Daily Tech Solutions

20 Ways to Make Free Internet Phone Calls

2016-01-14T06:53:00.000-08:00

, you really can make free phone calls using the Internet! Free internet phone programs let you make free phone calls, sometimes only to the US and Canada, using special software.
The free phone call applications I list below are available in four different forms:

PC to phone programs are ones that can make a free call from your computer to a real telephone number so you don't even need a telephone yourself.
App to phone software are ones that make free Internet calls from a mobile device to a real number. These services support making phone calls to any number, even landlines and mobile phones that aren't using the app.
PC to PC Internet calling is when a computer makes a free phone call to another computer.
App to app services run entirely on mobile devices and results in phone calls that can only work if the recipient has the same application installed. This method can not be used to call landlines or other mobile phones that don't have the proper software.

No matter how it works, it's a free call!
To make a free call using an Internet phone, you might have to download free phone call software or use a soft phone from an Internet phone provider website.
Important: A free Internet phone can not be used to make a 911 or similar emergency call. If you need to call 911, use a traditional land-line or mobile phone, or a VoIP telephone service that's approved for 911 use like Vonage.

Google Voice.

1. Google Voice

Google Voice is the very best way to make free Internet phone calls. With Google Voice, you can make free calls to an actual phone number, PC to PC calls, and free PC to phone calls.
Google Voice is much more than a way to make free phone calls on the Internet. Google Voice is primarily a way to manage the phone numbers in your life and can be used to intelligently route incoming calls to your free phone number provided by Google Voice to any other phone you have. With Google Voice, you can also get free SMS, make a free conference call, and get free voice mail services.
Free calls you make with Google Voice must be to numbers in the United States or Canada.
Google Voice is available as a mobile app (as pictured here) that works with Android, BlackBerry, and iOS users, as well as a web app that works with other mobile devices.
Free phone calls with Google Voice are limited to three hours. However, you can continue to make a free call to the same number over and over again. More »

magicJack.

2. magicJack

magicJack is an app to app and app to phone mobile application that offers a real phone number that can be used to make free Internet phone calls.
Not only can you call other magicJack users for free anywhere in the world, but you can also call any regular telephone number in the US and Canada, even if they don't use the magicJack app (like landlines). Plus, those phones can also make incoming calls to your app.
The contacts that are already in your phone will display in the magicJack app, which makes calling existing contacts really easy.
magicJack users also get free voicemail.
iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users can use this app in addition to Android devices. There are no desktop programs available. More »

FreedomPop.

3. FreedomPop

FreedomPop is very similar to magicJack, as it's an app to app and app to phone service.
You're able to call real telephones, like landlines and other mobile phones, anywhere in the US even if they don't have the app on their phone.
When signing up, you get to choose a phone number from any area code you wish. Because you'll get a real number to use, they can even call you as well.
To call around the globe, the recipients would need to also be using the app.
A custom voicemail greeting is also supported. Plus, FreedomPop ties in with your existing contact list so it's super easy to start making phone calls and sending texts.
This app works with iOS and Android devices, meaning iPod touches and iPads are supported as well.
This service offered by FreedomPop allows only 500 texts and 200 minutes of call time for communicating with people who don't have the app (unlimited for those that do), but it renews every month for free. You can access the settings in the app to see how many you have remaining. More »

WeChat.

4. WeChat

WeChat is an great mobile app with lots of features. It works with iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone, and Nokia devices.
You can make free phone calls, like the other apps in this list, but you can only do so if the recipients have the app installed. This means you can't use WeChat to make free calls to a non-smartphone, phones without the app, or landlines. You can buy minutes, though, which would enable calls to such devices.
In addition to phone calls, WeChat sends photos, texts, video clips, your location (once or live/continually), and other WeChat contacts. The app can also make video calls, group chats, and function as a walkie-talkie.
There are lots of other things to mention, too, like the fact that nobody can call you unless you add them to your contact list. WeChat also uses your contact list to find other WeChat users that you can call for free, as well as your location to find nearby users to communicate with.
You can even find people to talk to from around the globe by simply shaking your device. WeChat will connect you with someone else who is shaking theirs.
WeChat can be used from a web browser on any computer, too, but only the texting feature is supported, not the calling. More »

5. WhatsApp

WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, and is a popular texting app with hundreds of millions of users. But you can also call your WhatsApp friends right from the app using only your Internet connection (doesn't count against your phone plan's voice minutes).
You just need to confirm your phone number to get started. Once you're using the app, you can start a new conversation to clearly see which of your contacts are also using WhatsApp, after which you can call them for free, no matter where in the world they're located.
Because WhatsApp requires the app to make free phone calls, you can not use it to make free calls to phones that don't have the app installed, nor to landlines.
WhatsApp also lets you send videos, photos, your location, and contacts to other users. You can even use WhatsApp from a computer via WhatsApp Web, which lets you send and receive messages and media files.
Both WhatsApp's calling and texting feature works with iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry 10 phones, while only the texting portion can be used on Nokia and Windows Phone.

TextNow.

6. TextNow

TextNow is a mobile app that can send and receive free phone calls with other users. You can also text any phone because you're given an actual number to use. To make phone calls to non-users, like landline phones, you'll need to buy or earn redeemable credits.
The interface is very nice. It keeps track of call history right within the message center, it's quick and easy to start a phone call, and you can even send messages while actively in a call.
In addition to sending text messages, TextNow lets you send photos, drawings, emoticons, and your location. You can also customize the voicemail greeting, get email alerts when you get messages, change the message screen background, use a different alert for different contacts, customize the overall theme, and use a signature with all your messages.
You can login to your TextNow account on a different device, and all your saved messages and phone number will remain and can be used immediately.
Because you don't need an actual phone number to setup TextNow (just an email address), it works with the iPad, iPod touch, and Kindle, but it can also be used on iPhone, Android, Nook, and Windows Phone devices.
TextNow can also be used on a Windows or Mac computer, but only with support for the texting feature. More »

BlackBerry Messenger.

7. BlackBerry Messenger (BBM)

BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) is a mobile application used primarily for sending and receiving text messages. It can also be used to make free Internet phone calls to other BBM users.
BBM is available for Android, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Kindle, and Windows Phone devices. BlackBerry users have BBM installed by default.
After installing the application, users are given a unique PIN that's used as a username. Contacts add each other to their BBM address list using this PIN. Or, if your existing phone contacts are already using BBM, you can avoid the invite requirement.
BBM can also share your location once as well as over a period of 4 hours. The app can send Dropbox files, too, in addition to voice clips, pictures, money (over PayPal), contacts, and calendar appointments.
Internet phone calls made with BBM are not restricted in length or by any other means, however they can not be made to landlines or non-BBM users. More »

Textfree.

8. Textfree

Textfree is a free application that gives you your own phone number to make free app to app calls and text messages, and you can even customize the voicemail greeting.
The texting feature can actually be used on non-app phones as well, which means you can use Textfree as another way to text your friends over the Internet.
Textfree can be installed to a Windows and Mac computer, an Android device, and an iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The desktop software can only send texts - it can not call a phone.
Every Textfree user begins with a limited number of minutes for free calling to phones not using the app, like landlines. There are ways to get more free minutes like watching video advertisements and completing free offers.
If you fail to use your Textfree phone number for 30 days, it may be returned to the "pool" of numbers for new Textfree users, and thus become inactive. More »

Viber.

9. Viber

PC to PC and app to app free Internet phone calls are available with Viber.
Viber works with many different devices. The mobile application can be installed for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Nokia, and BlackBerry users.
Software can also be installed to a desktop computer to make free Internet calls with other computers and mobile devices. This works with Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.
The app scours your contact list on your mobile device to find other Viber users, which makes it simple to know who you can call for free.
Messages and video can also be sent through Viber to any other device that has it installed, be it a mobile or desktop version. More »

Facebook Messenger.

10. Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger is the messaging service from Facebook. It can transmit text messages as well as make free Internet phone and video calls from PC to PC and from app to app.
To make free Internet calls using Facebook Messenger, both recipients need to be "friends" on Facebook and have the correct application installed.
To use a computer to make calls over Facebook Messenger, a plugin needs to be installed. For Android, iOS, and Windows Phone users, the Facebook Messenger mobile application must be installed.
Facebook Messenger does not support calling real phone numbers like landlines.

8 Things You Should Always Buy Used

2016-01-14T06:48:00.001-08:00

Sure, everyone loves the smell of a new car. And there's something appealing about the thought of a brand new home that hasn't suffered the wear-and-tear of past owners. But there are some purchases that you should never make new, no matter how tempting. Here are eight items that you're better off buying used. (See also: 10 Things You Should Never Buy Used)

1. Cars

You've heard that a new car starts losing value as soon as you drive it off the lot. That's not a myth — it's a fact. Just as importantly, new cars cost thousands of dollars more than vehicles that are just one model year older.
Here's an example: TRUECar says that dealers are offering the 2016 Subaru Forester SUV for about $25,000. The same website found a 2015 Subaru Forester for $23,000. You could save $2,000 just by buying a new car one model year older. If you're willing to go with an even older model, you'll save more. TRUECar listed a 2013 Forester for $18,556.

2. Homes

It might seem tempting to buy a new home. You won't have to worry about a 10-year-old water heater suddenly bursting, or a 15-year-old roof springing an unexpected leak. But new homes are also more expensive than existing ones.
The National Association of Realtors reported that the median price for existing homes across the country stood at $221,900 in September. That's 6.1% higher than where this figure stood in September of last year, but it's still lower than the median sales price for a new home.
According to the Federal Reserve Economic Data gathered by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the median sales price for new houses sold in the United States hit $296,900 in September of this year, more than $70,000 more than the median price for existing homes.

3. Textbooks

If you're a college student, you should know this already — but it rarely makes sense to buy textbooks new. (See also: 20 Places to Buy Used or Rent Textbooks)
The College Board estimates that the average college student in the United States spends about $1,200 a year on textbooks and supplies, while the Government Accountability Office reported that from 2002 through 2013, the price of college textbooks jumped 82%. Then, when students sell these books back at the end of the year, they often receive just pennies on the dollar.
The better move is to hunt for used versions of these textbooks. It can save you hundreds of dollars a semester.

4. Pets

It always makes financial sense to buy a "used" pet from your local humane society. It may not even cost anything to adopt your new companion from the shelter.
Buying a pet from the humane society is also a good thing to do. The ASPCA says that about 2.7 million animals are euthanized each year — 1.2 million dogs and 1.4 million cats. If you adopt from your local animal shelter, you'll do your part to reduce these numbers.

5. Baby Clothing

Here's a truth about baby clothes: Your infant will barely wear each of the fuzzy outfits you buy. That's because babies grow so fast that they're constantly — and rapidly — getting too big for their outfits.
This is why it makes financial sense to purchase your baby clothes used. You can save a bundle when compared to buying new. And if you end up with some outfits that aren't your favorite? Don't worry, your baby will outgrow them quickly enough.

6. Furniture

Furnishing a new home or apartment can cost a small fortune. But you don't have to overspend on a couch, loveseat, or end table if you buy them used.
There are plenty of sources for used furniture. You can find value-priced items at estate sales, antique stores, flea markets, and yard sales. Sure, you'll be sitting on a sofa that many others have sat on before, but think of how much fatter your wallet will be.

7. Tools

You don't need the latest year's screwdriver, do you? You don't need a shiny new hammer, either. Tools are one of the best items to buy used because there's little difference between a 10-year-old hammer and one manufactured yesterday.
As with furniture, you can find plenty of used tools at garage and estate sales. You can also hunt sites such as Craigslist for deals. But you should draw the line at tools with motors and moving parts. You don't want to buy an old power tool that might malfunction and leave you with a few less fingers on your favorite hand.

8. Musical Instruments

Ask parents who've had to buy their children tubas, baritones, or saxophones for the elementary school band: Musical instruments are pricey.
If you buy these instruments used, you can save a bundle. And many of the used trumpets, clarinets, and guitars that you buy will have been refurbished so that they feel like new. Many of these used instruments have rarely been played before hitting the resale market.

10 Things You Should Never Buy Used

2016-01-14T06:46:00.000-08:00

Helmets

By purchasing a bicycle or motorcycle helmet at a thrift store, you could be unintentionally putting your safety at risk. You have no idea who owned it before you, how old it is, or why they got rid of it. According to the Bike Helmet Safety Institute (BHSI), your helmet should be replaced after hitting your head in any crash. They recommend never buying a used helmet because it may have been involved in an accident. Instead, purchase a new helmet and feel confident that your head is protected.

2. Mattresses

In most cases, you should steer clear of old mattresses and box springs at the thrift store. Mattresses naturally gather things like allergens and dust mites from the previous owner, and you'll never know what caused a stain. The bed bug risk is also always a worry. Apart from being gross, mattresses also conform to the first owner's body and sleeping position. This will leave the bed lumpy and uncomfortable for you.

