nRelate plugin directly from your Admin plugin section with a simple “nRelate” search. The program is in active development and currently supported databases up to WordPress 3.3.1.

Once installed you will go to the nRelate tab on the left side of your administration screen and click on the “Dashboard” option which revealed this screen:

As you will notice you have the option to set a default image (in case all your posts don’t have images). However I would actually suggest uploading images to all your posts and then placing the image URL in a custom field. This was you can use the “Custom Field for Images” to display an image thumb using nRelate without displaying images on posts when they are not needed.

You will also need to setup an account with nRelate if you would like to earn money through their program. You will receive an ad ID number which is inputting to earn cash.

Below those options is the ability to exclude WordPress categories, simply click on each checkbox you see if there are certain sections in which you don’t want nRelate to appear.

After the dashboard options have been set you simple go back to the admin NRelate area and choose “Related Content.” The first section you will see contained the image size for your nRelate platform output:

After you have chosen your image size and your default image below those options you’ll then move on to fill out some other important information, for example you can choose the relate content box output. In the screenshot below the box reads “Related Articles” but this could be anything you choose. Next you’ll choose the number of related articles to show from your website. If for example you want to show 2 advertiser ads and three ads from your website you’ll choose the “3″ option.

One of the most important options is choosing the strength of relevancy for the post. The more relevant you can make your content the higher CTR (Click Through Rate) you will receive. Keep in mind that Low relevancy should be used with sites that may only contain a few dozen posts, otherwise there might not be enough relevant content to display any posts.

I like that you can also choose how far back in our archive to go. For example if you write evergreen content that won’t go out of relevancy to your readers you can literally go back 10 years.

Finally choose to display the post title (recommended) and then limit the number of characters if you chose. I wouldn’t make this number too high since it could leave an undesired look in the widget if you tend to use really long titles which you shouldn’t be doing anyways.

In the next set of options more settings are available including the ability to show an excerpt for each post, the ability to set content from your blogroll and even the option to choose which sections on your website (posts, pages, archives, etc) receive the NRelated Post.

After those settings have been chosen you can finally setup the actual placement of the nRelate platform. This section is pretty straightforward, you can check “top of post” or “bottom of post” to have the widget show directly below or before your content. You can also leave those unchecked and use the manual method by adding the programs php call directly into your template where you want it to display.

This is also the section where you can choose if you want to display advertising through the nRelate program.

You’ve likely noticed that there is a style gallery option, this gallery allows you to choose the CSS output for the type of nRelate image overlays you would like to choose. Here’s a quick peak at a few of the options:

With gallery options you can make nRelate content match your site which in turn means better click through rates and more earnings plus a better bounce rate as users peruse other articles on your website through the program.

Overall nRelate has become my favorite WordPress based plugin. I love that it works with any wordpress theme and that it’s easy to install with plenty of customization options.

Being a great writer and having experience writing for a blog is absolutely the foundation when hoping to start a career as a blogger. This, however, is not always enough. Maintaining a profitable blog is difficult work and requires constant upkeep. Below are some of the things that will change when you go from blogging for fun to blogging for a profit:

Top 5 Changes a Blogger Needs to Make When Flipping a Blog for Profit

1.    You are no longer writing for only yourself, so your focus/topics may change.

I think that many people who blog for fun enjoy putting out their own opinions. They want to see what others have to say and they want to get out all of their thoughts. In a sense, this is exactly where blogging started. Unfortunately, your opinions don’t always sell. This is a great way to spend your time blogging, but it won’t necessary make you any money. If you really want to profit from your blog and make blogging your career, you are going to have to do research and identify your target audience. You will want to make sure your blog has a clear focus and the random rambling is kept to a minimum. Some blogs with content all over the place are profitable, but not many.

2.    You will need to guest post on other sites.

You want to make sure that your blog has a high Google PageRank (PR) so you can attract investors and more experienced writers and readers. In most cases, the higher the PR the higher you will appear on a Google search engine page; thus driving more traffic to your site. One of the ways to make this happen is to guest post on other blogs and then link back to your blog. This sounds simply enough, but many bloggers quickly realize that this is a lot of extra work and the results come to you slowly. You will also need to follow the guidelines and topic categories for the site where you’re hoping to guest post, and this can be difficult for bloggers who are used to writing whatever they want.

3.     You will need to edit and accept guest posts

This is not completely necessary, but it is extremely beneficial so most bloggers want to take advantage. Accepting guest posts on your blog gives you more time to guest post on other blogs and brings in a new audience. Chances are your guest writer will share his/her article through social media and give your blog some great publicity. Nonetheless, this is more work than most anticipate when they decide they’re going to try and make money from blogging.

4.    You will need to find and speak with potential advertisers

This is something that is usually foreign to those who have a blog for fun. You will need to prepare facts and statistics to try and sell your blog to these potential advertisers. It’s a world of rejection and frustration, and the process is very slow. You must have an authoritative blog (high PR) before a good advertiser will even want to speak with you. It is important to realize that this is where you make your money. This means that you will have to work very hard to create something and then you will be able to make your money.

5.    Social media will be more important

Most bloggers are fairly social media fluent. The only difference when you’re trying to earn a profit is the idea that you will have to connect with powerful people. This will improve the credibility of your blog. In many cases, bloggers create separate social media accounts for their now profitable blog. This is, therefore, twice as much social media work than before.

When deciding if you should try and be a full-time professional blogger, being passionate about blogging is one of the driving factors.  However, it’s important that you realize some of the challenges that full-time bloggers have in front of them before quitting your day job.

Did you go from blogging for fun to making blogging your career? What challenges were you unprepared to face?

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to background checks. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including voip phone systems to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading lead generation company, Resource Nation.

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when the team at InstaBG approached our team about a new program that allows users to automatically cull images from Instagram and feature them as Twitter backgrounds. The best part of the program? It can change your background daily based on the Instagram criteria you provide.

To start using InstaBG users simply click on the large “Sign in with Twitter Account” button that appears on the InstaBG.com front page.

Once you have authorized the account the following setup options will be shown:

To setup your account so only images you have loaded from your blog to instagram show up you will enter a “User ID” in the “Target Photos” section.

Once you have targeted the account you want to use the rest of the steps are pretty self explanatory, for example you will choose to display new pics every day, create a static Twitter background, show new photos, popular photos or random photos and even choose the size (small, medium, large, custom) for each photo.

Quick tip: i find that “No” for spacing is the best looking option as it creates a nice collage look.

Once you have clicked on the ‘Preview’ button you’ll notice the preview pane filled in on the right side of the screen, simply click on the “full size” link and you will see something like this:

Once you feel comfortable with your background you can set it to go live. The live background will then update daily if you have chosen that option and you should have a display that looks something like this:

By incorporating your blog images into an Instagram account and then incorporating InstaBG into your Twitter account you have now created a dynamic and ever changing social media account for your blog with very little work outside of uploading photos to Instagram and very little initial Twitter background setup.

