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Get Paid for Sharing Ads on Your Social Networks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:02:00 +0000

Quick Pitch: Earn money to share ads with your social network

Genius Idea: Wingsplay gives average people incentive to share ads with their social networks to drive product or service engagement and increase buzz.

Advertisers are sneaking into your Twitter and Facebook feeds — with help from your social media connections.

Wingsplay, a startup that launched last month, pays its users to share video ads on their social networks. The distribution model is key; it relies heavily on connected social networks. The founder, Olivier Lasry, says the best way for online advertisements to resonate with people is if a link has been recommended by a friend or social media connection.

Even though you may not Like or follow advertisers, ads could trickle into your feeds via a friend who is trying to make a quick buck or just likes to watch funny ads. Users can earn money by sharing up to four video ads per week. Users are paid by cost per view. The service is not meant to be used to spam social media, but more to drive conversations.

"The Web made it almost impossible to reach people with boring ads," Lasry said. "People don’t care about advertisers who interrupt them. But the opportunity is huge for remarkable video ads, which people actually want to watch and share.”

For example, Major League Soccer is promoting the April 14 Philadelphia v. Columbus soccer match on Wingsplay. After sharing the video, Wingsplay users are paid 21 cents each time someone from their social network clicks on the user's link and watches the MLS video featuring David Beckham.

But the financial incentive isn't enough for a person to share an ad. Lasry says users actually like the ads they choose to share.

"26% of our influencers shared the first videos we distributed on Wingsplay, which shows that influencers only share videos they like, and that the monetary incentive is only part of the experience," Lasry said.

Oxygen and NBC were the first big names to promote ads through Wingsplay in an effort to target a larger social media audience. The week before the new shows aired on NBC and Oxygen, both networks promote their new series through Wingsplay. Users shared a video trailer ad for the new ABC show "Awake," which premiered March 1 and Oxygen's March 26 premiere of "Brooklyn 11223."

Lasry said the site, which is still in beta, has started with trailers as a test. Moving forward, he wants the ads to be funny, gripping, cause-related or clever.

"[Trailers] might not be the best fit for our distribution model, but there are many of them and they give us a sense of the minimum performance that can be expected from our network," he said. "Given the results of our first campaigns, we expect funny ads to deliver an Earned:Paid ratio around 6, which is unheard of in the industry."

Lasry, who is originally from France, was inspired to start Wingsplay after seeing his friends share ads on their social networks. He figure if people are already sharing ads on Facebook, why not introduce advertisements through the consumer first? From there, real people can start coversations about the ads they're interested in.

Unlike celebrity brand ambassadors, the average social media user talks with friends on a personal level about the content he or she is sharing. People or more likely to enjoy the same things their friends like, Lasry said. So far, Wingsplay users are posting to Facebook most — 84% of all Wingsplay shares have been distributed on Facebook.

What do you think of advertising encroaching on your social networks? Does advertising make social media better or worse? Will you sign up for Wingsplay? Tell us in the comments.

Surf anonymously without proxy with OperaTor

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:37:00 +0000

Many of you don’t give a damn about security and privacy when its related to Internet stuff. The reasons behind this thinking varies from being ignorant of the consequences to some personal choices or laziness. But for many of you including me , security and privacy matters a lot when its online and easily accessible to anyone geeky enough.

So why anyone like me want to surf anonymously? The reasons include protecting personal data, to hide browsing activities from others, protecting your sensitive personal and business data,when you don’t want to leave traces of what you did surfing and many more.

There are many ways to do it like using a proxy server, hiding IP , tunneling software, clearing cache and cookies and few more methods. I will talk about something different here.

OperaTor is a portable version of Opera browser powered jointly byOpera Browser, Tor and Polipo which lets you surf anonymously.

You can just save it in your portable device and plug it in the computer you need to surf when. Just run it and start surfing anonymously. None of your data will be stored anywhere.

The setup is just 7 MB in size. Just a note here. Its only for Windows operating systems and not others. Also, as per its website:

The only protocols which OperaTor anonymizes are HTTP and HTTPS, thus if you want to stay anonymous you should avoid using other Opera features (e.g. Java, JavaScript, Bittorrent, integrated e-mail and IRC clients).

It doesn’t take much memory to run and the fastest browser as its based on Opera. Download it here from two sources.

OperaTor 3.3 – PBwiki
OperaTor 3.3 – My Opera

How To Get A Free Payoneer MasterCard Debit Card PreLoaded with Free $25!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:44:00 +0000

How to get a Free Payoneer Debit Card?
Before we get started, it is good we know what is payoneer and how it can help every bloggers and anyone who are looking for a free way to get international debit card.

(Photo Credit:: Payoneer)

According to wikipedia Payoneer is an Internet-based financial services business that allows users to transfer money and receive payments through re-loadable prepaid MasterCard® debit cards.

The Benefit of Having a Payoneer MasterCard®
There are lots of benefit of having a Payoneer debit card, but am going to list a few here.

1. Most top freelancing and affiliate websites have payoneer as their payment options, this companies are Freelancer, Elance, Fiverr, infolinks, Reviewme, Clickbank, CJ, plimus, ShareAsell, oDesk and Amazon. Etc. You can withdraw your earnings flawlessly without any problem and then withdraw your cash at any ATM Machine that has the MasterCard® Logo.

2. With your Payoneer Debit Card, you can also withdraw your money from 2checkout and Moneybooker. You can also withdraw your money from Amazon affiliate program!

3. You can use the Payoneer debit card to buy stuffs online and in any local supermarket, you can use it to pay for any service where MasterCard® is accepted.

4. You can withdraw from your Paypal account to your payoneer debit card, (we will be writing full post on how to achieve this in our next post).

5. You can earn money online into your payoneer debit card by joining programs that have the payoneer payment option.

6. How to Receive payment from your friends, family abroad, payoneer has made it possible to receive or send money to your debit card from anywhere in the world. You can ask your family to fund your account directly without going through the stress of bank.

7. Payoneer has one of the best customer service worldwide! You get reply to any questions or queries you might have. And if you have any problem with their service, one of their worker will get in touch with you instantly, all you need to do is to contact them.

How To Get Payoneer Debit Card Free?

Some payoneer partners will required you to pay before getting your card, but by signing up directly with payoneer, you will get the card free and also you get an instant $25 deposited into your account when you have transact load upto $100 in your account. So click on the link below to get your payoneer debit card free!
CLICK HERE TO GET PAYONEER DEBIT CARD FREE

Recurring Fees of Using Payoneer Debit Card
Most people failed to outline clearly the fees it takes to operate a payoneer account. From every withdrawal you made using ATM, you are bill $2.15, see the full spec below. (The below is taken directly from payoneer website)

Loading Fees for Payoneer.
You can load a Payoneer Prepaid MasterCard with a credit or debit card.
Transfer from a checking or savings account
1.00%
1.00%
4-7 business days
Visa
3.75% of loaded amount
3.75% of loaded amount
up to 2 business days
MasterCard
3.75% of loaded amount
3.75% of loaded amount
up to 2 business days

Some useful information about price and fees for payoneer debit card user.
* Card loading charge $3 (within 2 business days) & $5 for immediate load. (for odesk $2 urgent and $0 for regular load) other website may vary with there condition.
* Transaction charge $2.75 (included vat)/per transaction. (for ATM charge per transaction)
* Monthly maintain charge $3/month.
* Card to card transfer charge $0.50 only. some card are not supported to balance transfer.
* Minimum balance transfer amount $20 and high amount$1000.
* You can withdraw 3 time in a days mean 3 transaction is available every 24 hours.
* Card replace charge $9.95 (generally) may be different by place/country.
* Card validity 1 years some time are 2 years.
What to do if you lost your payoneer debit card?
All you need to do is contact payoneer and your card will be replace immediately and the fee is $9.95

On how next post, we will write more on how to withdraw from your paypal account to your payoneer debit card, and then, we are going to lists the legit websites that you can join and earn money online free

Can i withdraw money from payza/alertpay to Payoneer?
Currently, Payoneer does not support withdrawing money from Alertpay/payza to your payoneer debit card. Please ignore any other claim that says this is possible.

If there is any error on this post, please let me know and i will correct it asap.

Have you register for your payoneer account yet?
CLICK HERE TO GET PAYONEER DEBIT CARD FREE

.

(Photo Credit:: Payoneer)
What are the Requirement for Verifying my Payoneer debit card?
Before you are issued a payoneer debit card, you will first provide valid information about yourself. They include.
* Your Name
* Identity Card, (Driver’s licence, International card, Voter’s card, National ID Card or any other original legit identity card)

After submitting your details, Payoneer will confirm the authenticity of your documents and then ship your card to you. (it might take up to 14 days to 2months to receive your card)
Also you have the option of using DHL to receive your payoneer card, and it will take less than 5 days! Though this service is not free.

CLICK HERE TO GET PAYONEER DEBIT CARD FREE

Make Money With Payoneer Debit Card Free

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:40:00 +0000

Make Money Online with Your Payoneer Debit Card
I was looking at the many search term and noticed much people are looking for ways to make money online with payoneer debit card, since most countries are not allowed to use paypal, so here i will be discussing in a series, one of the many ways one can easily earn money through payoneer debit card.

This method required that you have a website or blog before you start earning, what you need to start is just a blog with good traffic and alexa rank. You will get accepted and start making fast money to your payoneer debit card account, or if you are still looking for a better free way to get your payoneer debit card then use this link Make Money with Paid to review and Payoneer debit Card register there with any website, from there you will click on how to get paid with them, then select payoneer, you will be redirected to payoneer website there you will complete your registration and then wait for your card to get approved, after that, you can get it shipped to your address in less than 40 days depending where you are.

Do you have a blog? Or a website? Then start earning money with your website and get paid to payoneer debit card, for those who don’t have a high traffic website, i will share with you another money making website that accept any blog on blogger or wordpress as long as you have unique content on your site.

Make Money with Paid to review and Payoneer debit Card using that link will guarantee your acceptance quickly to get start earning with your website and also getting a free payoneer debit card without selling.
keep in touch as i will be updating this post or write a new post on the other different methods of earning with payoneer debit card, and what will follow next will blow your mind off!
I will be posting a very interesting website where you will get paid to write and you receive your money straight to your paypal account or Payoneer debit card account.
Start making money online!
Lets meet on Top!.

Update: I failed to make it clear here that with this website you can get your payoneer debit card free without selling or promoting any affiliate programs, most others partners you need to sell one of their products before your payoneer card will activated, so register and get your free payoneer debit card —> Make Money with Paid to review and Payoneer debit Card.

UPDATE:: GET Payoneer Prepaid Debit MasterCard Free+ $25 For Free
Now this is the best deal you will ever have, you will sign up with Payoneer directly from the link below and get free $25 credited to Your payoneer debit card which you can withdraw from any ATM machine that has MasterCard Logo or you can use it to shop online.
Note. To be eligible for the Payoneer $ 25 For Free loaded to your card. You MUST register with the link provided below, Get Free Payoneer Debit Card or you can register directly from this Link

To Make Money Online, you need to have means of how to withdraw your earnings. Payoneer is one of the best way to withdraw your cash. You can even use your local bank to load money into your payoneer debit card.

Upload Your Photos Online & earn money

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:33:00 +0000

There are different ways to make money online from the internet that even though you are a newbie, you can still earn enough money to buy your domain and start your first website.

I want to share with you Verified Affiliate programmes that pay you to upload your photos/pictures.
You must have heard pay per upload and this time you can earn by uploading your Photos.

Before joining any of the programs, you are advice to read the terms and conditions so you don’t waste your time.
You can earn up to $4 per 1000 unique views.

Are you passionate about taking pictures of God’s beautiful creatures? Are you a professional photographer or you are just a beginner in the industry? Whatever the case maybe, you are welcome to upload your photos and get paid!!

Lists of Websites that Pay you to Upload Photos

1. Site here pay up to $3.50/1000 unique views
2. Site here pay up to $4.00/1000 unique views
3. Site here pay up to $2.60/1000 unique views
4. Site here pay up to $3.50/1000 unique views.
5. Site here pay up to $3.00/1000 unique views.

6. Site here
this is a new sister company of imgmoney, it has not been tested yet, but i know for such you will get paid from it as imgmoney is a legit site that has been paying for years now.

You can easily make money online uploading your photos to this websites and get paid for it.

How to choose a good ad network?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:00:00 +0000

This is a basic check list for any publisher to find an ad network that is suitable and profitable for your website.

Niche vs Generic

If your blog and website has a strong focus in a particular field and your visitors generally share the same interests, then a Vertical ad network is what you should look for. This type of ad network serves a signature niche and targets a relevant and specific demographic, connecting advertisers and publishers that share the same interests or belong to the same industry. This is a very effective platform to reach the right target audience. Some examples include The Deck, Federated Media.

Horizontal ad network is the kind of network that dwells in all categories. Its inventory is extensive and generic. Horizontals offer a massive reach for advertisers and publishers. Some examples include ValueClick, AOL Advertising.