3. Cribs

Cribs and car seats are constantly being updated with new safety features, and recalled when other features fail. If you purchase a used one at a garage sale, you risk purchasing one of the millions of cribs that have been recalled for safety reasons. The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) found that a crib more than 10 years old will also have design flaws that put infants in danger. This is also true for many other used baby items, such as...

4. Child Car Seats

Car seats are only expected to last between five to nine years (check your expiration date). If you buy one at a garage sale, you won't know if it was involved in a crash. Car seats are only meant to go through one accident, even if the child was not in the seat at the time. Go the smarter, safer route, and buy new.

5. Underwear and Bathing Suits

If they've touched someone's nether regions, you should take a pass. Bathing suits also wear out faster than regular clothing, so they may already be near the end. Instead of saving a few dollars on used underwear or bathing suits, just wait to purchase these essentials when they are on sale (such as during the winter, in the clearance bins, or during a semi-annual sale).

6. Cosmetics

If you don't know who's used it, you shouldn't be applying any cosmetic product to your face. In fact, in a study by LA Times, it was discovered that 100% of makeup testers at a popular department store cosmetic counter were contaminated with E. coli, strep, staph, and other bacteria. If these issues run rampant in a department store, they are sure to be found in your local thrift store's makeup selection as well.

7. Bath and Beauty Products

You should stay away from bath and beauty products, including creams, lotions, and perfumes, because there is no guarantee that you will actually get what the bottle states. The seller could have replaced the contents with anything. Cosmetics don't last forever, so you may be buying something that's already expired and risk exposure to harmful bacteria.
8. Running Shoes
If you buy used running shoes, the tread and cushioning are probably already worn out and you will end up injuring your feet, knees, legs, and/or back by running in them. Used shoes have already been molded to someone else's feet and it will be difficult to get them to re-mold to yours. As is the case with any used footwear, you are also at risk of catching a foot fungus or other bacterial infection from wearing someone else's shoes.

9. Electronics

You can already find a good deal on old or used items at most electronics stores — and these generally come with some sort of warranty. See what kind of deals you can get online or at your local electronics or home goods store before considering shopping at a thrift shop. You may also want to consider refurbished electronics, which have been professionally repaired by the manufacturer or an authorized dealer.

10. Puzzles and Games

Certain games (particularly vintage ones) can be a unique thrift store find at an affordable cost. On the other hand, puzzles and games with lots of pieces are never a good idea. If there's even one piece missing, you won't be able to play. Where's the fun in that?

11 Passive Income Ideas

2016-01-14T06:37:00.001-08:00

Want to make more money, but feel like you don’t have the time or energy to take on more work? Here are some passive income ideas to consider:

1. Use a Rewards Credit Card

If you’re good about paying your credit card off each month, use a rewards card for all of your purchases. It’s an easy way to earn a few hundred dollars (or more) each year, simply by buying the things that you’d buy anyway. To maximize your earnings, choose a card with one of the highest cashback percentages.

2. Get Paid to Shop

Need to buy something online? Go through a site like MyPoints, Swagbucks or Ebates, and get a percentage of each purchase back, in the form of gift cards or a check.

3. Maximize Your Interest Earnings

Move your emergency fund and savings account to a bank that offers a high interest rate. If you won’t need the money for a while, consider sinking it into a Certificate of Deposit, which usually pays more.

4. Get Paid to Search

Use Bing or Swagbucks to do all of your web searches, and get paid for something you do everyday.

5. Rent Your Stuff

Don’t let your things sit around when you aren’t using them. Rent out your home through Airbnb; rent out your car through RelayRides; rent everything else out through Rentything. Just make sure you understand the risks involved and have adequate insurance to cover your liability.

6. Sell Trees

Own land? Sell some of the timber; then, replant it (or pay someone to replant it), so you can sell it again. Another option: grow Christmas trees. If you plant a variety that doesn’t require trimming; and set it up as a u-pick farm, you’ll have very little hands-on work.

7. Rent an Antique/Craft Booth

Like to buy antiques at thrift stores and yard sales? Have a crafty side? Then, rent out booth space in an antique mall or craft boutique. Once you fill your booth, it should be pretty easy to maintain.

8. Get Your Car Wrapped

Have an eye-catching car and spend lots of time on the road? Allow a business to wrap your car in advertisements, and earn a monthly income from your daily drive.

9. Invest in Stocks that Earn Dividends

Build a portfolio of stocks that pay dividends, and enjoy quarterly or annual checks from the companies you invest in.

10. Invest in Rental Property

Pick up an inexpensive property, and rent it out to generate a monthly income for yourself. If you don’t want to deal with screening renters and fixing problems, hire a property manager to do it for you.

11. Sell Your Ideas

Have lots of great ideas kicking around in your head? Turn them into an eBook, an app, an e-course or some other product that you can sell again and again. Once the initial work is done, you won’t have to do much more than collect your money.

Free Alternatives for Paid Services Latest

2016-01-14T06:33:00.003-08:00

Cutting expenses from your budget doesn't have to mean giving things up. Check out these great, free alternatives for services that you're used to paying for:

1. Cable/Satellite

Use Hulu to keep up with the latest episodes of your favorite shows – even shows on premium channels, like HGTV, Lifetime and History. Then, hook an antenna up to your TV, and find new shows to fall in love with. Most networks have two or three channels of programming now, so there's more free TV than ever before (go to antennaweb.org to see what channels are available in your area).

2. Movie Subscriptions

Catch free movies on Hulu and Crackle. Then, hit the library for even more. Dying to see a particular new-release movie? Sign up to receive text messages from Redbox (just text OFFERS to 727272), and they'll send you a free rental code the first Monday of every month.

3. Antivirus Software

Trade in your paid antivirus subscription for a free download of Microsoft Security Essentials, or try one of the free programs from AVG or Avast. They'll keep your computer virus and malware-free, without charging you a cent.

4. Magazine Subscriptions

The next time one of your magazine subscriptions comes up for renewal, use one of the free subscription sources mentioned in this article to snag another year for free, or let your subscription run out, and get the latest issue from the library, instead. These days, most library branches will allow you to check magazines out (or even download digital copies), so borrowing can be just as good as buying (maybe better, since you don't have to deal with magazine pile up).

5. Internet

Ditch your DSL or broadband Internet service, and replace it with free 4G wireless Internet from FreedomPop. If the service isn't offered in your area yet, consider relying on free wi-fi hot spots until it is.

6. Cellphone Services

Snag 500mb of free data from FreedomPop each month. Text for free using the Heywire or Textfree app, and make free calls using Viber, Skype Mobile or Textfree. That pricey cell phone package is so 2012, so kick it to the curb.

7. Long Distance

Cancel the long distance service on your landline, and use Skype, Gmail or your cellphone to make all of your out-of-area calls.

8. Dental Care

Do a search for dental schools in your area. Then, visit each school's website or call to see what dental services they offer. This can be a great way to score free (or cheap) dental care, regardless of financial need.
If you're a low-income individual, check with your local health department to see if they offer any free dental services; search for a free dental clinic in your area; or visit dentistryfromtheheart.org to see, if they'll be coming to a city near you.

redshorts / Digital Vision / Getty Images

9. Haircuts

Look into the services offered by the nearest cosmetology school, where the cuts could be as cheap as free.
Other Options: Consider becoming a hair model, or find out if any salons in your town offer a free cut when you donate to Locks of Love.

10. Gym Membership

Many church gyms have the same amenities that you'll find at a paid gym – game courts, walking tracks, weight rooms, even exercises classes, and you usually don't have to be a church member to take advantage of the offerings. Call around to a few churches in your area, and find yourself a workout spot sans the membership fee.

25 Top Money Earning Bloggers – Here’s How To Make Money Blogging

2016-01-14T06:27:00.003-08:00

According to Google, approx 5,400 people a month search for the term: How To Make Money Blogging.
So I thought I would do some research on the top 25 bloggers and how they make their money so I could share it with you here. But there are tons more success stories out there. The internet is filled with people quietly making an amazing income with their own blogs or websites. Most of which we never hear about.
Some of the blogs I found while researching this article are fairly popular “well known” sites now, but they all started out just the same as any other blog.
I love looking through lists like this, they inspire me to work harder and help keep me motivated towards my own goals of $100k a month for this site. I would also love to hear from other bloggers, or aspiring bloggers in the comments below.
Browse through the list and get inspired and when you are ready to start your own blog, check out our step by step tutorials here.
A quick disclaimer before we move on…
Some of the sites in this list have been estimated or given a “best guess” so they are likely not 100% correct. But I have included the estimates to give you some idea of the potential of this type of online business. If you have any more accurate information, please let me know and I will do my best to keep this list updated.

The Huffington Post – $2,500,000 p/mth

Founder: Arianna Huffington
Estimated Earnings: $2,500,000 per month
Method of Earnings: Pay Per Click

TechCrunch – $800,000 p/mth

Founder: Michael Arrington
Estimated Earnings: $800,000 per month
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Mashable – $600,000 p/mth

Founder: Pete Cashmore
Estimated Earnings: $600,000 per month
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Perez Hilton – $450,000 p/mth

Founder: Mario Lavandeira
Estimated Earnings: $450,000 per month
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Engadget – $300,000 p/mth

Founder: Peter Rojas
Estimated Earnings: $300,000 per month
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Noupe – $200,000 p/mth

Founder: The Blonde Salad
Estimated Earnings: $200,000 per month
Method of Earnings: Private Advertising

Smashing Magazine – $190,000 p/mth

Founder: Vitaly Friedman
Estimated Earnings: $190,000 per month
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Smart Passive Income – $150,000 p/mth

Founder: Pat Flynn
Estimated Earnings: 150,000 per month
Method Of Earnings: Affiliate Commissions

Timothy Sykes – $150,000 p/mth

Founder: Timothy Sykes
Estimated Earnings: $150,000
Method of Earnings: Product Sales

Life Hacker – $110,000 p/mth

Founder: Gina Trapani
Estimated Earnings: $110,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Gothamist = $110,000 p/mth

Founder: Jake Dobkin
Estimated Earnings: $110,000
Method of Earnings: Pay Per Click

Tuts Plus – $110,000 p/mth

Founder: Collis Taeed
Estimated Earnings: $110,000
Method of Earnings: Memberships

John Chow – $100,000 p/mth

Founder: John Chow
Estimated Earnings: $100,000
Method of Earnings: Affiliate Commissions

Venture Beat – $100,000 p/mth

Founder: Matt Marshall
Estimated Earnings: $100,000
Method of Earnings: Pay Per Click

Slash Gear – $80,000 p/mth

Founder: Ewdison Then
Estimated Earnings: $80,000
Method of Earnings: Pay Per Click

Car Advice – $70,000 p/mth

Founder: Alborz Fallah
Estimated Earnings: $70,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Gawker – $60,000 p/mth

Founder: Nick Denton
Estimated Earnings: $60,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Dooce – $50,000 p/mth

Founder: Heather B. Armstrong
Estimated Earnings: $50,000
Method of Earnings: Pay Per Click

Steve Pavlina – $45,000 p/mth

Founder: Steve Pavlina
Estimated Earnings: $45,000
Method of Earnings: Pay Per Click

Talking Point Memo – $45,000 p/mth

Founder: Joshua Micah Marshall
Estimated Earnings: $45,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

ProBlogger – $40,000 p/mth

Founder: Darren Rowse
Estimated Earnings: $40,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Expert Photography – $30,000 p/mth

Founder: Joshua Dunlop
Estimated Earnings: $30,000
Method of Earnings: Product Sales

Shoemoney – $30,000 p/mth

Founder: Jeremy Schoemaker
Estimated Earnings: $30,000
Method of Earnings: Private Advertising

Coolest Gadgets – $30,000 p/mth

Founder: Allan Carlton
Estimated Earnings: $30,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

1stWebDesigner – $20,000 p/mth

Founder: Dainis Grveris
Estimated Earnings: $20,000
Method of Earnings: Product Sales
Shortcodes are working!

Facebook Like Box with Hover Effect for Blogger

2016-01-14T06:21:00.002-08:00

Before explaining this tutorial i would like to say thanks to all our readers for your support and contributions since last 2 years, Thanks also to everyone who has helped this blog in other ways, with suggestions, technical support, information and many other things. Now come up to tutorial, In our previous post we will teach you about how to add Facebook like box into blogger blog and today now we are sharing another 2 Facebook Subscription widget for blogger or website. Here I have added as the box with simple jQuery hover effect. Lets see below tutorial to add them into your blog or website.

Adding Static Facebook Pop Out Like Box Widget To Blogger layout...Now let's start adding it. Just follow below producer.

Login to your Blogger Account.
Click Layout > Add A Gadget.
Select HTML/Javascript
Then Paste The Following Code In content Box from one of code given below.

(Style I) Static Facebook Pop Out Like Box with Hover Effect

Before adding these code please replace pages/ThingsGuide/281417998619583 with your Facebook fan page URL.