In short, SEO is the process of optimizing a website by tweaking both internal and external factors to drive website traffic that originates from search engines.

Here’s a brief rundown of SEO and what takes place when a website is made search engine friendly.

A Basic Explanation of Search Engines

If you’ve worked with an internet marketing company, you’ve been told that it’s important to ensure your website is search engine optimized so that search engines can pick it up in certain keyword searches. Search engines are text-driven programs that crawl the different web pages to find what’s on them. The search engines then index everything they come across during the crawling process.

During the indexing process, pages are assigned to certain keywords, which is how search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo determine which pages show up in searches. Next, the search engine processes the information by comparing the page to pages that are already indexed; relevancy of the page in comparison to what has already been indexed is also calculated. Lastly, the search engine retrieves the results and shows them in your browser, sorted in a range from the most to least relevant.

Keywords and Keyword Density are King

When you’re looking to work with an internet marketing company, you’ll likely consider purchasing SEO packages that select keywords for your website. The most successful keywords are generally two- and three-word search terms.

Internet marketing companies will use certain algorithms to determine which keywords will help drive users to your website. It’s also important to ensure keywords have the proper density, which helps determine how relevant a page is considered when it is crawled.

Dividing the number of keywords in the copy by the number of total words, then multiplying by 100, determines keywords density. The basic idea is that if a page has a higher keyword density, it will be considered more relevant. For major keywords, a density of 2 to 4 percent is generally accepted, with a density of 1-2 percent being ideal for more minor keywords. Be sure not to over-stuff keywords into your copy. That can penalize you in search results.

A Good Internet Marketing Company will Seamlessly Implement SEO

When SEO became a standard practice within the last decade or so, many companies tried to stuff their clients’ websites full of keywords, making the copy unintelligible and hard to understand. Thanks to the complicated algorithms used by top search engines, it’s impossible to get away with that type of SEO abuse today.

Instead, good SEO means integrating the keywords into the existing copy on a website without altering the meaning of the text. This helps preserve the original tone and voice of the client’s website and, most importantly, will ensure the site is indexed properly when crawled by the search engine.

After reading about how an internet marketing company will use SEO to improve your site’s performance, you’re probably interested in learning more about finding an internet agency. Guest post written by Michelle.

Photo source:

jandscomputerservices.com

talent-shout.com

Working with an open-source platform that provides open-source plugins means it’s often cheap to build and maintain a website using WordPress, however because the platform and plugins are often open source it can also create a security headache for site administrators and that’s where Ultimate Security Checker comes into play.

The program is simple to use, essentially users simply search for “Ultimate Security Checker” in the WordPress repository and upload it to their server or they just install it direct from the WordPress plugins search section inside the admin area of their websites WordPress setup.

Once installed the program will ask you to run a diagnostic at which time Ultimate Security Checker will examine your blocks file settings, server settings, WordPress database and required plugin updates for stability.

Here’s the output for the program after a check has been completed:

As you’ll notice each area that is checked is ranked, this shows users where areas of improvement can be made, the program also gives each WordPress blog a security points score, in this case my blog scored 102 out of 115 points because several server configuration steps could be better optimized.

Users can choose to “Run the tests again!” whenever they want while the settings tab at the top of the screen will also allow them to set a reminder scan for 1 or 2 weeks (this can also be set to “never” if you choose).

Next to the “Run the Tests” tab at the top of the screen users will also fine the “File Analysis” tab, in this option you can have Ultimate Security Checker scan each file on your blog while searching for suspicious code, this of this tab as the virus scan portion of the plugin.

Once you have found areas that require improvement simply click on the “How To Fix” tab which will in turn lead you to helpful resources that explain how to better your blog through simple fixes that you can handle on your own or with the help of your hosting provider.

And just in case you forget about Ultimate Security Checker I wouldn’t worry to much, your security score always shows direct at the top of your admin bar, ensuring you can keep an eye on the security of your blog at all times.

Use Ultimate Security Checker alongside WP Clean-Options and you’ll have a nicely secured blog that runs safe and fast for years to come.

To circumvent a congress unlikely to pass the measure without public scrutiny President Obama signed an “executive agreement” which basically gives the President the ability to sign the treaty (by not calling it a treaty) while limiting the ability of the agreement to bind congress.

Currently circulating petitions in the meantime point out that executives agreements are only covered by things that fall solely under the President’s mandate, therefore an executive agreement that impacts the ability of Congress controlled items would be unconstitutional. Because intellectual property is protected under Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution along with Congresses responsibility to control such issue it would be an issue for Congress to discuss and pass or reject and not the President.

In the meantime the petition filed on the WhiteHouse.gov petition website has grown to more than 1000 people at this time while various other petitions have also circulated around the internet with thousands of signatures while asking that ACTA be stopped in the United States and in other countries where it has already or will soon be enacted. 

In case you’re not familiar with ACTA here are a few of the main points of the treaty (see if SOPA and PIPA shine through to you):

” * * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn’t infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet — and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living — if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* * That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused — again, without evidence or trial — of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

* * Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)”

The White House has been slow to respond over criticism to the President’s handling of ACTA while protests have broken out in Polan as the country prepared to sign the bill at a meeting in Tokyo.

Do you think ACTA is just as bad as SOPA and PIPA?

However, as someone who came from a journalism background, I had been trained to distrust press releases. To many journalists, press releases are only useful for lazy reporters who don’t want to do their own reporting or can’t find out about news themselves. Instead of using the company’s press release, you were supposed to call and get your own quote.

But while that approach is certainly ideal, and maybe even practical for reporters at major publications, it certainly isn’t feasible for most bloggers. Not only do most of us lack the access to trivially call up a relevant company and get a quick response, but if we do the response is, usually, the exact same one in the press release.

The reason for this is simple. While companies want to engage bloggers and other thought-leaders, there’s just too many of them to sit down and answer questions from all of them. So, if you want to be alerted to the latest news in your field and have multiple viewpoints in your posts, you need to learn to stop worrying and start loving press releases. There simply is no other way.

The Benefits of Press Releases

As a blogger receiving press releases, they have three key benefits for you and your site:

1. Alerting You to Relevant Stories: Many of the press releases you get probably won’t be important to your site. However, some can alert you to important stories you’ll want to cover. Though you don’t want press releases to be your primary means of learning about stories (they are inherently reactionary) they can be useful, especially in a small niche.
2. Providing The Sender’s Viewpoint/Quotes: With a blog post, you generally want to incorporate as many viewpoints as you can. A press release is a great way to get the opinion from a stakeholder in a story and even have a good quote from them.
3. Provide Additional Information: A good press release, in addition to stating the sender’s position, will also provide additional links and information regarding the story, helping with research. Though, obviously, such research should be treated with a grain of salt, it can be useful if done well.

In short, press releases are a great way to add an additional perspective and other information to a story. However, they are dangerous because of their inherent bias. After all, press releases are a product of a PR department and, as such, are going to be biased in favor of their sender and attempt to put them in the most favorable light possible.