Compensations

One important factor when joining an ad network is to know how you will be paid. How effective are they selling your ad space, at what rate, and how much of that will actually reach you? These are the 3 most common ways your ad displays will be compensated:

1. CPM

Cost per Thousand Impressions ad networks pay publishers for every 1000 impressions, or ad views. This is a great choice for websites and blogs with high traffic since the large number of visitors equals more revenue. This also allows you to predict your advertising revenue monthly based on your website traffic. The downside of CPM networks is that they can be difficult to join with minimum impression requirement, or they offer CPMs that are too low to turn into a significant source of advertising revenue. For publishers, CPM is one of the best ways to monetize because the greater your site traffic is, the more revenue you can earn. Some CPM networks include CasaleMedia, TribalFusion, ValueClick.

2. CPA

Cost per Action (Acquisition) programs reward publishers only when visitors purchase the product or service from the advertiser after visiting your website. These advertisements award high payouts. However, your earnings depend entirely on the visitors' purchase and the effectiveness of the ad copy. If they do not buy any product, you do not earn any revenue. Typically, CPA is more effective if the website has high traffic and a particular focus that compliments with the products being advertised. For example, if your site is about movie reviews, a ticket-seller program will perform a lot better than an art-and-craft website. If the theme of your website does not compliment the ads, it will be hard to earn from the CPA model. Some networks include CommissionJunction, LinkShare.

3. CPC

Cost per Click advertisement is easier to monetize than the CPA model since it rewards publishers for each click. The upside is that CPC has the potential to turn small levels of traffic into revenue, and these ad blocks are easy to set up. The downside is that revenue can be inconsistent since it depends on the customers' choice and interest to click. Ad placement location, niche, and visual appeal are some of the factors that can enhance the effectiveness of CPC ads. Examples include Google AdSense, Yahoo for Publisher.

Business model of ad network

All these CPC, CPA, CPM rates do not mean you earn 100% of the money. Ad networks get a significant commission from your earnings and have control over your paid inventory. If the network can only accommodate 50% of your total inventory, you would need to fill 50% of it with something else or risk losing money to the default public-service ads served by the network.

The effective CPM is a good way to measure your actual earning. For example: Your ad network is selling $10 CPMs and you have 10,000 page views, each page has one ad. Your potential revenue is $100. Let's assume that they are selling half of the inventory on your site, meaning 5,000 of your pages have ads and the rest do not. That means maximum revenue is $50. Assuming there's a 5% ($2.5) admin fee for the ad network, total revenue is down to $47.5. If the revenue split is 50/50, your ad network keeps $23.75 and you get $23.75. Thus, your net effective CPM is $2.37, or $2.37 for every 1000 impressions.

Reliability and Credibility

Ad network commissions can be significant, that is why it is important that you select one carefully. As with all business, you only want to partner with credible companies. You should take into consideration the company history by asking questions such as how long they have been in the business, how often they pay, or if they have a history of withholding payment. More research at the beginning will save you time and effort in the long run.

Control over your ads

You only want ads that can generate revenue and attract visitors. If you have a specific demographic that will not tolerate certain images and topics, then you should take into consider how much control you have over the ads. Is it possible to turn off undesirable ads such as gambling services, adult services, or ads from your competitors?

Integration with your ad server

After you have narrowed down the number of prospective ad networks, you should also consider their compatibility with your ad server. Some ad server will not accept third-party networks or limit the number or type of ad networks to serve. AdSpeed Ad Server does not believe in these restrictions. We believe the publisher is the one who determines what is best for his/her business and website. We serve ads from all legal ad networks and advertisers. Research and choose the right ad server that can maximize your earning from multiple ad networks and also from your directly-sold ad inventory.

Top 10 Way to MAKE WEBSITE TRAFFIC and BLOG TRAFFIC

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:42:00 +0000

It's easy to build a blog, but hard to build a successful blog with significant traffic. Over the years, we've grown the Moz blog to nearly a million visits each month and helped lots of other blogs, too. I launched a personal blog late last year and was amazed to see how quickly it gained thousands of visits to each post. There's an art to increasing a blog's traffic, and given that we seem to have stumbled on some of that knowledge, I felt it compulsory to give back by sharing what we've observed.

NOTE: This post replaces a popular one I wrote on the same topic in 2009. This post is intended to be useful to all forms of bloggers - independent folks, those seeking to monetize, and marketing professionals working an in-house blog from tiny startups to huge companies. Not all of the tactics will work for everyone, but at least some of these should be applicable and useful.

#1 - Target Your Content to an Audience Likely to Share

When strategizing about who you're writing for, consider that audience's ability to help spread the word. Some readers will naturally be more or less active in evangelizing the work you do, but particular communities, topics, writing styles and content types regularly play better than others on the web. For example, great infographics that strike a chord , beautiful videos that tell a story and remarkable collections of facts that challenge common assumptions are all targeted at audiences likely to share (geeks with facial hair, those interested in weight loss and those with political thoughts about macroeconomics respectively).

If you can identify groups that have high concentrations of the blue and orange circles in the diagram above, you dramatically improve the chances of reaching larger audiences and growing your traffic numbers. Targeting blog content at less-share-likely groups may not be a terrible decision (particularly if that's where you passion or your target audience lies), but it will decrease the propensity for your blog's work to spread like wildfire across the web.

#2 - Participate in the Communities Where Your Audience Already Gathers

Advertisers on Madison Avenue have spent billions researching and determining where consumers with various characteristics gather and what they spend their time doing so they can better target their messages. They do it because reaching a group of 65+ year old women with commercials for extreme sports equipment is known to be a waste of money, while reaching an 18-30 year old male demographic that attends rock-climbing gyms is likely to have a much higher ROI.

Thankfully, you don't need to spend a dime to figure out where a large portion of your audience can be found on the web. In fact, you probably already know a few blogs, forums, websites and social media communities where discussions and content are being posted on your topic (and if you don't a Google search will take you much of the way). From that list, you can do some easy expansion using a web-based tool like Double Click's Ad Planner:

Once you've determined the communities where your soon-to-be-readers gather, you can start participating. Create an account, read what others have written and don't jump in the conversation until you've got a good feel for what's appropriate and what's not. I've written a post here about rules for comment marketing, and all of them apply. Be a good web citizen and you'll be rewarded with traffic, trust and fans. Link-drop, spam or troll and you'll get a quick boot, or worse, a reputation as a blogger no one wants to associate with.

#3 - Make Your Blog's Content SEO-Friendly

Search engines are a massive opportunity for traffic, yet many bloggers ignore this channel for a variety of reasons that usually have more to do with fear and misunderstanding than true problems. As I've written before, "SEO, when done right, should never interfere with great writing." In 2011, Google received over 3 billion daily searches from around the world, and that number is only growing:

sources: Comscore + Google

Taking advantage of this massive traffic opportunity is of tremendous value to bloggers, who often find that much of the business side of blogging, from inquiries for advertising to guest posting opportunities to press and discovery by major media entities comes via search.

SEO for blogs is both simple and easy to set up, particularly if you're using an SEO-friendly platform like Wordpress, Drupal or Joomla. For more information on how to execute on great SEO for blogs,

Don't let bad press or poor experiences with spammers (spam is not SEO) taint the amazing power and valuable contributions SEO can make to your blog's traffic and overall success. 20% of the effort and tactics to make your content optimized for search engines will yield 80% of the value possible; embrace it and thousands of visitors seeking exactly what you've posted will be the reward.

#4 - Use Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to Share Your Posts & Find New Connections

Twitter just topped 465 million registered accounts. Facebook has over 850 million active users. Google+ has nearly 100 million. LinkedIn is over 130 million. Together, these networks are attracting vast amounts of time and interest from Internet users around the world, and those that participate on these services fit into the "content distributors" description above, meaning they're likely to help spread the word about your blog.

Leveraging these networks to attract traffic requires patience, study, attention to changes by the social sites and consideration in what content to share and how to do it. My advice is to use the following process:

If you haven't already, register a personal account and a brand account at each of the following - Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn (those links will take you directly to the registration pages for brand pages). For example, my friend Dharmesh has a personal account for Twitter and a brand account for OnStartups (one of his blog projects). He also maintains brand pages on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.
Fill out each of those profiles to the fullest possible extent - use photos, write compelling descriptions and make each one as useful and credible as possible. Research shows that profiles with more information have a significant correlation with more successful accounts (and there's a lot of common sense here, too, given that spammy profiles frequently feature little to no profile work).
Connect with users on those sites with whom you already share a personal or professional relationships, and start following industry luminaries, influencers and connectors. Services like FollowerWonk and FindPeopleonPlus can be incredible for this:

Start sharing content - your own blog posts, those of peers in your industry who've impressed you and anything that you feel has a chance to go "viral" and earn sharing from others.
Interact with the community - use hash tags, searches and those you follow to find interesting conversations and content and jump in! Social networks are amazing environment for building a brand, familiarizing yourself with a topic and the people around it, and earning the trust of others through high quality, authentic participation and sharing

If you consistently employ a strategy of participation, share great stuff and make a positive, memorable impression on those who see your interactions on these sites, your followers and fans will grow and your ability to drive traffic back to your blog by sharing content will be tremendous. For many bloggers, social media is the single largest source of traffic, particularly in the early months after launch, when SEO is a less consistent driver.

#5 - Install Analytics and Pay Attention to the Results

At the very least, I'd recommend most bloggers install Google Analytics (which is free), and watch to see where visits originate, which sources drive quality traffic and what others might be saying about you and your content when they link over. If you want to get more advanced, check out this post on 18 Steps to Successful Metrics and Marketing.

Here's a screenshot from the analytics of my wife's travel blog, the Everywhereist:

As you can see, there's all sorts of great insights to be gleaned by looking at where visits originate, analyzing how they were earned and trying to repeat the successes, focus on the high quality and high traffic sources and put less effort into marketing paths that may not be effective. In this example, it's pretty clear that Facebook and Twitter are both excellent channels. StumbleUpon sends a lot of traffic, but they don't stay very long (averaging only 36 seconds vs. the general average of 4 minutes!).

Employing analytics is critical to knowing where you're succeeding, and where you have more opportunity. Don't ignore it, or you'll be doomed to never learn from mistakes or execute on potential.

#6 - Add Graphics, Photos and Illustrations (with link-back licensing)

If you're someone who can produce graphics, take photos, illustrate or even just create funny doodles in MS Paint, you should leverage that talent on your blog. By uploading and hosting images (or using a third-party service like Flickr to embed your images with licensing requirements on that site), you create another traffic source for yourself via Image Search, and often massively improve the engagement and enjoyment of your visitors.

When using images, I highly recommend creating a way for others to use them on their own sites legally and with permission, but in such a way that benefits you as the content creator. For example, you could have a consistent notice under your images indicating that re-using is fine, but that those who do should link back to this post. You can also post that as a sidebar link, include it in your terms of use, or note it however you think will get the most adoption.

Some people will use your images without linking back, which sucks. However, you can find them by employing the Image Search function of "similar images," shown below:

Clicking the "similar" link on any given image will show you other images that Google thinks look alike, which can often uncover new sources of traffic. Just reach out and ask if you can get a link, nicely. Much of the time, you'll not only get your link, but make a valuable contact or new friend, too!

#7 - Conduct Keyword Research While Writing Your Posts

Not surprisingly, a big part of showing up in search engines is targeting the terms and phrases your audience are actually typing into a search engine. It's hard to know what these words will be unless you do some research, and luckily, there's a free tool from Google to help called the AdWords Keyword Tool.

Type some words at the top, hit search and AdWords will show you phrases that match the intent and/or terms you've employed. There's lots to play around with here, but watch out in particular for the "match types" options I've highlighted below:

When you choose "exact match" Ad-words will show you only the quantity of searches estimated for that precise phrase. If you use broad match, they'll include any search phrases that use related/similar words in a pattern they think could have overlap with your keyword intent (which can get pretty darn broad). "Phrase match" will give you only those phrases that include the word or words in your search - still fairly wide-ranging, but between "exact" and "broad."

When you're writing a blog post, keyword research is best utilized for the title and headline of the post. For example, if I wanted to write a post here on Moz about how to generate good ideas for bloggers, I might craft something that uses the phrase "blog post ideas" or "blogging ideas" near the front of my title and headline, as in "Blog Post Ideas for When You're Truly Stuck," or "Blogging Ideas that Will Help You Clear Writer's Block."

Optimizing a post to target a specific keyword isn't nearly as hard as it sounds. 80% of the value comes from merely using the phrase effectively in the title of the blog post, and writing high quality content about the subject. If you're interested in more, read Perfecting Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization (a slightly older resource, but just as relevant today as when it was written).

#8 - Frequently Reference Your Own Posts and Those of Others

The web was not made for static, text-only content! Readers appreciate links, as do other bloggers, site owners and even search engines. When you reference your own material in-context and in a way that's not manipulative (watch out for over-optimizing by linking to a category, post or page every time a phrase is used - this is almost certainly discounted by search engines and looks terrible to those who want to read your posts), you potentially draw visitors to your other content AND give search engines a nice signal about those previous posts.

