Special guest Stewart Smith serves up follower tips…

Blogs have turned out to be an excellent marketing tool to promote a certain product or service. The success of a blog depends upon various components such as the content, frequency of blog posts, etc. However, in order to make your blog successful, you will have to take action that will ensure that a large number of people are reading and following your blog.

7 Effective blogging tips

You can check out the given tips in order to encourage visitors to follow and read your blog:

1. Introduce yourself: Your bio will let people know who you are. You can create an “About” page to give an idea about your expertise and knowledge. Don’t think that just a good article will encourage people to become your follower. Most of the first time visitors will check who you are. So, it’s better to let them know what they want to know and then they can take required action to become a follower of your blog.

2. Make yourself noticeable: The platform you use for your blog will make your visitors remember you. Unless you standout in the crowded world of blogs, you won’t be able to popularize it. You should try to avoid the standard templates. You can create a unique template for your blog. Think of a good color combination that will define your product/service. Do not change the color combination in the other pages of the blog. Same color combination will give uniformity to your blog and people will be able to relate to it.

3. Give your opinion: A blog is an expression of your opinion and thoughts. Highlight your viewpoint about a particular product or service. Your personal experience (good or bad) will attract more visitors to your blog. These visitors may keep on visiting your blog and later on turn into your followers.

4. Your avatar: If you want to make your online presence felt, you should use the same avatar or picture on all the social media websites. The same picture should be highlighted in your blog as well. This will help other bloggers to recognize you. If they are following you on Twitter, they may even follow your blog.

5. Specific information: Your writing style is not the only thing which will attract visitors. Your blog will be popular if the visitors find that you’re giving specific, practical and straight forward information. If you’re discussing about a problem, you should not only explain the problem but also let the readers know how they can solve the issue.

6. Be positive: In order to gain trust of your visitors, you will have to be positive. If someone asks you to review his/her blog, do it with a positive mindset. Give some easy tips for improvement. Don’t charge him/her while doing this for the first time. This will later on prove to be a positive thing for your blog.

7. Accept criticism: Though it won’t be pleasant to learn that someone is criticizing you, make sure you accept it. Don’t be rude to the person criticizing you. If you feel that the critic is wrong, let him/her know your view point.

I hope the above tips will help you in turning your visitors into trusted followers.

Stewart Smith is a financial writer associated with Oak view law group. He writes on various topics like bankruptcy, debt management and how to consolidate payday loans online.

Alyssa Clarke, a former guest author, gives us some backlink advice.

The broad aspect of achieving the top positions in search engines is derived only with the help of link popularity. The concept link building is the cornerstone of any SEO campaign. Moreover any link you optimize will create a greater impact on search engine optimization. But it is to be noted that all links does not produce worth to your blog. Subsequently there are certain links which has to be avoided in order to enhance their viability in the search engines rather spoiling the entire reputation on the web.

Main feature of links

Typically the key factor behind link building is “relevance” and you should try to focus on this point with a mode to comprehend the quality links enriched on the web. However relevance of the website should gradually link back to your site and it is necessary to provide a relevant link by way of creating an impact on the search engine rankings. Apart from this, launching a successful blog is not an easy task. It involves a lot of steps to be followed in order to impute a triumphant blog. Further the bloggers indulge themselves in blogging as they want to earn money in online.

Three types of links

It is also noticed that Google uses links to establish the topic of the content in which the link is pointing. One of the keyword of link building is anchor text and make sure that you don’t exceed 100% anchor text links back to your blog posts. There are around three links in a way to adhere a visibility to your blogs. Now let us have a quick glance:

1. Type 1 link- Target keywords

Always make sure that you focus on target keywords in the links since it will be considered as the most visited website of the users. An “ideal” link should be used for framing exact keywords. Likewise a “good” link can be activated in case of using individual keywords in the anchor text. Generally when you want to rank for the email marketing software phrase then the above link terms should be optimized in the anchor text. Hence these types of links are more exclusive and it has to be bought from other alternatives.

2. Type 2 link- Theme relevant pages

Ironically this type of link is based upon the specific target terms and it has an excellent impact on your rankings in search engine. Moreover it is easy to facilitate this link as it does not concentrate on exact keyword phrase. Perhaps all websites connecting to email marketing falls on this category and the links are ranked based on the terms “how to launch email newsletters” and also “how to enhance email list”. Consequently any websites optimizing blog around email marketing can herald with type 2 links.