As such, you have to be careful how you use them, but that’s no reason to shy away from them.

How to Use Press Releases Correctly

The problem with press releases, historically, has been that many lazy journalists would just copy and paste from them liberally to create their stories. While the companies sending the releases were happy to have their language used in such a manner, not only is this a form of plagiarism, but it also lets the bias of the press release through unfiltered.

The best way to use a press release is to treat it exactly the same way you would an interview you had performed with someone at the company. You can quote it, you can cite it and even reference facts in it, but always be clear about where you got the information.

When possible, you should independently verify any information given in the press release before treating it as simple truth and, when you can’t verify something, make sure you’re clear where you got the information from.

Finally, if possible, you should try to get quotes and information from those on an opposing side (if there is one). As usual, posting only one side’s views in an article, even if presented accurately, can be another form of bias. So, it’s worth your time to find a statement from a different viewpoint if at all possible.

If you can do these things, most likely, your use of press releases will not pose a serious problem for you or your readers.

How to Get Press Releases

If you are a blogger, eventually you’ll likely find yourself on press release distribution lists whether you want to be or not. It simply comes with the territory of growing and finding an audience.

However, if you want to be on a list and you’re just starting out, the easiest way to get on them is to ask. Simply find the companies and organizations most relevant to your topic and then visit their press page. There, you should be able to find their press contact email, which you can write a short letter to asking to be put on their distribution list. It’s as simple as that.

If the company doesn’t have a press page, it may be possible they don’t actually send out any press releases. If so, look for a regular email newsletter that you can subscribe to, especially if it’s low volume. Failing that, you can always write the company directly and ask to be put on any distribution list they have.

All in all, the process should only take a few minutes and, if you’re smart about how you filter press releases, it shouldn’t be a major burden on your email. Best of all, getting on these lists can provide you with a great deal of external perspective to help make your future posts that much better.

Bottom Line

In the end, there’s no reason to be scared of using press releases in your blogging. Though you need to be careful and mindful of the source of information, press releases can be a valuable tool to help you research and integrate additional viewpoints into your posts.

If used well, integrating press release content will actually help make your posts less biased and more fair than if you weren’t to include the viewpoint at all. The key is to simply be careful how you use the content and that you’re always honest about the source.

If you can do that, your readers will actually benefit from the inclusion of press release content and your site will be much stronger for it.

As a writer, I like it when an editor just tells me in one sentence why my article doesn’t work for their blog so I can send it somewhere else. I am not interested in seeing the hundreds of little comments an editor makes. If they have an idea about something that could make the article better then that’s great, but in general I am interested in getting my articles posted in a timely fashion. I am not offended (usually) if an editor doesn’t like my article, I will just try better next time.

However, it can be confusing when it comes time to give feedback on a hopeful blog article. There are a variety of things that can go wrong:

• The writer completely ignored your guidelines regarding topic, length, and tone
• The writer’s article has some good points, but the grammar wasn’t up to par
• The article is not developed enough for your blog
• The article discusses incorrect information
• The article is well written, but is too controversial for your blog

So what is the proper feedback etiquette? Unfortunately, there is no “right way” to give feedback to guest bloggers. As I stated above, I have received feedback in all forms. However, you take different risks with whatever type of feedback you decide to give. Consider some of the ways you can give feedback to bloggers and then consider some of the pros and cons to each before deciding how you want to approach feedback:

Top 3 Ways Editors Give Feedback to Guest Bloggers 

1.    Mark up their article so it’s just the way you want it.

Pros: Well, you will have an article just the way you want it. You will make sure that the vision of your blog remains intact despite the other voices adding in their two cents. This will also allow you to remain positive when talking with bloggers. Although some writers may get annoyed with the many revision requests, no writer will dislike you or your blog for it. This creates a positive environment overall.

Cons: This often takes a ton of time. The more guest blogs you get the more difficult it will be to keep up with the work. While most editors don’t mind the work if it means there will be a good result, there is always the risk that the writer will look at the revisions and say forget it. You have then spent a great deal of time improving the article of that writer (at least in your eyes), and get nothing in return.

2.    Tell them only reasons why you will not be able to use the article.

Pros: This is a good mix between giving a writer a lot of information and getting to the basics. This generally works well if someone ignored your guidelines or was off-topic in any way. They should understand, and you did not spend hours trying to “save” the article.

Cons: You could find yourself with a lot of follow-up emails. A lot of writers try and then fix the article themselves, which can be risky. If the author didn’t understand why you didn’t like the article in the first place, and then you have to turn it down a second time, you’re not going to be much liked.  These authors might also continually try to post an article on your site (in some cases just for the link), so you may end up spending more time reading several articles than if you were to edit just one.

3.    Be extremely brief, but polite.

Pros: This is the fastest option when giving “feedback.” You get right to the point, and chances are people will not follow-up. If they get back nothing more than a “not right now, thanks,” then nine times out of ten they aren’t going to come crawling back. You get your point across and save time.

Cons: Writers generally do not appreciate this. It can be seen as a brush-off, so they will have no interest in guest posting for you in the future. You could potentially lose a reader if they feel offended, and you could be missing out on some great content that would have otherwise come your way.

The most important thing to remember when giving feedback is to be polite. No matter how much you dislike the article, remember that someone put a lot of effort into writing it for your site. There are ways to be kind and not accepting a guest post. Other than that, it’s entirely up to the editor to weigh the pros and the cons. There are risks that go along with every approach, so it’s up to you to decide what it worth the risk.

Have you ever had to give feedback to a potential guest blogger? How did you handle the situation?

Photo Credit: projectsandpages.com

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to government small business loans. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including document software to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading business information directory, Business.com.

The truth is while video is great for supplementing a post and podcasts can be taken on the road and to various other locations there’s still no substitute for the written word.

Using video as part of your content creation won’t kill your blog, however if utilized incorrectly video can become an annoying hindrance that drivers users away. Let’s take a look at several ways video can kill your blog.

1. Posting Only A Video

Check out videos on Yahoo (known for posting video only posts lately) and read all of the complaints for users who don’t want just a video. While a first hand account of an accident or other visual event may help your story it’s not the end answer. The reason for this is simple, many users today are not sitting at screens where video viewing is often easily accessible. For example a mobile user in an area with slow network connectivity doesn’t want to sit around and wait for your video to buffet, however if you have written an article supporting that video they can at least read the entire story or at least the major points you choose to report on from the video.

2. Writing Poor Content To Support The Video

So you’ve made the jump into video+written content creation, however if you’re heart isn’t into the written portion you’re going to end up with unfocused, keyword lacking content. Remember that search engines haven’t quite figured out how to index words spoken in a video yet which means your video does little good if you still don’t do your keyword research homework and figure out what keywords and long-tail keywords best fit your content.