Perhaps even more valuable is referencing the content of others. The biblical expression "give and ye shall receive," perfectly applies on the web. Other site owners will often receive Google Alerts or look through their incoming referrers (as I showed above in tip #5) to see who's talking about them and what they're saying. Linking out is a direct line to earning links, social mentions, friendly emails and new relationships with those you reference. In its early days, this tactic was one of the best ways we earned recognition and traffic with the SEOmoz blog and the power continues to this day.

#9 - Participate in Social Sharing Communities Like Reddit + StumbleUpon

The major social networking sites aren't alone in their power to send traffic to a blog. Social community sites like Reddit (which now receives more than 2 billion! with a "B"! views each month), StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Tumblr, Care2 (for nonprofits and causes), GoodReads (books), Ravelry (knitting), Newsvine (news/politics) and many, many more (Wikipedia maintains a decent, though not comprehensive list here).

Each of these sites have different rules, formats and ways of participating and sharing content. As with participation in blog or forum communities described above in tactic #2, you need to add value to these communities to see value back. Simply drive-by spamming or leaving your link won't get you very far, and could even cause a backlash. Instead, learn the ropes, engage authentically and you'll find that fans, links and traffic can develop.

These communities are also excellent sources of inspiration for posts on your blog. By observing what performs well and earns recognition, you can tailor your content to meet those guidelines and reap the rewards in visits and awareness. My top recommendation for most bloggers is to at least check whether there's an appropriate subreddit in which you should be participating. Subreddits and their search function can help with that.

#10 - Guest Blog (and Accept the Guest Posts of Others)

When you're first starting out, it can be tough to convince other bloggers to allow you to post on their sites OR have an audience large enough to inspire others to want to contribute to your site. This is when friends and professional connections are critical. When you don't have a compelling marketing message, leverage your relationships - find the folks who know you, like you and trust you and ask those who have blog to let you take a shot at authoring something, then ask them to return the favor.

Guest blogging is a fantastic way to spread your brand to new folks who've never seen your work before, and it can be useful in earning early links and references back to your site, which will drive direct traffic and help your search rankings (diverse, external links are a key part of how search engines rank sites and pages). Several recommendations for those who engage in guest blogging:

Find sites that have a relevant audience - it sucks to pour your time into writing a post, only to see it fizzle because the readers weren't interested. Spend a bit more time researching the posts that succeed on your target site, the makeup of the audience, what types of comments they leave and you'll earn a much higher return with each post.
Don't be discouraged if you ask and get a "no" or a "no response." As your profile grows in your niche, you'll have more opportunities, requests and an easier time getting a "yes," so don't take early rejections too hard and watch out - in many marketing practices, persistence pays, but pestering a blogger to write for them is not one of these (and may get your email address permanently banned from their inbox).
When pitching your guest post make it as easy as possible for the other party. When requesting to post, have a phenomenal piece of writing all set to publish that's never been shared before and give them the ability to read it. These requests get far more "yes" replies than asking for the chance to write with no evidence of what you'll contribute. At the very least, make an outline and write a title + snippet.
Likewise, when requesting a contribution, especially from someone with a significant industry profile, asking for a very specific piece of writing is much easier than getting them to write an entire piece from scratch of their own design. You should also present statistics that highlight the value of posting on your site - traffic data, social followers, RSS subscribers, etc. can all be very persuasive to a skeptical writer.

A great tool for frequent guest bloggers is Ann Smarty's MyBlogGuest, which offers the ability to connect writers with those seeking guest contributions (and the reverse).

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ are also great places to find guest blogging opportunities. In particular, check out the profiles of those you're connected with to see if they run blogs of their own that might be a good fit. Google's Blog Search function and Google Reader's Search are also solid tools for discovery.

#11 - Incorporate Great Design Into Your Site

The power of beautiful, usable, professional design can't be overstated. When readers look at a blog, the first thing they judge is how it "feels" from a design and UX perspective. Sites that use default templates or have horrifying, 1990's design will receive less trust, a lower time-on-page, fewer pages per visit and a lower likelihood of being shared. Those that feature stunning design that clearly indicates quality work will experience the reverse - and reap amazing benefits.

These threads - 1, 2, 3 and 4 - feature some remarkable blog designs for inspiration

If you're looking for a designer to help upgrade the quality of your blog, there's a few resources I recommend:

Dribbble - great for finding high quality professional designers
Forrst - another excellent design profile community
Behance - featuring galleries from a wide range of visual professionals
Sortfolio - an awesome tool to ID designers by region, skill and budget
99 Designs - a controversial site that provides designs on spec via contests (I have mixed feelings on this one, but many people find it useful, particularly for budget-conscious projects)

This is one area where budgeting a couple thousand dollars (if you can afford it) or even a few hundred (if you're low on cash) can make a big difference in the traffic, sharing and viral-impact of every post you write.

#12 - Interact on Other Blogs' Comments

As bloggers, we see a lot of comments. Many are spam, only a few add real value, and even fewer are truly fascinating and remarkable. If you can be in this final category consistently, in ways that make a blogger sit up and think "man, I wish that person commented here more often!" you can achieve great things for your own site's visibility through participation in the comments of other blogs.

Combine the tools presented in #10 (particularly Google Reader/Blog Search) and #4 (especially FollowerWonk) for discovery. The feed subscriber counts in Google Reader can be particularly helpful for identifying good blogs for participation. Then apply the principles covered in this post on comment marketing.

Do be conscious of the name you use when commenting and the URL(s) you point back to. Consistency matters, particularly on naming, and linking to internal pages or using a name that's clearly made for keyword-spamming rather than true conversation will kill your efforts before they begin.

#13 - Participate in Q+A Sites

Every day, thousands of people ask questions on the web. Popular services like Yahoo! Answers, Answers.com, Quora, StackExchange, Formspring and more serve those hungry for information whose web searches couldn't track down the responses they needed.

The best strategy I've seen for engaging on Q+A sites isn't to answer every question that comes along, but rather, to strategically provide high value to a Q+A community by engaging in those places where:

The question quality is high, and responses thus far have been thin
The question receives high visibility (either by ranking well for search queries, being featured on the site or getting social traffic/referrals). Most of the Q+A sites will show some stats around the traffic of a question
The question is something you can answer in a way that provides remarkable value to anyone who's curious and drops by

I also find great value in answering a few questions in-depth by producing an actual blog post to tackle them, then linking back. This is also a way I personally find blog post topics - if people are interested in the answer on a Q+A site, chances are good that lots of folks would want to read it on my blog, too!

Just be authentic in your answer, particularly if you're linking. If you'd like to see some examples, I answer a lot of questions at Quora, frequently include relevant links, but am rarely accused of spamming or link dropping because it's clearly about providing relevant value, not just getting a link for SEO (links on most user-contributed sites are "nofollow" anyway, meaning they shouldn't pass search-engine value). There's a dangerous line to walk here, but if you do so with tact and candor, you can earn a great audience from your participation.

#14 - Enable Subscriptions via Feed + Email (and track them!)

If someone drops by your site, has a good experience and thinks "I should come back here and check this out again when they have more posts," chances are pretty high (I'd estimate 90%+) that you'll never see them again. That sucks! It shouldn't be the case, but we have busy lives and the Internet's filled with animated gifs of cats.

In order to pull back some of these would-be fans, I highly recommend creating an RSS feed using Feedburner and putting visible buttons on the sidebar, top or bottom of your blog posts encouraging those who enjoy your content to sign up (either via feed, or via email, both of which are popular options).

If you're using Wordpress, there's some easy plugins for this, too.

Once you've set things up, visit every few weeks and check on your subscribers - are they clicking on posts? If so, which ones? Learning what plays well for those who subscribe to your content can help make you a better blogger, and earn more visits from RSS, too.

#15 - Attend and Host Events

Despite the immense power of the web to connect us all regardless of geography, in-person meetings are still remarkably useful for bloggers seeking to grow their traffic and influence. The people you meet and connect with in real-world settings are far more likely to naturally lead to discussions about your blog and ways you can help each other. This yields guest posts, links, tweets, shares, blogroll inclusion and general business development like nothing else.

I'm a big advocate of Lanyrd, an event directory service that connects with your social networks to see who among your contacts will be at which events in which geographies. This can be phenomenally useful for identifying which meetups, conferences or gatherings are worth attending (and who you can carpool with). The founder of Lanyrd also contributed this great answer on Quora about other search engines/directories for events (which makes me like them even more).

#16 - Use Your Email Connections (and Signature) to Promote Your Blog

As a blogger, you're likely to be sending a lot of email out to others who use the web and have the power to help spread your work. Make sure you're not ignoring email as a channel, one-to-one though it may be. When given an opportunity in a conversation that's relevant, feel free to bring up your blog, a specific post or a topic you've written about. I find myself using blogging as a way to scalably answer questions - if I receive the same question many times, I'll try to make a blog post that answers it so I can simply link to that in the future.

I also like to use my email signature to promote the content I share online. If I was really sharp, I'd do link tracking using a service like Bit.ly so I could see how many clicks email footers really earn. I suspect it's not high, but it's also not 0.

#17 - Survey Your Readers

Web surveys are easy to run and often produce high engagement and great topics for conversation. If there's a subject or discussion that's particularly contested, or where you suspect showing the distribution of beliefs, usage or opinions can be revealing, check out a tool like SurveyMonkey (they have a small free version) or PollDaddy. Google Docs also offers a survey tool that's totally free, but not yet great in my view.

#18 - Add Value to a Popular Conversation

Numerous niches in the blogosphere have a few "big sites" where key issues arise, get discussed and spawn conversations on other blogs and sites. Getting into the fray can be a great way to present your point-of-view, earn attention from those interested in the discussion and potentially get links and traffic from the industry leaders as part of the process.

You can see me trying this out with Fred Wilson's AVC blog last year (an incredibly popular and well-respected blog in the VC world). Fred wrote a post about Marketing that I disagreed with strongly and publicly and a day later, he wrote a follow-up where he included a graphic I made AND a link to my post.

If you're seeking sources to find these "popular conversations," Alltop, Topsy, Techmeme (in the tech world) and their sister sites MediaGazer, Memeorandum and WeSmirch, as well as PopURLs can all be useful.

#19 - Aggregate the Best of Your Niche

Bloggers, publishers and site owners of every variety in the web world love and hate to be compared and ranked against one another. It incites endless intrigue, discussion, methodology arguments and competitive behavior - but, it's amazing for earning attention. When a blogger publishes a list of "the best X" or "the top X" in their field, most everyone who's ranked highly praises the list, shares it and links to it. Here's an example from the world of marketing itself:

That's a screenshot of the AdAge Power 150, a list that's been maintained for years in the marketing world and receives an endless amount of discussion by those listed (and not listed). For example, why is SEOmoz's Twitter score only a "13" when we have so many more followers, interactions and retweets than many of those with higher scores? Who knows. But I know it's good for AdAge. :-)

Now, obviously, I would encourage anyone building something like this to be as transparent, accurate and authentic as possible. A high quality resource that lists a "best and brightest" in your niche - be they blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, individual posts, people, conferences or whatever else you can think to rank - is an excellent piece of content for earning traffic and becoming a known quantity in your field.

Oh, and once you do produce it - make sure to let those featured know they've been listed. Tweeting at them with a link is a good way to do this, but if you have email addresses, by all means, reach out. It can often be the start of a great relationship!

#20 - Connect Your Web Profiles and Content to Your Blog

Many of you likely have profiles on services like YouTube, Slideshare, Yahoo!, DeviantArt and dozens of other social and Web 1.0 sites. You might be uploading content to Flickr, to Facebook, to Picasa or even something more esoteric like Prezi. Whatever you're producing on the web and wherever you're doing it, tie it back to your blog.

Including your blog's link on your actual profile pages is among the most obvious, but it's also incredibly valuable. On any service where interaction takes place, those interested in who you are and what you have to share will follow those links, and if they lead back to your blog, they become opportunities for capturing a loyal visitor or earning a share (or both!). But don't just do this with profiles - do it with content, too! If you've created a video for YouTube, make your blog's URL appear at the start or end of the video. Include it in the description of the video and on the uploading profile's page. If you're sharing photos on any of the dozens of photo services, use a watermark or even just some text with your domain name so interested users can find you.

If you're having trouble finding and updating all those old profiles (or figuring out where you might want to create/share some new ones), KnowEm is a great tool for discovering your own profiles (by searching for your name or pseudonyms you've used) and claiming profiles on sites you may not yet have participated in.

I'd also strongly recommend leveraging Google's relatively new protocol for rel=author. AJ Kohn wrote a great post on how to set it up here, and Yoast has another good one on building it into Wordpress sites. The benefit for bloggers who do build large enough audiences to gain Google's trust is earning your profile photo next to all the content you author - a powerful markup advantage that likely drives extra clicks from the search results and creates great, memorable branding, too.