The links gathered from blog comments and directory submission can also be valued as Type 2 links. Probably there are many directory submission services which are available on the Internet in order to work effectively in assisting in links.

3. Type 3 link- Unrelated websites

These are links which produce information from unrelated websites. Even this type of links can create a greater impact if they are properly utilized with effective keywords and phrases in the anchor text. However a link from unrelated site combined with unrelated anchor text will be of no use. It is compulsory to manipulate certain relevant contents to the link.

Therefore it is clear that all links do not welcome to your blogs and hence it is resourceful to select the right type of link. Meanwhile to stay loop in the upcoming launch, it is important to determine the link value and page rank.

About the author: Alyssa Clarke is a blogger who also happens to be a tech buff. She is always on a look out for latest gadgets and is currently hunting for some cool social networking apps. She recently read about an article on LikeBike, a bicycle powered by social media and was really impressed with it.

This quick keyword guide is brought to us by guest writer Emma Tomlinson.

How many months has it been since you first developed your e-store? One, three, five months? Or, has it been half a year?

Surely, you must have generated significant sales already. No?

Have you ever wondered why your efforts have not paid off when plenty of other retailers are claiming that setting up shop on the Web is lucrative?

Well, you may not be using the right online marketing strategies. If you really want to be successful with e-commerce, you need search engine optimization (SEO). It involves certain processes, which boosts your ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs). In turn, it increases your visibility on the Web, which leads to higher traffic and more prospects.

Now, one of the vital SEO techniques is keyword selection. Without it, your target customers cannot find you whenever they look for products or services under your niche.

With that said, you must always CHOOSE the right words or phrases for your campaign.

Hmm, that is just a general tip. To give you further insight on the topic, here are basic tips on selecting relevant keywords for your e-commerce site…

1. Consider the terms that your potential customers might use

• Take note of your products’ main categories and suitable terms for each one.

• While you are assigning keywords for each category, determine whether these are what your prospects would type in search engine boxes or not. This task is easier to do if you use Google’s Keyword Tool.

• You can include common terms as well as the exact product name or brand.

2. Look into your own objectives

• Find out which words relate directly to your offers.

• Furthermore, determine whether you need to use specific or general terms.

• If you opt for the former (specific keywords), your website content or ads appear only for searches applicable to your business. This is ideal if you provide specialized goods or services (e.g. personalized pens, promotional products, or business consultancy).

• If you go for the latter (general keywords), you may not be able to get through to your target audience because your offers may come out for unrelated result pages. This strategy is only suitable if you have a wide product range.

• You can use Google’s “Search Terms” report to improve your list.

3. Put together the same words or phrases into themes

• Create groups for your keywords based on product or service categories. This way, you can come up with targeted advertisements, which search engines can show to your potential customers.

• If you sell shoes (for instance) for both men and women, you can use primary keywords like “men’s shoes” and “women’s shoes”. Then, you can come up with ads for key phrase.

• You can use Google’s “keyword match types” to make your advertisements appear only for exact searches.

4. Choose the right amount of terms

• You can use around five to twenty words or phrases for each group.

• You can take advantage of “broad match type” to skip keyword variations (e.g. plural versions and misspelled versions).

There you go; these are the most basic keyword selection techniques. It may not seem like a short guide but this is as simple as it can get, given the number of tasks you have to do to ensure that you are using the right ad words. If you want to have a broader sense on this topic, you can explore Google Adwords and find out how you can use it to your advantage.

Emma Tomlinson is the Head of Retail at Smart Traffic, a fast-growing private technology company in Britain offering SEO solutions to several companies.

Guest author Kate Croston gives us some pic tips.

Putting images on your blog is a great way to spice it up and bring it to life. However, you want the images to make your blog better, not bring it down. Here are six ways to use photos to really improve your blog.

Balance – Make sure your photo is balanced. What that means is it has an apparent symmetry to it. It might be that it is black and white, it might be large versus small, or it might be just a color thing. Whatever the case, make sure your photo is visually appealing in its balance.

Lead – Don’t let the reader’s eyes just skip over your photo. Lead them into the picture and draw them deeper through the use of pathways, reflections, or framing.

Viewpoint– Make people see things from a new perspective. If you have a photo that people have to look at twice, that’s a few more seconds spent on your blog. Make them think- it helps.