(Style II) Facebook Stylish Popup Widget with Lightbox Effect

href=http://www.facebook.com/pages/ThingsGuide/281417998619583&width=402&height=255&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&show_border=false&stream=false&header=false'

style='border: none; overflow: hidden; margin-top: -19px; width: 402px; height: 230px;'></iframe><center>
</center>
</div>
</div>

Before adding these code please replace pages/ThingsGuide/281417998619583 with your Facebook fan page URL.

Customization: These widget only shows up the first time the user visits your page. If you would like the Facebook box to popup everytime the page loads, then remove this line of code:

$.cookie('popup_user_login', 'yes', { path: '/', expires: 7 });

If you are facing any error during adding above widgets into your blog or website then please leave your comment below, we will catch you back as soon as possibl

How To Disable Unwanted Startup Program

2016-01-14T06:14:00.001-08:00

Most of the application creates an entry automatically when the computer starts whether you are using or not, It utilizes the ram and those reducing the performance.You can improve overall system performance and boot time of your computer by getting rid of programs you do not want running in the background, To speed up your startup process you have to remove those unwanted startup programs which are consuming those extra time.

Here's how to disable unwanted start up programs:

Step 1- Click the start button and type msconfig into the search box and hit enter. (If you are using windows xp go to Run and type msconfig)

Step 2- You will get system configuration window select the startup tab

Step 3- Go to through the list disabling program you don't need and unticking the box left of them. The effects would take place next time you start your PC.

How To Speed Up Internet Connection

2016-01-14T06:13:00.002-08:00

Today I am sharing another interesting article describes how to speed up your Internet connection without use of web accelerators, The speed of your internet connection doesn't just depend on the speed of your network, By default, most system have some bandwidth reserved for nothing, You can change this the following way, In order to do this you will have to hack the system registry.

Step 1- Click run in your start menu, Type gpedit.msc into the box and press OK

Step 2- Navigate Local computer policy > Computer configuration > Administrative template > Network > QoS pocket scheduler then open Limit reservable bandwwidth

Step 3- Click enable and change the bandwidth limit to 0% instead of 20%, Image refer below

Step 3- Click on apply and then OK, this might need a restart to start working.

How To Change Your IP Address

2016-01-14T06:12:00.001-08:00

Can I change my IP address? is probably the most commonly asked question, IP address is a numerical way of identifying your computer. Every computer has its own unique IP. If you get your IP blocked somewhere and you don't like it then this guide is for you, Before trying this method, turning off or unplug your modem/router for few minutes.

Staps:

1. Type "CMD" into the run box from start menu and hit OK

2. Type "ipconfig" into the command prompt (This will show you info about your IP address)

3. Type "ipconfig /release" and hit "Enter (This will remove your currnt IP)

4. Type "ipconfig /renew" and you will be presented with a new IP address

5. Type "exit" and leave the prompt.

If this does not answer of your question, please leave your comment.

How to Monitor Who is Connected to Your Wi-Fi Network

2016-01-14T06:09:00.004-08:00

Many peoples living around you are trying to access your Wi-Fi connection for free, We're aware that you're paying bills from your hard earned money and want to stop such unwanted activities. In today’s post, we will review how you can keep a constant monitor on your wireless network connection.

Actually your router have some built-in functions for detecting wireless network connections but this is a limited function and doesn't allow for advanced features. Some of the application like Nirsoft wireless network watcher will be allow advanced features such as live monitoring and detection. Which you can keep better track of your Wi-Fi network connections.

First of all go to the NirSoft Wireless Network Watcher download page and proceed to download the.exe file

After downloading finished you will need to start launcher. Once the application starts, You can configure more advanced settings for the software by navigating the path Options > Advanced Options

You can also set the software to beep whenever it detects a new connection, using the path Options > Beep on new device

Hope you're enjoying tutorials, Waiting for your comments.

10 Ways To Improve Your Blog & Online Earnings

2016-01-13T05:32:00.005-08:00

When it comes to making money online, the more work you put in to improve your blog, the more you’ll get out of it. Through hard work, dedication and determination, your online efforts can improve your bank balance. Here are some different ways that you can use to improve your blog and boost online earnings.

1. Run a Promotion

Nothing brings people in like a special offer. If you sell a product or service, price them at a discount for several days and publicize the sale on your social media platforms. You might offer a free, 15-minute consultation or a free copy of an eBook. No matter what your niche or monetization strategy, find a way to give your visitors value. Not all of them will stick around, but even if only 10 percent come back you will see a significant increase in daily performance.
According to Holiday 2012 Spending & Promotion [Infographic], 36-percent of shoppers during the 2012 Christmas season were purchasing goods offering sales and discounts. This was more than 22-percent higher than those who were looking to buy quality merchandise. This just goes to show that when it comes to shopping, people love promotions!

2. Publish an eBook

If you know your niche and can find an original topic, write your own eBook to help your viewers and bring in a direct income from your knowledge. Do your research, edit strenuously and ensure that you’re offering unique and helpful content. With a bit of marketing, any book can be successful. Most major online distributors will accept self-published works so long as they are properly formatted, or you can provide downloads with your own checkout service.
Using a service such as Wattpad.com could help you to get your name out there and allow readers to find your content. While you may not make money using this service, it can easily create a fan base for your future works that could lead to immortalizing your name.

3. Join the Community

If your traffic is stagnating and you are primarily relying on search engines, it’s time to find a new source of readers and customers. Stop seeing other bloggers and professionals in your community as rivals and start figuring out how to build success together. This usually means writing guest posts for each other, which are a valuable source of backlinks and traffic, but more creative methods can be even more profitable.
Building backlinks to your site is important to your continued success on the Internet. As you can see from the SEO: How To Build Backlinks [Infographic], there are many different ways that you can capitalize on building links by developing a strategy that works best for your site.

4. Find New Opportunities

There are many ways to monetize a website. In all likelihood, you are not exploiting all of them. Too many advertisements or blatant marketing will drive away readers, but that’s no reason to sell yourself short, either. Start participating in affiliate marketing, sell physical products or provide advising services for your niche. The new revenue stream may prove to be your most profitable enterprise yet.
Services such as Google Adsense could produce a stream of income from any website. As Google adjusts the ads dependent on your content, visitors are provided with relevant advertisements that may interest them enough to click one. Once a click happens, you get paid.

5. Study the Market

If you are struggling to find a dedicated readership, it may be because you are not addressing the real needs and interests of those within your niche. Some basic keyword research is a good place to start. Examine more successful blogs and see which topics and posts get the most comments. Don’t start plagiarizing, but they may give you an idea of what people actually want to discuss and learn about. Sometimes a new perspective is all that’s needed to help you improve your blog and take it to the next level.
Tools such as Google Trends can also open the doors to what is trending in the world. This data goes as far back as 2004 and will show you what search terms have been the most popular relating to your own suggestion.

6. Edit Old Pages to Improve Your Blog

About once every year, go back through each page of your website as well as all of your blog posts. Correct any errors that were missed the first time around, add new internal links to your more recent posts and update the writing to your current tone and professional standards. Search engines like pages that have been recently edited, and bringing everything up to speed will improve your bounce rates.
Examining your content from its original standpoint could help increase the visitor’s confidence in your website. Sometimes, things are missed or reported incorrectly. It’s always best to provide the best content available to strengthen that confidence within your visitor in order to optimize the experience for him or her.

7. Create Videos

Video marketing is a much more powerful tool than words alone. It helps to connect readers to you as a person, establishing trust and familiarity. Invest in a decent camera and remember to keep your videos short, informative and interesting. There’s plenty of time to go into detail later, in text.
Video marketing can be an extremely powerful tool as it will show the visitor in real-life what they can only imagine by reading text. As time progresses, more and more people are developing video marketing campaigns in order to sell products and review services.

8. Improve Your Productivity

Monitor your own habits for one week to learn how your time is really being spent. There are apps and programs available which act as time logs, or you can simply note every time you begin working, end working or become distracted. You may be shocked to learn how many hours a day you actually spend working and how many are wasted.
Applications such as Toggl can help you keep your time organized and provide you with greater insight as to how you spend your day. By creating specific projects and tasks for yourself, and remembering to actually clock in and out, you can see areas in your day that could be adjusted.

9. Start Tracking Performance

Some webmasters watch their page-views and that’s it. Instead, you need to be monitoring how people behave when they land on your website, what they click and where they go. Using an advanced web analytics service will show you how people are using your site and help you shape their behaviours in the future.

Tools such as Google Analytics can provide you with demographic information, how often specific pages are accessed, time spent on each page, where the visitor was referred from, and so much more. The more information you have about your site, the more areas you can look at to improve your blog.
All it requires is a small code snippet to add to the site you want to track and Google will do the rest. If you use Joomla, WordPress or other content management system, there are plugins that will handle the coding for you.

10. Write More

Most importantly, push yourself to increase your output. If you publish a blog post three times a week, aim for five. People want to consume as much information as they can get. Supply it to them, and you’ll develop a devoted following all your own.
Content is very important to the success of your website. Through relevant and quality written text, your pages will rank higher in search engines which in turn will rank higher with visitors. Keep the unique content flowing and the visitors will come.
As you progress through your career as an Internet marketer, remember to always stay hungry. Branch out, follow new trends and never stop looking for new opportunities. With the right attitude and motivation, you’ll be able to continue increasing your earnings for years to come.

17 Common Blogging & SEO Mistakes – Do You Make These?

2016-01-13T05:30:00.001-08:00

Image by ‘Rocpoc’

So, you have scoured the internet and implemented all the different SEO strategies that you have found (both on-page SEO and off-page SEO techniques), yet you still can’t seem find your site on search engines and hardly anyone visits your blog! I bet you are wondering why and you are feeling frustrated. Well you are not alone.
You are amongst thousands of people who optimize their blogs, assured that they are all set for that coveted ‘Page 1 Ranking’ in Google. But, it’s not long before you realise that you don’t rank anywhere near Google’s first page, or the second page … third page … tenth page even!!!
You can’t work out why. You watch your hopes for a top rank, along with that better lifestyle you hoped your blog would bring you, disappearing in front of you.
The truth is, you’re making some BIG, costly, SEO mistakes. Some of these mistakes may surprise you, whilst some might look a little too familiar. Here are 17 of the most costly SEO mistakes you might be making on your site:

SEO Mistakes

1. You Write Too Much On Your Blog

You think that content is king, so you write every day on your blog because you think that will get Google to notice you. You believe this SO much that you end up writing content just for the sake of it and end up just producing (or worse, spinning!) very low quality posts because you quickly run out of ideas. Worse still, you may even get bored.

Google has been tightening up on the quality of blogs that rank in their search engine for a while now. Some of the old SEO strategies that once worked, don’t work any more. Writing low quality content stuffed full of keywords just to get ranked is one of the strategies that doesn’t work any more.

Still, you keep writing the same old stuff… just in case.

2. You Count The Comments You Get, But Never Respond To Them

Yes, you like getting comments. They make you feel good, make you feel noticed, liked and interesting. You like to count the number of comments you get, but you never respond to them.

You don’t engage with the people who have taken the time to get in touch with you because they liked what you have written.

When you don’t reach out and thank them, answer their questions or simply chat with them in the comments section of your site, pretty soon your readers will get bored with you. They will view your lack of a response as being uninterested or suffering from a lack of manners and end up going elsewhere, never to return.

3. You Don’t Interact With Other Bloggers

You spend most of your time working on your blog; creating content, optimising it for the search engines, stressing about web design, etc. However, all this work never seems to pay off in bringing in more traffic.

All the time that you spend focusing on this side of your site, you are neglecting the equally important aspect of interacting with other bloggers. You could make life so much easier for yourself by reaching out and engaging with other bloggers. Blogging, at the end of the day, is all about community. You need to interact with both readers (mistake #2) AND other bloggers to help spread the word about your site.

4. You Follow All The Latest Trends

This one, that one – any flavour of the month, you follow it because you think maybe this one will be your ticket to getting noticed by Google, making money on your blog, or just getting noticed – period.

5. You Are Obsessed About Your Blog’s Design

Be honest now. You spend a lot of your time worrying about whether your blog looks right. Whether it looks “pretty”, has a cool looking logo or whether it’s got the latest “thing” that some guru tells you will make all the difference.

All this time that you spend obsessing about this is time wasted not creating quality content that your readers want to read. The kind of quality content that Google loves and could be driving traffic to your site! Is it any wonder you’re invisible?

6. You Write Robot-Junk

Image by ‘littlelostrobot’

No one that visits your site can read your articles, even if they wanted to. You have spent SO much time optimizing it, making sure you fit in as many keywords as you can, that it ends up being a load of gobbledygook. It’s simply just robot-junk! Not only do search engines hate this, but more importantly, people reading it (or trying to at least) hate it more. Why would people want to visit your site if they can’t understand anything?

No wonder you aren’t getting any traffic!

7. You Don’t Make Friends With Powerful People Online

You think these powerful people (these big bloggers with popular blogs and oodles of readers) won’t be interested in you. You just think you’ll get ignored, so you don’t even try to get noticed by these powerful people. You care too much about page rank

Your obsession with ranking high on Google makes you forget about who really matters when it comes to blogging. You forget that it’s your readers who matter most of all.