#21 - Uncover the Links of Your Fellow Bloggers (and Nab 'em!)

If other blogs in your niche have earned references from sites around the web, there's a decent chance that they'll link to you as well. Conducting competitive link research can also show you what content from your competition has performed well and the strategies they may be using to market their work. To uncover these links, you'll need to use some tools.

OpenSiteExplorer is my favorite, but I'm biased (it's made by Moz). However, it is free to use - if you create a registered account here, you can get unlimited use of the tool showing up to 1,000 links per page or site in perpetuity.

There are other good tools for link research as well, including Blekko, Majestic, Ahrefs and, I've heard that in the near-future, SearchMetrics.

Finding a link is great, but it's through the exhaustive research of looking through dozens or hundreds that you can identify patterns and strategies. You're also likely to find a lot of guest blogging opportunities and other chances for outreach. If you maintain a great persona and brand in your niche, your ability to earn these will rise dramatically.

Bonus #22 - Be Consistent and Don't Give Up

If there's one piece of advice I wish I could share with every blogger, it's this:

The above image comes from Everywhereist's analytics. Geraldine could have given up 18 months into her daily blogging. After all, she was putting in 3-5 hours each day writing content, taking photos, visiting sites, coming up with topics, trying to guest blog and grow her Twitter followers and never doing any SEO (don't ask, it's a running joke between us). And then, almost two years after her blog began, and more than 500 posts in, things finally got going. She got some nice guest blogging gigs, had some posts of hers go "hot" in the social sphere, earned mentions on some bigger sites, then got really big press from Time's Best Blogs of 2011.

I'd guess there's hundreds of new bloggers on the web each day who have all the opportunity Geraldine had, but after months (maybe only weeks) of slogging away, they give up.

When I started the SEOmoz blog in 2004, I had some advantages (mostly a good deal of marketing and SEO knowledge), but it was nearly 2 years before the blog could be called anything like a success. Earning traffic isn't rocket science, but it does take time, perseverance and consistency. Don't give up. Stick to your schedule. Remember that everyone has a few posts that suck, and it's only by writing and publishing those sucky posts that you get into the habit necessary to eventually transform your blog into something remarkable.

Good luck and good blogging from all of us at Moz!

Get more traffic from Twitter with these 6 great headline tips

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:32:00 +0000

So, you have all those followers on Twitter and yet when you tweet a link to your latest blog post…..nothing much happens!
Why did so few of those hundreds (or thousands) of your followers click your link; after all, it’s a great post?

Your headline let you down!

People will ONLY click your links and read your content, if the headline or title is compelling enough. If just a small percentage of your followers are clicking on your links, it’s because the headline isn’t selling that link to your followers. It’s not compelling them enough, to make them want to click through to your site and find out more. Unless they do that, they will never know how great your posts are, which is why headlines are easily the most important element of your content.
Your headlines or titles are what open the door to your content. To succeed, your content has to be effective too, but nothing happens until people actually READ what you have written and your headline is what either encourages them to read the first line of your material – Or not. Get the headline wrong and you make it very hard for your content to get noticed.

6 headline secrets behind yesterday’s post

To show you what I mean, I will use the example of yesterday’s post, which was extremely successful. It’s title was: Build a great client list with this 1 simple idea. Here are six of the secrets behind it.
The headline didn’t try and do everything. There was enough information in that headline to explain what the post was about and get the reader curious. To discover what the “1 simple idea” is, the reader has to click through. The more curious you can make someone, the more likely they are to take action; in this case click a link.
The headline was relevant to my readers. It was a marketing related headline and my friends on social networks connect with me because they are interested in marketing.
The headline made a compelling promise. Every headline makes a promise to the reader. The promise of that headline, is that if they click that link, I will give them some valuable information, which will help them with a huge problem; attracting better clients. The post content delivers on the promise, which is essential if you want people to come back! A great headline, which points to a post that fails to deliver on the headline’s promise, will cause people to feel cheated and stop them trusting your headlines and links in future.
The headline let people know it was easy. Part of the headline’s promise, is that they will learn this valuable information, quickly and easily. It’s just 1 simple idea. This requires little time investment from the reader, with the potential to learn some valuable business information.
The headline didn’t keyword stuff. Some people seem to believe that the only way to attract search engine traffic, is to stuff their headlines with keywords. This is flawed for 2 reasons.

You can SEO your posts, by making the version of the title which people see, different from the version which search engines see. If you use WordPress, there are plugins that allow you to do this. If, like me, you use the Headway WordPress Theme, (affiliate link) you don’t need to mess around with plugins, it’s there out of the box (along with a ton of other great SEO features!)
Your content, including titles, should be written for people, NOT search engines. If you try and write posts that appeal to search engines rather than people, even if someone does find your site on Google or Bing etc, it will read poorly and therefore fail to convert them into subscribers, clients or customers.

The headline wasn’t clever. Some people write clever headlines, which lack any compelling reason for a busy person to click their link. They are often abstract or cryptic, rather than interest grabbing and inspiring.

Headlines are important so give them the time they deserve

There are very few things in life, which come with a guarantee, however, I can guarantee that if you make your blog post titles more compelling, you will definitely get more traffic from social networks and feedreaders.
Invest as much time as is required, to get your headlines as attractive as possible and just watch the increase in your blogging results.

GOOGLE ADSENCE ACCOUNT FOR BLOG EASILY GETTING APROVED BY GOOGLE

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:29:00 +0000

Instructions

1 Create a fresh Gmail account and donâ€™t use this account for anything. Keep this Email id separately for Adsense.

2 Create a free blog in Blogger and complete the profile with your own information. Choose blog name related to your content, donâ€™t use hyphen and numbers. Please select short name as your domain name. Design your blogger template to look as a professional. Donâ€™t use dark colors and create a about me widget in your blog,

3 Create unique contents as much as possible, don’t post many contents in a single day. Instead of post one article per day, it makes your site live and increase visitors as well as search engine rankings.

4 Google will not just approve your blog, if your content is unique. It also give importance to the visitors. To get approve, you should increase your blog visitors. You can submit your blog to forums, which getting high traffic. This will increase your blog traffic. Submit your blog sitemap to Google by registering in Google Webmaster. Now add a Google Adsense widget to your blog. Donâ€™t place ads below the topics. Now your blog is completely ready to submit for Google Adsense approval.

5 Now your blog is ready for Adsense needs. Final step is to register your blog in Adsense. Fill the form and submit for approval. Approval process may take two to four days. After, you get an email that your blog is approved.

Now sign in to your Adsense account and start earning.

Improve your Adsense targeting

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:27:00 +0000

One of the most common complaints about Google Adsense is that the ads are not relevant to the website’s content. Non-targeted ads can drastically reduce your earnings since visitors of your site will not necessarily be interested in ads that are not closely connected to the topic that they were looking for in the first place.

There is a very simple way to improve your Adsense targeting, and it is called section targeting. There is no trick behind this technique, and Google itself incentive users to use it, here is a quote from the Adsense Help Center:

Section targeting allows you to suggest sections of your text and HTML content that you’d like us to emphasize or downplay when matching ads to your site’s content. By providing us with your suggestions, you can assist us in improving your ad targeting. We recommend that only those familiar with HTML attempt to implement section targeting.

So how do you implement section targeting? All you need to do is to place the following tags before and after the content that you want to get targeted:


Content to be targeted here

You can use as many sections as you want inside your page, and you can also place them on the header of your page so that meta keywords will be included. Bear in mind that it might take up to two weeks before you see the results of the section targeting.

How to get traffic from Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:25:00 +0000

Facebook is not the first social network but it is the most popular one. There have been many other social networks before Facebook and while some of them were popular at some point in time, none could reach the popularity of Facebook. In addition to keeping in touch with your friends, Facebook can be (and is) used for business. You can use it to promote your products and services, to acquire new clients, or to get traffic to your site.

Like Twitter, Facebook is just one of the many ways to get some traffic to your site. Many marketers believe that it is just a matter of time for the traffic from Facebook, Twitter and the other major social networking sites to surpass the traffic their sites get from Google.

While this time might come, don't take this as a promise that even if you do everything right, Facebook, Twitter, or any other similar site will do traffic miracles for you. For some people Facebook works like a charm, for others it doesn't work at all. The same applies to Twitter. You can't know in advance if Facebook and/or Twitter will crash your server with traffic. Just try both and see which one (if any) works for you.

Unlike Twitter, which is very simplistic, Facebook offers more possibilities. Yes, you might need more time in order to explore all the possibilities and take advantage of them but hopefully these efforts will have a great return in terms of traffic. Here are some tips that can help you turn Facebook into a traffic monster:

1=Your profile is your major weapon

As with Twitter and any other social network, if you don't make your profile interesting, you will hardly become popular. Give enough background information for you and don't forget to make your profile public because this way even people, who don't know you, when they encounter your profile, they might become interested in you and become a supporter of yours.

2=Include information about your site on your Wall and in the photo gallery

Facebook gives you the opportunity to write a lot about you and your endeavors, as well as to include pictures, so use all these opportunities to build interest in you and your products. It is even better to post videos and fill in the other tabs, so if you have something meaningful to put there, just do it.

3=Build your network

As with other social networking sites, your network is your major capital. That is why you need to invite your friends, acquaintances, and partners and ask them to join as your supporter. You should also search for people with interests similar to yours. However, don't be pushy and don't spam because this is not the way to convince people to join your network.

4=Post regularly

No matter how interesting the stuff in your Facebook profile is, if you don't publish new content regularly, the traffic to your Facebook profile (and respectively the Facebook traffic to your site) will slow down. If you can post daily, it is fine but even if you don't post that regularly, try to do it as frequently as you can. If nothing else, updating your status regularly is more than nothing, so do it.

5=Be active

A great profile, an impressive network, and posting regularly are just a part of the recipe for success on Facebook. You also need to be active – visit the profiles of your supporters, take part in their groups and other initiatives, visit their sites. You are right that all this takes a lot of time and you might soon discover that Facebooking is a full-time occupation but if you notice an increase in traffic to your site, then all this is worth.

6=Arrange your page

Unlike other social networks, Facebook gives you more flexibility and you can move around many of the boxes. If you put the RSS feed with the links to your blog in a visible space, this alone can generate lots of traffic for you.

7=Check what Facebook apps are available

Facebook apps are numerous and new and new ones are released all the time. While many of these apps are not exactly what you need, there are apps, which can work for you in a great way. For instance, MarketPlace widget/plugin or Blog Friends widget are very useful and you should take advantage of them. You can also use the widgets for crossposting (i.e. posting directly on Twitter from Facebook) because this saves you time.

8=Use Facebook Social Ads

If you can't get traffic the natural way, you might consider using Facebook Social ads. These are PPC ads and starting a campaign is similar to an Adwords campaign.

9=Start a group

There are many groups on Facebook but it is quite probable that there is a free niche for you. Start a group about something related to your business and invite people to join it. The advantage of this approach is that you are getting targeted users – i.e. people, who are interested in you, your product, your ideas, etc.

10 =Write your own Facebook extensions

While this step is certainly not for everybody, if you can write Facebook extensions, this is one more way to make your Facebook profile popular and get some traffic to your site.

11=Use separate profiles

Unfortunately, social networks do expose a lot of personal information and you are not paranoid, if you don't want so much publicity. Many people are rightfully worried about their privacy on social network sites and that is why it is not uncommon to have one personal profile for friends and one business profile to promote their business. You can have one single profile for both purposes, but if you have privacy concerns, consider separating this profile in two – you'd better be safe than sorry.

Facebook is changing all the time and no matter how hard you try to follow these changes, there will be new and new possibilities for you to explore. That is why it is not possible to compile a complete list of all the tactics you can use in order to drive traffic from Facebook to your site. Anyway, if you try just the basics for Facebook success we listed here, chances are that you will see a considerable traffic increase.

Google Adsense Requirements And Tips For Quick and Fast Approval

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:24:00 +0000

All of us know that Google Adsense is the highest paying advertising network in the world, but we also know how hard it can be to get approved for the Adsense program. Even I too was rejected about two times before I was finally accepted for the Adsense program.

Along my blogging journey till now, I have come across a lot of tips that can help you get your adsense account approved quickly and so today I am going to share them to you all.

First of All let us review the minimum requirements for the Google Adsense program:

Google Adsense Minimum Requirements:

You should be older than 18 years to apply for Adsense. If you are smaller than 18 years than you could ask your Parents to apply on your behalf.
You should have a fully launched website. Google Adsense does not entertain Under Construction websites.
Your website should have a good amount of content. You should know that Google does not accept sites with very less contents.
A valid email address that works because you will be getting verification and confirmation email in that address
A bank account so that you can deposit the checks that you receive from Adsense.
Your blog/website must not contain illegal content, pornography and hate-related stuffs.
Your website or blog should be 6 months old. (Well, I know that Google is not quite strict on this requirement and if the Google Adsense Team finds that your website is good enough then they approve it even if it is 1-2 months old.)