Focus – This is the biggest obstacle. You want readers on any size screen to be able to see the photos on your blog. Make sure the pictures are focused and clear. And large enough to be seen no matter what.

Light – Light brings life to photos. Dramatic lighting can take the most boring object and make it extraordinary. Don’t just plop in the first picture that fits with your post. Take a look around and go for something great.

Play – everyone loves to laugh and smile. It doesn’t really matter what topic your blog is on, you can find pictures that are memorable and fun. Remind yourself that it is okay to play and relax a bit.

That’s all there is to it; just six simple things to look for when you pick out a photo for your blog posts. There are many free places to look for photos, so take your time and find one that really snaps. Your blog will be much better for it.

Photos courtesy of MorgueFile

Kate Croston is a freelance writer, holds a bachelors degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. She writes guest posts for different sites and loves contributing home internet service related topics. Questions or comments can be sent to:  katecroston.croston09 @ gmail.com.

Special guest Divya writes about blog limitations today.

If you are a blogger – blogging for yourself or your company – you will have experienced firsthand that it’s a really tough job. You have to be flexible as well as wise; you have to be creative as well as talented. The basic skills can be honed more or less, but there are some detrimental limitations which need to be overcome. Here are a bunch of blogging limitations you are better off without.

1. Too Commercial

Blogs are meant to be personal. If the ‘personal’ element is missing, then the blog certainly lacks the human element. You could always purchase followers from fake sites to make your blog ‘look’ popular; but as long as your forgetting people, the blog won’t be able to get real admirers.

Blogs tend to become commercial in three ways:

a. with many advertisements splashed on your site
b. With you yourself advertising your works
c. with you advertising other people.

2. Compromise Quality

copywriting by far remains the most integral part of your blog. no matter what you do or how you do it, it’s important to give quality the most importance.

This is something that people will remember. They will remember coming to your blog and reading half baked information; yes! The impression lasts. Hence, quality is something that always needs to lead.

This doesn’t mean you rob content off the net. Yes, that brings us to the next point.

3. Copy Content

Getting a great deal of good work on the internet isn’t difficult. But if you think you can easily pick up content from the web, rephrase and pass it off as great work on your site, then you’re wrong.

Copied content doesn’t work in the long run. And with search engines becoming smarter by the day, this is something that’s bound to change.

So the way to overcome this limitation is by being honest. If you really feel some content is awesome, go ahead. Pick it up – but don’t forget to give the credits. More so, you could directly link to the site give you more of a association. That works well for SEO as well!

In all these cases, you stake losing your valuable reader because you are thinking ‘money’. The bottom-line however is, as long as you have your readers, your blog has value. And value can transcend to money. Hence, overcome this limitation by working FOR your readers.

4. No Social Presence

There are two points to be noted here:
a. Having a dead social profile
b. Being social

If we look at the first point of this discussion, you will note that we started with blogs connections between people. How can you connect if you aren’t social?

You need to go out, speak and connect with people which means a social presence is very important.

Now, if you have a facebook page that you have never visited or seldom update, that’s almost as good as no social presence.

Hence, overcome this short coming by going out there and making a profile and creating a plan to keep that profile alive. Social networking sites are bound to ‘work’ for you.

5. No Purpose

You might begin arguing that you DO have a purpose for your blog. You want help people or you want to build your brand; whatever it is that made you start that blog is what you may call a ‘Goal’ or ‘Purpose’.

But fast forward to now and check:

a. are you regular with your posts?
b. are you just talking about yourself too much or too less?
c. are you trying to please everyone and ending up getting no results on your page?

These are just a few questions which can reinstate my point that your blog lack purpose.

So, overcome this short coming by having a fixed agenda for your blogs. A structure purpose and course of action so that you can meet your goals and live up to them.

Looking at these points, it can be simply said that you got to change these practices if that’s how you’ve been working this way. If you’re a blogger, avoid these limitations.

Author Bio: Divya is a passionate blogger and loves blogging about SEO strategies, web development and how to make the most of one’s virtual presence. She works as a consultant with iNetZeal.com.

Another quality article from guest writer Alyssa Clarke today!

Marketing by Invitation

Conventional marketing works on the premise of putting your product information out in the general public space in manner that it reaches the largest number. The logic is statistical. If it reaches the largest number, it will also yield in the largest possible sales conversions. With a significant proportion of marketing now being done on the Internet, this model has outlived its usefulness.