3. Placing Video Before Your Content

Here’s a little trick that will help your “on-site” time average. Write really great content and then sprinkle in video as required. If a user does see a video at the top of your post and then views that video there’s a good chance they jump off your site and onto the next story before bothering to read what you’ve written. It’s that whole idea of “I’ve seen the movie, why bother reading the book now.” However if a video appears in the middle or towards the bottom of a post the reader may feel there is more to the story and choose to view the video. I personally like to lead into videos through text. For example I might say “here’s more information:” then show the video. Even if the video only showcases a tiny bit of new information it will provide my readers with reason to continue.

4. Posting Poor Quality Video

If you write breaking news stories sometimes poor quality video (smartphone videos, shaky handheld amateur videos) is your only option. However if you run a “how to make money blog” and you create your own videos they should be of decent quality to showcase your production skills. A cheap HD camcorder can be purchased for around $200 these days and they offer your readers better audio and picture quality. Remember video is suppose to engage your readers just like text based content and therefore it should be clear, concise and well thought out.

5. Posting Video On Every Single Entry

When visitors to my various web properties pay a visit I want them to read as much content as possible, this allows me to receive a unique visitor while also pushing up my pageviews and pushing down my bounce rate. If you post 10 minute videos on every single post you create however there’s a good chance a reader will find your content a bit to long and you’ll end up with a bunch of comments that read “td;lr” (too long didn’t read). I find it funny that the “didn’t read” comment comes up on VIDEO posts but the point is well taken. Remember that video is meant to show readers something they need to see or to engage with them occasionally on a level of contact they don’t normally receive from blog creators.

The underlying trick to using video so it doesn’t kill your blog is simple, remember to present written text to your readers, use videos when it makes sense to do so and don’t overuse videos since viewing them isn’t always a simple option for your readers.

We are going to talk through the steps needed to get your website seen by the most relevant audience, from offline marketing, all the way through to search engine optimisation (SEO).

Step 1: Word of mouth

Immediately when the website goes live, you want as many visitors as you can get! Even if the traffic is not all relevant, what you get from the visitors is invaluable learning’s on key areas which are working and which aren’t doing so well. Using social network, text messages, shouting from the roof, you need to get visitors on to the site and monitor their interaction.

Step 2: Free Advertising

Get your website onto every free listing website around. Creating profiles around the web will start to create an online profile, and is a helping hand with the SEO methods. If you are selling a service, local citations can be very useful in ranking for the geographical terms, such as ‘Copywriting Leeds’ or ‘Printers Doncaster’.

Be wary however when doing this not to put your website profile onto websites which look ‘spammy or untrustworthy. This could have a negative impact on your SEO.

Step 3: Paid Advertising

If you are selling a product you should immediately look into Google AdWords. As we all know, Pay Per Click or PPC advertising can be a very profitable way of getting visitors to your website and generating sales.  This does not always work so well for service providers and measuring the effectiveness can become somewhat of a headache.

Be very careful with PPC advertising. If you are not strict with budgets and timescales you can quite easily spend a fortune for very little return.

Any other advertising that you feel would be relevant should be looked into at this point. Again we are looking to get as many visitors to the website as we can and begin to create an online profile.

Facebook advertising campaigns can be a great way of targeting very specific user groups. For example if you know that women between 20 – 45 years of age wear a certain item you are selling, you can tailor a campaign to just target these demographics. Again this is getting you infront of a highly relevant audience.

Step 4: Search Engine Optimisation

SEO is becoming widely recognized by most webmasters and online business owners as the future of marketing.

To begin, you could read up on some basic SEO tactics, and try to make your website more SEO friendly. This will save you time in the long run and could help to speed up the optimization process.

Then you will need to allocate a budget to an SEO specialist to carry out the work for you. This usually starts from around £500 per month. Search Engine Optimisation is very much an investment, so don’t expect results within a few weeks, but remember, this is a marathon not a sprint.

Following these steps are certainly not guaranteeing your company will survive online, but being proactive and chasing the audience will certainly give you half a chance.

SEOptics are a leading Digital Marketing company offering startup and exsiting business search engine optimisation

Retail/Trends Writer

Are you a versatile writer who is passionate about shop/fashion/retail trends/style/commerce? If you can switch topics and styles as quickly as you can blink, apply for this Las Vegas-based job!

Freelance Zumba Blogger

Dancing is good for you in so many ways. Some say you can learn to dance even if you have two left feet, though I am not sure about that. In any case, if you love all things Zumba, this gig is perfect for you.

Freelance Art Copywriter

This copywriting job is for writers based in New York and have a knowledge of the Chicago Manual of Style. Of course, you also need a bit of of art knowledge. Oh, and they don’t like clichès.

Programming Blogger

Know CSS, HTML5, Ruby, Python, and PHP like the back of your hand? Have experience blogging about these topics? Become a regularly contributor and get paid for it.

Natural/Alternative Health Writer

Do you go on and on about natural and alternative health? Do you know all about supplements and therapies? If you do, and you can write magazine-grade articles, go for this job!

As you may already be aware when some plugins are deleted they fail to remove their database tables from your websites MySql database, conversely they leave commands nested inside your WP-Options table. In some cases poorly constructed plugins can slow down your website and keep it slow even after removed.

WP’s Clean Options plugin however helped you find those orphaned plugins and delete them with just a few simple clicks.

To get started simply search for “Clean Options” from the “Add New” screen in your WordPress admin areas Plugins screen or download and install the plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/clean-options/

One installed the plugin is located under “Tools.”

After clicking on the plugin you will see the following screen:

As you’ll notice I only click on the “Don’t show the Known WordPress Core Options for this “Find” and that’s because I’m only trying to find Plugin files that were left behind. If you don’t know what you are doing or want to error on the side of caution I would suggest only clicking on the top box. Next you will simply click “Find Orphaned Options.”

The next display will take several seconds (10-20 seconds on average) to display the orphaned plugin and the output will look something like this:

As you’ll notice the plugin options are typically named directly after the plugin you have installed or may have removed. For example if you were using the Sharebar Plugin you would see “Sharebar_bg.” At this point you simply click on all of the plugins that you want to remove tables for. At the bottom of all your options that have been selected you then simply choose “View Selected Options Information.”

The final output screen will look like this:

After you have verified that the plugins displayed must be removed you just click on “Yes, Removal ALL of these options from the wp_options table. You can also select “No. Don’t remove them, return to the first screen” if you have made a mistake. Click submit and your choice is processed.

One qualm with this plugin, if you have installed 50 plugins over the life of your website and there are 1000 orphans options there’s a good chance the program will time out, this is because it will take longer then the typical 30 second timeout option found on most hosts. To fix this problem you can have your host extend your timeout function or add a command to your .htaccess file to do so on your own.

If all else fails you can always access your phpMyAdmin area, open the WP_Options table and select each orphaned table by hand and choose delete. However when used regularly Clean Options allows you to avoid fiddling manually with your WordPress database.

As always remember to backup your WordPress database regularly to avoid any issues that this plugin or other plugins may cause for your website.

Give the Wordress Clean Options plugin a try today and let me know what you think.