Google notices how much you’re over-optimising your content and forgetting about your readers. The likelihood of your getting de-indexed when making this mistake goes up considerably.

8. You Stress About Social Media

You want people to Tweet your stuff, “Like” your content on Facebook, +1 your articles on Google+, Re-pin images on Pinterest, share posts on LinkedIn, etc. You want as many followers, friends, fans, etc. that you can get, so you end up following anyone and everyone. As many as you can.

You spend so much time stressing about things like:

Have you got it right?
Have you followed the right people?
Have you circled the right people?
Are your comments or tweets hilarious?
Have you linked to the right stuff?
Have you got a profile on every social media site out there?

You spend all this time stressing about social media just to get ranked, that you don’t notice… no one cares!!! No one cares about you or your site because you are neglecting to spend that time producing quality content.

Social media is a great way of interacting with people and spreading the word about your site, but you have to have something worth sharing in the first place. If you don’t, then it’s pointless.

9. You’re In The Wrong Niche

That’s right. Like it or not, you were in such a rush to get stuck in and make money on your blog, that you forgot the first law of blogging: Pick the right niche for you!

Not every niche will end up being right for you. You may have picked your niche because you thought it would make you money fast or you thought that it would be really simple. There is no fast or simple way to becoming successful! You have to put the hard work in to making a success yourself, so you may as well pick something that you are interested in or are passionate about.

10. You Are Just Another Sheep

You haven’t created a unique “voice” for yourself, so much so that you simply sound like every other blogger. Your content ends up being just a carbon copy (or worse, an exact copy!) of content you see on other blogs.

You think that by doing what everybody else is doing (and getting ranked in Google for) must be right. Following the herd just makes your blog boring and uninteresting. For this reason, no one visits your site, no one reads your content, no one listens to what you are saying because they have heard it all before. No one knows you exist.

You’re just another sheep! Baaaa

Image by ‘James Good’

11. You Don’t Guest Post

You don’t take the opportunity of getting noticed in the fastest and most effective way. You spend all your time focusing on content for your own site, you neglect to write for other blogs. The more you do this, the more afraid you feel that your writing isn’t good enough.

Guest blogging is a great way to spread the word about yourself and engage with a new audience. Not only that, but it allows you to get to know other bloggers and build connections.

12. Nobody Cares About Your Niche

Your rush to make big bucks is blinding you to how money is actually made on the internet.

Making money on the internet is fine. It’s okay. But you were in such a rush to make money quickly. You just picked the brightest, shiniest niche.

But, just blogging to make money is seriously damaging your ranking.

13. You’re Out Of Touch With Your Readers

You don’t spend time reading other blogs or interacting on forums where most of your readers hang out. This means you don’t know what your readers are thinking, what they are saying and doing.

You’re out of touch with your readers. You can’t “get in on the conversation” as you don’t know what the conversation is. How can you expect to write about subjects that they are interested in if you don’t know what their worries or woes are, what their problems are, etc.

Like we mentioned earlier, blogging is a community. A community that you must be a part of if you want to be successful!

14. You’re Just A Self-Absorbed Jackass!

You think blogging is all about what you have to say.

You never make the effort to step out of your tiny blog world and get out and about in the rest of the blogosphere. The comments sections of other sites can be a great way to see what readers really want. It can be a great place to see what people are thinking and what questions they are asking other bloggers. You never know, a simple comment could inspire you to write a whole post.

Make time to respond to comments on other blogs (as well as your own) to get noticed by the readers there.

15. You’re Obsessed With “Making Money”

Okay, so you want to make money so that you can quit your day job or maybe you just want to make enough money to put aside “just in case”. That’s okay. That’s good thinking, especially when times are so unstable and you want to make sure you can ride any storm that hits you.

But there is a BIG difference between earning money and letting big, flashy, Dollar signs blind you.

Being in a rush to make money only makes you poor. Why? Because your obsessing about making money turns people off. No one will listen to you if you are always bragging about how much you made or how much you are going to make, especially if it isn’t true. Your blog will be less lively than a night club at breakfast and you will never create your nest egg.

Your blog will ultimately fail because people won’t read your blog.

16. You Have No Real Idea What Your Blog Is About!?!

Oh boy! Is this mistake a killer!

Is your site about technology? Is it about fashion? Is it about cooking, shopping, gardening, etc? Is your site about you or is it about your readers? Is about all of these, and everything in between (especially if it makes money)?

You jump on one bandwagon after another. Each time you think this one isn’t bringing in the money/traffic, you jump onto another, then another, then another….

You lose track of what you’re doing. You end up getting frustrated and bored, or worse still, you end up abandon it and giving up.

How can you hope to build a successful site if you don’t know what direction your site is going? How can you hope to attract regular readers if you end up switching topics every week!

17. You Don’t Link To Relevant Content On Other Sites

You’re blinded by your own importance.

You don’t include relevant links to other peoples content. Content that introducing your readers to relevant, useful and simply just great content on other sites.

Google takes just as much notice of the links that go out from your blog as it does to links coming in to your blog. Take advantage of this by linking to relevant content where appropriate.

If you are thinking that by linking to other people’s content, you are going to lose traffic, you’d be wrong. People appreciate sites that share with them useful information, whether it be their own or other peoples. They are much more likely to come back to your site if they think that it is a good place for quality information. And as a bonus, sites are more likely to link back to your site if you are generous with your links.

Are You Guilty?

Do you make any or all of these blogging & SEO mistakes? It’s okay to admit it. Blogging is hard work and you know that SEO is important.
You’re smart enough to realise that what readers are interested in, and look up to you for, is your help and advice, your interesting ideas and opinions, your solutions to their problems, and they’re interested in you as a blogger too.
Truth is, all these SEO strategies won’t work without “remarkable content” on your blog. Your best SEO strategy to get ranked in the top 10 in Google is the quality of your writing. You need to write remarkably well to attract readers attention. Remarkable content is content that makes your readers want to share it with their friends, followers and everybody they know. This means that, in order to be remarkable, your content has to be interesting, vibrant, full of new ideas or a new take on what’s going.
Here’s a quick and simple remedy for how to write remarkable content and really rank in Google…

Your Cheat-Sheet For Writing Blogs Posts That Get You Noticed (& Ranking High In Google)

It all starts off of your blog!
In other words, you need to…

Go and spend time hanging out on other people’s blogs and reading them.
Read the comments and look for any questions people ask.
Engage with people in the comments section and the individual whose blog it is.
Hang out with other bloggers.
Network! Send some bloggers you admire an quick email telling them that you enjoyed reading their latest blog posts.

When you’ve done this for a month or two, you’ll discover that you know so much more about your potential readers. You’ll be able to write remarkable content because of all this new information. Your remarkable content is more likely to get noticed by Google because its quality will be a lot higher than most of the stuff that gets published online.
More people will be talking about you and sharing links to your content on Twitter and Facebook which will also get you noticed and get you climbing up the rankings. Better still, you’ll start getting linked to by big, popular blogs too.
And then put the best SEO strategy of all to work for you… writing good quality blog posts!

So, What Are You Waiting For?

Start writing your remarkable guest posts for other people’s blogs. Use your remarkable content to market yourself as a blogger to watch out for and subscribe to. Not just on your blog, use it to market yourself on other blogs where your readers hang-out currently.
Write. Practice. Write. Read other popular blogs.
Are you ready to get ranked in search engines for being remarkable?

7 Steps To Blogging Success – How To Be The “Go-To Guy” In Your Niche

2016-01-13T05:28:00.001-08:00

Image By ‘marsmet544′

The amount of content on the Internet today is vast and blog readers have a wide variety of reading options for almost any topic you can think of.In fact, in your current niche, your potential readers and customers may be enjoying a blog post written by your competitors, while your blog is left completely in the dark.They seem to always get instant comments whenever they write a post.Their posts spread like plague on social media whenever they post and most important of all, they seem to making the most money!
A lot of start up bloggers make many mistakes and you might be overwhelmed to hear that everyday, 8000 people start up some sort of online venture in hopes of securing an income online and living a life of financial freedom. Well this is great and I love it when people decide to take action and change their lives, however a lot of these people make a lot of mistakes along the way or come unprepared.
You may have tried many things in the past and constantly using Twitter and Facebook may not be working all that well for you. Like the finches in Darwin’s cycle of evolution, they were able to grow different beak sizes so they could better adapt to the environmental conditions and survive thus beating out the competition.
Whoa! What on earth does Darwin have to do with blogging? Well, blogging believe it or not is very much the same! Your blog has to “evolve” over time to better suit your audience’s need. Your aim should be to differentiate yourself from the rest while attracting and keeping the readers that visit your blog.
As we don’t want you to end up on the wrong end of the natural selection, here are 7 ways you can survive and rise to the top of blogging hierarchy.

1. Be The Teacher In Your Niche

Image by ‘myfuture.com’

This one takes a bit of research and you have to find out what people in your niche want to read about, not what you assume they want to read about. If you are new, the best way to do this would be to sort through the most highest commented blog posts on a blog and see why people are leaving so many comments. The reason why I put such emphasis on comments is because it is the quickest way for you to see what blog readers are concerned with.
If you are at a more intermediate level, you can communicate with any one you might have following you on social media, on your mailing list (given that you have one) and answer any frequently asked questions with your writing, pictures and possibly even a video. Never ASSUME that what you write is what people want to read about. Be proactive and do the research so you come prepared.
Keep the quality of the content high and listen closely to what your audience want when you pick the topics. When your site begins to get a spike in traffic simply because you took the time research what your readers want to read about, then you’ll know that you are on the right path!

2. Have A Sense Of Humor

Getting personal and having a sense of humor in your writing can lead to a deeper connection with you and your audience. I see many blogs that are WAY too serious for me, an as much I love great advice about making money online and blogging, I also love to read blogs that have a nice spin on humor.
The winning combination for blogging success is to show that you know what you are talking about while not be too serious whilst talking about it! Being funnier than the others will surely bring readers back to your blog, given the fact that you provide great blogging advice while making it enjoyable to read. This is key to bringing visitors back to your blog.

3. Be An Expert In A Sub-Niche

This point is very important. A lot of new blogger make this mistake when trying to tackle the online world of blogging and making money online. You can’t beat someone who is already the master and who is already number one in a niche. With blogging, it is just inevitable.
The people who succeed are the people who carve out a niche for themselves that already subsided within a broader niche. The people that end up failing are the ones that have the huge egos as they create a site in hopes off knocking the top blogs off their thrones and kicking dust in the master’s faces. Don’t make this mistake with your blogging venture.
The best way to approach this would be to look at what is already out there and see how you can do it differently. Take my site for example, I already knew that there were lots of blogs out there about making money online and motivation but what I also knew was that no one had ever really linked the two together, so this was my chance and thus ‘Blogging to Win’ was born. Create the same opportunity for yourself and try to gain your share of the pie rather than trying to swallow it whole. There is plenty for everyone to go around, trust me!

4. Be Creative

If everyone is writing articles with simple plain old text, why don’t you try adding some picture posts and facts? How about being the first to layout your site differently than all the others?
Anything to make yourself and your blog memorable is the key to succeeding. The best way to approach this method would be to always add images that accentuate the points being made in your blog posts,and try to use a lot of quotes where appropriate. I love quotes and I know everyone else out there does too. 80% of the time a quote will speak out to a person thus getting shared on social media, and when your post gets shared, you get traffic. More shares = more traffic = more sales = more money!

5. Be The Godfather Of Meaningful Content

There is nothing worse than for you reader to stumble across your fantastically designed blog, which is different and has funny content, but is completely irrelevant.
Find the best information that others have written and emulate their style of writing. Find facts, charts, infographics, tables, videos and pictures to fully back up the point you are trying to make. If you can back up everything with credible facts, then this will make you much more trusted and people will keep coming back to you.
Make sure you link back to and give credit to whoever it is you sourced from and take bits and pieces of their information, not the whole thing! Content curating is a great way to share information and easily become seen by other people in your niche.

6. Have Bigger Aspirations That The Others

Tie your blog to a bigger goal. What goal and vision can you use to inspire people to get involved with and join you in your mission? Motivation is by far one of the strongest factors for human success and when people see that the person behind the blog is an enthusiastic and motivated individual, they will want to be like that too. I guess you could say that motivation is contagious!
When this happens, you become a sort of role model in the community and I don’t mean to be harsh here, but a lot of people would rather follow the success of someone who is working really hard as opposed to going out there and achieving it for themselves. When you begin your journey and climb the mountain of success, other people will get just as excited as you are, and will want to follow you on your journey. This is how celebrities within the communities are born.