The consumer on the web is no longer interested in generalized advertising and actually sees such marketing attempts as a distraction and a hindrance. The last decade has seen the evolution of a new form of marketing based on consumer preference known as permission marketing or inbound marketing. This concept, popularized by web marketing pioneers such as Brian Halligan and Seth Godin, has become the catchword in the field of social media marketing.

For online marketing and business blogs, the challenge is to generate traffic that is pertinent to the product category they are trying to market. Today, the quantity of web traffic in the sphere of internet marketing has become less relevant than the quality of that traffic.

This quality can be achieved through understanding and applying the principle of inbound marketing.

Why is Inbound Marketing Important

The value of inbound marketing is twofold. It is directed specifically at consumer preference. This makes the likelihood of a lead converting to a transaction much higher. Moreover, inbound marketing typically uses information about products and service categories as its vehicle.

This results in the consumer perceiving a greater value addition to the act of marketing. Even though the cost of online advertising is minimal per impression, the fact that inbound marketing is tied in with the interests of the consumer and the resulting conversion rate makes it as close to zero as possible.

Typically inbound marketing is targeted at users who have opted in for subscriptions for web services and have indicated their preferences for products and services of their choice at the time of registration. Another form of inbound marketing is through product reviews and endorsements carried out through special interest blogs and newsletters.

In the era of social media, one no longer looks at customers as buyers first, but as people with needs with whom relationships are built. Given the dynamics of inbound marketing, it is presumed likely that these people will then turn into customers. Business blogs are a perfect example of inbound marketing where they put out content that is relevant to their products and services. Users searching for that specific type of information can find such marketing content and click through to purchase or subscribe.

Inbound Marketing: The Secret of Quality Traffic 

For businesses setting up an online presence, it is essential to understand the value and the dynamics of inbound marketing. The contemporary consumer is intelligent and demanding. The conventional strategy of bombarding them with web ads has proved to be pointless, with more and more users opting for applications which effectively filter out such advertising through pop-up blockers and ad-blockers.

The discerning consumer of today will be more impressed with relevant content that provides them with the tools to make better purchasing decisions. Being able to grasp this principle not only results in lower cost of marketing and higher conversion rates but also builds quality traffic to your website that is relevant to your business.

About the author: Alyssa Clarke is a blogger who also happens to be a tech buff. She loves splurging on tech stuff and recently bought a cool waterproof mp3 player. She is also very fond of cars and her dream machine is Porsche 959.

The following post was written by Anthony Wayne.

I am probably the most unlikely blogger in the world. In fact, I didn’t even own a computer until six years ago. I should also mention that I am in my 60’s and didn’t grow up with the technology, and was intimidated by computer technology like many older people. Once I found out just how much information was available online, I started spending more and more time on the internet until my computer use totally replaced watching television. I started writing reviews for a few websites owned by a relative (like this one), and this introduced me to the world of blogging.

I ended up writing articled for five Forex sites, one lottery site, and five or six online bingo sites. Every day I must come up with material for five internet bingo blogs, and believe me, finding that much material on a daily basis is far from easy. I start my day with about two to three hours of research, and once I have the information organized and collated, I am ready to write. Most of my articles on the blogs are between 400 and 700 words, and I had to learn how to write for an internet audience.

I also had to learn about SEO on my own. Fortunately, there are many excellent sites (like this one!) that explain this important aspect of blogging in clear, easy-to-understand terms. I usually do most of my own keyword research, although the number of strong, effective keywords for online bingo is limited in number, and the top search terms rarely change. Once I became familiar with the concept of SEO I was able to write more effective articles for the blogs, and several have been cited by other industry websites. SEO fascinates me and I am constantly following the latest methods and trends to garner more attention for our blog articles.

I also had to become familiar with several content management systems over the years. At one point I was ‘forced’ to learn basic HTML because the CMS used by the blog required that all articles be posted in HTML. Looking back, it was not that difficult to learn. Most of our blogs now use WordPress, which is very easy to learn and use. It allows me to tag keywords and add images, videos and links to make our content more interesting to a wider audience. We are in the process of marketing some of the articles and I anticipate more work coming my way. It is easy to enter the world of blogging, and I plan to continue for as long as I am able to type.

-Anthony Wayne

The post was written by Anthony Wayne. Anthony works as a web content writer for several websites across a wide swath of industries, including Online Bingo News directories.