However, frantically running around every minute of every day is not the way to find time for blogging. Follow the steps below to help you stay sane while still finding time to do what you love:

Finding More Time for Blogging Is as Easy as 1, 2, 3

Step #1: Organization and Merging of Information

While some blogs or blog posts are opinion, most offer advice complete with links back to reputable sources. In other words, blogging takes a lot of research. If you’re ever going to write a review about software or technology you have been using, you have to back up your opinion with facts and look at other software in order to create a comparison. All of this research should be in once place so that it’s easy to jump back and forth. Bloggers don’t always get the time to write a great article in one sitting, so consolidation of information is key. Consider using mind-mapping software such as MindMaple to help keep your information organized. It may take a bit of time to get used to mind-mapping software, but once you do I think you’ll find that it will save you a ton of time in the end. The following is an example of a mind-map:

            Step #2: Avoid Repetition

As a blogger, I understand that the job is easy to turn into something repetitive. I think that many writers struggle with writers’ block, so writers are often visiting the same sites or the same paragraph over and over again. I know that when I have writers’ block I continually click back to my email inbox or check my phone. Whatever it is that you do, this is a huge waste of time and will not help you in your quest to find more time for blogging. Try avoiding these repetitive habits by using Google “bookmarks.” Google bookmarks allow you to save shortcuts to certain webpages to your Google Account. This allows you to access them on any computer (huge time saver) and also allows you to create labels and makes lists to help keep these pages organized. I think this works much better than the standard browser bookmarks because it is more convenient. You first must download the Google Toolbar, and then you can set this up on the Google bookmarks website in minutes. A screenshot of Google bookmarks is shown below:

            Step #3: Utilizing Guest Posting Inquiries

What some rookies do not realize is that blogging isn’t just about writing a post and uploading it onto a blog. Blogging can also encompass the editor’s point of view. Part of blogging is managing the blog by responding to comments, sharing posts on social networks, writing blog posts, responding to business proposals, and editing blog content. Part of making time for blogging is making time for it all. One easy way to do this is to allow guest posts on your blog. Although you will still need to find the time to edit and upload the post, it is generally a much faster process than writing an article on your own. Learn to balance your blog out with guest posts and editor posts to help spread out the work. Some blogs that are strictly guest posts are successful, but the general rule of thumb is two days guest posting three days editor posting per week.

What This Means for You and Your Blog

Because blogging can be so time consuming, many blogs were started and either never finished or never maintained. People often don’t realize the amount of time and energy that goes into blogging, and if you aren’t prepared to work efficiently it can be extremely difficult. If you follow the steps above, hopefully you can find time for your blog and your other job and your family and your friends. And who knows, you may even get to sleep for more than five hours.

Photo Credit: dreamstime.com

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to criminal background check. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including document software to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading business directory, Business.com.

Quite simply, link building the hell out of your site is great, but in reality it can only get you so far. The overall aim for a website owner is usually to keep visitors engaged or make them convert. If you secure number 1 positions for a bunch of key terms but your site is full of awful syndicated content, the visitors are going to bounce and the overall objective for your website is going to be completely overshadowed.

Keeping It Fresh

When it comes down to it, if you’re looking for search engine optimisation longevity, you need to cement yourself in a position of high authority. This is so that you can spend more time on your own content and make your seo strategy for long tail key term visibility a lot easier. Three of the main takeout points from Google’s freshness updates is the fact that content written about dynamic releases or events, annual events or content regarding trending news stories is likely to be rewarded. Whereas a year ago you may have been able to get away with producing fresh content for your site bi-weekly, if you really want to maintain your positions long term, you should now be looking at updating content every other day.

Making A Plan

The very first thing to do is to map out a content strategy at the very start of the year. Grab a calendar and start mapping out any significant events within your industry that you know you should be providing content for. Focus on one regularly occurring event or release each month and have that as your starting point. Next up, think of some fresh ideas on articles about your industry that nobody else is yet to cover. Your blog should be like a book, and no book is the same. Nobody want to come onto your site and read the same or similar article to one they read on the last site they were on. They want to read a fresh perspective. So you should now map out a monthly article which is completely unique and that no other site will be covering.

Lastly, in order to take advantage of fresh, trending topics, you really need to be on the ball and reading about industry topics on a day to day basis. That’s the only way you’re truly going to become an expert and going to be able to produce expert articles. There’s no substitute for putting in the hard work and research and becoming an industry leader.

The overall benefit of putting together your search engine optimisation content strategy is that you’ll gradually establish yourself in a position of authority and somewhere down the line that should make it a lot easier for you to pick up new visitors through long tail key term traffic associated with fresh news and events. This means you’ll have more free time to spend on building up your social profiles and dedicating time to building social signals to your squeaky fresh content.

Scott is a writer who is looking forward to the fresh changes in SEO for 2012.

Here are the highlights from this week’s Job Board.

Personal Tech/Mobile Blogger

Just how personal do you take tech? Whether you use Windows or Mac, if you live and breathe tech, this blogging job is a great opportunity. Bonus points if you are always on your mobile device!

Commercial Real Estate Writer

This job is for people who live in Seattle or nearby areas. You need to have transportation and be willing to cover the Seattle real estate beat.

Technology Writers

Another job for tech lovers. If you are interested in B2B, consumer, and information technology, then go get this telecommute job.

CRM Bloggers

Who hasn’t had a bad experience with customer service? Why not do things from the other end of the spectrum and be a CRM blogger?

Freelance Writer/Reporter

Are you an expert in investing? Or maybe you just like reading up on the topic. If this is you, and you are based in Vancouver, apply for this telecommute job now.

But if you don’t have time to either go back to school or wait for practice to improve your work, there are actually a few things you can do right now, in a matter of minutes, that can drastically improve the quality of your writing.

So, if you’re looking to create better written blog posts tomorrow, here are just a few things you can try to help spruce up and clean out your blog writing habits.

1. Cut 10% of Your Words

When writing, most people tend to be wordier than necessary, even on shorter pieces. All things being equal, shorter posts are generally better as they are easier to read and finish.

As an exercise, the next time you finish a post, go through it and trim 10% of the words from it without changing the meaning (or potential meaning) of anything. Immediately, your writing will improve and, with time, you’ll begin to spot the obvious extra words and avoid writing them in the first place.

That may make trimming the fat a lot more difficult later, but that’s only because your writing will be much more lean in its first draft.

2. Break Your Posts Apart

Going back to point one, shorter posts, or posts that appear shorter, are generally better than long ones and are also easier to edit and refine.

So, break your posts apart. Rather than doing a 1,500 word piece, break it up into two 750-word posts or even three-part series of 500 words each.

If you can’t do that, break your post apart using subheads, as with this post, to make your work easier to skim and edit. A post that’s faster to read, gives better information and is easier to edit usually winds up being a better post.

3. Use Shorter Paragraphs

High schools and colleges often teach a four-sentence paragraph structure that’s designed to convey a full thought every paragraph.