7. Work Harder Than Everyone Else

This point is probably the foundation of all the other factors above and is the glue that holds everything together. The most basic way to put this point is that none of my points of blogging success will work unless you do!!!
Sometimes all the right tools may be in place and you may be very motivated to get going but, if you don’t take the appropriate action, then you will not see the desired results. You might fail along the way, stumble here and there and you will feel like giving up but if you work hard, pace yourself and don’t give up, you will receive your own personal slice of the success pie!
Good things come to those who work hard and are patient, so take the appropriate action today and begin turning your dreams into a reality. There’s a lot of virtual land out there to be had, and the harder and smarter you work, the more chance you have living the Internet lifestyle!
What do you think? Do you use these tips yourself? What other tips would you recommend people do to help them on their way to blogging success? Let us know by leaving a comment below!
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5 Great Ways To Ensuring Your Blog Is Profitable

2016-01-13T05:24:00.000-08:00

Everybody talks about how blogs can be an easy way to earn money, if the right strategies are used. The primary fallacy in this argument is that there is no easy way to make money! A lot needs to be invested with respect to time and effort, for any product, service or activity to generate money. The fact remains true for blogs also. Your blog can turn into a money spinner but, it can’t do so overnight, whatever some of the “experts” say.
Here are five ways that you can use to help turn your blog in to a highly profitable venture.

Original Content

How can having original content help your blog make money? Well, the fact is that that this is the kind of content that will help your blog attract readership; and the quality of your content can help you establish a credible reputation.

Update It Frequently

You can only attract a loyal readership if you keep updating your blog. By ensuring regular blog updates, you are giving your readers something fresh to read, which is appreciated by your visitors. This improves your reputation as a blogger by a long way. After all, why would someone keep re-visiting your website if there is nothing new to read?

The two points that have been mentioned earlier are great ways of attracting traffic to your blog, which has a huge role to play in the success or failure of the advertisements you display on your blog. You can make use of Google’s AdSense program to get Pay-Per-Click ads (PPC) on your blog. You get paid every time a blog visitor clicks on the ads. So, a great way to ensure that you get the maximum number of clicks is to place relevant ads that are aligned with the general content of your blog.
You could use different types of advertisements to average out your earnings. This can be done by using another type of Ad network that will pay you based on the number of impressions (page views) you get, this is called Cost per Mile advertising (CPM). For such advertising to work you need to keep attracting traffic to your site; this is where the first two pointers will come in to help you again.
Selling advertisement space on your blog is yet another way of earning money through your blog. This can become a highly lucrative option, but only when your blog starts attracting increasing amounts of traffic. This is an option that can be considered after your blog has been active after a year or two.

Affiliate Marketing

This is yet another way of revenue generation for your blog. You can join a number of affiliate marketing programs and use your blog for your affiliate marketing efforts. You can recommend the products you are marketing to your readers, but to ensure credibility, make it a point to recommend only those products that you believe in and whose quality and efficiency you can vouch for.

Patience and Focus

Nothing happens quickly and every process takes its own sweet time. Being impatient, might force you to cut some corners and take the easy way out. This is not done if you want your blog to earn money consistently. Moreover, you should never take your focus away from the task at hand. Making money from a blog is not something you can work on one day and forget about for the next seven days. The whole process requires constant monitoring and tweaking.
Keep at it, and you will definitely turn your blog into a revenue generating machine.
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Choose Your Blog Niche Carefully – Don’t Make The Same Mistake I Did

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Image by ‘maclauren70′

Back in January, I started a new blog. Now, if someone was to ask me what exactly it was about, I wouldn’t know what to say. Neither would any of my friends or my actual blog visitors for that matter. That may sound strange, but I think you will find that it is more common than you think. I had fallen into the trap of rushing into start my site and not choosing my blog niche carefully – something that I came to regret!

A blog niche is very important as this is what defines your site. Visitors will want to come and read your blog because it is about a certain subject. This is why you should take care to choose your niche carefully.

In the following post, I will look at why choosing a blog niche that is perfect, both for you and your readers, is important and talk about my own experiences with my site.

Having A Blog About Something Is Good

When I first started blogging I used a free WordPress blog on which I posted articles on a wide variety of subjects (blogs, flash game sites and others). A while later I added another category on saving/making money on the internet. My site had a few email and RSS subscribers who received alerts if new posts were published.
Whilst I was happy with the work I had done, I wanted to take my site a step further, so I bought a domain name, self-hosting, got a free WordPress theme and began writing some articles. I continued to write on the topics I had already been focusing on, hoping that I’ll get some traffic from my old blog and some from search engines (Google, Yahoo! search, Bing and others like that).

Having A Blog About Everything Is Not Good!

That was a pretty good start for my site, but I wanted to take it even higher so I added some more categories, including – ‘blogging’, ‘downloads’ (includes Windows programs), ‘games’, ‘social media’ and some others. Despite adding these new categories, I still didn’t fully know what my site was about (though I didn’t realize it at the time). I kept posting on all of those topics and was happy… at least for a while.
After a few weeks of blogging like this and not getting anywhere, I got in touch with some other blogger asking for their advice. They recommended that I should try to narrow my blog niche down as soon as I can. Why? Well because…

You Can’t Build A Targeted Audience With A Wide Niche

Sites that have too broad a focus (writing on lots of different subjects) tend to struggle attracting traffic. People should know exactly what your site is about when they visit your site. If they are confused and don’t know what your main aim is about, then they are much less likely to remember you and revisit at a later date.
This doesn’t mean that what you have written will not be helpful! People will still find answers to their questions in your posts if your articles show up in their Google search results (or whatever search engine they prefer), but most probably you can’t turn them in subscribers because they aren’t interested in the other topics that you’re writing about.

Don’t Make Your Blog Niche Too Narrow

Image by ‘Carissa Marie’

Whilst you shouldn’t write on a broad range of different subjects, you should also try not to pick a niche that is too narrow. Narrow niches tends to mean that there are much less people who are interested in the subject.
For example, ‘Knitting’ as a whole subject may be too wide a niche to focus on. ‘Knitting Striped Sweaters for Dogs’ would be much too narrow a topic to focus on as that may only interest a small minority. ‘Knitting Sweaters’ (of any type) would be a good balanced blog niche to pick.
You have to think about who is going to read and visit your site. Make your category too broad and no one will be interested, whereas make it too small and only a handful of people will be interested. You need to find the right balance of a subject that interests a large portion of people.
Remember, you can always grow out your niche in the future if it proves to be popular.

How I Narrowed Down My Blog Niche

You probably think that I ended up removing the new categories that I had added and left the ones I first had on my first site. Well you’d be wrong!
Since I optimized my site’s name and domain name for the “new” categories, I had to think of something new. One of my new categories was “blogging” and I had a couple of free WordPress blogs before this one so I changed my “internet related stuff” blog into a site that focused on “blogging” (keeping some categories on writing articles and site building tips).

What Changing My Niche Cost Me

I only wrote on the wide niche site for two or three weeks, and though not much, I was getting some traffic. Changing my niche probably costed me some regular visitors and subscribers, but it ended up sending me much more traffic in the long run. Losing one or two subscribers may not be a difference for you but it is a difference for me because I care for every single subscriber I can get.
Of course you can change your niche as many times as you want because it’s YOUR blog, but I advise you – don’t do so! It’s much better to get your niche right before starting your site and will save you a lot of hassle in the future.

What To Do If You Really Want To Write On All Of Those Topics

The best answer I can give is to create multiple blogs for each different topic you want to write about. This is more work than putting all of that stuff in one place, but you will definitely see the results.
A second option is that you can make a wider niche blog with different categories, but remember to post on each category at least twice a week AND make a separate email list for each of them. Some of the larger sites do this (though they tended to start much smaller and grow their niche over time). This way, people that are interested in technologies and gadgets (lets say) probably won’t be happy if they suddenly receive an email with a link to a post about knitting. And you won’t be too confused with emails if you will make separate blogs one day.
At the end of the day, only you decide on what goes on your blog. But if your aim is to drive traffic, I would strongly recommend that you focus your niche. It certainly benefited me!
Have you changed your blog niche or thought about it? What was your experience of doing this Please let us know by leaving a comment below!

What Makes Your Blog So Special?

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Image by ‘Jarod Carruthers’

It’s a serious question: What makes your blog so special? I mean, you have a blog. You want it to make money for you. You want new customers, affiliate or personal product sales, conversions, and ad clicks. You want the social media giants to find, read, enjoy and share your posts with their multitude of followers. Hell, you want anyone to share your content! You want exposure and, of course, you want it for free.
Why do you want these things? Because you’re writing epic stuff here! You’re pouring your heart and soul into every damn piece of content that is published on your blog. You deserve it, right? Well… maybe not!
As a blog writer for hire, I make it a point to study many blogs and sites around the net. I want to see what attracts me to some blogs and totally turns me away from others. What makes me subscribe? What makes me follow links and delve further and further into the realms of blogs?
To me, and to lots of other people it comes down to one thing: Does the blog that I’m reading have attitude. Does the content let me know that there is a real person, with real frustrations and successes writing the words and trying to offer something back to make life easier for me? Is it colorful and lively?

What Kind of Tone Does Your Blog Have?

This is where I kind of break off from the pack when it comes to the definition of what “killer content” really is. For me, it has got to have some level of pizzazz! The writer has to be emotionally vested in his content and, in return, he or she has to get me to invest emotionally in it. All other content fails, in my opinion.
Let’s try a small experiment.
Read any article on eHow.com or About.com and try to tell me that you got nothing out of it, or that you didn’t learn a thing. I don’t think you’ll be able to. Those articles and “how-to’s” are well written and informative. But do they entertain? No. They’re bland. They’re robotic. It’s like reading a military field manual. (That’s how I feel, anyway. If you disagree then please let me know in the comments section below.)

Image by ‘littlelostrobot’

On the other hand, though, let’s look at some blogs that cover the topics of internet marketing, making money online and blogging that actually do have some voice and tone.
I’m not kissing butt here, but one of the reasons I like Matt’s blog here at ‘Online Income Teacher‘ is that he has a true passion for making money online and teaching others how to do so as well. The same goes for Pat Flynn over at Smart Passive Income. Pat truly enjoys what he does, is grateful to his readers and is constantly in teaching mode. You want real tone and voice? . You’ll get all the attitude and voice you’ll ever need.
These are the bloggers that are truly and emotionally vested in their online endeavors and passionate about the profession of blogging. Many people confuse “making money online” and “blogging” and they eventually start to muddle the two into one kind of act. Nothing could be further from the truth, though. First comes the blog and then comes the part about making money.
Too many bloggers try to start a blog and write robotic “how-to’s” and information articles that are full of all the right keywords. Sure, Google might find you. Heck, people might come and read. But, I’m betting that they won’t come back much after that. Why would they? If they wanted that kind of content then they could just go to the eHows, Abouts and Wikis of the world.
When people arrive at your site, you should give them something worth reading, staying and coming back for. Just think about meeting new people. Ever come away from a chat with a new acquaintance saying, “Wow, that person was dull! Smart, yes, but booooring!” You might go back to that person if you needed some information on a particular subject but would you stop by his or her house when you just needed to be entertained or get lost in a good conversation for a while? I doubt it. There’s nothing special about that person to bring you back.
And that’s the key to making money online. Return visitors who are vested in your site and want to come back for more. They can’t wait until your next blog post, video or podcast. They like you and they get a bonus because you’re also informative and making their life easier and more enjoyable.
So, what makes your blog so special?

11 Warning Signs You’ve Picked The Wrong Niche For Your Blog

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Admit it. You’re wondering … Is your niche the reason why you are not making money online yet? Sometimes, a niche can seem right because it ticks the right boxes:

Good keyword research results: high to medium searches per month with medium to low competition.
It was a niche that you were passionate about.

All in all it looked like a sound investment. So, you spent time writing good content to attract visitors into becoming readers and buying your product. But now this niche isn’t looking so good, is it …?

Low (or non-existent) traffic figures.
Few, if any, comments.
No tweets or retweets on Twitter.
No likes on Facebook.
Worst still, you’re losing interest and lacking focus.

You’re wondering if continuing on with blogging is worth it. Asking yourself if you should carry on. Should you hang in there a few months more just in case things pick up? Or will you still be frustrated and feeling invisible 3 months … 6 months … a year down the line? Does this sound familiar? If it does, there are 3 simple steps you can take to turn your blog around. But first, you need to find out if your niche is the problem. Sometimes, it’s obvious. Sometimes less obvious. Sometimes you just need a little help to see what’s working and what isn’t. So, let’s take a look at 11 of the most common warning signs that you picked the wrong niche.

Do You Recognise Any Of These Warning Signs?

Warning Sign #1: You don’t get m(any) comments

You’re not connecting with anyone. You’re not saying anything people can identify with. You’re not writing anything that’s new, or that challenges their current thinking. To be successful and make money your blog has to make people think:

“Wow! That’s just what I’ve been thinking. Maybe I should read more.”
“This is just what I’ve been searching for.”
“I never even thought of that before!”

Unless, enough people share your love for your niche no one will care. No one will read your blog.

“

Warning sign #2: No one shares your content on Facebook or Twitter

This is a sure sign no one shares your love for the niche you picked. So, nothing you writes interests them. They’ve heard it all before and it doesn’t excite them any more.