Tips to Get Quick Approval In Adsense

The following tips will try to answer the question “How To Get Approved In Adsense?”

Make Sure you have atleast around 10-12 posts in your blog before you apply for Adsense.

Make sure that you have atleast a decent amount of traffic to your blog or website. Google would not accept anyone having 10-20 unique visitors a day.

If you are thinking about starting a website or a blog and have not started one yet, you should get yourself a domain which has a good age ( Age means the amount of time the domain has been live and used for a website). A good enough age would be 1-2 years and more.

Avoid writing anything about Adsense before you apply for Adsense. Even if you do write, avoid writing anything negative against Google, Adsense or any of Google’s subsidiaries.

Avoid using advertising from other networks when you apply for Adsense. Google hates competition.

Do not use high Paying keywords in your site when you apply for Adsense. Google may get the hint that you are there only for the money and not for providing information and knowledge to your readers.

Write quality content on your blog/website, Do not use freely available articles from Article Directories or PLR Articles. Google takes your content quite into consideration before approving or disapproving sites to their program.

Build a good amount of backlinks to your blog/site. If you can, then build links from quality sites with good PR. Your backlink popularity may just impress the Google team to approve your application.

If you are a business owner then try adding a blog related to your business to your site before you apply for Adsense. Add a blog, add contents to it and promote it enough to get decent traffic.You could impress Google Team by your attachment to the business.

If you are just starting blogging, choose niches which pleases Google for example Open Source, Charity etc. You may just strike the softer part of the Google Adsense Team. (Well, on a short note: This cannot be possible if you are already blogging and have a blog/website in a niche, so you could just make a blogspot Blog around a soft-niche as mentioned above and build some link and traffic around it.)

If your website is not a blog but a ‘traditional informational website’, make sure you have at least 10 pages. Make Sure your main page link to these 10 pages in a clear and concise way.

Have an ‘About’ page. Google really wants to know What is your site about and Who Are You?

Have a ‘Privacy Policy’ Page. If you don’t know how to make one, go to freeprivacypolicy.com

Your site has to be easy to navigate and legible. No misleading links that route everywhere and frustrate a vistor.

If you are using WordPress, then do sure to add some information about yourself in your profile and do not forget to use your real name. It increases creditability.

Avoid writing about Black Hat Techniques while applying for Google Adsense

Avoid using Pop-ups or Pop-up Advertising when you are applying for Adsense

Make a blog at Blogger.com, build traffic and links to it and then try signing up for Adsense through Blogger.com. It has been noticed that Adsense Application through Blogger.com has higher chances of approval.

Try registering for Adsense through Google Adsense Partner Sites like Youtube, Hubspot, Flixya, Docstoc,Xomba and Infobarrel. Many people have got success in registering for Adsense using these sites.

All in all these are just basic rules that you can follow to become successful in getting your Adsense application approved. There is no quick route to success and in a similar manner there no such quick route to Google Adsense approval too. If you follow all of the above tips then I am sure your Adsense application will certainly get approved. Yet, if you get rejected following the above tips too, just keep your patience intact, do a bit more link building, social media promotion and post some more quality articles in your blog/website and surely you are going to get approved.

Also on side note, I would like to warn you against the number of “Get an Adsense Account in 24 hours” type of offers that have been coming up in the Internet. Be cautious and stay away from them. They may give you an Adsense account in a day or so but that account will not last long and will be banned in a few months.

I hope you do get approved for Google Adsense following all these tips and If you do so then do not forget to return back and comment here.

Free traffic to your website and earn money

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Do you need traffic to your website, blog, brand, or business? There is a company that is designed to do just that. Not only can you get free traffic but you also have the option of earning extra money as well right from your computer.

The name of the company is called Blog Frog. You simply go to their website and join for free using your facebook or email address. After you sign up and log in in to your account you will put in your details and blog or website information. If your blog or website is enabled with an rss feed, then each time that you make a post on your blog or website it will feed into each and every community that you join or participate in. There are hundreds of communities on Blog Frog and thousands of bloggers that use Blog Frog daily. Even if you don't have a blog or website, you can still use Blog Frog. They offer freebies, giveaways, you get to connect with other bloggers, moms, and people just like you with the same interests and likes that are similar to yours. When you join a community you can start discussions and answer questions. Each time you do, others will view your profile and give more exposure to your blog, brand, website, or business.

You can even start your own community. It is free to do so. You can name it something similar or related to your interests, concerns, blog, website, or business. For example if you have a baby blog, you could name your community "All About Babies" and start discussions based around your own business, blog, or website. You can customize the design of your page, and even embed your community into you website or blog if you desire. You can go to workersonboard.com and check out the Blog Community pageto see an example of a Blog Frog Community that is embedded into a website. You also have the option of being able to allow advertising to run right in your community and every time someone views your page, you earn money. It is not based on click through ratios just on page views alone. It doesn't matter how big or little your community is, you still get paid. You can even earn up to $350 per month.

This is just another way to expand and advertise your blog or website for free and even earn passive income for doing so. Remember that you don't have to have a blog or website to join Blog Frog earn money at home starting your own community. You do not need to be web savvy or have any web design skills to do so. It only takes minutes. It is simple, fun, free, and another way for you to get traffic to your blog, website, brand, or business,. You even earn extra money in the process of doing so.

Who Stole My Pagerank?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:18:00 +0000

In an effort to find out why I lost PageRank I have created a definitive guide to the world of PR (not the public relations type, although this post is for you guys )

On this page you will find everything you need to know about:

What Google PageRank is
How to get more of it.
How to Keep it once you have it, and most importantly -
Actionable Methods you can take right now to Stop it leaking from your site.

So on with the ~~rant~~ Post…

JUNE 29th 2011. A Quick UPDATE

Google Pagerank has just been updated and it looks like they enjoyed this post immensely. PR3 on this page AND a PR3 on the homepage (among many others)
Clearly the steps I took in this post helped immensely and give more weight to why you should read this post and action accordingly!

_____

Google Recently updated its Pagerank and I was honestly expecting (or hoping) to move to a PageRank of 3. Not only did this not happen – I actually went the other way, and as of Feb11th 2011 AlexWhalley.com has gone from a PR2 to a PR1 website. (not happy Jan)

WTF?

Why The Face indeed.

Before I can even begin to try and understand what I did or didn’t do to earn this demotion I need to understand a little more about what PageRank actually is.

How was Pagerank Born?

PageRank was created by Lawrence ‘Larry’ Page , who also happened to be the guy who created Google too.

Larry Page and Sergey Brim met at Stanford

In order to understand how PageRank works, I think it best to share with you how it was born…

After enrolling for a Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University, Larry Page was in search of a dissertation theme and considered exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a huge graph. His supervisor Terry Winograd encouraged him to pursue this idea, which Page later recalled as “the best advice I ever got”. Page then focused on the problem of finding out which web pages link to a given page, considering the number and nature of such backlinks to be valuable information about that page (with the role of citations in academic publishing in mind).^[13] In his research project, nicknamed “BackRub”, he was soon joined by Sergey Brin, a fellow Stanford Ph.D. student.^[13]
John Battelle, co-founder of Wired magazine, wrote of Page that he had reasoned that the “entire Web was loosely based on the premise of citation – after all, what is a link but a citation? If he could devise a method to count and qualify each backlink on the Web, as Page puts it ‘the Web would become a more valuable place’.” Battelle further described how Page and Brin began working together on the project:

“At the time Page conceived of BackRub, the Web comprised an estimated 10 million documents, with an untold number of links between them. The computing resources required to crawl such a beast were well beyond the usual bounds of a student project. Unaware of exactly what he was getting into, Page began building out his crawler.
To convert the backlink data gathered by BackRub’s web crawler into a measure of importance for a given web page, Sergey Brin (the Co Founder of Google) and Page developed the PageRank algorithm, and realized that it could be used to build a search engine far superior to existing ones^. It relied on a new kind of technology that analyzed the relevance of the back links that connected one Web page to another.
In August 1996, the initial version of Google was made available, still on the Stanford University Web site.
In 1998, Brin and Page founded Google, Inc. Page ran Google as co-president along with Brin until 2001 when they hired Eric Schmidt as Chairman and CEO of Google. In January 2011 Google announced that Page would replace Schmidt as CEO in April the same year. Both Page and Brin earn an annual compensation of one dollar. On April 4, 2011, Page will officially become the chief executive officer of Google, while Schmidt steps down to become executive chairman.

Pretty cool huh?

Not only do I find this fascinating, I think it answers the question of what PageRank actually is. The first thing of note is that PageRank has nothing to do with a website Page and everything to do with a ‘let’s name it after Larry’ Page. Why they could not have named it after Brin and made life easy for everyone is beyond me, but I do think they did it on purpose. Sure, PR relates to the page in question, but the PageRank that we have come to know and cherish so much is actually representative of your site as a whole.

What Exactly is Pagerank then?

PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is.

So basically, the more votes (links) you have coming in, and the higher the relevance and authority of that link – the better your own PageRank gets. I would refer to the algorithm on the left but I had trouble returning the variables on k, and the associative properties of x are not congruent with the cartesian coordinates represented by P above. I therefore CLEARLY do not want to make an idiot of myself. Besides, the first answer I got was actually ‘Green’ so I figured I did something wrong.

Factors that Help Increase PageRank.

Consistently Relevant Content.
Content is the backbone of an authority site, and only through continuous publication of unique quality content that stays consistent to the niche or subject can you hope to increase your PR.
Incoming Links – based on Relevance and Authority
The more links you have pointing to your site from relevant and high ranking sites the better your own PageRank Gets.
Internal Linking – based on relevance and anchor text.
A website has a maximum amount of PageRank that is distributed between its pages by internal links. The more pages you create – the more PageRank you can potentially have, and this is optimized and strengthened by internally linking any or all applicable pages to each other with the relevant anchor text.
Outbound Links – based on relevance and authority
It is a crucial part of good SEO practice to make a habit of linking out to authority sites and relevant pages at least once every few posts as this helps to increase your rank for whatever keyphrases you are talking about and hyperlinking – but this is not necessarily so good for your overall PageRank. Outbound links are a drain on a site’s total PageRank. They Leak PageRank, and so it’s always good practice to make sure the site you are linking to has a higher PR than you and/or is relevant.

Factors that Cause You To Lose Pagerank.

Outgoing Links.

Although Outgoing Links are a necessary part of Good SEO and in turn, increased PageRank – there are two elements to this factor that started setting off alarm bells in my head.

To Increase SEO (and therefore Pagerank) an outgoing link has to meet two criteria:

Relevant Content on the page being linked to.
High PR, or at least an authority site. (By authority I mean a page that is either on a High PR site or a page/site that is clearly busy (traffic and conversation wise)

What does this mean for AlexWhalley.com?

With 130 or so posts and over 5500 comments, to say I have a quiet blog is an understatement, but it seems to have come at a cost.
If Non Relevant and low quality outbound links are a drain on your overall Pagerank, then the 3400 or so comments that are not mine are clearly having an effect, so drastic action is required.

As of the 23rd February 2011 Alexwhalley.com is a no-follow comments blog . Keyword Luv has also been removed as this is just adding insult to injury if I leave it there.

I truly believe that every single person who comments on this site does so because of the engaging content and thriving conversation that it generates. I do not think removing the follow attribute will effect my number of comments and the way in which this community engages because, well for one thing – I’m only a PR1 now!!
I will leave this set to no follow until the next Pagerank update. Only then will I know if it has had an effect at all? Remember though, I’m still a do follow blog – so if you really want that backlink, send me a guest post!

Two Many Websites Trying To Rank.

Were you aware that in the eyes of Google you potentially have two identical websites?
As far as the Search Engines are concerned, http://alexwhalley.com and http://www.alexwhalley.com are two different sites! If I don’t fix this then the following occurs:

I risk having pages on one version of the site or the other deindexed because of duplicate content issues
If I am linked to by other bloggers, then depending on whether they are a ‘www’ person or a non www person, the link could go to either site.
I lose the total control of how many backlinks point to my site basically, because I have two of them.

But there is a way to fix this. It’s called URL normalization (or URL canonicalization) but considering that I almost got my tongue caught around my inner ear trying to say that second one, I’ll just stick with normalization thanks!

Ana Hoffman actually posted a how to guide for fixing this, but in her effort to keep things as non technical as possible for her readers, she confused the hell out of me!
Each to their own I suppose – so if my process below confuses you, check out Ana’s post – because it will definitely be for you then. WWW vs non-WWW: Why You Should Put All Your Links in One Basket

If however you refuse to do anything unless the exact technical specifications have been laid out and all the facts have been presented, then Chris Burns of BurnSEO has a post for you.
Chris has written a detailed post where you will find a more technical explanation of how to make your sites canonically correct at How to Make your Site Canonical Friendly

Now I am not techie at all but this is one process that even I could manage, so allow me to show you how to ‘Put All Your Links in One Basket’ (thanks Ana )

*whether you choose to go with the WWW version or the non WWW version is completely up to you.