Forget it.

Journalism teaches us that shorter paragraphs are easier to read, make text look more approachable (less gray) and, once again, easier to proof.

While the journalism standard may have come from the narrow columns newspapers have, it’s a remarkably effective and simple way to make your writing easier to read and better all-around.

4. Stop Writing Formally

It’s importent to remember that your blog is not an academic essay, a job application or a newspaper article, you can stop worrying about writing formally.

Feel free to use “you” and “I” in your posts, talk directly to your readers from time to time and don’t hesitate to use common language such as contractions.

Very few blogs call for a formal writing style. If you’re not writing for an audience that would expect it, don’t use it. The writing will be friendlier, warmer and easier to edit as plain language has a lot fewer rules.

5. Don’t Write and Edit at the Same Time

Many people, when writing a blog post, have a tendency to try and edit what they’re working on as they are putting words on paper.

Unfortunately, that is much like trying to drive a car by pressing the brake and the gas at the same time. It makes it so that you don’t do either very effectively.

Write your blog post as quickly as you can, focus on getting words on the screen as quickly as possible and keep your editing work to a minimum. If you’re stumped on a section, move on to another and come back or simply change the post to eliminate the need.

When you’re done writing, take a break of at least 10 minutes and walk away from your writing. Then return, put on your editing hat and get to work.

Given how hard it is to edit your own work anyway, it doesn’t make sense to add another complication to the process.

6. Get an Outside Editor

Here’s an unfortunate truth. You can’t edit your own writing with 100% effectiveness. It’s almost impossible as your mind knows what you were trying to say and will often fill in blanks or cover up mistakes that others will stumble over.

Even more unfortunate is that editing is a very specialized skill and the people who are good at it rightly command a lot of money for their services. So, hiring a professional editor is probably out of reach for most bloggers.

However, generally, you don’t need to hire an expert to proof your blog. A friend, a family member, your significant other or even an avid member of your community can do the job for you. After all, what you need most isn’t grammar expertise, but an extra pair of eyes to catch what yours fail to.

Anyone can fill that role and the hardest part is finding someone who can perform that task every day you blog.

If you can’t find someone, automated checkers such as After the Deadline and Grammarly can help a lot, though Grammarly, and ones like it, may be a bit intensive for more casual language (though you can adjust the settings).

Bottom Line

Becoming a master writer and/or editor takes years of practice, study and hard work. Unfortunately, if you have a blog and a post due tomorrow, you don’t have that kind of time.

So, while you might not be able to make yourself a better writer overnight, by changing the way you write you can greatly improve the quality of what you create.

The truth is that most of the best bloggers aren’t great writers. They’re solid or even mediocre writers who work hard at their craft and focus on promotion and finding great topics to cover.

So, if you aren’t a great writer, don’t worry about it to much. Focus on the things you can change and move forward. You can build a great blog presence quickly if you spend your time doing things that improve your site and not wasting time over things you have no control.

One thing that is pretty specific to the blogging industry, however, is the idea that a blog is a one man operation. For some reason, bloggers are very territorial over their blogs. I think this is because it sometimes takes blogs a long time to grow, and in many cases someone manages a blog while still working full-time somewhere else. In other words, blogging is a one man operation for a long time. However what bloggers need to realize is that if they’re good, a day will come when the blog is bigger than the owner.

Therefore, it is very important that a blogger understands when it’s time to ask for help. Most bloggers will admit they need help when they feel overwhelmed by reading guest articles and posting them onto the webpage, but the worry usually stops there. While this is a great reason to get some help with a blog, there are other reasons that need to be considered (and not continually ignored).

Top 3 Other Reasons You Need Blog Help

1. When some of your social media networks are being ignored.

Most bloggers are fluent in social media, so they don’t feel like they need the help of someone else. Connecting with readers and other bloggers is one of the best parts of blogging, so many don’t want to give it up. They may admit they need help because guest articles are piling up, but they simply won’t admit that they need help managing social media accounts. However, the truth is there are so many social media accounts available that it should be hard for one person to keep up! If you have an account on several sites and are finding that some of your accounts on those lesser known sites are being ignored, it’s time to ask for help. It’s never a good idea to have a static account on a social media network no matter how un-popular it may be. This will eventually give your blog a bad reputation.

2.    When there is a big moment coming up in your life.

Bloggers often have another job, so the workweek often exceeds the typical 40 hours. While this may work for a while, it simply won’t work as things begin to get more hectic. If you have a major event coming up in your life—having a baby, getting a new job, getting married and moving out—those 40+ hours per week will be extremely difficult. Although it may make sense to put your blog on hold for a short period of time, it’s important that the blog does continue strong overall if it’s making you money. Therefore, it may be a good idea to cut back on the work hours and hire someone to help keep your blog managed. If you try and do it yourself and find that the blog is slipping, you could lose readers forever.

3.    When you don’t have time to write articles for your own blog.

The point overlaps a bit with the “too many guest articles to read” point, but is important nonetheless. Many blogs that are entirely based on guest posts are successful, but it’s generally best to have a few regular writers and a few articles from the editor. This gives the blog something unique. A blog full of guest posts can seem very random, but a blog where you can get advice from a certain person time and time again keeps things consistent. Not only do readers like hearing from those in charge, but blog owners are typically happier when they get to share their voice.

How Do You Begin Finding Blog Help?

Bloggers often try and tell themselves they don’t need help because there is no one that understands the blog as well as they do. This is certainly true, but it doesn’t mean that someone can’t learn certain aspects of the blog such as what you expect out of a piece of content or what you expect out of social media. There are two different ways you can find someone to help with your blog:

• Consider asking one of your regular contributors. This is the ideal situation because you have seen his/her work and they have a good idea about the focus of your blog. You likely already have a strong relationship with this writer, and in most cases they would be happy to help.
• Put out an ad just as a traditional company would. You will likely get a lot of interested candidates, so you will be able to narrow down your favorites. Looking at resumes is important, but when it comes to blogging the best thing you can do is look at just that—a candidates blog. Check out how they manage their blog, their writing ability, and how active they are on social networks. Once you interview a few people, do a basic employee background check and you’ll have yourself a great helper.

The most important thing to remember is that you are still in charge. You built the blog from the ground up, so you should want the blog to continue to grow. Many blogs have continued to be successful because the owners enlisted the right help at the right time. In other words, if you find that you might need help with your blog, take it as a great sign that you created something and are moving it in the right direction.

Photo Credit: spiritwomen.blogspot.com, meetcoco.com, en.wikipedia.org

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to credit card processing. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including document software to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading business directory, Business.com.

I’m often asked how our readers should go about choosing which sites to submit guest posts to and the answer is actually quite simple. If you’re going to write you should write what you know about and target your own vertical/niche. So exactly how do you go about doing this? Here are some simple steps you can take to prepare for submissions and when investigating potential guest post destinations.