Warning sign #3: You’ve got no focus

To blog successfully you have to focus on what your readers actually want – not what you “think“ they want. Then you have to give it to them. So many bloggers start off blogging from the wrong angle. They focus on: What will make me money? Instead, you need to start by asking the question:

How can I give enough people what they want so that they feel so good about reading my blog AND keep reading it and tell other people to read it too?

Warning sign #4: You chose your niche because you felt passionate about it

Blogging is full of advice to “follow your passion” or “blog about what you love“. Unfortunately, this advice is misleading because the truth is that choosing a niche that you’re passionate about doesn’t actually mean that you’ll enjoy blogging about it (or building it into a profitable business).

Warning sign #5: You picked a niche because you thought it would make you money

After all, that’s really why you’re blogging, right? It’s why we’re all blogging. But, the truth is …

You can only build a successful income online if you can connect your blog’s niche to what people actually want to know.

People want results. Can you give them those results? That’s all they want to know. If you can – Great! They’ll read your blog, subscribe to your email list and buy your products. If not. They won’t.

Warning sign #6: You used keyword research to pick your niche

Okay, so you think I’m crazy even suggesting keyword research could have anything to do with your niche’s failure. Keyword research won’t help you pick a niche that makes your blog successful. Not by itself. In fact, it’s only a small part of the equation. You have to:

Choose the right audience,

Create remarkable content to keep on attracting that audience to your blog.

If you don’t focus on choosing the right audience or creating remarkable content, no amount of keyword research in the world will make you niche work (or your blog successful). Google hinted at this when it introduced it’s Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird algorithms.

Warning sign #7: You’ve got no books on your bookshelf about your niche

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

How many books do you own that talk about your niche? If you haven’t got any chances are it doesn’t interest you enough. Popular bloggers: Derek Halpern, Corbett Barr and Jon Morrow read outside, around and inside their topic. They keep ideas pounding away inside their heads. This keeps their topic fresh. In one month, I bought 12 books on Marketing. (And yes, I’m working my way through reading them all!) .

TIP: If you don’t think you’ve got time to read, listen to audiobooks. You can buy them from Audible.com, or Amazon.com. Or your favourite book shop. Or borrow them from your local library

Warning sign #8: No one’s spending money in your niche

Here are 3 simple ways to tell if they are:

The advertisements on the blogs are for the blogger’s own products
These bloggers talk proudly about their students success (or clients) as well as talking about the products they sell?
They hold regular webinars, launches, etc to sell their products?

If not, chances are no one’s spending much (if any) money in this niche. A sure sign that you should steer clear and follow the 3 steps coming up for how to pick a niche that makes money.

Warning sign #9: You can’t find anything new to say about your niche

You should be stumbling over new and fresh ideas. Or at least, adding your opinions to the pot. Surely, there’s a trend, or a fad, that’s big at the moment in your niche that you disagree agree with? Or hold a different viewpoint about? Or maybe, you’ve got something to add? This doesn’t mean you need to be controversial. It just means you need to have ideas for content that says something fresh. Not finding it easy to write about your niche doesn’t bode well for your blog because you’ve got nothing to turn people’s heads. Nothing to make them think:

“Wow! Didn’t expect anyone to say THAT!”
“At last! Someone with the answer I’ve been looking for!”
“That’s just what I’ve been thinking!”

Warning sign #10: You find yourself visiting other blogs for ideas for what to write about

No traffic, no readers, no money … You look at what popular bloggers in your niche are writing about. After all, people are reading their content, right? So, you find their popular posts and think: I’ll write about this topic on my blog. Then maybe I’ll get some readers too. Sorry, but … Why would people want to read content on your blog that they’ve already read on someone else’s blog? And can read on a hundred other blogs too?

Warning sign #11: You can’t think what to offer people as a free incentive for subscribing to your email address

It should be easy to decide what to offer. Easy because you know what your readers want. If you’re struggling to find an incentive to convince people to subscribe to your email list it’s a warning sign that you don’t know what they want or why they should buy anything from you.

Do You Recognise Any of These Warning Signs?

If so, should you give up? Not necessarily. You might look at this list of warning signs and you might recognise some, or all of them and you might get despondent and quit. And that would be a shame. The truth is, warning signs are just that – warning signs. They’re not sure-fire reasons why your niche isn’t working, or why your blog is failing, or a reason why you should quit. What is certain is that this list of warning signs is not reason alone to quit. There is hope. There are ways for you to save your blog.

The Simple 3-Step Plan For Picking A Profitable Niche (and Saving Your Blog)

It’s time to take a step back from your blog and look at what it takes to make a blog successful. What it takes to create a thriving audience who loves reading your content. An audience who shares your content on social media. An audience who buys your products. This step back from your blog lets you see it more clearly, and with fresh eyes. You get to see where your niche might be failing and how you can start to turn it around.

1. Forget Keyword Research. Find People With A Problem You Can Solve

Why did you choose your current niche? Because keyword research showed you that lot’s of people were searching for it online? Keyword research alone won’t help you pick a money-making niche. You need to find enough people who have the same problem and are willing to pay you for giving them real solutions. Can you adapt your current niche to give people what they actually want to:

Spend time reading about on your blog?

Share on Twitter and Facebook so other people read it too.

“A passion does not create a business. Solving a problem for people who are actively looking for a solution… that creates businesses.”

2. Answer This Question: Why Will People Want To Read Your Blog?

To help you answer this question (and find real focus for your blog) you need to decide these 2 factors:

Factor 1: What end result do people get out reading my blog?

This end result needs to match up with what you know about your readers goals. For example …

What do they want to know more about?
What do they want to be able to do that they can’t do now (but will discover how to do by reading your blog)?
What are they struggling with that you can help them overcome – what solutions or steps can you give them in the content you produce on your blog?

Factor 2: Is this end result one that excites you enough that you can …

Create remarkable content that will help them achieve this end result?
Keep on creating remarkable content using this cheat-sheet included here?

… Or, if you don’t already know the answers or steps to give them, you’re willing to go out and find these answers. Either by interviewing other people who know. Or by finding out yourself and writing about it.

3. Don’t Just Pick A Niche And Stop There

Look for end results that readers want but aren’t getting yet – Gaps in the information or steps that readers want filling (and then see if you can fill them). Match these gaps in information desired to what you know and can give them steps to filling these gaps.

TIP: Readers leave clues on other blogs for what they really want to know.

You can find these clues by reading the comments sections of blogs in a niche you’re thinking of blogging about. Comments are a good way of finding out what readers are looking to find out. Look for comments that contain questions. Questions that ask for more information like this …

Bottom Line: The easiest way to find the right niche is to find out what people are still looking for. Then you asking yourself if you’re prepared to give to them. Getting traffic, readers, subscribers and making money is a lot simpler and fun if you just fill in the gaps between what people want and what they’re not getting (yet). How?

Reach out to people still struggling, still looking for answers, still trying to find out how to do things, or solve problems.

Find them by reading the comments sections on popular blogs.

If you can help, do so. If you can’t then spend some time trying to find someone else who can. Then introduce them to each other.

Stand out as a good egg. Someone who wants to help.

There are still a lot of people who still need answers. They’re waiting. Waiting for someone to reach out and give them these answers. Are you ready to step up to the plate?

10 Profitable Niche Blogging Topics To Write On

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When you start a blog, you usually do so with the intention of providing useful information for readers and to ultimately drive traffic to your site to make money. One of the biggest difficulties about starting a blog is deciding what blogging topics to focus on. You need a niche that is interesting, allows you a lot of freedom to write regular articles and of course is profitable!

You may already run a blog, but have run out of ideas to talk about and feel drained of inspiration. In case you are at this point I thought I would share a few blog post topic ideas that bring in a lot of traffic and work well within most blog niches.

So, in no particular order, here are my 10 profitable blogging topics to write on:

10 Profitable Niche Blogging Topics

1. Travel

“I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.” Douglas Adams

Travel is a topic that is important to many different people. Some people travel for business, for pleasure, for family matters, etc. No matter what the particular case is, there is sure to be a reason to write about travel in your blog.

You can write about; travel safety, fun places you have been, places you want to go, the hardships you have faced in areas that you have travelled to, the best places for travellers to visit in your area and more! Even if you have never left your home town you can still write about travel.

It does not take much to get the interest of readers, but be sure you add an image or two to really bring the idea home.

2. Relationships

“Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

Relationships, love, friendship and family are all important parts of everyone’s lives. We sometimes forget how important they are and what a huge role they play in our lives. However writing a blog post about relationships is a great way to bring in new readers. Everyone is interested in forming stronger relationships, healing broken relationships, finding true love, and keeping the flame alive.

Whatever experiences you can share from your own life and the lives of the people you know will be appreciated and could really help someone else. Not only that, but talking about relationships helps your readers to connect with you as a person which makes them more likely to follow your blog for the long term and recommend it to others.

3. Failures

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” Steve Jobs

Failures are a part of life. The thing to remember is to learn from your failures. Sharing your experiences with failures can help others when they are going through tough times. Whether you failed in business dealings or other matters, sharing how you overcame those failures makes for a great blog post that many people will want to read.

4. Success

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” Abraham Lincoln

Like sharing your failures sharing your successes is very important. You may think that sharing the secret to your success will cheapen it somehow but that is not the case. In fact, sharing success just multiplies your success. You have heard that the more you give away the more you keep, well it is true. The more you are willing to help other to succeed the more successful you will be.

5. Education

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela

Education and schooling is a very hot topic nowadays. Because of the recession and the vast unemployment everyone wants to know how to get a get a good job and that always starts with education. From classes to brush up on essential skills to masters degrees to just reminding people that education is a lifelong pursuit there are a myriad of ways to include education in your blog posts.

6. Happiness

Image by ‘renaissancechambara’

“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” Benjamin Franklin

Everyone wants to be happy. Share what makes you happy for a great blog post idea. From hobbies to creative endeavors to walks with your pet, your joys and experiences of happiness can help others to find their enjoyment in life. Share what makes you happy and what makes you smile. Everyone loves a happy story.

7. Beauty

Image by ‘kuuipo1207′

“People are like stained – glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Beauty, fashion, makeup, jewelry and more all make for great blog post topics. Everyone is concerned about how they look. Fashion is an ever changing thing that can fill pages upon pages of writing. If you want to get people into your blog posts that deal with beauty, however, you will have to include images. People love pictures!

8. Photos

“Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Adding pictures to your blog posts is more than just a good idea. Sometimes an entire blog post can be based around a picture. If you are having an off day or just do not have time to write then you can use a picture and caption it so that your readings will know what you are thinking. This is a great way to update your blog when you are really having a hard writing day.

9. Health

“I believe that how you feel is very important to how you look – that healthy equals beautiful.”Victoria Principal

Health, diet and exercise are important topics to people. Everyone wants to keep healthy and live life to its fullest. If you can share diet tips that worked for you, healthy recipes, exercise routines, gym horror stories, and even health issues that you have overcome not only can you help others but, again, you can connect with your readers on a very visceral level.

Almost everyone has a health story they can share. Disabilities and children’s health are also big blog post topics that are very popular with readers and if you are knowledgeable and wise about how you talk about the subject they will bring a lot of traffic to your blog.

10. Food

Image by ‘NickNguyen’

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” J. R. R. Tolkien

Food is an important part of life. We all need to eat and most of us enjoy thinking about our next meal. Invest your time in crafting blog posts about food and you will be well rewarded. Eating, drinking, and going to bars and restaurants make up a lot of people’s free time. They love to read about the latest recipe, the best bar scene and the newest restaurants. Share your knowledge and your tastes with others for a great and high traffic blog post. If you can include pictures of the food and drinks you will get even more hits and your blog post could even go viral. People love to talk and share about food.

These are just a sampling of the great and profitable blog post ideas that are out there. Take a look at other successful bloggers and what they write on. Make sure you keep your blog on topic, but think outside the box. There are plenty of ways to incorporate your blog’s niche into different categories and reach fresh audiences.

3 Profitable Niche Blog Topics – Select A Blog Topic That Makes Money?

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You may just be getting starting within the world of blogging, or perhaps you have blogged before, but if you are considering starting a blog to earn money, then you are making a very wise decision!
Blogs have become a very lucrative piece of web property online because they have the highest return on your investment. This is because they require almost no investment to set one up, but can result in high profits.
Now, this all sounds great, but to ensure your success as a blogger, you have to make sure that you are getting into the right niche to begin with!
There are an infinite amount of niche topics that you could build a site around, but many of them won’t make you any money because they are too specific. For example, a site that focuses on glow in the dark shoes, won’t (I’d imagine?) get much traffic, therefore limiting its income potential. In contrast, a site that concentrates on women’s shoes, will be much more popular.
One of the most important things to remember when picking a niche, is that you must be interested in the subject. You could pick a great niche topic, with huge potential, but if you are not that interested in it, then you won’t put the work in that is needed.
Currently, there are three huge profitable niche topics online. These are; ‘Health & Fitness‘, ‘Relationships‘ and ‘Money & Finance‘.