How to Redirect your WWW and non WWW addresses

It’s called a 301 Redirect and it’s really easy.

Simple log into your HOSTing account (CPanel) and look for something like this: (I am with HostGator, FYI)

When you click on this, the very first Redirect option that greets you is a (Permanent)301. This is the one you want.
The screenshot below is exactly what you would do if you wanted to redirect your site from www to non www, which is the format I prefer.

The Options below the address field include various redirection options, but the first one (www. Redirection: ) is the one you will pick – regardless of which way you are redirecting things.
The other options are more for when you want to redirect one site to another and control whether the www goes there too.
The Wild Card Redirect is…strange to say the least, but not as strange as the warning the preceeds it:
Checking the Wild Card Redirect Box will redirect all files within a directory to the same filename in the redirected directory.
Huh??! I think Dr Suess wrote that one.

So what Now?

Now that you have redirected your site and merged your two versions into one, there is nothing more you need to worry about. From this point forward, regardless of whether someone links to you through www.yourdomain or http://yourdomain – only the one site you specified above will ever receive the link and the recognition that goes with it.

Your 404’s are not Re-Directing Either

We all know the dreaded 404 Error, the one you get when the page you click on is simply not there.
If you are not keeping track of your error links and not redirecting known 404 pages, you are quite simply leaving PageRank Juice on the table.
I see this happen way too often when bloggers go back and change their post titles for better SEO, but inadvertently change the Permalink too. Result – a big fat 404 and no love from Google for that.
What’s worse is that link could have been one you took ages to earn, and is sitting there keyword optimised and everything.

A Great Plugin, which I only found today and installed earlier is called ‘Redirection’ (available Here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/

This plugin actually enables you to do 301 redirections from within wordpress, keep track of your 404 error pages, and then of course set 301 redirections on them as well.
What this means in English (in case I lost you at 123456 etc) is that you can keep your PR by redirecting all bad links to good pages instead

Your Ping List is Terrible

Not Ping PONG!?! I don't care how good you get, you'll still need to copy the list below!

The Reason Google loves your WordPress blog so much is because it has the ability to notify (via a PING) the search Engines everytime you make a change or add content.

The Settings for this are located in your Writing settings (at the very bottom under Update Services) in your Admin Panel and one of two mistakes can happen:

You have only the one ping service that WordPress gave you by default.
You probably didnt even know it was there (maybe)- so when you create a post it is not being crawled and indexed by the search engines first. You want the page content indexed first, but by the time your RSS feed has gone through, chances are that is what will get indexed instead! This is not helping your Pagerank people.

You have too many Ping services listed, and the Search Engines now hate you!
Many of the Ping services have inbuilt notifiers that will then ping other services. If you have hundreds of ping services listed and they all double up and ping each other the same information every time you publish something, pretty soon the Search Engines just assume you are Spam and do not give you the credit you deserve.

Here is my personal Ping Service List, and although extensive, it has never had me banned from any service or search engine. (Feel free to CTRL A – CTRL C it over to your Writing Settings page )

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2 http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

You’re not listed in DMOZ

Okay this one is harder than it sounds. DMOZ is the open source directory… the biggest in fact. More so than Google.
Getting listed in DMOZ is the equivelent of a PR Guarantee. Why? The DMOZ directory is run by real people so the content there is ONLY PURE AWESOMENESS.
When should you apply for a DMOZ listing? When you’re blog starts seeing some traffic, comments, and decent posts… it’s probably a good time to submit. Remember that REAL live people edit each submission… you’ve got to impress someone, not just meet some mathematical criterion. By Getting your site listed in DMOZ you are almost guaranteed to avoid being sandboxed, losing Pagerank or being deindexed.
Good luck finding an applicable category that is still accepting submissions though

What has all this taught me?

Nothing, my brain hurts, and I somehow managed to turn the notes I have been taking into a swan – and I don’t even know Origami!

I have however made a few small changes to the blog, including the implementing of the 301 Redirect, the removal of the follow attribute from the comments, and multiple attempts to get my site listed in DMOZ. One thing I have not looked at is how much all of this actually matters anyway.

Does Pagerank Even Matter?

After all of this, and after whinging and moaning to my wife about it (who just looks at me like I have syphilis) I should actually be asking the most important question, and that is whether Pagerank even matters, or at least how much bearing it has on things.

First and foremost, in the Blogosphere that we inhabit, social media and community rules – so to a large point Pagerank really doesnt matter.
I linked to Ana Hoffman’s post earlier, and she is the perfect example of why PR does not matter. Her Blog – Traffic Generation Cafe, which still has a PR of 0(??!) sees more than 10,000 unique visitors a month and has an Alexa Ranking of under 15,000! Check out some of her Internet Marketing Tools while you are there.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather that than a good PR anyday!

But…

If you own a blog that has a high PR then you literally halve the amount of necessary backlinks to get your pages ranked. A High Pagerank is like a pat on the back from the President. If Google thinks your OK then EVERYONE thinks your OK. Simple as that.

*A Great tool I recently found for finding High PR backlinks from your competition is Backlink Profit Monster. Read my Full Review Here. Backlink Profit Monster Review

Marketing Takeaway.

Pagerank is an important aspect that provides you with the authority needed to really make a difference in your niche, but it is also only one factor in a sea of variables and traffic sources. The power of social media, community and general engagement can NEVER be underestimated, so get out there and share the love. If you want to increase or keep your Pagerank then it’s simple:
Follow the advice of this post and just ‘be aware’ of what Google is looking for, but continue to blog and market as you have always done.

Remember that the community around you is something tangible, the algorithm … yeah I’m thinking not.

8 Completely Free Tools That Will Catapult Your Link Building Efforts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:12:00 +0000

I recently found the most incredible service to help me automate the mundanely exciting task of pinging backlinks, and like many of the tools and services I use in my Link Building campaigns, it is completely free.

This got me thinking about ALL the free tools/services/sites/resources that I use when I am building backlinks or doing SEO related tasks, and I realised there are quite a few. Here are 7 of my favourites, in an order that is logical to the process* you might follow when optimizing a site.
*Now THAT statement was an Oxymoron if ever I saw one

8 (and a bit) Free SEO Services that make Link Building Faster, Easier and Way More Fun

1: Conducting a Customer Survey

The most important aspect of SEO is the keyword selection you begin with. Of course these are just words and very short phrases here, hardly much help when trying to create content (the most important aspect of any well optimized page). Wouldn’t it be nice if you could find out what the customers are really asking, because then you could really come up with good content.

If you are offline and you need to know this then you conduct a survey. If you are online then you simply head to the Wordtracker Labs Keyword question tool , type in your keyphrase and voila -an instant list of content ideas and article titles.

2: Researching your Keywords.

Although I use and thoroughly recommend Market Samurai as the primary Keyword, Competition & Rank Tracking Tool, it is not free. The Google Keyword Research Tool however, is. It is also the tool I still rely on almost everyday – so to not include it here would be criminal.

Nearly all Keyword Research tools collect their data from Google so why not get that information straight from the horse’s mouth. I’m not going to start a how to guide on using this tool but here is one quick tip: Always use EXACT MATCH for the search results as only then will you get a true representation of how many people are searching for that keyword phrase.

3: What’s the Competition Up to?

There are hundreds of tools and services that will tell you everything you need to know about your competition, but when it comes to Free there really is not too much to choose from. Yahoo site explorer has even gone downhill lately, so unless you have Market Samurai or an equivalent tool what are you supposed to do?

You are supposed to go to OpenSiteExplorer.org because they are definitely a must have when it comes to kick ass SEO tools that are free.

Open Site Explorer will give you information regarding how many incoming links a page has, how many domains are linking in, the distribution of the keywords throughout those links -and much more!
Incredibly detailed and useful information, especially considering that it’s free. (You will need to register free with SEOMOZ if you want to run more than 3 queries in a day)

Research and directly compare your backlinks with competitors’ for intelligent and targeted link building. Identify your top pages and analyze anchor text.

*UPDATE- Check out a new Tool (not Free though) to Track Your Competition and my thoughts on it: My Backlink Profit Monster Review

4: Tracking How You Rank in the Search Engines.

Tracking Your Rank is probably the single most important thing you can do when building backlinks. Not doing so would be like driving blind and completely defeats the purpose of building links in the first place. As such there are a lot of different tools and services that you can use to track your rank, but being free – none are particularly good, except this one:

SEScout.com is a web based rank tracking service that provide a range of packages, all the way up to $100 a month which allows almost unlimited keyword tracking on unlimited domains. They also offer a free plan that gives you the ability to track up to 10 Keywords on 10 Different Domains, more than enough to start off.

Create a free account at SEScout and start tracking your rankings today!

5: Verifying a Backlink

Tired of Manually Checking 100’s of pages to Verify your Backlinks? We have all been there, you pay for a Backlinking Service and get a report with Thousands of URL’s. Let me guess, you manually check a random sample of 20 URL’s or so and leave it at that and assume you got what you paid for. Now you don’t even have to check the 20.

The Free Backlink Checker from Scrapebox is a downloadable file (no opt in required) that will manually check each and every link to make sure it is pointing back to your site.

6: Pinging Starting to Pong?

An important (and mind numbingly boring) part of link building is pinging the newly created link. A ping is basically a way of telling the search engines that you are there. We use it on our blog to tell Google we have a new post, and we do it to our backlinks so that Google knows they are there, crawls them and then (hopefully) indexes them.

I have always utilised the services of Pingomatic.com – a completely free site that allows you to ping your desired URL and Keyword/Title to all the major pinging services (the sites that then yell at the search engines to come take a look) and this is great when you only have one link that you wish to ping. But when you are building links in chunks of 100, 200 even 1000 at a time then there is no way you are going to spend all day cutting and pasting links into pingomatic.

This is why you need to check out Pingfarm.com

Pingfarm is exactly like pingomatic except you can add as many links (URLs) as you like at once. You can even import a list from a text file (why you wouldn’t just cut and paste though?) and then once you have your list you enter your Keywords/Title and hit ‘Submit’ BRILLIANT! (and way better than Farmville)

7. Finding Sites to Drop a Link (Comment) on.

This isn’t like your every day blog hopping where commenting on other blogs and building relationships with like minded individuals is an integral part of the process. This is niche marketing, and it’s ug – ly.

Sure I can go to Google and type in a bunch of various search strings to find a ‘KeywordLuv enabled blog on Cordless Drills or an edu or gov link in the DIY niche – but that just takes time and to be honest, I can’t remember the right search string half the time anyway. Luckily I don’t have to though

DropMyLink.com is a brilliant site that asks you to add your keyword of choice and then select from a drop down list what you want to look for. It’s basically a site that gives the Google Search String a WYSIWYG interface. Easy to use – and it works like a charm.

A Brand new tool which I have been using with great effect to find relevant blogs to comment on is LinxBot. Check it out for yourself – it is probably the best and most straight forward tool at finding places to leave a comment.

8. Finding Sites to Exchange Links With.

Whether or not you think that this is an effective method of building backlinks is up to you,(and quite frankly, hardly relevant to this post) but if you are interested in exchanging Links with other relevant sites then LinkMarket.net is the place to be.

Link Market is a completely free service that allows you to search for relevant sites to exchange links on. With over 160,000 link partners (registered users) and almost 6 and half million links exchanged to date it is the no. 1 resource/service for anyone looking to build relevant backlinks through link exchanges.

Other Free Tools and Resources to Help you ‘SEO’.

Want to Get indexed in hours instead of days?
Submit your site to Google and give them a little nudge in the right direction
Want to Search Google yet but keep getting your own country results by default?
Go to Google.com/ncr where the NCR stands for No Country Redirect, and get the true results straight from the mother ship.(Great way to see if you are really on page one yet)
Want Instant information pertaining to rank, metrics, links and authority on any given web page?
Download the best Mozilla or Chrome extension for SEO – SEOQuake
Want to Know which link are do follow and which ones are not?
Download the SEOMoz Toolbar and get your no follow links highlighted, your link metrics displayed and much much more.
SEOMOZ make more than just the Toolbar and Open Site Explorer
Check out their list of available tools here (you will need to be registered – again this is free)

Please enjoy these completely free tools and resources and be sure to share this post so that as many people as possible can learn about them too.

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments below, and if you happen to use or know of any free Tools/Services that help you with your SEO, let us know.

How to Turn Free Traffic into Internet Income

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:06:00 +0000

This is a guest post from Steve Scott. Before I let him take control, allow me to introduce him to you, if you do not already know.

Steve is the real deal, a blogger making a fulltime income online and sharing what he knows and what he learns with his readers. He knows what he is talking about and he is a bloody nice guy too. If you are not already a regular reader of his blog then I suggest you read this post and then hustle on over and subscribe. Anyway, back to you Steve, I mean Scott, no – I mean…!?!?!