1. Understand the Vertical you Plan to Target

If you’ve just started a technology blog it wouldn’t hurt to understand exactly what type of technology you plan to target, for example if you plan to focus on advances in web hosting technology it would make more sense to target other web hosting reviews and web hosting technology blogs. If however you have started a gadget blog you will want to focus on gadget blogs and specifically you will want to target gadget blogs that focus on your same subjects (tablets, smartphones, Apple products, etc). The reasoning behind this thought process is simple, if links pointing back to your website come from hyper-focused blogs that match your own goals you’ll receive more authority when Google realizes those websites target the same keywords as your own blog. Before guest posting write 15-20 articles and then examine your keywords for each article, determine what your focus is early on and then target partnerships with sites that share your focus by conducting a quick Google search of your keywords and noting any sites that regularly appear for your search terms.

2. Look For Websites That Update Regularly

Google loves to crawl, then recrawl, then recrawl again any website that regularly updates its content. If you write a guest post on a blog that has daily posts there’s a good chance that as the site is crawled by Google daily your article will be spotted repeatedly and your links will send a Google bot your way for indexing. Regularly updates websites also tend to feature a more active userbase since visitors know they can find new content daily or in the least weekly. A more engaged userbase means they like your vertical and will be more likely to look for other sources of information such as your website.

Along the lines of regular updates it’s important to find sites that don’t simply aggregate news and other information but also provide well thought out original content. Not only does your content look better on these sites but search engines love original content and are more apt to reward your in-links because of it.

3. Look For Websites With Regular User Engagement

This step goes hand-in-hand with #2. If a site is updated regularly and the owners of that blog are engaging with their readers and receiving engagement back in return you have the opportunity to build your community off-site. For example let’s say you write a blog post on a new type of Cloud Hosting service, perhaps 10 people engage and ask you questions about your post, if you take the time to answer their questions and invite them to find more information on your own website about the topic you have just managed to merge community members from your guest post to your own website.  I have literally seen people build 99% of their community off-site and then develop that community on-site during the early stages of a websites development.

4. Size and Traffic of the Website.

A site with 10,000 posts means the owner has been updating the websites content frequently, this is a good sign that you won’t post a guest spot and then 10 days later the site is shut down. Remember the more links you have over time, especially in your vertical/niche the better your own search ranks will remain, consistency and growing link numbers are important. With that being said it doesn’t hurt to have a site with high traffic numbers. Always remember that the more people who see and share your guest post content the better chance other people have of finding your content. This goes hand-in-hand with search indexing as well. For example if your post is shown to 10,000 people and 50 of them share your content, that’s 50 more links for Google search bots to follow and index not only your guest post but also the links you placed in your article back to your own website.

I always leave size and traffic for last since little sites can often be more targeted. Just look at Mashable, that site use to be hyper-focused on Social Media but has grown to include gadget news and other off-subject topics.

When all is said and done it’s important that you feel comfortable with the sites you place your content on. Find sites that have an engaged community searching for the type of content you have built for your website or plan to build for your website. Remember to engage with users off-site and always look for websites with regularly updated content.

But difficult doesn’t translate into impossible, by any means. You don’t have to worry about competing in the beginning. Instead, what you have to be focused on is knowing how to generate a high traffic site by taking baby steps toward that end. That can be done in several key ways that are less complicated than you might think.

Accept That It Can Take a While

Time is the key ingredient to any blog’s success. You can’t just expect to put up a couple of posts and have everyone flock to see them. There is content to build, and there are connections to make, reblogs to receive andmarketing tactics to try. Even just leaving it there while you continue to add more content will work, but again, it all takes time.

Realistically, it will be a year or so until you start seeing real traffic, much less revenue from AdSense. The point of change will begin after a couple of months, where you notice more spam comments. This is actually a good sign, and soon you will see genuine visitors reading.

Communicate With Others in the Niche

Other blogs and forums are a truly indispensable resource when it comes to generating interest in your own site. The first thing you should do is start commenting regularly, both on well known and lesser known blogs. But make sure they are good comments related to the post, offering a perspective or comment worth reading – nothing spammy or copy/paste.

Before long you might be able to exchange guest posts with a few of them, which can give you a whole new pool for traffic. Not only will you get your name and content on their blog, but you will draw their readers onto your own by having another writer there providing occasional posts.

Forums will help you to build up a relationship with other members, and give you a platform for finding new readers.

Reduce Setbacks

You want to have a blog that is on a reliable host, through a paid domain and with a backup in case things go wrong. The best thing you can do is find a good, well known place to put your blog, put it on automatic payment and backup regularly.

If you want to make some of this easier, including reducing the risk of the site going down and getting fast backups, install WordPress. It was designed to take a lot of the hassle out.

Post Regularly and With Fresh Content

You don’t have to post every day, or even every weekday. But you should set at least three times a week to do regular, well written and thorough posts. If you can find the time, try to post smaller things in between to give you a good boost through the week. Having fresh content is the fastest way to get noticed.

If you don’t have the time to really write yourself, hire others to manage the blog for you. Freelancers are a dime a dozen, and most have very fair prices.

Post Some News, but Not All News

News posts are a great way to alert users to changes in the market, and possibly get onto Google News. This will really increase your traffic. But even mainstream media sites don’t post news all the time, so you have to find the correct balance between what is too much and what isn’t enough.

I would suggest setting aside two days a week for news posts, even more than one. If you want to do it more regularly, feel free. But make sure you also do regular blog posts that aren’t time sensitive or unlikely to lose popularity.

Remember that AdSense Funds Build

Don’t, for the love of all things holy, click on your own AdSense ads. Also, don’t ask others to click on them for you. This is a breach in the terms and conditions, and will earn you a lifelong ban from Google’s AdSense program. All for a very small amount of cash.

Believe it or not, AdSense works, but only over time. Within a year or so you should start seeing a check. But you have to wait, or you won’t end up with anything to show for it.

Conclusion

Running a successful financial blog is far from impossible. But it takes a little bit of time and work to get it going. Be patient, post regular and high quality content and network with other bloggers. You will notice things getting better and better by the month.

Sonia Tracy works as the content editor for PsPrint‘s blog and website. When she’s not working, she’s usually making nerdy “Star Wars” references or mastering her downward-facing dog pose in a yoga class.

Image credit: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Here are the highlights from this week’s job listings.

Web and Graphic Designer/Developer

If you like pretty things, and you have extensive web/graphic design experience, check out this job in West Hollywood. It’s for a high end florist which is looking for someone who can meet their standards.

Blogger/Content Writer

Here’s something for our UK-based readers. A new entertainment site is looking for contributing writers. If you follow the celebrity world, this job will be easy for you.

Freelance Marketing Copywriter

If you have excellent marketing copywriting skills, then WebToMed wants you! They are looking for a freelance copywriter who can deliver engaging content both for readers and search engines.

Online Editor

This job’s for those who have a background knowledge on the state of Ohio. Agriculture is the word. If you think this is you, then go for!