Health & Fitness

This blog niche seems to be profitable no matter what time of year it is, the economic situation of the country, or how society and culture changes!
The health and fitness market is awash with narrow and targeted niches that you can focus on. Think about all of the different fields that fall under this category; diet, weight loss, exercise equipment, nutrition, etc.
Setting up a blog focused to answering some of the burning questions and needs people have with regards to their health and fitness level, would be very popular. After all, people will always be willing to pay in order to look and feel better. So a blog within this market is guaranteed to earn you money.

Relationships

Another niche that has always been highly profitable is within the market of relationship advice. This is a huge market that has many targeted niches within it that you could build a site around. This can include; romantic relationship advice, dating sites, parenting advice, professional working relationships, social media, etc.
Our lives and our happiness is so dependent on the relationships that we have with one another, there will always be money in helping people to connect with others and lead a more fulfilling live.

Money & Finance

The third and arguably most profitable blog niche is money and finances! Everyone is always looking to improve their finances, make more money, set up a business, debt advice, getting a job, etc.
This is the niche that this site is built around, because I enjoy helping people learn how they can set up their own site and make money from it, which provides me with a nice income for myself. You yourself are reading this very article, so I must be doing something right!
I hope this post has given you some ideas to create your own website. If you have any questions or just want to share your opinions, then please leave a comment below.

8 Ways to Access Blocked Sites

2016-01-11T09:44:00.001-08:00

Last updated: July 25, 2011

Businesses are much more clever now: they see how popular the web and social networking is and often block those sites from employee access. Not only are work places doing this, but so are schools, colleges, even some libraries and churches. If you want to access your social networking profiles, email or blogs from one of these locations, it can be frustrating. At a company that does live chat customer support software that I work for we needed to access our tools from all over the world and it was very difficult. Also we all know that it’s really hard to stay away from these sites for 8-9 hours a day while at work or school; so here are 8 methods you can use to access these blocked sites.

Proxy Servers

Proxies are the most popular method of accessing blocked websites because they can bypass network restrictions. They help protect your privacy by letting you surf anonymously and securely. The connections are encrypted and help to prevent monitoring on your network, so it will never be traced back to you. Best of all they’re very simple to use: enter your URL and check/uncheck a few specifications and you’ll be surfing within seconds.

Examples: Hide My Ass, Proxify, Rocketsurf, Web Proxy, Orkut.pk, BackFox.

Short URL

Sometimes converting the domain you’re trying to access to a short URL might work. More than likely the short URL service will not banned or blocked from your network and you’ll have no problems accessing it. However, if the short URL redirects back to the domain you’re trying to access, then you still won’t be able to access it.

Examples: bit.ly, TinyURL, is.gd, SnipURL.

Google Cache

Most search engines have a cached version of a web page. These are stored versions from the past. What Google does is take a snapshot of each web page and then stores it as a backup. It won’t be the most recent version, but it should be good enough until you can access the actual page later from your own personal computer.
You can access a cached version by clicking on the “cached” link from search results, or using the Google cache search operator (cache:www.domain.com) – where domain.com is the actual blocked domain that you want to access.

Receive by Email

With a services like Web2Mail Lite, you can access any web page right from your email account. To request an instant delivery of any web page, simply send an email to www@web2mail.com. Be sure to enter the URL address of the web page you want to receive in the subject of your message. You’ll usually receive a reply within 5 minutes.

View as a PDF

With PDFmyURL you can view any web page as a PDF file. Just enter the URL and you’ll get an instant document to download. They also have a bookmarklet that you can add to your browser bookmarks bar so that you can easily convert any web page you’re viewing to a PDF file.

Translation Services

Translation services allow you to translate a web page from one language to another, but where the catch comes in is that the translated page is displayed on their own server. You can re-translate any page, even if you don’t need to. You just want the services to fetch the content and display it as a page on their own domain. The downside is that it may not work for all websites and it sometimes strips all of the styling from the page that it translates.

Examples: Google Translate, Yahoo! Babel Fish, SDL FreeTranslation, Tolingo.

Subscribe to RSS Feed

Most websites now support RSS feeds, which is great because you can subscribe to them in a feed reader or by email. This comes in handy because you don’t have to access the actual website in order to view the content (updates, new articles, etc.) There are even some social networks that now support RSS feeds, so you can subscribe to updates from your friends and view them within your reader or by email.

Examples: Google Reader, Feedingo, Bloglines, NewsBlur, FeedMyInbox, FeedBlitz.

Google Mobile Version

You can use Google mobile to access a mobile optimized version of most websites. It displays the normal HTML pages as if you were viewing them on a mobile device and also removes any JavaScript and CSS scripts. It also breaks longer pages into several smaller pages for you.

To get the mobile version of a web page, enter www.google.com/gwt/n?u=domain.com into the address bar – where domain.com is the blocked domain that you want to access. Alternately, you can also use a service like Mowser to get the mobilized version of a web page.
These methods may not work for everyone or for every website; it will take some trial and error to figure out which methods are effective. Just be careful as some of these methods may put you at risk for breaching company regulations.
Everyone has their own preference when it comes to accessing blocked sites. Which method do you prefer?

Proxy Servers

Short URL

Google Cache

Receive by Email

View as a PDF

Translation Services

Subscribe to RSS Feed

Google Mobile Version

9 Powerful Tips for Using Facebook To Boost Your Ecommerce Store

2016-01-11T09:30:00.003-08:00

With more than 1.5 billion registered users, a figure continuously rising, Facebook is a social networking powerhouse. It’s worth more than the annual output of many countries and has users from all across the globe. The amount of data Facebook has, and the detail with which people willingly share information about them on Facebook, makes it any marketer’s dream platform. Just look at some of these stats.

Facebook has more than 1.5 billion registered users.
More than 699 million people log in to Facebook every day.
An average person spends around 15 hours and 33 minutes on Facebook every month. This makes it a total of 700 billion minutes globally.
More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook.

Currently there are thousands of Facebook pages where people are selling products directly to their fans. While it’s not always the best strategy to depend completely on Facebook for ecommerce sales, it certainly can be a part of your broader ecommerce plan.
If you have an ecommerce website or an online store, you can use the power of Facebook to reach your target customers much more effectively and drive them to your online store and boost sales.
Here are a few tips for using Facebook to strengthen your ecommerce store.

1. Content is the King – Even on Facebook

Quality content is the king everywhere. But the kind of content that resonates with Facebook users is very different from blog content or articles. Here, if you write 1000 word status updates, very few of your fans will have the patience to read till the end.
Facebook users like short, catchy, visually appealing and action oriented posts created in a fun way. Above all your posts should provide users value. Demonstrate your knowledge about your niche and products in your status updates.
Also, don’t be obsessed with your own product images, links and blog posts all the time. Regularly share stuff from other blogs and websites that your fans may find useful (not from your competitor’s site, of course).

2. Optimize Your Store for Facebook Engagement

Your ecommerce store should also be optimized for maximum Facebook engagement (Likes, Comments, Shares). You can do that in a number of ways. Offer sign up via Facebook. Make sure your store’s product pages have clearly visible social media sharing widgets. Add the Facebook comments widget to your product pages so that the user comments are visible on their Facebook profiles as well. Add a small statement below the product images encouraging users to share on Facebook.
These are basic things but many ecommerce stores don’t have them in place because of which they fail to take advantage of Facebook.

3. Use Engaging Descriptions and Smart Calls To Action

Whenever you add new products to your store, you’d most likely share them on your Facebook page. When you do that, make sure you add an engaging 1-2 line description with your links. Engaging or catchy descriptions drive more clicks as compared to simple link shares.
Use high engagement words in your posts. Research shows that status updates that include the words Facebook, Why, Most, World, How, Health, Bill, Big, Says and Best get most engagement and shares. Similarly,

Posts with less than 80 characters attract 23% more engagement.
Using emoticons increases comments by 33%.
Question posts get 100% more comments.
Quotes get 26% more Likes and 19% more shares.

Also, make your descriptions action oriented and add clear calls to action with them. Facebook recently introduced the “Add Call to Action” option with status updates. Always use it with your status updates and link shares.

4. Boost Sales With Contests, Deals and Special Offers

Facebook users love contests and discount deals. Running competitions is found to be the most effective engagement technique for ecommerce stores. Almost 35% users “Like” Facebook pages to participate in contests. So give them what they want. Ask questions and use “Like for Yes, Comment for No” type techniques for feedback. These small fun activities can boost your engagement significantly.

5. Focus on High Quality Visual Content

I’ve already mentioned the importance of content, but visual content deserves a separate mention. Facebook users love visual content like images, info graphics, videos, memes etc. Image based content gets almost 40% more interaction as compared to simple text posts.
But to get the best results, you need to mix up your updates with a combination of text only, text+image and image/video only updates. For ecommerce stores, product images get the highest engagement.

6. Run Targeted Facebook Advertisements

There’s no better paid advertisement mode for ecommerce stores than Facebook advertisements. Facebook Ads have improved drastically over the last couple of years. They’re not only much simpler to configure but also bring much more targeted results as compared to other advertisement modes. You can target users based on their location, interests, gender, like/dislikes, recent activity, pages liked and dozens of other criteria. Start with a small budget of around $50 and test different ads to see what works well for you. Once you understand how it works, increase your budgets gradually.

7. Simplify the Buying Process

One important thing is to make the payment and buying process as simple as possible for your customers. Normally ecommerce stores add a link to the product pages with their Facebook status updates. There’s nothing wrong in doing this, but since it involves multiple redirections, there are high chances that buyers would abandon the purchase mid-way through. A smart option is to use a direct link to the checkout page or, even better, use a Facebook app to accept payments directly on Facebook. There are several Facebook ecommerce store apps where you can configure your products for direct selling on Facebook.

8. Use Facebook for Customer Support

A great way to show your fans and prospective buyers that you care about them, is to move the customer support to your Facebook page. Ask users to share their product feedback, compliments/complaints and concerns of your Facebook page. Actively respond to such comments, and ensure quick problem resolution. This will show the world that you really care about your customers.

9. Use a Combination of Manual and Automated Posts

Most ecommerce stores serve customers belonging to multiple countries, due to which they need to operate in different time zones. Of course you can’t stay on Facebook all the time. So it’s recommended that you automate some of your posts to stay in touch with customers from all time zones. You can use the BufferApp or HootSuite for this purpose. But keep posting manually as well.
Research shows that the engagement levels are 18% higher on Thursday and Friday, and 32% higher on weekends. Every day, around 1PM gets the most shares and 3PM gets the most clicks. Keep these time slots and days in mind while scheduling your automated posts.

Conclusion

Like any other social network, Facebook thrives on user engagement. The more closely you engage your audience through high quality visual content, contests and comment responses, the more action you’d be able to drive from them. But remember that your goal is to route users from your Facebook page to your store, because that is where you can convert them into subscribers – your biggest online asset

Generate Income from Your Content Passively with Amazon, AdSense, and Donations

2016-01-11T09:25:00.003-08:00

As someone that generates a portion of my income passively online, by sharing content, I am always interested in different monetization approaches. I am not referring to the “get paid to” model where one is trading time for a finite amount of money. I am also not referring to selling products and trying to acquire customers either. Not that these are bad approaches to earning a living online, but… it’s nice to have income generators that require very little routine processes in order to stay profitable. As an example, I have a web site built using WordPress, that took me 2 hours to setup. To put that in terms of dollars, I could have outsourced it for $50-$100. I outsource the “routine processes”, which in this case is creating and adding new content. The rest is automated (sharing to social, sharing content to the newsletter, organic traffic from search engines because of SEO best practices, etc). This particular money machine is 4.5x profitable based on the amount of money I spend on content. It requires virtually none of my time, but I peek into the stats on occasion. My team writes and publishes based on the process I created and demonstrated in video and written instruction. To be completely transparent, there is of course the expense of hosting (shared amongst my others sites), sending emails (shared amongst my others sites), and yearly domain name fees, but I’m sure that you get the picture.
Below are the 3 monetization strategies that I use, to allow me to set and forget. Sure, testing might increase my numbers, but there are just so many variables. I want to swing in my hammock, soak in the sun, spend time with loved ones, and just relax a little… and only when I feel motivated, I want to work. So for me, at the moment, I have tested a sufficient amount. But test, tweak and try new things if that gets you excited.

Contextual and retargeted advertising with AdSense and Amazon

Most of you have heard of AdSense I am sure, but I will explain briefly anyhow. It’s a Google advertising product for publishers. You can place AdSense code into your web site, and an ad will be created dynamically.
The ad that shows depends on many factors. Typically though, the ad is related to the content of the page that it’s on (contextual). Other times it is for sites that the current visitor has previously visited (retargeting).
Placing these ads, will earn you money per click. There’s nothing else to do, but place them and wait. If you are using WordPress, you can place them in a template file, or use a plugin or widget. They will then show on every page. Or, you can create a new one for each article, and create a “channel” within your AdSense account to see how many impressions, clicks, and earnings that you are making for each ad/article.
Amazon has something similar. You can run contextual ads, even of the same size and orientation as your AdSense ads. Amazon will use their proprietary algorithms to determine the subject matter of the page that the ad is running on, and show related products that exist within the Amazon marketplace. If someone clicks the ad, you can get a commission for any product that person purchases from the Amazon web site, or in some cases, the sites of Amazon’s partners.
With Amazon, you can also place backup ad codes, so that if they do not have an ad available for you, your backup ad code will display. You can use AdSense for the backups if you wish. Amazon also offers ads with the same model as AdSense where you can get paid on click rather than commissions for sales.