Free traffic is the holy grail of all websites. It’s great to get hundreds (even thousands) of daily visitors without paying a cent.

Unfortunately I’ve seen some Internet entrepreneurs waste this valuable resource. They have the attitude that since it’s free; it doesn’t have value.

It’s been my experience that free traffic is an asset. Done correctly, you can build a profitable niche site by leveraging this resource. The trick is to have a system; one that turns freebie seekers into paying customers.

Today I’d like to talk about how to turn this traffic into Internet income.

To start, I recommend reading Alex’s post on 3 Ways to Make Money Quickly with Niche Websites. I follow the third strategy with my niche websites – Find an embarrassing problem where people use the Internet to find a solution. I’ve done this with a single niche which produces a full-time income.

My advice is to find a market with different problems. Then build an entire business around helping folks overcome these obstacles. Some solutions will be free content you create. Others will be premium products you promote. Ultimately this is THE way to turn free traffic into income.

So let’s review the three steps to do this:

#1 – How to Find a Platform and Build an Audience

Free traffic can come from a variety of sources. I use two techniques:

1) Target high-volume keywords by creating content that ranks high in Google

2) Use a platform to find and engage an audience

You need a platform to build a successful niche site. What’s a platform? It’s your personal soapbox where you communicate with an audience. It’s this content that builds interest for the free report you’ll offer in step #2.

An example of a platform is this blog. Alex uses this site to help folks build profitable niche sites. It’s the way he communicates with the world.

But a platform doesn’t have to be a blog. In fact, there are additional ways to engage an audience. Some of the more popular platforms are podcasting, video marketing, article marketing; and social media. All of these have been used to build a solid niche business.

Another thing about platforms is they change over time. At first you could be a blogger. Then you might focus on video because it gets better results. Be prepared to change (or add) platforms when find something that really works.

Example: I’ve changed platforms three times for my niche site:

In 2006, I leveraged the Bum Marketing method to rank well for competitive keywords.

From 2007 to 2008, I created videos that also rank well in Google.

In 2011, I use a combination of search engine optimization and backlinking to build a successful niche blog.

#2 – How to Turn Free Traffic into Subscribers

Where do you send free traffic? This is something people have debated for more than a decade. My opinion is to direct this traffic to an opt-in form.

I use what’s called a lead magnet. This is a free offer that provides value to a prospect. To get it, a prospect has to enter their email address.

Why do you offer a free report? Because this is THE best way to build a list. With email marketing you can communicate with a target audience and promote products that put money in your pocket.

Example: Take a look at Alex’s Build Rank Profit system. {BTW, excellent title Alex!}

On this page, you’ll see an example of his lead magnet. Alex builds trust by introducing the product and offering additional information. This is an excellent way to “sell” the value of a free product.

Anyone can build a site like this. All you need is a Word Press blog and a theme like Thesis (in this example) With a few tweaks, you can create a blog that becomes a subscriber magnet.

Alex’s Edit: I am now a huge fan of the Profits Theme for anyone looking to build niche sites and as such I highly recommend you check it out.

#3 – How to Turn Subscribers into Paying Customers

How do you make money from subscribers? It’s simple. Present them with a mix of quality content and offers that produce income.

This doesn’t mean you beat subscribers over the head with product pitches. Instead, you’ll start by talking about their problems. Then you recommend a few free techniques/tools. And finally you’ll recommend a premium product as an advanced solution.

It’s really that simple. Talk to an audience and build trust. Then present an offer that helps people overcome their problems.

Without a doubt, email marketing is THE way to make money online.

Example: For over a month, one of my Clickbank accounts hasn’t generated much income. So what did I do? I reviewed a product in my niche (this took about an hour.) Then I whipped up a few emails (this took another hour) and sent them to my list.

The result? In the last few days, I’ve generated over a $1000 in income. This isn’t a whole lot of money. But it’s not a bad payout for two hours of work. And this is especially true since my list was generated using 100% free traffic.

How YOU Can Make Money with Free Traffic

I believe in simplicity. You don’t need a complicated process to make money online. All you have to do is follow these three-steps:

1) Generate free traffic

2) Turn traffic into subscribers

3) Offer income-producing solutions to subscribers

My advice is to take action on this post.

Get started by building a site that targets a specific niche. Make sure it has a few problems. Then communicate with an audience by providing great content and helpful premium solutions.

It’s not that hard to generate income from free traffic. All you need is a simple system; which you’ve just learned. Now it’s up to you to take action!

The Future of Art Education

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:46:00 +0000

The future of art education is indeed in jeopardy due to the large budget cuts across the country. Along with a greater emphasis on core curriculum, high stakes testing is threatening the art programs in all too many school districts. Also, as was pointed out earlier in the site, in many cases parents are ignorant of the proposed budget cuts until it is too late. Part of the answer then is to raise awareness across the country on the value of an arts education. It is hoped that this site does indeed contribute to raising that awareness and promote further research by those who visit it. There are currently many foundations that are working hard to raise money in support of the arts in schools. The National Endowment for the Arts is just one of many that are working for this great cause. (For more information go to www.nea.gov)

Another way to improve appreciation and understanding for the arts is through the educators in classrooms across the country. Adejumo (2002) suggests five ways that this can be done:
* Talking about the nature and content of art with students.

* Promoting the transfer of implicit knowledge through decentralized instruction.

* Exposing students to experts as role models in the visual arts.

* Facilitating direct observation of artists and their works in society.

* Seeking the support of art professionals and organizations through partnerships.
By implementing these principles educators can end student ignorance about art and its value. Students can learn to appreciate are for more than just its aesthetic qualities. Giving students contact with actual artists in the community can show children what tangible careers they can have as artists and promote the field as more than just a fun hobby. If students observe artists and their works in society, they can further appreciate the way that art permeates almost every aspect of life. They can see the rich history of artistic movements by seeing actual pieces from different time periods in their own community and learn to see the architecture as more than just a functional building.

By teaching the children of today about art, and giving them opportunities to create their own, it is ensuring that the rich heritage of art will be passed down to the next generation. Appreciation of different cultures, sharing a common human experience, and marking significant points in history are all part of the amazing function that art gives to society. Through everything from traditional art classes to summer camp programs, the arts provide a way to promote children’s interest in learning about the world. Hopefully, in the future further funding can be provided from the government for art education programs and more people can experience the value of art in their lives.

Education Budgets for Art Education

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:44:00 +0000

Educating children in the arts is very important to their development as creative individuals. Unfortunately, in today’s world of high stakes testing art is in danger of being pushed aside as a non-essential subject. School administrators are faced with tough decisions when it comes to making budget cuts. They need to put financial backing into subjects that are tested in nation-wide assessments in order to get more federal funding or even stay open for that matter. Therefore, art is pushed aside and the department’s budgets are increasingly cut in favor of so-called core education classes such as math and reading. Art teachers are faced with being overwhelmed by the number of classes and schools in which they have to teach and do not have the supplies needed to give quality instruction.

The Federal Budget for Education

The attempt at cutting funding for arts education stems all the way from the federal level. The 2006 Fiscal Year Education Budget Summary is just one example. In the summary, it is proposed to make a cut of 35.6 million dollars in art education. This program provides “non-competitive awards to VSA arts and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as well as competitive awards for national demonstrations and Federal leadership activities to encourage the integration of the arts into the school curriculum” (FY 2006 Ed Budget Summary, 2005). These cuts would take away funding for higher art education for many students. It is seen by the current Bush administration as necessary and that these types of programs can be funded elsewhere. Funding of such programs by state governments is highly unlikely since they are also facing budget problems. The financial burden is then passed on to private contributors which is not as much of a reliable source as the government. Also in many cases in order to raise awareness and gain donors, money has to be spent by the institutions themselves, making it even harder for them financially.

The budget summary has no specific section for arts education, while there are several areas where math and reading are listed. Financial aid for higher education is given to students who excel in these areas. It should be a priority of the government to promote high culture and the value of an arts education by giving funding and financial incentives to those who show talent as painters, sculptors, and other artistic professionals. There are many brilliant people who may not show talent in the traditional subjects, but have great aptitude in artistic endeavors. Diversity of abilities should be recognized by the federal government in the form of monetary backing, instead of passing the responsibility off to state governments and private donors.

Local Budget Processes

Since the federal government is so large and it is relatively hard for the average parent to have a vote in budget development, it is important to get involved at the district level. In order to do this it is important to have an understanding of how school budgets are created. The following five steps outline the process:
• Step One: In most school districts, the budget is initiated by a top executive, usually the superintendent, or the chief business officer.
• Step Two: The budget process is when the proposed budget or summary of its major elements is presented to the school board.
• Step Three: Before a budget can be officially adopted, it must be published and made available for citizen review.
• Step Four: The budget process begins with the public hearings.
• Step Five: After the public hearings, the board adopts a budget with whatever amendments it deems necessary. (Bruhn, 2005)
The citizen review and public hearings are perhaps the most important ways that parents can get involved as advocates for their child’s art education. Many times the only way for a school board to keep funding in art programs is if parents make it known how important the subject is to the education of their children. Unfortunately, as Bruhn (2005) points out, there is often a very short amount of time between when the budget is made available for citizen review and when the public hearings are scheduled. This makes it difficult for parents to be involved in the process since they do not have adequate time to review the budget and design proposals. It is also difficult to make changes to the budget once it reaches the hearing stage, so it is important to get involved in the earlier stages. Unfortunately, many parents do know that this needs to be done, so changes can be made in a relatively easy manner without parental input.

Art departments are often the main area to be cut. This is because often times parents are more concerned with the subjects that are on high stakes tests, or because art is often not seen as essential. To those parents who highly value art education, it may seem as if they are up against a large opposition. Therefore, it is important for parents to understand the steps involved in producing the school budget and become active members in their school district. With the increasing emphasis on core traditional topics, art education needs advocates so children receive instruction on creative mediums.

The Effects on Schools Themselves When Art Funding is Cut

While school districts see the answer to their budget crisis as cuts to art programs, they do not foresee the problems that arise when students have no creative outlets in the classroom. This is demonstrated in the Milwaukee school district. Here it is shown that within two to three years of the budget cuts, morale has decreased and vandalism and delinquency has increased. Disciplinary staff had to be added to deal with the new problems that had arisen. In most cases, the additional staff cost more than the art programs themselves. (Hurley, 2004) This specific case demonstrates an even further reaching effect of a lack of arts education. Human beings inherently need to express themselves, and the arts provide a medium to do so in a safe and beneficial way.

The students are not the only ones who suffer when art education funding is cut. The teachers of the arts lose their jobs at the expense of the restructuring of the budget. Some of the most creative minds are being driven into unemployment or for the ones who keep their jobs, are being forced to teach many more classes than they should. In the Wisconsin example, teachers are faced with going from teaching 18 classes twice a week as of 3 years ago, to next year teaching 22 classes twice a week (Hurley, 2004). The quality of education suffers under these conditions. Teachers are overworked so they can no longer give personal attention to their students since they are teaching so many classes. Mastery learning becomes almost impossible because there is so much material to be cover and many lesson plans have to be developed for the many classes a teacher must instruct. Art is not taught effectively and so the creative development of the students suffers.

Conclusions

Budget shortcomings are costing American children their arts education. At the expense of this loss are the creative outlets for millions of children, and the overworking of art teachers. Budget makers and politicians see math and reading as the gold standard of education, but fail to see the enormous benefits of art education. Therefore, it is important that parents become advocates for the art education of their children. They need to get involved at the local level to make it known that they will not let art education be pushed behind the curtain when it comes to the education of their children. While it is important that schools perform well on high stakes tests, it is equally important that children are provided with a well rounded, diverse education to facilitate their intellectual growth. It is up to the parents and art educators to make sure that children receive instruction in order to become innovative and intelligent beings.

For further statistics on education go to:
http://www.edinformatics.com/edstats/stats.htm

And for further information on art budget cuts refer to:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/08/13/sprj.sch.cuts

Why have Art Education?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:42:00 +0000

Art education is an important aspect of the overall education of children. It makes parents more involved in their children’s schoolwork by providing an area where parents do not feel a handicapped in assisting their children because of a lack of basic knowledge. Art is a means for children who do not otherwise excel in school to have a subject where they can shine. Involvement in the arts has been shown to increase academic performance in all areas, not just art. These benefits provide the basis of why we should have art education in our schools.

Increased Parental Involvement

As a child progresses through school it is increasingly difficult for parents to be involved in helping with homework and schoolwork in general. This is because in many instances, parents lack or forget the knowledge that is required to assist their children in subjects such as math and science. Art provides a means for parents to be involved because they tend not to feel as intimidated by a lack of educational background in the subject. Art projects can be an excellent means for parent to encourage and become active in their child’s academic life.