Freelance Editor for Memoirs

The president of AHNTECH is writing his personal memoirs and needs someone to polish it up for him. You also need to know the ins and outs of eBook publishing to get the job.

Once you have uploaded the programs plugin to your WordPress install you will find a screen explaining the different post update shortcodes that can be used by the program. As you’ll notice you have the option with each tweet to add such output as post titles, blog name, a short excerpt from your content, category information, date timestamps, the posts URL and even the post author name. These options are all great ways to brand your content in a unique fashion that isn’t your standard “Post Title – Link – Blog Name” format.

The first step of the setup process is to create a Twitter App for the program. The application will actually show you how to create that application so we will skip that step for now.

Once you have your Twitter username, consumer key, consumer secret, access token and access token secret options from your Twitter developer account you simply enter them in the provided space and click on the Connect button. This step will verify your account and give WP to Twitter access to post information from your blog posts on your behalf.

Once you have setup your Twitter application you can then choose when to Tweet posts. For example the first option allows you to choose “update when a post is published.” Below that checkbox you enter the shortcodes we talked about above. For example “#title# #url#” will post your tweet at “Title of Post – URL Link” which you can change through shortcodes. You can even add words before those codes such as “New Post - #title# #url#”

I mention added words because the new option is to send a tweet when a post has been updated, in this case you might have all edited posts go out as “Updated Post - #title# #url#”

Users can also choose to tweet out new pages or updated pages, this is especially good if you run a website with a strong privacy or copyright page and you want users to be aware of changes. For example perhaps you want a group of writers to see your privacy policy update on a page.

You can also set tweets for comments and links however those options can quickly crowd your Twitter accounts timeline.

One of my favorite parts of Wp to Twitter is the ability to choose which shortcodes I use. The system had direct support for Su.Pr (StumbleUpon) and Bit.ly shortening services along with the YOURLS Service.

To use all three services just sign up for an account at your service of choice and enter in the desired information, it’s that simple. Once installed whenever you use the #url# tag as part of your chosen output you will receive that shortened URL using your service of choice.

Of course if you don’t use one of those options Twitter will shorten the URL using the Twitter URL shortening service.

The next section is for Advanced Tweet output. One of my favorite parts of the WP to Twitter plugin is the ability to set Hashtags from tags. For example my tag could be “Facebook” at which point my Twitter message would read “Title – URL #Facebook” If you run a blog that is focused on very specific topics you can even create your own tags on your posts that match targeted hashtags you have created.

You can even choose how many tags to include in case you use 3 or 4 tags instead of one. The advanced settings also allows you to choose a Twitter date format and even choose wording to put before ALL tweets if you don’t want to specific that information in the basic settings on a per tweet basis (which I don’t see the point in doing personally).

Not pictured in the screenshot above is the “Author” tag, this allows you to use the #Author# code to make reference to a specific author in a tweet. For example my Twitter name is @TechObsessed and if I specific that name in my user account via WordPress my Tweets could read “Title – URL #Facebook @Techobsessed.”

If you want to build branding for your authors the author tag is a great way to accomplish that goal.

Overall I find WP to Twitter to be the most customize and user friendly option available in the WordPress repository, give it a try today and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

Whether or not you find this to be true, websites with a higher PR tend to be on the first few pages of a Google search engine page. According to an Optify study, the top three spots on a Google search engine page receive 58.4 percent of all clicks from users. This therefore means that these webpages get the most visibility, so it makes sense to want to guest post on one of these websites. After all, you’re likely guest posting on a blog because you want to improve the visibility of your own blog. This is why guest posting is so important.

Although guest posting on a website with a high PR is your best option, this can sometimes be difficult for a variety of reasons:

• Sites with a high PR are usually very selective (obviously), so you may not have enough sample articles for the website to see; thus causing them to turn you down until you get more experience.
• Websites with a high PR are often very specialized, so this will limit the number of websites available when searching for a blog with a high PR.
• Not all blogs with a high PR allow guest posts. Many are large enough that they are able to hire a staff of writers.

This brings up the issue of guest posting on sites with a low Google PR. Although they are not as preferable as more popular sites, their certainly seems to be an abundance of them. Lower PR sites will generally give a writer more freedom and the chance to gain some experience. For this reason, it is important that guest bloggers don’t write off a site with a low PR before giving it a chance.

How to Spot a Good Bad Blog Before Guest Posting

Blogs with a low PR are not necessarily bad; they just haven’t been recognized for how great they are. Posting on a less popular blog could potentially have a big payoff. If the blog grows, then your articles will soon be extremely visible. You will nab that spot you want without all the formalities and strict rules most popular blogs have for their guest writers. In addition, low PR sites are often thrilled to have a guest post. For this reason, they will likely link back to your website more often than a very large, popular website.

However, posting on a low PR site can seem like a waste of time if it is going nowhere. For this reason, it is important to look for certain qualities in a blog. You want to make sure the blog has potential before you give them your brilliant article.

1. Maintenance : You want to make sure that the blog is maintained. In other words, a blog that is just sitting on the Internet is likely to remain stagnant. You can usually tell if a blog is maintained by looking at the dates of the posts. If there isn’t a consistent stream of articles, whether they be guest articles or articles the owner wrote, then the blog is probably not properly maintained.

2. Content : A quality blog will have unique content. If you find a blog with a low PR that looks nice, make sure the content is original. A blog that simple syndicates a bunch of already existed content isn’t likely to move up in the rankings any time soon. You can usually check this by copying and pasting the title or a snippet of the article into Google. If the article was originally published somewhere else, the original source will likely come up. However, be careful to really look at the site before making a judgment. There is a chance that the site that shows up in Google is actually the copier!

3. Focus : All blogs should have a clear focus. If not, readers will not be interested and that blog will likely have a long way to go before they grow. In general, a blog with potential will have an “about” tab that explains the focus on the blog. In some cases, the focus is clear, but the content doesn’t match. For example, if you see a blog that says it offer tips on the latest and greatest communication devices, you don’t want to see an article about and old dial up phone you want to see an article about voip phone systems or web conferencing software.

4. Navigation : A blog that is hard to navigate has a long way to go before their PR will improve. Although Google doesn’t focus on navigation (or focus) when ranking websites, they do count how many sites link back to a particular site. If this blog is difficult to navigate with no search bar, lots of disorganized pages, no breadcrumbs, etc. then no one will want to read the blog. They will get frustrated and likely never come back.

If you find a blog that has a few of these warning signs, it still has the potential to grow; however it will take much longer. There is no sense on guest posting on a site unless you see it going somewhere, and this usually happens when a site has a nice layout, engaging content, clear focus, and easy navigation.

The bottom line is this: Guest posting on a site with a low PR is not a waste of time. As long as the blog has potential and allows you to put your link on their page, you will benefit!

Photo Credit: googlerankings.com, techmehigh.com, bleuforetenglishblog.blogspot.com, sonicseo.com,

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from guest blogging tips to telemarketing. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including document software to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading business directory, Business.com.