Accepting donations by PayPal for people that heart my work

Another way to get money from your efforts, is to ask for donations. It’s simple. You can place a widget within your sidebar, and basically say… if you enjoy what I have shared with you… click this button and send me some money. This works well through PayPal. You can receive money this way any time of day and it’ll be instantly available to you (in the majority of cases). The other approaches usually require you to wait for a check or deposit within a month or two.
Here is how to setup your WordPress site to accept donations by PayPal:

Download the plugin from its page on the WordPress repository.
Upload the plugin through the “Plugins” section on your blog. WordPress will unzip it for you.
Activate it.
Go to Settings -> PayPal Donations and start entering your info.

Watch the video below for a visual of the installation and config:

Embedding in-context links to related affiliate offers

I really like this approach. Within your content, if you speak about a specific product or service, you can likely find somewhere on the Internet that sells that product and offers referral commissions.
Then you can place links (your affiliate link) within your articles, and get paid when someone makes a purchase after clicking those links. You can link directly to a product within the Amazon marketplace for example, and then earn commissions for anything in the person’s cart. This can work with any e-Store that has an affiliate program.
Digital products generally offer the most commission. When linking to affiliate products for physical products, using a reputable, well known company, like Amazon can yield great results because of the trust factor. However, commissions are generally low for physical products.
Remember, commissions and pay-per-click are not usually “instant-money” whereas receiving donations usually is. Try all three!

How To Ensure That Your Blog Is Never Penalized By Google

2016-01-11T09:21:00.002-08:00

How To Ensure That Your Blog Is Never Penalized By Google

Last updated: July 1, 2015

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the most effective technique for attracting relevant and high volume traffic from search engines. Ranking on the first page of Google for competitive keywords in your niche, can open floodgates of traffic to your website.
However, while optimizing your website, you need to make sure that all your SEO activities are in line with Google’s guidelines and recommendations. Because violating Google’s search engine guidelines can get your website penalized and, in extreme cases, de-indexed from its search results.
Thankfully, staying away from a Google penalty, and still rank highly in search results, is much easier than you think.
Here’s how you can do it.

Create Original, Detailed and Authoritative Content

If you want to stay away from Google penalties, never use duplicate or copied content on your website or blog. Because duplicate content will get you immediately in trouble with Google’s algorithms.
Creating original and high value content is the best way to not only attract regular search engine traffic, but also to stay in Google’s good books.
However, creating great content requires time and effort. There’s really no shortcut to it.

Make sure every post you write is so comprehensive that your readers don’t not have to read anything else on the topic.
Create long and in-depth content because Google ranks long form content higher in search results. This is also reflected in a research by SerpIQ
Make your content actionable.
Include lots of data references and links to authority websites.

Google loves websites that keep adding fresh and high quality content. If your content is original, and your readers find it useful, you’d never have to worry about any Google algorithm changes.

Don’t Use Guest Blogging for Backlinks

Guest blogging is a great way to build authority in your niche, establish your brand image and create social proof for your products and services.
However, it is not a great way to build backlinks to your website. Over the last few years, guest blogging has become increasingly spammy and a source of irrelevant backlinks.
That is why Google has come hard at any blogs or websites that use guest blogging purely for link building.
But guest blogging isn’t entirely dead. You just need to be a lot more careful while doing it.
To be more specific, you need to do the following.

Make sure you never guest blog on websites that are completely irrelevant to your niche. For example, if your blog is in the health and fitness niche, you should not guest blogs in the finance or real estate niches.
Make sure that the backlinks from your guest posts do not make up more than 20 to 25% of your overall link profile.
Do not use author bio links since Google doesn’t give them much value. Instead, try to use contextual links within the content of your guest posts. They are 5 to 10 times more valuable.

To be on the safe side, I’d strongly recommend using guest blogging only for branding purposes. Otherwise you’d always be on Google’s radar for the next penalty.

Get Backlinks from Relevant Domains

Over the last 2-3 years, Google has changed the way it evaluates the value of a backlink. It no longer gives as much importance to PageRank as it once used to.
Now, the relevancy of your linking domain and its authority, in terms of social media following and user engagement, is much more important.
As such, you can say that relevancy is the new PR.
Websites that have lots of backlinks coming from irrelevant websites are flirting with danger, and are most likely to be penalized by Google.
In fact, this is precisely what the Google Penguin update did. It punished any website that was involved in spammy back linking and had the majority of its links coming from irrelevant websites.
So the next time you plan a backlinking strategy, make sure all your target websites are either within your niche, or strongly related to it. Otherwise you can easily get penalized by Google.

Get Rid of Low Quality Links

If you have a lot of low quality or spammy links pointing to your website, you can get into trouble Google algorithms and can be penalized. To avoid this, you need to regularly monitor and clean up your link profile.
You can do that easily from your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard.
Here’s how you can do it.

Go to your Google Webmaster Tools account
Select your website.
In the side menu, click on Search Traffic –> Links to Your Site
Now, click on “more” under the “Who links the best”
Click on “Download latest links”

This will give you the list of all the links pointing to your website and which Google uses to rank you.
Download this list every 2 months and remove any spammy or low quality links, using the disavow tool.

Diversify Your Anchor Text

Until last year, most SEO experts recommended using keyword rich anchor text for your backlinks. This was used as a technique to rank higher on your target keywords.
However, things have changed now.
Google now views keyword rich anchor text as a potentially manipulative, and might start penalizing websites using such anchors for their backlinks.
Now you need to make your anchor text is more natural. It needs to be in context with the overall content of your page and should fit in naturally.
For example, instead of using the keyword “Wordpress ecommerce plugins” repeatedly for all your backlinks, you should use different natural combinations of the same words and their synonyms.
Also make sure that a large number of your links have branded anchors that are unique to your website. For example, for this particular blog “TipsAndTrickHQ”, “www.tipsandtricks-hq.com” and “Tips and Tricks HQ” are all branded keywords.
The more branded keyword anchors you have, linking to your main page, the more authority your links will have in Google’s eyes.

Switch to a Responsive Website Design

Google wants all website owners to provide excellent user experience to their visitors, and also ranks websites with better UX higher in search results.
Since almost 50% of all Google searches now come from smartphones, tablets and other portable devices, Google strongly recommends having a mobile version of your website.
Google recently launched a new search engine algorithm update that prioritizes websites with a mobile version or responsive design.
So you need to make sure that your website supports mobile visitors. The best way to do that is by using a responsive website design that adjusts its dimensions according to the device it is viewed on.
To see if your website is mobile friendly, you can use Google’s mobile friendly test.

Strengthen Your Brand Image

If you want to make it really hard for Google to penalize you, establish your website as a brand in Google’s eyes. Brands are much more likely to escape search engine penalties, as compared to other websites, even if they have some loopholes in their SEO strategy.
And even if they do get penalized, brands are much more likely to recover from a penalty.
So how exactly do you tell Google that you’re a brand?
Here are a few ways

Create a professional, well-designed and responsive website. You need to have all the brand elements like a logo, a physical address and a 1-800 number on your contact page.

Build your social media following and engage your followers regularly. The more people follow you and engage with you on social media, the stronger your brand image becomes. But make sure you do not manipulate social signals by using fake social media followers. Google can easily detect fake followers and will come hard at you if you’re caught.

Create more backlinks with branded anchor text. The more people search for you on Google with your brand name, the better for your brand image.

The key to establishing your website as a brand is by building trust on the internet.

Wrapping it Up

Google wants to provide highly relevant and top quality search results to its users that answer all of their questions comprehensively. To rank well in Google search results, you just need to play within Google’s recommended guidelines and create in-depth content with the sole purpose of helping your readers. Combine this approach with the other tips that I’ve shared in this post and you’ll never have to worry about Google penalties again.
Has your website ever been penalized by Google? Or do you have any other points to add to this list? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Self Hosted WordPress.org vs. Free WordPress.com

2016-01-11T09:04:00.000-08:00

Self Hosted WordPress.org vs. Free WordPress.com [Infograph]

When starting out as a beginner, this question comes in everyone’s mind. Which one is better? Is it better to pick the Self Hosted WordPress.org, or is it better to go with Free WordPress.com? In this article, we provide you with an infographic that compares WordPress.com vs WordPress.org side by side with list of pros and cons. We also tell you in the end which one is our pick. Click on the image to see the full version of the Infographic.
Note: We have updated this infographic because there was a huge debate about the comparison. The goal of this infographic is to compare Self Hosted WordPress.org vs. FREE WordPress.com*. We were called out by many folks saying, WordPress.com offers CSS upgrades etc. etc. But apparently, we were not clear enough in the title when we said we were comparing to only FREE WordPress.com. This new infographic indicates with a * all the upgrades that are possible. Another reason for the update was that the numbers used in the infographic were outdated.

Convinced that you should use WordPress.org now? Want to switch away from WordPress.com? Here is a tutorial on how to properly move your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org
If you don’t want to read the infographic, then here it is in the text:
WordPress.org Benefits

It’s free and super easy to use.
You own your data. You are in full control. Your site will NOT be turned off because someone decides that it is against their terms of service (as long as you are not doing something illegal). You are in control.
You can upload and use plugins.
You can upload custom themes. Modify theme files (not just styles) if needed.
You can make money from it by using your own ads, and doing things your way.
Custom Analytics and Tracking

WordPress.org Cons

Like any other website, you need a good web hosting. This bits cost you money somewhere from around $3 – $7 per month (as your site grows, your hosting costs will too). But then you would be making enough money to cover the costs
You are responsible for updates. WordPress upgrades require 1 click (Not too hard eh).
You are responsible for backups, but thankfully tons of amazing plugins are out there like BackupBuddy.
You are responsible to prevent SPAM, but if you enable Akismet (which comes built-in with WordPress.org), then you won’t have to worry about it.

WordPress.com Benefits

It’s free for upto 3GB of space. After that you will have to pay for space ($19.95 per year for 5GB) or ($289.97 per year for 100GB).
They make regular backups of your site.

WordPress.com Cons

They place ads on all free websites. Did you really think it was free without a catch? If you don’t want your users to see ads, then you can pay them $29.97 per year to keep your site ad-free.
You are NOT allowed to sell ads on your site unless you receive 25,000 pageviews per month. In which case, you have to apply to try their feature called Ad control. The approval process doesn’t cost you any money, but you have to split your revenues 50/50 with them *Ouch*
You cannot use plugins. Yup WordPress is well known for it’s flexibility due to the plugins. WordPress.com does not allow you to use plugins! If you want to use plugins, then you have to move to their VIP program which starts at $3750 per month. No joke.
You cannot use custom themes. Yup, you have to be stuck with their choice of themes which is being used on hundreds of millions of sites. They do offer a “design upgrade” which should really be called CSS upgrade for $30 per year. Meaning, you can change the color of your site. But if you want to add something really custom, you cannot.
You are restricted to their analytics. You cannot use custom analytics software because you cannot add custom codes.
They can delete your site at anytime if they think it violates their Terms of Service.
They will change your theme without your permission if the founder doesn’t like the theme developer (yup it happened).
Even if you pay for their upgrades, you still have to tell others that your site is powered on WordPress.com

Which one is for you?

If you are a personal blogger who do not care about making money from their sites, then go with WordPress.com. If you are a blogger trying to make blogging into a career, then you want to use self hosted WordPress.org. Often people will say, self-hosted WordPress will cost you money. For a small enough site, it is actually cheaper.
Let’s say you use WordPress.com, buy their custom domain ($17 per year), pay for ad-free option ($29.97 per year), and get custom design upgrade ($30 per year). That total is $76.97, and you are still not in full control.
For WordPress.org, you can use Bluehost (officially recommended by WordPress) which costs $3.95 per month so $47.4 per year, and it includes a free domain name. If you go with other web hosting companies, then you will pay a similar price, but you won’t get a domain. However, you can get a domain name for $10 from Godaddy or NameCheap. Your total would come to $57.4 per year. You will have full control over everything.
Is one easier to use than the other? Nope. The interface of both are very similar. We have free WordPress video tutorials that will guide you through the whole dashboard.
We always recommend everyone to use WordPress.org, so you are in full control of your site. The final choice is always yours
P.S. Here is a tutorial on how to properly move your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org
We hoped you like the infograph. If you liked it, make sure you share it on Twitter, Facebook, or any other site that you like (ofcourse with a credits link back to WPBeginner – preferably this article).
Also don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for tons of free WordPress video tutorials.