Artwork is a tangible medium through which parents can see their child’s progress in school. As McElroy (2005) states “All parents feel tremendous pride when they attend their child's dance or choral performance, view a work of art created by their child displayed in the school or see the youngster excel at something that takes great skill.” Art exhibits at school provide an opportunity for the parents to come to the school and experience what their child is learning. This can provide a gateway for parental involvement in other areas since the parent sees what opportunities are available to them to become more active in their child’s education. Also, just being at the school creates at atmosphere for more parent-teacher interaction in all areas. This interaction allows the parent to gain more feedback on how their child is doing and what they can do to improve their children’s understanding of materials.

Art education also provides the framework for more family activities outside the classroom that build on the knowledge the child has received. In some instances “families may actually gain most of their exposure to the arts through their children's school experiences” (McElroy, 2005). By seeing their child’s artworks they can become interested in art themselves and plan family activities to art museums or galleries. These activities not only increase the whole families knowledge base, but also provide family time in an increasingly face paced world where time together becomes rarer.

After-School Programs

Programs in art for after-school are also very important, especially for children in disadvantaged areas. It is common knowledge that the hours immediately following school are often the most critical for children. With parents at work, children have around two hours of often unsupervised time. For children who are at-risk, it is important to have a place to go in these in between hours. Art programs can provide the safe environment for children to learn and still have fun until their parents come home from work. Further benefits, as stated by McElroy (2005), are “that students in all the programs - whether related to sports, academics, community, or the arts - did better in school and in their personal lives. Interestingly, students in the arts programs did the best.” This is evidence that after-school art programs are making a difference for disadvantaged students, and very often can be one of the best tools to help them excel academically in other areas.

A case study on how arts education helps the underprivileged is demonstrated by Ivanova in her work with orphaned children in Bulgaria. In 1999, she provided 60 orphaned children with two one-week workshops with professional artists. These workshops focused on art history, ceramics, painting, installation art, and fashion design. The results indicate that art helped to counteract the negative influences and experiences in their life and helped to improve their academic understandings (Ivanova, 2004). This example demonstrates the powerful impact art has on the underprivileged children in society. If results can be found with just two weeks of intensive instruction, the benefits of continued programs should be astounding.

Art Education Promotes Involvement in School

Children who are active in art education also demonstrate further interest in school as a whole. They give more attention to subjects during class time. According to Smithrim (2005), “students, teachers, parents, and administrators talked about how the arts engaged children in learning, referring to the cognitive, physical, emotional, and social benefits of learning in and through the arts.” Art classes provide children with opportunities to discuss and help each other to learn how to be better artists. This peer to peer learning is very valuable since it is difficult to have direct instruction with art. Each child’s needs are different because each child’s work of art will be a personal expression of how they see an object or even the world. Students can have social benefits from art by learning to be constructive critics and helping one another to create better art.

Art encourages for self-expression. Therefore, there is not necessarily a completely right or wrong answer. This can encourage students who may have a hard time in other areas where there is only right and wrong. Art can build self-esteem and motivate children to learn. The motivation that is created in the art classroom can be carried over to other subjects. This can help children to stop blaming external, uncontrollable factors in their educational results. They will try harder to understand material and therefore do better. This can lead them to make internal and stable attributions for their success, encouraging further hard work and success.

Conclusions

Art education provides a means to many educational ends. It is a way for disadvantaged children to experience education in a positive and creative manner. It allows them to do better in other subjects as well. Parental involvement also increases when children are involved in the arts. It is a way for parents to relate to their children’s education without being intimidated by their own lack of knowledge. Also in accordance with Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, it allows children who may not be the best at math or science to foster a talent. All of these things contribute to make art education an extremely valuable subject.

For further information on the benefits of arts education in general visit:
http://www.scribbleskidsart.com/generic.html?pid=162
http://www.pcah.gov/gaa/profiles.html

For information on how to make arts education a priority in your school district go to:
http://ww3.artsusa.org/services/arts_education/resource_center/resource_center_004.asp

Art Education

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:40:00 +0000

Art’s value extends beyond just the theories of color and design. Valuable lessons such as morals, tolerance, and even math can be taught using art. Morals are taught through teacher behavior and classroom rules as in a traditional classroom, but the students can also creatively explore there own morals through their works as each one tells a story. Tolerance can be taught by exploring the artwork of different cultures. Students are taught to appreciate the beauty of each style and foster an appreciation for the people who made it. Math is taught in art through design. Children learn geometry through working with different shapes and numbers in art. All of these aspects can be found in the art classroom making art a very valuable subject to teach many lessons through one medium.

Art Teaching Morals

With the attention given to school violence in recent years, it is more important than ever to teach children lessons about morals and integrity. The art classroom is a great way to do this. The lessons call for creativity but also respect for one another’s creations in a fun environment for children. However, teachers must actively take the lead in teaching their students lessons of morality. Leshnoff (2003) found that “relevant rules most commonly cited by the respondents in priority were: 1) Respect others; 2) Clean up properly; 3) Listen to directions; 4) Respect art materials and use them properly; and 5) Respect artwork-no negative criticism. These rules apply to how the individual can contribute to the general welfare of the student community in the art room.” Respecting others and the art materials teach children to be responsible and take care of the things that are provided to them. Cleaning up properly also teaches responsibility and how to take care of one’s self. Listening to directions and the no negative criticism rules teach the children to respect authority in the teacher and to be kind to one another. If they positively criticize, then they are learning to assist one another and engage in cooperative learning.

Another way that children are taught morals through art is during dialogue about artwork with one another and the teacher. Creating pictures that tell stories are very useful for this. For example, Leshnoff (2003) suggests using comics. She has her students engage in dialogue with her about the story the comic is telling and why the superhero is winning over evil. This gives children a sense of justice and helps them learn to do the right thing in situations. The comic heroes help the children to value good works. This idea can be applied to a number of mediums including illustrating a favorite fable, writing and illustrating an original story, or working with natural materials to demonstrate moral responsibility for the environment. In all of these instances art teaches children how to be moral and responsible beings in society. They are learning these lessons while having fun, which promotes greater retention and higher learning. The subjects are of intrinsic interest to the children so they are more motivated to learn. Once these lessons are learned inside the art classroom, they can be applied to the child’s world at large.

Art Teaching Diversity and Tolerance

In a world that is increasingly diverse and closely connected, it is important that children learn lessons of appreciation and tolerance for those that are different from them. Art provides a medium for children to explore a large number of cultures in the world as well as different styles and experiences within their own. Art, according to Johnson (2002):
Facilitates the opportunity for students to communicate and to share knowledge and information across cultures; Explores the cultural, historical, psychological, and political roots of students' own identity and examines the complex intersections and interconnections of race, gender, class, ethnicity, religious belief, sexual orientation, 'ability, and age that comprise the American culture; Develops critical thinking skills by providing students with activities that will enhance their capacities for imagination, intuition, reasoning, and evaluation, as well as contribute to achieving perspective, constructing and discerning relationships, and gaining self-awareness; Develops skills to differentiate between "looking" at the surface of art and culture, and "seeing" beneath the surface to discover meaning and values in one's own culture and the culture and art of diverse peoples.
Through their own works children are able to not only display their own stories, but are able to learn from one another. By studying works of art from different countries, a teacher can facilitate discussions about what cultural experiences led to the style of art being presented. The children can gain an appreciation for diversity by seeing the beauty in each work of art. This medium allows children to experience diversity through multiple senses and in multiple contexts. For these reasons art is a valuable tool in teaching children diversity and tolerance.

Children can learn to appreciate diversity within their class by creating a larger project through the combing of individual works. An example put forth by Skophammer (2004) is to have the children make a quilt in which each square represents a significant point in each child’s life. This helps the children to see what has made their classmates who they are to day, and hopefully give them a greater appreciation for one another.

A another example of teaching diversity through art is from Sacca (2003) who focuses on how art brings awareness to the political problems faced by native people in North America. The art work is used to trace the history of the people and pass it down to future generations. By displaying it for the world to see, it can educate children and adults alike of different cultures on the struggles face by Native American people. Hopefully this education can teach people to be more tolerant and work to help those who have experience injustices.

Mathematics in Art

For some students, math is a difficult subject and it is hard for them to maintain their interest in it for very long. Art can take a subject such as math and make it come alive by allowing students to see how math plays a role in everyday life. This is especially true when it comes to geometry. Art can teach the basics of geometry to children of all ages. A project that is useful for young children is to make a collage out of different representations of one number (Shreero, 2002). This project helps younger children to expand their schema of what the number looks like so she can recognize it in different situations. Geometry plays a part for older children when the design projects for different genres including architecture and even abstract art. Mathematics in art allows children who might not otherwise have an interest in math to gain insight and appreciation for the subject in a creative and fun way.

Conclusions

Art is a valuable tool to teach children a variety of lessons that extend beyond the subject of art itself. Morals and appreciation for diversity are just two that can make their way into the classroom. Art can also make learning math fun and interesting for students, while giving a concrete example of how what they have learned in math class can be applied to other areas of their life. Due to its diverse benefits, school districts should more greatly value its art departments than is currently the case. Since art can incorporate so many different subjects and learning techniques it should be better funded and considered an essential part of the school curriculum.

News and Social Media Style WordPress Themes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:28:00 +0000

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Portfolio, Showcase and Galleries Style WordPress Themes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:23:00 +0000

Portfolio, Showcase and Galleries Style WordPress Themes

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Magazine and Blogging Style WordPress Themes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:19:00 +0000

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90 New High-Quality Free WordPress Themes (2012 Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:14:00 +0000

This is not the traditional long list with all the available WordPress themes on the internet but its an refined collection of best handpicked fresh free WordPress themes which was created with the online professional in mind as we also know that Personal blogs reflects the identity of each of us on the Internet. So, Let’s start with this compilation that every web developer, designer and freelancer should consider. Just make sure to read the license agreements and installation instruction carefully as they can change from time to time.

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Origin

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Testing Your Web Pages

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:05:00 +0000

Testing Web pages is critical if you expect anyone to come view them. You need to test them for browser support as well as make sure that your HTML is valid and your links are correct. The articles and links on this page will help you test your pages and keep them looking good.

Cross Browser Testing

Testing your web pages in many browsers is very important. This article by Alexander Peev explains when to test your web pages and what browsers and versions to test.

How to Test Web Page Designs

Learn how to test your websites so that they work in as many browsers as possible. Alexander Peev explains how to test, what to do if problems come up during testing, and how to test changes that are added after testing is complete.

Troubleshoot CSS

Troubleshooting CSS problems can be tricky. There are all the different ways that browsers handle the CSS as well as errors in your CSS and genuine bugs that cause problems. But in order to solve the problems your page is having with CSS, you need to learn to troubleshoot your designs and your CSS.

How to Report Errors on Web Pages

When you're designing and building a website errors will inevitably creep in, as we're all human and make mistakes. But in order to get them fixed most efficiently there are things you (or your clients) should know when you're reporting them. Follow these guidelines to get errors on Web pages fixed as quickly as possible.

Web Design Troubleshooting Checklist

Finding problems in your Web design can be very frustrating. But if you follow the steps on this checklist, you can help minimize the problems. By going through the checklist methodically, you can eliminate the areas that are working and concentrate solely on the problem areas.

Graded Browser Support

Being a Web designer is difficult because there are so many differences between browsers and you need to support many of them. Deciding how to decide which browsers you support or don\'t support is important - as there is no way you can support them all.

How to Test Mobile Web Pages and Applications

Many of the things you should test when testing your mobile designs are the same as what you test for your standard designs. But there are some specific things you should be looking for when testing mobile. This article will help you understand how to test for mobile and give you practical tips for getting the testing done, even if you don't...

How to Test Different CSS Media Types

You can write style sheets for different media types like handheld or print without needing a cell phone or printer to test them. Learn how easy it is in this article.

How to Preview Your Web Pages

Testing your Web pages is a critical part of Web development. But many novice designers don't realize that they can test their pages before they ever go up on the Web for other people to see. It's important to get into the habit of testing your Web pages in as many browsers as possible.

Solving Problems in Web Design

Building Web pages can be very challenging because of all the possibilities for problems. Having a plan for finding the problems and fixing them makes them easier to deal with when you come across problems.

How to Use BrowserCam to Review Your Web Site

BrowserCam is a powerful tool for Web developers who need to know what their Web site looks like in many different browsers and operating systems.

Testing Web Applications in Internet Explorer

Testing your web pages locally is important, but Internet Explorer can make that tricky. Learn about some of the issues you might have testing with IE and how you can overcome them.

How to Change Your Windows Screen Resolution

It’s easy to change your screen resolution in Windows to see how your web pages will look in different situations.

How to Change Your Macintosh Screen Resolution

It’s easy to change your screen resolution in Macintosh to see how your web pages will look in different situations.

Use Temporary CSS Styles to Update an Old Document

When you're updating a page that is old it might have strange layout features, nested tables or content divs or other HTML techniques that make it...

Web Servers and Workflow

Web servers often play a critical role in the workflow of building a website. While most small and medium sized websites have only one web server (the production server), larger companies may have many more than that for building and maintaining their website. Learn what different types of servers might appear in a web design workflow.